MLB The Show 25 is here, which means another year of content to dive into in Diamond Dynasty. If you’re looking to earn tons of packs to get your DD squad started, Conquests are among the best places to turn first. The Grapefruit Conquest is here to celebrate the end of preseason baseball. Like the USA maps, this one features several games, which means tons of packs and even more chances to pull great players. Here’s a full rundown on where to find every reward on the GrapefruitConquest Map in MLB The Show 25.

Hidden Rewards on the Grapefruit Map

The Grapefruit Map has a ton of games to play, but you’ll earn solid rewards for doing so. As you can see above, you’ll earn a handful of The Show Packs and a few Headliners packs. The latter can contain solid players, making this Conquest worth finishing. Here’s a full list of everything you’ll earn from hidden rewards:

• 6 The Show Packs
• 2 Headliners Pack

RELATED: MLB The Show 25: All Hidden Rewards for ’25 Map

MLB THE Show 25 Grapefruit Map Goals

In addition to all of the hidden rewards on the Grapefruit map, you’ll also earn several more rewards for completing the map. Unlike some of the Conquest Maps SDS dropped to start the year, the Grapefruit Map doesn’t include any specific players to earn.

That said, the Deluxe Choice Pack you get for finishing the map will give you a guaranteed player from one of the themed programs. Right now, that means a Pipeline card, but if you hold the pack, you might get a better card type in the next few weeks. Here are all of the extra rewards on the Grapefruit Conquest Map:

• Acquire 50M fans – The Show Pack
• Capture any enemy Stronghold – The Show Pack
• Acquire 100M fans – Headliners Pack
• Capture any 5 enemy Strongholds – The Show Pack
• Capture any 10 enemy Strongholds – 5x The Show Packs
• Capture all enemy Strongholds – Ballin’ is a Habit Pack
• Conquer all Territories and complete the Grapefruit Map – Deluxe Choice Pack and 5,000 XP

MLB The Show 25 is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

The post MLB The Show 25: All Hidden Rewards for Grapefruit Map appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Silent Hill f is making big changes, but that’s also earned it a mixed reception from players eyeing up if they’ll want to pre-order it, play it when it’s first released, or wait and see what others say about it before committing to a playthrough. Of course, the change that’s caused the most discourse is the game being set in a fictional Japanese village, which is quite different from the titular town with a heavy western influence that you generally associate with the Silent Hill series. However, it’s not a bad change to shift the setting like this, and it might be the exact change the series needs to revitalize its new games instead of relying too much on remakes to keep it alive.

While information about the story of Silent Hill f has been understandably scarce, it’s confirmed that the game will be different from what you’re used to seeing from the series. It’s not uncommon for long-lived franchises to make that kind of change to keep the game feeling fresh, but it doesn’t always work in their favor. This time, it looks like it’ll be a positive change for Silent Hill as a whole.

Silent Hill Isn’t About a Town

Yes, the series is named after the town in which most of the games take place, and there’s some importance to that location. However, the town itself isn’t the root of the issues that the characters face there. Instead, the problem is the actions of people and the trauma that haunts them, as proven by Laura in Silent Hill 2, because she experiences the town as it is: just an empty town.

So, you could say that Silent Hill is actually a franchise that’s about trauma. The characters who are affected the most by the town are those who carry the most trauma and dark secrets, which means that these games don’t necessarily need to all take place in the exact same town. Resident Evil is the same in that the franchise starts in a residence filled with evil, but it’s about the viruses more than the locations. This helped that series revitalize itself when it decided to scale down the plot in Resident Evil 7, and the same idea with Silent Hill f should help Silent Hill’s future prospects.

It’s actually interesting that Silent Hill f is making a shift like this, and the game’s description says that strange events start occurring when a mysterious fog rolls into the village. With that in mind, the series is pivoting from the town being the source of events to the fog being the source instead, meaning that the developers have more freedom when it comes to the setting of future games in the franchise.

The Potential of New Settings

This change in setting is exactly what the franchise needs. First, there’s not much more that can be said about the original town. You see it often enough that you basically learn the whole history of it and its cults. With a change of setting, the mysteries and history of that location and what made the fog roll in will be unknown. It also opens up the chance to use urban legends and ghost stories from other locations to influence the environment and the monsters you encounter.

Related – Silent Hill f Release Date Is Close Based on New Update

It’s understandable that Silent Hill players are wary about the changes being made by Silent Hill f after waiting so long for a new mainline game to carry on the essence of a series they love. However, a new setting is great for Silent Hill, and it’s exactly what the series needs right now if it wants to survive beyond remakes. Silent Hill f looks like it’s going to be an amazing ride and a unique addition to the series, and it at least deserves a chance to prove itself as a worthy successor to a beloved franchise.

The post Why a New Setting Is Great for Silent Hill f appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is reportedly not coming out as soon as we might have hoped. It has been five long years since Naughty Dog released a brand new game. Its last game was The Last of Us Part 2 and since then, it has re-released both Last of Us games (multiple times if you include the staggered PC releases) and two seasons of The Last of Us. This wasn’t the original plan, of course, Naughty Dog was developing The Last of Us Online which would’ve presumably released by now or be very close to releasing. It was expected to be a big project for the studio, but it was scrapped in 2023.

Naughty Dog’s A-team, led by Neil Druckmann, has been working on a brand new game called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet since 2020. It’s the first new IP from the studio since 2013 and will be a retrofuture sci-fi story with a big ensemble comprised of talented actors from gaming and TV. Naughty Dog boss Neil Druckmann had previously stated that he doesn’t want to reveal games long before they are ready to be released, which led some to believe Intergalactic may be a 2026 game. That would make sense given how long the studio has been working on it, but that may not be the case at all.

Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet Reportedly Won’t Release Next Year

Over on ResetEra, reputable journalist and Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier stated that Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet will not release in 2026. This is pretty disappointing given that means there will be at least a seven year gap between Naughty Dog games if that’s true which could also mean its not even exclusive to the PS5. It’s very possible that Intergalactic is a PS6 game if it’s coming out in 2027, but The Last of Us Part 2 managed to release on PS4 despite the PS5 coming out just five months later.

Of course, it’s also worth noting that Schreier could be wrong. He’s usually pretty on the money as he has well-placed sources across the entire industry and rarely ever misses, but things can shift. Naughty Dog could get ahead of schedule and ship Intergalactic for holiday 2026. However, in a recent interview Neil Druckmann shared some new details about Intergalactic and stated that they still have a ways to go on the game’s development. That could be a sign that it really is still years away from seeing the light of day, unfortunately. As of right now, it’s unclear if we are going to see anything from Intergalactic before the end of the year. A first look at gameplay would be great, but if it’s not releasing next year, that may not be feasible.

As of right now, we don’t know a lot about Intergalactic. It will follow a bounty hunter that’s stuck on desolate planet that was once inhabited by a very passionate religion. However, things went dark long before the events of the game and the protagonist must uncover what happened on the planet in order to escape it. It sounds like a pretty exciting premise and yet another original story for Naughty Dog, so hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to play it.

When do you think Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet will release? Let me know in the comments!

The post Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet’s Release Date Is Reportedly Years Away appeared first on ComicBook.com.

What makes a Soulslike game memorable are its challenges and the satisfaction of overcoming them. But what makes FromSoftware’s Soulslikes special is that they deliver above and beyond in everything. Since FromSoftware pioneered the genre, their games are the benchmark for what makes a good Soulslike. However, if you were to fizzle the magic formula down to a few principles, challenge and satisfaction would be at the core of it all. And while that sounds simple on paper, it’s not easy to deliver.

In fact, unlike FromSoftware, not many studios have managed to hit the nail on the head. But for those who have, they have created games that are impossible to put down. So, with that being said, let’s look at the best Soulslike games that come from developers other than FromSoftware.

Nioh 2

Nioh 2 is a difficult game with a steep learning curve. It requires you to strategize before picking a fight because if you’re just a tiny bit careless, even simple mobs can one-shot you. You’re constantly facing new enemy types in each mission and the boss fights are in a league of their own. In fact, most players will find it tougher than FromSoftware’s Dark Souls games. 

Having said that, Nioh 2 is not just anyone’s cup of tea. It has its faults. For starters, the world design is neither a semi-open world like the Dark Souls games, nor an open world like in Elden Ring. Instead, you select missions from a menu screen and are dropped into areas. That’s a massive blow to the immersion. Additionally, Nioh 2 can get complicated at times because of its many combat mechanics. While this can be frustrating at first, if you’re willing to be patient and put in the hours, it’ll be a journey worth looking back on.

Mortal Shell

Made by a team of just 15 people, Mortal Shell is a love letter to the fans of Soulslikes. You select different “Shells”, or characters, each having their unique abilities. The main objective is to roam uncharted lands and slay monsters. Now, what separates Mortal Shell from the rest of its kind is that it puts a new spin on several conventional Soulslike mechanics.

For instance, parrying and blocking are replaced by a hardening mechanic. While hardening does technically function in the same way, you can harden your Shell even during a strike. This gives you more avenues to attack enemies. Given the development team’s size, Mortal Shell is nowhere near as big as FromSoftware’s games. However, its art design and combat are eerily similar to them and will make you feel right at home.

Lies of P

Lies of P puts a dark twist on an iconic children’s fairytale. Unlike the kind puppet from the stories, Lies of P’s Pinocchio is a machine-slaying menace. Set in the steampunk city of Krat, Pinocchio must travel to various districts in search of answers to the petrification disease. 

Krat is a massive semi-open world with many secrets and challenging boss fights. As you upgrade Pinocchio’s body, you unlock Legion Arms, a mechanical implant that gives you abilities like generating lightning from your fingertips. Parrying, deflecting, blocking, and attacking are all the basic mechanics that perfectly complement the combat. Lies of P is simply so good that you’d think it was made by FromSoftware. And that’s the highest honor you could give a Soulslike in this day and age.

Code Vein

Code Vein features an anime art style with a combination of several themes. The characters give off a Legend of Zelda look, while the environment tries for a more realistic feel, mixing post-apocalyptic and gothic worlds. A plethora of character customization options are available and dozens of unique anime-like NPCs appear throughout the story. 

While the environment of Code Vein is unmatched, the combat isn’t as polished as the likes of Bloodborne or Dark Souls. The strikes don’t have weight behind them, which makes the combat less satisfying. However, weapon abilities are there to spice things up. Additionally, what’s fresh is the inclusion of companion NPCs that help you during battle. If you’re willing to look past flaws like repetitiveness and lack of enemy variety, Code Vein will grow on you.

Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is a platformer where everything is trying to kill you. From environment traps to the 164 unique creepy crawlies, you’re constantly surrounded by threats. Some bosses are so hard that you’ll think Hollow Knight is a survival game. And it doesn’t get any more Soulslike than that. 

As you dash and slash your way across a humongous interconnected map, Hollow Knight throws a variety of puzzles, enemy encounters, and branching pathways at you. The bleak charm of the hand-drawn art gives you a reason to explore every nook and cranny. And while Hollow Knight can’t bewilder you like Elden Ring because of its 2D nature, the fast-paced combat and the environmental storytelling will prove too euphoric to put the controller down.

Nine Sols

If you’re a big Hollow Knight fan or one of those suffering through the excruciating wait for Silksong, Nine Sols is the perfect remedy. Nine Sols is a platformer leaning heavily on a deflection-style gameplay loop like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While melee and ranged attacks are present, deflection is a mechanic you’ll need to get good at. 

The world features mythological and cyberpunk textures that feel like a breath of fresh air. While most Soulslikes are set in a grim environment, Nine Sols is lively. That said, the main selling point of this game is the boss fights. They are unique, tough, and beating them feels insanely fulfilling. Aside from the linearity of progression, there aren’t many flaws with Nine Sols. It’s a game you can confidently look back on as one of the best non-FromSoftware Soulslikes.

Lords of the Fallen (2023)

Lords of the Fallen adds another layer of complexity to the Souls formula. It does this by introducing two realms that players can shift between at will, the Umbral and Axiom, with each having its unique enemies and dangers. To progress through these worlds, you need to have good puzzle-solving skills in addition to the “git gud” part.

Another thing that makes Lords of the Fallen a great Soulslike is that multiplayer isn’t just limited to PvP, like in Elden Ring. There’s also a co-op mode, so you’re able to play the entire game with a friend. Having said that, while there’s variety in the combat, it is less exciting, and some segments overuse the dual-world mechanic. leading to burnout. That said, while Lords of the Fallen might not stand out in all aspects, it has enough sauce to become one of your favorites.

Demon’s Souls Remake

FromSoftware made the original Demon’s Souls, so there’s not much to prove here. The 2020 remake by Bluepoint is a masterful recreation. It checks all the boxes: better atmosphere, a greater sense of exploration, and tougher readjustments to the boss fights.

Not only does the remake capture what made the original special, but it also adds more to it. Whether that’s in the form of more weapons, armor, or quality of life changes. Bluepoint’s remake breathes new life into the first-ever Souls game. If you played the 2009 version, the remake will wow you with its offerings, making you fall in love with Demon’s Souls all over again. 

Rise of the Ronin

Including Rise of the Ronin in a list of the best Soulslike games might look like a hot take, but it isn’t. Rise of the Ronin is brutal. Its fast-paced sword-gun combat might fool you into thinking it’s an adventure game at first glance, but the truth couldn’t be further from it. The bosses in this game have minimal windows of attack, and at the highest difficulty setting, they give Sekiro’s rogues’ gallery a run for its money.

Several unique weapons, including paired swords, greatswords, rifles, and katanas are available. For those players who do not want to go in headfirst all the time, stealth is available for the majority of the game. Difficulty aside, Rise of the Ronin features an open world. While it is a little generic, the backdrop of 1853 feudal Japan provides a great setting. Its story also revolves around a rogue assassin who’s searching for their partner. It doesn’t have the most bewildering of stories, but overall, Rise of the Ronin is a must-try.

The First Berserker: Khazan

What Neople has accomplished with The First Berserker: Khazan is truly astounding. It has created the closest thing we have to the perfect anime-style Dark Souls game. The visuals are absolute eye candy. No game comes close to nailing the dark metal anime aesthetic in the way Khazan has.

The aesthetic is enough to lure you in. However, once you spend a few hours playing, you’ll realize that the combat is the reason to stay. The First Berserker: Khazan has the most well-put-together combat system out of any game mentioned in this list. It revolves around three unique weapons: a spear, a greatsword, and dual-wield armaments. Each of them possesses a separate skill tree and deals damage to enemies differently.

Khazan’s combat is heavily reliant on chaining attacks and being quick to block/parry enemies. There are hundreds of skills to unlock, and every sword swing feels snappy. Anime games usually have two big problems: they either have a cheesy story or weak combat. That said, The First Berserker: Khazan is the exact opposite, and stands out as a top-tier soulslike.

The post 10 Best Soulslike Games Not Made By FromSoftware appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Assassin’s Creed Twitter page absolutely cooked Elon Musk after he insulted the franchise’s newest game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The Assassin’s Creed series is one of the biggest franchises in gaming and it has managed to retain its success after nearly 20 years. The series has had dozens of entries now when counting spin-offs and it shows no signs of slowing down. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is yet successful game in the series and while exact sales figures haven’t been released, it has garnered millions of players after less than a week of being available. It’s pretty impressive and it will likely only continue to grow as word spreads and discounts become available in the future.

With that said, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been fairly controversial. The game has been a subject of controversy since its reveal due to it featuring Yauske, a black Samurai, as one of the two protagonists in the game. Unlike most Assassin’s Creed protagonists, Yauske was a real figure in history, but that has caused some friction. There are conflicting reports about Yauske’s history and it has created debate over “historical accuracy”, despite this being a series that features historical figures doing things that never happened. Assassin’s Creed isn’t a documentary, it’s historical fiction that takes a lot of creative liberties with its setting.

Ubisoft Claps Back at Elon Musk for Calling Assassin’s Creed Shadows “Terrible”

Nevertheless, that’s just one of many things about Assassin’s Creed Shadows that has ruffled feathers. Although Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been received positively by critics and fans, there was a group of people that already made up their minds about the game long before it released which prompted a lot of heated discourse. Needless to say, everything surrounding this game has been a bit of a headache. Things really got hectic when Elon Musk called out Twitch streamer Hasan Piker for doing a sponsored stream for the game. Musk called Piker a “sell out” for promoting a “terrible” game like Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which drew ire from some fans of the game.

“Hasan is a fraud,” said Musk. “Sell-out would be more accurate. Objectively, he is promoting a terrible game just for the money.”

It wasn’t long before the official Twitter page for Assassin’s Creed stepped in to roast the billionaire. The account responded with the following: “Is that what the guy playing your Path of Exile 2 account told you?”, which is a reference to Elon Musk being exposed for paying people to play Path of Exile 2 for him. The billionaire had previously flaunted and accepted praise for being an elite gamer, known for topping global leaderboards for very tough games. However, it was revealed and confirmed that Musk pays people to play games like Path of Exile 2 for him so he can have the best gear and a high ranking.

The Assassin’s Creed tweet ratioed Twitter owner Elon Musk and led to some claiming they will now play Assassin’s Creed Shadows for making them laugh. Whether it makes any notable dent in sales remains to be seen, but it’s an effective piece of marketing that spreads word of the game and pushes back against some of the hate for the game. ComicBook.com gave Assassin’s Creed Shadows a 3.5 out of 5 in its review and noted that while its story falls short, its a fun action-adventure game that reinvigorates the long running series.

What do you think of Assassin’s Creed Shadows? Let me know in the comments.

The post Assassin’s Creed Twitter Page Roasts Elon Musk appeared first on ComicBook.com.

This year’s schedule for Steam sales and showcases is packed to the brim with plenty of opportunities to save on games. With the Spring Sale wrapped up, Steam has moved along to one of its more niche-themed sales. From now until March 31st, the Steam City Builder & Colony Sim Fest sale features discounts on a ton of sim games with a city-building focus. While plenty of beloved sim games are included, one deal in particular is a can’t-miss for city builder fans. The original Cities: Skylines is an impressive 90% off during the Steam sale, giving gamers a great opportunity to grab the game for just $2.99.

Cities: Skylines is currently celebrating its 10-year anniversary, which means the game just got a few impressive updates. Despite being a decade old, the original Cities: Skylines remains incredibly popular with building sim fans, and for good reason. It offers a sleek, modernized take on the city sim genre, giving players more options to customize and optimize their creations. Plus, with 10 years of expansions, there are endless options to add on content to expand even more, with farm-themed packs like Countryside and Harvest Harmony and beyond.

Cities: Skylines boasts a Very Positive rating on Steam, and the recent 10th Anniversary Free Patch added a ton of new content that you’ll get along with your discounted purchase of the game. Normally, Cities: Skylines costs $29.99 on Steam, but it’s marked down to just $2.99 during the Steam City Builder & Colony Sim Fest sale. The discount lasts until the sale ends on March 31st at 10 AM PDT / 1 PM EDT.

Other Great Building Sims Discounted During the Steam Sale

City: Skylines is by far the most impressive discount for this current Steam Sale. That said, it’s hardly the only game on sale. The more recent Cities: Skylines 2 is also included in the current Steam sale. This newer entry in the series was released in October 2023 to mixed reviews compared to its predecessor. As a newer game, the discount isn’t quite as steep, but you can snag this sequel for 20% off, bringing it from $49.99 down to $39.99 through the end of the sale on March 31st.

RELATED: Civ 7 Update 1.1.1 Patch Notes Reveal Latest Improvements & New Content

Dozens of other popular building sims and colony management games are also featured during the sale. This includes a 10% release discount on alternate history sim Kaiserpunk, as well as 30% off the popular city builder Manor Lords. Early Access survival/crafting game Aska also enters the mix with a 35% discount, with its most recent update arriving just in time for the sale. For cozy gamers, the beloved pixel art town management game Littlewood has an impressive 50% off discount, making it under $10.

If you enjoy city builders and civilization management games, this Steam sale list is well worth a look. And if you haven’t checked out Cities: Skylines yet, the recent anniversary update and impressive 90% off discount make now a great time to dive into what this iconic city-building sim has to offer.

The post New Steam Sale Marks Down One of the Best Sim Games by 90% appeared first on ComicBook.com.

One of the most high-profile game releases of this March is The First Berserker: Khazan, a brutal fantasy Soulslike with an aggregated score of 80 on Metacritic. For the most part, the narrative and world of The First Berserker: Khazan stand completely on their own. A closer inspection of its Steam page or official website reveals that it is connected to a bigger franchise: Nexon’s Dungeon & Fighter, also known as DNF.

The DNF Universe isn’t as widely known in North America as fantasy series like Final Fantasy, Warcraft, or Dark Souls, but worldwide, DNF is an extremely popular franchise that’s attracted millions of players to its beat ’em up gameplay. Now that The First Berserker: Khazan looks like it will be the most popular DNF game in the West yet, I wanted to give an overview of the DNF series’ history and highlight where it’s going next for those unfamiliar with it.

The DNF franchise began in 2005 with Dungeon Fighter Online. At its core, Dungeon Fighter Online is a beat ’em up like Streets of Rage, although its anime-like fantasy setting feels more similar to Golden Axe or Dragon’s Crown. It found an addictive way to tap into the simple joy of watching big numbers pop up as you beat up hordes of enemies in a video game, and it resonated with people. Dungeon Fighter Online became popular in Korea before expanding to Japan, China, and then North America over the following decade.

Over the past 20 years, DNF is one of the franchises that put Nexon on the map as a game publisher, alongside MapleStory. As such, Nexon has continued to support it through live service updates for the PC game and new titles. Dungeon Fighter Live: Fall of Hendron Myre for Xbox 360 was the first example of that, but it has been delisted for a decade. DNF has also received some mobile games, with the main one supported now being Dungeon & Fighter Mobile.

Once again, those games are most popular in Asia. In 2022, the series got its most prominent Western release yet in DNF Duel, a fighting game based on the franchise by Arc System Works that utilizes visuals that are similarly gorgeous to Dragon Ball FighterZ and Guilty Gear Strive. It was a success but didn’t make DNF that notable outside of the fighting game community.

Don’t let that make you underestimate the size of this franchise, though. In a presentation for investors in February, Nexon confirmed that the franchise has attracted 850 million players across all its different releases and earned over $22 billion in gross revenue. That’s absolutely massive for a franchise you probably haven’t heard of until The First Berserker: Khazan.

That same presentation highlights the importance of The First Berserker: Khazan to Nexon, which plans to focus on “investing in” and “strengthening” DNF as a franchise in 2025. While the efforts with Dungeon Fighter Online and Dungeon & Fighter Mobile seem more focused on China, Nexon calls The First Berserker: Khazan a “strategic first step in a series of vertical extensions of Dungeon & Fighter IP to introduce it to a global audience.” Sifting through that corporate jargon, that essentially means The First Berserker: Khazan is intentionally meant to be an on-ramp to DNF as a franchise.

If you live in North America, Nexon knows you probably haven’t heard of DNF, but it wants to get those players into this massive series through games like The First Berserker: Khazan, which is set 800 years before Dungeon Fighter Online. If you enjoyed that Soulslike and decided to check out Dungeon Fighter Online or Dungeon & Fighter Mobile as a result, Nexon will have succeeded. I’m sure Nexon’s happy that The First Berserker: Khazan is being received warmly by Western audiences.

The First Berserker: Khazan isn’t the only upcoming DNF game, either. Project Overkill is meant to be a 3D adaptation of the classic DNF beat ’em up gameplay, while the Genshin Impact-like Dungeon & Fighter: Arad was announced at The Game Awards 2024. Even if 2D online beat ’em up MMOs aren’t your jam, Nexon has a lot of new DNF games on the way that’ll try to garner your attention.

According to Nexon, both Project Overkill and Dungeon & Fighter: Arad will be released by 2027. The First Berserker: Khazan is out this week on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, though.

The post The First Berserker: Khazan Comes From a Franchise That’s Bigger Than You Think appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Star Wars is one of the biggest properties in media across film, TV, and video games. Over the last few years, the franchise has released several hit games, including titles like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Star Wars Outlaws. With that continued success, the team behind the franchise has put several games into active development that will be released over the next few years.

While we don’t have firm launch dates for any of the upcoming Star Wars games, we know that at least four games are being worked on as we speak. Here’s everything we know about every Star Wars game in development as of 2025.

Star Wars: Eclipse – Quantic Dream

In December 2021, Quantic Dream revealed that it was working on an action-adventure game called Star Wars: Eclipse. Thus far, all we know about the game is that it will feature several playable characters and branching narrative paths. That’s on par with what we’d expect from the studio that developed Detroit: Become Human, Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls but is unique to what Star Wars fans are used to from the video game space.

We also know that Eclipse is set 200 years before the events of The Phantom Menace, giving the developers plenty of room to experiment as they explore the High Republic era. When the game was announced, it was said that we shouldn’t expect it until 2027, so don’t be surprised if we don’t hear anything from the studio this year. That said, Eclipse might reappear at this year’s Game Awards to build hype ahead of its launch date.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Saber Interactive

The Knights of the Old Republic remake was originally announced in 2021. Developer Aspyr was originally scheduled to handle the remake, but in 2022, it was announced that the team had been replaced by Saber Interactive. To add further intrigue to the story, the original teaser trailer was hidden on YouTube in 2023, causing confusion among the franchise’s fans.

RELATED: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic Developer Reveals Small Update on the Remake

Sony quickly announced that it was a music rights issue, quelling some of those concerns. In 2024, Saber Interactive’s parent company Embracer planned to sell off the company, paving the way for Saber to develop the Knights of the Old Republic remake as a private company. Earlier this year, Saber’s CCO Tim Willits announced that everything is still progressing, but the team isn’t ready to announce anything. Hopefully, we’ll hear more about the KOTOR remake later this year.

Star Wars Jedi 3 – Respawn Entertainment

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor‘s director Stig Asmussen left Electronic Ars to start his own company soon after the second game in the series launched. However, EA quickly confirmed that the Star Wars Jedi series is going to be a trilogy.

At this point, all we know is that EA is working on a third game and it will be the final game in the series. Plans could shift and change, but that was the publisher’s plan as of late 2024. Most likely, we’ll be waiting until at least 2027 before the third game is ready. Respawn took four years between the first and second games, and with a new director, it’s likely fans will be waiting for a similar timeframe. That said, there have been hints that it’s coming sooner than expected.

Unannounced Star Wars Tactics Game

The last Star Wars game we know about as of this writing is one that is formally set to be announced soon. Details are light but Lucasfilm Game recently revealed that it will be showing off a new Star Wars turn-based tactics game at the 2025 Star Wars Celebration on April 19th.

Details on the project are scarce, but it is known that Bit Reactor and Respawn are teaming up for development. The former studio is made up of developers who previously worked on tactics franchises like XCOM and Civilization, meaning it has the chops needed for the genre, even if it’s a newer studio. Fortunately, we’ll learn much more about the game shortly.

The post Every Star Wars Game in the Works Right Now appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Digimon has recently crossed over its 25th anniversary milestone, and the franchise is celebrating with a special promo looking back on how far it’s come thus far. Digimon is one of the most influential anime franchises of the last few decades. Although many of a certain generation might equate it to one of the many series that tried their hands at the Pokemon craze in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Digimon really has carved out its own identity in the time since so that it no longer even looks close to whatever Pokemon might be doing at the same time.

Digimon looks much different than it did when it first began its own anime franchise 25 years ago, and now is the perfect time to look back on it all as part of the 25th anniversary celebration. With eyes to the future of where the franchise might be coming next in the pipeline, Digimon has shared a special trailer showing off a fun look at its long past. You can check out the special Digimon “Beyond Evolution” promo in the video above.

Digimon Celebrates 25 Years of the Anime

Digimon might have started out life as a series of virtual pet games with Bandai, but kicked off its anime with the debut of Digimon Adventure back in Japan in 1999, and then grew even further when it officially debuted its English language release in North America and other territories later that year. This first season of the series immediately set it apart from Pokemon as it introduced eight different protagonists, known as the DigiDestined, and their Digimon partners. Unlike Ash in Pokemon, those in Digimon had a single Digimon partner that they traveled and grew with together. It really was a different vibe altogether with an entirely different kind of journey ahead of them.

Digimon Adventure proved to be such a hit that it continued with an official sequel, Digimon Adventure 02, and then new series followed that fully rebooted what had come before. Series such as Digimon Tamers, Digimon Frontier, Digimon Data Squad, Digimon Fusion, Digimon Ghost Game, and even a full rebooted TV series for Digimon Adventure: that brought back the eight original DigiDestined for a brand new take on their original journey through the Digital World. It’s been a long journey for the franchise, and it’s nowhere near over.

RELATED: Digimon x Godzilla Collab Shows Off Wild New Fusions

What’s Next for Digimon?

Digimon has big plans for the anime’s future as it prepares for its next major era. Along wiht the release of this special trailer, and the debut of the Digimon Adventure: Beyond anime short, Toei Animation has also announced the next major anime in the Digimon franchise. Titled Digimon Beatbreak, there is unfortunately little known about what to expect from this new entry in the series outside of the fact that it’s already teasing a dark new Digimon with all sorts of potentially terrifying monsters in store in the episodes to come.

Digimon Beatbreak will be officially releasing some time this October as part of the Fall 2025 anime schedule, but a concrete release date or international release plans have yet to be announced as of the time of this publication. As the anime prepares for its release together with a packed Fall 2025 anime schedule, there is going to be a lot to look forward to for the franchise’s future. Perhaps even 25 more years of anime releases are on deck.

But what are you hoping to see from Digimon‘s future? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments!

The post Digimon Looks Back on 25 Years of Anime With Special Promo appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Assassin’s Creed is one of the biggest video game franchises on the planet. Ubisoft has released numerous entries in the series since its debut in 2007 and it has remained a cash cow for the publisher, even though it has required some reinvention to stay relevant. The series has been around long enough and endured enough revamps that everyone has their personal preference for which era of Assassin’s Creed is the best. Some prefer the smaller-scale games, some adore the big, almost overwhelming RPGs, and some just want a cool pirate game. Nevertheless, it’s a series that has taken many different forms, and with Assassin’s Creed Shadows finally out, we figured it was time to do a ranking.

This Assassin’s Creed ranking won’t include any of the spin-offs or standalone expansions. We’re only focusing on the core mainline games in the series, so don’t expect to see Assassin’s Creed Liberation or any other titles like that on this particular list.

#13 – Assassin’s Creed: Mirage

Assassin’s Creed: Mirage was intended to be more of a throwback to the original games, opting for a smaller-scale experience. On paper, that was a great idea and it had some great usage of things like social stealth in a dense world. However, the story and characters weren’t very compelling, and it sort of felt like a budget Assassin’s Creed game to fill a gap in Ubisoft’s release schedule. The game did initially begin its life as an expansion for Valhalla before expanding into its release, so that’s likely part of the reason.

It’s not a bad game, it’s just one that doesn’t hide its lower production value. I would love to see Ubisoft revisit a more focused Assassin’s Creed game like this in the future but really give it the backing it deserves, especially if that comes in the form of a remake of the first Assassin’s Creed game. It could even build upon some of the ideas in Mirage, but it needs a bit more oomph to it.

#12 – Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Although Ezio’s story is foundational for this franchise and is brilliantly told, Revelations feels a bit tacked on in the grand scheme of things. Narratively, it’s fulfilling and I give it credit for carefully weaving Ezio and Altair’s story together, but it hardly advanced the gameplay of this series forward. Outside of a tower defense game, this is nothing more than the most refined version of the prior two entries.

Once again, this was a game that started as something much smaller. Revelations was initially conceived as a Nintendo DS game before it blew up into a mainline entry, possibly to buy time for the team on Assassin’s Creed 3 or ride the hype for Ezio. While not a bad game, it is arguably one of the least impressive installments in the long-running series.

#11 – Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate was the last game in the series before Ubisoft decided to revamp it as a big RPG franchise. The franchise wasn’t really innovating in the ways it should have. In fact, it was regressing in some regards by continuing to move away from naval combat despite pleas for more of it. We did get two protagonists in Syndicate, including a female for the first time in the mainline series, but they didn’t leave much of a lasting impression.

While steampunk London is a fun setting for a game like this, it’s a game that has kind of been forgotten about and gets left out of the conversation when it comes to Assassin’s Creed. It’s not bad, it’s not amazing, it’s just perfectly fine… and there’s nothing wrong with that!

#10 – Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Despite being one of the most commercially successful games in the series to date, I have never been an Assassin’s Creed Valhalla truther. This might be blasphemy to some fans of the series, but it’s a bit too bloated for my liking and the combat lacked the heft that I desire from a Viking protagonist.

The world is beautiful and I can see the appeal for some, but it doesn’t excel in the areas that prior games do, nor does it stack up against its competitors outside of Assassin’s Creed. It tries to be a game for everyone and, in the process, lost sight of being a focused experience. However, it seems to have paid dividends for Ubisoft, financially speaking, so I may be alone on this one.

#9 – Assassin’s Creed

The game that started it all. Assassin’s Creed fundamentally changed gaming and Ubisoft forever. It’s a revolutionary game for its time and was a defining title for the Xbox 360/PS3 era.

However, compared to many of the games that came after it, it has shown its age and could really use a modernized remake/remaster. Nothing will take away from what it did for gaming, but Ubisoft was able to succeed this game with some killer follow-ups that took the formula and story to new heights.

#8 – Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Like Revelations, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was developed pretty quickly to capture the hype of Ezio’s beloved story. To Ubisoft’s credit, despite cranking these games out as fast as possible, Ezio’s story still remains the best in the series. While still feeling a bit like Assassin’s Creed 2.5, the developer managed to innovate enough to keep things feeling fresh.

The titular Brotherhood is introduced, allowing Ezio to manage a network of assassins that can help him out in combat and do his bidding elsewhere. It’s an idea that has lasted throughout the entire series, so clearly Brotherhood did a lot right. On top of that, it was great to see more than just a lone assassin and instead focus on what this creed is all about when it’s in its prime.

Brotherhood also releases in the era of tacked-on multiplayer modes, but Ubisoft managed to do something that actually worked fairly well. Assassin’s Creed had a fairly underrated online mode for a while that allowed players to hunt each other in a PvP setting, utilizing social stealth to remain undetected. Although it didn’t take off like some other games, it was a worthy effort from the IP.

#7 – Assassin’s Creed 3

Hot take alert: I really like Assassin’s Creed 3. It felt like a notable leap forward for the series after the Ezio trilogy in terms of its gameplay. Being able to stalk prey from the trees and string them up, parkour through the inside of buildings, and command a ship made Assassin’s Creed 3 feel somewhat next-gen at the time. Ubisoft upped the ante tremendously, which was needed after Revelations failed to deliver any notable innovations.

Although Connor isn’t the most colorful character, the American Revolution setting was an inspired choice for an Assassin’s Creed game and was a nice change of pace from all the European settings in the prior games. There’s something really satisfying about hunting animals in the snowy woods of Colonial America and then taking down redcoats in the streets of New York.

#6 – Assassin’s Creed Unity

Assassin’s Creed Unity was admittedly a disaster upon release and may have crippled Syndicate as a result. It was a buggy mess, but once all of that was patched up, it became clear it was a fantastic and ambitious game. Its ambition was on full display with unreasonably large crowds, a co-op story, and a level of depth and density that hasn’t really been replicated in one of these games since. While Unity’s ambition may have been the source of its bugs, it’s a game that still manages to be utterly captivating to this day.

#5 – Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Assassin’s Creed Shadows finally takes the series to Japan after nearly 20 years. While its story leaves a lot to be desired, Shadows manages to scratch the ninja and samurai itch fans have had for decades now. Naoe and Yauske contrast each other perfectly, giving players the choice to take objectives on with precise, effective stealth or brutal head-on engagements. The combat itself has been radically improved to be more engaging and rhythmic, taking cues from Ghost of Tsushima and the Batman Arkham series. It makes sword fights challenging, thoughtful, and even a bit cinematic when two blades perfectly clash against each other.

Ubisoft also managed to make this behemoth of a game more digestible without compromising on its size. There’s still a ridiculous amount of stuff to see and do, but your map won’t be overpopulated with obnoxious icons. The RPG elements also feel less in-your-face, and you won’t feel over-encumbered by weapon/armor stats or special loot if you don’t want to engage too deeply with that side of the game.

#4 – Assassin’s Creed Origins

Assassin’s Creed Origins brilliantly soft-rebooted the series while taking us back to the very beginning of the story of the assassins. It was a bold new direction for Assassin’s Creed and one that could’ve been a historic fumble that killed the series had it not gone well. However, it saved Assassin’s Creed and gave it the fuel it needed to keep going. The RPG nature of the game was exactly what fans were looking for from Ubisoft and allowed it to evolve in an exciting new way.

On top of that, Egypt is one of the most jaw-dropping settings in the series. It’s a joy to explore and admire, especially for those who have any kind of fascination with that piece of the world and its history.

#3 – Assassin’s Creed 2

Assassin’s Creed 2 is arguably the best story in the series as we learn about Ezio’s tragic beginnings. The game gives birth to one of gaming’s best protagonists, features a tremendous score, and sets the tempo for the series going forward from a gameplay perspective. It’s one of the great sequels in gaming and once again helped define Ubisoft’s future.

#2 – Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Combining Assassin’s Creed with ancient Greece just makes sense and it’s kind of surprising it didn’t happen sooner. Odyssey takes the best parts of Origins and expands upon it in all the right ways, along with a glorious return to naval combat. On top of that, Ubisoft doubled down on the RPG of it all by empowering players to make choices in the story, allowing for a more meaningful and engaging narrative that’s directed by the player.

It is one of the best RPGs Ubisoft has made and is kind of astonishing for an Assassin’s Creed game. With that said, how can you not get swept up by slicing people up as a Spartan warrior?

#1 – Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag was a huge breath of fresh air. By making it a pirate game, Ubisoft infused new life into the series after five games that were gradually pushing the needle forward. Edward Kenway was a charming character, free of some of the brooding charisma vacuums in some of the past games, and he felt like a welcomed addition to the ongoing saga.

On top of that, being able to explore a massive open world by sea for the first time and get into epic ship battles was a welcomed addition. To this day, I am not sure another Assassin’s Creed game has managed to rival the scope and scale of this one. I’m pretty curious to see how Ubisoft reimagines the game with the rumored remake of Assassin’s Creed 4.

The post Every Assassin’s Creed Game Ranked From Worst to Best (Including Shadows) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

While most fans are eagerly awaiting The Witcher 4, a surprise announcement shows The Witcher series developer CD Projekt RED is pairing with Scopely to create a new project. The Witcher is only one possible focus of this project, however, since the only thing known about this partnership is it will be based on a CD Projekt Red IP, leaving many to speculate what it could be. A majority of the studio is working on The Witcher 4, but some are focused on Project Orion and others on The Witcher Remake. Theories have already hit the internet, with most predicting something either in The Witcher universe or taking place within that of Cyberpunk 2077.

CD Projekt RED and Scopely are both well known in each’s respective field, but CD Projekt Red tends to stick to consoles and PCs. Scopely typically deals with mobile games, however, so if CD Projekt Red is partnering with it, the project will likely involve mobile platforms to some degree.

RELATED: 10 Witcher Characters We Need to See Again in The Witcher 4

While most are familiar with CD Projekt Red based on its games The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, many aren’t as familiar with Scopely. Scopely is the name behind popular mobile games, such as Monopoly GO!, the mobile version of Stumble Guys, Marvel Strike Force, and more. The studio also recently bought out Niantic, known for Pokemon Go.

Fans have already seen one mobile game using The Witcher IP, The Witcher: Monster Slayer. CD Projekt Red was not involved with this title, which still opens up the possibility of a new The Witcher mobile game. GWENT: The Witcher Card Game is also available on mobile, but is based on the game of the same name from The Witcher 3.

The are no official mobile games based on Cyberpunk 2077, though looking at some of the cyberpunk-themed mobile games on the app stores shows the influence of the game. This partnership could lead to an official Cyberpunk 2077 mobile game by CD Projekt Red and Scopely, but it remains to be seen.

With numerous popular hit games, adding Pokemon Go to its roster will launch Scopely even further into success. Fans of the game have expressed worry about its future despite how Niantic and Scopely have communicated with fans. Players note Scopely’s treatment of Marvel Strike Force and how the developer implements massive amounts of content behind a paywall.

While the perception of Scopely varies depending on who you ask, CD Projekt Red is generally looked at favorably. Cyberpunk 2077’s launch was met with harsh criticism, but the developer turned this around with updates and patches to bring the game to its current state. Some fans have faith that CD Projekt RED will ensure this partnership doesn’t take advantage of players, but others fear the influence of Scopely.

With no real information to go with this partnership, there is no telling what CD Projekt Red and Scopely will do with this project. There are plenty of options, but fans can most likely expect Scopely to take the lead considering its specialty in mobile games. With various different types of mobile games, Scopely has plenty of elements to choose from for this mystery project.

The post The Witcher & Cyberpunk Owner Announces Project with Scopely appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Sanrio fans and cozy gamers alike got a treat with the release of Hello Kitty Island Adventure, which arrived for PC and Nintendo Switch in January. Previously only available on Apple Arcade, this game gives a Hello Kitty spin to the Animal Crossing gameplay vibe. Though many gamers eagerly grabbed the digital version when it first arrived, others have been waiting for a physical release. Now, the physical version of Hello Kitty Island Adventure has finally arrived in stores as of March 25th, but it might not be exactly what fans expected.

Switch gamers who prefer a physical collection can grab the game at their retailer of choice – but only if they’re willing to pay for the Deluxe Edition. As of now, there is no physical release for the standard edition of Hello Kitty Island Adventure. Although Sunblink did make it clear in preorder campaigns that only the Deluxe Edition would be available as a physical release, gamers who didn’t preorder might have missed the fine print. While it may be worth it for dedicated collectors and major Hello Kitty fans, the Deluxe Edition is $20 more expensive. The standard edition of Hello Kitty Island Adventure costs $39.99 from the Nintendo eShop or via Steam. However, the Deluxe Edition retails for $59.99 for both the digital and physical versions.

Although it might be disappointing for fans who didn’t realize they’d only be able to get a physical copy of the Deluxe Edition, many fans are still excited to see Hello Kitty Island Adventure boxes on shelves at retailers like GameStop and Best Buy. It’s always possible that, depending on how well the game does, we could see a physical standard version of the game for Nintendo Switch sometime in the future. For now, though, gamers hoping to add Hello Kitty Island Adventure to their physical game collections will have to decide if the Deluxe Edition is worth that additional $20.

What’s Included in the Deluxe Edition of Hello Kitty Island Adventure

Since the physical release of the game is only available for the Deluxe Edition, let’s cover what it includes to help you decide whether you need to run to your local GameStop. Here are the items included with the Deluxe Edition physical release for Nintendo Switch:

• Physical copy of Hello Kitty Island Adventure Deluxe Edition
• Physical fold-out map of the entire island
• Deluxe Event bundle with 300+ individual items and rewards
• One year of Legacy Event content with clothing and furniture items
• Deluxe Starter Bundle featuring:
  • 10 Friendship Blossoms
  • 3 Friendship Bouquets
  • 10 Island Bouquets
  • 50 Strawberry Crates
• Deluxe Crafting Bundle featuring:
  • 50 Dye of Each Color
  • 100 Sticks
  • 45 Iron Ores
  • 50 Rubber

RELATED: 7 Sanrio Characters We Want in Hello Kitty Island Adventure

Those extra items will certainly come in handy for gamers who know they’re gearing up to sink hours into befriending the Sanrio characters in Hello Kitty Island Adventure. That said, not every cozy gamer is thrilled with the price tag for this game, which comes in at the higher end compared to genre staples like Stardew Valley. Having the physical copy only available in the Deluxe Edition may price out some budget-conscious fans as a result.

Are you planning to get the Hello Kitty Island Adventure Deluxe Edition as a physical copy? Or is it already on the shelf? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Hello Kitty Island Adventure Physical Release Arrives (But There’s a Catch) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Game Informer has triumphantly returned after being shut down by GameStop last year. While there are a lot of passionate opinions about games media out there, gaming magazines have always been a big soft spot for gamers. Of course, they’ve dwindled in popularity with the rise of the digital age and it has led to the loss of some great magazines. One of the last big gaming magazines left standing was Game Informer, a magazine that was owned by GameStop and was a tremendous source for gaming news, interviews, and opinions. Those who subscribed to GameStop’s rewards program were given subscriptions to the magazine, keeping customers very informed.

Unfortunately, Game Informer was subjected to a lot of struggles over the last half a decade or so. After many rounds of layoffs and troubles, Game Informer was shut down last summer. After 33 years, one of the best sources for gaming content was killed off in the blink of an eye. It was a sad day and meant that fans could no longer to seeing cover stories for their favorite upcoming games like Grand Theft Auto VI. However, Game Informer has managed to resurrect itself and it doesn’t come with any kind of a negative catch, surprisingly!

Game Informer Returns With 100% of Former Staff

Game Informer announced its return on its own website and via a YouTube video. The entire Game Informer team that was at the company when it shut down last year is returning full-time and it’s all happening under a new owner. Gunzilla has acquired Game Informer from GameStop and will give Game Informer total editorial control, meaning there will be no outside influence on what Game Informer produces. Gunzilla is District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s video game studio which is also responsible for the battle royale game Off the Grid.

“Game Informer now operates under an entity called Game Informer Inc., and our intent is to continue to focus on highlighting the coolest games, celebrating the history and legacy of the gaming industry, and shining a spotlight on the creators and players who are charting its future,” reads a letter from editor-in-chief Matt Miller. “I am deeply grateful for the trust and enthusiasm from the team at Gunzilla Games; they see the same potential in Game Informer as our team does, and their encouragement to do so ethically and free of outside pressure is laudable.”

Game Informer’s website is currently live with content from years past, but also a backlog of content including reviews that writers did after the company initially shut down. Game Informer’s magazine will also return in the coming weeks with Miller noting that they want to make it bigger and better than before. The company will allow readers to support them with membership options, but details will be provided on that at a later date. In essence, Game Informer is back in all its glory. It seems likely we can expect some cover stories for 2025 games in the coming months as they get reacquainted. Given Game Informer has been quietly preparing content for a few months, it’s possible they’ve already secured some future cover stories for this year.

The post Game Informer Returns After Break Up With GameStop appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Normally, the announcement of a new Pokemon TCG set like Destined Rivals would be a cause for celebration, but scalpers have once again made it impossible for true fans to enjoy the hobby. With pre-orders going up, fans are already seeing that Destined Rivals cards are selling out, or they’re having to wait in extremely long queues just for a chance to get these cards. This isn’t the first time a new Pokemon TCG set has been plagued by this issue, and it almost always is due to scalpers buying up stock to resell at ridiculously marked-up prices. Fans are tired of this practice, and many are leaving Pokemon TCG altogether.

Pokemon TCG’s Destined Rivals set is already being bought out by scalpers and it is just one of many sets that have been targeted by resellers. Fans are hopeful that The Pokemon Company will have a restock before the official May 30th release date, but others are giving up on Pokemon TCG instead.

RELATED: Pokemon TCG to Release Must-Have Team Rocket Merch

The Destined Rivals set for Pokemon TCG features numerous cards and a focus on Team Rocket. While fans were excited for Team Rocket’s return in force, they will likely face issues trying to get the set due to scalpers and their practices.

The Pokemon Company has been trying to cut down on scalping with various techniques, one of which being the Pokemon TCG vending machines. These have seen limited success, and the scalping Pokemon card practice remains high.

Some fans are giving up, while others are hopeful that scalping will die down in a few years when the appeal is gone. Pokemon TCG players have pointed out that scalpers typically come in when popularity is high and get out when interest dies down. However, with Pokemon TCG’s popularity among the highest it has ever been, it seems scalpers may be around for a while.

The Pokemon Company offers Pokemon TCG Pocket as an alternative, but while it has the focus of Pokemon TCG, it plays differently and doesn’t have the physical aspect that makes Pokemon TCG such a popular hobby. Still, it is a way for players to connect and play the game they love. The mobile game has caused an increase in Pokemon TCG interest, but this has also seen scalping get worse.

Pokemon TCG’s future remains to be seen, but scalping has certainly made it hard to get into the hobby, at least if you want to get new sets. The Pokemon Company is continuing to battle scalpers, but only time will tell if its practices work and prevent scalpers from being able to buy out new Pokemon TCG sets.

The post Pokemon TCG’s Scalping Problem Has Players Ready to Quit the Hobby appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Pokemon fans are no strangers to struggling to get ahold of their TCG with the recent shortages for Scarlet & Violet sets. However, it looks like the Digimon Card Game might soon join in the struggle, as Bandai Namco reports increased demand for the latest Digimon TCG release. Though less well-known in the States, the Digimon Card Game is growing in popularity. Now, with its own mobile app on the way and physical cards from competitors impossible to come by, the latest Digimon Card Game release proves this TCG may be having its moment.

The Digimon TCG was reborn in 2020 with an all-new reboot, replacing the former card game for the series. Despite interest from dedicated Digimon fans, this TCG has been harder to come by in stores compared with other TCG like Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh! That said, Bandai continues to release new sets and update the rules with relative frequency, and the game continues to grow as a result. The game has a fairly active subreddit, and, as the most recent release proves, a growing fanbase that’s eager to snap up exciting new card releases as they arrive. As more Pokemon fans grow frustrated with scalpers making it nearly impossible to actually collect new sets, it’s possible that some disgruntled fans might swap to the digital monsters.

So far, Bandai’s approach to unexpected demand looks like another upside for the Digimon Card Game. The official English language account for the Digimon Card Game, @digimon_tcg-EN, recently shared an update about the overwhelming demand for its latest new release. The item in question is the Digimon Card Game Tamer’s Evolution Box – Rise of Digimon, which is set to release in December. Preorders have officially reopened via the Premium Bandai website on March 20th and will be available until April 30th, giving fans more time to buy.

What’s Included in the Digimon Card Game Tamer’s Evolution Box – Rise of Digimon

If you haven’t yet ordered the Tamer’s Evolution Box, let’s cover what’s included so you can make your decision. The set is part of the game’s 5-year anniversary celebration and brings together cards from several previous sets, along with brand-new designs to commemorate the Worldwide Unification of the game. A collector’s item this big doesn’t come cheap, and the market price for the Tamer’s Evolution Box is set at $200 USD. The box does, however, come with quite a few perks to make it worth your while.

RELATED: 5 Best TCG Mobile Games (Besides Pokemon TCG Pocket)

Here’s a look at everything included in this massive Digimon Card Game box:

• 12 Special Cards featuring new designs for Ultra Digimon like Omnimon, ShadowSeraphimon, and more
• A faux leather Digimon-embossed storage box that fits 1000 cards
• Special playmat featuring Digimon Card Game cards and an Omnimon design
• 50 card sleeves with the “courage to move forward” theme
• 5 card sleeves with the Omnimon design motif
• 4 special counter markers with Digimon pixel art

For players who want to start their Digimon Card Game collection off strong or who have already fallen in love with this TCG, this box features some unique items never before released for the 2020 Digimon Card Game reboot. And thanks to the re-opened preorders, you can snag one for yourself from now until April 30th at the Bandai website or check in with your local card shop.

Have you started your Digimon Card Game collection yet? Let us know your favorite cards in the comments below!

The post New Digimon Release Re-Opens Pre-Orders “Due to High Demand” appeared first on ComicBook.com.

After numerous delays, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is finally giving fans a release date window later in 2025. Many had begun to give up hope after it seemed the game was stuck in development hell. Marco Behrmann, the Executive Vice President of World of Darkness, has now sat down to deliver this news to fans, revealing Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is finished and the team is focusing on fixing and polishing the game.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is targeting an October 2025 release, which is fitting considering the theme of the game. This release window was announced in a game update video, which showcased a brief glimpse of gameplay, expanding on the previous gameplay seen during a developer diary.

While many are excited at an actual Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 release window, an almost equal number are reluctant to take this at face value. In all fairness, the title has seen delay after delay and even a development reboot. The last known release date for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 was the first half of 2025, but this has been pushed back to the second half.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 takes place in modern-day Seattle during a power vacuum in the vampire court. Players will take on the role of a recently awakened Elder Vampire thrust into the midst of this potential war. Players must navigate this situation while also maintaining the accords and laws of the Masquerade. Breaking these not only alerts humanity to your presence, but causes consequences from the other Vampires.

Unlike the previous Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, players will play a predefined character instead of the customizable character seen in the first game. However, this is more in line with Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, in which players followed a story with Christof Romuald.

RELATED: Latest Dev Diary For Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Features Insights Into Bringing Concepts To Life

It remains to be seen whether The Chinese Room and Paradox Interactive stick to this October 2025 release date. If what Behrmann says is true, development is finished and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 simply needs to be touched up to the developer’s standards.

The Vampire: The Masquerade IP is a popular one, featuring an in-depth world controlled largely by different clans of Vampires. With multiple video games, graphic novels, books, and, of course, the tabletop role-playing game, there are numerous ways to enjoy the franchise.

The post Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Finally Receives a Release Window appeared first on ComicBook.com.

When Pokemon Legends: Z-A releases later this year, the game will see the return of the Mega Evolution mechanic. While Mega Evolution is very popular among fans of the series, we haven’t seen any new ones in more than a decade. That sounds like it will be changing later this year. According to recent leaks, 27 new Mega Evolutions will be introduced in Pokemon Legends: Z-A. While actual designs have not leaked just yet, we’re starting to hear about several Pokemon that will be getting Mega Evolutions in the new game. The following have been named thus far:

• Barbaracle
• Chandelure
• Chesnaught
• Clefable
• Delphox
• Dragalge
• Dragonite
• Drampa
• Emboar
• Excadrill
• Falinks
• Feraligatr
• Floette
• Froslass
• Greninja
• Hawlucha
• Meganium
• Pyroar
• Scolipede
• Scrafty
• Skarmory
• Starmie
• Victreebel
• Zeraora
• Zygarde

These leaks are coming from Centro Leaks, Universo Nintendo, and other sources online. As with any leak, readers are advised to take all of this information with a huge grain of salt. It’s possible that all of these leaks are accurate, or that just some of them are. There’s simply no way of knowing for sure, and until we get some kind of confirmation from The Pokemon Company, fans will just have to wait patiently. With any new Pokemon release, there’s always going to be a lot of misinformation that spreads, so readers should keep that in mind. That said, there are some picks that would certainly make sense, most notably Meganium, Emboar, and Feraligatr, as those are the final evolutions of the 3 starters that will appear in Pokemon Legends: Z-A.

As of this writing, Pokemon Legends: Z-A does not have a set release date. The Pokemon Company has confirmed that the game will arrive in “late 2025,” which probably suggests a launch in the month of November, based on what we’ve seen from past games in the series. Regardless, the hype cycle should ramp up within the next few months. That typically means a closer look at gameplay, as well as a glimpse at new Pokemon. If the game really is adding 27 new Mega Evolutions, we might start to see some of the designs revealed ahead of time, either through in-game models or finished art. There’s a lot of anticipation surrounding Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and a slow drip of Mega Evolution designs would be a smart way to build hype around the game.

RELATED: Pokemon Legends: Z-A Has a Chance to End the Nintendo Switch Era on a High Note

At this time of writing, there are 48 total Pokemon Mega Evolutions. While existing Mega Evolutions have appeared in multiple games since, the last time The Pokemon Company actually added to that number was in Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire back in 2014. New Mega Evolutions have been long overdue, and the fan community is pretty excited to see them finally make their return to the franchise. Hopefully the wait will prove worth it!

How do you feel about this list of new Pokemon Mega Evolutions? Do you believe that we’ll see these all in the finished game? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

The post Pokemon Legends: Z-A: Every New Mega Evolution Leaked So Far appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Bully has gotten a surprising new update on select platforms almost 20 years after its initial release. Rockstar Games is one of the most prolific developers out there, best known for Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. The studio is responsible for crafting rich open worlds that let you live out your wildest fantasies and pull off insane things via their sandbox worlds. Despite being best known for their big, open-world blockbuster, Rockstar has also carefully curated a portfolio of some “smaller” scale games like Max Payne 3, LA Noire, and Bully. The latter title is a game that is held highly among Rockstar fans and led to demands for a sequel since its release.

While Rockstar Games was reportedly working on Bully 2 in the 2010s, it was ultimately shelved in favor of Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA Online. It’s a bit of a bummer and it’s unclear if a sequel will ever happen now that there’s been so much distance from the first game. Rockstar obviously has its hands full with GTA 6, but Bully 2 would be a perfect follow-up after that as it wouldn’t be as big of a game in terms of scope and scale. However, a lot of people who were responsible for Bully no longer work at Rockstar, so it’s unclear how much love the current regime has for that series.

Nevertheless, Rockstar Games hasn’t exactly forgotten that Bully exists. Last year, Rockstar added Bully to its GTA+ subscription service. On top of that, a brand new update for Bully: Anniversary Edition has been released and given the game’s age and lack of recent support, it’s a pretty sizable update. This update only pertains to the iOS and Android version of the game, so console and PC players shouldn’t get too excited. The update fixes a lot of different issues plaguing the mobile port of Bully, adds new features like haptic feedback, and more. It also sounds like this won’t be the last update as Rockstar’s patch notes state that the developer is investigating some other issues with the game. You can view the patch notes below.

Bully: Anniversary Edition iOS and Android Patch Notes

General

• Disabled Friends Challenges while we investigate related game issues
• Enabled Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) on supported Android devices
• Updated the app icon on Android
• Implemented haptic feedback on iOS and Android

This update includes fixes to improve game stability on 64-bit mobile operating systems and supported devices.

Content

• Fixed an issue that resulted in a race condition during the Mission ‘That Bitch’ making Mandy’s locker unpickable
• Fixed an issue that resulted in the Mission ‘Weed Killer’ not progressing if the window is destroyed before passing through progress point
• Fixed an issue with both fighters at the Freak Show dying at the same time resulting in the game getting stuck on a black screen
• Fixed multiple issues that resulted in AI not attacking Jimmy when in combat
• Fixed an issue in the Mission ‘The Rumble’ that resulted in police cars falling through the floor during the police chase
• Fixed an issue that resulted in the broom being unbreakable with the brick or slingshot to open the door in the ‘Help Gary’ Mission
• Fixed an issue in the Mission ‘Save Algie’ that resulted in a crash after taking Algernon to his locker
• Fixed an issue in the Mission ‘Prep Challenge’ that resulted in Rivals not attacking or defending
• Fixed an issue in the Mission ‘The Tenements’ that resulted in Norton not attacking Jimmy
• Fixed an issue in the Missions ‘The Rumble’ and ‘Fighting Johnny Vincent’ that resulted in the police car not spawning in and gameplay not progressing during the chase sequence
• Fixed an issue that resulted in heap overflow in the Mission ‘Nutcrackin’’
• Fixed an issue when throwing toilet paper over the cubicle during the errand that resulted in a crash
• Fixed an issue that resulted in rendering issues during dodgeball gym class
• Fixed multiple issues that resulted in crashes during minigames
• Fixed an issue that resulted in weapons being incorrectly removed
• Fixed an issue that resulted in a crash due to a problem with vehicle controls
• Fixed an issue that resulted in a framerate drop because of particles generated from car collisions

Game Stability and Performance

• Fixed a race condition that resulted in a crash when starting a new game
• Fixed an issue that resulted in a crash when manually loading a save from the pause menu
• Fixed an issue that resulted in a crash when uploading cloud saves
• Fixed an issue that resulted in downloads getting stuck on Android due to Play Asset Delivery
• Fixed multiple issues affecting touch controls and Bluetooth controllers
• Fixed an issue that resulted in footsteps playing the wrong effect sound
• Fixed an issue that resulted in a crash when attempting to play a speech event
• Fixed an issue that resulted in a crash when deleting a 2D effect
• Fixed an issue that resulted a black screen during camera transitions
• Fixed an issue with in-game fires that resulted in the game crashing
• Fixed an issue that resulted in camera transitions completing before the world is fully loaded and ready to render
• Fixed an issue that resulted in motion rendering on Mali GPUs causing weapon effects, window glows, graffiti tags, and health bars to invert when a weapon was fired
• Fixed an issue that resulted in snow mound model ignoring Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
• Fixed an issue that resulted in incorrect texture compression extension detection on Adreno GPUs
• Fixed an issue that resulted in shadows rendering incorrectly on Adreno GPUs
• Fixed an issue that resulted in memory allocation not aligning on 64-bit CPUs
• Fixed multiple issues that resulted in crashes when objects were accessed before being initialized
• Fixed an issue that resulted in a crash during OpenGL texture upload
• Fixed an issue that resulted in several crashes due to compiler optimizations of older code
• Fixed an issue that resulted in performance being affected across all supported devices and enabled multicore rendering
• Fixed an issue that resulted in calculations in geography class placing flags in the wrong position
• Fixed an issue with sound coordinate calculations that resulted in floating point errors
• Fixed an issue with memory management code that resulted in crashes
• Fixed multiple issues that resulted in file handle leaks
• Fixed an issue that resulted in a crash when the game was attempting to delete a persistent entity incorrectly
• Fixed an issue in join constraint code that resulted in a crash
• Reduced the system load of the audio and asset streaming
• Fixed multiple typecasting errors that resulted in crashes
• Fixed several out of bounds issues

The post Bully Gets Surprising New Update Nearly 20 Years After Release appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Despite some initial concerns about some content, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has surpassed expectations with a truly impressive launch. The game has already surpassed almost every other entry in the series in terms of revenue, making it Ubisoft’s biggest day-one launch in the PlayStation store. Less than a week after release, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is getting its first hotfix with updates to help ensure players have the best experience possible as they dive into the latest entry in this iconic franchise. Hotfix #1 for Assassin’s Creed Shadows launches on all platforms today, March 25th, with bug fixes and improvements.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is available on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC, and Mac. The hotfix update should be live on all platforms as of 2 p.m. ET on March 25th. This is a smaller fix aimed at fixing a few major bugs and improving stabilization for the game in general. Though it may be small, this first title update shows that Ubisoft is listening to player bug reports and acting on them. The main highlight here is that the patch fixes global issues with stabilization, which should improve gameplay across all platforms. There are also a few platform-specific fixes that should cut down on crashes as reported by players.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Update 1.0.1 Patch Notes

For a full look at the download size for today’s update and the hotfix patch notes, see the original notes from the developer below:

Patch Sizes

• Xbox Series X|S: 8.88 GB  
• PlayStation 5: 1.41 GB 
• PC: 7.03 GB 
• MAC: 9 GB 

Bug Fixes & Improvements 

• Stabilization – Fixed some global issues 
• [PS5] Fixed a Photo mode issue that could cause a crash when fetching photos to display on the world map. 
• [PC] Fixed a Photo mode issue that could cause a crash when taking a photo. 

The issues addressed were reported to the developer via the bug reporter. So, if you encounter any additional bugs or crashes while playing Assassin’s Creed Shadows, this is likely the best place to share your concerns so they can be addressed in a future update.

This hotfix is the first post-launch update to receive official patch notes from Ubisoft, though the game did receive a day-one patch to address some concerns about gameplay in real-world temples and shrines. That update primarily adjusted what players could do in certain sacred sites, including removing the ability to destroy large items and attack unarmed civilians. Given the sales success of the game so far, it’s likely we’ll see additional updates for Assassin’s Creed Shadows soon enough.

Have you had a chance to play Assassin’s Creed Shadows yet? Let us know how it’s going in the comments below!

The post Assassin’s Creed Shadows Patch Notes Revealed for First Title Update appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The ever changing nature of competitive balance in Fortnite means that weapons often move in and out of rotation with new seasons, changing the state of the game pretty dramatically with each weapon added or removed from the map. According to a new leak, we may already know which weapons are being vaulted and unvaulted with Fortnite’s next season, which is set to release soon alongside a brand new battle pass and other balance updates. If the leak is true, we’ll be seeing the return of two SMGs, the vaulting of an AR, and a shotgun swap which some players have already expressed their disappointment over.

According to the leak, the Twin Mag AR, Scoped Burst SMG, and Infiltrator Pump Shotgun are going to be removed from the vault. In their place, players can say goodbye to the Holo Twister AR and Sentinel Pump Shotgun, at lease for this season.

This leak was posted by ShiinaBR, an X user who also leaked information about a possible Devil May Cry Fortnite crossover, and is considered by some to be a fairly reputable source of Fortnite leaks. Shiina credits the source of the information as X user TunaDrift, but doesn’t specify how they came across the information.

Users in the comments were quick to express their disappointment in the changes. While this is yet another Fortnite update to receive backlash, weapon rotation is clearly a far more subjective change to the game, Regardless, the majority of players commenting on the potential leak express their disapproval of the vaulting of the Sentinel Pump. Some players in the comment have gone so far as to say this update would destroy the shotgun meta, with another outright calling the changes an “obvious April fool’s joke.”

RELATED: Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft Finally Returns to Fortnite

Its no surprise that the vaulting of the Sentinel Pump would be a controversial choice with players who prefer shotguns. The weapon packs some seriously high base stats, with a staggering 92 damage on shot as a common and 114 damage as a legendary, and especially stands out for its high fire rate, much faster than other pump action shotguns in the game. The combination of high damage and fast fire rate for its class allows players to quickly mow down anything in close range, and therefore makes for a gun that is bound to be a fan favorite.

While we wait on more weapon vaultings and unvaultings, the latest wave of Fortnite content dropped today with an emphasis put on The Walking Dead. More specifically, assets and characters related to The Walking Dead will be made available in Fortnite‘s Creative mode so that players can create their own custom experiences there with Walkers and more. The infamous Negan from The Walking Dead will also be added to Fortnite as an Item Shop skin.

What do you think of this possible Fortnite change? What weapons would you like to see vaulted or unvaulted in this upcoming season? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Fortnite Leak Reveals New Weapons Being Vaulted and Unvaulted Soon appeared first on ComicBook.com.

A true, seamless co-op Dark Souls experience is one many fans of the series have been wanting for a long time, and is a desire some players feel remains officially unfulfilled even by Elden Ring: Nightreign, causing players to turn to mods instead. Now, players will be able to take the seamless co-op experience out of Elden Ring and into Dark Souls Remastered, allowing you and a friend to experience the original, first Dark Souls story together without any of the game’s multiplayer restrictions. This is all thanks to a solo modder, who recently announced the mod and showed off its functionality with a brief video.

Elden Ring‘s seamless co-op mod, which recently updated with compatibility for Shadow of the Erdtree, allows players to experience the entire game together through co-operative gameplay, sharing progression and removing boundaries put in to limit player movement in FromSoft’s built-in multiplayer. The mod, which does an incredible job of changing the game without complicated installs, frequent bugs, or even violating FromSoft’s terms of service, was created by the same modder working on the seamless co-op mod for Dark Souls Remastered.

The modder, who goes by Yui and was also behind the Dark Souls 3 Seamless co-op mod, announced that they were bringing their amazing multiplayer conversion mod to Dark Souls Remastered with a video released on March 21st. The video showcases the creator playing through the mod with a friend, even fighting Sif together with no noticeable bugs, glitches, or lag.

In the description of the video, Yui simplifies the seamless co-op experience, describing their mod as one which, “Removes all multiplayer boundaries and allows for connections to persist after death. Play with friends from the tutorial to the very end of the game, with synchronized progress and no resummoning or interruptions. Invasions are optional and active by default.”

Top commenter bobthemutant expressed of the mod, “The best thing that ever happened to the Souls series was when it came to PC. The second best thing to happen to the Souls series was Yui.”

RELATED: Dark Souls 3 Remaster Claimed to Be in the Works

While the video doesn’t contain a definitive release date, by going to Yui’s Patreon, we can find more information about the project. In a recent post, Yui says that the mod is essentially finished and should arrive soon.

“The mod is nearing completion, and I have completed a few playthroughs with friends to make sure everything is working alright, and it seems fairly stable aside from a few bugs fixed along the way,” Yui states. “I can’t give a release window right now – but the overwhelming majority of the mod is complete and now it’s just a case of testing and adding some finishing touches.”

Whenever we get more info on this seamless co-op mod for Dark Souls Remastered and its release, we’ll let you know here on ComicBook.

The post Dark Souls Remastered Now Has Seamless Co-Op Just Like Elden Ring appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The newest rumor tied to Nintendo’s upcoming game Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has left fans puzzled. Since being unveiled once again this past summer, Nintendo hasn’t said or shown off anything further of Metroid Prime 4. Naturally, many have expected that the game would show up at Nintendo’s upcoming Switch 2-focused Direct, which is set to transpire next week on April 2nd. Based on new information that has come about, though, this now sounds like it won’t be happening.

According to video game insider extas1s, Metroid Prime 4 won’t be a focus of the forthcoming Nintendo Switch 2 Direct. While the event will be filled with news of games that will be coming to Switch 2, presumably at launch and after, Metroid Prime 4 is said to not be one of these titles. Assuming that this rumor is accurate, it raises questions about when Nintendo will choose to share more details about MP4 in advance of its release in 2025.

On one hand, this rumor makes a fair amount of sense given that Metroid Prime 4 has only been announced to come to the original Nintendo Switch. While past rumors have suggested that the game would be cross-gen for Switch and Switch 2, this might not end up being the case after all. As such, Nintendo choosing to leave it out of its Switch 2 presentation would be a logical one.

Alternatively, Nintendo could look to highlight Metroid Prime 4 at a showcase happening this week. While there currently isn’t any Direct or presentation slated to transpire in the coming days, recent rumors have indicated that Nintendo is planning an event of some sort to take place in advance of its Switch 2 Direct. If this is accurate, it would mean that said presentation would have to be announced quite soon and would presumably happen tomorrow or Thursday. A showing of Metroid Prime 4 at this point would be feasible as it would allow next week’s event to focus entirely on Switch 2 exclusive games.

For now, the only thing we know with absolute certainty about Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is that it’s slated to arrive on Nintendo Switch at some point in 2025. Whether or not it’s a cross-gen game with Switch 2 remains to be seen, but if nothing else, it should be playable on the new version of the console thanks to its backward compatibility with the Switch library.

The post New Metroid Prime 4 Rumor Leaves Nintendo Fans Confused appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Last weekend, Pokemon Go players were treated to a Community Day Classic centered around Totodile. In classic Niantic fashion, the developers have now pulled back the curtain on the next Community Day event, which will take place at the end of April. This time around, the focus will be on Vanillite, an Ice-type that first appeared in Pokemon Black and White. The event will be held on Saturday, April 27th from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. local time. As is usually the case, players will have an increased chance of finding a Shiny Pokemon during that time.

The “fresh snow” Pokemon, Vanillite resembles a vanilla ice cream cone. Generally, that means a white appearance with blue accents. However, the Shiny version swaps out the blue cone, diamonds, and eyes for a purple coloration. That color scheme continues on for its two evolved forms: Vanillish and Vanilluxe. The difference isn’t too major, but it does look pretty nice, and Pokemon Go players will want to take advantage of the increased odds during the event.

Pokemon Go players that evolve Vanillish during the event or at any point through May 4th will get a Vanilluxe with a special Featured Attack. This time around, it’s the Charged Attack Avalanche. Avalanche is an Ice-type attack that has a power of 90 in Trainer Battles, and 85 in Gyms and Raids. That should be pretty useful against Dragon and Grass-type Pokemon!

April’s Community Day event will include several of the other standard bonuses. Pokemon Go players will receive triple XP on Catches, as well as double Candy. Players over level 31 will also have a doubled chance of receiving Candy XL. Both Lure Modules and Incense activated during the event will last for 3 hours. From 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. local time, trades will also require half the amount of normal Stardust, and players can make one extra Special Trade. There will also be special Timed Research awarded to all players that login during the Community Day. This will last for a week, giving players more chances to encounter Vanillite and its Shiny, and completing it will reward players with one that has a Might & Mastery seasonal background.

RELATED: Pokemon Go’s Newest Pokemon Cannot be Sent to Pokemon Home

While March had 2 Pokemon Go Community Day events, Vanillite Community Day is the only one players can expect to see next month. Niantic released an event schedule ahead of the start of the current season, and this is the lone Community Day for April. However, May will bounce back with another 2 Community Day events to close out the season. There should still be plenty more to look forward to in April, including a Mega Raid Day that will see the in-game debut of Mega Audino.

Are you excited to check out next month’s Pokemon Go Community Day event? How do you feel about Vanillite’s Shiny version? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

The post Pokemon Go Reveals April Community Day Details appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The patch notes for the next big Marvel Rivals update has been revealed in advance of its release. At this point, Season 1 of Marvel Rivals is beginning to wind down as Season 2 will kick off in just a few short weeks. Prior to that time, though, developer NetEase Games is looking to improve on Marvel Rivals in its current state and will do so by letting loose another notable patch in mere days.

Set to go live in the early hours of March 27th, this new Marvel Rivals update will arrive for PS5, Xbox, and PC platforms. This patch notably adds a new gift tied to April Fools’ Day which will unlock on April 1st to those who have completed Galacta’s Cosmic Adventure. Other than this, the update mainly looks to address other problems that have been found with various characters. Heroes such as Wolverine, Iron Fist, Iron Man, and Human Torch have all had their abilities tweaked to some degree with this update.

To get a look at all of these changes that are soon set to hit Marvel Rivals, you can find the patch notes attached below.

Marvel Rivals Update 20250327 Patch Notes

Galacta’s Cosmic Adventure

We’ve added a special April Fool’s Easter Egg gift! Remember, only those who collect all rewards from Galacta’s Cosmic Adventure will unlock this hidden twist surprise.

New Content

Pick-Up Bundle

Fixes

All Platforms

General

• Resolved an issue in Custom Game where a disconnected player’s character would still appear on the Like page during match settlement.

Maps and Modes

• Fixed several terrain issues that could cause characters to sometimes become stuck or clip into strange areas.
• Squashed a glitch in the Hydra Charteris Base map where Rocket Raccoon’s B.R.B. could sometimes revive teammates outside the play area due to terrain changes.

Heroes

• Wolverine’s Terrifying Pounce: Resolved an issue where the Hulk could sometimes have abnormal behavior after being catapulted into a terrain KO by Wolverine’s Feral Leap. Now, the big guy gets the proper beatdown without any off-script environmental stunts!
• Iron Fist’s Wall-Climbing Whimsy: Fixed a glitch in Practice Range where Iron Fist wall-climbing was beyond expectations. The master of martial arts can now keep his acrobatic feats on track!
• Iron Man’s Teleportation Tangle: In Sanctum Sanctorum, Iron Man use of Hyper-Velocity followed immediately by portal entry could occasionally throw a wrench in the works—resulting in the ability to misfire and some off-color special effects. Now, Iron Man’s high-tech strategy is as sleek as ever, letting him jet in and out as he pleases.
• Loki-Doctor Strange’s Forbidden Tech: Fixed an issue in Doom Match where Loki’s transformation into Doctor Strange allowed the use of the forbidden Pentagram of Farallah. This minds-warping mix-up has been vanquished.
• Magneto’s Magnetic Moments: Resolved an issue in the post-match where Magneto’s MVP could sometimes display some bizarre, offbeat visuals. The master of magnetism now commands his moments with true polar precision.
• Wolverine’s Ultimate with Pinpoint Precision: Fixed a snag in Wolverine’s Ultimate Ability where, under high network latency, foes sent flying and slammed into the ground could sometimes end up in the wrong location. Now, every Last Stand lands exactly where it should.
• Human Torch’s Fiery Focus: Addressed a rare bug where the Human Torch’s Primary Attack would sometimes miss its target entirely, leaving his incendiary prowess a little less scorching. With this fix, every burst of flame burns as brilliantly as intended—ensuring his heat is always on target!

Console

• Eliminated a bug that sometimes caused the focus to unpredictably shift to earlier messages when opening the chat window.

The post Marvel Rivals Patch Notes Revealed for Next Major Update appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The full details for Monster Hunter Wilds’ first free Title Update are here, giving players a look at future content coming to the game starting on April 4th. Players will be able to hunt new monsters alongside their friends and enjoy a new gathering hub for Hunters. With this new area, seasonal events and celebrations will be held, keeping the game fresh with new things to do besides hunting. Additionally, Capcom has shared a tease Monster Hunter Wilds will collaborate with another Capcom title, likely adding exclusive cosmetics or possibly even a crossover monster. Monster Hunter Wilds’ future is looking bright, and fans don’t have long to wait before new content is released.

The Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update launches on April 4th, with content being added throughout the Spring. For more details, fans can watch the official trailer and view the Title Update official roadmap for Monster Hunter Wilds below.

RELATED: Monster Hunter Wilds Fans Upset After Capcom Removes a Great Feature

The first batch of new content takes the form of two new monsters, Mizutsune and Zoh Shia. These will be available on April 4th if players have completed the story. Mizutsune requires players to be at Hunter Rank 21, while Tempered Mizutsune requires players to be at Hunter Rank 41. Players must speak with Kanya in the Scarlet Forest to begin this Hunt Mission once they reach the required rank.

Hunters at Hunter Rank 50 can take on Zoh Shia, which appears during the Wyvern’s Wakening in the Ruins of Wyveria. Additionally, being at Hunter Rank 50 unlocks the Arch-tempered Rey Dau Event Quest which offers a new Rey Dau Gamma armor set as a forge reward.

Equally as exciting as new monsters to hunt is the Grand Hub, a massive space for players to gather, try out Barrel Bowling, and engage in other activities with players. Throughout Monster Hunter Wilds’ seasons, players can enjoy various festivals, starting with the Festival of Accord: Blossomdance, which begins on April 23rd and runs through May 7th. New celebrations will be added periodically.

Other hunts and features will be released after April 4th in Monster Hunter Wilds, including a Capcom-inspired collab at the end of May. Capcom even teased the announcement of additional monsters and Seasonal Events to come in Title Update 2, which is currently planned for the Summer.

Monster Hunter Wilds has been one of the largest launches for the series and Capcom and has met with high praise and critical acclaim. With this and future updates, Capcom ensures there will be content for players to enjoy throughout the game’s lifespan.

Finishing the story is likely required for most content going forward, but thankfully this isn’t a long task in Monster Hunter Wilds. Players are encouraged to work together to speed this up and make the game more enjoyable. So don’t Hunt alone, send out a flare and gather your friends for engaging hunts and get ready for Monster Hunter Wilds’ Title Update 1.

The post Monster Hunter Wilds Roadmap & Release Date Shared for First Title Update appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Nintendo Switch 2 will be officially unveiled during a special Nintendo Direct presentation next week. Since January, Nintendo has kept a tight-lip on any details related to the new platform, but it seems some leaks are starting to take place. According to a report from Insider Gaming, Nintendo Switch 2 will launch sometime in June. That’s not too surprising, as fans have speculated for months that a launch might happen in May or June, since special hands-on experiences will be taking place throughout the month of April. The bigger part of the report reveals Nintendo’s software strategy throughout 2025.

According to sources Insider Gaming spoke to at this year’s Game Developers Conference, Nintendo is planning a “three-phase strategy” for software. The first phase is the system launch, and the line-up will consist “primarily” of first-party games. In the past, Nintendo has focused on one major first-party game at launch, typically accompanied by a smaller game that takes advantage of the system’s hardware; in the case of Switch, the system launched alongside The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 1-2-Switch, as well as the digital exclusive Snipperclips. However, there were some third-party games, including Super Bomberman R and Just Dance 2017.

The use of “primarily” seems to imply that we’ll see some third-party games during Nintendo Switch 2’s launch, just not on a major level. Apparently, bigger third-party games are part of the second planned phase. Insider Gaming notes that many third-party developers are waiting on dev kits for the system, and expect to have them in-hand in June. The plan is to have bigger third-party games during that window. This is potentially when we can expect to see rumored games that have skipped releasing on Switch, such as Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Final Fantasy VII Remake. However, this is just speculation.

The third and final phase of 2025 is the holiday window. No details have been revealed, but we can likely expect to see some kind of big exclusive in this time frame. In the launch year for the original Switch, this is when Nintendo dropped Super Mario Odyssey. There hasn’t been a full 3D Mario game since, and fans have speculated for months that Switch 2 will launch with a new Mario Kart, with a 3D Mario arriving at the end of the year. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe did not launch alongside the original Switch, but it did release just a few weeks later.

RELATED: Bizarre Nintendo Direct Rumor Claims a Presentation Is Happening This Week

At this time, readers should take all of this with a grain of salt. However, it does seem to line up with Pocketpair’s recent comments at GDC; the game’s community manager told IGN that he was trying to find out specs for the new system, but was unable to get any details. That would make sense if dev kits aren’t being sent out for a few more months. With the April 2nd Nintendo Direct just over a week away, we should know a lot more about what to expect in the very near future.

What games are you expecting to see at launch for Nintendo Switch 2? How do you feel about this strategy from Nintendo? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

The post Nintendo Switch 2 Report Reveals Launch Month and Software Release Plan appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Fortnite has announced a major collaboration with The Walking Dead, and it will bring one of the biggest characters in the franchise to the game. Following previous additions like Rick Grimes, it was revealed this morning that Negan will be added on April 4th. The announcement was part of a much bigger promotion connected to the universe of The Walking Dead. Starting today, players will be able to create their own islands in Fortnite Creative using content and assets based on the brand. Players will be able to find special “The Walking Dead Universe” templates, and use them to build unique experiences.

The templates will give players various options to choose from, including Walker NPCs. As in the comic and AMC series, Walkers will be slow and shambling, but particularly dangerous in hordes. Players that find themselves bitten by a Walker will slowly lose health until their demise. Starting on April 8th, there will be an option to add Negan as an NPC, as well. Players can also fill their creations with other iconic elements from The Walking Dead, including weapons like Negan’s bat Lucille. The prison is one of the most iconic locations from The Walking Dead, and it’s also being represented in a big way through Fortnite Creative options. There will even be a shader tool that gives creations a black and white color to match the comic series! A trailer for the collaboration can be found below.

While Fortnite players can start building islands today using content from The Walking Dead, these options cannot be published in the creator portal until May 16th. That should give players some nice lead time to come up with unique concepts. In a press release, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman talked about the collaboration with Epic Games, while sharing his excitement about seeing what players come up with through Fortnite Creative.

“This collaboration with Fortnite is an incredible opportunity to expand The Walking Dead in ways we’ve never imagined. Whether it’s Lucille smashing through hordes or the eerie presence of Walkers, I can’t wait to see where the Fortnite community’s creativity takes us,” said Kirkman.

RELATED: Fortnite Leak Reveals Next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Skins

Once players are able to start sharing their creations, it’s going to be interesting to see what experiences they come up with. The Walking Dead IP seems like a really interesting option for Fortnite Creative, and it looks like Epic Games has come up with several tools that make sense for the brand. Of course, those that prefer Walking Dead skins in the traditional Fortnite game will soon have one of the franchise’s most iconic characters to choose from. There are still some pretty notable character skins that have yet to appear, so hopefully Negan’s arrival means that we’ll see even more in the future.

Are you looking forward to any of this content in Fortnite? What skins based on The Walking Dead do you still want to see? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

The post Fortnite Is Adding Negan from The Walking Dead appeared first on ComicBook.com.

A new update for Helldivers 2 has been released today across PS5 and PC to close out March 2025. On a weekly basis, Helldivers 2 has continued to receive new patches that look to add content, balance gameplay, or provide fixes to existing problems. As for today’s new update to Helldivers 2, it happens to be a bit smaller than past patches, but it’s still an important one all the same.

Downloadable now, update version 1.002.201 for Helldivers 2 mainly looks to resolve various bugs that have been giving players trouble. Some of these bugs have been tied to specific weapons or stratagems, while others were simply causing Helldivers 2 to crash during strange instances. Other than this, developer Arrowhead Studios hasn’t done anything else with this patch, but it should still make the game much better than before.

To get a look at the full patch notes for this new Helldivers 2 update today, you can view them below.

Helldivers 2 Update 1.002.201 Patch Notes

Overview

• Crash fixes
• Weapon fixes
• Miscellaneous Fixes

Fixes

Crash Fixes, Hangs and Soft-locks:

• Fixed a crash that could occur when a large number of particles were displayed
• Fixed a rare crash when aiming scoped weapons
• Fixed some crashes when playing bot convoy missions
• Fixed a crash that could occur when receiving Microsoft Teams messages while playing the game

Weapons and Stratagems

• Fixed an issue where the weapon flashlights were flickering while using ADS
• Fixed an issue for energy based weapons not charging or overheating properly
• Fixed an issue with wrong drag setting on the GL-21 Grenade Launcher projectiles that made them lose velocity faster than they should have
• Fixed an issue where shrapnel from surface-hits was forced in a roughly south-west direction. Shrapnel should now properly fly out in a 180-ish arc in the direction of the surface hit

LAS-58 Talon

• Fixed an visual issue when reloading in ADS
• Fixed an issue for not being able to reload without overheating
• HUD fixes to properly show correct Ammo state
• Now properly resets the temperature to 0 when reloading
• Fixed a visual effect issue when holding down the fire button
• Removed a minor charging delay to firing projectiles

Some unintentional changes made their way onto the Liberator Concussive and the Breaker during the last patch. This is a revert of those changes.
AR-23C Liberator Concussive

• Starting magazine amount increased from 2 to 4
• Max spare amount of magazines increased from 5 to 6
• Ergonomic effect increased from 0 to -10

SG-225 Breaker

• Starting magazine amount decreased from 6 to 5
• Max spare amount of magazines decreased from 10 to 7

Social & Multiplayer Fixes

• Resolved an issue where the Account ID was not visible in the Options tab

Miscellaneous Fixes

• Fixed an issue for the gas weapons, throwables and stratagems inverting the movement input for the Helldiver
• The Jarndiver override for the hoverpacks has been turned off effective today. This is reserved for General Brasch and other Super 10 Star Generals(Fixed a bug with the draw and kick emotes that allowed players to stay floating in the air)

The post New Helldivers 2 Update Released for PS5 and PC, View the Patch Notes Here appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Since releasing Civilization 7, Firaxis Games continues to take player feedback into account with each new update. That means that, even with middling reviews at launch, the game just keeps getting better. Today, Civilization 7 update 1.1.1 arrives, with a blend of brand-new content and additional improvements. The latest patch for Civ 7 is available on all platforms except for Nintendo Switch, which will get this new update at a later date. Like prior Civ 7 updates, this patch adds some polish to the game’s UI, but sees a few new features introduced as well.

Update 1.1.1 for Civilization 7 introduces a few exciting new features. First up, Firaxis is speeding things up with the new Quick Move setting, which lets players disable movement animations for Units in the in-game settings. In addition, a new Standard start position has been added to maps, bringing gameplay more in line with Civ 6. If players prefer the existing start position introduced in Civ 7, they can turn it back on by selecting the “Balanced” start position in Advanced Options. Another long-requested addition from players was a notification when districts are being attacked, and today’s patch adds this feature, as well.

In addition to free content updates and fixes, this update also adds some new content for the paid Crossroads of the World DLC. This includes a new leader, Simón Bolívar, and two new Exploration Age civilizations, Bulgaria and Nepal. These updates are only available to gamers who’ve purchased the Crossroads of the World Collection DLC, which costs $29.99.

Civilization 7 Patch Notes for Update 1.1.1

For a full look at everything new in today’s update for Civ 7, check out the full patch notes as shared by Firaxis Games below:

New Features

• Modern Age Pacing and Balance
  • We’ve made a number of changes to help the Modern Age last a bit longer so that players have more space to enjoy all the unique gameplay in that Age.
  • Eliminating a player no longer adds Age Progress in Modern, and the amount of Age Progress added in Exploration has been halved so that Domination Victories are easier to achieve now.
  • Modern Techs and Civic costs have been increased by roughly 25% overall, more heavily weighted on nodes deeper in the trees.
  • We’ve made a number of changes around Railroad Tycoon gameplay:
    • Factory Cost increased from 600 to 1400.
    • Port Cost increased from 550 to 1200.
    • Rail Station Cost increased from 650 to 1200.
    • Coal Resource changed from 100% Production bonus towards Rail Stations to 10% Production bonus towards Rail Stations and Ports (the existing 100% bonus was not functioning as intended).
    • Oil Resource now also gives a 10% Production bonus towards Factories.
  • Your Military Advisor will now warn you if you don’t have enough Commanders to retain all of your Units when an Age is ending.
  • Map Generation has been improved and players can now choose between two Start Position options (Standard and Balanced) in Advanced Setup.

Leaders & Civs

• Leaders
  • Ashoka, World Conqueror:
    • Devaraja Unique Ability combat bonus changed from “+10 against Fortified Districts during Celebrations” to “+5 against Fortified Districts during Celebrations.”
  • Confucius:
    • Playing as Confucius now correctly unlocks the Qing in the Modern Age.
  • Lafayette:
    • +1 Combat Strength per Tradition slotted is no longer doubled in Distant Lands.
    • Changed “+2 Culture and Happiness per Age in Settlements, doubled in Distant Lands” to “+1 Culture and Happiness per Age in Settlements, doubled in Distant Lands.”
• Civs
  • Buganda:
    • Buganda’s Nyanza Civic now applies to full-hex buildings, e.g. Aerodrome.
  • [Crossroads of the World DLC*] Carthage:
    • The bonus Combat Strength for Carthage’s Numidian Cavalry now only gains +1 per unique City resource slotted in the Capital.
  • Hawai’i:
    • Ahupua’a Tradition changed from “+4 Culture on Food Buildings” to “+4 Food on Culture Buildings.”
    • Ho’okupu Tradition changed from “+2 Culture on Marine terrain” to “+1 Culture on Marine terrain.”
    • He’e Nalu Civic Mastery changed from “+1 Culture on Marine terrain in Settlements following your Religion” to “+1 Happiness on Marine terrain in Towns following your Religion, doubled for Cities.”
  • [Crossroads of the World DLC*] Great Britain:
    • No Eternal Allies Tradition changed from “+5% Gold in Towns, but -5% Gold in the Capital for every Alliance” to “+10% Food and Gold in Towns, but -5% Gold in the Capital for every Alliance.”
  • Majapahit:
    • Subak Tradition changed from “+1 Culture and Production on Marine Terrain” to “+1 Culture and Production on Marine Terrain in Cities.”
    • Gamelan Civic changed from “+4 Culture on Quarters” to “+2 Culture on Quarters.”
    • Nusantara Civic changed from “Culture Buildings receive a +1 Culture adjacency with Coast” to “Culture Buildings receive a +1 Happiness adjacency with Coast.”
  • Maya:
    • Uwaybil K’uh Quarter Production gained changed from 15% to 5% of the Technology researched.
    • K’uh Nah changed from +4 Science to +3 Science.
    • The Mundo Perdido Wonder now unlocks earlier in the Civics tree from Calendar Round.
  • Meiji Japan:
    • The Goishhin Unique Ability now correctly applies the Science bonus when overbuilding.
    • Kōkūtai Tradition now correctly applies to all Aircraft Units.
  • Mississippian:
    • The Mississippian Tradition, Shell-Tempered Pottery, now applies correctly outside of the Antiquity Age.
  • Mongolia:
    • Baghatur Tradition changed from “+5 Combat Strength for Cavalry Units” to “+3 Combat Strength for Cavalry Units.”
  • Rome:
    • Legion Unit changed from “+2 Combat Strength for every Tradition in the Government” to “+1 Combat Strength for every Tradition in the Government.”
    • Latinitas Tradition changed from “+10% Food, Gold and Culture in Towns with a Specialization” to “+5% Food, Gold and Culture in Towns without a Growing Town Focus.”
  • Russia:
    • General Moroz Tradition changed from “+5 Combat Strength for Units in Tundra” to “+3 Combat Strength for Units in Tundra.”
  • Songhai:
    • The Hi-Koi Civic no longer grants a bonus to Units that are not on a Navigable River.

Gameplay

• AI
  • Improved AI scouting and Settlement behavior.  
  • AI Commanders will now correctly gain bonus XP based on difficulty:
    • Scribe: -20%
    • Governor: 0%
    • Viceroy: 40%
    • Sovereign: 60%
    • Immortal: 80%
    • Deity: 100%
  • AI now makes better Commander promotion choices, prioritizing bonuses like increased Combat Strength.
• Economy
  • Towns with a Trade Outpost Focus now grant the +5 Trade range to all of your other Settlements and not just from themselves.
    • Developer Note: This change makes it easier to build roads to connect your Towns to your Cities with Merchants if you have a few Trade Outposts.
  • Sawmills now properly grant Production to Camps.
  • Grocers no longer grant Food bonuses on Mines and Woodcutters
  • Addressed a reported issue where Ironworks was not granting Production bonuses on Mines and Woodcutters. Added a +1 Production bonus on Mountains.
  • Repairs can no longer be purchased without having enough Gold.
  • Players now correctly receive discounted prices when purchasing Buildings that have been discounted.
  • Purchases can no longer be made in a Town with Unrest.
  • Resolved an issue where the Fish Resource was decreasing the amount of Food needed for a Settlement’s next Growth Event to negative.
  • The Production queue properly updates when multiple Wonders are in the queue and another civilization completes a Wonder first.
  • Walls granted by the Byrsa Wonder are now properly granted on all eligible tiles.
• Diplomacy
  • The Sabotage Space Program Espionage Action now completes as intended.
• Crises
  • Revolutions Crisis now applies the correct amount of Unhappiness after players choose a new revolutionary Government.
• Military
  • Scorched Earth Policy changed from “+5 Combat Strength for all Units when attacking” to “+3 Combat Strength for all Units when attacking.”
  • Purabhettarah Units now correctly gain +5 Combat Strength vs. Fortified Districts.
  • Scout Units no longer stack the +1 Sight Range bonus after unpacking from a Commander with the Initiative promotion. 
• Natural Wonders
  • Torres del Paine changed from “Units that move adjacent to Torres Del Paine ignore Rough Terrain” to “+1 Food and Production on Tundra terrain in this Settlement.”
  • Increased the spawn rate of the Valley of Flowers.
• Independent Powers
  • Naval Units can no longer Disperse Independent Villages while a Unit is defending the Village.
  • Emporium and Monastery Unique Improvements now stack Yields correctly when multiple are built in the same City.
• Civilopedia
  • Added and updated several entries.
• Addressed Issues:
  • Resolved a reported issue that could occur when exiting to the main menu too quickly while creating a new game.

UI

• Notifications
  • Added new “District Under Attack” notification.
  • Players are now correctly notified when a Packed Commander was attacked.
  • Notifications now properly play their animations at the start of a new turn.
  • Increased the speed at which notifications appear during gameplay.
  • Added additional Watch-out / Advisor notifications to help with making Treasure Fleets. New Watch-outs will appear for when you’re missing shipbuilding tech or a Fishing Quay.
• Text Changes
  • Resolved various reported text and formatting issues.
  • Several instances of missing text have been addressed.
• Alignment & Spacing
  • Improved the alignment and ordering of tutorial pop-ups. 
  • Improved the alignment for the Resume and Restart buttons in the Pause menu.
  • Commander Level text is now centered when reaching a double-digit Promotion level during gameplay.
  • Improved the spacing between the Unit icon and flag and the number representing a Commander’s level.
  • The Quit button in the main menu no longer overlaps the images in the carousel.
• Tooltips
  • Added Specialist info to plot tooltips.
  • Added Neutral Relationship icon and improved Relationship tooltip readability.
  • Resource type is now displayed with both icons and tooltips, both in map and in the Resource screen.
• Controller-Specific
  • Espionage report pop-up now properly appears when attempting to open it via controller during gameplay.
  • Controllers now respond correctly after opening the Progress Menu in the ‘Choose Civilization’ Menu.
  • Trade lens will now change back to ‘None’ when the user closes the Trade lens during gameplay when using a controller.
  • Controller no longer loses focus on the City-State Bonus menu while a Unit is selected.
  • Players using a controller can now properly select Government choices when opening the “Choose a Government” screen via the Turn Advancer, even if a Unit is selected.
• General
  • Settlements and Commander names can now be customized.
  • Added a Trade Lens that displays Trade Route information without requiring a Merchant Unit to be selected.
  • Now able to send Merchants to Settlements directly from the Trade Route panel.
  • The Unit Action tray is expanded by default to show all available Unit Actions.
  • Improved visibility on Unit and District health bars, and on Unit flags.
  • Added Crisis indicators to Age Progress UI to indicate activation/increase points.
  • Hide “turns until growth” UI when a Town has a focus (and thus will not be growing).
  • Pause menu is now expanded and reorganized to better show all options.
  • Addressed a reported issue where the Production panel would not refresh properly when purchasing in a Settlement.
  • Updated the description for the Change Capital Legacy card to more accurately reflect the functionality.
  • The Government selection screen now appears correctly on ultrawide monitors.
  • Unit portraits appear correctly after opening and closing the Diplomacy menu.
  • Settlement Yields now correctly update in the Building Placement menu instead of displaying the previously selected Settlement’s Yields.
  • Army Commander’s Progress Bar now updates properly in the Unit Panel when gaining experience.
  • The Wondrous banner now appears properly.
  • The Privacy Policy page now appears properly.
  • Economic Advisor Portrait now appears correctly in the Antiquity Age.
  • Learn More prompt now functions correctly when attempting to select it for unowned civs.
  • Addressed a reported issue where Buildings, Wonders, and Improvements did not display in the Production menu, preventing the player from placing anything other than Units in their Settlements.
  • The Town Unrest slider can no longer go negative.
  • Several fixes for UI and HUD elements not appearing as intended.
  • Added unique icons for various Great Works.
  • The War Weariness score will no longer be falsely attributed to a different leader during a First Meet.
  • Addressed a reported issue where the Unit panel would be missing when the player selects and closes the Unit panel multiple times.
  • Addressed a reported issue where the X button could lose functionality when transitioning to the next Age.
  • The Theology Civic now correctly appears in the Choose Civic list after the player founds a religion.
  • The Input Icon now appears correctly during the Legacy Progress tutorial.
  • Addressed a reported issue where the remaining turns displayed in the “Town is in Unrest” menu were not consistent with the actual number of turns remaining.
  • The Civiolopedia entry for Prussia’s Unique Infrastructure “Staatseisenbahn” now displays correctly.
  • Xerxes banner art has been updated.
  • Applied more historically accurate icons to Han’s Shi Dafu and Ming’s Mandarin.
  • The Commander Promotion menu now displays correctly in windowed mode.

Narrative

• The following events can now be triggered:
  • Legacy of the Ancients
  • Sickness in the Air
  • The Song of the Scholar
  • Central Autocracy
  • Training Day
• Children of the Sky: Changed the completion requirement text to “schoolhouse” instead of “school.”
• Lessons of the Land: Event now starts correctly if Catherine played as Greece in the Antiquity Age.
• Enduring Love: Reward tooltip now properly displays after hovering over the option button.
• The Army’s Soul: The first option of the event can now be completed when playing as Spain.
• The Sting of Iron: Reward tooltips now properly display when hovering over the option buttons.
• Besiege and Conquer: The first option reward tooltip now displays the correct reward information.
• A Mass for the Masses: Removed redundant Happiness icon in the first option.
• Opening Night: Chariots are now properly granted the Combat bonus after selecting the “Hold a staged battle” event option.
• The Moving Lake: Event will now only trigger if a Unit dies in a storm on a desert tile.
• Neither Friend Nor Foe: Event will now correctly trigger when Relationship with another civ rises to Neutral.
• Military Report: Production bonus reward is now only granted to Howitzer Units instead of all Units.
• The Bane of Tanks: AT Guns are now properly granted the Combat Strength bonus reward for the second option.
• Nature of Nature: The event will now trigger correctly after building a Museum and an Opera House.
• A Shared World: Event now rewards the correct amount of Yield.
• I am Fond of Dogs / I am Fond of Pigs / I am Fond of Cows: Events can now no longer be triggered simultaneously.
• Will of Ares: Event rewards will be granted correctly.
• The Rains Come: Event rewards will be granted correctly.
• Discovery Event Yield cost text now updated to state percentage of costs.
• Corrected historical inaccuracies in the Hermitage entry of the Civilopedia.
• Clarified the text for Steps 1 and 2 of the Enlightenment Legacy Path.

Miscellaneous 

• The Continue button now loads manual saves that are more recent than the last autosave.
• Improved crane animations on Ports and Quarries.
• Added more detail in Vegetated Tundra tiles.
• Addressed a reported issue when the player moved the camera with both a controller and keyboard at the same time.
• Fixes made to terrain seams on AMD GPUs.
• Screen mode should now properly update when players change from Windowed to Fullscreen while using Alt+Enter or the F11 key.
• Addressed a reported issue where players could join a multiplayer game mid-countdown when using a join code.
• Addressed a reported issue where game settings were sometimes not saved, and Options did not revert, when selecting “Cancel Changes.”

Console

• PlayStation
  • Improved the alignment of the Options button in the UI to avoid overlapping other UI elements.
  • The tooltip of each civilization will now correctly display next to the civ icon on the “Choose Age & Civilization” tab.
  • Improved controller input flows and prompts for the UI when using a controller.
  • An in-game notification now informs the player that a Quick Save was created.
  • Resolved a visual issue with Ashoka, World Renouncer’s model in the Main Menu.
• Switch
  • Improved the translations on several pieces of localized text.
• MacOS
  • Unit routes can now be placed quickly using right-click functions.
• Linux, MacOS
  • Fixed cursor issues on MacOS and Linux.
• Steam, Steam Deck
  • Fixed several input flows and prompts for the UI when using a controller.

The post Civ 7 Update 1.1.1 Patch Notes Reveal Latest Improvements & New Content appeared first on ComicBook.com.

PlayStation and Guerrilla Games’ Killzone franchise was once so popular, it outranked the Halo series in the minds of many first-person shooter fans. The main series comprised three games, with a few spinoffs for platforms like the PSP and PS Vita. However, it’s been several years since the PlayStation 4 series entry Killzone: Shadow Fall was released in 2013, and the game fell short of expectations. This, along with Guerrilla Games’ focus on the Horizon franchise, led to rumors that the Killzone series was “dead.” However, recent comments from the game’s composer suggest that might not be entirely true.

Though the franchise hasn’t seen a new entry in over ten years, many Killzone fans remain hopeful for the future of the series. The online servers for Killzone: Shadow Fall shut down back in 2022, though gamers can still revisit the single-player offline versions of the game. Gamers can also revisit earlier Killzone games via streaming with PlayStation Plus, but for many fans, that’s not enough. Gamers would love to see a remaster make the original Killzone games they know and love more accessible. And recently, Killzone composer Joris de Man told VideoGamer he’d love to see it happen.

The Killzone subreddit remains fairly active to this day, with fans sharing details of replaying the games or even experiencing them for the first time. And fairly often, posts like the one above pop up, with fans dreaming about what they’d like to see in a reboot. Though Killzone remasters are far from official, the recent comments from the game composer suggest it hasn’t been as fully abandoned as previously believed.

Guerrilla Games Could Remaster Killzone… Some Day

In his comments to VideoGamer, Joris de Man noted that he’d like to see a remaster of the game, and that he believes Killzone reboots “would be successful”. That said, he did also note he’s not sure “it if will ever happen” but hopes it will. Though de Man did work with Guerrilla on the music and sound design for the Killzone series, he is not formally a part of the developer studio. That means his comments might carry some insight from his work with the team but are unfortunately not anything official.

That said, Guerrilla did recently release a remastered version of Horizon Zero Dawn, another of their popular franchises. And with the LEGO Horizon Adventures spinoff released late last year, it’s certainly time for Guerrilla Games to reveal its next major project. Though the studio has previously made comments that they “needed to refresh the palette” and were, back in October 2024, feeling “done with” the series, those comments did not outright exclude ever returning to the Killzone IP. Instead, it’s possible the studio will be ready to revisit the series after taking time to work on other projects, which would allow them to return to Killzone with a fresh perspective on what a remaster would look like.

RELATED: Horizon Zero Dawn’s Ashly Burch Speaks Out on AI Aloy

As for brand new entries in the series, de Man didn’t feel optimistic that the studio would be likely to try it. He suggests that what people want in games may have changed a bit too much in the last decade to make a brand-new Killzone entry succeed. However, first-person shooters are still quite popular with gamers, and there’s clearly an interest in more Killzone content, even if it’s just a remaster. At any rate, it looks like at least some people involved with the project would be interested in revisiting it. Whether or not Guerrilla Games as a developer agrees is still up for debate.

Would you be excited to see a Killzone remaster from Guerrilla Games and/or Sony? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Iconic PlayStation Franchise Could Get a Remaster (But New Games Are Unlikely) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The big-screen comeback of Street Fighter has hit a major speedbump, with the project reportedly losing its release window in Sony Pictures’ upcoming slate. Under development with Sony and Legendary Pictures and originally set to debut in theaters on March 20th, 2026, Variety reports that the Street Fighter movie has been removed from Sony’s release calendar. At present, little other info is available regarding the Street Fighter project, including any prospective production start date or timeframe to when its release might be rescheduled.

Barely a month before the project’s delay, Kitao Sakurai was announced as director, while game developer Capcom is set to co-produce the film with Legendary Pictures. Given the suddenness of the project’s delay, it is unclear whether Sakurai remains attached to Street Fighter, or if there had been any movement on casting the project. However, the delay unfortunately continues an extended string of bad luck the Street Fighter franchise has had in achieving big-screen success.

1994’s Jean-Claude Van Damme-led Street Fighter was the first live-action adaptation of the popular fighting game series, and despite its box office success, the movie was widely panned for its campy, silly tone and deviations from the games. However, Raul Julia’s over-the-top performance as M. Bison was widely praised, with Julia even earning a posthumous Saturn Awards nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Since then, Street Fighter has gone on to become something of a cult classic for its cartoonish tone, with Capcom reportedly still earning significant revenue the Street Fighter movie.

RELATED: Street Fighter 6 Reveals Teaser Trailer for Terry Bogard

2009’s Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li was a far more disastrous reboot attempt, earning just $12.8 million worldwide on a $50 million with none of the cult fandom of its 1994 predecessor. Street Fighter finally achieved live-action success with the 2014 web-series/movie Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist, directed by Joey Ansah with Mike Moh and Christian Howard respectively portraying Ryu and Ken, along with Ansah playing Akuma. Assassin’s Fist subsequently spawned a 2016 follow-up series, Street Fighter: Resurrection, with plans for a much larger series titled Street Fighter: World Warrior (per Ansah in an interview with Scott Adkins, David Ayer was even attached to direct the pilot episode.) However, these plans never got off the ground.

Street Fighter has a rather unique history as a video game franchise, with its 1987 inaugural entry earning negligible attention, only for its 1991 follow-up Street Fighter II to become one of the biggest video game hits of all time and kickstart the Street Fighter franchise. This also made Street Fighter II the true foundation of the entire franchise, with the animated film Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie adapting the game’s story (hence its title), and the 1994 Street Fighter movie explicitly identifying Street Fighter II as its source material in the opening credits.

With the popularity of recent video game movie hits like the Sonic The Hedgehog movies along with the rebooted Mortal Kombat franchise releasing its second movie later this year, it is no doubt both disappointing and frustrating for many gamers that Street Fighter has had such difficulty being adapted. With news of the project’s delay, the Street Fighter movie’s status is now seemingly up in the air. Between that development and Assassin’s Fist and Resurrection standing as the only major successes Street Fighter has found in live-action, reviving Ansah, Howard, and Moh’s plans for Street Fighter: World Warrior might end up being the strongest prospect the Street Fighter franchise has for a thriving cinematic future.

The post Street Fighter Movie Gets a Major Update (And Fans Will Be Disappointed) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Sony has pushed out a new update for the PlayStation 5 system today targeting various console settings. It is a relatively small update and does not bring any major changes, but it does provide some new functions and quality-of-life features fans have been asking for. Specifically, the update affects the Activity settings, adds new emojis, and expands the options with Parental Control settings. And, of course, PS5 players can expect more stability and performance improvements, among other features. The update is available for PS5 today and won’t take long to download. Depending on your console’s settings, the download may begin automatically in the background.

RELATED: PS Plus Users Have Less Than a Month to Play One of 2024’s Best Games for Free

This PlayStation 5 update is the latest in many that Sony releases to optimize the console, its settings and features, and games. These updates come with detailed patch notes containing all the changes and additions. Here are the PlayStation Version 25.02-11.00.00 update patch notes.

Version: 25.02-11.00.00

• We’ve made it simpler to view details about activities.
  • Activity details are now fully displayed on cards.
  • Potential spoilers will still be hidden.
• Unicode 16.0 emojis are now supported. You can use them in your messages.
• When you set the parental controls’ restriction level to Late Teens or Older, Communication and User-Generated Content will now default to Restrict. If you have previously set the level to Late Teens or Older, your previous settings will not be affected and it will be shown as Customize.
• We’ve improved system software performance and stability.
• We’ve improved the messages and usability on some screens.

The change to the Activity settings is a welcome one, especially with so many story-heavy games released on PlayStation 5. Previous activity notifications from friends or games played occasionally showed off spoilers. This was sometimes screenshots from the game or Trophies normally hidden until completion. The other details in this update are nice, but fixing this issue with activity cards will solve a lot of player complaints.

The post PS5 Console Update Released Today With These Changes appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Over the last year, Xbox has made a big push into multiplatform gaming. PlayStation users have been the biggest beneficiaries when it comes to this change in strategy, as PS5 has received previously exclusive games like Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves, while next month will also see the arrivals of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Forza Horizon 5. Nintendo Switch has also gotten some games, with Grounded and Pentiment arriving on the platform. According to The Verge, 2025 will see Xbox continue this strategy, not only on PS5, but also on Nintendo Switch 2.

“Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s release on PS5 is part of a broader effort from Microsoft to bring more Xbox games to rival platforms. Microsoft first started launching previous Xbox-exclusive titles like Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, and Grounded on PS5 last year, and 2025 will include a lot more titles appearing on both PS5 and Nintendo’s Switch 2,” writes The Verge’s Tom Warren.

The outlet does not offer any hints about plans to come, but Warren notes in that same article that he broke news about Indiana Jones coming to PS5 prior to the announcement from Xbox and Bethesda, so it’s possible he has some insider knowledge in this regard, as well. Warren’s inclusion of Nintendo Switch 2 is particularly notable, as Xbox has announced no plans for the platform, as of this writing. It’s likely that will change in the very near future though, as Nintendo is set to fully pull back the curtain on the platform on April 2nd. It’s possible the jump in hardware could give Xbox an opportunity to bring over several of the same games that have recently made their way to PS5.

It will be interesting to see what 2025 brings for the Xbox brand. While fans of the company’s consoles have not been happy seeing Xbox exclusives ported to other platforms, Microsoft clearly sees the financial benefit; these games seem to be selling quite well, which is helping to offset high development costs. There are still some high-profile Xbox franchises that have not made the jump to other platforms, most notably Halo and Gears of War. Xbox has previously indicated that there are no “red lines” in terms of games it won’t bring to other platforms, so it seems like it’s just a matter of time before it happens.

RELATED: Xbox Wants More Movies and TV Shows After Learning from Halo and Fallout

However you feel about Microsoft’s current strategy, the company is all in on multiplatform gaming, for the time being. While Xbox games will continue to arrive on PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2, there is one true exclusive that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere; there are currently no plans for Xbox Game Pass to arrive on competing hardware platforms.

Are there any Xbox games you want to see go multiplatform? Do you think this strategy will work out for Microsoft in the long-term? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

[H/T: Nintendo Life]

The post Xbox Will Have “a Lot More” Multiplatform Games in 2025 appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Over the years, the Lord of the Rings trilogy has inspired its fair share of video game spinoffs. Some have been phenomenal, while others… well, let’s just say that Gollum game should’ve probably stayed in its cave. So, cozy gamers and LOTR fans alike have had their eyes on Tales of the Shire, an upcoming Hobbit life sim from Weta Workshop. It’s already been delayed a few times, but the devs are clearly hard at work on the game. Now, we have even more details about what gameplay will look like in Tales of the Shire, including those Hobbit feasts.

From previous trailers and sneak peeks, gamers got some insight into what Tales of the Shire will look like. As its name suggests, the game takes place in the Shire, and players step into the shoes – er, hairy feet – of their own Hobbit avatar. Players will help build up the reputation of their town by building community, hosting feasts, and generally engaging in daily Hobbit life. The cozy twist on the Lord of the Rings franchise is a new spin, and the game appears to be entirely without combat, offering a different, more relaxed sort of adventure.

In a recent interview with the PlayStation blog team, the Tales of the Shire creative director, Stephen Lambert, shared some more insight into what we can expect when the game finally arrives. As of now, it’s looking like that July 29th release date will be the one that sticks, so gamers have a few more months to look forward to the cozy Lord of the Rings game before it arrives. For those eager to learn more about what the game will actually entail, these new details shed some light on the core gameplay loop, features, and more.

Community is Central to Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game

As we’ve seen in previous looks at Tales of the Shire, Lambert reiterates that community-building activities will be a core part of the gameplay loop. The four main Hobbit life activities will be cooking, gardening, fishing, and “doing peaceful activities.” Three of those are essential staples for the cozy gaming genre, but it will be interesting to see what sorts of activities fall under that “peaceful” umbrella. Clearly, exploration is part of this, as Lambert notes that Hobbits will explore near the water to discover beautiful spaces to rest as well as “secret moments.”

It looks like our fellow Hobbit NPCs will have their own stories to tell as well. Bywater will feel like a real community as you get to know fellow Hobbits, and relationship-building is an essential part of gameplay. Fans of games like Fields of Mistria know what a difference well-rounded NPCs can make. Getting to know other community members in the game will help you learn more about their individual Hobbit tales and will progress the story of the game as well.

RELATED: Preorders Are Live for Highly-Anticipated Stardew Valley Competitor

One way to progress relationships will be hosting Hobbit feasts, and cooking looks like it will be a huge part of the game. Players will need to discover new recipes, gather ingredients by foraging, fishing, gardening, or shopping, and then cook the food. We’ve seen some cooking animations in previews, but Lambert confirmed that stirring, adding certain amounts of ingredients, and seasoning will all play a role in the final product. In other words, this cooking mechanic isn’t just pressing a button and making it happen, but looks to be a more involved process to create the ideal dish to keep Hobbit guests happy and improve your relationships.

Another big part of Tales of the Shire gameplay will be decorating your very own Hobbit hole. For gamers who enjoy this cozy creativity angle, it’s helpful to know that there’s a good bit of flexibility in this aspect of the game, letting you avoid the limitations of a snap-to-grid system for more creative options. In all, it sounds like Weta Workshop is using that extra time in the oven to ensure that the gameplay makes Tales of the Shire a new cozy classic that will satisfy cozy gamers and Lord of the Rings fans alike.

Are you looking forward to this cozy spin on a Lord of the Rings video game? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Upcoming Cozy Lord of the Rings Game Reveals New Gameplay Details appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Are you starving to find out today’s Strands puzzle? We got you covered, as we have everything you’re looking for to solve March 25th’s Strands puzzle from The New York Times, including today’s answers, Spangram, and some hints, tips, and tricks to fancy up your puzzle-solving repertoire. As one of the newer titles from the site/app, Strands’ fun word search gameplay can sometimes give Connections and Wordle a run for their money. Today’s theme, “For Starters” is a touch self-explanatory, in the usual Strands way. So, without further ado, we’ve got what you need to get the theme and answers for today’s Strands.

As always, the main gameplay of Strands revolves around you finding words or phrases relating to the topic mentioned, all within the given letter grid. To figure out what the true meaning of the theme is, you‘ll need to find the Spangram, which will point towards the actual definition of the theme. Most likely, it will be a phrase or word, like comedians or Star Wars Jedi. Both before and after you find the Spangram, you can find words that relate to the overall theme, so, in the case of Star Wars Jedi, potential words would be names of Jedi in Star Wars like Yoda or Obi-Wan. 

For today, March 25th, the theme is on the easier side, which is nice after some tough ones last week. The theme for today’s Strands is “For Starters”. Used in arguments, the saying often comes when listing off points. However, the usage of Starters is something to note, as it’s the only word of note that can mean different things. There are seven words, including the Spangram in today’s Strands, If you want hints on what the Spangram is, we have provided one below:

Today’s Spangram is something/s to begin a nice dinner. 

If today’s Spangram in Strands is giving you some difficulty, it’s good to know that the word will always spans from one side to the other, hence the name. Always make sure to check the letters on the outer rims of the board and look for any weird spacing in between words should you get to those first. If you want to know what today’s Spangram in Strands is, it can be found down below:

The Spangram in today’s Strands puzzle is Appetizer.

As you can tell, another word for a starter is an appetizer, which you can buy at any restaurant as you decide your main dish or just to pick on. If you want to know all the words, which are all foods that are considered appetizers, in today’s Strands puzzle, they are as follows:

• Nachos
• Wings
• Fondue
• Appetizer
• Sliders
• Calamari
• Poppers

Did you get the correct answers? Did you get the theme of today’s Strands? Let us know in the comments below! For everything Strands, NYC Games, and gaming, keep it here at ComicBook.

The post New York Times Strands Answers for March 25th appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Feel like today’s Connections is throwing you for a loop? Not to worry, as we at ComicBook have everything you are looking for, from the correct answers, categories, and some hints and tips, for today, March 25th’s Connections from The New York Times. With its signature challenge and category-based gameplay, it’s no wonder the game rivals Strands and Wordle on the site/app. For today’s puzzle, just like yesterday, the categories can be difficult to figure out. Fortunately, we have all the correct answers, categories, and hints for future puzzle endeavors and such, for March 25th’s Connections.

You are given 16 different words in Connections and are asked to sort them into four secret categories. Choose four words or phrases that could be related and, if correct, it will group them into their common association, or connection, if you will. Each category has its own color, with Yellow being the easiest to solve, then Green, Blue, and the hardest, Purple. The categories can range from weather phenomena or pizza toppings to cocktail names or grammatically correct band names. You only get four chances to get it right and, if you run out, you lose your streak and the categories are revealed. 

Today’s Connections, like yesterday, have categories that are on the tougher side. Luckily, some of the words do help make finding other connections a bit easier, outside of a few noticeable renditions of one. The words in today’s Connections are as follows: Bale, Crystal, Panda, Mud, Teddy, Tuxedo, Able, Day, Abel, Cal, A Bell, Oreo, Abe, Crossword, Bela, and Dick.

If you don’t want to spoil the answers to each category but would like a hint, here is one for each of them: 

• Yellow: Some see the world like this
• Green: See words every which way
• Blue: Like Ike
• Purple: Translucent and plain

If you want to know the correct themes for today’s Connections, here are the categories:

• Yellow: Black-and-White Things
• Green: Anagrams
• Blue: U.S Presidential Nicknames
• Purple: Clear As _____

If you want to know the answers as to what words go into which categories, here are the answers to Connections for March 25th:

• Yellow: Crossword, Oreo, Panda, Tuxedo
• Green: Abel, Able, Bale, Bela
• Blue: Abe, Cal, Dick, Teddy
• Purple: A Bell, Crystal, Day, Mud

Did you get the correct answers? What was the hardest category today? Let us know in the comments below! For everything Connections, NYC Games, and gaming, keep it here at ComicBook.

The post New York Times Connections Answers for March 25th appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Wordle has been occupying The New York Times app for years now, and if you’re clicking on this article, it probably means that you are one of the millions who play the game daily. We are a judgment-free zone here, as many of us are regular players of the NYT games including Connections, Strands, and Spelling Bee. For those who joined us yesterday, we’ve witnessed another difficult word for the third day in a row. Thankfully, the puzzle for today, March 25th, isn’t going to stop your groove or your streak as much. As always, we will provide some useful tips, a few hints, and today’s solution throughout this article. If you’re ready, let’s get started.

In a nutshell, Wordle has been ongoing since 2021 on the NYT app and the hype hasn’t died down yet. The puzzle has players solve a five-letter word with only six opportunities to figure out the correct answer. The difficulty can vary day by day, keeping the game interesting without getting too stressful. When it comes to aid during the game, hints will be given via yellow and green blocks, indicating the correct placement and letter within the final word.

One of the ways that you can come up with a starter word is by thinking of a five-letter word that you’ve heard the most during the day. If you can’t think of one, pick an object in your surroundings that is made up of five letters. In my case, my starter word is ‘bless’ because it’s something that everyone has said to me any time I have a sneezing attack due to the endless supply of pollen outside. Based on my starter, we got two yellow and a single green block.

RELATED: Wordle Almost Had a Terrible Name

The word ‘bless’ has a green block with E and two yellow blocks with L and S. This does put us in a tight spot, considering the number of words with E in the middle of it. In this situation, it would be smart to put the S at the start of the word since it would help with whittling down the options. Seeing a vowel in the middle does indicate that the chances of seeing another one are unlikely due to double vowels being grammatically incorrect except for a few words. If you are struggling to figure out the word, we have the solution in the next paragraph for you.

The solution for The New York Times Wordle for March 25th is “Shelf.” A word with more consonants than vowels is trickier to solve, so no worries if you had trouble with this one. If you think about it, you can shelve this puzzle until tomorrow when a new Wordle releases. Continue rocking those streaks, players.

The post New York Times Wordle Tips and Answer for March 25th appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Since Steam dropped the Steam Deck OLED in 2023, this platform has truly leveled up to provide an exceptional gaming experience with an extended battery life, larger display, and faster WiFi. The Steam Deck brings all the advantages of tapping into the great reservoir of games on Steam, with the ability to play anywhere conveniently. While not every game is optimized for the Steam Deck, there are already a lot of native recommendations that are Steam Deck verified, or perfectly playable even if not fully optimized.

When considering playing with friends, the recommendations from the carousel of games on Steam Deck’s store will usually show the usual suspects, leaving the question of: What are some additional co-op games that are worth the download? To that end, check out this list of Steam Deck games that are perfect for co-op.

10. Elden Ring

Steam Deck: Verified

If you and up to two other friends are looking to sink 200+ hours into a beautiful, challenging, and narratively rich game, look no further than Elden Ring. Within the Soulslike genre of games, Elden Ring puts you directly into an epic mythological drama written by George R.R. Martin and developed into an extensive open-world RPG by FromSoftware.

As with many Soulslike games, the combat elements are intuitive for understanding but require dedication to truly become a master when facing challenging enemies and bosses. While Elden Ring runs wonderfully on Steam Deck, and is accessible for co-op, there are limitations. Some limitations include multiplayer only triggering through summoning friends into your world, non-hosts being unable to obtain rewards, non-hosts being unable to utilize checkpoints for character rests, and resources being more limited to non-hosts.

If the limitations sound daunting, keep your eyes peeled for Elden Ring: Nightreign, which is already gearing up to be more optimized for co-op and is releasing in May 2025.

Ale & Tale Tavern

Steam Deck: Playable

Ale & Tale Tavern is the perfect game to cozy up with on the couch to relax. In this first-person, tavern simulator, you can play with up to four friends in online co-op. The developer, Scienart Games, found the perfect balance of crafting and unlocking new recipes for running a tavern and brewing beverages. Mixed into the adventure is also the need to grow, hunt, fish, raise livestock, and trade for the ingredients that you’ll use to feed and quench the thirst of your many patrons.

Ale & Tale Tavern has open-world elements for exploration and offers many unique quests, with a unique sense of humor that sets it apart from other cozy games offering similar experiences. While the game isn’t Steam Deck verified, it certainly feels like it should, as it runs almost perfectly on the platform. Scienart is still actively supporting the game in post-release with new content and an update as of March 10th.

Northgard

Steam Deck: Playable

Within the realm of real-time strategy games, you won’t find a lot of options that are optimized, nor playable on the Steam Deck. A surprising gem that is separate from the rule is Northgard. In Northgard, you play as a Viking tribe that has settled on a new continent. In PvP multiplayer, you’ll compete to settle different regions, harvest and collect resources, and build armies to defend or conquer.

Events and harsh weather conditions occur periodically to scale the challenge for players, and several different victory conditions offer the chance for a unique play through with every new round. Given the game’s mechanics for expanding your tribe, the pacing is slower than other real-time strategy games like Age of Empires, which serves Steam Deck audiences well who are getting acquainted with the controls.

The Forest

Steam Deck: Verified

If you’ve never played an open-world, survival crafting game before, an introduction with The Forest is long overdue. After you arrive on an island after surviving a terrible plane crash, your son has been kidnapped, and you’ll need to prepare fast to survive against a society of mutant cannibals that inhabit the island. Collecting resources, building a camp, and crafting survival gear will keep you enthralled, but it’s the underlying and horrific mystery that will leave you hooked.

The Forest can be played with up to four players in a session via online co-op. The difficulty of the game scales depending on how much you craft and build up at your bases and how long you have survived on the island. Be wary of the night and dark caverns, as the game definitely has a strong survival-horror component that will leave your heart pounding.

Endnight Games released a sequel to The Forest, Son of the Forest, in 2024, which is a strong follow-up. However, the debut title offers a lot more craftable gear that feels more immersive to the trials of surviving on a mutant, cannibal island.

Grounded

Steam Deck: Verified

If Goonies and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids joined together and had a child that became a video game, you’d be looking at Grounded. This open-world, survival co-op was developed by Obsidian Entertainment – the minds behind games like The Outer Worlds, Fallout: New Vegas, and the recently released Avowed.

After shrinking to the size of an ant, you’ll be questing to restore yourself to your true size while uncovering how you ended up shrunk in the first place. The journey is arduous with face-offs against some of the backyard’s harshest villains – spiders, stinkbugs, ants, ladybugs, and more. Game sessions in Grounded are accessible for up to four players in this survival adventure.

Ark: Survival Evolved

Steam Deck: Verified

Dinosaurs, crafting, and guns – what else do you need? In Ark: Survival Evolved, you awaken, with only a loin cloth to your name, onto an island where dinosaurs are alive and thrive. Begin a journey that starts with prehistoric tools and work your way through to post-modern gear as you collect resources, tame and breed dinosaurs, and level up to learn engrams (crafting recipes).

Ark is an MMORPG where you can join public servers and form a tribe with the different players already within, or you can start your own tribe on your own server with your closest friends. If you start your own server in Ark, you’ll likely need to host a non-dedicated server, which will limit how far you and your friends can travel away from each other. However, the pacing is more manageable for new players when getting acquainted with the game’s mechanics.

Stardew Valley

Steam Deck: Verified

Stardew Valley set the standard for farming and life simulation games and is one of the most, if not the most, expansive games within the genre. In Stardew, you’ll inherit an old farm from your grandfather that is substantially in a state of disrepair. Upon arriving at your farm, you’ll join a community of charming townsfolk that you can build relationships with as you bring your farm, and vis-à-vis the town, into a better standing.

Stardew Valley is not limited to only farming and relationships. You’ll have a plethora of opportunities that keep you engaged between side quests, cave exploration, combat elements, seasonal festivals, and unlocking new recipes. Stardew is accessible for up to eight players per farm, and operates smoothly on the Steam Deck.

Don’t Starve Together

Steam Deck: Verified

If you are a fan of survival games, crafting, and open-world exploration, Don’t Starve Together is the perfect game that offers a robust level of challenge. Don’t Starve Together is aptly named as you’ll enter a vast world, need to set up a base, collect resources, farm, and prepare for the various seasonal threats and bosses that might leave you starving if you are ill-prepared.

Don’t Starve Together supports up to six players in either public or privately held games. You’ll work in a true PvE fashion to coordinate all the necessities to avoid starving, becoming insane, defeating enemies and bosses, and exploring biomes above and below ground. The replay factor is quite high, as each game offers a newly procedurally generated map that will require you to consider your planning every time you start over.

Baldur’s Gate 3

Steam Deck: Verified

Baldur’s Gate 3 took the gaming world by storm in 2023 and remains one of the highest-rated games of all-time. Larian Studios crafted a beautiful game within the Dungeons & Dragons universe that is overwhelmingly striking in its character narration, story elements, and turn-based combat mechanics. Whether you’re new to the series or are considering revisiting Baldur’s Gate 3, you’ll always be offered a rich experience as your choices will truly impact how the game unfolds.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is available for up to four players in a party for online co-op. If you are new to the party-based RPG games developed by Larian Studios, it is also worth the time to check out Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2.

Hazelight Studios

Steam Deck: Verified or Playable

Your first impression is right, Hazelight Studios is not a game, but realistically, this studio has turned out some of the best couch co-op/online co-op adventures since its debut in 2018 with A Way Out. Playing through the portfolio of games from Hazelight will surely leave you with hours of joy with friends, partners, and family.

More recently, Hazelight Studios has launched Split Fiction. As a follow-up title to It Takes Two, Split Fiction sold over 1 million copies in 48-hours and sits on Steam with a 98% overwhelmingly positive review rating. Meanwhile, It Takes Two has passed 20 million copies sold, while A Way Out has topped 10 million sold.

The success of each title lends to the same formula for most valuable impact: a great narrative and story element is built into each of these games, and the experience can only bloom into a core memory when you play each with someone else. It’s the shared experience that makes the moments in each of these games so memorable. The skill ceiling for each game is reasonable for new gamers and veterans alike. With most of these games being optimized for Steam Deck, Hazelight Studios’ games are well worth the time spent.

The post 10 Co-Op Games You Should Be Playing on Steam Deck appeared first on ComicBook.com.

A Minecraft Movie stars Jack Black and Jason Momoa have revealed their vastly different history with video games. The two leads of Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures’ long-awaited adaptation of the world’s best-selling video game discussed their gaming experience during an exclusive ComicBook interview. The upcoming adventure comedy follows four ordinary people transported through a mysterious portal into the blocky Minecraft “Overworld.” There, they encounter expert crafter Steve, played by Black, who guides them through this strange new reality as they embark on a quest to discover their unique qualities and find their way back home. Directed by Jared Hess after passing through several filmmakers, including Shawn Levy and Rob McElhenney, the film has been in development since 2014 and will finally hit theaters on April 4, 2025.

“It was over pandemic times. I played Red Dead Redemption Part Two, and I lived in it,” Black revealed during the interview. “It was not a game. It was like a way of life. I got 400 hours clocked, and it was a lot, and I don’t regret any of it. It was so fun. It’s beautiful out there, it’s an incredible universe they created.” The actor’s passionate endorsement of Rockstar Games’ critically acclaimed open-world western clearly demonstrated his deep appreciation for immersive gaming experiences. When Momoa admitted he had “never heard of it,” Black expressed visible shock before enthusiastically recommending the title. “Dude, you never heard of Rockstar Games? These guys are the artists. You have to play it, it’ll change your life. If you play one game, that’s the one,” Black insisted.

[RELATED: Jack Black Sings About Zombies and Crafting on New Minecraft Movie Song]

“I got a pretty addictive personality. That’s why I stay away from that,” Momoa confessed, suggesting a self-awareness about potentially getting too absorbed in gaming. Black acknowledged the validity of Momoa’s concern, adding, “Probably better. You get lost in there. You’d be in there for years.” The two actors then joked about Momoa potentially disappearing from social life, with Momoa quipping, “Where’s Momoa? He’s out at the pub? Nah, he’s playing Red Dead Redemption.” Despite his limited gaming background, Momoa did share his experience with Capcom’s iconic fighting franchise Street Fighter, naming two specific characters as his favorites: “I have two. Ryu, and then Blanka.”

The Long Journey to A Minecraft Movie

A Minecraft Movie faced a troubled, decade-long production journey before reaching screens. Announced in February 2014 when Mojang began talks with Warner Bros., the film was originally slated for a May 2019 release with a preliminary $150 million budget. The project cycled through several filmmakers, slowly losing momentum. Subsequent COVID-19 delays in 2020 removed the film from release schedules entirely before Legendary Entertainment became involved in April 2022, securing Jared Hess as director, with Momoa in early talks to star. Principal photography finally began in Auckland, New Zealand, in January 2024 after being delayed by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike and concluded in mid-April 2024. The finished product promises a blend of live-action performances with visual effects, transforming the game’s iconic pixelated aesthetic into what early marketing materials describe as “freakishly realistic.”

The production created a lasting bond between Black and Momoa, fueling speculation about future collaborations. “Yeah, we’re together for life now,” Momoa told ComicBook, with Black enthusiastically adding, “We are! We’re bros for life now.” The actors appeared together at press events wearing matching knit cardigans while promoting the film, with Momoa suggesting they’ll “be doing movies when we’re old…er” despite their busy individual schedules. Black is currently working on the Anaconda remake, while Momoa juggles commitments, including his role as Lobo in the DCU and the finale of the Fast & Furious franchise.

A Minecraft Movie arrives in theaters on April 4, 2025.

Are you excited to see Jason Momoa and Jack Black in A Minecraft Movie? Let us know in the comments!

The post Minecraft’s Jack Black and Jason Momoa Reveal Which Video Games They’ve Played the Most appeared first on ComicBook.com.

It’s never all sunshine and rainbows behind the scenes in the gaming industry. Many popular franchises rake in millions of fans, but sometimes, a single misstep leads to a delay or cancellation of future projects. This breeds wasted time, resources, talent, and funds. In some cases, it’s so severe that studios go bankrupt and fan-favorite IPs join other forgotten games in the shadow realm.

Having said that, the video game industry is still going strong and continues to strive every year. There are some chapters in the past, though, that still sting to this day. So, from Prince of Persia to Silent Hill, here’s a look at canceled sequels to popular franchises that could have been.

Project Sabbath, the Canceled Sequel to Batman: Arkham Knight

Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham franchise needs no introduction. Each entry of the legendary action-adventure series, from 2009’s Arkham Asylum to 2015’s Arkham Knight, set the bar for graphics, gameplay, and storytelling during their times. As such, Warner Bros. Games giving the green light to an Arkham Knight sequel isn’t a surprise. What is surprising, however, is its decision to backtrack and cancel the project during its early production phase.

Internally known as Project Sabbath, the Arkham Knight sequel would have taken place 10 years later, roughly adapting the Batman Beyond story from the comics. A young Damien Wayne was to be featured as the protagonist this time around and an aged Bruce Wayne would serve as the Alfred to Damien’s Batman. Other confirmed details mentioned a bigger Gotham City with a dense population of patrolling civilians, the Batbike as Damien’s primary means of transportation, and new combat mechanics based on the Nemesis System from Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. Additionally, it would’ve included a terrifying rogues’ gallery featuring the likes of Harley Quinn, the Court of Owls, Black Mask’s daughter, Gorilla Grodd, and many more supervillains.

Project Sabbath was scrapped before it entered full production and the why has always been a mystery. Though, given how Warner Bros. decided to go all-in on live service games following the release of Arkham Knight, most people would argue that this was the reason for Project Sabbath’s demise, and they would probably be right.

Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hills Project (P.T.)

Among the most infamous canceled sequels in the horror landscape is Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hills. Starring Norman Reedus and directed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro, it would have been the eighth mainline installment of the Silent Hill series. Kojima Productions even released a short playable teaser in August 2015 to build intrigue. The P.T. demo had a sensational reception. However, what nobody could have predicted was Hideo Kojima later being fired by publisher Konami, which led to Norman Reedus and Guillermo del Toro subsequently exiting the project as a result.

Months later, the Silent Hills project joined other games like Batman Project Sabbath in the long list of canned video games. Alas, we never got to see how uncanny a Hideo Kojima horror game would have turned out. On the bright side, Norman Reedus and Guillermo del Toro did collaborate with him on his next project, Death Stranding.

Prince of Persia: Redemption

In 2020, footage of an abandoned Prince of Persia game surfaced. Ubisoft didn’t comment on any of this, but after the gameplay video gained traction, an ex-employee claimed it was for Prince of Persia: Redemption, a sequel pitched in 2011.

The gameplay showcased Assassin’s Creed-like parkour and the Prince having the ability to turn back time. While nothing became of the project ultimately, you can still find concept art for it on the web.

Sleeping Dogs 2

Sleeping Dogs is hailed as a cult classic today and many around the world ponder why there wasn’t a second instalment. Well, the thing is, there was a sequel in development, but it was scratched after an ROI evaluation by publisher Square Enix. A direct sequel continuing the story of Wei Shen was planned and a pitch was made. Unfortunately, while Sleeping Dogs sold well, the figures weren’t high enough for Square Enix to give the nod for a sequel. 

Looking back, it’s a shame since extensive pre-production work had been done on Sleeping Dogs 2. Per the original report of the cancellation by Vice, the sequel was canned in late 2013. Square Enix instead had the developer, United Front Games, make a spin-off multiplayer game called Triad Wars, which was also canceled because of poor reception of the beta. Consequently, United Front Games was defunct by the end of 2016. It’s been a long time since Sleeping Dogs was the center of attention, but every time the name comes up, the nostalgia comes running back. 

Dead Space 4

Dead Space 4 has faced not one, but two cancellations. When Dead Space 3 was released in 2013 and missed revenue targets, plans for a fourth game were scrapped. According to Dead Space’s producer, Visceral Games already had ideas for the next chapter in Isaac’s story. That’s the first time Dead Space 4 was canceled, and only a few months later, Visceral Games shut down. 

A decade later in 2023, EA’s Motive Studio revived the IP with a remake of Dead Space. It was critically successful but once again commercially fell short of expectations. It was reported that there were talks of making Dead Space 4 had the remake been successful, but since it wasn’t, the IP was put on ice again.

The post 5 Sequels to Popular Gaming Franchises You Didn’t Know Were Scrapped appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Webcomic platform WEBTOON is launching a new series called Fantasy High on March 31. Fantasy High is based on the debut campaign from the popular Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying game (TTRP) series, Dimension 20, streaming on Dropout. With the webcomic set to premiere this week, WEBTOON is sharing a first look at the characters with exclusive character portraits. 

Fantasy High was the first campaign the team at Dimension 20 played and streamed, and has earned a special place in fans’ hearts. The story focuses on the adventures and experiences of six high school freshmen attending Aguefort Adventuring Academy – Fabian Seacaster, Kristen Applebees, Gorgug Thistlespring, Adaine Abernant, Riz Gukgak, and Fig Faeth. The sneak preview from WEBTOON reveals the characters’ names, class, race, and designs ahead of the March 31 premiere. The web series will consist of 61 episodes of magic, drama, intrigue, and mayhem that is sure to become an instant favorite among readers.

[RELATED: Webtoon Announces New Series With Dungeons & Dragons Icon Dimension 20]

Fantasy High is Dimension 20’s First and Most-Loved Campaign

Dimension 20: Fantasy High is a captivating actual play series that debuted in 2018. The campaign blends familiar tropes of high school coming-of-age narratives with the enchanting world of fantasy role-playing. The series is set within the unique environment of Aguefort Adventuring Academy – a high school dedicated to training aspiring adventurers in the magical realm of Spyre. 

At the heart of Fantasy High are “The Bad Kids,” a charmingly diverse group of freshman misfits who find themselves unexpectedly entangled in a series of increasingly dangerous mysteries. Each character is unique and detailed, possessing their own distinct quirks, backstories, and relatable struggles. 

The campaigns, Fantasy High: Freshman Year, Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, and Fantasy High: Junior Year, feature compelling storylines that balance humor, heart, and suspense, keeping both the players and the audience on the edge of their seats. Game Master Brennan Lee Mulligan masterfully weaves intricate plots that are as entertaining as they are emotional.

The Fantasy High WEBTOON creative team consists of Derek V. Song (writer), Alex Brennan-Dent (storyboards), Denaseey (inks), StarPiper (backgrounds), SZ (colors), and Nisaa (lettering).

Fantasy High premieres on WEBTOON on March 31.

Source: Images courtesy of WEBTOON Entertainment.

The post Webtoon Hypes Dimension 20’s New Series With Fantasy High Promo appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Bethesda and Machine Games finally revealed the date for the PS5 port of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. On April 17, PlayStation gamers can finally get their hands on Indy’s newest adventure. When it launched on Xbox Series X/S consoles last year, it was praised for its authenticity of the beloved film franchise, making this a must-play for fans of the Harrison Ford-led adventures. Although Ford doesn’t reprise his role, lauded voice actor Troy Baker (The Last of Us, Death Stranding) gives an excellent performance as the esteemed archaeologist.

With the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle PS5 release date revealed, there may be some questions regarding the upcoming port. Specifically, where can interested players pre-order the game, how can they play the game early, and what physical or digital editions are available are available to purchase? Fortunately, we have all the information right here for anyone looking forward to playing Dr. Jones’ latest adventure on a PlayStation platform.

How to Play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle early and Where to Pre-Order

RELATED: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Releases Update 3 Patch Notes

Players looking to pre-order Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PS5 should simply go to the PlayStation Store. Pre-orders are live right now for the Standard and Premium Edition for $69.99 and $99.99 respectively. Similar to the Xbox Series X/S release, players who pre-order the game will receive The Last Crusade Pack, which includes the Traveling Suit Outfit and Lion Tamer Whip cosmetics based on the third film.

Players who pre-order the Premium Edition of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle get several other goodies to enjoy. This includes up to 2-day Early Access to the game, which would start on April 15th. This early access period is also available to those who purchase the Collector’s Bundle, which we’ll get to in a moment. Here is everything included in the digital Premium Edition:

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle base game
• Up to 2-Day Early Access beginning April 15th
• The Order of Giants Story DLC
• Digital Artbook
• Temple of Doom Outfit
• The Last Crusade Pack

Is There a Physical Edition of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle for PS5?

PS5 players looking to grab a physical edition of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are in luck. Although, it may be considered a caveat for those not looking to spend a pretty penny on the upcoming port. The Collector’s Bundle is available to pre-order right now on Bethesda’s online storefront. This physical edition includes a disc copy of the Premium Edition of the game. This means players will get 2-day Early Access when it’s available. Here is everything included in the Collector’s Bundle:

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle base game
• Up to 2-Day Early Access beginning April 15th
• The Order of Giants Story DLC
• Digital Artbook
• Temple of Doom Outfit
• The Last Crusade Pack
• The Great Circle 11” Globe with hidden storage
• Allmaker relic replica
• Jumbo SteelBook display case
• New Adventure journal

Not sure if Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is worth the purchase? Check out our review to see our thoughts on Machine Games’ interpretation of the beloved franchise.

The post Indiana Jones and the Great Circle PS5 Pre-Order, Physical Editions, and How to Play Early appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows has only been available for a few days now, but it seems the game is already off to a very strong start for Ubisoft. The publisher has reported 2 million players for the game since launch, and the good news keeps coming. According to a report from Video Games Chronicle, Assassin’s Creed Shadows pulled in Day 1 revenue surpassing all but one other game in the series. While Shadows came up short against Assassin’s Creed Valhalla in that regard, the game actually did better in a number of other metrics. Notably, Shadows led to the biggest Day 1 launch Ubisoft has ever had on the PlayStation Store.

The success of Assassin’s Creed Shadows can also be seen on Twitch. VGC’s numbers show that viewers have spent more than 11 million hours watching streams of the game since its debut. Not only is that number higher than what was seen when Assassin’s Creed Valhalla launched, Shadows also launched to a higher Metacritic score. In addition to a big launch on PlayStation, the game also seems to be off to a strong start on Steam, with a concurrent player peak of 64,825 players set over the weekend, according to numbers from SteamDB. All in all, it seems like interest is high, and Ubisoft has a much-needed hit on its hands.

The success of Assassin’s Creed Shadows was anything but guaranteed. While Assassin’s Creed is a series that generally performs well for Ubisoft, the publisher seemed to have a lot riding on the game’s success. There was a perception that the publisher needed a major win following high-profile commercial disappointments such as Star Wars Outlaws. Delays also cast doubt on the state of the game; Shadows was originally slated for November 2024, with Ubisoft first pushing it to February 2025, then again until March 20th. That’s usually not a great sign, but Ubisoft said the “additional time will allow the team to better incorporate the player feedback gathered over the past three months and help create the best conditions for launch.”

That gambit seems to have paid off for the company so far. It remains to be seen whether Assassin’s Creed Shadows can continue to generate this level of interest, and if it can eventually exceed the amount of revenue generated by Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. We probably won’t know that for quite some time, but it’s possible that positive word of mouth could help the game continue to sell well throughout the year.

RELATED: Assassin’s Creed Shadows Length Revealed by Ubisoft

With recent rumors suggesting that Ubisoft is considering selling off some of its properties, Assassin’s Creed Shadows seems to have arrived at the perfect time for the publisher. Hopefully this is a sign that things are starting to turn around, and we’ll see some other high-profile wins in the future.

Have you played Assassin’s Creed Shadows yet? Are you happy to see the game performing so well for Ubisoft? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

The post Assassin’s Creed Shadows Has Had One of the Franchise’s Most Successful Launches appeared first on ComicBook.com.

This article contains spoilers for the video game The Last of Us Part 2 and, as a result, potential spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2 and beyond.

The Last of Us Season 2 is nearly upon us, but let’s be honest: it likely won’t end up culminating in a very satisfying ending for viewers. The Last of Us is a very sacred story for gamers and is widely regarded as one of the best in gaming. The second game, The Last of Us Part 2, is much more divisive but still held highly by its fans. Despite this, it’s also a lot less straightforward than the first game. It’s extremely non-linear with lots of flashbacks that provide critical context to events in the narrative, but are only inserted into the story at specific times for maximum impact. Similarly, its structure is also designed to intentionally upset the player in some ways.

The first season of The Last of Us was likely a lot less of a challenge as the first game’s story is pretty straightforward. While there were changes made in the show, it is generally pretty faithful to the source material. The second game is much more complex and its story is structured in a way that largely only makes sense for a video game. That doesn’t mean it’s unadaptable whatsoever; it just requires a lot of very precise storytelling changes. For instance, it doesn’t really make sense for a TV show to divide itself the way The Last of Us Part 2 does. In a game, you can’t frequently cut back and forth between two different characters/stories without it being extremely disruptive and disorienting.

Although Ellie and Abby’s stories happen parallel to each other, they are extremely different from each other. One is a revenge quest, and the other is a story of a woman helping a pair of children escape from a cult, to put it simply. In a TV show, however, it is a bit easier to cut between the characters within the same episode. TV shows typically have A-plots and B-plots that allow you to jump in and out of multiple stories at any given time. At the time of writing, we don’t know exactly how showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin plan to structure the TV series, but it’s likely going to cause some annoyances for fans one way or another.

The biggest thing I keep thinking about is where The Last of Us Season 2 will choose to end its story. It’s a mere seven episodes, two fewer than the first season, which also had an hour-and-a-half-long pilot and a 75-minute episode centered around Bill and Frank. We already know Season 2 will not adapt the entirety of the second game and it’s been suggested The Last of Us will run for two more seasons, which will cover the rest of the sequel game. Some have speculated that the second season may choose to spend more time with Joel and, as a result, his confrontation with Abby will come much later than it does in the game. Personally, I don’t see that happening. The trailers and set photos have shown scenes set in Seattle, indicating Ellie and Dina set out on their adventure during this season.

No matter where The Last of Us Season 2 chooses to end itself, it’s going to leave viewers frustrated. There were two years between seasons one and two, and there will likely be a similar gap between two and three. If it concludes at Joel’s climactic moment, it will anger viewers to no end. That’s too brutal of a moment to leave people hanging on and would possibly turn fans away from returning in Season 3. If it wraps up before Ellie and Abby come face to face again, it will feel unfulfilling and abrupt. Based on the trailers, it seems like we will see all three days of Ellie’s time in Seattle as her showdown with Nora is teased, which is one of the last big things she does before fighting Abby.

The most likely spot for Season 2 to end is when Abby and Ellie come to blows at the theater. However, there’s still a discrepancy here. In the game, Ellie’s section ends on a cliffhanger where Abby shoots and kills Jesse and has Tommy at gunpoint. The story then essentially resets and shows Abby’s point of view since Ellie’s arrival in Seattle. Once again, ending it here is unfulfilling as the entire story builds to this moment. Telling viewers to wait a couple of years before they see how it resolves is just infuriating. It’s a moment that already caused a lot of annoyance in the game, and that was just because it delayed the resolution by a handful of hours.

Season 2 could also end after Ellie is beaten by Abby, but then that raises questions about how much story is left to tell in the following two seasons. Ellie spends some time on a farm with Dina, which doesn’t take up that much runtime in the game, and then sets out to kill Abby in California. That’s another episode or two at a minimum once again.

Perhaps the cliffhanger for Season 2 is Ellie finding out what Joel did in Season 1. It’s still not a great ending because it’s likely in a flashback, meaning we already know how it resolves. It’s a cliffhanger that we’ve already stopped hanging from within this very season.

Then again, maybe there’s a way to find a stopping point somewhere in Abby’s storyline. It’s hard to imagine that The Last of Us is going to split Ellie and Abby’s stories into two individual seasons, as that would mean one season would barely feature Ellie, if at all. So, if they tell both stories simultaneously, maybe there’s a point where both stories can thematically intersect that would be satisfying, but I don’t really have any idea where that would be based on the game.

No matter where The Last of Us Season 2 ends, it’s likely going to be on a hefty cliffhanger that will leave audiences in unbearable suspense. This isn’t to say the show will be bad or that the ending will be some disgrace, but it’s hard to imagine it pleasing people who don’t play the game as they’ll be waiting years to find out what comes next in a story that wasn’t initially designed for that kind of a break.

The only imaginable way this can work well is if Druckmann and Mazin take some dramatic turn with The Last of Us’ story, which isn’t totally out of the question. The duo took some notable liberties with Season 1, though the overarching story and ending were kept intact. Either way, it’s clear the creators have their work cut out for them with adapting this already incredibly challenging story.

The post There’s No Good Way to End The Last of Us Season 2, Is There? appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Devil May Cry is gearing up for its worldwide debut with Netflix not long from now, and the anime is teaming up with rock group Evanescence for a brand new single to hype its release. Devil May Cry might have gotten its first shot at an official anime adaptation many years ago, but now it’s about to take a much bigger swing with a new anime coming later this Spring for Netflix. As the anime series prepares to kick off April with this new take on Dante, it’s also featuring a much different kind of soundtrack that fans might have expected.

Netflix and Adi Shankar’s Devil May Cry has gone all out for a particular kind of rock vibe from the 2000s with the likes of Limp Bizkit’s “Rollin” serving as its opening theme, and Papa Roach’s “Last Resort” being the backing track to its newest trailer. But as the anime prepares to make its full debut, Evanescence has taken to social media to announce a brand new collaboration track with the anime series, “Afterlife.” Check out the small preview below ahead of its streaming release this Friday (with a special lyric video dropping on Thursday at 9am PT).

When Does Devil May Cry Hit Netflix?

Devil May Cry officially releases with Netflix worldwide beginning on April 3rd as part of a huge new wave of anime coming for the Spring 2025 anime season. Created by Adi Shankar (who also serves as Executive Producer and Showrunner), Devil May Cry will be running for eight episodes with its debut. The new series is a special collaboration between Shankar, Capcom and Netflix with animation produced by Studio MIR (The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, DOTA: Dragon’s Blood, The Legend of Korra), with Alex Larsen as writer, and Capcom’s Hideaki Itsuno and Studio MIR’s Seung Wook Lee as Executive Producers.

The English voice cast for the series includes the likes of Johnny Yong Bosch (who originally voiced Nero in the Devil May Cry video games) as the voice of Dante, Scout Taylor-Compton as Lady, Hoon Lee as White Rabbit, Kevin Conroy as VP Baines, and Chris Coppola as Enzo. The currently announced Japanese voice cast includes the core trio of Toshiyuki Morikawa as Dante, Fumiko Orikasa as Mary, and Hiroaki Hirata as Vergil. It’s yet to be revealed how Evanescence’s “Afterlife” will be used in the new series, however.

RELATED: 10 Most Exciting Hidden Gem Anime for Spring 2025

What Will the New Devil May Cry Be About?

As for what to expect from Netflix and Adi Shankar’s new take on Devil May Cry, Netflix teases the coming series as such, “In this animated adaptation of the popular Capcom game and from the vision of Adi Shankar, sinister forces are at play to open the portal between the human and demon realms. In the middle of it all is Dante, an orphaned demon-hunter-for-hire, unaware that the fate of both worlds hangs around his neck.” With the new series teasing characters from the original games making their debut, it’s going to be an exciting release for sure.

Devil May Cry is already carving out an identity to further separate it from Shankar’s work with the likes of Castlevania and Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, and this focus on this particular era of Metal and Alternative Rock is a fun way to give it a nostalgic vibe while fitting within the current era too. If this series is going to have as much fun as each of these promotional efforts have been teasing, then fans are looking at a good time with this one.

The post Netflix’s Devil May Cry Teams Up With Evanescence for Brand-New Single appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Pokemon Trading Card Game’s special expansions generate a lot of interest from fans and collectors. Pokemon Scarlet & Violet – Paldean Fates was one of last year’s special expansions, and if you’re still looking for cards from the set, an unexpected store is advertising a restock later this week. Aldi locations around the country will apparently be getting mini tins on Wednesday, March 26th, where they’ll be priced at $7.99. On sites like eBay and Amazon, these tins continue to command about $20 or more, so this seems like an opportunity for fans to obtain these cards at a reasonable price.

Each Paldean Fates mini tin contains two Pokemon TCG booster packs, as well as a sticker and an art card. While Paldean Fates booster packs have never been sold individually, other Pokemon boosters are generally priced at $4.99, making these mini tins a pretty good deal. Unfortunately, Aldi’s advertisement for the restock does not say anything about the quantity that will be available, so it’s hard to say just how much stock each store will have. Images from the Aldi advertisement were shared on Bluesky by Funko Pop News, and can be found in the post embedded below.

Since The Pokemon Company does not sell booster packs for special sets individually, the only way to get them is through bundles with other items, such as mini tins. This makes it a lot easier for resellers to buy and flip them on the secondary market. The short supply and high demand has led to a lot of headaches and tension for Pokemon collectors; earlier this month, a restock of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet 151 mini tins at a Costco in Toronto resulted in a parking lot brawl that went viral on social media.

Hopefully this restock at Aldi locations will go a little more smoothly! Pokemon Scarlet & Violet – Paldean Fates was initially released in January 2024, so it’s possible some of the secondary market demand has subsided a bit. For those unfamiliar with the set, the big hook is that it served as the introduction for Shiny Pokemon in the Scarlet & Violet TCG sets. There’s obviously no guarantee that anyone that gets one of these mini tins will actually get a card featuring Shiny Pikachu, of course.

RELATED: The Pokemon TCG Has New Plans to Stop Scalpers

This week should already be pretty exciting for fans of the Pokemon TCG. In addition to the restock at Aldi, a new set will be released later this week. On March 28th, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet – Journey Together will be released. Unlike Paldean Fates, Journey Together is a standard TCG set. It remains to be seen whether that means the new set will be easier to get ahold of, but hopefully The Pokemon Company is well-prepared to meet the demand.

Do you plan on checking out Aldi locations for Paldean Fates mini tins this week? Have you been frustrated over the Pokemon TCG’s special expansions? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

The post Pokemon TCG Paldean Fates Restock Coming to an Unexpected Store appeared first on ComicBook.com.

While Pokemon is one of the best-known trading card games out there, it’s hardly the only one. In fact, there are so many excellent TCGs around that many potential fans have to make hard decisions about which they can afford to collect. But as Pokemon TCG Pocket has shown, fans can get much of the same joy out of digital versions of their favorite TCGs. No, it’s not quite the same, but mobile app versions of games like Magic: The Gathering can help more people enjoy the game without as high of a start-up cost. These games often come with the ability to find online PvP matches and tutorial modes to help players learn the game. These built-in mobile app features can make popular TCGs more accessible for those without an in-person community.

As someone who would probably have entire rooms in my house dedicated to collecting beautiful trading cards if I could, I’ve been wishing for more space (and budget) for TCGs lately. But then I remembered that Pokemon TCG Pocket was hardly the first mobile version of a TCG. In fact, I learned the rules of Magic: The Gathering through an older version of its mobile app. So, if you, too, want to explore more TCGs without going all-in on another physical card collection, I’m rounding up the best mobile TCG apps you can try.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

For fans of the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, the mobile app makes a solid substitute when you can’t find an in-person opponent. In fact, that app boasts a 4.9 Star rating on the Apple App Store. This mobile app lets gamers collect digital Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, opening packs with a mechanic that is only slightly less satisfying than ripping the packs in Pokemon TCG Pocket. In Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, online matchmaking gives players opportunities to try out their skills against other Yu-Gi-Oh! fans without taking a trip to the local card shop.

For those who need a refresher or who are new to Yu-Gi-Oh!, Master Duel has a decent tutorial, though it’s pretty short and doesn’t really go in-depth. Even so, the solo matches can help gamers hone their skills before facing real-time opponents. Plus, the app is still supported, getting relatively frequent updates to add new content, bug fixes, and more. Personally, I could do without some of the more time-wasting animations, but you can’t deny the graphics do look great. The game is also available for PC via Steam for those who don’t care for mobile games.

Magic: The Gathering Arena

Few card games have maintained a dedicated fan base quite like Magic: The Gathering. But learning a game with such a storied history can be intimidating, and many gamers may not want to start out with their local Magic night. Magic: The Gathering Arena earns its 4.6 App Store rating, as it’s a great introduction to the gameplay mechanics of this beloved TCG. The mobile app offers players a lower-stress way to engage with the game when they’re first starting out. For those who can’t easily access a local community or afford a massive physical card collection, it’s the next best thing to playing in person.

Magic: The Gathering Arena starts off with a tutorial and introductory story missions that help guide new players. While some gamers dislike the monetization angle in the free-to-play app, it’s still a solid way to engage with the TCG when you don’t have other options. Like Master Duel, it can also be played on PC or Mac if you prefer.

Hearthstone

Unlike Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering, this TCG exists only in digital form. Hearthstone is a digital trading card game based in the lore of World of Warcraft. Fans of WoW will notice familiar characters, items, and more as they collect these digital cards in the Hearthstone TCG app. Originally released in 2014, Hearthstone has a 4.1 App Store rating and remains popular with seasoned WoW fans and new gamers looking for a fun new TCG app to play.

As the online game is the only way to play, it’s designed to teach you how to engage. There’s strategy, fast-paced card battles, and plenty of visually appealing cards to collect. Like any free-to-play app, there are in-game purchases, but the economy is fairly well-balanced to let players engage without racking up a ton of costs.

Legends of Runeterra

Another digital card game spinoff from a popular series is Legends of Runeterra, which is built from the lore of League of Legends. The game is among the newer TCG mobile apps on our list, with its original release having happened in April 2020. It boasts an impressive 4.8 Apple App Store rating, and the fully illustrated digital cards will draw players in from the start.

Gamers and critics alike praise Legends of Runeterra for its interesting mechanics and generous in-game system for getting new cards. It offers a good mix of accessibility for new players with plenty of depth and strategy for those familiar with TCG mechanics. Whether you already love League of Legends or just want a solid TCG in mobile app form, Legends of Runeterra has plenty to offer. You can also play on PC if you prefer a computer-based gaming experience.

Marvel Snap

For the Marvel fan looking for a card-battling game, there’s Marvel Snap. This 2022 entry into the mobile card game genre brings players from the Marvel universe into digital grading card form – before that Magic: The Gathering set ever will. Marvel Snap has been praised for bringing some new ideas into the mobile card game genre, with a fairly polished game with a decently balanced free-to-play economy. With over 120K ratings in the Apple App Store, the game still maintains a 4.7 rating.

The matches in Marvel Snap are short, making it easy for gamers to fit this in with a few minutes a day. That said, some players take issue with how matchmaking works, and the economy has gotten tighter over time, as with most free-to-play games. Even so, Marvel Snap remains a popular choice for gamers looking for a fun new TCG game to try out on mobile. Plus, it’s now available via Steam as well.

With the newly-announced Digimon Card Game mobile app Digimon Alysion on the way, it’s likely this list of great TCG mobile games will just keep growing. So if you’re out of space on your IRL shelves for physical cards, get ready to make space on your phone instead.

The post 5 Best TCG Mobile Games (Besides Pokemon TCG Pocket) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Last year, Palworld debuted on PC and Xbox Series X|S, with a version coming to PS5 several months later. The game has yet to appear on a Nintendo platform, but it seems that could change. Pocketpair communications director John “Bucky” Buckley was at Game Developers Conference last week, alongside several notable developers throughout the industry. At GDC, Buckley spoke to IGN, where he revealed that the “beefy” nature of Palworld made it too difficult to pull off on the current Nintendo Switch hardware. Buckley did not rule out a potential version for Nintendo Switch 2, but was quick to note that Pocketpair is not yet familiar with the hardware.

“We haven’t seen those specs yet. Like everyone else, we’re waiting. I’m walking around GDC hoping someone will tell me them, but everyone I’ve spoken to says they haven’t even seen them,” Buckley told IGN. “If it’s beefy enough, it’s 100% worth considering. We did a lot of optimization for Steam Deck, which we were really happy with. Still work to do, but we’re really happy with how it turned out. So we would like to get it on more handhelds if possible.”

While specs are one reason Palworld might not end up on Nintendo’s new system, there are other hurdles. For one thing, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company announced a joint lawsuit against Pocketpair last year over Palworld. It remains to be seen how that lawsuit will play out, and if things will end up being settled amicably between the companies. The lawsuit claims that Palworld infringes on multiple patents, including one connected to the use of Poke Balls. Since the lawsuit was filed, Pocketpair has made at least one major change to Palworld, which seemed to be an effort on the company’s part to resolve the situation.

The idea of Palworld coming to Nintendo Switch 2 after all this might seem hard to believe. However, there’s clearly some kind of working relationship between Nintendo and Pocketpair. Earlier this year, Pocketpair released its first game on Nintendo Switch, a game called Overdungeon. At the time, the announcement of a Pocketpair game on Switch seemed quite surprising, but clearly the lawsuit isn’t stopping the 2 companies from working together. Palworld might be a different story though, so it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.

RELATED: Bizarre Nintendo Direct Rumor Claims a Presentation Is Happening This Week

Pocketpair and the rest of the world will have a much better idea of what to expect from Nintendo Switch 2 next week. A Nintendo Direct presentation will take place on Wednesday, April 2nd. The presentation will offer our first official update on the system since it was revealed back in January. No one quite knows what to expect, but it’s possible we could learn about specs, and the types of third-party games Nintendo Switch 2 will be capable of playing. It’s been a long wait, but an end is nearly in sight.

Do you think we’ll ever see Palworld on a Nintendo system? What games do you want to see on Nintendo Switch 2? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

The post Palworld Developer Considering Nintendo Switch 2 Version appeared first on ComicBook.com.

A new glitch in Call of Duty has brought a rare banned skin back to the in-game store. Call of Duty has come a long way since its first entry back in 2023. Initially it began as a World War II shooter that let players experience famous battles and moments from the war first hand, even utilizing footage from the Military Channel in early games to make it feel almost like an interactive documentary or recreation. However, the series would evolve into something more cinematic and eventually have a big emphasis on other modes like multiplayer and even a Zombies mode.

Flash forward to a post-Fortnite world and now Call of Duty has crossovers with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, athletes, musicians, and icons from all across pop culture. Part of the reason for this is because Call of Duty moved away from things like map packs. The series used to do four DLCs each year, one every quarter, but it began to hurt the player pool as players wouldn’t matchmake with each other if they didn’t have the same DLCs. Now, all Call of Duty maps are free as part of seasonal updates and Activision makes its money elsewhere, such as through the purchase of skins. While some fans really despise this, it’s a big money maker.

Call of Duty Glitch Mistakenly Brings Back Banned Nickmercs Skin to Store

In 2023, Call of Duty added popular streamers Nickmercs and TimTheTatman as skins in-game. They were the first ever content creators added to the franchise and also the last. Roughly a month after their arrival, Nickmercs stirred up controversy regarding comments he made during Pride Month stating that schools should “leave children alone” with regards to how LGBTQ+ subjects are taught. The issue caused enough problems that Activision removed Nickmercs’ skin from Call of Duty and TimTheTatman opted to voluntarily have his skin removed to stand in solidarity with his friend. This has been a divisive topic for a while and it led to Nickmercs boycotting Call of Duty for a while, but he eventually returned to the game.

With that said, Call of Duty fans began noticing that the Nickmercs skin had returned to Call of Duty this past weekend. The skin was visible in the store for some players with a price tag, leading many to believe it was officially back. However, that’s not the case. It appears to be a glitch as some fans don’t see it in their store at all and others reported that attempting to buy it would lead to a purchase error. So, don’t get too excited. It seems to be nothing more than a glitch and no one can access the skin unless they already owned it prior to its initial removal.

Whether or not Nickmercs’ Call of Duty skin ever returns remains to be seen, but it seems unlikely. This happened two years ago now and a lot of people have moved on from the controversy, so it seems pointless to linger on something that happened two Call of Duty games ago. It also seems unlikely Call of Duty will do any more content creator skins given how much of a mess the first batch was, but maybe they’ll try again in the future.

The post Call of Duty Glitch Brings Back Rare Banned Skin appeared first on ComicBook.com.

It’s no surprise Eevee is one of the most popular Pokemon, which makes this collection featuring Eevee and its evolutions perfect for Pokemon TCG fans. Pokemon Korea is dazzling Eevee fans with a new line of acrylic card stand accessories designed to showcase the Eeveelution cards from Pokemon TCG‘s Prismatic Evolutions booster pack. While other cards will fit these as well, you can’t deny how perfectly they match each Eeveelution. However, considering these are exclusive to Pokemon Korea, or at least appear to be for the time being, it may be harder to get your hands on these Eeveelution card stands in other countries.

Pokemon Korea announced these Eeveelution acrylic card stands with an intended release date of March 28th. While not yet available, there isn’t much time to go before players can add these to their collection.

RELATED: Pokemon TCG’s Mega Sets Get First Release Date

Depending on where you live, Pokemon Korea may still ship products, including the upcoming Eeveelution acrylic card stands. You’ll need to check the listing once it goes live and verify if your country of residence is available for shipping.

Some areas may see an increase in shipping prices if going through the official Pokemon Korea store. There are third-party services that can import products from countries, including Korea, and ship products to countries where Pokemon Korea may not ship to. Your mileage may vary when using these services, so it is best to do research before using them.

The Eeveelution acrylic card stands are perfect for displaying rare cards and feature numerous designs. There is a stand for Eevee, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Espeon, Umbreon, Leafeon, Glaceon, and Sylveon. Each features a design and theme that matches the type and aesthetic of the respective Eeveelution.

Prismatic Evolutions proved to be a popular set in Pokemon TCG thanks to the beautiful Eeveelution cards. Those who managed to pull these rare cards won’t want to miss out on these Pokemon acrylic stands, especially if you have a favorite Eeveelution and want to give it a proper display.

Pokemon TCG has hit some of its highest popularity yet. Part of this is thanks to Pokemon TCG Pocket, which has converted players to Pokemon TCG and spread awareness about the game. It is not the only reason for the game’s success, but its effect is undeniable.

One downside of Pokemon TCG is scalpers, which have proven to be a nuisance for genuine players. The Pokemon Company is implementing new ways to battle scalpers and make it harder for them to buy up stock, but it remains to be seen if this is effective. Any player should be careful when picking up Pokemon TCG cards in person, as fights have broken out at retailers.

Joining these gorgeous Eeveelution acrylic card stands is the next booster box, Pokemon TCG’s Journey Together set. Both are set to launch on March 28th, though it appears some retailers have put the Journey Together booster boxes on shelves early.

The post Pokemon Reveals the Perfect Collection for Eeveelution Cards appeared first on ComicBook.com.