Author: Game Infliction

EA has today announced that the 2026 Formula One World Championship will be coming as a paid expansion for the existing F1 25. The content update is set to reflect all the sport’s upcoming changes next year, with new cars, new drivers, and the new regulations.

The next full game in the series will be delivered in 2027. It will be “reimagined into a more expansive experience with new ways to play for fans around the world,” according to today’s statement. EA explained this plan comes as part of a “multi-year strategic investment” in the publisher’s F1 franchise.

“F1 25 has been an incredible success, fueled by the passion of fans and the energy of the sport,” said Lee Mather, Senior Creative Director at Codemasters. “With Formula 1’s momentum on and off the track, now is the perfect time for us to look ahead and build for the future. We’re fully committed to the EA Sports F1 franchise. Our multi-year plan extends this year’s excitement with the 2026 expansion and reimagines the F1 experience for 2027 to deliver even more for players at every level around the world.”

IGN’s F1 25 review described it as a far broader and better package than last year’s installment, and “comfortably the strongest the series has been since the fan favourite F1 2020.” Codemasters has been building Formula One games since F1 2009 for Wii and PSP, although EA also had its own history with the sport in the early 2000s, beginning with F1 2000 on PS1 and PC.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.

Vedinad, developer of Megabonk, has withdrawn his game from The Game Awards following its nomination for Best Debut Indie Game, saying it doesn’t qualify for the category.

In a post to Twitter/X from the official Megabonk account, vedinad made the announcement today:

“I’m withdrawing from The Game Awards.

“It’s an honor and a dream for Megabonk to be nominated for TGA, but unfortunately i don’t think it qualifies for the category ‘Debut Indie Game’

“I’ve made games in the past under different studio names, so Megabonk is not my debut game 🥸

“i really appreciate the nomination, support and votes, but it doesn’t feel right in this category. you should vote for another one of the amazing debut titles, they are all amazing games!

“thanks again! new megabonk update coming soon ✌️”

It’s unclear whether or not this means Megabonk will actually be removed from the voting pool or awards by the organization. At the time this piece was written, Megabonk was still listed under Best Debut Indie, along with Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Despelote, and Dispatch.

Critically, Best Debut Indie is awarded to the “best debut game created by a new independent studio.” So what counts as a new, independent studio? This definition certainly can get a little fuzzy – game dev teams are often Ships of Theseus, with certain groups sticking together, hiring others, and rebranding. For instance, Dispatch was made by AdHoc Studio, and is the team’s collective first original game. However, AdHoc was founded by a team of former Ubisoft and Telltale developers who had previously been working together. Cocoon, by Geometric Interactive, won Debut Indie back in 2023 and was arguably in a similar situation with former developers from Playdead. But by that logic, it’s also unlikely anyone’s “first game” would ever make it to The Game Awards, as most people’s first projects are small, student, or experimental.

Vedinad’s argument at least makes a bit more sense for himself, given that he is effectively a solo developer and has worked on other projects under other names. But even solo developers have help: Miguel Angel, for instance, is credited with the OST, Giovanni Fim made the Steam art, and there are a handful of names listed as playtesters, as well as a “special thanks” to vedinad’s mom. Vedinad seems to be as close to a solo dev as anyone really gets. What really is a game studio, anyway?

What this ultimately seems to boil down to is that there’s at least some level of confusion about what the categories of The Game Awards actually mean. This isn’t the first time this has happened. In 2023, Dave the Diver – a game made by a subsidiary of Korean gaming giant Nexon – was up for Best Indie, leading TGA creator Geoff Keighley to respond that indie can “mean different things to different people,” and even the director admitted the nomination was confusing. We’ve also seen some oddities like Sifu being up for Best Fighting Game in 2022 (it’s an action beat-em-up), and even some recent eyebrow raisers like Monster Hunter Wilds being nominated this year for best RPG.

Define it all however you want, but Megabonk’s developer has spoken. Will he be heeded? IGN has reached out to The Game Awards for comment. You can catch up on all the other 2025 nominees right here, and check out our early thoughts on Megabonk here.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

It’s nearly here: Black Friday sales are kicking off this week. And if you’re a fan of board games, you’ll probably want to have an idea of what to expect deal-wise on popular tabletop titles. You’ve come to the right place. I’m the board game editor at IGN, and I’ve been following all the Black Friday board game deals for years. Let’s dive in.

Buy 1, Get 1 Half Off on Board Games Right Now

You don’t actually have to wait for Black Friday to save on board games. Right now, both Amazon and Target have sales that get you half off a board game when you buy one at regular price. This applies to a decent number of popular games for board games, including Catan, Splendor, and Horrified. But tons of classics and family board games are also eligible, like Scrabble and Mouse Trap.

What Games Will Get Discounts?

When it comes to Black Friday board game deals, such a wide swath of games go on sale each year that basically nothing is off the table (please excuse the pun). If this year is like years past, you’ll be able to save on just about every board game on the market.

The discounts we saw last year ranged from 20% off games all the way up to 65% off. You could save on popular standards like Azul and Pandemic. You could save on family-friendly games like Exploding Kittens and UNO. You could save on horror-themed board games like Alien: Fate of the Nostromo and Arkham Horror: The Card Game. Whatever games you’re interested in, you can likely find something on sale that you’ll want to pick up.

Additionally, for Cyber Monday last year, Amazon ran a “Buy 2, Get 1 Free” sale. Since many of the games were already discounted, that was like a deal on top of a deal. So keep an eye out during Black Friday 2025 for opportunities to stack discounts.

Which Retailers Will Have Board Game Sales?

As for the retailers where the deals can be found, the main ones to look at are Amazon, Walmart, and Target. If you want to branch out a bit, Barnes and Noble is usually a good place to look for discounts as well. With Amazon’s Black Friday sale kicking off on November 20 this year, that will likely be the first place you should start looking for deals.

Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.

Yoko Taro, the creator of the Nier and Drakenguard games, has been awfully quiet lately. Though he’s worked on some smaller projects (writing scenarios for Voice of Cards, and a few mobile games), the lack of a proper Nier follow-up or other new major game from him has been getting under fans’ skin. But according to Taro, he has been working on projects. They just keep getting canceled.

This comes from his remarks at Korean gaming convention G-Con 2025, which were reported on by 4gamer and translated by Automaton. The panel, which featured Taro and Bayonetta and Okami director Hideki Kamiya, saw the pair asked for updates on recent projects. Kamiya mentioned the upcoming sequel to Okami, while Taro said he’d been very busy with new projects, they just keep getting canceled partway through.

“I often get told stuff like ‘Why aren’t you making a new sequel to NieR’ or ‘Yoko Taro isn’t doing anything,’ but that’s because recently, a lot of projects I was involved in got discontinued midway through development,” he said.

“I’ve actually been working on some stuff, it’s just that it never ended up seeing the light of day. I got paid for it, so I personally have no issues with that, but people seem to think that I haven’t been doing anything just because none of the work I’ve done is being released.”

However, Taro isn’t discouraged by this, apparently. He continued, saying he’d rather fail repeatedly and eventually create something good, rather than put out multiple mediocre works. “I believe that if I’m going to release something weird, I’d be better off not releasing anything at all.”