With the release of Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 2 and a significant update to its official website, all eyes were on the launch platforms accompanying the new release date of May 26, 2026.

At the end of the trailer, we see the release date alongside the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, confirming the consoles remain part of GTA 6’s release. Indeed, Trailer 2 was captured on a PS5 (the trailer specifically mentions PS5, as opposed to PS5 Pro).

So, what does this mean for the inevitable PC launch, or perhaps even a release on the Nintendo Switch 2? Some had wondered, perhaps even hoped, that GTA 6’s push to May 2026 would cause a rethink at Rockstar and parent company Take-Two and spark a simultaneous release on PC. The lack of mention of PC here perhaps suggests otherwise.

It’s an omission in keeping with developer Rockstar’s playbook for its previous games, but in 2025 and certainly in 2026 it feels outdated. And, given the increasing importance of the PC for a multiplatform game’s success, is GTA 6’s no-show on PC a missed opportunity or even a mistake?

IGN put that question to Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick in an interview in February, and in his response he teased GTA 6’s eventual release on PC.

“So with Civ 7 it’s available on console and PC and Switch right away,” Zelnick said of Firaxis’ recently launched Civilization 7. “With regard to others in our lineup, we don’t always go across all platforms simultaneously. Historically, Rockstar has started with some platforms and then historically moved to other platforms.”

Lots of Pokémon TCG sets are feeling like gold dust right now, but Amazon UK has just provided a restock of great booster bundles — like those from Temporal Forces and Shrouded Fable — with plenty of others still available as well.

While we’re still waiting to get invites to buy the Prismatic Evolutions Accessory Pouch Special Collection & 151 Blooming Waters Premium Collection at Amazon UK, these will be good enough to keep us going in the meantime.

Temporal Forces is back in two assortments over at Amazon UK: the Booster Display Box with 18 booster packs for £71.82 and the 36-pack version from £159.99. If you’ve yet to add any of the powerful ACE SPEC cards to your collection, here’s the ideal chance to try and pull one or two.

Next, there’s the Shrouded Fable Elite Trainer Box from the Scarlet & Violet set. For £44.99, you get nine boosters, a Pecharunt foil card, 65 card sleeves, 45 Energy cards, damage counter dice, a coin-flip die, two condition markers, a player’s guide, and a stylish collector’s box where you can keep everything tucked away.

Paradox Pokemon fans will also be pleased to know that the Paradox Fury Premium Collection is back in stock as well. Based on the Paradox versions of Johto’s Legendary Dog trio, the premium collection offers seven Paradox Fury boosters along with the foil cards Walking Wake ex, Raging Bolt ex, and Gouging Fire ex.

In addition to a magnetic three-card holder, the collection even comes with an oversized display version of the Raging Bolt card.

If you’re still after some Journey Together boosters, Amazon UK has those in stock too — selling 36-pack display boxes for £179.99, 14% down from the £209.99 price it was before. Although, the nine-booster Journey Together Elite Trainer box is also available, but for a hefty £74.99, way above RRP of £44.99

For more Paradox Pokemon cards, the retailer also has a handful of the 36-pack display boxes of Paradox Rift left as well for £153.98.

However, if you don’t need as many boosters from that set, Amazon is also selling a handy Paradox Rift Iron Valiant Elite Trainer Box & Arctibax Triple Pack bundle for £57.98.

With it, you’ll get 12 boosters in total, a foil Scream Tail or Iron Bundle promo card, 65 Iron Valiant Sleeves, Energy cards, a player’s guide, and an Arctibax foil promo card.

Ben Williams – IGN freelance contributor with over 10 years of experience covering gaming, tech, film, TV, and anime. Follow him on Twitter/X @BenLevelTen.

Microsoft has confirmed Wave 1 of the Xbox Game Pass May 2025 lineup.

In a post on Xbox Wire, Microsoft revealed 12 games hitting its subscription service, taking us up to May 20. The biggest hitter here is Doom: The Dark Ages, the latest game in id Software’s world-famous first-person shooter series. That is, as a Microsoft-owned game, a day-one Game Pass launch. But it’s not the only day-one Game Pass launch of May 2025.

Available today, May 6, is Dredge (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S), which hits Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard. Here’s the official blurb, from Microsoft:

Dredge is a single-player fishing adventure with a sinister undercurrent. Sell your catch, upgrade your boat, and dredge the depths for long-buried secrets. Explore a mysterious archipelago and discover why some things are best left forgotten.

May 7 is a big day for Game Pass, with a number of additions: Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC) on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard; Dungeons of Hinterberg (Console), now on Game Pass Standard; Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn (Xbox Series X|S), now on Game Pass Standard; and Metal Slug Tactics (Console), also now on Game Pass Standard.

Here’s a big one: May 8 sees Revenge of the Savage Planet (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) hit Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass as a day-one title.

In a future knocked off its axis by corporate greed and stupidity, you have been made redundant and abandoned on the far edge of space with little gear and no safety net. You must explore every nook and cranny, collect dozens of upgrades, and turn over every mysterious alien rock if you want to get revenge on your former employer and return to Earth.

Also on May 8, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed (Cloud, Console, and PC) joins Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard.

Join the legendary Turtle brothers straight from the sewer and slide into this new adventure of shell-shocking proportions. With the help of April’s insightful reports from the streets and Splinter’s sage guidance, gear up to fight crime and unravel an epic saga of justice and chaos!

Moving on to May 13, we’ve got Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (Cloud and Console) on Game Pass Ultimate and Game Pass Standard.

Making a return to the Game Pass library! Fight together with your friends against the forces of Chaos and Skaven in this epic 4-player co-op game set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battles world. Vermintide 2 expands the intense first-person combat with a brand-new enemy faction, 15 new career paths, talent trees, new weapons, an improved loot system, and more.

The main event is of course Doom: The Dark Ages (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S), on May 15 when the shooter hits Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass day-one.

Doom: The Dark Ages is the prequel to the critically acclaimed Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal that tells an epic cinematic story worthy of the Doom Slayer’s legend. In this third installment of the modern Doom series, players will step into the blood-stained boots of the Doom Slayer, in this never-before-seen dark and sinister medieval war against Hell. Get a head start on slaying demons with the Premium Upgrade, including up to 2-Day Early Access, the campaign DLC at launch, and more.

A day later, on May 16, Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo (Cloud, Console, and PC) launches on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass as yet another day-one title.

Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo is a papercraft adventure game where you’ll meet the many good and not-so-good folks of Limbo, a place where souls with deep regrets are cursed into repeating the same day on a loop.

Rounding out the May 2025 Wave 1 lineup on May 20 are Firefighting Simulator: The Squad (Cloud, Console, and PC) across Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard, and Police Simulator: Patrol Officers (Cloud, Console, and PC) also across Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard.

Xbox Game Pass May 2025 Wave 1 lineup:

• Dredge (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – May 6
  Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – May 7
  Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard
• Dungeons of Hinterberg (Console) – May 7
  Now with Game Pass Standard
• Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn (Xbox Series X|S) – May 7
  Now with Game Pass Standard
• Metal Slug Tactics (Console) – May 7
  Now with Game Pass Standard
• Revenge of the Savage Planet (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – May 8
  Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed (Cloud, Console, and PC) – May 8
  Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard
• Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (Cloud and Console) – May 13
  Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Standard
• Doom: The Dark Ages (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – May 15
  Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
• Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo (Cloud, Console, and PC) – May 16
  Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
• Firefighting Simulator: The Squad (Cloud, Console, and PC) – May 20
  Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard
• Police Simulator: Patrol Officers (Cloud, Console, and PC) – May 20
  Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard

Leaving Xbox Game Pass on May 15:

The following games are leaving the Game Pass library on May 15. As always, you can use your membership discount to save up to 20% to keep them in your library.

• Brothers A Tale of Two Sons (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Chants of Sennaar (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Dune: Spice Wars (Game Preview) (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Hauntii (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• The Big Con (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Put simply, there’s nothing on PlayStation 5 quite like Forza Horizon 5.

The Crew Motorfest? Close. Leaning hard into the philosophy of ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’, its fully fledged festival approach certainly makes Motorfest more like the Forza Horizon series than either of its predecessors.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown? Sadly, no. The Forza Horizon series itself may owe a significant debt to the trendsetting MMO racing of the original Test Drive Unlimited, but Solar Crown went on to fly too close to the sun in this department. An always-online racer with no dedicated solo component? The Horizon series has allowed players to seamlessly slip between offline and online play since 2014’s Forza Horizon 2!

Need for Speed Unbound? Well, there are definitely several areas of Need for Speed’s impressive customisation suite that handily eclipse Horizon, but Unbound’s arcade focus on high speed hot pursuits means it’s not really a like-for-like comparison.

No, the pound-for-pound champ of modern open world racing is Forza Horizon 5 – and now it’s available on PlayStation 5 for the very first time. Its broad and beautiful Mexico map. Its delectably drift-friendly vehicle dynamics. Its mammoth, 900-odd car garage that goes way beyond just featuring the essentials, and is brimming with cult favourite cars that simply aren’t available in any other racing game. The whole box and dice. PlayStation users are being immersed in all of this, many for the very first time.

The reaction has been fun to watch.

This influx of brand new players has been something the team has been particularly looking forward to.

“Yeah, I’m super excited,” confirms Playground Games art director Don Arceta. “Like, brand new people; for many, this will probably be the first Forza Horizon game that they’ve ever played. So it’s super exciting just to think about that, and think about what our first Horizon experiences were.”

Arceta is especially keen to see what kinds of places and races PlayStation 5 players begin creating with Forza Horizon 5’s huge set of customisation tools – the Event Lab.

“We have over 800 props now in the Event Lab, and just seeing what the community’s done with that feature and mode – and the creativity of the community – it’s just mind blowing,” he continues. “I’m super excited, once we get into the PlayStation 5 users, about what they’ll build, and the creativity that will come from that community.”

“You’ll actually get some pretty good Halo content too on the PlayStation, with the event lab props!”

In pleasing news, the port itself is proving to be as technically impeccable as its Xbox and PC counterparts, which is some flex considering the sheer girth of the game – and the fact that the engine that underpins it has never been unleashed on PlayStation before.

“As you can imagine, because the series has been based around the Xbox environment and architecture, there’s a lot of code and engineering that’s worked with that,” says Arceta. “So when we brought it to the PS5, it was no small undertaking. It was quite a huge task.”

“The PlayStation 5 version was developed by Panic Button, in collaboration with Turn 10 and ourselves, but Panic Button did an amazing job. So you get that amazing, quality experience that you get on Xbox and PC – now you get on the PlayStation, and it’s just amazing work that Panic Button has done.”

Personally I’ve never been able to look past the Forza series as a whole as home to the biggest and best bag of Hot Wheels on the block. No other racing series contains more weird and wonderful cars that I want, piled on top of a cavalcade of cars I didn’t even know I wanted. As a car fan, I love the idea of a whole new cohort of players potentially discovering their favourite cars in Forza Horizon 5 – cars their other racing games just haven’t been serving them.

For Playground Games lead game designer David Orton, however, it’s the sheer breadth of Forza Horizon 5 that he’s anticipating will impress new players.

“The breadth of Horizon is quite staggering,” says Orton. “I think what we find is players go in and find what they really enjoy but, because there’s so much freedom, that can really be whatever you want it to be.”

“We always pride ourselves on giving the player that kind of agency and freedom to do whatever they want, and the game will reward them and react in that way. I’m really looking forward to players just discovering the breadth of the content. If you just want to do road racing, or if you’re really into Rivals and track racing, you can totally do that. But if you love taking incredible photos, you can totally do that. If you’re into Event Lab, and you want to create content for other people, you can totally do that. Horizon is the space where really everyone is welcome, and there’s something in it for everyone. I think the feeling of people going in and realising this is more than just a racing game is what’s really exciting for me.”

“For me, a victory would be, like, ‘I can’t believe I’ve never played this game before,’” says Arceta. “I think the surprise.”

“That, for me, is a victory, because once they’re surprised, they’re engaged – and they want to learn more. So I’m really looking for that. The delight from players; just hearing their surprise and hearing their stories.”

Here, Orton is in agreement.

“Yeah, I think it’s that,” he adds. “Players who’ve never tried Horizon before – whether that’s because it’s on a different platform, or they’ve just never had the time to do it – to actually jump into this world and realise that it’s actually a really warm, welcoming place that’s full of fun, and finding a home at Horizon.”

“Players who’ve never played before realising that, ‘Oh my goodness, how have I never played this game before? This is incredible.’ That, to me, is a win. We’re about to target a cohort of players who may have never played a Forza title before. There’s a bit of an unknown to how people react to that, but I think when you look at the history of our titles, we’re continually perfecting our craft. We feel so excited to bring this to PlayStation. I think we’re going to bring in a whole load of new players and that’s really exciting.”

If there’s any hobby that’s more tribal than car culture, it’s those who hinge their identities on their video game console of choice. For racing game fans, however, one big wall has come down.

Let’s hope it’s not the last.

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

The creator of Ecco the Dolphin has revealed that not only are there remakes of the original games underway, but a “third” instalment is also in development.

Revealed via a brief post on Xbox Wire, Ed Annunziata — the original creator of the famed, and fiendishly difficult, action-adventure games — was interviewed about raising awareness about ocean conservation, his life as a developer, and, right at the end, dropped this bombshell revelation:

“Me and the entire original team are going to remaster the original Ecco the Dolphin and Ecco: The Tides of Time games. Then we will make a new, third game with contemporary play and [graphics] sensibilities. Stay tuned.”

There is, of course, already a “third” game. As the last mainline Ecco instalment, Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future was released on Dreamcast 25 years ago in 2000. However, creator Annunziata wasn’t involved. A further sequel, Ecco 2: Sentinels of the Universe, which had been written as a direct sequel to Defender of the Future, was cancelled.

“I just want to finally be able to enter my secret password from the end of Tides of Time. I still have it written in the codes section of the game manual,” wrote one fan, while another reminded us: “I wonder how many people know how completely bonkers the plot of the games are.”

Annunziata didn’t provide any additional details as to when we’ll get to be reunited with Ecco, but a countdown on the official Ecco the Dolphin website is set to expire in 8,508 hours’ time — that’s about a year from now.

Ecco the Dolphin originally launched in 1992 on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, and was followed by a sequel, Ecco: The Tides of Time, in 1994. Ecco Jr. and Ecco Jr. and the Great Ocean Treasure Hunt were released in 1995, although they were “edutainment” games and primarily developed as learning tools.

Ecco the Dolphin sees you play as the titular dolphin, as your underwater world has been devastated by a swirling gust of air and water. You must help him navigate back through treacherous tropical reefs and freezing polar ice floes to reunite him with his dolphin pod. We thought the 2000 remake was okay, writing: “Ecco the Dolphin is a classic from SEGA. But sometimes classics should stay in the past.

“For those who have played Ecco before, there’s really no reason to come back to it,” we wrote of the 2007 remake in IGN’s Ecco the Dolphin review. “There are no extras offered and the Achievements are junk. If you’ve never played Ecco, then you may want to give it a go. It really is one of the more innovative titles of its time. But, again, that time has long passed, and Ecco’s gameplay doesn’t stand the test of time like Sonic’s.”

The last Ecco the Dolphin game fared much better, getting a 7.6 score in IGN’s Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future review, saying: “If you thought Flipper had personality, wait until you get a load of Ecco the Dolphin. Experience amazing visuals and an engrossing story, and defend the ocean that is rightfully yours.”

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.