If Ubisoft’s rumoured Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag remake were an actual ghost ship, we’d be long past the point of snatching glimpses of the vessel through unnaturally dense fog at two bells during the morning watch. We’d be long past the point of spotting a spectral Jolly Roger between stormy crests, its deathshead wreathed in St. Elmo’s Fire. The damn ghost ship is square abreast of us now, the hollow-cheeked revenant of Edward Kenway dangling from the rigging.
People keep pointing at the ghost ship and screaming, but Captain Ubisoft has his eyes firmly on the horizon. “Steady as she goes, lads!” he trills, as hordes of translucent pirates pour over the rail. “Steady as she goes till some hypothetical future time when we might announce a thing, maybe!”
If there’s a big winner in the wake of the delay of Grand Theft Auto 6 from May 26, 2026 to November 19, 2026, it’s 007 First Light.
In September last year IO Interactive, the Danish developer of the Hitman games, had slapped James Bond action adventure 007 First Light with a March 27, 2026 release date — just two months ahead of the release of GTA 6 before Rockstar announced its delay to November.
Two months would be, under normal circumstances, plenty of room for two video games to breathe, but this is GTA 6 we’re talking about. It looks set to become not only the biggest video game launch of all time, but the biggest… anything launch of all time. You could see a situation where the wider gaming public might save their hard-earned cash for GTA 6, even if they quite like the look of the promising 007 First Light — especially with speculation that Rockstar could end up charging even more than $70 for it.
And so, two months was certainly close enough for 007 to be caught up in the gravitational pull of Rockstar’s behemoth, so massive an impact it will surely have on the video game space. Not even James Bond in a souped-up Aston Martin would have much of a chance of breaking free.
And it sounds like the developers at IO Interactive knew that all too well. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, CEO Hakan Abrak was asked about GTA 6 kindly getting out of 007’s way.
“It would be a lie not to say that obviously spring looks really good,” he replied. “I want to say in the same breath that GTA 6 is a welcome thing for the industry. I do believe a lot of gamers who maybe haven’t played for a while will get into things again, and generally for the industry as a whole, I think that will be amazing.”
Abrak’s comments about the positive impact of GTA 6 echo those of Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who has suggested the game’s release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S (sorry PC gamers, no launch for you… for now) will spark a surge in console sales. Such is the might of GTA 6 that it will no doubt convince an army of gamers to finally upgrade from the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One to the current-gen, or push PC gamers over the edge so they can get in on the fun at launch.
And let’s not forget Star Wars movie The Mandalorian and Grogu, which was set to come out in the same week as GTA 6. Yes, GTA 6 will probably hit all forms of entertainment hard as the world dives into the next iteration of Vice City. The Force be damned.
But while there are winners in all this, there are losers, too — something we at IGN have looked into following the GTA 6 delay. Microsoft has a raft of games due out next year that may end up hit hard by GTA 6, such as the next Fable, Halo: Campaign Evolved, Gears of War E-Day, and even 2026’s Call of Duty. But Sony is probably shifting nervously at the prospect of Insomniac’s PlayStation 5 exclusive, Marvel’s Wolverine, getting absorbed by the GTA 6 effect, too.
All the while, James Bond himself is off having a celebratory vodka martini, “shaken, not stirred” of course. With GTA 6 out the picture, the world famous secret agent has a clear run to success.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
It’s fair to say Fallout 4‘s anniversary update’s earned some stick due to effect it had on PC mods, just like the RPG’s next-gen update did before it. Lots of works needed updating, and while that happened pretty quickly in a number of cases, there was still disruption for some additions that generally feel a lot more necessary over on console.
Enter modding platform Nexus Mods, who’ve decided to follow-up the update by putting together their own “anniversary collection” of Fallout 4 mods from the works they host, with hopes it’ll serve as a free alternative aimed at celebrating ten years of the RPG being modded.
Everyone’s playing shooters these days, at least according to some new data from Newzoo shared with IGN.
Newzoo, whose revenue estimates cover digital full-game purchases, including but not limited to DLC, subscriptions, and microtransactions, has revealed the top 20 PC and console games for the month of October, both by revenue and MAUs (monthly active users), combined across the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. And boy, there are a lot of shooters on that list! Battlefield 6, in its debut month, is at the top of the revenue charts and the third in monthly active users. While Battlefield’s dominance has been well documented already, it’s nonetheless an impressive feat given that Battlefield was only out for one week in October.
It is worth noting that while the suite of Call of Duty games were 9th on the revenue chart, they came in at the second spot for MAUs, ahead of Battlefield. Again, though, Battlefield only had a week compared to Call of Duty’s full month, so the real test will be looking at November’s data when Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will face off against Battlefield. MAUs are a bit of a better comparison metric for Call of Duty, given its precense on Xbox Game Pass.
Breakout extraction shooter Arc Raiders debuted at No. 7 for revenue and No. 18 in MAUs, similarly hampered somewhat by the fact that it was only out for two days in the reporting period of October, so we should see a clearer picture of its success in November as well.
These new games are joined by a lot of the usual suspects: Counter-Strike 2 at No. 8 in revenue and No. 9 in MAUs, Fortnite at No. 3 in revenue and No. 1 in MAUs, and just on the MAU chart: GTA 5 at No. 7, Helldivers 2 at No. 16, Borderlands 4 at No. 17, Apex Legends at No. 19, and Overwatch at No. 20. Those are just shooters; Roblox, Minecraft, Valorant, League of Legends, and annual sports titles remain strong. It’s as challenging as ever for new games to crack the dominance of the handful of live service giants that consume so much of audience time, attention, and money.
There was a bit of a face-off this month in monster RPGs, with Pokémon Legends: Z-A coming in at No. 5 in revenue and No. 15 in MAUs, and Digimon Story Time Stranger at No. 13 in revenue. It was never in doubt that Pokémon would win that battle, but Newzoo noted that Z-A “underperformed compared to Legends: Arceus,” which may suggest some hesitance around its move to a real-time, action-based combat system, or perhaps caution after the state of Scarlet and Violet’s launch. It’s worth noting that Pokémon Legends: Z-A launched as a cross-gen title, both on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
Nintendo’s official sales figures show Pokémon Legends: Z-A sold almost 6 million copies in its opening week. Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which debuted on October 16, sold 5.8 million units worldwide, with around half of those bought for Switch 2. This means the first Pokémon game to feature real-time Pokémon battles is the fifth best-selling game of the franchise in terms of first week sales. By comparison, that’s more than Pokémon X/Y and Let’s Go Pikachu / Eevee managed in their first weeks, but not as much as Pokémon Scarlet / Violet, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and Pokémon Sword / Shield managed.
IGN’s Pokémon Legends: Z-A review returned an 8/10. We said: “Pokémon Legends: Z-A finally feels like Game Freak hitting its stride in Pokémon’s 3D era, with a fun setting to explore, a well-written story, and a total battle system overhaul that works surprisingly well.”
Top 20 PC and Console Games by Revenue for October 2025
(Data covers U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain)
Battlefield 6/Redsec (NEW)
EA Sports FC 26
Fortnite
Ghost of Yotei (NEW)
Pokemon Legends: Z-A (NEW)
NBA 2K 26
Arc Raiders (NEW)
Counter-Strike 2 & GO
Call of Duty: MW2/MW3/WZ/BO6
EA Sports Madden NFL 26
The Sims 4
Minecraft
Digimon Story Time Stranger (NEW)
Valorant
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (NEW)
Roblox
League of Legends
Jurassic World Evolution 3 (NEW)
World of Warcraft
Marvel Rivals
Top 20 PC and Console Games by MAU for October 2025
(Data covers U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain)
Fortnite
Call of Duty: MW2/MW3/WZ/BO6
Battlefield 6/Redsec (NEW)
Roblox
Minecraft
skate.
Grand Theft Auto V
Rocket League
Counter-Strike 2 & GO
EA Sports FC 26
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege X
Marvel Rivals
NBA 2K26
EA Sports FC 25
Pokemon Legends: Z-A (NEW)
Helldivers 2
Borderlands 4
Arc Raiders (NEW)
Apex Legends
Overwatch 1 & 2
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Players in Kirby Air Riders have recently taken to creating new machines designed to look like Chef Kawasaki wearing a micro bikini. Because of course..!
As covered by Automaton (thanks, VGC), player-created machines have been flooding the game’s Machine Marketplace, which lets users purchase new vehicles in exchange for coins earned in races. The more popular a vehicle is, the more its price will increase.
One title due for launch remained “unannounced” in Ubisoft’s official presentation, but a new Insider Gaming report has now stated that this not-so-mysterious project is the new version of Black Flag, which is scheduled to arrive during the week of March 23, 2026.
Despite years of internal leaks, fan speculation and even hints from the game’s lead actor, Ubisoft is still to officially confirm its Black Flag remake exists. But players have been tracking its progress for a while now, and think they have a pretty good idea of how it will play.
Alongside visual and gameplay upgrades to bring the game closer to Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ level of fidelity and more RPG-like focus, a recent report detailed plans for the game to feature all-new content and missions for its pirate hero Edward Kenway. At the same time, however, Black Flag’s modern day gameplay sections have apparently been excised — something that many fans aren’t happy about.
It’s believed that work on this new Black Flag remake has been spearheaded by Ubisoft Singapore, which previously launched the long-delayed Skull and Bones — a game that began life as an offshoot of Black Flag’s maritime gameplay.
Ubisoft is going all-in on Assassin’s Creed, its biggest franchise, with this year’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows followed by a recent Saudi Arabia-funded free update to 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Alongside its Black Flag remake, next year is expected to bring a second major Shadows expansion. Beyond that, Ubisoft has already announced that a multiplayer Assassin’s Creed game and its next big blockbuster, the witchcraft-themed Assassin’s Creed Hexe, are also in the works.
This morning, Ubisoft said its latest positive financial results had been driven in part by a “strong performance” for its Assassin’s Creed franchise. But while the company noted that Mirage had now passed 10 million sales, there was no new figure provided for how well this year’s Shadows has sold.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Similar to Nic (RPS in peace), I am both beguiled and maybe just a little riled by how much Tarsier’s Reanimal looks like the studio’s previous Little Nightmares games. Once again, it’s a game about small children in sinister headgear travelling through a collapsed and raggedy storybook world of ogres and abductors. Still, Tarsier have a magnetic capacity for icky monster designs – shout out to Spider Sheep in the trailer there, who absolutely won’t be getting an eye-popping animated Marvel spin-off – and Reanimal is something of a departure once you peel back the layers of suppurating flesh.
Ubisoft has celebrated a fresh set of financial results that it says has been driven by a “strong performance” for its Assassin’s Creed franchise. But while there’s an update on sales figures for 2023’s Mirage, there’s no new figure for how this year’s Shadows has sold.
The French publisher’s latest earnings report, published this morning, covers the company’s performance over the first half of the current year: April through September. Last week, Ubisoft delayed the publication of these results at the last minute, prompting speculation that something had gone wrong with the company’s big Tencent deal — though there’s no suggestion of that today.
Ubisoft has framed the results in a positive light, with net bookings for the past quarter “above expectations” and up 39% year-on-year. “The outperformance was driven by stronger-than-expected partnerships,” Ubisoft noted, “and was supported by a robust back-catalog, both highlighting the strength of the Group’s brands.”
One back catalogue game seemingly doing very well is Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the series’ return to a smaller, city-based adventure that launched a couple of years ago. Today, Ubisoft announced a new 10 million sales milestone for the title, and said its recent Saudi Arabia-funded free update had received “very positive” feedback from fans.
But on the sales performance of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the franchise’s blockbuster feudal Japan entry launched in March, Ubisoft was less clear. Without providing a new sales total, Ubisoft simply said the game had “benefited” from the launch of its New Game+ mode and recent Claws of Awaji expansion, which seems obvious. The company then pointed to the game’s upcoming Switch 2 launch as an oppurtunity for it to “reach a broader audience.” Back in July, Ubisoft said Shadows had surpassed 5 million players, and that its performance had been in line with expectations.
Outside of Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft noted that Rainbow Six Siege’s cheating issues were continuing to temporarily impact “activity and player spending versus expectations,” following the game’s previous move to an essentially free-to-play model.
Ubisoft still expects to finalize its $1.16 billion deal with Chinese conglomerate Tencent in the near future, company boss Yves Guillemot said, noting that “all conditions precedent have been satisfied.” The transaction will secure funding for Vantage Studios, Ubisoft’s new self-contained subsidiary in charge of its biggest brands, including Assassin’s Creed.
Guillemot revealed that more of these companies, termed Creative Houses, will be detailed in January — a point at which the Tencent deal should presumably be sorted. After this, the future shape of the company should become clear, following years of internal turmoil.
“These Creative Houses will be autonomous, efficient, focused and accountable business units, each with its own leadership, creative vision and strategic roadmap,” Guillemot concluded. “This Group-wide transformation reflects our ambition to renew how we create and operate in order to deliver great games for our players and lasting value for our partners and shareholders.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Moreish roguelike bullet hell Vampire Survivors is getting a cousin next year. It’s called Vampire Crawlers, or as per its Steam page: Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors. It’s a first-person roguelike deckbuilder in which you can fight Merdusas with spinach and it’s set to hit PC in 2026.
