‘If you want to torture somebody, first show them your tools’ is one of the better horror game design lessons taught by Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I thought of Amnesia’s cistern chapter while playing through a later area in Lunar Software’s excellent first-person spookathon Routine, announced 13 long years ago, though only in active development for around five. The area centres on a curious underground tree, with water dripping from a hydroponic ceiling and sealed doors on all sides. You can imagine Amnesia’s Shadow manifesting here, clogging the roots with acid rot as it homes in on your comically loud footfalls.
In case you missed it, Hitman‘s latest celebrity elusive target mission is all about Eminem. The rapper has Agent 47 take down his blonde alter-ego Slim Shady, it’s all very meta and a tad less appealing to me than the cameos previously made by the likes of Bruce Lee and Mads Mikkelsen as Bond villain Le Chiffre.
That said, a new interview some IO Interactive folks have given to Variety, in which boss Hakan Abrak makes clear there will be a new Hitman coming once the studio have gotten some stuff off their plate, has caught my attention by contrasting Mr Nem with murderbald handler Diana.
GameStop has highlighted its recent payout of more than $30,000 for a rare Pokémon card as evidence that the chain’s trade-in program offers fair value — while simultaneously admitting the card had actually been worth at least $3,000 more.
In its latest publicity stunt aimed at getting gamers’ attention, GameStop issued a typically jocular statement on social media declaring its record $30,494.70 payout for a PSA 10 Holo Gengar was a “historic” moment for the company.
“Any trolls who publicly claim that GameStop trade-in values are bad are hereby factually and demonstrably incorrect,” the chain wrote. “Any prior and ongoing objections to our trade values are now deemed without merit and factually invalid,” it continued, while admitting the card had actually been worth $33,883 — several thousand dollars more.
To be fair to GameStop, the chain does not hide the fact it paid $3,388.30 less than what it describes as the “fair-market valuation” for the card. Indeed, the company simply states it handed over its payout “upon completion of all required inspection, verification, and compliance procedures” — processes, the statement appears to suggest, which come at some cost.
But many responses to GameStop’s social media post have pointed to the chain still having “shorted” the card’s owner, and suggesting the card would have reached a higher value at auction. Others have noted GameStop’s own trade-in FAQ page states that the chain has a $1,500 upper limit for trade-in value, something that suggests this particular sale is something of an anomaly. IGN has contacted GameStop for more.
In its post, GameStop states its payout was executed “in accordance with the established terms and conditions governing the Power Packs Buyback Program,” an offer that some customers have criticized for allowing the retailer to repeatedly make money from the same high-value cards.
An example of this would be a customer buying a $100 Power Pack (a blind box with a rough value of a $100) from GameStop and finding a card that is indeed worth $100 inside. If it’s a card they don’t want, GameStop offers an Instant Buyback offer that’s worth 90% of the card’s value minus an additional 6% commission fee. Here, the card seller gets $84.60 back, while GameStop retains a $100 card, which they can sell again for $100 — and continue to repeat the process.
“They’re not speculating on card value,” one fan wrote in a reddit thread on GameStop’s scheme posted a few months ago. “They control the supply, the pricing tier, and the resale loop. It’s vertical integration disguised as a loot box.
“PowerPacks aren’t just about cards. The real edge is the buyback loop. On average, GameStop pays less than market for returned cards, then sells them again at full price. Every cycle is a profit opportunity. It’s repeatable. Scalable. Efficient. And it doesn’t rely on retail footfall or console cycles. PowerPacks might end up being GameStop’s most profitable product yet.”
Hey, Helldivers 2‘s just gotten a patch with some noteworthy balancing tweaks and fixes ahead of its latest warbond – Python Commandos – dropping. In short, a fair few guns now do more damage, some enemies have been made a tad less potent, and the drawback which usually comes with attachinga magnifying scope to your favourite bug blaster has been scaled back.
Red Dead Redemption has lassoed its way onto Switch 2 today, bringing with it HDR and DLSS support, mouse controls and a smooth 60fps. The big question is, what does all of this look like in practice, and perhaps more importantly, how does it compare to 2023’s Switch port?
Here to answer those very questions is the wonderful Felix Sanchez, who has assembled the above side-by-side comparison video to demonstrate how the fresh Switch 2 version fares against its older hybrid counterpart.
“Right now, we’re still thinking about what to make next,” Okamura said. “Since we created an opportunity (with MGS Delta) for new players to experience the Metal Gear series, I do want to continue with it.”
He continued: “It could be a remake, or we might challenge ourselves by creating a brand new game. The Metal Gear series is part of videogame history, spanning pixel art to cinematic presentation, and so each title requires a different approach to expressing and remaking it.
“We won’t apply the methodology used to make the recent MGS Delta to all other games in the series — rather we intend to find the best approach for each specific game.”
Okamura also touched on the amount of time it took for the team at Konami to be in a position to remake Metal Gear Solid 3. “Most of the original staff members had left and the team had been reorganized, however we gathered people together and finally arrived at the point where we could make MGS Delta. As a team, we are confident that we achieved a level of quality that not only preserves the appeal of the original but also that modern players could enjoy. We are currently working out concrete plans for what we are going to do next.”
However, when asked about the possibility of a Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots remake, Okamura remained cautious, saying: “the hardware back then required very specific designs to get the most out of the 3D technology that was available at the time, so MGS4 ended up with some pretty unique code. It seems like it would be quite a challenge to bring that into the present day.”
At the moment, 2008’s Metal Gear Solid 4, which ties up all the loose ends in Solid Snake’s story, is only playable on PlayStation 3. Based on the original game release order and rumors, a remastered port of MGS4 is expected to be included in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2, however Konami has yet to announce the official line-up for this second anthology of MGS games to be released on current gen platforms.
While Okamoto’s comments address a remake rather than a remaster, his thoughts on MGS4’s unique code may explain why it is taking Konami so long to release Volume 2. Okamura previously said that the team are taking their time on Volume 2 to avoid the performance issues that dogged Volume 1 at launch: “we’re going to do everything we can not to repeat that, but we just have to ask for everyone to give us time.”
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
A Fortnite artist has been forced to defend their work after fans suggested numerous images found within the game’s new season are AI-generated, including a suspicious-looking poster showing a character in a hammock with an odd number of toes.
Last night, freelance artist Sean Dove took to Instagram in response to fan claims that his Studio Ghibli-style depiction of Back to the Future hero Marty McFly was the product of AI generation. Dove, a frequent Fortnite collaborator, showed off his manual process for drawing the image. But while he drew the Ghibli-esque main character himself, Dove admitted he may still have inadvertantly included AI elements in the background.
“I guess someone on reddit thinks this was AI,” Dove wrote. “I think the culprit is a clock in the background. I grabbed some clocks off image search, collaged them, and halftoned them. The numbers are bad, entirely possible I grabbed an AI clock and wasn’t paying attention.”
And while Dove has personally responded, Fortnite developer Epic Games has so far remained silent on the topic, as fans on reddit create numerous threads pointing out other examples of images they think show signs of AI generation. (IGN contacted Epic Games for this story, but did not receive a comment back.)
Most egregious, according to fans, is an in-game poster for a location named Mile High Retreat. The image shows a pair of legs sticking out from a hammock, with five toes visible on one foot and four visible on another.
Amid all the confusion, and lack of clarification from Epic Games itself, what’s clear is that Fortnite fans are keen to push back against the perception of AI art usage within the game. An enormous thread on reddit is tracking every example where players have doubts of images being made by human hands, and searching for more.
“Awful decision,” wrote one player. “I hope it gets amended. As others have said, the art and style of this damn game is one of the main reasons we love it. Generative AI has no place in it.”
“I thought things like Darth Vader were cool, using AI to achieve something that simply wouldn’t be possible without it,” another fan wrote. “But, that was the only case so far that I’ve genuinely found neat. Creating art is something humans, and especially Epic due to their money and resources, are very capable of doing.”
Epic Games is no stranger to AI technology, of course, having previously used generative speech technology to reproduce James Earl Jones’ Darth Vader portrayal. But despite having the rights and approval of Disney, the character’s inclusion proved controversial, especially as players quickly began making Vader say things more aligned with the dark side of the Force.
“It doesn’t matter any more,” he continued. “The AI tag is relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation. It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production.”
Speaking of AI artwork, boot up Fortnite anytime recently and you’ll be greeted by a menu screen with dozens, if not hundreds, of user-made experiences that use AI artwork for their thumbnails, something Epic Games has previously said it is pointless to police, as technology rapidly improves to the point where AI images become almost impossible to distinguish.
Indeed, if nothing else, the whole matter has simply highlighted the increasing difficulty in 2025 of being able to tell what is AI-generated, and what is not.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell remake has a new director who’s served as its director before. David Grivel has returned to Ubisoft and take up the role he left when he departed the company in 2022, not long after being tapped as the remake’s original director following its late 2021 announcement.
If you have a passing interest in gaming outside of Nintendo, you’ll likely have experienced the work of Mark Cerny. He was the Lead Architect of the PlayStation Vita, PS4, and PS5 — you might remember him from the PS5 Pro reveal — and he appears on the most recent episode of Simon Parkin’s My Perfect Console podcast where guests pick five games to immortalise on their very own fictional console.
As you might expect, there’s plenty of Sony chat in there, but that didn’t stop a little slice of unexpected Nintendo discussion slipping in there, too. As it turns out, Cerny is a bit of a Pikmin fan at heart, and if that isn’t something all of us capital-GGamers can agree on, then we don’t know what is.
Nintendo has been releasing all sorts of software and firmware updates recently, and it’s now rolled out an update for its Nintendo Today! mobile application.
