Call of Duty will no longer release multiple Black Ops or Modern Warfare games back-to-back, after two Modern Warfare releases in 2022 and 2023, and two Black Ops releases in 2024 and 2025, respectively, and negative feedback and concerning sales reports for the most recent release, Black Ops 7.
This news was delivered from “the Call of Duty team” (encompassing studios Treyarch, Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward, and Raven Software) on the official website, in a post that acknowledged the criticism of Black Ops 7 as well as broader criticism of the franchise in recent years. As the post opens:
First off, thank you for all for the feedback we have received over the last few months. Call of Duty has enjoyed long-standing success because of all of you, a passionate community that demands excellence and deserves nothing less. We also know that for some of you, the Franchise has not met your expectations fully. To be very clear, we know what you expect and rest assured we will deliver, and overdeliver, on those expectations as we move forward.
The post goes on to state a number of changes the Call of Duty studios will be making going forward. For starters, they’re opening up Black Ops 7’s multiplayer zombies mode for a free trial and Double XP weekend next week, in an effort to get those who have hesitated on Black Ops 7 to “experience the game firsthand and decide for yourselves.” They also are committing to “unprecedented season support,” saying that they “won’t rest until Black Ops 7 earns its place as one of the best Black Ops games we’ve ever made.”
Then, the team had this to say about future Call of Duty releases:
We will no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops games. The reasons are many, but the main one is to ensure we provide an absolutely unique experience each and every year.
We will drive innovation that is meaningful, not incremental. While we aren’t sharing those plans today, we look forward to doing so when the time is right.
The note concludes by saying the team believes Call of Duty’s “best days are ahead of us” and that the next era of Call of Duty will “deliver precisely on what you want along with some surprises that push the Franchise and the genre forward.”
These changes come amidst, and likely in response to, a rough couple of years for the Call of Duty franchise. The most recent entry, Black Ops 7, debuted last month to middling reviews, including our own 6/10 campaign review, 6/10 Zombies review, and significantly better 8/10 multiplayer review. This is also in the context of both Black Ops 7 and Modern Warfare 3 receiving poor reviews in comparison to their immediate series predecessors the year before, with Black Ops 6 and Modern Warfare 2 being received generally favorably. This likely accounts, at least in part, for the decision to stop the back-to-back releases.
For Black Ops 7, that lukewarm reception has also been reflected in the game’s sales numbers, especially in relation to another recent major multiplayer shooter release, Battlefield 6. The game had a “terrible” launch in Europe, down 63% versus Battlefield 6 and down by more than 50% versus last year’s Black Ops 6 in the equivalent periods.
It is worth noting that we don’t have full visibility into Black Ops 7’s sales data, as it launched day one on Game Pass, and a number of people likely played the game through the subscription service and didn’t count as unit sales.
But nonetheless, the announcement today feels like an admission that something has gone wrong here. Whether or not the Call of Duty team can fix it will take a few years to truly comprehend.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Earlier this month, a large, demonic-looking monolith appeared in the Mojave Desert, and Geoff Keighley tweeted a photo of it. The monolith featured figures of all sorts of strange creators: skeletons, alligators, soldiers, a wolf, and more. In the time since, online gaming enthusiasts have been eagerly speculating as to what the monolith and Keighley were teasing ahead of The Game Awards. Diablo 4? The Elder Scrolls 6? God of War? Bloodborne 2? Altered Beast?
Well, the mystery may have been solved in advance of The Game Awards on Thursday. As spotted by MP1st, some newly registered trademarks reveal a game and a logo that looks essentially identical to a symbol on the monolith. And those trademarks appear to be for a new Divinity game, from Larian Studios.
How do we know? Well, let’s take a look at one of the trademarks. It’s for an image, and it looks like this:
Now compare that to the big symbol at the center of the statue:
Now we’re getting somewhere! It’s not exact, but it’s quite comparable to past Divinity: Original Sin logos:
And even closer to the older Divinity games, slashed through “i” and all.
Okay, maybe it’s all just a big coincidence? Sure, I guess. But there’s one more clue. All three trademarks were filed by Ihde & Partner Rechtsanwälte, a legal firm that, among other things, has previously filed trademarks for Larian Studios, including past Divinity: Original Sin trademarks.
So that’s pretty cut and dry. But what about that third trademark? This is where things get a bit more mysterious. This trademark is also just for an image, this one here:
What’s that? I have no idea. But it’s probably related, given it was filed on the same day by the same firm and is in a similar style to the other trademarks. Maybe we’ll find out on Thursday.
Critically, this seems to be for a new Divinity…NOT a Divinity: Original Sin game. Director of publishing at Larian Studios Michael Douse was on Twitter/X today shutting down any rumors of a Divinity: Original Sin 3, but his language was very specific:
There aren’t currently any plans for a new Divinity Original Sin 3 game but once we are ready to show what we’ve been working on we will 🙏
If this is indeed Divinity, that’s good news for Larian fans, as Divinity: Original Sin 2 was fantastic. We gave it a 9.6/10, saying, “Divinity: Original Sin 2 may have been designed in the spirit of decades-old RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 2, but that legacy serves only as a foundation for the expansive game Larian has built on top of it.”
Speaking of Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate 3 is Larian’s most recent work, and that got an impressive 10/10 from us. We said, “I don’t want to say every CRPG going forward should aspire to be like Baldur’s Gate 3. Not everything needs to be nearly this big and ambitious, or even this dense. But it is a landmark moment in the genre, and if I had to point to one paragon that I would like everyone else making these to take inspiration from, this is absolutely it.”
While some may have clamored for Larian to immediately get to work on DLC or Baldur’s Gate 4, Larian explicitly said over a year ago that it wouldn’t be continuing with another D&D game. However, Larian CEO Swen Vincke has been teasing a new project for a while now, and based on past timelines, this year’s Game Awards would be a perfect time for an unveiling.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Notorious Battlefield 6 skin Wicked Grin has had its colors toned down once again, but this time, players are celebrating the removal of, well, its Wicked Grin.
Battlefield Studios launched update 1.1.3.0 alongside its Season 1 finale, Winter Offensive, today. Although patch notes covered sweeping changes to Breakthrough, hit registration, and the overall audio experience, much of the online community was pleased to see the update tackle one of the EA FPS’s biggest controversies.
You may recognize the above Support cosmetic as the Wicked Grin skin. While the clothing items themselves seem to be largely unchanged (minus one new bright yellow armband), the outfit’s standout features have been almost completely reworked. Where there were once bright blue colors highlighting the infantry class, players will now find muted tones and the complete removal of the toothy smile the skin originally earned its name from.
The Wicked Grin changes exist as what many in the Battlefield 6 community are calling another victory what has become a massive push against goofy skins. Players began fighting against fears that Fortnite and Call of Duty-esque skins would eventually infiltrate Battlefield 6 when the System Override skin, not-so-lovingly called the “Monster Energy drink skin,” was unveiled weeks before launch. With technical director Christian Buhl previously telling IGN that BF Studios would stick to realistic, grounded visuals “for a while,” players worried the developers could change course sooner rather than later.
Wicked Grin emerged weeks after launch as a prime example of what many believed was the beginning of the end for grounded infantry skins. Backlash related to the Support skin got out of hand so quickly that some players threatened to not revive any player seen wearing it.
Word of player dissatisfaction got back to BF Studios and resulted in changes to System Override. Now, Wicked Grin, which had already been tweaked with lighter colors with the November 18 launch of California Resistance, is almost unrecognizable in Winter Offensive. There is almost certainly a group of players disappointed to see those bright blues leave, but for the more vocal players online, they’re mostly happy BF Studios is listening.
“They fixed him,” one popular Reddit post says. “They fixed this skin, super muted blues and removed the ugly mask design. Big W on lostening to the people.”
“Props to the community for standing up,” one comment adds, “props to the devs for listening and acting accordingly.”
Battlefield 6 launched October 10 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S, and BF Studios has been doing a balancing act since. A few updates targeting glitches, aim assist, gameplay balance, hit registration, and more have arrived in the last month alone, with content updates adding new maps as Season 1 rolls on. Today, Winter Offensive added snowy terrain to some familiar locations while handing players access to the new Ice Climbing Axe melee weapon.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
High on Life 2 is our IGN First “cover story” game for December, which means we’ve got exclusive coverage all month long. We’ve already posted plenty of new gameplay, and today we’re thrilled to announce one of High on Life 2’s brand-new weapons: Say hello to Travis, the SMG-style weapon voiced by Ken Marino, who you might know from The State as well as Wet Hot American Summer. Travis is one-half of a dual SMG pair with Jan – check out the half of a heart pendant around his, uh, neck, I guess? Anyway, they’re married, but it seems the relationship has gotten a bit toxic.
Take a look at some footage of Travis in action in the video below, and for more exclusive High on Life 2 coverage – including another weapon reveal coming up soon.
High on Life 2 will be released on February 13, 2026 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S – including launching on day one into Xbox Game Pass.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is the full name of Ubisoft’s piratical remake that’s had more leaks than a sunken ship.
The game’s new title is now visible on the PEGI European ratings board website, which is about as official as it gets. (The game is rated 18 for violence and bad language.)
Additionally, there’s a mention here that Black Flag Resynced will include the ability to make in-game purchases. It’s still unknown how Resynced will plug into the franchise’s existing Animus Hub, which lets you buy optional cosmetic content. Alternatively, this could potentially signify the ability to buy DLC further down the line. Is the game’s memorable Freedom Cry add-on in line for a remake, too?
Today’s development comes just a couple of weeks after the game’s release date was reportedly spilled online. During Ubisoft’s latest financial results the French publisher laid out a slate of upcoming games set to arrive before the end of its current financial year, on March 31, 2026.
Despite years of internal leaks, fan speculation and even hints from the original game’s lead actor, Ubisoft still has yet to officially confirm its Black Flag remake exists. IGN has contacted the company again today, in case it has anything it wants to tease. Or, perhaps we’ll hear more at The Game Awards later this week?
Previous reports have suggested Black Flag Resynced will be a substantial remake of the series’ beloved piratical entry, with visual and gameplay upgrades that see the game closer in quality to this year’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
New story content will reportedly be added to flesh out more of hero Edward Kenway’s life, though the game’s modern day gameplay sections have apparently been excised — something that many fans aren’t happy about. It will be interesting to see how Ubisoft handles the game’s new ending — which previously tied together story elements from its historical and modern day narratives — in light of that change.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
The brainchild of Mike Pondsmith back in 1988 as a TTRPG, Cyberpunk as a property has exploded in the past decade, thanks in no small part to CD Projekt Red and 2020’s release of their first-person RPG, Cyberpunk 2077. Now, five years and expansions, patches, and board games later, the world of Cyberpunk is trying its robotic hands in a brand new – and highly competitive – market with a fully fledged, and collectible, Cyberpunk: Trading Card Game.
IGN has had the opportunity to speak with the teams at WeirdCo and CD Projekt Red, who are working on the newly announced TCG, to get a better understanding of the designers at WeirdCo, how this partnership came to be, and even some goodies about the game itself. We’ve also got an exclusive first look at key card art from the Cyberpunk TCG (flip through the gallery below), featuring Cyberpunk 2077’s Saburo and Yorinobu Arasaka, and their handy bodyguard, Goro Takemura.
WeirdCo, a new face in the world of TCGs, has been working in close partnership with CDPR themselves to devise this new card game, aiming to capture the tone and aesthetic of 2077 and the Edgerunners’ Netflix anime, to deliver a game that doesn’t just feel like another TCG just with a coat of Cyberpunk yellow overtop. One way the team is doing this is by working with high-profile artists, both internal to CDPR and the wider community, to deliver gorgeous card art featuring faces that will be familiar to anyone worth their wait in Chrome.
Speaking with Elliot Cook (WeirdCo President) and Luohan Wei (WeirdCo CEO), both co-founders of the business, I wanted to know how this new studio came about.
Elliot began, “WeirdCo was formed when Luohan and I met each other through our mutual mentor, Bill Mooney: a true legend in the digital gaming space. We immediately hit it off over our passion for building games that truly connect with their communities. Later, we formed WeirdCo to create games together — ones that authentically bring together and inspire people.”
“Players can look forward to collecting an array of unique variants of characters including V, Johnny, Panam, Judy, Adam Smasher, and more.”
“CD Projekt Red has a similar goal, and when we saw this in each other we knew it would be a great partnership. What has been paramount, and the question we ask ourselves daily, is “how do we make a game that represents and celebrates every part of Cyberpunk — everywhere it has been and everywhere it is going?” That is the north star of our development.”
With Cyberpunk being one of the biggest media properties right now, I was curious how a brand new group could tackle such a monster IP, but despite it being a new team, the group working on the Cyberpunk TCG has worked on other large IP card games you probably have heard of. “We at WeirdCo have direct experience working on some great card games” Elliot explains.
“Marvel Snap, Duel Masters, and Universus, to name a few. At our core we are disruptors, just like CD Projekt Red, and we both strive to inspire our players. We saw this in each other from the beginning, and I think CD Projekt Red saw our love for the Cyberpunk 2077 universe too. This is an IP that deserves to be explored in different and exciting ways, and we’re committed to doing this authentically with Cyberpunk TCG, side by side with the community.”
On the topic of CD Projekt Red, they have been a constant ally during the game’s design and development. Elliot provides further details, “We have worked with CD Projekt Red very closely since the beginning of development. They have been the ideal partner; you may even see the same amazing artists who worked on Cyberpunk 2077, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and more as featured artists in Cyberpunk TCG! Every part of the TCG has the impeccable RED touch, ensuring this is a completely authentic Cyberpunk experience.”
The Cyberpunk TCG won’t be CDPR’s first collaboration in the tabletop space, with other titles like Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City and Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Combat Zone Board Game, but I was curious what unique joys or challenges came from working on a TCG, so I asked Patrick Mills, CDPR’s Franchise Content Strategy Lead.
“Every collaboration is unique, and we’re lucky to work with many partners who are passionate and extremely dedicated to their crafts. While making a physical TCG is something completely new for us, we see the genuine excitement, enthusiasm, and talent in WeirdCo that act as the foundation of any successful collaboration.”
“Their passion for the franchise has been evident at every stage, and they’re doing an incredible job developing an engaging TCG that ensures an authentic Cyberpunk experience. On the flip side, many of us at CD Projekt Red are huge TCG enthusiasts too — so we’re thrilled to be entering this space with WeirdCo”
One thing that is clear is that both teams at WeirdCo and CDPR are taking care to ensure that this is faithful to the Cyberpunk property that its creator, Mike Pondsmith, imagined back in 1988.
“For the initial release, our primary goal is to represent the core identity of Cyberpunk 2077”
“We want Cyberpunk TCG to be authentic to the spirit and dynamic nature of the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, and wanted to create a TCG that is accessible to Cyberpunk fans who have never touched a card game.” Luohan says, “At the same time, as TCG players ourselves, we wanted our game to have the depth necessary to entertain for a long, long time. And I think we have struck that balance well.”
Elliot continues, “The best part of this job is spending hundreds of hours with the Cyberpunk universe — whether that’s replaying Cyberpunk 2077, watching Edgerunners for the fifth time, or reading all the Dark Horse comics. Every one of us at WeirdCo loves the Cyberpunk universe, and we built the TCG bit by bit on this foundation. At each step we analyzed every little detail, constantly asking ourselves: “How do we make this more authentic to Cyberpunk?”
Many fan favorite characters will be making an appearance as well in this TCG and picking who would be included in this first set was a big decision. “For the initial release, our primary goal is to represent the core identity of Cyberpunk 2077 by featuring many of its most iconic and beloved characters,” explains Patrick. “We’ve collaborated closely with WeirdCo to ensure that the artwork and flavor of every card faithfully captures the essence of who they represent, providing a snapshot of their personalities and what they stand for, as well as including memorable moments players will instantly recognize. Given the complexity of our characters, we wanted to capture their many facets across multiple cards. So, players can look forward to collecting an array of unique variants of characters including V, Johnny, Panam, Judy, Adam Smasher, and more.”
On the WeirdCo side, Elliot shares, “We worked very hard to figure out which Legends make the most sense for players, and which ones make the most sense for the overall theme of Set 1. While some of them, like V and Johnny, are obvious hits, we have a few surprises up our sleeves too.”
Being a game composed of a ton of cards, artwork is pretty important in a TCG and WeirdCo is special care to make sure that what players can expect is nothing short of beautiful.
“We’ve been working for a long time with a team of over 20 talented artists for Set 1, and are excited to explore new ways of bringing the world of Cyberpunk to life through our card art. Working with artists like Ito, Vincenzo Riccardi, and Joshua Raphael, who each bring their own unique flair to the project, makes each card more exciting than the last,” Elliot continues, “We’re not sharing gameplay details yet, so there’s not too much I can say. But Cyberpunk is known for its beautiful yet tragic atmosphere — this is a major focus of ours when it comes to the card art.”
Details on how Cyberpunk TCG will work remain shrouded behind CDPR’s and WeirdCo’s firewalls, so we have a bit yet before we have an in-depth picture of how it plays. Cyberpunk’s TCG will be launching its crowdfunding campaign in 2026, which is right around the corner. WeirdCo and CDPR will be revealing more of the game soon, along with a deep dive into how the game plays, more artwork, and card reveals, with some more special reveals found only here on IGN.
The TCG space is pretty crowded with new contenders entering the ring, it seems like every quarter or so, but few have the name recognition behind them like WeirdCo has with Cyberpunk. The fact that this project has so much support from CD Projekt Red behind it puts it in a different league from others, even before it’s out.
The excitement from the designers is electric, with Luohan leaving players with this, “I can’t wait for players to see how we’ve adapted the themes of Cyberpunk, like taking on gigs or building a crew, to a trading card game format. I think it is both true to Cyberpunk itself while being innovative to the TCG market as a whole; it’s a perfect combination in this way.” As far as I know, no other TCG lets you play with Keanu Reeves, so that is already a big plus in its favor. Wake up, Samurai, there’s a whole new way to burn the city coming.
If this sounds up your alley, follow the game and get yourself a special and exclusive Lucy “Nova Rare” card free by signing up over on the game’s Launch Oracle page.
Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
This article features contributions from Robert Anderson, Senior Commerce Editor for IGN.
It’s kind of insane that I never realized how perfectly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would work as a VR game. VR action games famously feature loads of jumping and climbing, which our turt bros do a whole bunch of on Manhattan rooftops. Sneaking around to do melee combat, and having to learn how to parry and dodge incoming attacks is also something the reptilian heroes are known for that has been done well in many VR games. And because these heroes in a half-shell appear most commonly as cartoons, you don’t have to worry about shooting for photorealistic graphics and the technical VR bottlenecks that sometimes come with it. In other words, why in the heck did it take us so long to get this pizza-powered quartet into a VR game? No matter the reason, I’m glad it’s finally happening with TMNT: Empire City, and the 15-minute demo I played was enough to sell me on this tubular action-adventure.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is exactly the kind of action game you’d expect from the titular masked heroes. I spent my time fighting members of the Foot Clan as each member of the TMNT crew (including their iconic weapons of choice, like Leonardo’s katanas and Donatello’s bo staff), running and jumping across city skylines in pursuit of justice, and hanging out back in my sewer base and eating pizza. Doing all of that in VR is exactly as fun as it sounds (meaning, it’s super fun!), and it’s especially amusing to look down at your turtle body and remember, “Oh, yeah. I’m an anthropomorphic mutated reptile.”
Unfortunately, the section I played was limited entirely to the tutorial, so I was mostly just learning the ropes, like how to hack into electronic devices as Donatello (since he does machines) or how to perform parries on those pesky Shredder-following Foot Clan. The fundamentals were definitely strong, as I was grinning ear-to-ear pretty much the whole time, but I’ll be curious to see if Empire City can build on that to keep it interesting across an entire campaign. For example, I only got to fight one boss at the very end of this introductory mission, and it lasted all of – I kid you not – five seconds as I dodged her opening attack and then whaled on her until she tapped out. Obviously this fight was also a part of the tutorial, so it’s hard to tell if things will get more challenging, but here’s hoping.
Building a Better Turtle
Something that would seem to indicate a deeper level of challenge is the fact that back at the base there’s a whole menu of upgrades to deal with. None of these were unlockable in the build I played from what I could tell, but it reminded me a bit of the upgrade system in Half-Life: Alyx, where you’re collecting parts throughout levels, then funnel it all into a machine to craft certain upgrades for your character. It’s also just great to see them using Donatello’s propensity for crafting gadgets brought to life via all the junk he stuffs in his pocket along the way, which his brothers made fun of him for doing, of course.
I never forgot which of the brothers I was because Empire City did such a good job or reminding me with its banter that was completely on point with the surprisingly good writing for which the series is known.
Which leads me to one of my favorite parts of the demo: how perfectly Ninja Turtles it was! The banter between the brothers and their recognizable idiosyncrasies left me smiling, whether it was Leonardo’s tendency to be way too serious all the time, Michelangelo’s wise cracks, or Raphael’s intensity and impatience. The unique weapon aside, I never forgot which of the brothers I was because Empire City did such a good job or reminding me with its banter that was completely on point with the surprisingly good writing for which the series is known. I could easily imagine a world where this thing felt like a reskinned ninja game that felt completely generic, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Huge relief.
They also do a really good job capturing the comic book/Saturday morning cartoon art style, with environments that look cel-shaded and goofy voice performances that are over-the-top and amusing. Sure, lots of the textures are fairly undetailed, but that works pretty perfectly with the straight-from-a-comicbook vibe that this game is clearly shooting for. I could easily see myself spending a lot of time just hanging out in this world, exploring and fighting alongside friends. Which reminds me: will there be skateboarding in this? Why haven’t they let me skateboard yet?!
(Multi-)Turtle Power?
One pretty huge thing I didn’t get to see in action is how this will all work in four-player co-op. I can only imagine how much of a blast it’s going to be to roll through with the full shell squad smacking enemies around, but the section of the demo I played felt pretty designed for a single player and it’s a bit difficult to imagine how this kind of gameplay might scale up for four-player bouts. Presumably there’d need to be many more enemies and fewer linear paths than the ones I crept through to make it work. Also, I can only imagine how silly it’ll look to have teammates running around as big ol’ green cartoon characters while swinging around nunchucks.
I’ll still need to see a fair bit more of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Empire City before I can speak definitively on it, but so far I’m pretty stoked by the potential here and am absolutely flabbergasted that it took us this long to get a first-person TMNT game.
At long last, Leon S. Kennedy has been confirmed to appear in Resident Evil: Requiem — via a leaked image on the PlayStation Store.
The reveal of new cover art for the game featuring Leon finally puts to bed one of this year’s biggest gaming mysteries — something developer Capcom has itself refused to address — just days ahead of Requiem’s appearance at The Game Awards. Presumably we’ll see Leon announced officially there.
This morning, Resident Evil fans began spotting the new cover art appearing on PlayStation 5 consoles in the pre-download screen for owners of the standard (non-Deluxe) version of the game. IGN has now verified this ourselves, and can confirm the image is legitimate. Leon is real.
The game’s cover shows a haggard-looking Leon looming over Requiem’s other main protagonist, Grace Ashcroft. In his appearance, Leon looks most similar to his iconic look from Resident Evil 4, his floppy hair set off by a snazzy leather jacket, its collar lined with fur.
Rumors have persisted for months over Leon’s involvement in Resident Evil: Requiem, with Capcom specifically declining to answer IGN’s questions over the character back at Gamescom in August. The game’s developers have even suggested that Leon would be a poor fit as a protagonist for the game’s quieter sections as he is now too grizzled to be scared. But through all of this, Capcom left itself with just enough wiggle room for Leon to still be lurking somewhere — presumably during Requiem’s more action-packed sequences.
Here’s a better look at Resident Evil: Requiem’s new box art, with Leon’s look shown in more detail:
Despite Capcom’s secrecy, persistent leaks pointed to Leon’s presence in Requiem, while the game’s story itself seems like it’s built around the character’s return. Requiem returns the franchise to its roots in Raccoon City, where Leon was once a rookie cop. An early trailer for the game even showed the remnants of his former Raccoon City Police Department, hinting at his involvement.
Throughout all this, Capcom had kept the secret the quiet — up until today, just 80 days from the game’s February 27, 2026 launch date, and little more than 48 hours from its big splash at The Game Awards this Thursday — where gameplay featuring Leon is now all but certain to be fully revealed.
More to follow…
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Sorry, puzzle geeks. Don’t expect a Blue Prince 2 any time soon. Or, ever, really.
That’s what we learned from speaking with Blue Prince creator Tonda Ros last month. We asked him loads of questions and you can read our full interview right here, but one big mystery we wanted to clear up was if he’d ever make a sequel to Blue Prince. And, no, he won’t. No sequel to Blue Prince, nor to any other game he makes in the future.
But he is going to make something else.
“I can say I will never make a sequel to my work because I love creating something standalone and then going on to something completely different,” he said. “It will likely not even be in the same exact genres. I will probably be mixing it up. You’ll start to see overlap. You’ll start to see overlaps with some of my interests. So it will be familiar, and hopefully I’ll inadvertently have things that really worked with Blue Prince that I’ll carry on in terms of at least technicals. But yeah, we’ll see. I’m hesitant to do another 3D game because for my first game, 3D was so difficult. I really wish I did a 2D game. I probably could have done it in five years instead of eight. But yeah, I think it’ll be something totally different.”
This might be disappointing to hear for Blue Prince fans, especially for those still mulling over the game’s remaining unsolved mysteries and wishing there was some sort of answer to them. It also sounds like, from our interview, he won’t be doing any more major content updates to Blue Prince after the upcoming so-called “final update.” “I do love complete games,” he said. “And I do love when something is definitively done. So I had tried my best to get everything into the game at launch because that was something I just really wanted. I didn’t want to eternally be updating this.”
Whatever it is Ros is working on next, it will be a while before we see it. He says he still expects to be working on Blue Prince in small ways for the next year, finishing the final update, bug fixes, and such. And given that Blue Prince took about eight years to create, he’ll need a lot more time on top of that to create something brand new. At least Blue Prince fans have already completed a serious exercise in patience by finishing the game at all.
You can read our full interview with Ros here, and check out our review where we gave Blue Prince a 9/10. As our reviewer wrote: “If The Witness, Portal, and Myst are already emblazoned on the Mount Rushmore of first-person puzzle games, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Blue Prince carved alongside them soon enough.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
There are a lot of skateboarding games, and I feel like I’ve played most of them. Some of them are majestic. Some are not. The Simpsons Skateboarding was the absolute pits. Tony Hawk: Ride was tortuous pain. This year’s Skate is a microtransaction hellscape.
Enter Skate Story. Like those latter examples, it too is a trip to skateboarding hell and a study in pain. In this case, however, that’s actually the whole point of this extremely peculiar journey through perdition on a piece of 7-ply. I wasn’t always aboard for the sheer and utter weirdness of Skate Story’s broader adventure, but there’s no doubt developer Sam Eng has successfully married it to a robust and approachable set of skate mechanics – and it certainly makes for a memorable skateboarding game like no other I’ve ever played.
Skate Story is a slightly tricky game to describe, if only because attempting to even discuss the plot sounds a little like you’re making it up on the spot. The deal is you’re a demon made out of glass and pain, marooned in Hell. It’s referred to as The Underworld, more specifically – but the Devil is here, either way. I know this because I have his pants.
From the Devil comes a deal. That is, you can be free on one condition: you find a way to flip, grind, and manual your way to the moon – and eat it. For some reason.
Are you still following? Because I haven’t even got to the frog barista yet. Or the subway train with legs.
Are you still following? Because I haven’t even got to the frog barista yet.
I’m hesitant to say much else lest I spoil any of the particularly quirky developments along the way, so just be aware Skate Story is an incredibly weird trip through a bizarre underworld. To be candid, this isn’t really the kind of thing I’d typically seek out. That is, the stories I like normally feature big guys causing problems in small towns, assassins with grudges, or pictures of fighter planes on the cover. That is, I’m more David Leitch than David Lynch, if that makes sense. Skate Story did largely win me over, though. There were definitely moments I found myself getting a little numb to the weirdness, on account of just how offbeat it sometimes gets, but overall I admire the commitment to its surrealistic vision.
Its story is told via text that you can read through at your own pace. There’s no voice acting or voiceover – and there’s an argument to be mounted that it might’ve gained a bit of gravity from some kind of baritone narration à la The Stanley Parable or Bastion – but Skate Story’s finely honed soundtrack means there’s still plenty to listen to. Assembled by New Jersey band Blood Cultures, the music is a generous mix of the group’s experimental, electro-pop sound, and it ranges in tempo and intensity as the locations and pace of the levels vary. This sort of music is also comfortably out of my usual wheelhouse, but nonetheless I found it extremely evocative and catchy, and it suits Skate Story to a T. It fabulously complements The Underworld’s abstract environments, and the atmosphere of its eternal night backdrop.
Don’t be fooled by Skate Story’s grainy, low-fi look, either; this is one of the most eye-catching and imaginative-looking games I’ve played in recent memory. Its psychedelic vision for a neon underworld blends jagged forests of spikes with broken slabs of ancient architecture, and twisted blocks of New York City with carpets of stars. Watching this wild world refract through a sneaker-clad demon made entirely of glass is certainly something.
Pain in the Glass
The controls are not immediately intuitive, because they’re noticeably different from the approach taken by the sorts of dedicated sports-oriented skating games a lot of us are familiar with. That is, Skate Story doesn’t have tricks mapped to flicking an analogue stick around like the Skate series (or both analogue sticks, as in the case of something like Session). It’s more in line with playing something like Tony Hawk, only imagine someone remapped all the buttons.
Basic tricks are activated by a combination of either a shoulder button or trigger plus a face button, and grinds occur when you pop and land suitably on a rail or ledge. A variety of other, progressively more complex tricks are rationed out and taught to us as the story unfolds over its roughly six-hour duration. It’s not a revolutionary approach, sure, but it’s a smart one since having us always picking up new tricks keeps things fresh throughout. There was a moderate learning curve as I sought to archive decades of THPS muscle memory in order to learn Skate Story’s own specific trick system – but it didn’t take too long to come to grips with.
It’s all very grounded and weighty, which I like, and the tricks look great in motion with the low slung camera that tumbles to the ground like a physical object each time you bail and shatter to bits. I love how the powerslides feel, and I love the slow motion enders we’re rewarded with for our successes. When it comes to vibes, Skate Story nails the landing.
It’s all very grounded and weighty… and the tricks look great in motion with the low slung camera.
There’s a timing mechanism for executing tricks that results in different pop heights, which is illustrated by an on-screen doodle (a different shape for each trick). Depending on the speed of your skater, a marker will trace the doodle slowly or quickly – and there’s a sweet spot for getting max altitude – but I have to admit I generally paid little attention to it. On default settings, Skate Story never demanded a fastidious level of timing finesse to get through its levels and defeat bosses. This suits me just fine, but the fact that you can just essentially spam your way through a lot of the most frantic-looking segments may come across as a little trivial to anyone looking for a stiffer challenge.
Tony Hawk’s Underworld
Boss battles are handled in an interesting way, and to win these encounters you need to build up combos and “stomp” them down inside a marked zone. They can be cleared with a bit of mild button-mashing, but there’s certainly room to be much more deliberate about your trick selection and timing if you choose to (and you will, admittedly, accumulate better combos and deal more damage – and faster – if you do). There are also a number of small and trippy sandbox-style levels to cruise around with various objectives to complete, but some of these tasks do get disappointingly trivial. For instance, one mission that called on me to gather up a selection of floating letters sounded like a cute nod to Skate Story’s ancestors – but most of them were just hovering at ground level, turning what could’ve been a brief but fun challenge into a basic fetch quest across the map and back.
My favourite parts of Skate Story, however, were the speed segments, where you must hustle from your spawn point to an ethereal exit door – like some kind of haunted hill bomb. The music ramps up for these high-speed bursts, and I like the fast-paced trial-and-error nature of them as your fragile demon smashes to shards and you instantly get another crack. I always felt a little pang of regret when I reached the end of these runs, and I wish there were a few more of them.
