Forza Horizon 6 comes out in May for PC (later for PS5), so why not get ready with this excellent deal on a popular racing wheel? For a limited time, Amazon is offering the Logitech G29 Racing Wheel and Pedal Set for just $179.99 with free shipping after you clip the coupon on the product page. That’s a hefty 45% off and the lowest price I’ve seen on a brand new Logitech racing wheel so far this year. The G29 is compatible with both PlayStation 5 and PC.
Logitech G29 Racing Wheel and Pedals for $179.99
If you’re a big fan of racing games like Gran Turismo or Forza Horizon 5 and you’ve been using a DualSense controller or gamepad this entire time, then this price drop might be the excuse for you to step up your immersion to the next level. The G29 was already one of the best racing wheels under $300, and definitely the best racing wheel under $200.
Standout features include a gorgeous hand-stitched leather steering wheel with 900 degrees of rotation, sturdy metal base, durable steel ball bearings in the shaft, gear-driven dual-force motor feedback, stainless shifter and pressure-sensitive pedals. The force feedback does an excellent job of simulating providing force and resistance.
If you’re a PC user and wondering which model to get, PlayStation’s G29 model is actually a bit nicer than Xbox’s G920 variant. The G29 has LED shift lights located on the top of the wheel’s spokes. These LEDs light up progressively as the car’s RPMs rise in-game. The G29 also has a rotary knob on the wheel that can be customized to different functions, like traction control, brake bias, or split differential.
If you’re in the market for a racing wheel and pedal combo, grab this G29 at the heavy discount while you can.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Amazon will no longer publish UK developer Maverick Games’ yet-to-be-titled open-world driving game, reports The Game Business.
“As part of our strategic evolution to focus on projects that leverage Amazon’s unique strengths and scale, including the recent re-launch of Luna and our Tomb Raider franchise partnership with Crystal Dynamics, we have decided to release Maverick Games from their publishing agreement with Amazon Game Studios,” the company explained in a provided statement.
“We have tremendous respect for the Maverick Games team and the compelling narrative-led driving experience they’re creating. This decision allows Maverick Games the flexibility to find a publishing partner whose strategic priorities are better aligned with bringing their game to market. We’re proud of what we accomplished together during our partnership and wish them every success in the future.”
Fortunately, this does not mean the end of the road for the project itself, with Maverick Games co-founder Mike Brown confirming on social media that development is continuing to progress strongly and plans are in place to share information about the game later this year.
Maverick Games was founded in 2022 following the departure of a number of staff from Forza Horizon developer Playground Games. At that time, former Forza Horizon 5 creative director Mike Brown was joined by producer Tom Butcher, technical director Matt Craven, technical art director Gareth Harwood, audio director Fraser Stachan, and art director Ben Penrose. It was revealed in January 2023 that the team was working on a “premium open-world game for consoles and PC.”
Amazon’s partnership with Maverick on this “narrative-led open-world driving” project was unveiled in mid-2004.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
Skate developer Full Circle has announced layoffs affecting an undisclosed number of staff as it aims to “better support” the “long-term future” of its free-to-play title.
Publisher EA revealed its “reshaping” plans with a blog post on the studio’s website. No detailed information about the number of affected employees or their roles was given, with the message only stating that “making changes to our team structure” means that “some roles will be impacted.”
“The teammates affected are talented colleagues and friends who helped build the foundation of skate.,” Full Circle said. “Their creativity and dedication are deeply ingrained in what players experience today. This decision is not a reflection of their impact and we’re committed to supporting them through this transition.”
The post mentions that tens of millions of players have played the free-to-play Skate reboot since it launched as an Early Access title for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S September 2025. Today’s restructuring is said “to better support skate.’s long-term future and focus the team on the things that matter most to you.” EA and Full Circle sign off by assuring fans they will work with the community as they “move faster, listen more closely, and deliver consistently” as development on Skate continues.
This decision is not a reflection of their impact and we’re committed to supporting them through this transition.
“To our departing teammates: thank you. skate. exists because of your hard work and dedication to the craft.”
Full Circle will continue development on Skate as it works to secure its long-term future. As detailed in a separate post last week, the free-to-play skating revival will soon launch into Season 3. The rest of its roadmap includes the promise of additional features, cosmetics, game modes, and more.
IGN has reached out to EA for comment regarding the restructuring at Full Circle.
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).
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection’s release date is right around the corner, and IGN had the chance to speak to the developers in depth about a brand new locales trailer released at IGN Fan Fest. We’ve got never-before-seen concept art of the three main bases in the game – Azuria Castle, Shepharden, and Galyad – and insightful commentary from director Kenji Oguro, art director Takahiro Kawano, and lead game designer Daisuke Wakahara.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is shaping up to be a beautiful game, which is wholly supported by the diverse scenery you’ll encounter on your journey as an environmentalist Ranger. The Monster Hunter Stories 3 team allocated a lot of time and research into making the locations enjoyable for players, and their attention to detail shows. You can watch the new locales video with commentary direct from the developers above, or, if you’d like to immerse yourself in the scenery with no commentary and a few bonus scenes, check out the trailer below.
Azuria
If you’ve played the free demo version of Monster Hunter Stories 3, you’ve seen Azuria. This land features fields, forests, and picturesque mountains on the horizon with a castle town on a lake, lending a classic storybook backdrop.
“In the design process, we wanted to make the stereotypical fantasy castle type of design to depict how peaceful Azuria is, and to depict the beautiful nature of the world of Azuria and the castle itself,” Kawano said.
The team had some real-world inspiration that made its way into the concept art for the surrounding area of Azuria and its castle, specifically, a Spanish castle called Alcazar de Segovia. This wouldn’t be the first time the castle has inspired a creator – as part of its 100th anniversary, The Walt Disney Company revealed in 2023 that it was the inspiration for Snow White’s castle. A magical locale, indeed.
Kawano also described how the wing-like flags represent the wings of Rathalos to signify the special bond Azuria has with the endangered species. The town even has a runway of sorts for monsters to take flight, something uniquely logical for the Stories series, where Riders form bonds with monsters called Monsties and, as the name suggests, ride them.
The attention to detail in the scenery carries into the connection of Twisted Reflection’s story as well. The main catalyst of the plot in Stories 3 is the “Crystal Encroachment,” a phenomenon with unknown origins affecting both the environment and monsters, but the Egg Quartz it leaves behind is used by the residents of Azuria and elsewhere as a source of light.
Shepharden
Shepharden is the second locale the protagonist and the rangers will visit, and if you’ve played a certain entry in the regular Monster Hunter lineup, you may recognize the lush environment.
“One key feature of [Shepharden] is that monsters from Monster Hunter Rise inhabit the area around it,” revealed Kawano. “So based on Monster Hunter Rise, as you may have known, it has a very Eastern, Asia-like taste. So Shepharden and the surrounding area is also designed after that art style.”
You might also notice a structure at the base of the stairs to the village elder’s place inspired by Japanese torii gates, clearly recognizable as orange, angular arches. Right beneath that torii gate are masks stuck into the ground, which represent the graves of the former elders of the village, explained Kawano.
Another Shepharden detail the team had to consider is that this village is not built for Riders the way Azuria is. As such, there aren’t stables – so Ratha, the protagonists’ Rathalos, is stuck into a very small space that’s part of an unused residence.
Galyad
Galyad is a bustling, prosperous town surrounded by desert and relatively desolate lands compared to Azuria and Shepharden. It’s covered in decoration, stones, and jewelry, somewhat fueled by the residents’ successful trade of Egg Quartz. Kawano described that as you get deeper into the city of Galyad, you might discover a boundary between the prosperous residents and the not-so-fortunate residents, and find slum-like areas.
The city’s architecture and design is actually inspired by Mediterranean regions and even has a Lagiacrus fountain in the city center. It’s especially interesting given the desert environment – Lagiacrus is, after all, a Leviathan monster known to inhabit the water.
“Galyad used to be an ocean port city that was floating on top of the ocean,” Kawano explained. “So all the jewelry and the decorations were based off of the Mediterranean sea theme, but desertification has caused the city to lose all the water and it is currently barren, sandy. So that is the reason why there’s a difference between the decorations and the actual cityscape itself.”
Monster Hunter 3: Twisted Reflection Q&A
Of course, I had to take advantage of the time I had speaking with the Monster Hunter 3: Twisted Reflection developers, so I asked a few questions unrelated to the new trailer I thought might be interesting. We got into the game’s more mature protagonist, the weapon availability, the habitat restoration mechanic, and dual-element monsters.
The interview below has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
IGN: I’d say habitat restoration is one of the biggest new gameplay mechanics in Monster Hunter Stories 3. Can you describe the inspiration behind building the system and why you included it?
Kenji Oguro: The first reason we wanted to implement this feature into Stories 3 is because of the protagonist. He or she is the captain of the Ranger Corps and their objective is to protect and preserve the environment. So we wanted to express the preservation of the environment, not just only in the storyline, but in the actual gameplay cycle itself.
Tthe second reason we implemented habitat restoration is to expand on the Monster Hunter Stories series formula, where deepening bonds with the monsters is very important. In the previous entries, you would collect monster eggs from dens, hatch them, and raise them, but the places where you could get those eggs were very limited and were the same across all players. But for Monster Hunter Stories 3, by implementing this habitat restoration feature, every player will have their very own environment. So your environment and my environment might differ a lot.
By restoring the monster populations and sending them off back to the wilds, you might be able to find some rare eggs with dual-element monsters, as well as Deviant Monsters. [Deviant Monsters] are popular monsters from the previous Monster Hunter mainline series games. You might be able to find eggs of the Deviant monsters by raising the ecosystem rank within the habitat restoration feature. We wanted to reward players for helping to protect the environment and restoring the endangered species and growing their population in the world by providing rare monsters that might hatch from the eggs.
IGN: In the first Monster Hunter Stories, changing a Monstie’s element worked differently, and was achieved by swapping genes to change their stats. Can you tell us the reason behind changing this method to the new one?
Kenji Oguro: In the first Stories game, when you change the genes of the monster and get a dual-element monster, the element that monster possesses completely changes. So that might end up as a disadvantage for a player if you get the wrong combination. But for Stories 3, the team wanted to expand the user’s options more and also make habitat restoration more unique. So they implemented habitat restoration and by raising the ecosystem rank and getting the rare eggs, you are rewarded with the dual-element monster.
For Stories 3, the dual-element monster will retain their original element. So if the original monster has a fire element, they will keep the fire element, and on top of that, they’ll get their second new element. So in the combat, players might want to keep the original fire element and get a new element on top.
This gives players an advantage and more options when they are forming their parties. Usually for RPG games, players tend to go for the strongest character or strongest monster with the highest stats and abilities. But developing Monster Stories 3, with the dual-element feature, you get special monsters with different appearances. One of [my] favorites is the Velocidrome imbued with the dragon element. So you get a pitch black Velocidrome, very badass. And that was [my] favorite monster within the development cycle.
After finding [my] favorite dual-element monster, [I] found that, “Hey, maybe I can just play with my favorite monster instead of focusing on the stats or the ability skills.” So that’s one of the ways that the players can enjoy the game. It’s not just going for the strongest, most powerful monsters, but instead finding a true partner that you love and want to bond with.
IGN: I played the Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflections demo, and I did notice that the Long Sword was added to this game. It hasn’t been in Monster Hunter Stories yet. But I didn’t see the Sword and Shield in my bag. Can you tell me if the Sword and Shield is in Monster Hunter Stories 3, and why you decided to add the Long Sword?
Daisuke Wakahara: So first off, we implemented the Long Sword because the Long Sword itself throughout the Monster Hunter series is very popular amongst hunters and riders. However, we did have some trouble implementing the weapon itself into the RPG formula in the previous games. But in Monster Hunter Stories 3, we were able to come up with a formula to have the Long Sword join the weapon roster.
In terms of Sword and Shield, unfortunately, it is not going to be included in Monster Hunter Stories 3.
And in terms of Sword and Shield, unfortunately, it is not going to be included in Monster Hunter Stories 3 this time around. The reason why we came to this decision is because we had to carefully think about the weapon balance.
When looking at the overall weapon roster for Stories 3, we have Slash, Blunt, and Piercing weapon types. And having both Long Sword and Sword and Shield would change the roster to go towards the Slash weapon types a little too heavily, so we had to take out the Sword and Shield from the roster, unfortunately.
IGN: The main character this time around is more of an adult than the previous protagonists in the Monster Hunter Stories series. Can you tell me why you made that decision to make the protagonist more mature this time around?
Takahiro Kawano: We wanted to differentiate this with the previous entry stories, Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Hunter Stories 2, where the focus was on a child growing into a young adolescent. We decided to start the story off with a full-grown adult as the elite rider. So in terms of the setting for Monster Hunter Stories 3, the protagonist actually starts off already grown up as a prince or a princess of Azuria, and is an elite rider.
IGN: Is there anything else you want to say to the fans watching before we let you go?
Takahiro Kawano: As you’ve seen in the video, we put a lot of effort into the background character designs for Monster Hunter Stories 3. So we’d like to have the players have fun and enjoy the beautiful scenery and the characters in Monster Hunter Stories 3.
Daisuke Wakahara: Thank you to all the players for supporting the Monster Hunter Stories series from the first title. You’ll be surprised at how much the Monster Hunter Stories series has evolved throughout Stories 2 and the newest entry, Monster Hunter Stories 3. We are very confident in this game and that any player can enjoy it as an RPG title. So even if you haven’t tried out the Monster Hunter Stories series yet, we highly encourage new players to try out the Monster Hunter Stories series.
Kenji Oguro: [I’ve] played through Monster Hunter Stories 3 10 to 20 times during the development process. And every time I go through the gameplay, there’s something new that the player can find. I’m very surprised that there’s many, many cards up the development team’s sleeves. So we highly encourage you, the players, to have fun with the game.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 on March 12, 2026. You can play a free trial right now featuring a huge portion of the first area, Azuria, and continue your progress in the full release.
Casey DeFreitas is Deputy Editor of Guides at IGN, and is a first fleet Monster Hunter. Catch her on Socials like Bluesky @ShinyCaseyD.
Similar to every other high-end GPU on the market, the AMD Radeon 9070 XT graphics card is selling for above MSRP in 2026. Fortunately, it’s not as egregiously marked up as Nvidia cards, and now there’s an even better incentive. For a limited time, you can purchase an AMD Radeon 9070 XT GPU on Amazon and get a free Crimson Desert code. Since Crimson Desert isn’t out yet, you’ll have to wait to download the full version of the game when it releases on March 19.
Buy an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, Get Crimson Desert Free
The Radeon RX 9070 XT Received a 10/10 at IGN
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the only 2025-released GPU that we gave a 10/10 score. Even though it costs $150 less than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, the 9070 XT beats it out in several of the games we tested. In a few benchmarks, the results aren’t even close. The 9070 XT approaches the performance of the $1,000 RX 7900 XTX but with better ray tracing and upscaling performance than its predecessor.
This is the least expensive graphics card from either AMD or Nvidia that I would comfortably recommend for playing the latest and most demanding games in 4K at 60fps or higher framerates.
The Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU is the best model to get
The Sapphire Nitro+ is widely considered the best models to get. Much like the high-end ASUS ROG Strix, the Nitro+ features a beefy vapor chamber cooling system, impeccable build quality, and as a result, high overclocking headroom and lower noise potential. It’s usually a lot more expensive than other models but currently the price difference between this and the cheapest 9070 XT option listed on the page is only $80.
Crimson Desert is out on March 19
Crimson Desert is an upcoming open-world game for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X platforms that will be released on March 19. The studio, Pearl Abyss, also created the popular MMORPG Black Desert. Whereas Black Desert was a free-to-play game with microtransactions and gacha elements, Crimson Desert will be a primarily offline single-player experience with a retail price of $69.99. Getting it for free with your CPU upgrade, then, is a great perk.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Chapter 5 of the popular survival horror game Poppy Playtime just came out, but now fans of the game’s creepy monster dolls are closer to having a Huggy Wuggy of their very own. As part of IGN Fan Fest, McFarlane Toys is revealing some brand-new looks at their line of Poppy Playtime figures.
The lineup, which includes 4.5-inch, 7-inch, and 12-inch models, features fan-favorite characters like Huggy Wuggy, Kissy Missy, Killy Willy, and Harley Sawyer. The 7-inch figures will be available for pre-order February 27. You can purchase the entire lineup in-stores like Walmart, Target and GameStop as well as online at Amazon, BigBadToyStore, Entertainment Earth and the McFarlane Toys Store this Spring.
I spoke exclusively with Todd McFarlane about his company’s collaboration with Mob Entertainment, producer of Poppy Playtime, and what makes the game the perfect target for collaboration.
“They’re toys,” McFarlane says of the game’s characters. “My job is to just (see) how much accuracy can we get with what is already popular because you’re going from a flat screen to something that you tangible in your hand. If you look at Disney, Pixar came up with this idea called Toy Story. We always lean into the strength (of the IP). (With Poppy Playtime), you’ve got a popular game people like. They’re based on toys and they look toyetic so you go ‘Of course.’ Superman isn’t a toy, so you go, ‘Well, let’s make one of him. Freddy Krueger isn’t a toy, but you go, ‘Let’s make one of him.’ But when you have something that is already in that vein, then you go, ‘Shoot, here we go.’
McFarlane says that the team felt it was important to offer a variety of options for consumers with different budgets. With the core 7-inch Poppy Playtime figures, the crew at McFarlane implemented a hybrid design combining articulation points with bendable sections to accurately replicate the characters’ curved movements from the game. Those figures will include swappable hands and heads, bases that interlink, packaging that can be used as backdrops, and other accessories.
Along with the 7-inch figures, 4.5-inch bendy figures will be available that will retail for under $10. Larger 12-inch bendy figures will be sold as well for about $20, which McFarlane says represents the “best value” of the line.
McFarlane says that when it came to working out a collaboration with Poppy Playtime, his company’s partnership with Mob Entertainment checked all the boxes. “The Mob guys are a group of people trying to do their passion project,” McFarlane says. “In this case, the passion project worked. I like hanging out with people who are a little bit fearless and are willing to take chances. And artistically, they’re cool to look at!”
For their part, the team at Mob digs deep into community feedback to determine which characters should get a heavy push when it comes to merchandising. Tyler Sanchez, Senior Social and Growth Manager for Mob Entertainment, is at the center of those efforts.
“That’s part of my job really, going in and listening to the fans,” Sanchez says. “Not only when we launch a game, but whenever we put out a new YouTube video. I have entire dashboards of character popularity that I can lean into and then tell our licensing team, ‘Hey, people really really like CatNap! We should focus on making more merchandise for CatNap.’ Leaning into what the community wants helps extend the lifetime of the game.”
Beyond merchandising, Sanchez says that Mob’s attention to audience reaction actually can affect how future chapters of Poppy Playtime play out.
“I was watching a playthrough and they got to the Pianosaurus and saw him eating on the bottom and (the streamer) was just like, “My boy, I’m so excited.” Pianosaurus turns around and runs and then Doey just takes him and slams him and basically murders him. And (the streamer) said, ‘Was that it? Is that forever? Is he dead?’ And it was just like this moment where (I thought) ‘Oh god, we’re just going to break so many people’s hearts by killing this character.’ And so because of that, I actually took it upon myself to write additional lore for Pianosaurus.”
Beyond games and a new line of toys, the Poppy Playtime universe is rapidly expanding. Back in 2024, Legendary Entertainment announced that they were working on a movie adaptation of the series. Details of the film are sparse at the moment, and the characters seem ripe for further adaptations. When I asked Sanchez if he could give any hints as to the future of the Poppy universe he demurred. “All I can say is stay tuned.”
Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment at IGN, leading entertainment content and coverage of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He’s spent 20 years working in the games and entertainment industry, and his adventures have taken him everywhere from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him on Bluesky @MichaelPeyton
Amazon recently discounted the 2025 27″ Samsung G5 OLED to $349.99, making it the lowest price I’ve ever seen for an OLED gaming monitor. Today, the deal just got even better because you can now get a free Resident Evil: Requiem game code with purchase. The offer will automatically be applied during checkout. With this voucher you’ll be able to download the full game when it releases on February 27. The monitor also includes a 3 year warranty with burn-in coverage.
27″ Samsung Odyssey OLED G5 Gaming Monitor for $349.99
Free Resident Evil: Requiem game code with purchase
The Samsung Odyssey OLED G5 (G50SF) is a 2025 model 27″ display with a 2560×1440 or QHD resolution, measuring out to a respectable pixel density of 108ppi. It’s equipped with a quantum dot OLED panel that boasts a near-instantaneous 0.03ms response time, near infinite contrast ratio, and true black levels. QD OLED panels are considered better than traditional W-OLED panels because they are brighter and offer a wider color gamut.
This monitor also features a fast 180Hz refresh rate and Nvidia G-Sync compatibility. If you pair it with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card or higher, you should be able to hit that 180fps ceiling on older games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Valorant. For newer games like Battlefield 6 or Black Ops 7, you might need to step up to an RTX 5070 Ti or Radeon 9070 XT to achieve that 180fps ceiling. The display comes equipped with both DisplayPort and HDMI ports.
As mentioned earlier, this monitor has a 3 year warranty that includes OLED burn-in coverage. That’s still pretty uncommon across most OLED brands, especially when you’re looking at the less expensive models. Most come with just a 1 year warranty with no burn-in protection.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Pokémon has been a part of my life for as far back as I can remember. I was just starting first grade when Pokémon Red and Blue came out on the Game Boy, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. My brother and I only had one Game Boy between us, and since he was older, he got to play it far more often than I did. Before we got a copy of Pokémon Blue for Christmas that year, the only Game Boy game we’d actually had the chance to play was Tetris. So needless to say, I was instantly enamored with the concept of catching and battling with all 151 of the original Pokémon.
And of those original Pokémon in that game, I was always particularly interested in Eevee. Not because it’s arguably the most adorable, but because of all of the evolutionary paths you could take once you had one. And you could only have one per playthrough, after all, since you couldn’t actually catch Eevee in that game. As one of the most versatile Pokémon out there and I always find myself choosing a different Eevee-lution each time I play a new game.
Now in 2026, with a new collaboration with LEGO, I had the chance to experience Eevee evolving into something much more exciting: an adorable little LEGO set. LEGO provided IGN with a copy of the set for a test build and I was lucky enough to be the one to put it together. At just 587 pieces, it only took me a few hours to assemble, but I was in love with every part of this build. Each new section of the set has you slowly piecing together a surprisingly lifelike LEGO Eevee, and the end result is nothing short of phenomenal. Once I placed the final touch of the build, I was honestly amazed at just how good it looks despite being made up of tiny plastic bricks.
At $59.99, the LEGO Eevee build is the most affordable of the three Pokémon sets now available to buy. And of those three, I think Eevee is the most realistic looking. Due to its price compared to the other sets, it’s also the one I think most people are probably going to buy. Despite that lower price point, however, the whole build still felt like a premium experience. The set came with a total of six bags, all of which were made of nice recyclable paper. The instruction booklet also included the official Pokédex entry for Eevee, which I thought was a nice touch.
You start off the build with Eevee’s core body. This is the foundation of the whole set, which you can see start to come together with various places for the legs, tail, and head to connect. This is the least exciting part of the whole experience, but I always enjoy these parts of the build due to the insight you get into how LEGO actually designed these sets to work. The connecting slots for legs give you a glimpse of how you’ll be able to articulate those limbs once they’re added, and the giant connector on top gives you an idea of just how massive Eevee’s head is going to be compared to the rest of its body.
I was honestly amazed at just how good it looks despite being made up of tiny plastic bricks.
Once you move on to building the actual legs, the set really starts to come to life. Starting with the front legs, the instructions have you build one limb at a time before attaching it to the main body. Each of these is fairly straightforward to put together and looks fairly blocky until you get to the voluptuous fluff on each shoulder. You use a series of rounded pieces that really smooth out the overall look of each leg. Then the final touch of rounded pieces at the end ensure almost all of the LEGO studs are covered up. The end result is a surprisingly soft looking leg that will contribute to Eevee’s overall fluffy visage.
After you finish building and attaching all of the legs, you can already start playing around with all of the different positions the final product will be able to move into. Each of the legs can articulate forward and backward, allowing you to move the body into various sitting and standing poses. I was even able to move it into a full standing position, which is admittedly much harder to balance once Eevee’s head and tail are added to the equation.
The tail is where I really felt the build starting to add enough complexity to earn its 18+ age rating. Because you’re essentially turning bricks into what will appear as a fluffy tail, you need to ensure that each of the pieces is facing the right outward direction. I ended up making a few mistakes here without realizing and had to backtrack later so I could actually connect all of the rounded pieces on both sides later on. You shouldn’t have any issue here unless you try to rush through things and ignore instructions like I do. Once the whole thing is put together, it attaches neatly to the back of the set and can move from side to side.
“Each of the legs can articulate forward and backward, allowing you to move the body into various sitting and standing positions.”
With the entire body and tail put together, you get to move on to Eevee’s surprisingly massive noggin. I was particularly nervous about this part of the build because I had feared that it would involve some sort of sticker element. I had put together a LEGO Wednesday set last year that had a ton of different stickers and made some horrendous mistakes that made the end result look just weird enough to bother me forever. Thankfully, my fears of having an Eevee with horribly misplaced eyes were quickly banished when I found that the pieces themselves already had the designs printed on them. So once you build the actual head, all you need to do is attach a few pieces to get a perfectly designed face.
The final step of the build is Eevee’s long pointy ears. These are relatively easy to put together, and like all of the other parts of the set, can be articulated into various positions. Each ear can be moved up and down, allowing for a symmetrical look or that cute lopsided look that you see on the box. And although you’ve already got a mostly complete Eevee set right up until this point, it isn’t until you add the ears that the whole thing comes alive.
All-in-all, I found the Eevee set to be one of the most enjoyable LEGO builds I’ve ever done. I’m obviously a bit biased due to my deep nostalgic love of Pokémon, but it’s honestly just a really cool build at a surprisingly affordable price point. And now that it’s been fully put together I have a full-on Eevee action figure that I find myself adjusting and displaying in random spots throughout the house. It’s my new favorite display set and it has me excited for what the LEGO Pokémon collab will bring in the future.
Jacob Kienlen is a Senior Audience Development Strategist and Writer for IGN. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, he has considered the Northwest his home for his entire life. With a bachelor’s degree in communication and over 8 years of professional writing experience, his expertise is spread across a variety of different pop culture topics — from TV series to indie games and books.
Within the hallways of the sinister sanatorium where Resident Evil Requiem’s opening hours take place lies some of the most frightening encounters I’ve experienced in the series to date. With my headphones on and the lights off, the ninth mainline adventure in Capcom’s longrunning survival horror saga forced me to endure moments so palpably tense and prolonged I discovered muscles to clench that I didn’t previously know I had. Yet hours later I was no longer holding my breath, but holding my fist in the air instead, as I gleefully mowed down masses of undead meatsacks like it was D-Day in World War Z. In an effort to please both survival horror stalwarts and action-horror advocates, Resident Evil Requiem runs the gore-soaked gamut from anxiety-inducing chills to trigger-happy thrills. The result is yet another supremely hair-raising horror story, despite the fact its most potent scares have all been delivered by the time it arrives at its more gloriously gung-ho second half.
Not unlike 2023’s Alan Wake II, Resident Evil Requiem initially focuses on a young FBI agent, in this case series newcomer Grace Ashcroft (Angela Sant’Albano), a fresh-faced analyst who’s sent to investigate a series of mysterious deaths among the survivors of Raccoon City, several decades after the 1998 outbreak. Grace’s flashlight-lit forensic search through the grimy insides of a shuttered hotel is ultimately short-lived, however, since she’s soon ensnared by Victor Gideon (Antony Byrne), Requiem’s main antagonist whose menacing air, disgustingly disfigured face, and greasy goggles make him seem like some sort of steampunk Emperor Palpatine. Victor traps Grace in the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, a Spencer Mansion-style labyrinth of locked doors crawling with all manner of flesh-eating freaks, but thankfully help is on the way in the form of uber stylish series veteran, Leon S. Kennedy (Nick Apostolides).
Survival horror’s preeminent himbo has clearly seen better days – the strange bruising on his skin suggests he’s battling some sort of affliction potentially related to T-Virus exposure, while the shiny new Porsche he’s driving implies he’s also not immune to a midlife crisis. But it’s Grace who is the standout here. Resident Evil characters have historically exhibited an exaggeratedly campy quality that’s injected a large dose of goofiness amidst the gore, but for my money this inexperienced FBI agent is by far the most relatably human heroine the series has ever had. Her evolution from being perpetually on the brink of a panic attack to becoming self-assured enough to fight back made for a journey that I found as captivating as it was consistently creepy.
Saving Grace
Requiem allows us to alternate control between Grace and Leon at specific story junctions over the course of its roughly 10-hour campaign, but it’s the former whose predominately stealth-based sections are undoubtedly the most fear-inducing. Underpowered and under constant threat from twisted stalker ghouls that are liable to descend from the rafters at any moment, Grace’s efforts to escape from the terrors of Victor’s hospital is a wonderfully stressful slab of unrelenting survival horror. There’s precious little ammo to find, a miserly number of inventory slots to manage, and Grace moves at such a slow speed that it makes timing your careful crouch-walk to avoid a prowling pack of zombies an exercise in pinpoint pathmaking, especially if you don’t have a rare breakable bottle to toss in order to create a distraction. All the while you have to puzzle through a stimulating series of body part-based riddles and elaborately locked doors, never really knowing when you’re going to turn a corner and come face to flabby face with a grotesquely girthy golem that’s urgently squeezing its way down the hallway towards you.
I spent so much time trying to steer clear of the numerous considerable threats, that on the occasions Grace was forced into a confrontation the results really rattled me. When played in the default, claustrophobic first-person perspective, her guns feel genuinely startling to fire and the impact of every precious pistol shot is immense. Bullets tear the festering flesh off zombie faces leaving eyeballs to dangle from their stems, and blood spatter paints the walls and persists even when you backtrack through the area later on.
The gallons of gore that covers the floor isn’t just there for spectacle, mind you, since Grace is equipped with a handy blood collector that allows her to syringe up the infected plasma pooling around zombie corpses, and combine it with other pieces of scrap to craft invaluable items like medkits and single-use hemolytic injectors. The latter can be jammed into the spine of an undead monster caught unaware, causing their entire body to swell up and explode in the most gloriously blood-soaked manner of stealth-kill possible, but you can also use it to effectively dispose of a body you’ve downed previously. I found that to be a smart move in areas that I knew I’d be revisiting, since Requiem’s zombies also have a terrifying tendency to reanimate and mutate when you least expect them to. (Seriously, these guys reform and come back more often than The Eagles.)
On the occasions Grace was forced into a confrontation the results really rattled me.
Grace’s quest only grows more intense as it takes her through the suffocating shadows of the hospital’s basement and beyond, but moving through Requiem’s danger-filled surroundings at a snail’s pace didn’t just keep my nerves on edge, it allowed me to observe and appreciate the efforts that Capcom has put into enhancing the eerie behaviour of its undead army. These are no longer the groaning, foot-dragging mouth-breathers encountered during the original Raccoon City outbreak, instead they retain traces of humanity that somehow makes them seem far more unsettling than the more animalistic werewolves in Resident Evil Village. Like the ones that idly flick light switches on and off like bored toddlers, or the others that wander around muttering and laughing to themselves before suddenly collapsing to their knees to hungrily feast on the corpse of one of their former friends.
Leon: The Professional
While Grace’s plight is a desperate and deliberate crawl that had me second-guessing every shadow, the ominous sounds of silence are shattered by the roar of ferocious ultraviolence when you switch control to Leon for what are initially brief, tension-breaking bursts, as everyone’s favourite ex-RCPD recruit attempts a not-so-subtle rescue mission. These levels default to a third-person view to really show off the slaughter, and within minutes of his arrival I’d slipped comfortably back into Resident Evil 4 mode, nailing headshots and ending the undead with effortless execution moves. To my surprise, however, Requiem quickly pushed the insanity meter beyond Resident Evil 4 into Dead Rising levels of delirium by allowing Leon to actually wield a chainsaw to carve through the zombie crowds. Leon’s sections are up-tempo and gruesome to a degree that left me giddy, and almost every major zombie Leon dispatches is met with a delightfully deadpanned dad joke.
Where Grace must use the scarce amounts of scrap in her surroundings to make her own rapidly destructible knives, Leon is toting a powerful hatchet that can be easily maintained with an everlasting flint. While Grace has to carefully count each round in her small handful of handguns, Leon enjoys an extensive bevy of teeth-rattling boomsticks from beefy shotguns to head-splitting sniper rifles. Plus, if Leon gets bored of his own weapons he can use someone else’s – after killing a zombie who drops a fire axe or lead pipe, he has the option to smoothly scoop it up and launch it at another enemy nearby, which is every bit as slick and satisfying as the similar sword-flinging feature of last year’s Ghost of Yotei. That’s not to mention that instead of having to painstakingly harvest blood samples to craft with, Leon is rewarded with a special currency for every kill that can be conveniently cashed in at a de facto ATM for artillery to buy useful weapon upgrades, extra ammo, and even body armour.
Simply put, there’s no off position on Leon’s arse-kicking switch – his gunplay is John Wick-slick and bloodier than ever before – and in addition to his surging slaughter of zombie hordes it’s also within Leon’s levels that the bulk of Requiem’s appropriately epic boss encounters take place. There are plenty of colossal clashes to be found here, from brand new behemoths to brilliantly reimagined threats from previous Resident Evil stories, and there isn’t a single Del Lago-sized dud among them. I particularly loved how the hulking nasty faced inside a cramped chapel midway through the story subverted my expectations of how a Resident Evil boss fight should play out. Sure, being tasked with blasting the glowing weak points that cover a marauding monster’s torso is nothing new. That is, until you realise that while piercing each swollen blister does inflict damage to the beast, it also spews streams of infection onto the zombie underlings around him, instantly mutating them into brawnier forms of backup for you to contend with. Leon may be armed to the teeth, but that doesn’t mean Requiem doesn’t still find creative ways to ramp up the challenge.
Shorn of the Dread
As much as I love Leon, though, I do wonder if perhaps his sections become a bit too dominant once Requiem settles into a more action-oriented groove in its second half, as the story moves beyond the grounds of Rhodes Hill and deep into what remains of Raccoon City. Let me be clear, Resident Evil 4 is my personal favourite instalment in the series, so it certainly gave me a great deal of pleasure to once again wield a military grade arsenal and pull-off skull-shattering finishing moves as the series’ hunkiest mutant murderer. There’s also plenty of variety in the violence, from a full-throttle highway chase sequence to heavy artillery strikes that seem straight out of a Call of Duty campaign. But after playing almost exclusively as Leon through a roughly five-hour stretch towards Requiem’s conclusion, I did find myself yearning for a few more tastes of Grace’s superbly nerve-shredding stealth sections as a more regular change-up from Leon’s comparatively scare-free carnage.
There’s no off position on Leon’s arse-kicking switch.
That desire was eventually gratified to some extent by a terrifyingly taut late-game tip-toe through a facility crawling with some truly menacing monsters returning from the series’ past, but given that the story ended soon afterwards my overriding impression of Requiem was that it was very much a game of two halves. The former predominately a slow and steady scare-a-thon, and the latter largely a run-and-gun splatterfest. I very much enjoyed both flavours in their own right; I just wish for the sake of its pacing that they’d been blended together a touch more over the full course of the journey. Instead, Requiem is a bit like ordering a whiskey and Coke and having it served in two separate glasses instead of being mixed into one.
To be fair, Grace’s absence from a significant stretch of Requiem is justified within the context of its story, and overall it’s a tale that gripped me harder than a zombie nurse gnawing on my neck. There are a number of blindsiding twists that cast new light on the origins of the Umbrella Corporation and the ambitions of its founder, along with an excellent mix of zombie-riddled locations both fresh and familiar to puzzle and pummel your way through, and plenty of vital notes to collect along the way. Some of these memos are crucial to understanding the intriguing mystery behind Grace’s abduction and the truth about her past, while others are just genuinely funny gags to help ease the tension. After encountering a specific zombie type in one medical wing that was obnoxiously singing at the top of her lungs, I got a good laugh out of uncovering a doctor’s report that had diagnosed her with ‘Main Character Syndrome’, for example.
There’s also one particularly iconic location that Leon explores that I’m reluctant to spoil here (although it has been teased in pre-release trailers), which is jam-packed with fun Easter Eggs that made it a real treat to revisit as someone who’s been enjoying Resident Evil adventures ever since the T-Virus made its first outbreak on a black-bottomed CD for the original PlayStation.
Following various delays, Bungie is now ready to open Marathon‘s doors courtesy of a ‘Server Slam’ event from tomorrow, February 26, which will run until March 2.
Marathon is a PvP-focused extraction shooter set on the mysterious planet of Tau Ceti IV. Players inhabit the bodies of Runners, cybernetic mercenaries who have been designed to survive the planet’s harsh environments, exploring the lost colony that once inhabited Tau Ceti’s surface.
Marathon’s full launch is scheduled for March 5 across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, so this is an opportunity to try before you buy. Furthermore, Bungie’s also using the Server Slam to test its anti-cheat systems, and is calling on players to report cheaters if they encounter them.
Here’s everything you need to know about what content’s available, the rewards you’ll get for participating, and when the free server test goes live where you live.
Marathon Server Slam start times
Depending on where you are in the world, Marathon’s Server Slam is set to go live on:
Thursday, February 26 — Monday March 2, 2026:
PST (San Francisco):
10am
CST (Austin, Mexico City):
12pm
EST (New York):
1pm
GMT (London):
6pm
CET (Paris):
7pm
Friday, February 27 — Tuesday March 3, 2026:
JST (Tokyo):
3am
CST (Beijing):
3am
AEST (Sydney):
5am
NZST (Wellington):
7am
Marathon Server Slam Missions and Activities
Infil into two zones:
Perimeter, an edge-site expansion on the colony’s outskirts
Dire Marsh, the colony’s agricultural research hub
Take on the early contracts for five factions: CyberAcme, NuCaloric, Traxus, MIDA, and Arachne
Progress though the early faction levels and progression trees for each faction
Try out five of the six Runner shells that will be available at launch, plus our scavenger experience Rook
Play as a crew, solo Runner, form uneasy alliances with proximity chat, and more
Marathon Server Slam Rewards
Time spent during the Slam will “bank loot rewards you’ll receive at launch, based on how far you progress”:
Complete your first mission: Unlock the Standard Arrival Cache
Standard implants (6x)
Standard Runner shell cores (4x)
Standard weapon chip mods (6x)
Weapons: Overrun and Hardline
Reach Runner Level 10: Unlock the Enhanced Arrival Cache (Green)
Enhanced implants (6x)
Enhanced Runner shell cores (2x for each shell, 12x total)
Enhanced weapon chip mods (4x)
Weapons: Enhanced Magnum and Enhanced Hardline
Reach Runner Level 30: Unlock the Deluxe Arrival Cache (Blue)
Deluxe and Enhanced implants (3x each, 6x total)
Deluxe and Enhanced Runner shell cores (1x each for each shell, 12x total)
Deluxe and Enhanced weapon chip mods (2x each, 4x total)
Weapons: Deluxe Magnum and Enhanced Volley Rifle
Backpack: Enhanced Base Backpack
PlayStation Plus subscribers will also be able to nab bonus weapon charms themed around Ghost of Yōtei, Death Stranding 2, and Helldivers 2 at launch. Marathon players on Steam automatically receive the exclusive Crowbar Weapon Charm (don’t say Half-Life 3 confirmed!) when Marathon releases on March 5. Marathon players on Xbox Series X and S, meanwhile, get the exclusive Emerald Clutch Weapon Charm and Emerald Catch Weapon Charm.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
