Indiana Jones actor Harrison Ford has said Troy Baker playing the beloved character in video game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is proof “you don’t need artificial intelligence to steal my soul.”
Ford discussed alleviating control of Indy with The Wall Street Journal Magazine, saying he was very happy with the performance of The Last of Us actor Baker.
“You don’t need artificial intelligence to steal my soul,” Ford said. “You can already do it for nickels and dimes with good ideas and talent. He did a brilliant job, and it didn’t take AI to do it.”
Matsuhiro Arita is no stranger to card games. He’s the artist responsible for the paintings on innumerable cards from the original release of the Pokemon Trading Card Game, including the highly saught after Charizard – but now he’s painting a different kind of dragon thanks to a Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair drop, and we’ve got the first look at all four cards from it.
Flip through the gallery below to see all the cards in Arita’s Secret Lair:
This isn’t the first time Arita has painted a Magic card, but his previous addition was a single, borderless art version of Lumra, Bellow of the Woods from last year’s Bloomburrow set. So to get four new cards all at once shortly after that is a big jump.
In addition to that, the inclusions all see some sort of play accross different formats. The iconic Lighting Bolt is played pretty much everywhere it is allowed, and Murktide Regent has been a powerful card in both Modern and Legacy since its release in Modern Horizons 2 in 2021. Meanwhile, Light-Paws is a well-loved Commander on its own, and Shorikai has both found a comfy home for itself in many Vintage Cubes and is currently the 20th most popular Commander overall according to EDHRec.
Wizards of the Coast describes this drop on its store page as such: “With nearly 30 years of experience creating beloved art for trading card games, Mitsuhiro Arita’s work has become some of the most recognizable in the world. His first collaboration with Magic: The Gathering was on a borderless Lumra, Bellow of the Woods released in 2024’s Bloomburrow, which quickly became a fan-favorite. In this Secret Lair Drop, the legendary artist returns to showcase his iconic creature design across four remarkable cards.”
As usual with Secret Lair drops, this one will be available on the Secret Lair website in non-foil for $29.99 and foil for $39.99, with both only being made available while supplies last starting on Monday, February 10 at 9am PT. Secret Lairs can tend to sell out fast these days, a point of irration within the community since WOTC switched from a timed print-to-order system last year, so if you’re looking to snag them you’ll want to be there as soon as they go live.
Disney is a multimedia powerhouse, the king of every form of entertainment from movies, TV shows, theme parks, and even video games. Over the last 30 years, The House of Mouse had a hand in creating video game adaptations of some classic Disney movies and original games, like Kingdom Hearts and Epic Mickey.
Today, there are plenty of Disney games on the Nintendo Switch for you to enjoy playing alone or with family and friends. Whether you’re relaxing at home and want to take a break from scrolling through Disney+ or taking a trip to a Disney Park, here’s every Disney game for the Switch in release order.
How Many Disney Games Are on the Nintendo Switch?
It can be a little challenging to pinpoint what is and isn’t “Disney” these days. In total, 11 Disney games have launched on the Switch since the handheld released in 2017. Three of those games are movie tie-ins, one is a spin-off of the Kingdom Hearts series, and one is technically a collection of multiple “Disney classics.” I don’t include them here in the interest of space, but there are also plenty of Star Wars games on the Switch that technically fall under the Disney umbrella.
Which Disney Game Is Worth Playing in 2025?
Not every Disney game is created equal. The combination of “the Disney Brand” with Nintendo Switch games already being pretty expensive means I wouldn’t recommend all of the games on this list at their current price points. That said, there have definitely been some winners in the past couple years. If you’re looking for a game that makes you feel like you’re part of the Disney world, Dreamlight Valley is as good as it gets. The Animal Crossing-like game places you in the position to rebuild Dreamlight Valley with the help of your neighbors, a host of Disney and Pixar characters with their own questlines.
All Disney and Pixar Games on Switch (in Release Order)
Cars 3: Driven to Win (2017)
The first Disney game that launched on the Switch is technically a Pixar game that also overlapped with the Nintendo 3DS. In 2017, the media giant released a tie-in game for the movie Cars 3. Naturally, Cars 3: Driven to Win is a racing game featuring 20 tracks based on locations from the films (including Radiator Springs). The game also includes 20 customizable “characters,” some that are automatically unlocked at the start, like Lightning McQueen, while others, like Mater and Chick Hicks, can only be unlocked by winning your way through the five game modes and various Master Events.
LEGO The Incredibles (2018)
LEGO The Incredibles takes the plotlines of both Incredibles films, released 14 years apart, and merges them into one giant LEGO game. Much like the LEGO Star Wars games, LEGO The Incredibles contains some deviations from the original source material, like changes to the lore we don’t want to spoil for those who haven’t seen the films (even though you had nearly 20 years to do so), and adds original villains to fight along with Bomb Voyage, Syndrome, and the Underminer. But it’s fun to play through, especially seeing that the LEGO version of Elastigirl can stretch herself as far as her movie version can.
Disney Tsum Tsum Festival (2019)
Disney Tsum Tsum Festival is a cute party game inspired by the Disney Tsum Tsum line of collectible toys and the mobile game from Japan, featuring all the Disney and Pixar characters in Tsum Tsum form. The game has 10 different minigames you can play alone or with family and friends, including bubble hockey, curling, and ice cream stacker, among others. You can even play the classic mobile puzzle game with the Switch in a vertical position.
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory (2019)
Disney and Square Enix’s spin on the latter’s Theatrhythm Final Fantasy lets you take control of Sora, Donald, Goofy, and other characters from across the Kingdom Hearts universe to slash the Heartless and their ilk to the beat of the series’ iconic soundtrack. Enjoy the musical stylings of Yoko Shimomura by yourself, or share the music with your friends in local co-op or online multiplayer battles.
In the grand scheme of things, Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory gives a recap of the series up to Kingdom Hearts 3 with narration from Kairi, who falls into a deep sleep under Ansem the Wise’s observation after the events of Kingdom Hearts 3’s Re: Mind DLC. Whether you’re a veteran fan of Kingdom Hearts games or a newcomer, this game does an excellent job of getting you up to speed in preparation for Kingdom Hearts 4, which is currently in development.
Disney Classic Games Collection is an updated edition of 2019’s Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King (a mouthful of a title) that includes the Final Cut of Aladdin and the console and handheld versions of The Jungle Book. It has an interactive museum, a rewind function to correct gameplay mistakes, an expanded soundtrack, and a retro-style manual for one of the three games if you buy a physical copy.
This compilation lets you relive the game adaptations of your favorite Disney movies the way you played them in the ‘90s no matter which platform you owned at the time, hence the inclusion of the Sega Genesis and Game Boy versions of Aladdin and The Lion King, as well as the Super Nintendo version of the latter. Adding The Jungle Book makes the compilation even more valuable as no one had seen the game since 1994.
Disney Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition (Switch Release: 2021)
In hindsight, Disney’s Magical World series feels a bit like the precursor to Dreamlight Valley. Originally released for the 3DS, the first two Magical World games let players befriend and complete quests for Disney and Pixar characters with additional farming, crafting, and even combat mechanics. Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition is a remaster of the second game in the series released specifically for the Nintendo Switch. Like Animal Crossing, the game syncs to your device’s clock for seasonal events and quest refreshes.
Tron: Identity (2023)
Tron: Identity is a visual novel that differentiates itself from other games adapted from the Tron franchise. It reveals another facet of life on the Grid without involving characters from the films, as it is set thousands of years after the events of Tron: Legacy. The game centers on a program named Query, a detective assigned to investigate an explosion in the vault of the Repository, a secure building in the center of the Grid. As the mystery unfolds, the other programs you interact with pose more questions than answers.
Each character you meet gives you the choice to either ally with them, antagonize them, or derezz them, depending on the dialogue. Plus, you have to complete puzzles in order to ask them more questions about the vault explosion. That’s a lot of detective work to do in three to six hours.
2023 was a big year for Disney games, but the first release from that year flew a little under the radar. Disney Speedstorm is a kart racing game featuring some brawling mechanics and, of course, a pretty extensive lineup of Disney characters with unique skills and their own personalized vehicles. Characters are pulled from everything under Disney’s umbrella, from the emotions of the Inside Out movies to Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. While the racing mechanics are relatively solid, IGN’s Early Access review of the game comments on the “absurd” token systems and “gacha-like” in-game economies.
Disney Illusion Island (2023)
Mickey Mouse’s latest gaming adventure from Disney Interactive and Dlala Studios sees him, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy travel to the mysterious Monoth Island for a picnic that turns into a high-stakes mission to recover the three stolen Tomes of Knowledge that helps protect the island. Whether you’re playing in single-player or co-op mode with three additional players, you can play as either character and navigate the island Metroidvania style.
Disney Illusion Island carries the same comedic charm as the recent Mickey Mouse cartoons despite the change in art style. Enjoy the game’s story, the lore of Monoth Island, and the unlockable Mickey Mouse memorabilia scattered around the island.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is a life sim from Gameloft that is basically Disney meets Animal Crossing, where you get to live, work, and play alongside your favorite Disney characters. You play as a human who arrives at the titular Dreamlight Valley, which has been gripped by the Night Thorns, leading to The Forgetting. This supernatural event caused the Disney characters who stayed in the valley to lose their memories while others returned to their home worlds for safety.
You work to rebuild Dreamlight Valley using magic called Dreamlight to weed out the Night Thorns, provide housing for the character via Scrooge McDuck’s construction company, cook food at Remy’s restaurant, and build friendships with everyone, both heroes and villains. The best part is, you never have to worry about your clothes, food, and tools taking up space in your inventory. And you can customize your character with the coolest Disney outfits complete with Mickey Mouse ears just like you were going to Disney World — or Disneyland, depending on where you live.
The most recent Disney game on the Switch, Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a remaster of the original Epic Mickey game that launched on the Wii in 2010. Smoother performance, enhanced graphics, and new abilities make the platformer an overall improvement over its predecessor. Take on the lofty role of Mickey Mouse as you try to stop the “Blot” from destroying the memories of forgotten characters, traversing darker-than-usual Disney environments and, of course, enlisting the helpful of friendly faces along the way.
While there are always new Star Wars games in development, we don’t have any confirmation on other new Disney games coming in 2025. Dreamlight Valley continues to get new content, most recently the Storybook Vale expansion. Meanwhile, Kingdom Hearts 4 was officially announced during the series’ 20th anniversary back in 2020, but no new information has come up regarding a release date.
The biggest news in the Nintendo universe this year has been the official announcement of the Switch 2, which will be followed by a Nintendo Direct in April. It’s pretty likely that any news about future Disney games comes with more information on the Switch 2 release.
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal.
Resident Evil Re:Verse, the multiplayer spin-off of the beloved horror franchise, is shutting down this June after less than three years on the market.
Capcom announced the shutdown in a blog post despite also saying the game had “exceeded expectation,” saying it has served its “celebratory purpose admirably” but is no longer needed as it has “reached a new turning point for the series.”
Resident Evil Re:Verse and all its downloadable content will be removed from sale on March 3 but those with the game already downloaded will be able to access it until June 29. “You will no longer be able to play Resident Evil Re: Verse once service has officially ended,” Capcom said.
The game will go down on all platforms, meaning PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X and S, and Steam. Resident Evil Re:Verse is available by purchasing the latest mainline entry, Resident Evil Village. No refunds for the game itself or its DLC were mentioned.
“Resident Evil Re:Verse was developed in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Resident Evil series, and your overwhelming support for the game has far exceeded our expectations since the time of its release,” Capcom said. “Now that we’ve reached a new turning point for the series, we feel that Resident Evil Re:Verse has served its original, celebratory purpose admirably.
“We are incredibly grateful for your warm support for Resident Evil Re:Verse, and we deeply apologize for bringing you this disappointing news.”
The game made little impact when it arrived in October 2022, earning just a 5/10 in IGN’s review. “There are some good ideas in Resident Evil Re:Verse, but balance issues, a lack of content, and aggressive monetization make it little more than a sometimes-fun curiosity,” we said.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
It’s still unclear if Avowed will include a performance mode and graphics mode as has become standard, the former of which generally means 60fps with lower visuals while the latter generally means 30fps with improved visuals, or if the default setting hits 60fps on Xbox Series X naturally.
Avowed arrives February 13 for those willing to spend at least $89.99, though fans only willing to spend $69.99 are forced by Microsoft to wait until February 18. This is a recent trend deployed by publishers but has already been scrapped by the likes of Ubisoft.
Set in the same universe as Pillars of Eternity, Avowed is a first person fantasy RPG with a grand emphasis on player choice. The story weaves through tales of war, mystery, and intrigue, as players navigate the land and forge friendships or rivalries with those around them.
It earned praise in IGN’s Final Preview of the game, in which we praised its nuanced conversations, player freedom, and said “Avowed is just a lot of fun.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Once upon a time there was a hugely popular card-drafting game called 7 Wonders. But drafting, where you pick a card to keep and pass the rest on, is pretty boring with two players, seeing as you know exactly what you’re going to be given on each pass. So, eventually, the game got a spin-off for two players only called 7 Wonders Duel which cleverly mimicked a draft by giving players a mixture of face-up and face-down cards to choose from. That was also hugely popular: indeed popular enough that it’s now received a shiny new Tolkien reskin in the form of Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth (see it at Amazon).
What’s in the Box
Since this is essentially a card game, that’s the majority of the box contents. Fortunately they’re great cards, vibrant with evocative Middle-earth art. Some of the art actually joins together to make panoramas – although it’s unlikely you’ll manage to collect a set during play. Cards have a colored top bar to indicate what type they are, and most also have several symbols indicating both what that card can do for you, and the prerequisites for acquiring it.
Players new to this version might be more interested in the other components, which are used for tracking the game state. There’s a mini-map of Middle-earth onto which you place delightfully tiny wooden army and castle pieces. Another lovely touch is the hunt for the ring track, over which you place a plastic slider with the hobbits at one end and a movable plastic ringwraith at the other. This ensures the hobbits can inch closer to their objective at Mount Doom, the wraith can inch closer to the hobbits, but the hobbits can never get further away from the wraith.
The remaining pieces are punchable cardboard. There are several stacks of shields, one for each of the neutral factions of Middle-earth that the players hope to ally with, featuring icons on the reverse to indicate the reward for doing so, and lots of gold coins. Finally there’s a tile for each region on the board indicating what fortress you can build there, what it costs, and what you gain for doing so.
Rules and How it Plays
7 Wonders: Duel simulated drafting for two by having each of its three rounds set out a pattern of cards in which a row of face-up cards overlapped a row of face-down cards. That same layout is replicated here exactly, except rather than competing civilizations, one of you is the dark lord Sauron and the other represents the free people of Middle-earth. You can’t pick a card – or flip it, if it’s face-down – until the cards beneath it in the pyramid have been cleared. This makes your choice of which card to take each turn difficult and tense, because you want to try and minimize the options available to your opponent while also maximising your own further down the line.
This card pyramid isn’t the only thing that Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth retains from its predecessor. Indeed, pretty much the entire game flow will be familiar to veterans of that game. Most early cards are free, so you can pick them up and add them to your growing tableau. But as the game progresses, more powerful cards will either require you to have particular skill icons or prerequisite symbols from cards you already own in order to take them. If you can’t afford anything, you can use gold to make up the shortfall of matching symbols or discard a card for gold instead.
You are thus quickly caught into a dilemma as to whether to specialize in certain sets of skills, which will make it easier to get similar cards, or play as more of a generalist. There’s no right answer to this: it depends on what cards you get and in what order, and learning when to break one way or the other is a key tactical skill that comes with experience. Either way, this makes flipping face-down cards surprisingly exciting because there can be a lot riding on it if it’s the next key part in the specialist chain that you’re building. There’s nothing worse than suddenly finding you’ve handed the opportunity to pick-up a critical card to your opponent because grabbing something else you wanted revealed it.
In addition to cards that grow your tableau economy, there are also cards that move you forward on victory conditions. These are where Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth makes clear water between itself and its predecessor. Ring symbols let you advance on the quest for the ring track. If either side reaches the end of its track, it’s an instant win, with identical bonuses to be had along the way. Green cards represent an alliance with another faction such as Elves or Ents: six different such symbols and you win, while duplicates get you a bonus token from a stack specific to each faction. Finally, red cards let you place armies on the map of Middle-Earth, kicking out rivals on a one-to-one basis. If you conquer all seven regions you win, otherwise the player with the most regions when the card stack runs out takes the victory.
Each victory condition is cleverly designed to close in on its apex during the third round of play. You are pretty much guaranteed to be within touching distance of one, if not two, by then and play becomes a matter not only of trying to inch yourself over the line but selecting cards that prevent your opponent from doing the same. This ensures that play builds towards a truly thrilling climax almost every time, lending the game an epic feel that belies its relative simplicity and snappy half-hour play time.
However, after a few plays it’s hard not to wonder how much of this comes down to skill, and how much of it is luck. As mentioned previously, revealing a card that either you, or your opponent, need, can be absolutely critical to which way the victory breaks and there’s very little you can do about it. The decisions you make along the way certainly matter, but the game is engineered to be close because whatever you don’t have the opportunity to get, your enemy will. You thus pay for that crescendo of excitement with the seeds of doubt about how much your efforts influenced the final outcome. In fairness, it is difficult to design really dramatic games that don’t involve a lot of random moments, and this one hides it fairly well.
Play builds towards a truly thrilling climax almost every time.
One other secret weapon the game has in this regard is its other major new feature: fortresses. At any given time there are three fortress tiles available of the full seven, one for each space on the map. They all cost large amounts of skill symbols and gold, but come with benefits to match. Not only do these rewards tie in with the central game mechanics, such as free ring track spaces if you gain the tower of Minas Tirith in Gondor, but they allow you to place a fortress piece in the matching space, which acts as an undefeatable army there. Fortresses are thus huge pivots in winning over map spaces. At the same time, buying a tile is the only way you can delay taking a card and thus potentially force your opponent into taking one that flips those critical unrevealed cards instead.
For all the vibrant card art and name-checking of key places and people in Middle-earth, the game doesn’t end up feeling like an evocation of Tolkien’s trilogy. Grabbing ring cards is no substitute for the long, desperate chase depicted in the books and there’s no real matchup between allying factions and the rewards they offer. Worse, the game often feels counter-thematic. There’s nothing to stop Sauron allying with his most implacable foes, the Elves, and the armies of the free peoples often end up conquering the shadow realm of Mordor and buying its fortress of Barad-Dur. These outcomes would have been unthinkable in the carefully constructed legendarium, but they’re so common here it makes light of Tolkein’s vast imaginative effort.
Monster Hunter Wilds is just a few weeks away, and Capcom has released a PC benchmark for players to see if their system is up to snuff. Alongside that, the PC system requirements have been officially lowered.
As announced during yesterday’s Capcom Spotlight, the PC benchmark for Monster Hunter Wilds is live on Steam right now. The tool will need to compile some shaders once it’s loaded up, but otherwise it’s fairly easy to run and see where your computer lands. It’s a good idea to check, especially if you’re curious about how the updated system requirements might affect your performance.
Previously, the system requirements for hitting 1080p and 60 frames per second (with Frame Generation enabled) called for an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, or AMD Radeon RX 6700XT graphics card; an Intel Core i5-11600K, Intel Core i5-12400, AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, or AMD Ryzen 5 5500 CPU; and 16 GB of RAM.
In an updated page alongside the benchmark, Capcom appears to have lowered the requirements. For Recommended, or 1080p (FHD) with 60 frames per second and Frame Generation enabled, here are the new requirements:
OS: Windows 10 (64-bit required) / Windows 11 (64-bit required)
This should, per Capcom’s site, have Monster Hunter Wilds running at 1080p and 60 frames per second with Frame Generation enabled. As you might have noticed, it’s a slight but still noticeable down-tick in requirements.
Users are already reporting some noticeable benefits to performance in the benchmark compared to the beta test, though that’s with Frame Generation enabled. Steam Deck still doesn’t seem likely; while the gaming rig I tested passed with flying colors, my personal attempt on the Deck didn’t elicit promising results.
What’s noticeable, alongside the processing changes, is the difference in storage size. Before, Monster Hunter Wilds called for 140 GB of available space on your SSD; now, it’s 75 GB. As file sizes seem to constantly grow year-over-year, it’s surprising to see such a change.
For more on what’s in store for Monster Hunter Wilds, be sure to read up on our recent IGN First coverage, showcasing bouts with fearsome beasts like the apex monster Nu Udra, and our final hands-on impressions of Capcom’s latest Monster Hunter before it arrives later this month. Monster Hunter Wilds is out for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC on February 28, 2025.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Shuhei Yoshida, former president of Worldwide Studios for Sony Interactive Entertainment, has revealed that Nintendo and Xbox each orchestrated the two scariest moments of his long career at PlayStation.
Yoshida told MinnMax that the release of the Xbox 360 one year before the PlayStation 3 was “very, very scary,” as those who considered waiting for Sony’s console would be well behind in tasting the next generation of video games.
But Yoshida said “the biggest shock I had from an announcement from the competition” was when Nintendo announced that Monster Hunter 4 was going to be a 3DS exclusive. “That was the biggest shock,” he said.
Monster Hunter was a colossal hit on the PlayStation Portable, to the point where it had two exclusive games, but Yoshida had no idea Nintendo had secured this new game for its own console. To make matters worse, it then slashed the price of the 3DS by $100, putting it well below the PlayStation Vita.
“After launch, both Nintendo 3DS and Vita were $250 but they dropped $100,” Yoshida said. “I was like, ‘Oh my god’. And [then they] announced the biggest game… The biggest game on PSP was Monster Hunter. And that game is going to come out on Nintendo 3DS exclusively. I was like, ‘Oh no.’ That was the biggest shock.”
Yoshida retired in January after more than three decades with Sony, where he became a face of the PlayStation brand and was beloved by fans worldwide. His no longer being with the company has allowed Yoshida to share some previously unheard insight such as this, however.
Ever since its successful 2022 reinvention, 2K’s popular WWE series has continually made a host of iterative improvements in an attempt to not only build upon its winning formula but also justify its annual releases. WWE 2K25 certainly promises a new batch of iterations, including a brand new, online interactive world called The Island, a revamp of its story, general manager and Universe mode, a new hardcore match type called Bloodline Rules, and several more. However, I can’t say if all these new additions will elevate 2K25 above its predecessor because, unfortunately, I didn’t get to sample any of them at a recent preview event.
Instead of sampling this year’s most significant alterations, my time with 2K25 was largely focused on the (mostly) unchanged core gameplay and this year’s adjusted Showcase Mode, which focuses on The Bloodline stable of wrestlers. But while I was locked out of most of this year’s new ideas, I did appreciate some small but significant alterations. They’re enough that I’m confident WWE 2K25 will be another successful evolution of the series and most likely worth any wrestling fan’s time.
WWE 2K25’s Showcase Mode focuses on the history of the Anoa’i family, headlined by its most recent stars Roman Reigns and The Bloodline, but also celebrates previous generations like The Wild Samoans, Yokozuna and, most famously, The Rock. The mode now includes three types of matches: Ones where you recreate history, others where you create history, and most interestingly for me, matches where you alter history. I got to experience all three types in the shape of recreating Nia Jax’s Queen of the Ring victory from 2024, creating a dream Wild Samoans versus The Dudley Boyz match, and altering the history of the iconic Roman Reigns against Seth Rollins bout from the Royal Rumble in 2022. All three offered their own style of fun and unique perspective for any hardcore WWE fan and an improvement on last year’s showcase mode. But that’s not to say there aren’t still some small issues.
The Showcase Mode in last year’s WWE 2K24, much like the one in WWE 2K23 before it, was hampered by an over-reliance on switching to real-life footage that ran for multiple minutes – a system developer Visual Concepts dubs “Slingshot”. As I pointed out in my preview for WWE 2K23, “I found myself wanting to be back in the action and create these moments myself, not just watching clips of footage that are already burned into my brain.” Two years later, I’m happy to confirm that although the issue is not completely solved, progress has been made.
The cut to real-life footage is now gone, as is the over-reliance on taking you away from the action (at least as far as I experienced in the hands-on session). Key moments are recreated in-engine through animation, providing a less jarring experience and a level of satisfaction from seeing iconic moments realised in the game’s (mostly) gorgeous graphics. These sequences also seem significantly shorter, meaning less time away from controlling the action.
That’s not to say that all my prior gripes with staying in control have been addressed, though. During the conclusion of my Nia Jax match, complete control was taken away from me. Rather than stay in the ring, I was forced to embody a bystander during the 1,2,3. Ideally, I’d like more control during these important moments. I want to relive them with my own gameplay decisions, not merely observe as a passive bystander.
Elsewhere, 2K25 makes minor improvements to other rough edges. Previous showcase modes relied heavily on a checklist system, requiring you to complete often rudimentary manoeuvres to trigger the match’s live-action sequences. A common complaint is that this approach makes a match feel less like dynamic gameplay and more like a to-do list. This system is back, which no doubt will prove contentious once again, but it has been slightly refined for WWE 2K25, with added optional objectives on a timer. You’re rewarded for completing these actions with cosmetics, but most importantly you’re not punished for failing them as you were in previous entries. It’s a vital (baby) step in the right direction.
The standout addition to Showcase Mode is without a doubt the aforementioned ability to change the conclusion of certain historic matches. Where Roman Reigns once lost by disqualification to Seth Rollins, you can now experience how things could have played out should Roman have altered his temperament in the final moments. It’s a fresh experience for hardcore fans of WWE and I’m very excited to see what happens in the other unannounced change matches.
While there are notable changes in modes and match types, the core gameplay essence of WWE 2K25 is basically the same as before with some minor tweaks. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I was already happy with the grappling action in WWE 2K24, so I largely believe it’s a smart decision to stick with the proven, successful formula. There are though a few interesting additions and returns, however.
WWE 2K25 sees the long-requested revival of chain wrestling, a gameplay sequence that was sacrificed with WWE 2K22’s huge engine revamp. During the opening moments of a bout, instigating a grapple will now force players into a mini-game that allows you to gain the upper hand. After locking up you can choose to drive, wrench, attack and ultimately reposition your opponent into a spot that is advantageous to you. Like the trading blows mechanic introduced last year, chain wrestling adds another staple of WWE action, taking another vital step towards accurately recreating what fans see on TV every week.
Also making a return is the submission system, a mini-game in which you must either avoid or match your opponent’s colour block on a wheel. While it has an overwhelming U.I. presentation, it quickly becomes second nature, and I’m glad to see it return. If you’re less excited by its reappearance, it can fortunately be disabled in the options. The same goes for chain wrestling and other quick-time event moments – they’re all optional.
Wrapping a bottle of Logan Paul’s luminous juice around your opponent’s head certainly feels like the best use of the egregious electrolytes.
Without a doubt, my favourite gameplay feature from WWE 2K24 also makes its triumphant return: weapon throwing. Not only has the roster of weapons been improved, but the backstage brawls have now expanded into new environments that are perfect for weapon tossing. The best location I experienced in the demo was the WWE archives, which not only allows you to toss apples, footballs and megaphones, but also drops you into a WWE fan’s dream environment, littered with history and easter eggs galore. Oh, and you can also fight on top of a giant Wrestlemania sign and everyone’s favourite giant fist from the Smackdown days of yore.
As to be expected, much like in real life, the ring area is covered in Prime sponsorships. Say what you will about that, but it does allow you to use the Prime Hydration Station’s giant bottle as a weapon. For my money, wrapping a bottle of Logan Paul’s luminous juice around your opponent’s head certainly feels like the best use of the egregious electrolytes.
Perhaps the most notable gameplay alteration this year, though, is the long-overdue intergender gameplay. For the first time in a 2K WWE game, you’re able to pit the men against the woman in a match of your choosing. This, along with the largest roster ever (with 300+ wrestlers to choose from) finally opens the doors to a whole host of matchups that previously weren’t available.
Lastly, although the demo build featured a limited amount of new updates to explore, I did get some hands-on time with the brand-new match type called Underground. It’s a rope-less variation of an exhibition match that puts you in a Fight Club-like setting with lumberjacks around the ring. This is something completely brand new for the series and something I can share more about later this month as part of our exclusive IGN First content. Be sure to check IGN later this week to get a look at a full match, as well as a full, detailed explanation of the new match type from Visual Concepts developer, Derek Donahue.
WWE 2K25 continues the recent tradition of the series, layering new features on top of existing and robust fundamentals. Nothing right now feels particularly revolutionary as the formula feels largely consistent with last year’s offering just with some small-but-smart tweaks. Time will tell if the advertised big sweeping changes and new modes I didn’t get to see will truly make this edition stand out from its peers, but from my brief experience, it’s hard to say this is anything but a very incremental step for an already well-realised series.
Dale Driver is an Executive Producer of Video Programming at IGN and a lifelong WWE fan/apologist who acknowledges his Tribal Chief. Be thoroughly bored by following him on Bluesky at @daledriver.bsky.social
Warhorse Studios’ medieval Europe action RPG sequel launched on February 4 across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, and soon shot to the upper echelons of Steam’s most-played games list.
On Valve’s platform, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 hit a peak of 159,351 concurrents, a number that will surely grow as it heads into its first weekend on sale. For context, the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance hit a peak Steam concurrent player count of 96,069 seven years ago.
It’s worth noting that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s actual peak concurrent player count will be bigger, given the game launched on console as well as PC. However, neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public.
In a tweet, Warhorse called Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 “a triumph,” suggesting it’s done the business for the Czech video game developer and its owner, Embracer subsidiary Plaion.
The question now is how big can Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 get? It’s currently the top-selling game on Steam by revenue, globally, ahead of the likes of Counter-Strike 2, Civilization 7, and Monster Hunter: Wilds, which suggests it will have legs for some time.
IGN’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 review returned a 9/10. We said: “Armed with excellent melee combat and an exceptional story, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is one part sequel and one part coronation, bringing a lot of the original’s ideas to fruition.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
