Category: IGN

Here’s one for fans of either Final Fantasy or Wizards of the Coast. The latest Magic: The Gathering crossover finds characters from Final Fantasy making their way to the most famous collectible card game on the market. We’re talking characters like Cloud, Terra, Tidus, and many more, pulled from Final Fantasy 6, 7, 10, and 14. Basically, the gang’s all here. These cards are set to release on June 13, but you can preorder them all right now (see them at Amazon and Best Buy).

Read on for details about what comes in the many bundles on the market. And for more info about the crossover, check out our Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Commander Deck reveal feature.

Where to Buy Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Cards

Scroll to the left to see quick buy links for each MTG: FF configuration.

Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Starter Kit

Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Bundle: Gift Edition

Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Bundle

Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Collector Booster Box (12 Packs)

Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Play Booster Box (30 Packs)

Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Commander Deck Bundle

IGN Fan Fest 2025 is less than a week away and stars from your favorite movies, series, games, and comics have teamed up for what will be our biggest Fan Fest ever.

Starting Monday, February 24, be sure to tune into IGN for tons of exclusive reveals, trailers, clips, gameplay, and spoiler-filled interviews from all the biggest upcoming titles in the world of games and entertainment.

• Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd will be on hand to delve into their upcoming A24 movie, Death of a Unicorn.

• Osgood Perkins, Stephen King, and James Wan stop by for an in-depth interview on how they brought their creepy new movie, The Monkey to life.

• Director Bong Joon-ho will introduce a brand-new exclusive look at his upcoming film, Mickey 17.

• Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio along with the creators of Daredevil: Born Again will break down their new Disney+ series.

• The team behind Monster Hunter Wilds including producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Yuya Tokuda give us an exclusive look at their massive new game.

• The cast of The White Lotus including Walton Goggins, Parker Posey, Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan, Aimee Lou Wood, Sarah Catherine Hook, Sam Nivola, Jason Isaacs, and Patrick Schwarzenegger answer all our questions about what we’ve season in Season 3 so far.

• Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, and Jacob Batalan preview their upcoming film, Novocaine.

• George R.R. Martin sits down with us to talk about the new movie In The Lost Lands, based on his short story. Plus Mila Jovovich and Paul. W. S. Anderson will be on hand to premiere an exclusive clip from the film.

• Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan will preview the upcoming season of The Walking Dead: Dead City along with Executive Producer Scott Gimple.

• Jeff Probst stops by with an exclusive look at Survivor Season 48 and chats about the future of the long-running franchise.

• Alexandra Daddario gives us a preview of the season finale of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches.

• Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger tell us all about their upcoming documentary The Arch Project.

• Mythic Quest shows up big with Rob McElhenney, Megan Ganz, David Hornsby, Charlotte Nicdao, Danny Pudi, Imani Hakim, and Jessie Ennis on hand to talk about Season 4 and give us a sneak peek at an upcoming episode. Plus Katie McElhenney, Genevieve Jones, Megan Ganz, and Ashly Burch debut a trailer for their upcoming spin-off Side Quest.

• Johnny Yong Bosch and Adi Shankar give us a sneak peek at their upcoming Netflix series Devil May Cry, based on the popular video game.

• Julian McMahon gives us a look at his new movie, The Surfer, also starring Nicholas Cage.

• Brandon Lee shows us a never-before-seen preview of the upcoming Crunchyroll anime The Beginning After the End.

• J-pop megastar Ado pops by with a special surprise for fans.

• The team from CRKD comes by to show off a new controller.

It’s always cool when a game designer takes one neat thing out of a complex genre and turns it into an entire game. That’s how we got the MOBA, after all — breaking just the heroes out of an RTS. Enter Fellowship, a so-called Multiplayer Online Dungeon Adventure that’s going to pluck out team-based dungeon raids that are the beating heart of modern MMOs and turn them into a streamlined game – without the hundred hours of leveling up before you get to the best stuff.

After some time with a development version of Fellowship I have to say that the concept turned out just as cool as it sounds: It’s no-nonsense, endlessly scaling dungeon runs in a four player team of a tank, a healer, and two damage heroes from among a selection of unique classes. In a group you make yourself, or with a team from a handy group finder, you jump in with your chosen role in either short-and-sweet one boss Adventures or longer multi-boss dungeons—letting you tune your gameplay time depending on whether you’ve got ten minutes or an hour to kill.

At the end you pick up your loot, tweak your talents, kick up the difficulty, and go again.

I was a bit skeptical that you can have a real authentic, MMO-style dungeon experience without, you know, the MMO, but Fellowship really effectively delivered. You move through the environment clearing out packs of enemy minions in order to get at the bosses, and all the classic stuff you’d expect is there: You’ve got to watch your tank’s threat and manage aggro, try to make life easy for the healer, keep track of enemy abilities to interrupt the nasty ones, and know how to best use your class’ attacks in a good rotation.

Behind the wheel of an elemental mage-type character, I had plenty of abilities to manage even at the starting level. My character built up charges that could be used to call down big freezing meteors or channel icy blasts. Our healer, meanwhile, could summon plants that either damaged or healed. It was clear in my short time that each class has a nice, clear vision for what it can and can’t do. The thing my squishy mage couldn’t do, by the way, was survive if I took boss aggro. Sorry, tank.

Speaking of bosses, I saw four interesting setpiece fights that ran the gamut of stuff I expect from modern dungeon runs. In a ghost pirate dungeon we battled a skeletal shipmaster that required quick reflexes as it tossed our ghosts in and out of our bodies. There was a giant treasure construct that couldn’t be tanked—instead, our tank had to roll around a ball to collect the bits of treasure we were knocking off of it. There was also a giant zombie that summoned the tides, requiring us to shackle ourselves to an anchor and dodge sharks.

It wasn’t all gimmicks, though, and the developers were clear they wanted to strike a balance between fights that require reflexes and understanding clever mechanics with those that really push your ability to play your class’ skills to the limit. They gave me a good example of the second with a nasty warlock boss, whose up-tempo barrage of skills and summons needed constant interruption even as he created zones that either forced us to group up… or to run away at top speed.

What I especially liked is how Fellowship will be structured. Dungeon difficulty scales from one up to six levels, gradually adding new enemy abilities to learn, mechanics to understand, and taking off the training wheels one by one until you hit the intended difficulty. From there, though, it ramps up for dozens of levels, each with their own unique combination of two or more curses that have their own downsides and upsides. One of those, for example, could sprinkle nasty Empowered minions among the normal enemy packs—but when you beat them you’d get a short-time buff that let you clear trash even faster or take a handy boost into a boss.

The concept of a game focusing on infinitely scaling dungeons, familiar yet dangerous in new ways, is a really cool one. Combine that with the developers’ big plans for competitive seasons, where players can start fresh to race up the leaderboards for world first kills on each boss, and I think I’m pretty excited to gear up, spec out, and take on the challenges in Fellowship when it launches this year.

This past weekend saw the first round of network tests for Elden Ring Nightreign, the upcoming standalone multiplayer game spun out of FromSoftware’s magnum opus. Unlike last year’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, Nightreign resembles Elden Ring in name and appearance only, trading its parent game’s open world structure for a streamlined survival format in which three-player teams have to drop into gradually shrinking maps to fight off groups of enemies and increasingly challenging bosses. It’s a design that undoubtedly suggests the developers were inspired by the hugely popular Fortnite – unsurprising, considering Epic’s battle royale has been enjoyed by no less than 200 million players this month alone.

But Nightreign bears an even greater resemblance to another game, one not nearly as famous and much more disliked: 2013’s God of War: Ascension. And that’s a good thing.

It may seem like a long leap to make from the R-rated streets of Tokyo’s red light district to the yarrr-rated pirate-infested waters of the Hawaiian islands, but Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii has successfully pulled off the switch from bareknuckling to swashbuckling with confidence and considerable flair. This jaunty adventure jettisons the series’ typical turf war cliches and pulpy plot twists in favour of spinning a streamlined and spirited tale of seafaring and treasure hunting, without sacrificing any of the addictive diversions and slapstick silliness that have long become its hallmarks. As far as spin-offs from the mainline entries go, Pirate Yakuza makes for an absolutely invigorating seachange that left me feeling perkier than a parrot on a pirate’s shoulder.

Essentially a coda to the events of 2024’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Pirate Yakuza’s off-the-wall story focuses on loveable series shitstirrer, Goro Majima. It gets straight to it: after awakening on the shores of a secluded island with amnesia, he promptly befriends an enthusiastic young boy and his adorable pet tiger cub, commandeers a pirate ship that for entirely unexplained reasons seems to have sailed in straight out of the 1700s, and sets about on a thrilling quest to find the lost treasure of a legendary sunken Spanish ship. Perhaps as a result of his temporary memory loss, Majima is considerably less manic in Pirate Yakuza than he has been in previous Like a Dragon stories, but he’s still every bit as gleefully mischievous. There was never a dull moment between him and his evergrowing gang of goons turned treasure-seeking Goonies as I explored the seas and shores of Pirate Yakuza’s vibrant tropical setting.

It’s an unpredictable voyage that regularly veers from intense highs to more laidback lows, much like the waves that Majima sails upon. In one moment I’d be trapped in a desperate battle against a towering sea creature or an army of pirates of almost Dynasty Warriors-esque proportions, while the next I’d be adopting homeless animals off the street to shelter in my personal petting zoo and throwing parties for me hearties whenever morale amongst my crew was on the wane. Pirate Yakuza doesn’t just regularly hoist the Jolly Roger, it also lets its freak flag fly in a consistently entertaining fashion – from its rousing opening musical number through to the dynamic dance sequence that drops the curtain on its story 25 hours later – and it kept me hooked harder than a handshake from, well, Captain Hook.

Nautical by Nature

While 2023’s Like a Dragon Gaiden experimented with a fairly superficial secret agent spin on the series’ template, Pirate Yakuza steers Like a Dragon into some truly uncharted waters. There’s plenty of lively naval combat to be enjoyed aboard Majima’s adopted pirate ship, although to be clear, in terms of exploration it doesn’t attempt to match the sense of freedom I felt in the Caribbean setting of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Instead, Pirate Yakuza’s waters are broken down into a handful of smaller maps to warp between rather than one big open waterworld, and outside of the main Honolulu hub and a stunning ship graveyard turned casino district called Madlantis, many of the smaller islands are constructed out of the same recycled layouts. So over time, the sense of discovery slightly diminished whenever I dropped anchor and saw something a bit too familiar.

Still, there’s enough spectacle and strategic depth to the actual open-water combat that I remained engaged anytime I was at the helm of Majima’s ship. In each bilgewater battle you can attack front-on with machine gun fire or perform a boost-based ram into an enemy’s hull, as well as manouevre alongside a rival to deliver more damaging broadside attacks from your port or starboard cannons. These cannons can be upgraded by harvesting resources found drifting at sea or tucked around Pirate Yakuza’s smattering of ports, and although Majima’s frigate can be equipped with everything from flamethrowers to freeze guns, I soon set my sights on scraping together enough spare parts to outfit my vessel with powerful lasers to cut crossways through my opponents from ear to buccaneer.

I was also regularly recruiting new pirates to my crew in every port I docked in, and it quickly became clear that assigning a crew member to specific roles had measurable impacts on each naval skirmish. Individual members of your pirating posse are ranked in areas like attack, defense, and cannon power, and anytime I placed some underpowered or inexperienced comrades in, say, my boarding party, I was forced to watch my crew go from ragtag to bodybags in quick succession.

After some experimentation I eventually got the balance right, and that included determining the right pirate to be my first mate. While some candidates offered increased damage buffs or additional fuel drums to burn with my ship’s boost, I opted to promote a mechanic into the role because it gave me two extra repair kits per clash. Given I approach naval battles like Dave Chappelle approaches his stand-up sets – always on the offensive and typically blazed up by the end – it was enormously helpful to have those extra kits to haul my battlescarred hull to glory.

Some of the naval combat functions do seem a little superfluous, though. For example, at no point in the story did I feel the need to step away from the helm in order to use Majima’s rocket launcher, since the ship’s artillery usually seemed ample enough, and it was also rare that I was compelled to manually put out fires on deck or thaw out ice that was blocking my cannons. That did change, however, after I beat the story and returned to complete the 30-odd escalating battles in Madlantis’ pirate coliseum, as surviving its toughest encounters demanded the considered use of every ability at my disposal. That finally made for some welcome optional challenges outside of the main story path, but I wished they’d been in play earlier in the campaign.

Captain Hookshot

Of course, given that this is a Like a Dragon adventure, there are still plenty of opportunities for fisticuffs either ashore or on-deck anytime you board an enemy ship by force. In the default Mad Dog fighting stance, Pirate Yakuza reverts to the familiar brand of combo-based street fighting that was a staple of the series before the main entries shifted to turn-based brawls with 2020’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Majima can pull off fast and fluid combinations of punches, kicks, and rapid dagger slashes, each attack enhanced by flashy neon movement trails and punctuated by enemies that erupt into fountains of gold coins as though they’re crowds of criminal question blocks from the Mushroom Kingdom. However, Majima feels noticeably more agile than Kazuma Kiryu ever was, with a snappier quickstep to open overbalanced enemies up to counter attack, plus the useful ability to jump and air-dodge out of harm’s way anytime he’s overwhelmed by a surprisingly numerous horde.

Even so, once I’d unlocked the Sea Dog fighting stance a few hours into my 25-hour tour of Pirate Yakuza, I basically never looked back. While in previous Like a Dragon instalments I’ve relished the freedom to switch between stances to best counter each enemy type or situation, Sea Dog is basically a one-size-fits-brawl fighting style that feels adaptive enough to suit any given showdown. This pirating pose allows Majima to cut loose with a pair of cutlasses, either hurling them like bladed boomerangs or performing a brutal ballet of spinning slashes to cut through enemies in clusters. It equips him with a handy hookshot that allows him to zip directly to a targeted enemy like some sort of seafaring Spider-Man, which is extremely useful for picking off the more heavily-armed goons that tend to snipe you from the far edges of each battle arena. If that’s not enough, it also gives Majima a flintlock pistol of his own, and after investing in the skill tree to increase its power and widen its radius, I was able to use it to wipe out more pirates than dysentery at the charged-up press of a button.

So well-rounded and entertaining to use was the Sea Dog style, in fact, that the only time I ever felt the need to switch back to Mad Dog was in order to unleash Majima’s slightly overpowered Doppelganger attack. Available after you’ve chained together enough successful attacks to fill up a special meter, this devastating ability conjures up twin Majima clones that swarm enemies and chew through their health bars for a short time like a pair of piranhas, and I was happy to have it in my back pocket for whenever I came up against one of the more brutish boss encounters. Although I think Infinite Wealth’s hybrid turn-based combat has quite rightfully become the standard for the Like a Dragon series, Pirate Yakuza’s flashy fighting remained engaging from the first sword slash through to the final throat cut, and I found it to be a substantial step up from the gadget-heavy grappling of Like a Dragon Gaiden.

Pleasure Island

Although Pirate Yakuza’s Honolulu setting is more or less the same sundrenched sprawl that featured in Infinite Wealth, there are enough new secrets and distractions that made it rewarding to explore a second time around. Outside of combat, Majima’s hookshot can be employed to zip him up to anchor points on certain buildings, meaning that treasure chests full of alternate character costumes and other goodies are tucked away on hotel awnings and various other elevated spots all over the island. There are also countless bounty targets to track down and beat up for beefy cash bonuses, and games for the safehouse Master System to seek out. Although, I must admit that I feel like it’s about time that developer Ryu Ga Gotoku moved on to an in-game Mega Drive (or Genesis for US fans), or at the very least a Game Gear. After collecting mostly the same set of 8-bit cartridges in Lost Judgment, Like a Dragon Gaiden, and now Pirate Yakuza, I feel like I’ve well and truly mastered the Master System at this point.

But of course, there’s still more: in addition to the fiend-photographing Sicko Snap and the infectiously giddy Super Crazy Delivery minigames that return from Infinite Wealth, Pirate Yakuza brings back Dragon Kart from Yakuza: Like a Dragon, only this time in addition to its riotous racing circuits they’ve bolted on an arena-based battle mode which made for some intense, four-wheeled firefights. Meanwhile, the series’ standard-issue batting cage minigame has been revitalised by swapping baseballs for cannonballs, and I had a great time knocking destructive dingers into descending stacks of explosive barrels.

I was also delighted with almost every substory I completed in Majima’s adventure. Some were utterly wholesome, like the time I agreed to bring an aging businessman aboard my ship in order to live out his boyhood fantasies of becoming a pirate. Others were funny pisstakes of online culture, like when Majima was recruited to become a Virtua Fighter 3 streamer and I had to choose the liveliest possible reactions for him in order to prevent the comments section from turning too hostile. Others still were completely bonkers, like the substory that suddenly spins out into a live-action episode of a dating show inspired by The Bachelor, as the ship’s cook Masaru tried to woo five different potential dates with hilariously awkward results.

There’s even a supersized substory that sees Majima and his ever expanding crew hunt down the dread pirate Zeus and his intimidating Devil Flags fleet. This chunky optional quest opened up additional maps to navigate, including an archipelago of volcanic islands and even an ice realm, each overloaded with increasingly powerful naval vessels to face off against and pirate headquarters to plunder. Not only is undertaking this journey worthwhile purely for harvesting the doubloons required to upgrade Majima’s ship with decked out drip – including a carved Kazuma Kiryu figurehead for its bow – but it’s also the only way to track down all four fabled instruments of the Dark Gods. These cursed instruments can be charged up during on-shore skirmishes and unleashed to spectacularly turn the tides of a battle, with a violin that brings the violence by summoning a horde of spectral land sharks to turn enemy packs into fleshy snacks, or an electric guitar that can be energetically shredded while a towering ape stomps into the fray and chimp-slaps your opponents straight into Davy Jones’ locker. These are some of the most powerful attacks in Pirate Yakuza, so it’s a little odd that they’re locked away in an entirely optional substory that’s so easy to overlook.

The Fell Omen bosses of Elden Ring are infamous at this point, so it’s nice to see that with Elden Ring Nightreign, FromSoftware has let them loose upon the Lands Between.

Morgott, whom Elden Ring players had to fight later on in the game’s campaign, is one such infamous boss. His phantom versions can pop out and surprise you throughout the campaign, and it seems like that particular facet of Morgott made it into Nightreign, where an unnamed Fell Omen (essentially an upgraded Morgott) can jump-scare invade players.

While Morgott isn’t the only boss that can invade your squad as you run through Nightreign, he is a very fitting invader. Not only does it line up with his surprise appearances in Elden Ring, but he even gets some extra voice lines and a few new moves to throw at you. If you get to bring two pals to the fight, it’s only fair Morgott gets some new moves!

While he can invade you, the Fell Omen can also appear as an end-of-night boss, one of the conclusive fights you can face as the sun sets in the Elden Ring Nightreign test.

How did morgott even manage to sneak into nightreign to fight us. generational hater this is like the 5th time pic.twitter.com/t7euCmkBRy

— Nightreign Countdown (@SoulsCountdowns) February 16, 2025

Plenty of early testers, including the player behind Let Me Solo Her, took on the Fell Omen during the Elden Ring Nightreign sessions that took place over the weekend. The consensus? Morgott/Margit/Fell Omen is a great hater.

One player on the Elden Ring Nightreign subreddit described Morgott’s invasion mechanic as one of their favorite features, and in more threads, others shared where they were invaded. Whether as a night boss, on an elevator, or in a tower, Morgott seems ready to appear wherever, with some potentially hilarious consequences.

The Fell Omen’s sudden invasions have hopes high for other enemies to suddenly appear and attack the players. The Pursuer from Dark Souls 2, for example, would make a great candidate. Me, personally? I’d love to see some Hunters invade and attempt to take out players, but anything Bloodborne-related feels like a distant hope at best.

They buffed Margit in Elden Ring Nightreign bro was training with Vergil

Thankful for the one match I was able to play LOL pic.twitter.com/4RRQGSKmNa

— skum (@skumnut) February 14, 2025

There might even be deeper mechanics to Fell Omen invasions. GamesRadar detailed an invasion from the Omen that took out one of their co-op partners, and seemed to leave a curse mark branded on the slain player. It’ll be exciting to see how this game develops, especially as more players get hands-on time with it.

While the first network test was plagued by server issues, there were still a good number of players dropping into the Lands Between over the weekend. We’ll have to wait until May 30 to see how Nightreign fully shakes out, but until then, be sure to check out our own hands-on impressions with Elden Ring Nightreign here.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Even if you don’t play Magic: The Gathering, you’ve probably caught wind of its numerous video game crossovers in recent years, including Fallout, Tomb Raider, and Assassin’s Creed. But today we’ve got an exclusive first look at one of the most exciting yet: Final Fantasy. And not just one Final Fantasy – from Terra to Y’shtola, four different mainline games are represented across the preconstructed Commander decks headlining the set.

Flip through the image gallery below for a first look at the lead card and packaging for each deck, and read on for a conversation with Wizards of the Coast about what to expect inside them, why these four games were picked, and plenty more.

Set to launch this June, Magic’s Final Fantasy crossover will be a fully draftable, Standard-legal set accompanied by the four preconstructed decks in the gallery above. Each of those includes 100 cards made up of both reprints of existing cards with new Final Fantasy art and brand new cards designed with Magic’s most popular format, Commander, in mind. And while Commander precons are always themed around certain characters, colors, or strategies, the twist with these is that each one is built around a single Final Fantasy game – specifically 6, 7, 10, and 14.

“Final Fantasy games are so rich with flavor, beloved characters, and unique settings that choosing a single game as the theme provided more than enough material to design a full deck of cards around,” says Senior Game Designer Daniel Holt, who is the Commander Lead for the set. “Approaching each deck as a single game also provided the opportunity to dive deep into the lore of each, capturing even more beloved moments from across the game’s storyline that we may not have been able to achieve otherwise.”

The team decided on these four Final Fantasy games based on a balance of what they wanted for the gameplay of each deck and how well known each story was overall. Holt says that while Final Fantasy 7 and 14 were clearer picks, 6 and 10 took more discussion to arrive at, but were chosen partially because they were favorites among the team. “This was one of those products where everyone in the building was invested in each stage of development, as we have so many passionate Final Fantasy fans in the building.”

Of course, even within those picks, there are some decisions you have to make about direction. For instance, Final Fantasy 7’s remake trilogy has been running alongside the development of this Magic set, so is its Commander precon telling the story of the original or its reality-bending reimagining? Dillon Deveney, Principal Narrative Game Designer at Wizards of the Coast and Narrative Lead for the set, says you’ll see a bit of both throughout that deck’s art, but the story itself will follow the 1997 classic.

“Our core approach to Final Fantasy VII was to capture the original PS1 game’s narrative, while using Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s modern aesthetics to push the fidelity of each character design, story moment, and memorable location to the next level,” Deveney explains. “With that in mind, if a scene existed in both games, we had our choice of showing it as the original game did, how the modern version interpreted it, or a unique fusion of both. Hopefully, this deck feels familiar and nostalgic to players of both the original game and the modern series!”

Speaking of nostalgia, Final Fantasy 6 is a trickier nut to crack in some ways as it lacks the more modern art references the other three games can provide. Deveney says they wanted to stick close to what fans would expect from its pixel art sprites and limited concept art while also expanding upon them, and hopes that “the character designs should feel like how you ‘remember’ them, despite being a hybridization of many different references and new ideas.” To help accomplish that, WOTC even consulted directly with the Final Fantasy 6 team as they updated these character to the standards needed for Magic art.

“We developed a workflow that asked concept artists and card artists to pull hallmark character designs from Yoshitaka Amano’s original (and legendary) concept art, the original FFVI sprites, and the FFVI Pixel Remaster character portraits, to synthesize the most consistent elements of each character’s design into something ‘new.’ We also encouraged our artists to punch up finer details and bsexplore elements where they thought they could push (fabric, patterns, textures, etc.) Then, we would meet with the Final Fantasy VI review team, and they would give us feedback on what core elements they wanted to preserve and what new elements they were excited about.”

So they had the four games decided, but when it comes to Commander, that’s only half the equation– WOTC also needed to figure out which characters would lead each deck. Cloud may be the obvious pick for 7, but Holt tells me the others involved some brainstorming. Celes was considered for 6 since the deck is focused around the World of Ruin and the second half of that game, while Yuna was considered for 10 as a fan-favorite. They ultimately decided to stick with the “lead” characters on those, but Final Fantasy 14 is an MMO, which presented its own problem.

“For Y’shtola, it came down to a mix of popularity of the character as well as being a spellcaster, her story and character development offered a wide range of abilities and moments to pull from to lead the deck,” Holt explains, going on to say this deck represents her specifically during her Shadowbringers arc. They did explore the concept of making a “Warrior of Light” commander players could make their own in some fashion, but Holt says those ideas had some “pretty in-depth executions,” and that your own personal hero still has plenty of moments in this deck even without being at the helm.

Now comes the question of figuring out how to fit an entire video game’s story, characters, and themes into a single deck and the carefully balanced restrictions of Magic’s five colors. “Building these decks called for us to decide color identity for the chosen game itself, but also the gameplay we desired from them,” says Holt, going on to point out that it’s no mistake all four include White, “for both theming and it helped cover the wide range of Heroes we wanted to include in each deck.”

As mentioned, the deck for 6 is centered on the latter half of that game – as such, it’s essentially all about rebuilding your party by bringing other creatures back from your graveyard. For 7, Cloud wielding a big sword lines up nicely with the equipment strategies of a white-red Magic deck, but Holt says that “adding green to the mix let us tie in the ‘power matters’ cards and cards that reference the Planet and lifestream.”

While Tidus’ ability to pass counters around might lead you to think the deck for 10 is all about Blitzball, this classic white-blue-green strategy actually primarily came from the idea of that game’s Sphere Grid leveling system as a way to empower your creatures. Holt also admits that the theme for 14 was tricky to land on, but its white-blue-black color identity allowed them to lean into a noncreature spell casting theme while also including the characters they wanted to.

Last but not least, Commander might be all about your leader, but RPGs are often about your party as a whole, and WOTC won’t leave the supporting casts of these games hanging. “Final Fantasy games are full of loveable AND villainous characters and getting them in these decks was very important,” Holt says. “While I can’t talk specifics on who is included in each deck or their abilities just yet, fans can expect to see some of their favorite characters in the 99 of each deck as new legendary creatures and captured in action on other exciting spells.”

Magic’s Final Fantasy set will release on June 13, and if you don’t see your personal favorite Final Fantasy game or character here (or even if you do), don’t worry – Holt assures me that “all sixteen of the mainline games will have their moments to shine in the accompanying products.”

Returning to the same territory as the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks from 2022, all four of these decks will be available in both a regular version (MSRP $69.99) and a Collector’s Edition (MSRP $149.99), the latter of which will feature all 100 of the cards in each deck in a special Surge foil treatment.

Read on for the full, unedited interview with Wizards of the Coast’s Daniel Holt and Dillon Deveney:

IGN: Why did you decide to build each commander deck around a whole game this time?

Daniel Holt, Senior Game Designer: Final Fantasy games are so rich with flavor, beloved characters, and unique settings that choosing a single game as the theme provided more than enough material to design a full deck of cards around. Approaching each deck as a single game also provided the opportunity to dive deep into the lore of each, capturing even more beloved moments from across the game’s storyline that we may not have been able to achieve otherwise.

How did you land on these four games specifically? Were there any close runner-ups you considered?

DH: In exploratory design, before getting too deep into deckbuilding and card design, we brainstormed what games offered the most for what gameplay we wanted with the decks as well as being the more commonly known storylines among the audience. Final Fantasy VII being one of the more referenced games in media made it a strong first contender. Final Fantasy XIV offered a unique gamestyle, that of an MMO, and has SO MANY active players that we knew we could delight this group by selecting it as one of the four. After that, it became a bit more of a team discussion. Final Fantasy X is a favorite of mine and Zakeel, the FIN Product Architect, so we were a little biased in choosing it. Final Fantasy VI touched the pixel era of games and was a favorite of several other designers in the studio. So with that, we ended up with our four game selects! That said, all sixteen of the mainline games will have their moments to shine in the accompanying products.

Should we expect reprint art/lands/etc. within each deck to also be tied to each game?

DH: Absolutely! We want players to feel like they are entering the world of that game as they summon creatures and cast spells from it. This means that the nonland reprints are placed from within that deck’s game, while lands can appear from any of the four games included in the product.

Can you talk a bit about your approach to Magic’s color identities across these decks as it relates to Final Fantasy – why these colors for these characters/games?

DH: Building these decks called for us to decide color identity for the chosen game itself, but also the gameplay we desired from them. Being three colors each did help me have a wider range of options to apply to different characters and moments within the game. For example, you’ll notice all four decks include White in their color identity for both theming and it helped cover the wide range of Heroes we wanted to include in each deck.

Final Fantasy VI – This is a graveyard reanimator deck, so white-black-red was a great fit — gaining access to discard and mill effects in BR and ‘return from graveyard’ effects from WB. Thematically this deck rebuilds its large ensemble of characters in the World of Ruin, so the deck theme really plays into that section of the story.

Final Fantasy VII – As an equipment matters deck, white-red is well-known for that archetype in Magic and showcases this group’s iconic weaponry and battle prowess. Adding green to the mix let us tie in the ‘power matters’ cards and cards that reference the Planet and lifestream.

Final Fantasy X – White-blue-green counters are a classic staple in Magic deckbuilding and having access to all three here really let us build out a whole deck about moving the counters on the board and leveling up your team.

Final Fantasy XIV – This deck was tricky to land on, but by being white-blue-black, we had access to the colors we needed for the characters we wanted to include, but also be a noncreature matters theme, representing spell casting and ability usage you perform as the player while playing the Final Fantasy XIV game!

Terra, Cloud, and Tidus are the clear picks for their games, but how did you land on Y’shtola for Final Fantasy 14?

DH: I won’t deny that Cloud was a pretty obvious choice for the face commander of the Final Fantasy VII deck. The others went through a few rounds of brainstorming though! In Final Fantasy VI, since we were focusing on the themes of the second half of the game, Celes was actually a big contender for the lead. And with Final Fantasy X, we know Yuna is a fan favorite and could have led the deck to success. We ultimately landed on ‘the main protagonist’ character for each of these titles, resulting in Terra and Tidus filling those slots respectively; though Final Fantasy VI is an ensemble cast, Terra is often portrayed as the face of the series.

For Y’shtola, it came down to a mix of popularity of the character as well as being a spellcaster, her story and character development offered a wide range of abilities and moments to pull from to lead the deck.

Was using the Warrior of Light as the lead ever on the table, perhaps with some sort of background/class system to let players customize their precon?

DH: You caught me! We did explore card designs and themes around the Warrior of Light with some…pretty in-depth executions, before ultimately landing on Y’shtola as the commander. That said, there are still plenty of ‘Warrior of Light’ moments in the deck!

7, 10, and 14 have plenty of modern references when it comes to Magic-style art, but you’re pulling from a comparatively smaller pool for 6. Did you feel like there was more freedom to define your own look for those characters, or did you try to stick as closely to what was out there as possible?

Dillon Deveney, Principal Narrative Game Designer: I love this question! We wanted to stick closely to what fans remembered about these characters, while looking to merge the two major aesthetics of FFVI: the concept art and the in-game sprites. There was a lot of freedom in this approach, while trying to stick closely to the original designs. We worked directly with the Final Fantasy VI team to determine the aesthetics, designs, and costumes of the FFVI characters and world. To do that, we developed a workflow that asked concept artists and card artists to pull hallmark character designs from Yoshitaka Amano’s original (and legendary) concept art, the original FFVI sprites, and the FFVI Pixel Remaster character portraits, to synthesize the most consistent elements of each character’s design into something ‘new.’ We also encouraged our artists to punch up finer details and explore elements where they thought they could push (fabric, patterns, textures, etc.) Then, we would meet with the Final Fantasy VI review team, and they would give us feedback on what core elements they wanted to preserve and what new elements they were excited about. Ultimately, it’s our hope that the character designs should feel like how you ‘remember’ them, despite being a hybridization of many different references and new ideas.

Conversely, was there more pressure to get a character like Y’shtola exactly right when fans know so precisely what she looks like?

DH: From the game design side for each of these popular characters, this was one of those products where everyone in the building was invested in each stage of development, as we have so many passionate Final Fantasy fans in the building. At every playtest of the decks, I would get feedback about coworkers’ favorite characters, story moments, etc. that they wanted to make sure got included and implemented properly.

Some characters, like Y’shtola, have such deep character development throughout portions of their game. Each card that depicts one of those types of characters needed to capture them at a specific point in time of their story. For the Final Fantasy XIV commander deck, we have Y’shtola in the Shadowbringers arc where she has become a talented spell caster.

For the Final Fantasy 7 deck, did the recent remake series influence or impact your thinking/designs much, or were you mostly looking toward the original here?

DH: We had the fortunate overlap of some of the remake game series releasing WHILE we worked on this set. So it was a really cool experience getting to leave work, go home, and play games featuring the characters of cards I was designing in a ‘new’ video game.

DD: Our core approach to Final Fantasy VII was to capture the original PS1 game’s narrative, while using Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s modern aesthetics to push the fidelity of each character design, story moment, and memorable location to the next level. You will see a mix of classic FFVII moments and modern FFVII visuals in the deck, but generally, the product is intended to follow the original game’s story. With that in mind, if a scene existed in both games, we had our choice of showing it as the original game did, how the modern version interpreted it, or a unique fusion of both. Hopefully, this deck feels familiar and nostalgic to players of both the original game and the modern series!

It’s super cute that Tidus is all about passing counters around like a ball. Did you know this was going to be a counter deck already or did counters come from exploring Blitzball as a concept?

DH: Everyone loves Blitzball! People in the office got a ‘kick’ out of every time we mentioned it or referenced it somewhere in the product. But when starting the Final Fantasy X deck, the actual theming of counters came from the Sphere Grid experience system used in the game. This system is visually portrayed as a board where you add colored markers on the tracks to gain new abilities. In commander, I wanted to capture that idea by filling the deck with +1/+1 and other counters and then moving them around your team for added abilities!

Commander is all about your leader, but what is an RPG without a party – was it important to y’all to also highlight the folk supporting these leads within each deck?

DH: Of course! Final Fantasy games are full of loveable AND villainous characters and getting them in these decks was very important. While I can’t talk specifics on who is included in each deck or their abilities just yet, fans can expect to see some of their favorite characters in the 99 of each deck as new legendary creatures and captured in action on other exciting spells.

I assume a popular character like Cloud is going to be on more than just this card in the same way Frodo or Galadriel were in the Lord of the Rings set – I know you can’t get into main set spoilers here, but is there anything about designing around these characters for a commander-only product that you enjoy getting to do differently from a product that has to be in Standard?

DH: I think it’s safe to say you’ll see some characters making multiple appearances in the product and each is appealing to different kinds of players. With the ones we see here, they are all ‘commander-sized’, meaning they are aimed to be exciting in the commander format, both in and out of the precon. All the legends in these decks have a unified goal of working together within their deck’s theme and it’s fun building cards like this to have that creative team synergy, whether that’s say…interacting with counters in Final Fantasy X or playing with the graveyard in Final Fantasy VI. On the other hand, legends in the main set can be designs built around the character independently of other cards to spark new archetypes of decks.

Tom Marks is IGN’s Executive Reviews Editor. He loves card games, puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.

The moment of tension one feels when they realize they’re closing in on a record run is palpable. Doubly so if the competitor is a blindfolded speedrunner who can’t see the chat telling him that his webcam is off.

Last week, as spotted by GamesRadar, speedrunner Bubzia was working on beating the world record for a blindfolded 70-star run in Super Mario 64. It’s a record he set himself last June at one hour, 25 minutes, and 11 seconds. He’d spent days — 72, at the time of this incident — trying to topple his own record. And on February 10, while on good pace to break his record, Bubzia’s webcam shut off.

Yesterday, it finally happened. My webcam died in the beginning of a 70 Star run, and I did not know until I finished an hour later. Luckily, it was a few seconds behind World Record 😅😅 pic.twitter.com/7BJzFwYHVH

— Bubzia (@Bubzia1) February 11, 2025

Bubzia had been having some difficulties with his webcam before the run started. “That’s a new one, dude,” he said in a run prior to the big one, where his webcam turned off about one minute and 34 seconds in.

The heartbreaker in question would happen after, at 23 minutes and 59 seconds into a really solid run. You can check out the YouTube VOD of his run to see the chat, in real-time, react. “This could be the funniest WR,” one person in chat said.

The facecam is crucial because it’s required for the run to be valid. On the Speedrun.com rules and regulations, it specifically states: “The player must be visibly devoid of sight during the gameplay, i.e. something must be covering the eyes.” Ergo, if you couldn’t verify Bubzia had his eyes covered the entire time, the run would not qualify.

Having a back-up of some kind, like a notification, might be a thought. But the second category-specific rule says runners can’t have any assistance from other people. This includes hints from a Discord call or text-to-voice chat. After the first webcam failure, Bubzia confirmed he had “everything disabled” to alert him in case of a failure, and had received multiple Discord DMs trying to catch his attention while running.

For some viewers, it might be agonizing to watch someone run a game for over an hour, unaware their attempt has been invalid since the 24-minute mark. Bubzia’s chat even leaned into the irony, hoping for the runner to not set a world record, to avoid the heartbreak when the blindfold came off.

So in that way, it may have been a relief that Bubzia’s time came in a few seconds behind the world record. The pace clock concluded at 1:26:09, almost a full minute behind Bubzia’s standing record.

“If this would have been world record, I would have cried,” Bubzia said, after taking off his blindfold and realizing the facecam had been off. “Dude, I would have quit SM64, man.”

You can follow more attempts from Bubzia, whose facecam is currently working at the time of this writing, on his Twitch here. And for more on speedrunning, check out our Speedrun video series of devs reacting to speedruns of their own games.

Image credit: @Bubzia1.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Presidents’ Day marks one of the first big sale events of the year, and if you’ve been looking to save on video games there’s been a fantastic variety on sale to look through. One of our favorite video game deals at the moment is on Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon for PS5, which is down to just $20 at Amazon and Best Buy.

This marks a 67% price drop from its $59.99 list price and a return to its lowest price yet, according to price tracker camelcamelcamel. If you’ve been hoping to dive into its masterful world of mechs, now’s your chance to do it and save some cash in the process.

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon for $20

Darth Revan may well be the most popular Star Wars character yet to appear in a live-action project. Star Wars collectors looking to add to their Revan shrine will soon have a new option, as Diamond Select Toys reveals the Star Wars: The Old Republic Jedi Revan Gallery PVC Statue.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive first look at this dynamic Star Wars collectible:

This piece is essentially a sequel to DST’s previous Darth Revan statue. It’s specifically inspired by Revan’s appearance in Star Wars: The Old Republic and depicts the character wielding a single purple lightsaber and white Jedi robes.

The Star Wars: The Old Republic Jedi Revan Gallery PVC Statue is designed at 1:8 scale and measures about 10 inches tall. Like the rest of the Star Wars Gallery line, it’s designed to be a more budget-friendly option for collectors and carries an MSRP of $80.

The Jedi Revan statue will be released in Fall 2025. Preorders will open on the Gentle Giant Ltd. website and other retailers on Friday, February 21.

You can also currently preorder DST’s Darth Revan statue, which is seeing wider release in 2025 after originally debuting as a Diamond Select Toys/Gamestop exclusive.

While you’re at it, why not check out the many Star Wars collectibles available on the IGN Store?

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.