Category: IGN

When I sat down to play High on Life 2 for the first time, I was optimistic but also slightly skeptical. I’m hardly alone when I say that I loved the first one – it was a rare example of a genuinely funny game and it happened to be an excellent first-person shooter to boot. But making sequels to comedies is no sure thing – just look at the long list of great comedy films that got bad follow-ups. How would a video game comedy sequel fare?

If the hour of High on Life 2 I played is any indication, it’s got a great chance to be as funny as – and possibly even more fun on the gameplay side than – the 2022 original. In that hour alone, I wandered around a beautiful beachside alien town, met a semi-depressed new gun named Travis and got completely wasted with him, impressed some alien teenagers with my skateboarding skills, circumcised a giant alien phallus with a laser, stole the fedora from the 1996 movie Dunston Checks In, tried (unsuccessfully) to solve a murder mystery, and bounty-hunted a billionaire who, yes, met his demise. Did I laugh along the way? Yup. Is the first-person shooter combat improved from the original? Certainly. Did I appreciate the variety of gameplay within this small slice of the campaign? Most definitely yes. Like I said, I went in optimistic, but when my demo ended I was more excited than ever for High on Life 2’s February 13, 2026 release.

Skate or Die

I began in Pinkline Harbor, a beach town with a bar, a skate shop, a bar and grill overlooking the sea, and more. It didn’t take long for me to find trouble, as a pair of fellow bounty hunters accosted me and eventually recognized me as a mark with a big bounty on my own head. After taking them out, the bottleneck was clear and I was free to explore the harbor.

This gave me my first taste of High on Life 2’s new traversal mechanic: skateboarding. I’ve played a lot of first-person shooters in my day, but I’m not sure I’ve ever played an FPS with skateboarding in it until now. And I have to say, I love how developer Squanch Games has implemented it here. It’s basically your run function. When you press the sprint button, your outlaw hero deploys their board and starts riding. You can grind on rails to really get around the open playspaces faster, and you’ve got momentum like an actual skateboard does, too, allowing you to catch air if you’re skating in, say, an empty pool on a cruise ship. I’m really interested to see how the skateboarding gets utilized throughout the campaign; I already saw it incorporated into a basic puzzle in my demo.

After solving that simple locked-door puzzle with the help of my skateboard, I cruised into Pinkbellies Bar and Grill and met Travis, a down-on-his-luck alien (who happens to be a gun) who’s getting drunk at the bar after a fight with his wife. It’s here we see a welcome tweak to the first High on Life: you now have dialogue choices for each of your gun characters; if you choose one that’s from a different gun than what you’re holding, you’ll put that gun away and take out the one whose response you’ve chosen. This allows for plenty of funny options, and while I wouldn’t say this alone encourages replayability, if you do happen to run through High on Life 2 more than once, at least you can ensure that you won’t hear all of the exact same dialogue.

Hold Your Liquor

You’ve got to keep Travis happy as you pretend to be his drinking buddy, as he’s got a spare ticket for the cruise ship you need to get aboard, since that’s where your target – the billionaire Larry Pinkstock – is believed to be. And so there’s a literal Happy-O-Meter that you’ll fill by dancing in a DDR-like minigame, playing darts while hammered, and drawing a portrait of Travis. Naturally, this leads to a bar fight and you vomiting and blacking out and waking up on the beach. Did my actions during any part of this gameplay sequence seem to really matter? Not really. But did I laugh throughout it? Absolutely.

Naturally, getting aboard the ship isn’t as easy as simply walking onto it; you’ll need to fight your way through some more bounty-hunting bad guys. This battle gives you a good sense of how traversal – from the skateboard to using Knifey as a grappling hook – is organically woven into combat. If you keep moving you’ll be tough to bring down, particularly when you mix in frequent use of each gun’s special attack; they’re each on a cooldown, so you can’t spam them. Combat definitely feels more layered in this sequel than it did in the first game. In other words, you’ve got more options at your disposal in any given encounter, and that’s a good thing.

Once aboard the ship, called the Pinkline Panacea, you’ll need to give up your guns at the security checkpoint before enjoying the perks of your VIP ticket – which includes the highlight of the evening, a murder mystery party. Thus, getting dressed up for the big event is a must, so Travis buys you both wild, matching Austin Powers-looking purple suits from a vendor who looks suspiciously like an alien version of John Waters.

Laser That Wiener

Anyway, I needed to get my friends – aka my guns – back, and so Travis and I wandered into Pinkstock’s museum to search for them. We didn’t find them, but we did find the fedora worn by Dunston the orangutan in Dunston Checks In, which Travis instantly became obsessed with. So, how to get it for him without alerting security? Well, as luck would have it, the adjacent museum piece is a giant alien phallus, set up for museum patrons to circumcise using the circumcision laser. I won’t spoil the puzzle solution, but let’s just say that yes, I did get Travis that fedora. And acquiring it was a very funny process.

More exploration of the ship led us to the Lido Deck, where a gang of unruly teens had managed to get their hands on Knifey. And in a clear humorous nod to Tony Hawk, the teens agreed to return Knifey – if I showed off my skateboarding skills by collecting the letters scattered around the deck…that happened to spell out the word “gonads.” L-O-L. And as you can already see, High on Life 2 is chock full of variety, and I haven’t even told you about the best part of my demo yet…

Whodunnit?

After battling some more bounty hunters on the Lido Deck who were looking to cash in on the price on my head, I made my way back to my cabin and passed out before the party. Once we got to the VIP murder mystery bash, I found four strange fellow guests, and soon our mysterious host appeared.

I expected a very light bit of clue-gathering in this sequence, and if that’s all it had been, High on Life 2 still would’ve earned points in my book for continuing to mix up the gameplay. However, developer Squanch Games had other ideas. The murder mystery is no joke, both tonally and difficulty-wise. The team clearly took this section very seriously, and as such you’ll need to talk to all four suspects repeatedly, scour the room for both obvious and hidden clues, make notes in your on-screen notepad, and eventually not just accuse one of the four, but have collected enough evidence and made enough connections to establish a motive and credibly pin the crime on one of them. I’m purposely not going to say any more about this because I don’t want to spoil any of it for you, but I’ll admit that while I did end up accusing the correct person, I hadn’t solidly established a motive, and thus, I failed to solve the murder mystery. I can’t wait to play this again in the final version of the game in order to take another crack at it.

Who’s the Boss?

I escaped the murder mystery via a water slide that took me to the lower deck. This led to another big battle where I got to test out another new weapon in High on Life 2: the Flint Turtles. They’re temporary-use pickups in the practical sense, and in the literal sense, they’re adorable reptiles who happen to breathe fire, making for convenient single-use flamethrowers. One miniboss fight and a few more rounds of regular combat later and I finally found myself at the end of my demo in a proper boss fight against Kreg, the leader of the bounty hunter gang that had been harassing me throughout my demo.

Kreg proved to be a pretty traditional first-person shooter boss foe. He had attack patterns to learn and weak moments where I could really let him have it. I wouldn’t say this fight was better than the excellent boss battles in the first High on Life, but it was an engaging enough encounter.

All told, I was pleasantly surprised by my hour with High on Life 2. Not surprised that it was good, to be clear – I expected that – but rather delighted by just how nicely the gameplay has evolved from the first game, and how much smart, funny, and unexpected variety there was throughout the gameplay. I wasn’t simply shooting the entire time. Far from it! If the whole of High on Life 2 matches what my one-hour slice brought to the table, then it’s going to be a very welcome addition to Xbox – including Game Pass on day one – PC, and PS5.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

The popular Cult of the Lamb franchise has taken on new life on the printed page, already spawning a graphic novel adaptation called Cult of the Lamb: The First Verse and the follow-up one-shot Cult of the Lamb: Schism Special. Now Oni Press is back again with another sequel dubbed Cult of the Lamb: Last Sacrament Special #1.

Last Sacrament Special reunites writer Alex Paknadel and artist Troy Little for a new 48-page adventure. This issue is again a collaboration between comic book publisher Oni Press, game publisher Devolver Digital, and development studio Massive Monster.

Nintendo has finally won damages in a Wii Remote lawsuit it’s been fighting since 2010, over an unofficial controller that infringed on the company’s patents.

15 years on, Nintendo has claimed victory in its extremely long-running battle against Bigben Interactive (since renamed Nacon), and has been awarded a judgment worth $7 million (around $8.2 million). The actual damages Nintendo has been awarded count for around half the amount, while the rest is made up of interest, since the case has dragged on for so long.

Why has it taken a decade and a half to sort? As reported by GamesFray, Nintendo won an early ruling on the case back in 2011, though Nacon has been able to delay a further decision on damages until now. And the matter still isn’t over, as Nacon is now appealing the verdict — holding off on paying for even longer.

Back in 2010, Nintendo said a third-party Wii controller made by Nacon, then Bigben, infringed on its own patents and had caused the company to lose money. Without that third-party controller on the market, Nintendo argued, customers would have otherwise bought more of its official Wii Remote instead.

In response, Bigben said that customers could have chosen other third-party controllers as well as its own, so Nintendo couldn’t claim it would have definitely lost out. But Nintendo ultimately won this argument, as a court decided that the company’s patents were strong enough that no other third-party controller could have been made without others infringing on Nintendo’s patents also.

Nintendo has a reputation for being a litigious company, pursuing video game pirates and instances where it feels its trademarks have been infringed — such as in its current legal action against Palworld maker Pocketpair, which it currently seems to be struggling with.

If nothing else, this latest development shows that Nintendo is nothing if not persistent. And if the company does want to pursue you, prepare to still be fighting, three console generations later.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Magic: The Gathering’s 2025 might be remembered for the highs of Final Fantasy and the less well-received Spider-Man Universes Beyond set, but between those, one set was snubbed.

Landing in August, Edge of Eternities adds a space flavor to Magic, and comes with two great preconstructed decks. Now, thanks to a discount at Amazon, you can save on a bundle of them with two for each player.

FIFA has announced its next soccer game will be published in partnership with Netflix and developed by new studio Delphi Interactive.

Following the end of its partnership with EA in 2022, FIFA announced it was working on a portfolio of Web3 games ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, but it has been pretty quiet since then. According to its president Andy Kleinman, however, Delphi has been working for the past 30 months “to continue the legacy of one of my favorite video games of all time, FIFA.”

Delphi, seemingly established in 2023, hasn’t yet shipped a game, but describes itself as “the architects” behind 007 First Light and “uncompromising about quality.”

While we haven’t seen any screenshots yet, let alone gameplay, a press release claims the game will be “fast to learn, thrilling to master, and built for anyone to jump in,” and playable — either solo or online — without a controller, as “all you need is Netflix and your phone.”

“Football is the biggest thing in the world. As lifelong FIFA fans, we’re honoured to help usher in the bold, next generation and reimagine the future of the franchise. Our mission is simple: make the FIFA game the most fun, approachable, and global football game ever created,” said Casper Daugaard, founder & CEO of Delphi Interactive. Kleinman called it “one of those pinch-me” moments and hailed the project as “a historic exclusive partnership to launch the next generation of the FIFA football simulation titles.”

“FIFA is very excited to team up with Netflix Games and Delphi Interactive ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026,” added FIFA President Gianni Infantino said. “This major collaboration is a key milestone in FIFA’s commitment to innovation in the football gaming space, which aspires to reach billions of football fans of all ages everywhere in the world and will be redefining the pure notion of simulation games. Our reimagined game truly marks the beginning of a new era of digital football. It will be available for free to Netflix members and is a great historic step for FIFA.”

Partnering with Netflix and enabling soccer fans to get involved “with just the touch of a button” does sound like the sports sim will be more accessible to a casual audience. However, Netflix stresses the game will only be available “on select TVs in certain countries.”

As Netflix subscribers can presently only play games in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Mexico, France, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Finland, Germany, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, that leaves a lot of soccer-loving countries without access. And while Netflix’s CEO claims the game will be playable for “free,” it’s not entirely clear if this access will be paywalled behind certain subscription tiers.

FIFA 23 is the most successful game in the franchise, despite the fact EA delisted from online storefronts when it was just a year old.

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.

Millions of digital horses were clad in armour on April 3, 2006. The survivors of this phenomenon called this downloadable content purchase a “microtransaction.” They lived only to face new nightmares: season passes, live service models, always-online single-player, loot boxes, pay-to-win, ship-now-fix-later patches, and more. Make no mistake, the team at Terminator 2D: No Fate developer Bitmap Bureau has seen this future, and they clearly don’t like it. As such, Terminator 2D is an unapologetically nostalgic sidescroller, specifically designed to send players directly back to the 16-bit era of the ’90s to experience the greatest T2 game we never played. Exceedingly short by modern standards but brimming with love for James Cameron’s indisputable sci-fi classic, Terminator 2D is part time machine, part uncommonly terrific movie tie-in. In an insane world, it’s the sanest choice.

Terminator 2D’s main story mode – which follows the events of T2, with a few expanded diversions – takes roughly an hour to complete successfully. However, it took me a few runs to actually achieve this. Admittedly, this is incredibly short by contemporary standards – but it’s nonetheless authentic to an era where a game’s perceived girth was significantly inflated by the amount of times you’d need to play through nearly the entire thing in order to reach the end.

This philosophy feels pretty heavily baked into Terminator 2D and, even though I no longer have the time, the patience, or the sugar-enhanced reflexes of a 12-year-old with no job, I do respect the format. Sure, burning through my continues on an encounter I didn’t quite understand immediately was frustrating, and needing to start all over again is never fun. However, pushing past punishing sections that gave me grief on previous playthroughs is undeniably rewarding. I only wish you weren’t limited to accumulating a maximum of just nine continues. Whenever you have nine in the bank, any further ones you collect are converted to bonus points instead. Failing on the last level does sting a little harder knowing I could’ve easily had a few more cracks at it.

Are We Learning Yet?

On account of Terminator 2D’s modest length, I’m hesitant to drill down too specifically on how and when it shifts up its various mechanics, because encountering and learning this stuff for yourself is really all part of the process. What I will say, however, is that Terminator 2D doesn’t stagnate as a one-speed sidescroller, and there are tweaks throughout that typically require a slight adjustment to your approach. That is, one moment you might be cutting a plasma-fueled path through a Skynet-ravaged future in an overtly Contra-inspired run-and-gun action section, and the next you’re sneaking through the Pescadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, engaging in mild stealth and hiding from the T-1000. This level loses its suspense on subsequent visits thanks to its scripted nature, but the tension the first time around was palpable thanks to the excellent use of T2’s original music and the predilection of the deadly T-1000 to pop up out of nowhere.

T2’s music is actually used to incredible effect all throughout. It essentially does all the heavy lifting in terms of atmosphere in the absence of voice acting, with the dialogue relayed through on-screen text. The power metal version of T2’s main theme is a major highlight, and there’s a fabulously engineered bit of licensed music available in the biker bar that had me grinning like a cybernetic organism in a well-stocked weapons bunker – just be sure to punch that jukebox.

Happily, Terminator 2D is as fabulous to look at as it is to listen to. Its pixel art isn’t just brilliantly handsome, either; it’s also silkily animated. It oozes character at every opportunity, from the way the T-800 disdainfully tosses that unlucky biker onto a burning grill, to the desperate backpedalling of Sarah in the shadow of her worst nightmare, to the final flailings of the T-1000 as it cycles through its most recent shapeshifts in the pool of molten metal.

I Know Now Why You Cry

My biggest disappointment overall is the surprising lack of T-800 sequences, resulting in a Terminator game where you unfortunately spend limited time as the Terminator itself. When playing the core story thread – that is, the one that runs faithfully to the film – you’ll only play as the T-800 during the biker bar beatdown and the canal chase. It’s true that, in the spirit of the film, Bitmap Bureau can’t simply turn the T-800 into a mass-murdering WMD. After all, as we all know, it’s under strict instructions from John not to kill anyone. As regularly as ’90s movie tie-ins coloured outside the lines – present company included – it would’ve been quite discordant to have the Terminator arbitrarily massacre his way through a few levels.

Nonetheless, it does feel like there are some missed opportunities here. For instance, the biker bar beat ’em up gameplay could’ve made a very logical reappearance in, say, a mall level where the T-800 was forced to slap down some security on his way to rendezvous with John for the first time. This could’ve crescendoed with the T-800 blasting at the T-1000 with his shotgun. As it stands, this iconic encounter occurs in a brief still screen before the motorcycle chase, with no associated gameplay. It feels brushed over considering just how mega that moment is in the context of the movie.

It’s odd, too, that the T-800 blasting the cop cars assembled outside Cyberdyne Systems is only a playable portion in runs destined for one of Terminator 2D’s alternate endings. We actually don’t get it in a regular canon run. It’s stranger still that the T-800 is a passenger for the entire final showdown at the steel foundry with the T-1000. You get a glimpse of the fight between the two as you hustle through the area as Sarah – and the part of the slugfest you can watch does contain some terrific fan service – but I feel like it would’ve been nice to be able to participate in that. I’m not sure whether or not the slight sidelining of the T-800 is related to the fact Arnold Schwarzenegger’s likeness is not actually featured in Terminator 2D, while Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, Edward Furlong, and Michael Edwards are.

The T-800 does get some minigun action if you dabble with the decision options that become unlocked after completing the main story for the first time. These decisions send the story on a split path towards new endings that are bespoke to Terminator 2D. They’re an interesting novelty, and these paths result in some different riffs on previously completed levels, but I wouldn’t say they’re a massive boost to proceedings.

Completing these other paths is the key to unlocking several bonus modes, like a Boss Rush and one dubbed Mother of the Future (which focuses exclusively on Sarah). However, they’re really just slightly altered ways of playing the same thing over again – which is something I’ve done a whole bunch already just pounding through Story Mode. There’s also an ‘Arcade Mode’, which appears to just be Story Mode without continues. This one doesn’t interest me at all, and I’m not quite sure what it’s supposed to emulate. Going to the arcade with a hole in your pocket?

At any rate, T2 is already a perfect film with a perfect ending, so any perversion of it is naturally going to be pretty unsatisfying in comparison (which is a lesson I thought we all learnt watching the first five minutes of Terminator: Dark Fate).

As Stardew Valley fans continue to wait patiently for the previously announced 1.7 update, creator Eric Barone (ConcernedApe) has dropped a couple small, vague, yet exciting hints about what said mysterious update might entail: a new farm type, and “more character/social stuff.”

This comes from a tweet/X post from ConcernedApe, where he was asked if he could give any hints about the upcoming update. His response was pretty simple: “there will be some more character/social stuff, it’s also traditional to add a new farm type. Lots more but I don’t want to reveal much yet.”

there will be some more character/social stuff, it’s also traditional to add a new farm type. Lots more but I don’t want to reveal much yet

— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) December 17, 2025

That’s not a ton of detail, but certainly enough to spark the imagination. The new farm type was indeed to be expected. Stardew Valley started with just one style of farm map, and since its release, most major new content updates have added at least one for a total of eight different options. Each farm map centers around a different specialty, with the Standard map being fairly generic and open-ended, and other maps promoting fishing, foraging, mining, combat, multiplayer, a combination of fishing and foraging, and animal raising. Currently, this means that basically every type of playstyle is supported, so there’s a lot left to wonder about when it comes to imagining what new farm type could be added. Perhaps something that encourages building NPC friendships?

The “character/social stuff” is a little more vague. This could mean anything from new scenes and events with existing characters to new characters entirely. It’s really hard to say at this stage!

Popular fan requests for future Stardew Valley features include more NPCs, including more romanceable NPCs, more dialogue and world lore, but also just generally more of everything: more animals, more crops, more decorations, more clothing, more enemies to fight, dishes to cook, and so forth. ConcernedApe hasn’t really revealed anything so far about what 1.7 will contain, or even when we might expect it. He’s given no release date, only suggested that it’s possible it doesn’t come out until after Haunted Chocolatier releases. Maybe. It’ll be ready when it’s ready.

ConcernedApe did drop one other thing, though. When asked about a potential Nintendo Switch 2 edition, he said he’s announce something “very soon.” A Switch 2 edition was first announced back in September, and will bring mouse controls, four-player split screen multiplayer, and Game Share multiplayer to the Switch version. No release date has been given yet.

We re-reviewed Stardew Valley in 2024 to account for its many, many updates since launch in 2016. While our original review gave it an impressive 8.8/10, the re-review called it a 10/10 masterpiece, saying, “Stardew Valley is not only the best farming game I’ve played, it is one of my favorite games of all time. That myself and others keep returning to this eight-year old gem each time it gets even the smallest update speaks to how it’s truly a masterpiece in the genre it both reinvigorated and has come to define.”

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Horses, the indie horror game that was banned from both Steam and the Epic Games Store ahead of its launch two weeks ago, has nonetheless managed to sell over 18,000 copies, says publisher Santa Ragione. However, that’s not enough for the publisher to fund a new game.

This comes from a press release sent today by Santa Ragione, which says Horses has generated approximately $65,000 in net revenue thanks to sales on GOG and Humble [Disclaimer: Humble and IGN are both owned and run by IGN Entertainment, a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc.]. That was enough to pay royalties owed to creator Andrea Lucco Borlera, as well as pay off the loans the publisher took out to finish development.

But that’s not enough to begin work on a new game, and it doesn’t seem likely that amount will be reached despite the significant attention the game’s controversy gleaned. The team members are still planning to take on other jobs and projects, with the hope that the publisher may be able to fund a new prototype in the future if sales remain steady for long enough.

“While the launch of HORSES compares very favourably to our most recent launches on Steam, Steam’s economics rely heavily on multi-year long tail sales and, for our past projects, on Steam key distribution through bundles, which has also lately been restricted for low-selling titles,” the publisher said in a statement. “These structural differences are why a strong two week result on smaller storefronts does not tell us what a full Steam release could have looked like.”

Horses is a horror game that follows a young man who travels to a horse farm to work for several weeks during the summer, only to discover that the farm’s “horses” are actually naked humans with horse masks forcibly attached over their heads. The game explores themes of complicity and what horrors people are willing to participate in, via the farmer and eventually protagonist’s treatment and continued enslavement of these people.

The game contains a lot of disturbing imagery, including violence and sexual content, but none of that’s new for either Steam or Epic. Nevertheless, Horses was banned from Steam two years ago after the team submitted an in-progress prototype. While some suggestions were given as to the reason for the ban, no specifics were shared with the team at the time, nor was there an opportunity to appeal. Santa Ragione believes Valve may have objected to a scene present in the earlier version where a child “rode” one of the naked horses by sitting on their shoulders and being carried around. That character was aged up to an adult in the final version of the game, and there are no underaged individuals in the released version.

With Valve unbending, Santa Ragione said at the time it may have to close its doors, due to the overwhelming necessity of a Steam release for most games to recoup development costs. The publisher put its hopes in Epic, GOG, and Humble, but at the last minute right before launch, Epic also banned the game, with Epic citing violations of its policies on “inappropriate content” and “hateful or abusive content.”

Both bans prompted a wave of criticism from developers and audience members, who called out the banning of the game as both censorship as well as hypocritical, given some of the other content that’s allowed on Steam in particular. Santa Ragione specifically has called out Valve for having unclear policies and communication, problems that it feels essentially ensured the studio’s demise.

We also want to emphasize that this outcome should not distract from the broader issue at stake: the need for clearer rules, transparent processes, and meaningful accountability from near monopolistic distribution platforms and the systems they enforce. For every case like HORSES that becomes visible, there are many more games that are quietly banned, delisted, or trapped in indefinite review for unclear reasons, with developers too worried about retaliation or future approval to speak publicly. We are grateful to the journalists and outlets who have reported, and who will continue to report, on these cases.

Critical response to Horses has been across the board, with our own reviewer giving it a 7/10 and calling it “an affecting first-person horror game that, despite some repetitive tasks and signposting issues, delivers a harrowing story you won’t forget in a hurry.”

Publisher Santa Ragione has a long history of both developing and publishing standout games. Its most recent successes are Mediterranea Inferno, which it published from developer Eyeguys and which won Excellence in Narrative at the 2024 Independent Games Festival, as well as nominations for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Nuovo Award. Saturnalia, developed in-house and released in 2022, received generally positive reviews. Both games remain available on Steam and Epic.

Fallout 5 will indeed take into account the canon events of the Fallout TV series, Bethesda development chief Todd Howard has confirmed.

While Fallout 5 is years away (Bethesda is still working on The Elder Scrolls 6, which doesn’t have a release window), Howard said that what we see in the Fallout series will impact the game.

“In short, yes,” Howard told BBC Newsbeat. “Fallout 5 will be existing in a world where the stories and events of the show happened or are happening. We are taking that into account.”

The Fallout TV show, which is set after all the existing Fallout video games, has sparked much debate within the fandom. Questions on how it fits into the overarching Fallout timeline and whether it makes particular video game endings canon have dominated discussion in the run up to each season’s release. Indeed, Fallout Season 2 had left fans wondering about the fate of New Vegas following the events of the video game, although the show’s creators have avoided making a clear call.

What Howard is confirming here is that TV show characters such as Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul and the events of the show must now be factored into Fallout 5, although we don’t know when or where the game will be set. Could either actually appear in Fallout 5? It sounds like it’s possible, but we’ll have to see what happens in the show itself.

It’s worth remembering that we’re guaranteed Fallout Season 3, and the hope is there will be more seasons after that. There’s a long way to go before the show wraps up, and there’s a long way to go before Fallout 5 comes out. In the meantime, could Bethesda follow The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered and release a remaster of Fallout 3 or New Vegas, or perhaps even a Fallout: New Vegas 2 as a stop gap? In a recent interview with IGN, Howard remained coy on the possibility.

We’ve got plenty more on the Fallout TV show. Check out IGN’s Fallout Season 2 Episodes 1-6 review to find out what we think of it, as well as our roundup of details and Easter eggs.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

The holiday period is a great time to catch up on some of this year’s games that may have passed you by. If Ninja Gaiden 4 was on your list of games to play, Best Buy is offering a $15 discount on both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions right now as part of its Deal of the Day (see it here).

This offer brings its price down from $69.99 to $54.99, which is a nice little early holiday treat to jump on. Again, since it’s part of Best Buy’s Deal of the Day selection, the timer on its sale page has already started counting down until the end of today. Now is the time to take advantage of this limited-time deal and add it to your library for a little less.

Save $15 on Ninja Gaiden 4 (PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X)