Gaming News

Slay the Spire 2 Dev Never Thought It Would Actually Pass Marathon in Steam Concurrents, Says Congratulations Post ‘Seems a Bit Meaner Than Intended’

Some might have thought Bungie’s Marathon was going to be the big launch on Steam this week, but it turns out Slay the Spire 2 has quadrupled Bungie's extraction shooter in terms of concurrent player numbers on Valve's PC gaming platform. Casey Yano, game developer and co-founder of Slay the Spire maker MegaCrit, took to social media to say he never thought Slay the Spire 2 would pass Marathon in terms of concurrent users. Well, it certainly has. At the time of this article’s publication, Slay the Spire 2 has over 350,000 concurrent players on Valve’s platform — an incredible number that makes it one of the most-played games on Steam, behind only the eternally popular PUBG, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike 2. Marathon, meanwhile, hit a peak...

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‘It Is Still in Development. That's All I Can Say’ — Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Remake Dev Issues Update 5 Years After It Was Announced

Saber Interactive’s long-running development of its Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake is confirmed to still be underway. In a recent interview with IGN, the chief creative officer of Saber, Tim Willits, answered our question regarding the project’s future with a short but simple: “Yes, it is still in development. That's all I can say.” The news will be of relief to the hordes of loyal fans of the now-classic RPG originally developed by Mass Effect and Dragon Age studio, BioWare. The modern reimagining was first revealed way back in 2021, but nothing has been officially seen or heard of it in the five years since. A report in December 2025 from Game File revealed that Aspyr was no longer leading development on the remake...

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Now Marathon Is Out in the Wild, the True Cost of Its Microtransactions Has Been Revealed

Bungie’s Marathon is out now, which means players can finally see how its microtransactions actually work and, crucially, how much everything costs. The $40 extraction shooter is monetized in a number of ways, including via a premium battle pass and direct microtransactions for cosmetic items, such as playable character skins. As Bungie had signalled before Marathon went live, gameplay-affecting items are not available to buy, only cosmetics. Still, some players have responded negatively to Marathon’s monetization, criticizing the price of the skins and the digital sales tactics Bungie has in place. Straight off the bat, on launch day, Marathon has $15 cosmetic packs (they cost 1,500 Lux, Marathon’s premium virtual currency). These...

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Slay the Spire 2 Launches, Immediately Shatters a Concurrent Player Record on Steam

What a day! We're still bustling through Resident Evil Requiem, Pokopia's out today, and on top of that, Slay the Spire 2 is out in early access. And in the shadows of these giant releases, Slay the Spire 2 is doing particularly well. As I type this, it's reached 177k concurrent players on Steam, and that number is still actively rising. That's a new record for a roguelike on the platform, just weeks after Mewgenics smashed the previous record. As reported by Eurogamer back in February, previously, Hades 2 held the crown for the highest concurrent player count on Steam for a roguelike at 112k players. The weekend of its launch, Mewgenics managed to surpass it, reaching 115k concurrent players. Slay the Spire 2 is currently the fourth...

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Elden Ring: Nightreign Players Are Begging For Another Major Update... or Just Everdark Heolstor

It's now been three months since Elden Ring: Nightreign received its paid Forsaken Hollows DLC, which added two new Nightfarers, a new map, two new end bosses and a bundle of other new bosses, enemies, and events. And players are starting to get real antsy, wondering when, if ever, another update will arrive...or at least when they're going to finally get Everdark Heolstor. Multiple popular Reddit posts this week have expressed frustration at not just no updates, but no news of future updates, coming out of FromSoftware for Nightreign since Forsaken Hollows. As u/Chance_Drive_5906 put it, "It has now been three months since the DLC came out. The last piece of content we got for Nightreign. I think it's safe to say we aren't getting...

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Capcom Spotlight March 2026: Everything Announced (Updating Live!)

Hot off the zombified heels of Resident Evil Requiem, a brand-new Capcom Spotlight is on its way today, promising updates on Street Fighter 6, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, Pragmata, and much more. We'll be gathering all the biggest moments and reveals right here as they happen, so be sure to keep checking back to see what exciting things Capcom has planned for the future! Oh, and be sure to let us know below what you are most excited for! How to Watch the Capcom Spotlight March 2026 This newest Capcom Spotlight will debut today, March 5, at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 10pm UK time. It is scheduled to run for roughly 30 minutes and will be available with subtitles for 13 languages. If you'd like to watch the show with us...

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Diablo 4’s New Warlock Class Lets You Turn the Power of Hell Back on Itself | Hands-On Preview

No matter how much time goes by, the gory, loot-filled embrace of Diablo 4 is something I always seem to return to, and with the Lord of Hatred expansion right around the corner it’s only a matter of time before I lose myself for dozens of hours once again. That’s especially true now that I’ve had the chance to check out the second of two new character classes coming alongside the expansion, the Warlock, who uses the power of Hell against itself to become an unstoppable, demonic magic user that even Mephisto himself should have reason to fear. This summoner of satanic sigils and swarms of sinister spawn has numerous distinct builds that make it an interesting option for different types of players, and make it less likely that you’ll end...

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Marvel Rivals Dev Threatens Players Who Are 'Maliciously Idling' or Intentionally Throwing Games, Acknowledges 'Disturbing Trend' in the Community

The developer of Marvel Rivals has addressed what it called the “disturbing trend” of "incentivized throwing,” where players are enticed by third-party bounties to deliberately sabotage matches. Last month, Marvel Rivals players called on developer NetEase Games to take action after the emergence of an unofficial bounty website that triggered fears it could harm the community it was supposedly trying to protect. Fans of the hero shooter sounded the alarm when third-party site Intlist.org went live on February 22. Established by Marvel Rivals content creator and X/Twitter user EchoRivals, Intlist’s goal was to give players an avenue to name those who intentionally sabotage or “throw” multiplayer matches and “put a price on their head.”...

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Doomsday Diner Trailer Is a Post-Apocalyptic Sausage Fest

Doomsday Diner is the restaurant sim that dares to take post-apocalyptic storytelling to a new height by focusing on an element we so often overlook, that of the humble hot dog. A new trailer and a playable demo drop today, ahead of a PC release on Steam later this year. It has all the hallmarks of the classic diner sim, cooking, cleaning, upgrading your equipment piece by piece but with some added carnage as you do your best to defend your humble eatery from wasteland raiders. To keep things spicy, the controls are physics-based, which should make for some sausage slinging chaos when the pressure is on. The maniacs behind the game are Space Rock Games, a studio in New Zealand that is also working on Criminals Within, an asymmetric...

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Hidalgo, a Cozy Co-op Narrative Adventure, Announced for PC

You play a handcrafted puppet in a papercraft world in Hidalgo, a newly announced cozy narrative adventure that's playable in co-op. It's based on the novel Don Quijote de La Mancha, and it's in development for PC. Appropriately named developer Infinite Thread games promises first-person parallax puzzles, cozy boss battles, environmental puzzles, and a wholesome-themed story. When playing in co-op, one player controls Don Quijote, while the other controls Sancho. Check out the announcement trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below. Hidalgo is due out later this year on PC. Wishlist it on Steam if you're interested. Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show...

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'When You Watch the Movies, They're Kind of Like Video Games' — John Wick Game Dev Teases a Younger Keanu Reeves

Earlier in 2026, we got our first look at Saber Interactive’s currently Untitled John Wick Game at a Sony State of Play. But apart from an impressively cinematic trailer, very little is known about the upcoming project. Well, IGN recently spoke with Saber’s Chief Creative Officer, Tim Willits, and squeezed a few extra tiny details out. A John Wick game seems like a no-brainer. In theory, it's gun-fu action, which is not overly dissimilar from Remedy’s Max Payne bullet-time combat or Sifu’s hand-to-hand melee combos — the former has already received a movie adaptation, with the latter in production at Netflix from, incidentally, John Wick’s Chad Stahelski. So, the Keanu Reeves-led movie series making its way into video games seems a...

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Forza Horizon 6: 9 Minutes of Exclusive Gameplay | IGN First

We’re dumping the clutch on our March IGN First "cover story" effective immediately with Forza Horizon 6! As such, feel free to slide into the passenger seat and enjoy nine minutes of exclusive gameplay from the next instalment of Forza Horizon: the reigning heavyweight champ of open-world racing series. This never-before-seen gameplay features a Saleen S7, an American turn-of-the-century cult supercar, being taken on a brisk journey through a portion of Forza Horizon 6’s Japan-based map. Moving from the south, you’ll be able to observe segments of rural, rolling countryside and a section of Tokyo itself before reaching the base of the mountains. We'll have much more exclusive coverage of Forza Horizon 6 all throughout March as part of...

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‘We Had to Take Nothing Out’ — Extreme Horror Game Hellraiser: Revival Gets Its ESRB Rating

If you’ve seen anything of the upcoming survival horror game Hellraiser: Revival, then you’ll know it isn’t for the faint of heart. Full of bloody violence, gruesome gore, and BDSM-themed sex and nudity, it's a true translation of the pain and pleasure film series, which, despite all of these extremities, has managed to secure an ESRB rating. Chief creative officer at Saber Interactive, Tim Willits, shared the news in a recent interview with IGN. “I can say that we have our ESRB rating, which was great, and we had to take nothing out for that,” he confirmed. The fact that nothing had to be cut may come as a surprise to some. Of course, different ratings boards around the world weigh different aspects of mature games more than others...

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Highguard's Final 'Farewell Tour' Patch Gives Everyone a New Warden and Skill Tree to Play Around With Until the Very End

Highguard, the free-to-play PvP raid shooter announced at The Game Awards last year and set to close next week, has released its final update. Developer Wildlight announced that it would permanently shut down Highguard on March 12, but not before a "farewell tour," which also just-so-happens to be the name of the shooter's final patch. Highguard launched on January 26 after almost no communication with prospective players between its December announcement and launch day. While Steam concurrents almost hit a high of 100,000, peak concurrents on Valve's platform soon plummeted (neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public). And though Wildgate was quick to address issues with the game, even adding a 5v5 game mode to counter 3v3...

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The Resident Evil Requiem Reveal That Has Big Implications for a Resident Evil 5 Remake

This article contains spoilers for Resident Evil Requiem. Resident Evil Requiem is now in our hands and, as our review makes clear, it’s a massive success. But what’s next for Capcom’s long-running horror series? Resident Evil has settled into a release cadence over the last few years that alternates between new mainline entries and extravagant remakes. With the most recent remake being an overhaul of Leon S. Kennedy’s iconic Spain-set adventure, Resident Evil 4, the next one up on the docket is likely to be Chris Redfield’s co-op odyssey, Resident Evil 5. That would be interesting for many reasons, but to make matters more intriguing, one of Resident Evil Requiem’s third act plot reveals seems to hint at the ways Capcom intends to...

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Resident Evil Requiem’s Noise Hating Zombie Can Seemingly One-Shot Rhodes Hill’s Biggest Baddies

Warning! Resident Evil Requiem spoilers follow: If you’ve spent any time in Resident Evil Requiem’s Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, you know to steer absolutely clear of “the chef." A towering, burly, machete-wielding shambler, he’s the toughest “regular” zombie Grace can face in Requiem’s terrifying first half. The only way to take him down is to stock up on bullets, Hemolytic Injectors, and a whole lot of courage. Or just get one of the noise-sensitive zombies to one-shot him. As you’ll probably already know, there are a number of different zombie types or “characters” in Rhodes Hill. Among them are audio-sensitive patients who will lash out at anything that makes too much noise. If you’ve unlocked the Internal Dispute trophy...

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Bungie Reveals Marathon Premium Currency, LUX, Promises It Can't Be Used to Buy Gameplay Advantages

Bungie has finally revealed Marathon’s premium currency, called LUX, while promising it can’t be used to buy gameplay advantages. In a tweet, the official Marathon account reiterated that seasonal gameplay content is free for all players. This includes zones and Runner shells (playable characters) for the extraction shooter. “There is no pay for power,” Bungie said. Premium Pass rewards only include cosmetics, not gameplay items. And LUX can only be used for cosmetics, “not gameplay advantages.” Meanwhile, Reward Passes do not expire, so you can buy a previous season’s Reward Passes. You unlock rewards in your Rewards Passes using Silk, which is earned by playing the game. You can’t buy SILK. You can also earn cosmetics via the...

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Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Is 'Not a Roguelike or a Roguelite Game,' Konami Insists

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse — announced at Sony's State of Play showcase last month as part of Konami's celebration of Castlevania's 40th(!) anniversary — will play like a classic Castlevania game rather than a roguelike, despite the expertise of the studio making it. That's according to Konami, which told The Verge earlier this week that while the game is in development by Dead Cells maker Motion Twin, it will play like a traditional Castlevania game. "Castlevania Belmont's Curse is a 2D action-exploration game where players can freely explore vast, elaborately crafted maps," Konami's Tommy Williams said. "It is not a roguelike or roguelite game." As for why Konami's making this clear now? Well, the announcement trailer did leave...

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'It Isn't TikTok Brain' — Crimson Desert's 'Fast Forward' Button Lets You Speed Through Dialogue, and People Have Plenty to Say About It

Crimson Desert is almost upon us, and we’re now getting a sense of what it is all about and how, exactly, this ambitious open world action adventure works. IGN’s recent Crimson Desert preview, for example, is packed with fresh details, and we even have a big interview with one of the developers. But one talking point that has emerged over the last day is Crimson Desert’s ‘fast forward’ button, which lets you speed through dialogue — and it turns out there are plenty of people who have a lot to say about it. X / Twitter user Jake Lucky posted footage of fast forward in action, showing how it speeds up dialogue in cutscenes in a tweet viewed over 1.1 million times. “One of the features I really liked in Crimson Desert is you can fast...

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MindsEye Developer Build a Rocket Boy Announces Further Layoffs as CEO Doubles Down on 'Organised Espionage and Corporate Sabotage' Claims

The current CEO of Build A Rocket Boy, Mark Gerhard, has announced further layoffs at the struggling UK development studio following the disastrous release of MindsEye, while doubling down on “organised espionage and corporate sabotage” claims. In July last year, IGN reported that Edinburgh-based BARB had issued at-risk of redundancy emails to its around 300-strong UK workforce after MindsEye flopped at release. Soon after MindsEye came out, BARB said it was “heartbroken” over the issues players had faced with the game, and promised to release a series of patches to fix the significant performance problems, glitches, and AI behavior bugs. Story-driven action adventure game MindsEye was initially designed to be a part of Everywhere...

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Ubisoft Finally Confirms Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, the Remake We All Knew Was Coming

Ubisoft has just released the first piece of concept art for Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, finally confirming its long-awaited remake that has been rumored for years. The company included the image in a blog post that offers more detail on the blockbuster franchise's future — including word that post-launch support for Assassin's Creed Shadows was being wound down. Ubisoft's focus is now firmly on the future, though the series' next all-new entry Assassin's Creed: Codename Hexe sounds like it's still some way off. In the meantime, then, Ubisoft has at last begun acknowledging its upcoming Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remake, which is expected to arrive at some point later this year. "Speculation around Assassin's Creed is...

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Assassin's Creed Shadows 'Moving Into Its Final Phase of Support,' Though Ubisoft Promises a Final 'Few Surprises'

Ubisoft has detailed its plans for the future of Assassin's Creed, and said it is already winding down support for last year's Assassin's Creed Shadows. Later this month, Assassin's Creed Shadows will celebrate its first anniversary — but it sounds like a muted affair, with a community livestream, a competition, and not a lot else. Today's update from the new Assassin's Creed leadership team makes it clear that Shadows will not receive any major new content additions in future, following earlier confirmation that there would be no second expansion similar to last fall's Claws of Awaji. It's a disappointing end for Shadows, which has limped to the end of its first year of post-launch support and offered fans only a fraction of the...

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Mouse: P.I. for Hire – The Final Preview

Like Cuphead before it, I am pleased to report that, as it turns out, Mouse: P.I. for Hire isn’t just all sizzle. There is plenty of steak there too. Just as Cuphead built an incredibly good bullet-hell, boss-rush shooter underneath its hand-drawn, hand-animated exterior, so too – at least, based on what I’ve played so far – is Mouse underpinning its 1930’s-era, black-and-white, rubberhose-animated facade with a mechanically sound first-person shooter. In fact, while its own developers have referred to it in conversations and interviews with me as a boomer shooter, I’d argue they might be selling their creation a little short: there’s a lot more going on in its campaign than I thought. The end result is an action game that seems like...

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Stock Up Your PC Library With Brand New Games From March’s Humble Choice Lineup

The Humble Choice lineup for March is officially live. If you’re looking for a new selection of games to add to your Steam library, this month’s drop is led by Tempest Rising, Chants of Sennaar, Sworn, alongside five more games. For just $14.99 when you sign up for a Humble Choice membership, you can add all of these games to your PC library. On top of that, you get a bonus month for free of IGN Plus. It’s a pretty sweet deal. Head to the link below to sign up, and further down you can see this month’s full lineup. Keep in mind this selection of games only lasts for the month, so be quick to make a move on it if they interest you. Humble Choice March 2026 Game Lineup Tempest Rising Chants of Sennaar Sworn Etrian Odyssey III HD Bread...

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Bungie Addresses Marathon Difficulty Curve, Tells Players That Over Time, Recovering From a Bad Loss Will Get Easier

If you played the Marathon server slam, you might have found Bungie’s extraction shooter a challenging experience. It’s designed to be a “dangerous climb,” as the developer behind Halo and Destiny calls it, but Marathon’s difficulty curve can be overcome. Part of the challenge comes from the very nature of Marathon as an extraction shooter. If you die, you lose all your gear. And not just what you looted while out on the battlefield, but what you brought in. And given how easy it is to die in Marathon, at least as it was in the Server Slam when players were just getting started, it could feel like a brutally punishing video game. Could people bounce off Marathon because of this? Could some find its steep learning curve too hard of a...

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Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection Preview: The Mega Man Bundle for Pokémon Fans

RPGs don't always require compelling stories or innovative trappings to be fun. Sometimes, all you want or want are a few engaging systems, some brought colors, and a delightful loop of grinding, exploration, and reward. Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection seems to deliver all that in spades based on what I’ve played so far, matching a fairly innocuous, almost infantile narrative with well-tuned mechanics to create something thoroughly enjoyable in the early going. The three Star Force games included in this collection don't even try to hide the influence Pokemon clearly had on their design. All three are split into multiple versions clearly inspired by ye olde Blue and Red. A total of seven variants exist across the trilogy, and...

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Resident Evil: Requiem – PS5 vs PC Performance Analysis

Resident Evil: Requiem is the first in the horror franchise to be released solely for current-generation consoles, but what really makes it special is the engine that runs it. The RE Engine was built initially for Resident Evil 7, and Capcom has since used it to power everything from Monster Hunter: Wilds to Exoprimal – remember that one? But while the engine has had issues in open-world games, it’s still incredible for the franchise it was created for. As a result, Resident Evil Requiem looks exquisite on the PS5, and runs smoothly no matter which version of the platform you’re using. I was particularly interested to see how the first Resident Evil game designed first and foremost for the current generation of consoles would perform...

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Sony Has Reportedly Returned to Console Exclusivity in Part Because Some Within PlayStation Are Worried That Releasing Games on PC May Hurt Sales of P

A new report has revealed that both Ghost of Yotei and Saros will remain exclusive to PlayStation 5 as Sony begins to pull back from PC. Bloomberg said that while Sony will continue to release online games on PC, single-player games will now remain console exclusive, marking a significant strategy shift. Sony had a strategy of releasing its PlayStation games on PC some time after they hit console. This new policy marks a return to console exclusivity at a time when console rival Microsoft is all-in on multiplatform. So, expect to see fighting game Marvel Tokon on PC as well as PS5, and of course Bungie’s extraction shooter Marathon remains a multiplatform release. Meanwhile,the Sony-published but externally developed Death Stranding 2...

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Crimson Desert's Will Powers Says Pearl Abyss Is Trying to Avoid Overhyping the Game So Players Don't Think It's 'the Second Coming'

Ever since its reveal in 2019, Pearl Abyss' Crimson Desert has garnered a certain mystique for its ambitious open world and the multitude of activities waiting to be uncovered. It's a type of open-world action-adventure that's aiming high and looking to land among other AAA games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Witcher 3. However, this mystique has also attracted some skepticism about whether the game will deliver on its vision of a grand-scale action game that pulls you into its world. Fortunately, we recently got several hours of hands-on time with Crimson Desert, and the ambitious open-world game is well-positioned to deliver on its lofty goal of being a captivating action game. However, that skepticism from...

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Jackbox Party Pack Developer Moves Into Publishing With a Game About a 'Long, Yucky Arm'

Jackbox Games, the game developer known for its annual party packs of phone-controlled party games that even your non-gamer friends enjoy, is lengthening its reach today with the announcement that it's going into indie publishing as well. Its first published game? My Arms Are Longer Now, from Melbourne-based Toot Games. It's another big step for the party pack purveyor, and another indication that the company is starting to break out of its comfort zone. Speaking to CEO Mike Bilder at DICE Summit last month, he tells me that the company experienced "explosive growth" during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It wasn't just revenue: between Zoom happy hours, families playing remotely, and live streams, more and more individuals...

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