According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Garland is working in peak form and with dazzling technical command in what’s arguably his best film since his debut, Ex Machina." The Times says, "This is a movie that’s as difficult to watch as it is to forget. It’s a sensory blitz, a percussive nightmare, and a relentless assault on the soul." Meanwhile, MovieWeb says, "Warfare is a nuts-and-bolts account of ferocious combat, bloody, brutal, and terrifying. It is a visceral cinematic experience that will absolutely floor you."

But while the film's visuals might play like an endurance test for some, others have highlighted the movie's plot or lack thereof. EJ Moreno said, "So many elements work, but it almost crumbles under its bare-bones script. It still comes together with some solid craftsmanship and powerful acting." While FandomWire admitted, "Warfare is an interesting experiment — and one that unquestionably has its heart in the right place — but it doesn’t all work."

Minor nitpicks aside, it's another impressive feat for Garland, who still has one more thing to check off his to-do list this year. Arriving on June 20 this year is the long-anticipated sequel, 28 Years Later, which reunites him with 28 Days Later director Danny Boyle, as they venture back to the hellish rage-infected world they introduced us to in 2002. Written by Garland, the film stars Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Ralph Fiennes. Hopes are high that the dynamic duo of a virus-riddled dystopia has delivered the goods once more. As for Warfare, you can get locked and loaded for that on April 11, and during prep time, you can check out our list of the 30 best war movies of all time.

As reported by IGN, inZOI players were surprised to find that you could commit such unspeakabl(y fun) acts in a game with a Teen ESRB rating, and especially one that makes no mention of being able to run over kids with your car. The ESRB rating's description does make mention of death by "traffic accidents," but there is no mention of vehicular assault on children with the result being said children being yeeted into oblivion with ragdoll physics.

Nevertheless, you can see exactly that happening in this probably NSFW video shared to Reddit with the title: "I don't think that Krafton realizes that you can run over children in inZOI."

Although most commenters agreed that smackin' kids with cars in inZOI sounds heckin' fun, the developers behind the game didn't agree. In a statement to IGN, a Krafton spokesperson said "this issue was caused by an unintended bug that has been resolved in the latest patch" and "these depictions are highly inappropriate and do not reflect the intent and values of inZOI.

"We understand the seriousness of this matter and age-appropriate content and we are strengthening our internal review processes to prevent similar incidents in the future," Krafton said.

The studio's life sim game launched this week to pretty meh reviews from critics generally, with our own currently unscored writeup calling it "a soulless imitation of the worst parts of The Sims." Worse yet, you can no longer play Rocket League with kids as the ball.

As Krafton irons out the InZoi bugs, devs "recommend avoiding repeated remarriage and, if necessary, proceeding only when there are no children involved."

"PlayStation Studios Vault is our solution for bringing all of PlayStation's rich, 30-year history together in one place," senior build engineer Garrett Fredley explained during the talk, which GamesRadar+ attended. "Not just backups, not just source code and source art, but everything that was ever related to a project we can possibly find, from documentation to audio assets and prototype information, anything under the sun."

For many players, "game preservation" simply means keeping old games playable for consumers on new hardware, but for historians and studios doing this kind of work, it's much more about preserving the behind-the-scenes development work that tells the story of a game's creation, and its place in history. It can help in the quest to make old games accessible to modern players, too, since access to old assets can help devs create remasters and remakes more easily, but that's not the main goal.

The preservation team operates a pair of "staging vaults" – one in Las Vegas, and the other in Liverpool – with fast SSD storage where developers can quickly and easily upload their files for preservation. The team then transfers that data to the "actual PlayStation Studios Vault," which is a "cold storage" solution where everything is stored on data tapes.

"All 30 years of history reside in our tape backups," Fredley explained. "And yes, for anyone in the room who knows anything about tape backups, you probably just shivered. We still use them, unfortunately. They'll never go away."

So how do store all those physical tapes? "They go into a mineshaft somewhere," Fredley said. "That's not a joke. They go into a mineshaft somewhere, so you can imagine how long it takes to get them back."

Fredly noted that the vault itself is pretty secretive, as "the only people at PlayStation that have access to this material are the IP preservation team and a few members of IT who help us manage the infrastructure. That's it. Just because you're an executive doesn't mean you have access to the material." If a dev needs access to the material, they get it through the preservation team.

"The oldest material we currently have in our vault right now is an Arc the Lad build timestamped 1994," and new material is constantly being added. That includes "every PS5 build ever produced by PlayStation Studios that the consumer has seen," on top of "every milestone release of every one of those titles," comprising alphas, betas, debug, and test builds. All told, there are some 200 million files.

Much of the talk was dedicated to the technical details of how a massive storage system like this works, but for an outside, the obvious question is just what all this data is going to be used for. Might it go public someday, when the copyright on all this material goes out?

"Unfortunately, probably not," Fredley said when asked that question during a Q&A after the panel. "It's probably always gonna remain an internal service and internal material. And ultimately, it's not up for us to decide. We help preserve stuff. We don't decide what happens to it."

Still, there's reason to hope some of these materials might see the light of day thanks to bonus features in remastered games, or officially sanctioned documentaries – though that's my speculation, as Fredley's not specific about how data will be used, since he's just there to collect it. Still, it's clear that his heart's in the right place. "There's people who probably don't know what Gex is," he joked during the panel. "That wounds me personally."

These are the best PS1 games ever made.

Talking to GamesRadar+ during this year's Game Developers Conference, AI Limit producer Yang Bin didn't outright reject the Soulslike label that's the top user tag on the game's Steam page, but he did confirm that it's not his ideal descriptor.

"In the sense of combat, AI Limit is indeed a Soulslike game, and it inherits many traditions of the Soulslike genre, especially from Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3," Bin said. "However, we hope that players will look beyond just this aspect. AI Limit possesses many unique traits such as Sync Rate system, Cel-render art style, post-apocalyptic wasteland setting, which goes beyond 'Soulslike.' We would rather call AI Limit an action RPG."

I refuse to engage in the frivolous and exhausting debate around what parameters define such-and-such video game genre, but AI Limit studio Sense Games is certainly within its rights to label its games however it wants. That said, it's valid for Bin to point out AI Limit's Sync Rate system, which is a gauge that is filled and depleted when the player character deals and receives damage. It seems like a genuinely innovative twist on action-RPG combat that I don't recall seeing anywhere else, so even if the anime aesthetic and post-apocalyptic setting aren't enough to distinguish AI Limit from other Soulslikes, its combat definitely isn't entirely derivative.

Can't get enough torture? Here are some more games like Elden Ring to test your mental fortitude.

"I mean Bella is such an incredible actor that not only are they older, but they've also experienced so much trauma in season one," Druckmann tells GamesRadar+ when asked about Bella Ramsey's portrayal of a 19-year-old Ellie in season 2. "And so much things have happened in that five-year gap that that's part of the mystery of the season - what happened in those five years. When you're watching Bella perform, you could just see this maturity behind their eyes. That is, it seems very simple and it's very difficult to pull off and very few actors can pull up the way that they have."

The Last of Us season 2 takes place five years after the rather tragic events of season 2, and follows a young adult Ellie (Ramsey) as she comes into her own - though we don't know if she's aware of what Joel did in The Last of Us season 1 finale. We won't spoil it if you aren't caught up, but it was a pretty unforgivable decision - and we can only imagine the strain it would have on Joel and Ellie's relationship.

We don't know if the new season will tell us what transpired over those five years via exposition or flashback, but judging by the trailer, things seem tense and rocky for everyone.

The Last of Us season 2 is set to hit Max on Sunday, April 13. For more, check out our list of the best Max shows and the best Max movies to watch right now.

"With Kevin – I think it’s just different when someone is so linked to your childhood," Shankar says about working with the actor before his death in 2022. In Shankar's vivid interpretation of Devil May Cry, Conroy plays the original character VP Baines. (No spoilers, but this writer is happy to share that Conroy's performance is striking).

"It’s the same thing with [Dante actor] Johnny Young Bosch," Shankar continues, "because he was the second Black Power Ranger, and I was obsessed with Johnny as a kid."

Netflix's Devil May Cry anime certainly has a voice cast that's bursting with talent – I'm a massive Conroy fan myself, having grown up with his snarl on Batman: The Animated Series, and I was thrilled to hear the show featured another posthumous role from the unparalleled Tony Todd, the original Candyman.

Speaking about both Todd and Conroy, Shankar tells me "these are legendary actors. They’re legendary performers. And, I’m just so, so grateful that they agreed to be a part of this, that we got to have them […] in this universe of the show."

"For Kevin," Shankar continues, "posthumously, I do feel like he’s entitled to some awards here. Maybe for the show, maybe not. But, like, I mean, his contributions to the world of animation are just so vast. I would love for him to be in award conversations."

Devil May Cry TV show creator calls Kevin Conroy's posthumous role in the Netflix series an "amazingly nuanced performance" and confirms "no AI" was used.

"The philosophy on balancing is actually quite simple: fun," says Danny Koo, Marvel Games executive producer. "With Marvel superheroes, we always highlight the action part. With any balancing, like even before balancing, you have to understand that each individual character, when you play them first and foremost, is fun. After balancing and you playtest it internally, making sure that you preserve that fun… That's the pillar across the board and it won't change anytime soon."

Pressed on what "fun" means in this context, Koo clarifies: "Basically, can this character KO another character in a set amount of time and is this character going to be oppressed [such] that you get knocked out all the time." There's also traversal time, moment-to-moment action in team fights, and outside team fights. It's a lot of calculation, according to Koo.

Digging a bit deeper, I ask: what's the most challenging aspect of working on the game overall?

"The technical thing, I think, is one of the biggest challenges about working on games," says Weikang Ruan, Marvel Rivals lead technical designer, "because we have a lot of Marvel superheroes – they have very different abilities, and for example, as you play the game, you see a lot of heroes have very different visual effects, and it will also cause a lot of visual challenge and performance challenge. We joke about when we develop a hero and when we develop a new map, it's just doing science research."

Ruan points to Doctor Strange's portal optimization and the team constructing a whole rendering pipeline for it in Unreal Engine 5 as just one example. Having now sat through an entire panel devoted entirely to said pipeline – which I understood in concept if not execution – I am inclined to agree that it is, in fact, a big challenge. Ruan adds that environmental destruction, with all the levels allowing for massive amounts of bits and parts, is also very challenging from a technical perspective when it comes to performance.

As someone that goes up against my fair share of Doctor Strange players, it certainly seems like they've done the math correctly, though I also sometimes personally wish they'd have done it wrong. So... many deaths.

Thirsty Marvel Rivals fans are getting exactly what they wished for: Venom throwing it all the way back in a new emote

During a talk at the Game Developers Conference last week attended by GamesRadar+, Tascan was asked if Netflix might consider developing console games. Tascan noted that the company is "open to opportunities," but wasn't sure there's a tremendous "advantage" for Netflix to make games for console platforms.

"The person you should ask is not me. Look at the younger generation. Are the eight-year-olds and ten-year-olds dreaming of a PlayStation 6?" Tascan asked, concluding, "I'm not sure. They are willing and wanting to interact with any interactive digital screen, whatever it is, wherever it is, even in the car."

Tascan was quick to add "I love console," but console platforms are "limiting the way you think, because you think console, you think of high-def, you think of controller." He referenced major industry shifts like 3D graphics, mobile platforms, social gaming, and games as a service, saying "it changes. And if we look at this older model I think it will restrain us. I'm not wanting to quote Marshall McLuhan saying 'the medium is the content,' but for us, it can be. If we start opening our mind, I believe this is where it's going to be interesting."

Days after shutting its AAA game studio filled with former God of War and Overwatch talent, Netflix announces a "new initiative" powered by AI.

Internal communications at a U.S. retailer obtained by Insider Gaming apparently reveal that the Switch 2 will release in June – which was already rumored to be the Nintendo Switch 2 launch month – following these April pre-orders.

However, the April 9 date Insider Gaming shares conflicts with a Best Buy Canada leak from earlier this week, which seemed to have confirmed in a now-removed blog post that Switch 2 pre-orders would commence on April 2. GamesRadar+ has reached out to Nintendo for comment, and will update this post accordingly should it hear back.

But, without official word from Nintendo, all we're left with is what we're so often forced to sift through when it comes to the Switch 2: speculation.

Insider Gaming claims that the documents it reviewed also suggest that stores are worried about completely selling out their Switch 2 pre-order stock too quickly, possibly even on the same day that pre-orders begin; Nintendo has allegedly given retailers a set number of units for the console's pre-order period.

The gaming publication also says each Switch 2 pre-order sale will come with an "exclusive collectible coin." But, what I want to know is, will the collectible coin contain a mouse sensor?

There's no use in running off with our imaginations more than we already have. So here are some indisputable facts: Nintendo's surprise Direct stream did not teach us anything new about the Switch 2, it simply affirmed that games for the original Switch will continue to release well into the summer.

We also know that the next Nintendo Direct will occur on April 2, and that it will be dedicated to "offering a closer look at Nintendo Switch 2," according to the developer's website. Try to be patient until then.

Nintendo Today just told me how to beat World 1 of Super Mario Bros 40 years too late.

The Last of Us showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann say it's go big or go home when it comes to adapting The Last of Us Part 2 for the small screen.

"We are going big. I can't promise you an exact number of seasons, but I will say that sometimes people think - oh, it's funny. Some people say they rushed season 1 and now some people are saying, oh, they're just dragging out and filling," Mazin tells GamesRadar+. "You know, but we don't really do that. We did season 1 the way we thought was correct and we're doing season 2 and season 3 and perhaps the season 4 the way that we think is correct. And we don't just do what's there. "

It made perfect sense to stretch the first game over just one nine-episode season, especially given the length of the game itself. The Last of Us Part 1 takes around 15 hours of gameplay to finish the main story, but around 25 hours to hit 100% completion. The story is pretty succinct, with the player playing mainly as Joel but alternating for brief sections as Ellie and Sarah, Joel's deceased daughter. The juxtaposition between the two helps flesh out Joel's relationship with and love for Ellie (and makes us sob). Though in season 1, we only meet Sarah for one episode before her tragic death.

Continues Mazin: "We have opportunities to do more, but, it's the same thing we say to HBO, they ask us how many episodes will this season be? And we say, hang tight, we'll let you know because it's just what feels correct. Where should this end? How should the next one function? But we are taking our time as best we can."

The show should absolutely take its time with telling the story of The Last of Us Part 2, given how dense the material is. For context, The Last of Us Part 2 takes around 22-26 hours to finish the main story...but up to 42 hours to hit 100% completion. In this game, there is a five-year time jump, a slew of new characters, and the player alternates between Ellie and Abby, who is more or less the secondary protagonist/antihero of the game. A lot happens - and packing this into a single seven-episode season wouldn't be doing the story justice.

"We try not to have any outside pressure. And this is where HBO is really great 'cause HBO doesn't come to us like, okay, we need this many episodes and this many seasons and this many hours of TV. They always come to us and say, make the best choices for this story and we'll support it as much as we can," Druckmann adds.

"And for this season it happened to be seven episodes. We couldn't tell you if we get to do this again, how many, exactly how many episodes we would do next season. But we have a destination in mind. And we know some of the stops along the way that we must make to get to that destination. And then the fun part is when we develop the season, is finding those diversions and those opportunities to really expand upon those stops."

The Last of Us season 2 is set to hit Max on Sunday, April 13. For more, check out our list of the best Max shows and the best Max movies to watch right now.

"It was something that we had talked about for season 1 because I kept thinking, who has utility in the apocalypse? Obviously tough guys like Joel do, smugglers, doctors, you would imagine, would be very important," Mazin tells GamesRadar+. "And then I was like… wouldn't everyone need a therapist? If you've made it through, you have lost family members, you've watched the world fall apart, you are under terrible stress. There are monsters. Yeah, therapy would be an incredibly valuable thing."

Mazin told Variety earlier this month that they had planned to include a scene in season 1 where Joel has a therapy session – and that Pedro Pascal loved the scene so much it's part of what made him sign on to the role. The scene was ultimately scrapped, but luckily was rewritten and reworked for season 2.

"And if you are a therapist, that's a great thing to barter, but there's also a chance for us to watch Joel talk about himself in a way that he rarely does, but also to lie. The interesting thing about therapy is not everybody walks in there and tells the truth. I think therapists know that better than anyone. So what does he choose to say? What, how does he define his problem?"

After the events of The Last of Us season 1, Joel has quite a bit to talk about. We won't include finale spoilers if you aren't caught up yet, but we will say that Joel makes a decision on Ellie's behalf without her consent that more or less takes away her autonomy – though he did it out of love. We imagine this event in particular will be what he talks about when he sits down with Gail (Catherine O'Hara)... but we also imagine that Joel, who doesn't exactly love to open up and talk about his feelings, might not be entirely truthful.

Continues Mazin, "Is that really his problem? Is there something he can't talk about or won't talk about? And from there, we also found this interesting complication with his own relationship with Gail.

"And the scene, I think is pretty beautiful. It kind of gets to the heart of what's going on and serves a similar purpose to a scene in the game between Joel and Tommy, but has a different kind of spin and, I would say conflict involved in it. So we were just thrilled that we finally got it in, let's put it that way."

The Last of Us season 2 is set to hit Max on Sunday, April 13. For more, check out our list of the best Max shows and the best Max movies to watch right now.

Talking to Giant Bomb (timestamped here), creative director Guillaume Broche said most of the team at Sandfall are "super big fans" of Studio Ghibli's work and estimated that they've watched all of the movies "25 times." I must say though, very frankly, those are rookie numbers, Sandfall.

Specifically, Broche said that Clair Obscur composer Lorien Testard was heavily inspired by the legendary Japanese composer and musician Joe Hisaishi, who scored Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service among many other high-profile credits.

Meanwhile, Clair Obscur's art and world were explicitly inspired by Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, with Broche adding that Sandfall is hoping to capture the same "sense of wonder" that you get watching those seminal anime movies.

We like to anchor Clair Obscur to its JRPG inspirations because that's where Sandfall seems to have found its core structure, but the game is a mishmash of elements from various genres, with studio co-founder François Meurisse recently telling GamesRadar+ there are tidbits everywhere from deckbuilding games to that distinctive 20th century Belle Époque art style that defines its visual themes.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't the classic turn-based RPG I've been longing for, but its combat is somehow even better than what I wanted.

Nintendo Today lets you select game series that you're interested in, and if you picked Mario as one of your favorites, you might now see a post labeled under "guide to the world of Super Mario" all about the first world of the original NES game. "The first world of the Mushroom Kingdom," Nintendo explains. "Goombas and Koopa Troopas stand in your way in challenging courses above and below ground."

A few screenshots of World 1 – the mid-air platforms of 1-3 and the Bowser fight in 1-4 – follow, then there's a tip section. "Climb above the last ceiling using the lift in World 1-2 to find pipes leading to World 2, 3, and 4," the tip explains.

And... that's it. As somebody in his mid-30s who started gaming on a pre-owned NES, it's tough to imagine the idea of not just knowing, in some primordial part of your gamer brain, how to reach the World 1 warp zone, but there's surely no shortage of Mario-obsessed kids here in 2025 playing the original through the Nintendo Switch Online library for the first time.

Among the series you can select to be shown in the app, there's also an option for "Classics" which, itself, is labeled with an 8-bit image of Mario. Nothing out of this category has crossed my feed just yet, but now I'm deeply curious what's going to appear there. Personally, I've got my fingers crossed for some hot Clu Clu Land tips.

This is our definitive ranking of the best Mario games ever made.

Ise strolled into the industry and fired out some of the best UI to ever grace a JRPG, inspired but not defined by the likes of Persona and Shin Megami Tensei. But the process wasn't easy. A lot of ideas got the axe, and Ise described crises of direction he experienced during development.

Going into Metaphor, the goal was for the UI team to establish a new art style, lead the game's art direction, and create something that feels unique to this game, Ise said at GDC. Drafts and prototypes were drawn up, leaning into NES-era nostalgia or a fantastical parchment motif or sharp emotion, but nothing stuck. Some lacked uniqueness, others were too dark or too sophisticated and fiddly. Something was missing. Feedback was broad and unflinching, and Ise said that "after these comments, I lost my way, unsure of what direction to take next."

"Around the time we proposed the colorful design, I began to really be conscious about our predecessor, the established Persona series," he added. "I started to think that we might need a similar pop, stylized, and accessible design for the game as well." But the design born of this direction "didn't feel unique enough to stand on its own," and lacked the heart of Persona.

Ise thanks director Katsura Hashino for giving him some valuable advice: "take a moment and stop listening to other people's opinions so much," and instead focus on what you want to achieve. "Those words really saved me," Ise said.

Breaking free from fixations on Persona or more pop energy, Ise went back to the drawing board to find a new "guiding star to keep us on a clear path." The solution? "Hyper stylish," a way to interpret fantasy RPGs through Atlus' lens "and create an art style that no one could keep their eyes off of."

Four new design pillars supported this "hyper stylish" goal. Metaphor's UI had to be cool, immersive, intriguing, and buzzworthy. "That's when we decided to approach the UI design not as a standalone meta feature detached from the game's world, but as an element that connects the player to the world of the game," Ise explained.

This led to the interface that Metaphor fans know and love today – an eye-catching, lavish, but still pragmatic and navigable collection of menus that can compete with the best in the business, including Persona 5 Royal. People often talk about good UI being minimalist and out of the way, and sometimes it is, but Metaphor is another game that proves that loud, proud UI can play an active role in gameplay and embellish the experience.

In closing, Ise advised UI designers to focus on finding and expressing themes and ideas that only their game can achieve, incorporating symbolic expression to grip and surprise players (hint hint, Metaphor's hero is lying down in the main menu), and forging unforgettable designs that can move people emotionally.

How did Persona 5, Persona 3, and now Metaphor: ReFantazio achieve some of the best UI in JRPG history? Its veteran Atlus director stresses "unity" and support for dev teams.

If you want to make a flirty Zoi who marries, steals all their spouse's money and assets, divorces them, and then repeats the cycle, you may end up losing more than just a relationship. According to a post on the InZoi website, "When a single Zoi remarries multiple times, some family members may disappear."

The solution is to simply avoid remarrying for now, so you'd better be sure of whoever it is you propose to before you do it, at least for now. Strangely, the dev team adds that you can still remarry if you must, but "only when there are no children involved." I don't know if this is because children make the bug more likely or because the bug can get rid of them and break other things in the game, but it's an interesting note.

Another relationship-related issue is that "Same-sex relationships are not possible with other Zois in the city." This is listed under the "known issues" section of the site, so the devs are likely working on a fix so that you can pursue queer relationships to your heart's content.

If you're just getting into the game for yourself, check out our InZoi starter guide for some beginner tips and tricks. You can also read our InZoi review if you're still undecided on the game.

In the meantime, check out our list of the best simulator games you can play right now.

"I saw that. I saw the announcement," Rudd says in the interview, as Fallon pulls up a picture of Rudd's lil chair, much to Rudd's apparent bemusement. Fallon clarifies that Rudd got the small chair specifically because he plays the size-changing hero Ant-Man, to which Rudd dolefully quips "I hope so."

"I thought, oh that's clever, yes, I'm Ant-Man. But there's still a part of you that thinks it's a little emasculating to have a little tiny, tiny chair" Rudd laughs. "But at least finally one that will actually fit me when I sit down."

Here's the video, in which Fallon plies Rudd for any tidbits of information about what might be coming up in Avengers: Doomsday while Rudd does his best to stay mum about the details:

"They are very secretive. It's important. Clearly as we know, they never announce anything. You know, it's a major movie. You can't be frivolous with this kind of stuff. It's not like military secrets," Rudd quips. "So no, there's nothing I can tell you."

Marvel is indeed secretive about the details of its films, to the point where it's exceedingly likely that there are even still more unrevealed cast members for Avengers: Doomsday.

Avengers: Doomsday releases on May 1, 2026. While we wait, check out our guide to watching the Marvel movies in order or our breakdown of the Marvel timeline.

Let's go over the highlights, first. It sounds like Shadow of the Erdtree's Golden Hippopotamus was the easiest target for many, with a grand total of 194,996 big fellas taken down during the beta. After that, it was the Flame Chariots with 164,974 player wins, the Fire Monk, who was defeated 150,128 times, closely followed by the Flying Dragon of the Hills, who was eradicated 147,202 times. Then, there's a pretty significant drop in wins against the Royal Army Knights, who were defeated only 98,738 times.

Meanwhile, for those who managed to bravely fight on to the third in-game day to face the Night Lord Gladius, Beast of the Night, a total of 58,615 victories were claimed. Once again, there's quite a big difference between that number and, say, the Golden Hippopotamus, but you had to go through a lot more in order to get there, so well done to anyone who managed it.

After all, some of the other stats reveal that it wasn't exactly an easy ride. In Nightreign, you can revive your allies by attacking them, and, uh, players certainly made use of that.

"A total of 23,627,489 attacks were used to save downed Nightfarers," Bandai Namco writes. That's over 23 million assists. You can't revive an ally in a single hit, so this is almost certainly counting all the attacks launched in an attempt to get people back on their feet, but it still points to an awful lot of falling in battle.

However, no stat illustrates the amount of pain and failure more than the amount of runes lost. Collectively, beta players lost 37,957,453,867 runes, and yes, you're reading that number correctly – that amounts to almost 38 billion.

In case you were curious, that's on average over two and a half billion runes lost per hour, or roughly 42 million per minute. That's absolutely wild in such a short amount of time – bear in mind, though, that many people were totally thwarted with server issues in the first session, so a lot of people missed out on a few hours of gameplay there.

There's no doubt we have much more suffering and glory ahead of us when Elden Ring Nightreign launches – it's set to arrive on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One on May 30.

The random events in Elden Ring Nightreign are the funniest thing FromSoftware's ever cooked up, from a rain of ants to Morgott jump scares.

"Those who think you can push a button and say: 'Create the next GTA 6 and make it bigger and better, here's all the code and the marketing plan,' you're not going to get anything you can work with," he says in a chapter of The Creative Entrepreneur, a book by Carolyn Dailey containing interviews with several "inspiring entrepreneurs."

"Because it's a combination of massive data sets, large language models and computing – and all of that, as I said, is backward-looking," he continues. "What comes out is a predictive model. Some of the stuff we do can be predictive, but the really creative stuff can't be. The big creative leaps forward will be generated by humans."

Zelnick previously said "the genius is human," when talking about GTA 6's development, and he "believe[s] we ought to pay for their work if it's replicated by AI after their work is done." The key there is that creative people are still needed to initially make something new.

Zelnick does also acknowledge that "generative AI will be really important to many businesses, including ours. We've had AI tools here forever – T2 has been a leader in AI, not just in this company, but in the industry. I don't think that will change." However, his assertion that it's still human creativity that will actually push the industry forward is reassuring to hear.

"Automation will replace mundane routine jobs and free up humans to do more interesting stuff, but humans will always be needed for more complex tasks," he adds. "Automation and technology will take us to higher and higher levels over time because they always have."

I'm all for computers doing things like converting PDFs and organizing folders, but I'd prefer my games to be made by humans, thanks.

While you're here, check out our ranking of the best GTA games.

NetEase previously announced that players would be able to claim "a special April Fools Easter Egg gift" for free from March 31 to April 3, but remained very tight-lipped as to what the gift actually was. Dataminers thankfully wasted no time at all in uncovering what the fuss was all about and quickly flooded the internet with clips of Venom doing his best She-Hulk and Megan Thee Stallion impressions.

NetEase then announced the very real April Fools joke officially in a social media post, turning what would normally be relegated to a mod into an actual thing you actually do in-game.

Marvel Rivals fans have been hyper aware of how unusually caked up Venom's been since at least the winter update, where NetEase itself advertised a skin-tight cosmetic for the beloved anti-hero with a close-up shot of his ass. (See the headline image above.) Just in case you're wondering, it's all muscle - Venom's cheeks don't jiggle, even slightly, as he's shaking it. Some might say it's a half-assed emote, but I'm just glad that NetEase is flat-out rejecting the jiggle physics phenomenon regardless of the character.

Of course, since the animation now exists in the game's files, dataminers are already modding it onto other tank heroes with similar builds and making them twerk, too. Ever thought you'd see Hulk twerking in an officially licensed Disney video game? Well, it doesn't matter. He is down below. Wanna see Groot get Grootilicious? Also doesn't matter... they already are.

To unlock the "gift," you'll need to complete the newest Galatica's Cosmic Adventure board. It'll take a while, but the reward should be worth it if you can be assed to grind away for hours.

Marvel Rivals exec isn't afraid of roster bloat after NetEase promised new heroes every 6 weeks: "There's no limit for the sky. We just throw everything at it"

Hereditary follows the Grahams, a seemingly average family living in Utah. In the wake of a sudden and horrifying tragedy, however, they start to fall apart – a situation that only gets worse when a mysterious woman named Joan infiltrates their lives. To say anything else about the movie would be to risk major spoilers, so let's just say that an already pitch black film gets somehow even darker and weirder from there, leading to a genuinely unnerving final act.

Hereditary was a huge critical and word of mouth hit when it was released in 2018, one that instantly put its writer and director Ari Aster on the movie map. We referred to it as "genuinely unsettling" in our five star review at the time. Seven years later it's safe to say that it's easily stands as one of the very best horror movies of the 2010s. Aster followed it up in 2019 with folk horror hit Midsommar, which only cemented his reputation as a major directorial talent.

Hereditary is streaming on Netflix US until April 14. If you're looking for more movies, check out our picks of the best movies on Netflix, which covers a wide range of genres including fantasy and sci-fi. We also have a new weekly feature that picks out the 10 best new shows and movies across all the major streamers.

The series, about two friends who find a special mushroom with incredible healing properties, has garnered considerable praise for its biting satire of the healthcare system and esoteric humor. Since premiering in February 2025, people have been drawn to the stylized animation and quirky sensibilities, leading to a renewal just nine episodes in.

"The opportunity to push the boundaries of animation and storytelling on Adult Swim is like a wonderful mushroom dream," co-creators Joseph Bennett and Steve Hely said in a press release. "Our goal with the show is to transform planet Earth and restore the human spirit. For now, we will settle for a second season."

Both longtime televisual creatives, Hely and Bennett brought considerable talent to the table. Hely served as producer on Veep, The Office, and 30 Rock, whereas you might have heard Bennett’s name in association with Scavengers Reign in 2023, a sci-fi drama he co-created.

Now, it seems like they've another hit on their hands, and one their bosses seem just as keen to continue. "You all did your job by showing up on Adult Swim and Max to support the show and lighting up your socials to spread the word. So, see? We CAN have nice things," Michael Ouweleen, president of Adult Swim, stated.

Much of the first season concerns the pair of protagonists, Marshall and Frances, contending with the medical industry in their attempts to freely distribute the mythical fungus they uncover. While no details about the second season's story are available, we imagine it'll follow the same trajectory.

If you'd like more laughs while we wait, check out our list of the best comedy movies on Netflix.

Speaking to AV Watch, the ex-executive broke down his decades-long run at the publisher and dived into a time in the games industry where Japanese creators were chasing global trends to no avail. Yoshida explains that as blockbuster games abroad began to ape Hollywood and became more realistic - think of your GTAs, Gears of Wars, and The Last of Us' from the PS3/360 era - some Japanese developers also started making games to appeal to "slightly foreign tastes."

That was until Nier: Automata came out in 2017 and slowly became a huge hit. The existential slasher has now sold over nine million copies, and its main gal 2B is as recognizable as an action hero can be after having crossed over into countless other games and boosting Square Enix's most recent merch sales years post-release. Dare I say she might even be more popular than Squeenix's most enduring icon, the Dragon Quest slimes.

"I think [director] Yoko Taro made it without thinking about whether or not it would sell overseas," said Yoshida, in quotes translated by Genki. "From there it became clear that Japanese creators were making 'Japanese things' and those things were selling overseas. Everyone realized that with Nier." Yoshida then saw a shift in Japanese developers who felt free to stop imitating global trends.

"I think the Japanese game industry was revived after Nier so much so that I would say it was before Nier and after Nier," he continued.

We've seen a few other heavyweight creators chime in on the subject recently as well, most notably with Super Smash Bros. maestro Masahiro Sakurai, who said "Japanese people should keep pursuing the things that Japanese people like" rather than "making Americanized works." And the newly re-revealed Silent Hill f was made almost entirely because Konami higher-ups were worried the horror series was becoming too Westernized and wanted to bring back "a certain Japanese essence."

We might not be getting another Nier game soon, but why not sweeten the wait with some other new games of 2025 and beyond.

Tomodachi Life is not only one of the strangest games on the 3DS, but also one of the best. While it first hit Japan in 2013 as a sequel to the Japan-only DS game, Tomodachi Collection, it arrived overseas a year later, allowing fans to fill an island with their own Miis – complete with customizable personalities and voices – and watch their relationships flourish (or go up in flames), figure out their likes and dislikes, and take parts in things like events. You can make Miis perform custom songs in the concert hall, peer into their weird dreams, or give them food so tasty they blast into space.

It's deeply, delightfully bizarre, and there's a reason why people have been wanting a new one for so long – nothing beats the drama of watching a fictional character's Mii fall in love with one of your real life friends. The reactions have been legendary – from those whose sequel summoning circles finally worked, to those genuinely screaming at the trailer.

One of the most exciting parts of the sequel is the fact that it gives Nintendo an opportunity to fulfill an old promise. Despite romance being such a big part of the 3DS game, there was a crucial problem – Miis couldn't enter queer relationships.

Following backlash at the time, Nintendo issued an apology (thanks, IGN) for "disappointing many people by failing to include same-sex relationships," stating that it couldn't make "such a significant development change" to fix this in a post-launch patch. However, it added: "We pledge that if we create a next installment in the Tomodachi series, we will strive to design a game-play experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players."

Over a decade on, you'd certainly hope that this is one of the improvements coming to Living the Dream. In fact, while the trailer doesn't outright confirm it, some are already speculating that we were given a hint right at the end. After the 2026 release window is confirmed, the screen fades to black, and we're greeted by a scene of a female Mii having a strange dream about a giant Mii woman who asks her if she wants to talk. She wakes up, shocked, while the real Mii walks behind her, smiling in her direction. Immediately, fans took to Twitter asking the real questions: "NINTENDO ARE THEY GAY???? DO WE FINALLY HAVE GAY PEOPLE IN TOMODACHI LIFE?????"

Again, this specific scene might not be the ultimate proof, although if it really is a hint, then it's rather amusing that it was included almost like a 'one more thing' announcement – as one fan puts it, "teasing gay romance options like it's a Smash character."

It'd be worthy of the fanfare, of course – many players have been waiting over a decade for the option, and in a game that, for many, centers around your alternate life as a Mii, it sucked that not everyone could properly live as themselves. It's right at the top of my list of wishes for the sequel – so here's hoping that Nintendo sticks to its word with its commitment for better representation this time.

Be sure to check out our roundup of everything announced during the March 2025 Nintendo Direct to see what other new games are on the horizon.

"It all leads to Doom," Marvel teased alongside the announcement, which contained everyone from OG X-Men stars to the casts of Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four. However, not everyone was announced in the order we expected them to be.

For example, both the Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four casts were split up, with multiple chairs in between them. Most notably, Sue Storm star Vanessa Kirby was the second name announced while Reed Richards actor Pedro Pascal was the second to last name confirmed.

Now, this could just be Marvel toying with us to try and leave us in suspense between chairs. However, this is the Russo brothers, who have been known for sneaking in Easter eggs wherever they can.

Some Reddit fans agree that they may be more than meets the eye here. "What if the order of the chairs was the order of the deaths," speculated one. "Alright listen to me. First, Doom killing Thor first and The God of Stories later would be cold as fuck. That explains why characters that have projects after Doomsday like Champions, Dr. Strange or Spider-Man aren't on here. That also explains why there is no Deadpool nor Wolverine."

They went on to suggest: "That would mean that Mr Fantastic and Doom would be the last confrontation of the movie, resulting in Reed dying." It's an interesting theory as some fans have been sharing their own thoughts on its potential.

"If that's the case.. Bucky and Sam gonna probably die together.. so poetic," replied one, while another suggested: "My personal theory was that the order of reveal was in order of screentime. Least to most, which would semi support your theory."

A fourth agreed, adding: "Wouldn't be surprised. I was curious about the order in which they revealed the cast because I don't see what makes Chris Hemsworth's Thor more relevant than some of the other characters to where he is announced first. You'd think Cap or Reed would be announced first, or the F4 together. This seems intentional."

This wasn't the only detail fans noticed in the reveal either as a play of light on the chairs led some to think they've spotted the Avengers and X-Men logo.

For more on all things Marvel, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows and everything you need to know about watching the Marvel movies in order.

Per Deadline, "the film is described as The Martian meets 127 Hours, centering on a scuba diver in search of his deceased father’s remains who gets swallowed by an 80-foot, 60-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out. After giving up on life, the young man is surprised to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places."

The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Daniel Kraus, and he's co-writing the script with director Brian Duffield. There aren't any details on who Brolin or Butler might be playing just yet.

Duffield's last time in the director's chair was for No One Will Save You, a sci-fi horror starring Kaitlyn Dever that Stephen King dubbed "truly unique" when it was quietly dropped on Hulu and Disney Plus back in 2023.

Brolin and Butler last shared the screen in Dune: Part 2, which was released in 2024. Brolin plays former House Atreides aide Gurney Halleck in Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic, while Butler played the antagonistic Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.

Next up for Brolin is Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, while Butler is set to star in Hereditary director Ari Aster's Western dark comedy Eddington.

Whalefall doesn't have a release date yet. For more viewing inspiration, get up to speed with this year's best upcoming movies with our guide to 2025's movie release dates at a glance.

Those members include Karma of the original New Mutants, Wave of the Agents of Atlas, and of course Aero, the master of the wind who was originally developed as a character by both Marvel and NetEase, much like fellow Doom's Division member Luna Snow, and Lin Lie, the Iron Fist of Marvel Rivals.

Here's a preview of pages from Doom's Division #2, by writer Yoon Ha Lee, artist Minkyu Jung, color artist Mattia Iacono, and letterer Travis Lanham introducing the new members of the team:

"AN ALL-NEW SUPER-TEAM UNITES! Under Doom, Tiger Division has three new members from across Asia: WAVE, KARMA and AERO!" reads Marvel's official solicitation text for Doom's Division #2. "Their first mission brings them to Japan to stop a resistance being led by the molten mutant, SUNFIRE! But Sunfire isn’t the only danger that awaits them in the perilous waters off Japan’s coast…"

Sunfire is of course a member of the X-Men dating back to 1975's Giant-Size X-Men #1 alongside Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, and Thunderbird (who died on the team's second mission). He's been both a hero and a villain over the years, though it's hard to tell exactly who's who thanks to the complications of the current One World Under Doom era.

Doom's Division #2 goes on sale April 30. If you're looking for something to hold you over until then, check out the best Marvel Comics events of all time.

Nintendo shared the news today via its newly launched mobile app that the film is set to hit theaters worldwide on March 26, 2027. Wes Ball, helmer of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and the Dylan O'Brien-led Maze Runner trilogy, is set to direct the upcoming film. The live-action, feature-length adaptation of everyone's favorite video game franchise was announced back in 2023.

The first Legend of Zelda game was released in 1986, with the newest game in the franchise, The Echoes of Wisdom, coming out in 2024. The series, set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, follows an elf-like, sword-wielding, matching-set-wearing hero named Link as he saves the fair and beautiful Princess Zelda from an evil demon king named Ganon.

A computer-animated Zelda movie was pitched back in 2007, but Nintendo allegedly said no due to the commercial failure of the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie (which really isn't that bad!). It wasn't until the enormous success of the 2023 Super Mario Bros. Movie that the Legend of Zelda movie was finally greenlit.

As of right now, we don't have any casting announcements – though Hunter Schafer has been a popular fan cast for Princess Zelda. Machine Gun Kelly jokingly threw his hat in the ring for Link, but the rapper/actor is sadly just too tall.

For more, check out our ever-growing list of upcoming video game movies.

Speaking at Variety's Q&A for his new comedy series The Studio, the writer-director recalled the time he met with the filmmaker behind Gladiator and Alien. "He was going to direct the Monopoly movie, and me and Evan [Goldberg] went into his office and he said, 'Imagine a helicopter shot of Central Park,'" Rogen began. "'You're looking down on it from above. You pull up, you see all the buildings surrounding Central Park. What does it look like?' And then he said, 'A Monopoly board!' And were like, 'F**k, that's good.'"

Other pitches didn't go down quite so well with the duo... "I think there was a Hungry Hungry Hippos movie in development for a while," Rogen added. "I think we've been pitched every brand. I feel like there was a Doritos movie at some point. 'Kool-Aid' is not far off from what is actually floating around the halls of this place by any stretch of the imagination."

Starring Rogen, Chase Sui Wonders, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Hahn, and Catherine O'Hara, The Studio follows a team of film producers, as they try to keep their struggling company Continental Studios afloat in a time of rapid social and economic change within the industry.

In the premiere, Rogen's studio executive Matt Remick – an outspoken hater of all the shallow, IP-based titles Hollywood is churning out nowadays – is told by Continental's new CEO that he'll be promoted to studio head if he greenlights a movie based on the Kool-Aid Man. Things get complicated, though, when Martin Scorsese approaches Matt about doing one last film, a drama centered on the Jonestown massacre, and Matt takes it upon himself to buy the script for 10 million dollars. The decision doesn't go down too well with the CEO and Matt is forced to backtrack on his deal, trying (and failing) to keep everyone sweet in the process.

While Scott's Monopoly project never properly made it onto the table, Margot Robbie is said to be developing a live-action take on the hugely popular board game following the success of Barbie. Lionsgate Motion Picture Group chair Adam Fogelson shared the news at CinemaCon back in April 2024.

The Studio is streaming now, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday. Already binged the first two? Check out our picks of the best Apple TV shows for some viewing inspiration.

TVLine has some details on how the Buffy continuation is coming together. According to the outlet, the protagonist is a "cerebral 16-year-old" currently named Nova, who's quite smart and something of a loner.

She’ll have two close friends, the 'Scoobies' of this installment: Hugo, who's very nerdy and comes from a rich family, and Gracie, an "acolyte" of Buffy's and an expert on all things vampiric. Nova is described as "more Willow than Buffy".

In the original show, Willow is an academically-driven introvert played by Alyson Hannigan who develops an interest in magic over the course of the series. She provides something of a foil to Buffy's extroversion, and going in that direction creates some inherent contrast for the direction of the sequel.

It's stated casting is happening right now for all three characters. Eternals and Nomadland director Chloé Zhao is attached to direct the Buffy return for Hulu. Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman serve as writers and showrunners.

Gellar, the face of the franchise, is coming back, but it's believed she'll be more of a recurring character in front of the camera than a focal point. She announced her participation in the new Buffy show in February, writing: "I promise you, we will only make this show if we know we can do it right. And I will tell you that we are on the path there."

We'll have to wait and see what devilish goings on emerge. Check out our rundown of all the new TV shows on the way to see what other treats are coming to the small screen.

"I’ve been trying to get this going for 12 years. I was the one poking the bear, going, 'Let’s do it, let’s do it, let’s do it,'" Cranston told Variety on the red carpet for his new show The Studio. "Finally, Linwood Boomer, our creator of the show, got tired of me poking him. He came up with some really fun, terrific ideas."

The revival, which will comprise four new 30-minute episodes, was first announced in December 2024. The new limited series will air on Disney Plus and follow Malcolm and his daughter, whose attendance is demanded at Hal and Lois' 40th wedding anniversary party. The revival doesn't have a release date yet, but filming is due to start very soon.

Cranston continued, "You are reintroduced to this family. We left the airwaves 20 years ago. All the boys are adults with their own children,” he said. “It’s a different dynamic in that sense – and yet, do things really change with Hal and Lois? I don’t know that they do!"

Along with Cranston returning as Hal, Jane Kaczmarek is reprising her role as his wife Lois, and Frankie Muniz is back as Malcolm, with Christopher Masterson and Justin Berfield returning as his brothers Francis and Reese. Caleb Ellsworth-Clark will replace Erik Per Sullivan as Dewey.

Cranston is also set to appear as a guest star on The Studio, a new Apple TV Plus comedy series that follows the newly appointed boss of a struggling movie studio, played by Seth Rogen. The cast also includes Catherine O'Hara and Kathryn Hahn, with other guest appearances from the likes of Paul Dano, Ron Howard, and Steve Buscemi.

The Studio is airing weekly on Apple TV Plus. For more, check out our guide to the other best new TV shows still to come in 2025.

The Igan Sunset is a tanto that you can get from a legendary chest in the game's starting area, Izumi Settsu. With it, Naoe can slow down time by performing an Escape Strike. This is a very early ability you can unlock in the tanto skill tree that allows you to do a quick attack and then dodge back. Just press the quick or strong attack button followed by the dodge button, and you'll slash, then leap backward.

Normally, the Escape Strike creates a little distance, but with the Igan Sunset equipped, time is slowed for enemies, but Naoe moves at her normal speed, meaning foes have no time to raise their weapons to block your next attacks.

This effect turns Naoe into the fastest, most deadly assassin since Basim and his ability to seemingly teleport straight to multiple enemies and kill them in a lighting-fast chain. In Assassin's Creed Mirage, it's meant to be a glitch in the Animus caused by how fast he is, not an actual teleport, and now Naoe can sort of do the same thing. This proves she really would win in a fight against Yasuke.

To get the tanto, Polygon states you simply go to the legendary chest in the Izumi Settsu region. It's located in Tozuku’s Lair, a small enemy camp just north of your hideout, close to the Katano Foothills viewpoint.

Over on Reddit, people are already calling this ability "broken." You can also spam it infinitely, which one user calls "insane" and adds, "I haven’t even been hit once since I found it." You'd better use it now because Ubisoft will undoubtedly want to balance this by giving it a cooldown or something.

While you're here, check out our list of the best Assassin's Creed games in the series.

Created by Joss Whedon, the supernatural series follows Buffy Summers, the latest in a long line of young women tasked with being vampire slayers. Their job is simple: protect humanity from the bloodsuckers – and various other demons – while keeping their work as secret as possible.

The beloved series ran for seven seasons in total and made stars of its leads. Alongside Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, David Boreanaz, Nicholas Brendon, Anthony Head, and James Marsters all appeared in the show. Guest stars included future Hollywood names like Pedro Pascal and Amy Adams.

So with an upcoming return to Sunnydale on the cards, there's never been a better time to catch up on the classic series. And while there was a time when you had no choice but to get the video boxset, we’re now lucky to live in the era of streaming services, which will make your next watch – or rewatch – a whole lot simpler. Read on for our ultimate guide to how to watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer online.

How to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer online in the US

How to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer from anywhere in the world

How to use a VPN

While it may sound complicated, it's actually very easy to use a VPN. You just need to follow three simple steps.

1. Install the VPN of your choice. There are plenty of options out there, but we recommend NordVPN.
2. Choose your location. Whatever service you use will have a selection of different locations you can choose from. For example, if you're traveling to the UK but you want to use your US subscription, click on the US option.
3. Enjoy the show. Once you're connected, head to the streaming platform of your choice and log on. You'll then be able to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer from wherever you are.

How to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer online in the UK

How to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer online in Canada

How to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer online in Australia

How to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer online in New Zealand

How to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer online in India

Want more?

We've also got you covered with setting up your home entertainment system with our list of the best gaming TVs. You can also check out our guides to the best Disney Plus shows and the best Hulu shows to stream right now.

Based on the pictures shared to Bluesky, it sure is a C button. We first got a glimpse of the button during the official reveal of the Switch 2, and we all thought it was the C button even though it didn't have that letter etched into it like this one does. Turns out we were right.

The C button is a relic from the days of the N64 and GameCube. I'll be honest, when I was a kid it confused me to no end. I could barely play Ocarina of Time because everything was bound to C and I just couldn't work out that the UI was telling me to move the stick in the corresponding direction.

While we still don't know for sure what the button does, people on ResetEra have some ideas. "Calling it now: it's C for either Community or Connect. Kinda like a 'share button," writes one user. "It's for sure the Connect button though," agrees another. Many others are simply replying with the single letter "C." One user writes, "That C button is going to save my life. I just know it," so people are being very normal about the whole thing.

I reckon it'll be some sort of social feature button. Either a chat or connect button, something like that. You click it and it opens a chat window or the community page for the game you're playing, something to encourage multiplayer and making new friends. Whatever it is, we won't know for sure until the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct next week.

In the meantime, check out the best Nintendo Switch games you can play right now. You'd better clear that backlog before the Switch 2 comes out.

While Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Lewis Pullman have all been confirmed as cast members in the next Avengers movie, one name was notably absent: Olga Kurylenko, who plays Antonia Dreykov, AKA Taskmaster.

She's barely appeared in previously released teaser footage, despite being a prominent part of the movie's poster, which has made fans theorize that she'll die pretty early on in the film. Now, though, one Reddit user has pointed out that she's seemingly been edited out of a shot of the Thunderbolts team in a new TV spot.

"I kinda think she’s gonna just fuck off as soon as anything starts going wrong," suggested another user. "I agree. Everyone wants her to be more like comics Taskmaster, and that guy would get the hell out of there if he had to fight a serious villain," someone else replied.

"They did the character and the actress dirty," another fan posted. "Why include her in the first place? Seems like she's only there as cannon fodder; just a character to kill off so they can up the stakes."

While some fans think it's a bad thing that the rest of the Thunderbolts' survival has pretty much been guaranteed now we know they'll appear in Doomsday, others think it's positive.

"It’s honestly a good thing most of the team seemingly survives, Marvel is remembering they have to use their characters more than once every 4 years to keep them relevant in the eyes of non-hardcore fans," wrote someone else. "We don’t want an Avengers movie where the general audience doesn’t recognize half the cast. Though I think the T-Bolts will end up mostly being death fodder for Doom. Even Sentry might get taken out somehow to prove how strong Doom is."

Thunderbolts* arrives on the big screen on May 2 as the final installment in Marvel Phase 5. For more, check out our guide to the other upcoming superhero movies still to come in 2025 and beyond.

At the time of writing, inZOI has accumulated over 2,300 reviews on Steam, 86% of which are positive. Overall, that makes for a "Very Positive" rating, with players praising the visuals and the fact that it's a "life sim game without $1,000+ DLC to experience the full game" – even if you love The Sims 4, you can't deny that the cost of its DLC really adds up. Others have also been sharing the highlights of their Zois' lives so far.

"I met a girl in the park. We joked, we hugged, we were engaged within an hour of our first date and then I got a text while I was asleep informing me that she died. 10/10 no notes," one writes. "Met a girl, she was cute, we became interested in each other, and even kissed on the first meet. Got a text the next day letting me know the owner of that phone has passed away. I'll never see her again. I love this game," says another. There's, uh, a bit of a theme here.

To say that it's midday on a weekday, inZOI is also doing really well when it comes to its concurrent player count. It accumulated 60,726 players a couple of hours after launch according to SteamDB, but it's just hit a new peak of 66,858 simultaneous players. While it hasn't reached the same heights as The Sims 4, which reached 96,328 concurrent players on Steam when it went free-to-play in 2022, we can almost certainly expect inZOI's peak to rise over the weekend as more people get the chance to play.

Its popularity hasn't come as a surprise – after all, it previously dethroned Hollow Knight: Silksong to become the most wishlisted game on Steam. The simulation game's director knows that inZOI has a long way to go before it can truly rival its biggest competitor in The Sims, though – Hyungjun 'Kjun' Kim previously told PCGamesN that "The Sims is an incredible game, and I don't think inZOI is anywhere near comparable – at least not yet."

Being an early-access game, this is just the start for inZOI – we'll have to stay tuned to see where it goes from here.

You can find even more to play on our list of games like The Sims 4.

As is now the case with Pokemon game names, Z-A seemed pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Maybe it was a reference to Pokemon X and Y, which shares the same setting of the Kalos region and Lumiose City. Maybe it was a callback to the legendary creature Zygarde, who's almost definitely showing up here as well. Or maybe it was as important as Scarlet and Violet's name (not very, that is).

We now know it's tied to one of the coolest-sounding progression systems in the series. You see, when the sun goes down in Lumiose City, the competitive trainers come out - sort of like an urban battle royale free-for-all. There's some cool stealth involved and, of course, the game's remixed battle system, but as you beat more and more trainers, you'll be ranking up from Z to A. Hence the name! You're literally going from rank Z to A.

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company haven't said much about what happens when you finally reach that coveted A rank, except for the fact that the trainer who does so will have "a wish granted." We see one trainer who's randomly going to hold a city-wide marathon if she ever gets there and another figure who wants to "abolish all forms of transit in Lumiose - except taxis!" Very ominous, unless he's the heir to Uber, which would make slightly more sense.

Elsewhere in Kalos, one leaker claimed Pokemon Legends: Z-A is introducing 27 new mega-evolutions and we even saw a few in the trailer above, including one for the spoon-bending Alakazam. I'm just excited to see what my beloved Chikorita turns into when Pokemon Legend: Z-A comes to the OG Switch - and the Nintendo Switch 2 via backward compatibility - sometime this year.

The console might be on its last legs, but there are still tons of upcoming Nintendo Switch games on the horizon.

In a new interview with GameSpot, the games' co-director said he realized how futile it is to go to great lengths to keep things secret from audiences after The Last of Us Part II fell victim to major leaks back in 2020.

"When it comes to like, what are we going to spoil or not spoil? You know, I fought tooth-and-nail when we made the game, and that all blew up in my face at the end, when we had those leaks that happened like months before the game came out," Druckmann recalled. "So I've learned to not put so much stock in that. 

"Also, now I have a creative partner, HBO. I kind of follow their lead here as far as spoilers and what we should show and not show and just, you know, again, approach it as if we're doing it for the first time, assuming the audience doesn't know anything. They're not Googling what happened in the game or not."

Starring Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, The Last of Us season 2 picks up five years after Joel "rescued" Ellie from the Fireflies' hospital base. Soon, the pair's path crosses with that of Abby's (Kaitlyn Dever), setting them all on a revenge-filled collision course that threatens their relationships and their lives. Other fresh faces being welcomed in the new chapter include Young Mazino (as Jesse), Danny Ramirez (as Manny), Isabela Merced (as Dina), and Catherine O'Hara (as original character Gail).

"I feel like the best way I could respect the audience is by not thinking about them too much when I'm working on whatever I'm writing," Druckmann continued. "That way I could just make the best decision with as little outside influence as possible, and make the best internal decisions for the characters, for the story, for the medium."

The Last of Us season 2 premieres on HBO and Max in the US on April 13, before landing on Sky and NOW in the UK the following day. For further watchlist inspiration, check out our guide to the best shows on Max.

His addition to the animated feature comes from Variety, and right now details are limited. It's unknown who he's voicing, or even what nation they might come from. Fans of The Last Airbender may remember Yeun already had a role in the franchise, portraying Wan, the first Avatar, in The Legend of Korra.

In theory, he could be reprising that character, but we're speculating here. The film is currently called Aang: The Last Airbender (since Avatar now happens to be taken by another, much bigger franchise), and it's being directed by Lauren Montgomery with a release window of 2026. It's a sequel, following the characters years after the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

He joins a strong cast so far, with Eric Nam as Aang, Jessica Matten as Katara, Dionne Quan as Toph Beifong, Román Zaragoza as Sokka, and Dave Bautista as the unnamed villain. It's the second continuation of the Avatar mythos we've seen in recent years.

Netflix kicked off a live-action remake of the animated show in 2024, with two more seasons now in production. Meanwhile, Aang: The Last Airbender is coming from Nickelodeon and Paramount, and it's being produced by franchise co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino.

Konietzko and DiMartino were involved in Netflix's series before leaving in 2020 due to creative differences, leading to them striking a deal with Nickelodeon. It's all a bit messy, but the bottom line is, this movie with Yeun has the co-creators involved so it's in safe hands.

Besides his work on Invincible, Yeun was recently in Mickey 17 with Robert Pattinson, and the Netflix show Beef. You can check out when you might hear his voice again on the superhero side of things in our guide to Invincible season 4.

Warning, the following article contains major spoilers for the Reacher season 3 ending, so make sure you are all caught up on the third instalment before reading on.

Reacher season 3 episode 8 saw Reacher finally face up to Beck’s 7 ft 2in bodyguard Paulie, and the two entered into a huge fight that took place in a barn, a toolshed, and even the ocean – you can read more about that in our Reacher season 3 ending explained. However, filming the fight scene left Ritchson just as bruised and injured as we see him in the series.

"I got picked up and we worked out the camera thing a few times and he slammed me through the table so hard, I went through it into the seventh circle of hell," Ritchson said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "And I woke up a day and a half later. When I came to, I had to tell my kids that I felt great, because they were on set, and I didn't want them to think that like, dad died and was going to not be okay. It was the worst few minutes of my life."

Despite his injuries, Ritchson did not want to use a stuntman at any point during filming the fight scene, which took 3 weeks to complete. "Everybody was like, 'You're going to get killed and we're not going to do that because it's going to hurt you too bad. And so we're going to do it with a stuntman.' And I was like, 'No,'" said Ritchson. "I wanted the camera to come up and just stay on my face the whole time while I get smashed through a table on the barn floor."

This scene marks the first time that we have seen Reacher really get his butt kicked, and although he came out on top in the end, he did take one hell of a beating. Before season 3 hit screens, Ritchson told GamesRadar+ that it's important for audiences to see that Reacher can be beaten sometimes, adding, "You know, if [Reacher] is like, too superhuman or indestructible, it's not gonna be that fun to watch".

Reacher seasons 1-3 are available to stream in full on Prime Video, with Reacher season 4 on its way. For more, check out our list of the best shows on Prime Video, or keep up with upcoming shows heading your way in 2025 and beyond.

Amongst the latest news about Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, a new Rhythm Heaven game, and much more, Nintendo unveiled "Virtual Game Cards" – a feature which will let you share your digital games with another of your consoles, and even lend games to friends and family. This is planned to roll out on current Switch consoles in late April, as well as Switch 2 in the future, but it's the fine print on the feature's compatibility with the new console that's turning heads.

"Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive games and Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games can only be loaded on a Nintendo Switch 2 system," Nintendo states on its webpage explaining the new feature. Switch 2 exclusive games we knew about, of course, but Switch 2 edition? The fact that this is stated as something separate to an exclusive game suggests that this is a different version of a game that'll already exist in some other way.

We already knew that the Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with Switch 1 games (seemingly most of them, at least), but this suggests that it might not simply be a case of loading up those games and having the exact same experience that you would on the older console. Could Nintendo be planning some new-gen upgrades like we've seen on the PS5 and Xbox Series X, for example, or potentially even releasing enhanced Switch 2 versions of upcoming games like Pokemon Legends: Z-A alongside the regular Switch releases? Alternatively, a Switch 2 edition game could simply refer to the Switch 2 release of a title that's also launching on other platforms like PlayStation or Xbox.

For now, we'll just have to wait and see – there's a good chance that we could get a definitive answer next week during the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, which airs on April 2.

Be sure to keep up with all of yesterday's Nintendo news in our roundup of everything announced during the March 2025 Nintendo Direct.

For context, Square Enix tried to revive its somewhat dormant mecha-strategy series when it announced Front Mission 2089 in collaboration with developer BlackJack Studios. That project was scrapped that same year, but BlackJack instead made another mech-based strategy game called Mecharashi, which came out in some markets last year and was due to be released worldwide sometime soon.

Square Enix then recently filed a lawsuit against both the developer and publisher of Mecharashi, claiming that BlackJack used assets from Front Mission 2089's production in the new game. Essentially, even though BlackJack might have made all the mechs and maps and textures in Mecharashi, Square argued that they're still stolen because they were made under the publisher's contract while working on an IP under its ownership.

Mecharashi publisher HK Ten Tree has now addressed the lawsuit, explaining it wants to "resolve this matter amicably" and is sorry "for any concern and inconvenience caused to our users." (Good spot, Automaton.)

Some Redditors even spotted that some of Mecarashi's allegedly copyrighted assets have also been updated, as several icons and textures have been redesigned. That said, Square Enix reportedly supplied 11 pages worth of comparative screenshots to US courts, so Mecharashi might need some more dramatic changes before the Final Fantasy publisher is satisfied.

On Steam, Mecharashi is still listed as 'Coming Soon' and the developer was promoting it via online blogs as recently as March 17.

Here are some of the best strategy games you can play while you wait for the legal kerfuffle to end.

First we saw Patapon 1+2 Replay, a remastered collection of Sony's two beloved PSP rhythm strategy games. Patapon helped form the peak of Japan Studio's reputation for delightfully offbeat games, and it was among the more popular parts of that lineage, spawning not just one, but two sequels. There's little else like it to this day – aside, of course, from designer Hiroyuki Kotani's spiritual successor, Ratatan, which is due to launch in 2025.

Patapon 1+2 Replay is set to launch across PS5, Switch, and PC on July 11 courtesy of Bandai Namco, and that's not the only Sony game the publisher's handling. Bandai Namco also announced Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots today, which also due out on PS5, Switch, and PC sometime this year.

Everybody's Golf was once known as Hot Shots Golf in North America, but whatever title you recognize it by, it's a cute, accessible golf game with roots going all the way back to the PS1. This one is perhaps an even weirder comeback than Patapon – here we have a brand-new entry in a Sony-published series that got a new entry as 2019 with Everybody's Golf VR.

Bandai Namco kicked off this whole thing with the release of Freedom Wars Remastered earlier this year. That Monster Hunter-style action-RPG was once a PS Vita exclusive and yes, a first-party PlayStation game. There hasn't been any formal announcement of a partnership between Sony and Bandai Namco, but clearly the two companies have worked out some mutually beneficial IP agreements.

As much as I'm confused by all this, I'm mostly just happy that other publishers are willing to give us the smaller IP revivals that Sony's unwilling to. There's already some Bloodborne copium in the ether as the result of all this, but what I want are Sony's greatest obscurities. After these years, please: sickos like me are demanding a new Tokyo Jungle. You owe it to the world, Bandai Namco. Let that little Pomeranian stalk the streets once more.

Preparing for the Switch 2, Nintendo announces "Virtual Game Cards" you can move between consoles and loan to friends for up to 2 weeks.

According to Jason Schreier at Bloomberg, the expansion would've added "new storylines" to the open-world game, and it would've released this year alongside a Definitive Edition version – the same version the outlet reported on last year as a "Director's Cut."

The report says the expansion was being co-developed between Avalanche and Suicide Squad (and Arkham) developer Rocksteady, and it might have restored "a storyline tied to one of the original game’s companions that was cut during development."

Citing "people familiar," the report suggests that the DLC was canceled "in part due to concerns that the amount of content was not substantial enough to justify the price being considered."

We've reached out to Warner Bros. for comment and will update this story if we learn more.

Hogwarts Legacy was a wild success for WB Games – a success which particularly stood out among headlines about the failure of Suicide Squad and other WB projects. Recently, the company announced it was canceling its Wonder Woman game and shutting down Monolith, the storied studio that was creating it. They also announced the end of Player First Games, whose fighting game MultiVersus was already set to shut down later in 2025.

With all that in mind, it's little surprise that the publisher might've wanted to double down on the success of Hogwarts Legacy even now, more than two years after its original release. WB's executives have repeatedly made public comments about a follow-up to Hogwarts Legacy being a priority, but even as a sequel seems inevitable, it looks like any hope of DLC for the original is gone.

The release of Hogwarts Legacy has been the subject of criticism and debate due to J.K. Rowling's public stance on gender identity, which continues to challenge the inclusivity at the heart of the Harry Potter community. Here is our explainer on the Hogwarts Legacy controversy.

Rather than an adaptation of the classic X-Men of the core Marvel Universe, some of whom have appeared elsewhere in the new Ultimate continuity, the Ultimate X-Men are a collection of young mutants led by Armor who have run afoul of a dire mutant cult.

Their first enemy, the Shadow King, is part of that group, using his powers of psychic shadow projection and telepathy to menace the freshly formed X-Men.

Here's the preview of interior pages by writer and artist Peach Momoko, script adaptor Zack Davisson, and letterer Travis Lanham, which pay homage to the iconic cover of Uncanny X-Men #251 with Wolverine strapped to the x-shaped cross, which was also adapted in Deadpool and Wolverine:

"I've said this before, but I feel like the best way we could respect our fans and honor them is to not worry about them when we're crafting the thing because outside influence or pressure doesn't lead you to good creative choices," Druckmann tells GamesRadar+.

When season 2 was first announced, there was quite a bit of fan chatter about everything from aging up Bella Ramsey (or casting an older actor) to who would be the perfect Abby to whether or not they could pack the entire game into one season. With season 1 being so revered and beloved by diehard fans (like myself), there's a lot of intense hype and speculation around the second season. Druckmann, creator of the video game franchise, is confident that he and co-showrunner Craig Mazin have made the "correct" choices for the TV adaptation.

"Craig and I are just very meticulous in how we interrogate every moment, every creative choice and kind of look at all the options in front of us to make sure we're picking as Craig likes to say 'the correct one.' And it's a correct one for The Last of Us in this medium, which wouldn't necessarily be the same correct one for The Last of Us in the video game format."

One of these choices includes stretching Part 2 over more than one season, with Mazin saying that four sounds like a good number. This makes perfect sense considering the length of the game. For reference, The Last of Us Part 1 takes around 15 hours of gameplay to finish the main story, but around 25 hours to hit 100% completion. It made sense for the story to be told over nine 60-minute long episodes. The Last of Us Part 2 takes around 22-26 hours to finish the main story...but up to 42 hours to hit 100% completion. Because the game is so dense, it makes a whole lot of sense to stretch this out over multiple seasons.

Continues Druckmann: "So the stress we often feel is with the resource that we have, with the time that we have, are we taking the best advantage of that to make the best choices for the best possible show?"

The Last of Us season 2 hits HBO and Max on April 13. For more, check out our list of the best Max shows and the best Max movies to stream right now.

"I think we can say that we are dedicated to the idea that just as humanity is progressing and [Jackson] is getting bigger and they're bringing people in the infected are also evolving," Mazin tells GamesRadar+. "So we're certainly going to see quite a few changes along the way to impress upon our characters. Oh, do you think you've figured it out, you think you're good at handling the infected? The Rat King is something that anybody who has played The Last of Us Part 2 is traumatized by for so many reasons, count myself among them."

Continues Mazin: "All I'll say is I don't understand how you could make a show called The Last of Us and not eventually get where it ought to go. When and how, we'll keep that a mystery."

In season 1 – spoiler alert from here on for both the first season and games – we didn't see too many different types of infected – but we did Joel get attacked by a Bloater in episode 5 after it crawls out from a pit of other infected. If you aren't familiar with the games, you might not know that there are several types of infected, including a Stalker, which hides and waits for the player, Shamblers, which ooze puss, and the aforementioned Rat King.

The Rat King is one of the bosses in TLOU Part 2, the game, and I definitely don't recommend playing through that part at night. It's Abby who fights the Rat King in the game, and it'll be exciting to see if and when Kaitlyn Dever comes face-to-face with it at some point this season.

The Last of Us Season 2 hits HBO and Max on April 13. For more, check out our list of the best Max shows and the best Max movies to watch right now.

According to new Steam stats posted during its GDC 2025 talk (as reported by Game Discover), over 66% of Steam users have something other than English set as their primary language. The most-popular is now Mandarin, specifically Simplified Chinese, with 33.7% of gamers using it as their go-to dialect compared to 33.5% using English and 1% using Cantonese.

The largest number of Mandarin speakers in the world are in China, where recent games like Black Myth: Wukong have invigorated the domestic games market and gotten more people into PC and console gaming. One developer says this has been a long time coming, as "we've wanted to make these kinds of games from the beginning."

Games like Genshin Impact, Infinity Nikki, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero have also been hugely successful for Chinese companies, and Tencent is a Chinese gaming giant with its fingers in a lot of pies. A lot of these games are on mobile and PC, but Wukong has proven, louder than ever, that console and PC games are worth making too.

China also has some fantastic animators and a lot of manpower according to Japanese video game developers. They say, "if you've been involved in Chinese game projects, you'll know that they use 10x more money and manpower than Japan – the scale is incomparable." They also note that the Chinese industry is more "free-spirited," and "crazy" ideas that "would never get approved in Japan" are more common.

But it won't just be China pushing the number of Mandarin speakers on Steam up. It's widely spoken in Taiwan, although many other languages are used by its residents, including Cantonese. There's also a high number of Mandarin speakers in other Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, and I heard a fair amount in South Korea and Vietnam when I visited in 2023.

While you're here, check out our list of the best action games you can play right now to satiate that Black Myth itch.

With April already around the corner, we've had three months of new streaming releases on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, Max, Apple TV Plus, and Hulu, and some titles have definitely stood out. From Netflix's recent hit Adolescence and Severance season 2, to the ongoing season 3 of Max's The White Lotus and Disney Plus' Daredevil: Born Again, we haven't been short of options this year, and there is more on the way.

Whether you are looking for an independent film to broaden your horizons or just something to pass the time with, we've selected 6 new movies and shows that are worth a watch. We've found something for every mood you might be in, while we keep an eye on new TV shows coming up and new upcoming movies releasing both in theaters and on streaming.

Below, we narrow down the best new movies and TV shows released from each major streamer, so you're aware of the best shows to binge and the best movies to discover.

New movies

A Complete Unknown (Hulu)

Available: US
Watch now: Hulu

Following the release of Anora last week, Hulu just added another Oscar 2025 nominee to its catalog, and it's a must-watch. A Complete Unknown sees Timothée Chalamet transform into the legendary singer, songwriter, and Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan. The story focuses on Dylan through his earliest folk music success and until his moment of defiance at the Newport Folk Festival, where he created controversy for using electric instruments.

With Monica Barbaro paying iconic singer Joan Baez, Edward Norton as Peter Seeger, and Elle Fanning as Dylan's girlfriend Sylvie Russo (based on Suze Rotolo), the film takes us back to an essential moment in the history of music, as well as American history. Chalamet shines as the lead star, nailing Dylan's voice and proving he is still one of Hollywood's most talented young actors.

For more, check out the best Hulu shows to watch right now.

The Life List (Netflix)

Available: Worldwide
Watch now: Netflix

After the success of Purple Hearts and Carry-On, Sofia Carson is back on Netflix with a new romantic movie, which adds a lot of family drama into the mix too. The Life List follows a young woman named Alex Rose, who ges on a quest to complete her childhood bucket list, as her mother planned before she passed.

With the help of an unusually handsome lawyer, she works hard to complete all the challenges, realizing what was missing in her life. In this emotional journey, she will learn important life lessons, discover buried family secrets and even find romance.

For more, check out the best Netflix shows to watch right now.

Queer (Max)

Available: US
Watch now: Max

After blowing our minds with the intensely entertaining Challengers, Luca Guadagnino quickly swapped 21st Century tennis courts for the streets of Mexico City in the '50s for the excellent Queer. The film is now available to stream on Max, and it's one to have in your radar if you're in the mood for something daring, captivating, and extremely intimate.

Based on the 1995 novella of the same name by William S. Burroughs, the story focuses on William Lee (played by James Bond star Daniel Craig), a lonely American expat moving between bars and hotel rooms searching for someone to warm his bed. Enter Eugene Allerton (played by Drew Starkey), a younger, discharged US Navy serviceman, who catches his eye one night.

Guadagnino continues to explore desire in a beautiful way, with stunning performances and some *very* steamy scenes. You have been warned.

For more, check out our guides to the best HBO shows and the best HBO movies.

Holland (Prime Video)

Available: US
Watch now: Prime Video

Looking for something completely unpredictable and unhinged? Prime Video released this week a new movie starring Nicole Kidman and Succession star Matthew Macfadyen, and it might surprise you.

Mimi Cave's Holland follows meticulous teacher and homemaker Nancy Vandergroot, as her picture-perfect suburban life, with her community pillar husband and accomplished son, start to crumble beneath her feet. With the help of a colleague, played by Gael García Bernal, Nancy uncovers a secret that will change her life forever.

It's giving Don't Worry Darling and Stepford Wives vibes, but to say more would spoil the fun.

For more, check out all the best movies on Prime Video right now.

Mufasa (Disney Plus)

Available: Worldwide
Watch now: Disney Plus

Did we really need a prequel to The Lion King? Probably not, but that doesn't mean Mufasa: The Lion King is not a great watch all the same. The film is now available to stream on Disney Plus, so you should give it a chance.

Directed by Barry Jenkins, the movie tells the origin stories of Mufasa (voiced by Aaron Pierre) and his brother Scar (voiced by Kelvin Harrison Jr.) prior to the events of The Lion King. It explores the early life and formative years of the titular character, who goes from being an orphaned cub to a respected king.

Some actors reprised their roles from 2019's The Lion King, including Donald Glover as Simba, Beyoncé as Nala, Seth Rogen as Pumba, Billy Eichner as Timon, and John Kani as Rafiki. Newcomers include Tiffany Boone as Sarabi, Mads Mikkelsen as Kiros, Thandiwe Newton as Taka's mother, and Beyoncé's daughter Blue Ivy Carter as Kiara, daughter of Nala and Simba.

For more, read our Mufasa review, and check out our list for the best TV shows on Disney Plus.

New TV shows

The Studio (Apple TV Plus)

Available: Worldwide
Watch now: Apple TV Plus

If you've always wanted to know how movie studios work behind the scenes, you should probably add Seth Rogen's new show to your watchlist. Apple TV Plus' The Studio follows the newly appointed head of the embattled Continental Studios, Matt Remick, as he struggles to keep the business alive. Helped by his team of executives, Matt battles his own insecurities as he deals with narcissistic artists who care too much and corporate overlords who don't care enough. Can Matt find the balance between the two?

Through parties, set visits, casting auditions, marketing meetings, award shows, and more, the series opens a unique window into the film industry, and it's as fascinating as deliciously entertaining.

For more, check out our lists for the best movies on Apple TV Plus and the best TV shows on Apple TV Plus.

Looking for something else to watch? Check out our list of the best Netflix movies or the best movies on Disney Plus.

"With the creation of a dedicated subsidiary that will spearhead development for three of our largest franchises and the onboarding of Tencent as a minority investor," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says in a press release, "we are crystalizing the value of our assets, strengthening our balance sheet, and creating the best conditions for these franchises’ long-term growth and success."

The new subsidiary will "include the teams developing the Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry franchises based in Montréal, Quebec, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Barcelona, and Sofia as well as the back-catalog and any new games currently under development or to be developed." This subsidiary will get a "worldwide, exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual" license for the three IPs, for which it will return royalties to its parent company. The transaction is expected to be finalized by the end of the year.

Tencent already had a 10% stake in Ubisoft proper prior to its investment in this new entity. The company says the new subsidiary will "remain exclusively controlled and consolidated by Ubisoft."

Rumors of this move started circulating earlier in the month, following speculation around some other type of buyout going back to 2024. Ubisoft didn't directly comment on those reports, confirming only that it was "exploring different options" for its financial future.

Those rumors came after a string of high-profile disappointments in 2024, from Skull & Bones' final escape out of its decade-long development hell to the launch and shutdown of XDefiant and "softer than expected" sales for Star Wars Outlaws. Factors like these led to repeated "polish" delays for Assassin's Creed Shadows, which launched last week to near-record success for the venerable franchise.

Getting Assassin's Creed Shadows on PS5 and Xbox Series X was all about adding "dynamism" to the open world, but the devs seem most proud about the trees.

"The stuff where I was personally most gratified was environments of different scales where – I use this metaphor that we talk about – we want everybody to be able to see their thumbprints on the clay of the game when they step away from it," Burgess tells GamesRadar+ at a GDC 2025 interview. On Skyrim, which peaked around 95 to 100 people, he says "stuff got built because somebody cared about building it," and that's the type of environment Soft Rains is fostering.

"We knew it was a big game, we knew how to proceed forward, and we created an environment in that game where you had the opportunity to make a difference on the game if you saw a way for you to do it, if you were able to use the tools and get it in and get the right collaboration," he continues. "That was a 100-person team, a big AAA game, but it's also true of when I was working with my friends at Capybara on much smaller things in a classically creative indie sort of environment. I don't think there's necessarily an optimal team size; I think it depends on the team."

Working in huge teams where dynamics and problems become so large that "I need a sociology degree to solve these" isn't a bad way to make games, Burgess says, it's just different, and not necessarily his forte. "Where I'm really happy is, hey, I know what you're good at and I know what you want to be better at but you aren't actually that good at right now, so let's collaborate on something that would challenge that and let you grow in that direction. And looking for that for myself. The dynamic and the scope of the game is gonna decide what the ideal team size is."

"The game that we are building now is different from the game that we thought we would build, you know, two years ago, in terms of some of the core mechanics, the features, the pacing, the style or scope of it," he adds. "But it's still the same game that we always wanted to set up to build in terms of that contemporaneous sci-fi and something that's going to be at a scope and scale that everybody can get their fingers on the clay."

"Even if The Elder Scrolls 6 is great," another Skyrim veteran thinks Bethesda developers will face harassment and "death threats" anyway.