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When it comes to remakes of popular games, it can be quite hard to tell when one project is going to make meaningful adjustments to capture what made the original special, or which will have aged poorly or are just being given cosmetic upgrades that don’t make a replay worth it. Based on my time playing through some revised missions in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, I’m feeling more confident that this second voyage on the high seas of the Caribbean will be the former. After playing through a few missions recently, I now have a better understanding of what to expect from this ambitious remake, which included narrative additions, new options for carrying out my assassinations, and other bits and baubles along the way that have increased my interest in replaying through Kenway’s epic tale of pillaging and unloading flintlocks into the chests of unsuspecting lawmen.

The missions I played took place during the early part of the story (specifically, during “Sequence 3”) as Edward is still settling into his new life as a sorta, kinda assassin and full-blown pirate captain. If you’ve played the original recently, you’ll recall the part where you tail Julien Du Casse’s Spanish galleon, before tracking him through a jungle to assassinate him. But this revised version had a variety of changes, some lesser and some greater, which did a pretty good job of showing off just how much work has been put into bringing this classic up to modern standards. These ranged from narrative additions, side quests, boss fight changes, and even the odd collectible to snap up along the way.

The biggest update came in the form of tweaks aimed at making the mission more open-ended. For example, the path you take through the jungle in this version is a more scenic route that leads you to a mansion instead of straight to the ship where your quarry hides. Here you can get up to new kinds of mischief, like an optional encounter with some captured pirates you can free to help serve as muscle (or just a distraction) in your pursuit of Du Casse. Doing so causes quite a commotion, as they arm themselves and make a run at their captors and take the fight to the beach where Du Casse’s ship is docked. You can join them in the fight, or use the distraction to slip past the guards and get aboard the galleon undetected more easily. This was only one small example on one short mission, but if it’s indicative of the added opportunities to approach quests in your own style and are allowed to get creative, as seemed to be the case when I played a handful of hours from a different part of the game last month, then that alone could sell me on spending several dozen more hours playing through this adventure in full.

If you’re like me and prefer stealth, you probably just want to slip in unnoticed and kill off good ol’ Du Casse without any fight at all – I did this during my playthrough as well and can confirm that it’s still a completely viable option.“

There were some other, mostly cosmetic changes to the mission that I noticed along the way too, like some new lines of dialogue and story bits from the guards at the mansion, a newly refurbished interior of the mansion itself, and even a collectible portrait of none other than Du Casse himself – which will be a helpful artifact to remember him by once you’ve gutted him like a fish and thrown his lifeless corpse into the salty waves. Small things like these are probably more along the lines of the standard stuff you’d maybe expect to find in a more traditional remake versus this seemingly extra-as-heck evolution that Ubisoft has planned for Black Flag, but it’s still nice to see little touches like this added alongside stuff like the modernized combat and massively upgraded graphics. Of course, we already know that it’s not just small added lines of dialogue they’ve got in store, since last week the developers shared with IGN one of the new cutscenes being added to flesh out Kenway’s story.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Screenshots

Another fairly big change to the Du Casse mission was the boss fight against Du Casse himself. There are a bunch of changes to this fight versus the original, including a proper boss fight health bar and a significantly longer battle against a now-beefy Du Casse versus the original’s wimpy version who goes down in a few hits. Du Casse also has some interesting tricks up his sleeve, as he whips out pistols and just starts blastin’ at you with reckless abandon – pretty much what you’d expect from an arms-dealing Templar who taught Kenway how to fire a gun in the first place! Though, if you’re like me and prefer stealth, you probably just want to slip in unnoticed and kill off good ol’ Du Casse without any fight at all – I did this during my playthrough as well and can confirm that it’s still a completely viable option, though it does mean you miss out on a pretty neat fight sequence.

One interesting note is that in the original, when you engage in this encounter against Du Casse, there’s nothing preventing you from just leaving in the middle of the fight to go catch your breath or continue exploring the island, but in this version the developers have disabled the ability to flee until the encounter is ended. It’s an interesting change, because it feels a bit weird to remove some of the freedom available in the original (removing freedom is a Templar thing, after all, and we’re assassins, dammit), but at the same time it’s a pretty small adjustment that mostly serves to up the challenge of the combat encounter and prevent the silly option to just goof around with the boss by taking off and coming back for no reason. To be honest, I doubt this change or others like it are likely to have any impact on my playthrough at all, but it does make me wonder what other things they’ve reined in as they’ve streamlined encounters and tightened up missions. Here’s hoping there aren’t any areas where they’ve made decisions like that which might take away some of the creativity and freedom offered in the original. If anything, I’d like to see them expand upon the options available to me, as they did with the Du Casse mansion examples.

Every time I’ve played Black Flag Resynced leading up to its launch, I’ve felt more heartened about this remake, and this time was certainly no exception. I look forward to diving even deeper into its deep, blue seas when it comes out next month.

Travis Northup is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @TieGuyTravis and read his games coverage here.

Update: These deals are now sold out.

For a limited time (possibly today only), Dell Outlet is offering a rare deal on a powerful gaming PC. You can currently pick up an Alienware Aurora RTX 5080 gaming PC for as low as $1,838 with free shipping. There are only a handful of times I’ve seen the Alienware RTX 5080 desktop computer drop below $2,000 this year. Note that this is a “like new (refurbished)” unit and comes with the same 1 year warranty as buying brand new. You better hurry because inventory is limited.

Alienware Aurora RTX 5080 Gaming PC From $1,838

Like new (refurbished) model with 1 year Dell / Alienware warranty

Alienware Aurora R16 Liquid-Cooled Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF RTX 5080 Gaming PC (16GB/1TB)

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Alienware Aurora R16 Air-Cooled Intel Core Ultra 7 265F RTX 5080 Gaming PC (16GB/1TB)

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First off, I’d recommend going with the $1,937 configuration if it’s available. For an extra $100, you get a slightly more powerful processor and better cooling. The processor upgrade is negligible, but the cooling upgrade isn’t. Compared to the air-cooled $1,838 model, the liquid-cooled $1,937 system offers a substantially better 240mm all-in-one liquid cooling that will be able to manage processor temps more efficiently. The extra fan also means you’ll get better ambient cooling.

Depending on which configuration you choose, you’re getting either an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F or 265KF CPU. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265F is a 20-core processor with a max turbo frequency of 5.3GHz. The 265KF features an unlocked multiplier for better overclocking overhead and a slightly higher 5.5GHz max turbo frequency. Both systems are equipped with a GeForce RTX 5080 GPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB SSD. The 1,000W 80Plus Platinum certified power supply gives you plenty of headroom for upgrades down the road.

The GeForce RTX 5080 GPU will run any game in 4K

Performance-wise, the RTX 5080 is no slouch. It’s one of the fastest cards on the market, bested only by the $2,000 RTX 5090 and the discontinued $1,600 RTX 4090. This is a phenomenal card for playing the latest, most demanding games in 4K resolution at high settings and ray tracing enabled. The recent DLSS 4.5 update has further optimized multi-frame gen and upscaling so you can push really high framerates even in 4K. More games are supporting this feature, including Doom: The Dark Ages, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Battlefield 6, Death Stranding 2, and Crimson Desert. Check out our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 FE review for our hands-on impressions.

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Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

Soon, Magic players will be shuffling in the likes of Thanos, Reed Richards, and a host of other Marvel heroes and villains into their decks with the impending launch of the Marvel Superheroes set. Superheroes marks the second big release of the multi-year partnership between Wizards of the Coast and Marvel and marks a Galactus-sized jump in what’s on offer over last year’s Spider-Man product. I recently got to chat a bit with Dave Humpherys, the Design Lead for the latest set who’s also a former professional Magic player. We spoke about some of the unique challenges that came with designing the Marvel Superheroes Universes Beyond set (his first one as set lead), hear about some neat easter eggs that got worked into the set, and more.

Marvel Superheroes is a vastly different beast than Spider-Man, which was much more focused – both in terms of the characters offered and the scope in the greater Marvel Universe being contained to just New York. This new set expands to include galactic threats like Thanos and Galactus, but to answer the call, Avengers from across the comic’s history and beyond are here. Whittling down such a legacy to a set of 600-ish cards between all the products was a task in itself, and for Humpherys, tackling this as his first UB set proved different from what he was used to.

Magic: The Gathering — Marvel Super Heroes Pack Shots

“When I’m making a normal set like the ones we described, there might be some characters from our world guide and creative team that are like, ‘this is this character, this is what they do in the story, this is what you should focus on, but that’s not a lot of characters,” Humpherys explains. “There might be some sort of reference, but even that’s pretty open-ended on what I’m trying to capture. So for these, normally I design a card, and often a lot of the cards are very mechanical. If I want a card that lets you draw two cards, or one that works with non-creature spells or whatever, and then the creative team will be like, ‘Oh, that’s a cool design, now I’m going to design a concept to go with it.’ For this [Universes Beyond], largely Mark and the creative team, say, ‘These are all the cards you’ll make, these are the card names, design the cards that work with them.’ So yeah, a very different set of challenges.”

It’s easy to see the care and creativity that the team has put into Marvel Superheroes.“

Even with those challenges, it’s easy to see the care and creativity that the team has put into Marvel Superheroes. The set features cards like “Quicksilver, Brash Blur,” which channels the speedy mutant by giving him a leyline-esque ability, allowing him to begin the game on the battlefield if he is in your opening hand, or “Thanos, the Mad Titan,” being able to blow up creatures across the field with just a snap of his fingers. And by “snap of fingers,” I mean for each of the five colors of mana, plus a colorless, giving off Infinity Gauntlet vibes. Perhaps my favorite of these little nods is with the “Super-Skrull” card. Being one of the Fantastic Four’s most powerful foes, this Black card has four unique mana abilities, one for each of the other colors, and each based on the powers of the fantastic family. With White, he can create 0/4 defensive wall tokens, Green pumps him up +4/+4, Red lets him burn creatures for 4 damage, and lastly, with Blue, he lets you reach into your deck and draw 4 cards. Everything is four! Pretty damn clever.

Marvel Super Heroes TCG: Universes Beyond

Great care has also been taken in developing mechanics and themes for the ten main color pairs of cards in Marvel Superheroes that make sense both in line with what longtime players expect from established MTG pair behaviors and in correlation with the comics. Humpherys lays out his process: “I sort of tried to internalize and develop pretty much all of these color pairs. We’re like, if white and blue come together, what does that look like? It’s about, like, teamwork, one of the new mechanics, which is when you cast an instance or sorcery with ‘Teamwork’, you can tap creatures with a combined power indicated after the Teamwork mechanic number. You can make your instance and sorceries more powerful. A lot of that’s trying to show heroes and villains working together. More than the sum of their parts, you get synergy between them, showing that they’re teaming up and doing stuff together.”

One thing I have been particularly curious about is the upcoming change to Magic Arena. A massive pivot, while not specifically tied to this new set, is that Marvel cards can now be included in Wizards’ digital Magic Arena client. Previously, cards could not feature Marvel characters, giving birth to the “Through the Omen Paths” line, which replaced names and images for mechanically identical non-Marvel variants. At least with these properties, that will no longer be the case, with all your favorite characters showing up in Arena going forward and retroactively allowing the Spider-friends to as well. Asking Humpherys about this change, whether it was in the works when Spider-Man released, and the timing just didn’t work out, or if matters changed after its release, Dave, in a very neutral tone, simply said he couldn’t say anything about it, just that he is really glad that Arena players get to use stuff from Marvel.

Marvel Superheroes looks to be a big improvement over the initial release of this massive collaboration, and after speaking with Dave, I’m more excited than ever to get my hands on some of these cards. For a more detailed breakdown of the set, Wizards of the Coast has posted a near-complete spoiler of all the cards on the site.

The Marvel Superheroes pre-release events begin on June 19th, with the set’s official launch a week later on June 26. Fans will be able to crack both play and collector boosters, but in an official blog post, Wizards unfortunately revealed that a number of the sets’ other products, including Bundles, Commander precons (both standard and collector varieties), Welcome Decks, and the Jumpstart Boosters, will be delayed.

Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.

Now, we know it’s not a lot to go on, but there’s a surprising amount of detail hidden within that newly revealed GTA 6 cover art. From fresh faces to interesting vehicles and locations, we’ve scoured each of those nine stylish panels to hunt down every secret and piece of information we can find. Join us as we explain every detail in the box art for Grand Theft Auto 6.

Every Detail in the GTA 6 Cover Art Explained

Helicopter

Just like the cover art for every Grand Theft Auto since GTA 3, the upper-left panel of GTA 6’s cover features a helicopter. This time it’s a Sea Sparrow, the amphibious helicopter that first appeared in the original Vice City and now frequents the skies of GTA Online. Hovering over the pastel-colored skyline of GTA 6’s new rendition of Vice City, this particular model is equipped with a mounted minigun, bolted onto the cockpit steps. It would be an odd thing for a utility helicopter to come armed with high RPM military hardware as standard, so it may well be that we can modify choppers with aftermarket add-ons, just like you can in GTA Online.

Jason & Lucia

Here we have our protagonists, Jason Duvall and Lucia Caminos. As stated on the Rockstar website, “Jason grew up around grifters and crooks. After a stint in the Army trying to shake off his troubled teens, he found himself in the Keys doing what he knows best, working for local drug runners.”

His girlfriend, and apparent partner in crime if the trailers are anything to go by, is Lucia. The Rockstar website explains that, “Fighting for her family landed her in the Leonida Penitentiary. Sheer luck got her out. Lucia’s learned her lesson — only smart moves from here.” She can be seen in this panel holding a pistol – short barrelled, vaguely similar to the SNS Pistol Mk II – which doesn’t necessarily seem like a smart move to me, but is pretty vital equipment for a GTA protagonist. In the background are the silhouetted palm trees that we’ve become accustomed to seeing in previous GTA 6 artwork.

Motorbike

This daredevil is pulling a wheelie on a vibrant sports motorcycle. The bike itself appears to be a Principe Alvino V1, a new model for GTA 6 that we first saw in a screenshot of Jason released in May 2025. But where Jason’s ride was green, this fella’s mounted on a mechanical stallion painted in synthwave-esque shades of pink and purple. The bike is also adorned with logos, the sort of livery that makes you wonder what level of Forza-rivalling customisation will be available at the local Vice City Customs shop.

Similar to the helicopter, this bike also sits in the very same panel that featured a motorbike on Vice City’s cover, which back in 2002 was a big deal since it was the first GTA to feature motorcycles.

Driving alongside the bike, lights flashing and sirens no doubt shrieking, is a Vapid Police Cruiser. This interceptor vehicle is among the most common law enforcement cars on the streets of GTA 5’s Los Santos, and so it’s unsurprising to see the police departments in Leonida include them in their fleet. It’s had a slight facelift since we last saw it – those front light clusters and lower vents appear slightly different to the ones that speed around interrupting Trevor, Michael, and Franklyn’s fun, but it’s the same bobby mobile you love to hate.

Mystery Woman

Here’s a character that we don’t think we’ve seen before. Replicating the original Vice City cover, we have a mystery woman in a bikini enjoying a drink. Like both her and the blonde woman seen on the cover of GTA 5, she may not actually play a part in the story. We’ll have to wait to find out if she’s a vital part of Jason and Lucia’s social circle.

What we can deduce, though, is that she’s a fan of the Leonida version of the Miami Dolphins NFL team, as the turquoise colour of the jersey she’s wearing is a very similar shade to its real-life counterpart. We know from the second trailer that they’re called the Vice City Manatees. She’s also sporting a tattoo on her side that reads “Vice Baby”, suggesting that she was born and raised in the area. Another hint towards this is the “305” tattoo on her wrist, which is the real-world area code for Miami. The chain around her neck says “Siempre”, which is Spanish for “always”. I have no clue if this hints at anything, but we’re committed to giving you every detail we can.

Elsewhere in the panel, we can see she’s been sipping on what looks like a parody of the hard seltzer drink, White Claw. We can’t see the full name of it, but the word “Thaw” is prominent, as is the can design that closely resembles the real drink. On the landscape version found on Rockstar’s website, behind her is The Atoll Bar and Grill, an establishment we’ve not seen before in any trailers or the original GTA Vice City. Has she just left here, or is she about to enter? Some mysteries may never be solved.

Alligator

Here’s one we didn’t expect to ever see adorn the cover of a Grand Theft Auto game – an alligator, complete with a giant toothy maw that you’d swear was smiling at the audience if it weren’t for the simple biological fact that no, alligators cannot smile, and do not even understand the concept of smiling.

This chomping reptile is, of course, given pride of place on the cover to represent the Grassrivers area of GTA 6’s gargantuan new map. Known as “the untameable jewel of Leonida’s crown”, these wetlands are home to far more deadly predators than ‘gators. Above you can see a previously released screenshot of some mud-caked hunters who sure do seem to love their guns and trophy kills. While the big game waiting in the Grassrivers is no doubt perfect fodder for Red Dead Redemption-style hunting missions, it seems like we’ll want to think twice before getting in the way of those looking to claim their own prized target.

Boobie Ike

Next up is Boobie Ike, a music producer and owner of the Jack of Hearts strip club featured in the trailers. An enterprising businessman, he also runs a recording studio with his business partner, Dre’Quan Priest, called Only Raw Records. In this image, we can clearly see a prominent gold ring on his finger, depicting a lion wearing a crown. Could this suggest that Ike sees himself as the King of Leonida?

The Rockstar website says that Boobie is “a local Vice City legend — and acts like it. One of the few to transform his time in the streets into a legitimate empire spanning real estate, a strip club, and a recording studio — Boobie’s all smiles until it’s time to talk business.” I think it’s fair to say we may well be working both with and against him over the course of GTA 6’s story.

Supercar

What’s a GTA cover without a ridiculously expensive motor? The bottom left panel is reserved for a glorious bright yellow supercar with scissor doors. This is almost certainly a brand new model from Pegassi, the GTA universe’s high-end Italian automotive company. We’ve actually seen this car before, with vibrant lime green paintwork, prowling the streets of Vice City in both the first and second GTA 6 trailers.

Very likely inspired by the Lamborghini Aventador, this Pegassi is likely the in-universe successor to the Infernus, which was based on the Aventador’s own predecessor, the Murciélago. It’s also another nod back to the original Vice City cover art, which featured a yellow Infernus, which was that game’s version of the classic 1980s Lamborghini Countach.

Raul Bautista

The final character with the honour of gracing the cover is Raul Bautista, a “seasoned bank robber always on the hunt for talent ready to take the risks that bring the biggest rewards,” as described on the Rockstar website.

He’s holding a Duke assault rifle. Interestingly, this is a weapons manufacturer from the Red Dead Redemption universe, and marks the first time a company from that universe has made its way into the HD universe of GTA games. We can see other Duke guns, including a revolver, two ARs, and a sniper rifle, across the two previous trailers.

He’s standing in front of the Sinfrontera National Bank, a natural habitat for a seasoned robber such as himself. It’s fair to assume we’ll be joining Raul on a mission to infiltrate this building, as Rockstar continues its legacy of daring heist missions. Incidentally, Sin Frontera in Spanish translates as “without borders”, and may well be based on the CNBFL (City National Bank of Florida), which operates with businesses between Chile and Spain.

Boat

In yet another nostalgic nod back to the original Vice City cover, we have a top-down view of a boat cruising through the Miami-like waters. Here, we see a group of people riding in a Clarion speedboat, the same brand of water vehicle that can be seen zooming past the cargo ship in the first trailer for GTA 6. We don’t yet have an official name for this specific model, as Clarion is a brand-new motorboat manufacturer for GTA 6, but it appears to have been inspired by the design of the real-world Cigarette Top Gun boat. Above them flies a flamingo, suggesting that they’re sailing near Leonida’s equivalent of the Everglades, the Grassrivers, as this is where the wading birds are typically found in Florida.

So, did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments. Also, give us any new theories you may have about GTA 6’s story based on these new images. And remember, for everything Grand Theft Auto, keep it locked to IGN.

Even More GTA 6 on IGN

Want to dig even further into Grand Theft Auto 6? Try reading these other IGN articles:

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Executive Editor of Features. Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

A new report suggests Xbox layoffs will likely result in a “bloodbath” of job losses and studio closures, leaving developers “punished” simply for following Microsoft’s orders.

Word of Xbox staff redundancies and development studio shutdowns is now rife, following an ominous warning from newly-installed Xbox CEO Asha Sharma that the console maker’s slim profit margin was no longer sustainable. While it has been reported that Xbox studios such as South of Midnight maker Compulsion Games, Kiln and Keeper developer Double Fine, and Hellblade helmer Ninja Theory are just some of the teams now facing shutdown, the exact details remain unclear and unfinalized.

Microsoft is believed to be timing the layoffs with the end of its financial year on June 30, with talks ongoing among studio bosses over which companies could be sold off, spun out and kept open independently — even if this still results in numerous job losses. IGN has asked Microsoft for comment but has yet to receive a response.

The 100 Best Xbox Games of All Time

Now, in a new YouTube report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the veteran reporter claimed that “the word bloodbath has been thrown around among people I talk to who know about what’s going to happen. It’s going to be bad.” Schreier’s report also delves into the background of why these layoffs are happening now, and suggests that Xbox teams have struggled to adapt as Microsoft’s attitudes to gaming and demands of its development teams have shifted over the years.

Long-term, Xbox never really recovered from the Xbox One era, Schreier argued. The Xbox Series X/S has failed to gain back ground in the console war against PlayStation, while the growth of Xbox Game Pass has plateaued. The past decade has seen Microsoft go on a spending spree to gain Game Pass content, buying the very studios that the company now seeks to shut down or divest.

Most notable was the $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, devised by former Xbox boss Phil Spencer during the tail end of the Covid-era gaming boom, but already looking less attractive by the time its lengthy buyout process closed due to the enormous costs involved and a changed economic and strategic landscape.

Every Video Game Franchise Xbox Owns After Acquiring Activision Blizzard

The past two years have seen the last of the Covid growth era evaporate, Roblox blow up as a major drain on player attention and spending, and AI became a major new focus for tech companies such as Microsoft. These issues all likely contributed to the need for Xbox to meet tougher financial targets from executives, resulting in pressure to cut costs.

“That’s when we see things start to get really bad,” Schreier said. “We see four mass layoffs in two years, the closure of studios under the Xbox umbrella like Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, which wound up going to Krafton which saved that studio, and the cancellation of projects like Everwild, Perfect Dark, and Project Blackbird.”

This period was marked by political in-fighting at Xbox as different divisions and executives struggled to gain priority. This also resulted in it becoming far more difficult to get new gaming projects greenlit, and Xbox’s multiplatform push to boost profits that saw more games launch for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.

“The last couple of years at Xbox have been quite messy, people start openly questioning Game Pass and saying it’s cannibalizing sales,” Schreier continued, referencing the hundreds of millions of dollars reportedly lost by putting Call of Duty in the subscription. “What might be good for the Game Pass folks may not be so good for the studios and revenue brought in for individual games.”

All of which brings us to 2026 — when Spencer departed, and Sharma was brought in to “reset” the business in his place.

While Kiln and South of Midnight may not have been big money-spinners, development studios such as Double Fine and Compulsion were simply doing what they had been told five years ago, Schreier said, when they were acquired and their projects were greenlit. Namely, that they were to make games to help fill out the Xbox Game Pass catalog and slowly keep growing its subscriber base, and that this would be enough.

Xbox Games Series Tier List

Xbox Games Series Tier List

“A lot of these studios made plenty of their own mistakes, but in a lot of ways they’re being punished today for following orders,” Schreier added. “For listening to what they were told a few years ago. And that is just a shame, and what is going to happen is pretty brutal. The word bloodbath has been thrown around among people I talk to who know about what’s going to be happen. It’s going to be bad.

“And one of the reasons Xbox studios have struggled to make great games over the past decade is this uncertainty,” he concluded. “It’s really hard to make great art when working under the fear of layoffs and turbulence and cancellations and shutdowns.”

This week, it was alleged that Microsoft announced Ninja Theory’s new game, Senua, knowing that it planned to shut the studio down because it believed the promise of a newly announced game would help draw investor interest in the developer. There is now concern that Senua may never come out.

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

With Amazon Prime Day just around the corner, early deals are already starting to appear ahead of the four-day event, which runs from June 23 through June 26.

If you’re looking to stock up on graphic novels before the sale officially begins, Amazon has quietly brought back one of its best book promotions, letting shoppers buy two eligible books and get a third free.

The offer covers a selection of DC Compact Comics editions, making it an easy way to build your collection without spending a fortune.

Buy 2 DC Compact Comics, Get 1 Free

Amazon’s latest “3 for 2” promo is refreshingly simple – here’s how it works: add any three eligible items to your basket, and the cheapest one will automatically be discounted at checkout.

Better still, the offer stacks, meaning you can pick up six books for the price of four, nine books for the price of six, and so on. If you’ve had a growing reading list sitting in your wishlist for months, this is one of the easiest ways to save ahead of Prime Day.

Tom King’s “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” is one of the standout picks, and down to just $7.90 right now. With the upcoming Supergirl film set to release on June 26, now is the perfect time to read the comic that inspired it. This is one of my favorite comics of all time, and means a lot to me. I highly recommend picking it up.

Batman fans are equally well served. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s “Batman: The Court of Owls Saga” remains one of the defining modern Batman stories, while “Batman: The Long Halloween” continues to be essential reading thanks to its influence on multiple live-action adaptations.

Other highlights in the promotion include “All-Star Superman,” Grant Morrison’s celebrated take on the Man of Steel that heavily inspired James Gunn’s excellent Superman film, alongside classics like “Kingdom Come,” “Watchmen,” “Batman: Hush,” and “DCeased.”

One of the biggest advantages of the DC Compact Comics line is the format itself. These editions are smaller and more affordable than standard trade paperbacks, making them ideal for commuters, holidays, or anyone trying to save shelf space.

Whether you’re catching up on iconic Batman stories or diving into acclaimed Superman runs ahead of the next wave of DC movies, there’s plenty worth adding to your basket here.

Unlike many Prime Day offers, this early promotion isn’t exclusive to Prime members either, meaning anyone can take advantage of the deal before the main event begins next week.

These promotions are generally the best time to buy books, especially since other popular series are also include in the sale, such as Dungeon Crawler Carl, and Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn.

If you just want to read books and comics as cheaply as possible, I’d also recommend utilizing a Kindle Unlimited subscription as well. Amazon is currently offering three months of the service for free to Prime members, but for new subscribers only.

If audiobooks are more your thing, I’ve also got you covered. There’s an Audible promo that’s worth checking out going into Prime Day. New subscribers can get the Audible Standard plan for only $0.99/month for the first three months, which includes one book per month.

For DC fans, I’d recommend checking out the audio versions of “All Star Superman”, “Kingdom Come” – both of which are excellent adaptations.

How to Follow IGN Deals Recommendations

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George Lucas wanted to chronicle the rise of Emperor Palpatine “like Hitler’s” as part of a scrapped Star Wars TV show.

Palpatine actor Ian McDiarmid has now discussed plans for the cancelled series, which he was told of directly by Lucas. The Star Wars creator pitched him the idea of featuring in the project — although, of course, it ultimately never made it into production.

“[George Lucas] was talking about, I think I can tell you now, a television series,” Ian McDiarmid told an audience at Spacecon 2026 (thanks, Popverse). At the time we didn’t think about Star Wars in terms of television series. Very speculative.

Ranking the Star Wars Movies From Worst to Best

“We had lunch one day, and he said ‘I’ve got this idea, and I hope you might want to be involved. We could sort of follow the Emperor’s progress, like Hitler’s, some of that. There might be an assassination attempt, and of course it wouldn’t succeed.’

“It sounded really exciting,” McDiarmid concluded. “And he also said that maybe you could direct one, and then I fainted. But sadly, that didn’t come to pass.”

While McDiarmid didn’t mention the planned series by name, it sounds a lot like this plan referred to Lucas’ long-gestating Star Wars Underworld project, which would have bridged the gap between Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope with at least 60 episodes of television. Lucas worked on the idea for years before ultimately selling the franchise’s rights to Disney, writing numerous scripts in the process that have never seen the light of day. Our only real glimpse at the show remains a brief leak of test footage for the series, which showed a gritty version of galactic captial city planet Coruscant.

Last year, Star Wars prequels producer Rick McCallum described the project’s loss as “one of the great disappointments of our lives,” though suggested it had always been doomed to failure by Lucas’ ambition, with individual episodes bigger in scope than Star Wars movies — something that would have seen costs spiralling to at least $40 million per episode using the technology available at the time.

Of course, Star Wars’ Disney-owned era has seen the saga spawn numerous new TV series, though spending has now been significantly curtailed following big budget flops such as The Acolyte and The Book of Boba Fett. Just one Star Wars series currently remains in production: the second and likely final season of Ahsoka, which is due to premiere next year.

On the movie front, The Mandalorian and Grogu has struggled at the box office, but Lucasfilm reportedly thinks next year’s Star Wars: Starfighter has a better chance of reviving the franchise.

Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images.

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

Granblue Fantasy: Relink introduced a brand new audience to the floating islands of Zegagrande and the adventuring Skyfarers of the Granblue Fantasy series back when it launched in 2024. Marking the first console RPG adventure for the primarily mobile gacha series, Relink let players pull off dazzling arrays of anime spectacle as they worked together either with their CPU-controlled party or with their friends to tackle quests and monsters. Now, we are mere weeks away from diving into the massive new expansion, Endless Ragnarok, and during SGF we had a chance to sit down and speak with the creative director, Tetsuya Fukuhara, and narrative director, Sanshiro Hidaka, but also get some hands-on time with the new expansion.

Some of the most jaw-dropping moments of Relink were when Granblu’s heroine, Lyria, would summon her big ol’ lizard pal, Bahamut, to let him do what dragons do best – rain fire/laser breath down on chumps. Lyria’s ability to summon Bahamut is a pretty big deal in the lore of the series, so it always bummed me out a bit that these moments were exceptionally rare in Relink. Serving more like set pieces than an actual system, imagine my surprise and delight when I saw that Summons was going to be a fleshed-out and powerful new mechanic in Endless Ragnarok.

Restricted to the expansion content and new chaos difficulty, these powerful allies are tied to a new bar that will fill as you fight. Depending on the strength of the summon, each will require one, two, or three bars of this new resource to call out onto the field. Instead of a lifebar, they have a timer and will stay out until that runs out. This fact makes summons not only a great offensive option but also a perfect option to absorb those particularly nasty Overdrive attacks that bosses in Relink like to bust out, since summons are invincible.

Multiplayer is a big part of Granblue Fantasy: Relink, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that summons can be used when you play with your friends too, and aren’t just a single-player-only treat.“

Multiplayer is a big part of Granblue Fantasy: Relink, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that summons can be used when you play with your friends too, and aren’t just a single-player-only treat. When playing online, each player comes with their own set of four summons, but only a single summon can be fielded at any given time. That said, while you and your friends may not all be able to terrorize the field as giant creatures of destruction, you will be able to string a chain of summons together. Each subsequent summon one of your party members calls forth will have its cost reduced by one, down to a minimum of one. This will incentivize players to bring out cheaper single or double cost summons first so the most powerful options can be brought out for cheap!

Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok | June 2026 Screenshots

On how summons came to be, Fukuhara-san shared that the system was a rather late addition in the expansion’s development and he wasn’t sure how the team would respond to the idea. “So, from the beginning, there was the wish to have everyone you meet as an option, but he was expecting that there would be pushback and that along with the staff would say, ‘Oh, we can only do half, we won’t be able to meet deadlines’, but instead the response was the vision as intended. So, it did require a lot of elbow grease, but everyone was having a lot of fun while they were doing it.”

Some summons have already been revealed in earlier trailers with Relink bosses, including Furycane and Nazarbonju, but the full number reaches past 100, with a mix of both imposing beasts, citizens, and some silly ones too. When asked for each of their favorite summons, both Fukuhara-san and Hidaka-san’s picks fell on that lighter side: “There’s like a crab rain summon where you just rain crabs on the field. And depending on how many of the Wee Snippers you have collected, the amount of crabs that rain down will actually increase,” Fukuhara-san tells us. Hidaka-san continues: “I really like the cat summon, where if you do it well, a lot of cats come out, and the more cats you have, the more power you have, much like in real life,” he laughs.

If the summons aren’t selling Endless Ragnarok for you, the expansion offers far more than just that. Alongside a new story and quests to uncover, players can test their mettle with the new Chaos difficulty, experiment with the Master Traits for improved character specialization and customization, or dive into Conflux, an intriguing roguelike mode. Crossplay support and various quality-of-life improvements and UI updates fill out the rest of the package, costing existing Relink players $29.99. Even with the small glimpse we’ve had, Endless Ragnarok looks to be packed surprisingly full for an expansion.

I can’t think of a single game that hasn’t been made better by the ability to summon giant creatures to fight for you, and it looks like Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok continues to prove that theory. Thankfully, veteran and prospective Skyfarers won’t have long to wait as Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok launches on July 9 and comes either as an upgrade for owners of the base game or together with it for $59.99 on PlayStation 4/5, Steam, and now Nintendo Switch 2.

Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.

Ecoflow, via its offical storefront on eBay, is offering a great deal on one of its most popular portable power stations. For a limited time, you can pick up a factory refurbished Ecoflow River 2 256Wh 300W LiFePO4 Power Station for just $99 shipped after you apply coupon code “EFSUMMER20“. This same power bank costs $189 new on Amazon. The River 2 is very compact for a power station, it’s equipped with safe and reliable LiFEPO4 batteries, and it can be monitored remotely.

Get an Ecoflow River 2 Power Station for Under $100

Ecoflow River 2 256Wh 300W LiFePO4 Power Station

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The Ecoflow River 2 is a 256Wh power station can be used as a small in-home portable backup during outages or a source of off-grid power to power your mobile electronics during your outdoor adventures It has two AC outlets capable of 300W each (600W surge), two USB Type-A ports, and one USB Type-C port. The River 2 can be recharged using traditional AC and it will only take about one hour. Alternatively, you can recharge it using solar panels with a 110W max input.

The 256Whr battery isn’t big enough to replace a generator, but it can still power mobile elecronics (including your laptop) for several hours to days. The River 2 uses the newer LiFePO4 cells instead of the traditional NCM sells you find in the original River. LiFePO4 cells have inherently safer chemistry and have a much higher cycle lifespan than NCM cells. They also have lower calendar aging. The River 2 also weighs only 7 pounds so you won’t think twice about lugging it out.

Although the River 2 isn’t intended to act as a UPS for your electronics, it does have an EPS function that will automatically swap to battery power when there is a power outage. The shutoff delay is less than 30ms, which is small enough for even sensitive electronics like PCs to remain on the entire time. However you will have to manually switch it back to AC power when the power returns. A dedicated UPS with a replaceable battery is better, but the River 2 will work in a pinch.

The River 2 also features smart functionality with wireless connectivity. You can connect your phone to the power station via a mobile app, which will allow you to check on its status, download updates, and even power on or off outlets remotely. Ecoflow generally has good product support and consistently rolls out new firmware and software updates.

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