Polygon

The first time anyone jumps into Mario Kart 8’s 200cc mode can be a shock. The engine class is meant to be the hardest challenge in the game, but even so, racing in 200cc can sometimes feel egregiously punishing. There’s a reason for that: Apparently, the number does not accurately represent the jump in speed that Mario Kart 8 really throws at you.

As highlighted by the ever-great Supper Mario Broth, players have crunched the numbers behind all the engine classes only to find that 200cc is a misnomer. If 200cc feels way faster than, say, 150cc, you aren’t imagining it. 200cc is apparently 38% faster than it should be, at least compared to the speed ratio established by slower modes. Here are a couple of graphs breaking it all down. The kicker? What’s called 200cc is really 415cc, relatively speaking.

If you have ever felt that 200cc in Mario Kart 8/Deluxe is much faster than it should be, your suspicions are correct. Based on the formula followed by the other engine classes, the speed the game pretends is 200cc is actually 415cc instead. pic.twitter.com/mHnEVoQy9M

— Supper Mario Broth (@MarioBrothBlog) May 23, 2025

What makes this so funny, though, is that players have intuited that something was off since the release of the original Mario Kart 8 for Wii U, in 2014. For a decade now, the internet has been full of discussions where fans call 200cc “ridiculous” and “too fast,” only to be met with responses telling them to get good at the game. Some people might commiserate, but it’s also typical to see dismissive replies that tell complainers “you need to get used to it.”

Left with no other choice but to endure it, players will also typically share strategies for surviving 200cc. The most common suggestion? Learn to love braking, maybe even learn how to “brake drift,” which refers to the practice of slowing down slightly before boosting yourself. This way, players can manage corners more easily than they might at full speed. Fans also encourage one another to pick up lighter characters, which handle with more ease.

So far, it’s unclear if follow-up Mario Kart World will include 200cc, or whether or not the mode will accurately represent the speed that the game is supposed to run at. For now, players are mostly celebrating that the woes of Mario Kart 8’s 200cc wasn’t just in their heads.

“This is very vindicating,” reads the top reply to Supper Mario Broth’s X post. “Aaaaaah I knew it!!!” another exclaims.

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Fortnite players know that lobbies aren’t entirely human. Some enemies have such stilted movement or perish in such deeply silly ways that the only logical conclusion is that you’re fighting a bot. The extent of Fortnite’s bot usage is difficult to discern in the middle of a match, however, which is where data miners come in. AllyJax, a Fortnite leaker with an accurate track record, periodically tests the number of bots generated by a match. And as of late May, anyone playing the OG version of Fortnite might find themselves barely surrounded by real players at all.

According to AllyJax, the minimum number of human players OG Fortnite needs before starting a match is just eight. That means there’s a chance you could be in a lobby that has 92 AIs fighting for a chance at a victory royale. This doesn’t necessarily mean every match will be an army of bots, but it does mean that you cannot trust that every single character you kill in Fortnite’s nostalgia mode has another person on the other side of the interaction.

To determine the number of bots, AllyJax uses a Discord bot know as The Dub, which, among other things, can be commanded to count the number of real players in any given lobby. Bots are largely identifiable by names retained across different matches.

It’s also worth noting that Epic Games appears to adjust bot numbers all the time. Previously, AllyJax found that OG matches could be 25% bots one month and 40% bots the next month. Epic has also reverted course in the past and decreased the number of bots that a lobby might generate. The bot-heavy lobbies are also only present in social play, not ranked modes.

Epic Games did not respond to a request for comment. With that said, games like Fortnite rely on bots for a variety of reasons, like ensuring short wait times. As of this writing, the older-season-replicating OG playlist is the fifth most popular Fortnite mode, which means that its player count is a fraction of what you might find in the main battle royale modes.

Fortnite also eases new players into its gameplay by introducing them to bot-heavy lobbies at first, after which the game uses skill-based matchmaking to determine the prevalence of AI in any given match. At times, players might intentionally go on a losing streak to force Fortnite to generate a bot lobby.

In short, Fortnite might thrust a player into a bot lobby for their enjoyment: It’s hard to have fun if all you do is lose. But does a victory royale feel as sweet if you know that you didn’t make a real person suffer for it? Much to think about.

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Elden Ring Nightreign is designed around three-player squads, but solo play is possible. (Whether it’s enjoyable going solo remains to be seen.) But support for duos isn’t part of the plan and won’t be available when the game launches next week. But FromSoftware might reverse that decision; Elden Ring Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki tells IGN that the studio is considering adding two-player support after launch.

Ishizaki says that a two-player option was “overlooked during development,” and apologized to players who can’t (or don’t want to) get a trio together.

“As we said before, we set out to make this a multiplayer co-op game for three players, balanced for three players, so that was the main focus and it’s at the core of Nightreign,” Ishizaki says. “Of course, I myself as a player understand that and often want times where I’m just playing myself, so this is something that we considered from the start. And so we did put a lot of effort into creating this experience that was playable for solo players in as much as the rules and new systems allowed. So in putting all our efforts into that aspect, we kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect, but this is something that we are looking at and considering for post-launch support as well.”

Ishizaki had previously chalked the lack of a two-player mode up to “a game balancing decision, rather than a game design decision.”

FromSoftware often tweaks its games’ difficulty in post-launch updates, so scaling the game to adapt to two- and three-player teams will likely roll out over time. So if you’re dying to play with a friend or loved one, and not bring a third wheel into your squad, watch this space.

Elden Ring Nightreign launches May 30 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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Monoco is the de facto support unit in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. He is arguably the most versatile playable character in the game — thanks to the sheer breadth of his moveset — but he shines among the other damage-focused characters.

Monoco is meant to set up advantageous scenarios for two other DPS party members to capitalize on. Monoco can fill up the enemy’s Break bar or even help take care of shields. He’s also able to match damage ,should the need arise, as he’s like Lune — a character who works just as well in a support role as a DPS role.

If you’re interested in the best for your gestral buddy, this Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 guide will break down the best Monoco build, including his best weapons, attributes, and skills to prioritize.

Best Monoco build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Monoco can act as a DPS unit, but his skills are better-used in a support role. Unlike Lune — who can definitely go toe-to-toe with the other damage-focused units — Monoco can’t quite compete at that high of a level, which is fine; he isn’t designed to. A team with Monoco on support is different from a team with Lune on support, as it is still offense-focused.

The best Monoco build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is:

Attributes: Agility and DefenseWeapon: JoyaroSkills: Potier Energy, Benisseur Mortar, Chevaliere Piercing, Stalact Punches, Sakapatate Explosion, and Portier CrashPictos: Immaculate, Energising Parry, and Empowering Parry

Monoco joins your party in Act 2, and as soon as you can allocate his attributes, you want to fully invest in Agility. His best weapon in Act 2, the Nusaro, scales very well with Agility, and you can increase your attack, speed, and defense all at once. Extra points should go to Vitality for survivability.

In Act 3, Agility is still the best attribute to prioritize because Monoco’s overall best weapon, the Joyaro, also scales well with Agility. Leftover points should go into Defense because it scales well with the weapon, and Agility and Defense are great stats, no matter how you decide to use Monoco.

Best attributes for Monoco

Your attribute spread for Monoco will look pretty similar across Acts 2 and 3, with one key difference.

In Act 2, prioritize Agility.You’ll want him to attack early, if not first, and be able to survive long enough to support your team with damage or utility.

In Act 3, completely max out Agility as it is still his best attribute. Defense comes into play in Act 3 with the Joyaro weapon, as Agility and Defense are both used for scaling. On top of that, Agility and Defense are the support attributes and are necessary for any support unit.

Best weapon for Monoco

The best weapon for Monoco is the Joyaro.

This weapon is missable, but luckily, you can receive it from two locations. You can defeat the Lampmaster in Flying Manor (not to be confused with the Lampmaster boss at the end of Act 1) or you can get it from the Ultimate Sakapatate in Endless Night Sanctuary.

The weapon scales well with Agility and Defense, Monoco’s best attributes, and has good passive abilities. Joyaro allows Monoco to start the battle in his Almighty Mask form, allowing for an enhanced version of whatever skill you decides to use on turn one.

However, since you must beat endgame super bosses to receive it, you’ll probably hang on to the Nusaro until then. The Nusaro has similar benefits as the Joyaro instead, it rewards you for parrying and allows you to access enhanced versions of your skills as well.

Best Pictos and Luminas for Monoco

The best Pictos for Monoco are those that provide a decent mix of health and offensive stats and something to offset his primary weakness — the high AP cost of his skills. To that end, the best Pictos for Monoco are Immaculate, Energising Parry, and Empowering Parry. Below are the detailed descriptions of what these Pictos do and the stats they grant bonuses to.

Immaculate — Speed and Crit Rate. 30% increased damage until a hit is received.Energising Parry — Health. +1 AP on successful Parry.Empowering Parry — Speed and Crit Rate. Each successful Parry increases damage by 5% until end of the following turn. Taking any damage removes this buff.

While these Pictos cover Monoco’s weaknesses, they do require a level combat prowess to really work. Full stop: If you want to use Monoco to his fullest in your team, your parries must be on point. As for Monoco’s Luminas, you want ones that grant more AP, parry effects, Break, or a damage boost.

We recommend using the following Luminas, depending on how many Lumina Points you have.

Dead Energy IIEnergising Start IIRewarding MarkMarking ShotsAuto RushBreaking CounterBreakerFull StrengthInverted AffinityAugmented First StrikeAugmented Counter IISweet KillPainted PowerExposing AttackLonger PowerfulSOS PowerGlass CanonTeamworkTaintedWarming Up

Best skills for Monoco

The best skills for Monoco are the following:

Potier Energy: Gives 1-3 AP to all allies. Caster Mask: Gives 1 additional AP.Benisseur Mortar: Deals medium single target Ice damage. 3 hits. Change to Almighty Mask if target is Marked. Caster Mask: Increased damage.Chevaliere Piercing: Deals single target Physical damage through Shields. 6 hits. Damage increased for each Shield on the target. Agile Mask: Increased damage.Stalact Punches: Deals medium single target Ice damage. 4 hits. High Break damage. Heavy Mask: Increased damage.Sakapatate Explosion: Deals medium Lightning damage to random enemies. 3 hits. Critical hits trigger an additional hit. Caster Mask: Increased damage.Portier Crash: Deals high Physical damage to all enemies. 1 hit. Can Break. Heavy Mask: Increased damage.

Unlocking Monoco’s best skills takes a bit more effort than it does for characters, since you must find and defeat requisite enemies with Monoco in your party to unlock those skills. For a while, you’ll need to play with a lower-powered Monoco before you’re able to unlock his full potential (though you’ll get there in time, don’t worry).

Potier Energy is your best support skill, while your other skills are for filling in any gaps in your offense. Monoco is perfect in the first position of your team setup as he’s able to dictate the pace of the match, either with a strong damaging start or by granting AP to your main damage deal — whether Maelle, Lune, or Sciel — so they can set up their one-shots.

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Howard Shore won multiple Oscars, Grammys, and Golden Globe awards for his score for the Lord of the Rings series. Performed originally by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with choral contributions from the London Voices and London Oratory School Schola, the score has become a favorite for film screenings with live accompaniment. Now you can get a vinyl version of the soundtrack to set the stage for your next Dungeons & Dragons game — or the epic task of cleaning your apartment.

Available exclusively on Rhino.com, the $149.98 box set includes six LPs on 180-gram black vinyl, two for each of Peter Jackson’s films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy. Along with the iconic instrumental music, the tracklist includes Enya’s “May It Be” and “Aníron (Theme For Aragorn And Arwen)” and Annie Lennox’s Academy Award-winning song “Into the West,” which closes out The Return of the King. The box features sepia-toned art, with a great image of Treebeard carrying Merry and Pippin, plus a booklet filled with stills from the film.

Only 2,000 copies of the set are available worldwide, so if this soundtrack is precious to you, be sure to order it quickly.

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Pull out the tuxedo and order a martini — shaken, not stirred — because Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater’s James Bond-esque opening has finally been revealed, and it’s different. Konami rolled out the 3-minute clip on YouTube, showing off new footage and audio from the forthcoming espionage game that reimagines Metal Gear Solid 3’s cinematic introduction.

Some key visual differences include the skeletal snakes from the original opening being more prominent in the remake. Additional shots of Snake being badass are scattered through the remade sequence, alongside shots from the original, now realized in incredible detail.

While Colonel Volgin is solely shown in the OG version, the new iteration includes even more key characters from the Cobra Unit, like The End (with his enormous eye), The Pain, and The Fear, with subtle redesigns that honor the original game’s vision. For good measure, Konami also throws in a shot of the dramatic showdown between Snake and The Boss.

The clip features new vocals from the great Cynthia Harrell, giving a softer performance compared to her original 2004 “Snake Eater” recording. Harrell’s ballad features noticeably less bass and fewer horn instruments than the 2004 edition, and leans heavier into psychedelic ambiance, emphasizing Harrell singing, “I’m still in a dream.”

Regardless of the changes, the sentiments from the original song — “concepts of why we have to live and why we have to go on,” as the song’s composer Norihiko Hibino told Polygon — remain intact.

At this point, you’re probably wondering whether or not players can still control the on-screen snakes like it’s 2004. Well, the short answer is yes.

According to the YouTube video’s description, players can engage with “interactive elements from the original, included in the in-game version of the opening.” And if Konami is honoring the snake mini-game, there’s a chance players can expect to hear a version of the song when you’re back climbing that unrealistically long ladder towards the end of the game — for James Bond dramatics, of course.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater will be released on Aug. 28 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC.

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Throughout Guy Ritchie’s Indiana Jones knockoff movie Fountain of Youth, characters repeatedly argue that the joy of adventure is more valuable than whatever prize they’re seeking. The “journey over destination” ethos isn’t a bad one if it offers surprises and opportunities for growth along the way, but this movie just aimlessly wanders toward a dull, predictable ending.

Fountain of Youth actually starts off strong, with adventurer and art thief Luke Purdue (The Office star and A Quiet Place mastermind John Krasinski) in a zany Ong-Bak-style chase through the streets of Bangkok. As he tries to escape a gang he stole a painting from, he winds up driving a motorcycle through a market and stealing a food truck.That’s quickly followed by an equally frenetic close-quarters fight scene in the dining car of a train that involves clever use of a ladle to buy time.Krasinski’s extensive experience at playing snarky and smug fits very well with Ritchie’s love of fast-talking protagonists, seen from his earliest movies — Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels — to his spin on Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. Krasinski feels especially at home in Ritchie’s wheelhouse during the early scenes, where he explains the meaning of “ambiguous” while surrounded by angry gangsters, or engages in some flirtatious sparring with Esme (Ash and 3 Body Problem star Eiza González), the leader of a mysterious group that’s chasing the same clues about the Fountain’s location that he’s also gathering.

The fun quickly dries up, as the action gives way to a slew of dull exposition and bland characters. Hired to find the Fountain of Youth by billionaire Owen Carver (Ex Machina’s Domhnall Gleeson), Luke seeks the help of his estranged sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman), trying to rekindle her love of the globe-trotting adventures the family shared before their father died. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 2018’s Tomb Raider,and The Venture Bros.all did a far better job at exploring the challenges of bringing your family along to pursue ancient, maybe-magical relics than this script. Zodiac and The Amazing Spider-Man screenwriter James Vanderbilt doesn’t show an ounce of sympathy for Charlotte’s decision to settle down to raise a kid and become a museum curator, siding entirely with Luke’s assessment that he is cool and right about everything, and his sister is boring and wasting her life.While Krasinski has great chemistry with González, Luke’s sibling banter with Charlotte falls entirely flat. Vanderbilt doesn’t even try to come up with credible reasons for Charlotte to join the quest, instead repeatedly using Gilligan Cuts to just show that she’s still at Luke’s side on the next phase of the journey. Charlotte’s young son Thomas (The Devil’s Hour’s Benjamin Chivers) tags along mostly to reiterate how lame his mom is, but at least gets a surprisingly compelling scene grilling Owen about his wealth and motivations. Charlotte occasionally hints that she knew things about their dad that Luke didn’t, particularly in relation to a golden mask that haunts Luke’s dreams. But there’s no real payoff to that plot, or explanation of what their adventures meant to her.

That backstory could have been fleshed out a bit by the members of her dad’s old crew, who Luke teams up with — inexplicably, they’re just a few years older than the Purdue siblings, rather than from their father’s generation. But Patrick Murphy (Laz Alonso) and Deb McCall (Carmen Ejogo) just feel like a hollow attempt to replicate Ethan Hunt’s support team in the Mission: Impossible movies, providing functional help without any real motivations or personalities of their own.

Instead, the script just delivers exposition dumps straight out of a Dan Brown story, about an alliance of famous artists hiding clues to the Fountain of Youth’s location in their masterpieces, and a secret society sworn to make sure its power remains hidden. Because Ritchie loves fight scenes with as many factions trying to kill each other as possible, Luke’s team is also pursued by multiple other groups who are upset about everything his team stole to solve the puzzle.

Some fun sequences make clever use of the environment, like a playful skirmish between Luke and Esme in the Austrian National Library. But a mission to find a clue on the back of the Rembrandt painting the businessman Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Sr. — the screenwriter’s great-grandfather — brought on the Lusitania and conveniently stored in a waterproof safe is highly self-indulgent, and just another example of Charlotte being a useless buzzkill. Rather than feeling stylish or clever, signature Ritchie touches like a slow-motion fight scene and a flashback explaining part of the climax only add to the film’s clunkiness. He could have easily cut 30 minutes of repetitive foreshadowing and building suspense for an ending that turns out to be blatantly stolen from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.If Fountain of Youth kept up the simple fun of its first few scenes, it could have been a solid tribute to the adventure genre. But Vanderbilt and Ritchie’s attempt to find some profound meaning in the search for lost treasure never really works, because their characters are too thin to make their emotional catharsis meaningful. There is nothing at the end of this journey worth the time spent getting there.

Fountain of Youth releases on Apple TV Plus on May 23.

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A rumored Elden Ring movie became a little more of a reality on Thursday night when Bandai Namco announced that Alex Garland (Civil War, Ex Machina) was set to direct a film adaptation of the FromSoftware action role-playing-game for indie-studio darling A24. George R.R. Martin, who provided game director Hidetaka Miyazaki with a murky amount of mythological foundation for the original game, will serve as a producer on the film.

Garland might look like an odd choice for Elden Ring based on his filmography; the writer-director has never made a fantasy epic, nor has he orchestrated the kind of medieval combat that would make him an obvious choice to bring Miyazaki’s tough-as-hell boss fights to live action. But Garland’s “gamer cred” is indisputable and an understanding of play is core to much of his work. Hot take time: I’d say his 2012 film Dredd is the greatest video game movie that isn’t actually based on a video game ever made.

Starting out as a novelist before pivoting to screenwriting and directing, Garland has made his gaming inspirations known throughout his career. He has said that his time outrunning zombie dogs in Resident Evil was the direct inspiration for the fast zombies in 28 Days Later, which he wrote for director Danny Boyle. When he and Boyle teamed up to adapt Garland’s own novel, The Beach, the collaboration resulted in the closest thing we will ever get to Leonardo DiCaprio’s Banjo-Kazooie movie.

In 2005, riding high off 28 Days Later’s success, Garland was tasked by Microsoft with adapting Halo into a feature film — a project that stalled out and sat on a shelf for so long that streaming television was invented and Halo became a decent Paramount Plus show instead. He also went on to collaborate on actual video games: He worked with Ninja Theory and Bandai Namco on 2010’s Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and he served as a story supervisor on 2013’s DmC: Devil May Cry. At some point around that time, he played and fell hard for The Last of Us. (In fact, Garland thinks TLOU is better than 28 Days Later, but hey, none of us are right about everything.)

Garland’s gaming tastes are all over the map — in 2020 he aggressively kept up an Animal Crossing island like the rest of us — but his visible influences veer toward the AAA action experience. His adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation has the pace and encounters of an open-world game. His FX show Devs seems right up the alley of anyone looking for Deus Ex or Control vibes. Both Civil War and his 2025 film Warfare bring audiences closer to the kind of tactical military action that we rarely see in movies, but that is all over multiplayer shooters. But for my money, his off-the-leash translation of video game aesthetics and experience in cinematic form happened with Dredd.

Written and produced by Garland and technically directed by Pete Travis (Vantage Point), Dredd drops the classic 2000 AD comic antihero, played by The Boys’ Karl Urban, into a The Raid-esque action scenario: To stop a violent drug lord (Lena Heady), the Judge must blast his way through 200 stories of a highly barricaded Mega-City One high-rise. Between the slo-mo effects induced by the illicit drug (appropriately named “Slo-Mo”) and the psychic abilities of Dredd’s sidekick Cassandra, Dredd is a dizzying array of action beats that plunges viewers into a bullet hell without resorting to any gimmicky first-person shooting.

By all accounts, the making of Dredd was a fraught experience for all involved, with the studio losing enough faith in Travis that Garland remained on set for the entire shoot and supervised the edit. Urban even claims Garland “actually directed the movie.” When you see it, that makes sense — even the Slo-Mo effects feel specifically like a bullet-time mechanic rather than a complete acid trip.

Will Garland make a great Elden Ring movie? What does that even look like? The good news is he’s probably been thinking about it for years, as a fan of FromSoft games. In interviews over the years, the filmmaker has cited Dark Souls as a particular favorite franchise, and even offered an explanation for why an adaptation would be such a challenge.

“The Dark Souls games seem to have this embedded poetry in them,” Garland told Gamespot in 2020. “You’ll be wandering around and find some weird bit of dialogue with some sort of broken song with a bit of armor outside a doorway and it feels like you’ve drifted into some existential dream. That’s what I really love about Dark Souls. These spaces are so imaginative and they seem to flow into each other and flow out of each other. It’s very dreamlike […] I can’t imagine how that would [be adapted]. The quality that makes Dark Souls special is probably unique to video games.”

The joy Garland finds in Dark Souls games isn’t far off from what Elden Ring offers him as a director — in the end, a successful adaptation will ride on mood and pace and some wicked fights. That’s what Dredd nails, even without a game as actual source material. Dredd broods without relying on too much exposition. Cassandra’s ethereal psychic powers thread a bit of innocence and whimsy into a heavy-metal dystopia. The action is brutal to the point that it often feels like a horror movie (a style Garland pushed to even more gut-wrenching, realistic extremes in Warfare).

“Elden Ring from the guy who brought us Dredd” makes a lot of sense. Now to find an actor with eight arms…

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On May 25, the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards will present Attack on Titan with its inaugural Global Impact Award, celebrating anime that redefines pop culture and makes a lasting mark worldwide. After the negative reactions certain fans had toward the manga after its 2021 ending, and the way that response soured online conversation about the anime adaptation, it’s vindicating to see a formal recognition for the series, and the impact it left on the world.

Attack on Titan’s evolution from a story about giant people eating normal-sized people to a profound reflection on humanity’s endless cycle of destruction is truly remarkable. It’s obvious that creator Hajime Isayama carefully planned the series’ progression, from its intimate beginnings to its expanding scope: The manga and the anime adaptation were carefully planned and skillfully executed, with each arc seamlessly building on the last. It’s also clear that Isayama understood the need to initially frame the story as a typical shonen adventure to draw audiences into a much deeper narrative about humanity’s cyclical nature.

Following the release of each manga chapter had a profound impact on me. Attack on Titan’s lessons about human nature, its hope for a better tomorrow, and the message that everyone is the hero of their own story resonated with me, especially amid the COVID-19 outbreak and George Floyd protests. So it was disheartening to see newer fans who discovered it during lockdown distort the story into their own male power fantasy.

[Ed. note: Broad spoilers ahead for a key arc in Attack on Titan.]

Many “we live in a society” types gravitated toward protagonist Eren Yeager as a symbol of anarchy, burning the world down because it’s broken. Isayama aimed for a far more nuanced moral. While the series covers many themes, it ultimately centers on an idea voiced by Artur Braus, father of Eren’s murdered friend Sasha. Artur talks about getting the children, the next generation, out of the proverbial forest, lest society keep circling the same traumas: “That’s why it is the burden of us adults to shoulder the sins and hatred of the past.”

Eren is a tragic product of his circumstances; by the end of the series, his genocidal actions can’t be justified, but they are understandable. Eren’s desire for freedom is so consuming that he becomes enslaved by it. Having grown up under oppression, he imposes that same oppression on the world, blind to the irony of his actions until it’s far too late.

Unfortunately, many fans missed this nuance and revolted over the series’ ending, glorifying Eren’s destructive choices as justified or heroic. Many felt betrayed when he didn’t become the avenging figure they envisioned, and when he died without getting a happy ending. Much like Joker: Folie à Deux, the narrative strips the character to his core, showing that no matter what he’s done or endured, he’s ultimately always been a victim with no freedom of his own.

Isayama reportedly received death threats from fans who were upset with the series’ ending. His editor was harassed for supposedly forcing him to rewrite the final chapter. A coordinated review-bombing campaign was launched to tank the anime series’ ratings. Petitions to have Isayama rewrite the ending grew so large that a Kickstarter-funded fan project depicting a new ending came together.

On November 19, 2022, Hajime Isayama made his first-ever U.S. appearance at Anime NYC, opening up about the series that defined his career. Reflecting on Attack on Titan’s polarizing ending, he admitted through a translator, “I still have doubts within myself. Did I land it? I’m not even so sure, and I still struggle with this point. I’m very sorry about that.” The room responded with a wave of sympathy, culminating in a standing ovation — including from me, watching in person.

As I left the panel, one thought stayed with me: I could never forgive the toxic elements of Attack on Titan’s fanbase for how they made Isayama feel. Their backlash wasn’t about a flawed finale or a story that missed its mark; it was about viewers misinterpreting the work and using their anger to justify horrible behavior. To me, the series’ ending wasn’t about Eren and the Eldians achieving revenge for generations of oppression — it was a reflection on the fleeting nature of peace and the inevitability of human conflict. Its messages apply cleanly to the real world: Even in a world constantly on the brink of war, there are moments, found in life and the people we hold close, that make existence beautiful even when it’s terrifying.

It’s perfectly valid to interpret art in different ways, but undermining the legacy Attack on Titan built over a decade can’t be justified, especially considering its pivotal role in shaping the Western anime market. That’s why seeing the industry finally recognize Isayama and the team behind the anime, now that the dust has settled, feels deeply earned. It also serves as vindication for the fans whose lives and perspectives were genuinely affected by the series. Like Neon Genesis Evangelion before it, Attack on Titan defines a generation, and its story and cultural impact far outweigh the noise of a few discontented voices.

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With the release of Elden Ring spinoff Nightreign imminent and the announcement of an official film adaptation from Alex Garland (Civil War) and A24, it’s time to return to the Lands Between. But if you’ve bashed your head against some of the new areas’ hardest bosses too many times to count and need a bit of a break, why not check out a movie with similar vibes to the game?

Here are 15 movies that capture the vibe of FromSoftware’s masterpiece, and can keep you in the Elden Ring spirit while you recharge for your next run at the game’s toughest challenges.

A Writer’s Odyssey

What it is: A new Chinese fantasy action-adventure about a writer whose fantasy novel seems to be having a mysterious impact on the real world, and the man who has been sent to kill him.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: The monster design and fight sequences feel straight out of a Fromsoft game, from towering four-armed giants to one-eyed sentient skeletal armor.

Where to watch it: Streaming oniQiyi, free with ads on FreeVee, Roku, and Tubi, or available to rent on Google Play and Amazon.

Brotherhood of the Wolf

What it is: Two men (Samuel Le Bihan and Mark Dacascos) are sent to deal with a monster that’s killed dozens of people and generally been terrorizing the French countryside. Once they start investigating, they find that the metal-toothed monster is just the beginning of a far deeper conspiracy.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: Aside from the fact that everyone in this movie looks like Bloodborne characters (complimentary), the fact that it’s about a chase for a mythical monster that’s been wreaking havoc certainly makes it feel like a side story from the Lands Between.

Where to watch it: Streaming on AMC Plus and Shudder, free with ads on Pluto TV and Tubi, or available to rent on Amazon.

Conan the Barbarian

What the 1982 version is: The first film adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s pulp magazine hero, this was a breakthrough role in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s acting career. (A more recent — and less-praised — adaptation of Conan, this time with Jason Momoa in the lead role, arrived in 2011 if you need something more contemporary.)

Why it’s like Elden Ring: As our colleague Patrick Gill put it: “Conan gets chased by dogs into a cave where he finds a giant’s skeleton on a throne, and then takes the skeleton’s sword.” If that’s not Elden Ring, what is?

Where to watch it: Streaming on Netflix, available to rent for $3.99 on Google Play, Apple, Amazon, and other VOD platforms. You can stream the 2011 version on Peacock, and rent for $3.99 on Google Play, Apple, Amazon, and other VOD platforms.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

What it is: Guy Ritchie’s frantic, messy, and fun Arthurian adaptation stars Charlie Hunnam as a young Arthur finding his destiny and overthrowing the evil Vortigern (Jude Law).

Why it’s like Elden Ring: High fantasy swordplay with heavy CG fight sequences with strong video game vibes.

Where to watch it: For free with ads on Tubi, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

The Head Hunter

What it is: A short 2018 fantasy horror movie made on a microbudget, The Head Hunter follows a bounty hunter waiting for the creature who killed his daughter and has been compared to a live-action version of Skyrim.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: Maybe the closest in tone to the game, this is a beautiful, atmospheric horror fantasy.

Where to watch it: Available for free with a library card on Hoopla, for free with ads on Vudu, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon and Apple

Army of Darkness

What it is: The third movie in the original Evil Dead trilogy, Army of Darkness is much more comedic than the previous entries in the series, as Ash time travels back to the medieval ages with his chainsaw arm.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: Undead fantasy with unconventional weaponry and plenty of slapstick humor.

Where to watch it: Available for digital rental/purchase on Amazon and Apple TV

Highlander

What it is: Russell Mulcahy’s 1986 iconic action-adventure fantasy fever dream about immortal warriors stars Christopher Lambert, Clancy Brown, and Sean Connery, who plays an Egyptian immortal named Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: High fantasy with swordplay, a narrative that unwraps slowly, and a twisted, monstrous villain. This is basically the same as getting invaded by another player in Elden Ring.

Where to watch it: For free with ads on Crackle and Plex, for free with a library card on Hoopla, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon and Apple TV

Dragonslayer

What it is: A 1981 dark fantasy movie about a young wizard hunting a dragon, Dragonslayer received Oscar nominations for its visual effects (including a 40-foot hydraulic dragon made out of of 16 puppets) and original score.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: Great monster design, bleak atmosphere, incomprehensible dialogue, and some big lore implications that the film doesn’t need or care to explain. Also the dragon is named “Vermithrax Pejorative.”

Where to watch it: Available for free with a library card on Kanopy or Hoopla, for free with ads on Pluto TV, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon and Apple TV.

Rampant

What it is: An action-packed 2018 South Korean period piece set in the Joseon dynasty era … with zombies.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: Undead fantasy action intertwined with royal court drama.

Where to watch it: Streaming on Hi-Yah!, Peacock, available for free with ads on Tubi and Prime Video.

The Northman

What it is: A retelling of the story of Hamlet, returned to its native lands and given back the Viking-warrior flavor it originated from. The movie follows Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) on a bloody quest for revenge against his uncle for usurping his father’s throne and taking his mother as a wife.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: Amleth has to find a mythical sword protected by an ancient, extraordinarily scary guardian who he has to defeat by rolling. If that’s not Elden Ring, nothing is.

Where to watch it: Available to rent on Amazon

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

What it is: Netflix’s animated Witcher adventure, an origin story of Geralt’s mentor Vesemir.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: Animated dark fantasy with great action sequences and monster design.

Where to watch it: Streaming on Netflix.

Edge of Tomorrow

What it is: One of the best blockbusters of the 2010s, this adaptation of the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill stars Tom Cruise as a public relations officer who finds himself in a time loop trying to stop an alien invasion along with an experienced solider (Emily Blunt).

Why it’s like Elden Ring: The protagonist is constantly dying. Over and over and over again.

Where to watch it: Available to rent for $3.99 on Google Play, Apple, Amazon, and other VOD platforms.

Attack the Block

What it is: A cult hit from 2011, this sci-fi/horror/comedy is about a group of teens (including a young John Boyega) who are the only ones aware of an alien invasion in their London neighborhood.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: Behold, dogs!

Where to watch it: Available to rent for $3.99 on Google Play, Apple, Amazon, and other VOD platforms.

The Great Wall

What it is: Wuxia master Zhang Yimou’s very good 2016 monster movie stars Matt Damon as a European mercenary held as a prisoner at the Great Wall, before lending a helping hand to the defending forces when monsters attack.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: Did not expect dog.

Where to watch it: Netflix, or available to rent for $3.99 on Google Play, Apple, Amazon, and other VOD platforms.

The Witch

What it is: A supernatural period horror drama starring Anya Taylor-Joy as a young girl whose Puritan family is torn apart by the machinations of a mysterious evil lurking in the nearby forests of their farm.

Why it’s like Elden Ring: A child suffers the dire consequences of hugging a stranger.

Where to watch it: Streaming on Max, or for free with a library card on Kanopy.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

Marvel Studios has chosen to delay its next two high-stakes Avengers movies by seven months apiece. Avengers: Doomsday moves from May 1 to December 18, 2026, while Avengers: Secret Wars shifts from May 27, 2027 to December 17 of that year.

Insiders told Deadline that the delay is just to accommodate the “gargantuan vision” of two films that will be “among the biggest ever made.” (Or maybe Marvel is scared of GTA 6.) The films are being made back-to-back by directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who directed the two previous Avengers team-up movies and Marvel’s two highest-grossing films: 2018’s Infinity War and 2019’s Endgame. Avengers: Doomsday is in production now.

Marvel owner Disney won’t have any concerns about moving the Avengers movies from their traditional early summer slots to the holidays. Spider-Man: No Way Home launched in mid-December 2021 and was a massive success, becoming the third-highest-grossing Marvel film. (Avengers: Doomsday’s coveted May 1, 2026 slot will go to another big Disney movie, The Devil Wears Prada 2.)

Still, the move reflects a shift from quantity to quality at Marvel Studios, which Disney CEO Bob Iger said during an investor call had “lost a little focus by making too much.” After releasing only one film in 2024 (Deadpool & Wolverine), Marvel is putting out three in fairly quick success in 2025: Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and the forthcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps. But then there will be a break of a full year — long by Marvel standards — before Spider-Man: Brand New Day in July 2026, followed by another yearlong break between the two upcoming Avengers movies.

Underlining this point, Variety notes that Disney has removed or swapped out several slots for “untitled Marvel” projects in 2026 and 2027, though it has three slots in 2028 reserved for Marvel films. What these might be — indeed, what the future holds generally for the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Secret Wars — remains a mystery. The status of the Armor Wars movie is unknown, to say nothing of the beleaguered Blade, while plans for Shang-Chi and Black Panther sequels remain vague. Above all this looms the specter of a possible X-Men movie, which finally seems to be coming together.

The two Avengers films ought to be more than enough to look forward to in the meantime. Marvel’s announced cast for Doomsday is a multiversal pile-up of MCU veterans, newcomers from Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts*, actors from the legacy Fox X-Men movies, and wild cards like Channing Tatum’s Gambit. The cast is led by Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, not Tony Stark. They really could go anywhere from here.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

The long-awaited, long-teased live-action movie adaptation of Elden Ring is coming, and it’s got a big name attached to it: Alex Garland, the writer-director behind Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Civil War will helm the film. Garland is teaming up with production company A24, which is also backing the Death Stranding movie, for Elden Ring.

Publisher Bandai Namco and A24 confirmed their Elden Ring movie is in the works on Thursday. Details on the movie adaptation are non-existent, but Elden Ring lore co-author George R.R. Martin is set to co-produce, according to Deadline.

Elden Ring pushed developer FromSoftware’s brand of challenging action-role-playing games forward by dropping players into a true open-world environment, giving them more freedom than past games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne. The game’s story casts players as a Tarnished, a fallen hero who journeys to the dreary Lands Between to restore the shattered Elden Ring and become the region’s new Elden Lord. The game has been FromSoftware’s most successful game to date; in April, the company announced that sales of Elden Ring had exceeded 30 million copies.

FromSoftware released an expansion — Shadow of the Erdtree — for Elden Ring in 2024. A multiplayer-focused spinoff, Elden Ring Nightreign, will be released on May 30.

Garland’s most recent movie, Warfare, which he co-directed, was released in April to critical and commercial success.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

There is no shortage of first-person shooters out there, to the degree that some of them can start to blur together. Mouse: P.I. For Hire, however, has one of the most unique art styles I’ve ever seen in the genre. Think Cuphead, but with more explosive action — and way more mice to kill.

The monochromatic visuals, which are all hand-drawn, are coupled with a catchy jazz soundtrack. The game is a 1930s noir where you’ll be investigating a corrupt city full of crooks. The premise sounds serious until you notice the protagonist running around with an arsenal fit for a circus. Here’s a fun trailer:

You’ve got period staples like Tommy guns and sticks of dynamite right alongside a can of spinach and a finger gun. All of these weapons have special animations that make Mouse: P.I. look like a playable cartoon where every death is comical. Count me in.

There’s no set release date yet, but the game will be coming to all major modern platforms, including Nintendo Switch 2. The game was highlighted today as a part of Six One Indie, an hourlong indie showcase that packed 48 different titles from all sorts of genres, which you can check out here.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

Blue Prince’s PlayStation 5 save file bug is finally over thanks to a new patch Raw Fury released Thursday. Tonda Ros*,* directorand creator of Blue Prince, released patch notes for update 1.04.5, directly addressing a stubborn bug, which, according to the game’s Reddit community, appears around day 100 and prevents players from saving any progress.

The patch notes described the glitch as the “PlayStation 5 save rollback issue” and explained that it was “caused by a duplication of save data causing new save information to time out and not be saved.”

With the new fix, Ros alerted players they shouldn’t have any “issues progressing and saving the game past the point where the bug was initially encountered.” Unfortunately, any progress that wasn’t saved due to the bug won’t be recovered, and players will return to Mount Holly on the day the bug first appeared.

The patch also addresses bugs that cause the player to lose steps, preventing players from entering the highest rank, and more spoiler-heavy issues.

Nonetheless, the director asserted that a definitive version of the game will be achieved through the forthcoming 1.10 patch.

Patch 1.10 is set to include changes and additions such as “an overhyped arcade game, a curious house cat, accessibility features like color assist mode, controls remapping, cursor size/opacity settings, and widescreen support. Some UI/UX improvements, more variations for end-of-day manor descriptions and accompanying house illustrations, HUD display customization, final room/item balancing, and the addition of a handful of extra cinematics that I am still working on (the unlockable challenge modes actually have their own unique openings and endings!)”

Hopefully, there won’t be any more save file glitches as players head from patch 1.04.5 to 1.10. Happy drafting!

Blue Prince is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

While Lies of P is set to receive a big update this year when the prequel DLC Overture arrives, another update will be just as noteworthy: Lies of P is going to receive difficulty options. Meaning, the notoriously difficult soulslike is going to become easier — and more accessible.

“We wanted to make sure a wider audience of players could play the game,” game director Jiwon Choi told VGC. Lies of P has already found an audience — it sold 1 million copies in its first month on market and has been played by at least 7 million people — and an easier gameplay experience can open it up to more players who were put off by its difficult and unforgiving nature.

Choi noted this decision stemmed from player feedback as well as “from our developers” at Neowiz and Round8 Studio. “So by making development adjustments and introducing these difficulty options, we can offer the experience to different types of players. This broadens the base.” The default difficulty will be named “Legendary Stalker” while the two new options will be called “Butterfly’s Guidance” and “Awakened Puppet.” Polygon has reached out to Neowiz for further comment on the details of these difficulty options, and will update this story when we hear back.

New difficulty options will also be a welcome addition for longtime Lies of P players and soulslike vets; anyone who’s been absolutely bodied by the Mad Clown Puppet before the Opera House knows what I’m talking about. And while Lies of P has plenty of bosses worthy of a challenging and engaging fight, some, like the Green Monster of the Swamp and the Walker of Illusions, are more frustrating than fun. The ability to lower the difficulty on future playthroughs for bosses like those will certainly circumvent some of the frustration stemming from those encounters.

Alongside the DLC and difficulty options will also be a new boss rush mode, Death March. You’ll also be able to replay boss fights via the new Battle Memories mode, which is really something that every soulslike game needs.

Lies of P, your other favorite Belle Époque game next to Clair Obscur, launched in 2023. It was a Game Pass hit and a critical darling, with our review saying it, “breath[ed] new life into an overcrowded genre by allowing you to fabricate your own truth with the characters you meet, shaping the world with your choices.” Overture is expected to launch this summer and will include 15-20 hours worth of content.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

Sciel is a true heavy-hitter in your Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 party, offering a fairly straightforward way to make number go up compared to her counterparts.

While, yes, Lune and Maelle can dish out serious damage, both require some preparatory work to achieve that output, whereas Sciel only requires you to be aware of her comparatively more streamlined Twilight mechanic.

If you’re interested in the best of the best for your scythe-wielding teacher, this Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 guide will break down the best Sciel build, including her best weapons, attributes, Pictos, and skills to quickly dispatch foes.

Best Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Sciel works as a support unit and DPS, but we believe her talents are much better in a damage-dealing role. She’s at her best as the team’s primary source of damage.

With Sciel, you want to apply Foretell stacks on enemies and then trigger those stacks with the appropriate skills. The best skills for Sciel will allow her to mark enemies as well for her other teammates to trigger, so she works well with at least one other dedicated damage dealer — preferably Maelle.

The best Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is:

Attributes: Defense and LuckWeapon: CharnonSkills: Twilight Dance, Sealed Fate, Final Path, Delaying Slash, Fortune’s Fury, and Plentiful HarvestPictos: Immaculate, Glass Cannon, and Inverted Affinity

Sciel’s best attributes by far are Agility and Luck. Her skills and playstyle are meant for someone who can attack often and deal critical hits, too. What’s more, in the game’s opening act, the best weapon for Sciel, the Scielson, scales well with the stats mentioned above. As you progress, you’ll be swapping weapons to the Rangeson and Charnon, respectively, but once you reach the endgame and the Charnon, you’ll have access to guaranteed critical hits. This allows you to Recoat her attributes away from Agility and put them into Defense instead.

Below, we’ll explain in more detail why this is the best Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Best attributes for Sciel

Your attribute spread for Sciel will look different depending on how far in the game you are. Make sure to save a Recoat for the late game so you can prioritize the perfect attributes for the final stretch.

In Act 1, prioritize Agility and Luck for the extra turns and crit chance. (You can also put points into Vitality to give Sciel some survivability in the early game.)

In Act 2, the best weapon for Sciel becomes the Rangeson, so her attributes should reflect that. You should alter your strategy and prioritize Agility and Defense.

Once you get Charnon, you’ll want to Recoat your attributes again, only this time prioritizing Defense and Luck for that weapon’s scaling.

Best weapon for Sciel

The best weapon for Sciel is the Charnon.

This missable weapon can be found by defeating the Gestral Merchant, Grour, at Renoir’s Drafts. To find this merchant, you must have Esquie’s diving ability, which you get when he reaches relationship level 6. Defeating Grour will allow you to purchase the Charnon. Hopefully you’ve been saving your cash — it costs a whopping 89,884 chroma!

The weapon’s strength comes from its Level 4 passive, granting guaranteed critical hits when Sciel is in Twilight. Sciel’s abilities fit into one or two categories, Sun and Moon. Using a skill will generate a card of the assigned typing. Once you’ve generated both a Sun card and a Moon card, Sciel will enter Twilight, offering increased damage and double the amount of Foretell you can stack on an enemy.

The goal is to ensure Sciel spends as much time in Twilight as often as possible, so it only makes sense you’d want a weapon that empowers the stance to new heights.

Best Pictos and Luminas for Sciel

You will need some time to build up the best Pictos and Luminas for Sciel. The best Pictos in her case are Immaculate, Glass Canon, and Inverted Affinity. Below are the detailed descriptions of what these Pictos do and the stats they grant bonuses to.

Immaculate — Speed and Crit Rate. 30% increased damage until a hit is received.Glass Cannon — Speed. Deal 25% more damage, but take 25% more damage.Inverted Affinity — Health and Crit Rate. Apply Inverted on self for three turns on battle start.50% increased damage while Inverted.

These Pictos are pretty much the “One Shot Setup.” They provide Sciel and other DPS characters the scaling and damage necessary to dictate the battlefield. However, the trade-off of these Pictos is low survivability. If you’re not a God at Expedition 33’s defense mechanisms, maybe you should practice them as you make your way through the game and to Sciel’s perfect build. You can also offset this weakness a bit with the right Luminas.

We’d recommend using the following Luminas, depending on how many Lumina Points you have.

Augmented Counter IAuto RushCritical BurnDead Energy IIRouletteEmpowering ParryEnergising JumpEnergising ParryEnergising Start IIFirst StrikeTaintedFull StrengthPainted PowerRecoveryCheaterSolidifyingSweet KillWarming Up

Best skills for Sciel

The best skills for Sciel are the following:

Twilight Dance: Deals extreme single target Dark damage. 4 hits. During Twilight, extends Twilight duration by 1 turn. Consumes all Foretell to deal additional damage.Sealed Fate: Deals high single target damage. 5-7 hits. Uses Weapon’s element. Each hit can consume 1 Foretell to deal 200% more damage. Critical Hits don’t remove the Foretell but still gets the damage increase.Final Path: Deals extreme single target Dark damage and applies 10 Foretell. 1 hit. Can Break.Delaying Slash: Deals medium single target damage. 2 hits. Uses weapon’s element. Consumes Foretell to increase damage and delay target’s turn.Fortune’s Fury: Targeted ally deals double damage for one turn.Plentiful Harvest: Deals medium single target Physical damage. 2 hits. Consumes all Foretell on a target and gives 1 AP to a party member for each Foretell consumed.

These moves allow you to properly set Sciel or your chosen sub DPS unit for success. Fortune’s Fury will be your primary skill. Combined with a skill like Marking Card, it is perfect for unleashing considerable damage on the game’s more challenging encounters. Final Path and Twilight Dance are your primary sources of damage if you prefer another weapon. However, with the Charnon and its awesome critical hit passive, you can’t go wrong with Sealed Fate.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

Bandai Namco’s bold new take on Pac-Man — the 2D action platformer known as Shadow Labyrinth — has a secret: Despite being a grim sci-fi, Metroid-inspired game that looks nothing like a traditional Pac-Man sequel, there’s actual real Pac-Man gameplay in here. A new trailer for Shadow Labyrinth reveals the Maze, a portion of the game that for shorthand purposes looks a hell of a lot like Pac-Man Championship Edition 3.

The core gameplay of Shadow Labyrinth has players controlling a mysterious warrior named Swordsman No. 8, who is accompanied by a Pac-Man shaped guide named Puck, battling to become the apex predator of an alien planet. But at certain points in Shadow Labyrinth, you’ll play honest-to-goodness Pac-Man maze levels that draw inspiration from the Championship Edition line of pellet- and ghost-chomping games. Shadow Labyrinth’s take on Pac-Man gameplay adds to the Championship Edition formula, with jumping, boost pads, giant ghost boss battles, and a variety of maze types.

In other words, if Shadow Labyrinth hasn’t quite done it for you thus far, it might be worth checking in on your feelings after watching the game’s new trailer.

Bandai Namco revealed Shadow Labyrinth at last year’s Game Awards. But before that, the game publisher teased a darker, bloodier take on Pac-Man in the form of an animated short in Prime Video’s Secret Level anthology series. Shadow Labyrinth doesn’t appear to be quite as gory as Secret Level’s “Circle,” but it’s definitely a swerve for Pac-Man.

Shadow Labyrinth will be released on July 18, for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

The streets of Grand Theft Auto 6’s Leonida are bustling with all sorts of zany characters who help bring Rockstar’s satire of Florida to life. Typically, this fictional mass of non-playable plebs find a balance between being complete randos and looking realistic enough to be believable. Potentially, you could point to any character in the GTA 6 trailers so far and be able to find at least one human being IRL who looks uncannily familiar to that NPC; we’ve got a population of over 8 billion to work with here. But there are now two totally different instances where fans think that Rockstar lifted the likeness of two actual people.

The first time transpired back in 2024, when Laurence Sullivan, a man known as the “Florida Joker,” threatened Rockstar with a lawsuit over a character he believed mimicked his viral mugshot from 2017. The character in question did bear some resemblances to Sullivan in that both of them clearly took cues from DC’s Dark Knight, but ultimately Florida Joker did not sue the makers of GTA 6. He did, however, demand millions of dollars in compensation in exchange for the “free marketing” he was providing them. To date, it does not appear that Sullivan was ever paid.

That same trailer, which debuted GTA 6 for the first time, also included a Black character adorned with dreadlocks, a white tank top, and a hefty collection of gold chains. This prompted a response from a TikToker named zoeepoppyy, who posted a video back in 2023 while standing next to a still of the trailer.

“They done cloned Tyrone,” the man said while sucking his teeth in disapproval. “C’mon, can I get paid?” he asked. zoeepoppyy pointed to details like his hair, his chain, his glasses, as well as facial features as evidence for the copycat.

@zoeepoppyy

Everybody know this me from GTA6 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️😡 its going on 7 days i aint get paid yet whats going on i need everybody too say something #gta6

♬ original sound – Zoee_poppyy

Two years later, Rockstar released a second trailer for GTA 6 — and some things were different. One of these tweaks appears to be the same Black character who triggered the rip-off allegations. This time, however, the NPC is wearing a red hat, a lighter set of shades, a small mustache, and braids. Notably, both characters are wearing a white tank top and the same set of gold chains, the centerpiece of which displays some type of horned animal.

Rockstar did not respond to a request for comment on whether or not this was intended to be the same character, or if the adjustments were made in light of the TikToker’s allegations. But judging from a Twitter post that has been viewed over 13 million times in the span of a few days, fans are convinced that Rockstar changed the character specifically because of the TikToker.

Rockstar Games changed the appearance of a character from GTA 6 Trailer 1 after a Florida man claimed it was him and asked for money. pic.twitter.com/EX2MhqkNJA

— GTA 6 Countdown ⏳ (@GTAVI_Countdown) May 19, 2025

While it’s possible both of these things are related, it’s also worth noting that games in development change all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Jason, one of the protagonists, saw a huge visual upgrade in between trailers for GTA 6. His first iteration leaned more in the generic direction of gruff, buzzcut main character. His latest version, on the other hand, is affixed with a daintier flow of locks that can grow heavy with sweat. You can even spot individual strands of arm hair from afar. Really, the entire trailer is full of impressive changes ranging from the background scenery and weather to minor details like physics and muscle deformation.

That, and, Grand Theft Auto always seems to be ducking some sort of likeness controversy. Infamously, Grand Theft Auto 5 saw Lindsay Lohan sue Rockstar over a character named Lacey Jonas. In that case, the judge ruled that while some similarities were apparent that overall, “indistinct, satirical representations of the style, look, and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman that are not reasonably identifiable as plaintiff.”

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

Ultron has stolen Cerebro from the mutants of Krakoa in Marvel Rivals Season 2.5 story, and has now become a playable character, introducing a new map and a slew of new Team-Up changes.

“Ultron is a strategist who can provide consistent healing to his allies,” according to Creative Director Guangguang. He attacks with energy beams as his primary attacks and can fly, joining the sky alongside Iron Man, Storm, and the Human Torch.

As such, the Team-Up Ability system is being updated “with broader adjustments,” adding six new attacks, removing four, and another that’s been adjusted. Naturally, Ultron and Iron Man have a Team-Up ability where Ultron is allowed to fire Uni-Beam lasers that pierce through anything in its path.

Lead Combat Designer Zhiyong detailed new Team-Ups: Venom and Jeff the Land Shark’s “Symbiote Shenanigans” tether to allies for healing; The Punisher and Black Widow’s “Operation: Microchip” grants Widow a piercing line-shot mode; Luna Snow crafts ice arrows for Hawkeye that hit harder the farther the target, even through terrain cover; and Rocket Raccoon and Peni Parker’s “Rocket Network” boosts Peni’s Bionic Spider-Nest and drops armor packs, while she powers up Rocket’s Battle Rebirth Beacon to summon Cyber Webs, Spider-Drones, and Arachno-Mines—though only one beacon can be active at a time. And after fan suggestions, Storm and Jeff receive a “Jeff-Nado” ability similar to Storm’s Team-Up with Human Torch, but instead of a fire tornado, it’s water.

However, Luna and Jeff “Chilling Charisma”, Hawkeye and Black Widow’s “Allied Agents”, Spider-Man, Peni, and Venom’s “Symboite Bond”, and Rocket Raccoon and The Punisher’s “Ammo Reload” are being completely removed. But it appears the latter will still be available for Winter Soldier, which makes me, a Bucky main, very happy. However, Iron Man will no longer be part of the “Gamma Charge” team-up, leaving it to just The Hulk and Namor.

A few other things were mentioned, like an experimental mode coming June 6 called Ultron’s Battle Matrix Protocol, where players build their own lineup of heroes and craft builds to enhance their traits in a “streamlined, strategic, numerical-based solo tactical” gameplay mode. There are also new hero proficiency avatars on the select wheel and two new personalization systems: mood and emoji for players to express themselves on their nameplate and in-game.

The new map: Hellfire Gala: Arakko, Krakoa’s sister island, has been transformed into Ultron’s lifeless mechanical headquarters. And of course, a few character buffs, nerfs, and changes will be introduced.

Buffs-Dr Strange – Magneto– Punisher – Squirrel Girl – StormNerfs– Groot – Captain America– Emma Frost – The Thing – Iron Fist– Human Torch– Psylocke – Mister Fantastic – NamorChanges– Luna Snow – Jeff the Land Shark

Check out the video above for the full details.

Marvel Rivals season 2.5 is slated to launch May 30, a day after Season 0 Battle Pass comes to a close. After that, seasons are expected to shorten to two months each.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

Following the release of Triumphant Light, The Pokémon Company has announced the fourth themed booster pack for Pokémon: Trading Card Game Pocket, Extradimensional Crisis, introducing Ultra Beasts to the mobile collectible card game.

Ultra Beasts, first introduced in the Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon video games, are enigmatic creatures from another dimension. They arrive through Ultra Wormholes and emit a strange, otherworldly energy. Pokémon TCG Pocket introduces cards like Buzzwole ex, Blacephalon, Nihilego, and Guzzlord ex, including a few more Pokémon from the Alola region, such as the debut of Type: Null.

To mark the Ultra Beasts’ debut in Pokémon TCG Pocket, a themed binder cover featuring these powerful creatures will be available in the Shop starting May 29, purchasable with shop tickets. Additionally, players can highlight their favorite card using a new floral display board, which can be obtained with event shop tickets earned during the upcoming Wonder Pick event, running June 11-28.

There will be three events during June to coincide with the release. The first is the Ultra Beast Drop Event starting June 3-13, where players can take on special solo battles to earn new promo cards, including Ultra Necrozma ex. The Wonder Pick Event next starts June 11-21, where promo cards for Poipole and Stufful will be available to pick. Lastly, the Ultra Beast Mass Outbreak Event starts June 22-28, where Ultra Beast-related cards will have increased chances of appearing in rare picks and bonus picks.

Collecting Pokémon cards through the app might be the safer — and less stressful — option right now. You don’t want to be competing against the scalpers who camp outside GameStop literally risking their lives to get Pokémon cards.

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Monster Hunter Wilds fans have been asking Capcom what a new weapon type for the game would look like, and the company may have an answer: deez hands. Capcom announced Thursday that Monster Hunter Wilds will get a free Akuma layered armor, complete with his moveset, in a Street Fighter 6 collaboration arriving on May 28.

The crossover trailer shows Akuma fighting Ajarakan and Congalala, hitting a Rathian with a Gou Hadoken, dodging with his Ashura Senku, chaining together fleshed-out combos, and, of course, his iconic Raging Demon finisher. And don’t worry, if you don’t like the idea of using fisticuffs, Akuma can use weapons during battle against MHW’s behemoths, too. Players will also receive a free Blanka-chan layered armor set for their cute Palico partner.

To snag these free add-ons, you’ll be tasked with completing a new side mission called “Ultimate Strength.” The quest will only be available to hunters at Hunter Rank 21 or higher, so be sure to rank up before the event rolls out.

Players must speak with the Vespae Unit Handler Quinn to start the quest at the Oilwell Basin Base Camp. Other arena quests, such as “Demonic Strength” and “True Strength,” will be available to earn even more free content. And if you can”t get to the special mission right away, don’t fret; Capcom states that “after its addition as a free update, this collaboration will be a permanent addition to the game.”

Furthermore, Capcom is releasing a special paid DLC cosmetic pack that features emotes and attire for Alma, allowing her to dress up as Cammy and Chun-Li. Various Street Fighter 6 backgrounds, gestures, stickers, and pendants will also be available for purchase.

Monster Hunter Wilds is available now for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.

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With Tetsuya Nomura finally breaking a three-year silence to drop new Kingdom Hearts 4 details, what better time to revisit the series’ most iconic weapon? The Keyblade has long sparked debate — is it a sword? Should it be included in Cool Sword Day celebrations? Or is it simply a giant key-shaped billy club? Regardless of classification, the Keyblade stands as one of the most revolutionary one-handed fictional weapons, alongside the lightsaber — not just for its bold, genre-defying design, but for how deeply it’s woven into the lore, with each unique Keyblade symbolizing each wielder’s alignment with light or darkness.

While the Kingdom Key remains the franchise’s most recognizable blade, thanks largely to its constant presence in marketing, no Keyblade has captured fan devotion quite like Oblivion. Oathkeeper trails closely behind, earning a strong third place. The designers at Square Enix surely know the popularity of these Keyblades in the fandom, as all three appear in every major installment. But beyond their striking designs, it’s Oblivion and Oathkeeper that best embody Kingdom Hearts*’* core theme: the eternal clash between light and dark. That makes them far more than just cool weapons; they’re narrative anchors.

In the original Kingdom Hearts, most new Keychains — items that transform the appearance and abilities of your Keyblade — are earned by completing Disney-themed worlds. These worlds have usually offered loose retellings of their respective films, often feeling like standalone adventures with minimal connection to the overarching storyline of Kingdom Hearts. However, Oathkeeper and Oblivion came from Traverse Town and Hollow Bastion, respectively, which are two original worlds — meaning, they’re not worlds based on Disney movies. What’s more, the  Keychains for each weapon have a strong significance for Kingdom Hearts’ protagonist Sora; one is deeply tied to Kairi, his love interest, and the other to his best frenemy, Riku.

Kairi gives Sora the Oathkeeper after he awakens her from her slumber and brings her to Traverse Town for safety. She offers him her “lucky charm” as a promise that they’ll be reunited. The charm resembles a Paopu Fruit from their home, Destiny Island — a fruit said to bind the destinies of two people who share it, ensuring they’ll always be connected, no matter what. Meanwhile, Oblivion is found in a chest in Hollow Bastion, mere feet away from Sora’s final confrontation with Riku — a confrontation that mirrors their playful sparring match at the beginning of the game.

Oathkeeper and Oblivion have always shared a yin-and-yang dynamic, reflected in everything from how they’re acquired to the two characters they’re tied to; that’s even before we factor in their stark white and black color schemes. Oblivion’s in-game ability focuses on strength, while Oathkeeper prioritizes magic. Oathkeeper’s appearance emphasizes the elegance of a Keyblade, while Oblivion highlights the destruction. They’re a terrific pair; they went together like lamb and tuna fish.

What has truly cemented the importance of these two Keyblades is their prominent appearance in the game’s secret ending, Deep Dive / Another Side, Another Story. It features a hooded figure in an unknown location, dual-wielding both Oblivion and Oathkeeper in a fight with another mysterious silver-haired figure, who ends up taking and wielding Oblivion during the confrontation. Little did we know then that the hooded figure was Roxas, another version of Sora, and that Riku was the silver-haired man who took Oblivion for himself. At the time, fans couldn’t fully grasp the implications of this final scene, but that moment instantly elevated the significance of both weapons. The secret ending was shrouded in mystery, yet the presence of Oathkeeper and Oblivion strongly hinted that the hooded figure had a deep connection to Sora, Riku, and Kairi.

It’s clear Nomura had grand plans for Oathkeeper and Oblivion, deliberately threading them deeper into the series’ overarching narrative than most other Keyblades. Still, he probably didn’t expect them to eclipse the franchise’s default weapon: the iconic Kingdom Key. Despite its central role and compelling history as the light counterpart to King Mickey’s Kingdom Key D, not to mention that it initially chose Riku before ultimately selecting Sora, it’s Oathkeeper and Oblivion that has came to embody the emotional core of the franchise, capturing the hearts (pun intended) of millions of fans along the way.

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In the classic board game Betrayal at House on the Hill, a group of players explore a haunted house gathering useful items and leveling up their stats until the Haunt becomes active and one of the players switches sides and starts killing everyone else or performing some twisted ritual. Now Hasbro and Avalon Hill are adding fresh horror to the mix with the It: Chapter Two-themed expansion Betrayal at the Neibolt House: The Evil of Pennywise launching on Aug. 1.

Priced at $24.99, the add-on casts three to six players as residents of Derry, wandering new locations to gather items inspired by the film before triggering one of five haunts. The group might have to fight Pennywise together — facing down some very creepy new minis — while the traitor could wind up controlling the Losers Club’s nemesis Henry Bowers.

The game will be available to play and buy at the Avalon Hill booth at Gen Con later this summer.

Avalon Hill will also be demoing Sanibel, the new game from Wingspanand The Fox Experimentdesigner Elizabeth Hargrave, which will launch in early 2026. Located along Florida’s Gulf Coast, Sanibel is well known for seashells that people will sometimes gather at sunrise with flashlights to have the first pick of what washed up on the shore.

In the new game, players will move along a board representing the beach to pick up sets of shells and shark teeth, sometimes racing ahead to beat the competition and sometimes backtracking to snag what a wave has just deposited. The tiles are placed on a player mat representing a bag, and you’ll need to pay close attention to how each one is scored at the end of the game. During a press conference announcing the game, Hargrave says she used the crowdsourced biodiversity tracker iNaturalist to make sure the most popular shells of Sanibel were represented in the game while the shark teeth are a nod to her dad’s personal collection.

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In his seemingly endless quest to not finish The Winds of Winter, Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin has a new project on the table: He’s producing a magical-realist reimagining of the story of Hercules, animated by Blue Spirit, the Emmy-winning studio behind the bloody Netflix revenge series Blue Eye Samurai. The film is based on the novella A Dozen Tough Jobs from Howard Waldrop, a Nebula Award winner and Martin’s lifelong friend.

A Dozen Tough Jobs sets the Greek myth in 1920s Mississippi, making Zeus’ son Hercules a former sharecropper descended from slaves. After being released from prison for a heinous crime, he lands in the custody of the wicked Boss Eustice, and has to earn his freedom through spins on the classical 12 labors of Hercules. That story feels like a good fit for Blue Spirit, which combined Japanese history and the blood-soaked trappings of Quentin Tarantino movies in Blue Eye Samurai.

Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-Tep, Hap & Leonard) is writing the script for Lion Forge Entertainment, the studio behind the Oscar-winning short Hair Love. No timeline for the release has been announced.

“If anyone understands the power of epic stories and expansive franchises, it’s George R.R. Martin,” Lion Forge founder David Steward II said in a news release. “With A Dozen Tough Jobs, we’re reimagining a timeless legend through fresh, culturally rich lenses. This isn’t just a retelling — it’s a groundbreaking take unlike anything audiences have seen before, grounded in history but pushing myth into uncharted territory.”Martin previously produced the 2022 short film adaptation of Waldrop’s short story Night of the Cooters, starring Vincent D’Onofrio. Beyond Game of Thrones, he is producing several other projects in various stages of development, including adaptations of Nnedi Okarofor’s Who Fears Death, Roger Zelazny’s Roadmarks, and his own Wild Cards shared-world anthology series.

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Grappling with mental health issues is a major theme in Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy series The Stormlight Archive. As the series’ heroes fight hostile armies and the machinations of a god bent on controlling the entire cosmere, they also have to confront their own depression, imposter syndrome, and repressed memories in order to grow and gain new magical powers. But it’s not just the people who need therapy — it’s just as valuable for the series’ sentient swords.

The Stormlight Archives is set on the wartorn world of Roshar, where the most powerful warriors wield massive swords known as Shardblades. Shardbearers can summon the six-foot blades from mist and turn the tide of battles by cutting through everything in their path. Princes duel each other to show off their combat prowess for the right to wield them.

But it turns out those swords used to be evencooler. Shardblades are the physical manifestation of spren, sentient fragments of the gods Honor and Cultivation that can bond with humans to bestow them with incredible powers like healing, flight, and the ability to create illusions. But long ago the humans laid down their blades and broke the oaths that bound them and their spren together. That process proved to be so traumatizing to the spren that it locked them in the shape of weapons in the physical world. In their own world, the Cognitive Realm, these spren appear to have their eyes scratched out and wander around catatonic.

Prince Adolin Kholin is blissfully unaware of all of this baggage when the series opens. He just loves fighting duels with his shardblade. But as the series goes on and his friends and relatives start bonding new spren, he starts feeling outclassed. His dad urges him to set aside his dead shardblade in the hopes of attracting a living spren, but he refuses to abandon it.

Instead he starts talking to his blade, imagining it was listening to him. And it turns out it was. Through persistence, he is able to reach Mayalaran, who shares her name and basic thoughts with him. That bond lets him summon the blade faster than normal and in the Cognitive Realm, Maya doesn’t just follow him aimlessly but fights on his behalf and eventually finds her voice again. Her connection to someone who wouldn’t give up on her allowed her to heal. Maya then becomes able to reach out to other spren who had similarly been viewed as irreparably broken and rallies them to help Adolin and the people he fought with. They found a path forward with a new sort of bond that didn’t put all the power in the hands of humans.

Sanderson further explores the theme of talking to those who seem unreachable with Adolin’s friend Kaladin, a surgeon’s apprentice turned legendary soldier. Adolin fights to help Kaladin cope with his depression and PTSD, and Kaladin takes that as a calling after discovering that the conventional medical wisdom is to leave the mentally ill alone in dark rooms. He starts using group therapy to help other soldiers. The work is so successful he’s tasked with helping Szeth, an extremely skilled warrior and assassin driven mad by a cycle of abuse and self-loathing.

Kaladin has a hard time reaching Szeth, but through extensive work is able to help him cope with his intrusive thoughts. But Szeth isn’t the only one who needs that therapy. The lessons are also learned by Szeth’s sentient sword Nightblood.

Nightblood looks like a Shardblade, but it was forged on another world with the purpose of destroying evil. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really understand what evil is. As a result, it’s often very cheerfully telling people who carry it that they should start killing people around them because they might be evil, and also it gets bored when sheathed. When it is wielded, it’s overwhelmed by bloodlust and will quickly drain the life from whoever is swinging it.

Kaladin teaches Szeth that he is not a thing — that he doesn’t deserve how he’s been treated as a pawn by greater powers. His words also hit home for Nightblood, who was sent across worlds for the purpose of killing a god. That therapy helps Szeth free his homeland from the same twisted force that ruined his childhood with Nightblood in hand, with the sword restraining itself and avoiding killing Szeth because it realized it’s also not a thing. It’s a triumph for the power of therapy for humans and sentient weapons alike.

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