Alienware has always been known for its over-the-top and expensive gaming PCs, but it just announced the Alienware 15, its first true budget gaming laptop.

The Alienware 15 will come with either an AMD Ryzen or Intel Core chip, along with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU to start, with options to spec it up to an RTX 5060. It's available today, starting at $1,299 for the base AMD Ryzen-equipped version and $1,349 for an Intel model.

The Alienware 15 debuts at a lower price than the $1,690 Alienware 16 Aurora Gaming Laptop, which the company released last year. The smaller model gets new AMD chip options – a Ryzen 7 260 or Ryzen 5 220 – ships with either a 512GB or 1TB NVMe SSD, and features a 300-nit, 165Hz refresh rate, 16:10 WUXGA (1920 x 1200) display.

By contrast, the base-model 16-inch ships with an 8GB RTX 5050 grapics card and 16GB of DDR5 RAM, but only with an Intel CPU and a 120Hz display. The Alienware 15 will be configurable with 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB of RAM, and a 54Wh or 70Wh battery – both specs with starting points that feel like sign-of-the-times trade-offs to hit the lower price point that stand in stark contrast to what's offered on some of our favorite gaming laptops.

"We made deliberate choices about where to invest and where to pull back," Alienware writes in a press release the company shared with IGN. It's a not-so-subtle nod to the ongoing, AI-addled RAM crisis that's engulfed the tech industry at large.

While the $1,299 seems like a high price for a budget laptop, it's important to keep in mind that Dell, and by extension Alienware, often puts its laptops on sale. So if you want to grab this laptop, it might be best to wait a couple months to see if the price drops below a thousand bucks. But, with the way PC gaming has been trending so far this year, that's not exactly guaranteed.

Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.

Co-op game Party Animals has been spammed with hundreds of negative reviews after it announced a $15,000 AI video contest.

As detailed on the game's official website, Recreate Games is running a competition, inviting short films, drama series, animations, music videos, and more on any theme as long as it's "positive" and connected to the Party Animals game.

So far, so what, right? Well, it's the next bit of the rules that's caused a little commotion.

"[AI-generated content] must be the core creative tool, including but not limited to AI-generated images, video, music, voiceovers, 3D assets, etc.," the competition insists. The winner secures a whopping $15,000, with cash awards of $1,500-4,500 also available for runner-ups.

While Party Animals maintains a "very positive" Steam user review rating for all English reviews, recent reviews are now "mostly negative" after over 800 negative reviews were left since the competition was announced. "Rest in peace, loved this game but they're leaning into AI now so I will no longer support this company," reads the "most helpful review," posted by someone with over 26 hours on record.

"I genuinely wonder if any company ever takes even a single glance online, to see what the general consensus is around AI, before they do something like this," commented one unhappy player.

Another more moderate take said: "I think the general consensus is not the same as a vocal minority. The general consensus still just views AI as a novelty with no strong feelings for or against it." Another replied: "This is similar to the massive push of gambling in and around all sports things. They want to normalize it so more and more of their potential customer base doesn't know a world where it wasn't ubiquitous to some degree." Someone else wrote: "We saw this exact same song and dance when NFTs were the hot new buzzword."

Party Animals AI Video Contest is about to begin!

What wild ideas have you had for Party Animals? Join the "Golden Paw Awards" now — Party Animals 1st AI Video Contest!

A short film you've been dreaming of making, a story that breaks all the rules, a character tribute to your… pic.twitter.com/kWgY4zvQT0

— Party Animals (@party_animals) May 13, 2026

"The rules are pretty funny too," pointed out another commenter. "'Any plagiarism or unauthorized used of others' work will result in disqualification. Like, do y'all know how generative AI even works...?"

Developer Recreate Games has yet to respond to the complaints.

The issue of generative AI's impact on the creative industries remains one of the hottest topics in all entertainment, and some are all-in on the emerging tech. The CEO of Genvid — the company behind choose-your-own-adventure interactive series like Silent Hill Ascension — recently claimed "consumers generally do not care" about generative AI, and stated that: "Gen Z loves AI slop." EA CEO Andrew Wilson has said AI is "the very core of our business," and Square Enix recently implemented mass layoffs and reorganized, saying it needed to be "aggressive in applying AI." Dead Space creator Glen Schofield also recently detailed his plans to “fix” the industry in part via the use of generative AI in game development, and former God of War dev Meghan Morgan Juinio said: "... if we don’t embrace [AI], I think we’re selling ourselves short.”

Strauss Zelnick, boss of Rockstar parent company Take-Two, however, recently called the idea of AI making games like GTA 6 "laughable." Reflecting on the reception to Google's Project Genie, which can generate interactive worlds from a text prompt — the tech demo for which briefly sent game company share prices tumbling — Zelnick insisted: "These tools may help you create assets, but that won’t help you create hits."

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Arc Raiders has hit 16 million sales, an incredible result for the extraction shooter that has proven so successful for developer Embark and publisher Nexon.

In its latest set of financial results, Nexon said Arc Raiders sales had been “extraordinary,” and that it was the most successful new product released in company history.

We’re now six months since the launch of Arc Raiders, and deep into its inevitable “dead game” debate despite the fact it remains one of the most played games on Steam (neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public). Yes, player numbers on Valve’s platform aren’t what they were during Arc Raiders' explosive launch, but we’re still talking about a game that can regularly hit 100,000 peak concurrent players on PC.

Yesterday, Embark announced that Arc Raiders will only have two big content updates every year, sparking complaints from some within the community. The next update, Frozen Trail, is due in October. It adds new locations to explore, new enemies, new expansions to the story and lore, and updates to the game's progression systems.

"Going forward, we've made the decision to release major updates twice a year – larger in scale, more impactful, with the goal to genuinely change how you play the game," Embark explained. "Don’t worry, a dedicated live service team will continue running Arc Raiders day-to-day: regular live updates, plus balance fixes, bug fixes, store updates, and player events aren't going anywhere.

"This additional development space also allows us to invest more deeply in the health of Arc Raiders, from progression and economy balancing to fair play and anti-cheat efforts. We know these are foundational to the experience, especially in a game where every encounter and extraction matters."

Clearly, Nexon has high hopes for the October update. In its financial report, Nexon said Arc Raiders is “now settling in with a large and deeply loyal player community,” but the Frozen Trail update will “reshape” how the game is played, “which is great for reactivating users who finished the original game, and for attracting all-new players.”

The idea, then, is to use this update to convince lapsed players to return to Arc Raiders, and maybe bring in some new players in the process. But that's not all Arc Raiders has going on. It's still updating its other live service shooter, The Finals, and, according to Nexon, it has two new games in the early stage of development.

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

On paper, it will always seem a little odd that it took the Forza Horizon series until the sixth game to find its way to Japan. Few countries on Earth command the same level of renown as Japan when it comes to automobile culture – the home of drifting, Daikoku PA, and one of the few cars to ever get Dominic Torretto out of a Dodge. Regardless of how you slice it, a stopover in Japan certainly feels long overdue. However, after playing Forza Horizon 6 for the last week, I can’t help but be glad developer Playground Games waited. For mine, that’s primarily thanks to the astounding step up in map quality. It goes beyond just being the biggest or the most beautiful (which it is, no doubt). Crucially, it’s also the most credible and car-friendly, and I can’t understate how much richness and believability this adds to the world itself. Every corner of the map feels like a place I can pause or park, meaning everywhere I arrive feels like a destination.

And when everywhere is a destination, the journeys are almost limitless.

From moment to moment – particularly while participating in races – it’s fair enough to say that Forza Horizon 6 resembles past games in the series in a number of obvious ways. At its core, it offers more-or-less the same brand of class-based racing as its predecessors. The timer clicks down, you mash the throttle, and then fight your way to the front of the pack. It’s still great racing, and I will say I feel like I’ve caught the AI making more impressive evasive adjustments than I recall them executing in the past. Broadly speaking, however, the racing itself remains similar.

On a gamepad, it all feels quite familiar too. The handling is still a successful blend of simulation-inspired elements – with a tangible sense of weight and grip – with smooth and approachable steering controls. For anyone unfamiliar with the feel of Forza Horizon, it’s by no means a punishing and impenetrable driving simulator that’ll fling you off the road for the mildest misjudgement. However, it’s also not a point-and-squirt, pureblood arcade racer like Burnout Paradise, either. That said, on a wheel it does feel like there’s a very welcome increase in the amount of front-end grip – and less of that slightly skatey feel that’s been present in past games. This is good news, whether you’re negotiating the many, many kinks and hairpin turns that characterise Forza Horizon 6’s greatest stretches of road (it’s impossible to choose just one, because there are so many highlights this time around) or needing that responsiveness to avoid traffic on the freeway that loops around a huge portion of the map.

It’s at this point you might be wondering whether Forza Horizon 6 is just Forza Horizon 5 on a new map, but to claim so would be far too reductive – totally ignoring what has changed.

Forza Horizon 6 arrives with an adjusted and more satisfying approach to its campaign progression – one that straddles a middle ground between the curated structure of the original and the unbridled freedom embraced by Forza Horizon 5. It’s brought with it numerous boosts to car graphics and audio, resulting in the best looking and sounding cars in the long history of the series. There’s been a massive increase in what’s possible with the user-generated content creation tools, and we can now customise garages, construct wild, private race tracks on our personal estates deep in the Japanese countryside, and even build in multiplayer anywhere around the open-world. Touge racing, open-world car meets, drop-in-drop-out time attacks and drag racing with no loading – the implementation of a customisation feature that long-time Forza players have literally been waiting 20 years for – the list of tweaks and improvements squeezed into Forza Horizon 6 is long.

But before I circle back on some of these elements, allow me to explain what it is about the map itself that has me embedded in it like a tick on a hound dog.

Tokyo Gift

The style of Forza Horizon 6’s riff on Japan should come as no surprise to those familiar with the series’ history of pilfering a pile of picturesque segments of a country that have otherwise no business being directly next to each other and… placing them directly next to each other. It takes a distilled and shrunken version of Tokyo City and surrounds it with rolling hills, open farmland, soggy fields, dense forest, sharp mountains, quaint villages, rural race circuits, and – overlooking it all – sweeping highlands and the Japan Alps. The blend of natural beauty and engineering spectacle is just outstanding, from the way low sun lights the patchy snow and lush fields on the fringe of the alpine region, down to the snaking, multi-level ramps and freeways that loom over Tokyo’s dense metro and industrial areas.

It makes no geographical sense, but it’s also not attempting to. This isn’t really Japan as much as it is a Japanese-themed amusement park for cars. It’s supposed to look fabulous and be extremely engaging to move through, and damn if it isn’t both those things in spades.

At its most gorgeous, Forza Horizon 6 is a total showstopper. Maybe that’s gazing over the Tokyo skyline from the highest point on the map, or perhaps it’s emerging from a tunnel to see the wilderness unfolding in front of you, with the freeway flanked by looming mountains carpeted in dense forest, and snowy peaks rising behind them. No Forza Horizon map has nailed the sense of both natural and man-made scale quite as successfully as this one. The fact that it accomplishes this with zero crashes and no stuttering, ever, is as commendable as ever.

But it goes far beyond the postcard-friendly vistas, because I also find myself entranced by the smaller nuances. I’m now a week into my campaign and I’m still consistently finding myself pausing to bust out the camera and pore over the more subtle details on display. Maybe that’s the flaking paint of the concrete pylons of a tunnel that’s become overgrown with vegetation to better blend into its natural surroundings. Maybe that’s distinctions in the actual road surfaces themselves, from the grooved sections within tunnels to the corrugated asphalt that forms the narrow route to your large estate property to the north of the map. Maybe it’s all the idiosyncratic coloured road markings stencilled on the freeways, alleys, backroads, and mountain passes (where the warning paint is already scarred with the burnt rubber of bold drifters that have come before you).

Maybe it’s the fact that every single parking lot I’ve discovered around the map (and there are many, many more than I’ve been able to keep track of) appears to be entirely bespoke to its location – whether that’s the enormous, multilevel, Tokyo Drift-style one by the docks, a modest lot tucked away beneath an overpass, or just a few spots lining the front of a konbini.

I would’ve loved to have seen a full spectrum of underground parking lots, and on that one specific note it's arguable that Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown – which is based in the similarly dense Hong Kong and has many underground, polished-concrete parking garages, complete with working boom gates – has Forza Horizon 6 slightly beat. Like Solar Crown, however, Forza Horizon 6 does feature petrol stations. They’re not interactive, but they are realistically everywhere, all over Japan. There’s only ever been one in the whole Horizon series before – a single outback petrol station servicing Australia’s entire eastern seaboard back in Forza Horizon 3.

What I love particularly is just how car-adjacent the presence of so many places to actually pause, park, and pretend to fill up a car makes Forza Horizon 6’s map feel. It isn’t just a slab of land with some roads draped across it to drive up and down; all of these considerations make Japan feel like a world built to host cars. It doesn’t just have places you can race them, drag them, and drift them. It has places you can park them. Places you can pause and photograph them. Places you can meet and hang with friends around them.

Japan is a world that respects the car. Of course, Japan is also a world that respects the bicycle. But the car does not respect the bicycle. It is the natural order of things for cars to disrespect the bicycle.

And Forza Horizon 6 allows that, too.

It’s All in the Wrist

The cars look fantastic, but specifically they look more seated into the world than ever before. That’s especially true in frosty weather, where they become encrusted in a rough sheen of ice and water vapour floats from the exhaust as they belch hot gas directly into the frigid air. I love the long-awaited ability to place decals on glass in the livery editor. I’m not one for ostentatious and complex vinyls on my street cars, but I do love the subtle sense of ownership imbued by the simple act of being able to create and place a couple of stickers on my rear glass.

Car sound is the best it’s ever been in the series. The highlight is easily the incredible and noticeably improved echoing that you get in tight spaces and tunnels, something I’m enjoying constantly thanks to the frankly antisocial and aurally irresponsible amount of downshifting I’m doing in tunnels. But there are understated improvements elsewhere, too, like the faint squeak of performance brakes that have copped some punishment.

I do enjoy that Forza Horizon 6 brings back the curated, wristband structure of the 2012 original, and I think the overall sense of progression is considerably better because of it. With a special, sealed-off section of the map that’s exclusively available only after you’ve reached the top rank of the Horizon Festival, this campaign has a really overt crescendo – more so than previous games. It works well here, and it’s nice to have a clear endgame and a final goal. Each wristband graduation culminates with a large-scale event, which is either a traditional Showcase race or a new Rush event. Only two Showcases may sound low, but I would argue that the Rush events (which are basically giant obstacle races) remain pretty Showcase-adjacent. That is, they still involve aircraft zooming around the vicinity in some capacity – you’re just not racing them specifically. Showcases are just on more straightforward routes, which is smart considering it gives us a lot more time to actually look at, say, a giant mech stomping towards Tokyo. That one may just be the wildest Showcase in the series to date.

Overall, the tighter career structure only temporarily infringes on the freedom afforded to customise races that players of Forza Horizon 5 should be accustomed to. That is, while a race will initially have a set class and car theme locked, after this has been completed you can use the custom options to race it on subsequent occasions in any other car from your garage. It’s an effective compromise between a more traditional approach and the totally malleable nature of Forza Horizon 5.

Playground Games did make something of the decision to have your player character arrive at the Horizon Festival as a tourist in Japan rather than an existing ‘Festival Superstar’, although your identity as a tourist doesn’t really seem to inform much. You’re still immediately presented with a trio of pre-modified cars to start with and, while it seems like you’re choosing one, you’re actually gifted all three. Part of me does wonder whether using Forza Horizon 6’s new aftermarket car system – where cars for sale are positioned around the world to drive up to, view, and purchase in real time – could’ve been a more immersive option. Perhaps we could’ve headed out to cruise Tokyo in a borrowed car to find one of our own to buy and modify – or maybe it would’ve been neat to have needed to take a road trip to one of the permanent race tracks on the map to, say, meet a local getting rid of an old project car, or clapped-out track day gem. The race and drift circuits on the map are oozing with grassroots motorsport charm, and I love visiting them.

However, this is a pretty minor complaint considering how quickly and regularly you begin to accumulate cars. Playground has scaled back the wheelspin prize mechanic to be far less common, which is smart because I think it has gotten overused. However, credits still arrive at a decent clip – and there are more hidden cars than ever before, with the most barn finds to date and nine additional “treasure cars” on top of them. Clues to find treasure cars are uncovered by simply driving around the map, which is just one of the many ways Forza Horizon 6 incentivises exploring at your own pace.

Ever since they started coming out on PC, the Forza Horizon games have been some of the best PC ports around, which is a huge reason why I use them whenever I test any kind of hardware. Despite the excellent visuals that this series has given us time and time again, the games scale exceptionally well across all kinds of hardware.

Forza Horizon 6 continues this tradition. This is a game that looks incredibly good on high-end hardware, while still running quite well on low-end GPUs and handhelds. And even though most people should have no problem running this game on their PCs, I really wanted to take the chance to tweak with the settings to maximise performance while still making the game look as good as possible.

To do this, I ran the game on an RTX 5070 – a mid-range GPU – with the goal of running at 4K without ever really dropping below 60 fps. And, while the 5070 has trouble absolutely maxing out this game at a high resolution, it has plenty of room to stretch its legs, as long as you’re mindful of your VRAM budget. Because unlike a lot of games, Forza Horizon 6 will straight up turn off settings like DLSS if you run out of VRAM.

Another Great PC Game

Forza Horizon 6 appears to be running on an upgraded version of the same ForzaTech engine as pretty much every Forza game for the last decade. And, in a lot of ways, the game looks very similar to Forza Horizon 5, just with more robust ray tracing and upscaling options.

And, sure, that’s a bit disappointing if anyone was wishing for some true next-gen racing here, but what it means is that Playground Games had a much easier time optimizing it for lower-end hardware. So while, yeah, there are some details in the environment that don’t look great, like aliasing in power wires or the PS3-esque character models, that’s worth the trade off for awesome performance, especially in a game all about going fast.

However, there are some pitfalls that Forza runs into that are a little too familiar to other games this year. For instance, some of the ray traced reflections are a bit noisy, particularly on any car that’s painted white, or another light color. I’ve also noticed some upscaling artifacts around some elements of my car, though the extremity of this varies from vehicle to vehicle.

But what really matters for Forza’s Horizon 6’s visuals is how good the cars look. And, well, just like with Forza Motorsport 3 and Horizon 5, the cars look amazing. Everything else is kind of secondary anyways. Most of the time, you’re going to be blazing through environments at a hundred miles an hour, so if there are some blemishes, you’re not going to notice them anyways. That’s kind of the magic of racing games in the first place, and why this kind of game is typically much more photorealistic than any genre where going fast isn’t the whole point.

Maybe they should make a photo-real Sonic game. Just saying.

Best Settings For Forza Horizon 6

When I was sitting down to find the right settings for Forza Horizon 6, I had one clear goal: my car needs to look as good as possible. Luckily, there are plenty of graphics settings in the game that separate car detail from the rest of the game. This is especially helpful on a handheld like the Xbox Ally X, because with the lack of strong performance, being able to target the horsepower really helps squeeze out a few extra frames.

On PC, I tuned Forza Horizon 5 to run as well as possible on the RTX 5070 at 4K. My goal there was to get good enough performance so that it always runs at 60 fps. I also wanted to make sure there is enough buffer so that when you go through an unexpected puddle, you don’t dip below that 60 fps threshold.

For most people, if you just want a good ‘set it and forget it’ preset, the High + RT preset will get you a solid 60-70 fps at 4K without DLSS. However, the game looks a bit more flat than it should, particularly when it comes to reflections and detail on the cars themselves. However, the next preset up, Ultra + RT, will drop the RTX 5070 to about 43 fps. That’s not great, but it’s a good starting point.

In the video menu, I won’t be changing much. Resolution is set to 3840 x 2160, and while I prefer an unlocked frame rate, you can set the limit however you want here. Just make sure to set Vertical Synchronization to ‘Off’ if you want to unlock your frame rate.

The most important thing to change in this menu is the upscaling. If you’re on an AMD GPU, you can enable FSR 3.1.5, while Intel GPU users can enable XeSS. For Nvidia users, the game also supports pretty much every DLSS feature under the sun. As a general rule of thumb, I recommend upscaling at the ‘Quality’ preset for 1080p, ‘Balanced’ for 1440p, and ‘Performance’ for 4K. However, because Forza Horizon 5 runs as good as it does, I set DLSS to ‘Balanced’ for the RTX 5070.

You can also change your FoV for all your different camera views here, but that doesn’t really affect performance. So, feel free to set that as wide or as narrow as your little heart desires.

All of the more nitty-gritty graphics settings are in the ‘Graphics & Performance’ tab, and I’ll break down roughly what each one does, as well as what I’d recommend for both a mid-range GPU like the RTX 5070 and for a handheld like the Xbox Ally X or the Steam Deck.

Car Level of Detail This changes the model detail and mesh quality for all the cars in the game. This can affect your VRAM usage, so I’d lower it if you’re starting to stutter. But, this is Forza and the cars are super important, so I’d turn down the other level of detail options before I touch this one. Mid-Range PC: Ultra Handheld: High

Environment Texture Quality This one is pretty straightforward, and just changes the resolution of environmental textures. Because the RTX 5070 only has 12GB of RAM, and we want to enable DLSS to boost our frame rate, I’d lower this down to High. It doesn’t make that much of a difference, and it’ll give the upscaling algorithm some memory to work with.

Mid-Range PC: High

Handheld: High

Environment Geometry Quality

This simply changes the mesh quality for all the objects in the environment. I’d leave this higher, especially because you’re going to be spending a significant amount of time chasing down mascots to smash with your car, but this is unfortunately tied to texture quality.

Mid-range PC: High

Handheld: High

Car Reflection Quality

Another straightforward one! This just changes the quality of reflections on the interior and exterior of your car. These are the most noticeable reflections in the game, and this setting does a lot to boost the game’s presentation. However, it is very heavy on your GPU, so cut this if you’re struggling to get good performance.

Mid-range PC: High

Handheld: High

Screen Space Reflections Quality

This changes the quality of non-ray traced reflections. This basically reuses data from the currently rendered frame to roughly calculate what each reflection should look like. This is another very heavy setting, but it is automatically disabled if you enable ray traced reflections.

Mid-range PC: Off

Handheld: Medium or Off

Ray traced Reflections Quality

This changes the quality of ray traced reflections throughout the entire game. If you don’t have an RT-capable card, I wouldn’t even try turning this on. However, it is actually not that heavy on the RTX 5070, especially if you’re not trying to max it out. There are a lot of reflective surfaces in this game too, so it really does do a lot to make the game look better.

Mid-range PC: Medium

Handheld: Off

Shadow Quality

This changes both the resolution of shadows, and how often they update. Because everything in this game moves so fast, there is a lot of potential for shadows to rapidly change as your point of view changes. It’s still not worth the performance cost to maximise this, though, so I’d keep it at high.

Mid-range PC: High

Handheld: Low

Night Shadows

This adds shadows to certain light sources at night, mostly just your headlights and street lights. The setting does add moonlight shadows at its highest setting, but that’s something you should only really enable if you have a high-end GPU, or if you’re moving down to 1440p.

Mid-Range PC: Ultra

Handheld: Off

Screen Space Global Illumination Quality This improves ambient lighting, which does a lot for making the game more atmospheric. It’s a nice touch, but global illumination always comes with a heavy performance cost, so it’s one of the first things I’d cut if you’re running into performance problems. Plus, if you turn on ray traced global illumination, SSGI gets disabled automatically.

Mid-range PC: Off

Handheld: Medium

Ray Traced Global Illumination Quality

This does the same thing as Screen Space Global Illumination, but more accurately, and with a bigger performance cost. Even at low, RTGI looks better than SSGI, so I’d just set it to low if you have an RT-capable GPU, and then if you have the horsepower for it, you can turn it up for even better lighting.

Mid-range PC: Low

Handheld: Off

Shader Quality The game claims that this changes the “visual fidelity of the materials and lighting”, however, no matter how much I mess with this setting, I don’t really notice a difference. However, I didn’t do much pixel peeping this time around. Luckily, it doesn’t really affect performance that much, so I just leave it at ultra.

Mid-range PC: Ultra

Handheld: High

Deformable Terrain Quality This changes the quality of dirt, mud, or any other kind of terrain that’s gonna get torn up by your tires. Surprisingly, it doesn’t affect performance too much on a desktop, but it will start to hamper performance on a handheld.

Mid-Range PC: Extreme

Handheld: Medium

Particle Effects This just changes the quality and quantity of particles that are flung up when you’re driving around Japan. This can hurt performance a bit when you’re driving through puddles or mud, and you’re flinging debris everywhere. I’d leave it at high.

Mid-range PC: High

Handheld: Medium

Volumetric Fog Quality There is a ton of fog in Forza Horizon 5, particularly when it’s raining. This was one of the first things I tried to turn down to save performance, especially because the built-in benchmark is, well, quite foggy. To my surprise, though, this didn’t really change performance at all. And, because it looks great, turn it up a bit!

Mid-range PC: Ultra

Handheld: Medium

Both Lens Effects and Motion Blur Quality are entirely aesthetic choices. Neither one is going to affect performance that much, so turn them up or down depending on your preference.

With all of the recommended settings, I was able to get my framerate up to 70 fps in the built-in benchmark, which is right where I wanted it. I did want to test it in the actual game, too, though, so I set a frame counter and just played the game normally for an hour.

And, let me tell you, Forza Horizon 6 runs like an absolute dream now. In the open world with these settings, the RTX 5070 sits around 90 fps most of the time, and only really dips to 70 fps in races with a lot of reflective puddles and particle effects. No matter what I tried, I could not get this mid-range GPU to drop below 60 fps, and that’s without any frame generation.

The RTX 5070 isn’t even marketed as a 4K graphics card, but at least in Forza Horizon 6, it doesn’t seem like the bar to get good performance at that resolution is very high.

Even on a handheld, Forza Horizon 6 runs pretty well. Really, my recommended settings are a mix of the medium and high presets, and when the Xbox Ally X is plugged in, I can get between 50-60 fps, sometimes even stretching up to 70. Then, when I unplug it and run the handheld on its lowest power settings, I’m still able to get around 30 fps, which is perfectly fine if you’re just trying to stretch some battery life out of the thing.

I went into Forza Horizon 6 expecting good performance out of it – after all, the system requirements are pretty modest. But I’m still surprised at just how well this game runs, even on low-end hardware. For how dire the PC hardware world is right now, at least there are some games that’ll run well on pretty much anything. That’s my silver lining right now.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

We can safely say that Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings MMO is dead, although the mega corp has insisted it’s still working on a new Middle-earth video game.

Confirmation comes from Eurogamer, which reported on the cancelation of the game as part of an investigation into Amazon’s push towards generative AI and subsequent widespread layoffs across its development teams.

Amazon Games boss Jeff Grattis, told Eurogamer: “Our creative team continues to explore a compelling new game experience that does justice to Tolkien's world; we are working closely with Middle-earth and remain excited about the IP.”

The Lord of the Rings MMO was thought dead back in October, when Amazon confirmed it was walking away from making new content for its MMO, New World, amid huge layoffs affecting 14,000 roles at the company. According to a report by Bloomberg, these layoffs included “significant” cuts to Amazon’s video game operation, which reduced development work mainly in its Irvine and San Diego offices.

Bloomberg said Amazon was cutting back especially on MMOs, sparking concern for The Lord of the Rings MMO. At the time, a former Amazon Games developer hit by the cuts suggested The Lord of the Rings MMO was dead.

“This morning I was part of the layoffs at Amazon Games, alongside my incredibly talented peers on New World and our fledgling Lord of the Rings game (y'all would have loved it),” the developer said in a now-deleted post on LinkedIn.

“It’s always tough to see such a strong team go through something like this — I’ve been lucky to work with some of the most skilled, creative, and kind developers I’ve ever met here.”

Although The Lord of the Rings MMO was announced in 2023, in August last year, then Amazon Games boss Christoph Hartmann told IGN it was still early days. "We're still trying to find the hook, find that idea of what it is because we don't just want to go and do the same thing over," Hartmann said at the time.

"While it's tempting sometimes with an existing IP, that's not the point of doing it. You've got to find a fresh twist, and we're still, I think, in that period where we really want to find out what could be the hook, what could be the thing which is different to all the other games out there. So it's a little bit early.”

In 2023, Lord of the Rings rights owner Embracer said it needed to be "exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very significant fashion" by turning it into “one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world.” Embracer bought the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in August 2022 and announced plans to explore opportunities to create new games, movies, and more based on the famous intellectual property soon after.

It’s worth digging into Amazon’s statement a little deeper here. Mention of “a compelling new game experience that does justice to Tolkien's world” suggests a new The Lord of the Rings game is in the works. But what could it be? Perhaps it’s the rumored The Lord of the Rings RPG from Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse, which, it’s worth pointing out, is owned by Embracer.

This isn’t the first time Amazon has canceled a Lord of the Rings MMO. In 2021, it halted a Lord of the Rings MMORPG that was first announced in 2019 amid a contract dispute with Tencent.

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

After seven weeks in theaters, Nintendo's The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will become available to own at home next week, via digital download, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD.

You'll be able to buy The Super Mario Galaxy Movie from retailers beginning next Tuesday, May 19, in a package with over an hour of special features included (though, sadly, no deleted scenes).

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie's arrival for purchase comes as the film inches closer to earning $1 billion box office — though it's looking less likely it will make it over the line. After six weeks in theaters, the film has totalled $942 million — still some way off of the $1.36 billion earned by Nintendo's first The Super Mario Bros. Movie back in 2023.

Still, the Galaxy movie has been a huge success versus its comparatively lean budget of $110 million — and that's despite a mixed to negative consensus by critics, something which Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto said had taken him by surprise. (IGN's The Super Mario Galaxy review returned a 6/10 score.)

Perhaps it gets better on a rewatch? Whether its your first time or you just want to see that Star Fox anime sequence again, Universal has listed The Super Mario Galaxy Movie's home release as having the following special features, when purchased "at participating retailers":

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie exclusive bonus features:

• NEXT LEVEL: MAKING THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE – Go behind the scenes of this epic journey across the cosmos as the visionary creators at Nintendo, the acclaimed filmmakers and artists of Illumination, and the extraordinary cast who redefined these iconic characters reveal the artistry behind every meticulously crafted moment.
• CAST OF CHARACTERS – Explore how this impeccable cast masterfully embodied the iconic MARIO BROS. characters, honoring their legacy while captivating audiences across generations worldwide.
  • Mario & Luigi
  • Peach & Rosalina
  • Bowser & Bowser Jr.
  • Toad & Yoshi
• EXPLORING THE GALAXY – Guided by the filmmakers and cast, audiences embark on a journey through the film’s most iconic settings, revealing the thoughtful layers of nostalgia embedded in each one.
• GALACTIC THEMATICS – The emotional core of any SUPER MARIO BROS. film lies in its relationships. This piece delves into the bonds between characters, examining the alliances that are tested, the connections that are broken, and those that endure and evolve forever.
• COSMIC TUNES – Some sounds are unmistakably SUPER MARIO BROS. Composer Brian Tyler invites audiences inside his creative process, reimagining the franchise’s iconic game music as a powerful cinematic score that drives the action and elevates this epic adventure.
• POWER-UPS – There is no greater tool in the galaxy than a perfectly timed power-up. Take a closer look at the many power-ups featured in the film, explore how the filmmakers selected which to include, and hear from the cast as they share their personal favorites.
• SECRETS OF THE GALAXY – Brimming with cleverly hidden Easter eggs, the film invites fans to return again and again to catch them all. In this feature, the filmmakers and cast offer insider guidance on where to look, what to watch for, and the surprises waiting to be discovered.

A third major Mario film remains unannounced but seems certain — and indeed, Bowser actor Jack Black has suggested it will arrive in 2029. There's also a Mario spinoff movie now confirmed for a 2028 release date, although that's expected to center around Donkey Kong. And, of course, Nintendo has its live-action The Legend of Zelda movie set to drop next year — with a new release date today.

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

GTA 6 fans have gone into overdrive — as they have done so many times recently amid the wait for Trailer 3 — after reports emerged online that Best Buy had potentially leaked the game’s pre-order date.

We’ve been here before, many times. Some fans actually believe in a Trailer 3 release date prediction that came from someone who charted the planetary positions for every single Rockstar Games trailer released since 2007.

Now, we have a rumor around the GTA 6 pre-order date. For any other game, this wouldn’t necessarily be massive news, nor would there be extreme interest in a leak. But this is GTA 6. It’s perhaps the most anticipated game of all time, and seems set to become the biggest entertainment launch in history. The date pre-orders go live will likely crash websites.

And so, we come to a YouTuber called Frogboyx1gaming, who, during a live stream, appeared to receive an email from Best Buy to his Best Buy affiliate account signalling a pre-order campaign for GTA 6 that would run from May 18-21. If true, that would suggest GTA 6 pre-orders go live on May 18, and if that's true, you’d imagine GTA 6 Trailer 3 isn't far away. Perhaps it's coming today!

There’s already been a huge amount of fuss over the legitimacy of this email. Certainly, Frogboyx1gaming appears surprised to have received it during the livestream, and has been open in sharing images and photos to back up the claim. There’s all sorts of debate about various parts of the email, from the description of GTA 6 itself (as opposed to the full spelling, Grand Theft Auto VI), to the idea it would be sent in the first place. For what it’s worth, IGN has asked Best Buy for comment.

🚨BREAKING: GTA VI Pre-Orders (Physical) have leaked online!

👨‍💻It seems that Best-Buy affiliates have been receiving this email. The campaign is set to be running next week from May 18th-21st.

📱Credit: @Frogboyx1Gaming pic.twitter.com/eETF1Tuepx

— Project Vice (@project_vice) May 14, 2026

True or not, this is yet another indication of the intense scrutiny on GTA 6, Rockstar Games, and pretty much anything even tangentially related to the game’s development. I’ve even seen fans track how busy it is at coffee shops local to Rockstar North’s office in Scotland, in some weird video game version of the Pentagon pizza theory.

None of this intense involvement with GTA 6 is particularly healthy (GTA 6 Trailer 3 will come out eventually!), but it is fuelled by the huge gap between trailer drops and even basic gameplay information fans have had to sit through so far. It’s been over a year since Trailer 2 came out. Trailer 1 came out three years ago, in 2023. The drip-feed of GTA 6 news has been stretched to breaking point, as, it seems, have fans.

Maybe a crazy theory, but I feel like that GTA 6 Best Buy email was just scheduled at the wrong time.

Was probably meant to go live later today. Right date, wrong time. I've made that mistake before. Could bode well for today!

— TGG (@TGGonYT) May 14, 2026

Strauss Zelnick, boss of rockstar parent company Take-Two, has said GTA 6 marketing will kick into gear in the summer, ahead of the planned November release date. So more is coming. When, exactly? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Earlier this month, Business Insider reported that Take-Two is estimated to have spent $1-1.5 billion so far on GTA 6. In an interview, Zelnick wouldn’t say how much exactly, but did admit “it was expensive.” To put GTA 6 into context, most of the triple-A video game budgets that make headlines do so for being in the hundreds of millions of dollars range. Bungie's recently released extraction shooter reportedly had a budget of over $250 million, for example. Concord's initial development deal was around $200 million, according to a report by Kotaku. In 2023, new documents submitted as part of the Xbox Federal Trade Commission case accidentally revealed The Last of Us: Part II and Horizon Forbidden West each cost more than $200 million to develop. Last year, the astronomical development budgets of the Call of Duty games were revealed for the first time after a court document confirmed Activision pumped $700 million into Black Ops Cold War alone, although that was over the shooter's life cycle. GTA 6, clearly, surpasses them all.

Given the expectation that GTA 6 will be the biggest entertainment launch of all time, it comes as no surprise to hear of astronomical development costs for Rockstar’s game. And it has been in the works for some time; according to Business Insider, some of the thousands of staff at Rockstar have been working on GTA 6 for over a decade now. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Zelnick said development costs have risen over the years, but Take-Two tries to give its teams “unlimited financial, creative human resources and then they aim to deliver perfection.”

Any conversation about GTA 6 development costs naturally leads to a discussion about how much Rockstar will charge for the game. Bank of America recently came out with a recommendation that GTA 6 be sold for $80, $10 more than the norm. Analyst opinions on the GTA 6 price are all over the place, with some saying Rockstar should stick with $70, and others saying it could easily justify going up to $100. While GTA 6 will undoubtedly set sales records, there are questions about how well it can do amid one of the toughest economies in recent memory.

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

Another day, another set of Assassin's Creed leaks — this time for the series' upcoming witchcraft-inspired blockbuster Assassin's Creed Hexe, which is expected to launch at some point in 2027.

The latest details come from persistent Ubisoft leaker j0nathan, who claims to have published the first screenshot taken from the game. The image shows a hooded Assassin figure perched on a branch in a dark and creepy forest, their Hidden Blade ready to strike.

j0nathan also discussed a series of purported Hexe plot details that have made their way around Assassin's Creed fan sites and social media this week: that the game's main hero is a woman named Anika, who has an older Assassin mentor named Wolfgang.

ASSASSIN’S CREED HEXE’den ilk ekran görüntüsü sızdırıldı! 👀

Solda sızdırılan görüntüyü, sağda ise yapay zekâ yardımıyla netleştirilmiş versiyonunu görüyorsunuz.

(@xj0nathan) pic.twitter.com/auZGT4bBkc

— IGN Türkiye (@IGN_Turkey) May 14, 2026

And then there's the most spoiler-y element of the leak — one we'll place behind a warning should you not wish to know this information ahead of time.

Warning! Potential spoilers for Assassin's Creed Hexe follow:

Most surprising of all is word that iconic Assassin hero Ezio Auditore will return within Hexe in some capacity. The exact nature of how this will take place doesn't sound clear, but j0nathan has suggested Ezio will not physically be present, running around in Hexe's European forests.

Instead, the famed Assassin's Creed Brotherhood protagonist will make his presence felt via some sort of Isu recording — a memory disc or similar technology (perhaps akin to the memory discs Ezio used to discover more about Altaïr in Assassin's Creed Revelations).

Of course, it's worth caveating all of this with the fact that games in development are subject to change (and indeed, Hexe has reportedly gone through changes recently to rework its more magical elements). None of this information comes officially from Ubisoft, either, though the leaker has a lengthy track record.

Earlier this month, j0nathan sparked an official response from Ubisoft when he shared a work-in-progress image of the upcoming Assassin's Creed Invictus multiplayer spinoff. Ubisoft claimed the image had been altered using AI — something j0nathan later admitted, before publishing the original, unedited screenshot instead.

IGN has contacted Ubisoft for more.

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

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls developer Arc System Works recently revealed that the fighting game will have an Episode Mode — a story mode aimed at casual players — told in an interactive comic book style. Various outlets originally reported that this Episode Mode wouldn't have any actual gameplay. But recent updates have confirmed that this is not the case.

In an interview with Japanese news site 4Gamer, producer Takeshi Yamanaka and director/lead battle designer Kazuto ‘Pachi’ Sekine revealed more about the game’s story mode. However, 4Gamer’s initial publication suggested that Episode Mode would only contain a Guilty Gear Strive-style cutscene-based story mode with no gameplay. But an update to the interview, added on May 13, clarified that there will indeed be 4v4 bouts to enjoy within the story mode.

“In Episode Mode, playable battles are incorporated throughout,” clarified Yamanaka. “Battles occur that tie into the story, while the design allows everyone to enjoy it casually, just like reading a comic book. This allows the story to be experienced in a more interactive way.”

Episode mode will feature around 10 hours of content and gameplay in total, with variations in the story playing out depending on which of the five default teams you pick. The story will build up to a confrontation against Marvel Tokon’s brand-new, mysterious villains: The Champion and his henchwoman Promoter. Teams of four will battle it out in order to face The Champion in the final battle of the game’s Episode Mode, and prevent him from destroying Earth (as detailed in the PlayStation blog post earlier this month).

The comic book-style cutscenes will be animated and voiced in 10 languages, with players flipping through panels and scenes. The interactive comic book will make use of the PS5 DualSense's haptic feedback, too. “The default teams revealed by the official channels have been put together with the Episode Mode storyline in mind,” noted Yamanaka, however those who want more freedom can make their own teams in the game’s other modes.

Marvel Tokon’s 4v4 tag team battle system is based around one of the chosen characters in each team being the leader. "We want players to be able to freely select four characters that they like, so we’ve included a 'Team Generation' feature that automatically generates a team name based on the characters chosen," explained Yamanaka. The source words used for this name generation system were picked by the dev team, and are selected based on the characteristics of your team leader and the other members. Players are also free to name their teams themselves.

Yamanaka also revealed that Marvel urged the team to incorporate Arc System Works’ art style into the character designs, giving the superheroes an anime-style look. “This is why one of our themes for this game is 'from Japan to the world' — the idea of drawing Marvel characters in Arc System Works' unique style and sending them out into the world," said Sekine.

Yamanaka noted that in-depth discussions were held between Sony, Marvel, and Arc System Works on the character roster, but that the developers were given freedom by Marvel to interpret guidelines for each character how they saw fit, sending their work to Marvel for ultimate approval. Sekine also hinted that fans should keep an eye out for some interesting alternative costumes.

Yamanaka and Sekine were keen to emphasize that Marvel Tokon is not just for hardcore Marvel fans but also can be enjoyed by casual players and newcomers to the superhero franchise. "The Episode Mode includes glossaries and character bios — we designed the game so even Marvel newcomers can understand the world, the characters and the relationships between them. I'd be happy if Marvel Tokon served as a gateway for people to discover the movies and comics as well."

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is due out on PlayStation 5 and PC on August 6, 2026.

Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.

Marathon developer Bungie has unveiled what, exactly, will change as Season 2 begins, teasing "liberated chaos" as players "know a fresh start is just around the corner" when update 1.0.9 drops next Tuesday (May 19).

"Runners continue to pillage what isn’t theirs across Tau Ceti, and the UESC is growing tired of their criminal activities," Bungie teased. "As Season 1 comes to a close, you’ll see the first of the UESC’s renewed security efforts, with more to come when Season 2: Nightfall begins on June 2. More details about Season 2 will drop as we get closer to June 2. In the meantime, we have a couple of end-of-season updates to preview. We also want to share more details about the seasonal reset, including what you keep, what goes, and loot rewards you’ll receive when Nightfall begins on June 2."

From here until the end of the season, you'll find locked room keys are guaranteed to drop from Wardens, and map events like Intercept, Lockdown, Warden spawns, Convoy, and Anomaly will now be guaranteed on each run, so you can "benefit from their better rewards even more often."

As a consequence of this, you should expect increases in UESC presence across Tau Ceti IV in response to Runner activity, new warden encounters, more UESC dropship flyovers, and a mysterious new threat on Dire Marsh and Perimeter.

When Season 2 kicks off, Marathon will go through its first-ever seasonal reset to give everyone a "clean slate and equal footing at the start of the new season." These resets include things related to gameplay progression; you’ll keep your achievements, non-seasonal Codex progression, and cosmetics — see below for the full breakdown.

These changes are the latest of many. Just last month, Marathon doubled the amount of Depleted Patch Kits (meds) and Depleted Shield Charges (armor) consumables players could carry in a single inventory slot, and nerfed — then rebuffed — the WSTR combat shotgun as Bungie bid to make its extraction shooter less punishing for newbies. The week before, Bungie's boldest attempt yet went live, introducing the CyberAcme Runner Reinforcement Initiative (C.A.R.R.I.), a "new protocol from ONI that rewards solo Runners and coordinated crews for completing contract objectives and exfiling together."

Last week, Sony reported a $765 million impairment loss due to underperformance of Bungie during its last financial year, after it bought the company in early 2022 in a deal valued at $3.6 billion. But Sony chief financial officer Lin Tao has indicated it will stick with Marathon in a bid to grow its user base. "Player reception to Marathon is strong, with the game receiving a Metacritic score of 82 and more than 90% of the player reviews on Steam being positive," Tao said. "Engagement metrics such as retention also remain at a high level. Going forward, we aim to improve the performance of the game by working to retain highly engaged core users through the introduction of additional content, further improvements in the gameplay experience and expansion of the user base."

Season 2 Begins June 2

Runners continue to pillage what isn’t theirs across Tau Ceti, and the UESC is growing tired of their criminal activities. As Season 1 comes to a close, you’ll see the first of the UESC’s renewed security efforts, with more to come when Season 2: NIGHTFALL begins on June 2. More details about Season 2 will drop as we get closer to June 2.

In the meantime, we have a couple of end-of-season updates to preview. We also want to share more details about the seasonal reset, including what you keep, what goes, and loot rewards you’ll receive when NIGHTFALL begins on June 2.

End of Season Update

As the season comes to an end, we want to embrace the feeling of liberated chaos that comes from knowing a fresh start for everyone is just around the corner. To that, our goal with update 1.0.9 coming next Tuesday is to amp up some of the rewards you can earn to make your runs more lucrative and exciting.

Guaranteed Map Events and Keys

Locked room keys are guaranteed to drop from Wardens for the remainder of the season. Additionally, map events like Intercept, Lockdown, Warden spawns, Convoy, and Anomaly will now be guaranteed on each run, so you can benefit from their better rewards even more often.

Escalation in UESC Forces

Expect increases in UESC presence across Tau Ceti IV in response to Runner activity.

• New Warden Encounters: Wardens can spawn at new POIs in Perimeter, Dire Marsh, and Outpost.
• UESC dropship flyovers and crash sites: UESC aerial activity has increased dramatically on Perimeter. Use this as an opportunity to seize their supplies.
• Stay vigilant: The UESC will be deploying a new threat on Dire Marsh and Perimeter to help shutdown Runner activity.

Cryo Archive Increased Availability

We want more players to have their shot at Cryo Archive before the season closes, so the map will be available every day starting on May 21 through the end of the season on June 2. Those of you worried about losing it all at the “lose everything factory,” don’t worry: We’ll be sending you a free Cryo Archive Sponsored Kit to your mailbox every day during this time.

Players looking for the ultimate challenge will be able to test their mettle at Cryo Archive: Ranked. This special version of Cryo will serve as the grand closure of the Ranked queue for Season 1 and will be available from May 24 at 10AM PT to May 28 at 10AM PT. Note that regular Cryo will not be available at the same time as Ranked Cryo.

Here are the Ranked Cryo requirements:

• Runner Level 25
• 3,000 loadout requirements (low stakes)
• 10,000 loadout requirements (high stakes)

Faction Progression

Through the end of the season, we’re also increasing Faction experience gains from all sources. Use your additional faction progress to reach the end-of-season goals you’ve got your sights on.

Update 1.0.9 Balance Changes

Finally, we have a preview of a few other changes coming with Update 1.0.9.

Rook Update

One of the big perks of doing runs with Rook is being able to sneak around the UESC, and we have a buff to Signal Mask to make it easier to avoid detection.

• Signal Mask remains active for longer when sprinting.
• The range at which AI will detect your footsteps when Signal Mask is active has been reduced.

Key Template Changes

The feedback around Key Templates has been loud and clear: They have not been fun to engage with. Getting downed and losing your key has created an incentive to play extra passive and hide somewhere on the map until you can exfil as quickly as possible.

For the rest of Season 1, Templates will be changed to be Compromised rather than Fragile. We think hunting for Matter Fixatives that drop from Commanders and other enemies will be a more interesting way to charge your keys. This will also prevent the keys from being destroyed during the match and allow for you to possibly loot these keys off other crews you best.

New Way to Find Keys

We’ll also be creating new places for Deluxe keys to drop so there's now another chance for valuable loot on every map. After Update 1.0.9 there will be a chance for Deluxe keys to drop from every wall safe you loot.

Prepare for the Reset

When Season 2 begins, Marathon will go through its first ever seasonal reset. The goal is for everyone to have a clean slate and equal footing at the start of the new season. It's a time where the community can explore what's new, discover what’s valuable, and chart a new path through the season together.

These resets include things related to gameplay progression; you’ll keep your achievements, non-seasonal Codex progression, and cosmetics. See below for the full breakdown.

Redeem Those Item Rewards!

All unclaimed gear and equipment reward packages from factions and the Codex will reset with the new season, so grab ‘em now and make use of the goods while you can.

Cosmetic items, including styles, titles, and emblems, will autocomplete at the end of the season and automatically be available for use in Season 2. So don’t sweat it if you miss claiming some cosmetics—if you’ve earned it, you’ll have it in Season 2.

Also reminder that Rewards Passes do not reset and your progress carries over to the start of the new season.

Ranked Rewards for Season 1

The end of Season 1 will also mark the end of your current climb on the Ranked queue. Your current rank will be reset at the start of Season 2, and you will get the chance to climb the ladder again and earn new cosmetic and other rewards.

Once Ranked ends, you’ll be able to claim the emblems, titles, and styles you earned based on the highest rank you achieved this season. Rewards can be claimed in the Codex.

1. You will only receive the Emblem of the highest rank you reach. So if you get to Diamond I, you’ll only receive the Diamond Runner Emblem (not the Bronze Emblem, Silver Emblem, etc.). All other rewards are additive.
2. Ranked titles are available for use for one additional season after the one you earn it in. So if you earned “Gilded Survivor” title in Season 1, you can still show it off in Season 2 but need to climb back up to Gold I again for it to carry over to Season 3. All other rewards are permanent.

Check This List Before the Reset

Have questions about what is staying and what is going? Here's a comprehensive list.

• Runner Level
• Ranked Level
• Faction Level and Upgrades
• Credits and other currencies
  • Exceptions: LUX and SILK
• All items in your inventory and Vault
• Purchases unlocked by Schemas
• Messages, rewards, and returned items in your Mailbox
• Priority Contracts
  • Exception: first contract for each Faction
• Gear-granting seasonal Codex entries for:
  • Runner Level
  • Ranked

• Cosmetics and weapon unlocked and redeemed during Season 1
• Codex challenges, including partial progress (except Runner and Ranked levels)
  • Combat
  • Feats
  • Loot
  • Map
  • Runner
  • Title
• Faction Unlocks
  • Access to each faction you had previously unlocked is retained; no need to repeat Liaison Contracts
• Initial Priority Contracts
  • Completion status of the first contract for each faction is retained
• LUX and SILK balances
• Rewards Pass progress
• Cryo Archive Subroutines progress

Secure Sponsored Kits for Season 2

When Season 2 begins, CyberAcme will be doling out Sponsored Kits for your hard work this season. You’ll be able to claim your Sponsored Kits in the Codex based on your final Runner

Level this season:

• Runner Level 10: Enhanced CyberAcme Sponsored Kit
• Runner Level 25: Enhanced CyberAcme Sponsored Kit
• Runner Level 50: Deluxe CyberAcme Sponsored Kit
• Runner Level 75: Superior CyberAcme Sponsored Kit

These rewards are additive, so if you get to Level 75, you’ll be able to claim all four Sponsored Kits. ONI thanks you for your efforts.

Nightfall is coming

Season 2: NIGHTFALL begins on June 2 and brings the new Night Marsh zone, a new Runner shell, new weapons, a new system to customize your Runner shell stats called The Cradle, faster faction progression, several quality-of-life updates based on your feedback, and more.

Stay tuned for more details about Season 2, with full reveals coming the week of May 25.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Nintendo has announced a change to the release date of its live-action The Legend of Zelda movie, which will launch earlier than previously expected.

The film is now set to arrive in theaters on April 30, 2027 — a week sooner than its previous May 7, 2027 slot. No specific reason was given for the shift, though Nintendo talisman Shigeru Miyamoto has said that Nintendo is committed to completing the movie for fans as soon as possible.

"This is Miyamoto," wrote Miyamoto, via Nintendo's social media accounts. "We have decided to change the worldwide theatrical release date of the live-action film The Legend of Zelda from May 7, 2027 to April 30, 2027.

"In order to deliver it to everyone even one day sooner, the team is united in advancing production. It's less than a year until release, but please wait just a little longer."

Zelda's previous date had no specific competition, and certainly nothing like the Avengers: Doomsday and Dune 3 clash that's coming this December. Still, it is a busy launch period, with several other blockbusters all jostling for position.

Big films set to arrive next year around the same as The Legend of Zelda include Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (March 19), Godzilla x Kong: Supernova (March 26) and Star Wars: Starfighter (May 28). Zelda was originally announced with a March release window, before Nintendo previously shifted it back to early May.

Next year's movie line-up only gets more competitive through the summer months, with Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, Shrek 5, Man of Tomorrow and A Minecraft Movie 2 all due within four weeks of each other through June and July.

Nintendo has kept many details of its Zelda movie under-wraps, with no word on its story, setting or characters beyond Link and Zelda, who will be played by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth and Bo Bragason. Filming in New Zealand has now wrapped, though some fans got a sneaky glimpse — and believe they spotted Succession actress Dichen Lachman in costume as Zelda's aide Impa.

Fans expect to hear much more about the film later this year when Nintendo gets around to marking the Zelda franchise's 40th anniversary. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes director Wes Ball is helming the film, and has spoken previously about wanting to make a "serious" and "grounded" adaptation that feels "real" to audiences.

Following a recent leak, Nintendo is also believed to be developing a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake for Switch 2.

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

Forza Horizon 6 developer Playground has confirmed the global release times for the hotly anticipated racing game, both for its early access release and the full launch.

Confirmation comes after Forza Horizon 6 suffered a significant leak on PC that led to the game being made available to pirates well before launch. Playground and parent company Microsoft have been working to plug the leak, and even issued pirates with lifetime hardware ID bans. Some had wondered if the leak would alter Forza Horizon 6’s release plans, perhaps with it being brought forward, but that is not the case.

As confirmed in a post on social media, Forza Horizon 6’s early access launch goes ahead as planned on May 15, although on Xbox it’s playable on the evening of May 14 on the west coast in order to align with the eastern timezone.

Steam access for everyone begins at 12:01 am with the U.S. Eastern time zone. This is a global release pattern, Playground said, so the Steam launch will be aligned to Eastern time. Full timezone details are below.

Early access is available only to those who buy the Premium edition. As a first-party Microsoft game, Forza Horizon 6 launches day one on Game Pass (PC and Ultimate) on May 19. Preload went live on May 12 across all platforms (Steam, Xbox Series X and S, and the Xbox app for PC - a PS5 version is on the way, although it's due out later this year). Meanwhile, Forza Horizon 6 is 'Verified' on Steam Deck and other devices, including the Xbox ROG Ally and Ally X.

Forza Horizon 6 Xbox early access global release times:

Thursday, May 14, 2026:

PT (Seattle):

• 09:01 pm

CST (Mexico City):

• 11:01 pm

Friday, May 15, 2026:

ET (New York):

• 00:01 am

BST (London):

• 00:01 am

CEST (Paris):

• 00:01 am

JST (Tokyo):

• 00:01 am

KST (Seoul):

• 00:01 am

AEST (Sydney):

• 00:01 am

NZST (Auckland):

• 00:01 am

Forza Horizon 6 Xbox global release times:

Monday, May 18, 2026:

PT (Seattle):

• 09:01 pm

CST (Mexico City):

• 11:01 pm

Tuesday, May 19, 2026:

ET (New York):

• 00:01 am

BST (London):

• 00:01 am

CEST (Paris):

• 00:01 am

JST (Tokyo):

• 00:01 am

KST (Seoul):

• 00:01 am

AEST (Sydney):

• 00:01 am

NZST (Auckland):

• 00:01 am

Forza Horizon 6 PC via Steam early access global release times:

Thursday, May 14, 2026:

PT (Seattle):

• 09:01 pm

CST (Mexico City):

• 11:01 pm

Friday, May 15, 2026:

ET (New York):

• 00:01 am

BST (London):

• 05:01 am

CEST (Paris):

• 06:01 am

JST (Tokyo):

• 01:01 pm

KST (Seoul):

• 01:01 pm

AEST (Sydney):

• 02:01 pm

NZST (Auckland):

• 04:01 pm

Forza Horizon 6 PC via Steam global release times:

Monday, May 18, 2026:

PT (Seattle):

• 09:01 pm

CST (Mexico City):

• 11:01 pm

Tuesday, May 19, 2026:

ET (New York):

• 00:01 am

BST (London):

• 05:01 am

CEST (Paris):

• 06:01 am

JST (Tokyo):

• 01:01 pm

KST (Seoul):

• 01:01 pm

AEST (Sydney):

• 02:01 pm

NZST (Auckland):

• 04:01 pm

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

There's a new Dungeon Crawler Carl book out this week, which means there's also a new audiobook for the series as well. To promote the new book, A Parade of Horribles, author Matt Dinniman and narrator Jeff Hays narrator got together to officially rank the character voices for the series. You can watch the full video on Audible's YouTube page, where Hays performs the voices as they discuss rankings.

During this video, Dinniman took a moment to talk a bit about Quasar and how he's his overall "favorite character in the series." For those not familiar with all of the many characters, Quasar is the fast-talking alien lawyer that gets appointed to Carl in the fifth book in the series, The Butcher's Masquerade.

"So my goal in life after I'm done with the Carl series is to one day write some sort of legal drama; something that involves aliens," explains Dinniman. "When I added him to the story I told Jeff, 'Do, like, the quintessential Better Call Saul, but with like maybe a New York-sort of accent' and he nailed it."

That seems like a pretty clear sign about what he's thinking for his next book after he wraps up Dungeon Crawler Carl, but he clearly hasn't fully fleshed out that idea. We also don't know just how big DCC is going to be just yet, as there's still the upcoming TV adaptation coming to Peacock on the horizon. Dinniman has stated that he plans on wrapping up the series at 10 books total, but if the TV show ends up being really popular it could extend his involvement even further.

As for what his alien "legal drama" could look like, there are two clear paths Dinniman could take. He could start fresh with a new character, or he could do a Better Call Saul-style spinoff about Quasar. There's already an upcoming Crocodile graphic novel spin-off expected for March 2027, so continuing to build on this universe he's already created certainly makes sense. However, IGN asked him during an interview earlier this month if he was planning any other DCC spinoffs and he said: "As of right now, no. We’ll see how Crocodile does".

What happens after Dungeon Crawler Carl is clearly still a long way away but, in the meantime there are plenty of ways to enjoy the series. A Parade of Horribles released on May 12 on Kindle, Audible, and a hardcover edition. There's also an upcoming DCC tabletop RPG that has already raised an enormous amount of money.

Battlefield 6 has received a new map and it fixes one of the biggest issues with the game: a lack of airspace. Thankfully, the team behind Battlefield 6 have addressed this with its latest map, Railway to Golmud. The map is a remake of a Battlefield 4 classic and is naturally already a massive map, but even more so for pilots. The out-of-bounds area for air vehicle stretches far beyond the play area for infantry and ground vehicles, meaning you could theoretically have dogfights without having to worry about anti-air vehicles bothering you.

A core tenet of the Battlefield franchise is its emphasis on all-out warfare. Players can utilize a wide range of vehicles to battle the other team and conquer objectives, including air vehicles, which play a major role on the battlefield. However, the big issue with Battlefield 6 is that the airspace is too small in most maps. Eventually, you hit an out-of-bounds barrier, forcing you to turn back around. Not only does this give you very little room to battle other air vehicles, but can also make it difficult to escape and catch your breath when being locked on to by anti-air weaponry.

While this doesn't fix the issues with every other map, there is hope that those could be improved later in the year. EA has already committed to doing reworks for New Sobek City and Blackwell Fields, two maps that have egregious air space. Both maps are pretty small, so you are constantly being locked on to with little to no room to break the lock-ons. It's expected these reworks will address this issue, but only time will tell how much of a difference it will make.

Battlefield 6 will also be addressing another big issue later in the year. Fans have been underwhelmed with the amount of content the game has been putting out, noting that it's not coming quickly enough and the updates are too small. Season 3 just launched this week and two more seasonal updates are expected this year, with Season 5 aiming to have three new maps instead of just two, rectifying a problem with the live-service side of the game.

Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.

Arc Raiders has announced that it will only have two big content updates every year, much to the dismay of players. In a new blog post, Embark Studios revealed that it will release the next big Arc Raiders update, Frozen Trail, in October. This will not only add new locations to explore, but also new enemies, new expansions to the story and lore, and updates to the game's progression systems. It's clear that Embark's ambition is to deliver something expansive and deep in one burst as opposed to drip feeding content throughout the year.

The studio confirmed that it will be on a bi-annual schedule for future content updates.

"Going forward, we've made the decision to release major updates twice a year – larger in scale, more impactful, with the goal to genuinely change how you play the game," reads the blog post. "Don’t worry, a dedicated live service team will continue running ARC Raiders day-to-day: regular live updates, plus balance fixes, bug fixes, store updates, and player events aren't going anywhere.

"This additional development space also allows us to invest more deeply in the health of ARC Raiders, from progression and economy balancing to fair play and anti-cheat efforts. We know these are foundational to the experience, especially in a game where every encounter and extraction matters."

Although the thought process is understandable, some fans think this is the wrong idea. Given how quickly attention can shift to other games or media, some feel that Arc Raiders won't be able to sustain its player base's attention with infrequent updates.

"'Fortnite killer' they said, they really think a live service game can survive with only 2 big updates per year," said one user. "They had a massive hit, the only consistent complaint is lack of follow on content and their response is to basically drop it?" asked another user.

Live service games are all battling for the attention of players and it's extremely difficult. Fortnite had regular updates that not only add new content, but can even radically overhaul the gameplay with new mechanics and abilities. That frequency of change has ensured Fortnite has stayed relevant for almost a decade. Other games, like Battlefield 6, have also been criticized for lackluster and infrequent content updates, but things may be turning around for that game as Season 5 plans to add three maps instead of the usual two.

Arc Raiders still has a strong player base backing it, but the numbers aren't as high as they were when the game launched. When the game launched on Steam, the game consistently had several hundred thousand concurrent players or more. This number has fallen to hover at around 100k or less since the start of spring. It'll be interesting to see how these numbers change with longer gaps between big content drops or if these major updates can meet expectations.

Still, Arc Raiders will continue to get smaller updates to improve the game in-between the bi-annual content drops. Next week, Arc Raiders will get a brand new trader that offers weekly rotating unique and rare rewards. The trader will be available starting at level 25.

Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.

Spoilers of course follow for The Boys Season 5, Episode 7.

With Prime Video's The Boys coming to a close soon -- the series finale drops one week from today -- many of the characters' arcs are nearing completion. And in this week's episode, "The Frenchman, the Female and the Man Called Mother's Milk," Chace Crawford's The Deep reaches a point that could mark the end of his story. And along the way, he encounters a character who happens to be voiced by a luminary from a different superhero universe altogether: Samuel L. Jackson!

Yes, Nick Fury himself is now part of The Boys universe. Only here, Jackson is playing a foul-mouthed shark named Xander. And he's none too pleased with The Deep.

First Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) caused an environmental disaster at sea, destroying a Vought oil pipeline which killed over a billion fish. Then The Deep killed Black Noir, his alleged friend, in retaliation. And this week, The Deep learned that Homelander (Antony Starr) was disbanding the supe group The Seven and would no longer be needing The Deep's services. What was left for the Lord of the Seven Seas to do but go sit on a dock and drink a six-pack to wallow in his sorrows? Which is where Jackson's Xander comes in.

The hammerhead shark swims up to The Deep and tries to convince him to jump in the water. The Deep is too deep into his self-pity at first to realize why his buddy Xander wants him to come in, until the shark yells out in full Sam Jackson mode: "We know you were responsible for the pipeline genocide. Remember March 15th, motherfucker!"

“We wanted a really distinct voice and who has a more distinct voice in Hollywood than Sam Jackson? So we just went to his agent," showrunner Eric Kripke told Polygon about the voice cameo. "He was our first choice, and we were like, Does he want to do this? It was really just taking a flyer. But then it came back, Oh yeah, he likes the show and totally, he'll do it. Boy, that's a bucket list moment, man, of Sam Jackson reading your dialogue.”

Will The Deep be back for the finale, or does his story end here, with all of his former friends of the sea wanting him dead while the human world sees him as the coward that he is? Only time will tell.

But perhaps there's an even bigger question: Is Xander related at all to Sam Jackson's co-star from Deep Blue Sea!?

Talk to Scott Collura @scottcollura.bsky.social, or listen to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!

Lenovo's most powerful Legion gaming PC is back in stock, but not only that, it's also the least expensive RTX 5090 prebuilt that i can find from any retailer. The Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 10 gaming PC equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor and RTX 5090 graphics card is marked down to $4,657.49 with free shipping after an automatic coupon "GAMEON" is applied. This is Lenovo's highest-end gaming PC. What's even better about this deal is this system includes 64GB of DDR5 RAM which commands an exorbitantly high price by itself in today's market.

Lenovo Legion RTX 5090 Gaming PC for Under $5,000

Humble's game bundles offer a lot of value for PC gamers but the new one that recently went up might just take the cake as one of the best I've seen so far this year. The Humble Indie Icons Showcase Bundle just went live and for as low as $10 you get a collection of eight outstanding indie titles that are guaranteed to play just as well on your Steam Deck as they do on a dedicated gaming PC. Buying each game individually right now would cost you well over $100.

Humble's $10 Indie Icons Showcase Bundle Is Stacked

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma will premiere in theaters on August 7. This review is based on a screening at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma – the electrifying, erotic, and playfully yet profoundly emotional new film from director Jane Schoenbrun – is unlike anything they’ve ever done before. Yes, it’s got the same searing sense of introspection and interest in exploring how the media we consume shapes our fears, desires, and sense of self. But if you think watching their prior films – the similarly great We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow – could prepare you for all the many new dark delights that Schoenbrun has cooked up here, you’ve got a whole film’s worth of spectacular surprises awaiting you.

Schoenbrun’s latest takes us on a horror journey as unexpectedly probing as it is uproariously funny and ultimately moving, beginning as a mirthful deconstruction of modern genre remakes before turning everything on its head. True to its title, it’s about sex, death, and how they come crashing together at the Pacific Northwest campground where a series of fictional Friday the 13th-esque horror films were shot. Without ever losing hold of the balance between the reflective and the rapturous, Schoenbrun has made what is their most unabashedly unique film to date. When it's all brought to life (and death) by the delightful duo of Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, it becomes something really special.

Our first glimpse of this new vision places us in the literal shoes of the fictional masked killer, Little Death (Jack Haven), who is wandering around a production set. It’s the first of many instances in which Schoenbrun demonstrates a talent for capturing the specific textures of the slasher films of old. Just like how I Saw the TV Glow was a pitch-perfect encapsulation of the teen shows you’d gather around to watch once a week with your friends, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma feels like it could very well be a slasher series that we had just all forgotten about.

After this initial look behind the scenes, which ends up being the first hint of how Schoenbrun will provocatively yet poignantly play with perspective, we learn that the series had a precipitous fall from the heights with which it began. There are already so many side-splittingly great jokes in just these first few minutes as it lays this out via quick headlines that flash by. While Schoenbrun has always had an underappreciated sense of humor, this short sequence establishes this as their funniest, most biting film yet.

That humor continues as we meet Kris (Einbinder), who has been tasked with helming a new remake in this horror series. She made a critically acclaimed film that made a splash at Sundance, and as studios are wont to do, she’s been scooped up to take on this remake. Kris decides that she’ll go meet the franchise’s former lead, the reclusive Billie (Anderson), to get her perspective and maybe even bring her back to work on the new film. But what happens when a “final girl” like Billie steps back from the series that made her an icon and decides to focus on exploring her own identity? And what happens when a person like Kris – who experienced a sexual awakening of sorts because of this schlocky, often quite dated series of horror films – enters the mix? Well, the result is a slyly dark comedy and a sharp horror riff that constantly keeps you on your toes, with an often overwhelmingly personal laying bare of the characters’ deeper desires. Einbinder is hilarious as always, but she also brings a vulnerability to the part that sneaks up on you, ensuring the film’s more tender moments work just as well as the playfully teasing ones.

This could sound like too much for one movie to take on, and there are some moments in the story where you can start to feel things straining. But rather than burst at the seams, the film embraces the chaos at the core of this premise and lets it explode outwards, never once hiding away from the inevitable messiness that comes pouring out. While you can tell that Schoenbrun was working with limited locations and budget, they’re never lacking in ambition and take increasingly bigger leaps in their exploration of desire. At every turn, the movie zigs when you expect it to zag, moving from outright comedy to a more captivating and delicately rendered meditation on desire. For all the ways that so much of modern cinema can feel rather tame in how it engages with such questions, Schoenbrun fearlessly kicks down the door of any boring prudishness to lean into grappling with our libidinal impulses. Can death and sex become intertwined? Can a terrible old horror movie still awaken something in you? Schoenbrun not only gets into the guts of all this, but they’re having an absolute bloody blast while doing it.

It’s a film that’s very much not going to be for everyone, but for those that are able to get on the same wavelength, it’s truly exhilarating. There are shades of David Lynch (with one shot midway through recalling some of his uncanny visuals), as well as something of David Cronenberg’s Crash floating in the background. But just as importantly, this is also 100 percent Jane Schhoenbrun, with a sensational score by Alex G and precise cinematography by Eric Yue immersing us in all of it. Even when it stumbles a bit through the wilderness of its increasingly “real” horror setting, the film always regains its feet to run off in exciting new directions.

Some of this will almost certainly divide Schhoenbrun fans, though that’s not a bug but a feature. This is one of those wonderful instances of a filmmaker making exactly the movie they want to make, flaunting any expectation that they make something “commercial” or safe and instead taking a big swing. There’s so much about it that shouldn’t work, right down to a cheeky final needle drop that ties it all together. Somehow, despite all that could go wrong, the film finds a climactic ecstasy just as it maintains the same joyous verve all the way through to its fantastic final frames. What a pleasure it is to witness a filmmaker like Schoenbrun working with such liberated boldness once more.