Artstorm, developer of PvP naval warfare game Modern Warships, has admitted to using an independent artist’s creation as the basis for one of its ship designs. The plagiarism came to light yesterday when concept artist Alex Jay Brady posted the similarities between their creation and the ship model in-game.

Brady’s art, a design for an atomic ekranoplan carrier vessel, was shown side-by-side against the in-game model in Modern Warships, called the RF Bartini A-2000-7. Even a casual onlooker could see the similarities.

I did not give @ModernWarships permission to use my ekrano design, but I have to say she's looking great. Much more detailed than my sketches. Honestly if they'd just asked and sent me some $$$$ Id have had zero issue with them using it.

Its not to late to do the right thing guys https://t.co/E2K7z3rE9i

— Alex Jay Brady 🥶 (@AlexJayBrady) October 5, 2026

IGN reached out to Brady for more information. “For me the design is the same, with a few minor differences,” Brady said. “The location of the AWACs dish (and there being two, which I assume has something to do with the technical requirements of the game necessitating symmetry?) the number of engines etc…

“But as there never was a swing wing ekranoplan carrier (for good reason) and every detail aside from that is carried over from my design, it seems cut and dried. I have all the project files including, for example, the lines on the deck. The design makes little sense from a realism pov; the engines wash across the deck, the planes take off backward, not into the wind, I just didn't know anything about the subject when building it and they cloned all those mistakes wholesale.”

Since the tweet grew in popularity, developer Artstorm has reached out to Brady, who will consider “the issue closed” and the images added to their portfolio “as a roundabout piece of contract work” if they accept any offer made. Publisher Gaijin told IGN the Modern Warships team had responded to Brady on X, but declined to offer any more detail.

In a tweet reply to Brady, Artstorm said: “Fair call, and apologies from us. Your design was used as a reference without proper clearance. We’ll contact you directly to make this right.” Brady is currently waiting to see what the developer offers in exchange for using their work as a basis of an in-game design.

To unlock the carrier in-game, players would have to spend between $50-100 on gacha spins. Alternatively, players could purchase it with in-game currency, with the RF Bartini A-2000-7 averaging between 7,000 AC and 15,000+ AC (ArtCoins). The average cost of AC is roughly $100 for 1,300 to 2,000 AC. At this rate, a ship costing 10,000 AC would technically cost $500-700+, with a bit of wiggle either side depending on market price fluctuations.

Many Steam reviews of Modern Warships complain about the pricing of the free-to-play title’s more effective vessels. As one put it: “This game is absolutely terrible. The developers and moderators seem to be far more interested in making money from players than in making a balanced and enjoyable game. They are theives [sic].”

Fortnite has quietly replaced a piece of in-game artwork after fans spotted its original version contained a Google Gemini AI watermark.

Epic Games added the music track "Meow" by Ironmouse, Sleeping Forest & HalaCG to Fortnite last month, with the telltale Gemini watermark in the track artwork's bottom right corner. This lay mostly unnoticed until last weekend, when its wider discovery prompted something of a minor kerfuffle on social media and Reddit.

As of this morning, however, this artwork has been replaced with an alternate version (with no Gemini watermark). But after closer inspection, it's worth pointing out that the Gemini usage was present in the track list's original art that Epic Games simply incorporated in-game. Go check the track on Spotify, and the Gemini mark is there, too. In other words, the Gemini usage here is the fault of whoever made the track art initially — not Epic Games.

So, why the switcheroo? AI-generated artwork in Fortnite is a contentious subject for fans who have pointed to previous dubious examples such as an in-game poster featuring a nine-toed character in a hammock to suggest that Epic Games was resorting to poor-quality AI work rather than using human designers. A more recent, official developer video then pulled back the curtain on Epic Games' AI use, showcasing how the company experiments with AI in the conceptual phase when creating characters and in-game locations.

All of that said, Epic Games has always shied away from strictly confirming any particular in-game art is AI generated, and has maintained at least a veneer of quality over the evergreen battle royale it continually toils to keep popular. To date, there hasn't been anything quite as egregious as Call of Duty's embarrassing and grotesque six-fingered Santa.

The fact that Epic Games has made the switch here is, if anything, a positive sign that it does not want to openly show artwork featuring obvious AI elements, such as that Gemini watermark, in Fortnite.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, Disney stated that its rumored desire to buy Epic Games was not something it was planning to act on — at least right now.

Mighty Mike Plays dad Dave has promised refunds and issued a lengthy explanation after the internet demanded more information about the YouTube ads allegedly purchased by his son and the drama that followed.

The saga began when a father took to his son's YouTube channel, Mighty Mike Plays, to announce that his child had allegedly used a company credit card to purchase $118,000 in video ads. It was a painful and highly relatable story that snowballed into a full-fledged internet spectacle when pricey AI-generated T-shirts and questionable details led many online to look for concrete answers.

The controversial father figure came clean in a new video titled "Allow me to Explain" that was uploaded to the Mighty Mike Plays channel last week (via Dexerto). Dave started the hour-long explainer – which has since been deleted and re-uploaded on a new YouTube channel called Coffee Time with Dave – promising that everyone who purchased one of those T-shirts would receive a refund.

“this might be the end of Mighty Mike Plays…” is the funniest thing you could say in front of your dad after putting him 118k in debt and getting him fired

— Mako Fukasame 🦈👩‍🏫 | Vershion AU (@MakoFukasame) September 15, 2026

"Dave here. A.k.a. Devoted Dave. A.k.a. Dazzling Dave. A.k.a. Dependable Dave, and the list goes on," Dave said. "I want to give you guys an update: First off, I'm going to say that everyone that got a shirt got refunded whether they asked for it or not. So, whether you wanted a refund or not, you got it."

The full video covers allegations related to the Mighty Mike Plays drama and also covers a lot that has nothing to do with it at all. Dave's headline he wants to share, though, is that this all blew up so much faster and so much bigger than he ever expected it to be.

He explained that he thought he was simply "venting" about his son's spending with a story that sounds like the kind of thing you'd tell a friend at a bar. Millions of views and a sea of video responses later, and it's clear it didn't pan out the way he ever imagined it would.

"I remember thinking, like, you know, I wonder if this video will hit 10,000 views," he said. "That's kind of where I thought it would cap. I didn't think it would go so viral. Everything happened real-time, organically, and I obviously didn't handle everything the right way, essentially, but just to make it clear: I didn't come to YouTube to ask for help. I wasn't looking for any sort of help."

Part of the reason why the internet gathered with Minecraft fans to help out is because Dave said the $118,000 hole his son put in his company card resulted in him being fired. He also stated he had just 30 days to make up for the missing money, but in the new video, Dave has clarified some of those details.

Instead of losing his job, Dave suggested he technically was not fired in a traditional sense, with that part of the story being a "simplified version" of what actually happened. The reality, he said, is that "the contract between company A and company B just got terminated," adding, "isn't that the same thing?" As many had suspected, he doesn't just own his own company – he owns 12.

"Yeah, I own my own company. So what?" Dave clarified. "In fact, you guys didn't even see – I have like 12 companies. Not all of them are productive, as we speak. Some of them are just collecting dust, and just because someone has a company or is a CEO doesn't mean that, 'Oh, OK. Just by having those titles you're actually conducting a profitable business.'"

He continued: "But just to clarify, I consider that being fired. If my company lost a contract with this important company, then, I mean, how is that not being fired? Fine. I'll be more specific next time."

As for those controversial T-shirts and why he's issuing refunds, Dave said he "didn't want to sit around and let these actual scammers sell people who wanted to be involved in this story." His plan for an official merch page, which allegedly put him "another $10K in the hole," still drew much ire from the internet, at least partially due to its prolific use of AI-generated designs. He explained why he's issued refunds – even if not all that many people found something to buy.

"In retrospect, was AI and the merch the way to go? Was the price the way to go? No," he said. "Look, I'm going to admit when I was wrong: That was not the move. I shouldn't have used AI. Although, at the time, I know I defended it. There is a now-infamous deleted post, which I crashed out."

He later added: "I do agree now, and if I could go back, I'd do it differently, but again, I didn't have the luxury of time. Time was running out. We had to figure something out, so yeah, I had AI create some designs. I still feel like those designs were flawless, gorgeous, beautiful, superb, and there is about 100 people who got free shirts."

It's unclear if Dave's explanation video will be enough to satisfy the many online who looked into the Minecraft YouTube channel after the events surrounding it kicked off last month. If this is the first time you're hearing of Mighty Mike Plays and the drama surrounding AI-generated T-shirt designs, there's no need to fear. We broke down everything you could ever want to know about the story right here.

RuneFest 2026 is over, and we’ve got a roundup of everything announced at Jagex’s big show celebrating its long-running fantasy MMORPG.

RuneScape 4

This year saw a number of significant announcements, none bigger than confirmation that a fourth RuneScape MMO is in the works. Jagex hasn’t officially called it RuneScape 4 (RS4 is the working title), but we know it’s built on Unreal Engine and is designed to use the latest technology and design, so it really does sound like a next-gen RuneScape game. There’s no information on when it will be released, but the teaser trailer is below.

New RuneScape animated adaptation

Jagex announced a new RuneScape animated adaptation, in partnership with YouTuber Charlie White, aka MoistCr1TiKaL, and production company Lyrical Media. No word on what this is exactly or when it will be released, but it’s happening!

RuneScape Reignited

Jagex announced RuneScape Reignited, which launches December 2. Jagex called it a “defining moment” for the 25-year-old game, designed to rekindle interest among lapsed players and get existing players excited. There’s a Remastered Journey and Adventure Guide, a fresh economy, and brand-new hi scores. Players can get full Reignited Access without membership from December 2-12. The long-awaited Plugin API launches this month, with players getting an early hands-on ahead of official release. The debut trailer is below:

We also got what Jagex called “the biggest roadmap in the game’s history.” 2027 content unfolds in three story arcs, all of which tie into long-running storylines. Hoard of Dragons (January) offers a sequel to the popular Dragon Slayer quest, City of Gnomes continues the gnome storyline, and Secrets of Karamja introduces a new endgame raid. Also coming is an Agility skill rework, new skilling and solo bosses, new area expansions, and a new Grandmaster Quest.

Old School RuneScape

Old School RuneScape, meanwhile, got an updated roadmap. The Golden Gates to Menaphos are opening finally after 20 years, alongside a suite of fan-demanded content. The Fractured Archive, a new endgame raid, launches October 20. Hardcore Worlds launches November 4. And next year will also see the continuation of the Fairytale questline, Quest month, Dungeons of Gielinor, a Mining and Smithing rework, Chosen Commander, and the Tower of Xorphoros.

RuneScape: Dragonwilds

The recently released spinoff, RuneScape: Dragonwilds, saw the announcement of the Blood Crystal Saga and updated plans for 2027. The Luminance update is a prelude to 2027’s Blood Crystal Saga, and launches in December this year. This features the introduction of the Elves into RuneScape: Dragonwilds, new elven-themed customisation options for player characters and buildings alike and the Prayer skill.

The Blood Crystal Saga kicks off in 2027 starting with the Song of Rebellion in early 2027. These updates feature enemies like Moss Giants, Kebbits, and Implings, the Hunter Skill as well as new areas for players to explore, new quests and gear as well new decorations for houses inspired by the classic RuneScape city of Prifddinas.

Expect quarterly updates, which will include new Skills such as Hunter and Slayer, as well as monthly updates featuring side quests, weapons, decorations and quality of life improvements. Official modding arrives on Dragonwilds in 2027 through a new partnership with CurseForge — complete with dedicated creation tools and an in-game mod browser and installer, available across all platforms including console.

Developer Jagex has announced a fourth MMO in the long-running RuneScape franchise, as well as an animated adaptation.

At RuneFest in Birmingham, England, Jagex offered a glimpse at this new MMO, which it said was built “for a new generation of players.” It’s still in early development (a release isn't expected for at least a few years), and it doesn’t have an official title (Jagex is going with RS4 as a working title for now), but it will “bring the world of Gielinor to life in Unreal Engine, combining the depth, freedom and community-led spirit that have defined RuneScape for 25 years with the technology and game design possibilities of today.”

Jagex currently operates RuneScape itself, Old School RuneScape, and spinoff RuneScape: Dragonwilds. RuneScape has seen a number of major updates tied to sequel names, including a rename to RuneScape 2 in 2004 and RuneScape 3 in 2013. But both were dropped in favor of, simply, RuneScape, and it is now treated as an ongoing live service. It's tempting, then, to call this new game RuneScape 4, and it may end up justifying the name, but Jagex has yet to rubber stamp any title.

Indeed, we hardly know anything about this new RuneScape MMO, but with the mention of Unreal Engine, the expectation is it will have modern visuals and design. An image from the concept teaser and the concept teaser itself are below.

Here's the official blurb on the fourth RuneScape MMO:

Headlining RuneFest was the first glimpse of an ambitious new chapter for RuneScape: a fourth RuneScape MMO, built for a new generation of players. Still early in development, the as-yet-unnamed title will bring the world of Gielinor to life in Unreal Engine, combining the depth, freedom and community-led spirit that have defined RuneScape for 25 years with the technology and game design possibilities of today.

In a blog post, Jagex explained that it has announced RuneScape 4 so early because it wants to build on the tech development it made for Dragonwilds, and lean on the community co-development it established through RuneScape and Old School. The developer insisted RS4 is not a replacement for either RuneScape, Old School, or Dragonwilds, each of which has its own dedicated team and will continue to see investment. "We’ll be designing RS4 to sit alongside them as an additional way to experience RuneScape and the world of Gielinor," Jagex said.

"In fact, we think having different RuneScape experiences can make the whole family stronger," the developer continued. "Players may spend most of their time in one game, move between several, or discover Gielinor for the very first time through RS4. The ambition isn't to replace the RuneScape games you love. It's to make the RuneScape universe bigger."

Jagex also confirmed RS4 will be set in Gielinor, as you'd expect, and in the Sixth Age. "But we're beginning somewhere that RuneScape players have only recently started to discover - and that is Ashenfall. An area first explored in RuneScape: Dragonwilds, and a landmass to the north-east of the Gielinor.

"RS4 will take place years after the events of Dragonwilds and the destruction of the Dragon Queen Kuldra. Time has passed, the world has moved on, and Ashenfall has changed with it. But Ashenfall is only the beginning.

"Our ambition is for this adventure to grow far beyond Ashenfall over time, moving into places you know and love, as well as opening up new places and stories across Gielinor."

RuneScape is of course one of the longest-running video games in the world. Jagex says it’s seen over 300 million player accounts created in the 25 years since RuneScape first launched. But the company’s plan is to expand the franchise into new genres and even adaptations. For example, at RuneFest Jagex also announced work had started on a new RuneScape animated adaption, in partnership with YouTuber Charlie White, aka MoistCr1TiKaL, and LA-based production company Lyrical Media. Here’s the official blurb:

Additionally, Jagex unveiled plans to expand RuneScape beyond games, partnering with creator and internet phenomenon, Charlie White aka MoistCr1TiKaL as well as acclaimed LA Based production business Lyrical Media, to bring the world, characters and stories of Gielinor to life in a new exciting animated adaption.

Jagex announced a lot more at RuneFest today. Here’s everything we saw.

The official social media account for the popular RPG-dating sim Love and Deepspace issued a warning to players after announcing some fictional cocktails with potentially disastrous real-world consequences if actually consumed.

On September 28, Love and Deepspace revealed five ‘Shimmering Blend’ cocktail recipes as part of an in-game event, each themed around one of the game’s dashing romanceable characters. While they’re pretty to look at, you shouldn’t actually make some of these, as they include garnishes that are poisonous to humans.

For example, one of these drinks is made of pomegranate juice, with a garnish of cinnamon and datura. Another features sweet peach juice with a flame lily garnish and gelatin sheets.

There’s nothing wrong with peach and pomegranate juice, but these floral garnishes are making some players anxious that a fan might actually try to out the recipes themselves. Datura is a highly poisonous plant and is considered psychoactive; when consumed, it produces side effects like delirium, fever, tachychardia, and hallucinations.

Flame Lilies are also dangerous, as all parts of the plant contain a chemical called colchicine; while it’s used for medicinal purposes, it can be lethal, causing symptoms like fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and even hypovolemic shock, which causes the loss of lethal amounts of blood and bodily fluids.

It didn’t take long for concerned fans to point out these dangerous plants, fearing that some players might try their hand at making the cocktails for real. Commenters flooded the replies with calls for the Love and Deepspace account to delete the post completely, with one writing, “Delete this. This is literal poison. Nobody make this.”

Safety Notice: All drinks shown are fictional and for in-game purposes only. Do not attempt to recreate or consume them in reality.

— Love and Deepspace (@Love_Deepspace) September 30, 2026

“Hey, so some of these flowers are literally poisonous. Be careful. This is so reckless to post this,” another said.

"Don't try to recreate these drinks, they contain toxic plants!" yet another warned. "I can't believe this is posted as 'recipes.'"

Not long after, the LaDS account added a follow-up post with a safety notice, which reads: “All drinks shown are fictional and for in-game purposes only. Do not attempt to recreate or consume them in reality.”

In addition to calls from fans to delete the posts, the LaDS social media accounts continue to be flooded with photos of canceled love interest Valko, who was announced and subsequently canned before he was even released. This prompted an impressive movement from the game’s playerbase, who created shrines to the character and even gathered outside the developer’s physical offices to make their voices heard.

Former NFL coach Mike Tomlin spent 19 seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers and won Super Bowl LXIII, and now he's added another major accomplishment to his resume: becoming a Minecraft YouTuber.

The former coach gave football fans a little something different when he launched his new YouTube channel earlier this week. With a profile picture taken in front of NBC's Football Night in America logo, watchers probably weren't expecting Tomlin's first upload to see him confess how his love for architecture and family led him to work on a Minecraft city he spent 12 years building.

"You know, 12 or 13 years ago, when my kids were in middle school, they'd be in their room all weekend and have friends over. They were obsessed with playing this game, Minecraft, that I knew nothing about," he explained as his son and channel operator, Dino, sat in the background. "I got interested because I just was mesmerized by what could occupy their attention for such large periods of time."

He admitted he lacked the "stick control" to handle something like Minecraft's Survival mode but still managed to find enjoyment in Creative Mode. That's where Mojang's systems really started to click.

"I like to build," he said. "I've always had an interest in architecture, and so forth, so I started doing this creative city. It was a means of spending time with them. They participated all over this city. All my kids have buildings."

However, as his kids went off to high school and college, their interest in Minecraft waned. For Tomlin, it was just beginning. In 2026, after 12 years of building, the sandbox phenomenon has become therapeutic for the former NFL coach, and what he's built has the internet in disbelief.

"This is where it all started for me," Tomlin said as a blocky blue pond surrounded by detailed city buildings faded into view. His tour then begins with a closer look at a hotel. This one building features a fully fleshed-out interior with labeled rooms, a lobby, a ballroom, a pool, bathrooms, and more. Tomlin even factored in how lighting might affect the views in some of these rooms – and that's just one of many locations he's made.

"I was always inspired," he added. "I'd go places, and I'd see things and buildings, and I get inspired, I go home, and I work on it."

Tomlin then referenced the off-campus housing around universities that he recreated after dropping Dino off at college. The color, floor plans, and other memorable elements all came from these memories, with much of his creation also built around different bodies of water.

Tomlin stepped down as the Steelers' coach in January 2026, with today's video showing how he's spent at least some of the downtime since. He spent years in the NFL, but it's his work as a Minecraft YouTuber that has everyone talking today.

Mike Tomlin has been working on his Minecraft world for over a decade

It’s UNREAL pic.twitter.com/XWxu9zMinY

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) October 1, 2026

Aaron Rodgers: “CALL THE F*CKING PLAY!”

Mike McCarthy: “F*cking asshole”

*Loses to the Cleveland Browns*

Meanwhile, Mike Tomlin: pic.twitter.com/axnE3655rT

— NFL Memes (@NFLMemes) October 2, 2026

Steelers down 20 in a playoff game.

Mike Tomlin: pic.twitter.com/J4u56digNW

— Donny Football (@DonChed54) October 1, 2026

Mike Tomlin leaving the presser early to go finish building the Executive Spa in his Minecraft world pic.twitter.com/yHF2FOzeiZ

— ant ☘️ (@anthshiesty) October 1, 2026

"I'm obsessed why is he genuinely a better builder than me," content creator @Krtzyy said.

"Mike Tomlin becoming a Minecraft YouTuber was not on my bingo card for 2026," one X/Twitter user said.

Tomlin signed off, promising to take a closer look at his city in future videos. He also teased plans to show off something that "I think you're going to find interesting." Despite being maybe the most creative celebrity gamer to come out of 2026, the ex-NFL coach isn't the only notable name to share their love for gaming in the last year. Obsession breakout Inde Navarrette garnered attention for her The Last of Us and Call of Duty streams a few months ago. Newly announced X-Men star, Samara Weaving, is also a big gamer.

Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images.

Disney has responded after rumors suggested it was interested in buying Fortnite developer Epic Games.

Disney president and chief creative officer Dana Walden touched on the company's relationship with Epic during an interview with Bloomberg Live. When asked if there have been talks about expanding their previously established relationship with a full-on acquisition, she said that strategy isn't something Disney is entertaining, at least right now.

"Well, I think that it was pretty obvious that we had very serious conversations about an investment and an equity stake," Walden responded. "Those are not the conversations we're having right now, but we have a great partnership and a number of launches coming up over the next two years that are going to demonstrate the value of this partnership."

The relationship referenced here was solidified when Disney announced it acquired a $1.5 billion stake in Epic back in early 2024. It was a massive play that it promised would result in collaborations across Fortnite and more in the future.

"Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney’s beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe," then-CEO Bob Iger said. "This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can’t wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways."

We're still feeling the shockwaves of that deal, but some suspected it could evolve into more than a simple partnership. Tech reporter Alex Heath said in March 2026 that some Disney executives were "waiting for that moment" to go all in on an acquisition. Then, in April, Bloomberg reported that Epic was working on an extraction shooter featuring Disney characters with plans to launch in November 2026.

We're now kicking off October with no official mention of that unannounced project, but that doesn't mean Disney x Epic is going anywhere any time soon. While an acquisition isn't in the cards, Walden's promise regarding "a number of launches" set to arrive in the next few years suggests there is plenty more to talk about.

We'll have to wait and see how the two entertainment giants work together moving forward. In the meantime, you can read some of the other ways Disney and Epic have bolstered their relationship, including a Disneyland-exclusive Fortnite skin and officially licensed Star Wars minigames.

I have spent the last three days scrolling through some of the most insane mod videos I've ever seen. Modders are taking games that have been decompiled with Claude, and mashing them up with other games. As the week has gone on, there have only been more clips of these mods pouring out on X/Twitter.

One person created a mashup of World of Warcraft and Call of Duty: World at War; another combined Escape From Tarkov with Skyrim. There’s even one that takes Insomniac’s Spider-Man and combines it with Batman Arkham City, where the player is able to swing around Batman’s turf.

These mods are everywhere online right now, though they thankfully haven’t filtered into modding websites like Nexus Mods yet. But, with the sheer volume of these mods and with how accessible Opus 5.5 is, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before the gates are fully torn down. And if that happens, it could change the face of the modding scene entirely.

Why Now?

Claude Opus 5.5 launched last week, promising cheaper tokens and more efficient code work. I'm sure that Anthropic meant for it to be used by professionals, but gamers have used it to create some of the weirdest mods I have ever seen.

Opus is a model that can power AI agents, which can be deployed to create entire games from the engine, to the art and enemy behavior. Brendan Jowett has a great video on YouTube of the model in action: He develops little slices of video games and compares them directly with the same tasks from OpenAI’s Astra 6 model. While the results of both are far from what you’d expect from a fully featured game, Claude’s new model has clearly come a long way.

The problem with the examples in Jowett’s video is that while the models are good at piecing together disparate parts of a game, enemy AI (lol) and art assets are lackluster to say the least. In one of the slices, a space combat sim, the space fighter flys at a diagonal angle, while moving in a straight line ahead, and shooting. In another slice enemies completely ignore the player character.

As good as Claude Opus 5.5 seems to be, it’s still lightyears away from developing something like a true mashup of Minecraft and Elden Ring from scratch. But the model doesn’t have to start from scratch.

The big, driving force behind a lot of these mods is decompilation, where people are pointing Opus at a game and letting the agent break it down to its source code (here’s a handy blog if you want to really get in the weeds). Just earlier today, we covered Halo: Combat Evolved being decompiled and ported to run natively in a browser. Once that step is complete, it takes little effort to take that source code and work huge swaths of games into other games as mods, and with very little input from the user.

Couple that with the relatively affordable tokens, and it shouldn’t be surprising that X/Twitter’s generally pro-AI users went wild with it, creating hundreds of mashups. And it doesn’t seem like it’s slowing down any time soon; what started off as a weird video that my boss sent me on Tuesday has now evolved to the point where I can’t even open X/Twitter without seeing a deluge of these mods.

Piracy?

The obvious problem with all of this is that these models are breaking open games developed by real people, getting the source code and then just mashing stuff together without consideration or permission from the original developers. That’s nothing particularly new – the modding scene is definitely no stranger to mashups, all the Thomas the Tank Engine mods are proof of that. However, this trend might be breaking into new territory, thanks to decompilation.

This could be another reason none of these mods have made their way onto any distribution platforms. Nexus Mods doesn’t outright ban AI-generated content, but it doesn’t let people use AI tools to upload content that they don’t have the rights to.

In a blog post from 2023, Nexus laid out its rules around AI generated content. The policy states that, “In order to prevent any issues with your mods, we encourage you to avoid using these tools unless you have explicit permission to use all the assets. This is particularly true for AI-generated voice acting but also covers images, models, code and anything else that you can use this technology to create.”

Every single one of these passthrough mods are using images, models, and code that the people generating them don’t have the rights to. But it’s only a matter of time until some platform holder allows these mods to be hosted, and I’m sure a massive legal battle will happen immediately afterwards.

The Modding Community Hates This

Way before all of these Claude-authored mod videos started cropping up online, people had been creating mods by hand for years, typically out of pure love for the game. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that a lot of mod authors aren’t fans of this phenomenon.

Mod authors have been expressing their frustration on X/Twitter as this has been happening. “I mod games and I'm not shy about the fact that I use AI to do it. I hate this bullshit ‘trend’. Pure slop, there's nothing creative about this at all,” kran27_ posted. “AI has a lot of potential in the modding scene, but the shit that's getting the clicks is this jingling keys bullshit.”

Kran wasn’t alone, with discountmodder ready to just leave the scene, saying, “Dude I'm really disappointed. If this becomes the permanent state of modding, this may be my last project. I don't wanna be involved in an AI slop-factory.”

I can’t escape the feeling that most of these mashups are born from people just playing with a new AI model and seeing what will happen, and I hope that this weird trend will die off soon. Modding is one of the best parts of PC gaming, and there is a lot of incredible content that people make just because they love a game. Some of the best games started off as mods, after all, and without them we never would have got the likes of Half-Life or League of Legends.

I hope that this is just a trend, rather than a sign of where the modding scene is heading. Fortunately, because these mods seemingly only exist to farm engagement on Twitter (at least so far), you don’t have to worry too much about them if you just want to start a new modded run of The Witcher 3 Remastered. If anything, it just means that if you want to avoid AI content, you need to pay even more attention to who you’re getting your mods from.

Acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro confirmed that he was involved in early concepts for a BioShock movie, but said the project was ultimately scrapped after a “disastrous” phone call.

Speaking with IGN as part of the IGN30 Icons series, del Toro admitted that he “never” wants to make a video game again — and while he was previously open to adapting existing games into films, his last attempts at doing so ended in disaster.

It’s been long-rumored that del Toro was involved in a movie adaptation of BioShock that never got off the ground. Back in 2017, he even admitted that he’d love to see the game’s story brought to the silver screen after a previous attempt, with Gore Verbinski attached, never got made.

Years later, he has officially confirmed his relationship with a BioShock adaptation, though it never saw the light of day — and it seems there was some drama behind its premature demise.

“You know, I tried,” he told us when asked if he’d ever want to make a film adaptation of a game. “We had a very contentious call about a couple of games. I find that the dynamics of a video game are very different than a movie. They may be cinematically similar in terms of the camera moving and this and that, but the storytelling is very different, because you're not solving puzzles. You're not assembling.

“When we made the structure for Insane, we created what I call a mandala. You have to give the illusion of an infinite sandbox and you lead audiences to the right or to the left through their ‘own decisions,’ but you sort of have to corner them. So it's a very different thing.

“So adapting it, BioShock, we had a couple of calls. They are probably one of the most disastrous calls I've ever had. So no, f**k no.”

While he didn’t go into detail about what made these calls so “contentious” and “disastrous,” the conversations seem to have put a sour taste in his mouth — which is a shame, because a BioShock movie with del Toro at the helm sounds like the best thing since sliced bread.

It’s one of his favorite games, after all, a fact that he also shared with us in this same interview. It’s one of several titles that he listed off the cuff, though not the most surprising one; that title goes to Angry Birds, which del Toro says he plays almost every day.

And although Del Toro has been involved with several major video games over the years (PT, Death Stranding), he told us he’s hesitant to make his own games after Insane, his planned trilogy of dark, cinematic games, never got released.

“Never again,” he told us. “No, not at all — we developed Insane, and then that went down. A lot of the ideas later, I saw stuff that was done in other video games that was similar. And I went, ‘Well, somebody did it. That's great.’ But we were aiming really high.”

Speaking of PT and Death Stranding, The Pan’s Labyrinth creator has expressed no shortage of love for Kojima’s games, calling him a “pure artist” and admitting that the grand majority of PT was entirely Kojima's idea.

“I mean, I'm glad to get on the ride for free, but everything that ended up being PT, it was him,” he said. “…I love that man. He's one of those guys you meet that you go, you might as well be in the Renaissance. You are in front of a pure artist and he cares about one thing, stories. That's it.”

Our full, extended interview with Guillermo del Toro is available to watch now. If you're hungry for more interviews, you can check out a previous episode of the IGN30 Icons series, where we chatted with Ken Levine, creator of famed games like System Shock 2 and its spiritual successor, BioShock.

Epic Games' announcement of a Fortnite and Five Nights at Freddy's crossover has now become the battle royale's most-liked post of all time on social media.

Characters from Scott Cawthon's hit horror series will join Fortnite next month, in time for its annual Halloween shenanigans. Among FNAF fans, the excitement is definitely real — and enough to dethrone the confirmation of similar crossovers with all other major franchises.

At the time of writing, Epic Games' confirmation of FNAF has more than 312,000 likes, making it the account's most-liked post ever: more than Dragon Ball Z (282,000 likes), Naruto (214,000 likes), and Avengers: Infinity War (212,000 likes, all the way back in 2018).

The post has even been liked more than Epic Games' own reveal it would be bringing back the game's original map for an "OG" mode (216,000 likes).

A trailer for the collaboration appears to confirm that Freddy, Chica, Bonnie and Foxy will all gain Fortnite skins, alongside various other cosmetic items. A Five Nights at Freddy's in-game location will also be featured — and indeed, this pizza restaurant can already be found being built on the battle royale's Island map, acting as a teaser for the collaboration.

FNAF has long been one of the most fan-requested Fortnite crossovers, with hopes, dreams and plenty of memes anticipating its eventual arrival over the years. Originally launched in 2014, FNAF has expanded from a simple Steam game into a major franchise, with numerous sequels, spinoffs, novels and two major Hollywood movies.

If you'd like to go hands-on with Freddy in Fortnite for yourself, the skins are expected to launch later this week on October 1, when the annual Fortnitemares celebration kicks off. This is set to run longer than usual — for a full month, and essentially until the end of this year's Fortnite chapter. Fans then expect another mini-season to take place, similar to last year's beloved Simpsons takeover (top bets this year include a similar One Piece event.) After that, Fortnite is expected to relaunch yet again with its Chapter 8 incarnation, likely around the start of December.

Cath Bowie, a 78-year-old grandmother, now holds a world record for Fortnite streaming.

The Scottish septuagenarian — better known online as Grumpygran1948 — has been officially decreed as the world's oldest Fortnite streamer (female) by Guinness World Records. Bowie began playing Fortnite in 2017, during the battle royale mode's launch week, making her a true OG.

Speaking to BBC News, the gaming grandma said she had been introduced to the game by her teenage grandson, who initially told her that nobody would watch a grandmother playing Fortnite — something she then took as a challenge.

"He just couldn't believe that his grandma would do such a thing and suggested that nobody would join me or watch me," Bowie said. "Saying that was like a red rag to a bull to me. I would show him that I could do it.

"Twenty four thousand followers later and he doesn't mention it," she continued. "I wonder why?"

Now, Bowie plays with others from across the world, and streams daily via YouTube and Twitch. Her achievement has also now been recognized by Fortnite developer Epic Games, which has described her as a "goat."

"You're trying to get the better of your opponents and eliminate them," Bowie said of Fortnite's main battle royale mode, which she appears to play in the popular Zero Build mode. "But there's no blood on the scene - you just shoot somebody and they either crawl about until they die or they're just obliterated with the one shot. So there isn't any mess — nothing like that."

Image credit: Guinness World Records.

Mojang has teased Minecraft’s next game drop, giving fans a sneak peek at some of its features.

As revealed at Minecraft LIVE, Ice Caves are coming to the game, adding a new and rare underground extension of cold biomes with glowing ice crystals and environmental variety. Ice Caves include a new hostile mob, the frozen zombie, which can apply freezing effects and throw damaging ice balls. The ice balls can also be used as weapons or to craft potions, adding strategic options for combat scenarios.

Mojang said Ice Caves add a whole new layer of variety to cold biomes, making exploring underground even more interesting, thanks to the increased environmental diversity. “Though they may be beautiful, these caves are far from safe,” the developer said.

Ice crystals can be found in ice caves and can be placed both vertically and horizontally, providing lots of potential for decoration and building. They can even be used as a light source. The Frozen Zombie, meanwhile, applies a stacking freezing effect with its melee attacks. If you take enough hits, you'll freeze. It also throws ice balls at you, which apply knockback and deal damage. Normal zombies can convert into Frozen when exposed to powder snow. Players can already convert Husks into Zombies, and now Zombies into Frozen, opening the door for advanced mob farms.

Frozen drop ice balls on death, allowing players to use them as well, but they can also be crafted and used to brew a new potion. As a weapon, ice balls deal damage and apply knockback, and as a potion it can freeze players.

For more, check out everything announced at Minecraft LIVE.

Minecraft World got two announcements at Minecraft LIVE today: the world’s first official Minecraft hotel, and the name of the first ever Minecraft rollercoaster.

Minecraft World Hotel and the Escape the Nether rollercoaster are confirmed for the Minecraft experience at Chessington World of Adventures Resort, and are set to open their doors at some point next year, Merlin Entertainments and Mojang Studios announced.

Check out all the new Minecraft World images and photos in the slideshow below.

Concept art already released for Minecraft World features wooden houses, Creepers, TNT blocks, and even a Nether dining area. Expect interactive adventures, blockbuilt playscapes, and themed retail.

For more, check out everything announced at Minecraft LIVE.

Minecraft developer Mojang has announced that the Sift is coming to Java and Bedrock Edition in 2027 — the game's first new dimension in over 14 years.

As revealed at Minecraft LIVE September 2026, the Sift, which had been announced for upcoming dungeon crawler Minecraft Dungeons 2, is also coming to Minecraft Java and Bedrock Edition next year. It joins the Overworld, The Nether, and The End as Minecraft’s official fourth dimension.

Today at Minecraft LIVE: Dungeons II, our first new dimension in more than 14 years, new ways for creators to build, Minecraft on Nintendo Switch 2, and more.

More than 300,000 people play Minecraft for the first time on an average day. After 17+ years and 425M+ copies sold, I… pic.twitter.com/fdhkwuh258

— ASHA (@asha_shar) September 26, 2026

Mojang said next to nothing about the Sift in terms of how it will work in vanilla during Minecraft LIVE, and only teased how it will look during the stream. Here's Mojang's official blurb on the Sift, which briefly touched on the new mob which we can see in the image above.

Minecraft LIVE revealed that the newest Minecraft dimension isn’t just finding its home in Dungeons II, it’ll also be coming to Minecraft Java & Bedrock Edition next year. This will be the first new dimension in over 14 years – joining the Overworld, the Nether and the End as our fourth dimension. During the broadcast, you got a glimpse into this dimension in Minecraft – and even one of the mobs that calls it home. But surely that’s not enough! Luckily you can experience it for yourself in Minecraft Dungeons II – coming September 29, 2026.

Perhaps we should look to the Sift in Minecraft Dungeons 2 to get a sense of what to expect. In the dungeon crawler, the Sift is described as "beautiful, vibrant, and teeming with souls." It features new biomes such as the Meadow and the Carapace.

For more, check out everything announced at Minecraft LIVE.

Minecraft LIVE September 2026 featured a number of big announcements for the game, which we've rounded up below.

The headline announcement was confirmation that the Sift is coming to Minecraft Java and Bedrock Edition in 2027. It's the first new dimension for Minecraft in 14 years. Elsewhere, Mojang confirmed that Ice Caves are the next game drop, and Sound Effects Packs for Minecraft Marketplace are coming later this year. We also got an update on Minecraft World, which is getting a hotel and a rollercoaster.

Alas, there was no announcement of an End update, as some fans had speculated might have been on the way. I guess those Enderman teases in the Minecraft LIVE trailer weren't teases after all!

All this and more is detailed in the report below. Check that out, then head to the comments to let us know what you think!

And that's a wrap!

Minecraft LIVE is over, and we have a clearer idea of what's coming to Minecraft for the rest of this year and even 2027. Let us know what you thought of all the announcements in the comments!

The Sift is coming to Java and Bedrock Edition!

Minecraft LIVE's big final announcement is that the Sift is coming to Minecraft Java and Bedrock Edition in 2027. The Sift is Minecraft's first new dimension in over 14 years, and joins the Overworld, The Nether, and The End as Minecraft’s official fourth dimension.

Today at Minecraft LIVE: Dungeons II, our first new dimension in more than 14 years, new ways for creators to build, Minecraft on Nintendo Switch 2, and more.

More than 300,000 people play Minecraft for the first time on an average day. After 17+ years and 425M+ copies sold, I… pic.twitter.com/fdhkwuh258

— ASHA (@asha_shar) September 26, 2026

Ice Caves are the next Minecraft game drop

Ice Caves are coming to Minecraft, adding a new and rare underground extension of cold biomes with glowing ice crystals and environmental variety. Ice Caves include a new hostile mob, the frozen zombie, which can apply freezing effects and throw damaging ice balls. The ice balls can also be used as weapons or to craft potions, adding strategic options for combat scenarios.

Mojang said Ice Caves add a whole new layer of variety to cold biomes, making exploring underground even more interesting, thanks to the increased environmental diversity. “Though they may be beautiful, these caves are far from safe,” the developer said.

Ice crystals can be found in ice caves and can be placed both vertically and horizontally, providing lots of potential for decoration and building. They can even be used as a light source. The Frozen Zombie, meanwhile, applies a stacking freezing effect with its melee attacks. If you take enough hits, you'll freeze. It also throws ice balls at you, which apply knockback and deal damage. Normal zombies can convert into Frozen when exposed to powder snow. Players can already convert Husks into Zombies, and now Zombies into Frozen, opening the door for advanced mob farms.

Frozen drop ice balls on death, allowing players to use them as well, but they can also be crafted and used to brew a new potion. As a weapon, ice balls deal damage and apply knockback, and as a potion it can freeze players.

Sound Effects Packs for Minecraft Marketplace coming later this year

Later this year Mojang will introduce Sound Effects Packs for Minecraft Marketplace, giving players new ways to customize their experience.

Minecraft World update

Minecraft World got two announcements at Minecraft LIVE today: the world’s first official Minecraft hotel, and the name of the first ever Minecraft rollercoaster.

Minecraft World Hotel and the Escape the Nether rollercoaster are confirmed for the Minecraft experience at Chessington World of Adventures Resort, and are set to open their doors at some point next year, Merlin Entertainments and Mojang Studios announced.

Minecraft Dungeons 2 deep dive

Mojang showed off more of Minecraft Dungeons 2, as expected. Expect plenty of loot, mobs, and a new dimension. Story wise, you have to help the villages find a new home in the town of Bravehaven. When you start to explore outside the town you realize there's a soul corruption happening in the overworld.

The world is interconnected this time, so it's more open for you to take your own route with a freedom to explore. You get to know the Villagers better in this game, helping them out as a player. And you can jump! There are small parkour sections to find secrets and even jump attacks.

The big hook here is the Sift, a brand new dimension in Minecraft Dungeons 2. It's an environment rich with souls. Expect DLC post-launch, too. Minecraft Dungeons 2 launches this Tuesday, September 29.

Brave a new dimension in #DungeonsII: The Sift!

Hear what our team has to say about this beautiful new world. pic.twitter.com/EWfVrHL2JD

— Minecraft (@Minecraft) September 26, 2026

New Minecraft platform initiative

Minecraft LIVE began with Jens Bergenström, Chief Creative Officer at Mojang Studios, ruling out an End update. Bah! He did, however, announce a new creator platform designed to get more people creating experiences within Minecraft. It's all pretty vague, but it sounds like Mojang is thinking about taking on Roblox by making it easier to build experiences within Minecraft. We'll hopefully have more on how this all works soon.

30 minutes to go!

This is your official 30 minute warning for Minecraft LIVE! Not long now until we find out what Mojang has up its sleeve. Check back here for live updates, and let us know what you're hoping to see in the comments!

Delta Force’s mission has always been to incorporate player feedback to create the best experience possible for its players. As Delta Force players prepare for the free-to-play first-person tactical shooter’s second anniversary, the developers at Team Jade have been hard at work, listening to two years of player feedback as the game has evolved since its initial PC launch, since coming to mobile and Xbox Series X|S.

The second-anniversary celebration kicks off September 26th, with daily tasks that offer players the chance to grab up to 3900 limited-time Delta Tickets, and new collectibles like a new legendary appearance for the AUG, called Golden State.

But Team Jade also has big plans for the game's future content, which includes anniversary rewards, a suite of new gameplay experiences, and quality-of-life improvements. Delta Force is getting a serious – and seriously major – upgrade. The roadmap is evidence of how Delta Force uses community feedback to expand the range of ways players can play, all while improving the overall experience. Team Jade has listened to players, and has crafted a season that’s focused on reducing friction and giving players more time to do what’s most important: playing the game.

Let’s get into everything that’ll be coming to your fingertips in the near future.

In early 2027, players will get to explore Siege: Valkyrie, a new Operations map powered by Unreal Engine 5 technology. That’s right, Unreal Engine 5 features are being implemented in Delta Force. Siege: Valkyrie takes players to a city under siege. The grand new map is divided by a giant city wall, which gives players two distinct areas. The inner city is extravagant and wealthy, full of opulent high-rise buildings, but rife with danger. The outer city, conversely, finds people struggling for survival and resources against the backdrop of fallen buildings. Each of the areas has its own rules, risks and rewards. Will you decide to extract safely with what you’ve found, or will you take a risk and move deeper into the city in pursuit of a huge payout? The choice is yours.

For the first time in Delta Force, players from different difficulty tiers will enter the same match. In Siege: Valkyrie, there’s a new high-stakes Operations experience where nothing is what it seems, and nothing is predictable.

Operations isn’t alone in getting a big Unreal Engine 5 upgrade. Warfare will be receiving UE5 features, and The Mog, a map that launched with Season Reorientation, is the first map to support them. And yes, even more Warfare Maps are coming, with the next scheduled to arrive in November, and further maps and gameplay modes are planned throughout 2027.

Speaking of new gameplay modes, Detonation, a new bomb-defusal mode, is entering beta on September 27th. That beta will be for PC and mobile players worldwide, with consoles getting access later in the year. Detonation pits two battling teams against one another in a race for control. Those on the attacking team have to break through enemy defences to plant a bomb. Conversely, defenders battle to hold their ground, and prevent the bomb being planted. If the attacking team does manage to plant the bomb, the defenders must sprint to defuse it before it’s too late. Each round of Detonation finds players making unique tactical decisions as teams fight for all-valuable positioning, and seek to exploit an opening that could turn the tides of battle.

For those interested in the lore of Delta Force, the first volume of Operator Archives is available today. It’s a story series that will explore backgrounds of your favourite Delta Force Operators. That will launch through the game’s official channels, with Operator Quarters planned for early 2027, which gives players a dedicated space to customise, unwind, and socialise with friends.

Two years in, and Delta Force’s competitive scene continues to grow, and the future is bright. RISE Series 1 concluded in August, with regional titles won by Dark Entities (EMEA) and Evil Geniuses (US). WIth that, the expanded RISE Series Season 2 is underway. The Delta Force invitational is also coming to DreamHack Stockholm from November 27-29. The invitational is Delta Force’s first major offline event outside of Asia.

Season Reorientation, the first part of Delta Force’s second-anniversary celebrations, is live now. It’s bringing some quality-of-life improvements, all designed to get you playing seamlessly. Team Jade has also reduced the time you can spend preparing for battle, adding the option of one-click loadouts. There’s the new Combat Support Fund, an in-game loan system that helps cover the cost of valuable items, ensuring you can get what you need for your loadout faster and more efficiently.

There are also key updates to make it easier for new players to be a part of Delta Force. A revamped G.T.I Field Manual provides all the in-game information you need to play in easily accessible fashion to ensure that jumping into the world of Delta Force is fun and straightforward. It also allows for existing players to introduce friends, highlighting the importance of building community. And those playing for the first time will enjoy a new redesigned tutorial.

For experienced players, Operations mode is getting a big shake-up with the map Layali Grove 2.0, which introduces new exploration activities. Expanded river areas give players new locations to explore. It’s not all about shooting, either! With all the new water, fishing provides an opportunity for players to breathe in the new environments. It’s not a mere distraction, however, as fishing comes with its own progression system, as well as map-specific catches, which you can in turn display in your Collection Room aquarium.

Though those are some of the more relaxing options to enjoy in Operations mode, Season Reorientation is bringing new additions to the more intense, action-packed side of Operations. Play-as-a-boss is back in Polaris Patrol, where you can become the powerful Security Director Desmoulins, who is backed by the Polaris Squad and linked to the Requin armed vehicle. Listening to player feedback, Team Jade has reworked the encounter, ensuring a more balanced play-as-a-boss experience so every side gets a fair chance and richer rewards.

In Delta Force’s Warfare mode, there’s a new map, The Mog, which brings with it a new convoy escort experience. Inspired by Black Hawk Down, The Mog focuses on a defecting Skynet engineer caught between G.T.I. and Haavk. G.T.I is tasked with escorting the convoy through a series of checkpoints, while Haavk is determined to stop it. Black Hawk helicopters can join the fray, too, and players are able to deploy directly onto them to operate weapons, or even take on repair duties to keep them flying.

With its ever-expanding eSports scene, Season Reorientation and the two year anniversary, Delta Force is continuing to evolve with its community, implementing player feedback while adding new ways to make the most of the game.

Delta Force is free to play and available now on Playstation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Android, iOS, Google Play, Epic Game Store, and Steam.

If you’ve been meaning to delve into the hit metroidvania platformer, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, now is the time. From September 24th until September 30th 2026, Nintendo has made Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown available to all Nintendo Switch Online members! Not to mention, during this same trial window, you can purchase Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown at a 70% discount from the Nintendo eShop. You can even find it 70% off on the Steam store until October 1st.

Want to get the most out of Nintendo’s Prince of Persia free trial period? We can help! IGN’s fully integrated interactive maps and checklists makes tracking your in-game progress a breeze. If you’re curious how it works, from September 24th until September 30th, 2026, IGN is making progress tracking on our Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown interactive map and guides completely free! Use unlimited checkmarks and map markers and get a taste of what’s possible with IGN Plus.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Checklists and Map

There are few things more frustrating than needing to backtrack while playing a platformer, particularly one with a map as extensive as Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Don’t waste time missing out on collectibles or waltzing past hidden walls. IGN’s Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown walkthrough is designed with 100% completion in mind.

Play alongside IGN’s trusty walkthrough and get detailed screenshots guiding you through tricky platforming sections, map screenshots highlighting missable content, and checkmarks to track each collectibles you’ve picked up along your way. Written walkthroughs not your style? IGN’s interactive map for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is complete with hundreds of marked locations of collectibles, upgrades, quests and more.

Our interactive map is fully integrated with our walkthrough guides. What does that mean? Any collectible you check off on map will automatically sync with IGN’s checklists. Seamlessly switch between our interactive map and walkthrough without ever having to stop and ask yourself, “Wait… did I collect that?”

Here are just a few of our helpful guides for anyone trying to 100% Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown:

• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Walkthrough
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown All Amulet Locations
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Sand Jar Locations
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown All Treasure Locations

Be sure to use these checklists, completely free only from September 24th to September 30th, 2026, while your Nintendo Switch Online membership gives you access to Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

Shailyn Cotten is the Guides Checklists Editor for the IGN Guides team. The only thing she loves more than checking off her to-do list is frogs... and possibly Breath of the Wild. You can find her managing the checklist database for some of your favorite IGN game guides.

As Leon Kennedy, we fled from a giant, mechanical statue. Eleven years later, we guided Nathan Drake and his brother, Sam, as they escaped from relentless pursuers on a motorbike. And recently, we helped forge a path through a literal wave of plague-infested rats for A Plague Tale’s Amicia. Three examples from literally hundreds of cinematic chase sequences in video games that can all trace their roots back to an unlikely source. The colourful cartoon platformer that started it all: Crash Bandicoot.

The running-towards-camera chase sequence is as popular now as it’s ever been, raising the cinematic tension in blockbuster games for the last 30 years. But its beginnings were humble, and its widespread use is all thanks to the Crash developers at Naughty Dog trying to solve a single problem: How do we show our character’s face more?

From a quick-fix solution to a triple-A staple, this is how an early Crash Bandicoot level inspired decades of cinematic level design.

Boulders is the fourth level in Crash Bandicoot, and takes the average player around 60 seconds to complete. Nestled amongst 31 other levels featuring lengthy side-scrolling gauntlets, tricky platforming, and painful difficulty spikes to overcome, it would be easy to assume that a quick, minute-long chase sequence wouldn’t be a particular highlight. But Boulders was the first of its kind. Any video game sequence where a character is chased towards the camera can trace its origins back to Crash Bandicoot. Perhaps the series it informed the most, though, was Naughty Dog’s own Uncharted series, which features multiple sequences of Nathan Drake running towards the camera across the entire series, as if it were a mandatory part of a Naughty Dog game’s DNA.

Uncharted makes no secret of this fact. Long after Crash’s creators had left the company, Naughty Dog still paid homage to Boulders in Uncharted 4, when Nathan Drake was able to pick up the pad himself and experience the level firsthand.

“It’s the modern Naughty Dog playing the antique Naughty Dog.” said Jason Rubin, a co-creator of Crash Bandicoot, in a 2019 interview with IGN. “What Nathan’s doesn’t understand is that this is basically the game that led to you. You exist because of this game!”

The level design for Boulders began its journey in 1994. Naughty Dog, then a small independent studio fresh off the modestly performing Way of the Warrior, was ready to take the next step. And the soon-to-launch Sony PlayStation gave it a platform to try something no one had done before: create the first great 3D platformer.

Super Mario 64 was still two years away and under lock and key, so the genre's rules were yet to be established by the king of platformers. Crash creators and Naughty Dog founders Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin saw an opportunity to stake their claim in the burgeoning genre. They immediately got to work, experimenting with how platforming could work in 3D, but they soon ran into an issue.

“We were trying to preserve all of the good elements of classic platform games,” explained Gavin in his 2016 blog post. “To maintain a solid control feel, we kept the camera relatively stable and oriented the control axis relative to the camera. This may seem obvious, but it wasn't at the time, and many 3D games used different (and usually inferior) schemes.”

“What would it be really like to do a platformer in 3D?” Gavin later said in a 2020 interview with Ars Technica. “Imagine you're going through loops like in Sonic the Hedgehog, or you're jumping platforms or collecting stuff in 3D. The camera's always behind you. All you do is see Sonic's ass, but the front of the character is where the expression is.”

Locking the camera behind the character is now a tried-and-true method, used in almost all third-person action games today. But Gavin and Rubin were concerned this perspective would limit the character’s ability to connect with players – a thought that was particularly troubling considering the technical hurdles the team had overcome to bring Crash’s expressions to life.

“When Crash pulls his flat face out of the sand, shakes it off, looks confused, leaps up, looks at the camera and does his great big goofy smile… that sold Crash as a character,” explained Rubin. “No 2D game could afford the art, and no other 3D game had the facial animation that our system brought. And thus the main character transformed from an emotionless ‘vehicle’ to an emotive friend.”

The team at Naughty Dog knew their character was something special, and his ability to emote and react like a Looney Tunes cartoon separated them not only from the current competition, but eventually even Super Mario 64, the competition they didn’t even know they had. For this advantage to work, though, they needed to find more ways to get Crash’s face front and center.

“Our solution, which evolved over the next two years, was multi-fold,” shared Gavin in his blog post. “First, the character would start the game facing the screen. Second, we added 2D levels that guaranteed quality gameplay and a chance to see the character in a familiar pose, allowing comparison against old 2D games. And third, we would attempt the reverse of a Sonic ass level – the run INTO the screen.”

A desire to show more of Crash’s face led the developers to make their first breakthrough into cinematic territory and, ultimately, create the blueprint for Crash Bandicoot’s most iconic perspective. The angle switch, though, led to another issue. In the “Sonic’s ass” levels, players were always presented with the oncoming threat on the horizon. Despite the level of challenge, the linear path always gave players the intel they needed to progress – ensuring that any failure was the fault of the player’s ability, rather than the game design. When you stripped that intel away, you lost a core fundamental of the design. Players were now running into the unknown, so the obstacle path had to be light and forgiving. Much like other 3D games of the era, where open spaces became detrimental to conflict, Crash’s front-facing levels had, through necessity, been stripped of any challenge or drama.

“In 3D [platforming], you can just go to the right and avoid [enemies] entirely,” Gavin told Ars Technica. “You’ve added a whole dimension to the space, so now there’s too much empty space. It diluted the ratio between choice and conflict. We had to figure out how to compensate for this to maintain the action pace.”

“With all our technical and art successes, the game could not have succeeded without good gameplay,” shares Rubin. “This was by far the hardest part of making Crash Bandicoot.”

“We had this realisation that basically we had added a dimension, so the simplest strategy was to take out a dimension in some way,” said Gavin. “An example of that was the boulder level: the dimension we're actually taking out there is time.”

The solution was to use time to dictate Crash’s running speed. To increase the tension, Crash could no longer leisurely navigate the path. Naughty Dog looked to cinema for inspiration, and settled on Indiana Jones’ iconic boulder escape as the device to help force the player into a time-pressured environment vital to maintaining the desired level of conflict

“All this became the legendary boulder levels,” said Gavin in his blog post. “Apeing that moment from Raiders of the Lost Ark when the giant stone ball starts rolling toward Indy.”

The combination of character and conflict gave birth to the Crash Bandicoot chase sequence. Its immediate success cemented the form as not only a Crash Bandicoot staple, but also the cinematic inspiration for both Naughty Dog titles and other developers’ action games for years to come.

But Boulders' influence wasn’t limited to presentation. Crash Bandicoot arrived at the tail end of an era of punishing difficulty. In a time when arcade was king, most casual players couldn't finish a game, and game design often targeted difficulty to drive revenue. A failed run led to another coin in the slot, after all. But despite making sure Crash had its fair share of difficulty, Rubin and Gavin also wanted to create an approachable game – one that challenged skilled players but accommodated beginners and, perhaps more importantly, children.

“We realised that if a novice player died a lot of times, we could give them an Aku Aku at the start of a round and they had a better chance to progress,” explained Rubin. “We also figured out that if you died a lot while running from the boulder, we could slow it down a little each time. If you died too much, a fruit crate would suddenly become a continue point. Eventually everyone succeeded at Crash.”

It’s in this approach that you can see how, alongside scripted cinematic sequences, Crash Bandicoot also helped introduce another major video game design philosophy. Adaptive difficulty had been experimented with before, but in 1996, alongside the launch of Resident Evil, the background act of monitoring a player’s performance and adapting the game’s challenges to accommodate really began to take shape. The medium began to move away from punishing players for quarters to creating a dynamic experience that could tailor itself to your skill level.

Crash Bandicoot was an overwhelming success on the PlayStation. The small team of developers managed to birth a PlayStation icon who’s still celebrated 30 years later, and laid the foundation for Naughty Dog to become the renowned, elite developer we know today.

“I think we sold under 100,000 copies of Way of the Warrior, shared Rubin. “We sold 9 million copies of Crash.”

“Crash Bandicoot was really the crucible in which the Naughty Dog philosophy was forged,” said Gavin. “We wanted to make a truly great game that was gonna be a classic, and to do that, we came to believe everything in it had to be great.”

Naughty Dog exists today because of the risks taken on Crash Bandicoot. Their desire to show off impressive 3D facial animations led to a reinvention of platforming perspective, inspired a generation of chase sequences, and, perhaps most importantly, sparked Naughty Dog’s cinematic ambitions.

I’m taking a look back at each of the core Grand Theft Auto games and replaying them in the lead-up to the arrival of Grand Theft Auto 6. What we’ll be putting together won’t be traditional re-reviews, and they won’t come with any new IGN score, but they will re-examine what made each GTA remarkable upon the time of its release. By the end of the project, using GTA’s previously six-star wanted level, you should be able to get an idea of where each of these games roughly rank in my long-term love for this series.

Today it’s time to go home to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Whether you remember it or not – or were too preoccupied being spoon-fed puréed fruit from a jar at the time – it’s impossible to understate what a banner year 2004 was for now-legendary video games. Just look at the line up. World of Warcraft. Half-Life 2 and Halo 2. Burnout 3 and Metal Gear Solid 3. Gran Turismo 4 and more – much more. I could absolutely go on. To emerge as the bestselling game of what may well be the greatest year we’ve ever had – in an era where it felt like the rulebook was being torn up and rewritten every other month – you had to be remarkable. You had to be rich, surprising, innovative, and essential. Simply put, to be the bestselling game of 2004, you needed to be more than great. You needed to be Grand.

While GTA III defined the fundamentals of 3D open-world design, and Vice City layered that sandbox with vibrant ’80s style and a big dose of yacht rock and yayo, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas pushed the formula to the very limits of what was actually possible on the world’s then-favourite DVD player. Despite shipping just two years after Vice City, San Andreas expanded Rockstar’s formula exponentially by introducing three full-scale cities – all housed in what amounted to an entire fictional US state: the titular San Andreas. Best of all, it was still retro-tinged, set in 1992. A slightly less dramatic leap into the past than Vice City but, as someone whose adolescence was forged in the ’90s, an awesome period to revisit.

At the time, it was a mindblowing achievement. The state itself covers an area roughly six times larger than Vice City. Its three major metropolises – Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas – each have their own unique visual identity. Los Santos is draped in smog, giving the whole cityscape a distinct orange haze at certain times of day. On the hottest days, a shimmering heat rises from the asphalt – a fabulously effective flourish that gives the city a truly tangible sense of temperature. San Fierro, defined by its severe hills and stretches of tramline, features an entirely different sort of climate. It’s more akin to GTA III’s Liberty City, where the tall, dense skyscrapers of the CBD create quite a bit of shade below. Las Venturas, San Andreas’ gambling haven, is dry, flat, and is at its best at neon-lit night. Each city is connected by open stretches of rolling fields, redwood forests, and rocky desert. There’s even a selection of tiny towns, farms, and factories between the major hubs.

However, while the size of the map was one thing – the fact that you can travel all over it and move from one major city to another without a single loading screen is something else altogether. Coming from Vice City, where you couldn’t cross from one island to the other without being briefly stalled by a loading screen, it was a genuinely amazing advancement. Rockstar had concocted a way to constantly stream in the world immediately around us in real-time. For its debut on PS2 – the platform that accounted for more than 17 million of San Andreas’ 27.5 million sales – this meant a neverending juggling act with the system’s limited 32MB of RAM and a relentless assault on its disc drive. You probably could’ve forgiven the Rockstar North team for not adding a high-speed fighter jet to a game perpetually pulling data from its dual-layer DVD in a non-stop race against time to rapidly build the world in front of you before you reached it.

They added one anyway.

Some Kind of Wonderful

It’s arguable San Andreas’ greatest victory isn’t simply the immense geographical scale it boasted for its era. Rather, it’s the remarkable density of its various systems, ideas, and side activities.

I played an aggressive amount of San Andreas back in the mid 2000s. I tortured my PS2 until it started making weird noises, then I borrowed my sister’s and tortured it, too. Perhaps the ultimate testament to how supremely stuffed San Andreas is with things to do is just how many side modes I’ve encountered over the last week of playing that had honestly slipped my mind over the last 20 years. The valet activity? Forgot that. Trucking missions? Forgot those. Duelling lowriders? Oh, yeah! It’s like putting on an old pair of trousers and finding $20 notes in every pocket.

San Andreas almost never stops giving. Take its vehicles, for instance. Not only do they all handle with a genuine sense of heft that puts most GTA clones to shame – seriously, just watch as they subtly wiggle on their springs if you jerk them to a sudden halt – but there are also around 200 of them. From the minute it puts you on a bicycle, new vehicles are in virtually constant supply. Combine harvesters. Quad bikes. Articulated semi-trailers. Monster trucks. Functional forklifts. Hovercraft. A jump jet, and a jetpack. No, not one or the other. Both. It’s like someone took a bunch of scribbled brainstorm notes and executed on every suggestion, without trimming any of them.

To be honest, there are times playing San Andreas where it almost feels like no idea was trimmed. Rob a house, go dancing, and stop at a minimart to play an arcade machine. Hit the gym, then hit the casino. Run a triathlon, and run a business. Go parachuting, unwind with some pool, and… role play as a pimp. I guess, strictly speaking, there was at least one idea that was famously pulled out at the last minute: a sex minigame. It just wasn’t pulled out enough, so to speak. Ruled out so late in development it was impractical to completely remove it without jeopardising San Andreas’ vast, precarious, and otherwise interwoven code, Rockstar locked off the minigame beneath a non-interactive wrapper – keeping the camera entirely out of the room where the magic was happening. Modders discovered and re-enabled it in time for the PC version in 2005, triggering what became known as the Hot Coffee controversy.

The pearl clutching and hand wringing that followed was deeply embarrassing, even by mid 2000s standards. The US ESRB re-issued all versions of the game a commercially crippling Adults Only rating, and Australia temporarily banned it until the abandoned content was removed. It didn’t matter that it literally wasn’t even accessible for the majority of players on console – the matter had become politicised and the subject of massive media attention. The concept of two blocky PS2 characters goofily grinding against each other was apparently too much for adult gamers to bear. We would have to be content with wanton vehicular homicide and burning cops to a crisp. I’m hopeful that things would go a little differently more than two decades on, but I guess we have our own problems. These days I don’t know if I’m still killing people in video games, or if I’m only unaliving them.

Killing in the Name

The explosion of side activities is still only part of the San Andreas equation, as Rockstar also introduced a number of light RPG mechanics. This goes beyond the ability to customise leading man Carl Johnson’s appearance, via outfits, haircuts, tattoos, or munching down too many burgers. CJ also has a large number of improveable skills, and the more you do something, the better and more efficient he’ll get at it. Flying, fighting, driving, diving – you name it. Have a weapon you prefer? Use it as much as possible to level CJ up to ‘Hitman’ proficiency, where you can move and strafe while shooting, your lock-on range will extend, and (in the case of the four specific weapons) even dual wield them.

The improvements to the third-person shooter component in San Andreas are significant, with most of the clumsiness that tended to characterise GTA III and Vice City ironed out. A bulk of that is thanks to the ability to finally use the right analogue stick to control the camera at will – as opposed to the previous games, where the right stick was only used to look around in a stationary first-person camera. It’s the first GTA game to feel akin to a modern third-person shooter in this regard, which makes it a breeze to get accustomed to in 2026. You can also aim all weapons freely now, rather than just a select few – and the auto lock-on is otherwise intelligent enough to automatically prioritise and target threats rather than random civilians or, worse, your own gang members. Light stealth was even introduced, on the back of Rockstar’s own experimentation with the controversial Manhunt earlier the same year. CJ is able to crouch to reduce noise, a suppressed pistol has been added to the arsenal, and there’s a simple stealth kill you can perform on the unaware, indicated by the same raised-arm trigger used in Manhunt.

Express Yourself

With more cities, more cars, and more depth than ever, you might have been wondering just how much more more San Andreas could possibly have in store.

Well, I haven’t even touched on the radio stations yet, which are neck and neck with Vice City as the best they’ve ever been in the 30-year history of the series. It’s an impeccably curated soundtrack that’s one part perfect ’90s time capsule, and one part historical hip hop odyssey. That is, it didn’t just feature some of the most iconic rap tracks to emerge from the early ’90s, but it made sure to include stations dedicated to the entire ecosystem of complementary music hip hop found itself drawing inspiration from. Funk and soul. R&B and New Jack Swing. There’s perhaps no better example of that than the fact San Andreas didn’t make a choice between Charles Wright’s signature hit Express Yourself, or the 1988 reimaging from N.W.A. It simply included both. Eleven stations and over 150 songs is the bullet point, but there’s so much more to it than that. It’s the fact that they now air dynamically, meaning the song order changes and you won’t always hear the same slice of DJ banter introducing them.

Want more? Well, how about arguably the greatest arsenal of cheats codes ever assembled? Cheats to make the game easier. Cheats to make the game harder. Cheats to spawn all the greatest vehicles. Cheats to arm civilians with rocket launchers. Cheats to trigger a map-wide riot. Cheats to turn off the gravity!

Still want more? How about a same screen co-op mode that allows you to bring a friend into the world to wreak havoc alongside you. Is it slightly janky? Yes. Did that stop my friends and I from messing around with it constantly? Absolutely not.

Interestingly, about the only thing San Andreas seems to have fewer of is major Hollywood celebrities in the main roles. Following Vice City, San Andreas moved away from having a big-shot celebrity on deck to star as the lead character. Instead, CJ was capably and memorably played by an LA-based rapper named Young Maylay, with no previous acting experience. There are a number of recognisable names here as side characters, though, including James Woods, Peter Fonda, Charlie Murphy, Ice-T, Chris Penn, and the inimitable Sam Jackson as the iconically slimy Officer Frank Tenpenny. Is there a better GTA villain than Jackson’s Tenpenny? I don’t think there is.

Verdict

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the single bestselling game on the most successful console in the history of the business. That’s not an accolade you can just earn by accident. Its unprecedented scope and astonishing depth were nothing short of witchcraft, and the incredible attention to detail was staggeringly impressive for something of its size. Its ability to support endless experimentation kept my friends and I busy for years, fooling around with its industry-leading list of cheats and its same-screen co-op chaos long after we’d all finished the story mode several times. Its soundtrack is the stuff of legend; so one-of-a-kind that not even Rockstar itself could quite reassemble the complete thing for subsequent re-releases. In 2004, GTA San Andreas was one of the most extraordinary games I’d ever played. In 2026, the hood done took me under all over again. Sure, the technical limitations of the mid 2000s are always obvious through a modern lens, but you can’t measure ambition in polygons – and GTA San Andreas is overflowing with it.

For more reflections on the incredible Grand Theft Auto series, you can read our new Legacy Reviews of Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto 2, Grand Theft Auto III, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, with more to follow before November.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.