IGN

Cloudheim, an upcoming action-adventure RPG from developer Noodle Cat Games that we exclusively announced earlier this year, is now showing off its crafting system and shop system in a new gameplay trailer. You can watch it above and take a look at crafting and shop system screenshots in the new gallery below.

Noodle Cat explains that while they hope players will enjoy crafting in Cloudheim, it won’t be forced upon them: “Crafting in Cloudheim doesn’t force players to deeply engage if they don’t want to – you can spend time finding specific materials, or just throw all your loot into stations and see what happens.” Furthermore, there’s also smelting and forging, alchemy, and cooking.

Shopkeeping is also an opt-in gameplay element – but if you’re going to do it, you’d better do it right. “Correctly displaying items (e.g., swords on weapon racks) increases profits,” Noodle Cat explained. “Decorative items and banners improve shop appeal, influencing shopper behavior. Cleanliness and layout also impact success.”

You can wishlist Cloudheim on Steam if you’re interested.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

The IGN World Guide for FX’s Alien: Earth launched today, Earth Day 2025, and it provides fans of the acclaimed sci-fi horror franchise an exclusive look at the FX-Hulu series coming this summer.

As part of this launch, we’ve partnered with FX on a tongue-in-cheek Earth Day public service announcement, which can be viewed via the player below.

We’re also rolling out a series of short videos across our social media channels this week chronicling the gestation of a xenomorph in what appeared to be a controlled lab setting … although if the Alien franchise has taught us anything, it’s that xenomorphs can’t be controlled.

From creator Noah Hawley, FX’s Alien: Earth follows a young woman (played by Sydney Chandler) and a band of tactical soldiers who make a fateful discovery after a spaceship crash-lands on Earth.

The series is set in 2120 when, according to its official plot synopsis, “five corporations – Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic and Threshold – wield the power of nations, and proprietary advancements in technology provide the promise of a new tomorrow.”

In addition to Sydney Chandler, the cast includes Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, David Rysdahl, Adrian Edmondson, Adarsh Gourav, Jonathan Ajayi, Erana James, Lily Newmark, Diem Camille and Moe Bar-El.

For more on the Alien franchise, check out the IGN community’s ranking of the Alien movies and find out how to watch the Alien movies in chronological order.

With poorly lit metal halls, flickering neon lights, a larger than life mechanical sprawl, and a cyborg ninja protagonist, Steel Seed has a lot on the surface that piqued my interest, as I can be easily lured into B-tier sci-fi stories if things look weird enough. Unfortunately, this one is weird in all the wrong ways. Its stealth action and energetic platforming are its best traits, but they are uneven across the roughly 12-hour campaign. Some really cool moments and creatures end up lost amongst miles of dreary and uninspired spaces, overshadowed by frustrating combat and a flimsy story that sap whatever shuddering signs of life this machine had in it.

The problems with Steel Seed start with its hero’s generic presentation. Zoe, awkwardly plucky and earnest daughter of the creator of the dystopia she woke up into, feels completely out of sync with the post-apocalyptic sci-fi world she is in. She’s well-voiced, but not well-written, relying heavily on some vapid self-reflection about a past she can’t fully remember and superhero movie-style banter with her robot pa. Ma’am, you’re the last living human on a planet overrun by killer robots and the only chance to bring humanity back from extinction. I need you to stop quipping and lock in.

Steel Seed is dense with lore about how some major corporation was humanity’s last hope until the CEO (who is also Zoe’s father) got double crossed by whoever and whatever, but its plot is light on interesting happenings or compelling reasons to continue to the next objective outside of “because it’s telling me to.” There’s a part that technically satisfies the literary definition of a plot twist, but you see it coming so far in advance that it might as well be a naked man covered in gold.

You’ll spend a great deal of your time navigating this post-human settlement by hopping on platforms and scurrying up walls. It’s all very reminiscent of the Uncharted games, where shimmying across a ledge could be filled with enough mishaps and jump scares to make the process a tense one. Steel Seed even goes a step further, making its high stakes sequences of sliding through collapsing structures or outrunning gunfire feel way more precarious as it’s pretty easy to fail some of the more intense sections.

Light puzzle mechanics can add some small speed bumps to your progress, often in the form of commanding your R2D2-coded companion, KOBY, to shoot unreachable buttons while your hands and feet are busy keeping you firmly attached to a wall. These were just dynamic enough to stay engaging, which is all I can ask for for a game that has platforming but isn’t entirely focused on that kind of gameplay, a la Astrobot. Things do get more clever in certain chase encounters, where your perspective changes from 3D to 2D in order to outrun enemy fire from the background – but these moments are scarce, and Steel Seed does nothing that clever anywhere else.

The vast environments you’ll be doing all this poking around in are very hit and miss, visually speaking. There are quite a few stretches of pretty generic techno-hallways or oft-troped rust-chic junk yards that don’t really inspire awe if you’ve seen any science fiction ever. But occasionally those halls will be filled with weird little robot bugs, or a X-story tall mech that rivals the scale of some of God of War’s largest creatures will rise to greet you, and you can’t help but think, “they cooked with this one, at least.” Generally, though, there’s very little about the world Zoe is tasked with saving even worth remembering, something me and the amnesiac protagonist have in common.

There are a lot of enemies in all of these spaces looking to stop you from saving the day, and you can take care of them with stealthy wit or brute force. The stages where you find most enemies are rife with nooks and crannies to hide in and precariously placed obstacles to use as distractions, or to cause killing blows themselves. At first stealth is pretty simple thanks to the very slim variety of different bad guys that patrol around, as well your limited starting skills. I was happy to see that blossom into something more robust as time went on, though. Even though you don’t really see more than five different enemy types in any given encounter throughout Steel Seed, each one is so different and they are mixed together well enough to create checkpoints that can be a real challenge to navigate safely.

Sections get larger and more dense with lookouts that have overlapping patrols and vision vectors, and while some of the mid-game scenarios hit the “just right” mix of enemies and area size, the late-game stealth sections drag on way too long. The fairly strict checkpoints also mean you need to start from the beginning of the section if you fail during it, sometimes throwing 15-20 minutes of patient stabbing and enemy hacking directly into the recycling bin when you slip up. You also run out of new ways to take down foes pretty early on, and I found myself setting a lot of the same traps throughout. So while the hunt started tense, it became stale sooner than I’d hoped.

Zoe and KOBY gain more tricks as they progress, but you sort of have to earn the ability to buy them with the points you find by breaking containers or enemy robots, completing what can often feel like busy work first. Kill five enemies without being seen and you’ll earn the privilege of buying the extremely useful glitch mine skill, which goes a long way towards killing bots without being seen. A lot of the skills have requirements that can come naturally through play, like scanning a number of enemies individually in order to unlock a version of the scan that hits everything of interest in a small zone – ,but others were more tedious tasks, such as searching the mostly bland locations for hidden pick-ups or completing more challenging skill tests like killing a certain amount of enemies a specific way in a small window of time, which were things I happily avoided.

I less than happily avoided outright combat like a computer virus, though. From the buggy lock-on that lets you focus on an enemy but will still pull you towards other nearby foes, to the mashy attack strings with mushy responsiveness, to the dry attack animations from both Zoe and all of her victims, confronting your foes directly is generally a mess. None of the skills you unlock make combat feel any better, despite giving you some admittedly strong options for late-game encounters that can spin out of control with the number of potential participants in any given melee, attacking from off screen with reckless abandon. By the end of the campaign, if I got caught during a stealth section, I’d more often just reload at the last checkpoint than clean up the foes that caught me because it was simply less boring that way. Zones where you have no choice but to fight in open combat were consistently my least favorite parts of the Steel Seed, but mercifully, they are few and far between.

Enola Holmes 3 is now in production, Netflix has announced, with Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, and more stars of the detective movies set to return.

In a blog post, Netflix confirmed the Enola Holmes 3 cast, which includes Millie Bobby Brown as the titular detective and Henry Cavill as her older brother, Sherlock Holmes. Enola Holmes 3 is set in Malta, with Holmes tasked with solving another mystery. There’s no release date yet.

We’ve seen all manner of unusual pop culture crossovers involving the Transformers franchise over the years, including Transformers x Ghostbusters and Transformers x Top Gun. But Hasbro’s latest collaboration might just be its coolest one yet. This time, the Robots in Disguise are getting an NFL-themed makeover.

IGN can exclusively debut the first images of the Transformers x NFL Helmet line, featuring several toys that transform from robots to fully detailed and licensed football helmets. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

The Transformers x NFL helmet series will consist of four figures initially – Dallas Cowboys Starblitz, Pittsburgh Steelers Steelsmash, Green Bay Packers Tundra Prime, and Kansas City Chiefs KC-59. Each figure measures 5.5 inches tall and transforms from robot mode to helmet mode in 23 steps. Each also includes accessories like a miniature football and a football helmet.

The Transformers x NFL Helmet series was first revealed on the Games With Names podcast, with host and New England Patriots’ Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman getting early hands-on time with the new toys.

“Teaming Transformers up with the NFL is an extremely exciting milestone as we explore strategic and innovative ways to grow the franchise,” said Tamara Grindrod, Global Play Leader, Action Brands at Hasbro in a statement. “Transformers continues to deliver a …MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE experience for fans through epic storytelling, toys and more. This latest collaboration is a great example of how we’re connecting new and passionate fanbases with our iconic characters.”

“I’m honored to be teaming up with Hasbro once again to support an iconic collaboration between the Transformers franchise and the NFL,” said Edelman. “It is a dream to see two of my passions come together for this unique collaborative product line. I can’t wait for Transformers and football fans to get their hands on one of these premium collectibles and see their epic conversions. Tune in to my latest ‘Games with Names’ podcast episode where I chat more about this awesome project!”

If your favorite team isn’t represented here, don’t worry. Hasbro already has plans for more Transformers x NFL Helmet releases. IGN can exclusively reveal that the second wave will include a Buffalo Bills figure.

If you’re interested in purchasing any of these figures, you can preorder the series on Amazon’s Transformers store.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has seen a significant boost in player numbers on Steam following the release of the hotly anticipated Patch 8, and this has set developer Larian up nicely to focus on its next big game.

The enormous, game-changing Patch 8 launched last week and with it added 12 new subclasses to Baldur’s Gate 3. Its release sparked a player surge as fans flocked to test out the new subclasses as well as the brand new photo mode.

On Steam, Baldur’s Gate 3 hit a player concurrent peak of 169,267 over the weekend — an incredible feat for a single-player focused role-playing game in its second year. Sony and Microsoft do not make PlayStation nor Xbox player numbers publicly available.

Reflecting on the release of Patch 8, Larian chief Swen Vincke tweeted to say he expects Baldur’s Gate 3 to “continue to do well for quite some time,” not just because of the Patch 8 player boost, but because of “thriving” mod support.

This in turn gives Larian “room to focus on making our next big thing as good as we can,” Vincke continued. “We’ve got big shoes to fill.”

“Feeling good today about where we are with BG3,” Vincke said. “Patch 8 got a lot of people playing again. It took a lot of development effort but I’m happy we did it.

“With mod support thriving, I think the game will now continue to do well for quite some time. It gives us room to focus on making our next big thing as good as we can and that focus is more than welcome. We’ve got big shoes to fill.”

Patch 8, as Larian has signalled, is the final major update for the game and draws a line under what has been a remarkable time for the developer. Baldur’s Gate 3 launched to critical acclaim and enormous commercial success back in 2023, and has continued to sell strongly throughout 2024 and into 2025.

Larian shocked the gaming world by confirming its intention to leave Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dungeons & Dragons behind to work on a brand new game, which it teased at various points before announcing a media blackout to focus on the new mystery project.

D&D owner Hasbro, however, has teased plans to continue with the series. Speaking to IGN at the Game Developers Conference, SVP of digital games at Hasbro, Dan Ayoub, let on that with Larian moving on, Hasbro has “a lot of people very interested in Baldur’s Gate.”

“We’re kind of working out our plans for the future and what we’re going to be doing with that,” Ayoub said. “And actually, in pretty short order, we’re going to have some stuff to talk about around that.”

Ayoub didn’t offer any further information about whether this “stuff” would be a full-blown new Baldur’s Gate in the works, or some sort of crossover like the characters had with Magic: The Gathering previously. However, he did acknowledge that he eventually wants a Baldur’s Gate 4, but that making one will likely take a while.

“It’s somewhat of an unenviable position,” he said. “I mean, we’re not in a hurry. Right? That’s the thing, we’re going to take a very measured approach… We’ve got a lot of plans, a lot of different ways to go about it. We’re starting to think about, okay, yeah, we’re ready to start dipping toes a little bit and talking about a few things. And I think, in really short order, like I said, again, not to over-tease that point, we’re going to have some other things to talk about around that.”

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Sebastian Stan has revealed his career struggles before landing the crucial Marvel Cinematic Universe role of the Winter Solder.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Stan said he was “saved” by a $65,000 residuals payment from Hot Tub Time Machine before he played James “Bucky” Barnes in the original Captain America movie. Stan was antagonist Blaine in the 2010 American science fiction comedy, then went on to star alongside Captain America actor Chris Evans in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger.

“I was actually struggling with work,” Stan said. “I had just gotten off the phone with my business manager, who told me I was saved by $65,000 that came in residuals from Hot Tub Time Machine.”

MCU chief Kevin Feige told Vanity Fair that Marvel Studios was keen on Stan for the Winter Soldier role despite being a relative unknown at the time.

“You could see that he has so much inside him and so much behind his eyes. I’ll never forget that,” Feige said. “I said to Stephen Broussard, who was one of the producers on Captain America, ‘He’s going to be a good Bucky, but he’s going to be a great Winter Soldier.’ ”

Stan went on to reprise his role for 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, the Avengers movies, this year’s Captain America: Brave New World, and is set to play the superhero once again in next month’s Thunderbolts. Stan’s name was among those to appear in Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday cast reveal, so we can expect Bucky to stick around the MCU for some time yet.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Following the announcement that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will finally be giving out an Oscar for Stunt Design, actor Tom Hardy has questioned whether just one award category is enough.

Speaking to IGN ahead of the release of his new film, Havoc, Hardy told us: “One Oscar, it’s a bit too little too late in some aspects. It’s good, it’s great and cup half full territory, but I think perhaps more is asked for”.

“It’s not enough just stunt design because there are so many elements that go into stunts as a department”, the Venom and Mad Max: Fury Road actor continues. “The design element is like an umbrella for a diaspora of different groups within that world that all need to be illuminated, and understood, quite how hard they work, and, what the stunt department, along with effects, deliver for people that want to go to cinema or sit down and watch anything remotely with any action or anything beyond just the written word or the spoken word. Whether it’s people on horseback, cars, people jumping off buildings, people being on fire, fights, people getting run over, underwater, skydiving, whatever it is.

“That entire universe of people is unsung, and they put a lot on the line for that physically, and they’re largely unspoken, but they do really put the thrill into film and TV. I’ve got a lot of friends in that world, so yeah, I’d like to see some subcategories in there as well. ”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Havoc’s director, Gareth Evans, whose previous work helming The Raid films delivered some of the most exciting action and stunt work ever seen in movies.

“Subcategories would be nice”, Evans states. “I don’t think awards drive the craft. I think that’s the wrong reason to do it. I think it’s all about expressing yourself within the parameters of what the film is that you’re making. I think it’s about time that it got rewarded, about time that it had some recognition, and hard to understand why it wasn’t from the get-go go really.”

Instead, it will have taken 100 years for the Oscars to introduce an award category dedicated to the craft of stunt design when it arrives at the 2028 Academy Awards. You won’t have to wait quite as long to watch Havoc, though, which arrives on Netflix this Friday, April 25th, if you fancy watching Tom Hardy murder dozens of people.

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

If you’re among the many who have ventured into a cinema recently to watch A Minecraft Movie, you’ll remember Jack Black’s short but sweet song celebrating the lava chicken moment around halfway through the film.

Black, who plays Steve, sings a song called Lava Chicken as Jason Momoa and co watch a chicken cook from falling lava. It’s just 34 seconds long, but that hasn’t stopped it from going viral across social media.

And now, Steve’s Lava Chicken has debuted at No. 21 on the UK’s official chart, becoming the shortest song ever to chart. “Streaming + virality are reshaping hits,” ERA, the UK’s digital entertainment and retail association, said.

Black is no stranger to viral video game songs. Bowser’s 95-second long romantic ode to Princess Peach in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, aptly named “Peaches” (sung and co-written by Jack Black), made the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first song in Black’s solo career to land on the list. He previously debuted at No. 78 with the 2006 song “The Pick of Destiny” as a member of Tenacious D.

Other short songs to chart include 2007 Simpsons Movie song Spider Pig (64 seconds) and Liam Lynch’s 2002 punk hit United States of Whatever (86 seconds).

Lava Chicken isn’t the only thing from A Minecraft Movie to go viral. Clips of overly enthusiastic cinemagoers spread like wildfire across the likes of TikTok, with some bringing in live chickens to screenings of the film.

We’ve got plenty more on A Minecraft Movie, including how the Minecraft movie team had a private server they played on. A Minecraft Movie has officially surpassed $700 million at the worldwide box office, and is on course to be the highest-grossing video game movie of all time.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Sega’s arcade racing game OutRun is set for a surprise movie adaptation, with Michael Bay and Sydney Sweeney attached.

The Hollywood Reporter said that Universal Pictures has Transformers director Bay lined up to direct and produce the OutRun movie, with Sweeney also signed on as a producer. Jayson Rothwell will write the screenplay, although there are no plot details yet. Nor is there a release date.

On the Sega side, Toru Nakahara, who worked on the Sonic movies, is a producer, and Sega America and Europe CEO Shuji Utsumi will oversee the film.

OutRun began life in 1986 as a graphically impressive arcade driving game designed by Sega developer legend Yu Suzuki. It’s seen numerous versions and ports over the years, with a proper sequel released in 2003, but has been somewhat dormant in recent times. The most recent release came in 2009 with Sumo Digital’s OutRun Online Arcade.

Sega, however, has dipped into its back catalogue for inspiration, with new Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, Virtua Fighter, and Shinobi games all in the works.

Sega has also pushed adaptations of its coveted IP. The Sonic movies are of course hugely popular, and an adaptation of Like a Dragon: Yakuza launched last year on Amazon. Hollywood is keen for more video game films, with The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the recently released A Minecraft Movie breaking records.

As for what sort of film OutRun will be, perhaps Bay and Sweeney invisage a Fast & Furious-style driving and action flick.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.