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I’m a relatively new convert to the church of Musou, with Pirate Warriors 4 being my first major foray into the genre, so I was pretty excited to check out a preview build of Samurai Warriors 5. Would my enjoyment of this style of game carry over to a spinoff series that doesn’t have the benefit of being tied to one of my favorite anime series of all time? It turns out, it does! And while I can’t comment much on the improvements and iterations made from Samurai Warriors 4 to 5, this upcoming fifth installment, I can say that Samurai Warriors 5 had me hooked with just a small taste of its story, action, and progression.

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I was able to play the first two chapters of the story mode, which takes place during the Sengoku Era of Japan and centers around a young and reckless Oda Nobunaga in the early stages of his ambitious campaign to unify Japan under his rule. In addition to Nobunaga’s perspective, the story also gives you the viewpoint of Mitsuhide Akechi, a samurai whose fate is inextricably linked with Nobunaga’s. 

One of the things that struck me about Samurai Warriors 5’s story mode is that it’s very measured in the way it drip-feeds its unlocks over the course of its campaign. Its story mode starts out very modestly, with only Nobunaga playable for the first few missions and most of its major mechanics locked by progression. It leads to a slow and heavily tutorialized start, but what’s nice is that at the conclusion of every mission, you’re greeted with something new to check out, whether it’s a weapon level up that gives you access to new moves, new equippable ultimate skills, or a new structure, like the blacksmith, that lets you upgrade your weapons.

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Eventually you’ll start to unlock new characters as well, and after playing through three full missions with Nobunaga as your only option, it felt like a breath of fresh air to be able to swing a different weapon with a different play style. It’s worth pointing out that any character can use any weapon in Samurai Warriors 5, but each hero has a preferred weapon type that they are able to level up faster and have unique abilities with. Ieyasu, for example, might be able to use Nobunaga’s Odachi sword and utilize largely the same moveset that you may have grown familiar with, but only Nobunaga can use its devastating flame power attack. 

Characters level up in battle, but even if you don’t use a particular character for a while, you don’t need to worry about them falling behind in level thanks to a system of stock EXP. As you play through a level, you not only gain experience for the character you use, but you also separately gain a certain amount of stock EXP, which is determined by the rank you get at the end of the level. This stock EXP can be spent to level up any character of your choosing, so you can either bring an underleveled character up to around the level of your higher level characters, or you can just dump it all into one character and make them exceptionally strong. The choice is yours.

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As for the combat itself, it’s what you’d expect of a Musou game. Samurai Warriors 5 is all about cutting through hundreds if not thousands of rank and file enemies with relative ease, making enemies look like balls bouncing around in a giant lottery machine. There’s a certain magical satisfaction to being able to keep a combo counter going to something absurd like 10,000 hits with more than a thousand enemies killed, something that is easily attainable in Samurai Warriors 5.

It may all look very button mashy and thoughtless, and in many cases, that’s not entirely off base, but if you dig deeper into Samurai Warriors 5’s combat, you’ll find that it really gives players a lot of tools to get creative.

Each weapon has its own string of light attacks, which can be altered at any point in the combo with the press of the heavy attack button for a special power attack. Each power attack generally has its own unique function, whether it be a launcher, a stunning attack that works particularly well on stronger single enemies, or a large area of effect attack meant to clear out a bunch of weaker foes all at once. Once you do enough damage, you’ll fill up a meter that lets you use your character’s screen-clearing Musou attack. 

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And if that’s not enough, there’s also a separate Rage meter that, when full, can be activated to dramatically increase your speed, power, and give you access to an even stronger Musou technique called a “Frenzy Attack.” Add on top of that the sweeping hyper attacks that move a character forward and can cancel into a basic attack string; ultimate skills that differ from weapon to weapon and have their own particular uses; and the ability to switch between characters on the fly to micromanage multiple objectives at once. Not everything on the battlefield is a pushover either, which makes knowledge of these extra details and management of these resources important on hard mode, and in later levels. 

All in all, I had a good time with the first two chapters of Samurai Warriors 5’s story mode, even as a relative newcomer to the Musou genre. The story feels like a good mixture of real-life Japanese history mixed with just the right amount of anime theatrics, while the combat plays to that ever-appealing fantasy of being an ultra-powerful lone warrior carving a path through hundreds of enemies with ease. I look forward to checking out more when Samurai Warriors 5 is released on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch on July 27.

After being pulled off the shelves nearly a month ago, Target is resuming the sale of Pokemon trading cards this week. The announcement was made June 2 via a tweet posted by the official AskTarget Twitter account, which stated “select” cards will now be sold “seven days per week and will have a limit of two items per guest per day.” However, what “select” cards mean and when the sales will officially resume has yet to be confirmed.

This policy reversal comes after nearly all trading card sales were temporarily suspended back on May 14 due to rising safety concerns for both Target’s guests and team members. These concerns emerged after a massive surge in the card game’s popularity earlier this year resulted in an influx in buyers, scalpers, and reported clashes between the two. Target’s decision to stop selling trading cards came less than a week after police responded to an assault directly related to card sales, in which a victim drew a gun on attackers trying to get their hands on his cards in a Target parking lot.

As of publishing, Target has yet to release an official statement on this policy reversal, leaving us unsure why the policy has been reversed, what “select” cards entails, and if this policy is nationwide or limited to select locations. In addition, there has been no news on whether MLB, NFL, and NBA cards will also be available for purchase once again.

Here’s hoping all these upcoming Pokemon games (Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl and Pokemon Legends Arceus) don’t lead to more troubles for retailers.

Prime Day is Amazon’s biggest sale of the year, rivaling Black Friday at this point, and the company is already drumming up hype for Prime Day 2021 with a heavy slate of early Prime Day deals. But while there will undoubtedly be plenty of game deals and gaming accessories on sale, consoles are a big question mark this year, especially the PlayStation 5. Discounts are out of the question, of course, but many gamers are still trying to get their hands on the PS5 at all, leaving one question looming over this year’s big sale: Will Amazon restock the PS5 on Prime Day?

Anyone who’s been trying to buy a PS5 over the past seven months is all too familiar with the endlessly frustrating restock situation. Most retailers aren’t selling them in brick-and-mortar stores at all, and online restocks disappear seemingly in a matter of seconds. PS5 restocks are sporadic and aren’t usually announced ahead of time, and an entire Twitter culture has sprung up around the demand for the console, with accounts tracking restocks in real time. But compared to its competitors, Amazon has been largely absent from the PS5 restock conversation, as the console has only popped up there a handful of times since launch. So it’s no surprise people may be wondering whether Amazon is gearing up for a big PS5 restock on Prime Day.

Will there be a PS5 restock on Prime Day?

Unfortunately, no PS5 restock has been confirmed for Amazon Prime Day. In fact, Amazon hasn’t commented on the PS5 stock situation at all, and the few restocks that have happened weren’t announced by Amazon ahead of time. The listings for the PS5 and PS5 Digital have a message that reads, “Current unavailable. We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock.”

However, the fact that Amazon hasn’t had many major PS5 restocks since the console launched seven months ago lends weight to the idea that the retailer may be hoarding consoles so it can have a massive PS5 drop on Prime Day. There’s an obvious benefit in using the PS5 to draw thousands of customers to its site on Prime Day, where they might continue browsing the deals afterward.

On the other hand, Prime Day has a history of crashing the retailer’s site in the past, and a PS5 restock would only make that more likely. It’s possible Amazon wouldn’t risk the traffic overload that a PS5 restock would certainly bring during its biggest sale of the year. However, Amazon could restock in the days leading up to Prime Day as an “early Prime Day offer” to help drum up interest in the sale without threatening to crash the site and affect millions of non-gaming customers.

Another piece to this equation is all of the competing retailers who will be running their own sales during Prime Day. At least two have confirmed sales that conveniently overlap with Amazon’s event: Walmart’s Deals for Days runs June 20-23, while Target’s Deal Days runs June 20-22. We expect to see competing sales from GameStop and Best Buy announced before long as well. All four of these retailers have a much stronger history of PS5 restocks than Amazon, and it would be a major power play to announce a PS5 drop during Prime Day to steal some of Amazon’s thunder.

Best Buy and Target never announce their PS5 drops ahead of time, so you’d want to keep a close eye on their listings during Prime Day (as well as restock-tracking Twitter accounts). Walmart will reveal its drops ahead of time, with the exact restock time usually updating on the listings a few hours beforehand. Meanwhile, GameStop tends to announce its restocks on social media roughly an hour beforehand, and these usually feature bundles rather than standalone consoles.

TL;DR: We don’t know for sure if the PS5 will be in stock on Prime Day, but there’s a fairly good chance it’ll pop up somewhere, either at Amazon or one of its competitors. You’ll want to be ready with your payment and shipping information updated at all major retailers and keep your eye on both Twitter and direct listings in the week leading up to and during the event. As always, the key to successfully buying a PS5 is being ready, having notifications turned on, and making sure your retailer accounts are up to date. We have more tips on how to boost your chances of securing a PS5 in our PS5 restock guide.

Check PS5 inventory at retailers

Prime Day PS5 deals

Though we’ll be closely tracking to see whether the PS5 makes an appearance during Prime Day, what we can bet on is a slew of deals on PlayStation games and accessories at Amazon and its competitors. Prime Day PS5 deals will include discounts on PS5 games and backwards compatible PS4 games, PlayStation Plus, PS5 headsets, external hard drives, and much more, and we’ll be here to track the very best offers. With Sony’s Days of Play sale still running until June 9, you can take advantage of some of the best prices on PS5 games and accessories already, especially when it comes to memberships like PS Plus and PS Now. Check out some of the great PS4 and PS5 deals available ahead of Prime Day below.

It’s rare to see a Legend of Zelda game receive a direct sequel, but Nintendo is doing just that for Breath of the Wild. During E3 2019, the company announced it is developing a follow-up to the Switch launch game, and since then, the still-unnamed sequel has been one of the system’s most hotly anticipated releases.

Despite the anticipation surrounding it, there’s been very little in the way of concrete news about the Breath of the Wild sequel since it was first revealed, but that is likely to change very soon. Back in February, Nintendo said it planned to share more information about the game later this year–and with E3 2021 just around the corner now, there’s a good chance we may see more of the game this month.

While there are still many question marks around the Breath of the Wild sequel, here’s a roundup of everything we know about the anticipated follow-up so far.

Release Date

Nintendo has not announced a release date for its Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel. The game was still listed as TBA in the company’s most recent financial earnings report, so it’s unclear when we can expect it to launch.

Platform

While the first Breath of the Wild was released simultaneously on Switch and Wii U, the sequel is only coming to Switch.

What We Know And Expect At E3 2021

Nintendo has confirmed it is airing a new Nintendo Direct during E3 2021 on June 15. According to the company, the presentation will run for roughly 40 minutes and focus “exclusively on Nintendo Switch software, mostly releasing in 2021.” Although Nintendo didn’t specify what games will be showcased, there’s a good chance we may get another look at the Breath of the Wild sequel during the presentation. In its February Direct, Nintendo said development on the sequel was “proceeding smoothly,” and that it planned to share more information about the game “later this year.” This makes the E3 2021 Direct a likely venue, especially as this year marks the Zelda series’ 35th anniversary, but nothing has been confirmed at this point.

Trailer

Nintendo dropped the first–and, so far, only–trailer for the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel during its E3 2019 Direct presentation. The cryptic video follows Link and Zelda (who notably sports a new, shorter hairstyle) as they make their way through a mysterious underground cavern. As the pair explore, tendrils of darkness can be seen creeping through the cavern. Link and Zelda eventually come upon what appears to be the source of the darkness: a mummified male corpse dressed in Gerudo jewelry and attire, presumably Ganondorf.

Clutching the corpse’s chest is what appears to be a hand made of light. A series of rapid, out of order shots follow, showing Link removing the hand, the floor around Link and Zelda crumbling, the mysterious hand of light catching Zelda by the wrist as she’s falling, and the corpse seemingly returning to life. The trailer then ends with a clip of Hyrule castle beginning to rise into the air.

Why Is Nintendo Making A Sequel To Breath Of The Wild?

According to Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma, Nintendo is making a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild because it had “too many ideas” for DLC for the game. As Aonuma explained to Kotaku at E3 2019:

“When we released the DLC for Breath of the Wild, we realized that this is a great way to add more elements to the same world. But when it comes down to technical things, DLC is pretty much data–you’re adding data to a preexisting title. And so when we wanted to add bigger changes, DLC is not enough, and that’s why we thought maybe a sequel would be a good fit. Initially, we were thinking of just DLC ideas, but then we had a lot of ideas and we said, ‘This is too many ideas, let’s just make one new game and start from scratch.'”

Preorder Details

The Breath of the Wild sequel isn’t up for preorder yet, but we’ll have full details on where you can reserve the game and what (if any) bonuses are available once preorders open.

Ubisoft has released a hotfix for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla which addresses a pesky issue that players may have faced playing the Wrath of the Druids DLC expansion: a buggy boss that wouldn’t take damage. The full patch notes also list tweaks to the settings connected to the optional Avenge sidequests.

Thanks to the hotfix, you should no longer get the bug that prevents you from being able to damage the boss in the DLC’s Into the Fog main questline. So now when you’re confronted with the Puca, it should no longer approach you as an invincible monster.

Additionally, Avenge quests–optional online activities that mark enemies who killed other players, allowing you to avenge their death for a reward–should now pop up a bit more frequently. The hotfix tweaks the settings in the backend of Valhalla so that you’ll run into Avenge quests more often, both in Wrath of the Druids’ Ireland as well as the main game’s England.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla June 2 Hotfix Patch Notes

• Issues Fixed:
  • Cannot harm the Puca in Into the Fog
    • If you are affected by this issue, please follow the steps below:
    • Create a manual save
    • Close the game application and relaunch it
    • Load the save you created before
• Avenge Quests / Hall of the Slain Ubisoft Connect Challenge
  • We tweaked some backend settings that should allow players to find more Avenge Quest opportunities in the world. We will continue to work on improvements to the visibility of this feature with future title updates

Wrath of the Druids is the first of Valhalla’s two post-launch expansions, sending protagonist Eivor to Ireland in order to defend their cousin’s crown and stop a murderous druid cult from taking over the country. The second expansion, The Siege of Paris, is currently scheduled to release sometime in Summer 2021.

In GameSpot’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Wrath of the Druids review, I wrote, “Those still playing Valhalla may find some benefit in going through Wrath of the Druids for some extra XP to boost Eivor’s character level and find some awesome loot and combat abilities, but the DLC is a mediocre Assassin’s Creed experience, even without comparing it to Valhalla’s main campaign.”

The new Puma x 2K collection arrives in NBA 2K21 today, ahead of the collection’s arrival in stores. The collection features the latest edition of the Court Rider sneakers, featuring vibrant colors and “2K21” across the shoe tongues. The shoes are available to equip on your MyPlayer starting now, while the full collection hits retail stores on June 21.

Puma and 2K are also running a give away of the real shoes to the 21 players who chose a Puma endorsement in the 2K21 career mode first, though only in the United States. You can check out some photos of the shoes and other items in the collection below.

The real-life version of the Puma x 2K collection launches worldwide on June 21. In addition to the Court Rider sneakers, the collection also includes short and long sleeve t-shirts with the Puma Hoops mascot, plus a white and teal hoodie featuring the 2K21 logo. Puma has not announced prices for anything in the collection yet, but it will be available both online and in retail stores.

Puma recently had some shoes added to PGA Tour 2K21 as well, although it wasn’t designed specifically for the game. This isn’t the first time a video game property has received a real-life clothing collection, with Pokemon teaming up with Levi’s for a collection earlier this year. Levi’s also did a Mario collection last year, featuring the plumber’s famous overalls.

Team Asobi has officially announced itself as the newest internal development studio within the PlayStation Studios family.

This news comes nearly four months after Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that PlayStation Studios JAPAN Studio will be reorganized and “re-centered” around Team Asobi, the team best known for Astro Bot: Rescue Mission for PSVR and Astro’s Playroom on PlayStation 5.

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Team Asobi has technically been a part of Sony’s video game development family since 2012 when it was formed about a year before the launch of the PlayStation 4.

“Back then, a handful of us were working away on tech demos showcasing what the new hardware could do,” the blog post about Team Asobi’s announcement reads. “Fast-forward a few years, the team is still expanding, we launched Astro Bot: Rescue Mission in 2018 and Astro’s Playroom for PS5 in 2020. And now, Team Asobi has become the newest internal studio within the PlayStation Studios family.”

Alongside Team Asobi’s unveiling, the studio also revealed its new and colorful logo, which you can view below:

This is the logo that will be seen accompanying all upcoming Team Asobi games. As far as games go, what’s next for the team is currently unknown. Herman Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios, said today that that PlayStation is “building Team Asobi in Tokyo, a world-class studio that [is] developing a franchise for all ages with global appeal.”

This sounds very Astro Bot-ty, but when asked if the world has seen the last of Astro Bot, Hulst said, “I hope not! I love that guy,” so who knows. Hopefully, this means a new Astro Bot game is on the way, but only time will tell for now.

While waiting to hear what Team Asobi is up to next, check out our thoughts on their latest game in the official IGN Astro’s Playroom review and then read about how God of War 2 has been delayed to 2022. Check out this story about how Bend Studio, the team behind Days Gone, is working on a new IP after that.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN who is excited to see what Team Asobi does next. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

Though Quentin Tarantino is planning to retire from filmmaking soon, the director is about to make his first foray into literature with his upcoming novelization of his own film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. In a recent appearance on the Pure Cinema Podcast (via Entertainment Weekly), Tarantino discussed how his upcoming book will expand the world seen in the 2019 movie, including a dive into the past of Brad Pitt’s stuntman Cliff Booth.

“In the movie, Cliff is a real enigma. You’re kind of like, ‘What this guy’s deal?'” said Tarantino. “There’s these isolated chapters that tell you, like, this whole chapter will be about Cliff’s past. It goes back in time to tell you about Cliff at this point in time. And then you go further on with the normal run of the story and there’s another chapter that goes back in time and tells you about Cliff’s past. And every isolated chapter that’s just about Cliff’s past is like a weird little pulp novel unto itself starring Cliff.”

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Brad Pitt won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Cliff Booth in 2019. Though Tarantino’s upcoming novel will offer a deeper look at the character’s history, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood also featured flashbacks to Booth’s past, offering a glimpse at a suspicious boat trip between him and his wife and a fight with Bruce Lee on a studio backlot.

“I’m really proud of [the book],” Tarantino said. “It’s not just me taking the screenplay and then breaking it down in a novelistic form. I retold the story as a novel… It was a complete rethinking of the entire story and not just a rethinking as far as throwing some scenes that were left out of the editing room. But I did so much research.”

“I was writing [the movie] for five years, so there was so much stuff that I wrote and I explored that I never even typed up, because there was no way it was going to make the movie,” Tarantino continued. “If the book existed first, then the movie would be me making a movie out of that material. You know how you take an unwieldy novel and try to turn it into a movie? Well, to me, the movie is that. This is the unwieldy version of the movie.”

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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel is set to release as a paperback and e-book on June 29. A hardcover edition will follow in the fall. Additionally, the novel will also be available in audiobook narrated by Jennifer Jason Leigh, who starred in Tarantino’s 2015 western The Hateful Eight.

In our review of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, IGN gave the film a 7.8, calling it “a languid but interesting exploration of a particular time and place.”

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J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

After four years of teases and drip-fed information, the Atari VCS console will soon be available for purchase by the public, beginning June 15, 2021.

The Atari VCS hybrid console and accessories will be available only online at Best Buy, GameStop, Microcenter, and the official Atari VCS website. Atari has confirmed to IGN that these purchases are an official retail launch for the console, rather than pre-orders.

All Atari VCS consoles will come with a free copy of the Atari VCS Vault, which includes 100 arcade and Atari 2600 games. It will also include a digital storefront with “over a dozen titles” at launch from independent developers, and access to game streaming platform Antstream Arcade.

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The console can be purchased on its own for $299.99, and while it doesn’t come with a controller, it is compatible with PC peripherals. A separate Wireless Joystick and Wireless Controller will be available for $59.99 apiece, as well as system bundles including all three for $399.99. GameStop and Best Buy bundle purchases will include an Atari Speakerhat, while Micro Center and official website purchases will come with a free digital copy of Missile Command: Recharged.

The Atari VCS was originally announced in 2017 as the AtariBox, and our early look back in 2018 left us with questions as to who the hybrid console was actually for, as Atari Connect COO Michael Arzt said at the time it was like a Steam Machine, only not as ambitious. Its system architect, Rob Wyatt, quit in late 2019, citing six months of missed payments.

Despite all this, Atari began shipping consoles to its IndieGoGo backers this past December, though early reviews indicate the “Who is this for?” question was still relevant prior to its appearance on retail sites.

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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

 On this week’s episode of Podcast Beyond!, IGN’s weekly PlayStation show, host Jonathon Dornbush is joined by Mark Medina and Mitchell Saltzman to discuss all the big updates in the world of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 games.

The trio breaks down the news from Hermen Hulst’s latest interview, including God of War’s delay to 2022, as well as confirmation it’s coming to PS4 and PS5, which will also be the case for Gran Turismo 7. We discuss our reactions to the delay, what we hope this means for Sony’s wider lineup, and much more. Plus, we discuss some of the other details in the interview, like confirmation of Bend working on a new IP and Sony’s approach to PC ports.

We also take a look at recent Sony/EVO news, discuss some of the games we’ve been playing recently, Jonathon makes a plea for you to check out June’s awesome lineup of indie games, and we get to the bottom of an important mystery: Why does Mark hate the DuckTales theme song?

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Podcast Beyond! is live every Wednesday. For more on PS5, check out our PS5 console review and our PS5 wiki guide for tips on how to best use your system. And for more Beyond, be sure to watch the first episode of our Bloodborne let’s play!

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Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior Features Editor, Host of Podcast Beyond!, and father to his Boy, Loki, who is a dog. You can find Jonathon and cute photos of Loki on Twitter @jmdornbush.