Wizards of the Coast is publishing a new trading card game that's been in the works for nearly three decades. Mark Rosewater's Mood Swings is a new kind of card game for the Magic makers, but seems both easy to learn and easy to share with others.

Mood Swings is billed as a trading card game you won't have to "build," playable entirely out of the box. It's a light strategy experience for two-to-four players, and the idea is that you buy a deck of Mood Swings and it will be playable right out of the box, even if the cards you get are pulled from a pool of commons, uncommons, rares, and mythics.

Rosewater, who's also head designer for Magic: The Gathering, draws a comparison to a cube, a format in Magic where players curate a collection of cards that they can draft or play special modes within. Mood Swings will be packaged in 45-card decks, and they can be playable right away, or tradeable with friends to curate your own version of this game.

Mood Swings, in a two-player game, sees both players drawing from the same deck and holding five cards. Each player plays one card (though there are ways to play more than one) and then their point totals are scored, with the highest number taking the round. Three rounds won takes the game.

Simple, right? But seasoned Magic players will likely start to see some of the ways in which Mood Swings allows players to take those rules and bend them. Cards that allow you to discard from your hand to play an additional card, ceding future resources for immediate benefit. Or maybe you opt to be patient, slowly building up your points, as the cards (moods) laid down stay in play from round to round. As you may also notice, each card uses sketch versions of popular Magic: The Gathering cards too, as a little bonus for long-time fans.

 

The back-and-forth scoring is fairly straightforward; there are no resources to meter your play, for example. And while you don't automatically refill your hand, the loser of each round does get to draw a card, allowing for some effective comeback mechanics.

Mood Swings seems like it could be a hit for card game players who have been trying to get their card-averse friends and family into the hobby. It's got a lot of the hallmarks of interesting, back-and-forth card slinging and synergy maximizing, while paring back on the mental checklist required for other games.

Mood Swings will be a Secret Lair product, on sale on June 1 for $24.99. There are 133 total cards, with 45 cards in each deck you purchase, seeded from the pool of cards available. And yes, the idea is you could trade cards with friends or construct your own personal Mood Swings deck to play with, unique to their own playstyle or aims.

Magic: The Gathering will be hosting its own panels and events this weekend at Magic-Con Las Vegas, so stay tune for more in that realm soon.

There's never really been a shortage of movies based on Capcom's long-running survival horror franchise, Resident Evil, but how good (or bad) each one is varies from person to person. Nonetheless, Capcom and Sony Pictures Entertainment are set to bring yet another Resident Evil movie to silver screens this November, and it's a picture directed by Barbarian and Weapons' Zach Cregger. 

The first teaser trailer for the movie, which is aptly titled Resident Evil, dropped today and while it doesn't really look like any of the games, it sure does look awesome. When I say it doesn't look like the games, I mean there's no real connective tissue between it and Capcom's games, nor are there any major references to their events, characters, or settings. That said, the new main character in the trailer is certainly enduring some very Resident Evil-like events, from running from zombies to running through various locales, including farms and cities, to using shotguns and more. And on that front, this movie looks awesome, and considering how great Barbarian and Weapons are, I am officially stoked for Resident Evil. 

Check out the Resident Evil teaser trailer for yourself below: 

Resident Evil hits theaters on September 18. 

While waiting, read Game Informer's Resident Evil Requiem review to find out why it's one of our favorites of the year, and then read Game Informer's reviews for Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Resident Evil 3 Remake, and Resident Evil 2 Remake. 

Let us know what you think of this teaser trailer in the comments below!

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher: Skybound Games
Developer: Quarter Up
Release: April 30, 2026
Rating: Mature

The 2D fighting genre, once thought to be a dying category, now flourishes thanks to major franchises and underground hits. Invincible VS straddles the line of those two classifications, bringing a red-hot IP into the space by way of a new studio made up of fighting-game veterans. The result is a 3v3 tag fighter with rock-solid mechanics, strong production values, and a fun, if flawed, story mode, enabling Invincible VS to go blow-for-blow with many of its contemporaries right out of the gate.

Invincible VS Video Review:

True to its source material, Invincible VS includes fistfights that often result in multiple characters drenched in blood and a superpowered roster chock-full of larger-than-life personalities. This is further accentuated by some of the show’s star-studded voice cast, including J.K. Simmons, reprising their roles for the game, or soundalikes doing admirable impressions. And that goes a long way, as each character has specific verbal interactions with other fighters on the roster, lending to the overarching cinematic feel of the matches.

Though many of the characters – particularly the suite of Viltrumites – possess similar powers, developer Quarter Up excelled at making each fighter on the roster feel unique. Invincible and Dupli-Kate’s speedy, in-your-face rushdown style is great for dealing with big bodies like Conquest or Lucan. However, mid-range characters like Thula gave me fits until I swapped to a bully character like Battle Beast. As you build a team of three, this game of counters and contrasts ably encourages you to bring a well-rounded squad into every battle.

 

As a Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat player of three decades, I initially struggled to grasp Invincible VS’s brand of combo-focused, tag-based fighting. Thankfully, after spending time in the helpful tutorial mode, I was rattling off combos, landing Heroic Strikes, chaining through Active Tags, and sending characters across the world with Arena Shifts.

Thanks to a modern approach to its control scheme, which emphasizes strategy over input commands, improvising combos (or using the light attack’s auto-combo system) and landing devastating, cinematic ultimates foster an incredibly approachable fighting experience. And the ability to break combos through tags is a novel evolution of the stellar Killer Instinct-inspired formula. However, the Counter Tag system can feel inconsistent (unless you’re the AI), and certain characters sometimes miss during combos, creating small annoyances when locked into tense battles. 

Arcade-style ladders let you fight through multiple opponents across various difficulties, with the reward of brief, largely underwhelming endings for each character. Despite that, I enjoyed fighting through these towers with different teams to hone my skills and strategies for when I jumped online. I love the online lobby system, which lets several players join a room, jump in and out of matchups, and even spectate other fights. And during my online matches on pre-release servers, I only experienced minor hitches during play.

Though I love playing one-off matches, climbing the arcade ladders, and hanging out in a lobby, my favorite part of any modern fighter is its story mode. And with my love for the Invincible franchise, I was highly anticipating what Quarter Up was pitching as essentially a bonus episode of the show. Even after playing through the story mode twice, I’m still blown away by the production values of the awe-inspiring cutscenes. Large-scale action scenes consisting of the full 18-character roster are wildly entertaining. 

However, like many of the genre’s story modes, the narrative is simply a flimsily disguised mechanism to provide justification for why you’re mashing your various action figures into each other. The story falls short of being a compelling adventure, and I soon felt like I was simply going through the motions to see the next spectacle cutscene rather than caring about where the story was going. And without spoiling too much, the extremely short campaign ends in an unsatisfying fashion.

With plans for post-launch content already announced, Invincible VS is likely to only improve as its lifespan progresses, which could certainly address some of the current shortcomings. However, with an already solid foundation built upon approachability and personality, Invincible VS is easy to recommend to both seasoned fighting games fans and Invincible enthusiasts. 

Score: 8.5

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Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher: Play by Play Studios
Developer: Play by Play Studios
Release: 2026
Rating: Everyone

When I was in high school, few games captivated me the way NBA Street Vol. 2 did. I loved the evolution from what NBA Jam and NBA Hangtime accomplished, bringing forward the gravity-defying, rim-rattling dunks and no-rules defensive play, and recontextualizing it through the then-current streetball craze. The result was a smash hit that bridged the gap between die-hard sports gamers and the wider mainstream audience. Both sides of that aisle ate it up. However, after Electronic Arts shuttered the EA Sports BIG label and companies like Midway went under, arcade-style sports games became fewer and further between. 

Enter Play by Play Studios, a team consisting of several seasoned sports game veterans, including Mike Young, who worked on the NBA Street, FIFA Street, and the SSX series before becoming creative director on the Madden franchise for nearly a decade. In 2021, the studio began working on a streetball game called The Run: Got Next, consisting of entirely fictional characters. Around 2024, the NBA caught wind of the project and contacted the studio about licensing its teams and players. 

While the game now contains 32 NBA players from across the league, it retains all the core tenets the team went into the project with, namely fast-paced, approachable arcade-style gameplay and injecting personality. The result is NBA The Run, an online-focused 3v3 game that treats its players less like unidentifiable players amidst a greater team, similar to how many sim-focused sports games can feel, and more like characters in a hero shooter. Every player is hand-crafted, from their animations to their looks, creating exaggerated, yet faithful appearances that aptly capture how they look and play within these 3v3 games.

I experience this firsthand during a gameplay session with the developers, which shows me this game is more than just talk. Everything on the court feels fantastic, whether you're talking the satisfying dunks, the hard-hitting defense, or the swish sound coming over your speakers after draining a shot from downtown. And not only do more well-rounded players like Anthony Edwards and LeBron James control completely different than specialists like Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Play By Play Studios approached them with the idea of making the players feel like characters, pulling inspiration from notoriously overpowered players like Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl or Michael Vick in Madden NFL 04. That was certainly true when looking at an unstoppable force like Victor Wembanyama, who can dominate in the paint on offense or defense, or drain shots from beyond the arc with decent regularity. 

Building a well-rounded team is essential, as the ruleset varies from game to game. As you play through the Knockout Tournament structure of NBA The Run, en route to hopefully winning the championship, the rulesets randomize. This means that one game might give extra points for dunks, while another ruleset could incentivize threes. Others, still, could operate on a timer, making it so ball control is crucial if you're hoping to exert some influence over the clock. If you happen to have an all-bigs team, you're gambling that paint play will be rewarded, and you're hoping to the RNG gods that a three-ball ruleset doesn't come up in the roulette wheel.

I enjoy the unpredictable nature of the rules, which helps keep the experience fresh from game to game. With a push for quick-hit gameplay sessions, you can jump into a tournament, lose your first game in a few minutes, and almost immediately jump back into another tournament. It's designed with inspiration from games like Fortnite, where once you lose, you can quickly get back into the action with another match. And though it's all online, you do have the choice to squad up with either match-made teammates or friends, or go into solo play where you control all three players on your team at once.

When I first heard about NBA The Run, I was excited, but skeptical. After all, the single-player career mode of NBA Street Vol. 2 was my go-to experience; would a game, even one that draws heavy inspiration from NBA Street, have the same staying power for me without that long-form destination? While I still miss the Street games, I came away from my hands-on time extremely impressed with not only how well NBA The Run plays, but how the quick-hit structure compelled me to want to keep playing. And with a release coming in June, not to mention a beta starting on May 1, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to get back out on the streets as my favorite NBA stars.

Like its spiritual predecessor Returnal, Saros is a challenging game, but not an insurmountable one. Frankly, on the Dark Souls scale of difficulty, I personally find Saros to be less challenging (in a complementary way) than From Software’s games and the Souls games it has inspired. Starting Saros might be intimidating, but the reward of the experience is worth the effort. Below you will find some tips both to help you get started and even some to help you along as you start making good progress. I wish I had known these before I started the game, but now, with the aid of my hindsight, you can start with some great tools to survive Carcosa.

For Game Informer’s written and video review of Saros, follow the link.

Absorb Blue, Dodge Yellow, Counter Red

There are three different colored projectiles you have to worry about in Saros. Managing how to deal with these is arguably the primary gameplay mechanic. Knowing how to stay alive in the face of thousands of bullets flying at your face will actually serve you better than making sure you’re firing off your weapons. It will feel like chaos at first, but the headline of this tip is the simplest summary for how to succeed.

Hold down R1 to activate the shield when you’re about to get hit by blue projectiles, and make sure to release your shield as soon as it’s safe. You can absorb yellow projectiles with the shield, too, but it has its downsides, so it’s best to just always avoid them by dashing through them or jumping over them.

It will be some time before you start seeing red projectiles and receive the ability to counter them, but these cannot be dashed through. You must jump over them, or press R1 to essentially melee them away. Do not be scared of countering the red projectiles! The window to knock them back is big, and successfully doing so basically gets rid of all of them. Get the hang of countering them as soon as possible.

When in doubt, however, or if things are getting overwhelming, jump and dash. Better to stay alive and out of the way than to miss the window on absorbing blue projectiles or countering red ones.

The Smart Gun Is The Smart Choice

There are a lot of gun options in Saros and you will find what you like and what works for you over time. I suggest, however, early on (and later on, too, frankly) gravitating toward the Smart Gun options. The Smart Guns do a lot of the aiming so you don’t have to and you can just hold down the trigger while you concentrate on dodging projectiles and staying alive. There are stronger weapons that do more interesting things, but the Smart Gun will help you get your feet under you in the beginning.

Don’t Save Health Items

In Returnal, there was a somewhat helpful, albeit inconvenient, strategy where you could leave health items on the map and mop them up before heading to a boss. Picking up health items at full health also had a benefit in Returnal. In Saros, those kinds of strategies do not exist. Picking up a healing item at full health gives you Lucenite, which you need for permanent and impermanent upgrades. It may feel a little wasteful to pick up a health item when you don’t need it, but more Lucenite is good and, more importantly, progress in Saros is almost always a one-way trip. You rarely, if ever, can go backwards through a level.

Keep The Weapon You Like, Even If There Are Stronger Ones

It is tempting to automatically pick up the weapon with the bigger number. It probably does a little more damage. But, after you’ve spent some time learning the game and figuring out which weapons you like, it is often better to keep a weaker weapon that fits your playstyle than it is to take the incremental upgrade you’re not as comfortable with. The other advantage of not grabbing that slightly better but worse-feeling weapon is that by the time you do find the weapon you like later, it will be a lot stronger.

Hold L1 To Sprint Faster (Sometimes)

Arjun runs incredibly fast, and you will be constantly dashing out of danger with L1. But know that when all the enemies are defeated, and you’re just trying to get to the next point of interest, you can hold L1, and he will somehow run even faster. It also works as an indicator of whether or not you have defeated all the enemies if you don’t feel like looking for red dots on the mini map.

Chase The White Flag

There will often be two paths in front of you, indicated by blue and white flags on the mini-map, or in the HUD if you scan the surroundings by pressing down on the d-pad. The blue flag is the primary path. The white flag is the optional path. In general, it is always worth pursuing the optional path. Sure, you will fight optional enemies, but the rewards are basically always worth it; Anything to get more Lucenite.

You Should Probably Just Activate The Solar Eclipse

Often in Saros, you are forced to activate the solar eclipse to progress, but sometimes you can choose not to. In general, however, it is pretty much always worth it to go ahead and activate it. Enemies are a little tougher, and they don’t shoot as many blue projectiles at you, and the upgrades all come with downsides, but without the eclipse, certain paths are closed, and it’s not worth missing out on  those potential upgrades.

Pick Based On The Detriment, Not The Upgrade

Speaking of all that, before you activate a solar eclipse, all the upgrades are fully positive. There is no reason not to grab them. It’s why you don’t have to hold down the triangle button to pick them up. After the solar eclipse, however, all the upgrades have attached downgrades. Here’s the thing, though – you will always run out of room for upgrades, so you can be very picky about what you take. Rather than looking at the upgrades, pick based on the detriment. For example, I never pick up anything that limits the refresh on my dash ability. It will never be worth it. Losing a little Lucenite when I take a hit, however? Or fall damage, something that is very easy to avoid by dashing right before you hit the ground? Or doing less damage while stationary in a game where you are constantly moving? I will barely notice those. Frankly, I don’t even look at the upgrade part of it anymore. Just weigh if the downgrade is worth it.

Use Power Weapons Before Picking Up Health

Getting hit by yellow projectiles poisons Arjun, in a sense. It essentially makes his health bar smaller. You can undo the poison, however, with power weapons. Power weapons are deployed by fully depressing the left trigger and firing the right trigger. Some function like a rocket launcher, some charge up, and some just need to be held down. Absorbing blue projectiles with the shield collects ammo for the power weapons.

Here’s the thing to know about using power weapons to undo poison – they do not need to connect with enemies. So, if you’re looking at a health item, but you are poisoned, fire off a few power weapon shots before picking it up. Don’t worry, those weapons get powered back up pretty quickly.

Use Your Rerolls, But Save Them For Later

From the beginning, you will always have a few rerolls (called Acolyte’s Wager) in your pocket before every run in Saros. You can use these to delete artifacts or try to get something different from a random upgrade drop. These rerolls refresh every run, so just use them. My suggestion is to use them right before the boss to try to get your favorite weapon.

Don’t Forget Melee

Arjun starts with a melee attack (Selene had to find an energy sword in Returnal), but in the midst of all the gunplay and bullets, it’s easy to forget it exists. The attack is strong, so don’t forget to punch a monster if it makes the mistake of getting too close. It is also required to get through red energy doors and remove red energy shields from enemies. Dashing in, punching, and dashing can be a good strategy. Don’t forget it’s an option.

Always Go Halcyon

Sometimes you will be given the choice between Halcyon and something else. I never know what the other thing is because it is basically always in your best interest to grab the Halcyon. These are a valuable currency for permanent upgrades, and there is a limited number of them in the larger game. In the late, late game, I have run out of things I can upgrade with my Lucenite, but I have plenty of Halcyon upgrades still available. I wish I had lots more.

Save Your Keys For Doors

You will find the occasional key in the world, and permanent upgrades allow you to start runs with keys, as well. The keys can be used to open doors or unlock yellow chests. In general, the yellow chest upgrades are always a bit underwhelming. The locked doors, however, tend to have a lot more and better stuff. My strategy was to always keep one key for a future door, and then any extra keys on those yellow chests. However, it’s best to save unlocking yellow chests for later in the levels, even if you do have keys.

Opt To Lose An Artifact

Once you defeat the second boss (congrats!), you will be able to elect some pros and cons for your runs in the Carcosan Modifier section of Primary’s menu. Picking these really pertains to your playstyle, but one you can definitely take advantage of on the “make game harder” side is Artifact Destruction, where you lose a random upgrade Artifact when you move to a new biome. You will always run out of room for Artifacts anyway, so losing a random one only gives you a chance to get something new. Frankly, it’s a good thing.

Don’t Worry About Saving Overdrive Too Much

The Overdrive attack (activated by pressing L3 and R3), unlocked about halfway through the game, is a powerful, limited-use attack that is great to use against bosses. It powers up based on how much damage you’re doing to enemies. The understandable temptation is to save and use it against the bosses, but you don’t have to be too judicious with it. It powers up fairly fast (and can power up even faster with permanent upgrades), so if you’re fighting a strong miniboss or are just getting overwhelmed with too many enemies, go ahead and use it. I am not saying use it immediately whenever it becomes available, but just know it will be back pretty quickly. Even at its lower levels, you should be able to use it twice during a boss fight.

Take Note Of When The Bosses Are Invincible

Pretty much all the bosses in Saros have phases, and they cannot take damage while switching phases. This is indicated primarily by them not taking damage when you shoot them, obviously, but also by a grate appearing over their health bar. Saros is a game that moves very, very fast, so it’s easy to miss that all the bullets you’re firing aren’t doing anything. The problem I ran into a few times is that I was firing off valuable power weapons or worse, the L3/R3 attack, and it was a complete waste. So, this is just a warning to be mindful. When the grate covers up their health bar, don’t use the big guns.