Colourful, quirky, and completely chaotic, Above Land: Rhapsody basically takes the three-player co-op carnage of Elden Ring Nightreign and injects it with some hilariously over-the-top weapons and special moves that seem straight out of a Yakuza street brawl. At a recent BiliBili: First Look event in Shanghai, I spent a few hours hacking and slashing away at monsters in a land above the clouds, in this frenetic roguelite that marries breathtaking bursts of action and tower defense elements with a deep sense of combat customisation. Yet what really stood out for me was the creative combination of weaponry at my disposal. I mean, when was the last time you played an action RPG that allowed you to cut down goblins with a giant broadsword in one hand, and perform slam-dunking finishing moves with a basketball dribbled with the other?

Just why do you have access to an eclectic arsenal of weapons that seem to be stripped out of the pages of a tweenager’s sketchbook? Well, that probably has something to do with the fact that in Above Land: Rhapsody you actually play as a young child, at least outside of each battle. Here your downtime is spent wandering through the bowels of a floating vessel dubbed ‘The Invincible Bebe’, trading for special potions with the alchemist, preparing meals with the chef that provide buffs during combat, and visiting the tailor to unlock various aesthetic upgrades like witch’s hats and aviation goggles for your avatar.

The most important NPC to befriend, though, is the Bebe’s blacksmith who provides you with a weapon set that combines a standard suite of high fantasy armaments with what appears to be the most wanted items on a grade schooler’s Christmas wishlist. Of course there are swords, dual-wielded daggers, and a powerful bow to deal damage with, but there’s also a yo-yo, electric guitar, and the aforementioned basketball to add some slapstick to every monster arse you kick. I’m assuming the team at developer Flying Amateurs are WWE fans, too, since you can even choose to wield a folding chair, exactly like the kind typically clattered over the skulls of greased up grapplers ringside at Wrestlemania.

You might say that the developers have employed an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach to designing your character’s arsenal in Above Land: Rhapsody, but since in the early version I played there was only 12 out of the more than 30 weapons set to be available in the finished game, I can’t rule out the possibility that there might actually be a kitchen sink or some other random piece of plumbing to wield when Above Land: Rhapsody eventually comes out. It’s pretty nuts.

Above and Beyond

Once you’re good to go you then shift through the pages of an intricate pop-up book left to the child by his missing mother, which then teleports you into a battle realm composed of floating chunks of shattered landscape and populated with hordes of minions to clash with and countless secret treasures to scour for. In this dimension you transform into a lithe warrior and, either solo or with up to two companions in tow, must survive four waves of increasingly challenging enemy hordes before overcoming an end boss in a gameplay session that basically constitutes about 30 breathless minutes of mayhem.

Each wave of enemies you dispatch drops randomised character modifiers that you can equip on the fly, ranging from simply electrifying your weapons, to a buff that makes the size of your character slowly grow and become more powerful at the cost of your overall movement speed. Apparently in the full game there will be even more absurd modifiers that turn enemies into sheep, or allow you to literally shout your enemies to death using a headset microphone. Finally, a gameplay mechanic purpose built for every shrieking adolescent I’ve ever encountered in Call of Duty.

Even without the novel gameplay twists introduced by these modifiers, which I’m told will be close to a staggering 1,000 in number, the weapons are already an absolute blast to use. In addition to standard attacks, each weapon also has two special skills that operate on a cooldown timer. For example, the broadsword can deploy an automated turret to help thin enemy numbers in your vicinity, while the folding chair can summon a wrestling ring to rope in the enemies around you and prevent them from dodging your chair-swinging attacks.

Each weapon also features its own unique combat mechanics. With the katana I was simply alternating between the two main attack buttons to pull off slashing uppercuts and charged up stabs, but with the electric guitar I fell into a completely different rhythm. Quite literally so, since wielding the axe of the fretted kind brings up a tempo indicator at the bottom of the screen; the better you time each strum of the guitar, the more damage you deal with the musical note projectiles that fire out in all directions, as your character kneeslides and duckwalks around the combat arena like an action roleplaying Angus Young. I must admit that the manic nature of Above Land: Rhapsody’s scraps meant that I didn’t always completely know what was going on, but I was nothing if not entertained at all times.

Above the Rim

It’s worth pointing out that the actual multiplayer component of Above Land: Rhapsody is still very much a work in progress, and many of the features planned for co-operative play were not present in the early build I played. Specifically, the full game is set to allow players to trade items like ability modifiers between them, but perhaps more enticingly, your combat abilities will be far more complementary in a scrap. An example suggested to me by one of the developers, was that if two players each had the basketball equipped, they might be able to pass it back and forth in quick succession in order to create a powerful whirlwind to damage enemies with, before finishing them off with one player lobbing the ball to the other for an alley-oop dunk on the enemy’s head.

To be clear these concepts are only tentative at this stage, but I’m certainly keen to see what kind of tandem takedowns will end up in Above Land: Rhapsody when it launches. Perhaps you could have a trio of guitarists shredding a harmony solo to literally melt enemy faces with, or maybe multiple yo-yo wielders could spin up a web of strings and really rock the cradle with pounding, pendulum-style attacks. There’s certainly scope for some really fun combinations here.

I’m certainly keen to see what kind of tandem takedowns will end up in Above Land: Rhapsody when it launches.

At this early stage in its development, Above Land: Rhapsody is also in desperate need of better onboarding for new players. Although its combat is extremely easy to pick up due to its simple and instantly rewarding design, there are an overwhelming number of systems to interact with during each battle. These include various statues littered around the arena that grant increases to your maximum health or elemental defense, with some requiring the offering of special keys you collect during battle, some with short puzzles to solve, and others demanding the use of another consumable called a G-stone. There’s also the Wobbo, which sounds like an Australian nickname but is actually a companion creature that can either function as an autonomous bodyguard, or even allow the player to transform into a powerful monster for short periods of time.

Needless to say, it was quite a lot to process in between the constant hacking and slashing of hordes, but the developers assure me that they’re working on an expanded tutorial for the full game that will go beyond the basic introduction included in this preview build.

If developer Flying Amateurs can knuckle down and get the basics sorted, then that should really allow the silly side of Above Land: Rhapsody to really shine. This is an action RPG overflowing with energy and playfulness, and I’m certainly keen to see more. With no release window confirmed at this time it could still be quite a while before we get the finished game in our hands, and it’s hard to tell from this short slice just how much story substance will be evident, and what other combat arenas will be included to keep the fighting fresh. But for now, I can say that the potential of Above Land: Rhapsody is certainly sky high.

For more on Above Land: Rhapsody, be sure to check out the full announcement details here.

Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN's Sydney office. He attended the BiliBili: First Look event in Shanghai as a guest of the organizers.

Speaking at iicon today, a new conference for video game executives, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick addressed the much-debated question of how much Grand Theft Auto 6 will cost. He declined to confirm the game’s price, but hinted away from the potentially super-premium price point that has been floated in the past.

“Consumers pay for the value that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way way way less of the value delivery,” Zelnick said. “How you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing and the price they were charged was fair for what they got.”

He went on to mention that game pricing has actually gotten cheaper over the years, a reference to the fact that major game releases have been priced at $60 or at most $70 for more than a decade, as compared to greater rates of inflation seen in the wider economy.

“If you look at it through that lens, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But that isn’t the lens through which we look. Instead, we look at… how do we deliver something amazing, and how do we make sure that what people pay for it feels very reasonable.”

Zelnick also said that he’s “terrified” of the question of how to measure the success of GTA 6, but that he and the teams are more focused on delivering a fantastic experience than worrying about how it performs.

"What we think about is making the most spectacular piece of entertainment on Earth, in history."

“What we think about is making the most spectacular piece of entertainment on Earth, in history – and it’s a pretty daunting challenge. If we do that, and if we’re of service to our customers, then the upside will take care of itself.”

That said, he did follow it up with a quick quip that he does “think a lot of people will be calling in sick on November 19.”

Elsewhere in the talk, Zelnick gave some (slim) hope for fans of L.A. Noire that a sequel might happen one day.

“Broadly, we’re looking at doing something in the future with all of our intellectual property,” he said. “There’s nothing to announce on L.A. Noire specifically, and if there were, it would be Rockstar announcing it, not me. But in any case, with regard to our legacy IP, the teams are always looking at what we have and we’re always thinking about it. The question is, at any given time, do we have a team that’s passionate about working on that?”

For more on what could the biggest video game launch in history, check out the latest on the stolen data from the Rockstar hack saga and Zelnick's comments on GTA 6 the digital-only release rumor. GTA 6 is set to launch on November 19, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and we'll be keeping up with everything leading up its release.

Bo Moore is IGN's Senior Manager of Tech. You can find him online @usebomswisely.

Today a new romance game was announced, Silent Whispers, and fans of the ruling otome title Love and Deepspace quickly noticed a few similarities between the two. Namely, the white-haired, sharp-cheekboned Alarik, one of the three romantic leads in Silent Whispers.

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Silent Whispers is the work of Archosaur Games, a Chinese company that has already had success with the anime-style open-world MMORPG game Dragon Raja and fashion sim Life Makeover. According to Archosaur, this latest title "is a UE5-powered cinematic love adventure game where cinematic 4K visuals bring every heartbeat in the city to life." Despite the glaring similarity, this Silent Whispers is not affiliated with Love And Deepspace, or its publisher Infold game.

The reactions from the otome gaming community haven't solely been focused on Sylus-based rage though, some gamers are interested to see Love and Deepspace get some competition and are interested in the promise of more action-focused, first person gameplay, rather than the traditional visual novel style.

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If silent whispers is 18+ and got sex in it im sorry lads you will die

— rodger’s love potion 🐟❄️👓 (@pinkjoonmoon) April 28, 2026

I need to sleep, but I keep looking up things about this new Silent Whispers game and also Wonho 🫠

— ˚ʚ𝓐𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓵 ♡ɞ˚ (@xxix_angel) April 28, 2026

While Silent Whisper is free to play, and will be released on iOS, Android and PC, potential players are also interested in the game mechanics, which don't appear to be based on the gacha model that Love and Deepspace uses.

wait silent whispers is not gacha. pic.twitter.com/dTY9K7oT43

— sophie 樂★ (@n109chan) April 28, 2026

Silent Whispers is inviting players to pre-register now, though as yet there is no announced release date.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.