You ever had one of those days when Blackbeard boards your ship, shoots you, leaves you for dead, and you wash up penniless and alone on some uninhabited island having only survived due to mysterious, dark magic? Who hasn't, right? Windrose, a piratical survival crafter that just launched into Early Access, uses that universal experience as a starting point for some in-depth exploration and swashbuckling during a mythical reimagining of the Golden Age of Piracy. And there's enough depth and polish here already to match a lot of full games, even with an unfinished story and some rough edges.

Windrose takes after Valheim in a handful of ways, including the fact that you don't actually need to eat or sleep in order to survive. Rather, food provides stat buffs without which you can easily get one-shot by any wandering wild pig. So it's important, but you're not going to starve to death because you went AFK for a little while. The building system is pretty flexible – my earliest shelters looked very Robinson Crusoe-chic, but I eventually unlocked the parts needed to get a nice Caribbean hacienda going. Decorations even extend the duration of your rested buff, giving you a mechanical reward for taking the time to spruce things up.

From chopping down trees to mining ore, there are a lot of familiar survival game chores to do. But for the most part, I found Windrose to be pretty respectful of my time. If I had to do something repetitive and tedious, I usually didn't need to spend so much time on it that I lost all interest.

You start out in a lush, coastal jungle where the biggest threats are wild boars and your main goal is to get your first ship built so you can get back out on the tides. Moving into the mid-level highlands, human enemies with sabers and guns as well as predators like wolves become more common, and points of interest can feature mini dungeons with clever and challenging puzzles. At the end of the current Early Access journey, you venture into the deadly cursed swamps, where spending too much time in certain areas can cause madness and instant death.

The escalation of mechanical challenges and supernatural elements – oh yeah, Blackbeard is up to some kind of necromancy, by the way – meant the loop of arriving in a new area and working toward the next upgrade tier didn't get too repetitive. With even more biomes planned for the full release, I'm curious to see just how supernatural we can go. The swamps are already pretty wild!

Whether you’re facing off against wildlife or the restless dead, ground combat is probably my favorite part of Windrose. The devs describe it as "Soulslite," which is a label I'm a bit hesitant to use as a big soulsborne fan myself, but it is quite responsive and kinetic. Parrying opponents at just the right time removes shield icons from their health bar, which can eventually stun them and let you really go to town. Pistols are quite powerful, but take a long time to reload. And weapons like sabers, rapiers, and chunky two-handers feel very different to fight with, including their unique special moves.

The end chapter bosses are brutally tough, too. Even with fully upgraded gear, I definitely got some of that Souls feeling in these hectic but satisfying encounters. My one complaint here ties back to how stats are so heavily based on consumables – as a result, dying to the same boss several times while you're learning the fight can require you to leave and go grind for resources if you don't want to face them in a greatly diminished state. And that can get tedious.

There are also some edge cases where the enemy AI causes everything to fall apart. Melee foes have a tendency to completely mob you and shove you into a corner while you get wombo comboed to death from fifty different directions. This can normally be avoided by simply running away and using terrain intelligently. But the two most miserable missions in the entirety of Windrose were these ones that required me to board a pirate ship and fight like a dozen zombies in very close quarters. You can't even stand on the deck of your own ship and shoot at them because they're scripted to respawn if you're not on their vessel. I eventually had to cheese the whole thing by getting them stuck on a railing. This is simply terrible encounter design. But at least stumbles like that are rare.

In comparison to the ground combat, which is generally strong but has some rough patches, naval engagements flip the script by being somewhat unremarkable with occasional moments of greatness. Cannons fire on realistic trajectories that require you to lead targets, so there is a high skill ceiling here. But overall it feels kind of arcadey. There's no mechanic for wind direction, for instance, which I thought was especially odd, and you never have to replenish ammunition or hire more crewmates, either. Co-op partners are better off on their own ships since there's not much they can do on yours that you couldn't do solo, which isn't my preference. Boarding action s can be a great time, though, since your crewmates will help you out in those, preventing the problem of getting mobbed by too many enemies in a tight space.

The wave modeling is dramatic, with large swells making even the current largest pilotable frigates seem small while also providing cover from enemy cannons. But storms at sea can feel a little underwhelming. I don't think it's possible to capsize even in the freebie rowboat, for instance. I also have some small nitpicks about stuff like the way waves hit the shoreline. They seem to spawn a fixed distance away and arrive all at the same time, which doesn't look especially realistic. I do like the stylized realism of Windrose's world all in all, but it can seem a bit gloomy and Baltic out on the open water, with constant clouds and navy blue seas, for a game set in the sun-drenched Caribbean.

I really enjoyed the music and sound design, though. And yes, there are plenty of sea shanties to enjoy on long voyages across the gigantic map recorded by a full chorus – both familiar favorites and more obscure tunes. The sound of waves against the hull or seabirds circling sell the world in a very rich way. I'll just never get tired of cruising the Spanish Main while some crusty old sea dog from Liverpool belts out a melodramatic lament with the lads to a prostitute he's convinced he fell in love with before she was cruelly taken from him. That's what the good life is all about, you know?

As far as character progression, Windrose feels a bit stingy at the moment. That’s especially true of talent points, as I didn't feel like I got that many to play with – which is a shame, because they unlock neat playstyle enhancements like faster reloads or more health recovery from quickly landing counterattacks, à la Bloodborne. But I'm also unsure how much bigger Windrose is supposed to get. Experience points exclusively come from completing quests and exploring points of interest, and there are only so many of those, which means the current level cap is somewhere around 15. Maybe with the full release, it won't seem so restrictive.

More big corporate shakeups are happening inside Microsoft. Kiki Wolfkill, art director, producer, and veteran of the Halo franchise and other big Xbox properties, revealed she's left the company as of April 17.

Wolfkill dropped this bombshell on her LinkedIn page (via PC Gamer). She posted the following message:

As she mentions in her post, Wolfkill was a mainstay at Microsoft for the better part of three decades. She rose to prominence in 2008 when she joined 343 Industries, eventually becoming 343's Head of Halo Transmedia and Entertainment. That put her in charge of, among other things, the controversial Halo live-action series on Showtime and Paramount+ (check out IGN's Halo Season 2 review for more). In 2022, Wolfkill was promoted to lead Microsoft's Xbox film and TV division.

There's no word yet on what might be next for Wolfkill and whether she plans on remaining inside the gaming industry. Either way, this is another big corporate shift for a company that's undergoing a substantial evolution in 2026. Earlier this year, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer retired from the company, while Xbox President Sarah Bond also resigned. In their place, Asha Sharma was promoted to become Microsoft Gaming's new CEO.

Sharma has wasted little time in instituting big changes at Microsoft, starting with significantly dropping the price of Xbox Game Pass. Find out why we think that's a great first step toward fixing Xbox's problems.

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

If you, like me, are looking to complete your Pokémon TCG binder, we may have had a similar experience recently. A few weeks ago, I walked into my local card store, hoping that I’d timed it just right so that I’d catch my friends doing a restock of Ascended Heroes Pokémon products.

Usually, they put one or two packs behind the counter for me as a favour. So I waltz in, breezing past the crowds to the front, where I’m met with a shrug.

Nothing.

If you, like me, have walked into a store hoping to pick up an Ascended Heroes Elite Trainer Box (ETB) at its $49.99 MSRP, you’ve probably been met with a similar scenario: A despondent worker. An empty shelf. Crowds of resellers swarming the place.

Since its debut at the start of 2026, the Mega Evolution - Ascended Heroes Pokémon TCG expansion has undergone somewhat of an evolution itself. First, a simple, highly anticipated set that included over 290 cards - one of the largest English Pokémon TCG expansions ever released. Now, it’s a full-blown phenomenon that shows no signs of slowing down.

According to the latest TCGplayer data, sealed Ascended Heroes ETB Cases are currently moving for a staggering $1,762.61. Sure, you get 10 ETBs, but for Trainers doing the math at home, that places individual ETBs just over $176 - more than triple their retail value just months after launch.

But why? Why has this expansion taken off, over something like Prismatic Evolutions or Perfect Order? The answer might be more complicated than you think.

Let’s start with the easy answer. It’s a great expansion. With Mega Evolutions returning in force and Special Illustration Rares hot on the market, Ascended Heroes has some of the best chase cards out there right now.

While Prismatic Evolutions suffered somewhat from frustrating pull rates for top-tier hits, Ascended Heroes has a decent pull rate that makes ‘just one more pack’ inevitable. Take Double Rares for example - the overall hit rate for one is a healthy 1 in 5 packs.

The second easy answer is the state of the third party resell market. The expansion features a staggering 22 Special Illustration Rares (SIRs). While the total hit rate for an SIR is roughly 1 in 70 packs, the math for a specific card is terrifying.

According to TCGplayer’s Pull Rate Guide, your odds of pulling a specific chase like the SIR Mega Gengar ex are approximately 1 in 1,533 packs (with some community data suggesting it's as low as 1 in 2,002). When a single Mega Gengar ex SIR goes for highs of $1,279.54 on TCGPlayer, the idea that one card could make back your entire collection becomes an alluring prospect.

It’s not even just the ETBs that have seen price spikes. When people are paying nearly $17 per pack just for the chance to see a Mega Evolution's jagged energy lines, the fundamental rules of new set depreciation start to break down.

So “hype” is the easy answer. But what’s the complicated answer to why Ascended Heroes' price is soaring right now?

The answer is inertia.

At $1,762.61 per case, investors are effectively baking in three years of organic growth into a brand-new set. Financially, this makes little sense, yet the demand persists. The "Destined Rivals" effect is also in play - we’ve seen recent sets vanish from retail shelves after only three months of availability. If Ascended Heroes follows that trajectory, the window to find MSRP product at big-box retailers is closing fast. At this point, the secondary market sets the price, and people want a pay day.

So, the next question is inevitably - ‘what can we do?’. And that answer, unfortunately, is not much.

Immediately, you probably think ‘well, we just need to stop buying it until reprints become available’. Conventional wisdom suggests that more product equals lower prices. But do you remember when The Pokémon Company printed and restocked Prismatic Evolutions for an entire year, which held the price down from $100-$115 an ETB? As soon as there was a break in the reprint, ETBs went straight back up to $200. While a reprint may curb the price spikes, it doesn’t solve the issue.

The reality is that upcoming Ascended Heroes Booster Bundles, releasing April 24, 2026, are likely to be eaten up by the market instantly with the demand we’ve seen, in turn injecting the market with high-value cards.

In a cyclical pattern we’ve seen with previous God Tier sets, like Prismatic Evolutions, it’s likely that prices will yo-yo between 1.25x and 3x MSRP for the next two years as waves of reprints hit, only to skyrocket once the printing presses finally stop.

Will upcoming products have the same impact? Only time will tell.

"We will then have someone else make a similar post about this a few months from now, asking why AH prices haven't gone down despite the release of different products," notes one cynical yet accurate market observer over on r/PokeInvesting.

But what if you’re a fan actually looking to play the game, or complete a binder? There is a small glimmer of hope. Historically, when high-demand sets see a surge in "ripping," the market becomes flooded with single cards. We expect a "Prismatic-style" dip in singles prices - specifically for Illustration Rares - as more Booster Bundles circulate.

For the average fan, the advice is simple. Hold on. If Pokémon TCG does see a 2021-style crash where speculators exit, be ready to buy the dip. But as long as the Ascended Heroes hype continues to dominate the cultural conversation, the resale market for Ascended Heroes looks like it’s headed for the moon - with or without us.

Sara Heritage is a freelance journalist for IGN, specialising in Pokémon TCG. When she's not gaming, you’ll probably find her building yet another LEGO set she absolutely did not need, or chaining ranked matches in Pokémon Champions.