Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds will release the game’s Early Access 1.1 update today, July 8 — and no, it won’t let you kill fish.

In a new video, creative director Anthony Gallegos said the 1.1 update, dubbed Adaptive Measures, focuses on expanding the biomods system, adding new biolabs to the early game so you’ll be able to find and swap out more biomods as you play from the start. Later in the game you’ll be able to scan creatures and unlock more passive biomod slots, so can take multiple passive biomods at the same time.

Perhaps of most interest are improvements to creature flinches. Most of the creatures in the game now have good flinches, so if you hit them with the Survival Multitool you’ll get a reaction out of them before they flee, which in turn means you can see and understand the impact you’re having on them.

Unknown Worlds has also improved the Sonic Resonator, which ties into creatures now having stunned states. This means when you hit them with the Sonic Resonator they will clearly communicate that they’ve been stunned. “This is all in the effort to make you feel like you’re having the mitigation on creatures that we want you to feel, which has also been a major part of your feedback,” Gallegos explained.

That’s a reference to complaints from some Subnautica 2 players about the lack of an ability to kill the predators in the game. Not being able to directly kill fish in Subnautica 2 is perhaps the game’s hottest topic, and while Unknown Worlds has promised to add “mitigation” to the game so you can better deal with predators, it will never allow you to kill them. Gallegos has spoken about this in the past, countering the narrative that Unknown Worlds set out to create a “pacifism game.” That, Gallegos told MinnMax, just isn’t true.

Meanwhile, 1.1 makes improvements to blight encounters so there’s a better transition from passive to aggressive, which will hopefully mean players won’t be quite as surprised by creature attacks. There are gameplay improvements around wrecks so there is a little more puzzle solving and gameplay and better visual cohesion of the wrecks. The PDA is improved to add clarity. And players will have a new personal storage option in your base. This is not connected to the fabricators and processors by default. Expect 1.1 patch notes later today.

Moving on, the 1.2 update, due out “some weeks” after today’s update, will add multiplayer features such as proximity chat and player revive. And even later in the year is the big Early Access 2 update. This adds a new region, new creatures, new vehicle chassis, new progression, and new story. “It takes us a while to work on that and we are working really hard on it, but we are a small team, and so we’re doing that while also integrating all your feedback," Gallegos explained.

Subnautica 2 is a huge hit, and earlier this month it was confirmed that the entire Unknown Worlds staff will get their bonuses after parent company Krafton reached a settlement with studio leadership. Bloomberg reported that as part of the settlement, Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill had stepped down, leaving the company to look for a new boss.

In a statement provided to IGN, Krafton confirmed the settlement, insisting its focus now was on the future of Subnautica 2, which Unknown Worlds will continue to develop.

"Krafton, Inc., Unknown Worlds Entertainment and Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire have reached a mutual settlement and agreed to dismiss all pending legal proceedings," Krafton said. "Unknown Worlds and Krafton are focused on supporting Subnautica 2, its Early Access journey to the full 1.0 release and the global community that has made the franchise so special. Unknown Worlds will continue leading development, with Krafton providing support for the success of the game."

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Whenever a new Assassin’s Creed comes around, the conversation inevitably loops back to the same question: “Hey, remember the one with the pirates? That one was great.” Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is the last game my friends who lapsed on the series have played. It's the one whose hero, Edward Kenway, always sits high up on “Best of” lists. It’s the one that spawned two remarkable spin-offs and inspired a whole game that is just ship combat. Black Flag was a cultural moment, and Resynced isn't just a full remake of that juggernaut, but Ubisoft Singapore’s celebration of the original’s well earned reputation. With new graphics, revamped combat both in melee and on the high seas, and retooled exploration and stealth systems, its bigger and better in all the ways that matter.

The most obvious upgrade is in how Resynced looks. The 2013 original actually holds up surprisingly well thanks to its tropical color palette and great lighting, but Resynced is still a flex in comparison. Ubisoft’s Anvil engine is a clear step up thanks to new options like ray tracing, with 2026 textures and physics also adding depth to hair, skin, and clothes that just couldn’t be done back then – and all at a smooth 60 fps on PC. The bigger cities you’ll visit, like Havana, are bustling with people and the wilderness is dense with lush foliage. Like with last year’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Resynced also has some pretty remarkable wind, water, and weather effects.

Bringing Black Flag in line with modern Assassin’s Creed design also adds some much needed modesty to the world map. Previously, your map was littered with icons marking things to find and do in distracting abundance. The more discovery-focused approach introduced in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – where non-quest-related points of interest don’t show up until you observe them from synch points or are in direct proximity to them – helps keep the map from being overwhelming, but also encourages you to actually explore this refreshed and remixed world.

Travelling through that world is enhanced by Resynced’s updated freerunning mechanics. It may not seem too different from what you remember at a glance, but I revisited the original Black Flag just before this review, and there are a handful of modern tweaks here that make it a notably better experience. Parkour runs transition from one move to the next much more smoothly, and you can change direction far faster in case you find something in front of you that you don't like and need a new route quickly.

The routes themselves are now more boldy highlighted by white chalky paint and cloth on buildings in a way that has become more noticeable in games from the last decade, so there's less trial and error when it comes to jumping from step to step. It has the breezy slickness of 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage (without the same level of urban density to trick through), but it does also retain a little too much of the stickiness that came from AC games of the original’s era. Too often did a good running sequence come to a complete stop because the angle I hit a jump from was off by some microscopic amount, or because Edward would fling himself down one path even though I definitely needed him to leap through another.

Edward Kenway’s story is one of the most beloved in the series for good reason. It’s filled with memorable characters, consequential twists and turns, and some great writing and acting. It was unconventional for its time: a selfish pirate in pursuit of glory who has to be dragged into the conflict between Assassins and Templar kicking and screaming, and at great personal loss. 13 years later, there still aren't many stories that break the mold in quite the same way in this series. It’s still easily a top three Assassin’s Creed adventure, and I wouldn’t put it at number three.

The story has even gotten some additional love, mostly in some extra cutscenes that expand on certain moments with characters like Blackbeard – as well as a brand new end-game chapter that lets you tie up a loose end related to a character that never saw any justice for his crimes in the original. Some quests get reworked to make them a bit more open-ended, as well. For example, it used to be that the only way to get the diving bell to search a wreck for medicine was to save up enough money to buy it from your ship vendor. Now, there’s an alternative way: steal it from a group of soldiers. Some of these adjustments won’t even stand out as new if you haven't played the original recently, but as someone who has, changes like this really help speed up some of the chokepoints in the story's pacing that felt more like busy work than swashbuckling.

Gone completely are the present day interludes where you would tiptoe around the Abstergo offices to try and sabotage the evil Templar corporation from within. Instead those glyphs scattered around the map from the original now contribute to various meta progression systems in the new Animus Hub project, which Ubisoft first introduced in Assassin’s Creed Shadows Finding floating glyphs in the wild to earn points and level up mostly amounts to a glorified battle pass, which isn't my idea of fun, but Resynched does at least take an admirable step in the right direction. You can now enter special Rifts that serve up some unique platforming puzzles and act as the backdrop for a story between a voice locked in the Animus that wants to show us the “truth” and the Animus itself attempting to trap us inside forever. It doesn’t really go anywhere definitive, and it is kind of a bummer to see the present day story sort of be abandoned whole sale, but I am interested to see how this Rift idea develops in future games.

We take it for granted now, but it’s genuinely hard to believe that Assassin’s Creed didn't have a dedicated crouch button in 2013, and I was there! The addition of one to Resynced really does change Black Flag’s stealth dynamics, even if some layouts and soldier patrols were adjusted to accommodate that newfound freedom. Being able to duck behind cover without having to press against it to break line of sight really helps you stay hidden while scouting ahead. You also no longer have to awkwardly sprint from stalking zone to stalking zone to stay undetected. Something as simple as crouching allows for so many more ways to remain unseen that other, more outside-the-box ways to solve problems actually get undermined, like the so-called “social stealth” of blending into crowds, hiring distracting dancers, or scattering money on the ground. I never really thought about how little I’ve used these options after Assassin’s Creed Unity (where the crouch was first introduced) even though they’ve existed in some form in almost every game since, but going back in time like this really puts this conflict of systems in stark relief.

Tools like darts and bombs and distractions like whistles are quicker and easier to access thanks to Resynced’s modern HUD and menus, and the series-standard visibility and alert meters are better at helping you stay anonymous. These quality-of-life features make Edward all the craftier, but his foes have not evolved in similar ways to meet the moment. They can still see pretty far distances, and will reliably be suspicious if you’re not making your best effort to remain hidden. In stealth sections, especially in urban areas, guards are everywhere with lots of roaming patrols that overlap their vision areas with static sentries, which makes moving around at the right time imperative. But despite all that, it can take quite a while for them to be alerted and spring into action, and the extended time they spend in that yellow “curious” state makes them very easy to manipulate.

Some of the stealth-based activities have been updated as well, specifically the eavesdropping sequences. The old version of them, which required you to stick within the listenable zone of a pair of characters yapping about important information without being seen, had its issues. But what’s replaced them in the more recent AC games, just pressing a button once you get close enough to hear them, really dissolves any intrigue or attempt at immersion that this activity was supposed to create. The old style needed work, especially in its sometimes frustrating checkpoint placement, but I sorely miss the engagement it provided now that those sections have been replaced with the throwaway versions in Resynced.

When stealth eventually fails, its time to draw steel and brawl. To its ultimate benefit, the overhauled combat here brings Black Flag confidently into the modern era. Spamming light attack strings still makes Edward a duel-wielding dervish, but now enemies have posture bars to wear down instead of just health. Quick hits in conjunction with new heavy attack finishers – whose effects vary depending on which of the three weapon types Edward has available to him – empty these bars quickly, making most enemies vulnerable to instant ,one-button takedowns that you can chain to nearby enemies when you really get grooving. The new parry works a little like the old counter button but, instead of simply displacing enemies, it breaks posture and opens them up while also keeping Edward safe.

Even with the addition of the new blunderbuss bomber, bad guys come in fairly limited variety but often large numbers, and most are pretty good at defending basic attacks head-on. Resynced gets rid of the one-note “break defenses” button and gives Edward some tricks to overcome these turtles, like sweeping their legs and opening them up for a final coup de grâce that uses a powerful, Odyssey-inspired kick to knock people into walls or off of ledges. Quick selecting your tools also lets you break a combo to simply shoot a guy directly in the face or rope dart a man from across the room, Mortal Kombat-style. Against tougher enemies in bigger groups (or when you take advantage of the new difficulty settings to increase the challenge a bit), this all really comes together to create relatively simple but satisfying combat where each of your options feels useful and necessary for success. I didn’t even miss the now-removed option to take weapons from enemies to use against them.

On normal difficulty, the general back and forth of battle feels similar between both games, but it does sometimes feel like parries can trivialize combat when enemies are in small groups. You can just wait for them to act, swat their wet noodle attack away, and send them to great below with little effort – and while this was also true of the original, doing the deed took more than two button presses (though not many more). Combat is also far less cinematic overall. All of the twisting and twirling around enemies that Edward did in the original Black Flag, including the very cool chain finishers, hid a lot of these pretty basic interactions, and those are now completely gone. So I do think it was ultimately a trade up for Resynched to have a more legible and interactive system, but it did come at a cost.

As 1700’s-era piracy demands, sometimes you and 30 of your friends need to get on a brig and use cannons in order to settle some differences with the local imperial naval presence. Black Flag’s evolution of the sailing systems introduced in Assassin’s Creed 3 was always the stand out part of this experience, and its back and better in every way in Resynced. Each of the four main ways to attack – broadside cannons, long-ranged mortars, sail-ripping chain shot, and explosive fire barrels – now have secondary firing options unlockable through quest or side mission rewards. I got a lot of use out of the Heated Shots option for the broadsides, which has a shorter range but is absolutely devastating in comparison to the regular round shot thanks to its high chance to leave an exploitable weak point that can be shot again with your swivel guns to pile on even more damage. Swivel guns themselves act more like the ones from Assassin’s Creed Rogue, where you hold to aim your crosshairs over the target and they automatically shoot as opposed to the more sluggish QTE prompts of the old style.

Ships can get some brand new abilities now too thanks to some new naval officers that can be recruited to your crew. These abilities are very strong, like the shipwright’s Perfect Brace that allows you to block extra damage if you press the brace button right when an attack hits your ship rather than just holding it down – and with high enough hull armor, you might negate it completely. This was a vital addition that really helped me survive some of the hairier encounters towards the middle and end of the campaign without having to grind money to simply overlevel my way out of trouble. Combined with the man-at-arms’ Dashing Ram ability and the weapon master’s Double Shot, Edward and his crew have never been more deadly. Sailing around the Caribbean looking for the biggest ships I could find to test my luck was my go-to activity when I needed a fun break in between story beats.

The new enemy behavior and weather effects were most apparent out on the seas as well. Spanish, English, and pirate ships would fight one another on a regular basis, allying with each other in different configurations based on the situation. And for every time I saw two factions of ships trading fire, I’d see a group of ships flying the same flag traveling passively through the ocean just as often. Weather can get gnarly while sailing as well, especially with new hazards like lightning strikes throwing your path in disarray.

Microsoft reportedly plans to make more of its best games console exclusive so people actually have a reason to buy an Xbox console.

New Xbox boss Asha Sharma has already begun this process, making The Coalition’s Gears of War: E-Day and inXile’s Clockwork Revolution available on Xbox Series X and S and PC only, skipping PlayStation 5 in the process.

But according to Bloomberg, Microsoft plans to return to exclusives in a more meaningful way. Big multiplayer games will continue to release across platforms, including PS5, Bloomberg said, but Microsoft “will make more of its best titles exclusive to Xbox so gamers have a reason to buy its console.”

This begs the question: what is considered among Xbox’s best titles, and thus will potentially skip PS5? A number of games that fit the bill are already confirmed for PS5. For example, Playground’s Forza Horizon 6 is still down to come out on PlayStation, although it doesn’t have a release date for Sony’s console yet. Playground’s fantasy RPG, Fable, is due out on February 23, 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. Mojang’s Minecraft Dungeons 2 launches September 29, 2026 across PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S.

Things get interesting when we start to consider the mega games Microsoft has up its sleeve. I expect Call of Duty won’t ever be Xbox console exclusive, given it falls into that big multiplayer game category. But Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 6 is a strictly single-player affair. As a result, could it skip PS5?

Keeping such an enormous game off PlayStation would be one of the biggest calls in Xbox history. It would mean missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue from Sony’s console, all in the hope it would encourage sales of Xbox Series X and S. At a time of such financial crisis, as Microsoft insists Xbox is suffering, can it afford to leave so much cash on the table?

Microsoft is heavily rumored to be readying a Fallout 3 remaster and maybe even a Fallout: New Vegas remaster, following on from the successful release of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. Could those games skip PS5 also?

And here’s perhaps the biggest question of all: could the next mainline Halo game go back to its exclusive Xbox roots and skip PS5? This summer’s Halo: Campaign Evolved is multiplatform, but that was confirmed before Sharma took over the business and began her “reset.” Would a new Halo be considered a big multiplayer game and stick with a multiplatform release? Or could it launch Xbox console exclusive?

This is all part of a refocus on the Xbox console, as Sharma has indicated before. This comes at a time when Xbox is languishing in third place, behind PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, and amid what Sharma has called “the most severe hardware crisis in its history.”

And through it all, Microsoft is making an eye-watering number of layoffs at Xbox. 1,600 people were cut this week, with another 1,600 going over the course of the next year. Five studios are set to leave the Xbox business. Doom developer id Software was gutted, as was ZeniMax Online Studios, developer of The Elder Scrolls Online. Obsidian, too, suffered significant layoffs.

Announcing the layoffs, Sharma admitted Microsoft’s video game strategy had failed, including Game Pass, spending big on new studios, and, crucially, betting on multiplatform.

“While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected,” Sharma said. “As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset Xbox.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.