Magic: The Gathering’s Reality Fracture set is a Universes Within set after two Universes Beyond sets in succession, but it’s also a little different in that it showcases iconic Magic characters, spells, and more that have been transformed by Jace Beleren.

The Planeswalker has transformed the universe into how he feels it should be, and that means new versions of well-known cards in a sort of “What If?” scenario.

IGN sat down with Yoni Skolnik, former Magic pro and Principal Game Designer, and Meris Mullaley, Worldbuilding Design Manager, to talk about the set’s influences, what comes in a pack, and the Secret Lair bundle.

Alternate universes are nothing new in pop culture, but I was curious how much last year’s Marvel’s Spider-Man set influenced Reality Fracture. As you can imagine, the genesis of Reality Fracture comes from a much earlier set.

“Some of the ideas go back to Planar Chaos, a set from 2007 that had a lot of What If elements,” Skolnik revealed.

“That set focused on messing with Magic's color pie, putting effects in colors where you wouldn't normally expect them.”

“While we didn't want to return to that exact formula for a What If set, the concept of What If is very compelling as it lets you pay tribute to Magic's devoted fan base.”

“Mark Rosewater [Head Designer] was keen to try the concept again, and it ended up fitting perfectly with the conclusion to Jace's storyline.”

“When developing the Echoed Pairs, most of our learnings came from other Magic IP sets that featured multiple legends,” Mullaley added.

“We chose characters who were (or could plausibly be) active in this current moment of Magic’s timeline. Creatively, we also kept most characters on their home planes rather than showing a multiversal cast of characters arriving on Hexhaven to stop Jace.”

“This helped the story of Reality Fracture keep a narrower focus on the key characters and reduced the amount of “why is this person here” questions.”

“We also see three separate Planeswalker cards for Jace, and we took a similar approach as we did with legends from Edge of Eternities or The Lord of the Rings: Tales from Middle-earth, where we see a character at multiple points along their narrative. Each Jace represents a different point in his journey, reflecting his accumulation of power and readiness to enact his final plan.”

So what about Jace? The blue-hued Planeswalker has been around since Lorwyn in 2007, but has been in the background of events in recent sets.

“In terms of game mechanics, Empower Jace was perfect for making our main character very present even if you only lightly interact with the set,” Skolnik explained.

“For new Magic players who want to go down deeper into the history of Jace, there are a few cards that are specifically stronger with Jace Planeswalker cards, to make the process of going to look back at old cards feel rewarding.”

“Flavorfully, I was very impressed with how the worldbuilding team navigated the character. For new players, we're drawing on timeless fantasy tropes like ‘Dark Wizard's Tower’ and ‘Former Ally Turned Foe’ to make the story approachable, while still having plenty of deeper lore references in the art, and a gripping conclusion to Jace's storyline in the web fiction.”

“It also helps that Jace is such a deeply blue character, which makes understanding his role go hand in hand with understanding blue's place in the color pie. One of the first things many people learn about Magic is that blue players are evil, so having an archetypally blue villain was a natural fit!”

You hear that, blue players? You’re the bad guys here. Still, sticking with multiple versions of cards, I asked about how the Echoed Pairs have been received. For newcomers, Echoed Pairs include normal and Echoverse versions of cards, for example Karn, Argent Defender, and Karn, Gilded Guardian.

“The technology of guaranteeing 1 card from an exciting subset per pack has been very well received since debuting in Dominaria with 1 legend per pack,” Skolnik reveals.

“Going up to 3 legends per pack in Reality Fracture was necessary to guarantee echoed pairs given our printers' constraints, and it made for very exciting packs that fans are loving.”

“I trust we'll one day find another place to deploy this technology of 3 cards in a pack that is linked somehow. This experimentation was not directly related to the 2027 pack changes, but together they show the breadth of problems our production teams face while balancing Magic design's need for constant novelty and reinvention against the reality of what it takes to print all the Magic product for our growing audience!”

In the time since we spoke with the Wizards of the Coast team, the Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundle has been delayed. We asked about whether it’ll be sticking around.

“Yes! Secret Lair Bundle will become a staple of Magic Multiverse sets and is expected to appear in those sets going forward.”

“Part of the impetus for launching these bundles was to consolidate Special Bundles into one incredible package that we could repeat set over set. The theming of Reality Fracture and how we explore Jace’s inner sanctum made a lot of thematic sense to use as the jumping-off point for this new product line.”

So, onto the big question then: as someone who can’t believe their luck by packing Craterclaw Colossus and Hexhaven Invigorator, I was curious what the team’s favorite cards from Reality Fracture were.

“I really love both Ajani Planeswalker cards,” Skolnik explained.

“Seeing Ajani Resolute in standard Life Gain decks has been great. A 2-mana Planeswalker is very tricky to balance, but with Planeswalkers such a big part of the set, I really wanted to try and print one here.”

“Ajani Unrelenting has been demolishing in draft, but I’m also excited to see it doing work in Commander decks built around Planeswalkers.”

Mullaley’s pick was spoiler-filled, so look away, lore fans.

“Vindictive Triumph depicts one of my favorite moments in the fiction, where [spoilers] Liliana resurrects her Echoverse doppelgänger as a lich and takes the fight to Jace. I read that moment in an early draft of the story and knew immediately it needed to be a card.”

For more on Magic: The Gathering’s current set, check out Reality Fracture’s most expensive cards, as well as the most powerful precons of all time.

As Bungie plots a future for more Destiny, head of product Josh Deane has clarified that players don't need to "buy Marathon as a donation" just to support the studio's plans.

It's a clarification that arrived after Deane posted a community message for Destiny fans yesterday. The message, featured as part of a lengthy Q&A blog post, outlined the unvaulting process for Destiny 2 content that was previously promised last month, but one segment left players confused – and concerned – about the future and extraction shooter Marathon's role in the big picture.

"We're not going to forget the mistakes of the past, but it's time to learn from them and unify as one Bungie community," the section in question said. "For us, the majority of our Bungie team is legacy Destiny, and we will all tell you that nothing can help bridge us into future more than for Marathon to rapidly evolve and become sustainable. As we head into our December and March updates for Marathon, it’s a formative period for all of us here at Bungie that will help determine the shape of our future, so please encourage each other and know that your support gives our team the energy to finish the fight."

It's the "nothing can help us bridge us into future more than for Marathon to rapidly evolve and become sustainable" bit that's got the Destiny community so riled up. With the back-and-forth pulling Destiny 2 in and out of the fire all through the span of a few months, some believed Bungie was trying to tell its audience that picking up a copy of its new sci-fi FPS would help keep it and the studio's future secure. Deane stepped in to confirm this is not the case.

The Bungie developer said his intention was not to rest the Destiny revival on the shoulders of the fans that helped breathe life back into it earlier this year. He chalks it up to a mistranslation, "and that's on me."

"In no way is the Destiny plan contingent upon Marathon," Deane added. "Play what inspires you, whatever it is. Mainly hoping we can accomplish our goals in both lanes with a stronger relationship with our entire community!"

I may have worded this clumsily but this is the true heart of what I was trying to say

Truly care about community healing and believe that it will help our studio bridge into the future in the most healthy way possible ❤️

Play and share what you are passionate about, whatever that is

The Destiny plan moves forward no matter what

When one player suggested they feared they were being encouraged to purchase but never download Marathon just to support Bungie, Deane said, "Oh, don't buy Marathon as a donation or offer anything else."

"It's our job to show up for you," he added. When another fan expressed similar concern, he said, "I truly love the sentiment but only buy or play a thing that inspires you from us / you think is cool! We will find our way back home with Destiny."

So, there you have it: Destiny and Marathon don't depend upon the success of the other. As Bungie principal comms manager Dylan Gafner said, "Two cakes! One big community." That should offer some relief not only to Destiny players who feared their favorite game's future may still be in jeopardy but also to Marathon players who have feared the same.

Negativity has surrounded both games in recent months, with community members on each side going at each other as both struggled. For now, we know that the Destiny franchise will live on with a few projects. These include "celebration" content updates, a project that the team has teased as "Destiny 'Legacy'," and a mysterious "redacted" project.

For Marathon, Bungie will continue to try to revitalize the extraction shooter with Symbiosis this December. The studio also recently reassured players that the extraction component is "still a major part" of the experience as the team experiments with PvE and Deathmatch modes.

What's next for Destiny and Marathon remains to be seen, but it's clear Bungie is putting in the work to keep both afloat. While we wait to see how things pan out, you can see why the studio believes the latter struggled at launch. You can also read about how the Destiny community banded together to help the #SaveMassEffect movement.

The developers of VRChat have created a rift in the virtual platform’s user base after announcing that it would not include labels to categorize AI-generated content, despite around 95% of users asking for some sort of AI filter in a survey.

VRChat is a virtual hub where folks can gather to chat, make their own avatars, and create and play games together. It’s a fairly popular social platform that, perhaps unsurprisingly, is a hotbed for viral moments and hilarious content.

Also unsurprisingly, there’s been a sharp increase in AI-generated content in VRChat, to the point where fans are begging for some sort of distinction as to what has and hasn’t been made by humans.

In fact, the folks behind VRChat recently published a survey asking users for their feedback on the state of the platform. In that survey, “95% of survey respondents want some kind of label for AI usage,” as told in an official blog published on October 28.

Despite this overwhelming majority, the powers that be have decided against moving forward with an AI label, arguing that there’s simply too much disagreement among users as to what, exactly, should be done to delineate such content.

“We’re not adding an ‘AI-generated’ label or AI filters,” the devs said in the blog post. “While we think some creators would honestly label their content, we think others would try to pass off generative or assisted work as completely authored by hand. Likewise, we could see this creating ‘sleuthing’ behavior, where folks would attempt to sniff out ‘AI’ content or might harass other creators, even if they are genuinely not using any AI tools in their workflow. We think this potentially creates negative behavior spirals we don’t want to encourage.”

The statement continued, revealing that respondents gave “3,141 different combinations of labeling,”and that “no single combination was given by more than 10% of respondents.”

Essentially, the team at VRChat feels they need to “understand this a layer deeper before making any kneejerk decisions” — but their explanation hasn’t been well-received by fans.

On social media, dedicated VRChat users are speaking out against this decision, with one writing on X/Twitter, “Then what was the point of the survey if they’re not going to f**king use it to influence decisions?”

“95% of YOUR players said NO to AI content. That isn't a debatable margin,” another argued.

“The point of having a filter is because we do NOT want to see that content. They are FILTERS for a reason, bruh,” another exasperated user wrote.

Thus far, VRChat has made no official response to this outrage and is continuing to move forward with planned events, leaving users beside themselves as they work to make their voices heard by the platform.