There Is No Light - a brutal, pixel art hack 'n' slash - will be released in September.

The news was revealed in a brand new animated trailer shown during IGN Expo, showing the game's haunted hero dispatching enemies - and revealing a healthy slice of gameplay too.

Set in a grimdark underworld, There Is No Light has you exploring a world left shattered after the Church of the Great Hand massacres humanity. You'll help survivors and get into punishing, high-speed fights against the Church's enforcers. The game looks to mix the rewarding challenge of the Souls games with the speed of classic action games.

This was just one of dozens of announcements and trailers revealed during IGN Expo 2022 - make sure to check them all out.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

IGN Expo saw the reveal of Ground Divers, a brand new game in the style of classic arcade game Dig Dug – but filled to the brim with systems more familiar from an RPG. It arrives for Nintendo Switch on June 30.

Described as a "slapstick discovery game", Ground Divers sees you guide the rabbit-like mining robot Tsuruhashi into increasingly complex mine shafts of your own creation. The game sees you not just digging for "rare matter", but fighting off underground enemies, building Pit Relay Systems to help offer upgrades and supporting units along the way, and more.

Both Tsuruhashi and your home base can be upgraded over time, lending it something of the feel of XCOM. There are even special moves built in for cheering on Tsuruhashi enough. It looks truly unusual, and markedly different from anything out there right now.

This was just one of dozens of announcements and trailers revealed during IGN Expo 2022 - make sure to check them all out.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

IGN Expo has seen the exclusive reveal of Aliens: Fireteam Elite - Pathogen, the first major DLC pack for the co-op shooter, which will be released on August 30.

Pathogen will see Aliens: Fireteam Elite expanded with a brand new campaign containing three missions and new enemy types. The storyline sees the Endeavor's crew visit LV-895 where they find that the planet's xenomorphs have been infected and mutated into fearsome new forms. The trailer shows off several of these new aliens, which draw upon the grotesque white Neomorph designs from Alien Covenant.

To combat those new threats, Pathogen provides eight new weapons, 26 new weapon attachments, and a new perk for each class that modifies its main ability. You can also expect two new outfits for all seven class kits, six new head accessories, 21 new weapon colours, nine gun decals, and 10 new emotes.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite - Pathogen will launch as a paid-for expansion on August 30. Coming alongside the expansion will be a free update that adds a hardcore mode that provides an "extreme survival challenge".

Aliens: Fireteam Elite arrived in 2021, and has been receiving seasons of new content, but Pathogen marks a more fully-fledged piece of DLC being added to PvE game. We awarded the core game a 7/10 review, saying it "does enough right to be plenty worthwhile for a trio of co-op shooter fans who’d rather battle hordes of xenomorphs than the usual zombies."

For more gaming news from the biggest shows, be sure to check out our full Summer of Gaming 2022 schedule.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

Devolver has, once again, out-weirded the rest of the games industry with its 2022 summer showcase. Hosted by a malfunctioning "mecha" Suda51, the Devolver Marketing Countdown to Marketing was, well, intended to be a countdown... but the ongoing Devolver Cinematic Universe we've seen evolve over the last few years managed include robots, sci-fi madness, and several game announcements.

We’ve rounded up all of the new reveals in one handy place:

Anger Foot is a New Game About 'Kicking Doors and Kicking Ass'

Originally an itch.io game, an expanded version of Anger Foot is on its way in 2023. A bonkers FPS in which you use "the world's deadliest feet", Anger Foot will have you battering gangsters, buying new sneakers and upgrading your powers as you smash your way through sewers and skyscrapers alike.

The Plucky Squire Is a Beautiful, Ambitious New 2D/3D Adventure

The Plucky Squire sees a beautifully animated storybook adventurer called Jot, who works out he can leap out of said book into the 3D world. It results in one game with two very different perspectives. Inside the book is a top-down, 2D, hand-drawn adventure filled with mini-games. Outside the book is a gigantic world set in a child's bedroom, reminsicent of It Takes Two's 3D adventures. It gets stranger too – different surfaces can become 2D spaces of their own, from mugs to lunchboxes. It will arrive in 2023 for PC, Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Cult of the Lamb Is Out on August 11

Cult of the Lamb mixes Binding of Isaac-like action with town management in a deceptively evil world, as you build a demonic cult of animals to do your dark bidding and return an ancient evil to the world. It wil larrive for PC, Switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One on August 11. A demo is also available on Steam.

Skate Story: Gorgeous Skateboarding Adventure Is Now a Devolver Game

We've seen Skate Story pop up multiple times over the years, and it's always made an impression – and it clearly did for Devolver too, who have now taken on publishing duties. Arriving in 2023, the gorgeously stylized fantasy-skateboarding adventure sees you piloting a low-poly, glass demon into the underworld. Do it well and you'll progress on your journey – bail and and you'll smash to pieces.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Devolver has, once again, out-weirded the rest of the games industry with its 2022 summer showcase. Hosted by a malfunctioning "mecha" Suda51, the Devolver Marketing Countdown to Marketing was, well, intended to be a countdown... but the ongoing Devolver Cinematic Universe we've seen evolve over the last few years managed include robots, sci-fi madness, and several game announcements.

We’ve rounded up all of the new reveals in one handy place:

Anger Foot is a New Game About 'Kicking Doors and Kicking Ass'

Originally an itch.io game, an expanded version of Anger Foot is on its way in 2023. A bonkers FPS in which you use "the world's deadliest feet", Anger Foot will have you battering gangsters, buying new sneakers and upgrading your powers as you smash your way through sewers and skyscrapers alike.

The Plucky Squire Is a Beautiful, Ambitious New 2D/3D Adventure

The Plucky Squire sees a beautifully animated storybook adventurer called Jot, who works out he can leap out of said book into the 3D world. It results in one game with two very different perspectives. Inside the book is a top-down, 2D, hand-drawn adventure filled with mini-games. Outside the book is a gigantic world set in a child's bedroom, reminsicent of It Takes Two's 3D adventures. It gets stranger too – different surfaces can become 2D spaces of their own, from mugs to lunchboxes. It will arrive in 2023 for PC, Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Cult of the Lamb Is Out on August 11

Cult of the Lamb mixes Binding of Isaac-like action with town management in a deceptively evil world, as you build a demonic cult of animals to do your dark bidding and return an ancient evil to the world. It wil larrive for PC, Switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One on August 11. A demo is also available on Steam.

Skate Story: Gorgeous Skateboarding Adventure Is Now a Devolver Game

We've seen Skate Story pop up multiple times over the years, and it's always made an impression – and it clearly did for Devolver too, who have now taken on publishing duties. Arriving in 2023, the gorgeously stylized fantasy-skateboarding adventure sees you piloting a low-poly, glass demon into the underworld. Do it well and you'll progress on your journey – bail and and you'll smash to pieces.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

The top-secret Thunderbolts movie has tapped Jake Schreier as director according to reports.

Deadline revealed the director and says the upcoming Marvel movie will see Eric Pearson write the script and of course Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios president, to produce.

Schreier has previously directed the science-fiction comedy-drama Robot & Frank and the film adaptation of the John Green novel, Paper Towns. He’s also directed a number of music videos for artists like Kanye West and Haim.

Thunderbolts has widely been rumored as coming, but today's news further adds to the speculation. Not much is known about the film’s plot besides it featuring a group of supervillains who go on missions for the government - think Suicide Squad but Marvel.

There have been plenty of comics featuring the Thunderbolts. They follow a group of antiheroes in the Marvel Universe. According to Deadline, Marvel has been ”in touch with certain individuals who already are part of the MCU to make sure to keep an opening in their schedules for next summer when it shoots.”

Over the course of the comic’s history, there have been dozens of members in the Thunderbolts. This includes notable Marvel heroes like Black Widow, Ant-Man, Venom, and Deadpool on its roster.

Only time will tell who exactly will star in the film adaptation of the comic, but in the meantime, there’s plenty of Marvel goodness coming up. Thor: Love and Thunder releases early next month. Then, just today, a release date was revealed for the upcoming Marvel’s Midnight Suns game which will feature Spider-Man.

Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.

Image Credit: Marvel

The top-secret Thunderbolts movie has tapped Jake Schreier as director according to reports.

Deadline revealed the director and says the upcoming Marvel movie will see Eric Pearson write the script and of course Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios president, to produce.

Schreier has previously directed the science-fiction comedy-drama Robot & Frank and the film adaptation of the John Green novel, Paper Towns. He’s also directed a number of music videos for artists like Kanye West and Haim.

Thunderbolts has widely been rumored as coming, but today's news further adds to the speculation. Not much is known about the film’s plot besides it featuring a group of supervillains who go on missions for the government - think Suicide Squad but Marvel.

There have been plenty of comics featuring the Thunderbolts. They follow a group of antiheroes in the Marvel Universe. According to Deadline, Marvel has been ”in touch with certain individuals who already are part of the MCU to make sure to keep an opening in their schedules for next summer when it shoots.”

Over the course of the comic’s history, there have been dozens of members in the Thunderbolts. This includes notable Marvel heroes like Black Widow, Ant-Man, Venom, and Deadpool on its roster.

Only time will tell who exactly will star in the film adaptation of the comic, but in the meantime, there’s plenty of Marvel goodness coming up. Thor: Love and Thunder releases early next month. Then, just today, a release date was revealed for the upcoming Marvel’s Midnight Suns game which will feature Spider-Man.

Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.

Image Credit: Marvel

With its sleek sci-fi/fantasy aesthetic, monstrous enemies, and mech-clad heroes, you’d be forgiven for mistaking Stormgate for a new Blizzard real-time strategy. And, in a manner of speaking, you’d be right; Stormgate might not be from Blizzard, but it is from some of that company’s brightest minds. These days they’re at Frost Giant, a new studio built from scratch by a collection of ex-Blizzard developers, and they have ambitions of taking some of the best ideas from StarCraft and Warcraft to the next level.

Among those minds is Tim Morten, the softly spoken former production director of StarCraft 2. Today he’s CEO of Frost Giant, still directing the production of a multi-faceted RTS. Stormgate, he tells me, was born at least partially out of a desire to evolve one of StarCraft 2’s most successful modes: co-op.

Co-op play was an “afterthought” for StarCraft 2. “It really wasn't something that we expected to resonate as much as it did with players,” says Morten. “But in fact it became the most popular mode in the game after we released it with Legacy of the Void. It's clear from that, that there was an appetite to play more socially.”

‘Social’ is an important word for Frost Giant, and Stormgate is designed with multiplayer in mind. As you’d expect, there are the classic 1v1 competitive clashes, but these are supported by a tournament system directly built into the game. Forget forums, Twitter, or Discord; you’ll be able to create leagues, teams, friends, and rivalries within Stormgate itself.

But co-op isn’t being considered as a casual mode on the side. It will run through everything, so much so that it feels like the game’s flashship idea. Story-driven campaign missions will be playable with a friend, and three players will be able to take on AI foes in the cooperative ‘3vE’ mode. Even competitive multiplayer will have a co-operative offering via 3v3 team battles.

Beyond competitive and cooperative modes, Stormgate will also feature an in-game editor, which Frost Giant hopes will allow a creative community to thrive as it shares new maps and modes. “Literally every part of the game is meant to provide a more social experience,” says Morten.

While Frost Giant is a brand new company and Stormgate is the studio’s debut, the team already comes pre-equipped with reams of valuable research gathered during their previous projects. Work on StarCraft 2’s co-op mode, for instance, provided Frost Giant with a lot of useful information for building a game geared towards cooperative strategy.

“The learning from the cooperative mode in StarCraft 2 was that players preferred building their own bases and their own armies, versus a shared base and a shared army,” explains Morten. “So we are going down a path where players will get to control all their own game pieces. At the same time, we're building the missions and we're also designing the heroes for cooperative mode in such a way that it is not an isolated experience. You're not off in one corner playing one experience, while somebody's off in another corner playing their own experience.”

Working alongside Morten is Tim Campbell, president of Frost Giant and Stormgate’s game director. Having previously worked on Warcraft 3, he knows a thing or two about crafting a good strategy game. Making that work across two or three armies playing in tandem, though, is an ongoing process.

“We've tried to look for opportunities throughout the tech tree, throughout our ability design, throughout the gameplay and the objectives, for closer cooperation,” he explains. “We're doing a lot of iteration and experimentation on the gameplay right now.”

With all this talk of social play, it may be easy to assume Stormgate is a casual RTS. And you’d be right, to a small extent. Frost Giant wants everyone, regardless of skill level, to find fun in Stormgate.

“We're really trying to make this core experience that we all know and love about traditional RTS, and find a way to open it up for more people to be able to enjoy,” says Campbell. “We’re offering ways for players to be able to bring their friends in, play together, have this great, positive social experience, regardless of whether they're at different skill levels, and just try to support that end throughout our game experience.”

Despite that, Campbell says we can expect all of the traditional RTS elements that genre die-hards demand. “From day one it's been important to us that we're developing a core RTS experience,” he says. That means resource gathering, base building, troop productions, upgrade trees, and learning how to do all that in tandem.

“But that said, we think that there's a lot of room for innovation within this space,” Campbell continues. “[We’re] looking at how we design the abilities and how we design the units, and do so in a way that is conducive to team play. We think it has yielded some really great opportunities for it to feel fresh for players.”

Frost Giant’s aspirations of making Stormgate a game for all skill levels means that aspiring esports athletes won’t be ignored. “There is an audience who is very passionate about high skill play, and so 1v1 competitive is very much the mode [where] we put a tremendous amount of effort into balance,” Morten assures.

Despite Frost Giant’s plans for all skill levels, there’s no escaping the fact that RTS is one of the most intimidating genres in the entire video games space. For many, curiosity alone isn’t enough to justify the price tag. But Morten and Campbell have already put plans in place to circumnavigate that barrier: Stormgate will be free-to-play. No firm decisions have been on how it will be monetized, but Stormgate will feature a range of free and paid-for content. This approach has allowed Frost Giant to think differently about how it will approach the post-apocalypse storyline that powers the campaign.

“We want to be able to be sharing stories in this game world for years and years and years to come,” says Campbell. “So, in addition to the stuff that we're building for launch, we already have the next five years of story arcs already mapped out and ready to go as we move onto them.” It seems as if the likes of Destiny and Fortnite have certainly changed the way developers are thinking about storytelling, regardless of genre.

“We had a chance late in StarCraft 2's development to experiment with delivering content in smaller bites with the Nova Covert Ops campaign,” Morten explains. “That really did resonate with players, enabled us to tell a little bit of a more personal story in that case. But it allowed us to tell a story over time, and that's something that we're really excited to take to the next level with what we're doing with Stormgate.”

That story begins with the newly-assembled shield that can be seen in Stormgate’s first cinematic trailer, which was revealed at the Summer Games Fest Showcase. “[The shield] has a constellation of locations on it,” reveals Campbell. “It's effectively a keystone for a map that is used by one of the factions in the game to identify locations that they have to go to retrieve other relics that have been hidden for thousands of years. That actually becomes mission objectives for you part way through the campaign. You'll go on those missions to retrieve those relics.”

That cinematic trailer may be short, but it communicates a lot. This is an RTS that values world building and story. That hopefully means a campaign with a narrative backbone, something that paved the way for StarCraft 2’s incredibly experimental approach to mission design. Producing a campaign built for co-op only opens up more interesting opportunities in that area, and I hope Stormgate will remind us all that while the RTS genre’s legacy has been esports, its most exciting innovations were found when developers created new ways to challenge us in campaigns.

Warcraft 3 introduced heroes, and StarCraft 2 pushed concept missions to new heights. Will Stormgate add another unforgettable piece of RTS design to that list? We’ll find out when Frost Giant has gathered all of its minerals and the open beta arrives in 2023.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

With its sleek sci-fi/fantasy aesthetic, monstrous enemies, and mech-clad heroes, you’d be forgiven for mistaking Stormgate for a new Blizzard real-time strategy. And, in a manner of speaking, you’d be right; Stormgate might not be from Blizzard, but it is from some of that company’s brightest minds. These days they’re at Frost Giant, a new studio built from scratch by a collection of ex-Blizzard developers, and they have ambitions of taking some of the best ideas from StarCraft and Warcraft to the next level.

Among those minds is Tim Morten, the softly spoken former production director of StarCraft 2. Today he’s CEO of Frost Giant, still directing the production of a multi-faceted RTS. Stormgate, he tells me, was born at least partially out of a desire to evolve one of StarCraft 2’s most successful modes: co-op.

Co-op play was an “afterthought” for StarCraft 2. “It really wasn't something that we expected to resonate as much as it did with players,” says Morten. “But in fact it became the most popular mode in the game after we released it with Legacy of the Void. It's clear from that, that there was an appetite to play more socially.”

‘Social’ is an important word for Frost Giant, and Stormgate is designed with multiplayer in mind. As you’d expect, there are the classic 1v1 competitive clashes, but these are supported by a tournament system directly built into the game. Forget forums, Twitter, or Discord; you’ll be able to create leagues, teams, friends, and rivalries within Stormgate itself.

But co-op isn’t being considered as a casual mode on the side. It will run through everything, so much so that it feels like the game’s flashship idea. Story-driven campaign missions will be playable with a friend, and three players will be able to take on AI foes in the cooperative ‘3vE’ mode. Even competitive multiplayer will have a co-operative offering via 3v3 team battles.

Beyond competitive and cooperative modes, Stormgate will also feature an in-game editor, which Frost Giant hopes will allow a creative community to thrive as it shares new maps and modes. “Literally every part of the game is meant to provide a more social experience,” says Morten.

While Frost Giant is a brand new company and Stormgate is the studio’s debut, the team already comes pre-equipped with reams of valuable research gathered during their previous projects. Work on StarCraft 2’s co-op mode, for instance, provided Frost Giant with a lot of useful information for building a game geared towards cooperative strategy.

“The learning from the cooperative mode in StarCraft 2 was that players preferred building their own bases and their own armies, versus a shared base and a shared army,” explains Morten. “So we are going down a path where players will get to control all their own game pieces. At the same time, we're building the missions and we're also designing the heroes for cooperative mode in such a way that it is not an isolated experience. You're not off in one corner playing one experience, while somebody's off in another corner playing their own experience.”

Working alongside Morten is Tim Campbell, president of Frost Giant and Stormgate’s game director. Having previously worked on Warcraft 3, he knows a thing or two about crafting a good strategy game. Making that work across two or three armies playing in tandem, though, is an ongoing process.

“We've tried to look for opportunities throughout the tech tree, throughout our ability design, throughout the gameplay and the objectives, for closer cooperation,” he explains. “We're doing a lot of iteration and experimentation on the gameplay right now.”

With all this talk of social play, it may be easy to assume Stormgate is a casual RTS. And you’d be right, to a small extent. Frost Giant wants everyone, regardless of skill level, to find fun in Stormgate.

“We're really trying to make this core experience that we all know and love about traditional RTS, and find a way to open it up for more people to be able to enjoy,” says Campbell. “We’re offering ways for players to be able to bring their friends in, play together, have this great, positive social experience, regardless of whether they're at different skill levels, and just try to support that end throughout our game experience.”

Despite that, Campbell says we can expect all of the traditional RTS elements that genre die-hards demand. “From day one it's been important to us that we're developing a core RTS experience,” he says. That means resource gathering, base building, troop productions, upgrade trees, and learning how to do all that in tandem.

“But that said, we think that there's a lot of room for innovation within this space,” Campbell continues. “[We’re] looking at how we design the abilities and how we design the units, and do so in a way that is conducive to team play. We think it has yielded some really great opportunities for it to feel fresh for players.”

Frost Giant’s aspirations of making Stormgate a game for all skill levels means that aspiring esports athletes won’t be ignored. “There is an audience who is very passionate about high skill play, and so 1v1 competitive is very much the mode [where] we put a tremendous amount of effort into balance,” Morten assures.

Despite Frost Giant’s plans for all skill levels, there’s no escaping the fact that RTS is one of the most intimidating genres in the entire video games space. For many, curiosity alone isn’t enough to justify the price tag. But Morten and Campbell have already put plans in place to circumnavigate that barrier: Stormgate will be free-to-play. No firm decisions have been on how it will be monetized, but Stormgate will feature a range of free and paid-for content. This approach has allowed Frost Giant to think differently about how it will approach the post-apocalypse storyline that powers the campaign.

“We want to be able to be sharing stories in this game world for years and years and years to come,” says Campbell. “So, in addition to the stuff that we're building for launch, we already have the next five years of story arcs already mapped out and ready to go as we move onto them.” It seems as if the likes of Destiny and Fortnite have certainly changed the way developers are thinking about storytelling, regardless of genre.

“We had a chance late in StarCraft 2's development to experiment with delivering content in smaller bites with the Nova Covert Ops campaign,” Morten explains. “That really did resonate with players, enabled us to tell a little bit of a more personal story in that case. But it allowed us to tell a story over time, and that's something that we're really excited to take to the next level with what we're doing with Stormgate.”

That story begins with the newly-assembled shield that can be seen in Stormgate’s first cinematic trailer, which was revealed at the Summer Games Fest Showcase. “[The shield] has a constellation of locations on it,” reveals Campbell. “It's effectively a keystone for a map that is used by one of the factions in the game to identify locations that they have to go to retrieve other relics that have been hidden for thousands of years. That actually becomes mission objectives for you part way through the campaign. You'll go on those missions to retrieve those relics.”

That cinematic trailer may be short, but it communicates a lot. This is an RTS that values world building and story. That hopefully means a campaign with a narrative backbone, something that paved the way for StarCraft 2’s incredibly experimental approach to mission design. Producing a campaign built for co-op only opens up more interesting opportunities in that area, and I hope Stormgate will remind us all that while the RTS genre’s legacy has been esports, its most exciting innovations were found when developers created new ways to challenge us in campaigns.

Warcraft 3 introduced heroes, and StarCraft 2 pushed concept missions to new heights. Will Stormgate add another unforgettable piece of RTS design to that list? We’ll find out when Frost Giant has gathered all of its minerals and the open beta arrives in 2023.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

At the end of Day of the Devs today, Annapurna snuck in with the surprise announcement of its second annual showcase, just like it did last year. It will take place on July 28, 2022, at 12 pm PT / 3pm EDT / 8pm BST.

As for what games we might see this time around, we can make some guesses. Right now, Annapurna has a number of games in the works for this year including Hindsight and Neon White (Stray will release before the showcase happens).

Annapurna also has Skin Deep, Storyteller, and Thirsty Suitors queued up beyond 2022, so we might expect some firmer dates on those games, or at least more gameplay.

Last year's showcase was fairly stacked, packing over 15 game teases and announcements into just half an hour. It included a release window for Stray, an expansion announcement for The Outer Wilds, and tons more. Scanning through last year's roster might offer some further clues as to what's coming this time around. Maybe we'll finally see what Ivy Road is working on?

In the meantime, check out our roundup of everything announced at Day of the Devs and for everything out of Summer of Gaming in the coming weeks and months, we have a full schedule of everything going on.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.