Ever since Final Fantasy 7 Remake concluded with its shocking reveal, fans have been speculating on the possibility of a Crisis Core remaster. The moment was certainly ripe for an updated release of the prequel starring Zack Fair, the warrior with a suspicious resemblance to Cloud Strife. Aside from its connections to Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s story, Crisis Core has been difficult to find in recent years, forcing fans to resort to emulators and other measures.

That made Square Enix’s announcement of a Crisis Core remaster, which coincided with last month’s reveal of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, all the more welcome. It’s not any mere port, either. Square Enix is overhauling the graphics, the interface, and somewhat controversially, the voice cast.

“Various improvements have been made to nearly all other scenes and battles, to a point where it could be said that the work we are doing is akin to creating a ‘remake,’” producer Mariko Sato says. “However, as the core elements such as the story are grounded in the original work, we call it a ‘remaster.’”

A Faithful Retelling

Speaking with IGN in a brand-new interview, Sato discussed Square Enix’s intentions for the remaster, outlining the differences between the various platforms and whether or not it will ultimately connect with Rebirth. Veteran producer Yoshinori Kitase was also on hand to shed some light on how the project managed to be greenlit in the first place.

According to Kitase, Crisis Core was not conceived in response to Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s infamous reveal. Rather, Kitase says Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s successful development led Square Enix to realize that other stories from the universe could be updated as well.

“[T]here isn't really an exact date that I can point to at the moment, but I do recall that it was towards the end of the Final Fantasy VII Remake development that we realized that with the quality we were able to bring to Final Fantasy VII Remake, we might be able to create something for the stories that are actually surrounding Final Fantasy VII. And it is an actual possibility that we can develop Crisis Core. So that's the timing at which we decided that yes, this remake can actually happen,” Kitase says.

Crisis Core’s history stretches back to the days of the PSP, when fans were pining for a Final Fantasy 7 remake on PS3. Sony’s humble handheld couldn’t come close to matching its HD sibling, but Crisis Core still felt like a technical achievement at the time, reimagining the original game’s locations in far greater detail than the original PlayStation could imagine.

“Issues aside, Crisis Core is a great PSP game — no question. It honors Final Fantasy VII's legacy,” our review said at the time.

It has remained popular with fans in the years since, who laud its excellent finale as being among the best moments in the series. Crisis Core also made Zack, who mainly existed on the periphery of the original game, one of the most popular characters in the series. Until now, though, Crisis Core has been largely locked to the PSP.

When Reunion was finally announced last month, fan reaction was largely positive, with plenty noting what seemed like significantly enhanced visuals. But there were also questions. Just how deep would this remaster (or remake) go? And what about the voice cast led by Rick Gomez, who did so much to bring Zack to life in the first place?

On the first point, it’s apparent that Crisis Core will be a substantial update indeed. In addition to overhauled graphics, Crisis Core will be fully voiced while also featuring a newly-arranged soundtrack. The gameplay is also getting an update, with Zack’s attack combos now being linkable and Limit Breaks being accessible at any time, not just when they pop up in the in-game slot machine, known as the Digital Mind Wave system or DMW. The DMW for its part will remain largely the same, meaning that elements such as leveling will remain random as ever.

In the meantime, all of the original’s assets are being replaced, with the updated versions utilizing Unreal Engine 4, the intention being to be “visually aligned and up to the standards of Final Fantasy 7 Remake,” according to Sato. To that end, the PC version will target an impressive 120fps while the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions will be 60fps (Sato didn’t elaborate on the Switch version but did say that there would be “differences” in the resolution and FPS).

“Our main purpose with this title is that we wanted a really wide range of players to be able to play on whatever platform that they desired,” Kitase says. “So we're looking forward to seeing which platform that players go for because the gaming experience will be solid and the same great experience on all platforms.”

Square Enix’s attempt to align with Final Fantasy 7 Remake is impacting not just the visual but the voice acting as well, to the consternation of some of the more dedicated fans of the series. In the wake of the announcement, many of the most upvoted comments lamented the loss of Gomez and other members of the original team.

Kitase describes the decision in terms of renewal.

“[S]ince Final Fantasy VII was a title that have been beloved for 20 years, we wanted to ensure that with this renewed project, the Final Fantasy VII Remake project, that it would be loved for another 20 years to come. And so that's when we invited a whole new cast of voice actors into the title,” Kitase explains.

Gomez was replaced by Caleb Pierce back in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, so the change is expected. Nevertheless, at least some fans miss Gomez, with one going so far as to edit the original voice actor into Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Take heart though: Crisis Core Reunion will also feature the return of Briana White, who so wonderfully brought Aerith to life in Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

In other areas, meanwhile, Crisis Core Reunion will remain faithful to the original game. According to Sato and Kitase, fans shouldn’t expect new story content in the update, which explains why Square Enix is referring to it as a remaster despite the substantial improvements being made across the board

“With the FF VII Remake, it was a new starting point for a Final Fantasy VII, and so we decided to expand the story. But with the Crisis Core Reunion, it is a remaster and it's still positioned as a story that expands on the original Final Fantasy VII story. And so we didn't want to stray too far from that,” Kitase says.

Sato adds that there are “no plans” to include any new elements in the story, meaning new side quests and other storylines are most likely out the window. But that doesn’t necessarily preclude, say, a post-credits teaser that sets the stage for Rebirth.

The Compilation of Final Fantasy 7 Reborn

When Crisis Core Reunion is released later this year, it will in some ways be the culmination of the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7 project that began way back in the early 2000s. Like the PSP game before it, it will be intimately connected to the main game, providing crucial context while telling an entertaining story of its own.

Square Enix’s recent history with remakes and remasters has been checkered, to put it kindly, with classics like Secret of Mana marred by poor graphics and strange design choices. Kitase and Sato don’t acknowledge any particular lessons learned from earlier projects, but do say that Square Enix has been “listening to feedback” from fans. That much is evident in the work being put into Crisis Core Reunion, which is shaping up to be a major improvement on the slapdash ports of the past.

More importantly, it reflects a degree of faith in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake project. Whatever happens, it seems as if Square Enix wants to make sure this is done right.

“I've been watching a lot of reaction videos of people just reacting to the announcements and it really gives me the sense that a lot of people are out there waiting for these games and seeing their reaction is in a sense, very satisfying,” Kitase says. “Yes, we are able to provide these things to the fans, so it's been great.”

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion does not yet have a release date, but Square Enix is aiming for Winter 2022.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Full spoilers follow for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1.

Anson Mount’s arrival in the world of Star Trek could’ve very easily devolved into stunt casting if it wasn’t handled correctly, but instead the return of Christopher Pike, the original captain of the USS Enterprise, didn’t just make for a great season of Star Trek: Discovery. It also led to the spinoff series Strange New Worlds which, we now know as Season 1 closes out, is the best single season of a Star Trek show since the legendary 1990s runs of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.

One of the keys to the success of Strange New Worlds’ 10-episode debut season is its willingness to embrace standalone, weekly stories as opposed to season-long arcs. This, combined with a deep bench of instantly likable characters, has led to high adventure, emotional gut-punches, plenty of humor, and one of the key elements of Star Trek that has sometimes been lost in the modern era — good, old-fashioned exploration.

Sometimes that has meant Pike, Spock and the crew encountering wonders, such as the comet in Episode 2 which they think is going to wipe out a planet’s inhabitants before realizing that somehow they were pre-destined to not just save the planet, but make it a seemingly better place for its people to live too. But there have also been horrors, like in "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach," when the Enterprise has dealings with a race who, well… sacrifice children in order to power their world. Strange New Worlds indeed. We also got run-silent, run-deep style combat stories, pirate adventures, a body-swap comedy, an Alien/Predator riff, and so much more as Season 1 played out. And for every new alien race or awesome space station, there’s a bit of that old Trek social commentary playing just under the surface. It’s there, but it never hits you over the head like a misaligned phaser blast.

Front and center throughout it all is, of course, Mount, whose relaxed, take-it-as-it-goes, let-me-make-you-an-omelet style of captaining certainly separates him from his predecessors. Pike, like most of the other main characters on the show, actually does get a season-long arc here, as he struggles with the foreknowledge that he will one day be horribly injured in an accident. Should he change his future now that he knows about it? While the show doesn’t dwell on the question, we got periodic check-ins with Pike on the matter over the course of the 10 episodes, before things culminated in the season finale as he got the chance to see how badly he could affect the galaxy if he deviated from his destiny.

So Strange New Worlds actually does have its long-form stories to tell, but they aren’t about space McGuffins or the like. Instead, in Season 1 it was Cadet Uhura’s (Celia Rose Gooding) journey to discovering that the Enterprise was where she truly was meant to be, or La'an Noonien-Singh’s (Christina Chong) coming to terms with her status as a refugee of the Gorn. And then, of course, there’s Ethan Peck’s Spock, whose destination as Original Series/Leonard Nimoy Spock is perhaps the most predetermined of the group. Here, particularly in the ninth episode as the crew suffers a great loss, we see Spock struggling to contain his emotions once he gives in to them, a clear indication of why he will eventually shut himself off entirely from the same.

The relationship between Spock and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) has been particularly intriguing, as we know it barely exists by the time we will get to Season 1 of The Original Series. But here it’s one of the most, um, fascinating of the bunch, a flirty friendship where the natural chemistry between the two characters (and actors) almost seems unstoppable. And yet, it will come to a stop… has to come to a stop in order to line up with canon eventually. It’s sad to know it will end, but then again… don’t relationships end all the time?

As for that loss that so affects Spock, the death of Bruce Horak’s Hemmer was a surprising moment that, as hard as it is to accept — Hemmer was an instant favorite — reminds us that most of these characters aren’t safe. Is there a reason Rebecca Romijn’s Una Chin-Riley, a.k.a. Number One, isn’t still on the Enterprise by the time Kirk takes over? Maybe she just got a transfer, or maybe the answer is more dire than that. Certainly the mini-cliffhanger in the final moments of this season indicates that Una is in trouble at the moment.

The show occasionally leans a little too hard on homage to other great Star Trek and sci-fi tales, as in the season finale which features a rehash of the classic Original Series episode “Balance of Terror.” And the jury is still out on Paul Wesley’s rather dry take on Captain Kirk, who pops up in the season finale but will be back for Season 2 as well. But by and large, Strange New Worlds has managed to carve out its own place in Trekdom even though it exists in an era of the franchise that we thought we already knew.

Plus, they gave Pike the classic green captain’s tunic. You just can’t go wrong there.

Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:

• Announcing Paul Wesley’s Kirk for Season 2 was a clever way of trying to stave off expectations that he’d show up this season… and yet we totally knew he’d show up this season! We just didn’t expect it to be an alt-future Kirk.
• Speaking of which, I appreciate the nerdy details that are going into doing variations on the classic uniforms, but I kind of wish they had just kept Future Pike in the finale in the classic Monster Maroon from the TOS movies.
• This show is not afraid to delve into aspects of Trek that aren’t particularly beloved, either. Sybok, from the (unfairly) notorious Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, was even revived in a cameo scene which will surely lead to more in Season 2.
• That same episode gave us another great new villain too, Jesse James Keitel’s space pirate Angel!
• Despite Hemmer’s death, Bruce Horak has said he will return to Star Trek in some capacity. But will he be our Hemmer?!
• With Pike seemingly accepting his fate at the end of this season, we would seem to have a clear timeline now of how long this show can go on for: Not long enough!

If you’re planning on spending over 100 hours on the next chapter of Monolith Soft’s epic JRPG, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, then you might understandably have your fingers crossed that the combat system sitting at the core of that adventure can go the distance. Having spent the past couple of weeks submerged in that incredibly complex battle system, I can confidently say that so far it has not disappointed. Reusing all the best parts of combat from previous games, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 adds layer upon layer of customizability, class options, and crazy transformation mechanics that turns two characters into a purple demon creature that rides a wicked surfboard. Although the stories, characters, and wonderfully bizarre worlds have always been the main attraction in Xenoblade, these awesome combat overhauls are a welcome change in a journey that demands so much time.

No Xenoblade game is complete without the tactical combat system that had me controlling a squad of characters swinging weapons bigger than their bodies. Like previous entries, I needed to master various combat Arts, perform deadly and satisfying Chain Attacks, and trigger super abilities that let me smack around bad guys with extreme prejudice. But while it retains most of the tried and true formula that defined it, it also adds a ton of new stuff to get excited about, especially a new system that allows characters to take on one another’s character classes and master their skill sets. Once mastered, I could choose to retain certain skills from that class while switching to another one, allowing me to take the best parts from each class and create a custom cocktail of my favorite abilities rolled up into one build. Plus, I could make them wear the clothes of any classes I’d mastered so far, which is a great touch.

There’s also a new feature called the Interlink System, which allows two characters to utilize their unique bond to enter their Ouroboros Form: a merging of the two characters into a giant purple creature for a short period of time that’s completely unstoppable. Learning the perfect time to trigger this form became vital to my success, not only because I could deal a lot of damage, but also because it doubled as an opportunity to save the two characters in question from their imminent death. Also, one of these Ouroboros monsters literally attacks with his hair, so what’s not to love?

That’s not all Xenoblade 3’s combat system evolves either! Now there’s an expanded party of six playable characters that can be directly controlled at-will, a seventh heroic party member who helps out in the fight, and much more. There’s so much happening on-screen at any given time that it took me several hours just to get my feet under me.

In fact, if there’s any cause for concern, it’s not that combat might become dull after dozens of hours, but that it’s so complicated you might drown in it. I’ll admit that at certain times I entirely forgot about a mechanic or two before being reminded of it at a later time much to my dismay – there’s just so much to keep track of. Luckily a game this enormous gives you ample time to learn and juggle everything it throws at you though it certainly may take some time.

Having had quite a bit of time to immerse myself in this incredibly complex sandbox of customizable classes, crazy attack combos, and over-the-top monster transformations, I’ve still not found myself at all bored by (or at times even comfortable with) all it has to offer – and that’s great news for those like myself who like a nuanced battle system that’s perfect for getting lost in for hours on end.

Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi didn’t want to please Thor fans with his second film about the Asgardian god. In fact, he wanted to make a film they wouldn’t want.

During an interview with Associated Press, the 46-year-old filmmaker explained that he wanted to make the Thor sequel into a love story.

“I wanted to show him in a light that most Thor fans wouldn’t really want if you were to tell them,” said Waititi. “If you were to say them: ‘Yeah, I’m going to make Thor in love,’ it’s probably the last thing that a Thor fan really wants to hear.”

Thor: Love and Thunder sees the return of Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman – Thor’s love interest from the first movie, who has been absent since her appearance in Thor: The Dark World back in 2013.

Now she’s back, and Mjolnir has turned her into the Mighty Thor, imbuing her with its powers. Where does that leave Thor? Well, he’s not exactly his usual, mighty self…

“For me, it’s good to give the fans something they don’t know that they want,” said Waititi. “With Ragnarok especially, when I signed on, a lot of fans were freaked out by that. They were like, ‘Who is this guy? He’s going to take our precious Thor and ruin it.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah. Exactly. That’s exactly my intention. And I’m going to make it better, you just don’t know it yet.’”

IGN’s own review said that Thor: Love and Thunder is “the MCU’s first romantic comedy, and it plays with those tropes in delightful ways.”

With the addition of new gods and a wider cosmic pantheon than we’ve seen before, it looks as though Thor: Love and Thunder will broaden the MCU like never before. But will Thor become the Thor fans want to see by the end of the movie? You’ll have to watch to find out.

Thor: Love and Thunder stars Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, and Russel Crowe. Taika Waititi directed the film based on a script he co-wrote with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Australia’s Nick Kyrgios is the top spun maverick of the tennis world, a controversy-courting Happy Gilmore-like figure who doesn’t so much as march to the beat of his own drum as strap on a pair of bright-red basketball sneakers and shamelessly stomp all over Wimbledon’s stuffy, all-white traditions. His prominent placement on the cover of Matchpoint: Tennis Championships sets the expectation that developer Torus Games’ debut tennis simulation is poised to finally shake things up for the stagnating tennis genre… but sadly, that hasn’t proven to be the case. A smooth yet imbalanced style of play, uninspiring career mode, and surprisingly limited multiplayer support means the only trait that Matchpoint shares with its provocative cover star is an overriding sense of squandered potential.

To its credit, Matchpoint’s uncluttered control setup makes it supremely easy to pick up. Your player’s movement is heavily assisted so that you only need to nudge the thumbstick in the general direction of a returned ball and they’ll be automatically guided to the ideal position in order to meet it. This allows you to keep your focus squarely on your opponent’s side of the court, where you can steer around a dinner plate-sized reticle and pull off a standard array of tennis shots with a level of pinpoint accuracy that goes beyond Djokavic to border on Jedi levels of precision.

It’s a rally system that’s certainly reliable and offers you plenty of freedom, but it’s also one that’s a bit too easy to master since it’s all reward and very little risk. The window for timing your shots is exceedingly generous, and you’re not really penalized in any way for overcooking a shot or serve. There are probably computerized ball machines that have made more unforced errors than I have in my 20 or so hours played – you almost have to go out of your way to actually hit the ball outside of the lines, and can pull off crosscourt shots at impossible angles without batting an eyelid. So yes, Matchpoint successfully makes me feel like some sort of hard-tuned tennis terminator… But when you’re confident you can nail a passing shot from almost anywhere it results in rallies that have about as much tension as a tennis racquet strung with spaghetti.

Ball Too Easy

The ability to paint the lines so effortlessly is also detrimental to Matchpoint’s career mode, since it makes the progression system seem almost entirely unnecessary. While my created player began with modest levels of shot power and spin, his accuracy was laser-guided from the outset. That meant that from day one on the tour I was hitting about 50 clear winners for every one that landed wide. The size of the aiming reticle and your unerring ability to hit it remains consistent throughout, and even with the difficulty dialed up to the highest setting I stormed my way to seven consecutive tournament victories and was world number one within the first few months of my career; this despite having completed just one of the stat-boosting training mini-games along the way.

Admittedly it’s something of a blessing that these training mini-games can be skipped, since they’re either utterly mundane (like when you have to play a game of Simon Says for groundstrokes) or clumsily implemented (like the drill for serving aces that puts you up against a receiver standing so wide of the service box they may as well be signing autographs). But completing these simple training drills is about as deep as the management aspect of Matchpoint’s career goes, which made me feel pretty uninvested in my player’s success. There are no sponsorship deals to consider or injury niggles to take into account, and instead you basically just roll from one indistinct, unlicensed tennis tournament to the next, snatching up more silverware than a sticky-fingered butler in Buckingham Palace.

At least I assume the trophies are silver, because Matchpoint doesn’t actually ever show them to you. While the animations of the players are smooth and the courtside detail is crisp, there’s a noticeable lack of life and no real sense of occasion imbued in each competition, with every tournament culminating in the same static result screen. There’s no trophy presentation after a final, no handshakes between players, no statistical overlays in the broadcast presentation, and the small handful of faces in the crowd are so heavily reused it’s almost as though the stadium tickets were having a “buy one get two free” promotions for sets of identical triplets.

Similar cosmetic limitations are also inflicted on your created player. With just a handful of heads and haircuts to choose from, and no option to customise service motions or grunts of exertion, it’s almost impossible to produce anyone other than either John or Jane Smith from the United States of Generica. Even worse, while the 18 licensed professionals in Matchpoint each come dressed in branded gear from the likes of Nike and Adidas, the clothing and equipment available to your player is of the strictly no-name variety. It’s a bitter pill to swallow when you strut out onto centre court surrounded by advertising boards from big names like Asics and Wilson, and you’re clad in a t-shirt and shorts that seem fresh from your mum’s sewing machine, clutching an off-brand tennis racket that appears to have been bought from a dodgy ad on Facebook.

Plays of the Weak

While you occasionally come up against real-world guns like Daniil Medvedev and Taylor Fritz on the men’s tour, and Victoria Azarenka and Madison Keys on the women’s, an overwhelming number of matches in Matchpoint’s career are played against fictional opponents. While it’s pretty hard to tell these carbon-copy competitors apart since they’re cut from the same restricted character creation toolset as your avatar, Matchpoint does at least attempt to inject some individuality into each of them by giving them a handful of strengths and weaknesses that can be uncovered during a match.

You don’t get to intuitively identify these traits, mind you, but rather they are spelled out by a distracting splash of text that pops up in the top-right corner of the screen mid-rally. One opponent might get impatient during a prolonged exchange and have a tendency to rush the net, for example, while another might start serving harder the more aces they rack up in a service game. It’s an interesting idea on paper, but in practice it had very little effect on how I approached each point, and because of that it felt like an artificial way to force a change in strategy that wasn’t ever actually required. Each AI opponent I faced may as well have had a weakness for red velvet cupcakes for all the difference it made to how I played against them, as I consistently worked each of them out of position before biffing another perfectly placed winner a few millimeters inside the baseline.

Desperate for a modicum of challenge I eventually tried disabling the aiming marker entirely in the options menu, but targeting by feel alone shifted shot difficulty so far in the other direction that it only forced me into a more conservative and attritional style of play; knocking the ball back towards the centre of the court until my opponent inevitably made a mistake, which soon became dull. I wish the developers had been able to find some kind of compromise between the superhuman sharpshooting afforded by the aiming marker and the nebulous guesswork involved in going without it.

Of course, there’s considerably more nuance to be found when tackling human opponents, and it’s as a multiplayer game that Matchpoint is at its best since it puts you head to head with a player theoretically equipped with the same sideline-searing skills as you. It’s a shame, then, that options for multiplayer are so sparse. Online play is restricted to either casual or ranked one-off matches, with no option to create or enter tournaments. Worse still, all multiplayer matches – both online and off – are strictly singles-only, as though you went to sign up for a tennis club membership but accidentally landed on the registration page for eHarmony.

It seems almost unfathomable that a tennis game released in 2022 lacks what has long become such an enjoyable and expected feature of the genre in the form of doubles play, but it’s not the only Matchpoint design call that needs to be challenged. I’m also wondering why I’m forced to play a qualifying set at the start of every tournament in the career mode, even when I’m ranked number one in the world, or why there are 13 licensed male players included and only five women. And of course the most ironic call I want to challenge: why haven’t I been given the ability to challenge any of the umpire’s calls? Line-call challenges have been a part of professional tennis for over 15 years, so it’s weird that they’re not included here – particularly when Matchpoint’s line judges have a tendency to miss more calls than a dead man’s phone.