While we may still be months out from pulling off gigs in our local game stores, WeirdCo keeps cooking and revealing new cards for their highly anticipated Cyberpunk Trading Card Game.

This card game, which blew up on Kickstarter earlier this year, features cards based on places and beloved characters from the anime and the CD Projekt Red RPG Cyberpunk 2077.

A bunch of cards have already been shown and can be found over on the Cyberpunk TCG website, but IGN has a couple of brand-new cards to reveal that showcase new Legend and Unit cards in both their base and fancy Iconic versions.

Good ol’ Jackie Wells, your best bud from Cyberpunk 2077, is back with a brand new Legend with Jackie Wells - Mama’s Favorite. This time in green Leader with a RAM value of 2, Jackie’s got a high attack power of 8, making him easy to break through the 10 power threshold to steal additional gigs when he attacks, thanks to his “Go Solo” ability. Cyberware like “Sandevistan” would be a perfect choice for this since it would help keep Jackie safe by readying (untapping) him at the end of your turn!

The real power of this new Legend doesn’t come from how hard he hits, though. Just like how Jackie looks out for V in the game, Jackie Welles: Mama’s Favorite, helps keep your other units safe. By spending 1 Eddy when a unit would be defeated, you can instead have Jackie get defeated instead and removed from the game. Great for keeping an important unit or one you’ve loaded up with gear, covered, and out of harm's way. At least against one fatal blow.

Judy Alvarez: Nothing to Doubt looks to be positioning itself as a powerhouse in the first set. With a cost of 6 alongside a solid 6 power, her special ability allows you to tap her and pay a single Eddy to play the top card of your deck or add it to your hand, which is the real star. This will be the perfect card for decks running high-value cards and getting them out easily.

Before you get too excited, though, the aspect of Judy that may make you pump your brakes is her 5-blue Ram requirement. As of the time of writing, there are no blue Legends that provide 3x Blue RAM to your pool, meaning Judy will only be playable if you are running a mono-blue Cyberpunk deck, which will take out some flexibility. With such a strong ability, too, she will need some blockers out to take some hits for her, because once she comes out, it’s a safe bet that she will jump to the top of your opponent’s hit list. Still, a really solid card!

Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.

It’s a miracle that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars even exists. Originally launched as a Nintendo handheld exclusive complete with touch-screen carjacking, bloody gunfights, and high stakes drug dealing missions, it’s exactly the kind of game you’d never expect to see first launch on the Nintendo DS. But more than that, it’s secretly one of the greatest and most innovative GTA games ever made.

When Chinatown Wars launched in March of 2009, the GTA franchise was in a pretty incredible spot. The revolutionary and massively successful Grand Theft Auto 4 had arrived the year prior, fully establishing itself as the king of criminal open world games in the eyes of both critics and players. Both of its episodic story expansions, The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, were also on track to come out in 2009.

But all that was happening on home consoles. While the late 2000s had seen a a duo of games based on 2001’s GTA 3 and 2002’s GTA Vice City come to PlayStation Portable, GTA 4’s successful dive into the HD era seemed to suggest Rockstar was fully committed to the much more powerful consoles and PCs of the time, rather than shrink down the vision and ambition for the then dueling handhelds, Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP. The franchise was striving for gritty realism and cutting edge graphics and it seemed like the portable systems were going to have to sit this round out. Suffice to say that when GTA Chinatown Wars was announced as a top down, cel-shaded game made for a handheld, starring a brand new Triad protagonist who used a touch screen to fire off sniper rifles and steal cars in the same city GTA 4’s Niko Bellic had stomped around in a year earlier, people were pretty surprised. At first glance it not only felt like a step backwards for the series but also it felt downright shocking to see what was initially a Nintendo exclusive GTA game where you could sell drugs and shoot police officers.

These days, modern Nintendo handhelds like the Switch 1 and Switch 2 frequently get ports of mature rated games. But during the Nintendo DS era, this was rarely the case. In 2009 it was practically unfathomable for Rockstar to put a brand new, exclusive Grand Theft Auto game on the Nintendo DS, a modestly powerful handheld system that was already five years into its lifespan and mostly associated with things like Mario Kart, Nintendogs, and Brain Training. The DS is home to one of the greatest and most diverse game libraries in the history of handhelds but its tiny low resolution screens, largely casual playerbase, and lack of an analogue stick meant that AAA developers approached the system cautiously when bringing their successful franchises over to it, especially when those franchises were known for being big budget console games aiming for older audiences. Rockstar Games hadn’t brought any of their titles to a Nintendo handheld since 2003, when they launched a cleverly scaled down version of May Payne on the Game Boy Advance and then Grand Theft Auto Advance in 2004, a top down pixel art prequel to GTA 3.

That’s why Chinatown Wars felt special. It was clear that the DS had become so massive that even the almighty Rockstar Games couldn’t ignore it. And while fans had some apprehensions about the game’s looks, once they realized that Chinatown Wars bridged the gap between GTA’s top-down origins and its modern fully 3D open world chaos (and, unlike the original games, doesn’t have a locked camera) they knew Rockstar had successfully managed to shrink down their biggest franchise and make it feel at home in the least likely of places without really skipping a beat. Enhanced ports of Chinatown Wars eventually came to PSP and mobile phones and while they never came close to the total sales of the mainline console and PC games, hardcore GTA fans were happy to have this unique new entry that they could bring with them everywhere.

Chinatown Wars not only has all the things you love and expect from a GTA game, like sharp writing, memorable characters, and tons of weapons, vehicles, and explosive toys to terrorize a big, sprawling metropolis with while flipping through bespoke radio stations, it also introduced a bunch of brand new features to the franchise. Police chases that ratchet up your wanted level have always been a series staple, but Chinatown Wars incorporated a brilliant new mechanic to get revenge: destroying cop cars to lower your wanted level. This is an absolute blast, especially when you’ve got multiple cops tailing you at once and you’re blasting down the road at top speed, bobbing and weaving through traffic. Prior to Chinatown Wars, GTA games required you to drive out of a specific area to lower your wanted level, but this new approach requires a lot more aggression on your part, forcing you to lure cops alongside your car so you can smash them into buildings and other cars, or leading them on, jamming on the breaks and watching them dictate their own destruction while you fire your guns out the widow. It’s an explosive way to watch your wanted level plummet. This adds tension and thrill to every encounter and, outside of also looking cool, it’s genuinely an absolute blast and frequently hilarious.

When these aggressive chases overlap with the game’s drug dealing subplot, though, that’s when things get significantly more high stakes. Since all this cop car smashing and bashing also takes its toll on your vehicle, you’ll need to be more calculated with your reckless driving, especially when you’re smuggling a trunk full of thousands of dollars worth of heroin that will get seized by the authorities or blown to smithereens if your car goes up in flames. It’s the kind of experience that has you grinning from ear to ear and cackling maniacally while juggling several crimes at once, a feeling that is so distinctly GTA and thus, incredibly impressive to see replicated with cartoony graphics on a tiny handheld.

Chinatown Wars has you dealing coke, weed, and downers to various gangs around Liberty City, leading to lots of double crossings, shootouts, and some huge payouts. By taking out the cameras that are hidden everywhere across the city, you’ll reduce the visibility of your drug smuggling antics and have fewer cops tailing you after a deal. It’s another great example of Chinatown Wars’ awesome and unique systems overlapping and complimenting each other in brilliant and satisfying ways.

Unique gangs across Liberty City also have specific territories, as well as a preferred drug of choice, so dealing different drugs regularly has you driving all over the map and visiting various crews. These largely optional missions are reminiscent of the ancient calculator drug dealing game Drug Wars and while some elements of these missions eventually made their way into GTA 5’s online mode, it’s a shame that these ideas weren’t worked directly into the campaign. Here’s hoping GTA 6 lets you keep an eye on market conditions so you can sell ecstasy pills to the Spanish Lords just like in Chinatown Wars, maybe while hulking Los Santos alligators nip at your heels.

But while many of Chinatown Wars’ victories are in systems and gameplay, it was clearly a game made by the same Rockstar that was penning deeper, more interesting crime stories. Like GTA 4, Chinatown Wars tells an excellent tale of an immigrant plunging deeper and deeper into Liberty City’s seedy underbelly, juggling personal and family relationships with the harsh realities of living life on the run and under the gun. In terms of protagonists, Huang Lee isn’t nearly as earnest as Niko Bellic and spends significantly less time bowling with his cousins or taking women on dates, but his no bullshit, firecracker attitude makes his warpath and lust for vengeance believable, which makes you feel slightly less remorseful about tearing through Liberty City.

Like many GTA fans back in 2009, I had finished GTA 4 and was hungry for more, so Chinatown Wars launched at the perfect time. I’ve been a Nintendo fan my whole life and had bought the Nintendo DS the day it launched, so tearing the plastic off of my Chinatown Wars game box and shoving a tiny original GTA game cartridge into my system for the first time was such an awesome moment. I’m also a huge fan of hip hop, so the game's opening story cutscenes being laden with heavy drums and Wu-Tang Clan style Chinese string samples for a beat that legendary artists Ghostface Killa and MF Doom rapped on to promote the game was one of those mindblowing synergies of so many things that I loved coming together. It really was all just a dream come true. It felt right to be back in Liberty City again, even one that looked so different to Niko’s, and it was totally surreal using the same stylus I used to pet Nintendogs to hotwire a stolen vehicle and go on a violent killing spree on the way to a big ticket cocaine deal.

That said, as much as I love the touchscreen features across every version of Chinatown Wars, they’re likely what’s holding the game back from being ported to modern consoles. They’d work just fine in handheld mode on the Nintendo Switch consoles but they’d need a bit of an overhaul to function properly on PlayStation and Xbox, which is a shame since I really wish more people could experience this classic entry in one of the most successful video game franchises of all time.

Playing Chinatown Wars in 2026 doesn’t just make me nostalgic for being there when the game first released, though. It makes me nostalgic for an era when Rockstar took weird swings like Chinatown Wars. It was an era when Grand Theft Auto got spinoffs, story DLCs, and quirky little handheld ports, and they all tried to show the franchise in a new light. These days it seems like every single idea for a new GTA story or gameplay mechanic gets dropped directly into GTA 5’s online mode where they will instantly print money for Rockstar, a strategy they’ll definitely continue to implement in Grand Theft Auto 6. And while it’s cool that people can play one GTA game for thirteen years straight while still regularly seeing new content, it’s hard not to miss a world before GTA Online where the series had a bit more flexibility. One where unique side stories could exist independently instead of being drip fed into a massive multiplayer mode. Regardless, we’ll always have Chinatown Wars, an immensely satisfying and totally kick ass GTA game that you can take with you anywhere. If you missed it when it first arrived or you’re looking for something to revisit while waiting for the next gigantic entry in the Grand Theft Auto franchise to arrive this fall, you should definitely go play it. There’s no other GTA game quite like it.

Stellar Blade: Blood Rain developer Shift Up has sparked a backlash for releasing an entirely AI-generated music video starring protagonist Evie.

"Wanna be in LOVE" Feat. Evie | Stellar Blade: BLOODRAIN was published to South Korean developer Shift Up’s YouTube channel on July 31, as a K-pop twist on the upcoming action game. It shows Evie singing an upbeat pop song in Stellar Blade’s future setting.

But fans have pointed out a number of oddities in the video, including facial changes and visual inaccuracies, with some comparing it to the AI-generated adverts you often see before YouTube videos.

After the music video ends, we see a mock ‘making of’ segment where the Shift Up crew pretend to interact with Evie.

The video description confirms it was made with AI, and the small print at the end of the video includes the following description:

“This video was created using the game resource from Stellar Blade: Bloodrain and regenerated with AI support.”

The logo for Shift Up’s A.I. Labs department is at the bottom.

The reception not only on the YouTube video itself but across the internet is overwhelmingly negative. “They really thought they were cooking with this AI slop,” one person commented. “Deleting this from my memory, SGF trailer was amazing,” another said.

“Could've made an actual music video and paid the team another bonus check. Hopefully this was a one time thing and pray the game doesn't have AI cutscenes,” one person wrote. “Your RAM just went up in prices while watching this video,” another said. “Since there's no name for the singer in the description. I guess the song was made with AI as well?” pointed out another.

It’s a similar sentiment over on the Stellar Blade subreddit. “Such a f***ing shame man,” one redditor said. “I love almost everything about this company and its games, but the damn CEO's obsession with AI is seriously bringing the whole thing down. You HAVE the talent and resources to make quality content. Despite all that, you decide to make slop like this. My hype for this game has been genuinely damaged with this s**t.”

That’s a reference to Shift Up boss Kim Hyung-Tae, who is a vocal proponent of generative AI. In January, he said that without the use of AI, developers in smaller nations would struggle to keep up with studios in places like the U.S. and China.

"We devote around 150 people to a single game, but China puts in between 1,000 to 2,000. We lack the capacity to compete, both in terms of quality and volume of content," Hyung-Tae said (via machine translation).

Using AI would not result in job losses, Hyung-Tae insisted at the time, but instead make employees more valuable, as "one person can perform the work of 100 people."

Hyung-Tae promoted the music video on X / Twitter, asking viewers to share their thoughts with the studio. He got his wish. “I think you guys have enough budget to animate a music video instead of using AI,” one person replied. It would be a good way to actually advertise the in-game assets instead of faking content.”

“This is an absolute shame and disgrace to art,” another replied. “You have one of the most INSANE budgets to develop your game without AI involved at 1%, but still, you produced this slop. And don't throw at me the ‘we use AI to compete with US/China market,’ that's a literal BS.”

“My thoughts are that this is s**t,” another declared. “Shame that you are using AI instead of paying artists to animate this. Is this type of thing going to be in the game too? Cause if that's the case I don't want it now.”

In June, Hyung-Tae discussed the design of new main character Evie, highlighting the differences between her and the protagonist of the first game, Eve. Shift Up announced Stellar Blade: Blood Rain at Summer Game Fest with an eye-catching trailer that revealed Evie, a brand new main character who prefers to punch her way through enemies than take the slice and dice approach favored by her predecessor.

The biggest talking point coming out of the trailer reveal was the design of Evie herself, with some expressing concern about her seemingly child-like face in the context of her more adult-sounding voice acting and body design.

In an interview with IGN following the Summer Game Fest reveal, Hyung-Tae confirmed that Evie being Eve’s junior was a conscious design decision. “Yes. She is younger. She's smaller in size. She's shorter than Eve,” he said, “but she has a stronger personality and engages in much tougher battles. And she's actually part of a special squad that chases after a group of terrorists who cause terror attacks here and there in the city.”

Eve in Stellar Blade is a highly sexualized character, so we asked Hyung-Tae if he was worried that by using a young-looking character for Blood Rain, Shift Up was running the risk that some people would view Evie in a way the developer doesn’t want.

“If you actually play the game, you will not think that,” he replied. “I definitely like how Eve looked in the previous Stellar Blade. But this time, Evie, not just her physical looks, but her personality, the way she talks, the way she engages in battles, all that will combine together, and you'll see that she’s a very lovable character.”

Opinion on the use of AI in games continues to divide studios and their fans, with some vehemently against its use, while others claim it's an inevitable part of the future. Rockstar co-founder and former Grand Theft Auto writer Dan Houser recently likened AI to mad cow disease, but the CEO of Genvid — the company behind choose-your-own-adventure interactive series like Silent Hill Ascension — has claimed "consumers generally do not care" about generative AI in games, and stated that: "Gen Z loves AI slop."

EA CEO Andrew Wilson has said AI is "the very core of our business," and Square Enix recently implemented mass layoffs and reorganized, saying it needed to be "aggressive in applying AI."

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.