Up until now, folks have been attempting to define Deathloop via comparisons with a fairly broad list of existing games. Previous time loop games, assassination games, and highlights from developer Arkane’s own back catalogue have all come into the crosshairs. After a five-hour hands-on with Deathloop from the beginning of the game it’s certainly true these associations have merit – but it’s equally true they’re not really painting a complete picture of Arkane’s ambitious Groundhog Day murder marathon, as it’s a little different to what I expected.

Deathloop’s grimy, retro-futuristic ’60s espionage aesthetic makes a fabulous first impression, and it’s well-supported by some immediately excellent music and some great voice work from Colt actor Jason E. Kelly. Kelly’s dialogue needs to do a fair bit of heavy-lifting – particularly as Deathloop sets up its main mystery – and imbuing his delivery with a cocktail of indignant confusion mixed with otherwise gung-ho enthusiasm successfully put me in Colt’s corner straight away. I like him, and that’s always a good first step.

Deathloop’s premise is simple: to break out of a 24-hour time loop, main man Colt must kill the eight enigmatic ‘Visionaries’ that run the creepy island of Blackreef in a single day. Die, or fail to get all eight, and the day starts all over again – and everyone you’ve shot, stabbed, or kicked off a cliff is resurrected. IGN’s detailed hands-on preview of this initial slice of Deathloop features a spoiler-free discussion regarding the hunt for one particular target.

Either way, after roughly five hours with the game it’s now very clear that killing all eight targets in one day isn’t going to be quite as straightforward as it sounds. Four times of day and four different environments – but double the targets – means Colt needs to uncover ways to bop off multiple targets in each location on a single visit.

The fact that there’s no way to save your progress while mid-mission is an interesting way to force players to truly lean into the experimentative world of a hypothetical time-loop. Messed up? Deal with it and keep going, or give up and try the day over again. Colt’s special ability to die twice in a level before a third death resets the day for good blunts just enough of the risk to allow me to use a little trial and error, but it only takes two small mistakes to leave Colt skating on very thin ice until I decide to leave a map.

However, it didn’t take long for Deathloop to begin to depart from some of the more common press comparisons I’ve heard to date – especially with Io Interactive’s Hitman series. It’s true that both thrive on repetition within their murder sandboxes; Hitman encourages return visits to its maps via its fun reward system, and Deathloop bakes them into the narrative itself (multiple visits to the maps are required to uncover clues, hidden locations, plus upgrades and other powerful weapons). At the five-hour mark they’re otherwise quite different, especially in terms of their approaches to stealth and the density of NPCs. I’ll stress none of this really seems to reflect poorly on Deathloop, which seems very good so far. Movement and combat in particular feels very refined and I love Colt’s violent kick move. It’s just not as closely aligned with Io’s assassination classics as some of the initial reporting led me to believe.

Of course, another element of Deathloop is the ability to play not only as Colt, but as his rival Julianna. While Colt’s wish is to break the loop by killing the island’s eight Visionaries, Julianna’s role is is to kill Colt.

According to Arkane, choosing to play as Julianna will inject you into someone else’s game, allowing you to hunt down and kill them while they’re busy trying to unravel Deathloop’s central mystery as Colt. For the purposes of this preview, only Colt could be used, and human players were unable to enter our games as Julianna. Only AI-controlled Juliannas invaded my playthrough, and she appeared as a target just twice in the roughly five hours I played. The AI Julianna doesn’t seem too tricky to take down with a potent weapon; she’s a little tougher than standard enemies but not egregiously so.

It is very important to note that Deathloop can be played entirely solo, blocking strangers (or friends) from gategrashing your game and ruining your session. So, yes, you can most definitely play Deathloop and exclusively only ever deal with an AI-controlled Julianna. What’s confounding me a bit, however, is that I can’t really fathom why anybody would choose otherwise. That is, after a decent stint of Deathloop – including a couple of consecutive runs that ended in slightly irritating deaths achingly close to the objective I’d set for myself – it’s entirely beyond me why anyone would ever opt to allow strangers to enter their game.

While I’ve enjoyed picking at the initial threads of Deathloop’s mystery and patiently skulking through the environments, I can just see no joy whatsoever in letting Arkane airdrop a total stranger into my game to potentially wreck everything I’d achieved that day – especially if it meant losing weapons and power-up trinkets I hadn’t yet protected from vanishing when the loop resets. I also can’t see how it would be fun to do it to someone else – especially a friend. Granted, I’m a strict single-player evangelist, but it seems roughly equivalent to bursting into a mate’s house and pulling their PS5’s power plug out of the wall before they have a chance to save their progress. Arkane has established that Deathloop’s PvP wasn’t really conceived with competitive play in mind, so I’ll wait until I’ve seen the PvP in action, but I’m not quite grasping the appeal of this second pillar of Deathloop’s package. Maybe I’m not a big enough jerk.

Fortunately, there isn’t long to wait – Deathloop arrives on PC and PS5 next month, on September 14 – but for now I feel like this may be a mystery I’ll seek to solve solo.

Luke is Games Editor at IGN's Sydney office. You can find him on Twitter every few days @MrLukeReilly.

Full SPOILERS ahead for Candyman!

Nia DaCosta’s Candyman is both a sequel and a relaunch. While it pays homage to the original films, it also breaks from the trends they established, and builds to a thrilling conclusion that feels both unexpected yet completely fitting.

What happens in the climax might seem complicated at first, given the surprising way it’s set in motion. The film is far from straightforward, but the way its thematic pieces fall in place results not only in a great ending to the movie but a great new beginning for the Candyman series.

Candyman: Why Does Burke Kidnap Anthony?

Slasher movies are no strangers to last-minute villain reveals, and Colman Domingo’s Burke is a sure candidate, between his eerie entrance and his in-depth knowledge of Candyman. Towards the end of the film, he finds Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) in a fugue state and decides to turn him into a version of Candyman in full view of his girlfriend Brianna (Teyonah Parris) by sawing off his arm, replacing it with a meat-hook, and dressing him up in a familiar brown coat before calling the police. However, his reasons aren’t as simple as bloodlust or cult-like villain worship.

DaCosta’s soft reboot returns to the setting of the first film — the now condemned Cabrini-Green housing project — whose poor Black community has been forced out so developers can swoop in. Burke is one of its last remaining residents, and framing Anthony is his last-ditch attempt to prevent it from being gentrified. According to Burke’s twisted logic, if there turns out to be another Candyman killer in the project, people might sour on the neighborhood and keep their distance.

Burke is a keeper of myths, and while Candyman has fallen out of the collective memory, he carries the story with him. Before the film cuts to the Church where he holds Anthony and Brianna captive, we’re shown a flashback in which he watches his sister die after summoning the “original” Candyman — Daniel Robitaille (Tony Todd), who was lynched in the 1890s for loving a white woman — by saying his name in a mirror. As a child, Burke also witnessed the police beat an innocent man to death, Sherman Fields, who resembled Candyman and who was accused of putting razor blades in children’s candy. Burke was the only bystander in either case, but as he prepares to mold Anthony in Candyman’s image, he tells Brianna: “Now we have a witness.”

Burke knows both these stories intimately — the supernatural bloodshed and the real violence that permeates his community — though he’s had to shoulder their trauma alone. To him, they’re part of the same legacy, and a story that keeps repeating itself throughout history, with different “Candymen'” becoming victims of racist violence, and that violence returning from beyond the grave to kill innocent people, like his sister. Burke has, in a way, succumbed to this cyclical reality, and to him, perpetuating the urban legend is the only way to shield his neighborhood from a vicious outside world.

Candyman: What Happened to Anthony?

Anthony, upon being framed by Burke, is shot dead by Chicago PD in front of Brianna. As the cops intimidate Brianna into telling their version of the story, she summons Candyman by saying his name five times. When this spirit first appears, he’s surrounded by a swarm of honeybees — the way Robitaille was tortured before being killed — but he looks and sounds like Anthony.

Anthony, who was abducted by Robitaille as a baby in the original Candyman (1992), spends most of the film rediscovering his own history. At first, the myth is just material for his canvas, but it soon begins to consume him, not just artistically, but physically too. As his body starts to rot, he begins to resemble Robitaille’s grotesque, corpse-like appearance in previous films. Whether he likes it or not, he is part of the Candyman story — not just because he appeared in the first film, but because he’s tethered to America’s deep history of racism no matter how much he tries to escape it.

When Anthony returns to Cabrini-Green, where he lived as a baby, Burke considers this to be “perfect symmetry” — an inevitable echo, in which Burke also plays a part by kidnapping Anthony, the way Candyman once did. Burke and Anthony wear similar brown coats, just like several Black characters who made up different “versions” of Candyman over the years, all of whom suffered at the hands of white supremacy. By the end of the film, both Burke and Anthony symbolize the legacy of Candyman, and the pain it represents for the people of Cabrini-Green. Anthony is even absorbed into this history, and he becomes one with Candyman’s vengeful form.

Will There be a Candyman Sequel?

After Candyman kills the officers responsible for Anthony’s death, he briefly reveals his face to Brianna. We then see a returning Tony Todd in all his terrifying splendor, as he instructs her: “Tell everyone.”

The new sequel doesn’t discard any of the series’ mythology, but it builds on it from a new perspective. DaCosta is the first Black filmmaker to helm Candyman, and while previous films all centered on Robitaille haunting white women, the 2021 movie takes closer aim at the story of his murder — and of similar murders over the years — and re-works him into a spirit of vengeance. Candyman still takes innocent lives, but when he flays the police officers in the climax, Anthony’s voice emanates from behind the swarm; “They will say I shed innocent blood,” he whispers. “You are far from innocent.”

These updates to the character don’t retroactively change the previous films — in which white filmmakers told stories of white protagonists, who were outsiders to the racism in Robitaille’s past — however, the new movie captures Candyman’s actions from a brand new perspective. When Robitaille killed a policeman in the second film, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), no thematic connections were drawn between white supremacy and structural police violence. However, a story in which Black perspectives are central, and in which white supremacist violence is still alive and well, is a vital realignment of what Candyman is, and perhaps, what he should have always been. When Robitaille tells Brianna to “tell everyone,” he not only wants his legend to live on and for people to summon him as they did in prior films, but he also wants this version of his story told, one that harkens back to his painful origins.

When the film ends, Candyman is neither just Daniel Robitaille nor just Anthony McCoy. He is both of them — and more. He is a symbol of all the Black victims Burke mentions, who died at the hands of white supremacy, and if the series continues under Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, this is who Candyman is likely to be. The character was always designed to reflect a violent past, but now, he embodies the full scope of that history as it bleeds into the present and he kills with righteous fury.

What did you think of the new Candyman movie and its ending? Let us know in the comments. And for more on the film, check out our Candyman review and watch the director and cast on the legacy and meaning of Candyman.

While more and more developers try to create seamless, immersive worlds nowadays, No More Heroes 3 feels like a game straight out of 2003, where power-ups are food and big shiny arrows guide you to your next destination. At the same time, however, it’s littered with kitschy modern references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Netflix, and performance-obsessed gamers, resulting in a 3D action game that’s trapped in both the past and present. This sequel still has some surprising boss fights and admirable ambition, but those are only enough to drag the rest of its aging ideas and mechanics along with it.

No More Heroes 3 is the first mainline addition to the series since 2010’s No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, but it’s actually more directly a sequel to the 2019 spinoff Travis Strikes Again. Unfortunately, unlike the novel and entertaining action of the original games, Travis Strikes Again was not particularly enjoyable, making its returning characters and plot points a less exciting reunion than they could be. But the core premise of the first two No More Heroes games at least returns here, letting you run around the fictional city of Santa Destroy as part-time assassin Travis Touchdown, who is once again killing his way up an assassin hierarchy as part of a bloody competition.

In the original games, Travis joined this twisted contest for a chance to sleep with a beautiful woman named Sylvia Christel. But in No More Heroes 3, his motivations are less self-centered. This time an alien prince named Fu (who is basically the answer to the question “What if E.T. was evil?”) comes to Santa Destroy with his posse of nine alien overlords to try and take over Earth. Fu and his alien cronies conveniently join the assassin’s ranking, giving Travis a path to murder his way toward Fu and save the world.

And that’s pretty much the way No More Heroes 3 goes for its roughly 14-hour runtime: start at the lowest rank, kill the boss, earn money from minigames to eventually buy a ticket to the next boss fight, and repeat until you reach the end. That’ll be a familiar formula for existing fans, but No More Heroes 3 still feels like a step back for the series in this regard. The themed levels full of smaller minions that previously preceded each boss are absent here, and the time spent between bosses is mostly tedious. As a result, the minigames needed to earn money – which range from a pretty fun lawn mowing game to a much less fun mining minigame – make up a bigger proportion of the overall playtime.

To pad out the time between bosses even further, No More Heroes 3 also makes it so you have to complete two or three filler fights against various alien bad guys as an additional requirement to begin the next boss battle. While enemy variety is significantly increased from previous games, these encounters are less interesting than the themed levels they replace, and balancing issues can make them flat out aggravating to take on. These enemies have unique abilities like shooting lasers, throwing up mines, or turning invisible – but because their difficulty seems to be determined by enemy count more than anything, the fights are chaotic and messy as attacks fly every which way with no rhyme or reason.

That’s a shame, because there can be a real flow to No More Heroes 3’s combat when it hits its stride elsewhere. You alternate between light and heavy slashes with your beam katana and whack baddies enough to stun them, at which point you can German Suplex them for additional damage. No More Heroes 3 adds a jump button too (though I rarely used it) as well as four unique abilities on cooldowns. These abilities either slow down time, push enemies away, set up a passive laser beam, or let Travis drop kick the nearest bad guys.

The hacking and slashing can be fun, but I’m more torn on the cooldown abilities. On the one hand, their crowd control capabilities feel designed explicitly for the purpose of handling the aforementioned minion battles, and they could be especially crucial for harder fights. But on the other hand, these attacks don’t feel necessary for the actual boss fights, and don’t mesh particularly well with the rest of the sword-based combat – especially since the beam katana itself still runs on a depleting battery which you need to recharge during a fight by, uh, shaking it.

Getting to each boss can be a slog, but the boss battles themselves remain a series highlight. You’re introduced to Fu and his gang at the start of the story, but these aliens lack the personality needed to stand out in any memorable way – especially compared to past No More Heroes bosses like amputee grenadier Holly Summers, scythe-wielding gothic lolita Margaret Moonlight, or the flame-throwing take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre Matt Helms. But, without spoilers, No More Heroes 3 cleverly zigs whenever I thought it would zag, messing with my own expectations of each boss and providing a few nice surprises for longtime fans. These fights are where combat truly shines, although some bosses are primarily beaten through puzzles instead. But even then, the creativity behind their designs makes them enjoyable for the humor alone, like one fight that’s settled through a deadly game of musical chairs.

Between those flashy encounters, the open world of Santa Destroy is disappointingly barebones, and performance can be noticeably subpar in certain areas. One spot that looks like a bombed-out city (either a reference to Fortnite or Call of Duty) runs so poorly that it actually has an artificial retro CRT TV filter put over it, seemingly to hide its alarmingly bad texture pop-ins. That doesn’t make the issue any less severe, but No More Heroes 3 at least tries to make up for its clear technical shortcomings by presenting itself in new and interesting ways like this. For example, every chapter begins and ends with a hand-drawn anime-style opening or a Takashi Miike podcast hosted by Travis and his cinephile friend, Bishop. It will also randomly throw you into different genres at a moment’s notice, suddenly having you play a No More Heroes version of Fatal Frame or a retro PC-8800-style visual novel. No More Heroes 3 is always ready with a bit of creative flourish after every technical misstep.

These frequent moments of genuine surprise and wonder meant I certainly enjoyed No More Heroes 3 at times, even if by today’s standards it’s a pretty dated and uneven experience between them. Developer Grasshopper Manufacture describes itself as a video game punk band, and No More Heroes 3 definitely feels like a house show where the guitarist is playing on a busted amp, duct-taped to hell but still not sounding quite right.

I can’t help but admire No More Heroes 3 for that. This industry is often unforgiving of games that don’t run at a perfect 60 fps or have the latest high-end graphics, leaving weird, off-kilter projects like this without an audience. But that admiration doesn’t mean I can recommend it in good conscience to anyone who isn’t already invested in director Suda 51’s madcap universe. And even for that audience, it can’t hold a candle to either of its decade-old predecessors.

Father’s Day is just around the corner (Sunday 5th September), which means it's time to spoil your dad with something special. Being the target audience myself (father of two), I've put together a selection of cool stuff: gaming and gadgets, to suit a range of budgets. Expect this list to be a bit more eclectic than usual. The only thing these gifts have in common is that they are guaranteed to put a smile on any dad's face.

Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset

Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but your dad sometimes wants to exist in another reality where you don't feature. Short of contacting Doctor Strange to do a cosmic-level quick-edit, he can achieve his blessed escape via an Oculus Quest 2. We reckon it's "9/10 Amazing" quality. He will too.

• See it at Amazon AU

LEGO That's (Old) Age Appropriate

Some dads out there (not many in this day and age, thankfully) are operating on the antiquated notion that LEGO is for kids. The trick here is to not buy Duplo. You can watch dad's dour face light up when you deliver him a particular set that triggers some nostalgia. It could be themed on a movie franchise, TV show or be a decoration set. Better yet, pitch it to him as a "project we can both share," then keep the finished build yourself.

• See the LEGO Infinity Gauntlet at Amazon
• See the LEGO R2-D2 Droid Building Set for Adults at Amazon
• See the 1989 Batmobile at Amazon
• See the LEGO Fast and Furious Dodge Charger at Amazon
• See the LEGO Friends Central Perk kit at Amazon

Ancestry and Health Testing Kit

Help your dad to trace his family tree and find out more about his genetic background with this easy-to-use testing kit. According to AncestryDNA, it's incredibly accurate and it's all done using a simple mouth swab. I did this last year with my old man. Turns out he's half drunk.

Read the product review on PCMag here, where it gained 4/5 due its easy-to-understand results, lots of help resources and free shipping.

• See it at Ancestry DNA

Gift Cards, Credit and Subscriptions

Let's be real for a second. The fact of the matter is you probably don't know what your Old Cheese wants—not exactly, anyway. He sure does. That being said, a digital subscription or a bit o' prepaid plastic is the classier/more hygienic alternative than just slappin' a germ-soaked fiddy in a Hallmark card.

PS Plus Credit

• See $50 PSN credit at Harvey Norman
• See $30 PSN credit at Harvey Norman
• See $15 PSN credit at Harvey Norman

Xbox Live Credit

• See $50 Xbox Live credit at Harvey Norman
• See $25 Xbox Live credit Harvey Norman
• See $15 Xbox Live credit at Harvey Norman

TV Subscriptions

• Amazon Prime Gaming
• Disney + STAR
• Netflix
• Stan
• Apple TV+

Anda Seat

Why get your dad an Anda Seat brand of gaming chair? Two reasons. One: their range is well-built, good-looking, and competitively priced. Two: the name of this manufacturer gives even the most dim-witted father a free pun layup. "Oh, thanks [your name] you bought me socks…..ANDA seat!" Cuh-lassic.

• See it at Amazon AU

Socks 'n' Karma

Socks are kinda boring, but they're also an eye-rolling Father's Day tradition, yeah? Here's something new, though—with UpMovement's socks, you can troll your Papa and also achieve some greater good. Profits from these comfy, stylish footwear go towards helping amputees around the world restore their freedom of human mobility. Give your dad the gift of knowing he raised a decent human being.

• See gift bundles at UpMovement

Ring 4 Doorbell

Take it straight from the source—your old bloke hates having to get up and answer the door. That's a footy / cricket / gaming interruptin'; that's an angry dad. With the Ring 4 and his preferred device, he can quickly see who's there and—if it's not a mate bearing a slab—he can dismiss the interloper with a pre-made Quick Reply. "Get off my lawn," most likely.

• See it at Amazon AU

Arcade Gaming Nostalgia

Bring back dad's crusty childhood memories with one of these Arcade1Up cabinets, some of which offer multiple built-in games.

• See NBA Jam 4-Player at Catch
• See Street Fighter II 12-in-1 at Catch
• See Marvel 3-in-1 at Catch

A Beard to be Feared

Got a fuzzier father than most? Amaze his follicles with this natural, organic, vegan, Beard Conditioning Oil. Better yet, he'll smell like "Woodland Harmony", the most Ron Swansonesque fragrance I've ever heard of.

• See Seven Potions Beard Oil & Conditioner at Amazon

Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones

Your dad loves you to the moon and back, but sweet, merciful crap he's sick of listening to you. Sony's top-tier WF-1000XM4s will provide him blessed relief, thanks to the industry’s highest level of noise cancelling along with superior sound quality.

• See it at Sony

Get Him Some 'Stories'

While my oculars still function ok, I know that my dad's aren't the best for reading. That being said, I've found great success with keeping him in books by way of Audible's (frankly amazing) library of spoken literature. Downside: I now have to listen to his borrowed trivia about tall wooden ships and WWII.

• Get started at Audible

Upgrade His Console

Does your patriarch favour outmoded consoles? Retro consoles are always money, but it could still be time to broaden his horizons by dragging him kicking and screaming into the current gen…

• See the Nintendo Switch OLED at Amazon
• See the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition at Amazon
• See the PlayStation 5 Disc Edition at Amazon
• See the Xbox Series S at Amazon
• See the Xbox Series X at Amazon

Improve His 'Idiot Box'

So, you've modernised your father's gaming platform of choice. Great! Now it's time to blow his mind with an LG C1. It's a HDMI 2.1 enabled, OLED beast that unleashes the true visual potential of new-gen gaming hardware. He doesn't even need to game on it, either. Just have it constantly displaying neon cherry blossom trees. It's not that weird.

• See the LG C1 65" 4K TV at Bing Lee

Thank The Maker—it's Friday, and we have Star Wars discounts on hand. That tantalising triple pack aside, the Ubistore has also gone Gamescom crazy with cut prices on most ACs, WDs, FCs and other AAA abbreviations that save me from using this keyboard too much. Speaking of saving and hardware, anybody looking to make a switch to the Switch should scoop up a cheap Lite console today. All these deals and more await you sub-level.

Notable Sales for Nintendo Switch

Purchase Cheaply for PC

Exciting Offers for XO/XS

Product Savings for PS4/PS5

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Adam's an Aussie deals whisperer who refuses to use *that* Daniel Craig GIF on Fridays. Every blue moon he's @Grizwords.