An Elden Ring dataminer has found several unused text popups in the game files, which seem to allude to a PvP ranking system.

The popups were found by Twitter user @StrayKurtis and appear to be part of a progression system tied to different Elden Ring factions, reading "Bloody Finger Rank Advanced", "Hunter Rank Advanced", and so on.

There's currently no way to tell if these are from a scrapped mechanic or if they're perhaps linked to an upcoming piece of DLC but the Elden Ring community is already speculating wildly.

#ELDENRING datamine fun fact: There are several unused text popups related to the various online interactions(invasions, coop, etc). Perhaps there are some sort of ranking systems in the works? pic.twitter.com/FTurtshwS2

— StrayKurtis (@StrayKurtis) May 11, 2022

Previous games from developer FromSoftware, including Bloodborne and Dark Souls, had a somewhat hazy PvP ranking system, where defeating invading players would grant faction-specific rewards that could be traded in to increase your rank and eventually get rare items or unlocks.

Just as Elden Ring has advanced previous FromSoftware mechanics (and made an effort to make things clearer to new players), it's possible this ranking system is a more fully-fledged version of that previous mechanic.

Another popular theory ties these PvP ranks to the inaccessible Elden Ring colosseums that can be found around the map. Previous hacks seem to show that these areas appear to be combat focused (as colosseums usually are). One dataminer managed to get one of the arenas working and found hidden Sites of Grave, location names, and even battling NPCs that some community members think are connected to a PvP focused DLC.

While PvP is already a feature in Elden Ring through its invasions mechanic, there's no dedicated arena for players to battle in.

FromSoftware is yet to confirm anything though – even the existence of any sort of DLC – so fans will have to continue speculating in the meantime. Given the success of Elden Ring, however, and FromSoftware's tendency to release DLC, it would be surprising if extra content wasn't on its way.

Elden Ring has proved somewhat of a cultural phenomenon since it was release in February, with players finding a ton of different ways to interact with the game.

People have played it using a Fisher Price toy, the Nintendo Switch Ring Fit controller, and someone has even made a working VR version of the game.

Elden Ring has also been beaten in under seven minutes by a speedrunner, completed without taking or dealing damage, and fans are also modding every other entertainment franchise imaginable into the game.

In our 10/10 review, IGN said: "Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path."

To make those choices with the best available information, check out our guide that features everything you could ever hope to know about Elden Ring, including collectible locations, boss strategies, and more.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Thumbnail credit: Fextralife / FromSoftware

The latest figures from The NPD Group reveal that the Nintendo Switch is now the fourth highest selling console in US history, having now eclipsed Sony's sales of the PlayStation 4.

The data shown in NPD's U.S. games industry sales from April 2022 report show that the Nintendo Switch achieved the highest unit sales of any console for both April and all of the overall year to date. These sales push it past the milestone set by PlayStation 4, making the Nintendo Switch the fourth highest unit-selling home console in U.S. history, behind the PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and Wii.

If handheld consoles are counted, Switch is now the sixth highest-selling video game platform in the US, as both the Nintendo DS and Game Boy are comfortably among the best selling games machines of all time.

In April, spending on games hardware incresed by 16% in the US compared to the same period in 2021, which NPD attributes to the improved supply of PS5 and Xbox consoles. That can be seen in the fact that Xbox Series consoles are the second highest-selling devices of both the month and 2022 overall. The PS5, however, led April in terms of dollar sales.

Last month's NPD data revealed that Xbox Series consoles were 2022's best selling platform by dollars made, representing the continued strengthening of the Xbox brand.

For more from Nintendo, check out our dedicated podcast, NVC, and also have a look at everything that was announced as part of the Nintendo Switch Indie World Showcase.

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

The latest figures from The NPD Group reveal that the Nintendo Switch is now the fourth highest selling console in US history, having now eclipsed Sony's sales of the PlayStation 4.

The data shown in NPD's U.S. games industry sales from April 2022 report show that the Nintendo Switch achieved the highest unit sales of any console for both April and all of the overall year to date. These sales push it past the milestone set by PlayStation 4, making the Nintendo Switch the fourth highest unit-selling home console in U.S. history, behind the PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and Wii.

If handheld consoles are counted, Switch is now the sixth highest-selling video game platform in the US, as both the Nintendo DS and Game Boy are comfortably among the best selling games machines of all time.

In April, spending on games hardware incresed by 16% in the US compared to the same period in 2021, which NPD attributes to the improved supply of PS5 and Xbox consoles. That can be seen in the fact that Xbox Series consoles are the second highest-selling devices of both the month and 2022 overall. The PS5, however, led April in terms of dollar sales.

Last month's NPD data revealed that Xbox Series consoles were 2022's best selling platform by dollars made, representing the continued strengthening of the Xbox brand.

For more from Nintendo, check out our dedicated podcast, NVC, and also have a look at everything that was announced as part of the Nintendo Switch Indie World Showcase.

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

Sam Raimi has admitted that he wouldn't consider directing a Tom Holland Spider-Man movie without Tobey Maguire involved because he would "break" his neck for it.

Raimi directed the original Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire and recently returned to the Marvel fold by making his MCU debut with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, while Tobey Maguire appeared alongside fellow web-slingers Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which Raimi previously called "so much fun."

In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Raimi admitted that, while Spider-Man: No Way Home was "a complete audience thrill ride" and it was "great" to see his old friends on screen again, he is not interested in helming a Tom Holland-led Spider-Man movie unless Maguire signed up for it, as Raimi joked that he might have some strong feelings about it.

"I love Spider-Man," Raimi said. "And I love Tom Holland in the role. [But] if I made a Spider-Man movie, it would probably have to be with Tobey or he'd break my neck."

The feelings about them working together again are obviously mutual, as Raimi previously stressed his desire to work with Maguire once more on a project, whether that be Spider-Man or something else. He admitted that teaming up on a Spider-Man movie would be "beautiful," but that there are no immediate plans for the pair to reunite.

"I don't really have a story or a plan," Raimi told Fandango ahead of the release of his first MCU film. "I don't know if Marvel would be interested in that right now. I don't know what their thoughts are about that. I haven't really pursued that. But it sounds beautiful. Even if it wasn't a Spider-Man movie, I'd love to work with Tobey again, in a different role."

Like all MCU movies, Spider-Man: No Way Home left us with plenty of burning questions about where the Spider-Man franchise could go next – that is if Tom Holland returns for Spider-Man 4. While Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal has suggested Holland would return for another three films, Holland has said he doesn’t want to play Spidey beyond age 30.

The future of the Spider-Man franchise may be uncertain right now, but there are plenty of Marvel releases to look forward to in the meantime. Ms. Marvel is set to premiere on Disney+ on June 8, one month prior to the release of Thor: Love and Thunder in theaters. The next MCU movie after that will be Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in November.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Sam Raimi has admitted that he wouldn't consider directing a Tom Holland Spider-Man movie without Tobey Maguire involved because he would "break" his neck for it.

Raimi directed the original Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire and recently returned to the Marvel fold by making his MCU debut with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, while Tobey Maguire appeared alongside fellow web-slingers Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which Raimi previously called "so much fun."

In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Raimi admitted that, while Spider-Man: No Way Home was "a complete audience thrill ride" and it was "great" to see his old friends on screen again, he is not interested in helming a Tom Holland-led Spider-Man movie unless Maguire signed up for it, as Raimi joked that he might have some strong feelings about it.

"I love Spider-Man," Raimi said. "And I love Tom Holland in the role. [But] if I made a Spider-Man movie, it would probably have to be with Tobey or he'd break my neck."

The feelings about them working together again are obviously mutual, as Raimi previously stressed his desire to work with Maguire once more on a project, whether that be Spider-Man or something else. He admitted that teaming up on a Spider-Man movie would be "beautiful," but that there are no immediate plans for the pair to reunite.

"I don't really have a story or a plan," Raimi told Fandango ahead of the release of his first MCU film. "I don't know if Marvel would be interested in that right now. I don't know what their thoughts are about that. I haven't really pursued that. But it sounds beautiful. Even if it wasn't a Spider-Man movie, I'd love to work with Tobey again, in a different role."

Like all MCU movies, Spider-Man: No Way Home left us with plenty of burning questions about where the Spider-Man franchise could go next – that is if Tom Holland returns for Spider-Man 4. While Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal has suggested Holland would return for another three films, Holland has said he doesn’t want to play Spidey beyond age 30.

The future of the Spider-Man franchise may be uncertain right now, but there are plenty of Marvel releases to look forward to in the meantime. Ms. Marvel is set to premiere on Disney+ on June 8, one month prior to the release of Thor: Love and Thunder in theaters. The next MCU movie after that will be Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in November.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has put his Twitter buyout "temporarily on hold" as claims that less that 5% of users on the platform are false or spam accounts are checked.

Musk said in a tweet (below) that the "Twitter deal [is] temporarily on hold pending details supporting [the] calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users".

Musk has said that addressing the number of spam and bot accounts on Twitter would be one of his key priorities, but he now appears to be making sure there aren't too many of these non-monetizable accounts before the deal goes through.

Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022

The tweet is the first public hesitation Musk has shown over his purchase of Twitter and references data from May 2, released a week after his offer of $44 billion was accepted, which claimed fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily users were fake accounts.

However, in a subsequent tweet, Musk made clear that he is "still committed to acquisition."

Musk didn't say the deal would be cancelled if more than 5% of accounts do turn out to be fake but putting the deal on hold at all is in fairly significant contrast to his (and Twitter's) previous attitude towards the buyout.

The social media giant's founder Jack Dorsey called Musk "the singular solution I trust" in a series of tweets celebrating the sale.

Thumbnail image credit: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

A Final Fantasy 14 streamer was jailed in-game, banned for ten days, and got a week's suspension on Twitch for using mods in the MMO, amid a seeming crackdown on their use.

As reported by Polygon, Twitch user Bagel Goose was streaming Final Fantasy 14 with mods active (that altered his own visuals without affecting other players) when his character was teleported to an in-game jail to face judgement from a moderator.

Various mods have been created to alter the players' HUD and make things like damage output (an important statistic for high-level players) clearer, but a blog post from Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida on May 9 made clear even these are prohibited.

There's no way my tank got pulled out of DSR mid pull to get a 10 day ban on a clean account. I hate it here.

— Melo (@MeloArkwind) May 10, 2022

While these mods may not be damaging to other players, Yoshida said, analysing every mod in existence to determine its appropriateness "is physically impossible, which is why we decided to simply prohibit the use of all third-party tools and software."

The in-jail conversations between player and moderator are kept fairly secret, and while Bagel Goose's imprisonment can be seen on YouTube, any videos of the assessment and subsequent punishment were seemingly removed soon after being uploaded.

The Final Fantasy 14 moderator doesn't trigger the Twitch violation, but it appears Bagel Goose was reported to the streaming platform following his in-game jailing and therefore got a seven-day ban on Twitch as well.

Another streamer, Hiroro_FF, was also recently jailed in-game for using mods but the details of his suspension are unclear and his Twitch account remains unbanned.

While Final Fantasy 14 has gone from strength to strength in recent years, it's not without its problems. The game has suffered a digital housing crisis, and Yoshida has asked PvP players to act with more respect or face potential bans.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

The NFL's Los Angeles Chargers have turned their 2022 schedule into a wild anime intro that references One Piece, Naruto, Attack on Titan, and more.

Complete with a J-Pop styled background track, the two-minute trailer first mimics some classic anime intros by showing a handful of players in dramatic poses.

Once the actual schedule starts – which is released by most teams as a simple web page of text – the Chargers begin to reference several famous anime based on which team they're playing that week.

Should we REALLY make our schedule release video an anime?

yes yes yesyes
yesyes yes yes yes
yes yes yes yes yes
yes yesyes yes yes
yes yesye yes yes
yes yes yesyes pic.twitter.com/A0TvmYJUOQ

— Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) May 13, 2022

The Las Vegas Raiders are up first, and as their logo is a pirate, they're parodied using the famous pirate anime One Piece.

A Naruto-themed entry makes an appearance to represent the San Francisco 49ers, the Kansas City Chiefs appear as a giant mech fight (with coaches Brandon Staley and Andy Reid controlling them from the inside), and the Tennessee Titans are, of course, turned into Attack on Titan.

The video has a ton of other references for both NFL and anime fans, with some being riskier than others, and one apparently so risky that the video says the Chargers' lawyers asked it be removed altogether.

It's not the only surprising NFL crossover we've seen lately, as in April the league announced a new annualised series of virtual reality NFL video games and in February Tom Brady revealed in February that he was making and staring in his own football comedy called 80 for Brady.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Loki star Tom Hiddleston has confirmed that production will be starting "this summer" on Season 2 of the MCU Disney+ series.

Hiddleston told Entertainment Tonight that cameras will start rolling on Loki Season 2 "very soon" and that he is excited at the prospect of getting "the band back together," seemingly making reference to his returning co-stars Owen Wilson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who will be reprising their roles as Mobius M. Mobius and Ravonna Renslayer, respectively.

"We're starting very soon. Almost as soon as I leave this room. Not quite, but it's around the corner," the actor revealed. "We'll certainly be going in the summer."

In the same interview, Loki creator Michael Waldron, who penned Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, noted that the upcoming season will take strides in peeling back the layers of Hiddleston's God of Mischief to reveal some new and different aspects of his character while also dealing with the fallout from the events of the first season.

"It's just a continued evolution of the character. That's what was always important to Tom and that's what was important to me," Waldron explained. "If we're going to continue [the first season story] in a second season, we have to cover new emotional ground. And the great news is that that character keeps revealing new layers of texture and complexity."

Beyond picking up the pieces left behind by the first season and further developing the characters, Loki Season 2 will take stock of the Multiverse of Madness and how those events might impact the Time Variance Authority, with Waldron teasing that after "everything that happened in this movie there's probably some branches going all over the place."

"I imagine Mobius is out there watching this on a monitor, having to light up a cigarette and saying, 'Oh my god. I guess we'll have to wait and find out what that means for those guys," he said, pondering the potential repercussions before touching on his personal joy in getting "to work with Tom and continue to bring Loki to life."

Loki's first season director and executive producer Kate Herron previously confirmed that she would not be back to helm the next installment. Since then, Marvel has reportedly tapped Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead to "co-direct a majority of the episodes" based on their past work, including their recent involvement with Moon Knight.

While there's no release date for Loki Season 2 yet, it may be that there's a lot of other Marvel shows to come first – Disney+ already has Ms. Marvel, Secret Invasion, and more on its slate.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

A well-known leaker shared four images of an alleged new Silent Hill game before they were quickly deleted by the "copyright holder" – leading many to believe they are legitimate.

Twitter user Dusk Golem posted the images before their account was locked and the images removed. The leaker later claimed on ResetEra that the copyright claim was made by Silent Hill's owner Konami.

The deleted images have been seen by IGN, and appear to show a handful of appropriately horrid environments, including a rundown house and creepy corridor, alongside a character model whose face is peeling away to reveal bits of paper behind the skin.

(1/2) Silent Hill leak. There's a lot I'm not sharing for now. This is from a relatively new source for me, but I have been given more than enough proof to believe them. I also will mention the names "Anita & Maya", "SMS Messages", & this is not the only SH game in dev. The shots pic.twitter.com/t5MWzNxfFS

— AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem (@AestheticGamer1) May 13, 2022

Dusk Golem has previously leaked correct information, particularly in relation to other Japanese horror series Resident Evil, and claimed to have "more than enough proof to believe" these images were real.

"I will also mention the names 'Anita and Maya', 'SMS Messages', and this is not the only Silent game in development," they added. "I know many will doubt this, but I have a lot of private proof to show this is real."

A Silent Hill reboot has been rumoured since last October and further reports emerged in February, before flaring up once more in March when Konami renewed the series' trademark.

The franchise has been dormant since 2012 outside of a very brief appearance in 2014's P.T. Konami released the demo to tease a new game called Silent Hills, intended to be directed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, but it was cancelled and removed from sale a few months later.

There are eight mainline games in the Silent Hill series, starting with the 1999 original (which IGN said was amazing) and ending with 2012's Silent Hill: Downpour (which IGN said was bad).

While Konami has renewed its trademark for Silent Hill it wasn't so successful in other areas, as in February someone seemingly bought SilentHill.com just to troll the publisher. The website now displayers a single, real tweet from Silent Hill 2 and 3's art director Masahiro Ito, who said he regrets designing the series' iconic villain Pyramid Head.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.