Key Note Gaming

If you’ve never played Magic: The Gathering (MTG), the prospect of getting into it can seem pretty daunting. This is a game, after all, with 30+ years of history. That’s more than three decades of cards and mechanics, worldbuilding and lore. If you’ve ever lived and breathed a live service video game you’ll know just how much energy and time it can take simply to keep up. Constant new releases and updates that drive an ever-evolving meta mean it can be tricky to be even a casual fan… let alone finding your feet as a completely new player. Magic: The Gathering definitely has many of the same challenges, but it also has more ways to interact with its cards and its history and its gameplay on your own terms. The fact that it’s mostly played as a physical game, for instance, means that it doesn’t necessarily matter what the best decks are, and what the most competitive players are doing. If you have a bad but fun deck and I have the same, we can still play and have a good time. Wizards of ...

Love and Deepspace fans are holding memorial services for Valko after Infold, the game’s developer, pulled the plug on the wolfy love interest mere days before his debut. Chinese LADS players are showing up to Infold's Shanghai HQ in droves, bringing with them flowers, candles, and tears as they mourn the loss of a character they were excited to romance come July 9. Videos of sobbing fans at the office building are taking social media by storm, but this isn’t the only way players are showing their disapproval of Infold’s choices — they’ve also signed a petition demanding the developer reverse their decision and bring Valko back. "When I first arrived at the Diezhi building and saw that wall, I couldn't help but cry. A girl shared her chocolate with me, another girl was herself choked up as she comforted me and held my hand." pic.twitter.com/1Y66FfAnhV — 𝒔𝒖𝒛𝒖 (@pinkcrispss) July 1, 2026 At the time of writing, the petition boasts over 78,000 verified signat...

After a long hiatus from Civilization 7 following my original review – after which I wasn't exactly in love with it – I decided to give it another go with the big 1.4 Test of Time update, and more specifically the 1.4.1 patch that came out in late June 2026. Firaxis has made pretty big changes across the board, including some much-needed quality-of-life improvements here. But I don't know if I agree with the overall philosophy of making it more like older, existing Civ games. In May, Take-Two' Strauss Zelnick told Game File that Civilization 7 had been a "bridge too far" for existing fans of the series. That's definitely the guiding star the Test of Time update was based on. And man, from my perspective, that was completely the wrong message to take from the negative feedback to Civ 7's launch. There's a quote I keep coming back to from No Man's Sky developer Sean Murray that goes, "Players are normally almost always right about problems … [b...

While Daigo Umehara isn’t dissatisfied with the current state of Street Fighter 6, he says the game’s “random” style makes it difficult to determine the best player in modern tournament settings. Evo 2026 is in the books, with Saul ‘MenaRD’ Mena once again claiming victory on the biggest stage in all of fighting games. It’s hard to argue against his current status as the most dominant Street Fighter 6 player, with two Capcom Cup championships and four Evo victories to his name… but Daigo Umehara isn’t sure a true ‘GOAT’ of the game has yet been crowned. We got the chance to sit down with ‘The Beast’ of fighting games during Sunday finals, who revealed his surprising take on the divisive nature of Street Fighter 6’s balance as it stands at the tail end of Season 3. Right now, the Western fighting game community (FGC) is vocally outspoken regarding Street Fighter 6’s Drive Rush mechanic, arguing that the tool is too overpowered and hard to ‘check’ even at the best of times — something ...

With all of the excitement surrounding the new upcoming fighting games like Marvel Tokon , Avatar Legends , and Virtua Fighter Crossroads , as well as all of the buzz surrounding Tifa and Yujiro Hanma joining Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 respectively, it's easy to feel like Guilty Gear Strive has fallen a bit into the background. But the reality is that Strive is still going strong after six years, especially after the Guilty Gear Strive 2.0 patch completely revitalized the meta with the removal of a core system mechanic and a roster wide rebalancing patch. At Evo this year, I got to do my yearly catch up with Guilty Gear Strive Producer Ken Miyauchi, to chat about what's still to come in the world of Strive, how he feels about the current state of the game, and what players can expect when Robo Ky releases later this week. IGN: I asked you last year if you could share any details about Robo-Ky and Jam. Obviously it was a little bit too early back then and Jam is already at...

The first Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 teaser is here, and fans have already found some of the locations the new season pulled from Cyberpunk 2077 . Netflix, CD Projekt Red, and Studio Trigger returned with a minute-and-a-half teaser for Season 2 of its anime adaptation today. As if there was ever any doubt, it's a brutal trailer, using Rico Nasty's "You Can't Run From Me" to show how characters like Weak Kingsley, D, Roman Carax, and Talia Yang will tear back into Night City. Despite offering such a small slice of the 10 episodes set to premiere this fall, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 has already given fans a lot to sink their teeth into. Watchers have been so starved for updates that some Cyberpunk 2077 players have already loaded back into Night City to find where some of the show's scenes will take place. New crew. New story. Same Night City. Get ready to jack back in. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 is coming Fall, 2026. pic.twitter.com/27OTFA31pi — Cyberpunk: Edg...

You certainly could make a case for MenaRD being the best Street Fighter 6 player in the world right now. His win at Sunday's Evolution Championship Series in Las Vegas brings him up to four total Evo wins, with two back-to-back wins at Evo in Las Vegas (2025-2026) and two back-to-back wins at Evo Japan (2024-2025). And while his Blanka looked dominant throughout the tournament, one of the more interesting stories that came out of the Street Fighter 6 top eight was the fact that in his most crucial matches, Mena opted against using the character that he's most well known for. In Winners Semis, Mena started off by using M. Bison, going 2-2 with Shigematsu's Blanka. After swapping to Blanka for the mirror match in the deciding game, Mena won a hard fought game that ended up going to the final round, sending Shigematsu down to the losers bracket. Shigematsu wouldn't be denied his runback however, as he ended up fighting his way through Dogura, Craime, and Kilzyou to reach...