A new social media post from Avengers: Doomsday star Simu Liu has surfaced following the film’s production wrap. The crossover epic will bring back Shang-Chi for his first on-screen appearance since 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Avengers: Doomsday’s Simu Liu posts photos post filming wrap
Simu Liu posted two shirtless photos on X (formerly Twitter) on September 23, 2025, with the caption “wrapped.” The images, one showing him by a sunset view and another in sunglasses under direct sunlight, marked the end of his work on Avengers: Doomsday. The post reached over 238,000 views within hours.
Liu, who first entered the MCU in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, has kept fans updated sparingly about his Marvel projects. A few days ago, he shared an Instagram Story selfie in front of a costume rack, where a labeled bag reading “15. Shang-Chi” confirmed his wardrobe for the upcoming ensemble. The bag concealed the design, indicating that Marvel Studios is keeping Shang-Chi’s new look under wraps until closer to release.
Simu Liu will reprise his role as Shang-Chi with upgrades expected that expand on his dragon-scale suit from 2021. At the end of his solo film, Shang-Chi joined Wong, Captain Marvel, and Bruce Banner, which set up his integration with the Avengers. Reports note that the Ten Rings could function as a critical MacGuffin in Doomsday’s plot, along with Ms. Marvel’s bangles.
Avengers: Doomsday will bring together characters from across Marvel properties, including the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and New Avengers. Robert Downey Jr. will return in a new role as Doctor Doom, who threatens the multiverse. Simu Liu stands among dozens of confirmed returning heroes ready to confront Doom’s challenge.
Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed the 2021 Shang-Chi movie, was initially supposed to direct Avengers 5 before Marvel reassigned leadership, but the studio kept Liu in the cast. Marvel Studios will release Avengers: Doomsday in theaters on December 18, 2026.
Originally reported by Anubhav Chaudhry on SuperHeroHype.
The MCU’s favorite web-crawler will return to theaters in 2026. Spider-Man 4 will debut shortly after Avengers: Doomsday that year, with star Tom Holland confirming that production will begin mid-2025.
Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel
“Next summer we start shooting. Everything’s good to go, We’re nearly there,” Holland said in an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon earlier this week. “Super exciting. I can’t wait!” Spider-Man 4, the follow up to 2021’s No Way Home, will officially release on July 24, 2026.
That puts it just a couple months after Avengers: Doomsday, which debuts on May 1 of that year, and stars Robert Downey Jr. as the titular Fantastic Four villain, as was revealed earlier this year at San Diego Comic Con 2024. That grouping recreates the previous one-two comic book punch when Far From Home released shortly after Avengers: Endgame, capping off the multi-year, multi-movie MCU saga.
The sequel will be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who made Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and presumably have some tie-in with the greater MCU, though it’s not clear how exactly yet. “I’ve been speaking to [Robert Downey Jr.] a lot, especially about him making his [Marvel] return, which is super exciting,” Holland said on the Rich Rollpodcast earlier this month. “That was a tough secret to sit on because I have a reputation for ruining things and I strategically have done no press.”
The young actor, who also starred in 2022’s Uncharted, an adaptation of the hit PlayStation games, said the script for Spider-Man 4 had him excited. “We have a creative and we have a pitch and a draft, which is excellent. It needs work, but the writers are doing a great job. I read it three weeks ago and it really lit a fire in me,” Holland told the Rich Roll podcast. “Zendaya and I sat down and read it together and we at times were bouncing around the living room like this is a real movie worthy of the fans’ respect.”
This is my cat. Imagine the game is called Cult of the Cat. Image: Massive Monster / Devolver Digital / Kotaku
2022 wasn’t just the year that I started here at Kotaku, or the year that I accidentally went viral for daring to ask rich guys to dress nice at awards shows—it was also the year that I forced myself to stretch outside of my comfort zone.
I am a video game jock, always searching for the high of a win earned in buzzer-beater plays through solid communication amongst teammates. I spend most of my spare time playing competitive shooters in an attempt to mimic the feeling I get when I PR at the gym, or beat our rival co-ed footy team after an especially physical match. Much like how I am as an athlete or just a regular ol’ civilian, I’m not a fan of trying new things that I could potentially be bad at. It’s why I quit guitar lessons after a month, why I doggedly refuse to go bowling, why I can only do karaoke if I am absolutely pickled drunk.
But this year, I tried some new stuff—and not all of it was technically new. I took competitive breaks from Overwatch 2 with round after round of Marvel Snap. I sunk hours into Elden Ring after swearing off Soulslikes. I gave Cyberpunk 2077 an actual effort, rather than just ragging on it to anyone who would listen. I wouldn’t say this is the most well-rounded GOTY list you’ll find here at Kotaku, but it’s indicative of my growth as a gamer.
I can try new things, and I can like them. Just don’t fucking take me bowling.
Overwatch 2
Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku
Its battle pass isn’t great, its cosmetics are too expensive (people want loot boxes back, for fuck’s sake), and as a healer main I’m still tired of getting my ass beat in 5v5 combat, but Overwatch 2 has consumed me ever since its launch. It’s the only game I play consistently with people I also hang out with in real life; we send each other daily texts as the workday nears its close that just read “ow?” Then, we spend the night ignoring our respective partners and screaming bizarre Overwatch slang into our headsets.
With Overwatch 1 dead and gone, Overwatch 2 is the only way to scratch my hero shooter itch. And even though there are aspects of it that bring me great pain (the move towards a more generic, shooter-y shooter being the main issue), I still get so much satisfaction from a hard-fought comp win. I’m an Overwatch-er for life, sadly. I wish I knew how to quit you.
Cult of the Lamb
Image: Massive Monster / Devolver Digital
Not long into my Cult of the Lamb playthrough, one of my cultists (a cow my partner named Cunty), tells me that he wants to eat shit. Literally. He has always wanted to try and eat poop. So, I go and collect some shit produced by a fellow cultist of his, cook it up into a meal, and serve it to him. He’s happy. He’s more of a believer. I’m assuming this is what Scientology is like.
Cult of the Lamb is pretty much this all the way through: dumb fun that looks really good. I find I enjoy the village cultivation more than I enjoy the roguelike elements, but the latter is so simple and solid that it’s easy to zone out and spend a few hours hacking away at enemies. Then, when you return to your village, there’s always something stupid waiting for you, whether it’s a dissenter talking shit or a loyal follower eating it.
Marvel Snap
Screenshot: Second Dinner / Kotaku
When I first joined Kotaku, everyone was deep in the throes of Marvel Snap. I felt a little left out and wanted to make myself likable as quickly as possible, so I downloaded the mobile card battler on my first day in office. The rest, my little goblin friends, is history—Snap consumed my every waking moment whether I was on the subway, walking to the subway, waiting for the subway, in-between rounds of Overwatch 2 comp, or on the toilet (the latter of which I’m sure my gastroenterologist will be very upset with me about).
For a while, I stuck with a build that another Kotaku staffer had helped me out with, but then, as my Snap senses improved, I started building decks to purposefully fuck with other players. Now, I am the Snap devil. I’ve only been here a few weeks and I am insufferable. I’ve been told by loved ones that the horrific, evil giggle that escapes me when I hit an enemy player with Elektra one turn, then Killmonger the next, then Shang-Chi after that is concerning, and I would have to agree.
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
Screenshot: Bungie / Kotaku
Bungie’s best bit is coming around once a year to remind you that it still makes some of the best campaigns of all time. The Destiny 2 conversation so often gets bogged down in sunsetting content, skill-based matchmaking drama, and the value (or lack thereof) of the grind, but when an expansion like The Witch Queen drops it’s all anyone can talk about—and for good reason.
The story of Savathûn managed to fill gaps in Destiny lore, establish her as the best villain the game has ever seen, and lay out a path for the ideological struggles that will continue into the franchise’s future. It was a legible hunk of narrative meat (a rarity for Destiny, which needs video explainers to explain its video explainers) that cashed in on plot threads Bungie has been spinning for years. Plus the Witch Queen gave us a sick raid and new Void abilities for players to go gaga over. Destiny good.
Stray
Photo: Alyssa Mercante / Annapurna Interactive
I am NYC certified in Trap-Neuter-Return and cat colony management and I have three rescue cats (one of which I caught and socialized myself), so of course I love the cat game. It’s a game where you play as a cat and do cat things. There are cat sounds. My cats like the cat sounds and sometimes they watch me play—this is all very wholesome shit.
Stray isn’t going to break any boundaries but it is going to let you scratch up a couch like a cat would, and it does feature some of the prettiest level design of the year. I’m also a huge fan of how the robot NPCs react to your little cat: I will never forget when I jumped up on a surface and interrupted two of them playing a tabletop game, just to trot past them a few minutes later and see them still struggling to pick up all the pieces.
Neon White
Image: Annapurna Interactive
Neon White is crazy, sexy, cool. This game has it all: pop-art visuals, speedrunning mechanics, a soundtrack from Machine Girl, and a collection of attractive demons called Neons competing to purge heaven of their demonic ilk. It’s hard to define Neon White, as it feels almost like the anti-game-genre game—there are FPS elements, sure, but there’s also dating sim stuff, and a lot of platforming. There’s cards, but it’s not a deck builder. It’s got puzzles. You’ll speed through some of its levels in under 20 seconds, while larger, boss-y levels may take you a few minutes—but nothing in Neon White will eat up your time unless you let it. Trust me, you’ll let it.
Apex Legends
Image: Respawn
Apex Legends is always there for me when I need it. It’ll lay dormant in my gaming pile for months, but whenever I return, it consistently gives me the tight, focused shooter gameplay I crave after some wonky Warzone 2.0 matches or a frustrating Overwatch loss. Apex Legends is one of the best live-service games out there right now thanks to a near-perfect mix of new content, necessary patches, and smart, measured updates. Respawn is always shaking up the maps and weapon pool just enough to keep the game fresh, but not too much that it upends its impressively precarious balance.
Catalyst, the game’s latest playable character, dropped just in time to obliterate an annoying meta that had been building up for months, and brought with her yet another reminder that Respawn is one of the few popular games unafraid to center trans and non-binary folk. That’s probably why I find members of the alphabet army in so many of my Apex Legends lobbies—and I live for it. Apex Legends is my safety net. It will always be on any GOTY list of mine.
Cyberpunk 2077
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
Like many who participated in the two-year wait for Cyberpunk 2077 to become playable, I finally decided to try out CD Projekt Red’s latest RPG this year. From the moment I saw the character creator, I knew that it was going to be the kind of time-suck game that would threaten my relationships, gym sessions, and personal hygiene. I pored over every inch of my V, from her buzzed head to the smattering of freckles across her cheeks. I agonized over her body mods and tattoos. When I finally left the character creator and started playing the game, I’d pause and take screenshots anytime her shiny chrome nails were in view.
When I give myself the time to get lost in Night City, I get lost lost, and emerge blinking into the sunlight of the real world half a day later, crunchy thumpy techno music still ringing in my ears.
Weird West
Image: WolfEye Studios
I previewed this top-down, twin-stick RPG from Raphael Colantonio last year and it was absolutely brutal. It’s still just as brutal today, but getting some proper time with it helps drive home that this is a rock-solid immersive sim set in a supremely cool world. Undead miners and sirens lurk everywhere in this alternate-universe Wild West, but along with an arsenal of weapons you’ve got ample opportunity to use the environment to keep yourself alive.
And the world of Weird West remembers. At one point, I hired a bodyguard to accompany me across the plains because I was sick of getting my ass kicked. Together, we successfully made it through a tough section, but as we emerged into the next area and got jumped by some zombies, I accidentally lit him on fire. I didn’t think much of it as he died in front of my eyes, but I did pause to rifle through his pockets for spare change. Hours later, when I returned to the town where we first met, an NPC sitting near the saloon was mourning their lost family member. “Oops,” I mumbled under my breath. Weird West doesn’t want you to think of its characters as disposable, asshole.
Elden Ring
Screenshot: FromSoftware / Kotaku
Until Elden Ring, I was a proud Soulslike hater. The games were the epitome of everything I despise: frustratingly difficult, punishingly cruel, and full of gamers with superiority complexes. I had tried and failed to play both Dark Souls Remastered and Bloodborne and wanted no part of Elden Ring—until it was revealed that you’d be able to freely roam through its world, avoiding annoying early-game bosses and honing your abilities so that you’d be strong enough to take that boss down with one flourish of your staff.
From the moment I rose as a Tarnished in the Lands Between, I knew that this was the kind of title that would be considered a benchmark in gaming history. For it to live up to and exceed the hype that surrounded it for years is something special, but what’s remarkable is how Elden Ring ushered in an entirely new player base thanks to its open-world opportunities. The flexibility of Elden Ring and its beautiful, bizarre world made me FromSoft-pilled, and now I’m ready to go through the studio’s entire portfolio.
If you, like me John Walker, are still fathoming your way through the lower echelons of Marvel Snap, there’s a good chance there are cards you’re clinging on to because they were working so well for you. However, you’re now starting to lose more often, wondering what went wrong. The answer is: Kill your darlings.
With the help of my colleague Zack Zwiezen—who has been playing the game for some time now—we’ve come up with a list of cards that you might want to cut from your decks.
Now, let’s be clear: Neither of us is saying these cards are totally useless, or that keeping them in your deck is always a bad idea. It’s just, they’re the ones that felt so good early on that you might not have been able to bring yourself to acknowledge their weaknesses, and are holding you back from experimenting with more interesting combinations. Be bold, be brave, and let these babies go.
And remember you can always add them back later if you experiment too much and end up with a stinker deck! Anyway, let’s start cutting some cards!
Quicksilver
Image: Marvel / Second Dinner / Kotaku
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As Kotaku has previously broken down, Quicksilver was developer Second Dinner’s brilliant solution to entirely removing the concept of mulligans from their deckbuilding card game. Guaranteeing a 1-cost card in your hand at the start of every game ensures you can always play in the first round, every time, and add 2 power to the board right away. Which, at first, felt vital. Except, the more you play, the more you realize that being able to play in the first round isn’t actually all that important.
Chances are, you’re not going to be placing down anything game-changing that first turn. And indeed by not playing in round one, you fend off other 1-cost cards like Elektra. You can even obnoxiously opt out of playing a 1-cost you might have in your hand in Round 1, just so you can play two of them more tactically in Round 2. Again, for example, Elektra!
And, as we’ll get to below, decks that opt for as many 1-cost cards as possible will get increasingly weak as you climb the ranks, meaning Quicksilver’s lack of any further abilities quickly makes him more of a burden than a boon.
Uatu
Image: Marvel / Second Dinner / Kotaku
When you first stumble upon Uatu, he feels like a secret hack, a card offering you special insight unavailable to anyone yet to find him. His ability to show you the properties of unrevealed locations feels like something that lets you plan ahead and make psychic moves your opponent can’t predict. And, to some extent, on some level, he sort of does.
Except, that won’t happen nearly often enough to justify Uatu taking up a valuable slot in your 12-card deck. The issue lies in the number of conditions that need to be right for him to actually prove helpful. Rather obviously, you need the luck of drawing him early enough to work. Unless you get him in the first or second round, Uatu’s ability is pretty useless. Secondly, you need to be playing a game with locations where prior knowledge is actually of use.
So many locations have properties where foreknowledge is of very little value. Finding out that when it reveals you’ll get a random card added to your hand, a random card taken from it, or a 12-power card added to both sides…it’s very rare that this will be vital information to you. Yes, there are absolutely circumstances where it’s great, where knowing each card will get 5+ power when played there means you can load up and dominate where your opponent might not know to. But does that happen frequently enough for Uatu to remain a vital card? Really, no.
Hulk
Image: Marvel / Second Dinner / Kotaku
This one is hard. But listen: There are better and more interesting ways for a big finish. Hulk’s there from the start to give you that satisfaction of playing a ridiculous 12-power card on those Pool 1 bots. But he’s baby food, and you’re ready for solids.
Sure, you’ve nothing else in your deck that offers that much power. It’s simple logic. But Hulk’s simplicity is the issue. Using up all your energy in Round 6 on one card that does nothing other than add a bunch of power means you’re missing out on much more fun big finishes. Never mind that Shang-Chi, available from Collection Level 222, can obliterate him with his “Destroy all enemy cards at this location that have 9 or more Power.”
But there are so many cards that do more interesting things in the final round. Like Odin, who adds 8 power, but also refires all the On Reveal abilities of the other cards at the location. That means you can see White Tiger putting out another 7-power card onto another location, bringing her total contribution to 15, while at the same time retriggering Gamora’s additional +5 power if the opponent plays a card there. That puts Gamora up to a total of 17, even without taking into account a possible third card at the location, just playing Odin has increased our power by 20. Take that, Hulk.
America Chavez
Image: Marvel / Second Dinner / Kotaku
When you first get this card you might be excited. America is a 6-cost/9-power card that always shows up on turn six, which is usually the last turn of most Marvel Snap games. And yeah, it’s nice knowing a powerful 9-power card is definitely going to show up at the end of your match. But this also means she’s not hanging around in your hand, meaning she can’t get buffed or randomly tossed into the field early on.
And while adding 9-power at the end of a match can be useful, you’ll quickly encounter games as you rank up where 9-power just isn’t enough to win back a zone or lock something down. Worse, America has no special abilities beyond showing up on turn 6. So, like Quicksilver, she shows up and doesn’t really do anything. And unlike the Hulk who is very strong, America is only sort of strong. In a specific deck built around buffing, she can work, but there are better 6 and even 5-cost cards to swap in instead.
Domino
Image: Marvel / Second Dinner / Kotaku
Let’s just toss this on here too, while we are talking about America Chavez and Quicksilver. Like those cards, Domino has a unique ability that means she is guaranteed to end up in your hand on turn two. And as a 2-cost/3-power, she seems useful as a follow-up to Quicksilver on turn one. And early on, you can definitely win with Domino. But eventually, you’ll need to get over these cards.
It’s hard, I know, but while giving them up means you give up the consistency of always knowing what’s coming on turns one, two, and six, you are also giving up three slots in your small 12-card deck to characters with no other purpose. They don’t buff, boost, move, kill, destroy, or do anything useful like that. Again, in certain decks, these cards can be useful. But there are just so many better cards that you could use instead of Domino, Quicksilver, and America. Say goodbye to consistency and hello to chaos. It’s the Marvel Snap way.
Mantis
Image: Marvel / Second Dinner / Kotaku
Mantis, like the other Guardians of the Galaxy-related characters, has a reveal ability that pops when your opponent plays a card in that location on the same turn it’s played. But unlike Gamora, Star-Lord, or Rocket, Mantis doesn’t get a power boost, instead drawing a card from the opposing player’s deck. This is fun and chaotic, which we support! Snap is more fun when things are hard to predict and wild. But this becomes far less useful in most situations pretty quickly.
The number of times people play Mantis, get a card, and then never use that card because it doesn’t sync up with their deck’s synergy is high. And that’s if your opponent plays a card that turn and you guess the location right. If you don’t do that, then Mantis is a crappy 1-cost/2-power paperweight just begging to be killed by Elektra or worse, left there with no way for you to remove it, taking up valuable real estate. So, yeah, ditch Mantis. And if you are screaming “Well, she is a part of my Zoo Deck!” right now, here’s more bad news…
Zoo Decks
Image: Marvel / Second Dinner / Kotaku
The “Zoo Deck” was certainly one of the most popular meta decks of Snap’s early days, but in the face of the more common addition of Killmonger to players’ decks, it’s now proving a liability.
A Zoo Deck is a community-given name for decks that put together a lot of low-cost cards, especially 1-cost cards, which often have animal art on them. (Not often enough to justify the name, but that’s the name they’ve gotten anyway.) Advocates celebrate that they allow you to play multiple cards in later rounds, surprising players who rely on hefty 5 and 6-cost cards, like some sort of cheeky rascal scampering between the angry giant’s legs. Except, because of Killmonger, they’re pretty much useless.
Killmonger does appear to be an incredible OP card, although he can only be picked up by players who’ve reached Collection Level 462. At just 3-cost, with 3 power, it’s a card that can be played from round 3 onward, and devastatingly takes out every single 1-cost card from the board. Yours and theirs. And people in Pool 2 are reporting seeing it showing up a lot. The effects are brutal. Oh, and Zoo Decks can also get beat badly by a Scorpion, which lowers the attack power of all the cards in your hand by one, which can easily cost you a close match when most 1-cost cards are low in power. So yeah, Zoo Decks are fun…but not worth it later on.
There is an endless debate with a few different sides to it regarding Rotten Tomatoes that crops up every time a new big movie or show comes out. Either the critics score is the most important because they’re professionals and audience scores can be overtaken by fanboys. Or critics are snobs and the only score that matters is what the audience thinks. Or neither matters, and you should just decide for yourself. But I mean, who has the time to test-watch everything?
I’ve seen all the angles. Sometimes it seems like critics get it wrong. Other times it seems like audience scores are warped by positive or negative mass bombing. But one theory is that if you average the two scores, you get a more accurate picture of where the truth lies. So I’m going to try that.
I am going to rewrite an old list of the best MCU movies and shows (DCEU later) based on what happens when you combine the two scores together. And we’ll see where we are at the end of that. If there’s a tie, I gave it to critics score.
Spider-Man: No Way Home – 95.5 (93% critics, 98% audience)
Shang-Chi – 94.5 (91% critics, 98% audience)
What If…? – 93.5 (94% critics, 93% audience)
Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD – 93 (95% critics, 91% audience)
Iron Man – 92.5 (94% critics, 91% audience)
Spider-Man: Far From Home – 92.5 (90% critics, 95% audience)
Avengers Endgame – 92 (94% critics, 90% audience)
Guardians of the Galaxy – 92 (92% critics, 92% audience)
Loki – 91 (92% critics, 90% audience)
Marvel’s The Avengers – 91 (91% critics, 91% audience)
Captain America: Civil War – 89.5 (90% critics, 89% audience)
Ms. Marvel – 88.5 (97% critics, 80% audience)
Avengers Infinity War – 88 (85% critics, 91% audience)
Black Panther – 87.5 (96% critics, 79% audience)
Doctor Strange – 87.5 (89% critics, 86% audience)
Moon Knight – 87.5 (86% critics, 89% audience)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – 86 (85% critics, 87% audience)
Black Widow – 85 (79% critics, 91% audience)
Ant-Man – 84 (83% critics, 85% audience)
Ant-Man and the Wasp – 83.5 (87% critics, 80% audience)
Marvel’s Agent Carter – 81.5 (86% critics, 77% audience)
Jessica Jones – 81.5 (83% critics, 80% audience)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – 79.5 (74% critics, 85% audience)
Avengers: Age of Ultron- 79 (76% critics, 82% audience)
Luke Cage – 78.5 (87% critics, 70% audience)
Iron Man 3 – 78.5 (79% critics, 78% audience)
Captain America: The First Avenger – 77 (79% critics, 75% audience)
Thor – 76.5 (77% critics, 76% audience)
The Defenders – 74 (78% critics, 70% audience)
Iron Man 2 – 72 (71% critics, 71% audience)
Thor: The Dark World – 70.5 (66% critics, 75% audience)
The Punisher – 71 (64% critics, 78% audience)
Thor: Love and Thunder – 70.5 (64% critics, 77% audience)
The Incredible Hulk – 68 (67% critics, 69% audience)
Captain Marvel – 62 (79% critics, 45% audience)
Eternals – 62 (47% critics, 77% audience)
She-Hulk – 60 (85% critics, 34% audience)
Iron Fist – 52.5 (37% critics, 68% audience)
Inhumans – 27 (11% critics, 43% audience)
So, a few trends. Audience scores are generally higher than critics, but sometimes the two groups agree almost exactly like with What If…?, Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel’s The Avengers. Everyone seems to agree that Iron Fist and Inhumans are the worst-ever things in the MCU. The top 5 are a little surprising, including Shang-Chi’s bonkers high audience score, which is impressively tied with No Way Home.
Okay phew, this will be much easier with the DCEU.
