Game of Thrones spinoff A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will launch on HBO Max in January 2026, Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO, HBO and HBO Max Content, has confirmed.

Speaking to Variety, Bloys set January as the release date for the hotly anticipated show, which adapts George R. R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novella trilogy, itself a prequel to Game of Thrones set 90 years before the events of the main books.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has been an especially exciting part of HBO’s slate of upcoming shows set in the world of Westeros, as Martin teased earlier this year that he couldn’t wait to see Dunk and Egg’s story come to TV screens.

“I’ve seen all six episodes now (the last two in rough cuts, admittedly), and I loved them," Martin said in a blog post in January. "Dunk and Egg have always been favorites of mine, and the actors we found to portray them are just incredible. The rest of the cast are terrific as well. Wait until you guys meet the Laughing Storm and Tanselle Too-Tall.”

Martin continued to celebrate A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, adding, “It’s as faithful an adaptation as a reasonable man could hope for (and you all know how incredibly reasonable I am on that particular subject).”

Despite Martin’s towering praise, we’ve seen little from the show since it was announced in 2021. After locking in actors Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell to play Ser Duncan the Tall and Egg, respectively, HBO went on to reveal one image from the show in June 2024. A brief teaser trailer followed in August, showing a glimpse at some of the series’ major players and a few shots of familiar Game of Thrones action.

House of the Dragon Season 3, meanwhile, is set for release early summer 2026. In a separate interview with Deadline, June was suggested.

In March this year, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal called George R.R. Martin’s criticisms of the series’ second season “disappointing” following remarks the author published in 2024.

Drama in the Game of Thrones world began when Martin promised to dive into “everything that’s gone wrong with House of the Dragon” in August last year. It’s a promise he kept, going on to call out plot elements related to Aegon and Helaena’s children as he expressed concern for how future seasons of the show might play out. The post was eventually removed from the author’s website without explanation but not before thousands of fans — and HBO — caught wind of the grievances it presented.

While Martine sounds more enthusiastic about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms than House of the Dragon, 2026 is set to be a big year for Game of Thrones spinoff TV with two major series on the way.

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.

Borderlands 4 players have discovered an infinite damage build so broken it kills bosses in seconds — even on the hardest difficulty levels.

As reported by PC Gamer, YouTuber NickTew released gameplay showing a Vex build that makes a mockery of Borderlands 4’s toughest enemies. And now the build is spreading like wildfire, fans are convinced Gearbox will soon nerf it into the ground. So, as NickTew suggested: “abuse it while you can.”

To make this build work you need the Vampiric Vivisecting Throwing Knife with the Penetrator Augment. Land a hit with this knife and subsequent damage to the target are automatic critical hits for five seconds.

Here’s the trick: add bleed stacking and each tick of the bleed effect registers as a critical hit. Yep, every one is a crit.

That’s brilliant for every class, but it’s even better for Vex because of her Bloodletter passive. This makes your gun and skill critical hits have a chance to apply bleed, which counts as gun damage and is based on the initial damage dealt.

Vex's Contamination passive adds to the carnage, because it causes critical hits to increase status effect application chance up to 100%, ensuring the bleed re-procs infinitely. So, throw the knife, land one big shot on the boss, and watch the numbers get bigger and bigger as the bleed ticks it down.

NickTew nukes a boss with a level 32 weapon on the Ultimate Vault Hunter Level 5 difficulty, just to show how effective the build really is. This difficulty means enemies have an additional 350% HP, and the boss still goes down in seconds.

The problem is, a knife with this augment is a rare find (hopefully you didn't sell or drop one you picked up early game!), so you’ll probably need to do some farming to get it (Splashzone seems like a good shout). Once done, though, the build is essentially complete.

If you are delving into Borderlands 4, don't go without updated hourly SHiFT codes list. We've also got a huge interactive map ready to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus check out our expert players' choices for which character to choose (no one agreed).

It’s worth noting that there appears to be an issue with using this build in co-op, although we’re not sure why.

Obviously, Gearbox will take a look at this one, although Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins has said the developer won’t “knee jerk react to anything.” Indeed, fans are saying this build should be nerfed, as it’s clearly operating in a way that breaks the game.

“I honestly think this has to get nerfed,” said one YouTube commenter. “There’s OP build and then there’s this. It just trivialises the game to the point that the guns don’t even matter anymore. Just apply the penetrator debuff and bleed and then watch it go exponential in damage. Probably not an interaction the devs picked up on in balance testing.”

Gearbox has a lot to contend with right now, including improving performance (while Randy Pitchford tweets through it), adding a field of view (FOV) slider to the console version, and working on post-launch content.

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.

Sega has reignited its old rivalry against Nintendo in a spicy trailer for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds that doesn't hold back on its comparisons with Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World.

In a voiceover for CrossWorlds' "Come Race on Our Level" trailer, Sega highlights the differences between the two games, hyping up its game's multiverse-spanning racetracks and cross-platform gameplay. The same voiceover then noticeably sounds bored when referencing the other game's ability to "roam around on the open world" — a clear nod to Mario Kart World, whose open-world gameplay has garnered a mixed response from fans.

What looks to be actual footage of Mario Kart World is even featured in the trailer — although Sega has pixellated the video, presumably to avoid getting sued.

The excitement levels from both games are represented visually with a sleek and speedy racecar for Crossworlds, compared to a dusty, old-fashioned RV for Mario Kart World. One shot shows it stall next to a cow (a likely nod to the game's breakout Cow character) and a tortoise — an animal not known for its speed.

"We all know that kart racing game," the trailer's voiceover states. "It's great, we don't need to show it to you. But what if you could blast through and race on a whole other level? What if you could warp across different dimensions, fully customise and build out your machine and compete head-to-head across different platforms?

"Or, er, what if you want to... roam around on the open road..."

Pocketpair has said it’s now heads down getting Palworld ready to leave early access and officially release its 1.0 update at some point in 2026.

In a video message, communications director and publishing manager John “Bucky” Buckley said Palworld will officially exit early access and release the Ver 1.0 update in 2026, making a significant milestone for the game. Palworld will launch proper alongside what sounds like a huge update, which Pocketpair is now focusing on.

This, Bucky said, means the rest of this year will be a little quieter for Palworld, although a winter update is still planned.

📢About Palworld Ver. 1.0

Hello everyone.
Palworld will officially release (Ver. 1.0) in 2026.

We are currently developing a massive amount of content for this milestone, and also planning some surprises for the rest of 2025.

Please watch the video below for more details: pic.twitter.com/rpP5gmLtjs

— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) September 16, 2025

“It’s no secret that Palworld has a lot of quirks and jank, and we want to take the time to properly address those before releasing the game,” Bucky explained. This “cleanup” starts this year, with 1.0 coming next year.

“We think taking the time now to fix those problems will ultimately lead to a better game,” Bucky continued. “It means things will be a little quiet from us for the rest of this year.” Related, the upcoming winter update won’t be as big as December 2024’s Feybreak update, although Bucky teased “a few surprises.”

1.0 will be a “major milestone," Bucky continued, “and we have a truly massive amount of content planned for the 1.0 update.”

Meanwhile, Pocketpair is “experimenting with other ideas for games,” although Bucky insisted “most of the company’s focus is on Palworld.” We will hear about these smaller teams and their ideas soon, he said.

Of course, the Palworld news comes as Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s high-profile patent lawsuit against Pocketpair soldiers on. Nintendo has been busy obtaining patents — some of which IP lawyers said should never have been granted — as it develops its case. Meanwhile, Pocketpair has vowed to defend itself in court, and continue to update Palworld along the way.

The case involves three patents granted by the Japan Patent Office: two related to monster capture and release, and one related to riding characters. All three patents were filed in 2024, after Palworld came out. However, they are actually derived from earlier Nintendo patents dating from 2021. In other words, it seems that once Palworld came on the scene, Nintendo filed divisional patents that were geared to fight specifically against Palworld’s alleged infringement of the original patents.

Since then, Pocketpair has made changes to Palworld’s disputed mechanics. The November 2024 patch removed the ability to summon Pals by throwing Pokéball-like Pal Spheres (now Pals just materialize next to you when summoned). In May this year, another Palworld update changed how you can glide in the game — instead of directly grabbing onto Glider Pals, now you just simply use Pal-buffed Glider equipment. Then, in July, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company reworded one of the patents in the case.

At GDC in March, IGN sat down for an extended conversation with Bucky following his talk at the conference, 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' During that talk, Buckley went into candid detail about a number of Palworld’s struggles, especially the accusations of it using generative AI (which Pocketpair has since debunked pretty soundly) and stealing Pokemon’s models for its own Pals. He even commented a bit on Nintendo’s patent infringement lawsuit against the studio, saying it “came as a shock” to the studio and was “something that no one even considered.”

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.

Amazon has officially locked in the dates for its second Prime exclusive shopping spree of the year, Prime Big Deal Days, also known as "October Prime Day", will run from October 7 to 8.

Unlike July’s marathon four-day blowout (because apparently 48 hours wasn’t enough chaos), this one’s dialing things back to the “classic”, but still misnomered, two-day format.

These days, October Prime Day sits comfortably in the shopping event big leagues, right behind July’s extravaganza and Black Friday in both size and hype. And, true to form, it’s still members-only; if you don’t have Prime, you’re not getting in the club.

Many of the discounts won’t reappear until Black Friday, so if you’ve got your eye on something shiny, this could be your first (and possibly best) shot at snagging it.

Here's What to Expect from Amazon's Next Prime Exclusive Sale

But the best freebie of all? That’s reserved for younger shoppers. Amazon’s “Prime for Young Adults” deal is basically a cheat code if you’re between 18 and 24, or a student.

You get a six-month trial for $0, then a half-price subscription at just $7.49 per month or $69 per year. No stripped-down version either, this is the full Prime experience.

That means Prime Video with upcoming tentpoles like Fallout Season 2 (December 17) and Gen V Season 2 (September 17), all the usual fast shipping perks, and Prime Gaming bonuses like monthly freebies, in-game loot, and a Twitch sub for whichever streamer you’ve irrationally decided to support this month.

Do the math and that free trial alone saves you almost $90. Honestly, it’s one of the best Prime deals Amazon ever offers. And yeah, I’m bitter I aged out of it.

But also, be smart about signing up for any subscriptions: Turn off auto-renew, set a reminder if you need to, and make sure you’re not paying a penny more than required.

Shop October Prime Day or Wait for Black Friday?