Here are the best deals for Wednesday, March 12. Highlights include a rare discount on a (used) PlayStation Portal accessory, Lenovo-exclusive price drops on PS5 DualSense metallic controllers, the first discount we've seen on the iPad Air with M3 chip, USB Type-C cables for only $2.99 apiece, Destiny-themed SteelSeries gaming headsets, and more.

PlayStation Portal (Used: Like New) for Under $160

I've recently gotten back into building LEGO sets and putting together adult jigsaw puzzles, so imagine my surprise and delight when I found out there was a crossover between the two. There are actually quite a few LEGO puzzles you can buy, most of which are 1,000 pieces. The price of each of these ranges between $17.95 and $22.99 when you purchase them directly from the LEGO store, but this Amazon exclusive Tiny Garden puzzle is currently only $7 after a massive discount.

Since the LEGO Tiny Garden jigsaw puzzle is an Amazon exclusive, you can't currently find it anywhere else. Amazon also has a few other LEGO puzzles that are priced lower than the LEGO store as well.

The Best LEGO Puzzle Deal at Amazon Today

With the Thunderbolts making their live-action debut soon, Marvel Comics has big plans for the team on the printed page. Not only is the current incarnation of the team playing a major role in the One World Under Doom crossover event, an entirely new Thunderbolts team will arrive shortly after the movie hits theaters.

Marvel just revealed New Thunderbolts*, a series written by Sam Humphries (Uncanny X-Force) and drawn by Ton Lima (West Coast Avengers), with cover art by Stephen Segovia. Check out the cover to issue #1 below:

When I saw that the minds behind The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide were also the ones making Wanderstop, I knew what to expect… or, at least, I thought I did. I anticipated its immensely emotional story, wry sense of humor, and at least one strange twist – but while I got all of those things and more, what I didn’t see coming was that a game about making tea and avoiding burn out would force me to grapple with my own hold-ups around productivity in such an intimate way. For as sweet and wholesome as it may seem on the surface, this is a piping hot cup of tea that left a lasting mark when spilled.

Before we go any further, let me warn you: The less you know about Wanderstop’s story at the start, the better. I’m going to avoid any major spoilers, particularly since its compelling central twist arrives very early on, but a big part of the enjoyment here is following both the emotional journey of the main character, Alta, as well as the mystery surrounding the woods she finds herself in. If you already think you might enjoy a game like this without more convincing, just go play it knowing that I give Wanderstop an enthusiastic recommendation. Then you can come back here later to say, “Wow, thank you so much Ms. IGN reviewer, this game has left me feeling strangely hallowed out and yet so full at the same time.”

You see, this isn’t just a story about burn out (though playing it while actively experiencing burn out myself added a whole other level to that aspect of it). Alta is a previously undefeated arena fighter who has hit a terrible losing streak. Convinced something must be wrong with her, she heads to a mysterious forest in search of a legendary fighter to help “fix” her, but passes out from exhaustion on the way. Instead, she finds Boro, the kind and charming owner of a tea shop called Wanderstop, who presents her with a deceptively simple choice: rest and make some tea for a bit, or push herself to press on at any cost.

As I said, this is not a story about burn out alone, but an insightful exploration of why we often burn ourselves out over and over again. Maybe you’re familiar with the feeling: You push yourself day after day not just to meet deadlines or complete projects, but to maintain that control you need over your life to stay on the right course. To keep things moving perfectly. Inevitably, you exhaust yourself until your body forces you to take a break. You rest for a bit and tell yourself it is good for you, but you’ll be right back here in no time, just as exhausted as before. The setting here may be fantastical, but this is a situation that feels firmly rooted in reality.

Wanderstop is smart in how it directly calls out this toxic loop of relentless productivity. You can’t just stumble into a magical tea shop, help some other people solve their own problems, and then be “fixed” yourself. At one point, Alta says, “even relaxing feels like a job.” She’s not wrong. We’ve turned relaxing into a chore, something that must be filled with tasks: satisfying and productive. (I’m looking at you, “cozy gamers.”) I felt incredibly called out by this, personally, and it helped me realize this cycle is just not sustainable. By the end of Alta’s journey, I felt like I not only understood her a little better, but understood a part of myself I hadn’t listened to in a long time. I might even owe developer Ivy Road a therapist’s fee.

In some ways, Wanderstop reminds me of the tear-jerking Spiritfarer, as it’s very much a story-first game. When new visitors wander into the tea shop’s forest clearing, you first need to get to know them before they’ll give you a tea request, and then you must use the information you’ve gathered to brew the correct cup for them. To do that, you’ll have to grow your own ingredients in a small garden plot outside the tea shop (though you can technically plant anywhere). You’re given a field book, a limited amount of seeds, and some gentle parenting from Boro, but the rest is yours to figure out.

The field book outlines the patterns you need to sow your seeds so that “plant eggs” will form, with different combinations of seed colors (blue, pink, green, and yellow) causing different plants to emerge. Once you’ve discovered a new type of plant by growing it, you can use your field guide to read up on the unique tastes and even strange effects each fruit has when brewed in tea. It’s all fairly straightforward, but gardening is still a fun little challenge as you puzzle out which color combinations are required for each plant variety.

Operating the tea machine itself is rather uncomplicated for such a complicated looking contraption. A tall ladder rotates around the giant glass pots in the center of the tea shop – you climb to the very top and pull a rope to fill the first pot with water, then climb down to smack the bellows, keeping the thermometer bar balanced to get the water to a perfect boil. Next, you climb back up, kick a lever, and the water drains into the next pot. Swing that ladder around, and it’s time to throw your tea and other ingredients in. Then all that’s left is to kick the lever to release it and pour it into a mug. The movement is so fun that you start to feel like a pro by the end, even though the tea making itself is otherwise quite simple.

As long as you figure out what tea you actually need to make, of course. I really loved the little conversation-based riddles the customers give you. Sometimes figuring out the right tea ingredients was easy. They want a mint-flavored tea? Throw in a chip-chip plant, which describes its flavor as mint ice cream. But what do you do when someone asks for a tea that tastes like fruity cereal and dirt? Well, it’s a good thing there’s a delightfully whimsical fruit you can grow that tastes like whatever the drinker had the most for breakfast growing up.

I loved the characters in this game in ways I didn’t anticipate, from the adorkable pretend-knight Gerald and his overbearing love for his son, to the boisterous Nana, whose fiercely competitive nature lands her shop on Wanderstop’s doorstep to try and “run you out of business.” I even liked Alta, and let’s be very clear: Alta is not a likable character. She is thick-headed, abrasive, and sometimes outright mean. But we don’t always completely love ourselves or the way we act towards others either, do we?

What’s great about Alta as a main character is that you get plenty of opportunities to choose interesting paths of dialogue throughout your time at Wanderstop. At first, your options might be limited to either a mean answer or a snarky answer, but as time goes on, you’ll get to choose between options that reveal a streak of humor under all of Alta’s steely resolve. With each new cup of tea she drinks, you’ll also learn about her past and how she reacts to strange new sensations, with every sip bringing you closer to understanding why Alta is the way she is.

The customers who visit Wanderstop are impressively diverse, and I’m not just talking about ethnicity or gender. Each visitor has their own unique design, drinking animation, and personality, all of which shine. Even the customers who are initially just as abrasive as Alta eventually stand out as quirky, complex people with their own deep and emotional reasons for having stumbled into Wanderstop. These characters are colorful, but it’s important that they aren't just quirky for quirky’s sake, either. Each one reflects a little bit of Alta back at her, helping to advance her own emotional journey forward, and saying goodbye as they inevitably moved on was always difficult.

Also, there are Pluffins, which are adorable little penguin guys with giant eyebrows who live in a coop on the Wanderstop grounds. The joy I found in stumbling across these little kleptomaniacs, picking them up and shaking them around to drop whatever package or seed they’d stolen, was immense. And yes, you can pet the Pluffins.

I knew I was in for a musical treat as well when I learned C418, one of the Minecraft composers, was behind the soundtrack for Wanderstop. The music itself doesn’t just fill the empty spaces, it tells its own stories. Each customer has their own musical theme, so even though their conversations didn’t have any voice acting, they all felt deeply engrossing. On top of this, the music of the clearing will subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) change over time and with major story moments. Themes that once felt comforting and idyllic can abruptly become unnerving with impressive precision.

Besides growing your own strange fruits and collecting tea leaves to brew new drinks, your stay at Wanderstop also equips you with a trusty broom and garden shears. You can use these to tidy up the clearing of little piles of leaves or gnarly, spiky weeds. But the refreshingly strange thing is that there is no tangible incentive to do so. The weeds pose no real danger to your garden, and while walking through them can slow you down, they don’t need to be sheared in order to pass.

As you tidy the leaves and weeds, you do have a small chance of finding something hidden underneath the clutter. Dozens of little trinkets can be uncovered while you clean, including colorful new tea mugs, teddy bears, and even lost packages. The catch, however, is that you can’t keep these trinkets as the roughly 15-hour campaign progresses, and the story directly addresses why in a clever way. As Boro reminds Alta at one point, just because you can’t take the decorations you love with you, is that any reason not to make your surroundings more beautiful while you’re here? Isn’t decorating for the sake of enjoying your own personal space enough on its own?

The lost packages, on the other hand, are mysterious parcels that somehow wound up in the clearing, and they can be sent back out into the world via the strange mailbox outside Wanderstop’s doors. There’s no “reward” for doing so like you might expect in other games, but you will receive a letter in response that is usually worth the effort. These letters string together to form funny little gags made up of stories occurring outside the clearing, adding a lovely little dose of humor to your cleaning.

Wanderstop might technically be a “cozy” game in this way, but it is not a comfortable one. Sure, making tea and cleaning up the tea shop is fun and relaxing, and solving each customer’s tea order is just challenging enough. But I cried during my first playthrough. A lot. There were times when I felt like I was grieving – not just over a sad moment or for the loss of a character, but also a loss of self. Wanderstop constantly put me up against situations that were not just uncomfortable, but that intentionally went against the grain of what you normally expect from these types of games in order to make its point.

That’s not a bad thing, though, as pushing you out of your comfort zone is very much the idea. By the end of my playthrough, I didn’t want to leave. I knew I’d done everything I could – I’d talked to all the customers, I’d grown every single type of plant, and I’d tasted almost every type of tea. Alta was at the end of her journey, and so was I. But I still didn’t want to go.

The warmth that emanates from Wanderstop isn’t that of a warm hug. It’s the warmth that spreads through your fingers from a hot cup of tea, made by someone you love, while you sit in their kitchen with tears welling up in the back of your throat. It’s a painful journey through a safe and inviting space that asks you not just to rest, but to really do the work of unpacking what brought you to rock bottom in the first place.

As the Nintendo Switch generation winds down and we await the arrival of Nintendo Switch 2 later this year, it's time to look back at the last eight years and celebrate what has become one of the greatest game libraries in Nintendo history. The hybrid portable console has surpassed the PlayStation 4 and Game Boy to become the third best-selling console of all time with over 150 million units sold, Nintendo Switch Online has added Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games, and Nintendo struck a 10-year deal with Microsoft to port Call of Duty to future Nintendo consoles. While we wait for Mario Kart 9 and everything else Nintendo Switch 2 is sure to deliver, here are the 25 best Switch games you can play to hold you over.

But what do we mean by “best?” To be very clear, this is not an attempt at an “objective” ranking that will indisputably line up with the tastes of gamers of all types. That, sadly, can never exist. Instead, this is a list of games that IGN’s crew of Switch gamers recommend as a group, ranked using our Face-Off tool so that everybody – including our NVC Podcast hosts – got to weigh in equally. It’s presented in the spirit of recognizing games we love, and encouraging others to try them if you haven’t. With only 25 slots to fill, there are tons of amazing recent games that didn’t float to the top – but that doesn’t mean we don’t think they’re awesome, too!

Most importantly, remember that this list is just our group’s picks and is no more “right” or “wrong” than a list that you create yourself. Speaking of which: if you have your own ranking you’d like to put out into the world, we’d like to invite you to make your own top 25 (or top 100!) list of Switch games using our Playlist tool and share it in the comments.

So without further ado, these are our picks for the 25 best Nintendo Switch games. You can also check out our list of the top free Switch games for additional picks.

25. Slay the Spire

There’s something about Slay the Spire’s balance of strategy and randomness that makes it an endlessly replayable puzzle. Assembling that perfect combo of synergistic cards can feel incredible, but there’s also a joy in scraping your way to victory despite the odds never quite falling in your favor. With that potent package on the Switch’s mobile platform — with some fairly decent touch control options, we might add — it’s a miracle we’ve ever stopped playing it.

Slay the Spire made our updated list of the 10 best roguelikes.

24. Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley is a wonderfully open-ended farming sim. You’ll forge your own country path with fishing, fighting, farming, and falling in love. Additionally, being able to take advantage of the Switch’s sleep mode helps take some of the pressure off of not being able to save in the middle of a day, even if a few other bugs in the port are still waiting to be squashed here.

Stardew Valley is now available on Apple Arcade as Stardew Valley+, and is one of the best iPhone games around.

23. Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is one of the biggest and best JRPGs available on Switch. Its fantastical world, endearing characters, and ultimately satisfying story make this 150-hour epic a journey well worth taking. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 also features the series’ best side quests and most varied combat to date, thanks to its new class-swapping mechanic.

22. Celeste

Celeste is a surprise masterpiece. Its 2D platforming is some of the best and toughest since Super Meat Boy, with levels that are as challenging to figure out as they are satisfying to complete. But the greatest triumph of Celeste is that its best-in-class jumping and dashing is blended beautifully with an important and sincere story and an incredible soundtrack that make it a genuinely emotional game, even when your feet are planted firmly on the ground.

The developer's next game is called Earthblade, a "2D explor-action game in a seamless pixel art world." It was originally scheduled to come out in 2024, but developer Maddy Thorson said in a recent blog post that the game won't be making its 2024 release date, although development is progressing.

21. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

With its charming, toyetic visual style and bizarrely dark undertones, the vast island of Koholint in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening has never looked better than it does on Nintendo Switch. Link’s shipwrecked adventure on a mysterious island rife with eccentric characters and sprawling dungeons has always been one of the stranger Zelda stories, and this remake allows new audiences and aging fans alike to appreciate it on a modern system. It modernizes the classic beloved Zelda game with a shiny new coat of paint, some excellent quality of life improvements, and loads more hidden collectibles but, ultimately, its greatest accomplishment is retaining the weird, haunting, beautiful feeling of the original Game Boy game.

See our guide to the Legend of Zelda timeline to see how it fits into the series.

20. Astral Chain

Platinum Games makes some of the best action games around – that much is all but indisputable. It's approach is unique, and as a result the Switch-exclusive Astral Chain is truly one of a kind in that you're simultaneously controlling not just your character, but also a living weapon tethered to them known as a Legion. This creates a thrilling style of combat that looks spectacular and feels incredible to play around with. Astral Chain is challenging, rewarding, is absolutely jam packed with depth in its combat systems, and has an engaging story as well, with clear inspiration from anime classics such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, and Appleseed, among others.

19. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a top-shelf modern metroidvania, as this unexpected series revival from Ubisoft belongs right alongside hits like Hollow Knight and Metroid Dread. Its incredibly creative set of time powers – like Sargon’s ability to leave a ghost version of himself behind and snap back to it at the press of a button – prove essential in The Lost Crown’s tense combat, challenging platforming, and perplexing puzzle-solving, and the “a-ha!” moments we experienced after unlocking a new tool rival some of the genre’s all-time greats. But The Lost Crown will perhaps be best remembered for its innovative Memory Shards, where you can snap in-game screenshots that serve as reminders of areas or unlockables you can’t access yet so you can remember to head back once you earn that next crucial upgrade. This is a feature every metroidvania should have moving forward, and Prince of Persia nailed it on the first attempt.

18. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury offers two fantastic Mario experiences that compliment each other brilliantly. 3D World landed on the Wii U and gave fans a unique blend of 2D and 3D platforming, all of which could (optionally) be played with up to four players in a setup that worked better than the New Super Mario series accomplished. Inventive and just plain fun, it was too good of a game to keep stranded on the Wii U forever, and its port to Switch came with bonus online co-op capabilities, a photo mode feature, and more.

But the biggest draw for fans who had already played 3D World was Bowser’s Fury, a brand-new, open-world experience that lasts roughly 3 to 6 hours. Though only a small taste by series standards, this free-form experiment stands as a proof of concept that an open-world Mario game can be just as creative, exhilarating, and enjoyable as what we’ve seen in the franchise thus far. If this is the direction the next mainline Mario goes, it’s an exciting future indeed.

17. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

For years, the concept of a Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake felt as mythical and unattainable as opening the titular door itself, but Nintendo finally listened to this RPG’s extremely vocal fanbase and delivered a near perfect retelling of Mario’s iconic GameCube quest. It’s remarkable how well The Thousand-Year Door holds up 20 years later, with its hilarious script, satisfying combat, lovable party members, and memorable locations. Mario literally climbs the ranks of a pro wrestling league set on a floating island in the sky, and that’s just the setting for one chapter of this epic adventure. And, following the last few Paper Mario entries that traded in unique, original characters in favor of hordes upon hordes of samey Toads, it’s a complete delight to see the slimy city of Rogueport and its surrounding areas peppered with fresh personalities. Simply giving The Thousand-Year Door a gorgeous new coat of paint and sprinkling in a few quality-of-life improvements has earned it a spot on our list of the best games on Switch.

16. Splatoon 3

The fine-tuning of Splatoon 3’s team-based multiplayer makes for the series’ best online modes to date, while the introduction of a more fleshed-out single-player campaign elevates it to one of the best overall games available on Switch. The multiplayer is an improvement on Splatoon’s established formula thanks to new weapons, enemies, customization options, and an improved lobby system. The Return of the Mammalians campaign, meanwhile, presents 70 cleverly designed missions, five memorable boss fights, and a soundtrack oozing with style.

15. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition

Other games on this list represent huge innovations and genre shakeups, but Dragon Quest XI S earns its spot because of how classic it feels. This RPG plays like an ode to the 1990s era, and it does an astonishingly good job at taking the classic turn-based format and freshening it up for a modern audience. All the elements you’d expect from a tribute like this are here: Exciting and balanced combat, a nostalgic tale of good against evil, a lovable band of heroes, and a vibrant world to explore.

Every component of Dragon Quest XI S feels meticulously designed and polished, and it's obvious that so much love and care went into crafting this adventure for Dragon Quest’s 30th anniversary. Plus, the Switch version is truly definitive, with additional story content, fully orchestrated music, and the option to swap back and forth between modern 3D graphics and SNES-inspired, top-down pixel art.

14. Luigi's Mansion 3

Luigi's Mansion 3 is essentially a FrankenLuigistein’s monster of the first two games, a mashup of both that creates the perfect Luigi's Mansion experience. Charming, clever, and absolutely gorgeous to look at, Luigi's Mansion is 17 levels of pure ghost-hunting joy. Working your way through each of the haunted hotels may never extremely challenging, but the creative boss fights and deviously hidden collectibles will keep you busy for a dozen hours or more. The excitement of getting to a new level just to see its theme (TV Studio! Sewer Maze! Egypt!) is well worth the price of admission, plus the game opens with Toad driving a bus. Priceless.

Luigi's Mansion 2 HD is available now.

13. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Fire Emblem: Three Houses takes the series to new heights, deftly blending grueling battles with an expansive social hub that allows for near limitless customization as you recruit, train, and bond with the memorable characters on your team. Its unique take on a three-pronged story ensures that no matter which house you choose, the engrossing plot that unfolds always leaves enough mystery to make multiple playthroughs incredibly hard to resist.

The series' next mainline game, Fire Emblem Engage, is now available on Switch. IGN awarded it a review score of 9 and said Engage "proves itself worthy enough to be counted alongside the legacy it honors so well."

12. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Released on the doorstep of a global pandemic, Animal Crossing: New Horizons provided a much need escape to many, selling nearly 34 million copies to date. Routine and discovery play equally important roles as you plan the perfect layout for your island, make friends (or enemies) with all your villagers, and invite your friends to your own little utopia to trade items and swap secrets.

It’s brilliant in its simplicity and masterful in the way it encourages players to keep up with chores, redecorate and/or reshape entire plots of land, or burn dozens of hours trying to catch rare fish or find every last seasonal item. It certainly helps that all the writing is supremely funny and that, hundreds of hours in, you’re still able to chuckle at a random comment or find genuine inspiration in the places you’d least expect.

Taking a cue from many of Nintendo’s Switch editions of their long-running franchises, Animal Crossing New Horizons does little to completely reinvent the franchise, but it makes a great series even more accessible, more exciting, and more wonderful than it has ever been.

New Horizons is officially Japan's best-selling game of all time. Animal Crossing players can get even more out of it with the Happy Home Paradise DLC. Our reviewer Taylor Lyles called the expansion "a must-have for base game owners."

11. Metroid Prime Remastered

A masterclass in game design, Metroid Prime is now playable on Switch with a fresh coat of paint and much-needed improvements to its 20-year-old control scheme. As Samus Aran, players follow a distress signal to a Space Pirate frigate where Nintendo’s iconic bounty hunter sets off on a solitary adventure equipped with a growing arsenal of combat and platforming abilities. Metroid Prime Remastered is moody, surprising, inventive, and as IGN’s reviewer Sam Claiborn wrote, “one of the best first-person shooters ever made, full stop.”

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will release in 2025.

10. Pikmin 4

Pikmin 4 and its charming creatures – including the new adorable new pup, Oatchi – stick the landing in the strategy-puzzle series' Switch debut. It comes with plenty of new features and upgrades that improve the tried-and-true formula of the first three games, including the largest number of enemies to battle, treasures to collect, and awesome post-game content. It does all of this without its adorable gameplay becoming overcomplicated, making it an ideal starting point to jump in if you've never played before (nothing against the Switch ports of Pikmin 1 and 2 or Pikmin 3 Deluxe), but it's also filled with callbacks to the earlier games for longtime fans.

9. Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Super Mario Bros. Wonder proves Nintendo can still hang with the best of them in the 2D platformer category. After nearly two decades of (relatively) bland New Super Mario Bros. games, Nintendo confidently returned to Mario’s roots in Wonder, which lives up to its subtitle thanks to its gorgeously fresh art style, huge amount of clever new enemy types, and inventive Wonder Flower mechanics that constantly surprise and delight by completely turning everything on its head in the middle of a level.

Whether Mario’s marching alongside an army of singing Piranha Plants or desperately trying to survive as a lowly Goomba, Wonder’s creativity and imagination is on full blast from start to finish, resulting in a modern 2D classic that feels like the first worthy heir to Nintendo’s legendary Mario 3 and Mario World. Oh, and Elephant Mario is a pure work of art, too.

8. Hades

Roguelikes don’t always appeal to everyone, but Hades has somehow found a way to win over even those with a distaste for them. Fighting your way out of the Greek underworld is a ruthless and challenging affair, but every failure is rewarded in a way that somehow makes them exciting in their own right.

Instead of just notching up each loss and moving onto the next, the moments between each run push Hades’ excellent storytelling to the forefront, giving you opportunities to learn more about its charming characters and grow close to them – as well as improve the prince of the underworld’s abilities and weapons. It’s that meaningful mix of progression and infinitely repeatable escape attempts (coupled with genuinely fantastic writing, art, and action) that make Hades as delectable as Ambrosia itself.

Hades 2 Early Access is now available on Steam.

7. Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is one of the best modern MetroidVania’s available, using all the pieces that make the genre so great in the first place without feeling derivative of anything that came before it.

The expertly crafted map that is the kingdom of Hallownest has an absurd amount of paths to explore, bosses to fight, and secrets to uncover. That's all drawn in a somber but expressive art style that gives the adorable bug people who live their lives, and stories, of their own. It can undoubtedly be a challenging and demanding game, but what you get out of will be a reward worth far more than you put in.

The sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, was supposed to be released in the first half of 2023, but Team Cherry delayed it further due to ongoing development.

6. Metroid Dread

Metroid Dread had become a near-mythic game, a fabled DS entry that never saw the light of day by the time it was announced at E3 2021 as a Switch game. With nearly 20 years having passed since the last new 2D Metroid, expectations were sky high. Fortunately for fans, Dread met (and in many cases surpassed) expectations for what a modern 2D Metroid game could accomplish.

It’s easily the smoothest game in the series, running at a silky 60fps, and incorporates several new weapons and abilities the series now can’t live without -- the Flash Shift alone makes Dread feel entirely fresh. With high-production values, incredible game design that gently guides the player through ZDR’s labyrinthine corridors, and the most unflinching version of Samus we’ve seen yet, Mercury Steam hit Metroid Dread out of the stratosphere and brought the franchise back into Nintendo’s orbit.

5. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Mario Kart 8’s encore on Nintendo Switch didn’t just keep the online community alive and added returning favorites like Balloon Battle and Bob-omb Blast, we also got a brand-new “cops and robbers” team mode with Renegade Roundup, all of the great DLC stages, and even some guests from the Splatoon universe. It’s not a new game, but one so good, it deserved to reach a bigger audience on Switch right away.

4. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is exactly what its name implies: it’s the ultimate incarnation of Nintendo’s now 20-year-old brawler series. It’s a celebration of Smash Bros. as a whole, filled with more fighters and levels than ever before, and packed to the gills with over 1000 more characters from all across gaming. “Everyone is here!” may have started out as just another tagline, but it’s one that Nintendo has impressively backed up, and it’s made Ultimate the definitive Smash Bros. game for a long time to come. Add a 20+ hour single-player mode with full-on boss fights and huge world maps and it’s easy to get lost in Ultimate. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate had a lot to live up to with that name, but it has undoubtedly done just that.

3. Super Mario Odyssey

A masterclass in 3D platforming, Super Mario Odyssey seamlessly blends the best elements from nearly every Mario game with an entire portfolio of new gameplay mechanics to create something both nostalgic and courageous. New players will adore stomping through the vivid and vast new worlds, while seasoned veterans will stick around after the credits to unlock the hundreds of challenges that await their skill and dexterity. To put it succinctly, Super Mario Odyssey is pure, sublime joy and one of the best Super Mario games ever made.

You can check out our list of every Mario game on the Switch for more like this.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Formerly the number one Switch game on the list for years, and for good reason, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been de-throned by Tears of the Kingdom. When Nintendo released Breath of the Wild in 2017, it revolutionized not just Zelda games, but open-world action games at large. The number of Breath of the Wild imitators from all kinds of different developers post-2017 were numerous. While Breath of the Wild is still an essential Switch game, and important to play to fully appreciate Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo’s sequel improves on almost every aspect of Breath of the Wild that it does make going back to the predecessor difficult.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is, hands down, the best game available on Nintendo Switch. Tears of the Kingdom is so good that it arguably made our previous number-one Switch game, Breath of the Wild, obsolete: As IGN’s reviewer Tom Marks wrote, “Breath of the Wild felt far from unfinished but, inconceivably, Tears of the Kingdom has somehow made it feel like a first draft.”

Tears of the Kingdom expands Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule with a larger scale, greater depth, and a more captivating story. It builds on Breath of the Wild’s gameplay with better dungeons, more creative weapon crafting, and unfathomably robust building mechanics. It’s somehow a major improvement on what came before — and what came before was IGN’s pick for the best game of all time.

You can see our list of every Legend of Zelda game on the Switch for more like this.

Upcoming Switch Games

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition launches on March 20.

More on the Best of Nintendo:

• Best Wii Games
• Best Gamecube Games
• Best Nintendo 3DS Games
• Best DS Games

Also see: The Best Switch Deals

March 12, 2025 updates:

Added: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

Did we miss anything? Is your favorite game too low? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to check back when we reconfigure this list again!

Merch Madness is officially live at the IGN Store! This massive sale discounts some of the hottest items available at the store, including apparel, accessories, collectibles, and so much more. Merch Madness runs from today, March 12, all the way through Monday, March 17. You don't want to miss these deals, so be sure to check out the store this week.

Below, we've compiled some of the most popular deals available for Merch Madness. Products from popular series like Fallout, Star Wars, and Zelda are on sale, and some of our third-party offerings are also available at a discount.

30% Off All Tee Shirts

This year's Merch Madness sale includes 30% off all t-shirts in the IGN Store. All of your favorite series are included in this sale, so get that T-shirt you've been holding out on while it's 30% off!

10% Off All In-Stock Vinyl

Next, you can save 10% off all in-stock vinyl at IGN Store. Whether you're a fan of Dark Souls, Resident Evil, or even Persona, many amazing selections are now on sale at IGN Store, so grab yours before they're gone!

In Stock Collectibles Up to 50% Off

In addition to saving on apparel, you can also save up to 50% off hundreds of collectibles at the IGN Store. The Collectibles category includes statues, figures, replicas, coins, books, model kits, plushes, and more. This deal does not include any new collectibles that were released in the last 60 days, in addition to any pre-order items available at the IGN Store.

Fallout Merch

Next up, Merch Madness has huge savings for Fallout fans! You can save 20% off select Fallout Pins, Tins, and in-stock Dark Horse collectibles, in addition to 25% off Fallout Cut & Sew Hoodies. Popular items like Lucy's Bag are on sale for a limited time, so don't miss your chance to save!

Deals from Awesome Manufacturers

Merch Madness also has plenty of incredible deals on products from our partners. This includes Pure Arts, Dark Horse, Iron Studios, and More. Check out some of the hottest items from this sale below!

Pure Arts

Dark Horse and First 4 Figures

Iron Studios

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Palworld developer Pocketpair is narrowing in on its big crossplay update, which is due out late March 2025.

In a post on X/Twitter, Pocketpair confirmed this update will include multiplayer across all platforms as well as add world transfer for Pals. No further details were offered, outside a promotional image showing a bunch of Palworld characters fighting a rather large Pal.

Sixteen years ago today, on March 12, 2009, Sony and Marvel announced that Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 would be released on May 6, 2011. The film, of course, would never be made, with Sony instead rebooting Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield... and then with Tom Holland. But we thought it would be fun to revisit this look at the film's villain that almost was!

Spider-Man 4 sadly never happened… but after all these years, we’ve got a glimpse of the film’s villain – Vulture.

Comic book writer Ken Penders has unveiled the villain’s mechanical wings on Twitter – a practical prop that would have appeared in the long-defunct Spider-Man 4.

“Before Tobey & Sam were bid adieu by Sony, work actually had begun on SPIDER-MAN 4,” he revealed. “I visited friends who were working on the Vulture's costume intended for actor John Malkovich. Once production shut down, all materials were turned in. I've sat on this for almost 15 years.”

Before Tobey & Sam were bid adieu by Sony, work actually had begun on SPIDER-MAN 4, and I visited friends who were working on the Vulture's costume intended for actor John Malkovich. Once production shut down, all materials were turned in. I've sat on this for almost 15 years. pic.twitter.com/iY3VmzUrHI

— Ken Penders (@KenPenders) November 28, 2022

Vulture made his MCU debut played by Michael Keaton in Spider-Man: Homecoming. However, this iteration of the classic MCU villain featured largely CGI wings.

Spider-Man 4 was a different story – requiring Malkovich to don this beautiful mechanical rig.

Unfortunately, it never happened. The film was ultimately canceled by Sony, eventually leading to a reboot starring Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man.

What happened to the wings? Well, remarkably, they were sold online and ended up on display at Edmonton's Prop Museum in 2019.

Awesome! I'm guessing your friend was part of the Frontline Design team. I know those wings were sold online and were displayed at Edmonton's Prop Museum in 2019 before closing down. pic.twitter.com/ID053oybIE

— Fillmoreantidote (@DolosGallo) November 28, 2022

As for the designer who worked in them, he was also responsible for Maguire’s Spider-Man 3 suits.

“He was also responsible for fabricating Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man costumes in SPIDER-MAN 3,” added Penders. “He said the web pattern on the costume was the hardest thing about making the costume.”

According to concept artist Jeffrey Henderson, Spider-Man 4 would have featured a handful of classic Spider-Man villains, including “a montage of C and D- list villains that we knew would never be used as main antagonists: Mysterio, the Shocker, the Prowler, the old school-onesie-wearing version of the Rhino, maybe even the Stilt Man, etc.”

Want to read more about Spider-Man? Check out every Spider-Man spin-off currently in development as well as how to watch the Spider-Man movies in chronological order.

Note: This story originally ran on Nov. 28, 2022.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Sadie Sink, who plays Max Mayfield in Stranger Things, is reportedly set to star alongside Tom Holland in Spider-Man 4.

Deadline reports that Sink, who made her film debut in the 2016 biographical sports drama Chuck, will appear in the upcoming MCU movie, which begins filming later this year and has a release date of July 31, 2026.

Marvel and Sony had no comment when contacted by Deadline.

The PlayStation Portal has never been discounted, but at least you can save on a used one. Amazon Resale (a rebranded Amazon Warehouse) currently has Used: Like New condition PS Portals in stock for only $158.70 shipped. It retails for $199 new, so that's a substantial 20% in savings. A Sony warranty may or may not be included, but Amazon Resale items benefit from the same 30-day return policy you get for buying a new item. We expect this item to sell out pretty quickly.

PlayStation Portal (Used: Like New) for Under $160

The Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has issued an update to its members on the status of negotiations over video game actor AI protections, saying that while progress has been made, it is still "frustratingly far apart" with the industry bargaining group on key issues.

The guild has shared a chart demonstrating the differences between its own proposals and those of the games industry bargaining group, which consists of representatives from most major AAA gaming companies. Per SAG-AFTRA's comparison, the following issues remain at large:

• Protection from digital replica or generative AI use for all work, not just work produced from the date of the agreement going forward.
• A definition of "digital replica": SAG-AFTRA seeks to include any performance, vocal or movement, "readily identifiable or attributable to" a performer based on work contracts. The bargaining group wants to use the phrase "objectively identifiable," which SAG-AFTRA says would allow employers to choose to excluse many performances.
• The inclusion of "movement" performers as a part of the generative AI agreement.
• Using phrase "real-time generation" to refer to generative AI-created performances. The bargaining group is proposing the term "procedural generation", which SAG-AFTRA says has a different meaning in games.
• Whether or not employers must disclose if it will blend your voice with other voices to make a digital replica.
• Whether or not employers must disclose if your voice will be used for a real-time chatbot that could potentially say anything, or if it will just be created and shipped with scripted dialogue as a part of game development.
• SAG-AFTRA's proposal withdraws consent for digital replica use when the guild goes on strike - employers want to continue to use them in the event of a strike, including on struck games.
• How long consent for real-time generation lasts: SAG-AFTRA proposes five years, after which it must be renewed. The bargaining group seeks consent for an unlimited amount of dialogue, forever.
• How much performers should be paid, minimum, for digital replica creation and use. The two groups have a number of disagreements on this front, but have tentatively agreed on how bonus pay is calculated.
• The bargaining group is proposing something that exists in the SAG-AFTRA TV/Film agreement that grants the employers bonus rights (easier scheduling/unlimited overtime/etc) if they pay a premium. SAG-AFTRA says the current proposal is too broad and would circumvent union rights as written, but says it would consider the concept with stricter boundaries.
• SAG-AFTRA wants to implement a system to track how and how much digital replicas are being used, to ensure performers are being paid appropriately. The bargaining group believes this is not feasible and is only willing to discuss the possibility as a part of the agreement.
• Some specific definitions around how "synthetic" performers are defined and regulated, aka characters created wholesale from generative AI systems.

That's a long list, but the chart does make clear that the two groups have come to tentative agreements on a number of other issues, such as bonus pay, dispute resolution, certain elements of minimum compensation, requirement for consent, certain disclosures made to performers, and more. But SAG-AFTRA's letter to members expresses concern that the bargaining employers are incorrectly conveying to members that the two groups are close to a deal, when SAG-AFTRA does not believe they are. As SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland wrote to members:

With their previously signed projects dragging their way through the production pipeline, employers are feeling the squeeze from the strike, as SAG-AFTRA members who work in video games continue to stand together and refuse to work without adequate protections. This is causing employers to seek other performers they can exploit to fill those roles, including those who don’t typically perform in games. If you’re approached for such a role, we urge you to seriously consider the consequences. Not only would you be undermining the efforts of your fellow members, but you would be putting yourself at risk by working without protections against A.I. misuse. And “A.I. misuse” is just a nice way of saying that these companies want to use your performance to replace you — without consent or compensation.

In response, Audrey Cooling, spokesperson for the video game industry bargaining group, issued the following statement:

We have proposed a deal that includes wage increases of over 15% for SAG-AFTRA represented performers in video games, as well as enhanced health and safety protections, industry-leading terms of use for AI digital replicas in-game and additional compensation for the use of an actor’s performance in other games. We have made meaningful progress and are eager to return to the bargaining table to reach a deal.

The SAG-AFTRA video game strike has been going on for eight months now, and was instigated specifically due to a lack of agreement on AI provisions while 24 out of 25 other contract proposals had been affirmed by both sides. While at first it was difficult to tell exactly how it would affect games actually in our hands, we're starting to see the impacts visibly across the industry. Players have reported that a number of ongoing games such as Destiny 2 and World of Warcraft appear to have certain NPCs left unvoiced in otherwise voiced scenes, likely due to the strike. Late last year, SAG-AFTRA struck League of Legends after Riot allegedly tried to subvert the strike by canceling a game in response., and Activision confirmed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 characters were recast after players expressed concern about new voices.

And just today, two Zenless Zone Zero voice actors revealed that they learned they'd been replaced when they saw the game's latest patch notes.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Friendship opens in theaters Friday, May 9. This review is based on a screening at the 2025 SXSW Film and Television Festival.

Tim Robinson’s character in Friendship is so perfect for his comedic persona, it’s incredible that he didn’t write it himself. It was written for him, to be clear; director Andrew DeYoung said in an interview last fall that he sent the screenplay to Robinson with a note that said he wanted Robinson for the part, and that he planned to shoot it like a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. (More on that later.) Friendless, clueless, and prone to fits of frustrated rage, Craig Waterman is like a character from Robinson’s cringe-comedy series I Think You Should Leave, with about as much depth and equal capacity for laughs.

Craig’s neighbor Austin is a perfect fit for Paul Rudd, too. Austin is a weatherman for a local news station, with a thick mustache, a glorious head of hair, a hot wife, and a successful local garage band. Austin has lots of friends, and likes to have them over for beers on a Friday night. Austin represents a certain type of quietly confident guy, the kind who collects vinyl and drinks craft brews and wears cool jeans that fit him just right. Craig, meanwhile, is neither confident nor quiet. He works for a company that specializes in making apps more addictive, is always holding an awkwardly oversized beverage, and buys all of his clothes from a company called Ocean View Dining.

The only person who can stand Craig is his wife Tami (Kate Mara) – and that comes and goes, frankly. He was the safe choice, a stable presence for Tami and their son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer). Even so, Craig is inadequate as a provider: A running visual gag involves Tami trying to jam large floral arrangements into a tiny smart car, because Craig can’t afford to buy her a bigger one. He’s inadequate in a lot of ways, actually, and much of the humor in Friendship revolves around Craig’s metaphorical, feature-length cuckolding. His manhood is continually undercut by Tami, by Austin, by the guys at work, by Tami’s sexy firefighter ex, and even by Steven, who has two girlfriends and kisses his mom on the mouth.

Craig reacts like a Tim Robinson character, which is to say that he takes it until he explodes in a fit of impotent rage. Robinson’s comedy is all about inappropriate reactions to ridiculous scenes: Think of the I Think You Should Leave sketch with Tim Heidecker as a condescending, gazpacho-craving boyfriend who populates a game of Celebrity with the un-guessable names of ancient jazz musicians. And that style manifests from Friendship’s opening moments, at a support-group meeting where Tami says that her cancer has been in remission for a year now (this is never mentioned again, by the way) but that there are certain things that still bother her, like wondering if she’ll ever have an orgasm again. Then it’s Craig’s turn to share. “I’m orgasming just fine,” he says.

From there, we pivot to Craig’s burgeoning relationship with Austin, who’s new to the neighborhood and very generous towards the childlike idiot next door. They have a few “good hangs,” exploring the tunnels underneath their small town and foraging for wild mushrooms in the nearby woods. Then Craig humiliates himself at boys’ night, prompting Austin to politely tell him that he’s no longer interested in being bros. This happens a half-hour into this 100-minute movie, making its title somewhat misleading: Most of Friendship is about Craig’s freakout over being friend-dumped, rather than the friendship itself.

A series of escalating absurdist scenarios follow, the funniest of which sees Craig lying on the floor in the stockroom of a cell phone store and licking a toad an 18-year-old named T-Boy (don’t ask) tells him will take him on a mind-bending psychedelic journey. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out where Craig’s mind's eye takes him, but it’s silly and unexpected and gives Robinson the opportunity to have one of his signature tantrums. The surrealist touches in DeYoung’s filmmaking are minimal, but he is fond of the evocative push-ins and Steadicam tracking shots favored by his professed inspiration Anderson, an elevated directing style that feels like a tongue-in-cheek bit in a comedy like Friendship.

Rudd basically disappears after the first act, and Mara literally disappears into the sewers for a few scenes. Robinson’s frequent collaborator (and fellow chronicler of brain-rotted 21st-century guys) Conner O’Malley shows up for a cameo, standing on a chair and ranting about how “we should still be in Afghanistan.” Robinson loses his phone in a puddle, smashes another one against a wall, and ruins several pairs of OVD khakis. His physical-comedy instincts are impeccable, even when the whole thing starts to feel repetitive after a while. (For comparison’s sake: Friendship runs about as long as a full season of I Think You Should Leave.)

The overall effect is of a series of interconnected comedy sketches on the loose themes of manhood and male bonding, which are hilarious if you vibe with Robinson’s style of humor and insufferable if you don’t. Friendship got big laughs at SXSW, leaving a handful of Robinson naysayers alienated and stone-faced in their theater seats. Sounds like the premise for a Tim Robinson sketch.

The official trailer for the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch has arrived and it gives us our best look yet at Maia Kealoha's Lilo, Courtney B. Vance's Cobra Bubbles, and Billy Magnussen's Pleakley.

While we've seen a good amount of Stitch in the teasers for Lilo & Stitch so far, Kealoha is finally taking center stage and showing how she will be portraying the character that Daveigh Chase first played in the 2002 original.

We also get to see the serious but lovable Cobra Bubbles in action alongside Zach Galifianakis' Jumba and Billy Magnussen's Pleakley. In an interesting twist, it looks like Jumba and Pleakley will, at least for a bit, be disguised as their human actors on Earth instead of their alien forms with clothes on. However, we do get to see Pleakley in his alien form for a quick second.

The trailer also shows us live-action versions of many of the iconic scenes from the original, including Stitch arriving in a fashion that looks like a falling star to Lilo, Stitch making himself look more like a dog at the shelter, and even the wonderful moment when Lilo says, "Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."

Lilo & Stitch will be released in theaters on May 23, 2025, and will be another live-action version of a beloved classic Disney film. It also arrives just a few short months after the live-action version of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs on March 21.

For more, check out how Stitch crashed the Super Bowl and what Disney and Pixar films are up next following this remake.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.

Localthunk, the developer behind breakout roguelike poker game Balatro, has stepped in to resolve a bit of a scrum in the Balatro subreddit over a mod's statements on AI art.

It's a bit of a wild story, so bear with me here, and thanks to Garbage Day and Rock Paper Shotgun for spotting all this. Essentially, it starts with DrTankHead, a now-former moderator of the Balatro subreddit and also current mod of a NSFW Balatro subreddit.

The moderator had expressed no issue with AI art content, both on the NSFW and main Balatro subreddits. "We will not be banning AI art here, if it is properly claimed and tagged as such," the mod said in a post. "This has been done after discussion with the staff at Playstack."

Localthunk posted a short reply on Bluesky, saying this is not how they, nor their publisher at Playstack, felt about AI generated imagery. Then, the developer went to the subreddit to make a full statement.

"Neither Playstack nor I condone AI 'art'. I don't use it in my game, I think it does real harm to artists of all kinds. The actions of this mod do not reflect how Playstack feels or how I feel on the topic. We have removed this moderator from the moderation team," Localthunk said.

"We will not be allowing AI generated images on this subreddit from now on. We will make sure our rules and FAQ reflect this soon."

In a follow-up, Playstack's communications director noted that the rules around this "should have been clearer," as a rule calling for "no unlabeled AI content" could have been interpreted as allowing or supporting the content on the subreddit. The remaining mod team is planning on clarifying this language for the future.

As for the original mod, DrTankHead posted in the aforementioned NSFW Balatro subreddit, confirming they've been removed as a mod of r/Balatro. They went on to say that it is "not their goal" to make the NSFW Balatro subreddit AI-centric, but they are considering a "day of the week" situation where "non-NSFW art that is made with AI can be posted."

In response, one user replied: "Please just get off Reddit for a week or two."

Generative AI is one of the hottest topics within the video game and entertainment industries, which have both suffered massive layoffs in recent years. It has thus far has drawn criticism from players and creators due to a mix of ethical issues, rights issues, and AI’s struggles to produce content audiences actually enjoy. For instance, Keywords Studios attempted to create an experimental game internally using entirely AI. The game failed, with Keywords citing to investors that AI was “unable to replace talent.”

That hasn't stopped tech companies going all in on AI, though. EA said in September that AI was "the very core" of its business, and more recently Capcom said it was experimenting with generative AI to create the "hundreds of thousands" of ideas needed for in-game environments. Activision recently admitted using generative AI for some Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 assets amid a backlash to an "AI slop" zombie Santa loading screen.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

If you're thinking of jumping on the AMD bandwagon for your next upgrade, now is certainly the right time to do so. Alongside the Ryzen 7 9800X3D which debuted earlier this year, AMD has just released its two higher-end Ryzen 9 siblings in the Zen 5 "X3D" stack: the 9950X3D is available for $699 and the 9900X3D is available for $599. Collectively, these processors represent the best gaming chips across both Intel and AMD. Pure gamers should go with the 9800X3D and allocate their funds elsewhere; creators with deeper pockets and a penchant for gaming will benefit from the immense performance uplift on the new Ryzen 9 processors thanks to their increased core count and cache.

Note: Processors are going in and out of stock (mostly out of stock, unfortunately).

The Creator's Choice: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU

In Monster Hunter, some quests can be taken down pretty quick, and others take a bit more time. But at least one Monster Hunter Wilds player has discovered a trick for getting absurdly fast clear times, using one particular quirk of Wilds' systems.

As spotted by VG247, one Monster Hunter Wilds player posted an incredibly fast clear time for a Tempered Chatacabra bout, thanks to what seems like a curious exploit of the poison system. The actual fight itself takes upwards of nine minutes, but the quest gets cleared in 00'01"53.

The trick, it seems, is how poison triggers the actual quest start in Monster Hunter Wilds. Though the hunter in the video pelts the Chatacabra with quite a significant amount of Poison Ammo, keeping the debuff running, it doesn't actually start the quest until they stop the monster, launch the quest, and then deal the final blow.

Players have some theories, mostly around poison not triggering the start of a quest as a safeguard against unwanted hunts starting in the open world. I took my own Heavy Bowgun out into the world and spent quite a while slowly toxifying a Chatacabra, and can at least report that it didn't automatically launch a quest until I started blasting it with other ammo.

Whatever the case, it's an interesting little interaction. It doesn't seem to be a huge problem, as a super-fast quest clear doesn't mean much more than the actual quest clear at the end of the day. The Chatacabra dies either way, and honestly, this Poison Ammo seems both more arduous and resource-intensive than just bonking it with normal weapons.

Still, it proves that Monster Hunter Wilds players are still discovering weird, fun ways in which monsters can be hunted. With the open approach to the Forbidden Lands and more updates to come, there's surely more to discover in this game as time goes on.

We've got plenty more on Monster Hunter Wilds, including a fun story about how players have discovered that captured monsters will eventually just exit stage left, and comments from the series producer on why Monster Hunter Wilds is so popular.

To help get your Monster Hunter Wilds adventure started, take a look at what Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t tell you, and a guide to all 14 weapon types in the game. We’ve also got a detailed MH Wilds walkthrough in progress, a MH Wilds multiplayer guide to explain how to play with friends, and if you’ve played one of the open betas, here’s how to transfer your MH Wilds Beta character over.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

There have been some great Marvel collectibles popping up lately to preorder, but this Marvel Legends Series Doctor Doom helmet certainly takes the cake. Coming in at $99.99, this 1:1 scale Doctor Doom helmet is a great pick-up for those with a Marvel collectible collection. Or, if you're a cosplayer, this helmet is an excellent way to bring your costume together. It's set to release on August 1 and you can get your preorders in now at Amazon and Best Buy.

Preorder Marvel Legends Series Doctor Doom Helmet

Let the demon hunting begin. Netflix is giving Devil May Cry the anime treatment — and we finally have a taste of what it has in store with a brand new trailer the streamer just dropped. But what might be even more exciting is that the legendary late voice actor Kevin Conroy will posthumously star in the new game adaptation.

Conroy, who is best known and celebrated as the longtime voice of Bruce Wayne and Batman in the many animated films and TV shows that have focused on the character over the years, stars in the series as VP Baines, a new character that can be heard in voiceover at the beginning of the sneak peek.

Back in July 2024, Conroy was praised for his posthumous voice performance in Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part 3, so it’s awesome that fans will have another chance to experience his artistry after his untimely passing in November 2022 at the age of 66. Rounding out the cast alongside the late actor is Scout Taylor-Compton as Mary, Hoon Lee as White Rabbit, Chris Coppola as Enzo, and Johnny Yong Bosch as Dante himself.

According to the official synopsis provided by Netflix, “Sinister forces are at play to open the portal between the human and demon realms. In the middle of it all is Dante, an orphaned demon-hunter-for-hire, unaware that the fate of both worlds hangs around his neck.”

Dark Regards is easily the most intriguing new indie comics to come along in quite some time. It's a book whose back-story is as wild and crazy as the comic itself. But you can be the judge in our exclusive preview of Dark Regards #1.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive look inside the new series, but beware of some NSFW language ahead!

Dark Regards is the brainchild of comedian/writer/musician Dave Hill and artist Artyom Topilin (Cruel Universe, I Hate This Place). The four-issue series is inspired by Hill's own experiences forming a fictional Satanic metal band called Witch Taint and the unexpected spiral of chaos that ensued.

Here's Oni Press' official description of the series:

Two decades ago, Dave Hill and his first band set out to rock their high school auditorium in a fury of heavy metal hellfire. They failed miserably. Years later, Dave has made a new life for himself as a rising star in the New York comedy scene – a career where getting laughed at on stage is the entire point and not just a tragic consequence. But when Dave's metal ambitions are re-awakened by the über self-serious, “Satanic” genre of Norwegian black metal, Dave creates a ridiculously hyperbolic alter ego and a band to match that, together, reignite the spark of his forgotten rock 'n roll fantasy. But when Dave's internet-fueled rumors of Witch Taint – a metal band “so extreme that you must remove all sharp objects from the immediate area” when their music is played – spreads all the way to Europe, his story will spiral dangerously out of control as Norway's most extreme black metal butchers come to reap their revenge . . . and put everything and everyone Dave holds dear in the crosshairs (of their axes, which, truth be told, don't actually have crosshairs, but, hey, it's a metaphor).

“A few years back, I sat down in my underwear late one night and decided to let my obsession with Norwegian black metal run wild by emailing a Norwegian black metal record label, telling them all the bands on their label sucked despite the fact that I had never listened to any of them, and suggesting they sign my extremely extreme black metal band Witch Taint, which had yet to record any music and didn't even exist beyond the band name I'd just made up on the spot,” said Hill in a statement. “This first email led to months of correspondence with the record label that I never intended for anyone to see. But the Internet being the Internet, eventually a lot of people saw it and things got nuts. Now, beyond my wildest dreams, this story has become my first comic book series Dark Regards, written by me and illustrated by the amazing Artyom Topilin. If you don't devour every single issue, you are basically insane.”

Dark Regards #1 is priced at $4.99 and will be released on May 13, 2025.

For more exclusive comic book previews, check out a look at the final issue of TMNT: The Last Ronin II and The Dark Knight Returns-inspired Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.