When you picture a tablet, chances are that something like the iPad comes to mind: a bright, colorful screen, pages of apps, social media, games, and video all at your fingertips. But if you’re the kind of user that needs to buckle down and get work done, or are looking for a reading tablet experience that’s easier on the eyes, the Boox Note Air 4C might be for you. Featuring a color e-ink screen, paper-like writing experience, and Android 13 for Google Play Store access and app compatibility, it’s one of the most fully featured, minimal distraction devices I’ve tested. Its oodles of apps put it in a different class than many of its competitors, like the Remarkable Paper Pro, basically making it the e-ink equivalent of a Galaxy Tab with a few extra features for writers, readers, and artists.

Boox Note Air 4C – Design and Features

The Boox Note Air 4C is a multifaceted device, at once a digital notebook, sketchpad, typewriter, Android tablet, and e-reader. It uses a 10.3-inch e-ink screen, which is the company’s current niche in the tablet market, and is one of its latest releases to feature a full color display. It’s designed to minimize, if not obliterate, distractions, making it a compelling choice for students, teachers, and mainstream users that enjoy the e-ink experience and the reduced eye strain and paper-like reader experience it can offer.

The Note Air 4C uses a Kaleido 3 display, which is the most recent release from E Ink, the company behind ePaper displays. This allows the 4C to display a full range of hues while still maintaining its parchment-like reading experience. It has natural benefits for reading PDFs with graphics and browsing the web, rendering color for a more accurate and engaging reading experience, and because the Note Air uses Android 13 for its operating system, it also makes using apps feel clean.

In short, it effectively brings together a normal tablet experience with the ePaper format… with one key exception: video.

As the technology stands right now, e-ink displays are simply not ideal screens to watch video. They don’t need to refresh like LCDs do. Because the technology works in a fundamentally different way to other types of screens, once the ink is charged and positioned, it can theoretically stay there forever, maintaining the image even after the device is turned off. Boox tablets refresh more frequently and include different modes that control how quickly it refreshes. Even at its fastest, however, watching videos is bad. At best, you’ll make out what’s going on with a perpetual sense of motion blur. On the other hand, it’s fast enough where you can use one of its faster refresh modes and scroll webpages or play a game of Threes easily.

Somewhat counterintuitively (compared to what you would normally look for in an Android tablet), this low refresh rate is one of the qualities that makes it so appealing. It’s just not feasible to use the device for distracting videos, and though you can use it for things like browsing social media, your phone will always provide a superior experience.

It goes without saying that the technology is completely different from other displays. A layer of ink particles below the screen form into text and images through electromagnetism. Above this layer is a color filter and another layer for its EMR stylus. There’s also a tiny degree of separation to accommodate its color-temperature controlled backlight. Compared to a black and white e-ink display, like the Boox Note Max or Viwoods AiPaper, there’s more depth to the screen here, so ink isn’t as immediately pooling under your stylus tip. The image is also darker, which is why that backlight layer is important when many monochrome e-ink tablets leave it out entirely.

The specs are solid for a digital notebook. It’s a bit more compact than much of the competition at 10.3 inches. The Supernote and Viwoods AiPaper each have 10.7-inch screens and the Remarkable Paper Pro is a chonker at 11.6 inches. Its screen measures 8.3 x 6.1 inches, though its full footprint is a bit more square at 8.9 x 7.6 inches. Either way, it’s slim and exceptionally easy to carry, and while it's still heavier than a paper notebook, it weighs in at 420g / 0.93 lbs while sporting both a case (when purchased through Boox) and a pre-applied paper-like screen protector.

Because of the layer-and-filter approach to colorizing its display, the Air 4C has two different resolutions and pixel densities. The black and white resolution is 2480x1860, or 300 pixels-per-inch (PPI), while color is only 1240x930 150 PPI. This was concerning at first, however it doesn’t make a huge difference in real-world use. Since black and white makes up text and, most often, the sharpest details you’ll perceive anyway, the lower density of the color filter wasn’t even that noticeable to me.

Memory and storage – 6GB of memory and 64GB of storage – aren’t the highest but they don’t need to be for a minimalist tablet like this. Since you’ll primarily be storing ebooks, documents, and productivity apps, this should last you quite a while, but it also comes with a microSD card slot to add additional storage.

The processor is a Snapdragon 750G, octa-core, with a top speed of 2.2GHz but frequently runs much slower than that. Despite it being a 5-year-old processor, it gets the job done. Still, for a new, expensive e-ink tablet, I really would have liked to have seen something a bit more modern. It works, but there are times when heavier Android apps can feel a little sluggish (like Office 365) when booting or transitioning screens, and a newer chip would have definitely helped with that.

While its purpose, display, and related specs differ from a normal Android tablet, in other ways it’s right in line with what you would expect. It supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.1. You can enter the menu system and find most of the same categories and options, which is especially useful if you’re already familiar with the operating system and significantly reduces the learning curve. It also means that you can customize the home page, organize notes and files, and navigate its file system more intuitively than something proprietary. Again, that’s if you already have experience as an Android user. If you’re new to Android, getting used to its layout, features, and menu systems will take some getting used to (but it’s not difficult if you’ve used a tablet or larger smartphone in the past).

It also has access to the full Android ecosystem and has the Play Store installed by default. Obsidian, OneNote, Google Drive, Office 365, ChatGPT… all of these things are readily available and, for the most part, work very well. This allows the Air to be much more versatile than something like the Remarkable Paper Pro, more easily integrated into different workflows, and offer wider support for backup to any service supporting Android.

Boox includes a fairly basic pencil with the tablet and outfits it with a high friction nib. There’s no eraser, which bothered me until I discovered that scribbling over what you don’t want erases every stroke beneath it. There’s a nice scratchiness to writing on the bare screen that makes it feel a bit more like paper (no tablet is a perfect match, in my experience) and improves the accuracy of your strokes. If you do want to change out the stylus, that’s easy to do thanks to the widely adopted Wacom EMR technology standard. There are lots of options out there, including premium options from LAMY, Pilot, and Staedtler, but anything with EMR will do. Because the technology works with magnetism, none of them need to charge either, so they’re always ready to go.

Boox Note Air 4C – Performance

A huge part of the user experience comes down to the software and features that Boox bakes into the device. While this could be broken down within the Design and Features section, it's so critical to using the Air 4C that it makes up a core portion of its performance and my impressions having used it for the last month. Simply put, this tablet offers a ton, from reading to writing to planning, documenting, collaborating, and more.

Before getting to that, though, let's talk about how it actually feels to use physically. Because the tablet is relatively compact and lightweight, it's easy to carry through the day and hold with one hand. The texture on the screen is good and makes for an enjoyable writing experience. However, Boox's newer Note Max is a bit better for writing, in my opinion, due to the reduced layers on the screen making the ink appear minutely closer to the tip than the 4C.

In fact, it's fair to say that the display is probably the Air's biggest selling point and its biggest concession. Because of the additional layers in its design, it's noticeably darker than its monochrome counterparts, especially the Viwoods AIPaper. This can be made up with the backlight, and I have to give Boox credit for allowing you to customize the color temperature from cool white to nearly amber, but I feel like it loses a small piece of the newspaper-like e-ink appeal. I found that keeping the backlight relatively low helped mitigate this while still maintaining good visibility, even in poorly lit environments.

For writing, these layers also result in ever so slightly more distance between the tip of your stylus and the e-ink below. While minor, it is noticeable, especially when A/B comparing it against non-backlit Carta 1300 displays. Don't get me wrong: It's still perfectly functional as a writing and sketching device and remains pleasant to use, but the difference is there and worth considering if writing is your primary purpose above all else.

For color content, such as PDFs with illustrations and ebooks like graphic novels, this display is a major upgrade from monochrome. While color rendition is nowhere near as vivid as an LCD or OLED display, it still offers a much better viewing experience for any kind of imagery. Graphics are clearer and more engaging, and contrast is much less fiddly.

Reading through one of my collected editions of classic Tales from the Crypt, the difference was night and day. If normal e-ink is similar to reading a page in a paperback, reading a graphic novel is akin to the colors of a newspaper comic strip. On the Note Air 4C using the Vivid color setting, it’s a hair more saturated than Peanuts might be, but not much. Compared to black and white displays, however, it’s a big improvement.

The normal reading experience is similar to that of any other e-ink e-reader. Taken as a whole, its color performance allows it to be a more versatile reading companion if you consume more than pure text, and unlike the recent Kindle Colorsoft, there’s no color bleeding.

The colorization also improves its performance in note-taking and with Android apps. Let's face it: Many apps, including those designed explicitly for taking notes, rely on color — choosing an appropriate highlighter, for example, comes down to muscle memory on a monochrome tablet when everything is varying shades of gray. Here, you can choose your tools with confidence and also pick up on any visual indicators the developers may have baked into their UI.

The Note Air 4C excels in writing and note-taking, but there's still room for growth. Like many other e-ink tablets, it offers a palette of writing tools, including pencil, pen, brush pen, ballpoint pen, and marker. Each of these allows you to control the width of the lines and, in the case of the pencil, the texture that you're writing with.

To support different writing styles, it comes preloaded with templates, encompassing everything from lined paper to to-do lists, schedules, brainstorming sheets, notes, comic panels, grid paper, and more. You can also load your own and, with a recent update, even use PDFs with hyperlinks for in-depth, touch-navigable planners.

The device supports OneNote and it works fine, but the best experience is certainly within this proprietary Boox Notes app. The responsiveness of writing is easily the best, and it includes tools such as layering, inserting keywords and links, AI analysis, text transcription (handwriting to text), and deeper control over what touch gestures will be supported at any given time.

There's a lot here, and it comes along with a fairly deep learning curve. For a good while, I didn't realize that I could disable the bottom gestures (typically used for navigation like a normal Android tablet) and would inadvertently turn the page or zoom in when I lifted my stylus. Experience makes a huge difference in how powerful Boox's note-taking app can truly be, and all it really takes is time logged on simple exploration. When you're done, you're able to export and share these notes or sync them to Boox's servers to use between compatible devices.

Elsewhere on the device, you'll find other tools, like a built-in e-reader (you can download Kindle and other apps that all work fine as well), calendar and task management, an integrated AI assistant, and Android staples like a calculator, clock, and sound recorder. You can even load and listen to music on it or download Spotify if that's more your flavor. The speakers aren’t great for music due to their lack of bass, but since you can connect Bluetooth earbuds, listening to music while you read remains a viable option.

There are also easily overlooked features like the NaviBall tool that adds a collapsible radial of shortcuts to the screen that follows you between apps. A number of different gesture controls and e-ink settings also reduce ghosting and improve animations. Elsewhere, you can choose when the screen completely refreshes to wipe away any traces of ghosts and set the refresh mode for each app individually based on what you decide works best.

Compared to e-ink tablets from most other brands, this one has significantly more functionality. You do trade some of its distraction-free nature for that, but I honestly didn't find that to be a very big sacrifice for the additional versatility. At the same time, this "kitchen sink" approach does mean that the Note Air 4C doesn't offer some smaller but very important features, like the deep intra-note linking of the Supernote.

The quality of the writing tools could also use improvement. While entirely functional, they all feel pretty basic. The pencil in particular leaves a lot to be desired, consistently looking a bit dull and not working nearly as well as it should for shading. Likewise, I've yet to test an e-ink tablet that makes my handwriting look quite as pleasant as the Remarkable Paper Pro with its calligraphy pen. Its handwriting refinement is a special kind of magic that I wish the Boox had.

Prime Video has renewed Invincible for Season 5 ahead of Season 4’s premiere in 2026.

The streamer announced its long-term calendar update today, signaling that the team behind Robert Kirkman’s animated series adaptation feel good about the direction Mark Grayson’s story is heading following Season 3’s conclusion earlier this year. Invincible Season 4 remains without a release date outside of the promise that it will arrive in 2026, so it’s no surprise to see Season 5 has yet to lock down its own date or window.

Season 5, Mark... this is GOOD NEWS pic.twitter.com/Kft2aTuS5S

— INVINCIBLE (@InvincibleHQ) July 17, 2025

Prime Video wants to continue its gruesome superhero show for at least a few more years, and it’ll do so with new talent. Alongside confirmation that Invincible is officially renewed for Season 5 is news that Matthew Rhys (Watchmen: Chapter I and II, The Americans) has joined the cast for the upcoming season. No information about which character he will play has been announced.

Remember Secret Level, that Amazon Prime mini-series of short films inspired by popular video games? You know the episode that recast Pac-Man as a marooned warrior abducting strangers to help it fight its way out of a prison planet? Well, Bandai Namco fleshed that idea out into a lengthy metroidvania called Shadow Labyrinth – a rare Street Fighter: The Movie-type beat – and this bizarre reimagining of the industry’s oldest eater has been a truly challenging experience for me so far. Not necessarily because it’s difficult, as it’s not a cake walk but I’ve thrown myself against the rocks of more tortuous games in the past. No, my biggest struggle after 10 hours with it has been with staying interested in Shadow Labyrinth’s cryptic, slow, and frankly boring story while also fighting through some brutal checkpointing.

I’m not completely against the idea of a gritty reboot of Pac-Man in theory, but the execution here has not made a great case for it in practice at this point. The story, which drapes you in the rags of Puck’s (read: Pac-Man’s) sword swinging goon, sort of exists around you. It makes some sense given you’ve woken up without any memories or understanding of the wreckage of war that you’re being lead through by your scheming yellow companion, but Shadow Labyrinth’s insistence on making you stand around and watch broken, vague, trope-bloated dialogue between the handful of active characters is arduous.

The 10-minute Secret Level episode does a much more effective job of weaving an interesting parable by using the “cycle of survival” story as a parallel of the cyclical nature of Pac-Man’s eat-die-repeat gameplay. As a direct sequel to that short, Shadow Labyrinth expands on the story exponentially, but seems to fill that new space with dense, rote sci-fi lore that has so far had very few compelling plot happenings sprinkled throughout. I will hedge all of this by saying that, at the time right before writing this, the journey of Puck and the Swordsman took a pretty major turn that could unlock a lot more potential for a real compelling tale to be told – but based on what I’ve seen up to this point, I’m not going to hold my breath.

Shadow Labyrinth looks pretty good, though. The sort of moving paper doll animation used so well in games like Salt and Sanctuary is mostly solid here, too. There’s a surprising level of detail in many of the monsters I’ve encountered, especially the mechanical ones with all of their bits and doodads. Animations can feel a little stilted and floaty, like a marionette on strings, but it doesn’t affect the action in any meaningful way. The levels themselves make good use of color in their fore and backgrounds, but I wouldn’t call its renditions of the depths of a lava filled cavern or the many stories of a high tech tower all that unique. I haven’t found a zone that really has that kind of evocative wow factor, yet.

The actual task of moving through these expansive areas has become progressively more engaging. Platforming has yet to be much of a challenge, with some side paths occasionally leading to more dangerous mini-puzzles and obstacles that’ll test your timing and reflexes. I was regularly presented with rails that morph you into the round yellow chomp machine we all recognize. These tracks allow you to waka waka waka up designated walls, around corners, and across ceilings, munching on pellets (which is a currency to spend on perks and upgrades) as you go. Hopping from line to line or launching Puck at foes with a spinning sword attack is funny at first, but I haven’t really encountered a section of this that feels truly clever outside of the fact that the gimmick exists in the first place. These are such isolated experiences at this point that if you removed all of these sections from Shadow Labyrinth, I wouldn’t miss any of them.

While on foot, obscure signposting and an abundance of crossroads often makes it unclear where the critical path lies and has had me regularly stumbling into side paths by accident, which sometimes leads to goodies like bonus health, and other times leads to a roadblock that I don’t yet have the upgrade to surmount. Sauntering around these corners has also felt oppressively dangerous as death will jettison me back to a checkpoint that almost always feels miles away from where I fell. It’s made more stressful because the checkpointing system is actually two-tiered: there are larger Miku Sol points that you can upgrade your warrior with and teleport between, and smaller pylons that are checkpoints in the strictest, old school sense of the word. As resources dwindle and the paths to explore splinter and multiply seemingly endlessly, a little misstep here or there could erase so much of my progress that I can feel just as trapped in these places as Puck does. Maybe that's the point, they don’t like it and neither do I.

So far, combat is full of your standard fare for a game like this. You can dodge around and swing a sword in a basic combo from the start. You unlock a power attack that is used alone for large ranged damage or linked to the end of your basic combo as a satisfying finisher. There’s an air dash, a grappling hook, a parry, etc. all waiting to be found and added to your repertoire as well, each of which cost a little bit of your ESP gauge to use. Running that meter to empty puts you in a Street Fighter 6-style burnout condition, meaning you can’t do anything but attack until it recharges again. This is a heavy penalty, but a meaningful one and requires you to really pay attention to how much offense you’re attempting to unload at once. Perks can alter you in smaller ways, like making your dodge cost less ESP or showing the remaining health of the last enemy you hit, but I haven't found enough of them to determine if their effect on combat is significant. At about 10 hours in, all of these elements have not yet combined to create a stylish flow or skill checking scenarios to spice up the act of turning enemies into dust beyond much more than rote button mashing.

Puck can get in on the action on occasion, combining with your swordsman to become a sort of mechanical dragon creature that rips and tears until its timed energy bar is done. It’s fun to be big enough to ignore enemy damage and adverse terrain for a short period of time, but you are still largely just mashing the basic attack button until you can’t anymore. To recharge this mode, you have to devour fallen foes, which also give you various crafting materials that I have quite literally never looked at outside of the one time it was prudent to - the only time I’ve seen the vendor that deals with them was in passing early on.

I’ve run into quite a variety of different types of enemies to use all of this offense on, but you spend so much time in large zones that baddies turn from new challenges to nuisances pretty quickly. Enemies that you can’t simply whack to death at first sight are few and far between, and they’re rarely arranged in a way that makes them a real threat to progress, the occasional archer standing on a platform you need to jump up to hit notwithstanding. Bosses as of right now haven’t required much strategy outside of basic pattern recognition, either. A giant rooster mini-boss gave me an opportunity to use my air dash optimally just after unlocking it, but no other boss has nudged that kind of extra technical layer out of my combat strategy, yet.

I am certainly a bit down on my time with Shadow Labyrinth so far. I’m leaving my expectations open for the possibility that its just a slow starter, even if 10 hours is a long runway to give a game like this in hopes it will take flight (we are told a playthrough could take 30+). I like but do not love its combat, which sticks to the melee-heavy metroidvania formula dutifully. I’m hopeful that the levels themselves evolve both in how they look and how they challenge my platforming and swordswinging skills, as they are showing small signs of ramping up the intensity. I'm not as optimistic for more compelling storytelling from the characters and spaces I'm presently in, as my brain has been wandering this seemingly endless maze of lore chasing the ghosts of the intense, affecting promise that the Secret Level short this is based on is teased.

The production of HBO's new Harry Potter TV series will include the construction of a temporary school that can house up to 600 pupils.

Cast members will attend classes alongside their filming duties, with around 150 children expected to attend daily lessons, and space for up to quadruple this amount at peak periods, BBC News has reported.

The need to juggle filming with school time was also a consideration for the stars of the previous Harry Potter films — but the creation of a temporary school goes further, and speaks to the enormous size of the TV show's production, which is due to feature a cast of hundreds and last for the "next decade."

The school, housed in portable buildings at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, and overseen by the Three Rivers Disctrict Council, will be open from 5.30am each weekday morning until 8.30pm each evening, in order to fit studies around day and night filming. It's there that children, including the series' core stars, will attend lessons while being available to film when needed — swapping arithmetic for arithmancy as appropriate.

According to planning application documents seen by the BBC, the school will be in place "for the next 8-10 years" but be dismantled afterwards.

HBO marked the beginning of the series' filming this week with the release of a photo showing Dominic McLaughlin, the young actor now playing Harry Potter, in costume for the first time. This was then followed by a first look at Shaun of the Dead star Nick Frost in costume as Hagrid.

The production plans to adapt each of the Harry Potter books into a full season of TV episodes, with the first set to air in 2027.

Alongside a small army of children, veteran actor John Lithgow will play Albus Dumbledore, with Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, Paul Whitehouse as Argus Filch and Katherine Parkinson as Molly Weasley.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

The Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim, CA are just around the corner in August, and with it comes an exclusive line of cute Pokémon merch, which IGN has an exclusive first look at. Each year, the Pokémon World Championships hosts a special Pokémon Center pop-up shop, and we’re getting three uniquely themed exclusive lines out of the event this time. Last year, we got a tropical, Hawaiian-themed Pokémon line. Check out the unique new Pokémon items, including a first-ever Pokémon bodyboard, below.

“In honor of this year’s Anaheim, CA location, Pokémon Center will be releasing three product lines – the Varsity Line, SoCal Beach Skater Line, and Rockabilly Line,” said Cindy Ruppenthal, senior director of Pokémon Center and e-commerce at The Pokémon Company International. “This year’s collection draws inspiration from bright, retro-diner design, blending vibrant colors and nostalgic elements that capture the spirit of our SoCal location.”

Check out a large selection of the exclusive merch that will be at the Pokémon World Championships in the slideshow above, but keep in mind, this won’t be everything!

The 2025 Worlds Pikachu Plush sporting a varsity jacket, revealed at this year’s North America International Championships in New Orleans, is sure to be a popular item along with the other SoCal-themed plush of Fennekin, Machamp, and Jigglypuff, but there’s a lot more to look forward to.

The standout premiere item this year is the SoCal Bodyboard, which is fully functional for riding waves at the beach, and is priced at $79.99 USD.

Ruppenthal “expects strong demand” for the SoCal Bodyboard along with other functional items from the SoCal Beach Skater Line, like the SoCal Beach Towels.

“Additionally, following popular reception from Pokémon Worlds in Honolulu, we teamed up with Reyn Spooner to create a Pokémon Aloha shirt, bucket hat, tote, and more to celebrate the event in Anaheim,” Ruppenthal said.

Off The Grid, the fast-paced, third-person cyberpunk battle royale from developer Gunzilla Games launches today on Steam, meaning more players can experience the game’s high-octane multiplayer combat and gritty near-future setting. Alongside its PC launch, the release delivers full cross-play support with Xbox, PlayStation and PC, so no player is left behind.

Since its initial release, the free-to-play game has steadily built a strong following, thanks to its slick third-person combat, fast-paced gameplay, and a deep looting system. Frequent updates keep things fresh and bring players back for more. One of the game’s most unique features is the cyberlimb system; players can swap out limbs to gain special abilities, adding a layer of unpredictability and strategy to every match. These limbs can be looted, earned through trades, or taken from defeated enemies, offering plenty of ways to customize your loadout and playstyle.

Creatively led by film director Neill Blomkamp, writer and director of films District 9, Elysium and Chappie, Off The Grid has become “one of the most dynamic and responsive battle royales on the market” according to Gunzilla Games’ Executive Producer David Nicholson. Recent updates have been made to the game in direct response to community feedback, and it is that “commitment to player-driven development” that will help Off The Grid continue to build momentum as it prepares to roll out even more content.

The launch of Off The Grid on PC opens the door to a larger and broader player base that can become part of the community and continue to improve the game through active engagement. Player feedback continues to be an integral part of Off The Grid with key features such as limbs, weapons and maps all receiving tweaks in response to community involvement.

As the game prepares for its next phase, new and active players can expect to see Off The Grid’s packed roadmap unfold over the course of the next few months, including new gameplay elements and community-driven experiences.

Play Off The Grid on Steam by downloading here. To stay up to date on new announcements and information, join the active community on Discord or follow the X page for future updates. Want to see more, check out the Steam launch trailer here.

I’ve been opening packs from Black Bolt and White Flare for the past week, including a White Flare Elite Trainer Box, the Poster Collection, Black Bolt Binder Collection, the Victini Illustration Collection, and a White Flare Booster Bundle. Right away, these don’t feel like typical Scarlet and Violet products. This dual-set format means there are two completely separate card lists, with Black Bolt focusing on Zekrom, Kyurem, and Genesect, while White Flare leans into Reshiram, Samurott, and Keldeo. It’s a clean split that doesn’t feel like filler or overlap. It feels especially fresh considering we've had two sets of trainer Pokémon cards with Journey Together and Destined Rivals.

This is also the final expansion in the Scarlet and Violet era, and I can tell the designers knew it. Pulling cards from both sets, there’s just a lot more to look at and sort through. You’ve got Poké Ball reverse holos, Master Ball reverse holos, Illustration Rares, Special Illustration Rares, and the new Black White Rare cards. Every single Unovan Pokémon is included across the two sets, which was obvious the moment I started ripping packs, trying to keep track.

Halloween and Christmas may be the two holidays most commonly associated with horror, but let's not count out Thanksgiving. That combination worked out well enough in Eli Roth's Grindhouse spinoff Thanksgiving, and now it's the basis for a new satirical horror comic from AHOY Comics.

IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of Thanksgiving #1. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

Appropriately, Thanksgiving #1 is written by Mark Russell, one of the masters of modern comic book satire thanks to books like The Flintstones and Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles. The issue is illustrated by Mauricet (Edgar Allan Poe's Snifter of Terror, Howl).

Here's AHOY's official summary of Thanksgiving #1:

Thanksgiving: a day for American families, when the alienated, the estranged, and the politically antagonistic come together to perform unity—until the strain inevitably tears them apart. But for one family, the addition of a cruel and deadly secret—involving the continuing rampage of the mysterious Turkeyneck Killer—solidly binds them together in the saddest, most shameful way.

“Thanksgiving is a black comedy using the most American of holidays as a metaphor for what our nation is in danger of becoming,” said writer Mark Russell. “It tells the story of a nuclear family with many of the same divisions you find within our nation and how deep the rifts between people become while we aren’t paying attention. About how a monster lurks in plain sight, but we choose not to see it.”

"Mark got mad about something big and wrote this story—I think to help process it,” said AHOY Comics Editor-in-Chief Tom Peyer. “I think it'll help us all process it. Whenever he gets mad, I hope he brings it to AHOY. Mauricet, meanwhile, is doing the best work of his career, but then he always seems to be."

Thanksgiving #1 will be released on October 22, 2025.

In other comic book news, Cult of the Lamb is returning to comics for the new Schism Special, and Marvel introduced David Colton, the forgotten post-9/11 Captain America.

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

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s the very first movie in James Gunn’s revamped DC Universe!

Now that Superman has hit theaters, James Gunn’s DC Universe is fully underway… Or is it? While Gunn has now released a movie, a TV show (Peacemaker), and an animated series (Creature Commandos) under his stewardship, there’s still a missing piece of the DC Universe puzzle: video games.

Gunn told fans back in 2022 that his master plan for an interconnected DC Universe includes video games. But unlike on the movies and TV side of things, there have been no official announcements regarding what the first DC Universe video game will be.

An absence of reveals doesn’t mean we don’t have a reasonably clear picture of what to expect, though. Across multiple interviews and press events, Gunn and co-studio head Peter Safran have explained their plans, including the fact that while they don’t technically oversee Warner Bros.’ gaming division, there’s now a much deeper collaboration between WB Games and DC Studios that could dramatically alter the way future DC video games are made. With that in mind, let’s analyze what the future of games will look like in the new DCU era.

Gunn Takes Over DC

The first time we learned that video games factored into Gunn’s DC plans was shortly after he and producer Peter Safran were announced as co-heads of DC Studios on October 25, 2022. While answering fan questions on X, Gunn responded to one user who asked if games would be connected to the DCU alongside films and TV. To this, he simply replied, “Yes.

It wouldn’t be until a few months later that Gunn revealed what movies and shows were in development as part of Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters, which is the DCU’s equivalent of the MCU’s Phase 1. And while video games were conspicuously missing from the Chapter 1 roadmap, Gunn told members of the press, “Television, movies, and games all intertwine within the same universe. We’re going to cast actors who are going to be able to play the characters in [animation and TV], as well as in other things.” This was the first clear indication from Gunn that video games were indeed a part of his plans for the DCU.

One important thing to know is that Gunn’s job as head of DC Studios doesn’t include control over any of Warner Bros’ video game studios, which include developers like Avalanche Software (Hogwarts Legacy), NetherRealm Studios (Mortal Kombat), Rocksteady Studios (Batman Arkham), and TT Games (Lego).

Under the current Warner Bros. Discovery corporate structure, Warner Bros. Games exists separately from DC Studios and is overseen by Warner Bros. Discovery's CEO of global streaming and gaming, JB Perrette. But after Gunn and Safran were named DC co-heads in 2022, Perrette appears to be deferring to the new DC bosses when it comes to matters of comic book video games.

The Walls Break Down Between WB Games and DC Studios

In an interview with Variety in 2024, Perrette revealed, “Frankly, there hasn’t been as close a relationship between the studio and the games business as there should have been. And James [Gunn] is actually a gamer, so having someone who’s passionate about it is super helpful.” Perrette added that the games departments are now “actively working with [Gunn and Safran] on the core franchises within the DC Universe.”

Based on this interview, it appears there was once a wall that divided WB’s gaming division from the movie and TV studios. And according to Perrette, it was only after Gunn and Safran took over DC Studios that a newfound sense of collaboration was achieved.

This dividing wall was confirmed a year later during a DC Studios Presentation held on February 24, 2025. During the event, James Gunn and Peter Safran confirmed Perrette’s statements regarding the separation between the two WB divisions and how that relationship has changed since they took over.

“We work incredibly closely with JB Perrette, who runs that division, and it’s really the first time ever it’s been this way at Warner Bros,” Safran confirmed. “It’s been great, and we’ve enjoyed it enormously. Everything had been so siloed, and now that’s completely broken down, and it’s been great. Because it also applies to consumer products and experiences, and everything that DC touches runs up through us now, which is awesome.”

“James [Gunn] and I sit with literally the guys that run the studios underneath JB,” Safran added. “Whether it’s NetherRealm or whether it’s Rocksteady, [we] sit with them and talk about characters and stories that we’re interested in and that they’re interested in.”

It’s funny that Safran mentions Rocksteady, as it was reported earlier this year that the studio is developing a new single-player Batman game. While it may be too soon to tell, at least according to Gunn and Safran, there will likely be some input from their side of things at DC Studios.

“We see designs for the projects in their very earliest stages,” Gunn said at the event. “When they’re talking about what the story might be, we say, ‘Well, maybe you want to go this way because we’re planning on maybe doing something with this character and so forth and so on,’ and help deal with that.”

Looking for Grow a Garden codes? Plenty of Roblox experiences have codes, and Grow a Garden is no exception. Way back during the Lunar Glow Event, a code redemption system was added. Since then, however, we've seen no new codes. That looks set to change this week, however, with teasers from the developer's social media pages. When that new code drops, IGN will have you covered and update this article.

Working Grow a Garden Codes (July 2025)

There are currently no active Grow a Garden codes! As soon as new ones are announced, we'll update this article to include them. For now, why not take a look at all the new content that was just added to GaG for their latest update? This week, it's the Pet Mutation Update we've seen added to the game.

Expired Grow a Garden Codes (July 2025)

Unfortunately, these codes have now expired:

• LUNARGLOW10 - This gave players 3x Seed Packs.

How to Redeem Grow a Garden Codes

Now that there's a code redemption system in the Roblox experience, here are the steps you need to follow to use Grow a Garden codes:

1. Launch the Grow a Garden Roblox experience
2. Look in the top left corner to find the Settings cog next to the icon of the backpack
3. Click settings and scroll down to the bottom
4. Copy and paste codes from this article into the Redeem Codes box
5. Press claim and enjoy your goodies!

Why Isn't My Grow a Garden Code Working?

There are usually two reasons why a code isn't working. It's either because:

• The code is expired
• The code has been entered incorrectly

If a code has been entered incorrectly or is expired, it will say the "code is invalid." To stop this from happening, we'd recommend copying and pasting the code directly from this article. We check and test each of the codes before we add them to our articles. However, when copying them, you can sometimes accidentally include an extra space somewhere, so always double check there's no additional spaces!

Where to Find More Grow a Garden Codes

If new codes are added to the game, we'll update this article, so you can always check back here and keep up-to-date with the latest codes. Grow a Garden has its own dedicated Discord server where codes will be announced, as well as game updates.

What is Grow a Garden in Roblox?

Grow a Garden is a new Roblox experience that's become incredibly popular since it launched. The gardening simulator allows players to show off their green fingers, as you buy seeds and plant a variety of crops from basic carrots to exotic dragon fruit trees.

As fruit and vegetables finally sprout, you'll be able to harvest them to sell for Sheckles. To go from a beginner gardener to a pro worthy of awards, you'll want your crops to experience mutations that increase their value. This can happen randomly, with Gold and Big mutations being down to chance, while weather events like snow can increase your luck of a Frozen mutation. There's also gear, and even pets now, that can affect how fast your crops grow, their value, and more.

When is the Next Update in Grow a Garden?

Grow a Garden hosts new events each weekend, where players can come together and try out the fresh content for the ever-expanding game. The next update is planned for Saturday July 19, 2025. This update is being called the Zen Update. All we know so far is that there will be a limited-time Zen Event, which we imagine will bring plenty of new rewards. We're also being told that there's new seeds, new tranquil themed pets, and more!

Lauren Harper is an Associate Guides Editor. She loves a variety of games but is especially fond of puzzles, horrors, and point-and-click adventures.

When Earth's mightiest heroes finally unite to take on Doctor Doom, who will lead the charge? Well, according to The Fantastic Four: The First Steps director Matt Shakman, it'll be Pedro Pascal's Reed Richards — an answer that has surprised many Marvel fans.

Cast your mind back to the last Avengers film, Endgame, and the superhero team's previous leaders then. Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man and Chris Evans' Captain America may no longer be with us, but Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson has taken up the latter's mantle — and he was last seen in Captain America: Brave New World establishing a new Avengers team once more.

Brave New World did not name Wilson's Captain America as the team's leader specifically, but this was certainly implied — especially as Marvel's next film, Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers, then referenced a rivalry between Wilson's Avengers and the Thunderbolts' "New Avengers" team.

Now, despite Marvel already having two Avengers squads on its books, it sounds like the team's true leader in Avengers: Doomsday will end up being someone else entirely — and someone who is still yet to make their MCU debut, rather than a character fans have seen previously.

"He goes from being the nerdy scientist who's locked away in the lab, to the husband and the father who'd do anything to protect his family, to the guy who's leading the Avengers," Shakman said of Reed Richards, discussing the character in an interview with Variety.

It's a slightly odd thing to hear — especially as surviving OG Avengers veterans such as Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner and Chris Hemsworth's Thor are also still around. Why aren't either of these higher up the pecking order? What about Captain Marvel, even? And why not Sam Wilson?

Perhaps this is about star power — with Pedro Pascal seen as a bigger draw. Perhaps this is about the middling box office performance of Captain America: Brave New World, and a desire not to remind audiences of a film that is not beloved. Or perhaps this is simply about the film's story — with Reed Richards and Doctor Doom positioned as mortal enemies in the Marvel comics, after all.

Pedro Pascal's Reed Richards will make his big-screen Marvel debut in just a matter of days, when The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens in theaters on July 25. The character — along with the rest of Marvel's first family — will then return next year for Avengers: Doomsday, currently due to launch on December 1, 2026.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds will be sold as a physical Nintendo Switch game with the "full base game" included on a 64GB cartridge.

Switch 2 Game-Key Cards are physical cards that contain a key to download your chosen game. That means there’s no actual game data on the card you insert into your Switch 2, and you’ll instead need to download the full game once the card is inserted. Every Game-Key Card case should be appropriately labeled on the front of the box, but the practice has been troubling some gamers, especially those who prefer to physically own their games, not just license them digitally.

This is particularly good news for Sonic fans because there had been confusion and conflicting reports about CrossWorlds in particular. Now, however, Sega has removed all doubt, confirming in a new FAQ that "the physical version will feature the full base game on a 64GB cartridge."

The FAQ also confirmed that crossplay will be available for Nintendo Switch 2 players, progress will carry over from the original Switch to the newer edition, and yes, there will be a $10 upgrade pack for anyone hoping to upgrade to the Switch 2 version in the future.

By contrast, Square Enix was criticised by fans earlier this week for confirming there would be "no upgrade path" for its Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake on Switch 2, and that its save files would not be compatible across platforms.

Sega has said CrossWorlds will feature a huge roster of over playable characters, if you include DLC. Characters you’d expect to see, such as Sonic, Dr. Eggman, Knuckles, Shadow, and Tails are present and correct, but now you can add the likes of SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the mix.

CrossWorlds is, of course, going up against Switch 2 exclusive kart game Mario Kart World, which has so far resisted adding guest characters from outside Nintendo's portfolio. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is set for release on both the Switch and the Switch 2, so it looks like we’ll be set for some old-fashioned Mario vs. Sonic kart racing rivalry when Sega's effort launches in September.

IGN recently went hands-on with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and came away impressed. “It’s a vibe,” we said, “and one that I’ve enjoyed and will look forward to drifting through.”

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Roblox has announced a new range of safety features directed specifically at teenagers ages 13-17, including a new age estimation technology that uses AI to guess a user's age based on a video selfie they submit.

Today's announcement reveals several new features being implemented in Roblox that the company claims will improve teen and child safety on its platform. At the core of the announcement are new features specifically for teens ages 13-17, giving them more freedom on the platform than younger children but still less than adults. Teens will be able to designate "trusted connections" on Roblox, with whom they will be able to chat on the platform without filters. Per Roblox, the goal is to better monitor conversations teens are having on Roblox rather than having them lured to third-party platforms where unmonitored conversations could become inappropriate.

Trusted connections are intended to be set between users who know one another well, and if a teen intends to set someone 18+ as a trusted connection, they can only do so using a QR code scanner or a contact importer.

In the past, Roblox has relied on the submission of a government ID verifying that users are 13+ or 18+ to unlock certain platform chat features. However, it is now implementing an alternative verification method. Individuals can submit a "video selfie" to Roblox, and an AI will determine if it believes the person in question is 13+ by analyzing it against "a large, diverse dataset." Google began testing a similar feature earlier this year, as did Meta the year prior.

In addition to these changes, Roblox is also adding new tools such as online status controls, a do not disturb mode, and parental controls for parents who have linked their accounts to a teenage's account.

Roblox has long been in an uncomfortable spotlight regarding its handling of children's safety. In 2018, it made headlines when a mother reported her seven-year-old daughter's Roblox character was violently sexually assaulted by other players in-game, and separately a six-year-old girl playing Roblox was reportedly invited into a "sex room". In 2021, People Make Games published a report on the ways in which Roblox's business model allegedly exploits child labor. In 2022, Roblox faced a San Francisco lawsuit accusing it of enabling the financial and sexual exploitation of a 10-year-old girl. In 2023, it was sued both for allegedly facilitating "an illegal gambling ecosystem" and more generally for having lax child safety protocols that allegedly led to financial loss and children's exposure to adult content. Just last year, Bloomberg published a damning report highlighting the prevalence of child predators on the platform. That same year, the platform claimed it reported over 13,000 incidents of child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the year 2023, resulting in the arrest of 24 individuals who allegedly preyed on children through the game.

"Safety has always been foundational to everything we do at Roblox," said Roblox chief safety officer Matt Kaufman in a statement alongside today's new feature news. "Our goal is to lead the world in safety and civility for online gaming. We are dedicated to supporting experiences that are both deeply engaging, and empowering for players of all ages, while continuously innovating how users connect and interact."

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.

It’s that time of the year again and EA has revealed the cover stars of its next soccer game, FC 26. But this go around there’s concern that the infamous 'Madden curse' has spread to EA’s soccer series, after joint cover stars Jude Bellingham and Jamal Musiala suffered significant injuries that left them facing lengthy spells on the sidelines.

“It’s really nice to share this moment with Jamal, as a reflection of how far we’ve come,” said Real Madrid and England midfield star Bellingham in a comment accompanying the announcement.

“I remember our times rooming together in the England Youth team, we’d play the game all the time. Where I’m from, everyone knows the game, everyone plays it and talks about it so much. I’m grateful to be given the opportunity to be on the cover again.”

And here’s a comment from Bayern Munich and Germany forward Musiala: “When I found out I’d be on the cover of FC, it was such a crazy feeling. I thought, how could I tell my little brother? He’s a big fan of the game, so this will be a nice surprise for him. It’s something I always wanted growing up and it’s such a big part of football culture. Who knows, maybe I can still beat Jude at FC.”

The problem is, both players are injured and are set to miss a significant chunk of the next season. Let’s start with Bellingham. The 22-year-old just had surgery on a long-standing shoulder injury that’s set to keep him out of the game for up to four months. That means he’s going to miss the start of next season and may not return until November.

It’s worse for Musiala, though. He suffered a horrible injury playing at the Club World Cup that rules him out for between four and five months. After breaking his leg and dislocating his ankle in the same incident, the 22-year-old is set for a long absence.

All this means FC 26 launches in September with both its cover stars unable to play the game. One potentially won’t play again until 2026. Hardly ideal for the marketers at EA Sports, who must be wondering whether they are now cursed.

The alleged risk of using a well-known Pokémon Go exploit is causing widespread confusion among the game's community, fuelled by a dire warning from a senior player that supposedly originates from the app's own development team.

Said warning states that Pokémon Go's developers are aware of the exploit in question — which allows users to interact with in-game locations from further away than normally possible — and consider it "a violation of the Terms of Service of the game."

Continued use of the exploit is detectable by the developer's anti-cheat teams, the warning goes on to claim, and risks users' accounts being flagged for cheating — an offense that can eventually result in a permanent account ban.

The appearance of this message, and the claim it is being passed on from Pokémon Go's makers, has sparked a firestorm of debate, primarily over the rights and (mostly) wrongs of this exploit being viewed as cheating in the same vein as more nefarious tactics.

Many players have said that this "trick" simply makes use of a unintended bug in how the game functions, and is not comparable to the tools some players use to actively break the game, such as by using third-party apps and hacks to spoof their location.

There's also a debate over the veracity of the message itself — both over its origins, which appear to be from a senior player marked as a Community Ambassador who has spoken to the game's developers, and over the likely intent behind what was said.

To understand the nuances here, it's worth taking a look at the issue in more detail. At a base level, the exploit allows players to access a raid lobby slightly beyond their normal interaction radius via a Daily or Premium Raid Pass, rather than by using a more expensive Remote Raid Pass.

Performing the exploit — referred to locally among players as "flying," "floating," or "tricking" — is clearly not intended behavior, but can hardly be considered game-breaking. Accessing a raid lobby that's less than 100m away but slightly out of your normal range is considered by many players to simply be a convenience — and potentially an aid to taking part in more raids overall, even if this is done so without the top-tier Remote Raid Pass.

That said, a simple glance at the game's Terms of Service (TOS) shows that, according to the letter of the law, this could indeed fall under the game's description of cheating as it stands.

IGN contacted the Pokémon Go development team to ask about the origins of the warning, whether the exploit was indeed considered cheating, and what actions players might expect if they continued to use it. In response, a spokesperson pointed us back to the game's TOS document, and specifically its section on cheating, which we'll quote below.

Now, it's entirely possible to see how this exploit could fall under the TOS' definition of using "techniques to alter or falsify a device's location" and therefore — again, according to the letter of the law — is something that could be considered cheating.

But by pointing IGN back to its TOS, the Pokémon Go development team is also — deliberately or not — highlighting something potentially crucial around this issue's enforcement. And that's the fact that, once again, according to the letter of the law, playing with multiple accounts is also considered cheating — despite it being something that a percentage of the game's playerbase does, with absolutely zero infraction.

What this may all ultimately boil down to is someone purportedly asking the Pokémon Go development team for its view on an issue that the game's makers would obviously never sanction, but which seems unlikely to suddenly result in waves of players being banned. And yet, because of the murky origins of the warning, and because nuance can be difficult when messages get passed over the internet, players have now been left aggrieved and concerned.

Will the exploit stick around in the game forever? It seems unlikely. Will players suddenly find themselves banned for using it while it's still possible? This seems unlikely too. But, we should state, this is just one reading of the situation, in lieu of any formal statement being provided — something which, if formalised, would likely only prompt the need for actual enforecement, which the majority of players seem to be against.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Donkey Kong Bananza is out today, and the game's credits have now confirmed Nintendo's main new voice actor behind Donkey Kong.

Unusually for a Nintendo game, Bananza's credits list out each of the game's voice actors with their specific roles — and right at the top is Kouji Takeda, credited as Donkey Kong in all of the game's various language options.

Takeda, who voiced Donkey Kong in the Japanese dub of the Super Mario Bros. Movie, now appears to have taken over as the video game voice of Donkey Kong as well, unifying the ape's grunts across mediums. This was something that was previously speculated — though not confirmed — when his name popped up in the credits of Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World, while DK's previous veteran voice actor did not.

Eagled-eyed Nintendo fans noted that Takashi Nagasako, who previously voiced Donkey Kong for 21 years, was no longer credited for the character as of Mario Kart World. At the time, this was discussed as likely yet another change by Nintendo of its long-term voice acting cast, following the replacement of Princess Peach and Toad actress Samantha Kelly after 18 years and more than 70 games, and the retirement of Charles Martinet as the voice of Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi after almost 30 years.

Bananza's credits also reveal a new voice for Pauline, with actress and musician Jenny Kidd now voicing the character for its English dub.

In Super Mario Odyssey, Pauline is voiced by Kate Higgins, who also sings the game's theme song Jump Up, Super Star! But perhaps this change is to be expected — after all, Bananza's Pauline is now a younger, 13-year-old incarnation.

Fans have some interesting theories around this version of Pauline being a precursor to the character we see in Odyssey, something that would make Bananza a prequel — and we even asked the game's development team for their take. But to say more, for now, would venture into spoiler territory — something that's best left avoided until you play the game for yourself.

Intrigued? We dubbed the game as a "a brilliant successor to Super Mario Odyssey and a smashing return for a classic Nintendo character" in IGN's Donkey Kong Bananza review. "Every element comes together in complete harmony to create Nintendo’s first Switch 2 masterpiece."

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social