2025 is definitely shaping up to be a huge year for DC's flagship Batman comic. Current writer Chip Zdarsky just ended his run with Batman #157, paving the way for Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee's Hush 2 storyline in March. And once Hush 2 is over, DC will be relaunching Batman with a new #1 issue, new writer, and new costume.

As revealed at the ComicsPro retailer event, the new volume of Batman will be written by Matt Fraction (Uncanny X-Men, The Invincible Iron Man). Current Batman artist Jorge Jimenez is remaining on board, though as mentioned, he and Fraction have designed a new costume and new Batmobile to ring in the new series. Batman is trading in the black and gray suit for a more vintage-inspired blue and gray costume. Check out the new Batsuit below:

If you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to plug your PlayStation VR2 headset into a proper gaming PC and dive face first into SteamVR’s rich back catalog of games, your options have been disappointingly limited. Previously console-bound PS VR2 owners are in luck, however, as Sony released a $60 adapter last fall that enables the PlayStation VR2 to be used with any modern gaming PC – that is, as long as your PC meets the headset’s minimum specs. But connecting the PS VR2 to a PC isn't as simple as just plugging in the adapter and calling it a day. Despite being marketed as a plug-and-play device, there are some tricky omissions in its built-in features that may make it require some additional setup, depending on your existing PC configuration.

How to Connect to Your PC With the Adapter

Before you dive into the step-by-step setup instructions, it’s important to make sure that you have everything you need. Via the adapter, the PS VR2 is fully compatible with most SteamVR games, but you’re going to want to make sure your PC has sufficient Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, a spare DisplayPort 1.4 cable, a free AC power outlet nearby, and both the PlayStation VR2 and SteamVR apps installed on Steam. The two Sense controllers packed in with the PS VR2 are charged through USB-C, so you’ll need two USB-C charging ports and USB-C cables to keep both controllers charged between uses – though there is a Sense controller charging station available on Sony’s website for $50, which is much simpler to use.

What You'll Need

After over two dozen mainline games, I can only imagine how difficult it must be to innovate and stay relevant in an era where a great game is coming out every few weeks, but that’s exactly what KOEI TECMO aims to do with the next entry in its long-running Atelier JRPG series, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories and the Envisioned Land. After spending over six hours gathering resources, doing Sailor Moon-esque magical dancing rituals, and riding around on a motorbike, I’m inclined to believe they’ll pull off just that, yet again. With more engaging combat, improved visuals, more convenient crafting, and an entirely new building system that lets you put your own personal touch on the world, there’s quite a bit to be optimistic about, even if what I saw of the story and characters was, at least so far in the opening hours, pretty boilerplate stuff for the genre.

If you’ve played any of the recent Atelier games, then you probably won’t be shocked by Atelier Yumia at first glance. All three of the pillars that have been around since its conception are still alive and well: exploration, where you run around collecting resources and solving puzzles; combat, where you fight baddens with a party chock-full of pretty anime friends, and synthesis, where you combine your hard-won resources into alchemical creations that make you stronger. But each has been given a substantial overhaul (not to mention a serious facelift) that breathes new life into a familiar formula.

Combat seems to be getting the biggest rework, with action-based systems that let you perfect parry, dodge out of the way, and switch to different range bands depending on whether you’d like to thwack enemies in melee or take them down from a distance. At lower levels, combat seemed fairly undemanding, as I was able to just unload every ability I had, swap to other characters to do the same, then repeat it all again, ending most encounters in a matter of seconds, but later on (and especially when I wasn’t properly leveled) I seriously got rinsed if I wasn’t paying attention to enemy attack patterns and working on my timing. It never got especially challenging so long as I was properly leveled, but it was nice to see a less passive combat system that I couldn’t just steamroll through while on autopilot.

Exploration also had some improvements, like having a gun to stun enemies and collect resources at a distance, ziplines that help you navigate the map more easily once you find and activate both sides of the line, and, crucially, a badass motorcycle for you to speed around on that makes getting around much easier. Finally, there’s Synthesis, which in typically Atelier fashion is so dang complicated, you could spend quite a bit of time customizing and min-maxing every aspect of your gear and crafting new items and attacks to use in battle. Or, if you don’t have the patience like me, you can just hit “auto mode” and it’ll automatically optimize all of it for you. Not that I don’t enjoy this aspect of the series, but it’s certainly nice to have the option of leaping back into the action quickly for times where I wasn’t in the mood to tinker.

Atelier Yumia also shakes things up by adding a fourth fairly significant activity to the list of things to do as you explore and level up: the ability to build and customize settlements throughout the world map. That’s right – Atelier Yumia seems to be leaning into the cozy craze, so now you can have a little bit of Animal Crossing or Sims with your JRPG by constructing your fantasy cottage on a patch of land and spending some quality downtime with your party members. I was only able to dabble in this a bit, given the constraint of the resources available to me in the early part of the story, but I could definitely see myself sinking quite a bit of time into taming the wilds with an elaborately decorated home.

With all Atelier has going for it, I will say that it did very little to make itself stand out in terms of story. The characters and foreshadowing of the undoubtedly epic and convoluted story that starts to develop in the opening hours aren’t bad by any means, but at least so far everything has been quite predictable and retreads a lot of ground we’ve seen from JRPGs of the past. This is especially true of the characters I met during my explorations, like the ditzy by wholesome Isla and the stoic and no-nonsense Viktor, both of whom I feel like I’ve seen half a hundred times already. But this is the beginning of a JRPG, so in all likelihood it’s just going to take a while for the story to start rolling or for characters to show their true colors to any level of satisfaction, leaving plenty of opportunity for my concerns to disappear given more time.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Atelier Yumia marks the first time the series will appear on the Xbox platform, and as a Westerner who would quite like more JRPGs to be readily available, that’s pretty awesome to see. Achievement unlocked!

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As our world has grown more interconnected, so too has our awareness of how fragile all of this is. Our money, our electricity, our water – they could be taken from us in the blink of an eye. Netflix’s Zero Day is ostensibly interested in how people would react to a devastating attack on that delicate web. What truths would we choose to believe? How do we keep ourselves and our people safe? Are we doomed to repeat our past mistakes in the name of justice? All of that sounds fascinating; unfortunately, it’s all surface-level themes layered on top of an incredibly dumb political thriller (with no genuine political convictions) that’s never exciting or crazy enough to justify turning off your brain enjoying the ride.

The problems present themselves early with the introduction of George Mullen, our main character and, according to the script, “the last president in modern memory who was able to consistently rally bipartisan support.” Mullen stepped down after one term to pass the torch to the current president, Evelyn Mitchell – and if that doesn’t have enough of a real-world ring to it, perhaps the fact that these characters are played by Robert De Niro and Angela Bassett will help you out. Given that De Niro has stayed away from American television his entire career, you’d assume the role that lured him to Zero Day must be pretty meaty. But even if he weren’t coming off the late-career high of Killers of the Flower Moon, his portrayal of George would be disappointing. For the majority of the six episodes, he’s phoning it in, occasionally getting the chance to turn on the charm or yell, but mostly stuck in a rote mode that gives us precious little insight into who the former president is as a person. Episode 1 has him joining a commission to investigate the titular attack, which disabled power grids, transportation and communication systems, and other critical infrastructure across the U.S. (you name it, it was hacked) and displayed the menacing message “THIS WILL HAPPEN AGAIN” on cell phones across the country.

After this initial opening blip of excitement, Zero Day slides into a default tedium. It opens up storylines that seem like they could be, if not exciting, then at least thematically engaging, but these always seem to wrap up quickly in order for something else to be thrown into the mix. There’s very little sense of discovery or even conspiracy and at their worst, the creators – Narcos showrunner Eric Newman, former NBC News head Noah Oppenheim, and national-security reporter Michael S. Schmidt – pull it directly out of their collective asses.

Perhaps the most eye-rolling thread is George’s frequent attacks of dementia and memory loss (again, with more exhaustion this time: sound familiar?), which Zero Day represents as staticky droning and the – admittedly neat – disappearing and reassembling of objects in his office. Real-world analogues aside, this actually attempts to grapple with the ideas at the show’s core: How much of George’s investigation – including the sighting of a woman killed in episode 1 – is just in his mind? Can he even admit to himself that he’s unwell, and could that affect the investigation? Unfortunately (and without going into spoilers), the show chooses the most insulting route to the answers.

Like a lot of other Netflix miniseries, Zero Day is hampered by too many characters and not enough time to devote to them. Making matters worse: They’re all played by actors who are overqualified for such a tepid potboiler. Jesse Plemons reunites with his Killers of The Flower Moon co-star De Niro as George’s right-hand man. Lizzy Caplan plays George’s daughter, a congresswoman who becomes a part of the oversight committee watching her dad – a conflict of interest that Zero Day tries to shove aside despite being almost unprecedented. Joan Allen is George’s (ex?) wife Sheila, looking into a government position on her own. Connie Britton, Matthew Modine, Bill Camp, McKinley Belcher III – none of these very talented actors turn in a bad performance, but you’ve definitely seen them do much better work elsewhere. The bigger problem is that characterization as a whole is scant, and the antagonists especially come off as confusingly drawn.

The height of that incoherence is Dan Stevens’ Evan Green: In dialogue and performance, Evan appears to be a riff on conspiracy-spouting fearmongers like Alex Jones. But he appears to be broadcasting a largely left-wing populist show on some sort of cable channel whose name positions it as an equivalent to the conservative outlet Newsmax – a conflict of worldviews that has not and will not ever exist anywhere in any reality. Without spoilers, both Evan’s storyline and that of Elon Musk stand-in Monica Kidder (Gaby Hoffmann) point to real-world issues, but that’s all they do: Get you to say “Oh, I see what you did there” without ever feeling satisfying narratively or making some actual statement in the ideological soup. (For example: The fact that power-grid sabotage is a distinctly right-wing cause seems to have entirely passed this writers’ room by.) This would all be less galling if Zero Day weren’t so baldly dedicated to a certain level of verisimilitude – news networks with their actual anchors are featured heavily, someone mentions Axios at one point – while also getting shockingly hand-wavey when it comes to the actual details of the zero-day attack.

It would take an entire review full of spoilers to really catch all the ways in which no one involved with Zero Day seemingly understands how computers and technology work. Suffice it to say, Mr. Robot this ain’t. That extends beyond the depiction of hacking though; that show had its ups and downs but it was always distinctively stylish, gripping, and well-acted, interested in the ramifications of technology on the world at large and what it meant for the people having to live under the weight of capitalism. For a show that’s constantly talking about how the attack was a huge wound to the nation’s psyche, Zero Day shows very few actual impacts. There’s a train crash, a couple of riots, some fires constantly in the background – but for as big as this attack supposedly is, everything looks pretty normal.

Zero Day’s fatal flaw is that it’s lazy, both in its worldbuilding and in the plot itself. It would rather remind you of one news item or another rather than actually building a story around it, and over the course of six hours it becomes exasperating. There’s an overbearing sense of the show being written mainly by D.C. and machine insiders (which certainly aligns with Schmidt’s and Oppenheim’s claims to journalistic infamy), and often leads to the most obnoxious moments when it spinelessly tries to spread the blame for the attack (and the paranoia it spawns) across the political spectrum.

Zero Day almost seems to rally back in its second half. It’s not that it suddenly becomes good, but rather it gains something of a pulse, to the point where I actually wanted to learn the truth behind all these grand plots and conspiracies. That is, until I did, and the answers were so offensively stupid that I had to hold my head and take a deep breath. It’s not so much that it comes out of nowhere – though it kind of does – but that the villains have the absolute barest of motivations, and their plan itself is so idiotic and full of holes that it’s a wonder it didn’t implode at the very first keystroke. On top of that, it drowns itself in so much self-satisfying “both sides are bad” speechifying and stance-taking that even Aaron Sorkin would tell them to tone it down. It would be laughable if it weren’t so intent on trying to sound smart.

The streaming service that retains the streaming rights to an abundance of multi-million dollar movie franchises, Disney+ came late to the game but towers over much of the competition. Home to Marvel, Lucasfilms, Pixar, National Geographic, Star Wars, and the multitudes of Disney classics and modern hits, Disney+ can be difficult to compare to other streaming services. What makes Disney+ truly special though, is that there is a large selection of content for the whole family to watch, including the kids. As Disney continues to push out more and more content, the youth section grows every day with kid-friendly spinoffs of Star Wars (Young Jedi Adventures) and Marvel (Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man) as well as unique, quality cartoons like Bluey or Disney Channel classics like Phineas & Ferb. Overall, Disney+ packs a punch and appeals to families in a big way, making it one of the most popular streaming services available.

Because of all that, looking for an alternative to Disney+ can be quite challenging. Below are some options of the best streaming service free trials that can offer at least a somewhat similar experience. If you're hoping to remove Disney+ from your monthly bill, you can test drive these services before making the switch. You can also take a look at our guide to cancelling Disney+ if you're ready to leave.

Amazon Prime (30-Day Free Trial)

Attracting more of an adult audience with their latest films and series (like Reacher, Fallout, and Invincible), Amazon Prime has been consistently releasing original content mostly not suited for a younger audience. The overall selection of original content is ever-expanding and available with a membership after a 30-day free trial. After the 30-day trial is concluded, users will be charged only $14.99 a month (or $139.00 a year) to continue viewing and enjoy free shipping on orders from Amazon’s shopping center. There is also a student discount of $7.49 a month (or $69 a year).

Read our review of Prime Video.

Hulu (30-Day Free Trial)

Now fully owned by Disney, Hulu is streaming service with a known reputation for streaming a vast library of popular shows and original movies. Relating to Disney+ and their National Geographic section, Hulu also has a quality selection of original documentaries to dive into. After exploring the vast library that Hulu has to offer in this generous 30-day trial, there are a wide range of subscription options to opt into from $7.99 a month up to just over $100 a month–if you want to include live TV or premium add-ons such as MAX, ESPN+, Disney+, Cinemax, Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, STARZ, and more. If you are interested in watching the first season of Shogun or the most recent season of What We Do in the Shadows, Hulu is the only place you can.

Read our review of Hulu or check out all of the Hulu bundles available.

Paramount+ (7-Day Free Trial)

The studio that already boasted a large portfolio even before the establishment of their streaming service, Paramount+ offers exclusive access to original content such as the Mission Impossible movies, the Halo series, and the entire Star Trek film/series universe. They also have the rights to classic Nickelodean shows like Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Odd Parents. With new movies and shows being regularly released, Paramount+ is catching up to its original content competitors and is also the only place to watch Yellowjackets. After the 7-day free trial of their services, the recurring monthly amount to stay subscribed will be as low as $4.99 (or $59.99 a year) with limited ads, or $11.99 a month (or $119.99 a year) to add SHOWTIME’s full library and remove almost all ads.

Read our review of Paramount+.

Apple TV+ (7-Day Free Trial)

With a growing library of original, blockbuster-sized films and series, Apple TV+ doesn’t match the quantity of Disney+ but has much quality to offer. Featuring some highly appraised, original shows (Severance, Ted Lasso, Masters of the Air) and movies (Killers of the Flower Moon, Spirited, Napoleon), Apple TV+ blindsided the streaming competition with their impressive offers and final products from filmmakers. After the 7-day free trial has expired, the monthly subscription will cost $9.99 at base cost, depending on how many users are added to the account. If you recently bought any other Apple product, like the new iPhone 16E, you'll get access to a three-month free trial to Apple TV+. As a disclaimer for those without Apple products, you will have to create a verified Apple ID to access the premium Apple TV+ streaming library.

Read our review of Apple TV+.

Mubi (7-Day Free Trial)

While the genre and overall tone of the options on Mubi differ greatly from the selection on Disney+, Mubi has a good amount of quality, original content available to stream. Outside of the Mubi-produced content available (The Substance), there are plenty of arthouse films to watch on this unique streaming service. Presented as a movie theater in a subscription, users can pick from a limited selection of films–every day one is added and one is removed. After the 7-day free trial, subscribers will be charged $14.99 a month to retain their membership.

Read our review of Prime Video.

Disney+ FAQs

Can you Watch Disney+ Shows and Movies Without a Subscription?

Since the rights to many blockbuster film sagas/series and animation studios such as Lucasfilms, Marvel, Pixar, and more now belong to Disney, most of this content is available exclusively on Disney+. Unfortunately, Disney+ no longer offers the free trial option. As mentioned above: certain streaming services such as Hulu and Amazon will sometimes temporarily be given streaming rights to some high-demand films, making it possible to catch some Disney+ content without a subscription. However, if their wide array of animated classics and modern marvels is too great to ignore, Disney+ offers bundle deals that are worth looking into.

You can also purchase physical copies of some of the more popular shows, like The Mandalorian, allowing you to sidestep the need for a subscription.

Does Disney+ Have a Free Trial?

Although Disney+ did have a free trial when the service first launched, the service no longer offers this benefit to new subscribers. For more information about what Disney+ can offer, check out their help center page.

Connor Sheppard is an Oregon-grown culture writer for IGN with previous work on The Manual. Intrigued from a young age by pop culture and movies, he has developed into an experienced critic and consumer of all things media. From his time earning a bachelor's degree in digital communications at Oregon State University, he found a love for writing and appreciating specific actors and directors in the many films he watches. When he's not tapping away on his computer, you can find him watching new movies, practicing Muay Thai, or spending time with great friends and family.

Since its launch in the summer of 2020, Peacock has expanded its catalog of shows and movies (The Wild Robot, Nosferatu, Twisters) to compete with the big names in streaming. With their exclusive access to all things owned by NBC (including every season of The Office), Peacock is starting to gain some traction in the streaming wars.

As streaming has evolved and changed throughout the years, streaming services have also changed in layout, content rights, and pricing. Despite the increase in competition, Peacock does not offer any sort of free trial.

Can You Get Peacock for Free in Other Ways?

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii releases today on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, so it's time to get you savvy on the cheapest copies. This latest in a long line of Sega games about Japanese organised crime is centred on a beloved miscreant, Goro Majima, and got praised heartily by our reviewer to the tune of 8/10.

Not only is the game available to be yours now in a variety of storefronts, but we've also found some collectable side curios related to this title. Some of them reside in collector's editions, others can be bought as side promotions, and one is just a cool custom thing that Sega seems to have whipped up purely to raise pirate awareness in general. Read on to see what's out there on the high seas.

Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii - Standard Edition

Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Collector’s Edition

The collector’s edition costs A$229.95 and comes with the game itself, plus the following extras:

• 15cm Acrylic Standee
• Eye Patch
• Treasure Coin Pin
• Digital Deluxe Content: Legendary Pirate Crew Pack, Legendary Outfit Pack, Ship Customization Pack, and Extra Karaoke & CD Pack

Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Digital Deluxe Edition

• PS Store (digital) - A$122.95
• Xbox Store (digital) - A$122.95
• Steam - A$122.95

Those ready to embrace the all-digital lifestyle and want more than just the game can pick up the digital deluxe edition. It includes a digital copy of the game, plus the following digital extras:

• Legendary Pirate Crew Pack
• Legendary Outfit Pack
• Ship Customization Pack
• Extra Karaoke & CD Pack

Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Preorder Bonus

Preorder any version of the game, and you’ll get the following digital items for free:

• Ichiban pirate crew set
• Ichiban special outfit set

What Is Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii?

Goro Majima is back in this installment, with a memory that’s been wiped as clean as the chalkboard in your granddaddy’s kindergarten classroom. He’s also in Hawaii, so he hops aboard a ship and sets out to do pirate things. As you can probably tell, the series’ goofy humor remains fully intact in this installment.

Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Merch

Seadrift Distillery Limited Ed. Rum

Seadrift 0% Spiced Rum is a bold Aussie classic with deep molasses, caramel, and tropical fruit notes. You’ll catch hints of vanilla and oak, with a spicy kick and a warm, lingering finish. It’s rugged yet smooth, perfect over ice or splashed in cola.

Capacity: 700ml

Get it here

Aloha Beer - Captain's Mug

A wooden mug with protective sealant exterior, stainless steel inner lining. Chug in style!

Capacity: 650ml

A$125

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Shipwreck Tee

Live the Pirate's Life with the exclusive Aloha Beer collaboration Shipwreck Tee!

Sizes Small - 2XL available in White or Black

A$50

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Cosplay Costume

Includes coat, trousers, belt x 2, gloves, hat, and eyepatch

A$379

Get it here

Since HBO (now Max) joined the streaming service wars, it has been a force to be reckoned with due to the extensive Warner Bros. media library. Home to culture-forming shows (Games of Thrones, The Last of Us, The Sopranos, etc.) and movie sagas (The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Mad Max, the DC Universe, the Dune Saga, etc.), Max continues to be one of the best streaming services out there.

As streaming has evolved throughout the years, streaming services have also been changing in structure, content rights, and pricing. Despite the increase in competition, Max does not currently offer a free trial in 2025.

However, Max and Disney have joined forces to create a new affordable super-bundle that gives users access to Max, Disney+, and Hulu all under one convenient billing cycle.

Can You Get Max for Free in Other Ways?

I think this might be strictly a millennials and older trope but, by show of hands, how many people reading this article grew up with an emotionally distant parent in the military? You love ‘em, but boy do you wish that their generation believed in therapy or even a basic crumb of human emotion. It’s a stereotype, sure! But sometimes stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, those tropes work out perfectly in the sitcom world, and I have found your next mindless watch if you related to a single word of the above (or if you’re looking for a passable distraction featuring Denis Leary).

Enter Going Dutch, Fox’s most recent “odd-couple” type sitcom centering on Denis Leary’s Colonel Patrick Quinn, Taylor Misiak as Captain Maggie Quinn, and Danny Pudi as Major Abraham Shaw. The shared last name of the first two protagonists isn’t a coincidence as Colonel and Captain Quinn are estranged father and daughter. If, of course, you can be estranged without realizing that your daughter hasn’t spoken to you in two years.

Do you want to know if The Monkey has any post-credits scenes? We’ll tell you right here: There are no extra scenes after the credits of the film, but there is a special surprise worth sticking around for.

Be sure to check back on Friday for full spoilers for The Monkey.

Riding off the high of last year’s horror hit Longlegs, writer-director Osgood Perkins is at it again with The Monkey, an adaptation of a Stephen King short story about a toy monkey that causes all kinds of horrific situations. Produced by horror maestro James Wan, and endorsed by King himself as “batshit insane,” Perkins’ The Monkey is full of hilarious, gory, memorable tragedy.

“The thing is, humor and horror are Siamese twins,” King recently told IGN’s Tom Jorgensen. “They're very close. I think that it stops being funny when it starts being you.”

King compares the film to more like a Creepshow or Tales From the Crypt rather than a straight horror movie. “Oz [Perkins] is right when he says that the deaths are like Wile E. Coyote,” he says of The Monkey’s often explosive murders. “Man, there are a couple of things in this movie that just made me howl. I mean, I just sort of hate myself for howling, but I howled nonetheless.”

Theo James stars in the dual role of twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn (with young actor Christian Convery doing a yeoman’s job playing the adolescent versions of the characters in flashback). After stumbling upon an old-fashioned toy monkey, the brothers quickly realize that every time the cursed thing is activated, someone, somewhere, dies. Despite their best efforts to get away from the monkey, or bend it to their will at least, a lot of people bite it… a lot of the time. Spectacularly.

Does The Monkey Have a Post-Credits Scene?

As noted above, The Monkey doesn’t have any scenes after or during the credits, but there is reportedly a special surprise awaiting fans of Perkins' work. While Neon didn't attach any bonus scenes to versions of the film that screened at festivals or for critics, Total Film reports that the wide release includes a teaser trailer for Perkins' next horror film, The Keeper. So it's worth sticking around after the credits, even if there's no post-credits scene for The Monkey itself.

We'll have more on The Monkey on Friday, including Tom’s full spoiler chat with King, Perkins, and Wan, so be sure to check back then!

For 100+ years through the evolution of animated entertainment, Disney has been providing some the most memorable, popular classics to be enjoyed for generations. Since November 2019, all of these films and projects that Disney now owns can be streamed to any device of your choosing via a Disney+ subscription.

As with most streaming services these days, it is normally an option to try out the service for a set amount of time. Disney+ does not currently offer any sort of free trial for new subscribers, however. The company was one of the first streaming subscription services to make this change, with the free trial being taken away back in 2020. The Disney+ help center now simply states that there are no free trials available.

Can You Get Disney+ for Free in Other Ways?

While Disney+ does not directly offer a free trial of their services, Verizon offers customers who have Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Ultimate service a free Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ bundle as a myPlan perk for free for six months. After six months, subscribers will have to pay $10 monthly to maintain service. This is a great way for viewers who already have access to Verizon services to make the most of it, providing multiple streaming bundle options much like Hulu does.

Disney+ Bundles

Marvel Comics is set to relaunch its monthly Captain America series with a new creative team and a new story direction that sheds light on Steve Rogers' earliest days after waking up from suspended animation. The new series will even chronicle the very first encounter between Cap and Doctor Doom.

As revealed at the ComicsPro retailer convention, the new series will be written by Chip Zdarsky (Batman, Daredevil) and illustrated by Valerio Schiti (G.O.D.S., The Avengers), with colors by Frank D'Armata. Zdarsky, Schiti, and D'Armata previously collaborated on 2017's Marvel 2-in-One.

The new series will open shortly after Steve is discovered and defrosted in the modern Marvel era. Upon reenlisting in the US Army, Cap's first mission will be to team with the Howling Commandos and infiltrate Latveria, which has recently been taken over by a young, ambitious Doctor Doom. While the series will eventually shift to the present-day Marvel setting, the events of this opening story arc will continue to affect Zdarsky and Schiti's ongoing narrative.

“I’ve been a massive Captain America fan for decades. I loved writing the grizzled, older Cap in Avengers: Twilight, so getting to write the actual Captain America title feels like a dream!” Zdarsky said in a statement. “We’re exploring Cap’s early days in the modern era with a twist that I think is going to really surprise readers! I’m pretty excited to get this out there in the world, especially with Valerio and Frank’s amazing art!

Zdarsky continued, “I’ve been approaching this title the way I approached my run on Daredevil, really trying to get in Cap’s head with a grounded, human look at who he is in this new world. Steve Rogers is the best of us, and I want that to come through on every page.”

“Captain America is one of my all-time favorites,” Schiti said. “I'm reuniting with Chip Zdarsky and Frank D'Armata after the amazing experience of Marvel 2-In-One, and I'm working on a story that strikes the perfect balance between heart, action and entertainment! But the thing that is most exciting and unexpected is that I found myself thinking more and more about Steve Rogers, instead of just Captain America."

Schiti added, “Chip's script is so clever and compelling that I’m sure readers will be dragged with us inside Steve's heart and soul. He’s a man that became the living embodiment of truth, justice and freedom. He fought a war against Nazism, ‘died’ in that war, and came back to life to do his duty and fight again. That’s a lot of pressure, and if you do the math, he’s only in his late twenties in the era we’re exploring!”

Captain America #1 will be released on July 2, 2025.

For more on what's coming up in the world of comics, find out what to expect from Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe One Last Time and see IGN's most anticipated comics of 2025.

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

Flexispot is offering a great deal on its workhorse Flexispot C7 ergonomic chair with built-in footrest. It's normally listed at $429.99, but there's a $200 off coupon code "C7PDSALE" that drops it to only $229.99. We generally like the Flexispot brand because it includes electric standing desks and ergonomic chairs with solid build quality and a plethora of practical features at a fraction of the price compared to other more well-known models. We rated the Flexispot C7 is the best budget-friendly ergonomic chair and the Flexispot E7 Pro as the best overall standing desk of 2024.

Flexispot C7 Ergonomic Chair with Footrest for $230

Make sure to select "with Footrest" option

Lenovo has dropped the price of its powerful Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 RTX 4080 Super gaming PC to only $2,160.99 after coupon codes: "EXTRAFIVE" and "BUYMORELENOVO". In our recent Legion Tower 7 review (the sample we received wasn't as powerful as this one), Jacqueline Thomas wrote that "The Legion Tower 7i is an incredibly powerful gaming PC, especially for the money you’re likely going to be paying for it. If all you want is a powerful, upgradeable machine without having to go through the trouble of building it yourself, it’s hard to find many gaming PCs better than this one."

Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 RTX 4080 Super Gaming PC

I've read all of the Harry Potter books multiple times over and they are always just as good as I remember, even after all these years. However, it is always fun to experience the story in a new way. The Harry Potter movies are one way to do that, but the illustrated editions of the books are arguably more enticing. Although the series has yet to receive a complete set of illustrated books, there is a new interactive edition of the Goblet of Fire arriving in October that you can preorder right now.

Not to be confused with the books illustrated by Jim Kay, the interactive editions of Harry Potter feature wonderful illustrations as well as paper-engineered elements that pop off the page. You can currently preorder the new book at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but the biggest discount is at the latter.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Interactive Illustrated Edition Preorder

Alan Ritchson is back and literally bigger than ever for the newest season of Amazon's crime thriller Reacher. In his review for IGN, critic Luke Reiller describes how “Reacher Season 3 diverges more from the book upon which it’s based than previous seasons, but Reacher himself is more ruthless than ever, and it remains a righteous good time.” With a massive new threat played by "The Dutch Giant" Olivier Richters, Reacher will have to dig into the depths of his brain and brawn to get out of this one.

If you’re wondering how to watch Reacher online, check out the details below.

Where to Stream Reacher Season 3

How to Watch the Jack Reacher Movies

If you're a little confused, or maybe just craving even more Reacher, there are also the (separate) Jack Reacher movies starring Tom Cruise. You can find streaming links for those below:

Jack Reacher (2012)

• Stream: Paramount+
• Rent/Buy: Prime Video

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

• Stream: Paramount+
• Rent/Buy: Prime Video

Reacher Season 3 Cast

Reacher was created by Nick Santora, based on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher book series. Here’s some of the cast that stars in both new and previous seasons of the show:

• Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher
• Malcolm Goodwin as Oscar Finlay
• Willa Fitzgerald as Roscoe Conklin
• Chris Webster as KJ Kliner
• Bruce McGill as Mayor Grover Teale
• Maria Sten as Frances Neagley
• Serinda Swan as Karla Dixon
• Shaun Sipos as David O'Donnell
• Ferdinand Kingsley as A.M.
• Robert Patrick as Shane Langston
• Sonya Cassidy as Susan Duffy
• Johnny Berchtold as Richard Beck
• Roberto Montesinos as Guillermo Villanueva
• Olivier Richters as Paulie
• Brian Tee as Francis Xavier Quinn

You don't have to wait for the new 2025 LG TVs to drop to score a great deal on an older generation model. Right now, you can pick up a 2023 65" LG Evo C3 4K OLED TV for just $1,196.99 with free shipping on Amazon. This is a better deal than what I saw during Black Friday. The LG Evo C-series of TVs have consistently been our favorite high-end 4K TVs, especially for 4K HDR movies and gaming.

65" LG Evo C3 4K OLED Smart TV for $1197

Transformers One, the franchise's first-ever fully CG-animated movie, is an origin story with a star-studded voice cast led by Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Brian Tyree Henry. IGN's Transformers One review said it "is mostly content with half-hearted puns and barely legible Cybertronian battles that could have used some major transforming before rolling out."

If you're wondering how and where you can watch Transformers One online, take a look at the info below.

Where to Stream Transformers One Online

Those who want to watch or rewatch the previous Transformers movies can do so primarily on Paramount+. You can check out our full explainer on where to stream every Transformers movie for a full breakdown of where to watch each movie online in 2025.

Transformers One Cast

Transformers One was written by Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari. It was directed by Josh Cooley and stars the following actors:

• Chris Hemsworth as Orion Pax
• Brian Tyree Henry as D-16
• Scarlett Johansson as Elita-1
• Keegan-Michael Key as B-127
• Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime
• Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion
• Steve Buscemi as Starscream

Transformers One Rating and Runtime

Transformers One is Rated PG for sci-fi violence and animated action throughout, and language. The film runs for a total of 1 hour and 44 minutes including credits.

Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.

Activision may finally be ready to start talking about its next Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game, and it seems to be using a sneaky Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Easter Egg to get the conversation started.

Call of Duty outlet CharlieIntel spotted and shared references to the publisher’s legendary skateboarding video game franchise in a peculiar place after the Black Ops 6 Season 2 Reloaded update went live today. Included with an ammo chest of new features, weapons, and more content was the return of the fan-favorite skate-themed map, Grind. The skatepark arena has been brought back mostly as fans remember it, with one exception being a giant, in-game TV screen featuring a very Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater-looking logo and a date of March 4, 2025.

Looks like a teaser for something related to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater has been found in Black Ops 6’s Grind MP map!

Announcement on March 4. 👀 pic.twitter.com/8efl6Qansl

— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) February 20, 2025

It stops short of being in-your-face but is still undeniably an eyebrow-raising reference for fans who have been on the lookout for another entry in the Pro Skater series. Rumors that another installment could soon be announced began earlier this week when fellow skater Tyshawn Jones let it slip that he would soon be featured in an upcoming Tony Hawk video game (via VGC).

“I’m in a Tony Hawk coming out, so that’s cool,” Jones said during a conversation on The Breakfast Club podcast. “They got a new one they remastering so that’s about to come out. I was in the last one.”

It was a curious comment that had fans excited, with today’s newly revealed Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Black Ops 6 Easter Egg letting them know when they can expect to learn more. Unfortunately, there’s no telling what exactly that March date has in store.

Activision tried to breathe life into the franchise with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 back in 2015 but has yet to release another new numbered entry since. However, in 2020, fans received the Pro Skater 1 + 2 remakes from Vicarious Visions. That means it’s been five years since a Tony Hawk game hit store shelves. With so much evidence lining up for a big reveal next month, it seems the wait may soon be over.

While we wait to see what that March 4 reveal has lined up, you can read up on a few of the other skateboarding-themed inclusions in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Season 2 Reloaded, including a pack of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cosmetics that have some fans upset. You can also see Tony Hawk himself confirm that he was working with Actvision again as of last year.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Hulu has been around for a while and, for our money, it's one of the absolute best streaming services available. From great movies like Anatomy of a Fall and Prey to excellent television series like the Golden Globe-winning Shogun, Abbott Elementary, and The Bear there is always something awesome to watch.

Below, we've detailed all of the best Hulu deals and bundles so you can get started on your streaming adventures with its library right away. This includes the brand-new Hulu, Disney+, and Max streaming bundle, which starts at just $16.99/month and is currently the best value available for the streaming services following the Disney Plus and Hulu price hikes. To see even more streaming and bundle deals, make sure to check out our roundups of the best Disney Plus deals and the best Max deals.

How to Get The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max Streaming Bundle

It's official, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have launched the brand-new Disney+, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle. The bundle can be purchased on any of the three streaming services and starts at $16.99/month for the ad-supported tier or $29.99/month for ad-free access across all three platforms. If you're looking to cut down on streaming costs and currently own all three of these, this is an excellent bundle to invest in. It'll save you quite a bit compared to what you'd pay for the three of them separately - 43% on the ad-supported plan and 42% on the ad-free plan.

Hulu deal for students — Get Hulu (With Ads) for just $1.99/month

If you're a student enrolled in a university (a US Title IV accredited college or university, per Hulu's website), you can sign up for Hulu (With Ads) for $1.99 a month. That's an excellent deal if you're a student, saving you $8 on the usual monthly price.

Hulu subscription tiers

Hulu: Bundle to Best

If you want a more affordable option when it comes to a Hulu subscription, you can't go wrong with a bundle, and Hulu has several to choose from:

• Hulu + Live TV (With Ads) — Hulu + Live TV (With Ads) is $82.99/month and includes Disney+ and ESPN+. It also gives you access to more than 75 channels with live TV and unlimited DVR functionality.
• Hulu + Live TV (Ad-Free) — The ad-free version of Hulu+Live TV is $95.99/month and comes with ad-free versions of Hulu and Disney Plus, although ESPN still shows ads.
• Disney Bundle Duo Basic — This is the most economic bundle. It will set you back $10.99/month and comes with subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu. Duo Basic lets you stream on multiple devices at once and comes with ad-supported versions of both Disney+ and Hulu.
• Disney Bundle Trio Basic — The Trio Basic bundle builds on the Duo Basic by adding ESPN+ into the mix, bumping up the price to $16.99/month. You can also download and watch select content on ESPN+ at this level.
• Disney Bundle Trio Premium — The Trio Premium bundle is $26.99/month and comes with ESPN+ (with ads) and ad-free versions of Disney+ and Hulu. You can also download select content across all three streaming services.

What can you watch on Hulu?

There is a bonkers amount of shows and movies you can watch on Hulu. Let's start at the top and simply talk about the verticals on offer with the base subscription, because if we also talk about what is available via Disney+, ESPN+, or live TV, we'll be here forever. (You can also sync up Hulu with HBO to gain access to things like Succession and House of the Dragon.)

Here's what you get:

• Network and Hulu Original television shows (AMC, Adult Swim, ABC, A&E, FX, etc.)
• Movies (HBO, Hulu Originals, anime films, etc.)
• Sports (NHL, Soccer, MLB, Auto Racing, NFL, College Football, PGA, Tennis, etc.)
• News (ABC News Live, Good Morning America, World News Tonight, 20/20, The View, etc.)

Hulu television

Hulu has some amazing shows, both those that are finished and many which are ongoing. For comedy, there are plenty of options to choose from, including New Girl, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, What We Do In The Shadows, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Broad City, Abbott Elementary, and so much more.

There are also some big Hulu originals to watch, including The Bear, The Old Man, The Handmaid's Tale, and Only Murders In The Building.

As far as animated fare, there are modern adult classics like Rick and Morty and Bob's Burgers, as well as Futurama, Family Guy, and King of the Hill. Anime staples like Cowboy Bebop are also available. And if you want to bring more youth-friendly fun, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Curious George are just a small sample of what Hulu has available.

The future of Hulu

Hulu isn't going anywhere. As a matter of fact, beyond it being awarded the best streaming service by us and receiving a 9/10 in our updated Hulu review, it was bought in full by Disney in November 2023 and the House of Mouse has created a one-app experience for those bundling Hulu and Disney+. With an FX partnership, Hulu is also home to those shows, including the latest drama miniseries, Shogun.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

Original story from Brian Barnett.

Amazon MGM Studios has entered into an agreement with long-time producuers and co-owners of the James Bond franchise, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, for Amazon to take creative control of James Bond going forward.

In a press release, Amazon announced the joint venture, which will see Broccoli and Wilson retain co-ownership with Amazon, but put Amazon in the driver's seat going forward.

“With my 007 career spanning nearly 60 incredible years, I am stepping back from producing the James Bond films to focus on art and charitable projects," said Wilson in the release. "Therefore, Barbara and I agree, it is time for our trusted partner, Amazon MGM Studios, to lead James Bond into the future."

This news comes not long after a report from the Wall Street Journal alleged that a "stalemate" between Broccoli and Amazon had turned "ugly", claiming that Broccoli didn't trust Amazon with the character due to the company being "algorithm-centric".

Amazon has held distribution rights to the James Bond franchise since 2022, when it acquired MGM for $8.5 billion and its massive catalog of thousands of films and TV shows. Over the years, James Bond in film has traditionally been helmed by the late producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, with Broccoli eventually taking over with his stepson Michael Wilson, and Broccoli's daughter Barbara Broccoli replacing her father in 1995.

The two have overseen the films ever since, with the most recent being No Time to Die in 2021 marking actor Daniel Craig's official exit from the role of Bond. Broccoli and Wilson kicked up a search for a new Bond in 2022, and actors such as Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Idris Elba have gained public interest as possibilities, but as of now a replacement has not been found.

The Wall Street Journal report suggests Broccoli was concerned Amazon wouldn't take a risk on a new Bond casting, preferring known stars, which ran counter to her casting of Craig in 2006 when he was still relatively unknown. As the WSJ said: “To friends, Broccoli has characterized her thoughts on Amazon this way: ‘These people are f***ing idiots.’" At present time, there is no known script nor plan for a new James Bond film, though this may change now that Amazon is in charge.

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.

Before you even play it, you can intuit a whole lot about the upcoming action-strategy game Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids, just by its absolutely ridiculous name alone. Well, I’m pleased to report that after spending several hours with it, it’s exactly as goofy and over-the-top as the title suggests. This cartoonish co-op adventure gives off a distinct Saturday-morning cartoon vibe with its bright colors, absurd gags, and dorky aliens with wacky voices, and blends 3rd-person action with real-time strategy elements that have really piqued my interest. But don’t be fooled by its family friendly ornamentation! As one might expect from a strategy game with XCOM creator Julian Gollop at the helm, this thing already started to show just how deceptively challenging it can be during my short time with it, which has left me eager to see more.

Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids threw me right into the middle of the action without much context behind its completely bonkers premise – and I was extremely okay with that. I mean, what’s not to get about a reckless human named Chip and a robot kitten named Clawz, fighting against an alien race of brains inside jars called the Brainioids? My co-op friend and I worked our way through increasingly tricky levels filled with relentless alien baddies sent to kill us by someone named General Blobbius (who is not a military general, but the general manager of the Brainioids corporation, because of course he is). If you couldn’t tell already, Chip ‘N Clawz doesn’t exactly take itself seriously, to its enormous benefit. From the brightly-colored levels, dopey looking enemies, and ongoing childish banter, it immediately oozes a kid-friendly charm that lured me into a false sense of security that maybe this would be a pretty easy ride, even though I’d selected hard mode.

Our objective was the same for most levels: battle our way through alien hordes and destroy the mothership at the far end of the map using a legion of robotic minions as our allies. To do so, we have to work together to collect Brainium (the resource used for building) and make decisions about what to spend it on, whether that be the construction of new factories or to power up individual units so they’re more effective in combat. But what started out as a fairly by-the-numbers action game with light RTS components became more complex with each level, until we found ourselves screaming at the screen and at each other in a panic, as we were overwhelmed by the enemy on multiple fronts. That’s because Chip ‘n Clawz definitely knows what it’s doing in the real-time strategy department, and in between the time I spent running around the map bonking aliens about with my melee weapon, I was toggling over to the build and command modes, which allowed me to construct new facilities or order my minions around, respectively.

There are loads of things to consider, as Chip ‘n Clawz slowly introduces new factories to build, units to control, and upgrades to apply to your character’s loadout that modify your abilities. You might, for example, want to take a perk that upgrades all your mining units that gather resources for building so that they’re faster and can withstand more damage from the enemy, or you might instead prefer to just deal more damage with your own melee weapons if you prefer to do more of your own dirty work. Then, during a certain level you might decide to spend your resources on a new artillery depot that supplies your character with a long-range gun, or alternatively you could use that Brainium to construct some stationary turrets to fend off enemies in the area automatically.

As you’re introduced to more and more things to consider, the enemy quickly levels up their tactics as well, which spirals into some surprisingly formidable encounters. One level had me defending our mobile base from enemy attack on three different fronts while controlling dozens of units, while another required me to construct vehicles and jetpacks to reach far away areas in search of resources I needed to win the day. The jokey tone combined with frantic levels overflowing with ruthless alien goons reminded me a lot of the Overcooked series, which uses its seemingly simple mechanics and cheery art to disguise the friendships it will surely ruin in the coming hours. Similarly, Chip ‘n Clawz cleverly disguises its difficulty by being one of the most immediately approachable RTS games I’ve played, luring you into a false sense of security with its third-person action mechanics, but then hilariously kicks you in the face with demanding levels that require you to lean more and more into its complicated RTS mechanics a short time later.

I feel like I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg from this surprisingly deep strategy game, and am looking forward to seeing how crazy things can get in later levels.

IGN is excited to partner with ID@Xbox for not only another showcase, but this year for the kick off to IGN Fan Fest 2025! Fans can expect to see exclusive trailers and gameplay from incredible indie studios, including Thunder Lotus, Akupara, Raw Fury, Cult Games, Game Source Entertainment, and many more.

How to Watch ID@Xbox at Fan Fest 2025

The ID@Xbox Showcase will stream on Monday, February 24, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT across IGN platforms. Following the showcase, IGN's very own Podcast Unlocked will be diving deep into the biggest reveals and exciting moments from the show, in a special IGN post-show.

Below, you can find all the places to watch the ID@Xbox Showcase, including IGN.com, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, and more:

• IGN.com (homepage)
• IGN’s YouTube Channel
• IGN's YouTube - ASL version
• IGN's Twitch Channel
• IGN's Facebook Channel
• IGN’s Twitter
• IGN's iOS App
• IGN's Android App
• IGN's PlayStation 4 App
• IGN App for Android TV
• IGN for Amazon Fire TV
• IGN 1 on Amazon Fire TV
• Pluto TV

What to Expect From ID@Xbox at Fan Fest 2025

Fans can get excited for big reveals from indie studios from the list below, and many more!

• 11 Bit
• BigFan
• Critical Reflex
• Daedalic
• Game Source Entertainment
• No More Robots
• Panic
• Playstack
• Raw Fury
• Thunder Lotus
• Cult Games
• Team17
• Curve
• Akupara Games
• Don’t Nod

For more exciting game reveals, check out our schedule for IGN Fan Fest, where we'll be sharing exclusive gameplay, trailers, clips, interviews, and more throughout the week of February 24 - 28, 2025.

Years ago, a video game like Solasta II might've been a niche product. Old-school computer RPGs, bound by dice rolls and Dungeons & Dragons rulesets, tend to be popular within exactly one demographic of the gaming populace; the same one that possesses fond memories of a long suspended campaign in Neverwinter Nights. Conventional thinking stated that the quirks of the genre—the punishing difficulty, the baroque questlines, the constant threat of permadeath—sealed off mainstream avenues. Or, so we thought. Because in 2025, we live in a post-Baldur's Gate III world, which proved without a shadow of a doubt that society at large could absolutely fall in love with a quirky traipse through all of these quirky systems. Solasta II is hoping that lightning can strike twice.

The first Solasta arrived in 2021, and by and large both games are bringing the same formula to the table. Like its predecessor, Solasta II is a turn-based tactical RPG undergirded by D&D structures, and in the two-hour demo I had access to, many of the rudiments were immediately legible. My party of adventurers had arrived at a rocky cliffside village, and I point-and-clicked my way through town to learn, exactly, what was ailing the citizens. A tribe of marauding kobolds were causing some problems on the border and unexplained tremors were destroying buildings, all while a crew of lost fishermen had been pinned down by flesh-eating giant crabs. The core plot points forked off in subtle ways, providing a variety of methods to approach the crises. Do you want to slaughter the kobolds in their camp? Or, perhaps, sneak off and nab one of the dragon scales they cherish, convincing them that you belong to the same cult? So, off you go to solve these problems, hoping for a bounty of loot—or at least a few gold pieces—in return.

All of these decisions are meted out in garden-variety skill checks, auditing your capacity for persuasion, perception, historical fluency, and so on. One crucial change Solasta II has made is that, from what I can tell, it doesn't matter which party member you are currently controlling when you navigate those dice rolls. The party is treated like an all-encompassing unit, which cuts down on the annoyance that comes when you accidentally wind-up in a high-stakes parlay with your low-charisma barbarian. I also appreciated how, with the stroke of a button, players can control their group using their WASD keys—ditching the traditional top-down view entirely. It makes navigating some of the tighter corridors around the map much easier.

The combat, too, is retrofitted in some smart, modern ways. Nothing major has changed—you will still roll for initiative, and expense spell slots to cast Magic Missiles. But as someone who occasionally gets lost in the morass of D&D iconography, the UI in Solasta II is highly accommodating. For instance, some of the high-level techniques available to my sorcerer were presented to me right on my action bar, in plain English. Same with my rogue's economy of bonus actions. The learning curve in Baldur's Gate is considerably steeper and rife with early-game mistakes as you're still getting used to the cadence. Solasta II, meanwhile, got me up to speed much quicker.

And frankly, I think that's my only concern going forward. All of the nice things I can say about Solasta II are cordoned off to smart, assiduous quality-of-life improvements. The demo itself didn't do much to distinguish itself from other RPGs on the market. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it was noticeable—especially when it looks unfavorable in comparison. One of the calling cards of Baldur's Gate III is just how pervasively interactive it is. Every NPC can be interfaced, unfurling more intrigue in seemingly limitless dialogue trees. But the portion of Solasta I saw was much more cloistered. Doors wouldn't open, townsfolk didn't speak to me, and my party was funneled down the narrow streets. The splendor of a tabletop campaign—how all options are on the table to the player, whether they want to raze the world or save it—didn't quite present itself. Solasta II has the basics down, but I hope when I play the retail version, it has the capacity to strike that erstwhile sense of wonder within us.

Considering what it offers, Disney Plus is still one of the best streaming services on the block. From classic Disney animated films to the latest Marvel and Star Wars movies and shows, excellent kids' programming like Bluey, and so much more, it puts an incredible range of high-quality viewing options at your fingertips. And with so much to check out, you'll want to find a plan that best suits you. We're here to help.

There's also the brand new Disney+/Hulu/Max streaming bundle, starting at just $16.99/month. This bundle is the best value available considering it's the only tier that wasn't hit by the Disney+ price hike. If you want more deals for other streaming services, check out the best Hulu deals and bundles and the best Max deals.

How to Get the Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max Streaming Bundle

It's official: Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have launched the brand-new Disney+, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle. The bundle can be purchased through any of the three streaming services and starts at $16.99/month for the ad-supported tier or $29.99/month for ad-free access across the three platforms.

If you currently own all three and want to cut down on costs, this is a great way to bundle them together and save big on what you'd pay for them separately – 43% on the ad-supported plan and 42% on the ad-free plan.

What Is the New Paid Sharing Plan on Disney Plus?

In an effort to crack down on password sharing, Disney has unveiled a paid sharing plan for individuals outside of your household. Basically, anyone using your account that's not within your household will have to be added as an "Extra Member" to your account. This costs an additional $6.99/month for the ad-supported Basic subscription and $9.99/month for the Premium ad-free plan, and only one Extra Member slot is available per account. You can learn more from Disney's paid sharing explainer here.

What Are the Different Disney+ Subscription Tiers?

Disney+ is available in a couple of different tiers. You can get the least expensive option (called Disney+ Basic) for $9.99/month, which gives you access to everything except the ability to download select shows to watch on the go, and it does still have ads. If you want to get rid of ads and be able to download certain shows, you can spring for the $15.99/month or $159.99/year Disney+ Premium package.

What Are the Different Disney+ Bundles?

Want a way to save on your Disney+ membership? Bundles are a great, affordable way to go. As far as bundles go, there are two ad-supported bundles and two ad-free bundles. Here's the breakdown:

• 'Duo Basic' bundle is $10.99/month and comes with subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu. Duo Basic lets you stream on multiple devices at once and comes with ad-supported versions of both Disney+ and Hulu.
• 'Duo Premium' bundle is $19.99/month, and comes with Hulu and Disney+ with no ads, but you don't get ESPN+. This is a good option if you don't like ads or sports.
• The 'Trio Basic' bundle adds ESPN+ to the mix alongside Disney+ and Hulu, bumping up the price to $16.99/month. You can also download and watch select content on ESPN+ at this level.
• 'Trio Premium' bundle is $26.99/month and comes with ESPN+ and ad-free versions of Disney+ and Hulu. You can also download select content across all three streaming services.

Disney+ Gift Cards

If you want to help someone out and give them a gift that will keep on giving, gifting a one-year Disney+ card is a great way to go. All the great things Disney+ offers and it costs a fraction of what it would take to buy even a small sampling of those movies physically.

What Can You Watch on Disney+?

There is a bonkers array of shows and movies you can watch on Disney+. Let's start at the top and simply talk about the verticals on offer here, with the base subscription.

Here's what you get:

• Disney
• Pixar
• Marvel
• Star Wars
• National Geographic

Disney on Disney+

On the Disney front, you have awesome classic movies like The Sword In The Stone, Robin Hood, 101 Dalmations, Hercules, and Sleeping Beauty, more modern classics like The Princess & The Frog, Tangled, and Frozen, alongside a wide range of animated shows.

You also gain access to a ton of vintage content like Escape to Witch Mountain, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, The Love Bug, and a whole lot more. The Disney Junior section is home to absolutely top tier animated shows like Bluey (which, for my money, is worth the price of admission on its own).

There's way more on offer, too, including a ton of Muppet movies, new live-action films and adaptions, nature programs, documentaries, The Pirates of the Caribbean, and musical programs featuring Taylor Swift (like her wildly popular The Eras Tour), Elton John, Ed Sheeran, and more.

Pixar on Disney+

When it comes to computer generated films, Pixar stands alone. Kicking off the revolution with Toy Story, Pixar has consistently put out fantastic films, and they are all here. From the Toy Story series to Finding Nemo, Cars, and more recent hits like Turning Red and Elemental, there is a ton to love.

Beyond even that, there are incredible shorts like Bao and Party Central, as well as a wide range of originals and series based on major films, such as Dory's Reef Cam, Forky Asks A Question, Cars On The Road, and more.

Marvel on Disney+

The MCU has become a true juggernaut, and there are many viewers who subscribe to Disney+ purely for access to nearly the entire MCU lineup of films and shows.

Whether you are a fan of the blockbuster action films, you are an appreciator of the classic 90's runs of "Saturday morning" cartoons like Spider-Man & X-Men, or you are currently vibing to the funky theme of the 1981 Spider-Man series, there is a ton of Marvel to enjoy on Disney+. And with new movies and shows being added to the MCU all the time, there is always more coming.

Star Wars on Disney+

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a film that changed everything. The original Star Wars is a seminal sci-fi fantasy work that inspired generations of creators, but there is still nothing quite like that far away galaxy. Disney+ grants access to the remastered versions of the original trilogy (hopefully some day they'll add the theatrical cuts, but I'm not holding my breath), as well as the prequels and sequels.

You can also stay up-to-date on all the latest shows, including The Mandalorian and the critically-lauded Andor, which some viewers call "the best Star Wars has ever been." There are also fantastic short series like Star Wars Visions, and longer-form series like The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, Young Jedi Adventures, and a whole lot more.

Take a look at our list of Disney+ alernatives for additional streaming services. To play while you watch, see our roundup of the best LEGO Disney sets. For more deals, dive into our Daily Deals page.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
Original story from Brian Barnett.

A Thousand Blows premieres on Hulu Friday, February 21.

A Thousand Blows was always going to be compared to Peaky Blinders. The gritty new historical drama from that show’s creator, Steven Knight, follows a familiar pattern of dramatizing real people from a long-lost time of blood, sweat, and struggles. But rather than following the criminal exploits of a family in post-World War I Birmingham, A Thousand Blows show us what it would be like if Rocky or Creed got a Victorian-era adaptation.

Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) is a man of ambition – a young Jamaican who has just arrived in London with dreams of becoming a lion-tamer. What he gets into instead is far more terrifying. Moscow’s fish-out-of-water story quickly becomes a fight for survival as he, along with his friend Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall), experiences the barbarity of the city circa 1880 firsthand: racism, unhelpful local bobbies, and the prospect of spending a rough night on the streets. Keen to earn some coin, they find themselves at the Blue Coat Boy, an East London pub that’s also home to an illegal bare-knuckle fighting ring dominated by seasoned fighter Henry “Sugar” Goodson (Stephen Graham).

Cutting an imposing (but suitably short) silhouette, Graham is extraordinary as the rage-filled fighter who hasn’t quite made it to the big leagues. After bulking up significantly for the role, the veteran of Boardwalk Empire and Band of Brothers hits like a truck – in both his onscreen fights as well as his acting. Sugar’s characterization is heavy-handed, but that’s not such a bad thing. This is a brutal man in a brutal world, and Graham metes out rage aplenty both in and out of the ring. There’s nothing overly complicated about Sugar – he’s the king of his own savage kingdom, and he wants everyone to know it.

Graham’s raw performance and chest-beating 19th-century machismo is spot on – he makes it perfectly clear that Henry is a man who won’t be reasoned with. So things get interesting when Hezekiah upstages him in his own ring. Graham’s muscular physique ripples with tension every time he’s onscreen, almost boiling over with rage at the mention of Hezekiah's name. Kirby, meanwhile, brings a light touch akin to Hezekiah’s fancy footwork in the ring. Sure, he’s no match for Sugar’s brute force, but he’s quick, clever, and determined to make his mark.

It’s as much a clash of wills as a clash of the boxing titans, and if that weren’t enough, Hezekiah’s run-in with a criminal gang provides a thrilling complication in the form of Mary Carr (Erin Doherty), the leader of notorious all-women outfit The Forty Elephants. This puts Hezekiah firmly in her sights as someone whose skills she can use. But their convergence means more to A Thousand Blows: The chemistry between Kirby and Doherty is riveting, and the pair dance around each other with steely fascination. Doherty’s casting as the criminal matriarch lands perfectly, too – she commands the screen with as little as a cutting glance or a quick snap of her sharp tongue. Mary and Hezekiah likely never even met in real life, but her inclusion in this story provides a much-needed twist alongside some pretty thrilling action. With Mary in the mix, you can always count on a gang of thieves and pickpockets to end up dragging our wide-eyed protagonist into the middle of an almighty mess.

There’s a lot to love about A Thousand Blows, even if the heavy atmosphere of its setting is about as far from inviting as you can get. It’s grim, it’s grimy, and it’s an intriguing place to find such a hopeful, ambitious young hero. The attention to detail is superb, too: The world of A Thousand Blows feels real and tangible, with shady taverns hiding intricate details such as period-appropriate boxing posters and commodities. Even the costumes are pitch perfect: Hezekiah’s boxing garb as he climbs the illustrious West End boxing scene perfectly mirrors one of the only known photos of the real Hezekiah Moscow. The first season may only be six episodes long, but it’s an impressive introduction to this murky, thoroughly engrossing world.

A Thousand Blows punches well above its weight. The London streets are bristling with tension as the historical drama takes vast liberties with the lives of the real people they’re depicting. However, it’s all worth it for the violent spectacle – the fight scenes are heavy and visceral, and the confrontations between main characters even more so. Their intertwined stories may not have happened in real life, but the way Hezekiah, Sugar, and Mary bristle up against one another makes for a truly gripping show.

For most PC gamers, buying a prebuilt gaming rig is far more attractive than it used to be. Years ago it was inarguably cheaper to build your own gaming PC than to buy a boutique gaming rig. That's not the case anymore. It's not uncommon for major brands like Alienware, HP, and Lenovo to offer quality pre-built PCs for cheaper than the cost of building your own PC with the exact same specs.

We've compiled a list of the best current gaming PC deals, both from the manufacturers themselves like Dell (Alienware), HP, and Lenovo, as well as from reliable 3rd party retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. This includes an incredible deal on a Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 RTX 4080 Super Gaming PC for $2,160.99 (with code: EXTRAFIVE). These PCs are significantly discounted from their normal retail price and are going to be less expensive than comparable models from other brands.

Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 RTX 4080 Super Gaming PC for $2,160.99

Grand Theft Auto 5 players on PC are in for a treat, as Rockstar has just announced they'll be getting a free update March 4 that brings their version of the game up to speed with the PS5 and Xbox Series versions of GTA Online.

In a blog post from Rockstar today, the studio revealed that the update would include "all the latest vehicles and performance upgrades available at Hao’s Special Works, animal encounters, and access to purchase a GTA+ Membership — along with improved graphics options, faster loading times, and more."

The update will also allow players to migrate their Story Mode and Online progress to the new version, and will include kernal-based anti-cheat protection and proactive voice chat moderation, again bringing the PC version to parity with console.

Those who want to remain on the previous version of GTA 5 need not worry, as Rockstar says it will continue to support the old version for those whose hardware does not meet the minimum requirements. First-time purchasers will also have the option to choose between versions. Support for mod platform FiveM will also continue on the old version while Rockstar works to upgrade it to the new PC version as well. However, players on the old version of GTA 5 will not be able to play online with those who upgrade - the two instances will be separated.

This update comes as Rockstar prepares for the imminent planned release of GTA 6 this fall. Though we don't have details yet on what online component, if any, GTA 6 will include, most are speculating it will have a similar online component either at launch or shortly after.

However, GTA 6 is thus far only announced for consoles and has yet to receive a PC announcement (though it probably will eventually), making this update an appealing one for PC players feeling left out. Recently, publisher Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick affirmed support for "legacy titles" as long as a community wants to remain engaged with them, further suggesting that GTA Online via GTA 5 will be around for a long time to come.

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.

Apple has officially announced the iPhone 16e. The company’s newest phone, the iPhone 16e, is set to release February 28. The upcoming device will be available in black or white and will start at $599, making it the lowest-price iPhone 16 on the market. Here’s everything you need to know to preorder an iPhone 16e.

When Is the iPhone 16e Available for Preorder?

You can preorder the iPhone 16e starting at 5 a.m. PT (8 a.m. ET) on February 21.

Where to Buy the iPhone 16e

iPhone 16e Specs

So what do you get when you buy an iPhone 16e? The newest iPhone has a 6.1-inch OLED display, but with a notch at the top of the screen rather than the “dynamic island” on the standard iPhone 16.

Internals-wise, it sports the same A18 chip as the standard iPhone 16, but with a 4-core GPU, which is one less core than on the 16. That may make it a little less zippy, but it does support Apple Intelligence, so you’ll get all the AI features rolling out in iOS 18. It also has Apple’s brand-new C1 cellular modem, which ought to make it more power-efficient, resulting in better battery life. Apple claims you’ll get up to 26 hours of video playback, as opposed to 22 on the standard iPhone 16.

On the downside, there’s no MagSafe integration, so you can’t snap it onto a MagSafe charger to fill up the battery, which is kind of a bummer. It does support Qi wireless charging, so you can set it on a wireless charger, but it won’t magnetically attach. And since it’s only available in black or white, it’s not as colorful as the iPhone 16, which comes in an array of eye-catching options.

But all that being said, the iPhone 16e promises to be a fine, more budget-friendly addition to the iPhone lineup.

Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Bluesky @chrislreed.com.

It’s official, a new Avatar cartoon is coming as Nickelodeon and Avatar Studios announce Avatar: Seven Havens.

Avatar: The Last Airbender creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko announced the new series to celebrate Avatar’s 20th anniversary. The new series, Avatar: Seven Havens, will be a 26-episode, 2D animated series following a young Earthbender who is the next Avatar following Avatar Korra.

In a press release, Nickelodeon says Seven Havens will be set in a world “shattered by a devastating cataclysm. A young Earthbender discovers she’s the new Avatar after Korra - but in this dangerous era, that title marks her as humanity’s destroyer, not its savior. Hunted by both human and spirit enemies, she and her long-lost twin must uncover their mysterious origins and save the Seven Havens before civilization’s last strongholds collapse.”

Konietzko and DiMartino said in a statement, “When we created the original series, we never imagined we’d still be expanding the world decades later. This new incarnation of the Avatarverse is full of fantasy, mystery, and a whole new cast of amazing characters.”

Avatar: Seven Havens will be split into two seasons comprising a 13-episode Book 1 and a 13 episode Book 2. Konietzko and DiMartino are co-creating the new series together with executive producers Ethan Spaulding and Sehaj Sethi. No cast has been announced yet.

This is the first mainline TV series from Avatar Studios who are also developing a full-length animated movie based on Aang. This movie is set to premiere in theaters on January 30, 2026 and will follow adult Aang on a new adventure.

As part of the 20th anniversary celebration, Avatar Studios also announced a line of new books, comics, concerts, toys, and a game in Roblox to herald the milestone.

Matt Kim is IGN's Senior Features Editor.

Today marks 63 years since NASA sent its first astronaut into Earth orbit. To celebrate that milestone, Comixology has revealed a new YA sci-fi graphic novel called Major Thomás.

IGN can exclusively debut the first preview art for this upcoming graphic novel. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

Major Thomás revolves around a former migrant farmworker who achieves his dream of becoming an astronaut. Fittingly, the book features an all-Latino creative team, including writer Omar Morales, artists Serg Acuña and Mau Mora, colorists Raúl Angulo and Fabi Marques, letterer Taylor Esposito, and graphic designer Gab Contreras. The book also features an introduction by astronaut José M. Hernández, whose life and career inspired the Amazon Originals film A Million Miles Away.

Here's Comixology's official synopsis of Major Thomás:

Thomás Mùnoz was born into poverty with one dream—exploring the cosmos as an astronaut with his best friend, Lisa. While Thomás studies and overcomes many of his circumstances to become Major Thomás, a NASA astronaut, he continues to suffer from anxiety and imposter syndrome.

In the near future, the launch clock to all of Thomás’ dreams counts down, but even after years of elite NASA training, he’s still not ready to let go of Earth. When he ends up lost in space he is stranded far away from our solar system and becomes entangled in a savage intergalactic war. Violent reptoids are hell-bent on destroying Thomás, and the robots he befriends, in their quest to control all of the resources in the star system. Throughout the brutal war, Thomás’ mind remains focused on cultural lessons learned from his mother and now-love interest, Lisa, who is back on Earth, working on a rescue plan with NASA. Will Thomás survive both the intergalactic battle and overcome the war raging inside of him?

“I created Major Thomás to inspire young brown people from all over the world to reach for their dreams, no matter the obstacles, no matter their circumstances,” said Morales in a statement. “The fictional characters in Major Thomás are inspired by real-life Latino heroes, and put into a fun, sci-fi adventure story.”

Major Thomás will be released on March 25, 2025. The book will be free to read for subscribers of the Comixology Unlimited and Kindle Unlimited programs, and you can also preorder the book on Amazon.

For more on what's coming up in the world of comics, find out what to expect from Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe One Last Time and see IGN's most anticipated comics of 2025.

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

The Pokémon Company has announced that a Pokémon Presents event will provide updates on the franchise next week, in celebration of Pokémon Day.

Revealed on X/Twitter, The Pokémon Company said the event would be February 27, 2025, and available to watch on the Pokémon YouTube channel at 6am Pacific / 9am Eastern / 2pm UK.

It's unclear exactly what it will entail but fans will be hoping for word on the next mainline Pokémon game, which so far remains unrevealed. The Pokémon Company has already revealed a spin-off title in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which is due out in 2025, but the next official "generation" of Pokémon has yet to be mentioned.

These events also typically include updates on Pokémon's other ongoing games, such as Pokémon Unite, Pokémon Sleep, Pokémon GO, and Pokémon Masters EX. We're also likely to hear about the more recently released Pokémon TCG Pocket, as well as the physical card game.

The last Pokémon Presents took place last year around this time and revealed the new Legends game, Tera Raid Battle events coming to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, word on the Pokémon Trading Card Game coming to mobile, and more. Unlike past years which had multiple events, 2024 only had one Pokémon Presents, and also was the first year since 2015 to skip having a major Pokémon game release.

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.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

This review contains spoilers for season 3, episode 5 of Invincible, "This Was Supposed to Be Easy."

Less plot-centric than what we saw from Invincible last week, “This Was Supposed to Be Easy” may not strike the deft balance of early season 3, but it proves beyond a doubt that the show is at its strongest when it focuses on character. Even when it falters by (once again) splitting its attention between too many different threads, episode 5 takes its time where it matters, and lets the story’s themes play out in subtle ways that don’t demand exposition.

Todd Williams subs in for Mahershala Ali as local crime boss and supervillain Titan, who hasn’t been a major presence since his reluctant team up with Mark/Invincible in season 1. Among the most complex of the show’s baddies, he exists in a gray area that challenges Mark’s increasingly black-and-white beliefs. We see Titan without his rock-hard exoskeleton for much of the episode, spending time with his daughter while overseeing his largely reformed neighborhood. But the crime syndicate to which he reluctantly belongs – the Order, led by Machine Head and a relative newcomer, the metal-jawed, dragon-in-human form Mr. Liu – looms over his carefully-constructed domestic bliss.

Numerous dangling subplots collide when Multi-Paul finally re-enters the spotlight and tries (but fails) to stage a prison breakout, which sets off a domino effect on multiple fronts. On one hand, as Eve and Mark toy with the idea of getting their own place, they offer the prison their services as superheroes-on-call (for a retainer, of course) should another super-breakout occur. On another, Liu wants his right-hand-man Multi-Paul back and blackmails Titan into breaking him out, which leads to the local mafioso and Mark crossing paths once again. Mark, who’s been convinced all this season that “bad guys” belong in jail, is forced to confront the reality that Titan is an economic Band-Aid over his poor enclave (the alternate, an Order-installed crime lord, would be worse), leading to the superhero having to compromise on his stern beliefs for the first time in a while.

This refreshing result goes hand-in-hand with the question of whether Mark will leave the nest, and leave Debbie to raise Oliver – her adopted, purple-skinned, half-alien son – on her own, or whether Eve will become part of the family. One evening, when Oliver seemingly goes missing – upsetting an already fragile family dynamic, not unlike in Titan’s story – Mark and Eve rush to find him. However, in a surprise turn, they track Oliver down only to discover him being a regular, mischievous kid at the skate-park, fooling around with friends and dealing with bullies without resorting to excessive violence. It’s mildly irksome to see such a major arc was resolved off-screen – Oliver killing the Mauler Twins and seeming intent on killing more bad guys was a significant deal – but in viewing each outcome this week as though it protrudes from Mark’s shifting morality, it works like a charm.

Like last week, the action is steeped in characters cooperating, with their respective powers working in tandem, speaking to their evolving dynamic (remember Nolan and Allen tag-teaming a Viltrumite?). Namely: Eve conceals herself in a pink energy army and has Mark swing her around like a medieval mace to take down Liu’s dragon form. They work phenomenally well as a superhero couple (at least for the time being), and while the “who’s who” and “why” of the Order’s schemes don’t really amount to much, the interpersonal development between the show’s characters strikes a major chord.

Elsewhere in “This Was Supposed to Be Easy”: Rex cooks Rae dinner... Man, the show needs to figure out how to either better flesh out its B-plots, or forget them altogether!

Funko has started off the year strong with quite a few different figures to preorder. If you're a Batman fan, a few characters from Batman: The Animated Series are set to get their own figures next. Harley Quinn, The Riddler, and Ra's al Ghul are all available to preorder for $12.99 a piece while a fun deluxe figure of Batman is available for $29.99. They're all set to release on May 23. Head to the links below so you can secure your favorite figures for your collectible collection.

Preorder Batman: The Animated Series Funko Pops

Developer Blast Zero and publisher Red Dunes Games are celebrating this month's 35th anniversary of the classic anime Samurai Pizza Cats by announcing a new video game based on the popular 1990s cartoon, called Samurai Pizza Cats: Blast From the Past. It's in development for "all major platforms."

The trailer reassembles some of the original voice cast – the English cast includes Rick Jones (Cerviche), Sonja Ball (Polly Esther), Terrence Scammell (Guido Anchovy, Narrator) and Dean Hagopian returning as Seymour “The Big” Cheese – while the game is described as a 2D action-RPG (you can see some gameplay footage in the announcement trailer above) in which you'll be able to switch back and forth between members of the Samurai Pizza Cats and utilize each one's unique abilities in combat and to solve puzzles – all within Little Tokyo.

Samurai Pizza Cats: Blast From the Past is described as being "early in development." Track its progress and wishlist it on Steam if you're interested.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

When the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 came out, it offered a lackluster generational improvement over the RTX 4090 at a much higher price. And while the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti still isn’t much faster than its last-gen counterpart, it is more affordable, making it the most reasonable Blackwell graphics card to actually buy, especially if you don’t have unlimited cash to burn.

At its base price of $749, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is an excellent 4K graphics card that all but pushes the more expensive RTX 5080 out of the picture. However, I have to be up front about something: the RTX 5070 Ti I received for review is an aftermarket model from MSI that’s much more expensive – $1,099 – which is more expensive than the $999 RTX 5080 – assuming you can find either of these graphics cards at their actual retail price. If you can find an RTX 5070 Ti at $749, though, it is probably the best graphics card for most people, especially if you have 4K gaming on your bucket list.

Specs and Features

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is the third graphics card built on Nvidia’s Blackwell architecture. While this architecture was initially designed for the supercomputers that run popular AI models like ChatGPT, Nvidia has ported it down into its new generation of gaming GPUs, while still retaining a lot of the AI focus.

This graphics card is based on the same GB203 GPU as the RTX 5080, just with 14 of the streaming multiprocessors (SM) disabled. That means the RTX 5070 Ti has 70 SMs, for a total of 8,960 CUDA cores, 70 RT cores and 280 Tensor Cores. Also like the RTX 5080, the RTX 5070 has 16GB of GDDR7 RAM, though it is a bit slower. The Tensor Cores are the star of the show, however. Because while the CUDA cores in the RTX 5070 Ti are certainly more powerful than their equivalent in the RTX 4070 Ti, Nvidia is banking on AI upscaling and frame generation to really push this graphics card over the edge.

This time around, though, the Tensor Cores aren’t on their own, with Blackwell now including a new AI Management Processor, or AMP, to help assign work throughout the GPU. This was a process that has historically been reserved for your CPU, and moving that work onto the graphics card makes processes like DLSS or frame generation much more efficient.

In fact, this efficiency has led Nvidia to fundamentally change how DLSS works, as it’s now running on a Transformer model, rather than a Convolutional Neural Network, or CNN. This won’t necessarily make DLSS any faster, but it absolutely makes a noticeable difference to image quality, eliminating much of the ghosting and other artifacts that have plagued Team Green’s upscaling solution since day one.

But it’s more than just better upscaling. DLSS 4 also includes a new form of Frame Generation that Nvidia is dubbing “Multi-Frame Generation” or MFG. Just like the first generation, MFG uses AI to generate entire frames, based on analyzing frames as they’re rendered, along with motion data gathered from the game engine. The key difference in this generation is that instead of one AI frame from each rendered frame, DLSS 4 now generates up to 3 frames off of each rendered frame. The tradeoff is higher latency, though Nvidia has another bit of tech, called Reflex, which can potentially help offset the increased latency.

With a 300W Total Board Power budget, the RTX 5070 Ti isn’t much more power-hungry than the last-gen RTX 4070 Ti, or even the RTX 4070 Ti Super, which both required 285W. Nvidia does recommend a 750W power supply with the 5070 Ti, but if you really want to be on the safe side, I’d recommend going for at least an 850W PSU, especially if you opt for the high-end MSI Vanguard Edition I got in for review.

DLSS 4 – Is It Worth It?

While the RTX 5070 Ti is faster than its predecessor, Nvidia’s real selling point for this generation is DLSS 4, and particularly multi-frame generation. If you have a gaming monitor with a high refresh rate, this technology will help you get the most out of your display, just don’t go hoping for dramatically better latency.

The way it works is the Tensor Cores will analyze each frame as it's rendered, and pair that data with motion vector information taken from the game engine to essentially guess where everything in the scene will be in the next frame. It then uses AI to generate entire new frames using this data. The underlying technology here isn’t new – the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 used similar tech – but the difference here is scale.

Rather than only being able to generate one frame in between each rendered frame, MFG allows the graphics card to generate up to three. This can theoretically increase your frame rate by as much as 4x, which can really help saturate high end gaming monitors. In reality, though, it’s rarely a straight 4x improvement.

In Cyberpunk 2077, with the Ray Tracing Overdrive preset, with DLSS set to performance, I was able to get 46 fps on the RTX 5070 Ti, with around 43ms of PC latency. When I turned on 2x frame gen, that number went up to 88 fps, but the latency also increased, up to 49ms, even with Reflex enabled. With 4x frame gen, I was able to get 157 fps, with 55ms of PC latency, making for a 3.4x increase to frame rate, though with worse latency.

In Star Wars Outlaws, the RTX 5070 Ti gets 67 fps at 4K Max settings with DLSS set to “performance”. With 2x frame gen, that number went up to 111 fps. What sets this game apart, however, is that latency actually went down from 47ms to 34ms when enabling frame gen, thanks to Reflex. However, when I bumped it up to 4x frame generation, the frame rate went up to 188 fps, with latency also increasing to 37ms.

So, while Multi Frame Generation will make your games look smoother on a high-refresh display, they won’t actually get more responsive. That’s not to say the games will be laggy with frame generation enabled. The increases to latency are minimal, as long as you’re getting a good frame rate to begin with.

This is because the higher your frame rate is, the more information the frame generation algorithm has to work with, and the better it is at predicting the next image. If you try to enable frame generation and you’re only getting, say, 30 fps, it becomes much more likely that you’re going to get noticeable lag and artifacts as the GPU struggles to predict images accurately. Luckily, that’s not something you’ll have to worry about with the RTX 5070 Ti, even at 4K.

Performance

At 4K, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is about 11% faster than the RTX 4070 Ti Super and 21% faster than the RTX 4070 Ti. That’s a much better generational uplift than the RTX 5080, and makes the RTX 5070 Ti the best value graphics card of this generation so far. Across my entire test suite, the RTX 5070 Ti was easily able to top 60 fps at 4K, even in demanding games like Black Myth Wukong and Cyberpunk 2077.

To be clear: while I did only get in the supercharged RTX 5070 Ti Vanguard SOC from MSI, I ran it at stock settings without overclocking in order to measure how the RTX 5070 Ti performs in general, even if it’s an MSRP card. As such, I’ll be scoring this review based on the $749 MSRP of the base GPU.

I tested all of these graphics cards on the current live version of every game, and with the most recent drivers. That means all Nvidia cards other than the 5070 Ti itself were tested on Game Ready Driver 572.42 and all AMD cards were tested on Adrenalin 24.12.1. The RTX 5070 Ti was tested on a prerelease driver provided by Nvidia. All the games here are tested without any form of Frame Generation, and upscaling is used in games that support both DLSS and FSR, using the appropriate tech for each graphics card.

In 3DMark Speed Way, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti has a strong start, scoring 7,590 points to the RTX 4070 Ti Super’s 6,374 and the RTX 4070 Ti’s 5,552 points. That marks a 19% jump over the RTX 4070 Ti Super and a whopping 36% jump over the vanilla RTX 4070 Ti. Likewise, in Port Royal, the RTX 5070 Ti manages 18,839 points, compared to 15,670 and 14,136 from the 4070 Ti Super and 4070 Ti, respectively. This shows the potential performance of the RTX 5070 Ti, and how it has room to grow in the future as drivers evolve and games are better engineered to take advantage of Blackwell.

When it comes to actual games, the performance difference over the RTX 4070 Ti wanes a bit, with the RTX 5070 Ti getting 121 fps in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at 4K Extreme. Compared to the RTX 4070 Ti Super with its 115 fps, that’s only a 5% gen-on-gen improvement, a red flag to be sure.

But, in Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most demanding games out there, the RTX 5070 Ti ekes out a 9% lead over the RTX 4070 Ti Super and a 17% lead over the RTX 4070 Ti. Even at 4K with the Ray Tracing Ultra preset, the RTX 5070 Ti has no problem sitting at 75 fps, cementing this GPU’s status as a 4K card.

Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition is an odd game, in that the only upscaling solution it supports is DLSS, so I test it without it. Under those conditions, the RTX 5070 Ti is only able to manage 48 fps at 4K on the Extreme preset. However, the RTX 4070 Ti Super only gets 45 fps in the same test, with the RTX 4070 Ti lagging further behind with 42 fps.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a bit of an outlier, though, with the RTX 5070 Ti coming in 2% slower than the RTX 4070 Ti Super. The new card gets 113 fps, compared to 115 from the last-generation model, which is a high frame rate, but still a performance loss. Luckily, this is the only game where this happens.

I love testing Total War: Warhammer 3, because it doesn’t support ray tracing or upscaling in any form, so it gives a clear picture on pure rasterization performance. Even at 4K max settings, the RTX 5070 Ti manages an average of 78 fps, making for a 15% improvement over the RTX 4070 Ti Super and 30% over the regular RTX 4070 Ti. This is the closest the RTX 5070 Ti gets to showing off the potential demonstrated in 3DMark.

When I tested the RTX 5090, Assassin’s Creed Mirage had some driver issues that stopped it from showing the 5090’s potential. It seems like those have now been addressed and the RTX 5070 Ti manages 149 fps at 4K with the Ultra High preset. That’s compared to 141 fps from the RTX 4070 Ti Super and 132 fps from the 4070 Ti. However, this is still below the Radeon RX 7900 XT, which manages 150 fps in the same test.

Black Myth Wukong is extremely demanding and is a good showcase of where graphics tech is right now. But, even at 4K with the Cinematic Preset and DLSS set to 40%, the RTX 5070 Ti manages an average of 66 fps. Compared to 60 fps from the RTX 4070 Ti Super, that’s a 10% improvement, and helps avoid any situations where your frame rate will drop below 60 fps. Team Green also takes the performance crown back here, with the AMDRadeon RX 7900 XT also getting just 60 fps in Black Myth Wukong with FSR set to 40%.

While it’s getting old, games like Forza Horizon 5 reward high frame rates, thanks to the fast pace of the gameplay. Luckily, the RTX 5070 Ti does more than keep up, getting 152 fps at 4K with the Extreme preset. That’s a 15% improvement over the RTX 4070 Super and 21% over the RTX 4070 Ti. This is even a 10% lead over the Radeon RX 7900 XT, and Forza is a game that traditionally favors AMD GPUs.

We’re entering a time where even a mid-range graphics card is essentially a ‘4K GPU’. If you can find it around the starting price of $749, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti provides the best value for your money, especially if you have a 4K display. Not only is it the first RTX 5000 graphics card that provides a decent uplift over its predecessor, but it does so with a lower price tag than the $799 RTX 4070 Ti.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

If you're searching for Volleyball Legends codes (previously Haikyuu Legends), IGN has you covered! In this article, you'll find the latest active and working Volleyball Legends codes in February 2025 that can be redeemed for free rewards in Roblox, including Spins and Yen.

Active Volleyball Legends Codes (February 2025)

Below, you'll find all of the currently active and working Volleyball Legends codes in February 2025:

• NEW_NAME - 1x Lucky Style Spin (NEW!)
• 80M_VISITS - 10x Style Spins
• BIGGESTEVER - 5x Ability Spins
• RANKED - 2x Lucky Ability Spins
• NOTONTIME - 2x Lucky Spins
• UPDATE6 - 1x Lucky Spin
• PROTORIONTWITTER - 100x Yen

All Expired Volleyball Legends Codes

The following Volleyball Legends codes are expired and can't be redeemed anymore as of February 2025:

• MADNESS
• 40M_VISITS
• 250K_MEMBERS
• 50M_VISITS
• UPDATE5
• UPDATE4
• LAUNCH
• 200K_LIKES
• 180K_FAVS
• 15M_PLAYS
• 100KMEMBERS
• UPDATE1
• UPDATE2
• UPDATE3

How to Redeem Volleyball Legends Codes

Follow the steps below to redeem Volleyball Legends codes and claim your free rewards:

1. Open the Volleyball Legends Roblox experience.
2. In the Lobby, click on the Shop icon in the bottom toolbar to open the Shop.
3. Click on Codes on the bottom left of the Shop menu.
4. Input your Volleyball Legends code into the "Type code here" box.
5. Click "USE CODE." If successful, green text will appear informing you what your free reward is.

Why Isn't My Volleyball Legends Code Working?

If your Volleyball Legends code isn't working when you're trying to redeem it in Roblox, it's likely down to one of these two reasons:

• The Volleyball Legends code is expired and no longer able to be redeemed.
• The code is spelled wrong.

When inputting an Volleyball Legends code into Roblox, ensure it's spelled correctly, there are no accidental spaces either before or after the code, and that it's in the correct case (some codes are case sensitive). If a code is spelled wrong, you'll get a red message that says "Invalid Code."

All the codes on this page have been tested by IGN and work at the time of submission, so we'd recommend copying and pasting any codes directly from this article to avoid any errors. If the code still doesn't work, it's expired and can no longer be redeemed.

How to Get More Volleyball Legends Codes

Outside of checking this article, the best way to get more Volleyball Legends codes is to join the official Volleyball Legends Discord server. That way, you can be notified as soon as new codes drop.

Despite my avid love for all things sports, I've given up on the idea that I'll ever be good at golf. Something about the way the body must contort to successfully crank a ball down the fairway just doesn't compute in my mind. But like few other games can, PGA Tour 2K25 takes everything I visualize myself doing in real life and executes it virtually, thanks to its in-depth simulation gameplay that lets my thumbs and brain do what my actual body simply refuses to do.

To be honest, I went into PGA Tour 2K25 a bit hesitant. While 2K23 wasn’t the worst golf game I’ve ever played, it lacked any shine in its personality or gameplay, which came as a surprise considering HB Studios has been dutifully working on successful golf sims like The Golf Club for well over a decade. Couple this with the fact that, unlike most sports games, PGA Tour 2K took two full years to put out a new iteration, and it was safe to say my expectations were in check.

To my surprise and relief, that extra time paid off: it didn’t take long for PGA Tour 2K25 to impress me with its improvements, especially in terms of appearance. While it still can’t quite match EA Sports’ rival PGA Tour game head to head in their respective visual recreations of golf, the difference is nowhere near as stark as it had been. Player models look much closer to their real-life counterparts, courses are more detailed, and animations are crisper. I found myself pausing while playing multiple times to take in the water crashing against the rocks or comparing the cut of the fairway, fringe, and rough areas for each course. The putting and driving animations are also fluid, no longer stopping abruptly after contact or feeling too weighty. Performance is smoothed out as well, and the only time I ever ran into issues with dropped frames on my PlayStation 5 was due to internet connectivity issues. Even the single-player Career Mode is always online, so there were a few instances where my shot would stutter and even a couple of times where my round didn't save.

My biggest gripe with the look and feel of PGA Tour 2K25 is the low-energy commentary team of Luke Elvy and Rich Beem. While they are both very knowledgeable, describing approaches and conditions beautifully, their lines could not be more flatly delivered. I know golf isn’t the most exciting sport, but there is no need to sound like a robot when discussing it.

They also seem to have a vendetta against me. If I do any worse than getting on the green in two or birdie putting, Rich Beem will berate me like Bob Barker going at Happy Gilmore—the price is wrong, Richie! At least thanks to my experience dealing with FIFA commentary for years, tuning them out wasn't very difficult.

Other than that, it’s pretty much all good news. For example, it’s clear that HB Studios prioritized features that the community has been begging for. The most notable additions revolve around approaches, with the ability to change tee position and choose your hazard drop spot. It might seem like a small detail, but not being able to adjust position after a water hazard or move the ball at the tee for a better angle made for some of my most frustrating shots in PGA Tour 2K23. I love the amount of control that 2K25 gives me.

Another big change is that MyPlayer development has become an RPG system that allows you to unlock specific shots as you go, making your growth in the MyCareer campaign customizable to your specific strengths. Skills in the six trees vary from advanced shot types like the Stinger, which is ideal for dealing with high-wind situations, to proficiency boosts, which help buff each shot. I chose to build a Powerhouse archetype who focuses on driving down the fairway, getting my feet wet against other newbies in the Q-School.

It was here that I got comfortable with the new EvoSwing mechanics. The new-and-improved golf swing technique focuses on proper posture, torque, and arc size, and after each swing it even breaks down how good your contact, rhythm, transition, and swing path are so you have detailed information on how to improve. You can even customize how it controls by choosing the classic Swing Stick or the 3-Click Swing, depending on your skill level.

The Swing Stick simply requires you to pull the right stick back and release to swing, which is easy to get the hang of but it still has to be lined up well to get a good shot. The 3-Click Swing is certainly harder to master, since you have to press, hold, and release before clicking to push or pull the shot and finally click again to hook or slice, but it is something I love as a veteran golf (game) for the control it gives you over your shot. After using it to blow my competition out of the water, shooting 30 under par across four days, I moved on to the PGA Tour.

Like the real deal, the goal here is to compete for points in tournaments, finishing in the Top 70 to earn a spot competing for the FedExCup. But instead of thrusting you into each event blindly, PGA Tour 2K25 features training and scouting scenarios before each event as a way to earn stat buffs and get the lay of the land. Training scenarios are bite-sized minigames, such as target challenges or competing to land on the green quickest or to sink the most long putts. Completing these gives your character a temporary boost in specific attributes, which is applied to the coming tournament. At first, I shrugged these off as ways to pad playtime, but once I played on harder difficulties I realized how what seemed like a minor buff to my drive power could mean the difference between hitting the fair way instead of a bunker. Practice Rounds also give you an edge for the coming tournament in exactly the way you’d expect: being able to play and feel out the specific run and shape of every course just before competing there is a real difference-maker. It is so satisfying to strategize for a course just like the pros would.

Not every new feature in MyCareer lands on the fairway, though – especially the new personality and popularity mechanics. We’ve seen all this before in other games like Madden and EA Sports FC: Your pro spends time off the course gaining influence with fans, developing a following, and forming a personality based on the answers they choose in conversations and interviews. While this is a well-meaning effort to give MyCareer a bit more flair and make you feel like the belle of the ball, the system feels just as pointless as it does in other games. All conversations are done through text and don't have an effect on the actual gameplay, so it feels unpolished and isn’t a good use of time.

The actual way to get sponsorships and unlock questlines for XP is simply by doing well at playing golf. This was pretty easy to do at first because the default settings PGA Tour 2K25 feel like child's play: I was easily winning each tournament, destroying the likes of Viktor Hovland by -13 strokes a round.

At this point, I decided to experiment with the customizable sliders, which let you tune everything from CPU difficulty to green conditions to weather. The difficulty took the most time to experiment with, as it was hard to find the right percentages to match my own skills, and seemed uneven. In some games, one golfer would score 10 under the second-closest AI rival. However, once I adjusted weather and course conditions to random the playing field started to feel much more level, and scores were closer. Either everyone benefited from the smooth greens and shining sun, or everyone suffered the whipping winds and slick surfaces where the ball glides way too fast across them.

The Dynamic option, though, is my favorite addition to MyCareer since 2K23: With this, you can choose the number of holes you want to play within a course, and which specific ones, and any skipped holes will be simulated. I don't mind playing a full 18 most of the time, but having the option to shorten the time commitment for some rounds by simming dynamically is a nice touch.

Microtransactions are, unfortunately, still present in PGA Tour 2K25, but mercifully they are mostly cosmetic-based. Yes, you can dump real money into making your player a superstar stat-wise and decked out with flashy clothes right off the bat, but you'll also earn upgrade points and different outfits at a decent clip by completing tournaments, so they aren't entirely necessary and are less objectionable than what 2K has been doing in its casino-like approach to NBA 2K in recent years. So playing online with others is still enjoyable, since this isn’t a sport where you’re being dunked on by someone who can run faster and jump higher because they paid extra.

The same seven online modes from 2K23 return, including my favorite: four-ball. I loved competing against my partner and the other team, as it simply felt more competitive, fast-paced, and interactive than going against AI. For my money, this mode is the next best thing to being out on the course with your buddies competing in real life. Ranked and Casual games also let you choose between Swing Stick and 3-Click lobbies and select which gameplay features and aides you want off and on to make sure everybody’s on the same page. It’s also notable that Societies mode now offers crossplay features, letting you and your friends schedule asynchronous events regardless of platform differences.

NetEase Games has promised to release at least one new Marvel Rivals hero every half-season, but that didn’t stop one creative player from bringing his idea for a playable Doctor Octopus to life.

Reddit user WickedCube surprised r/MarvelRivals followers earlier this week with a 30-second video showing what looks like rough gameplay from NetEase’s smash-hit hero shooter. At a glance, the footage seems to focus on a pre-Hulk Bruce Banner suspended in midair in what appears to be a testing room – but it’s more than that. Marvel fans will recognize this eight-armed version of the gamma-infused doctor as an unpolished, Marvel Rivals-inspired take on classic Spider-Man villain Doctor Octopus.

It's stiff and a touch goofy, but the likeness is unmistakable. Squint and you’ll see a well-thought-out concept of what Doc Ock could potentially look and move like should NetEase ever decide to send Otto Octavius crawling into Marvel Rivals. With his arms able to magnetize the player up and around obstacles, WickedCube’s idea come-to-life essentially allows the character to fly so long as he’s close enough to a stable structure – an important note in a game with destructible environments. This rough Doc Ock concept even comes with named abilities, including Havoc Claw for the standard melee attack and a ranged move called Wrecking Grip. At 16,000 upvotes at the time of publication, it’s impressive, playable, and made entirely by one person.

“Doc Ock has always been one of the coolest villains in Spider-Man, and his tentacles would be a challenge to implement,” WickedCube tell us, describing where his inspiration stemmed from. “As far as I know, they haven't been fully implemented with playable 3D movement in a game before.”

The India-based indie game developer previously worked with Space Engineers studio Keen Software House before resigning to focus on his own project in January 2024. He's been looking for contract positions and prototyping mechanics since then, so character work usually isn’t a priority. Creating a controllable version of Doctor Octopus in Unity required clearing a few hurdles, but it’s this exact challenge that helped WickedCube pursue the idea. The rest of the push came from an unlikely source: the recent PSN outage.

“It all started when PSN was down and I couldn’t play Marvel Rivals,” WickedCube explains. “While browsing Twitter, I came across some really cool Doc Ock fan art. I thought, ‘Since I can't play right now, why not make it myself?’”

Doctor Octopus in the style of Marvel Rivals
.#MarvelRivals #MarvelRivalsfanart pic.twitter.com/d3XHXMZsCL

— CoryHarris.jpg (@LordDepis) January 26, 2025

The result has seen thousands of players appreciating his ideas for Doc Ock, with some calling for NetEase to bring him onto the team. WickedCube calls the reception “incredibly rewarding,” adding that he’d be more than happy to see the Marvel Rivals studio lift some of his ideas should Doc Ock officially make his way into the game. Although he has no plans to polish the design further, the goal is to release a playable version of the character in the near future.

“After seeing the response on Reddit, I want to share this and future concepts as a YouTube tutorial series,” WickedCube added. “I also plan to open-source the code on GitHub and make the playable versions available on Itch.”

NetEase will charge forward with its Marvel Rivals post-launch plans with two new official characters this Friday: the Human Torch and The Thing. Both heroes follow their Fantastic Four teammates, Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, who launched early last month. It’s a shockingly strong start that outpaces competitors in its field, but comic book fans can’t help but look to Marvel’s catalog of heroes and villains as a universe with limitless potential.

WickedCube’s post says his viral project was born out of the community’s desire to see more Vanguard, or tank-like characters, added to its roster. Not even the strongest rumor has suggested we’ll see Otto show up in-game any time soon, but the Doc Ock designer says he’s already cooking up more ideas for other potential heroes. Two names on his mind are X-Men mainstays Nightcrawler and Professor Xavier.

“The character roster at launch is large enough to keep the game enjoyable for a long time, and the rate at which they’ve promised to release new characters is mind-blowing,” he added. “The designers clearly understand how to make a fun game, which, in my opinion, is the hardest thing to get right.”

Marvel Rivals is primed to deliver its Season 1 mid-season update tomorrow, February 21. In addition to those aforementioned character releases, the content update will add balance changes, gameplay tweaks, and more. While we wait for launch, you can read up on layoffs that recently impacted the U.S. team at NetEase’s Seattle branch. You can also learn about why the studio isn't entertaining the rumors surrounding planted hero leaks.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).