As part of its early Black Friday sale, Best Buy currently has the best deal on an RTX 5080 equipped prebuilt gaming PC. Starting today, the iBuypower Y40 Pro gaming PC equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor and RTX 5080 graphics card is on sale for $1,949.99 shipped. An RTX 5080 gaming PC priced at under $2,000 is a rare find, and this particular model is generously equipped with liquid cooling and plenty of memory and storage.

iBuypower Y40 Pro RTX 5080 Gaming PC for $1,949.99

The creators of South Park have broken their silence on the show’s recent focus on mocking Donald Trump, revealing they were attracted to “new taboos” and a fear of speaking out against the administration.

South Park has enjoyed big ratings and sparked much debate ever since the Donald Trump-skewering Season 27 opener in July. While the Comedy Central show has featured a number of subplots in recent months, the overarching Season 27 and now Season 28 storyline revolves around Trump and Satan having a baby together. The Season 27 opener, which you can read the details of here, roasted Trump to such an extent that it sparked a rebuttal from the White House.

Now, in an interview with The New York Times, creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker revealed they only decided to create the Trump plotline a few weeks before the season began, and that they thought the Trump character would be a one-off.

Those plans changed though when, according to Stone, the creators found a “vein of comedy” in the first episode. They said they sensed a fear of speaking out against the Trump administration and “new taboos,” and wanted to take it all head-on.

Stone said: “Trey and I are attracted to that like flies to honey. Oh, that’s where the taboo is? Over there? OK, then we’re over there.”

So, when will the Trump mocking end? Parker admitted the pair will eventually get “sick of” the Washington storyline, but for now it remains.

“You know, next year will be different,” he said. “If there’s one thing we know, it is that our show will be a lot longer than theirs. So, we just got to do this for now.”

Comedy Central had delayed the Season 27 ender just hours before it was due to air, with Parker and Stone insisting the blame lay at their door. “Apparently when you do everything at the last minute sometimes you don’t get it done,” the pair told Variety. “This one’s on us. We didn’t get it done in time. Thanks to Comedy Central and South Park fans for being so understanding. Tune in next week!”

Parker and Stone create each episode week-by-week, which makes for a chaotic production but topical shows. But they had switched to a biweekly schedule for Season 27, with the elongated production time allowing the pair more room to work on each episode, something Paramount was reportedly happy with.

It’s worth noting that during their San Diego Comic-Con 2025 panel, which took place the day after the Season 27 opener aired, Parker said the pair were unsure what the next episode would be, revealing the decision was “super stressful.”

Nintendo has announced its plans for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025. While the Mario company will not offer a discount on Nintendo Switch 2 hardware, it will drop prices on a handful of first-party original Switch games and Switch 2 memory cards. Specifically, you’ll be able to buy games like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Luigi’s Mansion 3 for $29.99, and get a $20 discount on a 256GB microSD Express card. Those deals represent about as much as Nintendo ever knocks off of prices these days.

Nintendo's Black Friday 2025 Plans

Nintendo's Black Friday game sale runs November 23 - 29. Here’s the full list of games we know for sure are getting the $29.99 sale price:

• Nintendo Switch Sports
• Super Mario Odyssey
• Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Remake
• Splatoon 3
• Princess Peach: Showtime
• Donkey Kong Country Returns HD
• The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
• Luigi’s Mansion 3
• Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe

The sale on these titles will be available at the digital Nintendo eShop, as well as on digital and physical copies at participating retailers. These kinds of deals generally happen at places like Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Walmart, to name a few.

Nintendo's Cyber Monday 2025 Plans

Getting $20 off a microSD Express card is a decent Cyber Monday deal. If you buy any games digitally, it's likely that you'll run out of on-board storage on your Nintendo Switch 2 at some point. To add more storage, you'll need to buy a microSD Express card. These are different from the standard microSD cards the original Switch uses. In fact, hardly any devices at all required microSD Express cards until the Switch 2 came out, meaning nearly everyone who wants to upgrade their Switch 2 storage will need to buy a new card. So it's nice to see an offical Nintendo-branded one get a Cyber Monday discount.

What About Switch 2 Console Deals?

One notable omission from this announcement is the lack of a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Nintendo Switch bundle. For most of the Switch 1’s life cycle, you could bet your entire fortune Nintendo would offer that same Black Friday bundle deal, and you would've been right. But now that the Switch 2 is available, those halcyon days are over. And, unfortunately, no Switch 2 bundle appears to be taking its place this year.

That said, while Nintendo isn’t offering any console discounts of its own, it’s possible some other retailer could offer a Switch 2 deal. Since Switch 2 stock shortages ended back in July, there ought to be plenty of hardware to go around this holiday shopping season.

For more help planning your holiday gaming purchases, check out what Black Friday deals we expect from PlayStation and Xbox.

Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.

Now Predator: Badlands is out in the wild and has left us with that cliffhanger to speculate about, fans are starting to ask the question: is director Dan Trachtenberg building towards a ‘Predator Cinematic Universe?’

Trachtenberg, who directed franchise reviver Prey and the animated film Killer of Killers before the record-breaking Predator: Badlands, is clearly building towards something, with characters from previous films in the franchise popping up in cameo form across his various Predator projects. Indeed, at the end of Killer of Killers we see Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic Predator character Dutch in stasis, just begging to be thawed for an all-star team up at some point in the future.

While Trachtenberg is keeping his cards close to his chest in terms of his next Predator movie, he told Variety in a recent interview that it is his intention that each Predator movie is “a complete thought,” and has learnt a valuable lesson from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“It can all go out the door once we start putting pen to paper on stuff, but I’ve looked as far as I could to feel comfortable about what I’m doing,” Trachtenberg said. “Every movie is a complete thought, not that much unlike the early Marvel stuff before the first Avengers movie, where it’s like, those are great movies, and lo and behold, we’re actually setting up that things could come together in a delicious way. But they weren’t like, ‘See how everything’s interconnected like crazy all of a sudden!’ So I’m trying to learn that lesson and make sure that any of these movies that we do are awesome ideas for movies on their own.”

Variety then pressed Trachtenberg on the possible of tying all his threads together to form an Avengers-style payoff, since be brought the movie up.

“It’s hard,” he responded. “It’s fun to geek out and think, ‘Oh my god, wouldn’t it be cool if…,’ even on a movie that you’d never expect that to happen in. But it’s only cool if the journey there is equally worth taking.”

Check out IGN’s Predator: Badlands Ending Explained to find out what’s next for the series.

In the shorter term, Predator: Badlands looks like a hit after it secured the biggest global opening ever for a Predator movie — including the Alien vs. Predator films — at the box office. Disney said Predator: Badlands opened to $40 million domestically and $40 million internationally for a global opening weekend total of $80 million. That’s the biggest debut for a Predator movie ever at current rates. For context, 2018’s The Predator opened to $73.5 million.

Predator began with 1987’s much-loved Predator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Predator: Badlands, which arrives nearly 40 years later, is less sci-fi horror, more mainstream sci-fi action. For the first time ever the Predator is the protagonist, with a Yautja called Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) out to prove himself to his father by killing a monster on a death planet. Along the way, he meets a Weyland-Yutani synth called Thia, played by Elle Fanning, in an Alien / Predator crossover.

It's a big swing for Predator and for Dan Trachtenberg, but he was uninterested in essentially remaking prior Predator movies for this new sequel. In a recent interview with IGN, Trachtenberg said he was inspired by Terminator 2 when it came to making Badlands. "Terminator 2: Judgment Day was like a movie my mom could watch," he said. "So that was a part of it for me, like how to make something that was bold and visceral but also emotional."

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

When you’re setting out to build or upgrade your gaming PC, the best graphics cards are often the first thing that comes to mind. There’s a simple reason for that: When it comes to PC games, GPUs are the most impactful component in determining your rig's raw frame rates. Quite simply, most of the time, a better graphics card directly results in better performance – at least up to a point.

TL;DR: These Are the Best Graphics Cards

These days, GPUs have legitimately become a luxury good. With graphics cards like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 costing upwards of $1,999, you can expect to pay top dollar for top performance. Prices are still way higher than they were when the GTX 970 blew my mind in 2014, even when adjusted for inflation. However, if you temper your expectations, you can still get a solid gaming experience for a fraction of that price, especially if you're OK with gaming at 1440p or 1080p.

I’ve been reviewing graphics cards for the last four generations, and I’ve personally benchmarked, built with, and played games using every GPU on this list. However, if none of these strike your fancy, feel free to comment below what kind of gaming experience you’re looking for, and I’d be happy to help you find the perfect card for your build.

What to Look for in a Graphics Card

While it would be easy to just tell you to get the most powerful graphics card on the market for the best gaming experience, the truth is that picking a GPU is something you need to put a bit more thought into. Not all graphics cards are created equal, and everyone is going to need something a little different out of their PCI-E brick.

Decide on your resolution first

This is because a graphics card that's great at 4K isn't exactly going to translate to an amazing 1080p graphics card. Just take a look at the Nvidia RTX 5090. While the new flagship flies at 4K, it can actually be slower than much cheaper graphics cards at 1080p due to CPU bottlenecking. Instead, if you're playing at 1080p, something like the Intel Arc B580 is going to be a much better fit. You're still going to get solid gaming performance, but at a much lower price, which you can use to, well, buy more games.

Set your budget

Price is also a huge concern, and graphics cards are only getting more expensive these days. It would be awesome if everyone could afford an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, but that's just not the world we live in. These days, the floor sits around $200-$250. For that price, you can get a solid 1080p graphics card without having to go back to a previous generation. If you have a bit more cash, something like the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT will unlock most of gaming's bells and whistles.

If you really want to go all out, you can get an amazing graphics card for around $1,000. Both the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 will provide an awesome 4K gaming experience, and the one you choose should ultimately depend on how much you care about ray tracing. For most people that just want raw gaming performance, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is a better option, as it's a more affordable card that can still handle 4K, and it even comes with FSR 4, which is the first time AMD can really go toe-to-toe with Nvidia's DLSS.

Luckily, it looks like this generation of graphics cards is going to make 4K gaming much more accessible. When I reviewed the Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti, I found that it had no problem breaking 60fps in even demanding games like Black Myth Wukong. However, more expensive and powerful cards like the RTX 5080 and 5090 are going to give you more breathing room for future PC games.

Check your power supply

With more expensive graphics cards, however, power is going to be a big concern. You're going to want to make sure you check which power supply you have against the power requirements for the graphics card you're looking at. Something like the Intel Arc B580 can get away with a 450W PSU, but you're going to want to make sure you have something much more powerful for the Radeon RX 7800 XT, for instance. You don't need to go overboard and fork over the cash for a power supply that offers twice the recommended power – just make sure you have enough juice to keep your GPU going.

1. AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

The Best Graphics Card for Most People

2. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti

The Best Mainstream Graphics Card if You Want to Spend a Bit More

3. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090

The Best Nvidia Graphics Card

4. AMD Radeon RX 9070

The Best AMD Graphics Card

5. AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT

The Best GPU for 1080p

However much I love using a 4K monitor, the simple fact is that 1080p displays are still the most popular way to play PC games. You do not need an expensive RTX 5090 to power one – but the Radeon RX 9060 XT is the perfect GPU for the job.

In a perfect world, the Radeon RX 9060 XT is a $349 graphics card that can tackle pretty much any game at 1080p, even with ray tracing – something AMD cards have historically struggled with. For some reason, AMD decided to launch both the 16GB model that I reviewed along with a 8GB model for $50 less. The only fundamental difference between these cards is the video memory, but it's a pretty substantial change, and one that you shouldn't consider.

When I reviewed the 16GB model, I found that it had no problem keeping up with some of the most demanding games in my suite, including averaging 80fps in Cyberpunk 2077, putting it neck-and-neck with the more expensive RTX 5060 Ti. There are a few games where the GPU struggled, namely Black Myth: Wukong and Assassin's Creed Shadows, but even those games will run better once you start tweaking with quality settings. (I test everything at maximum settings, after all.)

Being part of the same generation as the Radeon RX 9070 XT that tops this list, the Radeon RX 9060 XT also gets access to FSR 4. This new version of AMD's upscaling tech adds AI upscaling to AMD cards for the first time, and gets close to DLSS in image quality. There are only a few games that support this new AMD tech so far, but that number will surely grow over the last few years.

These GPUs Didn't Make the Cut

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060

The RTX 5060 is a 1080p graphics card, which is of course fine, but the problem is that it's competing with better options from both AMD and Intel. For less money, you can get the Arc B580 with slightly less performance but more VRAM, or you can spend a little more and get a Radeon RX 9060 XT with 16GB of VRAM. There are plenty of games out there that won't require more than 8GB of video memory, but for more demanding modern games like Assassin's Creed Shadows, you'll certainly feel the lack of frame buffer – I certainly did when I reviewed it.

Upcoming GPUs

Now that all the new graphics cards have been out for a while, it begs the question: When are we going to get something new? Given that both the RTX 50-series and the Radeon 90-series were launched back at CES 2025, it's extremely likely that we're going to get some kind of GPU announcement at CES 2026 in January. Don't get too excited, though; this probably won't be the RTX 6080 or anything.

Instead, we're probably going to see Nvidia launch a mid-generation refresh, which is typically labeled "Super." Last generation, the RTX 4080 Super ended up being essentially a price drop, coming in at a lower price and slightly better performance when I reviewed it in 2024. It's not guaranteed that we're going to see an RTX 5080 Super at CES, but given how small the generational performance uplift was with this series of graphics cards, it would be nice to squeeze a little more performance out of the architecture. Either way, I'll be on the ground at CES and I'll update this guide if it looks like Nvidia will actually launch its Super cards.

Best Graphics Cards FAQ

AMD or Nvidia? Or Intel?

When it comes to which brand of graphics card you should get, it ultimately comes down to your personal preference – even if each brand has its own unique advantages. Intel graphics cards are the most affordable option on the market right now, but its graphics cards aren’t exactly the fastest in the land. On the other hand, Nvidia makes the most powerful GPUs around, but you’re going to have to pay out the nose for that performance.

AMD graphics cards strike a pretty good balance between the two, but while the company loves to use open-source graphics APIs, it means you don’t get access to some of the exclusive features that Nvidia owners enjoy, like DLSS (and the new DLSS 4). AMD has alternatives for literally every Nvidia software feature, but some of them simply aren’t as good. See our guide to AMD vs. Nvidia GPUs for more info.

What power supply should I get?

Graphics cards, especially high-end ones, are sucking up more electricity with every passing year. If you’re looking to build a new gaming PC, or even upgrade from an older graphics card, you should really consider upgrading to one of the best power supplies.

Some of the graphics cards out there right now can take upwards of 450W of power by themselves, so you may want to consider a 1,000W power supply.

GTX vs. RTX

Nvidia has both an RTX, or Ray Tracing Texel eXtreme, and GTX, Giga Texel Shader eXtreme graphics cards series, with the RTX offerings being newer, more powerful, and more expensive.

That boosted performance is thanks to the architecture of RTX cards, which offer both Tensor and RT cores alongside CUDA cores for better graphics and rendering. Tensor cores enable AI and high-performance computing tasks bringing support for DLSS tech to help with upscaling and sharpening. RT cores are dedicated to ray tracing, allowing for more realistic lighting and shadows in scenes. Nvidia’s GTX graphics cards have a much simpler architecture and don’t offer Tensor or RT cores. Though they still work for budget builds, GTX cards will soon be obsolete.

Jacqueline Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN. When she's not helping her friends and family buy computers, you can usually find her tinkering with her own PC.

Alienware's new mainstream gaming laptops for 2025 - the 16X and 16 Aurora - are discounted today as part of Alienware's early Black Friday sale. They replace the previous generation's Alienware x16 and m16 laptops. Of the two, the 16X Aurora is the model I would recommend for most gamers. It has a higher price tag but the upgrades - like a fully aluminum body, higher quality display, and more powerful CPU and GPU - more than make up for the price.

Alienware 16X Aurora Gaming Laptops

Clash Royale is a PvP strategy game where you go head-to-head against other players, using cards to deploy units to attack your enemies’ base while defending your own. Below, you’ll find a list of all the Clash Royale codes currently available, and their rewards.

Active Clash Royale Codes (November 2025)

Below are all the working Clash Royale codes we know of, and what you can get for redeeming them. We've tested these codes and confirmed they work at the time of publication, but they may expire and stop working at any time.

• REINABARRIGA: Snoring Dragon banner set

How to Redeem Clash Royale Codes

You’ll need to redeem Clash Royale codes on the official Supercell store. Log in using your Supercell ID, then scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for ‘Redeem a Store Code’ and enter your code below.

You must have a Supercell ID to redeem codes, so if you don’t already have one, open up Clash Royale and click the menu icon (3 horizontal lines). At the bottom of the menu, you’ll see a yellow button that says Supercell ID. Create your ID and then head over to the Store to redeem your code.

Once you’ve successfully entered a code, you’ll be able to see the associated rewards and the account you’re redeeming them to. Head back to Clash Royale to receive your reward.

Clash Royale QR Codes (November 2025)

In addition to promo codes, there are also Clash Royale QR codes you can scan to obtain rewards. You’ll need to scan these QR codes using your device, or click on the QR codes on this page using your device’s browser to automatically open the rewards page in your app.

The Clash Royale QR codes currently available are:

67 Emote

Royal Ghost Boo Emote

That's all we've got for Clash Royale codes at the moment, but keep checking back for new ones!

Jen Rothery is a Deputy Editor on the IGN Guides team looking after live service games, and we assume her favorite hobby is playing PEAK and falling down the mountain over and over again, because she does it a lot.

Survival action RPG Enshrouded released in Early Access last year and became an instant hit, reaching more than a million players in four days and currently sitting at “Very Positive” on Steam with nearly 75,000 reviews. Developer Keen Games has consistently updated the game in the months since, and its newly released Update 7, titled Wake of the Water, is its biggest to date.

If you’re not familiar with Enshrouded, it’s a mix of lite survival, exploration, action RPG combat, and base building in a world you can completely terraform. An all-consuming fog known as The Shroud corrupts everything it touches, and you must scavenge for materials you can use to craft gear to survive the unforgiving environment and the mutated monsters it creates.

You can play solo or with up to 16 players in co-op, and voxel-based building allows you to create a home that’s only limited by your imagination and willingness to put in the work. Construction can be shared across servers from around the world, so you can visit them yourself, and there are some truly staggering player builds to see.

Take German YouTuber Kontreck and his community’s build, which you can see here. They fully re-created Isengard from Lord of the Rings, a feat that required more than 22 million voxels and 54,000 decoration items with nearly 4,400 hours of work and 61 days of building time across 15 players. And all the materials were farmed by hand, with no mods or cheats used.

The Wake of the Water’s biggest splash (that’s the only water pun, we promise) is the introduction of swimming and new water-based gameplay. Most of what you can do on land you can do underwater, with new animations. That includes opening treasure chests, collecting plants and other loot, pushing buttons to solve puzzles, and using an underwater mining tool to gather ore. There are also floodgates and new water-based puzzles where you can fill rooms to reach previously inaccessible levels, as well as traps that will try to drown you.

The main thing you can’t do underwater is fight, which is why the new enemy faction of lizard people presents a problem. Called the Drak, they can pursue you underwater with spears drawn, so you always need to be aware of your surroundings and how to get back to the surface quickly. The Drak can fight on land too, but at least then it’s a fair fight.

The other headlining addition in the update is Veilwater Basin, Enshrouded’s first water biome. This being a new type of environment, it brings a lot of other new things with it. That includes quests and lore journals, as well as points of interest ranging from settlements to temples to Shroud Roots and Elixir Wells. There’s also a bunch of new materials and resources for crafting and base building, so many that we couldn’t possibly list them all here. Trust us, there are a lot.

As we all know, you can’t have a water biome without fishing, so that’s been added too. You can now automatically collect worms when terraforming dirt, which can be used as bait. Other types of bait include moths, fireflies, and frogs. There are five fishing rods of varying quality, and casting your line in a body of water will begin a minigame. Fish will bite at a random time, then try to flee to either the right or left. You need to pull your rod in the opposite direction, then reel it in when the fish is tired. Do this repeatedly until it’s caught, and the difficulty of the minigame will depend on what fish is on your line and the quality of the rod you’re using.

If you’re more focused on building up your base, then good news: Water can move dynamically and be used as a source of plant irrigation or to power new parts of your base. You can dig irrigation channels to run water to your plants, which will grow faster in watered soil. And some new plants (like rice and algae) will only grow if submerged.

There’s a new buildable water wheel, which will rotate when in contact with flowing water. And you can connect it to an advanced grinding wheel if the flow of the water is strong enough to power it. There’s also a new watering can, which you can fill up manually at lakes or water barrels, and you can use it to fill pools or water plants at your base. What wild and creative ways to use moving water will the community figure out? Only time will tell, or maybe you can become the trendsetter.

On top of all the water-focused additions, there are also refinements to gameplay and quality-of-life improvements. New spells and skills have been added, stats have been rebalanced on several pieces of gear, wands have more inherent mana regeneration, customizable UI labels for chests and signs have been added, and lots more.

Like we said, there’s a ton here to keep players busy for a long time. For more info on Enshrouded or the Wake of the Water update, you can check out the official website or follow the game or developer Keen Games on Twitter or Discord.

Sometimes, you go into a game not really knowing much about it. I knew exactly three things going into Seven Deadly Sins: Origin: one, it is based on the popular Seven Deadly Sins manga/anime; two, it is an action-RPG; and three, that I could play it on PC or PS5. I looked at it long enough to decide that it could be up my alley, and then dived into its closed beta test blind. And I’m happy I did. Seven Deadly Sins: Origin is an impressive game, even with its gacha mechanics, and I enjoyed hanging out in its world and spending time with its characters. Oh, and the combat? That’s not bad, either.

Seven Deadly Sins: Origin follows Prince Tristan of Liones and Tioreh. After stumbling upon a strange cave inside a tree (that’s not a typo), our heroes discover a mysterious pendant called the Book of Stars that seems to have mystical powers neither of them fully understand. When they emerge from the cave after a knock-down, drag-out brawl against a surprisingly large and hostile golem, our heroes discover that the world is a little different than when they left it. The topography’s changed, creatures that are supposed to be extinct are running around in living color, and Hawk – everyone’s favorite flying ham – was being chased by a dragon. He’s not really sure how he ended up here – he could have sworn he was in Purgatory – but he’s down to clown with Tristan and Tioreh while they figure out what’s going on.

Oh, and this weird black corruption is springing up all over, long-dead heroes are showing up to cause problems, and there’s this mysterious scholar named Clotho who seems to know both everything about the Book of Stars, which can magically restore broken things, and where Tristan and Tioreh are going to be before they get there. Time travel shenanigans? Multiple timelines? Something funky’s going on, y’all, and our intrepid crew are going to get to the bottom of it.

The story here is fun (and very well-acted, though there was no English dub in the beta, so everything I heard was in Japanese), but what sells The Vibe™ of Seven Deadly Sins: Origin is how it looks. It’s absolutely stunning, but what impressed me most was how well-animated everything was. There’s a particularly great scene where Tristan is trying to hand over the Book of Stars, only to find it’s stuck to his hand, that had me rolling, but there’s a lot of really great moments here. Seven Deadly Sins: Origin has a story to tell, and you can tell its developers have taken that responsibility seriously.

But there’s a solid action game here, too. Origin is an action-RPG at heart, and there’s meat on this combat’s bone. In addition to a standard defensive dash (the only way you’ll be blocking in Origin is with your face), each character comes with a standard combo, a couple of special attacks, and an ultimate that can range from calling in some fireballs to transforming into a demon. These distinctions are what gives each character flavor, and I really enjoyed playing around with them, whether I was buffing my standard fire attacks with Tioreh or using Howzer’s wind-based strikes, and everything in-between. And yes, characters like Diane are here, too. Just… smaller than you might figure.

Since each character’s abilities are associated with an element, it’s good to have a balanced team. You can have up to four characters traveling with you at once, and switch to them on the fly. Play your cards right, and they’ll even come in with an attack. The twist is that your whole team shares a health bar; there’s no switching characters when you’re running low on health to save the day.

Combat is about managing your cooldowns, landing hits when you can, and most importantly, not getting hit. Origin is kind enough to show you where large attacks are going to be ahead of time, and smaller hits generally have enough windup so that you can get out of the way if you’re paying attention and not just mashing buttons. This isn’t Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden, but there’s some juice here, and combat feels good.

But it’s not all about hitting things with all manner of sharp and blunt objects. You can also collect materials in the world and use them to craft potions to keep you alive in a pinch, cook a delicious meal, or upgrade your characters with permanent stat buffs.

There’s also a lot to explore. Soon after meeting Hawk, I could ride him around, and like seemingly every video game released since The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you can climb on objects in the environment if you’ve got the stamina for it, and glide down from high places. All of this is good because the world of Britannia is absolutely massive. You can teleport around if you activate the fancy fast-travel stones scattered around the environment, but that means you gotta find ‘em first. So, you know, be prepared to do a little walking. Or pig-riding.

But spending time in the world means you’ll get to do Origin’s sidequests. They’re simple stuff, and, as you’d expect, not nearly as well-produced as the story beats, but I enjoyed trying to help out a crying kid and got a kick out of a castle worker who was so lazy that I had to deliver food for her. Stuff like that makes the world feel more lived in.

If there’s one thing about Seven Deadly Sins: Origin that gives me pause, it’s the gacha-ness of it all. I’m inherently wary of gacha and other reward systems built on gambling, and Origin is one of those games. It seems fairly easy to get enough currency to roll the dice, but the beta throws currency at you, and it’s hard to get a sense of the economics of something when that happens. Whether or not that will be true in the full game remains to be seen. The UI also feels designed for a mouse and keyboard in a way that makes it awkward to navigate on a controller, especially when you’re managing a lot of gear. It’s not gamebreaking, but it’s something I wonder about when it comes to a full release.

I spent about five hours with Seven Deadly Sins: Origin, unlocking several characters, opening up the ability to party up with other players, and taking the main quest far enough that Tristan and Tioreh got to the point that they’d demonstrated enough skill to be trusted to head to the Fairy King Forest. That seemed like a natural place to stop, but before I did, I wanted to take on one of the beta’s optional bosses. In my case, it was a red demon who belched fire and had a thing for belly flops, and another weird looking thing with arms that were doubling as legs. I couldn’t beat either, mostly because I just wasn’t doing enough damage. My choices were clear: level up, get more gear, and play more gacha to Get My Numbers Up, but I opted out. I’d seen the fights, which were fun enough that I wanted to play them again if I jumped in at release, and I was tired of fiddling with the inventory screen. End on a high note.

Sometimes, going into a game blind can be the best thing you can do for yourself. I enjoyed spending time in Seven Deadly Sins: Origin’s world, hanging out with its characters, and riding around a flying hog. And yeah, the fighting stuff part was pretty solid, too. I’m always wary of gacha elements in games, but the core of Seven Deadly Sins: Origin got my attention. The only question is whether it can hold it when it comes out next year. I wouldn’t mind a rematch with a couple of those bosses, but I’m not in a rush. They’ll be there when I return to Britannia.

The Simpsons' second Fortnite short sets the stage for the game's next update, due tomorrow, which will see giant donuts rain down on Springfield in-game.

Released today, "Sugar High" follows Homer as he continues to "improve" reality using an all-powerful Zero Point shard. The short begins with Homer being given some useful exposition from resident The Simpsons scientist Professor Frink, until Homer turns the scientist into new version of Fortnite banana Peely (soon to be available as a skin to battle pass holders).

As Homer causes a rain of giant donuts to fall down from the sky — something players will experience this coming week in-game — Springfield's residents turn against Homer. The second half of the short then seemingly sets up next week's Fortnite theme, where Homer manages to clone himself and somehow create a form of zombie army.

Fortnite plans to release a further two Simpsons shorts which will be available online or via Disney+ across the latter half of its Springfield mini-season, which is due to culminate in a big in-game live event on November 29. Reaction to the crossover has been positive from fans, and developer Epic Games has celebrated a notable uptick in players when compared to the game's previous battle royale season.

Fans of Fortnite's in-game story have also had cause for celebration, as repeated teases have signalled the imminent return of The Seven — the game's much-missed band of heroes who once drove Fortnite's storyline forwards, and who were played by a starry cast that included Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Brie Larsen, Joel McHale and Rahul Kohli.

The last time the word Omniverse was ever mentioned in Fortnite's Storyline was in Fortnite X Marvel: Zero War Issue #5.

And the last person that said it was The Foundation. pic.twitter.com/hhfF9qJAnk

— Rezztro (@Rezztro) November 10, 2025

While the characters are not expected to return before the end of the current The Simpsons season, Fortnite fan and loremaster Rezztro has pointed out that today's short film references the "Omniverse" — in Fortnite lore, essentially the game's term for its multiverse of multiverses. It's a term introduced in previous Fortnite comics starring The Seven, and last mentioned by Dwayne Johnson's in-game character The Foundation back in 2022.

Also spotted in today's teaser: further confirmation that Simpsons character Moe will be purchasable as an in-game skin, alongside an original character with a donut for a head.

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

This has to be one of the best days I've had covering deals. Up to 50% off Pokémon TCG products thanks to AMEX and Discovery discount codes, with the possibility of getting products for free if you grab the instant $60 Amazon Gift Card when you successfully get a store card.

How about Audible Premium Plus for under $3 for 3 months? That's another banger for today, or a 77" best-in-class LG TV that's half off and comes with a free wall mount and 2.1 sound system? Jeez i'm treating you all today.

TL;DR: Deals for Today

Need a smaller TV? I've also got a 2025 model Samsung 65" 4K TVs that's currently 53% off, not to mention some epic gaming goodness with 14% off RTX 5080 Alienware Aurora R16 rigs. Fancy a cheap Nintendo Switch 2 and Pro Controller? I've got you covered there with some sweet deals from AliExpress. They're import models, but everythings region free so no worries there. Let's get into it:

Up To 50% off Pokémon TCG

You might want to check if your AMEX and Discovery is eligibe for up to 50% off Pokémon TCG on Amazon right now. All you have to do is add sealed product to your basket sold directly by Amazon, use your AMEX or Discovery and pay either $1 or use 1 loyalty point to apply the discount. You could also be extra savvy and get a $60 Amazon gift card by being accepted for an Amazon Store Card. Of course, none of this is financial advice, and if you're going to struggle not spending on credit and store cards, make the right choice.

Audible Premium Plus

Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5080 Gaming PCs

Here's two 4K gaming beasts that will stay that way for a long time. If you're just focused on having a RTX 5080 for now with a view to upgrade in the future, go for the $2099.99 build. If you can stretch the extra $650, you're getting a far better processor, double the DDR5 RAM and double the M.2 SSD space. Either way, you win with a cheeky 14% off.

LG Evo C5 4K TV Bundle Deal

Need a beast of a TV that can handle proper gaming performance and the thanksgiving foorball game in style? 77" should do the job, and this is LGs C5 4K 2025 model that's half-price. You'll also save over $300 snagging the S40T Soundbar and Subwoofer combo alongside a slim wall mount. This is one of the best Black Friday deals and we're only in early November.

Samsung S84F 4K OLED Smart TV

Nintendo Switch 2 Mario Kart World Console Bundle

Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller

Star Wars actor Oscar Isaac has suggested that his return to the franchise was contingent on Disney not succumbing to "fascism."

Isaac made the remark in a newly-published GQ interview conducted during the four-day period in which chat show host Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by the Disney-owned ABC.

Kimmel's suspension came after comments made by the host discussing the activity of some MAGA supporters following the murder of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. Kimmel was subsequently pulled off air and his show put on indefinite hiatus — only for it to return the following week amid mounting pressure from celebrities and a spike in Disney+ subscription cancellations.

The Sanctum Sanctorum in New York City is one of Earth's biggest lines of mystical defense in the MCU, and now the Disney Destiny has that same protection thanks to its Doctor Strange-themed Sanctum lounge, which IGN is so proud to exclusively reveal the first look at.

IGN was invited to Papenburg, Germany, to learn how the Disney Destiny was built at the Meyer Werft Shipyard in August, and we got to see The Sanctum under construction. Just yesterday, we were invited on board Disney Cruise Line's newest ship ahead of its Maiden Voyage on November 20 to see and reveal the finished space for the first time, and you can see it for yourself in the video and pictures below.

A Lounge Worthy of a Sorcerer Supreme

To learn more about this space on this Heroes and Villains-themed ship, we spoke with The Sanctum's creative director, Beth Burkhardt from Walt Disney Imagineering, and she shared why this lounge is such a big deal for Disney Cruise Line.

"This is the first time we've ever had a Marvel lounge on board a Disney ship before, so that in itself is very exciting," Burkhardt said. "This is an inspired-by space. So, we took a lot of the color palettes from the film and wanted to show off the best of New York's Sanctum, including the Cloak of Levitation and details from the Chamber of Relics.

"We wanted it to feel like The Sanctum was kind of hidden in plain sight. So, a lot of the more specific details you'll see on the bar side of the space, and the area where we have a lot of entertainment is a bit more subtle, but the architectural details and color palette carry through."

Speaking of the bar, the most striking piece is a recreation of the iconic window with the Seal of Vishanti symbol right in the middle. It lights up with a beautiful purple color accented by oranges and whites, and those lights bleed into the rest of the lounge, creating a really cool mood and vibe throughout the space.

At the end of the bar is the Cloak of Levitation, which was designed after the one Doctor Strange wore in his first solo film. It's always a joy to see items from films brought to life, but a part of me was waiting for it to fly over and recognize me as a powerful sorcerer. Oh well, maybe next time!

To the left and right are more private seating areas that are circular booths. Alongside design motifs taken straight from the Doctor Strange films, they also have items fans will recognize right away, including the Eye of Agamotto, three Wands of Watoomb, daggers, Sling Rings, and much more.

Just across from the bar is a recreation of the Ancient One's private collection of spell books from Kamar-Taj, where Doctor Strange first pulled out the Book of Cagliostro in his first film. And yes, I did ask if the Darkhold was present. Burkhardt told me with a laugh that it was not as they really wanted to focus on the heroic parts of Doctor Strange. There's also the fact that Loki will be wandering the halls of the Disney Destiny, and one could only imagine what mischief he would get up to with that in his arsenal.

Before we jump to the other side of The Sanctum, we have to talk about the drinks. While I didn't get to try any yet, they did have some of the glasses on display that will add a bit of magic to this lounge. These glasses were a collaboration between Disney's food and beverage team and Imagineer Daniel Joseph, who also helped bring the fantastic Haunted Mansion Parlor to life, and they are pretty spectacular.

The first one I saw was literaly levitating and spinning, with the lights hitting the glass in a beautiful way that spread sparks of light all around the base.

The second was for an alcoholic tea drink called the Eye Opener that was made of glass and featured a ring to place the teapot that let it appear to be floating.

Lastly, we got to see the electric glass the Mirror Dimension cocktail will be served in, and it even reacts to your touch in an really fun way the feels as though your are controlling the lightning inside.

This was all made even better as they let me try on a model Sling Ring that the bartenders may use from time to time, and I truly hope they let guests try that out or sell it in a gift shop one day because I'd love to add it to my collection and... you know... create portals to other places and dimensions!

As for the menu, you can check it out below;

The Subtle Touches that Make a Space

As Burkhardt mentioned, the other side of the bar is a more subtle space for guests to relax and enjoy a cocktail, mocktail, or even some Mystic Waffles while watching entertainers perform, learn how to draw your favorite character, and more.

There aren't any big movie recreations here, but that doesn't mean there aren't things fans will love to discover. Lining the side of the stage are glass cases with artifacts that honor the fact that sorcerers can come from anywhere.

"The sorcerers are from all different time periods and places, and we wanted to have props that honored that idea in here," Burkhardt said. "So, you'll see influences from all around the world, including from Nepal, where Doctor Strange studied at Kamar-Taj."

In another nice touch, behind the artificats are beautiful mirrors, which Burkhardt told me were a nod to the Mirror Dimension from the films. These nods can be seen elsewhere, as the geometric patterns on the wall coverings are pulled from the movie, there are designs on the carpet that look like a spell being cast, and many of curtains and chairs are the same blues and reds you associate with Doctor Strange himself.

There are even fun things to find on the outside of The Sanctum, and two of my favorites are the 177a Bleecker Street plaque and a custom piece of art that is made of painted string that is meant to give you the feeling of of three-dimensional depth that happens when a spell is being cast.

The Sanctum Is But One Story Waiting to be Told on the Disney Destiny

The Sanctum isn't an overwhelming space, and I think that's a good thing. It is a special place right near the Grand Hall and just steps away from the Haunted Mansion Parlor that's great to hang out at and relax with those that mean the most to you.

We come to these spaces to feel as though we are part of the stories we hold closest to our heart, and this is another example of Walt Disney Imagineering and Disney Cruise Line providing that for us. It's also just one part of the story.

After seven straight years of providing the most consistent good deal on a brand new Nintendo Switch system annually around Black Friday, Nintendo appears to have finally discontinued its traditional holiday bundle of a Nintendo Switch 1 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for $299.99.

No Nintendo Switch Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Black Friday bundle this year, the end of an era. https://t.co/jLcw3Rupku pic.twitter.com/bhYAvFLTrQ

— IGN Deals (@IGNDeals) November 10, 2025

This comes from the announcement of Nintendo's Black Friday deals today, which include various Nintendo games marked down to $30 and a $20 Cyber Monday discount on a microSD Express card for Nintendo Switch 2, but notably no discounts on any consoles.

The Mario Kart 8 Nintendo Switch bundle has been a staple of Nintendo's Black Friday offerings for seven years running, beginning in 2018, the second year of the Nintendo Switch's life, and reappearing annually ever since.

Its disappearance from this year's lineup is indicative of several recent trends. Most obvious is just that this is the first holiday for the Nintendo Switch 2, and Nintendo understandably wants to sell lots of those rather than direct people to a cheaper version of a system that's rapidly becoming obsolete.

On top of that, there's also new Mario Kart in town: Mario Kart World. If Nintendo isn't interested in inadvertently cannibalizing Switch 2 sales, it's definitely not into the idea of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe stealing sales of Mario Kart World. And given that the Switch 2 just released a few months ago, it's far too early to expect to see a Switch 2 + Mario Kart World bundle at a discount this holiday. Sorry, maybe next year.

It's also true that Nintendo just raised the price of a retail Nintendo Switch 1 to $339.99 from $299.99 in the U.S., as well as prices on its OLED and Lite variations, the Alarmo, and Joy-Con 2 controllers. The company warned at the time that price hikes on the Nintendo Switch 2, physical and digital games, and Nintendo Switch Online memberships "could be necessary in the future."

Though Nintendo didn't explicitly call out tariffs as the reason, multiple analysts IGN has spoken to throughout the year have pointed directly at ongoing increased U.S. tariffs on countries that Nintendo uses for hardware production as a likely reason for this choice. Which could also explain why Nintendo isn't interested in discounting its hardware around the holiday this time around.

All that together makes perfect sense of the idea that Nintendo has officially retired its ever-popular holiday bundle. Will we see a Nintendo Switch 2 variation on this bundle in future years? With games and systems getting increasingly expensive, one can only hope so.

Keep an eye on IGN for all our Black Friday 2025 coverage, including the best discounts on games, systems, and basically everything.

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.

Todd Howard isn’t a big fan of talking about his video games, but in a new interview he has discussed Fallout 4’s divisive dialogue system — and where he thinks it went wrong.

Fallout 4 — which turns 10 today, November 10, alongside the release of an Anniversary Edition — broke away from what the post-apocalyptic role-playing game franchise had done in previous entries and gave the playable character a voice.

Not only that, but Fallout 4 shifted the traditional first-person, zoomed in camera perspective for dialogue in favor of a dynamic, third-person camera perspective more in keeping with a cinematic, Mass Effect style.

Meanwhile, Fallout 4 dialogue is typically determined by a handful of short summaries, usually lining up with positive, inquisitive, sarcastic, and negative responses. It is not possible to select exact answers, and some players criticized the dialogue choices for not having a meaningful impact on the outcome of conversations, quests, or events either way.

While Fallout 4 went on to become a hugely successful release for Bethesda, with 12 million copies shipped to retailers within the first 24 hours representing $750 million in revenue, Fallout fans never really warmed to its dialogue system, and indeed there are a number of mods available that make significant changes to it.

Now, in a new interview with GQ (the one where he reveals The Elder Scrolls 6 is still some way away), Bethesda development chief Todd Howard singled out Fallout 4’s dialogue system as something from one of his games that failed to “resonate” with fans.

“We spent forever on the dialogue system in Fallout 4,” Howard said. “How do we do an interactive conversation in an interesting way? How do we make that gamey? But it really did not resonate. It was also hard on our designers to write that way. Players want to role-play more and we had a voiced protagonist. The actors were phenomenal, but a lot of players were like, ‘That's not the voice I hear in my head.’”

It was telling that for 2023’s Starfield, Bethesda reverted to a silent protagonist with lines of dialogue the player could choose from and the first-person perspective seen in The Elder Scrolls games and pre-Fallout 4 entries in the Fallout series. It seems likely that Bethesda will leave Fallout 4’s dialogue system behind, so I don't expect to see it in the upcoming The Elder Scrolls 6, for example, or indeed Fallout 5, whenever it gets around to making that game.

On a more positive note, Howard said he thinks Fallout 3 has the best opening of any game he’s worked on (I agree!), Starfield has the best gunplay and “gameplay in areas” (agree on the gunplay bit, not sure on the gameplay bit), while the varied landscape of Fallout 76 is “really good” (yep, I'll give him that). Skyrim is, “tonally and player agency-wise… really good,” Howard added, and I doubt anyone would argue with that.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

In celebration of its 25th anniversary, The Emperor's New Groove is set to get its own 4K physical release this year. Fans don't have to wait very long to get it, either, as it's set to be released on December 9.

For those who can't wait to add it to their physical media collection in this format, it's currently available to preorder at Amazon for $45.99 (see here). It's worth keeping in mind that preorders like this one can sell out fast, so it's better to be quick to pick it up now than wait it out.

Preorder The Emperor’s New Groove on 4K

The battle is officially coming home — even though it’s killing at the box office. Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film One Battle After Another has officially received a digital release date, and it’s sooner than you think.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Warner Bros. film will arrive on Apple TV, Prime Video, and Fandango at Home on Friday, November 14. But that’s not all we know when it comes to release dates for this exciting film. The movie is set to be released on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K UHD on January 20, 2026. Plus, fans can look forward to an epic collectable steelbook in 4k UHD in the spring of next year, which will include exclusive special features curated and produced by Anderson specifically for the steelbook release.

Interestingly enough, One Battle After Another is set to hit shelves as physical media just two days before the nominees for the 98th Academy Awards are announced — and it’s fitting, because this film has been widely received as one of the biggest Oscar contenders this year. Anderson has been nominated a whopping nine times across the writing, directing, and Best Picture categories over the years, but he’s never managed to cinch a win for himself, believe it or not. There’s a good chance he might see his first victory in one or more of those categories this year.

Anderson isn’t the only one being praised for One Battle After Another, though. Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, newcomer Chase Infiniti, and musician-actress Teyana Taylor are being looked at as frontrunners for the lead and supporting acting categories respectively. That said, the competition is fierce this year, so it remains to be seen who will even make the nominations cuts in these competitive categories, let alone who will take home the wins.

One Battle After Another is still playing in theaters nationwide, including in 70mm and VistaVision at select locations.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

Here’s some good news for anyone in the market for a new pair of wireless earbuds: Apple AirPods 4 are on sale at Amazon and Best Buy for $84.99. That’s a great deal on Apple’s entry-level earbuds, considering the MSRP is $130. It’s also a new all-time low price, beating the previous low by $5, according to Camelcamelcamel. Since this is Best Buy’s top Deal of the Day - and Amazon is simply matching the price – the sale will end at midnight tonight. So grab them soon if you want them.

Apple AirPods 4 Wireless Earbuds for $84.99

AirPods 4 is the latest iteration of Apple’s wireless earbuds. They come in a new design aimed at delivering all-day comfort. They offer a number of other features like personalized spatial audio, water and sweat resistance, and up to 30 hours of battery life. They come in a USB-C charging case that re-charges your earbuds between uses.

They have improved sound and call quality compared to the previous iteration, thanks in part to Apple’s H2 chip. It offers better voice isolation for improved call quality when you’re in a noisy environment. If you have them connected to an iPhone, you can also access Siri at any time by saying “Siri” or “Hey Siri.”

As for the features, personalized spatial audio works when you pair your AirPods with recent Apple devices, like an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook. It makes the audio from your music, TV shows, movies, and games sound like the it’s coming from all around you. Apple says this creates a “theater-like listening experience.”

The AirPods are IP54 dust, sweat, and water resistant, making them perfectly safe to use while exercising, as your sweat won’t seep in and damage them. The 30 hour battery life refers to the total amount of listening time when your AirPods and case are fully charged. The earbuds themselves get up to 5 hours of listening time before you have to put them back in the case to recharge.

This model is not to be confused with the identical-looking AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancelling (see at Amazon). The noise cancelling feature is certainly nice, but it comes at a cost. You can check out our AirPods 4 with ANC review for more details on that model.

The big question, if you don’t need these immediately, is whether to buy now or wait for Black Friday. I’d say it’s possible these AirPods will drop to an even lower price during the shopping holiday, but I wouldn’t count on it. They only dropped to $109.99 last year.

Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.

The Elder Scrolls 6 — one of the most hotly anticipated video games in the world — won’t be out for some time yet despite being announced over seven years ago, Bethesda development chief Todd Howard has said.

In an interview with GQ magazine to celebrate the release of Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, Howard said The Elder Scrolls 6 is “still a long way off.” He added: “I’m preaching patience. I don’t want fans to feel anxious.”

In January this year, The Elder Scrolls 6 announcement became as old as predecessor Skyrim was when The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced. Skyrim was released on November 11, 2011, and The Elder Scrolls 6 reveal on June 10, 2018 came 2,403 days after that. It is now seven years and five months after the announcement, and we’re no closer, it seems, to the release of the game.

When the six year anniversary of The Elder Scrolls 6 announcement arrived in June last year, even Todd Howard paused to say, "oh wow, that has been a while." The Elder Scrolls 6 is at least in production, with Bethesda confirming it had entered "early development" in August 2023 and "early builds" were available in March 2024.

Now, in the GQ article, Howard has once again admitted that it’s taken too long to get The Elder Scrolls 6 out the door, but did tease an The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered-style shadowdrop — without confirming anything.

“I do like to have a break between them, where it isn’t like a ‘plus one’ sequel,” Howard said of making The Elder Scrolls games again. “I think it’s also good for an audience to have a break — The Elder Scrolls has been too long, let’s be clear. But we wanted to do something new with Starfield. We needed a creative reset.” Bethesda is currently playtesting The Elder Scrolls 6, Howard revealed.

So when will it actually come out? It seems likely at this point that it will be released for Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox console and PC. Will it also be a PS6 game? A cross-gen title perhaps?

“I like to just announce stuff and release it,” Howard continued. “My perfect version — and I’m not saying this is going to happen — is that it's going to be a while and then, one day, the game will just appear.” The Oblivion Remastered shadowdrop was “a test run,” Howard teased. “It worked out well.”

As for what Bethesda has going on right now, hundreds of people are working on Fallout, Howard said, across Fallout 76 “and some other things we're doing, but The Elder Scrolls 6 is the everyday thing.”

Last month, it was confirmed that The Elder Scrolls 6 will include a character designed in memory of a much-missed fan, after a remarkable charity campaign that raised more than $85,000 for Make-A-Wish. Howard revealed that Bethesda has spent some time talking with the group of fans who organized the fundraiser about what they want to see from The Elder Scrolls 6, and commented: “I think we’re aligned.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Video games are synonymous with the name Nintendo. But which of the hundreds of incredible games that have graced the legendary Japanese company’s numerous home and handheld consoles are the best? Well, here at IGN, we’ve teamed up with our friends at Nintendo Life to try and answer that question. What follows is the 100 best Nintendo games of all time, based on a combination of each site’s expert opinions.

From iconic Nintendo in-house series such as Super Mario, Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda, to third-party heroes who have made their home on everything from the NES to Switch 2, narrowing down the field was no easy task. These aren’t necessarily the best games to play right now, but a ranking based on a combination of historic innovation, modern ingenuity, and the legacy each has left behind.

Have an opinion on what should be placed where? You can contribute to our public ranking by voting in this faceoff or let us know in the comments below. Over the course of this week, we’ll be steadily revealing our picks, with 20 being revealed each day until the full ranking is complete on Friday, November 14. So, without further ado, here are the top 100 Nintendo games of all time:

100. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

More than 20 years on, there’s still nothing quite like Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (which, yes, is probably due in part to Nintendo's now-expired sanity system patent). Not only did it have the temerity to jump between wildly distinct time periods, but it also went to great lengths to mess with your mind should you get spotted by enemies too much. Whether it’s an unsettling noise, a slightly skewed camera angle, or the game straight up simulating a ‘blue screen of death’, it made for one of the most memorable experiences in the horror genre. The Lovecraftian aesthetic still sings to this very day, and a certain bathtub scene is just as sure to give you the willies now as it did back in 2002. A remarkable game that deserves a second chance in the spotlight.

99. GTA: Chinatown Wars

A GTA game releasing exclusively (until its later PSP arrival) for a Nintendo handheld seems like an incongruous proposal. But, in 2009, Rockstar gave the DS Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, a standalone story of Triads and tribulations in GTA 4’s modern Liberty City setting. This top-down ode to the series’ roots miraculously converted the open-world cinema we’d come to expect, adapting to its handheld confines through smart touchpad mechanics and a stylised, cell-shaded comic-book-like aesthetic to stunning effect. What could so easily have been a misguided experiment between Rockstar and Nintendo instead became one of the DS’s most essential games.

98. Star Fox

From the days when the word “polygon” was exclusively found in math textbooks comes Nintendo’s 3D evolution of a mainstay arcade genre: the SHMUP. Taxing the SNES hardware so much, even the Super FX chip included inside the cartridge couldn’t get the action to run even at a targeted 12 frames per second, Star Fox followed the linear stage setups of R-Type and co., but played from a behind-the-ship and first-person perspective. The “talking” animals are here to remind you that you’re playing a Nintendo game, but in the end, Star Fox is a highly technical and experimental harbinger of the future. Far from being just a tech demo, it’s also a really fun game, however, thanks to challenging players to play again and again to perfect their runs and experiment to discover alternate paths.

97. Super Castlevania IV

While it's effectively a re-thread of the original Castlevania, this fourth mainline instalment in the series really does elevate things to an entirely different level of quality. Sure, Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse might be the better game overall, but Super Castlevania IV reimagines Transylvania through a 16-bit lens; the visuals are stunning, with Mode 7 effects adding a new dimension to proceedings, while the music is so good you'd swear it was being streamed from a CD. Subsequent entries would arguably take the franchise to the next level of brilliance, but one thing is clear: Super Castlevania IV remains a masterpiece.

96. 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

The Nintendo DS became a haven for visual novel fans; an interactive storybook device that could ease you into a deep night’s sleep. 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors was far more likely to keep you up all night, however, with its twisted game of life and death. Chunsoft’s first entry into the Zero Escape series, 999 placed you alongside eight other potential victims inside a sinking cruise liner that tested your puzzle and deduction skills as you unraveled the web woven by a mysterious mastermind. It’s twisted, clever, and a great example of handheld experimentation that he console would become known for.

95. Fire Emblem Three Houses

Three Houses is a Fire Emblem game that got it all so right; it's been hard to readjust to the series in its aftermath. You see, Three Houses gives us the turn-based strategy we're all fiending for, yes, and it does so with style to spare. However, the real draw here, and the thing that makes this one so worthy of note overall, is the focus and effort that’s been placed on the socialising, customisation, relationships, and all that good stuff that happens between scraps. It's a game you could quite happily live in for a bit.

94. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future

What does Professor Layton hide under that huge hat? Perhaps, a towering cylindrical head of a shape unlike any other in human history. He’d certainly need one to house a brain big enough to solve all of the puzzles thrown his way over the course of his many DS and 3DS adventures. A consistent quality of cosiness mixed with Sherlock Holmes-esque yarns can be found across the Layton series, but we’ve gone with The Unwound Future as our pick of the bunch. Its time-traveling tale, full of memorable twists and turns, thrills just as much as solving one of its dozens of conundrums does, satisfying brains of all shapes and sizes to great effect.

93. WWF No Mercy

25 years later, WWF No Mercy, the THQ-published wrestling game released on the Nintendo 64, is not only still considered to be the pinnacle of the N64 wrestling game boom, but it's also widely thought of as the greatest wrestling game of all time. Since its release, it's been the benchmark for what any wrestling game, with or without the WWE license, has aspired to be. It's developed a cult-like following, with fans still playing (and modding) No Mercy to this day, updating its 25-year-old roster with modern superstars when the latest 2K game doesn't live up to its standards. It's not often a game still stands strong after a quarter of a century, and it's even rarer when it's a sports game. All of this makes WWF No Mercy not only the greatest-ever wrestling game, but perhaps Nintendo's greatest-ever sports game that doesn't include Mario.

92. Kirby: Planet Robobot

Kirby: Planet Robobot, a truly astonishing little game for the Nintendo 3DS that encapsulates all that is best and beloved about the pink puffball. Robobot has everything: a deep roster of unique and useful copy abilities, colorful and creative levels, an interesting one-off gimmick in the robot armor, silly minigames, and a plot that starts with Kirby taking a nap and ends in a giant galactic battle against a superintelligent, planet-sized being.

In addition to all this, Kirby: Planet Robobot is one of the very few games to really make effective use of the Nintendo 3DS's 3D capabilities. While the game itself takes place on a 2D plane, it features a number of levels that have depth as well as length, and look absolutely fantastic with the 3D turned on, as cars drive directly at the player and giant ice cream cones tip over and spill on the camera. While Kirby has since gained other new copy abilities, minigames, and even his first 3D adventure in the years since, most of them struggle to hold a candle in our hearts to Planet Robobot's breadth, depth, and pure charm.

91. Diddy Kong Racing

Apart from Nintendo itself, Rare was the N64’s most important developer, and one place the UK-based studio actually outpaced Nintendo was in the kart racer category. Mario Kart 64 is an undeniable classic, but Diddy Kong Racing just inches ahead as our pick for the best kart racer on the 64. In addition to chaotic split-screen kart racing, Diddy Kong Racing drove the genre forward with three vehicle types (your friend could be in a plane flying alternate routes during the same race you were in a car!), an adventure mode complete with boss battles, and an amazing soundtrack from Donkey Kong Country composer David Wise. Plus, it was the first appearance of Banjo and Conker ahead of their solo platformer outings – and it’s the forgotten, cute, family-friendly version of Conker well before he started drinking, smoking, and swearing.

90. The World Ends With You

Though it's been ported and remade several times, none of the more recent versions of The World Ends With You has managed to capture how excellent this game was back when it first released on Nintendo DS. We could go on all day about what makes it great: the art style, the deep fashion mechanics, its accurate portrayal of Shibuya and Japanese youth culture, its unusual story with multiple wild twists, its incredible cast of characters, the MUSIC.

But maybe the best element of TWEWY that we've lost in subsequent editions is its battle system, which made unique and brilliant use of both the system's dual screen and its touch controls simultaneously with its D-pad to effectively simulate two different characters synchronizing their attacks with one another in two different realms. Combined with a wide variety of "pins" that could be activated with different types of touch attacks, there was endless room for creativity and growth through multiple playthroughs. Which you definitely wanted to do, if only to hear Calling and Three Seconds Clapping one more time.

89. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

After years of being relegated to supporting roles, our little mushroom-headed friend Toad finally got his own game in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. Nintendo, over the years, has done a brilliant job of designing games fit and tuned perfectly to the personalities of each of its mascots, and Captain Toad is no exception. The cute, diorama-like levels proved to be magnificent puzzles for our intrepid explorer to navigate one by one, presenting a slower and cozier pace from other Nintendo challenges, yet still being perfectly, whimsically Nintendo. It's a shame we never got another one of these.

88. Golden Sun: The Lost Age

We could’ve gone with either Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age as our entry on this list, but we’ve settled for the second part of Camelot's two-act RPG adventure, as it is ultimately the better half. Golden Sun was already an absolute feat, with its creative Psynergy and Djinn systems, gorgeous environments and music, and surprisingly robust open world. In the sequel they quadrupled the size of that world, added even more Psynergy and Djinn and classes, came up with more banger songs and environments, and opened the second act with a wild party switching twist that would go on to be subverted further in a triumphant march to the final battle. Golden Sun and The Lost Age are nuts in the best way, The Lost Age even more so, and are among the best GBA games of all time.

87. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour

Mario has tried his hand at a lot of different sports over the years, but few have had the staying power of golf. Originally driving off on the NES, before approaching the 3D world of the N64, it’s Toadstool Tour on the GameCube where the plumber really nailed the action on the green. Its sizeable roster of characters and compelling courses offered a great round of multiplayer fun for those looking for a more laid-back time away from the hectic rush of Smash Bros. and Mario Kart, and the furious consequences of Mario Party.

86. Super Monkey Ball 2

Super Monkey Ball’s brilliance lies in the fact that you’re tilting the stage to roll your monkey around rather than directly moving the character itself, and its table maze concept has never been more finely tuned than in Super Monkey Ball 2. The 2002 GameCube sequel is stuffed with 140 stages to clear – ranging from fun and simple courses perfect for laughing at the silly monkeys on family game night to downright brutal challenges that’ll make you go bananas as you lose hundreds of lives trying to clear them. Mastering everything it has to offer is extraordinarily satisfying, and its physics, momentum, and controls are so pinpoint that a study found that surgeons who warm up by playing Super Monkey Ball 2 are more efficient and precise in simulated surgeries compared to the surgeons who didn’t play. Video games really can save lives!

85. Viewtiful Joe

Viewtiful Joe practically attacks your eyeballs with its standout art direction and frantically fun combat. It’s unfiltered Hideki Kamiya at an exciting career crossroads, melding his Devil May Cry action with a colourful paintbrush palette that would later evolve into the likes of Okami and The Wonderful 101. A wholly original side-scroller that threatens to burst out of its purple cube confines if your fingers don’t keep up with its cell-shaded antics, it's an exciting combo of 2D and 3D platform action that felt fresh in 2003, with an intoxicating style that few have come close to matching since. It spawned sequels, but none truly reached the heights of the original, which has stood the test of time as one of the GameCube’s very best.

84. F-Zero GX

F-Zero is about cheating death to go faster, and F-Zero GX’s uncompromising difficulty and incredibly high skill ceiling represent a peak of the futuristic racing genre. Like F-Zero X before it, GX forces you to sacrifice your machine’s health bar to get a boost, resulting in tense risk-reward scenarios that get your blood pumping every time. And if you fall off the track while trying to shave off an extra split second, Lakitu won’t swoop in to save you – you’re dead. You must master GX’s tight mechanics and memorize its radical track designs to even stand half a chance against its toughest CPUs, and you hit a high most video games can’t reach when you finally cross the finish line in first place. The cold-blooded challenge only works because GX runs perfectly at 60 fps and looks fantastic with strong art direction that rivals the GameCube’s best, like Metroid Prime and Rogue Leader. F-Zero GX is a masterpiece, and probably the most hardcore Nintendo game since the NES.

83. Ring Fit Adventure

Ring Fit Adventure is one of the best-selling Nintendo Switch games, thanks largely to a global pandemic making indoor exercise briefly appealing. Unfortunately, like many other exercise programs, most people who started Ring Fit fell off the game before they could discover how much more than just an exercise game it really is. Ring Fit Adventure is genuinely one of the most unique RPGs of the generation. It has a colorful cast of characters, bolstered by surprisingly good writing, a battle system revolving around your own physical movement, complete with skill trees, elemental weaknesses, and even healing items you can craft through more exercise. Plus, its soundtrack is straight work-out bangers, too.

82. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Nearly every moment of Phoenix Wright’s original courtroom adventure is iconic. From Phoenix’s debut trial against Mr. Sahwit (Or should I say... Mr. Did It!) to cross-examining a literal parrot, the first Ace Attorney fully commits to its completely unhinged world and never looks back. Exposing witnesses’ lies and uncovering the truth of each case is exhilarating, largely because of its excellent soundtrack and lively character animations, and the way Ace Attorney balances its unabashed silliness with genuinely serious, heartfelt moments is nothing short of masterful. It’s also an essential game in its genre, as Ace Attorney’s surprisingly successful sales paved the way for more visual novel and puzzle games to find a footing in the West.

81. Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse

Considered by many to be the apex of the 'classic' Castlevania entries, Dracula's Curse remains a wonderful example of a talented group of developers pushing aging hardware to its maximum potential. By the time it arrived in 1989, the 16-bit era was already in full swing and the NES was looking very old-fashioned. However, despite the humble nature of the host hardware, Konami created a stunning action platformer, boasting multiple playable characters and optional routes through Dracula's castle. Indeed, many consider this to be superior to the first 16-bit entry in the series, Super Castlevania IV, which arrived just a short time later in 1991.

Come back tomorrow when we'll be revealing numbers 80 to 61...

Nintendo fans are rejecting a new description found within Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment that describes Link and Princess Zelda as just friends.

An in-game journal entry from Zelda's ally Lenalia claims that the princesses' sword training was inspired by "a knight — and friend — from her own time." But while this description seems clear-cut, fans have compared it to the text found in the game's original Japanese language version — which simply refers to Link as a "familiar knight," without the explicit "friend" label.

This latest snippet has reignited the debate over whether Link and Zelda are more than just pals — something that Nintendo itself has kept mysterious for decades.

Of course, Lenalia's journal entry is just that — one character's recording of what she has been told by Zelda, who may or may not have been speaking truthfully. In one social media post that has now gone viral, Zelda fan IvyfulWorld put it thus: "she is not fooling ANYBODY."

"I guess one explanation could be she tried to downplay it out of shyness," replied big_asutaro.

"Nintendo of America's localization team has this thing for wanting to portray Link and Zelda's relationship as purely platonic by adding things that aren't even present in the original text," claimed another fan, verieas.

“and friend” she is not fooling ANYBODY pic.twitter.com/IwULR3vRhd

— Ivy | Sacred Stones (@IvyfulWorld) November 6, 2025

Throughout its almost 40-year history, The Legend of Zelda series has frequently suggested that Link and the princess are romantically involved. The pair hold hands in the finale of Spirit Tracks, and are implied to be settling down as a couple to found Hyrule at the end of Skyward Sword. Zelda even kisses Link (on the cheek) during Oracle of Ages, sending hearts fluttering from the swordsman's eyes.

Most recently, both Zelda and Link appear to be sharing a house in Tears of the Kingdom — which features the incarnations of Link and Zelda referenced in Age of Imprisonment.

Zelda voice actress Patricia Summersett, who has voiced the same incarnation of Zelda seen from Breath of the Wild onwards, raised eyebrows in 2023 when she stated that she believed the pair were definitively "in a relationship." However, Summersett swiftly walked back the comments just days later saying her words had been "misconstrued." (Nintendo did not comment on this kerfuffle at the time, though fans noted it had been unusual for anyone outside the company itself to discuss its characters in such a manner.)

So what has Nintendo itself said? Perhaps the clearest indicator of Link and Zelda's relationship status came from the series' legendary producer Eiji Aonuma, who told IGN the following in December 2023 when asked for an official ruling on the subject:

"I will leave it to everyone's imagination [whether Link and Zelda are in a relationship]. I don't think that Zelda is a type of game where the development team says, 'This is what Zelda is, this is what the story is, this is what the game is.' Everything that the development team wants to convey has already been placed into the game. And the rest is up to the player's imagination, and their reflection on how they feel… what they've experienced in the game."

Considering the most recent Zelda game features a house lived in by Link and Zelda (with Nintendo placing just a single bed into the bedroom), some fans took Aonuma's comment to be the clearest sign yet that Nintendo does indeed see the two as a couple — even if it doesn't want to explicitly apply that label in-game.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see how Nintendo handles the two characters in its upcoming The Legend of Zelda live-action movie, which recently began shooting in New Zealand following the casting of its two key roles earlier this year.

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

Sony has announced a special State of Play Japan, which will be broadcast online this week.

The show will air at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 10pm UK time tomorrow, November 11 — or 7am Japan time on November 12 if you're watching from there.

PlayStation promises a show that will last for "more than 40 minutes" filled with updates on games created in Japan and across Asia "alongside a few other exciting updates."

In a break from Sony's usual State of Play format, the show will have a host — voice actor Yuki Kaji — and focus on games in development in a specific part of the world. The show will also only air in Japanese, though English subtitles will be available.

So, what do we expect? It'd be great to see more of Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, the fighting game set to be published by PlayStation that's due to launch in 2026. Announced back in June, the project is a collaboration between the Japan-based Arc System Works, Sony and Marvel Games, and is currently in the works for PlayStation 5 and PC.

Could this week be when we learn of a release date for Phantom Blade Zero, the wuxia action RPG coming to PC and PS5 that we're expecting to hear launch plans of very soon? And what about that Horizon MMO in the works at NCSoft?

Sony's previous State of Play for September 2025 offered both a gameplay trailer and release window for Marvel's Wolverine, as well as an extended look and release date for Housemarque's Saros. Join us tomorrow for this week's show — we'll report on all the reveals as they happen.

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

Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto has discussed how his role has changed after stepping back from leading development on Nintendo's most famous video game series.

In a new interview, Miyamoto revealed he had now entrusted most of the work on new Mario games to others, though said he still played through the first half hour of new projects himself to ensure it felt "like Mario" to him.

Speaking in celebration of Super Mario Bros' 40th anniverary, the veteran designer, now 72, also said he hoped "to stay healthy until Mario's 50th anniversary" in a decade's time.

Kadokawa, the parent company of Elden Ring: Nightreign developer FromSoftware, has confirmed we'll get new DLC for the multiplayer game by the end of March 2026, as unhappy players leave negative reviews on Steam.

"We are aiming for further sales growth for Elden Ring Nightreign, original Elden Ring, and its DLC," the company said in its recent financial report to investors (thanks, GamesRadar+). "We have multiple game titles in the development pipeline. FromSoftware is currently developing Elden Ring Nightreign DLC (planned for release in FY2025) Elden Ring Tarnished Edition (planned for release in 2026 for Nintendo Switch 2), and The Duskbloods (planned for release in 2026)."

FY2025 in this instance means by the end of Kadokawa's current financial year, so by March 31, 2026. But while the financial report revealed that Nightreign had "performed well beyond initial expectations" and confirmed the DLC — described on the Steam storefront as being available "by Q4 2025" — is still on the way, recent user reviews for the Deluxe Upgrade Pack have dropped to a 'Mostly Negative' rating as players express their frustration at the lack of tangible news.

"We're mid-Q4 2025. No news, no teasers, total silence," wrote one negative reviewer on November 1. "If you're thinking about buying Deluxe Upgrade, wait until we get actual news about the content. I can't recommend you a promise." Another said: "It's been half a year now, still no dlc or any new characters in sight even though they got leaked a bit ago. Right now this is a complete scam, as even the soundtrack isnt even full."

Someone else said they would change their negative review to positive "once FromSoft announces something."

Nightreign's ultra-hard difficulty mode, Deep of Night, released back in September, having been discovered by dataminers back in August. Beyond that, though, there's been very little firm news on what additional content could be on the way. It's worth noting that even though the Kadokawa financial report guarantees the release of the Nightreign DLC by the end of March 2026, that doesn't necessarily mean it won't release before the end of calendar year 2025.

"When Elden Ring Nightreign is played exactly as it was designed to be played, it’s one of the finest examples of a three-player co-op game around," we wrote in IGN's 7/10 Elden Ring: Nightreign review. "But a lack of crossplay, duo matchmaking, and built-in communication tools makes it hard to create the conditions needed to have this kind of experience unless you’re bringing two real-life friends on every run."

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