Starting today, Walmart is offering a great deal on a budget HP prebuilt computer. Right now you can pick up an HP Omen 16 RTX 4060 gaming PC for only $799 with free shipping. It's sold and shipped by Walmart directly, not a marketplace vendor. The GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card can comfortably play most games at 1080p. If you mostly play older games like Fortnite, League of Legends, PUBG, or World of Warcraft, there's no need to spend more money.

HP Omen 16L RTX 4060 Gaming PC for $799

DC's Absolute Universe is in full swing, with more series on the way. If you're unfamiliar, the Absolute Universe is a publishing initiative by the comics publisher that gives some of the best talents in comics free reign with their most prominent characters without the limitations of preexisting lore. What does this mean? In Absolute Batman, legendary Batman writer Scott Snyder was able to explore Bruce Wayne/Batman from a fresh perspective—what if Bruce wasn't a billionaire playboy and didn't have his hi-tech gadgets?

Absolute Batman #9 Is Out Now

Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy finally launches this week, and while there are boosters, Commander decks, and even a new Starter Kit to pick up (if you can find it in stock), collectors will perhaps be most interested in the new Secret Lair drops.

It’s been a busy year for Wizards of the Coast’s limited-time mini-sets, and while the company sold out of all three Final Fantasy drops in record time (leaving many disappointed), you can still get them via third-party sellers... if you're willing to pay the inflated costs, that is.

Every Final Fantasy Secret Lair Drop and Where to Buy Them

Before we start, it’s worth pointing out that you won’t find Secret Lair drops at the same price as you’d find them directly from Wizards of the Coast (standard $30 nonfoil, $40 rainbow foil), with most being listed anywhere between $80-$150 or above.

This is a huge markup, so if you're looking to buy, be sure you're 100% informed of what you're paying for. You can buy them from eBay, but we’ve always found TCGPlayer, while still eBay-owned, to be the most secure and trustworthy way to nab Secret Lair drops post-release.

There are a trio of Final Fantasy Secret Lair sets, Weapons, Grimoire, and Game Over, each offering unique art and names for Magic: The Gathering cards. Everything is available in standard and foil, alongside the Japanese variants as well.

Here’s how you can grab each, what’s included, and all the key info you need to help you decide whether you still want these to add to your collection via third party seller listings selling at a premium.

Weapons

Focused on, well, weaponry from the long-running RPG franchise, the Weapons drop offers the following:

• Yuna’s Sending Staff (Staff of the Storyteller) - Final Fantasy 10
• Clive’s Invictus Blade (Blade of Selves) - Final Fantasy 16
• Cloud’s Buster Sword (Umezawa’s Jitte) - Final Fantasy 7
• Gaia’s Dark Hammer (Colossus Hammer) - Final Fantasy 14
• Tidus’s Brotherhood Sword (Sword of Truth and Justice) - Final Fantasy 10

Grimoire

Grimoire is all about spells and the characters casting them. Here are the five cards included:

• Yuna’s Holy Magic (Prismatic Ending) - Final Fantasy 10
• Hope’s Aero Magic (Cyclonic Rift) - Final Fantasy 13
• Noctis’s Death Magic (Damn) - Final Fantasy 15
• Vivi’s Thunder Magic (Lightning Bolt) - Final Fantasy 9
• Aerith’s Curaga Magic (Heroic Intervention) - Final Fantasy 7

Game Over

Final Fantasy would be nothing without its iconic villains, and this set gives them a chance to shine.

• Spira’s Punishment (Day of Judgment) - Final Fantasy 10
• Absorb into Time (Temporal Extortion) - Final Fantasy 8
• Merciless Poisoning (Toxic Deluge) - Final Fantasy 6
• Unseat the Usurper (Praetor’s Grasp) - Final Fantasy 15
• Meteorfall (Star of Extinction) - Final Fantasy 7

Lloyd Coombes is Gaming Editor @ Daily Star. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay. He's also a tech, gaming, and fitness freelancer seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar, Tom’s Guide, IGN, and more.

Here's a rare chance to pick up a well-sized OLED TV at an affordable price and from a trusted retailer. Starting this week, Amazon has discounted the 2024 65" Panasonic Z85 4K OLED Smart TV with Amazon Fire TV for just $997.99 with free delivery. This is an excellent TV to pair up with your PlayStation 5 since it has HDMI 2.1 inputs and a 120Hz refresh rate.

65" Panasonic Z85 4K OLED Fire TV for $997.99

At first glance, Toy Battle might look like a Clash Royale knockoff, but there’s more in this toy box than meets the eye. This two-player battler delivers deceptively simple gameplay and lightning-fast matches, with eight unique game boards and strategic troop abilities that keep each round feeling fresh. If you can look past its playful aesthetic, Toy Battle offers some genuinely satisfying moments that players of all ages can enjoy.

What's in the Box

Toy Battle comes in a compact box designed to resemble a locking metal toybox, adding a playful touch right from the start. Inside, you'll find a short instruction manual (with a QR code for a video overview), a player aid sheet, and several thick punchboards containing all of the troop tiles. There isn’t much to punch out – just 48 total troops (24 blue and 24 red), with three copies each of the eight unique toy units you'll control during the game.

Two high-quality wooden stands are included to keep your troops upright, organized, and hidden from your opponent during play. A small brown bag holds 16 medal markers used for scoring, and you’ll also find two simple-to-assemble storage boxes (one blue, one red) that help keep your troops separated and secure when the game is packed away.

Beneath everything are four double-sided game boards, each featuring a distinct terrain for a total of eight themed battlefields. These range from castles and cities above the clouds to volcanic jungles, cemeteries, and space stations. But they’re more than just cosmetic changes; each board has a unique layout and special bases that can be activated to trigger game-altering effects. Every square inch of the game's box is used efficiently, with everything fitting snugly back inside when playtime’s over.

Rules and How It Plays

The goal in Toy Battle is to be the first player to either conquer your opponent's headquarters or collect the required number of medals by controlling terrain. To achieve this, players take turns placing troops onto the battlefield, starting near their own headquarters and advancing along connected paths until one of the win conditions is met.

To begin, players select one of the eight terrain maps. For your first game, the rules recommend playing on the Castle Field map as it features a symmetrical layout and straightforward special base effect. One player takes control of the blue troops, while the other commands the red. Medal markers are distributed based on icons shown on the map, and each player shuffles their troops into facedown stacks. The starting player draws three troops and places them on their rack, while the second player draws four.

Players perform one of two actions on their turn: either draw two troops from their reserve or place a single troop on the terrain. Drawing troops gives you more options to work with, but it also gives your opponent a chance to advance toward victory. When placing troops, you can claim an empty base on the board or cover one of your opponent’s troops if your unit’s power is higher. Balancing the need to maintain pressure with the need to keep your rack full is one of the core strategic dilemmas in Toy Battle.

If you can look past its playful aesthetic, Toy Battle offers some genuinely satisfying moments that players of all ages can enjoy.

Each troop has a power level from one to seven and a unique effect that activates when played. For example, Skully, the 1-power unit, doesn’t offer much raw strength but lets you draw two additional troops, making it a valuable early-game play.

Other troops include Cap'n, the 2-power unit that allows you to play an extra troop during your turn; Jumbo, the 3-power unit that lets you discard one of your opponent’s adjacent troops; Hook, the 4-power unit that can be placed onto any base on the board to get behind enemy lines or disrupt your opponent's plans; XB-42, the 5-power unit that allows you to randomly discard a troop from your opponent's rack; and Star, the 6-power unit that lets you draw a troop from your reserve while putting a strong body on the board.

Roxy, the 7-cost unit, doesn't have any effect, but is the strongest standard troop in the game. Then there's Kwak, the joker unit that can be played on top of any troop but can also be covered by any other, making it both flexible and vulnerable.

While the troops are designed to resemble familiar children’s toys like green army men, dragons, and robots, I never really felt like I was waging an epic toy box war. Most of their abilities didn’t feel thematically appropriate, and they often came across more like generic meeples than distinct characters with charm.

There are three copies of each troop in a player’s stack, but four are removed at random before the game begins. This adds bit of randomness and a layer of uncertainty that carries throughout the game as you try to deduce what you and your opponent might still have in reserve. Anticipating and playing around potential moves becomes a crucial skill in Toy Battle, creating constant micro-decisions that ultimately shape the outcome of the match.

Another key element to consider is the terrain you and your opponent are playing on. Each of the eight maps offers a unique layout, with multiple paths leading to your opponent’s headquarters, similar to a MOBA. Bases along these paths serve as spaces where troops can be deployed, and with only about five between headquarters, you'll be fighting for control almost immediately.

Most maps also feature special bases that trigger unique effects, like returning a troop to your rack, drawing from your reserve, or reclaiming a discarded unit. These hotly contested spaces can swing the momentum of a match if used wisely. Some boards introduce variety in other ways, such as an asymmetrical layout with an extra headquarters for one player to defend, or a central zone that nullifies all troop effects. These twists force you to rethink your approach and keep each match feeling distinct.

As mentioned earlier, reaching your opponent’s headquarters isn’t the only way to win. Each map has medal tokens scattered across both sides, appearing as single medals or grouped in twos or threes. If your troops control every base surrounding a medal or medal group, you claim it. Be the first to collect the required number for that terrain, and you win. This alternate victory condition makes for tense moments and forces you to adjust your strategy on the fly depending on the state of the board.

While Toy Battle doesn’t offer the layered complexity found in some other battlers and may not appeal to players seeking deeper strategy, its quick setup and lightning-fast matches make it a fun addition to any collection. It’s approachable for all ages, can be taught in minutes, and ideal for families or younger players. With most games wrapping up in about 10 minutes, it’s easy to play a few rounds and walk away feeling satisfied without committing your whole afternoon.

Where to Buy Toy Battle

• Get it at Amazon
• Get it at Walmart
• Get it at Asmodee

More Family-Friendly Board Games We Recommend

No matter which platform you prefer, there's an excellent variety of video game deals to check out right now. Whether you're gaming on PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, or PC, we've rounded up the best offers to help you get more for your money. This includes some deals leftover from Days of Play, including the PS5 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 bundle, which is still available at select retailers.

On top of that, PC players can score discounts right now on Doom: The Dark Ages at Fanatical and GMG, Elden Ring Nightreign at Fanatical, and even Stellar Blade at Fanatical, which made its PC debut yesterday. These deals just scratch the surface of what's available, though. Have a look through our favorite video game deals at the moment below.

PS5 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Bundle

Best PC Game Deals

Humble Choice Games for June 2025

Best Physical Video Game Deals

If you're looking to save on physical games right now, there are plenty of deals worth checking out across PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. We've included just a few of our favorites above, but if you'd like to see more game deals for each platform, check out our individual roundups for these consoles: the best PlayStation deals, the best Xbox deals, and the best Nintendo Switch deals.

PSVR 2: Horizon Call of The Mountain Bundle Deal

Best Xbox Accessory Deals

Best PS5 SSD Deals

Best Gaming PC Deals

Do you prefer to play on a dedicated PC tower? Navigating the options online can be quite the ordeal. Desk space, portability, and price point are often factors in the decision. However, there are some great PC deals that pop up every now and again that are worth jumping on. One of our favorite deals at the moment is on the Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5070 Ti Gaming PC (16GB/1TB), which has dropped to $1,999.49. To see even more PC deals, check out our roundup of the best gaming PC deals.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has sold a huge 7 million copies in less than a year, publisher Focus Entertainment has announced.

The Saber Interactive-developed Space Marine 2 launched in early September 2024, which means it hit the 7 million copies sold mark in just over nine months.

Space Marine 2 was an instant hit, selling 4.5 million in just over a month. Indeed, Space Marine 2 has done so well it “changes everything” for Saber, Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits told IGN soon after the game came out.

As a result, it was a big financial success for Warhammer 40,000 owner Games Workshop. CEO Kevin Rountree has said it contributed significant royalty revenue to the tabletop company's business last year.

Focus and Saber surprised some Space Marine 2 fans when it announced Space Marine 3 was in development back in March, half a year after the game came out. But given the huge sales you can see why the project was greenlit so soon.

"Space Marine 2 has proven to be a transformative game for Saber," Matthew Karch, CEO of Saber Interactive, said at the time.

"It is the culmination of everything we have learned about game development in our 25 years in the business. We are now starting to develop Space Marine 3, a game that carries with it tremendous expectations from our rapidly expanding fanbase. While we will continue to support and grow the Space Marine 2 universe over the coming years, we will take all our learnings and apply them to an even bigger and more spectacular game for the third installment. We view this as an opportunity to create a true love letter to the Warhammer 40.000 universe."

Still, Focus and Saber had to put out a statement reassuring players of its commitment to Space Marine 2, which is still working through its year one roadmap of content.

Without spoiling the Space Marine 2 campaign, it strongly suggests a continuation (IGN has reported on the enemy faction we’ll probably see in Space Marine 3).

In the shorter term, Space Marine 2 is due to get the Siege Update (Patch 8) very soon. It makes a big weapon change not for balance reasons, but because it’s just really, really cool.

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.

There’s a scene in the premiere of Underdogs where Ryan Reynolds makes a brutal tongue-in-cheek joke at the expense of his MCU colleague Hugh Jackman. The first episode of the Nat Geo show delves into the lives of the so-called “superzeroes” of the animal world: uncelebrated oddballs who nevertheless possess some pretty breakthaking abilities.

We see a wild “aye-aye” lemur tapping its finger to locate grubs inside a tree, a jewel wasp mind-controlling an unsuspecting cockroach, and a fleeting glimpse of a wolverine, whose name Reynolds humorously claims derives from the “antiquated Canadian word” for “boring millionaire.” Speaking exclusively with IGN, Reynolds, who serves as the Executive Producer and narrator of the series, won’t say if he’s heard from Jackman about the bit.

DC and Warner Bros. have announced Mister Miracle, the second animated series to be produced under the DC Studios banner. As revealed at the Annecy Animation Festival, Mister Miracle will be overseen by showrunner and producer Tom King.

A prolific DC Comics writer, King previously collaborated with artist Mitch Gerads on 2017's Mister Miracle series, which released to major critical acclaim and won the 2019 Eisner Award for Best Limited Series. That comic appears to be the basis for this animated series, judging from DC's official logline:

Moviemaking icon Mel Brooks and Amazon MGM Studios have published a teaser trailer to announce that Spaceballs 2 is moving full steam ahead with plans to premiere in 2027 – and it sounds like Rick Moranis is coming back as Dark Helmet, too.

A trailer for the sequel to the classic '80s sci-fi Star Wars parody arrived today. Although it mostly comes with a special message from Brooks himself and a familiar text crawl that pokes fun at the long, long list of sequels that have come to theaters in the last 38 years, this is the most official look at Spaceballs 2 we’ve seen yet.

"After 40 years, we asked, 'What do the fans want?' Brooks says in the Spaceballs 2 trailer. "But instead, we're making this movie."

He added one final send-off: "May the Schwartz be with you."

The sequel, which was announced last year, already has Brooks attached as a producer with Josh Greenbaum attached to direct. While Frozen's Josh Gad was previously the only name joining its cast, Deadline reports that there are a few other notable names set to appear onscreen. These include original stars Bill Pullman, who will reprise his role as Lone Starr, and even Dark Helmet himself, Moranis.

The site reports that Nope and One of Them Days star Keke Palmer is also onboard to play a mystery character. Additionally, Amazon has announced that the 98-year-old Brooks is set to reprise his role as Spaceballs’ comedic take on Yoda, Yogurt (via THR). It's unclear if he will also return as President Skroob.

Joining Brooks as producers are Gad and Imagine Entertainment's Brooks, Greenbaum, Brian Grazer, and Jeb Brody. Gad, Benji Samit, and Dan Hernandez are handling the Spaceballs 2 script, with Samit, Hernandez, Adam Merims, and Kevin Salter also onboard as executive producers.

It's a stellar cast to kick off a sequel nearly 40 years in the making, but it's Moranis' inclusion that should really have fans excited. With credits in films like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, and, of course, Spaceballs, the star primarily made a name for himself with apperances in movies throughout the '80s. It was an impressive run that came to a halt in the mid-2000s, though, as the actor would step away then stepped away from the limelight. One of his most recent onscreen appearances was a simple ad for Ryan Reynolds' Mint Mobile in 2020.

A firm release date, additional casting information, and plot details all remain to be revealed, but judging by today's first look, it sounds like Brooks and co. haven't missed a beat. We'll learn more about how Spaceballs 2 will follow up the original classic Star Wars spoof movie when it premieres in 2027. In the meantime, be sure to check out our 7/10 review from 2000.

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).

Dune: Awakening is back online after patch 1.1.0.13 was rolled out.

The patch — which sought to implement a "number of backend changes to improve client and server stability" — was deployed after servers were taken offline for a couple of hours earlier today.

Players should also expect some "minor fixes," the details of which are listed below. (If you don't see the latest patch, Funcom recommends you restart your Steam client).

The update comes as Dune: Awakening deals with an influx of new players. Although Head Starters have been visiting Arrakis since June 5, Dune: Awakening released for all players on June 10. And within hours of going live, Funcom's survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent players on Steam: 142,050 to be precise.

Dune: Awakening – 1.1.0.13 Patch Notes

CHANGES

• Made several backend changes to improve the client and server stability.
• The option to betray Jocasta Cleo in the “Impact of Ecology” contract has been temporarily removed due to reports of players being unable to retake the contract after betraying her.
• Updated dialogue lines of the “Planetologist: Advanced: the Search for Kynes” contract to reflect the fixed issue where the players who defected from the Atreides faction couldn’t progress if they picked it up before defecting.

FIXES

• Fixed an issue where players couldn’t change the description of their guild, the name of the sub-fief console, or a base blueprints.
• Fixed an issue where the “Limit CPU Usage” graphics option would not apply to all quality presets.

Ahead of launch, Funcom confirmed the console version of Dune: Awakening isn't expected now until "sometime in 2026"). We've also reported on how Dune: Awakening players found a way to ride sandworms, even though it's not an officially supported feature.

To help you survive on Arrakis, we've got Dune: Awakening resource guides that'll help you find iron, steel, aluminium, and more. If you're just getting started, check out all the Dune: Awakening classes you can choose from, and keep an eye on our in-progress Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step guide to the story.

You can also see what we make of it so far in our Dune: Awakening review in progress (spoilers: we're having fun).

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.

If you were wondering what the legal definition of Shrek is, the Disney / Universal lawsuit against AI company Midjourney confirms exactly what it is.

According to court documents posted to BlueSky: "Shrek's namesake character is a large, bald, dull-green ogre with a broad, round face, brown eyes, and highly distinctive trumpet-shaped ears. Shrek typically wears crude clothing consisting of a canvas-like shirt, a leather vest, and brown leggings."

That little descriptor — as hilarious and accurate as it actually is — is one of the excellent tidbits to come out of the landmark lawsuit. Yesterday, Disney joined forces with Universal to sue Midjourney for copyright infringement, stating that the AI-powered image generator is a “bottomless pit of plagiarism.”

Shrek is one of the properties that is being cited as part of Midjourney’s infringement offenses, as well as Marvel characters, Star Wars characters, Despicable Me’s iconic Minions, and others. According to a BlueSky user who combed through the docs, there are over 30 comparisons between studio artwork and Midjourney outputs.

Further, according to the docs, this suit has been percolating since November 2024, when Midjourney was served a demand letter — essentially an attempt to settle an issue out of court — from Disney, but they allegedly did not respond and then proceeded to develop more models that infringed on existing copyrights. Universal recently served the company another demand letter at the end of May, which means the studios finally decided to hit the gas pedal on taking down Midjourney.

Generative AI is one of the hottest topics within the video game and entertainment industries, which have both suffered massive layoffs in recent years. Generative AI thus far has drawn criticism from players and creators due to a mix of ethical issues, rights issues, and AI’s struggles to produce content audiences actually enjoy.

In March, social media platforms were flooded with AI-generated Studio Ghibli-inspired images as part of a trend sparked by the launch of OpenAI’s new GPT‑4o image generator. It caused a vociferous debate that resurfaced anti-AI comments from creator Hayao Miyazaki.

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

Had I not known in advance that I was going to be playing Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree at Play Days last weekend, I might have overlooked its trailer during Summer Game Fest. The announcement itself was less than two minutes long, and what we saw mostly looked like Hades, but with character selection. However, after playing 15 minutes of the game at Play Days, I'm far more interested than I initially expected to be in Towa's take on the roguelite genre...though I'm going to need waaay more than 15 minutes to get good at it.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree stars Towa, the guardian of Shinju Village and a child of the gods. When a dark god begins consuming the land around Shinju with an evil miasma, Towa rallies eight villagers to fight back. These "Prayer Children" head out into the field, two at a time, to fight against the minions of darkness, with one taking on the role of "Tsurugi", or sword, and the other taking on the supportive staff role, or "Kagura."

At the start of each run, you pick which of the eight characters you want in each role, with all characters having different abilities depending on which role they took on. In my preview, I selected the solumn Rekka as my sword, who attacks with short, quick slashes and a lingering spin attack. My staff was Nishiki, a Koi-inspired fish person who can summon lightning orbs to surround the player and shoot a wave of water in any direction.

Immediately, I struggled a bit to adapt to the twin-stick controls. Nishiki automatically followed Rekka, who I controlled with the left stick, but it was clear that for optimal play I needed to break Nishiki free of Rekka and run him around with the right stick simultaneously as I fought enemies. Easier said than done. I think this is a really interesting twist on what I'm used to for top-down games, almost reminiscent of the original The World Ends With You having you control two characters on two different screens. But I do think I needed more than 15 minutes in a demo to get used to it. Apparently, you can also play Towa in co-op, with one person controlling each character, and that's an appealing prospect, too.

A second unique element that I really, really wanted more time to master was Quick Draw. In Towa, your sword wielder carries not one, but two swords, but only has one equipped at a time. Each sword has a different ability, with Rekka having her short slashes attached to one and her chargeable spin attack on the other. As you use one sword, it begins to dull until it's unusable, and you have to use a Quick Draw ability to swap to the other one so the first can recharge. Successful combat in Towa revolves around smoothly swapping between the two swords so you're never caught in a situation where you need one attack ready, but have a dull blade and are stuck with an inefficient ability. It's a cool system in principle, certainly a unique one, and I'm curious as to how it will play out at higher skill levels.

Everything else I saw in Towa will be familiar to your average Hades-lover. You'll clear all the monsters in a room, and get a choice of a "Grace". Graces enhance your power in all sorts of ways, from straight power increases to changing how different abilities work and interact with one another. Doors to the next room may denote enemies or shopkeepers or other room types, and you'll smash stuff as you go to collect currency for upgrades at shops and special ore that can be enhance your characters' abilities when you take it back to the village.

My time with Towa was cut short just as I walked into a boss battle, so unfortunately I can't speak to how that would have played out. But this preview absolutely succeeded in making me want to play more. I want to muck around with the different character configurations and see what other upgrades are available, and I want to practice my twin-stick game so my staff user doesn't die on me before I even hit the halfway point (oops). I don't know if Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree can live up to the lofty legacy of Hades necessarily, but I do think it has the potential to carve out a space in the roguelite genre all its own.

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.

I’ve been keeping an eye on Pokémon TCG: Scarlet and Violet's latest expansion, Destined Rivals, and things are finally starting to settle. A few weeks ago, the Destined Rivals singles market was bouncing all over the place.

Some cards were doubling in price overnight, and it was tough to tell what was hype and what would hold. Now prices feel a lot more stable.

TL;DR: The Most Expensive Destined Rivals Cards

Some have dipped. Some Destined Rivals bangers are just cruising right at market prices. It feels like we’re finally seeing what these cards are actually worth.

Here are the ten most expensive cards in the set right now. A couple of them are legit strong in decks. A few are pure collector bait. Let's break down what I like about each one and how the price has moved now that the dust is starting to settle.

Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex - 231/182

No one will claim that Renown, the Medieval European-flavored base-building survival game, is bringing brand new ideas to the genre. If you’ve played anything like it, from its primary inspiration, Rust, to more modern iterations like Runescape: Dragonwilds, you have a good idea of what you’re in for when you drop into a server to start your journey from humble homesteader to lord of the realm. My brief hands-on time with it was fun, but also raises and doesn’t clearly answer an important question: if you currently have a favorite survival game, is it worth making the switch right now?

My crash course started with a tour of some aspirational structures that were all built with in-game resources. Some of them, like a huge castle complete with a small village lingering in its shadow, were things the team taking me on the tour, lead by Game Director Jesse Jacobsen, didn’t expect to see players to ever be able to make without concerted team efforts. But the ones that were within reasonable player reach were cool in their own rights. Tall sturdy stone walls with mighty working gates to keep enemies out and winding halls and spiraling stairs is a step above what is often just square rooms with storage stuffed in them. The couple I walked through myself came with a significant investment of time and in-game gold, and was positioned as the form your typical endgame stronghold would want to look like before the regular server resets.

So it's only right that we spent the first bit of our session tearing one of them up in a raid, right? After taking a quick spin on a catapult, a few of the devs entrenched themselves inside a nearby fort, while my group attempted to conquer it. We left the siege machine behind and opted for something more mobile: hammers and door-breaching petards to turn them into splinters. When inside, we ran through the halls and stairways looking for fights, eventually culminating into a sprawling skirmish up on the battlements. After putting down the foes, we took the castle’s banner, and claimed it for ourselves.

These fun scenarios make up the bulk of Renown, which is heavily skewed towards players who would rather raise a sword to fight versus a hammer to build. This is reinforced by its mechanically nuanced melee system that takes cues from games like Chivalry, Mordhau, or Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Swinging your weapon at various angles creates different offensive maneuvers which can be useful for getting around shields, the safest and most reliable defense you’ll encounter. For the bolder player, a parry exists that, when timed right, can be followed up with a fast attack that helps poke holes in stubborn defenders. In one-on-one duels, all of this nuance shines and creates a tense back and forth that you won’t find in simpler melee systems. It’s not quite realism, but the lethality of every strike mixed with the motion captured HEMA animations really elevates swordplay in the moment. In multiplayer brawls, I relied very little on these tools, opting to just gang up on whoever my squad was bullying to overwhelm them with blows they couldn’t possibly deflect. Maybe it's pretty realistic after all.

Getting the combat right was the driving force behind Jesse and Executive Producer Charlie Ettershank’s need to make Renown a reality. “Ever since me and Charlie met, we would spend most nights after school discussing how cool it would be for Chivalry combat to be in a survival game.” Jesse told me. They played games like Realm of Kings and Rust and would love everything about it except the melee combat, and took it upon themselves to create the thing they wanted to see in the world.

You of course can’t become a badass knight decked out head-to-toe in plate armor without first knocking trees over with a stick in order to build the workbench that will produce all you need for your empire. The gathering process in survival games like this is never one that I would confidently call “engaging,” but Renown’s is especially boring in comparison to its peers. Some parts of the process are streamlined – you still need to build individual fixtures to craft specific things like a tailor’s bench to make leather armor and a stone furnace to smelt metals – but all the crafting can be done in your inventory menu so you don’t have to stop at every little building to make and receive stuff. But gathering materials felt like more of a chore than ever. Things are pretty expensive, so you'll need a good amount of wood and stone to get the basics. At least they’re easy to find. I spent 10 minutes walking around in search of animals to hunt for hide and fat, essential for moving through the tech tree, and couldn’t find any. I imagine all of this plays differently with a server full of other players who can potentially harass you during your gathering and construction campaigns, but in this leisurely environment, I found it tough to stay motivated to grind. The “survival” part of Renown is also exclusively a PVP thing, as there isn’t much to manage as far as keeping yourself alive if there are no enemy arrows to dodge. Without genre staples like hunger meters or day/night cycles I was free to exist completely at my pace. These mechanics are often nags but without them there’s uncomfortably little push back when playing alone.

There are quite a few steps between crafting your first workstation and creating a sword, steps that can be bypassed if you're willing to venture out into the wilderness to find loot. I did not get to experience this part of Renown in any meaningful way, but I was told that prebuilt points of interest, like the aforementioned grand castle, double as hot spots full of gear and trinkets that could be an instant upgrade to a players kit or at least worth lots of in game gold. I can only speculate that in a PVP environment, this kind of skulking around presents the same dangers as other popular survival games, but I couldn’t speak on how this flows with Renown’s heavy focus on intimate close quarters combat. There were a lot of features that sound great but either I didn’t experience them directly, or they weren’t available yet.

This biggest feature coming that I think will be a pivotal one for Renown’s success long-term are server events. As it stands pre-early access, the 8000 or so playtesters in the alpha right now are tasked to find their own fun, with the construction and combat systems both being toys in an open sandbox of possibilities without any explicit direction from the game itself. Right now, a solid contingent of players collaborate to build strongholds and siege weapons and march on enemy camps without much prompting, but even the RDBK team admits that some guided play would bring some necessary balance. One event they’ve been prototyping would turn an NPC settlement into a claimable fortress when signaled, driving all of the disparate bands of warriors on the server to join one another in chaotic combat over it. Other ideas are based in similar form as this, with caches of loot spawning in specific locations on the map to be claimed by whoever can secure it first.

But Jesse really emphasized how important, and frankly proud, he is of being a facilitator of the sandbox for individual communities to flourish in. His team has even reached out and recruited almost all of the official Rust server hosts to run Renown servers. “That’s mostly because we’ve provided them the tools… to make that an easy process.” Jesse assured, as well as providing financial compensation for the effort. The goal being that they can use their particular expertise to help modify and regulate game tools and create server climates that can cater to all sorts of players. Maybe I'm not the only one who thinks the grind speed is slow, as there could be a server that picks up the pace or starts players off with kits of goods to get off of the blocks faster. Servers wipe weekly to keep player progress from being insurmountable, but a server can exist where those wipes happen less often, if at all. The Renown team want as close to infinite player adaptability as possible, and they want to be as involved as a server host needs them to be to make it happen. “We think we have a good idea of what makes the most enjoyable gameplay aspect, but we're not going to kid ourselves and think that no one else could think of something better inside of this sandbox, ya know?”

A lot of the ruggedness of Renown’s alpha state is manageable, and is probably even great when you have a dedicated community to play it with. But there are a few pain points that are going to make it a tough sell for people not already bought in for the long haul. I had quite a bit of performance issues when playing – both with the devs and on my own. Framerates jolted and lag really did its best to undermine me when I needed the stability most. The current UI and menus are rough around the edges and inconsistent throughout, some tooltips are arrayed across selection wheels while others sit in lists that are difficult to navigate while in the thick of the action. All of these things are on the list to reform and fix as the development team expands, hopefully before its slated Q3 2025 Early Access launch.

Renown’s crunchy combat has a lot of potential in a genre not known for making close combat an elaborate affair. The basic and sometimes mundane gathering and building game that you have to trudge through to get to cool stuff is very raw and still has a ways to go to meet the quality standard of the games it hopes to compete with. While its dearth of content, stability issues, and ragged UI are strictly RDBK Studios’ responsibility, the community is poised to have a lot of control over the day-to-day experience. Time will tell if the former can come together quickly enough to nurture the latter.

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 Anora and Predator: Killer of Killers to excellent television series like Shogun, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Bear (which returns with season four on June 25), there is always something awesome to watch. We've also got the highly-anticipated Alien: Earth series on our radar this year, which premieres its first two episodes on August 12 on Hulu at 8pm ET, and on FX and Disney+ at 8pm PT / ET.

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 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 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

The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming 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 per month - 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. The Hulu + Live TV plan also has a three-day free trial to test out the service.
• 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+, Hulu Bundle Basic — This is the most economic bundle. It will set you back $10.99/month and comes with subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu. It lets you stream on multiple devices at once and comes with ad-supported versions of both Disney+ and Hulu.
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle Basic — This bundle adds ESPN+ into 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.
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle Premium — This 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 Max to gain access to things like The Last of Us 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. With an FX partnership, Hulu is also home to those shows, including Shogun and the upcoming Alien: Earth series.

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. Beyond it being awarded the best streaming service by us, it also received a 9/10 in our updated Hulu review. Writer Rosie Knight said, "Hulu's ease of use, solid UI, and ever- expanding catalog has moved it ahead of top competitor Netflix to secure our highest score for a streaming service."

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

Original story from Brian Barnett.

Gears of War is officially making its way to PlayStation. Yep, you read that correctly. Gears of War: Reloaded is a remaster of the first Gears of War game, featuring 4K resolution, up to 120 FPS in multiplayer, and cross-play. It's now available to preorder in a physical format for PS5. Unfortunately there's no physical release for Xbox, but you can preorder a digital copy of it right now which we've listed below.
Both the physical edition of Gears of War: Reloaded for PS5 and the digital versions for PS5 and Xbox are listed for $39.99. It's set to release this year on August 26, so head to the links below to secure your copy before it drops.

Gears of War: Reloaded – Physical (PS5 Only)

Gears of War: Reloaded - Digital Edition

• Get it for Xbox Series X|S
• Get it for PS5
• Get it for PC (Steam)

For those who opt to preorder a digital copy of the game instead, you get a little bit extra to go with the preorder bonuses above. By preordering a digital version of Gears of War: Reloaded, you'll get access to the Exclusive Multiplayer Beta alongside the character skins above. To learn more about when the multiplayer beta is taking place, Xbox Wire has a helpful post up with everything you need to know

Gears of War: Reloaded Will Be on Game Pass

Gears of War: Reloaded Is Free for GoW: Ultimate Edition Owners

It's also worth noting that Gears of War: Reloaded will be "a free upgrade for players who purchased the digital version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition," before the remaster was announced, per Xbox Wire. That's a wonderful little bonus for long-time Gears fans.

Gears of War: Reloaded Preoder Bonus

This physical release comes with a nifty little preorder bonus as well. By preordering Gears of War: Reloaded for PS5, you'll get two character skins, Adam Fenix and Anya Stroud, to use in multiplayer.

What Is Gears of War: Reloaded?

Gears of War: Reloaded is a new, upgraded version of the original game, which launched for Xbox 360 in 2006. Below you can find a list of all the upgrades brought to Gears of War: Reloaded as well, from that same Xbox Wire post:

• 4K resolution
• 60 FPS in Campaign
• 120 FPS in Multiplayer
• High Dynamic Range (HDR)
• Dolby Vision & Dolby Atmos
• 7.1 3D Spatial Audio
• Variable Refresh Rate (VRR)
• 4K assets and remastered textures
• Enhanced post-processing visual effects
• Improved shadows and reflections
• Super resolution with improved anti-aliasing
• Zero loading screens during Campaign

It's been a very busy kickoff to summer, between new game announcements and the release of the Switch 2. If you're still trying to keep up with everything, have a look through our breakdowns of everything announced at the Xbox Games Showcase, Sony State of Play, and Summer Game Fest to see what's coming down the pipeline.

More Preorder Guides

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

Now here’s an interesting filmmaker-studio twist. The Witch and Nosferatu maestro Robert Eggers is being eyed to helm a remake of A Christmas Carol at Warner Bros., and he has his sights set on none other than Willem Dafoe to play his Ebenezer Scrooge.

According to a report from Variety, no talent — that means Eggers nor Dafoe — is attached to the project at this stage, but Eggers is being considered and he has interest in having his longtime collaborator take up the leading role. The film is currently in development at the studio, so it would be a while before this would come to fruition anyway.

Eggers is currently set to write and direct Werwulf, a period horror film he has in the works at Focus Features, ahead of anything else. So it stands to reason that this project would come after that, and maybe would be ready to shoot just as Eggers finishes with his 13th century nightmare. But wrenches can always be thrown in the mix, so who knows.

The filmmaker previously called Werwulf “the darkest thing” he’s written “by far,” so it’s interesting to think what he might do with a classic story like A Christmas Carol. He could continue on that streak we now know him so well for, or he could lighten things up a tad — but something tells me he might take the darkness of A Christmas Carol to its logical extreme. And that’s really exciting.

Werwulf was co-written by Sjon, with whom Eggers wrote The Northman and will write the upcoming Labyrinth sequel, and currently has a Christmas 2026 release date on the books. It remains to be seen when we’ll see an official announcement on A Christmas Carol, but if they aim for a 2027 release, it might not be as far off as we think.

Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images.

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

The five-year mission of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain Christopher Pike is coming to an end. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been renewed for its fifth and final season, Paramount+ announced Thursday.

Production on the final season begins later this year; Season 4 is currently in production.

The first two episodes of Season 3 premiere on Paramount+ on July 17. After that, new episodes will drop weekly on Thursdays, with the season finale premiering on September 11. IGN recently exclusively debuted the season’s latest trailer at IGN Live.

“From the very beginning, Strange New Worlds set out to honor what Star Trek has always stood for — boundless curiosity, hope and the belief that a better future is possible,” said executive producers Akiva Goldsman, Henry Alonso Myers and Alex Kurtzman in a statement.

“We’re deeply grateful to Paramount+ for the chance to complete our five-season mission, just as we envisioned it, alongside our extraordinary cast and crew. And to the passionate fans who’ve boldly joined us on this journey — THANK YOU.

With three more spectacular seasons ahead for you to see and enjoy, this adventure is far from over.”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 3 stars Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Babs Olusanmokun and Martin Quinn, along with guest star Carol Kane and special guest star Paul Wesley.

The series is produced by CBS Studios, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment.

For more Star Trek coverage, boldy go read our op-ed on why the TNG-era holodeck appearing in Season 3 of Strange New Worlds doesn't break continuity and our Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 review, which we hailed as "another must-see season of Star Trek."

With Deltarune chapters 3 and 4 out last week, players have been eagerly mining the new episodes for more of Toby Fox's characteristic secrets and mysterious plot threads. In the process, they've found an absolutely fascinating bit of dialogue that's almost impossible to get, as it requires beating all four chapters of Deltarune on PlayStation without earning a single trophy.

Warning: While this article won't spoil any of the major plot moments of Deltarune, it will talk in vague terms about some of the more common and low/no-spoiler trophy achievements. If you're someone who doesn't want to know a single piece of information about Deltarune before going in, probably better skip this one!

As shared by Reddit user millsbuddy, there's a special, hidden bit of dialogue that appears in Deltarune Chapter 4's credits sequence if, and only if, the player has completed all four chapters without earning a single trophy. This allegedly checks the player's PSN account, so if you try to get this text, fail by accidentally getting a trophy, delete your file and try again, no luck. You still have the trophy, so it won't appear.

This is an even more ridiculous task than it sounds on its face, as some of the achievements are so laughably easy to get that you're almost certainly going to get at least a few by accident just through playing normally. There are achievements for taking damage a certain number of times, for using or equiping items, for getting a Game Over, equipping armor, opening too many treasure chests, interacting with chairs, and a lot more. Some achievements have multiple possible triggers. There are also four achievements simply obtained by completing a chapter, but you can avoid getting those by finding a certain secret item in each chapter that will nullify the achievement.

Trophies were added to Deltarune with the addition of Chapters 3 and 4 last week, but they're PlayStation-exclusive. Fox noted in a newsletter that this was because trophies were a requirement to shipping a paid game on PlayStation, and alluded to the challenge of finding this special text in his announcement:

"We were required to have TROPHIES! This time, they give rise to a pretty hard-core challenge. But - and PLEASE listen - I make no endorsement that you actually attempt it! Even knowing of its mere existence will only bring you frustration and anguish! Honestly, it may be one of the worst ideas I've ever had. Perhaps no one will even try. Maybe that's for the best after all... I think it will be too late for most of you anyway..."

For the vast majority of us who either aren't playing on PlayStation or like retaining our sanity, here's the text that appears when you accompish this. WARNING: If you consider this text a spoiler, don't keep reading below the trailer!

INTERESTING.

YOU FAILED

TO ACHIEVE

ANY MARKS.

WHAT

ARE

YOU?

"(playername)"

I VERY MUCH

LOOK FORWARD

TO THE NEXT.

This text seems to be spoken by the same voice that addresses the player in the opening of the game and in a few other places, as well as the same voice that speaks in the end credits with a different message if you finish under any other conditions. Fans, of course, have plenty of theories on who this is, but we'll leave that to the community for now.

With chapters 3 and 4 finally out, we've reviewed Deltarune so far, giving it a 9/10 and saying that its "incredible story is already bursting with hilarious charm, unforgettable characters, and an iconic soundtrack that make it worth investing your time in," even though its story is only halfway done.

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.

MindsEye’s troubled launch has continued with reports that the developer is canceling sponsored streams last minute, and some players are securing refunds. The developer has now issued a statement, saying it is "heartbroken" over the game's difficulties.

Build A Rocket Boy’s debut title came out on June 10 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC via Steam. On Valve’s platform, it currently has a ‘mixed’ user review rating, with most of the complaints revolving around performance issues, bugs and glitches, broken AI, and game crashes.

Some players have reported gaining refunds — even from the notoriously stubborn Sony — rekindling memories of Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous launch back in 2020. CD Projekt's game was eventually pulled from sale on the PlayStation Store, but there is no indication yet that MindsEye will suffer a similar fate.

PlayStation is allowing refunds for MindsEye https://t.co/zzaHbNt3ET pic.twitter.com/KclpMTwSJi

— Wario64 (@Wario64) June 12, 2025

Meanwhile, streamers are saying they received requests to postpone their sponsored MindsEye livestreams, some last minute. As spotted by Kotaku's Ethan Gach, popular streamer CohhCarnage revealed this happened to him just as he was about to begin a sponsored MindsEye livestream:

MindsEye dev canceled Twitch streamer CohhCarnage's playthrough of the game seconds before it was supposed to start.

He said it was the first time that had ever happened in his streaming career. pic.twitter.com/KOjyQ8ml21

— AmericanTruckSongs9 (@ethangach) June 11, 2025

“For the first time in my streaming career, I changed my title for a sponsored stream, I put in a profile button, I put in the command, that was at eight o'clock sharp — my sponsored stream was supposed to start at eight — I opened up MindsEye, and as it was loading, my management contacted me and said, ‘The sponsor does not want to do this right now, they would like to reschedule.’ And I said, ‘Oh, that’s a first.’ So the sponsor decided not to do the sponsorship for now, and honestly, it sounds like for MindsEye that was the right decision.”

Another streamer, DarkViperAU, couldn't even make it through their sponsored MindsEye livestream without breaking down in tears of laughter.

Sponsored MindsEye streamer can't keep it together when telling viewers where they can buy the game. pic.twitter.com/kdR3EuGims

— AmericanTruckSongs9 (@ethangach) June 11, 2025

In response to the chaos of the past 24 hours, Build A Rocket Boy issued a statement on its Discord, addressing MindsEye’s community and the game's various issues.

“We are heartbroken that not every player was able to experience the game as we intended,” the statement began. “Our priority is optimizing performance and stability so that every player, across every device, can enjoy an equally high-quality experience.

“Our teams have worked tirelessly throughout the night to solve many of these issues, and we have now identified that the vast majority of crashes were caused by a memory leak. This impacted roughly 1 in 10 of our players. We have developed a hotfix that addresses this issue (alongside other issues that our players have highlighted), which we are working hard to deploy as soon as tomorrow on PC and on consoles once it passes certification with PlayStation and Xbox.

“We are fully committed to ensuring all our players have a great experience, and we will continue to provide frequent and transparent updates. We will do our best to respond to all your comments and feedback.

“Thank you for playing MindsEye. Thank you for your understanding and continued support – it truly means the world to us. We’re grateful and blessed to have you on the journey with us.”

Build A Rocket Boy then outlined the hotfix schedule for the coming weeks. By the end of June, it said, players can expect ongoing performance and stability improvements, a rebalanced ‘hard’ difficulty setting, animation fixes, and AI improvements.

It remains to be seen whether Build A Rocket Boy can turn MindsEye around following this troubled start. While Steam concurrent player numbers do not paint the whole picture of a game's success, particularly single-player games, they do provide us with an idea of a game's popularity on Steam's platform. On Steam, MindsEye has a peak concurrent player count of 3,302.

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.

During Summer Game Fest last week, you’d be forgiven for having overlooked Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. It’s a brand new rogue-like that got a very, very brief trailer and little in the way of other information or fanfare. But its unusual development story may make Towa one of the most interesting games that appeared during the show.

I spoke with Daisuke Nagaoka, producer at Bandai Namco on Towa, and Shuhei Yamashita, game director at developer Brownies, following the announcement of the game and some hands-on playtime, which you can read here. The two started by catching me up on the history of Brownies, a studio with a fascinating pedigree.

Brownies evolved out of Nintendo-owned Brownie Brown Inc, a Tokyo-based company founded by Mana series veterans Shinichi Kameoka and Kouji Tsuda. As Brownie Brown, the developer co-developed a number of beloved games such as Sword of Mana, Heroes of Mana, Super Mario 3D Land, and Fantasy Life. But then, in 2012, the company announced that it would officially become a Nintendo support studio, and change its name to 1-Up Studio. When this happened, Kameoka departed, and with other former Brownie Brown developers formed Brownies.

Ever since, Brownies has made a name for itself with games like Fantasy Life Link!, the Egglia series, and co-development on Doraemon Story of Seasons, which Bandai Namco published. Nagaoka explains that this existing relationship had gone well, so as the teams were finishing up Doraemon, Bandai decided it wanted to work with Brownies again. “Their creativity was so wonderful as such, that we wanted to create something original and we decided to work together.”

But Bandai Namco didn’t end up getting exactly what it ordered. Yamashita explains that Bandai Namco originally came to Brownies asking for an original RPG “with a Japanese flair, Japanese taste.” It’s a sensible request, given Brownies’ past work. But Yamashita, who was a big fan of roguelites and roguelites, had a different idea. He counter-pitched Bandai Namco on a genre of game the company had never published before.

So why did Bandai Namco say yes?

“There are three things,” Nagaoka says. “First is this roguelite genre, when you look at the worldwide market, there is a big customer base. So from the business perspective, that is a good direction. And secondly, Bandai Namco, we thought this is worth a challenge, because we haven't done anything like this before. So we were ready to take on this challenge.

“And the third point is that RPGs are based on good stories, but there aren't that many roguelite games that have a solid storyline. So we wanted to create something that has a good storyline with the roguelite, and by doing that, we thought we could differentiate ourselves.”

There was one roguelite, however, that did have the kind of story and elements Brownies and Bandai Namco were looking for: Hades.

“That's a game that’s really comfortable to play,” Yamashita says. “The playability is good. So that was something I wanted to achieve with this game as well.”

Bandai Namco did get its way, however, in that Towa is certainly a game with a “Japanese flair.” It’s inspired heavily by Japanese and more broadly Eastern motifs, says Yamashita, even though he adds that there’s no specific piece of folklore or myth that’s directly retold in the game. The characters, for instance, all cover a different motif, such as a shiba, a koi, and a samurai. Brownies originally came up with 24 different characters, all with unique silhouettes and personalities, and an internal competition narrowed the field down to just eight.

But this is where Towa differs from Hades and other games of the genre. Instead of playing one character at a time, players control two: one carrying a sword, and another in a support role carrying a staff. Each character has different abilities depending on which role they’re playing, and both can be controlled independently using the left and right sticks and different buttons. It’s a configuration that took some getting used to (as I wrote in my preview), but ultimately proved to be an interesting twist on what I was used to from games like Hades.

“There are two benefits to having these two characters,” Yamashita says. “Initially... Well, in 3D games the right stick is for maneuvering the camera. So this type of game, when you're looking down, I thought that this mechanism would allow being able to operate or to maneuver having two characters. So that was our thought.

“And then secondly, having two characters from the story point of view, having the relationships or the connections between these characters and having conversations, that would give more depth to it. So we thought that there would be a benefit to have these two characters.”

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is out on September 19, 2025 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, PC via Steam, and Nintendo Switch. You can catch up on our brief experience hands-on with the game here.

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.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is the fastest-selling Nintendo hardware in the U.S. in the four days following its release, according to a statement obtained by IGN from Nintendo.

Additionally, Nintendo Switch 2 sales in all regions were approximately twice those of the Nintendo Switch 1 across both consoles' first four days on the market.

This news comes on the heels of Nintendo's announcement yesterday that the Nintendo Switch 2 was also the fastest-selling Nintendo hardware globally, reaching over 3.5 million units sold in its first four days. For comparison, the Nintendo Switch 1 sold 2.74 million units globally in just less than a month on sale. Nintendo is projecting 15 million sales globally of the Nintendo Switch 2 for its fiscal year ending March 31, 2026.

High sales are being attributed to high available stock at launch, something that isn't always guaranteed at a console launch. Nintendo of American head Doug Bowser previously assured that Nintendo would have enough Switch 2 units to meet demand in the U.S.

In the UK, the Nintendo Switch 2's sales were still lower than those of the PS4, PS5, and Xbox series consoles in the same period. The UK has historically been a more challenging market for Nintendo when compared to its competitors.

Meanwhile, in Japan, the Nintendo Switch 2 is in such high demand that parody listings are popping up on online marketplaces for "Switch 2"... that are just light switches.

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.

Konami had a big announcement ready for its Konami Press Start Live showcase: a Silent Hill 1 remake.

The Silent Hill remake is officially in development at Bloober Team, the developer that handled the well-received Silent Hill 2 remake.

There's not much to go on, unfortunately, but we did get a brief tease during the showcase that included the Silent Hill logo and its iconic music. No release date was mentioned. For more, check out everything announced at Konami Press Start Live June 2025.

In February, Bloober Team announced it had signed a deal with Konami to make a new game based on the Japanese company’s IP, following the successful release of the Silent Hill 2 remake. Now we know it was for a remake of the first Silent Hill game.

Silent Hill exploded onto the scene in 1999 on the PlayStation as a Resident Evil rival from Konami. It established the series’ trademark fog-filled visuals, third-person viewpoint, and the eerie town of Silent Hill itself. It sees Harry Mason searching for his missing adopted daughter, Cheryl — and all manner of horrible things along the way.

The Silent Hill 2 remake has sold 2 million copies, so it’s no surprise to see Konami greenlight another remake in the series. And it is no surprise to see the first game get the remake treatment next. In an IGN poll, over 61% of the 20,000 voters picked Silent Hill as the Silent Hill game Konami should remake next.

Here’s the official blurb from Bloober CEO Piotr Babieno, issued back in February:

Konami, a legendary name in the gaming industry, sought a partner who could breathe new life into one of its most iconic franchises — Silent Hill. Bloober Team was selected for their expertise in horror and atmospheric storytelling, and in 2021, both companies signed a partnership agreement. In October 2022, during the official Silent Hill Transmission livestream, it was announced that Bloober Team was working on a remake of Silent Hill 2, widely regarded as one of the best psychological horror games in history.

The success of the remake proved that Bloober Team had perfectly captured the atmosphere and depth of the original while introducing crucial innovations. The game was well-received by players, earning an 86/100 rating on Metacritic and an 88/100 on OpenCritic, along with numerous awards, including Game of the Year 2024 from IGN Japan and Best Horror Game of the Year from the IGN Community Awards.

The trust built upon the success of Silent Hill 2 laid the foundation for signing another agreement for a new project. The deal aligns with Bloober Team’s strategic plan to expand its internal development division within a first-party framework.

Our collaboration with Konami has been incredibly fruitful, and the success of Silent Hill 2 speaks for itself. By sharing knowledge and experience, we have been able to create high-quality production together. Of course, we can't reveal too many details at this time, but we are confident that fans will be just as excited about our collaboration as we are. We can't wait to share something truly special with players when the time is right.

Silent Hill 2 remake went on sale on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam on October 8, 2024 (there’s no word on an Xbox Series X and S version yet), and just a few days later had sold 1 million copies. This was thought to have made Silent Hill 2 remake the fastest-selling Silent Hill game ever, but Konami has yet to rubber stamp that potential record.

IGN’s Silent Hill 2 remake review returned an 8/10. We said: “Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror.”

The sales success of the Silent Hill 2 remake has clearly strengthened Konami’s plans for the franchise, which have ramped up significantly in recent years. Silent Hill f and Silent Hill: Townfall are both still in the works. Now we have Silent Hill remake. There's a film adaptation of Silent Hill 2 coming, too.

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.

There’s no arguing against the fact that digital streaming is convenient. Not only can you cry laughing at the latest season of The Righteous Gemstones with the press of a button. You can also speedily swipe over to The Last of Us and start crying from sadness, too. Even so, when you don’t own the content you watch, it can be ripped from its digital home in an instant, or worse, unceremoniously shifted to another, more expensive streaming service that you can’t stomach subscribing to. As such, when it comes to your favorite content, the best thing you can do is invest in physical renditions that are yours to own forever, or at least until they get scratched.

When shopping for the precious disc version of those important movies and shows, you may be wondering: what’s the difference between 4K and Blu-ray? And, does it matter which I pick? Our guide will run through the differences between the two terminologies and demystify which option is best for you.

What Is Blu-ray?

Blu-ray first made its appearance in 2005 (and was released in 2006), offering budding cinephiles and couch potatoes alike a premium alternative to the then-popular DVD format. It gets its name from the blue-ish colour of the laser used to read the disc, which in turn enabled data to be stored at a higher density than its predecessor. As such, the ability to store more content subsequently enabled distributors to provide higher quality viewing experiences on disc — though this boost did come with some hardware caveats.

To play a Blu-ray disc, you need to have a player that supports Blu-ray content. Thankfully, nowadays, you likely already own one without even knowing it. If you play games on a contemporary gaming console, like a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, you’ll already have the means to play your Blu-ray discs. It goes without saying, but you will need the versions of these consoles that come with a disc drive. Similarly, most external players are Blu-ray compatible as a standard, though it’s worth checking your specific device with the manufacturer before spending big on physical media.

Blu-Ray content regions and what they mean for you

Aside from having an actual player, the next hurdle when it comes to playing Blu-ray discs is ensuring the disc’s region matches the region of your player. Different machines will offer different levels of compatibility, and so it’s important to check the manual for your specific machine. Blu-ray discs are split into four region codes:

• Region A – North America, South America, U.S. Territories, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and other areas of Southeast Asia
• Region B – Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand.
• Region C – Russia, China, India
• Region A, B, and C – Considered "region-free," this includes all regions from A, B and C

You can find the code for the disc on the case for the disc, though some region-free Blu-Rays may not feature a specific denotation. While it’s unlikely you’ll find the wrong region when shopping retail in your area, we still recommend being diligent when shopping second-hand.

What Is 4K?

So you know what a Blu-ray disc is and how to play it – what’s the 4K prefix all about? Put simply, 4K refers to the resolution at which your chosen content will be displayed. While Blu-rays typically offer an admirable 1920x1080 or 1080p resolution, 4K Blu-rays offer a much higher 3840 x 2160 or 2160p resolution. As such, a 4K Blu-Ray will offer sharper and clearer content. As you might expect, there are additional hardware requirements needed to play 4K Blu-ray discs.

Firstly, your player will need to be compatible with 4K or Ultra HD formats. As we mentioned, most modern players and consoles will provide this feature as standard, though we still recommend verifying this detail prior to investing in 4K Blu-rays. Secondly, your TV or monitor must be able to deliver a 4K resolution. And, finally, the HDMI cable linking it all together will need to be an HDMI 2.0 cable, too. If you have all those moving parts working, then all you need to do is pop in your 4K Blu-ray, grab your popcorn and get to watching.

Sarah Thwaites is a freelance tech and gaming writer at IGN, with bylines at GameInformer, TrustedReviews, NME and more.

Konami is bringing back Metal Gear multiplayer with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, but don’t expect it to play like Metal Gear Online.

Metal Gear Online is the fondly remembered multiplayer spin-off bundled with 2008’s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Its servers shut down four years later, in 2012.

With this August’s release of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the remake of 2004’s Metal Gear Solid 3, Konami will rekindle Metal Gear multiplayer with Fox Hunt, although it said its gameplay is completely different than MGO’s.

In a new video, Konami revealed snippets of Fox Hunt gameplay, which show a soldier controlled from a third-person perspective using camo tech to blend in with their environment. For more, check out everything announced at Konami Press Start Live June 2025.

Our passionate team of developers take us on an extended look into the creation of METAL GEAR SOLID Δ: SNAKE EATER and its bonus content 🐍 ❗#KonamiPressStart pic.twitter.com/aIhW4HIAVM

— KONAMI UK (@KONAMIUK) June 12, 2025

Yu Sahara, director of Fox Hunt mode in Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, said this new online multiplayer mode takes "camouflage and hide-and-go-seek to the next level,” using the “back and forth tension of staying hidden or searching out the enemy” to create something unique.

“Fox Hunt is a completely original online multiplayer mode,” Sahara said. “Although it shares the same world with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the gameplay is completely different.

“When we say Metal Gear multiplayer, many fans will probably think of Metal Gear Online, but Fox Hunt will be its own new type of mode. We very much appreciate all the long-time fans of MGO who have always wanted to see it make a comeback, but the landscape of multiplayer games has changed a lot since MGO. It took a lot of careful consideration to think about what a new online mode should look like.

“Based on the iconic stealth and survival elements of the Metal Gear series, we are taking camouflage and hide and go seek to the next level. We challenged ourselves to make something unique that is more than just a shootout. We’ve used that back and forth tension of staying hidden or searching out the enemy to create an online experience unique to Metal Gear.”

Meanwhile, the video showed off more of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, as well as its PC and PlayStation 5 Ape Escape crossover mode, Snake vs Monkey, and Xbox Bomberman crossover mode, Snake vs Bomberman.

Yuji Korekado, creative producer, said of the main game: “While the basic gameplay of the boss battles remains the same, we’ve made some updates to the AI and animations, and rebalanced some things.”

Secret Theater also returns, but in the remake, the original Secret Theater videos can now be found as collectibles in-game. There are new Secret Theater videos made for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, secretly carried by enemy soldiers.

In April, IGN reported on Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater’s ESRB listing, which mentioned the game includes suggestive and sexual content such as the Peep Demo Theater unlockable extra feature found in the Subsistence and HD Collection versions of the original Metal Gear Solid 3.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater launches across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on August 28, 2025.

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

Amazon Prime Video has found three new cast members in Andrew Richardson, Zubin Varla, and Adam Young for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3.

The mega company’s entertainment wing announced the additions today, saying that the newcomers join a production which recently began filming at Shepperton Studios in the UK. Details about which characters from Middle-earth the trio will be playing have yet to be revealed.

Richardson is best known for his roles in shows like The Last O.G. and Extrapolations but will soon expand his resume with Peacock’s Ponies. Varla has appeared across television in roles for series like Holby City and Strike Back while also showing up for a few episodes of Disney’s Star Wars spinoff, Andor.

Finally, there’s Young, who has spent time on TV in Netflix’s The Witcher: Blood Origin and Set Education, though he also played a role in 2021’s Don’t Breathe 2. Amazon says Richardson will be featured as a series regular in The Rings of Power Season 3, with Varla and Young both set to appear as recurring characters.

Amazon confirmed The Rings of Power would return to Prime Video for Season 3 in February of this year. It was news that meant viewers would see more from The Lord of the Rings spinoff story following the shocking conclusion delivered with the Season 2 finale in October 2024.

Shortly after its Season 3 renewal, Amazon announced its first batch of new cast members: Jamie Campbell Bower (Stranger Things, The Twilight Saga) and Eddie Marsan (The World’s End, Happy-Go-Lucky). Bower is joining as a series regular, with Marsan on board in a recurring role.

Amazon has yet to announce a release date for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3. While we wait for more news, you can learn more about the Season 2 finale and how it sets up the next season.

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).

Developer Berry Bite and publisher HypeTrain have announced Humblets, the upcoming cozy co-op adventure for PC set in what looks like an absolutely delightful procedural world full of colorful locations, adorable pets, and a magic deck of cards to challenge friends and NPC foes alike.

Humblets allows you to customize both your character and your tent that you bring everywhere you go. You can even combine tents with friends to create huge homes while you're out adventuring. You'll craft, explore, decorate, and share campfires with friends. Check out the announcement trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below.

No release date/window has been given for Humblets as of yet, but you can 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.

Smoke premieres Friday, June 27, on Apple TV+. New episodes debut through August 15.

Taron Egerton has played many heroes in different guises over the last decade. Hoodlum-turned-spy. A TSA agent living out his wildest John McClane fantasy. Elton John in the 1970s. But his best opportunity for saving the day and showing off his dramatic chops arrived with Dennis Lehane’s limited series Black Bird; in the new Apple TV+ drama Smoke, Egerton reunites with Lehane to bring down yet another dangerous criminal. But the duo is not in danger of retreading old ground: For example, Egerton is tracking two criminals in the role of arson investigator Dave Gudsen. Though Smoke’s storytelling is bumpier and more abstract than Black Bird’s, Lehane has brought Egerton another role he can thrive in: a self-aggrandizing man with a deep desire to be a savior, whose ambition is hard to extinguish or contain.

Whereas Black Bird saw Egerton playing an incarcerated ex-football phenom tasked with getting a serial killer to confess his crimes, here he’s heading an investigation into two serial arsonists plaguing the fictional Pacific Northwest town of Umberland. Dave was a firefighter who moved into his current line of work after a near-death experience on the job; we get his perspective on the event – and fire in general – in some flowery voiceover. Though director Kari Skogland brings Dave’s walking nightmare to life, the cheesiness of the narration is jarring. This feels like bad screenwriting, until we learn that Dave isn’t just mining his past to aid the case – he’s also writing a novel based on his career. The book expands what I thought would be a standard mystery into an exploration of masculinity, identity, desire, and heroes that ties to the biggest question: Why set fires in the first place?

After months of dead ends, police detective Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett) is brought on board to assist Dave. Their first scenes together are lousy with cop clichés: Michelle is emotionally closed off thanks to a fiery childhood trauma that still haunts her, and her messy personal life is a catalyst for her new assignment. Meanwhile, Dave is reluctant to accept her help or expertise, and it seems like their power struggle might spill over into an affair, aided by more clunky dialogue. (“I quit, but me and nicotine go way back” is but one early howler). No spoilers, but I was pleasantly surprised by how this partnership actually evolves, following a path that intentionally plays on our first impressions of the pair.

The push-pull between them is there from the jump, as they investigate one arsonist who lights stores on fire while they’re open and another who lights milk jugs full of accelerant on the porches of unsuspecting victims late at night. There’s a slipperiness to Dave and Michell’s interactions as each tries to figure out the other, allowing Egerton and Smollett to play with perception and perspective. Some of this mistrust is fueled by ego, some by vulnerability, and both push the parameters of their authority in the pursuit of the truth.

Considering Egerton’s previous leading man roles that embrace action – such as the recent Netflix movie Carry-On and the Kingsman franchise – it isn’t a leap to think Dave is another character who’ll tick those daring boxes. The opening scene takes place in a blazing inferno, cranking up the sense of danger with real flames and Egerton himself taking on the burn-stage stunt. It’s an intense introduction to this character, whose arrogance masks insecurity. Playing confidence comes easily to Egerton, but he’s always doing more than the bare minimum to convey it. Smoke takes this a step further as the story progresses, with Egerton deftly switching his physicality and mannerisms as Dave’s heroic identity begins to unravel. His toothy grin is a Hollywood smile in some scenes, a potential creepy threat in others.

While one of Dave and Michelle’s cases is more of a whodunnit, the other fits the “howcatchem” model of Columbo and Poker Face, revealing the culprit early on: a socially awkward fry cook named Freddy (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine). Having two different storytelling frameworks keeps things varied throughout, but also adds to the disconnect between the two arson threads – even if they ultimately overlap. Smoke dives into the psychology of an arsonist, including how upbringing and circumstances might contribute to a firebug’s pathology. While the intent is there, it takes too long for Freddy to be given a backstory and personality. Still, Mwine sells Freddy’s pain, even when the script doesn’t always give him much to work with.

Likewise, Egerton and Smollett are both terrific, as is the ensemble around them, which includes the reliably great Greg Kinnear, Rafe Spall, John Leguizamo, and Anna Chlumsky. Leguizamo and Chlumsky help stabilize Smoke late in the series, their characters – he a rival from Dave’s past, she a mid-investigation addition to the team – teaming up just as the story begins to sag. As Michelle’s police captain, Spall shifts his demeanor between the first episode and the rest of the series, underscoring his range in a role that’s worlds apart from his lead performance on Apple TV+’s parenting comedy Trying. The character is aggressive and short-fused, but brings more to the dynamic than dick-measuring with Dave – though there is also plenty of that. One standout moment between the two men comes during a rendition of Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For a Hero” that comes across more like a warning than a celebratory refrain during a party being held in Dave’s honor. Another great sing-along (this time a solo in his car) allows Egerton to show off his Sing- and Rocketman-honed pipes to the perfectly timed tune of Michael Bolton’s “When I’m Back on My Feet Again.”.

Unfortunately, the twisty material in Smoke doesn’t always land; I found myself beginning to second-guess the characters’ interactions, particularly when the tone shifts dramatically and the material swings between grounded and heightened. Horrifying reality clashes with the fantastical, making it hard to trust what we’re seeing. Even if it’s an intentional choice, it sometimes took me out of the story. Still, whenever I worried Smoke was getting too lighthearted or frivolous, there was a reminder of the occupational hazards Dave and crew face. There are several that I still can’t shake from my head.

Smoke is undoubtedly ambitious; it gets even more destabilizing and, for lack of a better word, weird, as it goes on. Watching something so unpredictable is exciting and whiplash-inducing. One moment it’s echoing Mindhunter by showcasing a task force profiling a criminal; the next, it’s taking a page from the glossy, Sutton Foster-poses-as-a-20something publishing-industry dramedy Younger. While giving a safety demonstration, Dave says that fire is akin to chaos, and the same parallel could be drawn for any given episode of Smoke. Ambiguity is welcome, but by the end of the ninth episode, I had more questions than answers, and the lack of resolution for some characters is bewildering. I’m all for showing a range of flawed figures who wear masks to hide their fears and sins, but a tenth episode would have been welcome.

The different story threads in Smoke are like dancing embers flitting between fantasy and reality. Some are quickly extinguished, others slowly smolder, and some ignite into a larger flame, burning through plot hot and fast. Even though the ending falls short, it’s still a solid summer TV offering that tips into a pulpiness that the wannabe novelist at its center can only dream of achieving.

Metal Gear Solid publisher Konami is back with a bang, and to prove it, it hosted a livestream showcase on June 12 called Konami Press Start Live.

The half-hour-long livestream featured game updates and appearances from Konami developers and producers, introducing us to the "creative minds behind some of Konami's most iconic franchises," as well as giving us an extended look at Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Silent Hill f, and more. Here's what was revealed…

Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta: Snake Eater

Surprising no one, it’s Solid Snake who kicked off the show. Producers Noriaki Okamura and Yuji Korekado shared an extended teaser from its upcoming Metal Gear Solid 3 remaster, Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta: Snake Eater, and reminded us that the Snake vs. Monkey minigame is on the way for PS5 players, with a Bomberman variant for Xbox consoles. And the Secret Theater, of course, but I don’t suppose any of us have forgotten about that.

Even though boss fights should feel very familiar, we can expect AI and animation improvements for boss fights. There’s also the Sneaking DLC Pack, which includes costumes that are “unique in appearance,” with some boasting special effects. You’ll also find items, weapons and uniforms in-game.

Finally, we were introduced to Fox Hunt mode. It is a completely original, online multiplayer mode and though it shares a world with Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta: Snake Eater, the “gameplay is completely different.” It’s not just a reskinned Metal Gear Online, however; expect it to be “its own, new type of mode” based on the series’ trademark stealth and infiltration mechanics. Expect more details soon ahead of its release on August 28.

Darwin’s Paradox

The BBC has announced a new Doctor Who spin-off series set to debut on UK children's channel CBeebies, amid a turbulent time for the broadcaster's flagship sci-fi show.

Details of the new series are scarce, and it's clear the project is currently still in its early planning stages, with the BBC currently seeking a "passionate production company" to step on board and help take the idea forward.

Word of the BBC mounting a new animated series immediately brings to mind Disney, which co-financed the Doctor Who's recent two seasons, and which also funded the upcoming live-action spin-off The War Between the Land and Sea. Doctor Who's most recent season even featured an episode where the title character was transformed into an animated character.

Curiously, however, the BBC has made clear today that Disney will not be involved in this new animated project, as fans wait to hear if the company has pulled out of financing new episodes of Doctor Who altogether.

Indeed, today's announcement sparks a galaxy of questions for the future of Doctor Who, whose recent run landed to mixed reviews and a huge degree of uncertainty over its future. The show's most recent finale saw the exit of star Ncuti Gatwa, during a reworked ending added in via reshoots.

The BBC has yet to confirm if and when a new season of Doctor Who show will enter production, or even make clear whether returning actor Billie Piper, who viewers saw Gatwa tranform into, is indeed playing a new incarnation of The Doctor, or some other, mysterious temporary replacement.

All of this leaves today's animated spin-off announcement, which comes without any details of its planned cast or setting, looking particularly odd. Who will play The Doctor within it? Will the Doctor even appear? A statement by the BBC today suggests so, but does not confirm it.

"Everyone is welcome at CBeebies, including the Doctor," said Patricia Hidalgo, BBC Director of Children's and Education. "This much-loved franchise entertains millions around the world, so it is only right that our younger audience get to experience the wonder and the magic of the Doctor in a brand new format."

Surely to experience the magic of the Doctor, the main character themselves will turn up? But, if so, there's no mention of which Doctor this might be.

"This is an extremely exciting opportunity, and we are looking forward to welcoming companies to pitch for this new project," Hidalgo continued, making clear the series won't be debuting imminently, "as we continue our commitment and investment in the UK's animation industry."

The BBC has a history of Doctor Who spin-offs, including the more adult-focused Torchwood, teen-orientated Class, and previous children's series The Sarah Jane Adventures. None of these featured The Doctor as a primary character, though the Time Lord did put in an appearance in the latter series as a guest star.

Perhaps this animated series doesn't need a new Doctor, then, and perhaps now is the perfect time to mount such a project. Fans believe that, even if new episodes of Doctor Who were confirmed now, scheduling, filming, and post-production work would mean the series will likely be off-air until 2027 regardless.

So, what could this new animated spin-off focus on? A return of animated villain Lux from Doctor Who's most recent season is possible, considering the medium, although might be deemed too creepy for the young CBeebies audience. More age appropriate, perhaps could be an animated continuation of Space Babies, Doctor Who's divisive recent episode which featured a spaceship piloted by toddlers. Could this be where pram-inhabiting Captain Poppy returns? Whatever the show's focus may be, considering its early production status, Doctor Who fans likely have another wait on their hands until more is announced.

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 week’s new Superman trailer revealed lots of fresh footage, including a brief shot showing Superman himself holding a weird, alien-looking baby.

The identity of the baby has yet to be officially revealed, and DC Universe steward James Gunn has yet to confirm anything about the character. But it turns out we knew who it was all along thanks to a recently released children’s book.

Warning! Spoilers for Superman follow.

The Superman: Friends and Foes! book includes synopsis for the various characters set to appear in the film, and one of those is for Joey Mason.

Baby Joey, as he’s called, is Metamorpho’s toddler son. “When Joey is taken, Metamorpho must choose between working with Superman or Lex Luthor,” the book reveals.

Baby Joey:

“Baby Joey is Metamorpho's toddler son.
When Joey is taken, Metamorpho must choose between working with Superman or Lex Luthor.”

Raptors:

“Lex uses his highly advanced soldiers, called raptors, to fight Superman and advance his criminal schemes.” pic.twitter.com/2PbJQflefd

— DCU PRIME TV (@DCUPRIMETV) June 3, 2025

That’s not much to go on, but it makes sense in the context of the shot we see in the trailer. Here, Superman is tangled up in Metamorpho in some strange area. Perhaps Superman saves Baby Joey, returns him to his father, thus turning Metamorpho to his side in the coming battle.

Let’s remember, Metamorpho has the power to transform his body into any element, which could pose a serious threat to the all-powerful Superman.

Nintendo has deployed an update for Splatoon 3, improving how it looks and runs on Nintendo Switch 2.

As well as increasing the resolution of images stored in the Switch 2 album, Update 10.0.0. brings smoother on-screen movement in Splatsville, Inkopolis, Inkopolis Square, and Grand Festival Grounds, as well as improved animations for certain characters like jellyfish, and the Salmonid when there's a large number of them in the stage in Salmon Run.

In additional to these performance and visual improvements for Switch 2, you also get 30 new weapon kits from the Barazushi and Emberz brands (the Splatlands Collection), and the return of the Urchin Underpass stage from the original Splatoon game on Wii U.

Nintendo said its next update will "focus on multiplayer balance based on analysis of changes to the situation that come with these weapon additions."

Splatoon 3 update: Ver. 10.0.0 (Released June 11, 2025)

Added Features and Game Content Changes

• Made it so that the screen displays in more detail.
• Made on-screen movement smoother in the following areas.
  • Splatsville
  • Inkopolis
  • Inkopolis Square
  • Grand Festival Grounds
• In Salmon Run, smoothed Salmonid animations even when there’s a large number of Salmonids in the stage.
• Smoothed animations for certain characters, such as jellyfish.
• Changed the animation that displays in the bottom right of the screen when switching scenes.
• Increased the resolution of images stored in the Nintendo Switch 2 Album when screens are captured using Photo Mode or the Capture Button on the controller.

• Made it so that certain elements outside the stage and unrelated to battle do not display when battling in Splat Zones/Tower Control/Rainmaker/Clam Blitz modes.
  • This change is to reduce differences in game operation speed as much as possible when compared with Nintendo Switch 2.
  • In Recon Mode, all elements will display as they have up to this point.

All other changes below apply to both Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch.

Changes to Multiplayer

• Added a new stage, Urchin Underpass.
• Added 30 new weapons as part of the Splatlands Collection - Barazushi / Emberz.
  • These weapons will be available in the shops after applying the update.
    Splatlands Collection - Barazushi
• Added a Series Weapon feature to Anarchy Battle (Series) for Rank S and higher.
  • In Anarchy Battle (Series) for Rank S or higher, Series Weapon Power will be measured for each weapon players equip. They will be matched with other players whose Series Weapon Power is similar to theirs for the currently equipped weapon.
  • Series Weapon Power is the same for all four modes.
  • Players can check their current Series Weapon Power for each weapon by pressing the ZL Button on the Equip screen to display the weapon's details.
  • Series Weapon Power resets each time the season changes, but the highest value players have achieved will be recorded in SplatNet 3.
• In Anarchy Battle (Open), increased the amount of change in Rank Points per battle by approximately 2.5x.
• Made it so that call signs, which are automatically determined using factors such as equipped gear, will display in X Battles in place of nicknames.
  • After the battle ends, you can check players’ actual nicknames and IDs (the string of numbers and letters starting with #) on screens for checking results, such as the match menu and the lobby terminal.
  • For X Rankings, players’ actual nicknames and IDs will display.

Changes to SplatNet 3

• Players’ Best Nine will now display.
  • “Best Nine” indicates the nine weapons with the highest Series Weapon Power out of all the weapons a player owns.
• Best Nine rankings will now display.
  • Best Nine rankings are rankings where players compete for total Series Weapon Power for their Best Nine.
• Notifications from SplatNet 3 will now display in the notifications box within the Nintendo Switch App.

Other Changes

• Increased the maximum value for weapon Freshness to 10★.
  • Players can earn new badges for weapons by achieving Freshness 6★ to 10★.
  • Once the update has been applied, weapons that had received XP beyond the maximum value before applying the update will have their Freshness increase after one battle by an amount proportionate to the amount of XP received up to this point.
• Added new badges players can acquire based on the number of weapons with Freshness ★★★★ or higher.
• Made it so that other players a player has battled with in Anarchy Battle (Series) and Splatfest Battle (Pro) will not display in the Users You Have Played With system feature of Nintendo Switch/Nintendo Switch 2 consoles.

As a bonus update, in this update we added weapons and a stage, increased the maximum Freshness, implemented a Series Weapon feature for Anarchy Battle (Series), added a call sign feature to X Battles, and performed optimization of operations on Nintendo Switch 2.

For Anarchy Battle (Series), we implemented a new Series Weapon feature targeted toward players Rank S or higher.

With this feature, the Series Weapon Power will be measured for each weapon currently equipped, and players will be matched up against others with similar levels of power.

We implemented this feature in hopes that players will enjoy battling using a variety of weapons, including the Splatlands Collection - Barazushi / Emberz weapons added in this update.

Additionally, we made balance changes to multiplayer battles.

For S-BLAST ‘92 and S-BLAST ‘91, we have made adjustments to give players fighting against them more room to counter because, from the opponent's point of view, there seemed to be no openings at any distance.

For the Crab Tank, we lowered the maximum damage of the cannon to decrease the frequency that the person being attacked is defeated without any opportunity to evade. We also made it easier for other special weapons to fight against the Crab Tank.

For Toxic Mist, we have reduced the amount of ink consumed to make it easier to fight in combination with main weapons. On the other hand, we have simultaneously extended the time before ink begins to recover so that this change does not lead to tactics where players simply continuously throw their sub weapons.

This week, Nintendo announced Splatoon Raiders, a brand-new Splatoon spin-off exclusive to the Switch 2. The surprise reveal was made with a trailer that was released first on the Nintendo Today! App. Nintendo failed to announce a release window, but said to keep an eye out for more information in the future.

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.

Hey, do you have any regrets in your life? The Alters knows that you do, and that’s why its sci-fi story about morally and ethically questionable cloning on a wildly inhospitable alien planet hits home. It’s comparable to a playable Black Mirror episode (no, not that one) that envisions technology run amok, where science has granted us the ability to talk to versions of ourselves who took the road we didn’t travel. It then asks: what if some of those people hate your guts? Also, what if this is all the product of a mad scientist and/or corporate exploitation? Combined with a simple but effective resource harvesting and base management balancing act, as well as the constant specter of approaching death by a scorching sun, it’s an effective pressure cooker of both personal and environmental hazards.

When Jan (pronounced Yon) wakes up to find he is the only survivor of a crash landing on an uninhabitable planet, The Alters immediately sets an isolating and eerie tone. This planet is remarkably otherworldly – barren and gray with jagged rock formations, but splashed with shimmering colors from oily-looking water and distortions created by this universe’s brand of Unobtainium, called Rapidium. Soon there’s a striking feature on the horizon: the expedition’s mobile base, which is a distinctive towering wheel that suspends its habitat in the middle.

There’s a palpable urgency as you scrape together enough resources to survive and get the base moving before the sun comes up and broils the surface. It’s not difficult to extract enough organic resources to feed Jan and fuel the base – you simply gather chunks from the surface, build mining machines, and then network them back to your base with powerline towers in a light version of resource games like Satisfactory – but you have to keep an eye on the clock to make sure you’re not overworking him or exposing him to too much nighttime radiation. The planet’s surface is also littered with radioactive anomalies that are initially all but invisible until you’re right on top of them, so navigating the maze-like map has a fair bit of tension to it even though there are no aliens actively trying to eat you. You do soon develop tools to make those anomalies easier to deal with by zapping their moving cores with what feels like a Ghostbusters proton pack, reducing them to rolling balls of resources. However, new and unexpected types are soon introduced that mess with your perception and make you approach them in different ways to keep you on your toes.

When you enter the base, The Alters shifts perspective from over-the-shoulder third-person to a diorama-like view, and you move around like a 2.5D sidescroller. It instantly gave me XCOM vibes, except you can actually run around as a character within it, moving between floors with elevators. Laying out the base with the new room types you unlock is a flexible puzzle that usually has very low stakes: there’s no build time when you place a new social room or refinery or store room, you can freely move almost anything around to make the best use of your limited space at no cost, and you can delete rooms for a full (or very generous) refund of resources at any time, provided you have the storage space to accommodate the materials.

That’s fun to mess around with (for a bit I was moving rooms I needed to access right next to me rather than walking to them) but it does get disorienting: running around wondering “now where did I put that communications room?” got old quickly. You can zoom out to see everything, but can’t move while in that ant farm perspective, so I ended up trying to minimize how much I shifted things around so that I could memorize what was where. It eventually becomes a little tricky as you expand the base and cram in more large rooms and storage, working around an immovable block in the middle, and it can be convoluted to reach an essential room when you need to. But being able to basically start from scratch whenever you want means it’s never too frustrating.

One of the first and most important rooms you’ll build is The Womb, which fuzzy communications with your ethically questionable corporate middle managers tell you to set up to kick off The Alters’ big experiment. Combined with Rapidium and a quantum computer that reaches into a map of Jan’s formative memories and simulates the life he would’ve had if he’d made different choices, it creates clones of him with different specialties and philosophical differences. All of them share an abusive father, but where they go from there is drastically different based on choices like if they left home, went to school, sold their house, met their wife, and other pivotal moments. It’s a little silly at times in that each version of Jan has different hair and a different way of speaking – the gruff, blue-collar Miner and the nerdy Scientist being the product of a few different life choices seems a bit far-fetched – but it’s a fun idea to think about and a great and novel way to explore these characters. Alex Jordan, the actor who plays all the Jans, is clearly having a good time finding ways to set them apart from one another – it reminds me of Tatiana Maslany playing clones in Orphan Black.

I eventually created six clones across the 30 hours it took me to complete the third act, which is not all of the possibilities – you’ll have to play through at least a couple of times to meet the rest, and I’m looking forward to another run where I know all the goals in advance and can optimize my approach to gathering resources and unlocking new technologies. This turns The Alters into a management game that reminds me of Fallout Shelter, where you’re assigning your team of specialists to tasks according to their strengths, but rarely have enough people to do everything you want to as efficiently as you’d like, so you’re forced to come up with the best solution you can. Some of them are essential for every playthrough – you need the Scientist to unlock any new technologies, for instance – but most, like the Doctor or the Guard (who I have yet to create) are optional and will make playthroughs at least a bit different with their unique production bonuses and personality. I do wish the menu for selecting a crewmember to work a job would list where they’re currently working, though. I frequently had to back up a step to make sure I wasn’t taking someone away from an essential role, then go back into the menu and reassign them.

Managing your relationships with your Alters is partially about satisfying their basic needs with good food, enough rest, and some entertainment (such as gathering to watch a series of legitimately funny live-action sketch comedy videos and a simple skippable beer pong minigame), but it’s also a game of getting to know which Jans value compassionate responses and which will thrive with some tough love and bluntness. Some of them have self-destructive tendencies that need to be kept in check – they’ll work fewer hours if they’re unhappy, and can permanently die if they’re abused or left to their own devices. In the first act of the story it’s easy enough to keep the peace, but naturally that can’t last. As wrenches are thrown in the gears of your plan to escape this planet with a stockpile of invaluable Rapidium, you’re forced to make legitimately tough moral decisions that some of your Alters will strongly disagree with. There may well be a way to get through it optimally, but from what I’ve seen it’s very much a Kobayashi Maru: a test of how you deal with a no-win scenario.

The Alters certainly cuts corners in how it tells its story – anything that isn’t a one-on-one conversation between Jan and an Alter is shown as a storyboard with voiceover rather than an animated cutscene, and the few characters who aren’t clones are obscured by static in the transmission from Earth so we only hear their voices. Some voice lines are recycled often, like when you present an Alter with a personal item you’ve found among the wreckage of the crashed ship to butter them up. But it does a lot with a little in that respect, and very effectively gets across the moral dilemmas, relationships, and mood. There’s even a musical performance where all the Jans collaborate on a song, and it’s only a little bit cheesy.

Every time you move the base to stay ahead of the sun you come to a new map, and each of them is a visually distinct alien landscape and a maze of interconnected pathways to explore in order to open the way forward. There are obstacles to clear and work around, which means unlocking new tools and spending your suit’s limited energy and resources to grapple up high cliffs or vaporize rocks in your path. It’s not difficult, but some of the puzzles you have to solve to gather essential resources for high-level research unlocks require you to uncover and follow a winding trail around the map that can be time-consuming enough to span multiple in-game days. The fast-travel system is a clever way to let you cover more ground and avoid too much backtracking by building out your tower network like breadcrumbs as you explore, and there are special pylon types you can place that are specifically for teleporting around.

The mechanic for uncovering deep resource veins to place a mining machine on is a chore, though. You’re required to create polygonal shapes by placing probes, which lets you look through the ground. It’s not hard, but it feels pointless and fiddly because you can just gather your probes and try again if you miss. (I suspect that at one point in development you had to spend resources to make them but that idea was scrapped and the cost was removed.) All it consumes is time, which is a precious resource, and it isn’t a very entertaining use of it.

There are other hostile environmental hazards that can mess you up, too: The Alters very quickly reminded me of developer 11Bit’s other recent game, Frostpunk 2, with its occasional magnetic storms that make venturing outside for resources all but impossible and force you to rely on your stockpiles while you race to repair escalating damage to the base. Things like that keep the pressure on and force you to consider taking measures like making your team work overtime hours, and prevent you from putting too much of management on autopilot even as you unlock more automated resource extraction tools. Multiple times, gathering enough resources to move the base came down to the wire – I had to be ready to go before the sun caught me, and I made it out by hours, not days.

Orlando Bloom has discussed the possibility of reprising his iconic role as Legolas in Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, and has a clear idea of how the character would work.

The Hunt for Gollum, due out December 17, 2027, is confirmed to see star and director Andy Serkis reprise his role as Gollum, as the title suggests. This time, we’ll get to see what Gollum was up to in the years between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

But could other Lord of the Rings actors follow suit? In an interview with MovieWeb to promote his new film, Deep Cover, the 48-year-old Bloom discussed the possibility of Legolas returning for The Hunt for Gollum. Apart from very much being into the idea, he said that Legolas would have to be the same age as he was in the original trilogy, and to achieve that, the filmmakers would have to use AI-powered de-ageing technology.

“I think first of all, I’d like to see [Legolas] the same age as he was [in the original trilogy],” Bloom said. “So, AI would have to come into play. I think I’d like to see him lithe and breezy and warrior-like so AI would have to come into play.

“And I think if they asked me, I would say, ‘Absolutely!’ It would be so fun just to go back to New Zealand and spend however long they want me there for. Because honestly, if you want to be anywhere in the world right now, New Zealand is the place.”

Bloom played Legolas first in 2001's beloved The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, aged 24. 24 years later, is a Legolas return realistic? We do know Hunt for Gollum is set to see a number of famous faces return, including Gandalf. The 86-year-old Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, has said he'd be open to returning as the wizard so long as age didn't catch up to him. Aragorn actor Viggo Mortensen is also open to returning.

This week, Serkis touched on the tone fans can expect from The Hunt for Gollum, and issued an update on when filming will begin. Warner Bros. has said The Hunt for Gollum is in fact the first of two new Lord of the Rings feature films from Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens based on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, as the company aims to make more of the franchise.

Amazon has of course kept the Lord of the Rings fire burning with its Prime Video series The Rings of Power. Season 3 is in the works. Elsewhere in Tolkien's world sits The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, the animated film that came out in December.

Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic.

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.

Sealed Pokémon TCG products at an actual discount? Yep, it happened. So did one of the best Humble Choice months to date, featuring the brilliant Warhammer 40K: Boltgun alongside the nostalgia-stuffed Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered collection. In the market for a new monitor? Samsung has you covered with up to $300 in store credit and $100 off their upcoming Smart AI Monitor line. Nice.

TL;DR: Deals For Today

Need more grim-dark in your life? The new 40K book, Era of Ruin (The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra), takes Games Workshop books back to the beginning of the Chaos Faction and the crippling of the God Emperor. Warhammer 40K is also in a wave of physical game discounts thanks to Space Marine 2 on PS5, which also includes some Switch 1 games with free Switch 2 performance upgrades. Let's get into it:

Grab $300 Samsung Credit and $100 Off Samsung Smart AI Monitor Preorder

Gears of War: Reloaded (PS5) Preorder

Physical Game Discounts

If you're planning to grab a Switch 2, now is a smart time to stock up on discounted Switch 1 games, especially the heavy hitters. All of them are expected to run at a minimum of 1080p 60FPS on the new hardware, with some titles getting boosts up to 4K depending on the upgrade. Tears of the Kingdom is getting a paid update, but it's free if you have a Switch Online plus Expansion Pack membership. Super Mario Party Jamboree, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Mario 3D World plus Bowser’s Fury will all benefit from faster load times and sharper visuals. These are already great games, and on Switch 2, they'll play even better.

Humble Choice

Era of Ruin (The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra)

Gwent: The Legendary Card Game

MTG Final Fantasy And Spider-Man Preorders

It's mad how Final Fantasy and Spider-Man products are still available to preorder after the initial pre-sale flying off digital shelves. My take on these sets is to preorder whilst you can, the pricing on these sets are only going to go above MSRP on release day.

MTG Final Fantasy: Best-Selling Presale Cards

I usually share immensely cool Cloud and Sephiroth cards that belong in a slab in someones collection, but all of these cards are what MTG players are going for right now. Looking to build a deck instead of collect MTG Final Fantasy? Snap these up before other players realise how playable they are.

Pokémon TCG Stock Updates

Another day of ridiculous pricing on Amazon for Pokémon TCG sealed products, but keeping an eye on it so you all have options is still important. If you can't find other sealed products for a decent price, I can almost guarantee the market value on TCG Player is cheaper right now.

Destined Rivals: The Most Valuable Cards

On a more positive note, Destined Rivals top chase card prices are stablising, making it a great time to snap some up. Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex SIR has been going for anything over $450 since release, but is starting to settle on a more respectable $370.

Apple AirPods Sale

The big sell with this AirPods sale is the free AppleCare+, with some decent savings on the hardware itself for good measure. They're all solid choices, but i'd personally snap up AirPods 4 as they're currently the same sale price as their third generation variant.

Beats Earbuds and Headphones Sale

No, I didn't forget about Dre thanks, and neither did Amazon. If you want Apple quality without the basic white branding, Beats are the way forward. They all come with AppleCare+ or AppleCare for headphones too, with the exception of a $25 Amazon Gift card for Beats Fit Pro.

Samsung and Sony Ear Buds

Samsung and Sony are two personal audio brands you can set your smart watch too, and I'm seriously tempted to sink some money into Sony WH-1000XM5 whilst they're on offer. The noise cancelling is best-in-class, and those cans pack some serious punch.

4K Blu Ray Sale: Buy 2, Save 50% on 1

Amazon is at it again with a cracking promotion on Blu Ray, 4K Blu Ray and DVDs with a Buy 2, save 50% on 1 deal. There's currently over 1000 qualifying items here, but here's some of my favorite picks. Seeing the Lord of the Rings trilogy in this is a banging deal, but this offer is also a great way to get your physical media collection off to a healthy start without burning your bank card out.

Woodkid for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach 2LP Vinyl

IGN Live Game Bundle

The PC version of Stellar Blade only launched yesterday, June 11, but it's already Sony's biggest single-player Steam launch ever.

Right now, the concurrent player peak is almost 105,000, but that's the seventh all-time peak the game has set since I started writing this story. There's no doubt player numbers will continue to climb, especially as we move into the weekend.

By comparison, Ghost of Tsushima topped out at 77,154 players, God of War peaked at 73,529, and Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered sports a peak of 66,436 players. In fact, the only Sony-published game to have a higher concurrent record than Stellar Blade is Helldivers 2, which is, of course, a multiplayer game.

PC-specific features include AI upscaling via Nvidia DLSS 4 and AMD FSR 3, an unlocked framerate, Japanese and Chinese voiceover, ultrawide display support, higher resolution environment textures, and DualSense support for haptic feedback and trigger effects.

The PC version was originally region locked in 100+ countries, but is now available in "over 250 regions." And yes, there are mods. Dozens and dozens have popped up, with modders making all kinds of tweaks and buffs since the demo dropped a few weeks ago. Not all of them are safe for work, though...

Stellar Blade has done so well for developer Shift Up that a sequel is already confirmed. The Sony-published action game launched to a positive response back in April 2024, with players saying its gameplay mixed elements of NieR: Automata and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

IGN's Stellar Blade review returned a 7/10. We said: "Stellar Blade is great in all of the most important ways for an action game, but dull characters, a lackluster story, and several frustrating elements of its RPG mechanics prevent it from soaring along with the best of the genre."

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.

The composer behind HBO's smash-hit The Last of Us TV show has revealed there'll be "at least two more seasons," strongly suggesting Season 4 is on the way.

"There’ll be at least two more seasons, no question," Jake Staley said in an interview on The Last of Us: Savage Starlight podcast. "At least. That’s all I’m gonna say."

This isn't a complete surprise, of course; just last month, showrunner Craig Mazin indicated a fourth season would be pretty much essential for the series, as in order to wrap up The Last of Us’ story from the two Naughty Dog-developed video games, Season 3 "would take forever." So, while there's a "decent chance" Season 3 will be longer than Season 2, at the end of the day, Mazin suggested "there’s no way to complete this narrative in a third season."

HBO has hailed the success of The Last of Us Season 2, saying an "influx" of viewers had raised the series' global audience to over 90 million since Season 1 ended, but insisted the Season 2 finale suffered low viewing levels because of the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Mazin and Neil Druckmann also recently let us in on a little secret: they don't yet know "how much, or rather how little" some of our favorite characters will be around in upcoming seasons.

The team behind the HBO series stopped by IGN Live over the weekend to break down some of the most pivotal moments of the game to TV show adaptation and expand on what it took to create scenes like Joel's death, the horde attack, the planetarium, and more.

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.

The first part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy may have just been announced to be coming to Xbox, but for the time being, the second chapter, Rebirth, is one of the best games only available for PS5 and PC.

If you’ve not yet picked it up, however, you can save 50% on the ambitious open world entry in the saga thanks to Amazon-owned retailer Woot.

Save 50% on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Although it launched on June 5, the Nintendo Switch 2 is still only being sold via lottery in Japan, which means you can’t just walk into a store and buy one. This huge demand has prompted a flood of Switch 2 consoles to hit online marketplaces like Mercari Japan over the past week.

Although price gouging and scalping have been widely criticized, Switch 2 listings and the frantic comments they attract from users desperate to get their hands on Nintendo’s latest console have attracted parody listings of... light switches.

It is not clear who had this “bright idea” first, but light switch-themed “Switch 2” listings have been popping up on Mercari Japan since last week. These feature wall-mounted double light switches, which can be loosely referred to as “Switch 2-ko” (literally “2 switches”) in Japanese — hence the joke. One troll made such a light switch from cardboard, listing it for 67,000 yen (approx. $465) under the title “Nintendo Switch 2 (Domestic/Japanese language version) Console,” and quipping in the description: "I have no idea how you are supposed to play it.”