World of Warcraft's housing feature launched this week for everyone who purchased the upcoming Midnight expansion early. Though the feature is still in its early stages, players (including yours truly) are already losing hours upon hours creating elaborate homes with the decor available. But Horde players in particular are really struggling to contend with one major issue: their house exteriors are ugly.

Okay, that's a little mean. If you play an orc, or are into the orc aesthetics of spikes, flames, haphazard metal plates, and slapdash wooden boards nailed on, the Horde exteriors are fine. The issue is that a lot of the Horde - namely, everyone who doesn't play an orc - generally prefers a less...grungey aesthetic. Alliance players also only get one exterior housing option, but their homes are fairly standard, inoffensive cottages that most people will find tolerable at worst.

Unfortunately for anyone unhappy with what's on offer, until Midnight fully launches, this is it. You can customize your exterior in various ways by changing up roof colors and chimney styles, but it's all in your faction's default aesthetic. Blizzard has promised that Night Elf and Blood Elf exteriors will arrive on Midnight's release, with more options planned for later on. But for now you're stuck with either a cottage or a spike shack one way or another.

Some players, like myself, are just trying to make the best of it with outdoor decorations. Here's my modest hut. You'd never know that inside is a cozy Shaman retreat, complete with a small magical library, a snug kitchen, and a stone altar dedicated in honor of the elements.

The latest Apple iPad just dropped to the lowest price ahead of the holiday season. Amazon is offering the 11th generation Apple iPad, featuring the A16 processor, for just $274.99 with free shipping after a $70 off instant discount. This is the same deal I saw during Black Friday. The price went back up after Cyber Monday, but it's back for a little while longer. Even if you don't need one yourself, these would make awesome gifts for just about anyone (kids included) for Christmas.

Apple iPad 11th Gen for $275 (Originally $349)

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 has confirmed the addition of something no video game has ever had before: a playable Primarch.

In Warhammer 40,000 lore, the Primarchs are genetically engineered, demigod-like warriors created by the Emperor of Mankind to lead the Space Marine Legions. They are immensely superior to other humans, possessing superhuman strength, speed, and intelligence, and each is designed to embody a specific trait or aspect of war, such as a master strategist or a stealth expert.

While Primarchs have appeared in Warhammer 40,000 video games before (Roboute Guilliman, primarch of the Ultramarines, and Mortarion, Daemon Primarch of the Death Guard Chaos Space Marines, have popped up), none has ever been playable in all the years Warhammer 40,000 video games have been around — until now.

Dawn of War 4 developer King Art Games has confirmed Dark Angels Primarch Lion El'Jonson is playable at one point towards the end of the story campaign, co-written by Black Library author John French (Dropsite Massacre, Cypher: Lord of the Fallen). This also confirms the Dark Angels as a second playable chapter of Space Marines in the game alongside Dawn of War veterans the Blood Ravens.

The new story trailer shows the Dark Angels turn up to help the Blood Ravens in the fight against the Orks and Nercons on the war-torn world of Kronus. We get a glimpse of The Lion, with his helmet on, at the end of the trailer.

Here’s the official blurb:

The trailer opens with a look at how the Blood Ravens under Captain Cyrus and Chief Librarian Jonah Orion have arrived in orbit over Kronus at the start of the game. After an intense orbital fight with the Warboss Gorgutz and his Orks, both factions find themselves planetside where Guzcutta — the second Ork Commander — is already waiting.

Elsewhere on Kronus, Technoarcheologist Potentia Delta-9 surveys the planet for its lost knowledge as the Chronomancer Thothmek begins the Necron’s invasion, awakening Kronus’ dormant tombs in their own search for secrets.

The Imperium’s forces are beset on all sides, their last stand losing strength and the lines on the verge of collapse… until, at the crucial moment, it becomes clear they are not alone: the Dark Angels arrive.

The Dark Angels are one of two factions of Space Marines in Dawn of War 4 and are a fully playable faction in all game modes. Here are the key points:

● During the Space Marines campaign, players will undertake missions in command of both the Blood Ravens and the Dark Angels, and they can pick which missions they want to play.

● The Dark Angels have their own, playable Commanders for the Space Marines campaign: Company Master Astoran and Chaplain Ezrael.

● The Dark Angels have their own unique identity and history. As Space Marines, they share core strategies, tactics, wargear, and weaponry, while still maintaining the distinctive flavor and abilities of their Chapter.

● While the Blood Ravens are often engaged in smaller conflicts that require tactical finesse and sometimes involve stealth, the Dark Angels deploy their full might to the biggest battlefields. Precision strikes vs. all-out war.

● As the story saga reaches its breaking point, Lion El’Jonson himself descends onto the battlefield, giving players, for the first time ever, the chance to wield the legendary might of a Space Marine Primarch in a climactic, unforgettable finale.

Ahead of today’s announcement, IGN interviewed Dawn of War 4 director Jan Theysen to find out everything you need to know about Lion El'Jonson’s arrival. Dawn of War 4 is due out on PC at some point in 2026.

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.

Today, 1047 Games revealed that Splitgate 2 is relaunching as Splitgate: Arena Reloaded on December 17, 2025. It will be available as a free-to-play game across PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.

This comes following the launch and "unlaunch" of Splitgate 2 earlier this year. Splitgate 2 released in June to middling reviews, controversy, and a rapid drop-off of players as criticism of the game grew. In response, 1047 "unlaunched" Splitgate 2, announcing in July it would temporarily wind down support for it while the team worked on a new version of the game with "big, sweeping changes."

We spoke to CEO Ian Proulx at the time. During our conversation, he explained that Splitgate 2 as it was at launch was "not a finished product yet," and that fans were clamoring for a game that was closer to Splitgate 1. At the time, he assured the team would be focused on updating the game in accordance with player feedback, including adding "basic features" like a leaderboard and better progression, more portal walls, and adjustments to game modes.

Proulx also said he wanted to make the season pass and monetization in general less confusing while keeping the game free-to-play. At the time, Proulx projected the update would take place in early 2026, so this December release is sooner than expected.

So what, then, is Splitgate: Arena Reloaded? According to a press release, it "reimagines everything from core combat to UI." Here's an overview provided by 1047 of the major updates:

• Removed Factions, Abilities, and select equipment to refocus on classic arena combat
• Rebuilt progression from the ground up and overhauled the Ranked system
• Introduced 5 new, and 6 fully-reworked maps, 3 new Primary Weapons and 1 new Power Weapon: the Railgun
• New Arena modes, playlist selection, and a true Classic Arena mode with even starts and powerups
• Reduced store prices, simplified the Battle Pass, and improved overall cosmetic quality

An accompanying video featuring former Rocket League game director and current 1047 design director Josh Watson also notes that Arena Reloaded includes the addition of player stats, leaderboards, and a career system.

We initially gave Splitgate 2 at launch a 7/10, calling it "a decent successor to the original that expands on it, but never really surpasses it."

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Bask in the sun… and risk getting the meanest sunburn of your life. Hello Sunshine is an impressive step up from the usual post-apocalypse survival RPG formula, playing with some clever ideas around scorching sunlight, blissful shade, and the cycle of day and night.

I previewed a hands-off, pre-alpha slice of Hello Sunshine’s story-driven, single-player campaign with the developers at Red Thread Games, many of whom are veteran developers in the narrative gaming world (think Dreamfall, The Longest Journey, and The Secret World).

Hello Sunshine is looking extremely polished for something built by just seven people, and puts a cool twist on what “suspense” means in the genre. From the extreme, sizzling heat of day to uncovering lore during frigid nights – here is why I believe Hello Sunshine’s future is looking bright.

Coming in hot

The team didn’t mention any sort of inspiration from the Fallout series, but right from the start screen there’s no denying the visual parallels – a skeleton in a folding camping chair, still clutching a drink as if the world ended mid-sip. Pressing the start button, the player character stumbles past, immediately launching you into this weird wasteland world. It wasn’t clear to me whether she was a preset character or customizable, but (in this preview, at least) she appeared to be the silent type.

In this cruel and scorching desert, it’s clear that she is already suffering from the early symptoms of heatstroke, and she’s also very sad about finding a water bottle that turns out to be empty. This scene is the introduction to Hello Sunshine’s heat and thirst mechanics – a delicate balancing act of avoiding collapse from dehydration or slow-cooking in the harsh sunlight. Robots aside, the sun is essentially your biggest enemy (but with ray tracing).

Ruined buildings yield water and other supplies that help you maintain a survivable body temperature, but shadows also play a huge role. If you’re roasting, resting in shade can keep your temperature down. And almost immediately, you’ll meet the most interesting shadow dynamic of all – Hello Sunshine’s other “main character,” who is a skyscraper-sized robot that seems to have a clearer idea of where it’s going than you do.

Chasing shadows

This metallic gentle giant is, like you, wandering through these badlands. It kind of ignores you in the beginning, but you’ll be grateful for the enormous shadow it casts as it moves, shielding you from UV-based harm as you follow it along sand dunes and amongst rusted shipping containers. And no, it won’t wait patiently for you if you saunter off; you’ll need to keep up with its pace if you don’t want to end up dying humiliatingly of sunburn.

This is survival through solar instinct and (coining an ahem hot new term here) shade management, not health bars alone – creating an urgency that adds an unconventional form of suspense to your strange journey.

The landscape, of course, hides precious resources – but you’ll need to strategize and carefully time your brief detours from the robot’s shadow. Spend too much time dilly-dallying and the robot may move too far ahead, meaning you won’t make it back before your heat meter runs out. The sun’s path, from afternoon to sunset, was particularly brilliant – with shadows lengthening or shrinking as the day progresses, you’ll need to adapt your decisions about how far you wander.

You can expect that you’ll find more awesome loot the farther you stray, of course. No word yet on whether loot will be randomized each playthrough, but I’m hoping that will be the case. Whatever ingredients you’re able to grab could limit what you’re able to craft – and add further challenge, based on what gear you’re able to make and how that may limit your desired playstyle.

Bringin’ on the heat

It’s not all sunbeams, however; Hello Sunshine does include combat, which you can shape according to your desired playstyle. Being noisy and aggressively guns-out (or, more accurately, bows-out), for instance, will probably attract even more enemies – and more scavengeable loot from their remains.

Or you can go for more defensive options, potentially even avoiding head-on conflict. I didn’t really get a sense of what a stealthier playthrough might look like, but I’m hoping the confrontational-to-avoidant spectrum is wide.

Your enemies, by the way, are more robots – definitely angrier than your giant friend – and they curiously seem to have taken on forms of the fleshy species that I assume were otherwise wiped out during the apocalypse. A little metal jackal will snap at your heels, for example, or a hulking robot crab may try to skewer you with its giant claw.

Your character’s bow is one of the primary weapons. At first, it doesn’t look like much – kind of pitiful against giant armored bots, really – but you’ll be able to upgrade it throughout the game and craft better ammo for it, such as explosive arrows.

Little events occur here and there to keep your journey interesting – like a distant airdrop of unspecified items, or a sandstorm that gives you brief respite from the sun but also reduces visibility, making it easier for you to lose your robot friend. Many of these events are procedural, hopefully unlocking varied experiences with subsequent playthroughs.

Befriending the sleeping giant

Conveniently, your enormous robot companion has a circadian rhythm: once the sun sets, it will take a break to recharge. In the preview, this happened at the remains of a Sunshine service station – owned by the ominous corporation whose shareholders, presumably, voted to min-max the humanity-destruction budget.

The service station is basically your inexplicably cheerful crafting workshop, complete with happy tinkling music. You can take a breather here, check out your loot from the day, “recycle” unwanted items, and use the parts to 3D-print new gear – from health packs to flashlights or even new shoes. You can also mend the wear-and-tear wrought on your gear throughout the day. Did you rip up your pants sliding down dunes butt-first? Repair ‘em here.

The Sunshine building also acts as a robot maintenance site, allowing you to make repairs or upgrade the big guy. As I mentioned previously, it pretty much ignores you in the early stages – but if you impress it enough with your ongoing care, it may begin to care about you too.

You won’t want to stray far at night, though, as it gets chilly. The preview didn’t demonstrate any “night runs,” but that’s apparently something you’ll be able to do, which could be a nice (or fraught) accompaniment to the day journeys – no word on how optional these runs may be, or whether they’ll offer different rewards (or even plot developments).

Most of the story unfolds during these night sequences; start a campfire and strangers just may show up. The preview didn’t show interactions with any of these strangers, but they may or may not be very nice people. Regardless of whether they turn out to be friends or meanies, they will unveil parts of the Sunshine corporation’s mysterious origins.

In short: shade wins

The Sunshine rest stop was where our preview ended – though we were told that the player would progress through different biomes over the following in-game days. Since I only saw the desert area, the wildly different weather conditions of various other environments may really transform what to expect in the lead-up to release.

Though I only saw part of the single-player campaign, there will also be co-op (split-screen and online); buddy up, and you will both experience a reframed version of the story. It’s recommended you do this after the main campaign so you can get the full story behind whatever the heck is going on in this world.

Hello Sunshine is the studio’s first foray into both the RPG and survival genres, so will their narrative pedigree see it through? I like their chances based on what I’ve seen so far. Everyone loves a good “evil corporation” story, and I honestly still can’t get over how cool those dawn-to-dusk shadow mechanics are (I can imagine other game designers thinking, “Damn, why didn’t I think of that?!”).

If your overall question about Hello Sunshine is “Does it look good?” then yes, it is very promising. And if it’s “Will I melt to death holding a handmade bow?” the answer is still yes – but enthusiastically.

Fullbright has announced its next game will be a lo-fi narrative experience with branching dialogue named Springs, Eternal, as the company's founder Steve Gaynor continues on as a solo developer.

An official blurb for Springs, Eternal describes the project as a "short, focused, supernatural-inflected first-person narrative exploration game" that will offer around two to three hours of gameplay. It's due to launch on PC at some point in 2026.

Set in a creepy-looking retreat, Springs Eternal will see players exploring its forest paths and interacting with other guests to learn more about "deeply heartfelt memory of the romantic relationship that brought them here, and perhaps discover where it will lead them next." It all sounds a bit Firewatch meets The Twilight Zone. Here's a first-look trailer:

Springs, Eternal looks to be another small solo project from Gaynor following last year's bitesize Fullbright Presents: Toilet Spiders.

In its previous era as The Fullbright Company, Gaynor and his former colleagues released indie hit Gone Home and sci-fi follow-up Tacoma, before Gaynor's teammates quit the company during the development of its next title, Open Roads, amid reports of his toxic behavior. (Open Roads was then finished and released separately, without Gaynor's continued involvement.)

A press release for Springs, Eternal notes that Fullbright is "now primarily the solo developer label of founder Steve Gaynor," who "continues to focus on atmospheric, emotionally-driven first-person story games (and occasional weird microgame experiments) in an evocative, lo-fi visual style."

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

For the first time ever, a Primarch is playable in a Warhammer 40,000 video game. Lion El'Jonson — aka The Lion — is playable in upcoming real-time strategy game Dawn of War 4. It’s a hugely exciting prospect for fans of the setting, who have so far had to imagine what it would be like to play as a Primarch in a video game. Now, we’ll get to control The Lion himself, the reborn leader of the Dark Angels chapter of Space Marines, as he presumably swats away all before him with the Emperor’s Shield and Fealty.

But how did developer King Art Games convince Games Workshop to let them do what no other developer has done before? And how did it approach making the seriously overpowered Lion El'Jonson work in Dawn of War 4? What does his inclusion mean for Dawn of War 4’s potential canon status within the setting? And will we get to see his face?

I sat down with director Jan Theysen to ask these questions and many more. We get into some serious detail about The Lion, the Dark Angels, and where we’re at in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, so sit down, relax, and trust in the Emperor.

IGN: I think the first obvious question is why did you choose the Dark Angels as the second playable faction for the Space Marines?

Jan Theysen: When we talked about, okay, what are the factions we want in the game, it's obvious that you need the Blood Ravens, right? It's a Dawn of War. And we talked about the other factions and then at some point it came up, okay, why just have the Blood Ravens? Maybe there is an option to also have another faction or another chapter. And basically Games Workshop said, ‘Hey, why not Dark Angels, could be a cool pick?’ And we said, ‘Oh, okay, of course, why not? Cool pick.’ And then they said, ‘Okay, what about… do you want Lion El'Jonson?’ And we were like, ‘Oh, okay, cool idea.’ That's basically it.

IGN: So Games Workshop suggested Dark Angels to you guys?

Jan Theysen: Yeah, basically they said, ‘Hey, just because it's a Dawn of War doesn't mean that it can be only Blood Ravens, right? There could be other Space Marines in there as well. And this was basically, okay then let's talk about it. What are the options and what could be a cool addition? And we took it from there.

IGN: There'll be a system where you'll be able to choose between playing as the Blood Ravens and the Dark Angels and you pick the missions you want to play. How will that work?

Jan Theysen: As you might know, we have four different campaigns in the game and for all of the campaigns we try to figure out something that gives the players some choices or some things they can do and influence in the campaign. And so for example, in the Ork campaign, you can literally pick, okay, do you want to play these Orks or these Orks and they're fighting each other. And so that's a very clear distinction.

For the Space Marines, of course that doesn’t make sense, right? They're not really different goals or anything, they're not fighting each other, but they're working on the same thing. And so we basically said, okay, what we can do is we can offer different gameplay experiences based on the factions, because story-wise, the Dark Angels, they have all the toys and all the power and they can basically do the big battles and the epic conflicts, while the Blood Ravens are… they have bigger problems and they need to rely on smaller operations, behind enemy lines, a little bit more covert operations maybe.

And so basically how this works is we have this Space Marine campaign story and there are different things happening at the same time. The Blood Ravens and the Dark Angels, sometimes they are at the same place at the same time and then you can play both of them. But other times it's like, okay, Dark Angels do this now, Blood Ravens do this now, who do we want to play? And then you can basically pick, hey, I want the big all out war battle or I want to play this more tactical thing maybe with the Blood Ravens. And then you can pick and then at some point they meet again, or the things converge again.

IGN: So you don’t change the story outcome?

Jan Theysen: The story remains the same, but the question is which parts of the story you encounter or you play with because the other stuff still happens, but then you only hear from it if you're not a part of it.

IGN: Do the Dark Angels have different units at their disposal? Are the gameplay mechanics different?

Jan Theysen: In general it's all Space Marines, right? The faction is Space Marines, but storywise in the campaign, the Blood Ravens don't have access to all the toys and to the big armies and so on. So their missions will be more infantry heavy and also a little bit smaller. And there is even here and there something that is more in the stealth or something that leads you to play a little bit more careful maybe, while the Dark Angles is more like okay, the big battles.

But they have the same units in multiplayer. In multiplayer for example, if you play the Blood Ravens, you have all the same toys because that's a separate thing. Where they differ is with the heroes. So both of the factions have two playable heroes, except for Lion El'Jonson, who is in the campaign but not really like a playable hero. So they both have two. And that of course leads to different things you can do, but also a little bit different playstyles maybe. So depending on the hero you pick, if you really are into slow progress and powerful defensive units, then you might pick the Terminator captain. And if you are more about quick stealthy stuff, you might pick Cyrus. There they can differ a little bit in terms of gameplay.

It’s that time of year when you have to come up with gift ideas for the people in your life. If someone on your list is a LEGO Adult, you’ve come to the right place. I’m IGN’s editor in charge of all things LEGO, and I’ve hand-picked some terrific LEGO gift ideas aimed at adult builders.

Top LEGO Gifts for Adults in 2025

Here’s a look at every set in the article. Click on any that look good to you, or keep on reading to find out more info about each set.

LEGO Harry Potter Hogsmeade Village – Collectors' Edition

LEGO Icons Sherlock Holmes: Book Nook

LEGO Super Mario: Game Boy

LEGO Art Vincent van Gogh – Sunflowers

LEGO Disney & Pixar Wall-E & EVE

LEGO Architecture Neuschwanstein Castle

LEGO Ideas: Gremlins - Gizmo

Destiny has always been the “we’ve got Star Wars at home” looter shooter, and with Destiny 2: Renegades, Bungie has decided to lean into that directly with a crossover expansion. Weirdly enough, so far that decision seems to have kinda worked out alright! Renegades doesn’t solve many of Destiny 2’s longstanding issues, including the fact that it’s been awkwardly spinning its wheels for over a year now (reminiscent of the MCU post-Endgame), but embracing the cheesiness and over-the-top drama of Star Wars is at the very least a surprisingly nice change of pace in what has become quite a predictable universe. The story is silly, to be sure, but introduces a few new mechanics and weapon types that are a welcome change, and there’s an impressive level of enemy density throughout practically all of the activities that keeps the action interesting. I’ve still got a lot more questing and looting to do before my final review, but so far this expansion has been a pretty compelling breath of fresh air in a game I’ve otherwise been far less excited about than usual.

If you’ve read any of my previous expansion reviews (of which there are a lot), then you’ll already know I am one those weirdo Destiny fans who has stuck with this game through thick and thin – so it should mean something when I tell you that saying I am also a Star Wars fan would be such a massive understatement that I’m actually too embarrassed to elaborate further publicly. But even with my undying love of space wizards, I was initially mortified to learn Destiny 2 was planning a crossover with it. For me, it was the ultimate sign that Destiny was out of ideas, had gone “full Fortnite” in a way that seemed cheap and tacky, and was making one last desperation play during the slow death it’s been suffering for a number of years now. And, yeah, that all pretty much turned out to be true. But when I found myself watching two lightsaber-wielding foes square off in an epic cutscene while listening to the John Williams-esque music this expansion makes heavy use of, I’ll admit it won me over… at least a little.

Renegades does go out of its way to include every little Star Wars reference to a degree that can feel a bit forced – a crutch that’s continuously leaned upon in lieu of any original ideas. For example, you find yourself trapped in a garbage compactor during the very first mission, rescue someone from off-brand carbon freezing, and make a jump to lightspeed while a brooding, masked villain angrily watches you escape his grasp. It’s extremely on the nose stuff, and I was just as likely to experience a full-body cringe as I was to smile about it. But the complete “screw it” energy at play here as it full-throatedly embraces all the corniness and drama for which Star Wars is known does have a certain kind of refreshing charm that’s at least a distinct direction for Destiny 2. I’ve been complaining about this game feeling stale for at least five years now, so I’ve got to give Bungie a bit of credit for trying something new here.

There are also a fair number of new mechanics that I wasn’t expecting, like a shielding system for certain enemies that forces you to deal a whole bunch of damage in a short span of time before you can actually hurt them, AT-ST-inspired walkers that have some unique attacks I wasn’t expecting, and even some new weapon types, like battery-powered guns that can be fired until they overheat and need to cool down. None of this is massively game-changing stuff, but they’re decent little tweaks to the sandbox that are welcome additions. Of course, there’s also a ton of stuff that hasn’t changed at all, and even while you’re facing off against a new kind of enemy in theory, you’ll still be fighting the same Cabal armored warriors and bony Thrall monstrosities you’ve been shooting for over a decade, which has made this feel like a cheap reskin at times.

I’m still fairly early into my space opera journey (I haven’t even crafted my lightsaber yet!), so I have a whole lot more to play before I can definitively say where Renegades lands. But so far this expansion seems much better than I expected… though that’s partially because I expected very little. I’ll have much more to say once I’ve completed the campaign and begin to dive into the endgame activities. For Light and Life!

Here's a rare chance to pick up one of the highest quality OLED TVd at a bargain price. Best Buy currenttly has the 65" Panasonic Z95A 4K OLED Smart TV with Amazon Fire TV for just $1,499.99 with free delivery. This was Panasonic's highest end OLED TV for 2024. It uses the same panel as the LG Gallery Series G4 OLED TV. The TV is sold by Beach Camera through Best Buy's marketplace. Beach Camera is an authorized Panasonic reseller and a legit vendor.

Panasonic Z95A 4K OLED Fire TV for $1,499.99

The holiday season is a time where we typically expect to see a serious surge in video game and console sales, for fairly obvious reasons. Normally, that means lots of PlayStations, Switches, and Xboxes are going home in people's shopping carts. But recently, there's another gaming system that's giving the other console offerings a run for their sales. Have you heard of...the NEX Playground?

If you're not a parent, chances are, you haven't. The NEX Playground has actually been out for a while, having launched in 2023. Described as a successor to (of all things) the Kinect, this cube-shaped box uses AI-powered motion tracking to allow users to play motion-controlled games, generally geared toward kids. It comes bundled with five games (Fruit Ninja, Starri, Party Fowl, Whac-a-Mole, and Go Keeper), and you can get more by subscribing to "Play Pass", which costs $89 per year or $49 for three months.

The NEX Playground was already a pretty hot gift for kids last holiday. It's simple to use - literally plug in and play - and doesn't require families to have any existing knowledge of video games or consoles or the tech associated with them. And it seems after a year of new game releases based on popular IPs, it may be even bigger this year. Through the Play Pass, you can now get access to games such as Bluey Bust-a-Move, How to Train Your Dragon Riders of the Skies, Peppa Pig Jump & Giggle, multiple Sesame Street games, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Rooftop Mayhem, and more. Though mostly focused on children's games, there are also games like Zumba Fitness Party, Mingle (a match and merge puzzle game), and a few others that might also appeal to adults. All motion controlled.

That possibly explains why it's already selling so well, even before Black Friday week. According to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella on Bluesky, the NEX Playground was the second best-selling hardware in the US for the week ending November 22, trailing only the Nintendo Switch 2 Mario Kart World bundle, and beating the PS5 Slim in third place. As Piscatella put it, "Anyways, a box that looks like the OUYA and Kinect had a kid has 82% 5 star reviews at Target, and a 4.7 overall rating with 2.5k reviews on Amazon."

Speaking to IGN over direct message, Piscatella elaborated just how well the NEX was doing.

"NEX US unit sales are up 3,384% compared to last year for the YTD period ending Nov 22nd, 2025," he said. "It's the leading product for the year in the Plug-N-Play hardware segment (which also includes products like the My Arcade Gamestation Pro Atari, Game & Watch, and back in the day included things like the NES Classic and Sega Genesis Mini...) but ranks 5th overall on a platform basis in YTD [year-to-date] units (behind Switch 2, PS5, XBS and Switch). Sales of NEX have picked up steam over the past say 5 weeks or so, thanks to (what looks like) increased distribution at retailers like Target, some additional marketing programs and people tell me TikTok."

Piscatella went on to tell me that this is the first time he's seen a plug-and-play device like this get close to this sort of ranking. He suggested the NES Classic might have been a noteworthy seller, but doesn't have weekly data going back that far. But he also clarified that he doesn't think this means the NEX will overtake any of the console giants in annual sales - he expects it to remain at the same rank (5th) through the end of the year. So unfortunately we won't have any weird plug-and-play upsets in Circana's annual report. But you'll still probably see a lot of these around when you're doing your holiday shopping in the coming weeks.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Dell (Alienware) is offering an RTX 5080 equipped gaming PC that's priced lower than the best deals I saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For this week only, the Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5080 gaming PC starts at just $1,750. It's well equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU and a fair amount of RAM and storage, but since this is a customizable configuration, you can upgrade specs for an extra cost. Alienware normally commands a higher price than other brands, so this is a great opportunity to stay within budget and still get performance without compromising on quality.

Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5080 Gaming PC From $1,750

A compact power bank that is perfect for your Nintendo Switch 2, Steam Deck, or Apple iPhone 17 has dropped in price for a limited time. Amazon is currently offering the Iniu 10,000mAh 45W Power Bank for just $11.21 after you clip the 49% off coupon on the product page. This deal usually hits its redemption limit within a day. This would make a great stocking stuffer gift idea for anyone who just picked up a Switch 2 console or owns a phone with USB-C charging input.

Iniu 10,000mAh 45W Power Bank for $11.21

For gamers of a certain age, Warhammer Quest is a name to conjure with. The original 1995 release was the premier dungeon-crawler of its day, a rare cooperative title in an age of head-to-head conflict games. Once it was out of print it became, and remains, highly collectable. But in 2016, publisher Games Workshop resurrected the brand with the well-received Silver Tower. Darkwater is the latest iteration, with a few new tweaks and a lot of new toys on board to try and uphold its considerable legacy.

What’s in the Box

Games Workshop is rightly known as the premier producer of plastic miniatures and, even by its own exalted standards, the range of figures included in this set are a little bit special. Six of them are heroes, the remainder are their enemies, servants of the noxious, squelchy plague god of the Warhammer universe, Nurgle. The Nurgle range has always been a terrible beauty, crammed with unpleasant details of open sores and drooling maws and there’s plenty of that on display here. But what makes these stand out is a sense of character, something that’s often missing in modern, dynamically posed figures.

These pop out of your tabletop with an air of individuality, particularly the heroes who display a fine mix of old-school adventurer alongside the current sensibilities of GW’s Age of Sigmar setting. Facial expressions and poses seem to tell you something about each of them, from the dour scowl of mercenary Bren Tylis to the gloating grin of the central villain, Gelgus Pust. And it’s worth noting for less experienced modellers that the box’s claim of push-fit is largely true. Most of the figures are fairly easy to assemble, although a couple will benefit from a drop of polystyrene cement. Painting them is another matter, however, as the level of detail may be a bit daunting for novices.

Outside of the miniatures, GW boxed games often skimp on the remainder of the components. That’s not the case here: this is a lavish production at every level, and you can see where the considerable asking price has been spent. Once you’ve lifted the figure sprues out of the box, the cards and punch-out tokens have their own carefully packed sub-box, with the cards for each of the game’s campaign acts presented in their own sealed envelopes. Although the cards could use more, and more varied, artwork, they’re sturdy, shiny and clear to read.

"This is a lavish production at every level."

Most surprising of all is the book of maps that are used in the skirmish scenarios that make up most of the game. While this is hardly a new idea, most examples are clunky and spiral-bound. This one is hard-bound, yet it still lies flat, making it an absolute pleasure to use. And the maps within are full of the kind of detailed art that we should also have seen on the cards, effectively evoking the plague-corrupted environments of the game’s setting, the Jade Abbey. More detail on the setting and narrative are provided in the game’s rulebook, offering up a great foretaste of the adventures to come.

Rules and How It Plays

Warhammer Quest: Darkwater is a cooperative board game, but you’ll play with four heroes in every game, so it’s best with two or four players: solo is possible, but you’ll end up juggling a lot as the campaign progresses. It has two game modes, a one-off skirmish fight or a longer campaign game. The focus is definitely on the latter mode, as single fights can be unbalanced depending on the scenario you end up playing, and you don’t get the fun of slowly building up your characters and revealing your own narrative of attempting to free the Jade Abbey from Nurgle’s putrefaction.

A campaign consists of three acts, each of which sees you dealing out 14 random encounter cards from that act’s deck, with a boss card beneath. You then get a choice of two possible encounter cards for each adventure, and this is an important decision. Many of the encounters aren’t skirmish fights but little narrative snippets or mini-games. Most of these are of the push your luck or risk versus reward variety, but there are a couple of the more imaginative designs that made Silver Tower’s scenarios such a pleasure.

When it comes to battle scenarios, it’s important to read the cards carefully and consider how the fight might play out. They offer a variety of maps, of enemies to fight, sidequests, victory conditions and special rules. These cause them to vary wildly in difficulty, and some can be almost impossible if you haven’t found certain rewards for your party. This is a big deal because the price for failure is high: you lose some rewards and get to try again, with a second fail ending the campaign.

Duking it out on the map is based on a set of rules from another game in the series, Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game (see it at Amazon). Each hero has three action cards: move, attack, and aid. Using one requires you to expend energy, which is most commonly obtained by exhausting one of said cards, either for the action you’re taking or one of the others. Essentially this boils down to heroes taking three actions each turn, which can be any combination of the available options, although some of the rewards you can get later in the campaign complicate the picture a little.

Combat involves you rolling dice, almost always a pair, hoping to achieve a target number depending on what you’re fighting. Many enemies have a defense value that cancels out an equal number of hits, meaning you’ll have to hit on both dice to hurt them. Between the probabilities involved and the flexibility of the action system, this provides a satisfying balance of decision-making and randomness. This is not a deep game by any means, but you’ll often be torn as to how to best distribute your actions, while the turn limit on completing each battle can lead to some thrilling, high-stakes rolls towards the close.

Between each hero’s turn, the monsters get to activate. How they behave depends on a dice roll, and most enemies switch between a sedate black die and a more threatening red die with each passing battle round. Mostly they’ll move toward a target at variable speed and try to attack, although all the monsters also have a special effect: horrible little pox-wretches spawn new companions, while the tough daemonic cankerborn blast all nearby heroes with an area effect attack. This roll can have a major impact on the difficulty of a scenario, as monsters sometimes do nothing and sometimes unleash a terrifying onslaught, a quirk that the rules put down to their chaotic nature.

One flaw in this system and the map design is that most of the boards have one or more choke points caused by impassable hexes, and most of the scenarios require players to get somewhere and do something in order to win. The result is that both players and monsters get funneled toward the tight corners and scenarios can bog down in repeated roll-offs until you either clear the enemies or the time runs out. Some character abilities and items can bypass this – the dwarf ranger Drolf Ironhead can move through the odd impassable hex – but while this gives some scenarios the feel of a spatial puzzle, in others having one or two characters get a shortcut doesn’t make much difference to achieving the goal. This issue also causes a sense of repetition, despite the fairly varied scenario design.

Victory, and the completion of sidequest goals, results in reward cards being doled out to the adventurers. Like the scenarios themselves these vary in power, with better items being available later in the campaign, but the more impressive items are often one-shot, while more minor power-ups can be re-used. They all add more tactical options to battles, which is absolutely a good thing. Weighing up whether or not to throw your magical one-off widget into the mix in an attempt to save a scenario that’s going south is always a knife-edge decision and adds extra frisson to the dice-rolls that usually result.

Even on-board battle scenarios only last about 30 minutes so, when you mix in the much shorter mini-game encounters, playing through an act doesn’t take all that long. “Saving” the game state between sessions is a minor pain but perfectly possible. All the adventure cards have their own text preamble to set the scene and, as you progress through the campaign, there are secrets to uncover and some new playable characters to unlock. The unfolding narrative isn’t going to win any literary awards but it’s effective at giving your playthrough a solid storybook backbone. Nurgle is a particularly fun opponent to tackle, his servitors by turns fatherly and feculent, so freeing the once-pristine Jade Abbey from their clutches feels like a worthy goal.

Where to Buy

• Get it at Warhammer

Corsair strips the Sabre V2 Pro ultralight wireless mouse back to the very basics; you get no Bluetooth connection, a relatively small battery, no DPI button and small skates on the bottom – all those weight savings means it's a mere 36g, lighter than almost any other gaming mouse. But lighter doesn't necessarily mean better, so are the compromises worth it? If performance is what you're looking for, it very much can be.

Corsair Sabre V2 Pro – Design and Shape

The Corsair Sabre V2 is a simple, sensible, symmetrical shape and will fit most hands. It's smaller than most gaming mice, and my hands are slightly larger than average, but I could hold it in a full palm grip and easily click all the buttons, without any of my fingers spilling off of its surface. That's probably due to the shape of its hump, which reaches quite far forward on the mouse before tapering off, and it therefore fills my palm well.

The matte coating is grippy and comfortable, although it does attract sweat more than most mice, and it's also harder to clean because it grabs tiny bits of dust and cleaning cloth fibre and doesn't let go. You might notice tiny dots of white in some of these pictures: those aren't scratches, they're just small bits of dust that are nearly impossible to remove without essentially scratching them off with your nail. It doesn't affect the mouse's performance, but it's annoying.

The big selling point is the mouse's weight and at 36g it is absurdly, wonderfully light. There is an unmistakable joy to the Sabre V2 Pro and when you hold it for the first time, you can't help but smile at how weightless it is. You'll find many "lightweight" mice at 50g or above: for example the HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Mini, which I reviewed recently and loved, is 59g, nearly double the Sabre V2 Pro, and switching between the two I immediately felt the difference. Lighter doesn't mean better, of course. Some people prefer heavier mice – I prefer lighter, and therefore loved using the Sabre V2 Pro, which feels like a true extension of my hand.

The mouse feet are relatively small and are made from Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, aka UPE, rather than the standard Teflon (PTFE). UPE tends to glide slower but lasts longer, and while the feet were perhaps a smidge less slide-y than other feet, swishing this mouse across my cloth pad was still effortless. It comes with grip tape and larger replacement skates, if you feel you need it.

Lighter mice sometimes feel flimsy but the Sabre V2 Pro feels, generally, sturdy. When I squeeze the sides it doesn't give or creak, and there's no rattling when I shake it. There is, however, a spot on the top of the mouse where you make an indent if you press down hard. It's a bit alarming, and not something I've experienced with other mice, but it always returned to its original position and I can't imagine a scenario where you'd put that much pressure on a mouse when you were actually using it.

The side buttons – specifically the further back of the two – feels like the cheapest part of the mouse. It clicks fine, but when pressed it travels quite far into the shell, to the point where it feels like your thumb is going inside the mouse. But it wasn't a huge issue: it always returned to the right place, my clicks always registered, and the other side button was more solid. The main left and right mouse clicks are responsive and sound crisp. When I was testing them outside of a game, their pre-travel (the distance you can push the button without a click registering) was noticeable, and they felt a bit soft. But in games, they never let me down, and I could spam them with zero issues.

The scroll wheel is just fine. I personally prefer a slightly stiffer wheel than this, with more noticeable bumps for each increment, but again, it performed well, scrolling whenever I needed. The scroll wheel click, however, feels terrible. It needs a lot of force to click and when it does, it barely moves. You don't get a DPI button, but you can right click and press the back side button to switch DPI, with a coloured LED on the scroll wheel changing colour. It's a neat way of changing sensitivity without adding a button, therefore keeping the weight down.

The mouse connects to your PC via a USB dongle with a stiff cable. The dongle has a built-in clip to connect to your mousepad – a nice touch – and allows for up to 8K polling rate (more on that later). Given how light, and therefore how inherently portable, this mouse is, I would've loved a smaller USB dongle for travelling, or Bluetooth connectivity. But like with all the other caveats I've listed above – and there are quite a few – the drawbacks are worth it to keep the weight down, which is the entire point of this mouse.

Corsair Sabre V2 Pro – Performance, Gaming and Battery Life

I can't complain about the Sabre V2 Pro's gaming performance. I tested it on a variety of games, mostly Arc Raiders and Fortnite, which both require quick flicks, but also Anno 1800, which is more gentle, with lots of slow movement. Flick shots felt responsive, slow tracking felt accurate. It never stuttered and it followed my every movement exactly how I wanted. It does take some getting used to a mouse this light, and some of my flicks felt off during my first session with it, but I quickly got used to it and after a week, my other mice felt heavy in comparison.

It runs at a 1000Hz polling rate (the number of times the mouse reports its position to your PC) by default, which is fine for most players. You can run it at higher polling rates all the way up to 8000Hz, which you won't find on most other mice at this price. Higher polling rates should, in theory, improve accuracy and reduce inconsistency. In reality, most people struggle to tell the difference above 2000Hz, and to me, 2000Hz and 1000Hz feel very, very similar. Going up to 8000Hz is overkill and I wouldn't recommend it with this mouse because it tanks the battery, dropping a 70-hour maximum battery life to about 16 hours.

Even at 1000Hz, battery life is subpar. I got closer to 50 hours than 70, which lags behind other gaming mice (although I should say, several factors go into battery life so your mileage may vary). It's yet another drawback but, for me, it's yet another compromise worth having to save weight. Anything approaching 60 to 70 hours of battery life means you're charging maybe once a week, and that's fine.

Corsair Sabre V2 Pro – Software

Hooray for online mouse software! The Sabre V2 Pro doesn't make you install a new programme on your PC. Instead, you control the mouse on the Corsair's stripped-back Web Hub, and you can install it as a browser app to reach it offline if, say, you're travelling and don't know what the WiFi situation will be.

It does, admittedly, slow you down if you're mid-game and want to tweak a setting. Usually you can leave mouse software running without taxing your PC but you don't, usually, want to play with your browser running in the background, especially if you open lots of tabs or have a lower-end system. So you have to minimize the game, open your browser, navigate to the Web Hub, click on your device, and then adjust. (Also, if Corsair's servers were down, you might have difficulty adjusting your mouse settings.)

On the whole I think those drawbacks are worth it to avoid bloating your PC with even more peripheral programs – although the best of both worlds would be giving people the option to install a program, should they prefer. The Web Hub itself is intuitive, with only a few simple tabs to scroll through, although I wish that the polling rate wasn't hidden in a separate settings menu, rather than being front-and-centre in the menus alongside macros, key binds, and DPI. And the drawback of the Hub's simplicity is that it lacks features you'll get from other mice software: you can't customize lift-off distances, for example, or adjust the axis of your sensor. I would've liked a few more settings to tweak.

If there was a critic predisposed to enjoy Five Nights at Freddy's 2, you're reading him. I defended Emma Tammi's critically panned first adaptation. I've written about the overblown "curse" of video game adaptations here on IGN. Let that appropriately color my disdain for Tammi's malfunctioning sequel bright red like an alarm. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 brings back the Henson company's impressive animatronics for another creepy kid's meal, but this time, they're bound to an atrocious story that underestimates how video games and movies are two hugely different mediums.

Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon claims sole screenwriting duties this time (no ​​Tammi or Seth Cuddeback, who shared the job on the first film), and the dropoff is catastrophic. Cawthon shoves Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) and lil' sister Abby (Piper Rubio) into a reassembly of his 2014 point-and-click survival horror sequel, reopening Freddy Fazbear's original location. Here, where William Afton (Matthew Lillard) began his killing spree, Abby attempts to reunite with her lost friends—animalian animatronics possessed by the souls of murdered children. What she finds is far more sinister, and unleashes a new evil from Freddy’s derelict restaurant shadows: The Marionette. Afton's daughter, Vanessa Shelly (Elizabeth Lail), tried to subdue and hide the possessed puppet—but now, inhabited by the soul of Afton's bravest victim, Charlotte (Audrey Lynn-Marie), it's vengeful and on the prowl.

Before things get heated, let me confirm the animatronics are innocent. Jim Henson's Creature Shop doubles its presence with the inclusion of "Toy" versions of Freddy's gang. These sleeker, more metallic versions stand just as impressive as the fuzzier, more Chuck E. Cheese iterations we've already beheld, and remain a masterwork of practical effects dominance. Foxy's "Mangle" form, a failed pull-apart activity experiment, gives a freakish junkyard appearance, while The Marionette dangles and flails with a noodle-like uncanniness that juxtaposes Freddy's robotic motions. Tammi understands how to bring these not-so-gentle giants to life and does so with larger-than-life appeal—but that's where my praise stops.

Oh! Animatronics and The Newton Brothers’ partytime score that’s inspired by 8-bit soundtracks and cheesy kiddie restaurant tunes. There, that’s two whole things I applaud! Now, the not so fun stuff.

Fazbear fanatics will know precisely what to expect from Five Nights at Freddy's 2, because Cawthon cares more about parading the hits than reworking his "security guy in a room" playability. Tammi's saddled with a screenplay that's cramming nutritionless Easter eggs down our throat like we’re held hostage in a Cadbury production facility. Is it humorous when Hutcherson mocks a discarded Freddy faceplate, dismissing its use as a disguise—only for it to later work? Sure. But the first film is far savvier about transforming the sedentary Five Nights at Freddy's play style into a feature-length adventure. That movie hardly panders; evolution reimagines Five Nights at Freddy's for theaters. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is a step backward in that regard, trying to one-for-one gameplay elements without realizing how silly the functionality appears on-screen.

Tammi and Cawthon strive to provide a more ferocious horror bite but rely on only one method: jump scares. Cawthon introduces The Marionette as a sock-puppetty villain that possesses humans and turns them into bright-eyed demons, but the film makes frustrating use of the otherwise eerie imagery. I've already written a CineFix script about the art of the jump scare, specifically how it's an additive, not the main course. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 disagrees, and renders itself frightless in the process. Tammi leans into the most conventionally uninteresting tropes of PG-13 horror films in terms of terror (anything interesting happens off-screen), which includes beating jump scares like a dead horse until they're utterly redundant and predictable. Add in a terrible Instagram face-filter for whenever Charlotte inhabits someone's body—lookin' like something that'd only haunt your DMs—and woof does the film's attempt to be spookier land with a thud.

It all feels so … self-conscious and reactionary. Cawthon tries to beat complaints to the punch, which is a recipe for disaster. Don't get me wrong, Five Nights at Freddy's was viciously savaged by critics—but to backpedal almost feels like cowardice. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 makes all the glaring video game adaptation mistakes we've seen before, which stings even worse because its predecessor does not. The game franchise is a convoluted mess of continuity, which is already seeping into Blumhouse's films. Such narrative ridiculousness is more forgivable in video games, where interactivity trumps storytelling, but movies are a different beast. Without Tammi or Cuddeback, Cawthon defaults to a video game mindset that doesn't work the same in Hollywood.

Worst of all, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 suffers from a horrendous third-act problem. In that, it really doesn't have one? Cawthon treats the sequel as feature-length promotional material for whatever comes next. The Marionette deserves so much better than this film, which does a whole lot of setting up without wanting to see anything through. "Don't worry, that'll all get addressed in the sequel," Blumhouse promises as they count fat stacks of ticket sales. Cawthon pelts us with lore and rubs salt in the wounds, dumping reveal after reveal before a blink-and-you'll-miss-it conclusion that displays no fundamental understanding of filmic structure. The movie wants you, so desperately, to gasp at its cliffhanger ending, but all it does is make us want to cut the cord from this on-the-fritz series.

The actors fight tooth and nail to wrestle any modicum of intrigue from their roles, but there are Hallmark specials that read as more genuine. Lail's tortured daughter tries to bury us in Vanessa's trauma—but then pulls a gun on her spin class buddy mid-breakdown, and we're not supposed to laugh? Hutcherson wanders aimlessly through the sequel, filling the void wherever he's needed. Then there's Rubio, the victim of adult bullying by her science teacher because there's an important robotics competition the same day as a town-wide Freddy Fazbear festival. I … can't make this stuff up, and it's all so hackily cobbled together. Skeet Ulrich, Mckenna Grace, Wayne Knight, and Theodus Crane all deserve better in supporting roles that range from rage bait to nameless sidekicks.

Frankly, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is a bare minimum sequel. Everything it's doing lacks enthusiasm. As a horror movie, it lazily pushes characters straight toward danger, stupidly keeps them there, and ruins excitement by tipping every scare. As a video game adaptation, it trots out familiar mechanics and callbacks—red and green buttons! Balloon Boy!—but treats these thrown bones as the main attraction. It's an incomplete sequel, an underwritten coming-of-adolescence story, and as a PG-13 gateway horror film, it'd be laughed out of the cafeteria by the likes of Insidious or Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Game over, pull the plug, reboot the system.

Fortnite fans believe developer Epic Games has indeed relaxed its rules around the depiction of male nudity, as the game's first fully detailed areola have now been spotted.

A shirtless style for the game's new Chapter 7 battle pass skin Carter Wu shows a relatively detailed nipple present and correct on the character's chest — the first in almost a decade of Fortnite history.

The development comes just weeks after fans spotted two telltale dots on the chest of Fortnite's underpants-wearing Homer Simpson skin, and wondered whether the game's long-term decision not to show nips had been reconsidered.

At the time, Homer's design featuring nipples was debated as potentially being an exception to Fortnite's no-nips rule — perhaps due to some licensing requirement, or because his cel-shaded model was low in detail.

But the arrival now of a standard Fortnite skin — prominently available in Chapter 7's first battle pass, no less — suggests otherwise, and points to more nipples likely now appearing within Fortnite in future.

In the past, everyone from Travis Scott to God of War's Kratos, Avatar: The Last Airbender's Aang, WWE's John Cena, Dragonball Z's Goku, and Marvel superheroes such as Drax and The Hulk have all appeared in Fortnite topless, with smooth nipple-less chests. Even third-party creator-made modes have been nipple-free, with a high-profile promotional crossover with body hair shaver brand Philips featuring a smooth-chested model.

Could Epic Games now re-add nipples to previous skins, restoring characters like Kratos to their fully chested glory? We will have to wait and see. IGN has often contacted Epic Games about Fortnite's previous no-nipple policy for more detail, though is yet to receive an official statement on the subject.

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

Creative Assembly’s Total War 25th anniversary showcase featured a number of major announcements in the strategy series, including a brand new game, a significant update to an existing game, and the tease of a new game announcement at The Game Awards.

Total War: Medieval 3 announced

First up, Creative Assembly announced Total War: Medieval 3, the long-awaited return to the franchise’s historical roots, with a live-action reveal trailer. Here’s the official blurb:

Now in early pre-production, this next chapter is both a tribute to its legendary predecessors and a bold revolution for the series. Built as the ultimate medieval strategy sandbox, it will empower players to shape realms, rewrite history, and immerse themselves in the Middle Ages like never before. Combining meticulous historical authenticity with unprecedented player agency, this is more than a sequel, it’s the rebirth of historical Total War.

Total War: Warhammer 3 - Lords of the End Times announced

Next came Total War: Warhammer 3 - Lords of the End Times, which coincides with the subseries’ 10th year. The Lords of The End Times Pack adds four new Legendary Lords into the Immortal Empires campaign experience in summer 2026. The first to be revealed is the great necromancer, Nagash, who returns to reclaim his lost power and drown the world in undeath. These new lords also herald the arrival of the free End Times Update. Here’s the official blurb:

Taking inspiration from the lore, players will face a campaign experience transformed, with apocalyptic scenarios and cataclysmic events that push the boundaries of strategy and survival. And to crown this update, a new Legendary Lord will rise, ready to leave their mark on the cataclysm to come.

Creative Assembly ended the announcement by saying there’s more to come from Total War: Warhammer, insisting “the series is far from over.”

The Warcore game engine to bring Total War to consoles

Next up was the announcement of the Warcore game engine, the latest version of Creative Assembly's own tech which allows for future Total War games to launch on console. Here’s what Creative Assembly had to say:

Building on 25 years of strategy innovation, Warcore is the next evolution of Total War’s proprietary engine. As the most advanced technological foundation in the franchise’s history, it empowers developers with a suite of tools that allows for gameplay to be more immersive, dynamic and responsive than ever before. Designed to evolve over time, it will continue to unlock new capabilities, ensuring the franchise stays at the cutting edge of strategy gaming for years to come. In a franchise first, it also enables future games to be released on PlayStation and Xbox, welcoming a new generation of commanders to the scale, immersion, and tactical mastery that defines Total War.

'Surprise' Total War game set for The Game Awards

The showcase ended with a tease for The Game Awards on December 11, when a “surprise” third game will be revealed. “This title will be Total War’s next major release and represents one of the most ambitious projects in the franchise’s history, marking the beginning of an exciting new era,” Creative Assembly said. “We hope to see you there.”

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.

Our IGN First "cover story" game for December is High on Life 2, the upcoming comedy first-person shooter sequel to the 2022 original breakout hit from Squanch Games. We got our coverage warmed up with the funny in-universe ad for Humanzapro, and then we posted ten minutes of exclusive new gameplay from early in the campaign set in Pinkline Harbor, one of three in-game hubs you'll explore. And today, we've got a boss fight reveal, showing off a battle against Kreg Button, a pirate-themed bounty hunter.

High on Life 2 aims to double down on what worked in the original, with new and returning talking guns voiced by the likes of JB Smoove (Curb Your Enthusiasm), among others. It also adds plenty of new gameplay, such as skateboarding. Check out the new boss fight gameplay below.

Check out the original announcement trailer if you missed it, and stay tuned all December long for more exclusive High on Life 2 content, including more gameplay, new weapon reveals, interviews with the developers, a fresh hands-on preview of the latest build, and more!

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.

The Samsung 9100 Pro is a big, powerful, flagship SSD from one of the biggest names in the game. It brings high-end performance, pushing the limits of its PCIexpress 5.0 interface– on paper, this should be one of the best SSDs ever made, accelerating file transfers and game load times like never before.

But Samsung wasn’t first to market with a top-tier PCIe 5.0 SSD, and there is stiff competition for the kind of cutting-edge performance that Samsung has historically been known for. Still, it is very fast on paper, with a strong endurance rating, five-year warranty, and the option of an attractive, low-profile heatsink for a few dollars extra.

Design and Software

This is a standard M.2 2280 drive, so the dimensions and form-factor will be very familiar for anyone with an NVMe SSD. Samsung sent me the heatsink version of the 9100 Pro and it’s clearly built to a high-standard, with a sturdy, compact design and well machined heatsink fins that give it a quality look and feel. It’s available without the heatsink too, though, should your motherboard have big heatsinks for add-in drives, or you want to use a third-party alternative.

It’s available in sizes from 1TB through 4TB at the time of writing (I’m testing the 2TB version), with plans to release an 8TB model down the line.

Forget CrystalDiskInfo, if you have a Samsung SSD you get to use the excellent Samsung Magician Software which combines detailed drive monitoring with easy data migration, secure erase, drive encryption, and performance benchmarks, among other useful settings and tests.

It’s not something everyone will feel the need to play around with, but if you want to keep a close eye on your new flagship SSD, Samsung’s Magician tracks drive health, system information, and has useful built-in tools like secure erase and drive encryption.

Specs

The specifications for the Samsung 9100 Pro are about as good as you can get with a modern, high-end PCIe 5 SSD. Although that’s never the full picture for any component, Samsung sets off on the right foot with this drive.

The 9100 Pro uses Samsung’s 236-layer TLC NAND Flash, which is the company’s most effective memory to date. This NAND is also used in the older 990 Evo Plus and 990 Pro models, but with a newer controller and interface, this drive is much faster.

The sustained read and write speeds of 14,700 MBps and 13,400 MBps, respectively, are competitive with other top PCIe 5 drives like Sandisk’s WD Black SN8100 and Crucial’s T710. While you’re unlikely to encounter these speeds outside of benchmarks and large file transfers, if you want to move a lot of data around between drives (ideally between two PCIe 5 drives) then the 9100 Pro should do it exceptionally quickly.

The random read and write performance is arguably more impressive, though, and highlights how far we’ve come in “smaller” capacity drives like this, showing how capable Samsung’s top flash designs are.

The endurance rating of 1200 TBW for this 2TB model (up to 4800 TBW for the 8TB model) is plenty for the average user, though there are more durable professional drives out there if you expect to hammer yours on a daily basis for professional workloads.

The Samsung 9100 Pro joins the high-end PCIe 5 market at a time of increasing competition. There are standouts like the Crucial T705 with its huge heatsink and impressive numbers leading the pack, but its high price of $260 reflects that. The WD SN8100 offers similar specs at a similar price, giving the 9100 Pro at $260 some real head to head action with little separating them. Ditch the heatsinks and their prices match up even closer.

Then there’s the slightly slower, but still fast Corsair MP700 Pro and Elite, which are still blazingly fast in real-world workloads, but significantly cheaper.

Considering the limited utility for the cutting-edge performance of a top PCIe 5 SSD in 2025, too, it’s also worth considering high-end PCIe 4 drives. Those include Samsung’s own 990 Pro, which is available at the same capacity for just $150.

Performance

To test the 9100 Pro I fitted it to my test system with an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, an Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero, 32GB of RAM at 5,200MHz and a Radeon RX 7900 XTX. I installed the drive in the top-most PCIe 5 NVMe slot and tested on a brand new installation of Windows 11 running the latest 24H2 version, with the latest drivers and BIOS updates applied.

In CrystalDiskMark, the 9100 Pro actually surpassed its rated sustained read and write performance showing how utterly fast this drive can be when shifting raw data around.

That was backed up by my 10GB file transfer test. Moving it from a PCIe 4 WD SN850X 2TB model to the 9100 Pro (Write) took just 3.9 seconds, and moving it back again (Read) was even faster, at 3.4 seconds. If you frequently move large files or folders between drives and want one that will do it exceptionally quickly, the 9100 Pro is among the fastest there is.

In real-world gaming benchmarks I saw equally impressive results. When running the Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail benchmark, we clocked a total loading time of just 6.2 seconds. All scenes loaded in under two seconds, and the first and fifth were well under a second a piece. That’s not much faster than a high-end PCIe 4 SSD, but it’s still plenty fast.

The only place where I found any kind of anomalous performance was in 3D Mark Storage. There I recorded a respectable, if unimpressive, 3,269 points, with an average access time around 55 micro-seconds.

Although I’m not the only one to have recorded a sub-4000 score with this particular drive on this particular benchmark, many contemporaries have managed 5-6,000+ scores. Iran it multiple times and it came back the same every time. I initially thought it might be the SLC running out, but I had similar performance throughout all the individual test runs during the benchmark.

I’ve reached out to Samsung for comment and will update this review if and when I hear back.

One area where this drive did really impress me, though, was temperature. Although the drive itself gets blisteringly hot to the point that touching it became a legitimate burn hazard, the controller inside was chilly the entire time. Even after sustained load during the 3D Mark test run, it didn’t even break 40 degrees.

That said, this drive is clearly putting out a lot of heat so I’d recommend the heatsink or some kind of strong active cooling.

Creative Assembly has announced Total War: Medieval 3, the next mainline game in its long-running strategy series.

Unveiled at Creative Assembly’s 25th anniversary showcase, Total War: Medieval 3 is a return to the franchise’s historical roots, but, according to the developer, it is also a “bold revolution.” No release window was mentioned, but it sounds like a way off as Creative Assembly said the project was in early pre-production.

“Built as the ultimate medieval strategy sandbox, it will empower players to shape realms, rewrite history, and immerse themselves in the Middle Ages like never before,” Creative Assembly said. “Combining meticulous historical authenticity with unprecedented player agency, this is more than a sequel, it’s the rebirth of historical Total War.”

Creative Assembly announced the game with a live-action teaser and a selection of concept art, below.

The announcement of Total War: Medieval 3 comes alongside the reveal of the Warcore game engine, which Creative Assembly said is the “next evolution” of Total War’s proprietary engine.

“As the most advanced technological foundation in the franchise’s history, it empowers developers with a suite of tools that allows for gameplay to be more immersive, dynamic and responsive than ever before,” Creative Assembly said.

“Designed to evolve over time, it will continue to unlock new capabilities, ensuring the franchise stays at the cutting edge of strategy gaming for years to come.”

The Warcore engine means future Total War games can be released on PlayStation and Xbox for the first time, Creative Assembly added.

Creative Assembly also teased a new game announcement at The Game Awards on December 11. This will be Total War’s “next major release” and “represents one of the most ambitious projects in the franchise’s history, marking the beginning of an exciting new era.”

It's a busy time for the Sega-owned studio, which is also working on continued updates to Total War: Warhammer 3, as well as Alien: Isolation 2. Check out everything announced at the Total War 25th Anniversary showcase right here.

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.

Update: In the time since we published this article, Amazon has unveiled another two bundles. The retailer is offering a pair of bundles, both at a 9% discount.

It looks as though the live-action Tomb Raider Amazon series, which will star Game of Thrones alum Sophie Turner, will revamp the beloved video game franchise, so get ready for an all-new Lara Croft.

Story Kitchen, a production company dedicated to video game adaptations in film, recently revealed some new details about their partnership with Amazon MGM studios, who is distributing the series, and Crystal Dynamics, the company that created the iconic game series. According to their website, the new Tomb Raider series will “reinvent the franchise on a massive scale” and will interconnect “live-action television series and video games into a unified storytelling universe.”

For Amazon, Fleabag star and writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge will be taking the helm here, “spearheading the next chapter of Tomb Raider, launching an ambitious reimagining of the Lara Croft universe.”

Jonathan Van Tulleken, who is known for his work on the highly regarded FX series Shogun, will direct and serve as executive producer on the series alongside Chad Hodge, who will also serve as co-showrunner with Waller-Bridge.

The series was first reported to be in development in January 2023 and was officially greenlit at Prime Video over a year later in May 2024. In November 2024, Turner was first connected to the project, and she was confirmed to star nearly over a year later, just a few months ago.

“I’m so excited to announce the formidable Sophie Turner as our Lara alongside this phenomenal creative team,” Waller-Bridge said at the time. “It’s not very often you get to make a show of this scale with a character you grew up loving. Everyone on board is wildly passionate about Lara and are all as outrageous, brave, and hilarious as she is. Get your artifacts out… Croft is coming…”

In early September, it was reported that the show would begin filming in January 2026, so we don’t have any release information just yet — but for fans of the franchise, it’s worth noting that the final season of the animated series Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft will be released on December 11.

Photo by Marc Piasecki/WireImage.

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

Fallout: New Vegas turned 15 this year, and to celebrate, Bethesda announced a Fallout: New Vegas 15th Anniversary Bundle back in October. For those who simply can't wait to get their hands on a bundle of their own, preorders are now finally live at Amazon (as well as at the Bethesda Gear Store) for $154.99.

Unfortunately, there's still a little ways to wait before fans will be able to boot it up in their PCs, as it's currently set to be released on June 30, 2026. So it'll have to be a slightly delayed anniversary celebration, but a fun one nonetheless.

Preorder the Fallout: New Vegas: 15th Anniversary Bundle

This looks like the ultimate bundle for New Vegas fans to enjoy, too. First and foremost, it comes with a PC digital code for Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition, which includes the Dead Money DLC, Honest Hearts DLC, Old World Blues DLC, Lonesome Road DLC, Courier’s Stash Weapon Pack, and Gun Runner’s Arsenal Weapon Pack. What's even better, though, is that it comes packaged in a retro Collector’s Big Box (which can be seen in the photo above) which was exclusively made to celebrate the game's anniversary.

Alongside the PC code and collector's box, it also comes with an 8-inch PVC statue of Victor the Securitron, a set of Doc Mitchell’s evaluation cards, a Vault Boy enamel pin, a Mojave Express patch, and an NCR Recon patch. What better collection to have to celebrate 15 years of this excellent game? Plus, with the Fallout TV show heading to New Vegas for its second season, there's no better time to play it.

Looking for even more Fallout-themed items to pick up, whether for fun or shopping for a fan for the holidays ahead? Check out our guide to the best Fallout gear and collectibles to see some more of our favorite picks, alongside this bundle, that we think are well worth a look right now.

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