The story campaign in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has numerous restrictions tied to its always-online nature, with no method of pausing levels. You'll also be booted from your game if you're idle for too long.
As detailed in IGN's just-published Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 campaign review (which rates the offering as a 6/10), the story experience — traditionally offered as a solo affair — is really more geared to being played via online co-op, which it supports for up to four people.
The downsides of that, however, are that the game offers no AI companions to fill in if you have missing spots on your four-person squad, no checkpoints, no difficulty options, and the need to repeat tasks clearly designed for completion by multiple players if you are playing solo.
"Playing solo is borderline tedious due to having to repeat multiple objectives, such as placing C4 on a building yourself four times rather than splitting them up as is intended," our review notes as one example of this.
Set in 2035, Black Ops 7's campaign features a starry cast that includes Gilmore Girls and This is Us star Milo Ventimiglia as the returning David Mason, alongside Guardians of the Galaxy hero Michael Rooker and Sabrina the Teenage Witch actress Kiernan Shipka.
Long-term Call of Duty fans may raise their eyebrows at some of the more fantastical sequences presented in the mode, with trippy visuals and towering bosses more often seen in something like Activision's former stablemate Destiny. But it's here that the offering also provides some variety.
"Dodging giant falling machetes like you’ve stumbled into a Looney Tunes cartoon is a one-off joy, as is taking control of a lavish luxury boat and ramming into the side of a building," our review continues. "Moments like this feel pinched right out of Christopher Nolan's back pocket and sit perfectly in the Call of Duty mold."
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 arrives just 12 months on from last year's Black Ops 6 — the first time that the veteran shooter franchise has gone back to the same well of one of its sub-brands for a second year running. The tight turnaround comes just as EA's rival Battlefield franchise makes its own big return, amping up the pressure on Activision's new shooter installment.
Plants Vs Brainrots is a Roblox experience that combines elements of Tower Defence with mechanics from Roblox's two most visited and played games – Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot. You'll buy seeds, place them in your garden, and then wait for your plants to attack brainrots as they make their way down the catwalk.
As well as combining gameplay elements from both experiences, Plants Vs Brainrots also has codes. So, if you're getting ready to plant crops, earn brainrots, and fuse them, here are some codes to give you a little boost.
Working Plants Vs Brainrots Codes (November 2025)
These are the currently working codes for Plants Vs Brainrots:
STACKS - 1x Lucky Potion
frozen - 1x Frost Grenade
based - $5,000
Expired Plants Vs Brainrots Codes (November 2025)
There are currently no expired Plants Vs Brainrots codes.
How to Redeem Plants Vs Brainrots Codes
When you launch into the Plants Vs Brainrots experience, these are the steps you need to follow to redeem codes:
Complete the tutorial of buying a seed and placing a brainrot
This will unlock the Shop icon on the left of the screen. It's red and looks like a shopping basket.
Scroll down to the bottom of the shop and click "Codes" under rewards
Enter the code and press Claim!
Why Isn't My Plants Vs Brainrots Code Working?
Codes for Roblox experiences are usually case-sensitive, so the best way to ensure you've got a working code is to directly copy it from this article. We check all codes before we upload them, so you can guarantee they're working. Just double check that you haven't copied over an extra space!
When is the Next Plants Vs Brainrots Update?
The next update scheduled for Plants Vs Brainrots is on Saturday November 15, which is an unknown update. The previous update was Merge Madness, which introduced a new fusion machine alongside other content like new weather, brainrots, story missions, an dmore.
Lauren Harper is an Associate Guides Editor. She loves a variety of games but is especially fond of puzzles, horrors, and point-and-click adventures.
Miles Teller has said the notorious failure of his 2015 Fantastic Four film was the result of "one really important person who kind of f***ed it all up."
Widely panned upon release, the movie was mauled by critics and flopped commercially, earning just $168 million on a $120 million production budget. Now, lead actor Miles Teller has placed the project's failure squarely on a particular individual — and it doesn't take much to guess who he's referring to.
"When I first saw the movie, I remember talking to one of the studio heads and said, 'I think we're in trouble,'" Teller said in an interview on Andy Cohen's SiriusXM talk show, per Variety, while praising his on-screen co-stars. "It's unfortunate for that, because so many people worked so hard on that movie," Teller concluded. "And honestly, maybe there was one really important person who kind of f***ed it all up."
"As a young actor at that time, it's like, 'Alright, if you want to be taken seriously as a leading man, you got to get on this superhero train. That was our chance," Teller said. "And the casting, I thought, was spectacular. I love all those actors."
Fantastic Four starred Whiplash and Top Gun: Maverick actor Teller as Reed Richards, with House of Cards' Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Black Panther's Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm and Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell as The Thing. The project was directed by Josh Trank, who won a Razzie Award for his work.
"Flame on? More like a flameout for this dreary reboot of the Fantastic Four," IGN wrote in its 5/10 Fantastic Four review at the time.
In more recent years, Trank himself has admitted his shortcomings on the project, and suggested he had still been too green for so big a movie. "What I tried to do with Fantastic Four was so arrogant for somebody who hadn't really gotten the handle of his own skill set as a filmmaker to do that kind of stuff with it," he said in 2020.
As many fans had expected, Superman and Lex Luthor will reportedly form an uneasy alliance to defeat Braniac in James Gunn's upcoming Man of Tomorrow.
Speculation that classic Superman villain Brainiac would be the movie's big bad has been rife among fans ever since Gunn teased a script image back in September showing an anatomical illustration of a brain.
Now, The Wrap states that it has confirmed Brainiac is indeed Man of Tomorrow's main focus, and the reason that David Corenswet's Superman and Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor are forced to team up together.
Aside from Gunn's prior tease, Brainiac's appearance in the Superman sequel simply makes a lot of sense. The list of classic villains big enough to spark a Superman/Lex alliance was never a long one, and the appearance of Brainiac will likely benefit from the character not having appeared in a big Superman movie before.
Frequently depicted as a green-skinned cyborg, Brainiac could easily be seen as a threat to both Superman and Lex, as his alien hunger to dominate the universe is only outmatched by his galaxy-brained intellect.
"It is a story about Lex Luthor and Superman having to work together, to a certain degree, against a much, much bigger threat," Gunn teased previously. "And it's more complicated than that. It's as much a Lex movie as it is a Superman movie. I relate to the character of Lex Luthor, sadly."
At the time, fans pointed to Brainiac as the perfect foil for the smart but jealous Luthor, who would likely be unhappy getting usurped again.
"That's the center of Lex for me," Gunn continued, discussing Luthor's out of control jealousy. "Three years ago, before Superman came along, he was considered the greatest guy in the world, even with other metahumans and superheroes in the world. And then in one fell swoop, this guy comes in wearing a silly costume, with dimples, and a charming smile, and a great chin, and he's forgotten."
If you've ever wanted to run your own zoo, then Raise Animals is the Roblox experience for you. Though you'll start with just a single animal, you can race along an obstacle course, taming new animals with your lasso to bring them back to your farm. Feed your animals, level them up, and unlock new mutations that will increase the value of your zoo, so visitors will pay more to see your collection. Want a head start? Here are all the codes that are currently active for Raise Animals.
Working Raise Animals Codes
These codes are currently active and can be redeemed in Raise Animals:
When you're ready to redeem your Raise Animals codes, launch the Roblox experience. You'll then need to join the Raise Animals Studio group before you can redeem codes. Once you've done that, follow these steps to get your freebies:
Click the gear icon in the top right corner to open settings
Scroll down to "Redeem Code"
Copy the code from this article and paste it into the box
Click redeem!
Expired Raise Animals Codes
The following codes have now expired:
Sorry4Bugs
HappyHalloween!
1MGroupMembers
SorryForAllTheBugs
Update1
50MVisitsTysm
Ocean
SryForTheGamepassIssue
10MVisitsTysms
10KActiveTysm
Release!
FREE RANDOM ANIMALS
5MVisitsTysm
1MVisitsTysm
5KActiveTysm
3KActiveTysm
SorryForBugs
Why Isn't My Raise Animals Code Working?
Codes for Roblox experiences are usually case-sensitive, so the best way to ensure you've got a working code is to directly copy it from this article. We check all codes before we upload them, so you can guarantee they're working. Just double-check that you haven't copied over an extra space!
Lauren Harper is an Associate Guides Editor. She loves a variety of games but is especially fond of puzzles, horrors, and point-and-click adventures.
Looking for additional SkyBux to customize and upgrade your airline? This article has you covered! Here you can find a list of all currently active Cabin Crew Simulator codes. Redeem them to boost your SkyBux and spend them on in-flight meals, travel to different destinations, and new aircraft in Roblox.
Working Cabin Crew Simulator Codes (November 2025)
Here are the currently active Cabin Crew Simulator codes for November 2025 and the rewards you'll get for redeeming them:
dreamliner - 3,000 Skybux (NEW)
spider - 2,000 Skybux (NEW)
migrate - 2,000 Skybux
avro - 3,000 Skybux
lounge - 3,000 Skybux
1m - 5,000 Skybux
dubai - 2,500 Skybux
amenity - 2,500 Skybux
candycane - 1,800 Skybux
trees - 1,500 Skybux
spooky - 2,000 SkyBux
london - 1,500 SkyBux
200m - 2,000 SkyBux
myles - 2,000 SkyBux
All Expired Cabin Crew Simulator Codes
The following codes can no longer be redeemed as of November 2025:
ally
gear
easter2025
airport
star
customize
decoration
100m
airstairs
service
galley
boba
jetway
badge
snow
pilot
landing
cruising
captain
evacuate
airliner
mission
wheelsup
How to Redeem Cabin Crew Simulator Codes
To redeem Cabin Crew Simulator codes, you'll need to follow these steps:
Load up Cabin Crew Simulator on Roblox
Press Play
Look for the giftbox icon on the left-hand side of the screen
Paste the code into the box then press enter or the Claim button
Why Isn't My Cabin Crew Simulator Code Working?
When a Cabin Crew Simulator isn't working, it's usually for two reasons. Either the code has expired of it's a typo. When it's a typo, it will say "Invalid Code" when you press enter. To avoid typos being an issue, we'd recommend copying the codes directly from this article, then pasting them into the codes box in Cabin Crew Simulator. If a code is no longer redeemable, it will say "Expired" when you hit enter.
How to Get More Cabin Crew Simulator Codes
We'll keep this article updated each day, but if you want to get Cabin Crew Simulator codes as soon as they drop, you'll want to follow @CabinCrewRBLX on X. There is also a Discord channel for Cruising Studios, where codes are posted in the Announcements channel.
What is Cabin Crew Simulator in Roblox?
The aim of Cabin Crew Simulator is to create your own successful airline and aircraft. You'll be thrown into the role of Cabin Crew, who is responsible for making sure passengers enjoy their flights and arrive safely at their destinations.
You'll need to perform various tasks during flights, from boarding passengers to serving them drinks and snacks, all of which will reward you with SkyBux. The in-game currency will allow you to purchase bigger airplanes, unlock new destinations, upgrade your uniform, and more.
Lauren Harper is a freelance writer and editor who has covered news, reviews, and features for over a decade in various industries. She has contributed to guides at IGN for games including Elden Ring, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Starfield, Pikmin 4, and more. With an MA in Victorian Gothic History and Culture, she loves anything that falls under that category. She's also a huge fan of point-and-click adventures, horror games and films. You can talk to her about your favourites over at @prettyheartache.bsky.social.
Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed again, this time to November 19, 2026, and while the fan community is reeling in its own way, the impacts are not limited to just GTA’s eager audience. Grand Theft Auto is a juggernaut, with GTA V having sold 220 million copies to date, GTA Online still a wildly popular space month after month, and anticipation for the sequel breaking trailer viewership records. With a game’s release as hot as this one, what does moving it to a year away mean for everyone else? How will GTA VI’s delay impact the wider games industry?
As usual, we consulted our favorite panel of industry analysts to get their takes.
Delay-shaped ripples
It probably goes without saying, but GTA VI’s delay into November of 2026 also means that behind the scenes, dozens of publishers are now reevaluating their own planned release dates.
At the moment, analysts point out, there aren’t that many games with public release dates specifically set for the final three months of 2026. But companies of course have their own internal plans, and those plans have been actively shifting around both GTA VI delays, out of sight, this entire time. That could mean a much, much thinner slate of game releases at a time that’s normally bursting with games, says Rhys Elliott, head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics.
“Publishers historically avoid launching anything major within several weeks of a Rockstar title. Sadly, GTA now again lands squarely in what is usually a packed holiday window. I can see the typical Q4 blockbuster season looking considerably thinner in 2026, especially when it comes to the single-player titles.”
Manu Rosier, director of market intelligence at Newzoo agrees,pointing out that major publishers have probably already modeled multiple scenarios that include a GTA VI delay, and have plans for where to move their own games instead – plans that may benefit them in the long run.
“Newzoo’s title-level data shows that nearly 45% of major single-player launches since 2021 have landed between August and November, and those late-year releases underperform by roughly 25–35% compared to February–May launches in their first three months of playtime,” Rosier says. “That means a shift out of that congested window could benefit GTA VI and other game launches nearby.”
Even without release dates set already, there are some games we can genuinely count on coming out late in the year, such as a Call of Duty game, EA Sports FC, and Madden. Analysts told me that it’s possible this GTA VI delay causes at least some of them to move out of their usual corner late in the year to another date either earlier or later than usual.
“GTA will also steal engagement and revenues from the current live-service juggernauts like Fortnite and Roblox, which are always having an engagement tug of war, anyway,” Elliott continues. “All these games – and indeed the entertainment industry at large – will be competing with GTA VI for time and attention. Both money and time are finite, so GTA is going to eat up revenue and engagement across the market.”
Rosier disagrees, saying live-service games will be largely unaffected by GTA VI regardless of where it lands.
“Newzoo’s engagement data shows that average monthly playtime across the top 20 console titles has remained up year-over-year, with live-service games accounting for more than half of total console playtime. Those ecosystems will keep momentum regardless of whether GTA VI arrives in spring or later in 2026.”
It’s not just AAA games that will be impacted, too. George Jijiashvili, senior principal analyst at Omdia suggests that major publishers will be cautious about making big changes to their own dates after two GTA VI delays and with a whole year to go. “The real impact will fall on indies and AA games, which are most sensitive to major launches and likely to feel a much bigger ripple effect.”
Upgrades for the Holidays
But while there may be fewer brand new games coming out around the 2026 holiday season, analysts are optimistic for sales of hardware.
“This is the big question that I've been talking with retailers and publishers about for, well, years now,” says Mat Piscatella, senior director at Circana. “When GTA V launched, there was a positive impact to sales of console hardware and accessories in the launch month, but that incremental boost was short lived before sales returned more or less to previous baseline. But that did not happen in a holiday window, so I'd expect the positive impact here to potentially be more profound. Let's call it somewhere between 250k-800k incremental units of console hardware sold in the holiday quarter worldwide above what would otherwise be expected because of Grand Theft Auto VI (yes, that's a big range). It's very difficult to say with any confidence.
Piscatella adds that if a PC version were released around the same time, that would boost PC hardware and accessory sales in the same way. But, he caveats everything by noting that he’s making future predictions based on what happened over ten years ago at the launch of GTA V. Things could always be different now.
But Elliott does agree with him, pointing to College Football 25’s launch last year boosting PS5 and Xbox Series sales in the US last year. GTA VI is much bigger.
“While most are on PS5, a huge share of PlayStation’s monthly active users are still on PS4, and GTA VI will not ship on last-gen consoles,” he says. “Many of the holdout players have been waiting specifically for GTA to justify purchasing a PS5 (or Series X/S). That wave of new console owners – and their spending – has now been pushed deeper into 2027.”
Piers Harding-Rolls, research director at Ampere analysis, also noted that "console sales will be even more back loaded in 2026 than is normal," and told me he thinks this move was one the hardware manufacturers would celebrate: "Generally, in terms of launch timing to generate the most console sales, I think a Q4 release is better than Q2."
Will this delay impact GTA VI’s sales?
No.
Literally every analyst I asked said no, GTA VI’s delay won’t impact its sales. Interest and anticipation for GTA VI are off the charts, historically unprecedented, according to Piscatella and Rosier. Piscatella added that GTA VI’s November release would likely make Q4 2026 the biggest in video game history in terms of U.S. game spending.
“Grand Theft Auto is such an outlier franchise when it comes to this stuff that the sky really is the limit, and because it is an outlier in so many ways there aren't benchmarks from which a reliable forecast can really be generated.”
Other Impacts
The analysts I spoke to also mentioned other possible impacts of the delay that I hadn’t considered. One big one, which turned out to be controversial, was whether or not GTA VI’s delay could also end up delaying the release of next-gen consoles.
Other impacts were a bit more…psychological. Elliott pointed out that GTA VI was likely to be a cultural moment where entertainment, internet, and social identity all collided in a very public way. While it would be impossible to ever say exactly how the delay impacted that, the timing of GTA VI’s release will inevitably fall into a very specific cultural time and moment in politics and online culture, and will both influence and be influenced by what’s going on around it.
“Each major GTA release has shaped how people joke, what music goes viral, how cities are portrayed in art and media, and even how players relate to the idea of rebellion in their daily lives,” he said. “A launch in holiday 2025 or early to mid-2026 would have placed that cultural shift inside a very specific online environment, one defined by the competition between TikTok, Reels, YouTube Shorts, and livestreaming for social dominance. That timing would have made GTA the loudest voice in a conversation driven by rapid content remixing and constant viral cycles. In other words, the memes that could have defined 2026 will instead take shape in 2027!”
Rosier also posed the question of psychological impact, but from a different angle. His view is that the delay itself, regardless of when the game releases, signals something much bigger going on in the AAA gaming industry that other major publishers are watching close:
“A GTA VI delay reinforces the growing tension between creative ambition and production realities in AAA development. It’s another signal that even the most established studios are struggling to balance scale, technology, and timelines.
“Newzoo’s historical engagement data shows that single-player titles typically retain 40% of their active players by week 5 and stabilize between weeks 6–12, declining only ~1% per week thereafter. That means publishers can fill gaps between major launches with live-service content, updates, or early-access beats to sustain engagement.
“From a market view, the broader PC & console segment is forecast to reach $85.8 billion in 2025 and continue growing through 2028, supported by rising engagement rather than an expanding release slate. Publishers are learning that the industry’s biggest risk isn’t fewer releases, it’s announcing too early.”
Joost van Dreunen, NYU Stern professor and author of the SuperJoost Playlist newsletter, was thinking along similar lines. As he points out, the industry has been going through a rough patch the last few years, with mass layoffs, game cancelations, studio closures, price increases, and general economic uncertainty. While there’s a sense from a number of sectors that GTA VI could swoop in and be the industry savior, van Dreunen cautions against putting too many hopes on one game – even one as big as GTA VI:
There’s even a somewhat naive expectation that this one release will reverse the industry’s current direction. It won’t.
“After the high comes the hangover,” he said. “I realize that many in the industry are looking forward to this undoubtedly pivotal moment. There’s even a somewhat naive expectation that this one release will reverse the industry’s current direction. It won’t. Once Take-Two releases the game, and both players and investors each enjoy their respective highs, I expect a period of sobriety to follow. In the absence of any similar releases in the near future especially investors are likely to redeploy their capital elsewhere, thereby lowering the industry’s overall valuation.”
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.
Full Disclosure: This is a sponsored article Written by Keysfan With Windows 10 no longer receiving security updates since mid-October, upgrading your system is no longer optional — but it doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. During the Keysfan early Black Friday Sale, you can grab a Windows 11 Professional lifetime license for just … Continue reading Genuine Windows 11 Pro Now only $14.8 and MS Office 2021 only $33 this early Black Friday Sale→
Activision has just released Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 on PC. The game supports NVIDIA DLSS 4 and Ray Tracing out of the gate. So, before publishing our PC Performance Analysis, I decided to take a look at them. For these early benchmarks, I used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at … Continue reading Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 – DLSS 4 & Ray Tracing Benchmarks→
Note: This review specifically covers the multiplayer in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. For our thoughts on the other modes, see our campaign review, and our Zombies mode review is still on its way.
After a very promising multiplayer beta at the start of October, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is here and I'm already back on my bullshit. After a brief hiatus, I've been playing every year since the multiplayer-only Black Ops IIII (yes, that was the title), and I always have a good time. I mean, functionally and mechanically, it's consistently solid – but it's the stuff in and around that core which makes or breaks Call of Duty’s multiplayer. For Black Ops 7, they've refined last year’s already razor sharp Black Ops 6 with the addition of wall running and jumping mechanics, as well as smoothed off some of the rough edges in the user interface and weapons tracking. I've only played around four hours so far, so I have a lot more to see on the live servers before my final review, but this might end up being my favorite CoD multiplayer since Black Ops Cold War.
Probably the biggest change to BLOPS7 is also its most subtle: skill-based matchmaking (or SBMM) is no longer the default in multiplayer, and the vocal online community that has been crying for this couldn't be happier. Is the wider, more casual Call of Duty audience going to be just as excited? I'm guessing no once they feel the effects of this decision for themselves. This might be a controversial take, but I really think SBMM is what keeps the vast majority of people playing, even if they don't realize it or actually know what that is in the first place.
The default playlists in BLOPS7 now only minimally consider the skill of the people it puts into a match together while filling a lobby. That means you're getting thrown in with players who run the gamut, from complete newbs to the most hardcore of the hardcore. If you're used to the old SBMM system, the result here is that you're probably going to think you really suck at Call of Duty all of a sudden.
I never held any sort of delusions about my own skills, and I didn’t need to be a pro to have fun, but stripping away the veneer of only facing players at a similar level as myself has been pretty humbling – almost shockingly so. I'm seeing replays from players who are unlike anything I've faced in the past. "Is this guy cheating– oh, nope, he's just insanely good, hell yeah."
It’s nice that both those who like SBMM and those who don't can be satisfied.
The obvious upside to this (other than satisfying the frequent cries for it in recent years) is it's going to force a lot of people to get better. But the downside is that it can be very frustrating until you do, especially if you’ve only ever been used to a level playing field. That’s why I think it's awesome BLOPS7 does still have SBMM matches available if you want them. It's not obvious, but there is a classic matchmaking lobby that pairs you with people near your current skill level. My personal prediction is that they'll shift the default back to SBMM once the Christmas CoD crowd starts logging on for the first time, but it’s still nice that both camps can be satisfied.
(Protip: use the SBMM lobbies to grind out your levels and weapons, and then dive into the default matchmaking when you feel confident. It's the best of both worlds. You can do all the level and camo grinding against people near your own skill level, and then jump back into the Wild West to hone your actual skills. Have some cake. Eat it, too.)
Smoothing the Already Smooth Edges
None of this takes away from the fact BLOPS7 multiplayer is super fun, and it's done away with a lot of the things I found annoying in previous years. As I mention nearly every time I review CoD multiplayer, I love going hard trying to unlock all the skins for all the weapons for the first three or four months at least. This year, there's a new, wonderful tracker you can instantly access from the lobby between matches. It's right there with your Dailies, showing you stuff like how many more headshots you need with the AK-27 to unlock the next camo.
This is so awesome for collectors like me. Previously, the move was to jump into the weapon menu and check your customizations, then open up the camo menu and check your progress. It was cumbersome and annoying and ate up time between matches you could otherwise be using to make adjustments to your loadout, if you wanted. Now, with the press of a button, boom!
Another feature I'm loving is the ability to reroll your daily challenges. Let's say one of them requires you to get three kills with a melee weapon, but you'd rather not. Give it a reroll, my friend, and now you can try out something new. Of course, you run the risk of getting something crappier, but that's gambling for you. You can reroll one challenge once a day, and if you end up with something worse, well, it's no different than the old system.
One very small gripe I do have with the interface is the weapons menu will tell me I have new unlocks but not which ones, so then I have to go through and manually hunt them down. I'm the kind of person who'll do "select all – mark as read" on my personal emails rather than have that notification number above the icon, so not being able to easily clear this gives my brain some mild discomfort. I'd love an option to immediately show you only the unlocks you haven't checked out yet.
20v20 Skirmish
New this year is the 20v20 Skirmish mode. Set on very large maps, it feels quite Battlefield-y so far. I much preferred the Ground War 100-player mode from 2019's Modern Warfare and still want that to come back, as Skirmish just doesn't hit the same notes.
You spawn with your team and move in to capture and control various points across the map. It's basically a giant version of Hardpoint, but with vehicles and certain high-value designations that help you accumulate points. When you die, you have a 10-second respawn and then you wingsuit back onto the map. I've only played Skirmish for a couple rounds so far, and I dunno, man – it just hasn’t felt like it comes together in a cohesive way yet. The maps are giant, but not Warzone huge, and I'm having a hard time feeling out a playstyle that works for me.
Sniping fools from the rooftops while they try and hold the point is fun, but you're also completely wide open to getting blasted since everyone respawns from the air. And those reentries are not like the slow parachutes in Warzone, either. The wingsuit lets you travel fast and gives you a lot of mobility. You can land basically anywhere on the map, so if a pesky sniper has you pinned down, well, just respawn, land near their sniper nest, and let them have it. You're almost incentivized to die just to get a better position on the field.
When a point spawns inside a structure, it's not really fun to protect from the outside for the aforementioned reasons, but it's also not really that fun to try and hold from the inside. It's very chaotic, but not in an exciting way. I'm going to see if I can figure out a playstyle that satisfies my particular tastes, but right now I don't see myself playing Skirmish much after I finish up this review.
Moving, Grooving
As I mentioned in my beta impressions (which you can read in full down below), the addition of wall jumps has made movement around the map that much more fun. That said, the tactical sprint is no longer available as a default option, but instead is a Perk now. I still find myself double-tapping the Shift key to try and get that extra boost of speed, but it’s not a huge loss when sprinting off walls and flying through the air is way more fun, anyway.
I really love bouncing off walls to get the literal drop on opponents, and when someone gets me by jumping from around a corner, guns blazing, all I can do is nod and give them a mental thumbs up. Somehow being able to run and jump off walls makes the overall gameplay feel faster, even without Tac Sprint. Definitely my favorite update to the Omnimove system. Last year it really felt like Omnimove was designed with controller-players in mind, and while that's still the case, the wall jump mechanic works just like any regular movement and is great for mouse and keyboard purists like myself.
I'm very excited to jump back into the multiplayer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. I haven't played it enough to declare a favorite map, although I will say Den and Retrieval are already my favorites in terms of looks. I still have to figure out my strategies for all the launch maps, and I still have to get good enough to get that sweet Play of the Game I've been chasing since the servers went live. But I’m having a lot of fun so far, and should have a final, scored review in the next week or so.
Original beta impressions - October 3, 2025
I look forward to the Call of Duty multiplayer beta each fall in the same way I look forward to the return of pumpkin spice lattes: I know exactly what I'm in for, and I always savor that first warm, familiar sip. This year's closed beta is the blast of violent, nutmeg-infused flavor I've been looking for since that first northerly chill swept across the land, and while it definitely feels like the CoD I’ve come to expect, there are a few new features I'm already really enjoying and a few more I'm really looking forward to unlocking.
I installed the beta Thursday afternoon and had planned to play it well into the night, rallying my dedicated group of Call of Duty friends (the Beef Lords) to join in on the fun. In fact, playing with the boys is absolutely my favorite thing about CoD, and even a given year’s iteration is only so-so, we still have a good time together.
Sadly, and I can't really fault it since this is a closed beta, every time I tried to squad up with my friends, I had a hard crash. In fact, it felt like I spent more time waiting for BLOPS7 to restart than I did in matches. That's a huge bummer, because I just want to run around shooting strangers in the face with my bros. Eventually I was able to get into a few matches with one friends, and good old Call of Duty fun was had by all. It still crashed, but only after a few matches this time. I had initially planned to hit the level 20 cap last night, but with all the time I wasted rebooting not only the BLOPS7 beta but also my PC, I was only able to make it to level 14. I know. I'm not proud.
Crashing aside, and no surprise here, but I’ve had a blast with what I’ve been able to play so far. I mean, it's Call of Duty, where the whole point is either to rack up as many kills as possible, or hold an objective… while also racking up as many kills as possible. I truly believe no one does it better than CoD, at least when it comes to gunplay. It's razor-sharp every damn year. It works exactly how I want it to work, it feels exactly how I want it to feel. It's as dependable as the sun rising in the east each morning.
Omnimovement, Omnimprovement
The biggest and most immediate changes this year are updates to the Omnimove system first introduced in last year's Black Ops 6. If you're not familiar, Omnimovement is a control mechanic that lets you perform John Woo-esque flights of gun-firing fancy, while also allowing you to move around more naturally when you're on the ground. Previously, dropping prone would reduce your target size but would render your movement slow and cumbersome. Omnimovement lets you slide to prone and do sick dolphin dives, mantle walls, and look like an action movie star in everyone else's clips, firing your weapon with 360-degrees of aiming movement while on your back.
This year's Omnimovement system adds wall running and wall jumping to your arsenal. It basically lets you hop around the map like Jiminy Cricket, as you can chain up to three wall jumps together. It's really fun, though I haven't really used it tactically so far. Mostly I'm flying off walls just because it feels awesome, and if I happen to get the literal drop on an enemy, all the better.
It also makes moving around the map faster and gives you an advantage over mantling. When you mantle a ledge, your arms can't be used to shooting, on account of them being used to pull you up and onto that ledge. On top of that, it's kind of slow, and an opponent can use this to their advantage. You're basically a sitting duck until you get your feet all the way up, and those few moments can be the difference between life and death… well, usually death and a different kind of death.
Wall jumps change that, because rather than mantle over a ledge in the traditional way, you can just bounce off the wall and make your way to the top without using your arms. You never have to put away your weapon – heck, you don't even need to stop firing your weapon. It takes away that moment of complete vulnerability, and as long as there's a wall nearby and the next level up is reachable within three jumps, you can parkour your way to victory.
Wall jumping might be my favorite addition to BLOPS7 so far.
It's easier said than done, mind you, and I'm not yet skilled enough to consistently hit shots when I'm going up or down from a wall jump. But it's still fun as hell, and might be my favorite addition to BLOPS7 so far.
BLOPS7 Beta Maps
There are three maps in the closed beta: Cortex, The Forge, and Exposure. They're fine. They're not bad maps by any means, and I do like playing on them, but nothing about them really stands out to me in the way some of the maps from BLOPS6 did, either. Last year's Rewind map, with its super long corridors and building interiors, was one of my favorites, as was Skyline, with its secret passageway, various hiding spots, and multiple levels.
Then again, the maps in last year's beta were even worse (I’m looking at you, Babylon), so the middling nature of these is probably not an indication of overall quality.
Cortex is probably my favorite of the three this year just because it has everything I like in a map: outside lanes with the possibility of falling to your death, tight interiors to come face-to-face with opps, as well as medium-length interiors and exteriors that work well with LMGs, SMGs, and assault rifles. It lends itself really well to deathmatch and objective-based modes. Plus it has some sweet sci-fi incubator tanks where I presume the super soldiers of tomorrow are being grown from the cells of past heroes.
Exposure is a larger map, and has a lot of cool opportunities to really feel out the wall jumping and running. There's a dangling shipping container on the map that might as well have a Wile E. Coyote-esque sign on it saying "WALL JUMP HERE." Meanwhile, The Forge is pretty big, but it doesn't really have any super long, open lanes for snipers to trade lead back and forth. That's not to say there aren't some great opportunities to do just that, but it doesn't have the same feel as last year's Rewind, with its back alley and strip mall-front.
The Forge might not be my favorite map of the three, but it does have one of my favorite environmental features so far: a spinning, four-piece circular wall in the center of the map. During modes like hardpoint, the hardpoint will spawn in that area and people take turns either hiding behind or popping out from those spinning walls. It adds an extra layer of unpredictability when you're trying to hold an objective that I really like. You can't just lay prone with a sniper and peek around a corner, because the corner moves. That being said, there are a pair of lookouts on either side, so you can keep watch of the objective or just pick people off as they try to bumrush it. It's great. Even in deathmatch or Kill Confirmed it's fun, but it's really cool for Hardpoint and Domination.
The Forge has one of my favorite environmental features.
According to the official BLOPS7 blog, there's a fourth map, Imprint. Either I've just had terrible RNG luck or they haven't actually turned that one on yet, because I haven’t seen it so far. I'm going to play the hell out of BLOPS7 over the weekend, so that could change.
Guns and Guns
Once you unlock all the level requirements, there are a total of 16 available guns. Right now, and I hope Treyarch is reading this, the M10 Breacher, the default shotgun, is stupidly overpowered. You can nail enemies from way farther away than the laws of physics should allow right out of the gate, and they'll fall down dead when you do so. You barely need to aim it to get a kill across a large room. That sort of shotgun behavior is fine, even expected, at close range, or when you've leveled up and thrown a bunch of attachments on it. But as a default gun, it's just too powerful.
On the flip side, and this is something I never expected I'd say, but the XR-3 ION sniper rifle is exactly where it should be, power wise. Usually I feel like sniper rifles lean toward being way too OP. Don't get me wrong, I still hate snipers, and I still think people who use snipers on small maps are weak and their bloodlines are weak. But when you get a kill with the XR-3 it feels earned. There's a level of finesse here I'm not accustomed to with previous sniper rifle iterations, and I've actually used it without feeling like a dirty sniperboy.
I've always loved SMGs in Call of Duty, but none of the three available this year are doing it for me as of yet. They feel a tad too weak, which is usually the case, but it's generally made up for by a high rate of fire and lighting-fast speed of handling. I'm going to have to wait and see on the SMGs until progress is fully unlocked, but for right now, they don't feel quite like they should, as if it takes one or two bullets more than I’d expect to down an opponent. I also don't love the LMG, the Mk. 78. Similarly to the SMGs, it feels like it takes a millisecond or two too long to effectively down an enemy. I'm going to need more time with that one as well to see how it ends up running when it's fully kitted out, but for right now I'm not feeling it at all.
The Assault Rifles this year are, much like last year, where it's at.
The Assault Rifles this year are, much like last year, where it's at. While in previous years I ran with SMGs or LMGs, in BLOPS6 I fell madly in love with my XM4 assault rifle. This year I've been grinding on the M15 MOD 0, but I'm a level away from unlocking the Peacekeeper Mk.1 in the beta, which might be the best weapon in multiplayer, hands down. At Call of Duty Next, it felt like everyone was using it, so I’m excited to try it out again from the comfort of my own desk.
I've got an entire weekend with the closed beta, and I plan to hit that level cap and unlock as much as it will let me. The open beta next week will let you grind to level 30, and the best part is all your progress will carry over to the final game. I'm hoping CoD keeps to its promises, because the new features sound pretty sick: trading loadouts with friends and even copying them from enemies who killed you, XP carrying across all modes instead of on a per-mode basis, and the ability to re-roll the daily challenges, which I love. Also, the final game promises some of the sweetest gun camos yet, and I'm really excited to spend hours and hours of time I'll never get back just so I can have a gun that's all shiny. Until then, I'm really enjoying BLOPS7, and I’ll be back with a full review around launch.
Note: This review specifically covers the campaign mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. For our thoughts on the other modes, see our multiplayer review in progress, and our Zombies mode review is still on its way.
Bucking the usual trend of breaks between numbered sequels, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is following just 12 months on from Black Ops 6, and you’d perhaps assume that meant only small tweaks to what was one of the series’ high points last year. But the teams at Raven and Treyarch evidently don’t see it that way, and have instead built one of the most unconventional CoD campaigns to date. In many ways, it doesn’t even feel like a CoD single-player mode. It’s more like a multiplayer experiment squeezed into a campaign shell, playing best when you’re accompanied by squadmates, echoing Zombies or the now-defunct DMZ at times. I recently criticised Battlefield 6’s single-player for playing it safe and not taking any risks, and to Black Ops 7’s credit, the same can’t be said here. The problem, however, is that not many of its big swings hit, resulting in one of Call of Duty’s most intriguing, yet flawed campaigns.
Its varied string of missions walks the tightrope between traditional military shooter and schlocky sci-fi nonsense, darting between worlds beyond our technological fingertips and deep within our most haunted of dreams. That spectacle is supported by sharp gunplay and a whole host of gadgetry and abilities that make moving around those worlds incredibly satisfying. But it all culminates in a brand-new endgame portion that stitches together aspects of CoD’s past open-world successes and failures in an attempt to become something new. In reality, that post-credits content is a repetitive shooting gallery that adds little to the excitement that leads up to it.
Much of Black Ops 7’s intrigue emanates from one fundamental design choice: for the first time in many years, a Call of Duty campaign is fully playable in four-player co-op, and it really does feel like it has been made with that in mind as the preferred method of play. This comes with both positives and negatives. Teaming up with friends is good fun, with fighting big bosses that have multiple weak points to fire upon simultaneously or stealthily working through an enemy area tactically, both coming with a good deal of satisfaction. But it also detrimentally affects the solo experience, from not having AI companions fill in for you if no buddies are online, or kicking you for inactivity if you’re idle for too long, to not even being able to pause due to its online-only nature. Its open areas and endgame portion seem catered toward a group experience as well, and can end up just a little lonely when zipping around by yourself. To an extent, it feels like Activision is finally admitting that most people come to its hallmark shooter for multiplayer fun, rather than the single-player story modes the series was founded on.
In fact, having played several missions in both co-op and single-player, I can confirm that playing solo is borderline tedious due to having to repeat multiple objectives, such as placing C4 on a building yourself four times rather than splitting them up as is intended. There are also no difficulty options this time around, meaning that, in theory, it should scale the threat depending on how many players are in your squad. In my experience, though, the number of enemies in a level remains the same, leaving me feeling overwhelmed by foes even in its earliest levels. By comparison, playing in a full squad makes these encounters a breeze, with not enough targets to go around sometimes. In fact, enemy numbers are uneven across the campaign as a whole, sometimes swarming you with dozens of rabid rushers, but at others, presenting you with a couple of soldiers wandering through a door when you’re expecting an onslaught. It’s, admittedly, a difficult balance to get right, but one that has not been achieved here.
It really does seem like it was made to be played in four-player co-op.
As for the structure of the campaign, Black Ops 7’s story is delivered at breakneck speed, taking me just about five hours to reach the endgame. Its 11 missions threw me from one exotic location to the next, from one time period to another, and deep into nightmare realms full of otherworldly horrors and delights. The year is 2035, and new threats are here to instigate a global collapse once again. The re-emergence of Black Ops 2 villain Raul Menendez thrusts the playable unit, Spectre One, into action and soon has them facing off against evil tech company The Guild. What follows is a set of missions that throws you in and out of reality thanks to a fear toxin being weaponised by The Guild, led by Kiernan Shipka’s Emma Kagan, who is trading in Mad Men for mad mechs here.
A combination of cliched evil sci-fi tech corp and Batman Arkham scarecrow-esque antics leads each level to interesting places from a visual perspective, as long-buried memories of our protagonists are dredged up and morphed into horror-filled mazes. It makes for a more varied campaign when it comes to art design, with an impressive number of locations and creatures thematically filling them to gun down. I do wish there was a little more in terms of mission variety when it comes to actual level and objective design, though, with corridor shooting taking the lead in most of these excursions. There’s nothing to rival the creeping intrigue of last year’s Emergence conceptually and its branching objectives and playful enemy design, for example, nor the spy-like cool of infiltrating an embassy fundraiser or high-roller casino.
If last year’s Black Ops 6 leaned more into grounded espionage and subterfuge, 7 is a much louder proposition, choosing to demolish the lobby of a complex to gain access to it rather than sweet-talking the security guard standing in front of it. As a result, there is no shortage of big moments justifying its blockbuster label. Dodging giant falling machetes like you’ve stumbled into a Looney Tunes cartoon is a one-off joy, as is taking control of a lavish luxury boat and ramming into the side of a building. Moments like this feel pinched right out of Christopher Nolan’s back pocket and sit perfectly in the Call of Duty mold.
And that’s just the opening section of one of the standout missions, which takes place in Tokyo and has you dipping into its subway systems and leaping across rooftops. There’s a great sense of forward momentum to levels like these, and I’m a massive fan of them. I just wish more of the campaign were like this Japanese chapter, as I’m not so keen on the ones taking place in the more open-zone areas of the fictional French city-state of Avalon (itself a huge battle royale-sized hub), which struggle to bottle the same exciting energy. These typically have you moving across wider rural patches of its map in order to chase the next cluster of enemies to take down, and essentially serve as tutorials for its endgame. They’re a little less authored than others and fail to capture the same thrills as a result.
Much of the time, it doesn’t really feel like a ‘Call of Duty’ campaign at all.
In fact, much of the time, it doesn’t really feel like a ‘Call of Duty’ campaign at all. Yes, it has the militaristic hallmarks, but borrows just as much from horde shooters like Left 4 Dead and its own in-house zombie modes. It makes for an uneven set of missions, some of which really don’t work for me, but with others that do manage to hit the spot when they capture some of the CoD cinematic legacy. They’re a rarity, though, and for every one of these, there is also a bizarrely dull sequence, such as the time you’re asked to play Frogger on a twisted, upside-down LA highway.
As you might expect, the gunplay is snappy and satisfying, with SMGs delightfully ripping through armoured enemies and sniper rifles really coming into their own and popping out bits of brain in some of the campaign’s open areas. Each weapon has a good weight to it and is super-responsive when pulling the trigger. It’s Call of Duty, they’ve been doing this for a long time now, and how good its guns feel shouldn’t come as a shock as you rip through enemy healthbars and armor chunks. These extra layers to their vitality do present a slightly more drawn-out cadence to gunfights, though, with a few extra bursts of the trigger needed to take down each. The firearms are supported by a fantastic selection of skills and gadgets, too, with killstreaks making their way into single-player, such as the joyously destructive war machine, allowing for quick mob clean-ups.
I’ll admit, I was initially sceptical of the near-future setting and Call of Duty’s return to tinkering with near-future tech when it comes to movement, but on the whole, the experiment is largely a success. Wall jumping can be a little clunky, but the kinetic super jump is very fun to use as a quick flanking tool, as is my favourite of the bunch, the grapple hook. Swinging up to roofs to find a better vantage point before swooping down on a wingsuit to get back up close opens up each level’s architecture in interesting ways. It may never reach that Titanfall 2 gold standard when it comes to FPS mobility, but there are flashes of it here, which is always welcome.
This desire to experiment also carries into its approach to boss design, which is by no means revolutionary when it comes to FPS campaigns, but a relatively new thing for Call of Duty. I appreciate the efforts made in order to make each have its own gimmick, even if they all ultimately come down to draining an oversized health bar while dodging projectiles. They certainly aren’t complex, but hitting the glowing weak points of a giant, bile-spewing plant in a cave of nightmares is certainly a step up from just pumping bullets into a Juggernaut for the hundredth time, especially when multiple targets are offered up at once and really make the whole co-op nature of the campaign feel worthwhile.
Movement may never reach that Titanfall 2 gold standard, but there are flashes of it.
In fact, enemy variety is quite impressive this time around, with human, mechanical, and hallucinatory foes offering different threats that challenge you at all distances. Guild forces include a robot army, as well as traditional militia types such as the machine-gun-wielding Raider, colossal armor-plated Titan, and other NFL team-name adjacent units. Yes, most can be handled with some well-aimed assault rifle fire to the head, but there are more effective ways to deal with them if you choose to explore your arsenal.
I particularly enjoyed one incursion into a robotics lab, which equipped me with a Black Hat hacking device. I liked how it switched up the cadence of the unrelenting bullets a little, and meant I could disrupt and destroy these Terminator wannabes from cover. It even made a miniboss of this zone — an admittedly unexciting rotating turret — easier to take down. I appreciate that, in a game of such ferocious speed as this, you’re occasionally rewarded for taking a breath and using your brain to overcome objectives rather than solely relying on pure firepower.
It’s kind of a shame, then, that once the campaign’s set of linear missions is over, the endgame borrows little of this philosophy. After the main story’s credits have rolled, you’re offered a chance to experience its epilogue, which takes place in the open region of Avalon that’s teased throughout. If you played Call of Duty’s DMZ mode, then you’ll have a rough idea of what to expect here: it’s an extraction shooter, except it's not. You and up to three friends can team up and drop into this battle royale-sized map and complete the activities that litter it with eye-soreing regularity. On every street corner are Guild checkpoints or zombie-infested buildings to clear out as you progress through its difficulty-tiered regions in order to reach its final boss, located at the epicentre of the island’s toxic smog. The catch? If your squad goes down, you lose all of your progress. That progress is mainly tied to your combat rating, a number that goes up the more killing and map icon clearing you do, and it's therefore up to you to know when to call it quits on a certain run and extract from the map within a time limit.
For each level you go up, you’ll get a skill point to plug into any of two given options. These can range from armor plates automatically regenerating when you get kills to overall movement speed or rate of fire increases. The idea is to keep building up your character until you’ve reached the minimum recommended level of 55 and shut down the toxic threat sweeping across Avalon. The progression feels genuine, too, with my character resembling a super soldier at higher ranks, thanks to the sheer amount of speed I harnessed and the damage I could absorb.
The bones of an exciting endgame are here, but it gets tired a little too soon.
In theory, I like this idea and think there are the bones of an exciting mode here — something that could capture the magic the likes of Helldivers 2 has done in recent times — but as is, it unfortunately gets a little tired a little too soon. Objectives are almost all exclusively “go to this place and clear out the enemies there,” which I understand is part of the fundamentals when it comes to shooters, but I would’ve appreciated a little more variety and something that mirrored the minor puzzle-solving sections of the main campaign, or at least clever uses of the gadgetry it introduces. The enemy AI that walks Avalon’s streets is also dumb as bricks and pops out of cover freely, making each encounter a simple affair when you put enough distance between you and them.
Yes, zooming around on grapple hooks and transitioning into wing suit gliding mid-fall is still incredibly satisfying, as is plotting out methods of attack in a four-player squad, but all semblance of interesting level or mission design is traded in upon entry here for a few hours of relatively mindless shooting in order to watch some numbers tick up. In some ways, it sits somewhere between the campaign missions and Zombies in its design, but frustratingly borrows the least interesting aspects of both, neglecting the mission structure and mystery-solving that each mode thrives on. It results in a reasonably enjoyable, but not essential, second serving to the campaign. And don’t worry, if the endgame doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, or even sounds a little daunting (the ferocity of its bullet sponge hordes can get overwhelming in its latter stages, especially when heading in solo), the story does wrap up satisfyingly enough beforehand for it not to feel like you’re missing out on an ending completely.
It’s a story nowhere near as accomplished as last year’s effort, though. Effectively a direct sequel to Black Ops 2 that also ties into the events of Black Ops 6, presumed knowledge and the speed at which its setup is told can be a little disorientating, especially if you aren’t familiar with its 2012 predecessor. The themes are personal this time around, with David “Section” Mason, recast here as Heroes’ Milo Ventimiglia, placed centre stage as he battles with his past – namely the loss of his father, Alex. There are some fun revelations along the way, as well as treats for long-term fans of the Black Ops series, but as someone who has never held those characters in as high regard as their Modern Warfare counterparts, the pulling of the heartstrings didn’t quite work for me.
It also means that the rest of the Spectre One squad doesn’t really get plot points of their own aside from flashes of resurfacing trauma, relegating them very much to support characters in David’s world, as Michael Rooker’s Harper in particular is given some truly dumb lines to scream as loud as he can. That being said, if you are someone who has always preferred the adventures of Woods, Mason, Adler, and co, I’m sure you’ll have a great time here. It does mean, though, that this revisiting of the past, combined with a thick layer of exposition, can make the early hours of the story relatively impenetrable to newcomers, so I’d bear that in mind if you’re coming in fresh. I’d really recommend a thorough recap of the Black Ops timeline to all if you wish to get the most out of it.
Skyrim fans, here is something really cool for you. Modder ‘spdude’ has released a new mod that gives new voices to some of the game’s NPCs by professional real voice actors. Going into more details, Skyrim Revoiced introduces 8 new voice types for 48 NPCs across Skyrim. The mod covers over 5000+ lines of both … Continue reading Skyrim Mod gives new voices to NPCs by professional voice actors→
Modder ‘Glitchfinder’ has released a new cool mod for Fallout 4. This mod adds consequences for clearing the game’s dungeons. As such, it can make Fallout 4’s world feel more real and retroactive than before. So, let’s take a closer look at it. In the vanilla game, there wasn’t any consequence for clearing a dungeon. … Continue reading New Fallout 4 Mod Adds Consequences For Clearing Its Dungeons→
With the winter season approaching, you should seriously consider picking up a power station in case of emergencies. Fortunately for you, the best time to score a great deal on a power station is during Black Friday. AliExpress has already come out of the gate early with the lowest prices I've seen all year on several power stations from trusted brand names like Ecoflow and Bluetti. The deals I've listed below are sold by the manufacturers' official seller accounts, so you're sure to receive a genuine product with full warranty. These power stations also ship free from a local US warehouse, which means you don't need to worry about tariffs or obnoxiously long shipping times.
Allpowers Power Station Black Friday Deals
Allpowers is the most popular power station on brand on AliExpress for good reason: it's generally less expensive than other brands while offering the same features. Even the least expensive power station - the compact R600 - boasts a LiFePO4 battery that lasts at least 10 years before you even need to start worrying about battery degradation. Other features include both AC outlets and USB ports, solar panel hookups, and smart app functionaliy. All of the power stations listed include a 5 year warranty and have plenty of reviews commenting on the responsiveness of their customer service. If you're looking to get the highest capacity at the lowest price possible, Allpowers is legit.
Bluetti Power Station Black Friday Deals
Bluetti is a more well known brand in the US and is a popular model that's sold outside of AliExpress, including Amazon, Costco, and eBay. Build quality is better than Allpowers and comparable to Ecoflow but at a lower price point. All the models are equipped with long lasting LiFePO4 batteries and have plenty of connectivity options for off-grid use in home or outdoors, as well as optional solar hookups. Bluetti offers a 5 year warranty on the three AC power station listed above and a 2 year warranty on the EB3A power station.
Ecoflow Power Station Black Friday Deals
Of the three brands listed, Ecoflow is probably the most well known here stateside. Their power stations are solidly built with a lot of practical features at a still-affordable price point. Ecoflow does an excellent job of rolling out new firmware for their power stations and software updates for their smart app, with a lot of extra features added in based on community feedback. The River 3 comes with a 2 year wraranty and the River 2 Pro and Delta 2 include a 5 year warranty.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
The brand new Apple AirPods Pro 3 might be one of the best noise canceling earbuds, but $250 is a steep price to pay and no Black Friday deal is going to make it "cheap". If you're better off spending your money elsewhere, then why not consider a pair Baseus Bass BP1 Pro earbuds. They only $19.59 for Amazon Prime members when you apply $20 off coupon code "X6F6U5M6". I own these earbuds myself and I have to say they are definitely worth the price.
Baseus BP1 Pro Wireless Noise Canceling Earbuds for $19.59
First of all, the AirPods Pro is great. My wife still uses the first generation Lightning model. Unsurprisingly, it is a superior earbud to the Baseus BP1 Pro. It sounds better, it has more effective noise canceling performance, and perhaps most importantly, it pairs seamlessly with her iPhone. However, the BP1 Pro is not that far off. It's certainly not 12x worse.
Like the AirPods Pro, this is a truly wireless earbud with built-in active noise cancelation. It's designed to sit in your ear and seal it off passively. There are five eartips included for different sized ears (I am a small person but I have a big head and big ears). This design alone makes it, in my opinion, better than the non-pro version of the AirPods 3, which doesn't provide a seal at all. Sound quality is quite good and, true to its name, it does a pretty decent job of simulating real bass. The noise cancelation works, but don't expect top-of-the-line performance. For example, even though ambient sounds were more muffled, I could still hold a conversation even with ANC turned on. To be fair, I get the same experience with the AirPods Pro and only experience really effective noise cancelation with a good pair of over-ear headphones. The BP1 Pro does have a transparency mode option, if instead you actually do want to listen to your surroundings.
Because the Baseus BP1 Pro is a recent release (it came out earlier this year), it features the latest Bluetooth 6.0 protocol. For non-Apple users, it supports Bluetooth Multipoint, which allows you to pair to two devices simultaneously. It's IP55 rated, which means it resists "water jets" and dust intrusion. The rating is better than the AirPods Pro 2 (IP54) but not as good as the AirPods Pro 3 (IP57). The earbuds last up to 12 hours with ANC off (7 hours with ANC on) but the charging case extends it to 55 hours (and 36 hours).
For a low, low price of $20 (the cost of a burrito in my neck of the woods), you're not risking very much to try these out, especially considering the fact that Amazon offers a hassle-free 30-day return policy. In fact, if you were eying the AirPods Pro 3 but ended up perfectly content with these earbuds, then pat yourself on the back because you just saved $230.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Jay Kelly will be released in select theaters on November 14, and will debut on Netflix on December 5.
The cacophony of noises on the set of a major motion picture is enough to drive any person crazy. There’s yelling from all over, person after person after person trying to get someone’s attention, equipment moving and shifting under your (and everyone else’s) feet. But in director Noah Baumbach’s latest feature Jay Kelly, the title character couldn’t be more at home in the chaos. It’s what he, a generational superstar actor beloved for his work over the course of about 40 years, knows best. But what he finds as he approaches the twilight years of his storied career is that he maybe should’ve gotten to know other things better, namely his two daughters, who seem to be slipping through his fingers like grains of sand as they embark on their own lives.
This is, of course, the heart of this entertaining and poignant examination of the life of great artists – and Baumbach’s emotional resonance as a filmmaker and writer (a duty he shares this time with actress Emily Mortimer) allows him to explore it gently and graciously with nuance, frank comedy, and stark sentimentality in a way that feels truthful and human despite the larger-than-life nature of the film’s subject. Oh, and on that note I should mention: Kelly is played by none other than George Clooney.
Clooney is the heart and soul of this film, not only because he’s an excellent actor who’s proven himself as such over the years, but because he innately understands what Jay Kelly is going through as a person. He’s lived that life, the life of someone who knows a thing or two about the personal sacrifices necessary in the face of great art. Jay Kelly is, ultimately, an obvious stand-in for Clooney himself, but that’s why the character, and the film overall, works. It’s a necessary element of Baumbach’s picture, especially considering the narrative is somewhat less personal to the director than many of his other works. Clooney’s personal connection to the narrative acts as somewhat of a surrogate for the connection Baumbach (Kicking and Screaming, The Squid and the Whale, Marriage Story) always has to his stories, imbuing it with the same kind of life his other somewhat autobiographical projects have had in the past. It’s key, because without that kind of smart casting, this film probably would fall way more flat than it does. Kelly, as a product of Baumbach’s direction and writing and Clooney’s choices and instincts, is a beautiful disaster of a man, one who is noble in his trying and human in his errors. He is, ultimately, just like any of us who try and try and try: We’re bound to make mistakes along the way.
Kelly, as a product of Baumbach’s direction and writing and Clooney’s choices and instincts, is a beautiful disaster of a man, one who is noble in his trying and human in his errors.
Kelly is, of course, nothing without the people who helped him throughout his career, the ones who ended up being a surrogate for the family he neglected. That’s where Adam Sandler comes in with an excellent turn as Kelly’s manager Ron, who has been with him for his entire 40-year career. Sandler is of course known for his comedic chops, but has played straight dramatic roles over the years as well, including in 2019’s Uncut Gems. Here his Ron is touching, drenched in charm and sadness in equal measure.
The supporting cast in general – namely Kelly’s team, made up of Sandler and Laura Dern as his publicist, as well as Greta Gerwig as Ron’s wife, Grace Edwards and Riley Keough as Kelly’s somewhat estranged daughters, and an exciting Billy Crudup as an old friend who resurfaces in a movie-stealing scene — brings the entire picture together in the same way an artist's team brings together all the challenging elements of their extravagant and hectic lives so they can just be who the world wants them to be. Dern is hilarious as she lays out some heartfelt truths worth examining about who your friends are in this business. Gerwig also adds a great bit of comedic relief to the project alongside Sandler’s real-life daughters and the young actor who splits sides as Ron’s son.
Edwards and Keough are playing very different women with different goals and ideals, but they each bring a sense of independence and self-preservation to the roles that makes the crucial nature of their characters stand out. They’re both a joy to watch, though their ultimate paths are somewhat tragic for Kelly because he’s missed his opportunity to ride alongside them. Both performers embody that tragedy in their own ways, with Edwards’ quirky, free-spirited, and headstrong soul bare throughout her time in the narrative and Keough’s resentment and anger bubbling over with just the right amount of tension and consideration. As for Crudup, he’s the one-two punch (no pun intended – if you know you know) of the film and his turn, though short, is revelatory for the same reasons Kelly praises him in the film: his ability to perform in every sense of the concept, and to breathe life and truth into every word, biting or tender. These performances are the bedrock of Clooney’s ability to build a full life around Kelly.
Visually, Baumbach is also doing quite a bit of exploring. His surreal approach to embodying Kelly’s mind, and by extension his regrets, is fun and compelling to see. It truly feels as though he is walking through his own mind as he makes his way through every day, unable to help but remember the moments that have defined him and his life over the years. Baumbach has Kelly do this in the literal sense, as one doorway in one locale in the present leads to landscapes of haunting memory in the past. It’s an effective way for Kelly to explore his emotional life, his mortality, and his accomplishments and failures professional and personal – and how they have ultimately affected who he was, who he is, and who he will be throughout the remainder of his career and life.
Connexion
