Xbox’s Black Friday sale this year is shaping up to be... complicated. Microsoft has spent much of 2025 raising prices across the board, with consoles, controllers, games, and even Game Pass Ultimate all getting more expensive.

We’ll definitely still see discounts for Xbox fans during the big sale season; it's just unfortunate that almost everything is starting from a considerably higher baseline than before.

That said, I'm also predicting that we'll still be able to score some worthwhile discounts come Black Friday. While Xbox's official "Black Friday" offerings rarely deliver great savings, in my experience, you just need to know where and when to look for bargains, and which "deals" to avoid altogether.

To help with this, I've put together my predictions for what will be discounted this year, alongside some expert advice on the best places to find Xbox deals once the sales properly kick off.

Xbox Game Pass

That's a great deal if you want to lock in coverage through the holidays. The max you can fill out your account with is 12 lots of three months (totalling 36 months), and currently costs $659.88, or $219.96 per year.

By comparison, at the new $29.99 monthly rate, three years of Game Pass Ultimate now costs $1,079.64. So there are already big savings to be had. It’s just a question of whether we’ll potentially see anything even better in the coming weeks.

Now that's where things get interesting. For the best deal possible in the final months of the year, my advice is to keep an eye on Amazon-owned Woot. Last year, Woot dropped three months of Game Pass Ultimate to just $28.99 during Black Friday, over 50% off at the time.

It was a great deal, but considering it now costs $90 for three months of Ultimate today, this now looks like an absolute juggernaut of a discount.

It's purely speculative that this offer could reappear, and I doubt we’ll see anything quite that generous in 2025, but anything even close to it would be worth shouting about again.

Woot is one of the best retailers for limited-time, doorbuster-style discounts, and since it’s backed by Amazon, it’s a safe bet. The only downside is that these deals sell out fast, so to avoid missing out, I'd suggest following @IGNDeals on Twitter/X for the latest updates.

Even now, the Carbon Black controller is $39.99 at Amazon ahead of Black Friday, which is likely better than anything Microsoft itself will offer once the sale begins. If you want to pick up one of the best PC gaming controllers at that price now, I wouldn’t judge you.

That said, I still expect we’ll see every color scheme go on sale closer to Black Friday, so it could be worth waiting to see if you can grab something a little bolder, and potentially at an even better price.

When it comes to deals to skip, I’d avoid paying anything over $45 for the core controllers during the sale season.

The only other Xbox controllers I’d be excited about this Black Friday are the new special edition models, such as the “Breaker” series, as long as they get deeper discounts.

I’m also watching to see whether we’ll get another significant price drop on the Xbox Elite 2 Controllers. Ideally, the Core Elite model would fall around $90, while the full Elite 2 package would drop to somewhere between $110 and $120.

Still holding out hope that Famke Janssen will reprise her role as Jean Grey in next year’s Avengers: Doomsday? Perhaps it's time to let go, because the actress has confirmed that Marvel hasn't asked her to play the superhero again since the end of Fox’s X-Men movies.

Famke Janssen played Jean Grey from 2000’s X-Men right up to a cameo in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. Her character, as the Phoenix, died in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, with Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner taking over the role for subsequent X-Men movies.

But a number of actors whose characters died in the Fox X-Men movies are set to reprise their roles in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. For example, Sonic the Hedgehog star James Marsden is confirmed to play Cyclops in Doomsday, despite the character's previous on-screen demise.

Other Fox X-Men veterans set for Doomsday include Kelsey Grammer, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, and Rebecca Romijn. Grammer famously played Beast in the Fox X-Men franchise before making his MCU debut via The Marvels' post-credits scene. Stewart played Charles Xavier/Professor X in the X-Men films before appearing briefly in the MCU via Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as a member of the Illuminati. McKellen, who played Magneto, has yet to appear in the MCU. Neither has Cumming, who played Nightcrawler, Romijn, who played Mystique, nor Marsden. It begs the question: is Avengers: Doomsday secretly an Avengers vs. X-Men movie?

Whatever the nature of Doomsday's plot, it sounds like Famke Janssen won’t join the party. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she was asked if Marvel had ever asked her to play Jean Grey again after the Fox era of movies. She replied: "Never. Never ever."

"I should be flattered, I suppose, that this character has resonated with people,” she added. “It's been so long, but it's nice that people are still talking about her. I'm sure every single time there's a new movie that they're doing, like [is it] Doomsday? ... it'll come up again.

"Every time I do an interview, it's mentioned. It's interesting. I didn't realize that was such a big part. Every interview I do, that will come up, and of everything I say, that is going to be the only thing that's gonna be printed."

Such is the interest in the MCU that Marvel superhero actors are often asked about reprising their roles for future films, and Avengers: Doomsday and 2027’s Secret Wars has only ramped interest up. Elizabeth Olsen, for example, recently said she’d “jump at” the opportunity to play Scarlet Witch again despite her character’s apparent death in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Olsen is not, however, among the confirmed cast for Doomsday. Interestingly, neither is Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman, who starred alongside Janssen in the Fox X-Men movies.

Lately, LEGO has been unveiling new sets we can look forward to seeing in early 2026, including a Back to the Future Time Machine and sets based on the video game LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. The latest announcement is a batch of Marvel LEGO sets that appeal to all ages, with a range of price points that (thankfully) doesn’t get ridiculously high. There are some very cool sets in the works, and the two that I like best are available for preorder right now. Let’s have a look.

Featured in this article

Here are all the new Marvel LEGO sets coming in January 1. You can find more details about them in the blurbs below.

LEGO Marvel Iron Man Mark 3 Collectors’ Edition

LEGO Marvel Spider-Man vs. Mysterio: The Daily Bugle

More Marvel LEGO Sets Coming January 1

A handful of smaller Marvel LEGO sets are also coming January 1, but they're not available for preorder. These include a pretty awesome Hulkbuster vs. The Hulk set, Spider-Man vs. Sandman, and sets that pit Spidey against Ghost Rider and Venomized Wolverine.

LEGO Speed Champions APXGP Team Race Car from F1 The Movie

Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser has offered the best explanation yet for why the developer's open-world spy thriller Agent fell by the wayside.

Agent is the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption developer's long lost spy game, which was announced as a PlayStation 3 exclusive in 2009 but has since disappeared. Rockstar has never officially canceled the project, but images leaked in 2015 showed some of its levels, and while some hope remained due to renewed trademarks, this was eventually scrapped in 2018 and its website was shut down in 2021.

So, what happened to Agent? Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption writer Dan Houser, now of Absurd Ventures, has finally offered fans a detailed explanation in an interview on the Lex Fridman podcast. According to Houser, despite multiple versions of Agent being attempted at Rockstar, the game never came together, and that’s because, fundamentally, an open-world spy game simply doesn’t work.

“We worked a lot on multiple iterations of an open-world spy game, and it never came together,” Houser began.

“It had about five different iterations. I don’t think it works. I concluded — and I keep thinking about it sometimes, I sometimes lie in bed thinking about it — and I’ve concluded that what makes them really good as film stories makes them not work as video games. Or we need to think through how to do it in a different way as a video game”.

The version of Agent Rockstar announced was set in during the Cold War in the 1970s, but Houser revealed this was just one version of many Rockstar tried and failed to turn into a fun video game. Indeed, there was a version set in the modern day that also failed to go anywhere.

“That was one of the versions,” he said. “There was another one that was set in the current… we had so many different versions of this game, we worked with so many different teams.”

He continued: “Espionage, assassinations… I don't know what it would've been because it never really… We never got it enough to even doing a proper story on it. We were doing the early work as you get the world up and running. It never really found its feet in either of them. And I sort of think I know why.

“Because in one of those films, they're very, very frenetic and they beat to beat to beat — you gotta go here and save the world, you gotta go there and stop that person being killed and then save the world. An open-world game does have moments like that when the story comes together. But for large portions, it's a lot looser, and you're just hanging out and you’re just doing what you want. And I want freedom. I wanna go over here and do what I want, and I wanna go over and do what you want. That's why it works well being a criminal, because you fundamentally don't have anyone telling you what to do. We try and create external agency through these people kind of forcing you into the story at times.

“But as a spy, that doesn't really work because you have to be against the clock. So I think for me, I question if you can even make a good open-world spy game. So lots of things would work as open-world games, but I don't know if a spy does.”

Considering what it offers, Disney Plus is one of the best streaming services on the block. From classic Disney animated films to the latest Marvel shows, Star Wars movies, and so much more, Disney Plus puts an incredible range of high-quality viewing options at your fingertips. There's tons to watch, but after another round of price hikes, you might want to revisit your streaming subscriptions. We're here to help.

At the moment, one of the best Disney Plus bundle deals available is the massive Disney Plus, Hulu, and HBO Max streaming bundle. This starts at $19.99/month (after a recent price hike) to get you all three streaming services with ads. Bundles such as these are worth considering, especially following the news of Hulu eventually fully integrating into the Disney+ app. But while we wait for that merge to finalize, there's still plenty for Disney Plus users to enjoy.

We've included more Disney Plus bundle deals worth exploring below. If you're looking for more streaming deals from other services, check out the best Hulu deals and bundles and the best HBO Max deals.

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

We don’t know much about the next DC Universe movie, Supergirl, but one of its actors has discussed in vague terms what it’s aiming to achieve, and teased that it will clarify the House of El business this year’s Superman set up.

Warning! Spoilers for Superman follow:

DCU kickstarter Superman switches up the established Superman origin story to present his parents, Jor-El and Lara, as villains of a sort. As Superman learns over the course of the events of the movie, his parents had sent him to Earth not to protect humanity, but to rule over it — a revelation that sends Kal-El spiraling for a time.

Some Superman fans were so shocked by this twist on the characters' motivations that they have speculated that DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn plans to either retcon this plot point, or eventually show the message upon which it is based to be fake or misleading. Gunn has denied this.

Supergirl, however, promises to continue the House of El subplot when it launches June 26, 2026. It will see Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El, fresh from her drunken cameo at the end of Superman, celebrate her 21st birthday by traveling across the galaxy with her dog, Krypto. We know Lobo is in the movie, played by Jason Momoa. But we know little else.

David Krumholtz (Bernard in The Santa Clause franchise), plays Zor-El, Supergirl's father, and in a recent interview with Nerdtropolis he was of course asked if he could say anything about the movie. Responding, Krumholtz kept his cards close to his chest, but teased a couple of things: Supergirl will closely follow the Woman of Tomorrow comic book, and it will act as the “next piece of telling the story of Krypton, and sort of further clarifying what the House of El is all about.”

“It’s very true to the graphic novel that it’s based on, Woman of Tomorrow,” Krumholtz said. “Very true, which is great. Plus Lobo, which I can say. Everybody knows that Jason Momoa is playing Lobo in it. So it’s that comic plus Lobo. What else can I say? I can’t say much, man.

“I’ll just say that I’m thrilled to be sort of the next piece of telling the story of Krypton, and sort of further clarifying what the House of El is all about.”

Let’s start with Woman of Tomorrow. Supergirl the movie is based on Tom King and Bilquis Evely's comic, which features a very different Supergirl than audiences are perhaps accustomed to. In July, Gunn said the DC Universe version of Supergirl is “a total mess.

As revealed in Superman, Supergirl got drunk on a planet bathed in the light of a red sun (it’s impossible for Superman or any Kryptonian to get drunk on Earth due to the empowering effects of our yellow sun). But beyond this, clearly Supergirl is suffering from mental health issues that are driving her to drink, the result of a very different upbringing compared to her cousin’s.

“I mean, I think as we learn, she's had a completely different background from Superman,” Gunn continued. “A much more difficult background. He's had this wonderful upbringing by these two parents that loved him and were very healthy. And her background was much different than that. And she's ended up different than her cousin.”

“In our story, we have Superman who was sent to Earth and raised by incredibly loving parents,” Gunn has explained. “Kara was on Krypton. She was on a piece of Krypton that drifted away from the planet and she lived there for the first 14 years of her life in a horrible situation where she watched everyone around her die. So, she’s a much harsher and more f*cked up Supergirl than you’ve been used to thus far.”

Recently, Gunn has called Supergirl a “space fantasy” — and said it will have a different tone than Superman. It’s more like Gunn’s own Guardians of the Galaxy, he’s said. For more, check out IGN’s article, Superman Introduces the Girl of Steel: Here's Why This Version of Supergirl Is So Different.

But we should also talk about Krumholtz’s comments about the House of El. Perhaps we’ll get further insight into why Superman’s parents did what they did, or maybe even some revelations about the fate of Krypton itself. Will David Corenswet reprise his role as Superman for a cameo in Supergirl? Certainly a battle with Lobo sounds like a lot of fun.

Supergirl isn’t the only DCU movie out next year. Fans also have Clayface to look forward to, as well as HBO Max TV show Lanterns. Then, moving into 2027, we have Superman follow-up Man of Tomorrow.

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.

Introducing Odds Chronicles, a new tactical roguelite RPG that features dice-roll battles set on diorama-like stages. You play in a fallen kingdom as Evryn, a former royal bodyguard in that kingdom in a tabletop-inspired fantasy story. It's in development for PC and due out in 2026.

Developed by eSolu and Team Mojo Games, Odds Chronicles renders its tactical diorama battlefields in Unreal Engine 5 and is doing its best to embrace its tabletop inspiriations. "Click to roll or throw the dice yourself, then use every face like a weapon," the developers said. "Generate resources - Strength, Dexterity and Magic - to fuel abilities. Charge powerful skills over time or unleash them immediately. Unused resources fill a bonus gauge, granting Wild Dice that can shift the tide of battle."

"As a royal bodyguard, you failed your King, and lost your honor," the developers note. "A tyrant now rules, her lieutenants crushing the realm. You returned too late...but revenge still burns. Your revenge against the tyrant ended in defeat. But instead of dying, you awaken in the Tavern Outside of Time, a mysterious place forged from memories...To reclaim the kingdom of Lynn and restore your legacy, you must fight through ever-shifting regions and confront the truth behind your revenge."

You'll be able to upgrade and swap abilities mid-run on the branching-choices story path; collect dice enhancements, abilities, and consumables; then beat the boss at the end of your run to Memory Shards that grant permanent new powers when you return to the Tavern to start again.

You can wishlist Odds Chronicles on Steam if you're interested.

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

Keanu Reeves would love to play Johnny Silverhand again, but how can he given the events of Cyberpunk 2077? It turns out Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith has worked out a way to make it make sense, and has told the much-loved actor: “contact me.”

In September, speaking with IGN while promoting his movie Good Fortune, Keanu Reeves said that he wanted to be part of the sequel to CD Projekt's 2020 game.

“Absolutely. I’d love to play Johnny Silverhand again," Reeves said when asked if he’d be interested in revisiting his legendary rockstar terrorist character in Cyberpunk 2.

Reeves's love-affair with the Cyberpunk community began with his viral "you're breathtaking" moment at E3 2019. Reeves, on-stage to announce the release date of Cyberpunk 2077, was interrupted by a fan who shouted out "you're breathtaking!" Reeves' response was to double-down with his own "you're breathtaking... you're all breathtaking!" Cue wholesome memes across the internet forever more. You can see the iconic gamer moment in the video below.

The question is, could Reeves actually play Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2 even if he wanted to? In other words, could Johnny Silverhand return in the sequel, given the events of Cyberpunk 2077?

Warning! Spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077 follow:

While many players believe Cyberpunk 2077 provided a suitable ending for Johnny and V's story, depending on which ending of the game CD Projekt makes canon for Cyberpunk 2, the door may be left open for Reeves' return. Could Johnny return in cameo form perhaps, having downloaded himself into someone or something else? Canon ending dependent, could V end up becoming Johnny Silverhand in mind and body for Cyberpunk 2? Perhaps we could see Johnny as part of a flashback to events before Cyberpunk 2077, as Cyberpunk 2077 had?

It sounds like Mike Pondsmith has been thinking about this ever since Reeves’ interview with IGN. In a CD Projekt livestream to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Cyberpunk 2077, Mike Pondsmith said, matter of factly: “Not that long ago, I saw that Keanu would like to find a way to come back from the dead and play Johnny again. I have ways to do that, Keanu. Contact me.”

Pondsmith, understandably, did not reveal what those “ways” were, but as we’ve mentioned, there are plenty of theories fans have come up with to make it make sense.

Reeves isn’t the only big Hollywood name to appear in Cyberpunk 2077. Idris Elba starred in the successful expansion, Phantom Liberty, which Pondsmith was delighted by. Indeed, he revealed he worried that CD Projekt might get sued because his character, looked so much like Elba, before it was revealed it actually was Elba playing the role.

"'So let me get this straight,'" Pondsmith recalled of his reaction to the news. "'You got Keanu Reeves, and then you turn around and get Idris Elba. What's next? Scarlett Johansson?’

"Scarlett, you know, I have roles for you. You can do anything."

Scarlett Johansson in Cyberpunk 2? That remains to be seen. But Pondsmith has been chatty about the hotly anticipated sequel in the past. In May, Pondsmith teased some previously unknown details when he was asked about the scope of his involvement with Cyberpunk 2 (then known as Project Orion) at the Digital Dragons 2025 conference.

Pondsmith admitted he wasn’t as involved this time around, but said he does review scripts and had been to CD Projekt to check out the ongoing work.

“Last week I was wandering around talking to different departments, and seeing what they had, ‘Oh look, this is the new cyberware, what do you think?’ ‘Oh yeah, that’s pretty good, that works here.’"

And then, the morsel on the sequel: that it features a brand new city in addition to the Night City we know from Cyberpunk 2077. Pondsmith described this new city as “like Chicago gone wrong.”

“I spent a lot of time talking to one of the environment guys, and he was explaining how the new place in Orion, because there’s another city we visit — I’m not telling you any more than that but there’s another city we visit. And Night City is still there. But I remember looking at it and going, yeah I understand the feel you’re going for this, and this really does work. And it doesn’t feel like Blade Runner, it feels more like Chicago gone wrong. I said, ‘Yeah, I can see this working.'”

Former Rockstar boss Dan Houser has explained why the Grand Theft Auto series won’t leave the United States in terms of its setting.

Speaking on the Lex Fridman podcast, Rockstar co-founder and former lead writer Houser said that — GTA London apart — Grand Theft Auto remained firmly rooted in the United States because it leans so heavily on Americana.

“We made a little thing in London 26 years ago — GTA London — for the top-down for PS1. That was pretty cute and fun, as the first mission pack ever for PlayStation 1. I think for a full GTA game, we always decided there was so much Americana inherent in the IP, it would be really hard to make it work in London or anywhere else.

“You know, you needed guns, you needed these larger-than-life characters. It just felt like the game was so much about America, possibly from an outsider's perspective. But that was so much about what the thing was that it wouldn't really have worked in the same way elsewhere.”

It’s a trend that’s set to continue with next year’s GTA 6, which is set in the fictional U.S. state of Leonida (a reimagining of Florida). And based on the two GTA 6 trailers we've seen so far, that parody of American culture is once again front and center.

It’s an interesting time, then, to wonder if GTA might hop on a plane and venture abroad at some point in the future. But it feels unlikely, not just based on Houser’s comments, but based on the GTA brand — built up over decades at this point — and what the public expects from it. Indeed, such is GTA’s relationship with America over the course of its many video games, that a University of Tennessee history professor will teach a GTA college history class early in 2026.

Professor Tore Olsson recently told IGN: “Video games are great at conjuring fictional worlds, but they also impact players’ thinking about real-world times and places. And just as Red Dead Redemption 2 has shaped folks’ perception of the nineteenth-century American West or Ghost of Tsushima has informed their vision of feudal Japan, millions of people around the globe imagine contemporary America through the lens of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Just think of how many GTA veterans have recognized landmarks in Los Angeles and New York thanks to their hours in Los Santos and Liberty City!”

Houser’s position on GTA is similar to that of the creators of post-apocalyptic role-playing game series Fallout, which has also remained in the United States. Last year, Bethesda development chief Todd Howard ruled out leaving the U.S. behind for a future Fallout video game, saying he’s a big fan of the “Americana naivete” that informs so much of Fallout’s tone.

Meanwhile, the wait for GTA 6 goes on, with May 26, 2026 the current release date. We’ve got plenty more on GTA 6, including all the details we’ve discovered so far, a roundup of 70 brand new screenshots, and the expert opinion on how GTA 6 will look on PS5 Pro. As for how much will Grand Theft Auto 6 cost? Amid the speculation, new research has suggested that a $100 price point would actually earn Rockstar less money than if went for the “sweet spot” of $70.

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.

MonsterVerze is a Roblox experience that revolves around fashion, where the afterlife gives you a second chance to serve looks. After suffering an unfortunate accident, you'll be able to travel around the MonsterVerze from the Graveyard to the Train Station and Eerie High.

Along the way, you'll dress up and customize your character, meaning you'll want Ghoulars to spend in the shop. You can pick up Ghoulars while you're running around, but we've also got MonsterVerze codes that you can use to boost your stacks of Ghoulars.

Working MonsterVerze Codes

The following codes have been tested and can be redeemed:

• MVHOMECOMING - Homecoming Balloons, Opal Plushie, 6,000 Ghoulars
• MV1MILLION - Shattered Love Crown
• BUGFIXES02 - 10,000 Ghoulars

How to Use MonsterVerze Codes

Launch MonsterVerze and then follow these steps to redeem codes:

1. Press Play and get into the MonsterVerze
2. Click on the Coffin icon on the right side of the screen
3. Then click on Settings at the bottom of the coffin
4. Copy the code from this article into the Enter Code... box and
5. Press Redeem

Expired MonsterVerze Codes

MonsterVerze has just entered its beta, so there are no expired codes at the moment! Be sure to use the codes in the working section before they disappear.

Why Isn't My MonsterVerze 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 MonsterVerze Update?

MonsterVerze updates every week, on a Sunday. For now, there are no special planned events but we'll be sure to update this article if that changes. The Sunday updates are currently designed to address any bugs and improve quality of life features.

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.