Patience debuted on PBS Sunday, June 15. New episodes air weekly.

Despite its endeavor to take a new approach to the police procedural, Patience – British screenwriter Matt Baker’s plodding six-part series revolving around an autistic police archivist-turned-investigator – leans on tired tropes at every turn. Much like staples of the genre like Psych or Monk, it hopes to cash in on the dazzling special skills and enigmatic unconventionality of its central detective. But there’s a limit to Patience's interest in carving out any proper depth to its protagonist, giving her a meaty backstory, or venturing beyond her surface-level motivations. The result is a series that – in spite of some valiant attempts by its actors to lift a clunky script – is mechanical, soulless and stale. Considering the general lack of autistic women on TV, it’s a real missed opportunity.

The titular main character, hard-nosed puzzle-lover Patience Evans (Ella Maisy Purvis, who, like her character, is neurodivergent), works in the criminal records department hidden in the basement of a police bureau in the quaint UK town of York. The opening sequence follows her at home, timing herself as she solves a gift-shop puzzle to a backing of whimsical orchestral music. Simultaneously, in a bank, a glassy-eyed man takes out a hefty lump sum before heading to a car park, dousing himself in gasoline, and lighting a match. From the first beep of Patience’s stopwatch, there’s a tonal rift between cozy crime drama and gritty cop thriller that can’t quite be bridged. It’s also an early giveaway of a tendency to see Patience as an oddity rather than a rounded, relatable character.

This is the latest in a string of apparent suicides Patience is semi-miraculously able to link together into one murder investigation. When she starts dropping hints by sending additional, unrequested files upstairs to the investigations department, she catches the attention of Detective Inspector Bea Metcalf (Laura Fraser), an unusually, slightly disconcertingly warm antithesis to the stereotypical hard-as-nails police constable.

Discovering the 20-something’s handy flair for identifying crucial details and patterns that neurotypical officers in the department miss, Bea takes Patience under her wing, ensuring her talents are no longer squandered in the storeroom. Patience becomes unofficial “assistant investigator,” presumably without the pay rise. But Bea’s colleagues take less kindly to Patience’s arrival: One minor character remarks that Patience got her name because it will “take every ounce of yours to deal with her.” She’s surrounded by a cast of characters who are endlessly frustrated by their new coworker, each proving their backwardness in a way that feels stage-managed and slightly absurd rather than totally believable.

Even as Patience is lured out from the safety of the criminal records department and bravely enters this new realm, she’s oddly sidelined by her namesake show. Episodes alternate between scenes with the budding detective and ones with the senior police officers. These quip-heavy check-ins seem intended to leaven some of the heaviness of Patience’s storyline – except the sparkless dialogue and feeble humor mean they function as little more than dressed-up exposition.

Though Patience is supposed to unfold from its main character’s perspective, her lack of involvement in numerous parts of the plot, the narrow, unsubtle gamut of ways she makes her presence felt onscreen (briskly walking York’s streets while wearing noise-cancelling headphones, storming off, furrowing her eyebrows, clenching her fists), and the dogged emphasis on how others perceive her as an outsider suggest otherwise. At every point where we start to empathize, we’re reeled back into the point-of-view of her colleagues. And, wherever Patience goes, she’s accompanied by the show’s sweeping, fanciful score, encouraging us to see her from a distance – to view her not as a person living her life or doing her job, but as an object of patronizing awe.

Much of Baker’s problem lies in trying too hard to make Patience’s internal world external, forcing her to constantly explain away her behavior and feelings in a script that is both artificial and trite. Too much of the screentime manages to feel like a rote exercise in teaching non-autistic viewers about autistic traits, while bulldozing over any of the autistic characters’ nuances in the process. There’s also a confounding lack of consistency and attention to detail, from incongruity between shots to plot holes to uneven character development. One of Patience’s few redeeming qualities is that its cases of the week each start out with an intriguing premise for a crime – but even these wind up rushed-through and half-baked, with a distinct lack of riveting murderers.

Over the last eight years, the Nintendo Switch has become one of the most successful and influential consoles of all time, confidently securing a place in my regular gaming rotation on the couch while simultaneously becoming a handheld staple of my train commutes and trips abroad alike. But over that same time, its aging innards have become steadily more distracting. That’s why it’s such a relief that the Nintendo Switch 2 has magnetically snapped into our hands at long last, giving games the Switch was struggling to run a shot in the arm and opening the door for a whole new generation of third-party support. At the same time, apart from a creative new mouse control option that works better than it is comfortable to actually use, this sequel system doesn’t provide many of its own novel reasons to upgrade at the moment beyond bringing its out-of-date predecessor into the modern age – and it’s charging a substantial premium ($449) in order to do that.

Let’s start with the basics: From the outside, the Switch 2 looks almost identical to a slightly scaled-up version of Nintendo’s original handheld/console hybrid system (roughly 13% bigger, 10.7 inches across with both Joy-Con controllers attached), but a whole lot of smart tweaks make it a much more refined device – although many of these were carried over from the Switch OLED model. That includes a new kickstand that’s far more robust and versatile, as well as system buttons that are just a bit sleeker. However, there are also welcome additions unique to this device like a second USB port on top so you can finally charge while playing in tabletop mode (anyone who has taken their Switch 1 on a long flight knows how huge of an improvement this is) or plug in certain peripherals like the official camera while docked, as well as a very comfortable 256GB of base internal storage so you don’t immediately have to buy a MicroSD Express card to expand it.

The biggest change to the body of the Switch 2, of course, is the new magnetic attachment system for its updated Joy-Con. This replacement for the original’s slide-on rails is genuinely fantastic, letting you satisfyingly snap them on and off with ease while feeling entirely sturdy and secure when you want them to be. (You can pull them off without pressing the release button if you really want to, but it's almost definitely not going to happen by accident.) In a similar way to how Tears of the Kingdom somehow made Breath of the Wild feel small, it’s the type of upgrade that makes something I previously loved suddenly seem like a first draft that’s a little awkward to go back to.

We’ve now covered pretty much all the major physical differences between the two systems, however, which I do think represents a missed opportunity. Most notably, it’s disappointing that the Joy-Con themselves didn’t get a more ergonomic redesign. As much as I really love the convenience and flexibility of being able to use them attached to the screen, detached to play games with my arms relaxed at my sides, individually for simple multiplayer games, or snapped onto the included grip to form something closer to a conventional gamepad, these controllers are far from the most comfortable around. They are still missing analog triggers, and the button layout has always been cramped and misaligned, but their size increase hasn’t been taken advantage of to make any of that better. In fact, it sort of makes things worse in handheld mode, as the larger device and heavier weight (1.18 pounds with the Joy-Con attached, compared to the original’s 0.88) adds just a little more strain over time. It’s not much worse if you are already used to a Switch 1, but after using the substantially more ergonomic Steam Deck (which is 0.29 pounds heavier) for the past three years, the reused design of these small, flat controllers now sticks out like a sore thumb – quite literally sometimes.

Of course, the new Joy-Con do have one exceptionally cool trick up their sleeve: Pop one off and turn it on its side (with the connecting edge down) and you get quick access to an impressively precise mouse control option as you slide it around your coffee table or couch cushion. Simply put, this works well enough to be every bit the game-changer I was hoping it might be… with a couple of major caveats. The good news here is that this mouse option really, truly gets the job done – it’s not going to rival the precision of a high-quality PC gaming setup or anything, but it’s more than accurate enough for your average player, and blows the lid off what kinds of games can be conveniently played at your couch or on the go.

The first time I plopped onto my sofa, propped my Switch 2 on my legs, and then popped off the right Joy-Con and started casually playing Civilization 7 with all the precision of sitting at my desk, something clicked. That same feeling came back when I set my Switch 2 up on a table at an outdoor coffee shop and played Cyberpunk 2077 with the wide arm of a wooden recliner chair as my mousepad. Those weren’t perfect experiences – Civ has an issue where it would occasionally misunderstand my inputs and swap to a different control mode when I clicked, and Cyberpunk’s button mapping demands a little bit too much of your right thumb (which I go into more detail about here). But those felt more like software and implementation problems rather than the fault of the tech itself, and these native mouse controls still stand out to me as the killer feature that sets the Switch 2 apart from any other gaming system available today.

So, what’s the catch? Well, much like using a single sideways Joy-Con on its own, it feels as though Nintendo designed the shape of this controller with the assumption that nobody would ever actually use it this way for longer than the minigames in Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour demand, and in doing so ensured few would ever want to. Mice are shaped the way they are for a good reason, supporting your hand in specific spots and reducing strain wherever they can – and the ergonomics of how your arm is positioned while sitting are important for that as well. In contrast, the Joy-Con 2 is a candy bar with triggers used in whatever position provides a flat enough surface, and there isn’t really a comfortable way to hold it that stays comfortable over long sessions.

When I played Cyberpunk 2077 with The Switch 2’s mouse controls for more than two hours in a row, I could still feel the strain in my hand the next day. Playing Civ for just 45 minutes while reclined on my couch inflamed a tendonitis issue in my forearm (which had been gone for three years) so badly that the pain actually woke me up that night. I even resorted to 3D printing a mouse-shaped Joy-Con shell to ease the hand strain, which did help (and it’s truly crazy Nintendo doesn’t have an official accessory like this available already), but that doesn’t do anything to solve the ergonomics of how you have to hold your arm – especially if you are playing with the mouse on your thigh as Nintendo over-ambitiously recommends.

The end result is an extremely innovative idea that I am as excited about as I am apprehensive to use more. Mouse controls work just fine in short bursts or to navigate menus, but are so uncomfortable in most practical scenarios that I doubt I’ll look to play any large games this way for prolonged sessions. It’s hard to imagine sitting down with Borderlands 4 later this year, for example, and playing an entire FPS campaign like this, which is a true shame. (And if you’re left-handed, you better hope the developer of whatever game you’re playing included an option to flip the controls – Civ and the Switch 2’s menus do, but Cyberpunk 2077 seemingly does not, and there doesn’t appear to be anything built in at the system level to account for this.) That said, if Nintendo were to make an official wireless Mouse-Con or snap-on accessory with all the buttons that are needed and a physical shape that wouldn’t hurt my hand to hold I would pick it up in a heartbeat, so the potential for this control method to be truly great is here.

It’s worth noting that certain games like Cyberpunk 2077 do have out-of-the-box support for a regular USB mouse – and even keyboard! – to be plugged into the dock, turning the Switch 2 into something that could function more like an ultra-portable gaming PC. (Although, notably, that doesn’t currently work in system menus.) That lack of limitation is really great to see, and I hope more games that are also available on PC make use of that potential going forward. I initially thought this might also mean I could plug in a mouse and use that as a more comfortable FPS option in Cyberpunk, but you can’t just use the mouse to replace the right Joy-Con and still use the left for movement without the UI swapping rapidly between the two input methods, and you can’t rebind any of the additional buttons your mouse might have to replace the controller buttons you’ve lost, so it’s not really a full-time solution. It’s all mouse and keyboard or all Joy-Con.

Moving from the Joy-Con to the screen nestled between them, the LCD touch display of the Switch 2 is a pretty big upgrade over the base Switch, and sort of a sidegrade compared to its OLED update that makes up for a lack of vividness with more pixels and frames per second. The jump from a 720p resolution to 1080p is a big one, and the doubled 120fps cap is some very welcome icing on that cake whenever a game can take advantage of it (though currently that’s reserved to only a minigame or two in Welcome Tour). Those improvements shouldn’t be understated, but the move back to LCD does mean the screen doesn’t perform quite as well outdoors and on the go compared to an OLED Switch. It’s still a good looking screen with pretty solid speakers to accompany it, and I was able to play Mario Kart on a sunny day in the park with no visibility problems, but a darker game like Cyberpunk 2077 was basically impossible to make out at times. All in all, it feels like a bit of a wash depending on your play habits and priorities, but since we’ve been forced to choose, I'm personally happy with the resolution and framerate bump.

Thankfully, that upped output isn’t isolated to handheld mode. In addition to finally having an integrated ethernet port (another perk that was on the OLED version first), the redesigned dock allows the Switch 2 to display beautiful 4K with HDR and higher framerates (up to 120 FPS at 1440p on compatible games). That’s thanks in part to a built-in fan and a thoughtful eye toward cooling in general, letting the Switch 2 pump out more power without overheating. Apparently it really needs that, too, because it could get pretty hot to the touch whenever I was playing games in 4K, even something innocuous like Welcome Tour – never to the point where it caused problems or threatened to burn my hands, but at least to a degree that surprised me given how consistently cool it stays while handheld.

This is where we start to peek inside the system, because the Switch 2’s ability to run games like Tears of the Kingdom with improved resolution and zero lag is probably its biggest selling point for anybody who had been feeling the Switch 1’s age more and more each day as we all cried out for the “Switch Pro” that never came. If you’ve only ever gamed on the original Switch in the last eight years, the upgrade being offered here is substantial – the free updates and paid Switch 2 Editions that have been released for many existing games make them look better, load a whole lot faster, and run the way it feels like they were always meant to. That backward-compatibility support is truly great to see when the Switch has so many still-awesome bangers in its library, and especially when Mario Kart World is the sole significant launch game.

It’s also easy to see how much of a jump has been made here when you compare the games of one developer, CD Projekt Red. The version of The Witcher 3 that came to Switch 1 was almost a novelty, with muddy graphics and a passable framerate that made it seem like a marvel it was able to run at all. Cyberpunk 2077, on the other hand, runs more than respectably on Switch 2 – it’s not on par with other modern platforms or anything, but it’s far more than a consolation prize, and a totally fine way to play an excellent RPG if you haven’t otherwise had the opportunity. The Switch 2 is never going to threaten the PlayStation 5 Pro in terms of raw power, but it’s a whole new world as far as third-party support is concerned. Hopefully it will be a little while before major third-party games start skipping Nintendo’s platform again (because if it has to run on the Xbox Series S anyway, it could probably be made to run here, too).

That said, if you have gamed on devices besides the Switch 1 since 2017, the technical upgrade here is not exactly what I would call exciting in the larger scheme of things. The Switch 2 is Nintendo playing catch-up, and things like HDR and 4K haven’t been thrilling new features for over half a decade. They are great to finally have, don’t get me wrong, and games on the Switch 2 no longer feel stranded on a console that was underpowered even when it first came out. And yet, there’s a part of me that worries we’ll be right back to begging for a Switch 2 Pro when the PlayStation 6 inevitably arrives in a few years time, because this one still hasn’t fully closed the gap with the consoles that launched back in 2020. (I mean, Microsoft announced it is working with AMD on the next Xbox console generation literally as I was writing this.)

Of course, Nintendo has always been more focused on doing a lot with a little in that regard, and that has largely worked to its benefit – the newest Pokemon games were certainly struggling on the 2017 hardware, and have received a big boost here, but it’s hard to argue Breath of the Wild doesn’t still look fantastic today even running at 720p and 30 frames per second (on a good day) thanks to its outstanding art direction. The same can be said for console-defining games like Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, among others. Even just playing catch-up is a big deal because any caveats that accompanied those already amazing games have now vanished. I don’t mean to undersell how great it is to feel like the training wheels have finally come off.

But that’s part of my point: This does not feel like a whole new bike. You could say that it’s not supposed to, given this is the first time Nintendo has ever put a 2 at the end of a piece of hardware’s name. But, functionally speaking, the Switch 2 feels closer to that mid-generation "Pro” update we never got than a brand-new console, and the gap is even smaller if you are only making the jump from an OLED Switch. And, yes, that was similarly true of the PlayStation 5 and Series X when they launched – I even wrote a whole article at the time about how generational leaps were going to stop being as jaw-dropping as we were used to. But for those systems, their top-of-the-line graphics power was at least somewhat novel on its own when it came to features like ray tracing, which is not the case here unless the Switch 1 is all you know. (Not even in the context of handheld gaming, given the rise of portable PCs like the Steam Deck in recent years.)

Instead, the “big” additions are things like GameChat, which is basically Nintendo’s own version of Discord with a dedicated button on the right Joy-Con to open it – and while it’s certainly a neat way to connect with friends and share your screen (at a comically low framerate), it’s also so hilariously overdue that IGN literally named a podcast Nintendo Voice Chat 17 years ago as a goof because it’s, to quote the 2008 announcement article, “the only place you'll find reliable voice support and "Nintendo" in the same area.” That joke could almost vote before it stopped being true. Meanwhile, Nintendo still isn’t interested in letting us customize the home screen (or even rearrange our game icons), still won’t support most media apps beyond YouTube (and some Switch 1 options like Hulu and CrunchyRoll no longer work at all on Switch 2), and still uses an obnoxious friend code system that’s a hassle next to all the other major platforms. There’s at least a welcome redesign of the eShop, which was painfully slow on the original Switch, but the system menus and interfaces are otherwise close to identical.

This kind of incremental system upgrade isn’t necessarily a bad thing in a vacuum, but it stands out to me when this console is also a whopping $449 compared to the original Switch’s $299 despite having slightly worse battery life in handheld mode – when playing big games like Mario Kart World, Cyberpunk 2077, or Civilization 7 on the go, I’ve yet to make it far past the two-and-a-half hour mark without having to plug in. Pair that with only a single launch exclusive worth playing and, apart from revisiting games I’ve already beaten at a resolution and framerate I’ve been used to seeing elsewhere for a half decade, there’s just not much that’s got me actively excited to play my Switch 2 at the moment. That will surely change when the phenomenal looking Donkey Kong Bananza and other new games start to arrive in the coming months, but for now this launch feels a little subdued.

Looking for a cheap power bank to extend the playtime of your brand new Nintendo Switch 2 console? Then this is the best power bank deal I've seen for today. Amazon is offering an Iniu 10,000mAh 22.5W USB Power Bank for just $11.87 after you clip the 10% off coupon on the product page and apply promo code "F4M479K9" during checkout. Iniu power banks generally have great reviews and are less expensive than equivalent Anker models. This particular power bank shares its 18,000 4.6-star Amazon reviews with one other model.

INIU 10,000mAh 22.5W Power Bank for $11.87

If you scan the shelves of your local board game store, any number of well-known video game adaptations will likely leap out at you. There’s Mass Effect: Priority Hagalaz for example, or Slay the Spire: The Board Game, alongside many other board games based on video games. But one very well-known name you won’t see is that of Lara Croft, or her beloved Tomb Raider franchise. For the series’ legions of fans, that is all about to change, but not necessarily in the way that they might think.

“We wanted to create a solo board game where Lara Croft is on a new adventure,” Luke Meila, designer of the upcoming Tomb Raider: The Crypt of Chronos, explained to IGN at his stand at the UK Games Expo, boldly supported by a hirsute gentleman cosplaying as Lara Croft. “We’ve seen Lara in video games, movies, comics and her adventures are always tailored to whatever the medium is, so that’s what we did with this: make a board game as if Lara has always been in a board game.”

That’s the core conceit driving the unusual solo nature of the game, which Melia feels is a pretty bold decision. “There are lots of franchises that create one-player modes in their board game adaptations, but we’ve never seen one build a complete solo game,” he continued. “While there are some great solo games like Under Fallen Skies and Final Girl, there’s nothing with a license this big. I was worried someone would get cold feet and pressure us into turning this into a more traditional multiplayer game.”

Luckily, that didn’t happen, and Melia has been free to realize his vision in the form of a game with two different ways to play. “There’s the adventure book, which is fifteen structured missions,” he said. “It’s designed to tell the story of how Lara got to the island of Kairos and what she’s looking for there. It kind of teaches you how to play, using a minimal set of components.”

Once you’re familiar with that, you can move onto campaign play. “This is much more of an open world, much more expansive” said Melia. This involves moving Lara across a map of the whole island, with different terrain hexes divided into jungles, deserts, mountains and tombs. “Each of the tombs has a token on it, and one of those tokens hides a map, while another hides a key,” he added. "When you get both, you’ll gain access to your big final mission.”

Each hex on the map has you drawing a card which shows you how to set up a level to play through, built from modular tiles supplied in the box. Traversing this has its own set of challenges depending on the terrain. “Jungles are quite balanced,” Melia said. “Deserts are hot and dangerous, wide open spaces that require a lot of traversal and enemies can see you from far away. Tombs are more puzzle-based with fewer enemies.”

Putting puzzles in board games has always been a double-edged sword. Puzzling and strategy feel like very close bedfellows, but once you’ve solved a puzzle, there’s little point in doing it again, making your game obsolete. Melia has found an ingenious way to get around this problem by making parts of each puzzle highly dynamic.

“So in this tomb we have to collect an artifact, which is locked behind a door,” he demonstrated. “We've got a boulder that you have to push around and you've got to try and work out how to get to the artifacts. So you need to work out where to put the boulder to get access to the unlocked corridors, and work out the correct order to throw the switches. There are twelve different tombs in the game, with different maps, different objectives and different switches. That would be a lot to try and memorize.”

And even if you do, Melia has designed things so that the game will keep on throwing you curveballs. “How each tomb plays out is going to be different on each replay,” he continued. “The events are going to be different, the enemies are going to be different. You’ll create a plan at the beginning of each tomb, but you have to continually adjust that plan according to what’s going on around you. You might learn where to push a boulder but that will be complicated if an enemy wanders into the area.”

He’s spent a surprising amount of time ensuring that his invention continues to puzzle even experienced players. “I experimented with all kinds of different puzzle options because having stale solutions was exactly my worry,” he confessed. “I wanted this to be endlessly replayable. But we’ve done a lot of playtesting and so far we’ve not had an issue where someone has done the same tomb twice and it’s not felt different each time. There’s enough variation in there to throw you off, whatever your plan is.”

Outside of tombs, you’re faced with more traditional challenges such as jumping, sneaking, and fighting, which are handled with a palette of six different actions and a pool of six dice that you can spend to boost your action. “ You can use as many dice as you want on an action and the more you use, the more powerful it is,” said Melia. “However, once you've used all six, your turn is done. If I want to run across the board, I could roll four dice for movement, but then if I find myself in a combat situation, it only leaves me with two.”

Once you’re out of dice, the enemies get to react. “They move on patrol routes,” Melia said. “Unless you’ve created noise in which case they’ll go and investigate and if they see you, they’ll attack. Then there’s an event phase where you’ll draw a card. There are lots of different kinds, like a dart trap you’ll have to try and dodge, or enemies spawning onto the board, or bonus resources. As you uncover resources, you can use them to craft new weapons and new outfits, and new actions as well.”

In the campaign game, enemies don’t just spawn and move in the level you’re playing but on the island map as well. “On the island enemies are NATLA, one of the famous villains from the Tomb Raider games,” Melia revealed. “Their invasion is spreading across the island, and every time you run out of event cards, more and more will appear. So if you draw helpful events like bonuses, they’re out of the deck and the game gets harder because enemies appear more frequently.”

Individual missions take about 20 to 60 minutes, so it can take a while to play through the 15 scenarios in the adventure mode. But, happily, the campaign missions are a bit shorter, allowing you to fit the whole thing into an evening’s play, which takes about three hours. However, the game has still been designed so you can “save” it in the midst of a campaign if you so wish. “We’ve included a save box,” says Melia. “You put in what you’ve crafted and it tells you how to save the decks.”

Video game adaptations to tabletop always face a barrier of how far to replicate the twitch action of the screen to the more sedate pace of the table. That’s why Melia tried to focus on the puzzling aspects of the franchise, but he made sure to try and make taking actions in the game feel like those of the original as much as possible. “You climb up to different levels of terrain in the game,” he explained. “Originally, I made moving and climbing two separate actions, with a roll to climb, because that’s how it works in the video game. You stop in front of the wall, jump and then climb up. But it just wasn’t fun on the tabletop, it got in the way of itself. We made them into one fluid action and it costs movement points to climb up and down.”

There are lots of other subtle nods to the original experience, too. “There’s a cooperative mode called pass the controller,” Melia said. “You take the dice, take a turn and then pass it to the other player. My wife and I play together quite a lot and we make joint decisions on what Lara is doing. It’s great until Lara gets surrounded by enemies and we disagree on how to get her out!”

And after months of design work and internal testing, Melia, who admits to being a devotee of the series from the very first game, finally got to try it out with some fellow fans. “They said it felt like an authentic Tomb Raider experience,” he beamed. “During one puzzle, one of them said that it couldn’t be done. That it was impossible. And I didn’t say anything, I just watched him reverse engineer it until finally I saw it click, and he smiled and solved it. And that was excellent.”

There can’t be many finer moments for a game designer, nor a player who loves the series, and it won’t be long before you get the chance to experience it on your own tabletop, too.

Matt Thrower is a contributing freelance writer for IGN, specializing in tabletop games. You can reach him on BlueSky at @mattthr.bsky.social.

Alienware is offering competitive prices on RTX 5080 equipped gaming PCs to kick off June. Right now you can pick up an Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5080 gaming PC for $2,374.99 shipped. This is a good price for a well-engineered gaming rig with powerful current generation components, 240mm AIO water cooling, and sensible airflow design that can handle 4K gaming at high frame rates. In the current market, buying a prebuilt gaming PC is the only way to score an RTX 5080 GPU without paying an exorbitant markup. If you were to try to find a 5080 GPU for your do-it-yourself PC build, you'll probably spend nearly as much for the GPU as you would for an entire system.

Update: Price has dropped slightly from $2450 to $2325.

Alienware Aurora RTX 5080 Gaming PC From $2,375

Final Fantasy’s Magic: The Gathering set has been a huge success, with fans getting to wield cardboard versions of iconic characters from the series. While the set is home to some fantastic chase cards all of its own, it’s also led to some price increases on cards that play nicely with the new Universes Beyond additions.

Not only that, while there's been a rapid price increase, none of these cards are overly expensive to buy standalone on the secondary market right now (maxing out at $15 at most). From card draw engines to Saga skippers, these are three of the best cards you can snap up right now, and what to use them for.

Harmonic Prodigy - Modern Horizons 2

If there’s one thing beyond doubt after having played well over 100 hours with Dune: Awakening, it’s that Funcom has done its homework in crafting the most authentic take on the Dune-iverse imaginable. As a longtime fan of Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi setting, that’s an incredible thing to experience more often than not, and my time on Arrakis has been filled with moments of genuine shock. It’s very clever how the harsh environments and empty space are repeatedly used as progression checks, turning what seem like they should be weaknesses into strengths. Other times, that stubborn adherence to established lore results in annoying or just plain boring irritations, like how you’re all but forced to adopt a nomadic lifestyle in a genre where putting down roots and building up your base is one of the fundamentals. There have also been plenty of technical issues and bugs, an endgame that could use a bit of hydration, and combat that never stops being underwhelming, but on balance my friends and have had an absolutely awesome time nerding out.

If you’ve ever played a survival game (and have read a Dune book or seen the movies) before, you’ll know most of what you need to feel at home among the giant sand worms: you gather materials from the world, build your own ugly-as-heck home, and upgrade your equipment to gain access to more dangerous areas with rarer materials. Like plenty of survival games, including Funcom’s own Conan Exiles or last year’s Once Human, all of this is happening on a server full of similarly sunburnt players in a perpetually online world, where cooperation and limited instances of PvP are both a distinct possibility, and which account for most of its best moments.

The story is an interesting twist on the Dune world that takes place in an alternate reality where Paul Atreides was never born and House Atreides doesn’t collapse as a result. It’s a smart decision that allows for Awakening’s developers to play in the Dune-iverse without tying themselves to canon events or being obligated to kill off the various fan-favorite characters that the novels dispose of with reckless abandon. The plot is full of lore, familiar faces, and a few compelling twists and turns, but unfortunately each of those chapters is separated by about a dozen hours of gameplay and grinding that makes it pretty hard to keep track of or enjoy in any comprehensive way. Plus, Funcom makes the classic mistake of randomly throwing in a stealth level, and though it’s not quite as annoying as these one-offs tend to be, it’s definitely not playing to Awakening’s strengths. All in all though, I quite enjoyed the story that’s told, in large part because it makes such good use of the universe and worldbuilding.

Where this game really sets itself apart, though, is by just how much it adheres to its legendary setting, and that has a major impact on just about everything you do. For example, clever use is made of Arrakis’ harsh environment, which is weaponized against you quite literally every second you stay within its atmosphere. Standing directly in sunlight unprotected will bake you alive in a matter of seconds; sandstorms blow on a regular basis and will kill you if you aren’t able to get to shelter first; and most notably, there’s the issue of those pesky, enormous, man-eating worms which gobble you up if you dare tread upon their domain for too long. By leaning into the unforgiving world as much as it does, Awakening puts you in a constant battle against the planet itself. So instead of casually trotting around collecting resources at your leisure and settling your own little piece of the world, you’re frantically ducking behind rocks to avoid the sun’s harsh rays and drink what little water you have left, and playing a never-ending game of “the floor is lava” as you rush from one place to another with a shai-hulud hot on your heels.

All of these hazards give you obstacles that are satisfying to overcome. For example, early on you’re unable to leave the tutorial area thanks to a massive gap of empty space where sun exposure or, more likely, a massive worm would certainly kill you if you attempt to go on foot, so you have to craft your first vehicle in order to safely cross it. Later on, you start to encounter places that are too hot or irradiated to explore without proper equipment. There are plenty of examples just like this, where the unique nature of the setting is turned into an interesting mechanic and usually Awakening is a better, more interesting survival game for it.

But there are other times where this fanatical adherence to Dune conventions can be quite obnoxious, like how you’re encouraged (and in some cases required) to move your base of operations from place to place as you unlock access to higher-level regions. Pulling up stakes means you either have to abandon all you’ve built up to that point or tediously relocate as much of your equipment as you can, piece by piece.

Then there’s stuff like the fact that guns are often useless, since many enemies make use of the all-important Holtzman shields that completely protect from ranged attacks. This creates a weird situation where you’re juggling back and forth between guns and melee weapons depending on which enemy is currently running towards you, oftentimes having to choose between addressing the swordsman barreling down on you or the guy a few feet behind him with a chaingun, which can create a really oppressive rhythm to combat. While using guns is more effective at the start, once enemies start getting shields here’s little reason to ever use a gun. Melee is much better at killing enemies, since you can sprint through almost any bullets that bounce off your shield, then stun and stab enemies relentlessly until they die, but this becomes extremely monotonous, since every encounter plays out identically with almost no variety.

That’s just part of the reason that, like almost every single one of its peers, Dune: Awakening has pretty awful combat. I knew going into a survival MMO that would be the case, but it’s still a particularly bitter pill that never gets any easier to swallow. I spent half of my time playing with ranged weapons before switching to a vastly more effective melee build, but both are repetitive, sloppy, and downright janky. I honestly kinda respect how much Dune: Awakening sticks to its guns by making said guns ineffective to keep with Dune lore, even as it sometimes comes at the expense of me having a good time.

There are, at least, some neat little tricks like Bene Gesserit powers that let you command enemies to stop dead in their tracks for stretches of time, or an anti-gravity grenade that suspends everyone in the air, but very little of this stuff mixes things up enough to make up for the hours of blandness forced upon you. What’s more, there’s also some really irritating bugs, like how sometimes the parry button is unresponsive, or for some reason you simply won’t be able to swing your weapon at all until you unequip and re-equip it, which requires running away frantically to find a hiding spot where it’s safe to do so. Again, in the world of MMOs and survival games alike, I don’t expect anything as polished as Gears of War, but if you were hoping Dune would get this bit right I’m afraid that it definitely does not in its current state.

Thankfully, the combat miss is more than counterbalanced by the absolutely stellar survival mechanics, which are some of the most thoughtful and polished I’ve seen in a while. There’s a constant stream of new technologies to research, equipment to craft, and material to hunt for with almost no filler or repetitive grind along the way. Every time I collected the right materials to craft the latest shiny thing I want, I immediately had another enticing item to chase, and with unique schematics dropping left and right, I was always making interesting decisions on whether to spend my rarest materials on a cool item with a special effect versus taking the more conservative route and just crafting common items to save those resources for a rainy day (it’s gotta rain on Arrakis eventually…right?) There are some instances where the exact amount of materials needed to craft something, and the time it takes for those recipes to be cooked up, are a bit much, especially in the endgame where you can go through ornithopters quite quickly during PvP. But aside from these more extreme, late-game examples, the progression is incredibly well paced.

It’s especially impressive that Funcom accomplished this loop so well in a desert world where there are no other locations aside from hot sand, and almost no plants or wildlife available to harvest. A major hallmark of survival games is punching trees, and there are no trees on Arrakis – instead, you’re making tools to pull water from morning dew collecting in the world at night and by pulling it from the air, which is just really clever and a welcome change of pace that embraces the weird and barren setting, even if it is still essentially the same thing.

Though it took me over 80 hours to complete the campaign and master the main map of Hagga Basin, there’s still quite a bit to do once you reach the end of the grind and are inevitably pushed out to the Deep Desert to begin the endgame. This PvP-heavy zone is the only source of the materials necessary to reach the highest heights currently available in Dune: Awakening and has some really great ideas, like how the Coriolis Storm sweeps through each week and destroys everything in its path, leaving behind a new procedurally generated map to explore and fight other players to build settlements on. Unfortunately, those maps are absolutely massive and largely empty (and not in a good way, like the Hagga Basin), and what structures and shipwrecks there are to explore are mostly carbon copies of one another and almost instantly become a chore to explore.

But worse than that is the fact that the main event of the Deep Desert is the PvP experience, which is presently pretty awful – and not just because combat in general isn’t great in Awakening. The current meta involves everyone on the map flying around in ornithopters, carpet bombing one another into oblivion as they fight for a small amount of minerals needed for crafting. There’s very little in the way of gunplay, and hand-to-hand combat is fairly rare unless you get caught inside a shipwreck or cave, which isn’t all that likely when so much of the map is barren dunes. It’s a massively unrewarding experience that leaves those without guilds or powerful ships to live under the oppressive regime of their fellow players. If your ornithopter is destroyed in a dogfight, which is fairly likely, then you’ll need to haul your defeated butt back to Hagga Basin for another few hours of grinding to make a new ship, just for the chance to get your teeth kicked in and your mouth filled with sand all over again.

What’s hilarious is that even if you’re on the winning side of that brutal equation, you’re rewarded with basically nothing since players only drop the loot in their backpack and hang on to the much more valuable items they likely currently have equipped on their person. You’re at least able to grab some high-value materials, including the all-important spice, which helps you craft some of the most potent items on Arrakis, but those can also be scavenged from the world if you simply get lucky and swoop in undetected to grab what you need and leave before someone blasts you. It’s a meta that simply isn’t very fun for either side, and combined with the lack of rewarding things to do, I suspect this underdeveloped part of the Dune journey will be the focus of some serious revamping in the weeks and months to come.

Speaking of which, there’s still some technical work to be done as well. It’s certainly better than it was during the beta, but even as improved as it is, I’ve had disconnects, seen entire mountains disappear and reappear before my eyes, and even had a few hours where all sand worms just up and deleted themselves from existence, making everyone on the server swarm to the resources normally protected by their constant threat. It’s not been the smoothest launch by any stretch – but also far from the worst.

IGN can exclusively reveal that Fathom Entertainment and Dark Sky Films have designated August 18, 2025 as Texas Chain Saw Day, a nationwide theatrical celebration honoring the iconic and influential horror film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

For one night only, on August 18th, audiences across the United States will be able to watch the original 1974 film in cinemas and in 4K.

Why August 18th, you may wonder? Because the events of the original film take place on August 18, 1973, so Texas Chain Saw Day marks the 52nd anniversary of the events depicted in the Tobe Hooper-directed classic.

Texas Chain Saw Day theatergoers will also get a sneak peek of Chain Reactions, an upcoming documentary about the Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise directed by Alexandre Phillipe (The People vs. George Lucas, William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill, Lynch/Oz).

Chain Reactions, which won the Golden Lion at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, chronicles the impact the 1974 film had on Stephen King, Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Karyn Kusama.

“Texas Chain Saw Day will create the ultimate cinematic experience for fans of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. With a 4K restoration and an exclusive new look at Chain Reactions, August 18 will be a day of celebration for fans of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” said Fathom Entertainment CEO, Ray Nutt in a statement.

“Horror has long been a staple in the wide array of classic and genre-based theatrical movies Fathom brings to audiences nationwide, and Texas Chain Saw Day will be a cinematic experience like no other.”

Tickets for Texas Chain Saw Day will be available next month at Fathom Entertainment and participating movie theaters.

IGN has listed 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre among our Top 25 horror movies of all time and as one of the 15 best slasher films ever made.

Today’s lineup includes some big names in gaming and collectibles, with Nintendo Switch 2 preorders for Kirby and Donkey Kong Bananza leading the charge. Both titles look like must-plays for platformer fans, with Kirby’s upgraded edition offering smoother performance and new post-game content, and Donkey Kong getting the full 3D treatment for the first time since the N64 days. Collectors will also want to check out the pixel-perfect FiGGYZ and the 50th anniversary SteelBook edition of Monty Python and the Holy Grail on 4K UHD.

Featured in this article

On the tech side, deals include a $499 Mac Mini M4, a $699 MacBook Air M3, and a big drop on Samsung’s ultra-wide Neo G9 monitor. We’re also seeing discounts on the Anker 4K HDMI Switch and accessories for the Switch 2 like JSAUX’s 3-pack screen protector and tomtoc’s slim carrying case. If games are more your speed, two new Humble Bundles are live—one for story-driven indies and another stacked with brawlers like River City Girls and Final Vendetta. Scroll on for the best savings.

Hulu + Live TV Free Trial

Pokémon Restock Updates

Checking these prices against TCG Player secondary market values, a lot of these products aren't far off the mark. Make no mistake, they're still way off MSRP, but finding Pokémon products on shelves that haven't been marked up past the point of anyone caring is a positive. Still refusing to pay over MSRP for new sets? Well played, I'm proud of you. Here's some single card highlights for you to shuffle through instead. Spoiler, there's plenty of deals to be had.

Destined Rivals Singles Are On The Rise (Again)

It's hard to stick a pin on Destined Rivals single card values right now, and the dips in value seem to match the little bits of stock distributors release to stores. Looking at the tracking charts for each of these cards, we can see mostly plummets from day one, then either upticks or cards for sale that exceed the original value at launch. It's crazy, but we now know how low these cards can go. Sure there's always attempts at market manipulation, but I wouldn't buy any cards on the rise right now.

The Most Expensive Pokémon Cards In Packs RIGHT NOW

We're not talking about vintage or out of print sets, all of these are incredible chase cards you can pull from booster packs available now. You can probably put money on their value going up as soon as their respective sets go out of print. If you don't want to spend mega money ripping open packs, market values on these single cards are quite reasonable for the most part..

Destined Rivals Sealed Stock

Wew're look to market values for Destined Rivals at the moment, seeing as big box stores are either fresh out of stock or charging over MSRP and what they're worth on the secondary market. So here's the full lineup to pop on your shelf or rip open like THAT Tyranitar. If you know you know.

Discounted MTG: Aetherdrift Boxes

Magic: The Gathering discounts at a big box store like Amazon? Surely not! Aetherdrift turned the MTG meta on its head introducing vehicles and other unique mechanics. This is a great time to jump into it and rip open some packs, it's deffinately one of the most "out there" twists on the ever popular trading card game.

Where To Buy MTG: Final Fantasy

It's finally here, Magic the Gathering: Final Fantasy is out in the wild. If you got a preorder for MSRP, well played, but many TCG and Final Fantasy fans missed out. Fear not, there's still some options on sealed products available right now, including options from the secondary market with TCG Player which is around the same or lower than the pricing of big box retailers right now.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch 2)

Donkey Kong Bananza

FiGGYZ

Monty Python And The Holy Grail - 4K UHD Combo + Steelbook

Badass Brawlers Bundle

Self Adhesive Hook And Loop Cable Ties

Anker HDMI Switch

JSAUX 3-Pack Tempered Glass Screen Protector Switch 2

Switch 2 tomtoc Slim Carrying Case

The Legend of Zelda Master Sword

Borderlands 4 Preorders

Borderlands 4 preorders have finally landed, and the started edition is just under the $70 mark in a suprising move after the comments made by Randy Pitchford. We've had a bit of a behind the scenes look with the beggining of the "Beyond the Borderlands" video dropping on how to make a vault hunter, and it's all looking good.

Narrative Arc Bundle

Apple Mac and iPad Deals

Need an upgrade or a good introduction into the Apple ecosystem? There's plenty of choices here, with the M4 chip powering the MacBook and Mac Mini, it's just a case of thinking about if you'd like a traditional desktop setup or something you can take on the go. iPad A16 is perfect for pretty much anything too, even a bit of Apple Arcade.

Samsung 57" Odyssey Neo G9 Gaming Monitor

Big Discounts On Crucial DDR5 and Storage

Crucial are one of the most dependable brands when it comes to M.2 and portable drives, and is a great option for those wanting the benefits of DDR5 RAM without flashy RGB and it's price tag. Here's some of the best deals in the Crucial price slashing marathon on Amazon right now. I currently use the X10 Pro 4TB for backing up files and folders on my PC and for watching videos on my projector, just a solid piece of kit.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (PS5)

DOOM The Dark Ages Art Print

Power Up Pride Bundle

Florence Pugh has revealed Marvel shot a fake Thunderbolts* ending scene that included a title that wasn’t The New Avengers.

The movie ends with villain Valentina Allegra de Fontaine tricking the Thunderbolts into taking part in the announcement of The New Avengers in front of the world’s media.

This dramatic MCU plot beat was subsequently mirrored in real-life, when Marvel officially changed the name of the movie to The New Avengers. Marvel even dragged the on-screen dispute between Sam Wilson’s Avengers and this new superhero team into the real world.

The ending scene, the truth behind the Thunderbolts* asterisk, and The New Avengers title were all kept a closely guarded secret, and keeping that secret involved shooting a fake scene with an entirely different name for the team.

Yelena actress Florence Pugh revealed the anti-spoiler ploy in a video published on Entertainment Weekly: "We shot a version where she was like, 'The New Thunderbolts!' And everyone was like, 'Woo!' And then we took all of the background [actors] out and shot Julia's line, which was kind of cool."

It turns out Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, knew about the twist years ago, when she was first approached to join the MCU, but kept it a secret all this time.

Marvel Studios has form when it comes to keeping secrets. It planted fake leaks to protect secret Deadpool & Wolverine cameos, and Spider-Man: No Way Home star Andrew Garfield outright lied to fans about his appearance in the film.

As for Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers, its second post-credits scene teases this July’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which may or may not feature Giganto.

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.

DC Comics is poised to relaunch its flagship Batman series in September under new writer Matt Fraction and returning artist Jorge Jiménez. That issue is sure to be one of the top-selling comics of 2025, but especially now that DC has announced a new variant cover promotion called "Blind as a Bat."

Batman #1 will feature variant covers from a number of major artists, including J. Scott Campbell, Gabrielle Dell'Otto, and Frank Quitely. As part of the "Blind as a Bat" promotion, fans will have the opportunity to purchase a $9.99 blind bag that includes a foil version of one of those covers. You can check out the slideshow gallery below to see the covers included:

The full lineup of variant cover artists on Batman #1 includes:

• David Aja
• J. Scott Campbell
• Gabriele Dell’Otto
• Jorge Jiménez
• Andy Kubert
• Stanley “Artgerm” Lau
• Jim Lee
• Frank Quitely
• Marc Silvestri
• Julian Totino Tedesco

Additionally, DC will be selling a Batman #1 Giant-Size Special Edition that reprints the issue in oversized 11"x17" format. That version will be available either as a $14.99 cardstock cover or a $19.99 foil variant.

As mentioned above, Batman #1 kicks off a new era for the franchise, as Fraction makes his return to DC and establishes a new status quo for Batman. The series will introduce a new Jiménez-designed Batsuit that restores the classic blue cape and cowl.

Weeks ahead of The Fantastic Four: First Steps releasing in cinemas, fans have their first look at classic villain Giganto — via a commercial for Little Caesars pizza.

The 30-second advert reveals Giganto, a giant green monster with an enormous mouth seen bursting through the street in a nod to its original appearance, on the cover of 1961's Fantastic Four issue 1.

Here, Giganto is shown picking up and then trying to eat a Little Caesars employee, before the Fantastic Four arrive on scene to save the day. It's meant to be a fun reveal, but fans have expressed surprise and confusion over the character's appearance in the ad — and have also criticised the quality of Giganto's CGI.

HQ and English version of the Little Caesars x ‘THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS’ ad has been released.

pic.twitter.com/btN7drQ9Cp

— Fantastic Four Updates (@F4Update) June 18, 2025

To be clear, this is a scene featuring the Fantastic Four but not an actual clip from the upcoming movie. Instead, the action was shot specifically for the Little Caesars' commercial, using the sets and — briefly — the actors themselves (though, perhaps tellingly, of the four stars we only see Vanessa Kirby's face).

According to Comicbook, the commercial was written and produced by Marvel Studios' Marketing Partnerships team and directed by The Fantastic Four: First Steps production designer Kasra Farahani — so this is about as official as it gets, without necessarily being canon.

Still, fans believe Giganto will likely pop-up somewhere in the film's story — perhaps in a montage of previous villains the team have defeated — and therefore think this pizza advert serves as an underwhelming place to first see the monster.

There are complaints, too, about the quality of Giganto's CGI effects, even if this is just a commercial — which would of course have a lower budget than a Hollywood blockbuster.

Elden Ring Nightreign's status as a co-op PvE excursion introduced a fresh mechanic for previously solo players in revives. Those who fall in battle hit the ground and can get picked back up, if their teammates wail on them hard enough to knock out the purple bars of their circular dial.

I'm probably not alone in feeling like, sometimes, this mechanic seems to get more arduous as players fall more often. If you fall once, it's only one pip on the bar; but by third death, you've got the whole radius covered in purple, and it can feel quite difficult to chip that much purple bar down while a Nightlord is attacking you.

As it turns out, there are some hidden mechanics that may be helping or hindering your efforts to pick your teammates back up. YouTuber Zullie the Witch has been on the Elden Ring Nightreign beat, and recently put up new video in which they try to understand how revives work. (Thanks for the spot, PC Gamer.)

Per Zullie's investigation, the first time a player falls in battle, they get one bar at a total of 40 HP. But as they continue to fall, this escalates at a surprising rate, with 45 per bar at second death and a whopping 80 per bar at three, for a grand total of 240 HP total if you're on three bars.

Hitting the player who's downed chips away at those totals, but if they're left alone for 3.5 seconds, the death timer around their dial resumes (unless you're in a Night boss fight) and the gauge starts to refill. The fill time also speeds up as you gain more bars, going from 2-per-second at one bar to 40-per-second at three bars.

That's a lot of math to say: the more you fall, the harder it gets (exponentially so) to pick you back up. There is some good news though, as penalties gradually wear off over time or whenever one visits a Site of Grace.

Zullie also highlights some hidden math in how weapons work on the revive bars, too. It's about what you'd expect, compared to regular attacks; giant weapons, like Halberds, Reapers, and Greatswords have more impact on the revive bar than Claws, Daggers, Torches, or Fists on a per-swing basis.

In fact, Revenant's Cursed Claws make for uniquely effective revival tools in this regard, as they have the same base numbers as a Greatsword. Revenant mains can effectively play both White Mage and Summoner, I guess?

Zullie's video goes into even more math around the revival numbers, but for the average Elden Ring Nightreign player, the solid takeaways are that higher bars get increasingly harder to clear as Nightfarers fall. Honestly, it makes certain characters like the Revenant even more valuable as teammates, when they have both summons to help out and an ultimate that will pick teammates back up regardless of their bar's status.

We’ve got plenty of Nightreign tips and tricks to help you take down all the eight Nightlord Bosses, and if you’re wondering how to unlock the two locked Nightfarer Classes, check out How to Unlock the Revenant and How to Unlock the Duchess, plus How to Change Characters.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Are you ready to return? We finally have a release date for the upcoming sequel film Return to Silent Hill — which means we’re just one step closer to getting back to the town that started it all for many horror and gaming fans.

The third installment to the Silent Hill film franchise, which will be produced by Terrifier producers Cineverse, is set to arrive in theaters on January 23, 2026. The film is set to star Hannah Emily Anderson and Jeremy Irvine in a story that will probably be recognizable to those who know the games.

The film will follow “James (Irvine), a man broken after his relationship with the love of his life, Mary (Anderson), ends. When a mysterious letter from her calls him back to Silent Hill, he finds a once-recognizable town transformed by an unknown evil. While James desperately searches for Mary he encounters terrifying creatures and begins to unravel the mystery of what happened to the town.”

Previously, the folks behind the film revealed that they think the film will be as true to the games as possible. “Silent Hill is one of the best video game franchises, period,” Brandon Hill, executive director of acquisitions for Cineverse, told Variety last month. “And Christophe Gans did a phenomenal job capturing the atmosphere of the games once again with Return to Silent Hill.”

“I am delighted to partner with Cineverse, which has shown a genuine understanding of fanship,” director Christophe Gans, who also directed the original 2006 Silent Hill, told the outlet. “Return to Silent Hill is an adaptation created out of deep respect for a true masterpiece of a game, Konami’s iconic Silent Hill 2. I hope fans will enjoy and be fulfilled with the experience this new film has to offer."

This will be the third film in the franchise, with Silent Hill: Revelation following the original installment in 2012.

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

Titan Comics has become the place to turn for new stories featuring beloved barbarian hero Conan of Cimmeria. Now Titan is kicking off its big 2025 Conan event comic, Scourge of the Serpent, and we've got an exclusive look at the first issue.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for a closer glimpse of Conan: Scourge of the Serpent #1:

Conan: Scourge of the Serpent spins out of the pages of Titan's FCBD 2025 special. This new four-issue limited series is the first to pit Conan against the legendary snake god Set, as Set's grim plans for humanity finally come to fruition. The series is written by Conan veteran Jim Zub and illustrated by Ivan Gil (Berezina). The first issue features covers by Roberto De La Torre, John McCrea, Geof Isherwood, Matias Bergara, and Chris Stevens.

Here's Titan's official summary of the series:

Spinning out of the pages of the Free Comic Book Day Special, the new Conan epic starts here!

CONAN OF CIMMERIA has encountered Stygian sorcery and snake-sent creatures many times in his grand adventures, but he has never faced the true unspeakable power of SET... until NOW.

The serpent god's influence coils around the Hyborian Age and every other age linked to it. Three stunning supernatural stories will weave together to answer a chilling question of past and present - What is Set's grand plan for humanity and, now that it's begun, can it be stopped?

Conan: Scourge of the Serpent #1 will be released on September 24, 2025. You can find preorder links to each cover below:

CONAN THE BARBARIAN: SCOURGE OF THE SERPENT #1 (COVER A ROBERTO DE LA TORRE https://forbiddenplanet.com/462955
CONAN THE BARBARIAN: SCOURGE OF THE SERPENT #1 (COVER B JOHN MCCREA https://forbiddenplanet.com/462956
CONAN THE BARBARIAN: SCOURGE OF THE SERPENT #1 (COVER C GEOF ISHERWOOD https://forbiddenplanet.com/462957
CONAN THE BARBARIAN: SCOURGE OF THE SERPENT #1 (COVER D MATÍAS BERGARA https://forbiddenplanet.com/462958CONAN THE BARBARIAN: SCOURGE OF THE SERPENT #1 (COVER E CHRIS STEVENS https://forbiddenplanet.com/462959
CONAN THE BARBARIAN: SCOURGE OF THE SERPENT #1 (COVER F ROBERTO DE LA TORRE FOIL VARIANT https://forbiddenplanet.com/462960
CONAN THE BARBARIAN: SCOURGE OF THE SERPENT #1 (COVER G ROBERTO DE LA TORRE 'GLOW-IN-THE-DARK' VARIANT https://forbiddenplanet.com/462961

In other comic book news, Skybound revealed a new series from superstars Robert Kirkman and David Finch, and Rick and Morty is about to have its first crossover event.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.

Game developer Artur Łączkowski has announced Bleak Haven, a new Unreal Engine 5-powered first-person survival horror game that Łączkowski says is heavily inspired by the Resident Evil series as well as The Ritual. It's a story-driven, cinematic single-player experience with puzzles, weapon crafting, and brutal combat. It's in development for PC.

Playing as Tyler, the player seeks out his missing brother after a phone location leads him to a foggy remote island where (spoiler alert) bad things happen. Combat is promised to be fast, complete with finishing moves you can perform when your enemy is sufficently weakened or surprised. Guns are limited; you'll primarily be using whatever melee weapons you can scrounge up – or craft.

Łączkowski says he hopes that Bleak Haven is the first in a series of horror games. For now, though, you can wishlist Bleak Haven 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.

The 2025 NBA Finals are currently underway between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers, with both teams seeking their first-ever NBA championship trophy. While you can catch the games on local TV, you might be curious where to watch if you're strictly a streaming household.

One of the best options for streaming live sports is Hulu + Live TV. It combines everything from the standard Hulu subscription with a wide range of live channels, including major sporting events like the NBA Finals, along with popular entertainment and news.

Read on for details about the NBA Finals schedule, where to stream, and how to activate Hulu + Live TV’s free trial.

Upcoming NBA Finals Games Schedule

Every NBA Finals game airs exclusively on ABC, so you’ll need either access to local channels or a live TV streaming service that includes ABC in its lineup. Here's the remaining 2025 NBA Finals schedule:

• Game 3: Thunder at Pacers (Wednesday, June 11 at 5:30 PM PT)
• Game 4: Thunder at Pacers (Friday, June 13 at 5:30 PM PT)
• Game 5: Pacers at Thunder (Monday, June 16 at 5:30 PM PT)
• Game 6 (if necessary): Thunder at Pacers (Thursday, June 19 at 5:30 PM PT)
• Game 7 (if necessary): Pacers at Thunder (Sunday, June 22 at 5:00 PM PT)

How to Watch the NBA Finals on Hulu + Live TV

You can watch the NBA Finals by starting the Hulu + Live TV three-day free trial, which gives you full access to everything Hulu + Live TV has to offer, including more than 95 live TV channels, one of which is ABC.

Even better, the free trial includes the Disney+ Bundle, so you'll also be able to enjoy Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ at no additional cost. That means you can enjoy the very best of Marvel, Star Wars movies and TV shows, Pixar movies, and more. It's the only streaming free trial offering a total of four services at once.

To get started, click the link below. After the trial ends, your subscription will automatically continue until you cancel.

American rock band Alien Ant Farm have said it was a "bummer" not to be included in the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 soundtrack, after their track Wish originally featured in the series' fourth game.

A selection of songs from the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and Pro Skater 4 have been brought back for the remake's music playlist, such as Motörhead's Ace of Spades, but many others have not returned, and instead been replaced by new additions.

Now, Alien Ant Farm has been asked by BBC News (thanks, VGC) about a sad face emoji the band's social media account posted in response to the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 soundtrack reveal, after it was confirmed the band would not be returning.

"Is it a bummer that we weren't invited, or that they didn't include us? Absolutely," said guitarist Terry Corso. "We understand that they're trying to bring some new stuff onto these releases, and if you've gotta make cuts, you've gotta make cuts. I don't know why it had to be us, I feel like our song was really good on there and it did really well."

"I kind of get it, that skating feels a little more punk [and] we're not a punk band," added lead vocalist Dryden Mitchell, "but I think that's what makes a cool soundtrack, is a collection, being different."

Reaction to the soundtrack's reveal among fans was mixed, with some celebrating the return of tracks by CKY and Iron Maiden, while others said they would miss bands such as Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Zebrahead.

Responding on Instagram, Hawk has taken personal responsibility for the remake's choice of soundtrack, and said he had deliberately decided to include an element of discovery, as players got to know new tunes as well as old favorites.

"It was my choice to pick some different songs by the same artists featured in THPS3+4 OST," Hawk said. "I'm hoping that discovery is half the fun, and a big reason that these soundtracks resonated in the first place. So listen and enjoy the ride."

Likewise, while the game largely features familiar skate parks and skaters, new maps and some fresh faces are also included — including the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's resident party dude Michaelangelo, for some reason.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 launches July 11 for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, as well as Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

Image credit: Getty / Paul Natkin,

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

With Blumhouse’s next Five Nights at Freddy's film releasing this December, there’s no better time to play through the Five Nights at Freddy’s games. Created by Scott Cawthon, the first Five Nights at Freddy's game launched back in 2014 and has since garnered an incredible fan base. The horror hit has been followed with a wide variety of sequels; from mainline games to plenty of spinoffs.

For those interested in taking on the night shift against these killer animatronics, we’ve detailed how to play each of the mainline FNAF games in both chronological and release date order below.

Jump to:

• How to play in chronological order
• How to play by release order

How Many Five Nights at Freddy’s Games Are There?

There are 12 main FNAF games in total, which we’ve covered below. As far as spin-offs and more challenge-based games go, though, there are 4 additional FNAF games that fall in this category. These are Five Nights at Freddy’s World, Freddy in Space 2, Security Breach: Fury’s Rage, and Ultimate Custom Night.

Which Five Nights at Freddy's Game Should You Play First?

We recommend starting with Five Nights at Freddy's, the series' first entry from 2014. It's the ideal way to familiarize yourself with the series' mechanics, as newer entries build on that original formula. It's also a safe way to begin from a narrative perspective given how convoluted the chronology has become over the last decade.

Five Nights at Freddy’s Games in Chronological Order

For those looking to play through the Five Nights at Freddy’s games in chronological order to get the full story, we’ve done our best to arrange them in story order. If you have different theories about this franchise’s order, though, share them in the comments!

1. Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic (2025)

Available on: PC, PS5

The newest FNAF game happens to be the earliest-set game in the series so far. Secret of the Mimic, from what we can gather from various hints in-game, takes place in 1979, several years before the official opening of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. The Mimic was originally introduced in the Ruin DLC for Security Breach, and plenty of theories have been thrown out there about who (or what) The Mimic really is.

Secret of the Mimic dives into these questions. The player takes on the role of a Fazbear technician named Arnold who's tasked with retrieving the Edwin Murray's inventions from a particularly unsettling Costume Manor. When power goes out at the manor, Arnold begins to notice signs he may not be alone. Secret of the Mimic uses first-person view, leaning into the survival horror genre with subtle hints about the killer animatronics (and their creators) we encounter later in the series.

2. Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 (2015)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 takes place in 1983. This is assumed because of an easter egg during one of the post-Night minigames that can be seen by interacting with a TV in the living room. After hitting it enough times, it’ll eventually bring up a still for a commercial for a show called Fredbear and Friends, which appears to have aired in 1983, given that’s the date beneath the title.

Compared to its predecessors, though, FNAF 4 has a different setting. This time, you play as a young child in their bedroom rather than as a security guard in an office. Throughout the night, you’ll need to run from your bedroom doors to your closet (and even check behind you on your bed) for a variety of terrifying enemies, but mainly nightmare variations of the original animatronics: Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy. Listen out for them and keep your flashlight close to scare them away.

3. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2014)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is next in a chronological playthrough and brings players to the newly-opened Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza to work the night shifts as a security guard. FNAF 2 also introduces new animatronics in the mix alongside updated versions of its classics. These new additions are The Puppet and Balloon Boy, so you’ll have more to watch out for on the cameras.

This time around, you’re also given a Freddy Fazbear head to wear in case the animatronics happen to reach your office. With it on, most of the animatronics will have a harder time recognizing you and leave, which’ll buy you some more time before the crack of dawn. You also have a music box that you need to keep wound up to keep The Puppet away. This animatronic won’t be fooled by your sneaky little fake Freddy head, so make sure to keep the music box going.

We’ve placed this game as second in line for a chronological playthrough, as it’s set in 1987. This can be assumed from the paycheck you receive at the end of Night 5, which is dated for that year.

4. Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location (2016)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

In a departure from the previous game, and as its title may point to, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location takes place at a different spot called Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental, which features its own animatronics as well. This time around, you play as a technician working night shifts with a series of tasks to complete alongside surviving the animatronics.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location is actually a bit trickier to place on the timeline, and many fans still debate when it could be set. The reason we’ve chosen this slot is because of a line HandUnit says at the beginning of the game: “Due to the massive success, and even more so, the unfortunate closing of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, it was clear that the stage was set, no pun intended, for another contender in children’s entertainment.” This line could be referencing when Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza closed down in ‘87 following FNAF 2, which is also brought up by Phone Guy in FNAF 1 during Night 1. So, for now, having Sister Location between the two seems like a good fit. Let us know your theories in the comments below, though!

5. Five Nights at Freddy’s (2014)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

The one that started it all. Five Nights at Freddy’s was the first game that had players taking on the security guard mantle to keep watch of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza for five night shifts. Mainly, you need to keep an eye on the animatronics there: Chica, Bonnie, Foxy, and of course, Freddy Fazbear. Their behavior has become a bit unpredictable lately, and they like to roam around freely at night… just make sure they don’t roam into your office.

Alongside the cameras that need to be checked, players can also close the security doors near them if the animatronics get too close during the night. Keep in mind, though, you only have limited amounts of power to use. Once it’s gone, goodbye doors and lights!

Five Nights at Freddy’s takes place a few years later than the previously mentioned games, likely sometime in the early ‘90s. This can be assumed from Phone Guy’s dialogue during Night 1 where he says that the animatronics used to be able to walk around during the day, “but then there was the bite of ‘87.” This helps place it after FNAF 2 and before FNAF3, which we’ll get to next.

6. Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit (2024)

Available on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC

Into the Pit, the latest game in the series, is a point-and-click adventure based on the Five Nights at Freddy's book of the same name. The story is split between two time periods: modern day and 1985.

It's uncertain where Into the Pit's modern storyline fits into the series' chronology, or if it exists within the ongoing narrative at all, though assuming it does, we're confident it takes place around the time of Five Nights at Freddy's 3. We've placed it ahead of FNaF3 given several items found in Jeff's Pizza, the setting of Into the Pit, can be found at FNaF3's Fazbear's Fright, which was said to be decorated with remains from the original restaurant, which later became Jeff's Pizza.

7. Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 (2015)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

According to Five Nights at Freddy’s 3’s Steam description, this game is set “Thirty years after Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed its doors,” which would put it after the events of FNAF 1, given that’s when Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza closed for good, and, if we’re going with the early ‘90s, would set it sometime around the 2020s. It brings players into a brand new location as well… Fazbear’s Fright: The Horror Attraction. Yes, this new attraction is based on the terrifying events that happened in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, and they even have old animatronics from it to really keep you on your toes!

Once again, you step into the shoes of a security guard keeping watch of the attraction and its “great new relics” that have been picked up. Like before, you’ll have security cameras to monitor, but this time you also have a maintenance panel to reboot systems that go offline and close off vents to prevent those creepy animatronics from crawling toward your office space.

8. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator (2017)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

If you’re feeling tired of working security or maintenance, why not make the jump into running your own pizza place? In Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator, you get to do just that. But don’t worry, this game isn’t without its frights. You’ll still need to keep the animatronics away from you when in your office, and there’s plenty to monitor when you’re in there as well.

Not only do you have a computer near you to keep tabs on everything and complete your tasks, but you’ll need to watch the vents on both sides of you for anything that could be crawling through. However, both your computer and the vents make quite a bit of noise, so you’ll have to take turns shutting them off to hear your surroundings.

Throughout the game, you’ll salvage animatronics as well. One of these is Springtrap, whose first appearance in the series was in FNAF 3, which places this game sometime after it in a chronological playthrough.

9. Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted (2019)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, Oculus Quest, PSVR, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted was the franchise’s first step into VR - and later came out on PC and consoles. Developed by Steel Wool Studios in collaboration with Scott Cawthon, in Help Wanted you can play through a variety of mini-games that feature familiar animatronics and experiences from earlier games in the series.

But where does this game fit into the timeline? During the opening ‘Welcome’ message for the game, HandUnit states that “Fazbear Entertainment has developed something of a bad reputation over the last few decades, [...] That's why we have recreated many of these completely fictitious scenarios (lies) that you've been fed over the last several years into a hilarious VR game.” And given that Help Wanted recreates situations from previous games in the timeline up to FNAF 3 on our list, it makes sense to place it after that game and near Pizzeria Simulator.

10. Five Nights at Freddy’s: Special Delivery (2019)

Available on: IOS/Android

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Special Delivery is an Augmented Reality game that was released on mobile devices just a few months after Help Wanted. Much like how Help Wanted immersed you into FNAF in VR, Special Delivery did the same by bringing the animatronics home to you. In this game, you have to keep an eye out for them on your mobile device as they stalk around the room, utilizing a flashlight and controlled shock to stop them.

Similar to Help Wanted, Special Delivery involves its own branch of Fazbear Entertainment. Here, the Fazbear Funtime Service is what’s sending the animatronics to your house and, when it comes to the franchise’s timeline, it would make sense that they’d create something like this around the time of The Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience in Help Wanted. Given how HandUnit explains at the start of Help Wanted that, “Fazbear Entertainment is excited to join the digital age, and what better way to do that than with an edge-of-your-seat virtual reality experience,” it sounds like that was their first endeavor, and this would be their second outing into it.

11. Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach (2021)

Available on: Google Stadia, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch

Security Breach is the second game in the franchise to be developed between both Scott and Steel Wool Studios, following Help Wanted. It’s a free-roam survival horror where you play as a young boy named Gregory who gets trapped at night in Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. Throughout the night, he’ll need to survive the various animatronics, but with a surprising helpful hand along the way.

In a chronological playthrough, this game comes in last. This can largely be taken away from the fact that Freddy Fazbear’s has now grown into a Mega Pizzaplex, but there’s also a moment in one of the endings that helps confirm that it’s set after one of the previously mentioned games. However, so as to avoid spoilers, we’ll let you uncover that ending on your own!

The free Ruin DLC for Security Breach is also available to play now. Our Security Breach wiki guide has a walkthrough, collectibles guide, and information on how to start the Ruin DLC if you need it, too.

12. Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 (2023)

Available on: PlayStation 5, PC, PSVR2, Steam VR, Meta Quest

Once again developed by Steel Wool Studios in collaboration with Scott Cawthon, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2 is pretty similar to its predecessor, featuring a wide variety of minigames for you to dig into. But where does this game land on the Five Nights at Freddy’s timeline?

Help Wanted 2 takes place between Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach and its DLC, RUIN. That makes it the last full game in the lore’s current timeline, but not quite the very final event. This slightly complicated placement is due to one of Help Wanted 2’s endings, in which your character becomes the Maskbot that gives the V.A.N.N.I mask to Cassie, the protagonist from the RUIN DLC. This interaction with her happens towards the start of RUIN, meaning the events of Help Wanted 2 start sometime before that DLC.

In keeping with its older sibling, Help Wanted 2 is also a VR game! It’s available on PSVR 2, Steam VR, and Meta Quest. And for those who don’t want to be fully immersed as a Fazbear employee, a flat version of the game was also released on June 20 for PlayStation 5 and PC.

Five Nights at Freddy’s Games in Release Order

If you’re interested in playing through the main Five Nights at Freddy’s games in their release order, you can find them listed as such below:

• Five Nights at Freddy’s (2014)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2014)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 (2015)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 (2015)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location (2016)
• Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator (2017)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted (2019)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s AR: Special Delivery (2019)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach (2021)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 (2023)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit (2024)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic (2025)

The Future of Five Nights at Freddy’s

Secret of the Mimic launched on June 13. There's no official word on new Five Night's at Freddy's games in development, though we're sure they exist. In the meantime, a sequel to the Five Nights at Freddy's movie starring Josh Hutcherson is also on the way, planned for release on December 5, 2025.

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