Friends, if you haven’t already started thinking about what to get the dad in your life for Father’s Day, the time has come. Father’s Day lands on Sunday, July 15, which will be here before you know it. To help you figure out what to get, it helps to know what’s on sale – because who wants to pay full price for anything these days? Below you’ll find links to all the best and biggest Father’s Day sales at all the retailers you care about. Let’s dive in.

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As with many sales, all sorts of item categories are available at a discount at various retailers. Home Depot specializes in tools and storage and various items around the house. So if you’re thinking about picking up a grill or a drill for dad, that’s the place to look.

Best Buy also has some of that stuff, but with more tech items thrown in. You can get pops a PS5 Pro or a fashionable pair of Ray-Ban Meta - Wayfarer Glasses there. Also on sale at Best Buy are smart watches, headphones, video games, and grills.

Amazon has a bit of everything on sale for Father’s Day, per usual. You can find particularly good deals on Amazon’s own devices, like Kindles and Echoes, all of which make good gifts. So do books, iPads, LEGO sets, Blu-rays, and even cornhole sets, all of which are also on sale.

Target and Walmart are also general goods stores, with discounts on T-shirts and other sorts of dad-ly apparel. Apple Watches are on sale, as is the Meta Quest 3S. Coffee mugs, ball caps, folding chairs, knife sets, and beard balm also have decent discounts going now.

If the dad in your life is a gamer or a techy person in general, you can hit up the Dell or Lenovo sales. They’re offering big discounts on gaming PCs, laptops, monitors, and accessories like mice and keyboards. And if the father in question is into stylish but not too expensive clothing, you can pick up some items on sale at Old Navy.

Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.

The LEGO Marvel Infinity Gauntlet is currently on sale at Amazon. For $51.19 (36% off), you can pick up one of the most intricate and detailed LEGO display sets around, and just in time for Father's Day. Set #76191 features an almost-to-scale replica of Thanos the Mad Titan's Infinity Gauntlet from Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

For more LEGO goodies, check out the recently released book nooks and the best LEGO sets for adults in 2025. And check back throughout the week for more Father's Day deals.

LEGO Marvel Infinity Gauntlet Is On Sale Now

Check Out More Awesome LEGO Sets for Father's Day

The LEGO book nooks are some of the most popular new line of sets in awhile, and three of them just released earlier this month. There are themed sets from Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Sherlock Holmes available. They not only act as functioning book nooks, but can unfold into an expanded set showing off more of the scenes the sets are based on.

Myles Obenza is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Bluesky @mylesobenza.bsky.social.

Echo Valley is now playing in select theaters. It streams on Apple TV+ beginning June 13.

Echo Valley sees a lot of potential in the complex devotion between its main characters, the mother-daughter duo of Kate (Julianne Moore) and Claire (Sydney Sweeney). And like any good thriller, it wants to needle that central theme to a breaking point: How far does unconditional love extend? How far should it go? And do the stakes become cleaner when your daughter walks through the door, visibly shaken and covered in someone else’s blood? But Echo Valley isn’t a good thriller. In theory it’s the perfect pulpy way to test a relationship and the habits of the people within it. But in practice, the sophomore feature from director Michael Pearce is far more at odds – and, even worse, dull – than its premise suggests.

From the jump, Echo Valley is only committing to half of its story at a time. Like too many films of the modern era, the genre fun of Echo Valley is heavily rooted in (you guessed it) trauma and grief. It’s been nine months since Kate’s wife died and the horse farm they ran together is falling into disrepair. She’s running out of money, having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and she’s also making sure her daughter stays off of drugs. Consequently, those foibles feel disappointingly ordinary. Kate’s mourning is communicated mostly as shorthand: We’ve got lens-flared memories, and you better believe there’s the old classic of dead-wife videos and voicemails from happier times. It’s all there to deepen her character’s emotional state, but not really as a means of exploration.

Such devotion to emotion highlights just how underbaked Echo Valley is – and how much of a disservice those choices are to either type of movie it wants to be. Its screenwriter, Brad Ingelsby, created HBO’s Mare of Easttown, so he’s no stranger to grounding crime drama in personal conflicts. He writes the early setup with Claire coming home to Kate as a wistful potential, and Pearce gives those moments between the characters room to breathe – or, as is the case when Claire lashes out at her mom for not giving her money, reason for your breath to catch a little bit. Sweeney lets Claire’s panic and anger bubble under the surface, until it boils over destructively.

That’s a hard act for a thriller plot to follow. The early mother-daughter drama and the later showdown between Kate and drug dealer Jackie (Domhnall Gleeson) is too vast a tonal gap for Echo Valley to bridge. There’s nothing funny or frothy or sensationalized about Claire furiously chasing her mom through the house to get money. It’s a true low point.

To be fair, it’s not that these two halves of the story can’t co-exist. But Echo Valley doesn’t find a way to make them gel. Even in its pulpiest moments, it has the slower pacing of a drama, and so everything flows out from that a little too obviously. There’s a pervading sense of unease, but in the way that a lesser horror movie might telegraph a jump scare that totally robs it of any surprise.

Not that there has to be any surprise here. But at the very least, there ought to be some ingenuity to yet another thriller where a broken woman has to find the courage to buck up and fight her way through circumstances stacked against her. Unfortunately, Echo Valley combines its pacing problems with a story that feels pretty rote and predictable – there’s nothing here that’s particularly shocking, and so it doesn’t feel particularly fun either.

It’s a shame that Moore gets dragged down with it. Claire and Jackie aren’t particularly well-drawn, but at least they’re fun acting showcases: Sweeney plays the underwritten Claire’s breakdown admirably; Gleeson, as in Ex Machina and the Star Wars sequels, strikes the right balance for a character who’s a total bastard by playing him on the absolute edge of humor. Moore proved in May December and Sirens (and elsewhere) that she’s extraordinarily talented at playing vulnerable, and does her best work when she gets to be somewhere on the line between hapless and conniving, portraying capability (and culpability) with delicious ambiguity. But Kate is totally one-note – a flat character who can’t hold the nuance necessary to the story.

Which is a problem, no matter which mode the film is in. Everything in Echo Valley has to flow from her relationship with Claire. So it sucks that she winds up feeling mostly passive and hapless. The story should be a calamitous tumble through the tumult of the choices that brought both of them to this point. Instead, the early mother-daughter drama is such a profound, genuine type of sad that none of the pulp of the back half can fill the void. And in the end, all the thriller escapades don’t even set up some great emotional throughline. There are things that are just too knotty to fully untangle – but it would’ve been nice if Echo Valley had actually tried.

The Xenomorph from the Alien film franchise is one of the coolest, most nefarious movie monsters ever hatched, with its acid blood, mouths-within-mouths, and diabolical claws. It pretty much single-handedly (and multi-teethily) invented the space horror genre and gave an entire generation a new boogeyman to fear. With Alien: Romulus now streaming, you may be wanting to do a full rewatch of the Alien franchise (including the Alien/Predator films, which are set on Earth).

But what's the correct order to watch them in? We've got you covered. Below you'll find full listings for the Alien movies, in both chronological order and by release date.

Jump to:

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

How Many Alien Movies Are There?

There are a total of nine movies in the Alien franchise — four in the mainline series of films, two Predator crossovers, two prequels from Ridley Scott, and, the newest addition, a standalone movie from Fede Álvarez.

Alien Movies in (Chronological) Order

1. AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

The story of the Xenomorphs begins, time-wise, in the first of the two crossover films for the franchise, AVP. Set in 2004, Alien vs. Predator, from Resident Evil/Event Horizon's Paul W. S. Anderson, brought to life a "battle of the titans" concept that first originated in a 1989 comic. In the film, humans discover that Predators (aka the "Yautja") have been coming to Earth for thousands of years. Old cults worshipping them would sacrifice themselves to a Xenomorph Queen's brood -- the facehuggers -- producing adult Xenomorphs, so the Predators could hunt the "ultimate prey." Sufficed to say, things go badly during the Predators' 2004 hunting trip.

2. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007)

Still set in our modern times, and therefore still happening before everything else in the Alien franchise, crossover sequel Aliens vs Predator: Requiem picks up right where AVP left off. An Alien-Predator hybrid -- the "Predalien" -- is now on the loose in a small Colorado town. A skilled, veteran Predator arrives to help clean up the mess and an ample amount of carnage ensues. This would be the final crossover film of the Alien franchise. You can see our guide to the Predator movies in order for more info.

3. Prometheus (2012)

Oscar-winning director Ridley Scott returned to the franchise he created in 1979 with the star-studded prequel film, Prometheus. Here, in the late 21st Century, Peter Weyland (presumedly a descendant of AVP's Charles Weyland) funds a cosmic trip into the unknown, following a star map left on Earth that might lead the crew of the Prometheus to the beings who created humankind. Sadly, the crew also stumbles across these creators' bio-weapon -- the Xenomorph. Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, and Charlize Theron star.

Read our review of Prometheus.

4. Alien: Covenant (2017)

Still in prequel mode here, as Alien: Covenant is a sequel to Prometheus, the story picks up 11 years later and follows a colonization ship. The crew gets pulled out of stasis years early and heads to a different target planet, a possible "utopia," to track down a distress signal. The downed ship emitting the message, however, is connected to the previous movie and contains all sorts of sinister things -- ranging from Xenomorphs to androids. The film doesn't exactly take us up to the doorstep of 1979's Alien, as there's room for more story if deemed so, but it does get us close. Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, and a returning Michael Fassbender star.

Read our review of Alien: Covenent.

5. Alien (1979)

Space would never feel the same after Ridley Scott's landmark horror film, Alien, which featured the hardscrabble crew of a commercial space tug, the Nostromo, accidentally discovering a moon full of Xenomorph eggs. With no knowledge of what these creatures are or how they cocoon inside humans before bursting out and rapidly growing into killing machines, these underpaid workers -- played by Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, and hero-in-the-making Sigourney Weaver -- find themselves going toe-to-toe with a cosmic nightmare.

Aliens also made our list of one of the best Sci-Fi movies of all time.

6. Alien: Romulus (2024)

The newest Alien movie is a standalone film from Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) that takes place about 20 years after the events of the first Alien. Rain Carradine (played by Cailee Spaeny) and her brother join a group of young space colonizers' efforts to escape a life of deadly labor on their incredibly isolated home planet. When an abandoned Weyland-Yutani vessel appears in the planet's atmosphere, the group believes their best chance at escape is using the ship's cryo pods. Of course, however, they soon discover the terrifying reason the vessel was abandoned in the first place. Alvarez takes plenty of inspiration from previous Alien movies for his addition to the franchise, as well as Alien video games and even The Last of Us.

Read our review of Alien: Romulus

7. Aliens (1986)

Terminator director James Cameron, before creating his own landmark sequel with T2: Judgment Day, gifted us with Aliens, taking the slow-boil brutality of the Ridley Scott original and ramping it up into a full-tilt masterpiece. Sigourney Weaver, returning as Ellen Ripley, would solidify herself as an action hero icon in this thrilling, endlessly-quotable film that would introduce the world to idea of space marines AND space marines getting their asses kicked, pal! Aliens would handily feature more than one Xenomorph (hence the plural title) as well as stars Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen (who would play Charles Weyland decades later in AVP) and Carrie Henn.

8. Alien 3 (1992)

An appreciation for Alien 3 eventually bubbled up over the past 30 years but at the time David Fincher's directorial debut (three years before Se7en) would be deemed thin, grim, and, essentially, disappointing regarding Ripley's story (despite it giving us one of the most iconic images from the franchise, seen above). Alien 3 picks up right where Aliens left off, as the Colonial Marine spaceship, the Sulaco, is destroyed from within by a Xenomorph and an escape pod carries Ripley to a planet housing a penal colony. There, she and the inmates must deal with a rampaging alien before it massacres them all.

9. Alien Resurrection (1997)

The final film in the Ripley Saga, Alien Resurrection, hurls us 200 years beyond the events of Aliens and Alien 3 and into the inner workings of a military project aboard the USM Auriga that uses Ellen Ripley clones (and kidnapped humans) to try and successfully breed Xenomorphs. The City of Lost Children and Amélie's Jean-Pierre Jeunet directs this bizarrely-horrific chapter with cartoonish flare, casting Ron Perlman, Dan Hedaya, J. E. Freeman, Brad Dourif, and Michael Wincott as the story's new space grunts. The film ends with a possible tease of Xenomorphs headed to Earth, though we'd never get that story as a follow up (only in crossover prequel form with AVP).

How to Watch the Alien Movies by Release Date

If you're looking to watch all the movies in theatrical release order, the correct list is below:

1. Alien (1979)
2. Aliens (1986)
3. Alien 3 (1992)
4. Alien Resurrection (1997)
5. AVP: Alien vs Predator (2004)
6. Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007)
7. Prometheus (2012)
8. Alien: Covenant (2017)
9. Alien: Romulus (2024)

What's Next for the Alien Franchise?

After the success of last year's Alien: Romulus, there have been talks of a sequel, with director Fede Alvarez revealing that the new film could start shooting this year. An official release date has not been set, but it's a promising update from the latest Alien director.

Beyond the big screen, there's also an Alien TV series in the works at FX that is set to premiere on August 12. While the series, called Alien: Earth, is another prequel to the original Alien films, showrunner Noah Hawley doesn't seem too attached to the backstory reveals from Prometheus. In terms of plot details, the first full trailer shows off a couple different types of Xenomorphs and maybe, just maybe, a connection to the Predator universe.

More Alien Deep Dives

• Every Xenomorph (and Alien) from the Alien Movies
• The Terrifying (and Sometimes Terrible) History of Alien Games
• Every Alien Blu-ray Set and Special Edition

Xbox is one of the three console brands that are widely available in the market today. From its inception in 2001, Microsoft has delivered innovative consoles with unique features with every new console release. What was once an unknown brand is now a prominent household name, with expansion to TV, multimedia, and its Xbox Game Pass subscription. With the recent announcement of an upcoming Xbox handheld, now is a perfect time to dive into the storied history of Xbox consoles.

Looking to save on an Xbox or new titles for your system? Be sure to check out the best Xbox deals available today.

How Many Xbox Consoles Have There Been?

In total, there have been nine total Xbox consoles across four different generations. The first Xbox was released in 2001, and ever since, Microsoft has released new consoles featuring new hardware capabilities, new controllers, and more. This list counts console revisions, which were updated models with better cooling and faster speeds, among other features.

Every Xbox Console in Order of Release

Xbox - November 15, 2001

The Xbox debuted in November 2001 as a competitor to the Nintendo GameCube and Sony PlayStation 2. This console was the first of its kind from Microsoft, which eventually kicked off the Xbox brand as we know it today. Halo: Combat Evolved served as the major launch title for Xbox, which ended up being the smash hit Xbox needed to take a portion of the console market. Today, both Halo and the Xbox have a legacy built upon for over 20 years. Some of the best original Xbox games are still well remembered alongside Halo to this day.

Xbox 360 - November 22, 2005

Xbox 360 was Microsoft's second console, which launched as a known brand in the market. With this release, many were familiar with who and what Xbox was about, primarily with its focus on multiplayer titles. Xbox 360 brought many innovations from Microsoft, especially with accessories and peripherals. Notably, the company launched Kinect, which allowed for movement to be tracked in games. To date, this was the most successful Xbox console, with over 84 million units sold. Some of the best Xbox 360 games are still relevant today.

Xbox 360 S - June 18, 2010

The Xbox 360 S offered a slimmer design compared to the original model, with significant internal changes. As many may be familiar with, the Xbox 360 was notorious for overheating, often causing the "Red Ring of Death". The Xbox 360 S aimed to fix that, with a revamped cooling system that was redesigned from the ground up. The new 360 S also featured more hard drive space, with up to 320GB available across the available models.

Xbox 360 E - June 10, 2013

To say Call of Duty is an important piece of video game history would be an understatement. It’s hard to think of first-person shooters (or action games in general) without mentioning this series, which has become one of the most successful franchises ever after revolutionizing single-player campaigns and online battles.

For decades, CoD has dominated the multiplayer scene. Apart from creating iconic characters like Captain Price and Alex Mason, the series has also introduced unexpected figures to their ranks, like Spawn, Snoop Dogg, and Lionel Messi. With Black Ops 6 now available, you might want to look back on over 20 years of Call of Duty history.

With entries exploring conflicts from both our past and our possible future, here's every Call of Duty game in chronological order.

Jump to:

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

How Many Call of Duty Games Are There?

Due to quite a few subseries, a reboot, and the many studios that have worked or are working on the series, it can be a bit troublesome to determine how many Call of Duty games have been released.

If we consider only the main entries with single-player campaigns, including all the World War II titles, the Modern Warfare subseries (plus its reboot), and the Black Ops subseries, there are 20 video games in the Call of Duty franchise

That said, things get complicated when you add all the expansions, online experiences, mobile games, and spin-offs. For example, Call of Duty: United Offensive is an expansion for the first game, while Call of Duty: Finest Hour and Call of Duty 2: Big Red One are side stories of the first two entries.

Spin-offs include strategy game Call of Duty: Siege, launched in 2016 based on Infinite Warfare’s universe; Call of Duty: Heroes, released in 2014; and the mobile version of Call of Duty: Black Ops. In fact, many main entries have significantly different editions for mobile/handheld when compared to the major console releases. Examples of this are PS Vita’s Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified and Nintendo DS’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: Defiance.

Then there’s the Chinese free-to-play Call of Duty Online, released in 2015 and shut down in 2021. 2019’s Call of Duty Mobile took its place and is still running today.

The unique Zombies modes have become a staple of the series since their first inclusion in 2008’s World at War, and they have appeared in multiple entries since.

Finally, the franchise entered the battle royale and live service genres with Warzone, launched in 2020, which became a huge success. Two years later, it was replaced by Warzone 2.0, a complete overhaul of the game’s map and experience. Warzone Mobile brought the battle royale experience to iOS and Android devices in early 2024.

To avoid confusion, it’s worth mentioning that the reboot of the Modern Warfare series will be numbered with Roman numbers. Also, Black Ops 4 is not added to the list below for its lack of campaign (it’s a multiplayer-only experience).

Which Call of Duty Game Should You Play First?

For the sake of simplicity and accessibility, we recommend 2019's Modern Warfare reboot as a solid starting point for Call of Duty campaigns. Starting here creates a straightforward path through the rebooted Modern Warfare trilogy, as all three games are available on modern Xbox and PlayStation consoles, as well as PC. Plus, unlike the Black Ops subseries, each game was released within the last five years, meaning none should feel too dated.

Call of Duty Games in Chronological Order

Beware of minor spoilers for the stories, characters, and relevant events of each game in the list below.

1. Call of Duty (2003)

The franchise's first game was developed by Infinity Ward and published in 2003. This is the first of many entries in the series focused on World War II, following the steps of other household names like Medal of Honor.

In the first Call of Duty, you play three different campaigns as different soldiers from three countries: the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union.

The North American soldier, Private Martin, starts his training in 1942 and participates in the invasion of Normandy in 1944, while the British Sergeant Evans fights in Operation Tonga that same year. Evans will later be helped by Captain Price, a recurrent name in the franchise. On the other hand, the Soviet Alexei Ivanovich Voronin’s campaign takes place in the Battle of Stalingrad.

2. Call of Duty 2 (2005)

The sequel of the original title repeats the settings and nations but with some different perspectives. Instead of three campaigns, you experience four: one from the perspective of a North American soldier, one from the Soviet Union, and two from Britain.

As Private Vasili Koslov, you have to defend Moscow from Nazi German soldiers, while North American Bill Taylor joins the army that assaults La Pointe du Hoc during the infamous D-Day. The British soldiers, Sergeant John Davis and David Welsh, participated in the conflict in North Africa. Davis is led by Captain Price.

3. Call of Duty: World at War (2008)

A few years after Call of Duty 3, the team at Treyarch came back and delivered their last entry based on the conflict the series has been breathing off since its beginnings. This time, however, the campaign was only divided into North American and Soviet forces.

You follow American Marine Private C. Miller during the Makin Island raid in 1942, and later in the Battle of Peleliu, in which American forces confronted the Japanese army. The Soviet section takes place in the Battle of Stalingrad, but this time on the Eastern Front as Private Dimitri Petrenko.

4. Call of Duty 3 (2005)

The first main game in the series not developed by Infinity Ward, Call of Duty 3 was Treyarch’s first attempt at recreating World War II events.

Taking place in 1944, armies from Britain, Poland, the United States, Canada, and France fight against Germany's Nazi forces in the village of Chambois, France, during the Battle of Normandy.

This is the only main entry you cannot play on PC.

5. Call of Duty: WWII (2017)

Almost a decade and a half after the first game, studio Sledgehammer Games returned the franchise to World War II. This was the first time in the main series there was only one protagonist in the campaign: Ronald “Red” Daniels, accompanied by his loyal squad. As Red, you fight Nazi German forces across the European theater, from Normandy to Germany.

While WWII has some brief flashback sequences in 1940, which would set it as the first game in the series chronologically, the core of the title takes place in 1944.

6. Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021)

In the latest entry set in World War II, developer Sledgehammer Games tried once again to bring Call of Duty to its roots and explore this historical event from a different perspective.

Contrary to 2017’s WWII, you are presented with multiple characters on different fronts. The main objective is to learn more about Phoenix, a secret Nazi project that could change the tide of the war in favor of Nazi Germany.

Vanguard also has flashback sequences for different protagonists starting in 1941, but the majority of the campaign is set in 1945, near the end of the war.

7. Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010)

Developer Treyarch changed eras with Black Ops. Going from 1961 to 1968, you’ll experience the events of the Cold War and part of the Vietnam War for the first time in the series.

The main protagonist, Alex Mason, works with the CIA and is tasked to remember events that would help find Soviet sleeper agents. These agents are around the United States, and they plan to release a dangerous chemical weapon called Nova 6.

8. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020)

Developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War helps connect the original Black Ops and Black Ops 2. While the main protagonist this time is nicknamed “Bell,” you get to choose your name, gender, and other details like dialogue lines.

Set in 1981, you team up with characters from previous games, including Alex Mason, Frank Woods, and Jason Hudson. Under CIA’s Russell Adler, your elite team is supposed to catch a Soviet figure that goes by “Perseus” who is planning to attack the United States.

9. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (2012)

The sequel to the original Black Ops presents two timelines. On the first one, you follow Alex Mason’s footsteps several years after he and his team successfully stopped Nova 6. It’s 1986, and Jason Hudson asks Mason to aid with the search for Frank Woods, who disappeared in Cuando Cubango, Angola.

The second timeline is centered around David Mason, Alex’s son, who’s looking for Raul Menendez in 2025. Menendez is the leader of Cordis Die, a terrorist organization that provoked the Second Cold War.

10. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (2024)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 takes place in the early 1990s, beginning in 1991, after the events of Black Ops 2's late-80s storyline. The story is centered around the Gulf War, wherein Frank Woods and his team of rogue agents are hunted by a shadowy group that's infiltrated the CIA.

Historical figures represented in the game include former U.S. president Bill Clinton and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

11. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)

The last entry to have a number after “Call of Duty,” Modern Warfare is the first time the series abandoned its classic Allies vs Axis conflict for something more recent.

In 2011, Yasir Al-Fulani, the president of a fictional Middle Eastern country, was executed by Khaled Al-Asad, the leader of a revolutionary party. Meanwhile, Russia is going through a civil war provoked by Imran Zakhaev, an arms dealer.

A squad commanded by Captain Price and formed by protagonist John “Soap” MacTavish have to stop an international crisis.

12. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)

Set five years after the events of the previous game, Modern Warfare 2 tells the story of Vladimir Makarov, an Ultranationalist who continues the work of Imran Zakhaev. It turns out this extremist party gained control of Russia, so Makarov gained the power to start committing terrorist acts against the United States.

Well-known faces like the Captain Soap and Captain Price join forces with Sergeant Gary "Roach" Sanderson, Lieutenant Simon "Ghost" Riley, “Nikolai”, and other agents to stop Makarov’s secret plan.

13. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)

The end of the first Modern Warfare trilogy brings the pursuit of terrorist Vladimir Makarov to its climax. Captain Price’s team re-arranges itself with Yuri, an ex-Spetsnaz known by Nikolai. Captain John "Soap" MacTavish is also present for the final mission.

Makarov captures Boris Vorshevsky, the president of Russia, who was going to establish peace with the United States. After threatening the president’s daughter, Makarov acquired nuclear launch codes, becoming an international danger once again.

14. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

In 2019, Infinity Ward rebooted the successful Modern Warfare series by reusing some classic characters in a new timeline. Well-known faces like Captain Price are present in a new conflict with Russia.

Set in the same year it was released, a fictional republic called Urzikstan is invaded by a Russian army. While this attack is going on, a terrorist organization called Al-Qatala, also from Urzikstan, begins with operations against different countries in the world. Captain Price, alongside his Task Force 141 and the Urzikstan Liberation Force, try to de-escalate the conflict.

15. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022)

Taking place in 2022, Modern Warfare II follows the story of the MW reboot, featuring returning characters from Task Force 141 and the Urzikstan Liberation Force leader Farah Karim.

Al-Qatala is still a threat, but all eyes are on Quds Force, an Iranian revolutionary group commanded by Hassan Zyani. Zyani is supported by Al-Qatala and a Mexican cartel from the fictional city of Las Almas, and he plans terrorist acts against the United States after the assassination of General Ghorbrani, an Iranian forces leader.

16. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023)

Picking up after the events of 2022's Modern Warfare II, MWIII once again stars Task Force 141, including recurring characters John Price, Simon "Ghost" Riley, Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, and John "Soap" MacTavish. Ultranationalist terrorist Vladimir Makarov, the villain from 2011's Modern Warfare 3, once again serves as the antagonist.

17. Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013)

A standalone entry with few connections to previous titles, Call of Duty Ghosts was developed by Infinity Ward in 2013. As its name indicates, it focused on the special operation group called Ghosts, a U.S. team tasked with secret missions.

It’s 2027, and after a decade of conflicts in the Middle East and an oil crisis, a South American force called the Federation of the Americas initiated a war against the United States. Working with your new team, you have to stop Gabriel T. Rorke, the former leader of Ghosts.

18. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014)

Advanced Warfare was the first entry to take place several decades beyond its release date. It was also the first game developed primarily by Sledgehammer Games.

Set in 2054, you control Jack Mitchell, a member of the United States Marine Corps who later fights in the private military corporation known as Atlas after suffering an accident. On this occasion, the enemy forces are a Chechenian separatist group called KVA led by Joseph "Hades" Chkheidze.

It was one of the first entries to feature futuristic changes in gameplay due to its setting, like the fact that soldiers now wear exoskeletons, which bring them unique abilities.

19. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (2015)

The end of the initial Black Ops trilogy was also set in the future. More specifically, in the year 2065, when a Third Cold War between the Common Defense Pact and the Winslow Accord is happening. Robotic drones, cyborg supersoldiers, unpiloted air forces, and other technological advancements take center stage.

A black ops team composed of you (simply referred to as “The Player”), Jacob Hendricks, and your cybernetics division will be tasked with preventing the conflict from reaching a more dangerous state. You investigate a strange event in Singapore and look out for the 54 Immortals, a crime organization.

20. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016)

No Call of Duty game went further into the future than Infinite Warfare. Around the 2080s, the United Nations Space Alliance was created after humans had spent all the natural resources available on Earth. Beginning the colonization and exploitation of resources on other planets, this alliance is defended by the Solar Associated Treaty Organization, a military force that battles the totalitarian regime Settlement Defense Front from Mars.

How to Play the Call of Duty Games By Release Date

1. Call of Duty (2003)
2. Call of Duty 2 (2005)
3. Call of Duty 3 (2006)
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
5. Call of Duty: World at War (2008)
6. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)
7. Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010)
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (2012)
10. Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013)
11. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014)
12. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (2015)
13. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016)
14. Call of Duty: WWII (2017)
15. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
16. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020)
17. Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021)
18. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022)
19. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023)
20. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (2024)

What’s Next for Call of Duty?

It's official: Black Ops 7 is next up in the Call of Duty franchise. A reveal trailer was shown at the recent June Xbox Showcase, showing Milo Ventimiglia as David Mason. Michael Rooker is also set to reprise his role as Mike Harper from Black Ops 2.

The seventh Black Ops game will be set in 2035, over 40 years after Black Ops 6, and brings back co-op campaigns. We don't have a release window quite yet, but it's certainly possible Activision sticks to their usual schedule of October or November releases.

Axel Bosso is a contributing freelancer for IGN, covering everything related to video games (he's behind some of the Wikis you might have used over the years)!

Splitgate 2, 1047 Games’ “Halo with portals”, launched just last week, marked by a celebratory announcement of a battle royale mode at Summer Game Fest. But while this should have been a triumphant moment for the studio and the community, the launch has instead been marked by not one, not two, but three different controversies that have led to mixed Steam reviews, disappointed fans, and a game community divided between those who support the studio’s actions and those who have been put off from playing Splitgate 2 at all.

First, at the game’s big battle royale reveal at Summer Game Fest, Proulx wore a hat that read, “Make FPS Great Again” onstage, which drew criticism for its reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hats, which come with significant political baggage. Then, Proulx called out Call of Duty in his speech onstage, saying he’s “tired of playing the same Call of Duty every year,” which drew ire from developers and fans of Call of Duty. And then on top of that, as the game launched, fans immediately called out a $145 microtransaction bundle on the game’s store that seemed to fly in the face of everything 1047 Games claimed it stood for.

I spoke to game director Ian Proulx in the wake of all this, and found him surprisingly sanguine for a company leader currently in the spotlight.

“So, I am surprised, to be honest, to dive right into it, we didn't expect this to be nearly as controversial as it was and we didn't intend for it to be,” he said. “In terms of the numbers, there have been good numbers, there's been a lot of negativity, but also positivity to match that people love the game. We just crossed the two and a half million player threshold, we tripled our player count. So there's good and bad, I think time will tell mixed emotions for sure, but overall feeling good.”

Obviously, I had to start by asking him about the hat. What was that all about?

“I'll start by saying, we talked a lot about this, we did not intend for this to be any sort of political statement,” Proulx replied. “I mean, I think we meant for it to be taken at face value, which is, we're not happy with the state of FPS games. I myself, as a gamer, my friends and I, we talk about how bored we are. We thought this was... It's something that's been meme'd to death. Even three months ago, Hideo Kojima had a hat that said, ‘Make TV great again.’ And his hat was red and there was no controversy there, so we talked about it, and we thought, okay, maybe some people will take it the wrong way, but it's been meme'd to death. It kind of says what we feel, which is we want to just make an awesome game and we're not happy with the state of FPS.”

I pointed out to Proulx that the MAGA hat and its message have become associated for many with feelings of discomfort and even fear due to current political events. I also noted the protests going on just a few miles away from Summer Game Fest, where Los Angelenos were taking to the streets to defend their immigrant neighbors from ongoing raids by ICE under President Trump’s orders, and where the National Guard is being deployed despite protests remaining largely peaceful. What does Proulx say to Splitgate fans and community members who felt genuinely emotionally distraught seeing the hat, in light of all that?

“I think the best I can say is we're not trying to send any sort of political message and we're moving on from this,” he replied. “Our intent is, we just want to make a great game, we want to listen to the fans, we've always been all about the community. And that's not just community in terms of listening to feedback to make the game better, but it's also in terms of making a community that people want to be a part of where the devs are engaging with the players, it's a positive community and so that's our ambition. Obviously, right now, it doesn't feel that way but we're getting back to our focus and that's what our focus is. So we're putting this behind us, we're moving forward, we're just going to keep listening to the community and making a great game.”

I pushed one more time on this topic, noting that in a tweet Proulx said he was “not here to apologize”, and here he seemed to be deliberately avoiding apologizing as well. He confirmed that was the case.

“I don't regret what I said to be candid. I think that I stand by it and my intent is I'm speaking my truth and my intent is to make a great game for everybody.”

My interview with Proulx, where he committed to not apologizing, took place on Sunday. Today, however, Proulx posted another video… apologizing.

“I want to apologize. And genuinely, you don’t have to believe me. But the truth is I am sorry. And the reason I am sorry is because of what this has done to the community. The most important thing to me right now is I want to have an amazing community… I hate seeing division. And that’s what I’m seeing now, on both sides. There’s division in the community, and for that I am truly sorry. And again, I’ll reiterate, I do stand by the intent of this, which is, the intent truly is, take it at face value. We do want to improve this genre. We do feel that the genre is in a bad state. And we want to make FPS games as amazing as possible. But I also understand that it’s not just about intent, it’s about impact, and the platform that we have had has had a negative impact, and for that I’m truly sorry.”

No excuses, I'm sorry. pic.twitter.com/4dgOxrSXUJ

— Splitgate 2 (@Splitgate) June 10, 2025

Back to our interview, we moved on to the second part of the controversy: Proulx’s comments on the shooter genre and specifically his mention of the Call of Duty franchise. During his speech onstage at the event, Proulx said, "I grew up playing Halo. And I'm tired of playing the same Call of Duty every year, and I wish we could have Titanfall 3." In response, he’s received criticism from Splitgate fans, Call of Duty fans, and developers both for using his platform at the show to disparage other video games, as well as for calling out Call of Duty when Splitgate 2 contains many of the same features, including the free-to-play battle royale mode Proulx revealed onstage.

On this front, Proulx admits his studio went too far in a response on Twitter to a Call of Duty developer who criticized his remarks. The developer tweeted, “‘make fps great again’ and its splitgate”, prompting the official Splitgate account to quote tweet it with, “Which Call of Duty does your team make again? I can’t tell them apart.” Both tweets have since been deleted, and Proulx said he was not the person behind that particular remark.

“Yeah, so I will say there was a tweet that we put out that we have since deleted, and I will apologize for that one. I mean, everything is on me of course as the CEO, that was not my post. My posts are me, right? They're videos of me, I try to be really just honest and off-script and just talk to the fans directly, but there's no excuse for that one and we did take it down.”

Regardless, Proulx stood by what he said onstage. He said he doesn’t have a specific beef with Call of Duty, but misses the “good old days” of the game. I asked him what that means, and he said he misses the “newness and the innovation”, citing Call of Duty 4. “And then Modern Warfare 2 taking it to the next level, whether it was the campaign, the multiplayer, all the skins to grind for, the lack of skill-based matchmaking where you just felt like it was very organic. And it feels like there's sort of a lack of innovation now that they're putting out quality and polish, but they're not necessarily pushing the bar forward.”

Finally, there’s the microtransactions. Splitgate 2 is free-to-play with microtransactions, and when it launched on June 6, players immediately began expressing their displeasure over one particular microtransaction: a $145 bundle, discounted to $80 for launch. 1047 Games cut the price dramatically down to $40 almost immediately, along with the prices of a number of other items.

Then, in a video published just before our interview took place, Proulx apologized for the pricing situation, saying he only learned about the bundle pricing shortly after he got offstage at Summer Game Fest. He attested that 1047 Games’ former head of monetization, who “happened to come from Call of Duty”, had been “very aggressive on the pricing,” and that prices had been even higher before. After his departure from the company, Proulx claimed 1047 leadership did a reevaluation of the pricing and lowered most prices, but “things slipped through the cracks.”

Why we went from $80 to $40. pic.twitter.com/8VC7Ku1qHQ

— Splitgate 2 (@Splitgate) June 8, 2025

I asked him how he, as head of the company, was unaware of the pricing of bundles for the game he was launching. Proulx reiterated that he took responsibility for what happened, saying he had been “very focused on getting through the beta.”

“We got through beta, we had other fires to attend to so I was focused on servers and just trying to get us through that. I was not thinking at all about monetization because I was just like, we're not going to make any money, it doesn't even matter if people can't play the game. And so that was where my head was at for the last two weeks was like, we got to just make sure this game is great, fix the servers, keep the lights on, fix the issues. Okay, we've made it barely, now we've got to go launch this game. And then it was a kind of, what the fuck moment, like how did we not catch this?”

I pointed to Proulx’s comment in the video that the person he alleges is responsible had previously worked on Call of Duty, which seemed to fit with accusations that he was taking shots at the game. Proulx replied that it was “a funny coincidence, but a hundred percent the truth.”

We talked a bit more about what happened, with Proulx reiterating that 1047 Games never intends to do anything like that expensive bundle ever again, and that they’re refunding players who already purchased it.

“Whether you like my original statement or not, that is what I am trying to accomplish here, and I don't need to talk about the statement anymore,” he says. “What I'm trying to accomplish here is I want to build a brand, and a community, and a product that people want to support where we are listening, that's the best way to do it. That's not how it's done anymore, and that is how I want to do it. You tell us your feedback, we're going to take that to heart, we're going to iterate, and we're going to actually take action quickly. We're not going to sit around and wait for the proper PR statement. That's why a lot of times when we talk to the players, I don't have a script, I just turn my phone on and we just find out what comes out of my mouth and that's what we go with.”

To wrap it up, I asked Proulx if he’s learned anything from this trifecta of incidents. He’s made it clear 1047 Games doesn’t intend to offer expensive bundles in the future, but what about the Call of Duty comments and the Make FPS Great Again hat? Will this incident inform how he presents himself in the future?

“Yes,” Proulx said. “So I'd say the biggest lesson, just kind of realizing the platform that we have, it's got a lot more weight than we realized and also just the seriousness of everything in this day and age. We intended to put out a meme, we intended to put out something that summarized how we feel, truly, but also it was a joke. It's a joke that's been done to death and has literally been done by Hideo Kojima, and we thought, well, this is a good data point for how a similar reaction will occur. We also specifically chose to do a black hat instead of a red one, not that that, I don't know if that makes a difference. So I think I've just kind of learned just the impact that little things like this can have on people and so we're trying to be very thoughtful about it going forward. And we're trying to get back to focusing, there's all this stuff in the air I just want to move on, I want to make a fun game. That's what we're going to do.”

Despite all the criticism, Proulx doesn’t feel that any of the issues over the last week have impacted Splitgate 2 as a game. “I think there's so many games that have done well over time that have had controversies, whatever it is. I think it did get us a lot of attention, whether good or bad and now it's on us as developers to improve and actually act on feedback. And so if we do that, I think we're going to succeed. And if we don't, I don't think any of this would've mattered.”

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Incredibles 3 will reportedly be directed by Elemental and The Good Dinosaur's Peter Sohn instead of Brad Bird, who wrote and directed the first two films in the Pixar franchise.

As reported by THR, Bird will still be writing the screenplay for Incredibles 3 and producing it alongside Soul's Dana Murray.

#D23 erupts as Incredibles 3 is announced! pic.twitter.com/gchdZOIvfy

— IGN (@IGN) August 10, 2024

We don't know much else about Incredibles 3, and Pixar only recently announced the project at D23 2024 with the news that Brad Bird would be on board in some capacity.

It is important to note that Sohn and Bird (the latter of whom is currently working on Skydance's Ray Gunn and could be the reason for the change), have had a very long working relationship as Sohn has worked on every past animated Bird film, including both Incredibles films. Sohn has also voiced a handful of Pixar characters in the past, including Ratatouille's Emile, Monsters University's Squishy, and Lightyear's Sox.

The Incredibles itself has been around since 2004, and the first film brought in $631 million globally and won the Academy Award for the best animated film. Incredibles 2 followed in 2018 and soared to $1.24 million worldwide.

For more in the world of Disney, check out how Pixar is doubling down on sequels, our guide to Walt Disney World's Cool Kid Summer, our ranking of the best Pixar films, and everything else on the schedule for Disney and Pixar.

Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst, Instagram, and TikTok, and listen to his show, Talking Disney Magic.

James Gunn’s Superman is easily one of the most hotly anticipated movies of 2025. Not only does the film introduce a brand new cinematic incarnation of the Man of Steel and his supporting cast, but it also kicks off the live-action side of Gunn’s and Peter Safran’s DCU. There are a great many questions about how exactly Superman introduces this shared cinematic universe and what role David Corenswet’s Kal-El plays, but things are becoming clearer thanks to a new roundtable interview from Entertainment Weekly.

From the fact that the DCU has a Justice Gang rather than a Justice League to the surprisingly deep history of metahumans in this world, here are the biggest takeaways from the EW interview.

Justice League or Justice Gang?

Superman’s fellow DC heroes like Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl, and Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific have featured prominently in DC’s marketing so far. We know that these heroes serve on the DCU version of the Justice League, a team apparently spearheaded by Sean Gunn’s Maxwell Lord (a nod to the Justice League International comics of the ‘80s). But what we didn’t know until now is that this team isn’t actually called the Justice League. They’re the Justice Gang.

That one change speaks volumes about the team and their place in the wider DCU. There’s a certain harder edge inherent to the Justice Gang, partly because their name also dredges up images of the supervillain team from the comics known as the Injustice Gang. Rather than consisting of the best, brightest, and most noble heroes the world has to offer, the Justice Gang is comprised of hotheads and abrasive personalities. We saw from the recent Peacemaker Season 2 trailer that Lord and his team aren’t particularly respectful of their fellow heroes.

Ultimately, the Justice Gang is still a force for good in the DCU. They just aren’t necessarily blessed with the same inherent sense of kindness and decency as Superman himself. "They're good. They just are not saintly," Gunn tells EW.

That speaks to a larger desire on Gunn’s part to explore the full spectrum of morality in the DCU. Corenswet’s Superman and Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor represent polar extremes, but most characters fall somewhere firmly in the middle of the good/evil spectrum.

"There are some characters that are really almost saintly, like Superman," Gunn says. "There are some characters who are almost pretty terrible, like Lex Luthor. But I don't think Lex is all bad, and I don't think Superman is all good. All those people in between, the Guy Gardners and the Jimmy Olsens of the world, are even more complex in their moralities and what they think is okay."

Fillion also points out an important distinction when it comes to Guy Gardner and Green Lanterns in particular. They’re recruited into the Green Lantern Corps not because they’re the most heroic beings in the universe, but simply because they feel no fear. That’s how you wind up with a proud jerk like Guy wielding a power ring.

"I love the idea that if you have an emergency and you need a Green Lantern — there's thousands of them out there in the galaxy — this is the last one you want," Fillion says. "What is very true about Guy Gardner, and what James understands very well, is you don't have to be good and pure of heart to be a Green Lantern. You just have to be fearless. You just have to have the will. And Guy Gardner thinks he can take on Superman. That's how fearless he is. No, you can't take on Superman, dude."

Lois and Clark Are Already Dating

The latest Superman trailer shines a light on the dynamic between Corenswet’s Clark Kent and Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane. As Lois grills Clark on his recent controversial actions in Boravia, it becomes clear that she knows his secret identity and isn’t afraid to call him out for his mistakes. What wasn’t clear from the trailer, however, is whether Lois and Clark are actively dating as the movie opens. Yes, we see the two kiss in one shot, but is that a later development or an extension of an existing romance?

Gunn now confirms that the latter is true. Superman is set in a world where Kal-El and his fellow heroes have been active for some time already, and that extends to his relationships with the Daily Planet crew. Lois and Clark have known each other long enough that she already knows his secret and has come to appreciate the many sides of Superman.

“This isn't like the interview in the [Richard] Donner movie where Lois doesn't know that he's Clark," Corenswet says. "Lois knows everything about him, so he's in a very vulnerable position. He's madly in love with this woman and desperately wants her to understand him and appreciate him and love him back."

This dynamic between Lois and Clark will play a very prominent role in the film, to the point where it fundamentally affects Corenswet’s performance. This is a hero who puts on one public face as Superman and another as bumbling reporter Clark Kent. Lois becomes one of the very few people to know and appreciate the real man that exists between those two facades.

"We also had this third character, of who Clark is when he's in a room with somebody who knows both sides of him,” Corenswet says. “He's not really playing the character of Superman, but he's also not really playing the role of Clark, either. It's a personality that only comes out with his parents and with Lois, once she really gets to know everything about him."

The DCU’s Long Metahuman History

We’ve known from the beginning that Superman takes place in a world with a rich, existing history of superheroes and metahumans. But until now, we didn’t realize just how deep that history goes. Gunn reveals that the DCU is a place where the general public is intimately familiar with the existence of metahumans. These figures have been public knowledge for roughly 300 years by this point.

"If you saw a shark-man walking down the street, you'd probably vomit and s--- yourself to death," Gunn says. "If they saw one, it would be more like if you saw Paul McCartney on the sidewalk in New York."

At this point, we can only speculate as to the metahuman-related conflicts the DCU has dealt with in the past. No doubt this is a world where, like in the comics, many heroes and villains played parts in World War II. The 300-year timeline probably also encompasses the Paradise Lost series, which will explore the political turmoil and strife on Wonder Woman’s home island of Themyscira. And that’s to say nothing of immortal metahuman characters like Vandal Savage.

How The Engineer Is Different From the Comics

By now, it’s become clear that María Gabriela de Faría’s Angelia Spica/The Engineer is one of the main antagonists in the film. The trailer shows The Engineer battling Superman alongside the mysterious Ultraman and even clashing with Superman’s faithful pup Krypto. This is a character who will differ from the source material in terms of both powers and motivations.

When it comes to the former, The Engineer has been reimagined so that she’s no longer a T-1000-style shape-shifting, liquid metal lifeform. Instead, she’s a human modified by advanced nanotech, allowing her to generate deadly weapons from pure thought.

De Faría provides some insight into her character’s motivations, revealing Angela to be a true believer in Lex Luthor’s vision for humanity. And while this isn’t overtly referenced in the film, there may be a romantic attraction driving her as well.

“I imagined that Lex and Angie had this work relationship where they respect each other so much," she says. "Angela highly believes in Lex's idea of making the world a better place. She's practically given her life to Lex for this greater good. But at the same time, I feel like there's an element of an underlying relationship going on between the two of them.”

De Faría even reveals she told Gunn, “I feel like these guys f***.”

Metamorpho’s True Purpose

Some DC fans have noted concern about the large ensemble cast of what is ostensibly a Superman-centric movie, pointing to the presence of numerous other metahuman heroes and villains as a sign the film is too crowded for its own good. Though if the Guardians of the Galaxy movies proved anything, it’s that Gunn has a knack for drawing in all manner of characters without making them superfluous to the plot.

That looks to be true for Superman as well, especially now that we know exactly what role Anthony Carrigan’s Metamorpho is meant to play in the conflict between Superman and Lex Luthor. It seems that Luthor sees Rex Mason as a valuable weapon. A man whose body can transmute itself into any element is the world’s most ready-made source of Kryptonite. Rex, naturally, is less than thrilled at becoming a pawn in Luthor’s anti-Superman crusade.

"You're in a situation where it's having to hurt someone, having to be an agent of the bad guy. And at the same time, there's this struggle to want to be good," Carrigan says. "What the film does brilliantly is it puts you in this situation of, 'Oh! He has no choice.' He has to be doing this, and you see how painful it is."

Gunn Is Developing a Superman Follow-Up

Superman is just one step in a much larger roadmap for the DCU. Gunn and Safran announced a number of movies and series when they first revealed DCU Chapter One: Gods and Monsters in 2023. With the emphasis on getting scripts ironed out before moving forward on any project, the release lineup has shifted somewhat in the years since, but Gunn definitely has a plan he’s busy executing.

We’ve known for a little while that Gunn is busy writing his next major DCU project after Superman and Peacemaker Season 2. But now the director is confirming that he’s specifically developing a follow-up to Superman (whether or not these are the same project remains unclear). Not necessarily a direct sequel, but one that builds on the characters and plot points introduced in the first DCU movie.

"What I'm working on is in some way…I mean, yes, yes, yes, yes,” Gunn says. “But is it a straight-up Superman sequel? I would not say necessarily."

It appears that Gunn’s next several projects will be about establishing more connective tissue in the DCU and making it more clear what the Gods and Monsters plan actually entails.

“The most important thing is the specific stories, but there is also a much bigger story that we're telling that will take a little bit longer to tell," Gunn says. "That's sort of where my next couple of things are going to be."

Part of that process may involve introducing a true Justice League in the DCU. Gunn cryptically hints, "There is no Justice League in this world… not yet."

Again, we now know that Lord’s team in Superman is the Justice Gang rather than the Justice League. That distinction is even more significant if it turns out the idea is to build toward the debut of a proper Justice League down the road. As the DCU debuts its versions of key heroes like Wonder Woman (who’s confirmed to be getting a new movie) and Batman (the DCU version of whom will debut in Batman: The Brave and the Bold), Gunn’s goal may be to introduce a more traditional Justice League team comprised of these iconic heroes just in time for the climax of Gods and Monsters.

Do you want a more traditional Justice League team in the DCU, or do you prefer the misfit Justice Gang? Cast your vote in our poll and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

For more on the future of the DCU, brush up on every DC movie and series in development.

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

Alienware released a new flagship gaming laptop this year - the Area-51 - and it brings to the table a host of upgrades over the m-series laptops including a sleeker redesign, current generation components, and better cooling potential. It might be a tad early for a Dads and Grads event, but several variants of both the Alienware 16 Area-51 and Alienware 18 Area-51 gaming laptops are already on sale with discounts of up to $300 off. They're equipped with the latest Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, including the RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090. Orders are expected to ship out late June.

The Area-51: New Style, More Power, Better Cooling

New for 2025, the Alienware Area-51 gaming laptop features a magnesium alloy chassis with upgraded cooling to tackle the latest and greatest heat generating components. This includes more fans and bigger cutouts enabling greater airflow, more generous use of copper, and a new thermal interface material to better transfer heat away from the core components. Dell claims that the laptop can handle a higher power ceiling of up to 240W TDP without raising acoustics.

Design-wise, the Area 51 accentuates its smooth contours, with rounded edges and soft corners replacing the squared off design you'd see in most other laptops. The hinges are also mostly internally positioned so that they're near invisible. As befits an Alienware laptop, there are ample customization options for RGB LED lighting.

As part of the greater Sony PlayStation Days of Play Sale Event, Amazon is offering 25%-27% off discounts on PlayStation DualSense controllers in nearly every color. Prices range from $54.88 to $59.88 with free shipping. The Dualsense is oft regarded as the best PS5 controller under $100 but it also makes for an excellent PC controller, especially since PC game clients like Steam support DualSense features like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. You better hurry though, because the Days of Play Sale ends on Wednesday, June 11, along with these DualSense deals.

Sony PS5 DualSense Controller Chroma Series

The Lord of the Rings is one of those franchises that fans just can't get enough of. Whether you love the books, movies, or both, there a ton of ways to show your appreciation for LotR in 2025. That being said, some of the best Lord of the Rings gifts can get pretty expensive. If you're looking to invest in a deluxe edition of the books, a box set of all of the movies in 4K, or even just and awesome LEGO set, it isn't going to be cheap.

Thankfully, Amazon always seems to have some sort of discount you can take advantage of. The latest buy one, get one 50% off sale includes the LotR books and movies with quite the variety of choices within just those two categories. If you've been looking for the perfect Father's Day gift for a dad who loves Middle-earth, this is the perfect opportunity to grab something really nice at a discount.

Buy One, Get One Half Off Lord of the Rings

The buy one, get one half off sale is fairly simple. Amazon has a huge list of items included in the sale and all you need to do is add two of them to your cart to get 50% off the cheaper item. So to fully take advantage of the sale, you'll probably want to buy two similarly priced items. There are more than just Lord of the Rings books and movies in this sale, however, so you chan chose from a variety of other 4K movies and books included in the sale and still get the discount.

I've featured some of the best LotR gift picks from the sale above, but this isn't even everything. Almost all of the Lord of the Rings books are included in the sale right now in various forms. There are a couple of awesome box sets that are a great edition to any shelf as well as two different illustrated editions of Tolkien's work. If you're looking for the ultimate book gift, I'd suggest the Deluxe Illustrated Edition simply because it's a giant epic tome. Both illustrated books include drawings from Tolkien himself, though, so the main difference is the price.

If you're more of a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, one of the best options available is included in this sale. The 4K UHD Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Extended & Theatrical) movie set is a great option. It includes all three films from the Peter Jackson trilogy as well as bonus features, all in glorious 4K. There's also the Blu-ray version of the trilogy available for a lot cheaper included in this sale, but it doesn't include the same amount of bonus features.

Check Out The New LEGO Lord of the Rings Book Nook

The upcoming Big Bang Theory spinoff series Stuart Fails to Save the Universe is going to hit with, well, a bang apparently — because according to creator Chuck Lorre, the show is set to have some serious visual effects.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe revolves around Big Bang Theory character Stuart Bloom, played by Kevin Sussman. Stuart, as Big Bang Theory fans will know, is the comic book store owner and dismissive friend of the main cast. As the show went on, Sussman's role in it grew to the point where he became a significant member of the cast.

“There’s a lot of CGI,” Lorre, who is developing Stuart Fails to Save the Universe alongside fellow Big Bang Theory creator Bill Prady and Avengers screenwriter Zak Penn, revealed during a recent conversation at Baniff World Media Festival this week reported by Variety.

He continued: “There’s a lot of special technical stuff that — you know, for me in my career, a big production number was two people sitting on a couch, drinking coffee! This is different. This is trying to incorporate some of that world of science fiction/fantasy into a comedy. And I’m completely out of my element, which is what I wanted. Which is what I was hoping to do, something that I had no experience with. And maybe I can learn as we go.”

If you're looking for an affordable power bank that will fast charge your brand new Nintendo Switch 2, Steam Deck, or Apple iPhone 16, then check out today's deal. Amazon has the Iniu 10,000mAh Power Bank with up to 45W of Power Delivery over USB Type-C for only $11.25 after you redeem the 50% off coupon on the product page. Iniu power banks have solid reviews and are less expensive than equivalent Anker models.

Iniu 10,000mAh 45W USB Power Bank for $11.25

James Gunn has confirmed a new Wonder Woman movie is officially in development, saying it’s “being written right now.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly to promote the upcoming launch of Superman, DC Studios co-head Gunn said this new Wonder Woman movie is being developed separately to the already announced Paradise Lost HBO Max series.

"We're working on Wonder Woman,” Gunn said. “Wonder Woman's being written right now."

Outside of the comics, Diana of Themyscira has had a rough time in recent years. Her live-action film franchise starring Gal Gadot flamed out after the mixed reception of Wonder Woman 1984, she’s never had a dedicated animated series, and what was supposed to be Diana’s first ever solo video game was cancelled despite being announced all the way back in 2021.

As IGN writer Carlos Morales recently explained, "At the height of competition between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DCEU in the late 2010s, the first Wonder Woman film was one of the latter’s most undeniable success stories. The 2017 film received largely positive reviews and pulled in over $800 million at the global box office. After Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad both polarized audiences, Patty Jenkins’ take on Diana connected with filmgoers in a way the last few DC films hadn’t. ... The 2020 sequel Wonder Woman 1984, however, was a significant letdown, dividing critics and failing to recoup its budget theatrically."

That movie was released day and date on HBO Max and in theaters because many filmgoers were still hesitant to go out during the pandemic.

A third film was in the works but development puttered out eventually, and there had been no word on another Wonder Woman feature until now. Of course at this point, with a new Wonder Woman movie in the works, questions over who will play Diana will crop up once again.

Superman hits theaters July 11 and kicks off Gunn's rebooted DCU in a big way. It's set before Peacemaker Season 2, which premieres on HBO Max on August 21, 2025. Supergirl comes out on June 26, 2026, but we don’t have a release date for the Lanterns TV show.

Other upcoming DCU projects known to be in the works include Clayface, which has a September 11, 2026 release date. DCU movie The Authority, however, sounds like it’s in trouble. Gunn has said Waller, a spinoff of Peacemaker, “has had a couple of setbacks, frankly.” However, HBO Max series Booster Gold “is going pretty strong,” and Paradise Lost is "slow moving, but it's moving."

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.

If you're playing Mario Kart World, you'll likely be unlocking a steady stream of new vehicles simply playing the game as you normally would — progressing through Grand Prix Cups, Knockout Tour and hunting down challenges in Free Roam.

All in all, there are 30 karts to unlock on top of the game's basic eight vehicles. Every 100 coins unlocks a new kart, so you'll need 3,000 coins to nab them all.

It's not a particularly tall order, but that hasn't stopped fans from immediately trying to maximise their Mario Kart World time to get everything even quicker.

Most tips involve Mario Kart World's Free Roam mode, where players are hunting down the most lucrative spots to grind for coins — or even go AFK and watch their coffers slowly fill.

If you're happy to rinse and repeat loading the game over and over, fans are recommending honing in on any of the game's giant stacks of coins you can find in Free Roam which respawn every time you reload the game.

IGN has tested this method with the stack of coins by the Boo Cinema fast travel spot. Load into Free Roam from the game's main menu, turn around and you'll see the coin stack to your left. After collection, simply reload the game and repeat the process.

Artist Tyler Kirkham has become a fixture at Marvel Comics in recent years, and it's not hard to understand why. Now Clover Press is celebrating Kirkham's prolific career by making him the subject of their latest Marvel artbook.

With the crowdfunding campaign for The Marvel Art of Tyler Kirkham now live, IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of the Spider-Man artwork featured in the book (art which will also be reprinted as a portfolio in certain pledge tiers). Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

The Marvel Art of Tyler Kirkham is a hardcover, coffee table-style artbook featuring 200 pages of art pulled both from Kirkham's interior art in books like New Avengers/Transformers and Phoenix: Warsong and from covers to series like The Amazing Spider-Man and Venom. In addition to the book itself, backers have the option to add on extras like 11"x17" art prints, stickers, and other goodies.

“I am extremely excited to announce my official art book with Marvel Comics and Clover Press,” said Kirkham in a statement. “It represents a comprehensive collection of my artwork for Marvel over the years, encompassing hundreds of covers and interior pages. I'm honored to have a book of this scale and quality coming out and I can't wait for people to see it!”

“I’ve been a fan of Tyler’s work since our days at DC, and have marveled at what he’s accomplished in the years since,” said Clover Press Publisher Hank Kanalz. “He continues to top himself with his ‘Battle Damage’ covers and more recently his homage pieces. The Marvel Art of Tyler Kirkham tracks his growth as an artist, and collects so many pieces in one volume – not to be missed by any Tyler Kirkham collector!”

The Kickstarter campaign for The Marvel Art of Tyler Kirkham is live now. Previous Marvel artbooks from Clover Press have included The Marvel Art of Alex Maleev, The Marvel Art of Russell Dauterman, and The Marvel Art of Michael Turner.

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

EVE Online has a decades-long reputation at this point for being a sprawling, ruthless, libertine space sandbox full of crime, war, betrayal, and player-built empires. And from its conception, EVE Frontier is really all of those things dialed up even further. Blending its space MMO heritage with elements of the survival crafting genre and employing the blockchain to – so the devs say – give even more control to players, it's certainly a thought-provoking prospect.

Let me get this out of the way first: Frontier is, yes, a blockchain game. It also features a cryptocurrency token that can be bought with real money and spent on in-game purchases. (EVE Online has had the ability to buy its subscription token, PLEX, with real money and sell it for in-game money for a while now, so that specific aspect isn't new.) I am highly skeptical, personally, of these kinds of rotating Silicon Valley hype words, and nothing CCP has said to me so far has made me less so, as a rule.

But I do believe, based on the conversations I've had with these devs, that they are genuinely interested in the tech primarily on the basis of the gameplay features it might enable. I asked a lot of hard questions, and don't think they're trying to drum up investment capital by invoking magic words or cash in on some kind of crypto rug-pull. Their faith in this tech might be misplaced, in my opinion. But I think their desire to leverage it is generally in good faith.

CEO Hilmar Pétursson told me that the intent with putting Frontier on the chain was that if, for instance, a meteor were to hit their offices in Reykjavik, the universe they, and we, created could persist without them. It also opens the door for CCP to step back from being active administrators some day and simply be another organization within the decentralized EVE Frontier ecosystem. On the topic of environmental concerns, I was assured repeatedly that using "proof of stake" verification, it was possible to run Frontier's blockchain elements using about the same amount of energy as the traditional EVE Online servers that have been up for years. I don't know enough about the tech involved to independently verify this, but it's what I was told.

At the end of the day, it is what it is. So let's move on to how Frontier actually plays.

A DARK FOREST

While EVE Online started with large areas of high security space populated by NPC factions with their own laws and police, Frontier is exactly what it says in the name: an entirely fresh canvas of wild space with no rules but the ones we make and enforce as players. We're still controlling spaceships in third person, making jumps between star systems to collect resources and craft industrial stations, consumables, and equipment, and shooting at NPC baddies or other players with lasers and rockets. It feels very familiar, moment-to-moment, as a long-time EVE player. One big exception is that combat is a bit more intuitive and complex now with obstacles like asteroids being able to block weapon fire realistically based on their precise shapes.

Everyone starts out in your own dark corner of the galaxy with a single ship and a home base, beginning a journey to tame the stellar wilderness from square one. When I asked the devs if they thought players would eventually build their own permanent civilizations, maybe up to and including something like EVE Online's Concord, they told me the potential is definitely there. But there is a certain level of added attrition in Frontier, partly in the form of terrifying, wandering world bosses that take the shape of rogue AI – hulking, almost Lovecraftian metallic beasts in the black with unknown motives.

Frontier also aims to be a moddable MMO, which might sound like a strange prospect. Initially, much of what you build in the 3D world will be restricted to remixing premade assets. You won't be able to import your own meshes from Blender, for instance, though that restriction may not last forever. But we were shown a lot of ways players could push the boundaries of the genre and their own imaginations.

HIGHWAY TO SPACE HELL

One way this manifests is in the gate network, which will be entirely player-built. You could set up your own interstellar highway connecting what will initially be isolated star systems, and even charge in-game resources or crypto tokens to use them. Of course, there's nothing necessarily stopping another player from building their own bypass right next to yours with lower tolls or even for free. You also don't have to ask for resources at all. You could make other players solve a riddle or follow you on social media to use your gates.

Obviously I can imagine many dystopian permutations of this kind of libertarian space sandbox. More than anything, it kind of reminds me of Minecraft anarchy servers like the infamous 2b2t. And when I asked Pétursson if CCP's lawyers thought he was crazy, he very matter-of-factly confirmed that they do. But CCP is trusting that the players will be the ones to self-police the worst excesses.

If McDonalds were to come in and try to establish a stargate network that required you to watch a commercial for their new combo meal every five jumps, they would also need to provide their own around-the-clock security or anti-corpo player federations could simply come in and blow it all up. To what extent these brands might find it's worth hiring mercenaries in a video game to protect their ad buys remains to be seen. And there is something fascinating about that, I have to admit.

The one thing CCP will not ever allow modification of, the bedrock upon which this universe sits, is its laws of physics. A ship still has mass and will behave like something with mass would, even if you make it look like pregnant Sonic the Hedgehog. And anything you build will still ultimately require a supply chain that can be traced back to mining matter from black hole clusters. If you want to use your real-world riches to buy a bunch of tokens and bootstrap an in-game empire, you'll still need to buy those finite resources from players who took the time to gather them, at market rates. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. There's no way of bypassing that.

SEE YOU ON THE FRONTIER

EVE Frontier is, if nothing else, an intriguing experiment in the making. It could be an absolute trash fire, and I remain actively wary of its blockchain and cryptocurrency elements. But I did have fun playing the small bit of it we got access to, and it is an enticing invitation to settle and develop fresh empires in a blank slate galaxy with no major NPC factions to work around. But if you don't want to take my word for it, you can try it out yourself with one of Frontier's paid Founder packages right now.