Elden Ring Nightreign Patch 1.01.3 is live now on all platforms, and while it just hits a few distinct bullet points for tuning and bug fixing, players seem appreciative of the changes that have been made.

The patch only makes one balance adjustment: "Increased the chance of obtaining weapons with the madness status ailment." Madness is a status effect that can be built up and inflicted on enemies, and can be particularly effective in some cases, as a full affliction causes enemies to take significant damage and literally make flames spill out of their eyes.

Notably, one of the pursuable Nightlords, Libra, is weak to Madness. But while this seems like a helpful upgrade for those trying to take the goat demon down, players on the r/Nightreign subreddit seem a little skeptical over how much this will change their runs.

They've noted that very few weapons have Madness effects in the first place; it's mostly incantation seals and Vyke's Spear. Plus, not every enemy can be afflicted with Madness. In fact, it seems like only a relatively small subset can be, compared to other status effects or elements.

"I got an incantation once but that's it. Hopefully this means regular weapons can sometimes roll madness on them now, even if just from madness camps," one user said. "Since you can get the same weapon with different statuses/elements of the other types already, madness shouldn't be so rare when it's mainly useful against one specific boss."

The more exciting update for most, it seems, is one of the bug fixes: "Fixed a bug where players would lose a battle after being revived from near death against a Nightlord or other Night bosses." This apparently caused some grief for players who were trying to clear a Night boss and had their revival effects kick in.

"Happened to me like 20 times," said one player. "Was like psychological horror."

Those, along with general quality-of-life updates like adjusting the Whirlwind skill effect visibility for Guardian players with a certain Relic equipped, all seem like small but meaningful tune-ups for Elden Ring Nightreign. There is one in-demand request unaddressed, though.

Players who have cleared the final boss are eagerly hoping for a fix for Shifting Earth events. For those unaware, Shifting Earth events can appear randomly and change parts of the usual Nightreign map, adding new mini-dungeons to explore and plunge for treasure. They are part of getting the trophies for Elden Ring Nightreign, and many different people in the thread and on other threads have expressed frustration with how they can become exceedingly rare after clearing the game.

So while there are still aspects Elden Ring Nightreign players would like to see addressed, this patch at least managed to hit a couple quality-of-life fixes that should make Nightfarer's expeditions a little easier.

More content is expected soon too, as FromSoftware has cryptically teased that "enhanced" versions of its current Nightlord roster are expected to arrive sometime this month.

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.

Elden Ring Nightreign – Patch Notes Version 1.01.3

General balance adjustments

• Increased the chance of obtaining weapons with the madness status ailment.

Bug Fixes

• Adjusted the Whirlwind skill effect visibility when the Relic Effect “[Guardian] Increased duration for Character Skill” is active.
• Fixed a bug where the Demon Merchant would spawn near the Night's Tide when the Demon Merchant curse event was encountered.
• Fixed a bug where damage dealt to some enemies when destroying weak points created by Ironeye’s "Marking" skill was higher or lower than expected.
• Fixed a bug where the Lightning Damage received from enemies would be nullified when affected by the Passive Effect "Power of the Great Ancient Dragon" of the "Bolt of Gransax" weapon.
• Fixed a bug where the Ultimate Art gauge was filled more than expected when attacking some enemies.
• Fixed a bug where the Relic Effect “Switching Weapons Adds an Affinity Attack” did not properly reflect the attribute when applied to Bows and Crossbows.
• Fixed a bug where the amount of Runes needed to purchase Uncommon weapons from merchants incorrectly calculated.
• Fixed a bug where players would lose a battle after being revived from near death against a Nightlord or other Night bosses.
• Fixed a bug in some Multiplayer battles against a Nightlord where the camera would not display at the correct angle when not targeting an enemy.
• Fixed a bug where lingering character phantoms did not appear in Limveld.
• Added staff information in the game’s credit.

Steam-only adjustments

• Fixed a bug where the game might freeze momentarily or for an extended period in some environments.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

I really admire the retro throwbacks Atari is doing these days, whether it’s something like Wayforward’s utterly gorgeous and charming Yars Rising or the underrated Lunar Lander Beyond. These games imagine the world around the Atari originals that inspired them, using them to build a base for a new game while celebrating what came before. It’s a neat idea, and something I wish other publishers would learn from. Needless to say, when I got an invite to sit down with their latest retro revival, I took it, even if I didn’t know what it was.

What I got was Adventure of Samsara, a new take on the Atari classic Adventure on the Atari 2600. Adventure was before my time, but it’s remarkable to go back to because of how simple it is. That doesn’t mean it’s not interesting, though. Seriously, go look up a playthrough of Adventure if you’re unfamiliar; it’s amazing what you can convey with very simple graphics and a little imagination on the part of the player.

That’s not what Adventure of Samsara is, though. This game is stunning, with simple yet evocative pixel art that is some of the most visually striking I’ve ever seen; I didn’t appreciate how much it captured the visual vibe of the original game until after I went back and saw it, but once you’ve seen them both, it’s easy to see how Adventure of Samsara understands its visual roots. My demo started with a beam of light striking a planet, resurrecting a fallen hero, and covering him in golden armor. The first thing I had to do was help a guy named Ombro out of a cage. “But Will,” you might be wondering, “how do you translate a game like Adventure into the modern era?” Well, dear reader, I’m glad you asked. The answer, of course, is that you make it a metroidvania with soulslike elements (resting at golden anvils restores your healing flasks and respawns enemies). I know, I know, but hear me out. This actually works pretty well.

See, the original Adventure was about navigating a world and finding the way forward, whether that meant solving a maze, finding a key to open a locked door, or bringing the right thing to the right place. There was a good deal of backtracking and learning how to navigate your environment. Sounds like a metroidvania, right? Well, 45 years later, here we are.

Anyway, I had to get my guy Ombro out of his cage, but I didn’t have a sword. So I went into a shining room behind me (Ombro was basically like, “Hey, check out that room back there”), grabbed a sword and shield, and came back. And in between, I got my first taste of Adventure of Samsara’s combat. I wouldn’t call it slow, but it is deliberate. Moving, jumping, dodging, and swinging your sword are weighty experiences, and once you commit to an action, you’re going to be stuck doing it until you finish. When you’re in combat, you want to make sure you’re doing the right thing.

Adventure of Samsara also has a parry, but again, this animation is pretty long, so if you attempt a parry at the wrong time, you’re going to get hit. Get it right, though, and you’ll be treated to one of the most satisfying parries you’ve ever seen, as the Solar Champion (that’s you) uses their sword to knock your opponent back before bringing your own sword down in a giant arc that deals massive damage to stronger foes and kills your basic mooks in one shot.

Once I’d used my fancy new sword to bust Ombro out, he told me that our people, the Orphics, were under attack by Necromancers. No biggie, just a regular Tuesday. Sounds like a Solar Champion problem, so I set out for the nearby village.

As you might expect, this is where I spent most of my time with Adventures of Samarar’s demo. Aside from the combat, which kept me on my toes because of how deliberate each choice was, I was mostly jumping from ledge to ledge (holding on is something you can do manually, which allows you to do some more complex platforming), finding new ways to get to places, and discovering hidden secrets, such as Data Cubes (think pixely murals) that referenced the original Adventure. At one point, I had to help Potisto, the Orphic Crypt Keeper, who was also in a cage (noticing a pattern here?) get a Spoiled Elixir, which meant finding it in a nearby chest. Once I did, he gave me a key to the next area.

Shortly after that, I fought my first boss. The Fleshless Giant was a good test because I couldn’t just rely on my parry to beat him. I could parry two of his three attacks (the third was a magic spell I had to avoid), but only parrying one of those actually did damage. Parrying the other let me avoid damage, but knocked me backwards. The trick was finding spacing where I could avoid that attack and set myself up to parry the other one. It wasn’t a complicated fight, but finding the right spacing felt good. And better yet, I didn’t have to play it that way. I could have just dodged and whacked away at him. I just wanted to try it.

Once the big fella went down, I got to get down to the whole “finding the Orphic Village” thing, so I went exploring. I found an ability that let me manipulate a ball of fire to light hi-tech torches (that’s one of the fun things about Adventure of Samsara; you wield a sword, but there are automated metal doors and elevators scattered around) and burn away overgrown plants. I got spells that let me push enemies away and teleport back to the last golden anvil I used. And I ran into more enemies. Spiders that ran into me instead of attacking, so I couldn’t parry them! Flying dudes I had to jump to deal with! These really annoying ground worm things that spat poison! No matter what new thing I got, I had to stay on my toes.

I did eventually find the Orphic Village, and met more Orphics. I only saw an early segment, but I did come to appreciate Adventure of Samsara’s writing as I played it. Each character speaks with a unique voice, and you’d never mistake one of them for the others. Whether I was learning about the Orphic’s sacred tree that I could help nourish to upgrade my flasks (I see you, video game mechanics), learning about the Blacksmith’s lost friend, or just getting the key to the next area, exploring the town was interesting. Other Orphics even made jokes about how I was the strong, silent type. It’s just nice when people really see you, you know?

But maybe the most interesting thing in my demo happened at the end. After I left the village, I ran into what appeared to be an astronaut with a jetpack fighting a dragon that looked suspiciously like one of the ones from Adventure, just… you know, way more detailed. I got a couple of hits in to help out, but we didn’t get him. He vanished, and the jetpack astronaut warned me that he (and the dragon) was from another world. They weren’t supposed to be here. I needed to be wary of ambushes. My demo ended shortly thereafter, but I had no shortage of questions, and that’s where you want to be when a preview wraps up.

Bringing a 45-year-old game into the present era is a challenge. I’ve just scratched the surface of what Adventure of Samsara has to offer, but it feels like it’s doing a good job of staying true to Adventure while guiding it into a new era. I knew nothing about it going in, but I came out fascinated by both the original game and this spiritual successor (and if this sounds cool to you, there is a demo on Steam right now). But that’s the magic trick of a game like this, right? You’re always torn between the present and the future, balancing what you’re seeing with what comes next, wondering what's around the next corner. The only thing left to do now is see if developer Ilex Games and Atari can hold onto that feeling for an entire adventure.

In the early 2000s, Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean introduced moviegoers to one of the decade’s most iconic film characters: Johhny Depp’s quick-witted pirate lord, Captain Jack Sparrow. On the back of Depp’s performances, the quintet of swashbuckling adventures earned $4.5 billion USD at the worldwide box office — good for a spot among the most-lucrative film franchises of all time.

Ahead of the planned Pirates of the Caribbean 6, we’ve created a guide to help you navigate the series’ story for all of the movies. Scroll down to find out how to watch the Pirates of the Caribbean films in order, by narrative chronologically or release date.

Jump to:

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

How Many Pirates of the Caribbean Movies Are There?

There are five feature-length Pirates of the Caribbean movies and one short film. Several other Pirates stories have been told through novels, comics, and video games. However, this list exclusively covers the film series.

Where to Stream Pirates of the Caribbean

Pirates of the Caribbean in Chronological Order

These blurbs contain mild spoilers, including characters, settings, and broad plot points.

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Tales of the Code – Wedlocked (2011)

Released between the fourth and fifth movies as part of a Pirates Blu-ray/DVD box set, Tales of the Code – Wedlocked is a short film set before The Curse of the Black Pearl. Vanessa Branch and Lauren Maher reprise their roles as Giselle and Scarlett for the short, which centers around the two women both believing themselves to be betrothed to Jack Sparrow. Alas, they were fooled, and the duo becomes the object of a rowdy auction.

It's not essential to the wider chronology, though if you're looking for the complete Pirates experience, it's an easy watch with a 10-minute runtime.

2. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

From this point on, the release date and narrative chronologies of the Pirates movies align. The Curse of the Black Pearl, the series’ first movie, takes viewers back to the early 18th century during the Golden Age of Piracy. The debut film introduces us to the series' main characters: Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), and Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush).

A young Will Turner is rescued from a shipwreck with a gold medallion around his neck. The medallion is linked to a curse that afflicts the pirate crew of Jack Sparrow's former ship, the Black Pearl, with tortured immortality. The crew is now led by the mutinous Captain Barbossa.

Will and Jack set aside their differences to rescue Elizabeth Swann, who was taken by Barbossa along with the medallion. Jack’s allegiance flip-flops and then flips again. The trio survives the encounter and ultimately lifts the curse, though the movie ends with Jack wanted for piracy.

Read IGN’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl review.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)

Jack, Will, and Elizabeth return for another seafaring adventure in Dead Man’s Chest. The series’ second movie introduces Naomie Harris’s priestess Tia Dalma, Stellan Skarsgard’s Bill Turner (Will’s father), Tom Hollander’s Cutler Beckett, and Bill Nighy’s Davy Jones, captain of the Flying Dutchman ghost ship.

Jack, Will, Elizabeth, and James Norrington (Jack Davenport) all, with different motivations, set out to find the Dead Man’s Chest and Davy Jones’s heart within: Will seeks freedom from the law and for his father; Elizabeth seeks freedom for herself and Will; Jack seeks to escape his debt to Davy Jones; and James seeks to have his status as a navy officer restored.

Swashbuckling and backstabbing once again ensue, and only one escapes with Davy Jones’s heart, granting them control of Jones and therefore the seas. As for Captain Jack, he ends Dead Man’s Chest dragged to the depths of the sea by the Kraken. Tia Dalma, meanwhile, resurrects a familiar foe from Black Pearl to lead the rescue mission for Jack.

Read IGN’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest review.

4. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)

The third Pirates movie is an action-packed adventure that pits the franchise’s heroes against Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman, now controlled by Cutler Beckett. The heroes first team up to rescue Jack from Davy Jones’s Locker and recover the Black Pearl. After doing so, the crew’s varying motivations lead to the usual plotting and backstabbing. Along the way, we discover Tia’s true identity and meet Jack’s father, the pirate captain Edward Teague (Keith Richards).

By the end, Elizabeth comes into power, Will and Jack defeat Davy Jones, and a new captain takes control of the Flying Dutchman. A pregnant Elizabeth and Will part ways, while Jack and the revived Hector Barbossa set out separately to discover the Fountain of Youth.

Read IGN’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End review.

5. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

On Stranger Tides is the first Pirates film without Will/Orlando Bloom and Elizabeth/Keira Knightley. Ian McShane and Penelope Cruz stepped into the vacant supporting roles as the father-daughter duo Angelica and Blackbeard — the former being an ex-lover of Jack Sparrow.

The film’s overarching plot is a race to discover the Fountain of Youth between the English, Spanish, and multiple pirate crews. A treasure hunt involving secret maps, Mermaid tears, and the ship of renowned Spanish explorer Ponce de León ultimately leads each party to the Fountain. Barbossa settles an old score with Blackbeard and Jack uses the last of the Fountain’s power to save an ally.

Read IGN’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides review.

6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

The most recent Pirates film sees the return of Jack and Barbossa alongside Henry Turner (the now-grown son of Elizabeth and Will, played by Brenton Thwaites) and a new antagonist in Javier Bardem’s undead pirate-hunter Armando Salazar. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley reprise their respective roles as Will and Elizabeth for cameo appearances.

Dead Men Tell No Tales features another treasure hunt, the object of which is the Trident of Poseidon. Henry seeks the Trident to free his father from a curse and teams up with Jack and newcomer Carina (Kaya Scodelario) to do so. The trio, eventually with the help of Barbossa, must overcome Salazar’s opposition. One of these four heroes dies along the way. Jack takes his rightful place back aboard the Black Pearl and the other surviving heroes enjoy a family reunion.

A post-credits scene then sets up the return of Davy Jones.

Read IGN’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales review.

How to Watch the Pirates of the Caribbean Movies By Release Date

• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Tales of the Code – Wedlocked (2011 – short film)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

Future Pirates of the Caribbean Movies

There have been two future Pirates of the Caribbean movies in discussion: the sixth mainline movie and a Margot Robbie-led spinoff. Unfortunately, the Margot Robbie project seems to be dead in the water, but a sixth Pirates movie is certainly on the way.

The next mainline movie was expected to be a proper reboot, though franchise star Johnny Depp is once again said to be in the mix, so we'll have to wait and see about the actor's potential involvement and its impact on the film's direction. According to a Variety report published in December, two versions of the script are being developed, "one that could bring Depp back into the fold if the actor and Disney can reconcile."

Franchise producer Jerry Bruckheimer seemed to confirm at least some of the returning cast, with Orlando Bloom saying in an interview earlier this month that "I think they're trying to work out what it would all look like... I personally think it'd be great to get the band back together."

Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.

While frequent sell-outs and scalping are still regular problems in the Pokémon TCG Community, Walmart is seemingly trying to find a way around by making early access to the White Flare & Black Bolt sets only available by having a paid Walmart+ membership.

Preorders for a variety of the usual TCG products for White Flare and Black Bolt, including Elite Trainer Boxes, Poster Collection Boxes, and Booster Bundles, will go live on June 18 at 9 PM ET. For the first three, however, only paid Walmart+ members will be able to place preorders while stocks last.

Then, if any are left, non-Walmart+ shoppers are able to buy from the set themselves. While the Walmart+ hub page does state there's a 30-day trial available, each early-access item's product page, like the $60 Black Bolt Trainer Box, also mentions that only paid members are eligible to purchase preorders during those early hours.

Standard Walmart+ memberships are available for $12.95 per month, or $98 annually, which equates to $8.17 per month instead.

All You Need Is Kill will open in theaters at a date TBD. This review is based on a screening at the 2025 Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

Hiroshi Sakurazaka and Yoshioshi Abe's light novel All You Need Is Kill has previously provided the basis for a manga and the Tom Cruise-Emily Blunt movie Edge of Tomorrow. Now Ken’ichirô Akimoto makes his feature directorial debut with a new version that gives the “live, die, repeat” story the visual splendor only animation can provide. It also gives its main character an emotional arc unlike that of any other previous take on the story.

From the get-go, this All You Need Is Kill presents itself as a very different adaptation. There is no world on fire, no squadron of elite soldiers fighting alien creatures. Rather, it's a movie made for the post-COVID world, where the arrival of a massive alien plant, thereafter known as Darol, causes havoc when it spreads its roots across Earth, emitting electromagnetic surges that plunge the world into chaos. One year later, on the anniversary of this historic event, most of humanity has simply learned to ignore the giant alien flower and go about their day as usual.

Except, on this day, things are different. We follow Rita (a different take on the character played by Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow), a young, ordinary woman working in a huge complex designed to study Darol. When thousands of creatures suddenly sprout from the plant’s giant stalk, Rita is killed instantly – only to wake up and relive the events of the anniversary day. Then she’s killed again, and the same thing happens. And so on, and so on.

This change ups the stakes of All You Need Is Kill. Rita desperately tries to warn her co-workers of their impending doom, but nobody listens because nothing bad has happened during the year they’ve lived with Darol. The editing, which contrasts Rita's constant deaths with the screams of nearby scientists and the eventual quiet of the cafeteria where Rita always wakes up, is striking.

Despite this being his first time directing a feature, Akimoto commands the screen, leading the team at Studio 4°C through a stunning, cell-shaded movie full of vibrant colors and dazzling POV shots. Even though the story is quite small-scale and intimate – since we’re only viewing it through Rita’s attempts to stop her time loop – the animation gives All You Needs Is Kill a sense of scope. Even when she meets a fellow time-looper, Kenji, the action remains focused on the two of them rather than whole armies battling it out. Adding to the unique look are the mechanical suits the characters wear, with elongated limbs that give them a Digimon-like appearance.

But Rita's story is the heart of this adaptation. She’s our eyes into the alien attack, and it ends rather quickly. As she learns to improve her fighting skills, the focus is entirely on her experience and how her loneliness in the time loop reflects what she'd been feeling for years before Darol landed on Earth. This is the first time any version of All You Need Is Kill has focused on Rita's perspective, and as it dives into her existential isolation, it finds a rather moving tale about seeking meaning in chaos and trying to move forward from tragedy.

Not that there isn't action: Akimoto and team double down on the video game vibes of the source material. Indeed, it feels like a big, cinematic roguelike in which Rita both trains to be better at using certain weapons and has to memorize every movement of her enemy, each new loop bringing her an inch closer to her objective. The fighting itself is dynamic, the movements fluid.

And yet, All You Need Is Kill stumbles hard in the third act, to the point where the whole movie is nearly derailed. The story leaps forward too far and too hard, and in the blink of an eye delivers its climax minus much build up and plus some odd, unexpected plot twists. Worse yet, its attempts to veer off from any previous ending of All You Need Is Kill renders Rita – who’s been our entrypoint into this saga all the way up to now – a passive observer. Thankfully, there's still plenty to enjoy and marvel at before that ending. Maybe it’s just best to declare game over once you make it to the final boss fight.

Dune 3 has reportedly cast two roles that will come as no surprise to fans of Frank Herbert’s sprawling science fiction book series, but their confirmation veers into potential spoiler territory for others.

Warning! Potential spoilers for Dune 3 follow.

According to Deadline, Jason Momoa’s son, Nakoa-Wolf Momoa, and Silo‘s Ida Brooke are set to play Leto II and Ghanima, the twin offspring of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya). Legendary declined to comment.

Indiana Jones once famously declared that objects of public importance and history belong in a museum, but what do you do when they don’t? In the case of Relooted, you can put Indy’s mentality to the test by reclaiming relics of sub-Saharan Africa back for their homelands in this sleek and fascinating 2D heist title.

Relooted puts the player in control of a team of Robin Hood-like thieves that have dedicated their talents to the cause of reuniting items of cultural significance with their home countries. The group gets together upon discovering that a museum is hiding their ownership of multiple antiques in a vault, not even providing a reasoning of public education, but opening them up to having nowhere to report a theft.

“Ironically, this idea started when my mother visited the British Museum,” states Nyamakop Creative Director Ben Myres. “We met up later and she was wild with rage talking about this one element where the whole front of a temple from the south of Turkey was literally moved to the museum. She said, ‘You should make this into a game.’”

Myres thought about the mechanics of stealing a building from a museum and work on Relooted began. A year after, Marvel’s Black Panther released in theaters, and provoked a conversation about the idea of reclaiming a country’s history from elsewhere through less official means.

Nyamakop brought on full-time researchers and 3D modelers for all of the very real artifacts in the game that had been stolen from Africa. The developers wanted to ensure that Relooted uses only real-world examples of items countries have been trying to reclaim.

“We were never worried about not having enough relices,” Myres explains, “but rather which ones are we not going to be able to fit in?”

In the demo that I played, the group hatches a plan to visit the “House of Horrors,” a mansion that contains the body of Ethiopian Prince Alemayehu, who died while in England 150 years ago and has never been returned home. After a briefing at the base, it is explained that the priority is getting the remains out of the mansion and grabbing some optional items on the way out. This is where the planning aspect of Relooted begins.

Each level is a series of different rooms that have their own entrances and exits and potential hazards to blocking your way out, like shutters that threaten to close as soon as the alarm goes out. Before the heist begins, players decide where and how the team should be distributed: should you put the acrobat with the hookshot on the roof to aid you in rappelling down? In theory, the hacker locksmith should go where you suspect a security door will close, right?

There are indeed wrong choices, but there could also be off-the-wall decisions that may facilitate the retreat in ways not explicitly intended.

Once the player grabs one of the artifacts, the alarm goes off and the escape begins, surfacing a timer in which you can get the other items and get to the getaway vehicle at the far end of the stage. Here is where all your planning comes to fruition; if the player put items under the shutters, there should still be a gap to free-run under them. That is, of course, assuming you placed items that your character can move through. A safe is a big, bulky item but it does not do much good if it is still closed and locked.

The level ends as the player makes their way into the van, with promises of many more capers to come. The story promises to expand with not only interesting new heists, but BioWare-style choices along the way to shape the story. I came away from Relooted feeling like it is one of the freshest, most interesting games at Summer Games Fest and I cannot wait to play the full title.

Nintendo has revealed new Donkey Kong Bananza gameplay details in today's Nintendo Direct, which has also confirmed that Super Mario Odyssey's Pauline will be your sidekick character in the game.

This younger version of Pauline was previously leaked by Nintendo, then quickly scrubbed from the internet. Exactly how Nintendo's upcoming 3D platformer fits into the wider Kong storyline, though, remains to be seen.

Here, Pauline can use her singing talents to temporarily transform DK into several new forms — a charging zebra, or a flying ostrich that can drop egg bombs. Pauline can also be controlled by a second player, turning Bananza into a co-op experience where Pauline's vocals become explosive blasts, which can be aimed via the Joy-Con's mouse controls to help DK with his destruction.

Using GameShare, this co-op offering can be played on multiple local Switch consoles — including Switch 1 — without your co-op partner needing a copy of the game themselves.

Other new gameplay features confirmed today included the ability to skate around on pieces of the environment that DK has torn out of the ground, and even stick them together to form new structures such as bridges. And then there's DK Artist, a mode that lets you get creative with Bananza's destruction effects, and carve your own statues out of stone.

Eagle-eyed viewers will likely have spotted returning classic characters Cranky Kong and Rambi the Rhino, but did you also spot Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong? They're included, though what their roles will be remains uncertain.

SPOTTED: Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong in Donkey Kong Bananza. (They're alive!) #IGNSummerOfGaming pic.twitter.com/QgblHY4jtX

— IGN (@IGN) June 18, 2025

Nintendo itself has also separately confirmed the return of Diddy and Dixie, seen here as opponents in Bananza's racing mini-game:

pic.twitter.com/Eyligdsgzg

— Nintendo UK (@NintendoUK) June 18, 2025

Speaking of other familiar elements, today's Nintendo Direct also featured a fresh version of the iconic DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64 that's set to feature in Bananza. (Here's hoping composer Grant Kirkhope is credited for this version, after previously complaining he had been left out of the Super Mario Movie credits.)

And speaking of credits, one notable omission from the Nintendo Direct was any confirmation as to which Nintendo development team is behind Donkey Kong Bananza. Fans had previously speculated that the game is the work of the company's talented Super Mario Odyssey crew. Whether Pauline's reappearance here is another clue remains to be seen.

Accompanying the game, Nintendo also announced a new Donkey Kong Bananza amiibo figure featuring DK and Pauline. This will be available alongside the game and grants a costume for Pauline earlier than you'd otherwise unlock it. All other amiibo figures are also compatible, and will spawn helpful pieces of terrain material.

"Bananza is on track to be one of the most gorgeous Nintendo games I’ve seen," IGN wrote in our Donkey Kong Bananza hands-on preview. "It really does take advantage of Switch 2's hardware – the environments are beautiful and DK’s animations are wonderfully expressive, and I left feeling like the next generation of first-party Nintendo games had truly arrived."

Donkey Kong Bananza launches July 17, exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2.

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

It feels like a lifetime ago since the Trump Administration announced sweeping tariffs on global trading partners before abruptly pausing them for nearly every country. While the tariff situation may be confusing for many as it seems to change frequently, the so-called "reciprocal tariffs" are on pause until July 8, with the significantly higher tariffs against China on pause until August 12.

The threat of tariffs has already begun impacting gaming hardware and accessory manufacturers around the world, forcing many to raise prices or temporarily stop shipments to the U.S. until a trade agreement has been worked out.

While it’s still unclear how the final tariff policy will shake out, one thing seems certain: prices are likely to rise. So if you’ve been eyeing a new controller, headset, or other gaming gear, now may be the best time to buy. To help you make the most of the current prices, we’ve rounded up eight essential accessories to consider before all of the tariffs return in full force.

Gaming Headsets

If you enjoy playing online multiplayer with friends, you're going to need a proper gaming headset to communicate. Picking out the best gaming headset depends on a variety of factors, including sound quality, comfort, weight, and available connectivity features.

You'll also want to decide whether wireless or wired headsets better suits your setup. Wireless headsets are more convenient and often double as Bluetooth headphones for your phone, but they do require regular recharging based on their battery life.

It's worth noting that most major gaming accessory brands like SteelSeries, Razer, and HyperX manufacture their gaming headphones in China, which is likely to be hit the hardest by tariffs if things don't change.

Controllers

Controllers have already been impacted by tariffs, as Microsoft announced increased pricing across nearly its entire accessory line, although its standard Xbox wireless controller wasn't impacted at the time. Shortly after the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct in April, Nintendo also announced it would be raising the prices of its accessories as a response to "changes in market conditions."

Fortunately, there are still plenty of excellent controllers available at or below their suggested retail prices. Whether you're shopping for a great PS5 controller, Xbox controller, Nintendo Switch controller, or PC controller, there's an endless stream of options that cater to every player.

Gaming Chairs

A good gaming chair is often one of the most overlooked accessories for gaming. But for extended gaming sessions, having a comfortable space to park your rear is essential. Finding the best gaming chair often comes down to comfort, size, and type of materials used. Oh, and aesthetic, of course. Some people prefer a sleek, unobtrusive chair, while others may opt for something that screams "I'm a gamer!" to everyone on their Zoom call.

Like many products on this list, gaming chairs are often manufactured and assembled in China, so chances are likely that the prices will only go up if you wait. Secretlab, for example, is likely to be heavily affected by tariffs on goods manufactured in China.

Gaming Monitors

If you spend most of your time at a desk, whether for PC gaming or work, it's worth investing in a good monitor. After all, you can't do much on your computer if you can't see it clearly. The best gaming monitors feature high-resolutions, fast refresh rates for smooth performance, and adjustable stands. Some monitors even feature ultrawide or curved displays to further immerse you in your content.

Most gaming monitors are made in China, although some manufacturers have shifted production to Vietnam or Mexico in recent years. Either way, if you've been thinking about upgrading, now is a great time—monitor prices have dropped considerably in recent years, but that could change quickly when tariffs return.

Gaming Keyboards

Gaming keyboards come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you prefer a full-size keyboard with a number pad or want a tenkeyless mini design to free up desk space, there's a lot to consider when picking out the best gaming keyboards.

One of the most important factors is the type of switches it uses. Mechanical switches are a popular choice for gamers, offering a satisfying, tactile feel when pressed. Some switches are clicky and loud, while others—like linear switches—are smooth and quiet, ideal for fast-paced gaming or shared spaces.

The vast majority of gaming keyboards are manufactured in China, so there's very little to find outside of some niche brands or custom kits. If you're looking to upgrade your current keyboard, you'll likely want to do that before the tariffs resume to get the best price.

Gaming Mice

If your current gaming mouse isn't cutting it, then it's probably time to upgrade. Some of the best gaming mice available today feature lightweight designs, additional buttons, and comfortable ergonomics.

Different mice excel in different games, though. If you're into competitive shooters where quick reflexes are key, then you'll want to grab a lightweight wireless mouse to stay ahead of the competition. For MMO players, wired mice with extra buttons will allow you to bind your hotbar to physical buttons and never worry about running out of juice in the middle of a raid.

Most gaming mice are manufactured in China, although many Corsair and Logitech products are made in Taiwan, which will likely have lower tariffs overall. It's best not to wait too long, though, as prices are likely to go up across the board, with some brands more than others.

Microphones

Whether you're streaming on Twitch, recording a podcast, or just chatting with friends on Discord, a good microphone can make a big difference. Many of the best microphones typically offer much better clarity and range than the built-in mics on most gaming headsets, helping your voice come through louder and cleaner.

Even if you're not creating content, upgrading to a standalone microphone can elevate your audio quality during gameplay or calls. While microphones are manufactured all around the world, many of them come from China and may be subject to upcoming tariffs. Brands like RODE and Elgato, which produce hardware in other countries, could be less affected. But, it's worth locking in prices now while they are potentially at their lowest.

Soundbars

Soundbars are one of the easiest ways to upgrade your home entertainment setup, delivering dramatically better audio than your TV’s built-in speakers. Whether you're watching movies or diving into a new game, the best soundbars can enhance the experience with rich sound and features like Dolby Atmos, wireless subwoofers, and smart connectivity options like Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay, or Google Chromecast.

Like microphones, soundbars are manufactured all around the world. While many come from China, brands like Sonos, Bose, Samsung, and Klipsch have manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Mexico, and other parts of Asia, so the impact of tariffs may vary by company.

Amazon Prime Day Is the Final Major Sale Before Tariffs Resume

One of the biggest shopping events of the year, Amazon Prime Day, is right around the corner. Amazon has confirmed that Prime Day 2025 will take place between July 8 and July 11. Aside from Black Friday, this is the biggest sale opportunity of the year, and just so happens to take place right before the increased tariffs against China resume in August. If you've had your eye on any of the gaming accessories above (or any products, really) then Prime Day may be your last chance to score some deals on gear for the foreseeable future.

Matthew Adler has written for IGN since 2019 covering all things gaming, tech, tabletop games, and more. You can follow him on the site formerly known as Twitter @MatthewAdler and watch him stream on Twitch.

With action-packed gunplay, an innumerable quantity of badass guns to loot, and some of the most crass humor in gaming, the Borderlands games have held a special place in my heart since way back in 2009. But it’s also a series that practically invented the looter shooter genre, then saw itself fall behind the curve as a renaissance of RPG-infused multiplayer shooters dominated the space. With Borderlands 4, the team at Gearbox seems eager to take some big swings in hopes of reclaiming the throne of firearms and shell casings they themselves built, and whether it’s the greatly improved shooting mechanics, an interesting revamp to RPG mechanics, an entirely fresh setting, a slew of new characters, or a more grounded tone in its story, the handful of hours I played left me fairly confident that I will find myself pulled back into this wonderfully weird world of psychopaths and extremely irritating robots.

I Need Guns

There’s a whole heck of a lot of novel things Borderlands 4 tries, but the first thing that immediately jumped out at me was the focus on movement. I counted no fewer than five additional ways to keep your vault hunter in motion while hunting for treasure and blasting wild animals, including double jumping, gliding through the air, dashing from side to side, pulling yourself around with a grappling hook, and even swimming – which is especially great, because dying every time one of my toes got wet was always pretty annoying in the previous games. Each of these traversal options added an interesting dimension to navigating arenas while sniping mercenaries and lobbing explosives in the faces of the local fauna, and also went a long way to speeding up how quickly I could close distance between me and the baddies in my path. That was a welcome change, because I’d always found myself frustrated by how slowly I move in old Borderlands entries. If there’s anything worrisome about all these extra ways to get around, it’s that there are so many of them I often forgot to use them. Being able to double jump, glide, and grapple hook across a room all in the same motion honestly feels like too much power, at least in the hands of a rookie like me who only had a few hours to familiarize myself with it all. By the end of the demo, though, I felt a lot better about my ability to keep myself in motion while bringing my arsenal to bear upon swarms of monsters, but it definitely feels like it’ll take some getting used to.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Borderlands game without the promise of a bottomless cache of weapons to discover, each designed to inject a little anarchy into combat. While I only got a small sampling of what’s in store, there honestly weren’t a ton of things I wasn’t expecting, even with the additional weapon manufacturers introducing some new stufft. One of the new gunmakers, Ripper, seem to have a lot in common with the COV weapons from Borderlands 3, as they need to spin up before they can be fired, but then pile on a heaping helping of lead into enemies, while Daedelus reminded me a lot of the Dahl weapons that offer multiple ammo types to switch between. The only distinct new type I got to try out was called The Order, which have an alternate firing mode – like a pistol I found that could create gravity wells instead of shooting normal bullets. Most of what I played was from pretty early in the campaign, and I only found a single legendary weapon during my travels, so it’s fairly likely there are more surprises I haven’t seen, but at least on the surface I wasn’t too shocked with what I found in that regard.

Get Built

What seems significantly more distinct are the new buildcrafting options, including a healing item, called a Repkit, that can be used in addition to the usual pickups you find in chests and pick off the sorry corpses of slain foes. These add an interesting dimension to defining your build, as you could just play it safe and equip the item that offers the most healing with the shortest cooldown, but bolder vault hunters might instead favor one that intentionally offers lesser healing benefits to instead grant some other effect every time the item is used. For example, I found one that caused a large explosion of cryo to explode around me whenever I used it, versus another that restored significantly more health and could be used twice before it needed to be cooled down.h Depending on how risky you want to play it, or the specific strategy behind your build, I could see this opening up a lot of doors for clever min-maxers to do some pretty fun stuff.

Each Borderlands has a different roster of vault hunters to play, and this entry is no different. I got the chance to try out Vex, the magical siren whose main focus (at least with my setup) was in summoning NPC companions to help me fight off mobs, and Rafa, a soldier who had a bunch of high-tech gadgets to unload onto anyone stupid enough to get in his way – including some melee blades that made short work of anyone within arm’s reach, or some shoulder-mounted cannons that automatically helped me lather folks in lead. It’s al ways hard to tell just how awesome each of these bonafide badasses is going to be after just a few hours, but I was already very much heartened by the number of interesting options to pick from, and I already felt myself transforming into an armed-to-the-teeth instrument of death, even as low-leveled as I was. Also, some of the perks I saw on those trees looked downright spicy, like the ability to disconnect Rafa’s shoulder-mounted turrets to convert them into a stationary battle station, so consider me pretty hyped to try out a late-game build.

Story Time

Another interesting change coming with Borderlands 4 is the new, clearly darker setting and story. Taking place on a new world called Kairos, the world has been dominated by an oppressive, immortal being known as the Timekeeper, who controls the population using cybernetic implants. But naturally, the actions of the vault keepers in recent Borderlands entries (which I won’t spoil here) has ruined the perfect, unjust order on Kairos, throwing the place into chaos, and opening the door for you and your friends to shoot everything in the face and score some sweet new loot. Noice.

The change in tone is pretty clear, and even though you’ve still got the usual cheeky characters, sexual innuendos, and over-the-top gore, there’s also quite a bit of darkness and the beginnings of what seems to be a significantly more grounded story in play, which will hopefully wash away some of the shallowness found in Borderlands 3 – specifically where the antagonists are concerned. It’s also worth noting the intentional shift away from Pandora to focus on this new world. This, combined with the fact that a lot of the cast is entirely new (at least in the sections I played), makes things feel a bit like a soft reboot that gives a fresh start to tell new stories compared to prior games that have mostly leaned pretty heavily on the locations and characters established in their predecessors.

I’m all for this shift, honestly, because although Borderlands was my addiction for many years, it’s also pretty clearly been on its backfoot as a series, as the looter shooter space has both evolved and become more crowded, especially where its ongoing live-service peers are concerned. To be clear, I don’t want to see Borderlands chase the GaaS model and fundamentally change what it is, but it’s nice to see that Gearbox seems willing to take some sizeable risks in pursuit of evolving the series, because I genuinely think it needs to do so if it wants to keep the attention of longtime fans like myself.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a ton of good, old fashioned Borderlands goodness inside Borderlands 4 – quite the opposite. I still spent ludicrous amounts of time dabbing on loads of enemies who shouted expletives at me after running out of darkened spawn points, watched colorful loot explode out of enemies like fireworks, and ran doglike enemies over with my vehicle, which is now very awesomely available to be summoned anywhere on the map, rather than having to be picked up at a designated spawn point (thank God). There are also perilous vaults to be raided and massive, badass bosses to take down in the name of loot, XP, and bragging rights – which I unfortunately can’t show you today, because of some unfortunate restrictions on what I’m allowed to showcase at this time. But I can say that the one boss I fought a number of times is perhaps the most mechanics-heavy and interesting enemy I’ve encountered in Borderlands, and if it’s at all representative of the level of quality we can expect from Borderlands 4, then we’re in for quite a treat.

After several hours dipping my toes into what is sure to be a massive looter shooter, I’m much more optimistic about Borderlands 4’s odds of recapturing my affections after years apart. Stay tuned in the coming days, when I’m allowed to show off some later game footage and a boss fight that I took down a number of times in an effort to grind out some unique weapons – old habits die hard, I guess.

What questions do you have about Borderlands 4? We’ll do a follow-up video soon based on the questions you leave in the Comments below. And for more on the biggest upcoming games, check out our recent previews of Resident Evil Reqiuem and Ninja Gaiden 4, and for everything else keep hunting for vaults with IGN.

Fans of the classic '90s cartoon Spider-Man: The Animated Series have been clamoring for a revival, especially since the arrival of X-Men '97 in 2024. While a new animated series doesn't appear to be on the horizon (Marvel is instead moving full-steam ahead on new seasons of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man), Marvel will finally continue this Spidey saga in comic book form with Spider-Man '94.

Spider-Man '94 is a four-issue limited series that picks up where the show's infamous cliffhanger ending left off in 1998. The series brings Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson back to New York and promises to pit the wallcrawler against two iconic villains who will be making their debuts in this animated universe. The series is written by long-time Spidey veteran (and a writer on the original animated series) J.M. DeMatteis, with art by Jim Towe (Spider-Verse vs. Venomverse) and covers by Nick Bradshaw, Ron Lim, and John Tyler Christopher.

Check out the slideshow gallery below to see cover art for the first issue of Spider-Man '94:

Here's Marvel's official summary of Spider-Man '94:

After searching to the ends of the Multiverse, PETER PARKER – the AMAZING, the SPECTACULAR, the RADIOACTIVE Web-Head himself – A.K.A. SPIDER-MAN, swings back into the streets of New York City with his beloved Mary Jane WATSON in tow! But what’s this? One of these villains is not like the others: Witness this universe’s debut of not one, but TWO of Spider-Man’s greatest villains from the comics!

Legendary Spider-Scribe J.M. DeMATTEIS and rising star artist JIM TOWE bring you the return you’ve all been waiting thirty years for! And you’re never going to expect the twists and turns ahead for your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man! Break out your action figures, and post up in front of the TV as we bring you back to the greatest era of animated super hero television in history!

"The 1990s Spider-Man animated series has become a beloved part of Spidey lore—it was the introduction to Peter Parker and his universe for an entire generation—and I’m delighted to be diving back into that universe," DeMatteis tells IGN. "We’re treating this as the next season of the show, which means introducing new villains, new challenges, new adventures for Peter—while doing our best to remain true to the creative spirit that John Semper and Company established with the original show."

Spider-Man '94 #1 will be released on September 3, 2025.

This isn't the first time Marvel has published a comic that continues an existing animated universe. Years before X-Men '97 was greenlit, Marvel published a different continuation of the classic cartoon called X-Men '92.

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

There are a lot of benefits to the portability of gaming laptops, but they usually come with trade-offs when it comes to sheer power. But what if there was a laptop that didn’t hold back? What if the manufacturer ignored the guardrails and threw everything it had at it, roping its component partners in to do the same to deliver pure, no holds barred, mobile gaming decadence? That’s exactly what MSI did with the Titan 18 HX AI: it’s big, it’s heavy, and it’s ridiculously expensive. But it’s also the closest example of a mobile desktop I’ve seen in years and is definitely about more than just gaming.

MSI Titan 18 HX AI – Design and Features

The MSI Titan 18 HX AI is a beast. With its 18-inch display and near-eight pound weight (more if you carry the charger), it’s the antithesis of thin and light and clearly doesn’t care much for portability. It’s the laptop to choose if you want the ability to take your gaming PC from place to place but don’t plan to do it often. You’ll feel it in your shoulder after a single commute.

Often in these reviews, I remark on portability, but here that goes right out the window. Know that going in, and understand that its lack of portability, combined with its high price (our model costs about $5,800) firmly position this as a halo product not intended to be openly accessible. It’s the kind of laptop you aspire to, and if you’ve arrived in life, may finally be able to achieve. To be fair, there are other situations where you may want something like this, but for a lot of people, the Titan 18 HX AI is going to fall into “maybe someday” territory.

Understanding that it packs some top-tier hardware and that portability wasn’t going to be a concern with this release, MSI went all-in with an 18-inch display and a thick chassis to promote airflow. The design is overall pretty tame, a far cry from the Norse Myth version that comes with an embossed dragon’s eye on the lid. Here, we have an illuminated MSI logo on the back, some blue stripes along the rear I/O and venting and the per-key RGB mechanical keyboard. If its size doesn’t attract attention, its sci-fi inspired styling certainly will.

Here are the specs for the unit we were sent:

• Display: 18-inch, 120Hz, Mini-LED (1,000-nit peak brightness)
• Resolution: 3,840 x 2,400
• Processor: Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (24-core/24-thread, 2.1 – 5.5GHz)
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090
• Memory: 64GB (up to 96GB)
• Storage: 6TB
• Keyboard: Cherry Mechanical, Per-Key RGB
• Networking: 2.5GbE LAN, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 5 (DisplayPort™/ Power Delivery 3.1), 3x Type-A USB3.2 Gen 2, 1x SD Express Card Reader, 1x HDMI 2.1 (8K @ 60Hz / 4K @ 120Hz), 1x RJ45, 1x Audio Combo Jack
• Audio: 4x 2W Speaker, 2x 2W Woofer
• Webcam: IR FHD type (30fps/1080p) with HDR and Physical Shutter
• Battery: 99 wHr
• Dimensions: 15.91" x 12.11" x 0.94-1.26"
• Weight: 7.94 lbs

Despite massive capacities like 64GB of RAM and 6TB of storage, it's important to note that this is actually only the mid-level version of the Titan 18 HX AI. If you want to spend less, you can drop to an RTX 5080 for $5,199. On the other hand, if you’re keen to upgrade, you can also spend $6,200 and net yourself 96GB of memory.

It seems almost ludicrous to sell a gaming laptop with 96GB of memory. 64GB is still double what most high-end laptops offer. But between that and the massive SSD storage space, it’s clear that this system is aimed to be a high performance PC for everything. Running local LLMs is no problem on this system and you’re not going to find much that’s more capable for rendering and other heavy workstation tasks.

Targeting gamers with such an above and beyond system, however, highlights just how high-spec it is. If you’re a gamer with this system, you’re making a statement about how invested you are in the hobby. Assuming everything is implemented well (and it is), this is a system that sits as king of the hill among gaming laptops from the big brands.

Putting that to the side, let’s dig into the details starting with the display. At 18 inches, it’s big and delivers that “big screen” laptop experience with ease. It’s also delightfully high-spec, coming in with a 3,840 x 2,400 resolution: 4K in a 16:10 aspect ratio. It clocks all the way up to 120Hz with G-Sync support and is rated to cover 100% of the DCI-P3 color space.

The display uses a still-uncommon mini-LED backlight for superior brightness and contrast. At its peak in HDR mode, it’s able to reach over 1,000 nits of brightness while also delivering deep blacks thanks to its uncommon mini-LED backlight. It supports K-Zone local dimming, which is a fancy way to say that it has around a thousand local dimming zones across its 18-inch diagonal span. This allows the laptop to pinpoint areas of darkness with precision and deliver an exceptional dynamic range that was, for the most part, free of haloing around bright objects.

This display does have some puzzling omissions, however. The biggest is that it lacks G-Sync, which is shocking and disappointing. How a flagship, RTX 5090-packing laptop ships without this is beyond me. Technically, it still features adaptive sync, but only when you’re using the iGPU, so it’s still out for games. The second is Advanced Optimus. MSI Center allows you to switch between and discrete graphics and the iGPU but you’ll need to reboot to make the change.

With such a high resolution, you need powerful hardware to drive any kind of AAA gaming experience. This model features Intel's new HX series of its AI-centric Core Ultra 200 processors and, combined with its RTX 50-series GPU, it delivers.

This model in particular is one of the first to feature the Intel Core Ultra 9 285 HX CPU. For gaming and a whole lot else besides, this processor is an absolute banger. It features a total of 24 cores, including 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores. The efficiency cores are able to clock up to 4.6 GHz, but the performance cores, which will come into play with gaming and heavy workloads, can spin all the way up to 5.5 GHz. This gives a direct boost to in-game frame rates, but with a core count and division like it offers, it's able to devote large amounts of processing power to games while still handling less intensive tasks in the background without breaking a sweat.

The GPU is equally high-performance no matter what model you choose. The lowest spec graphics card you can get with this laptop is an RTX 5080, so it's ready to offer excellent frame rates in modern games all on its own. With such a high-resolution, high-refresh-rate display, however, the RTX 5090 is the best fit if you want to turn up all of your graphics settings. Even then, you'll probably want to leverage DLSS 4 and frame generation, or multi-frame generation, whenever possible.

The memory and storage are almost as impressive. The base memory configuration of 64GB is enough for any game available today, and the memory is fairly fast at 6400MHz (though the wired-in memory of AMD's HX and AI series processors still tops it, with the best examples hitting 8000MHz). It's enough to run any demanding game available today and intense multitasking in the background. This memory pool also makes it much more capable for video editing, digital arts tasks, as well as the aforementioned local AI models.

Coming with a base configuration of 6TB of storage is a bit mind-boggling and highlights how multidisciplinary this laptop is truly supposed to be. That's enough where you won't need to delete a game for ages, and you'll still have space left over. MSI splits this storage across three NVMe SSDs and then links them together in a RAID configuration for insanely fast transfer speeds of a rated 18,000 MB/s. What's more, there’s even an extra M.2 slot, so you can add a fourth drive if you need more storage over time.

Keeping all of this cool would be a task for any laptop, accomplishing that here with a whopping 270W power output (175W with the GPU and 95W with the CPU), is an even taller order. MSI takes that on with a new vapor chamber cooler with two fans and four exhaust ports, two each from the back and sides. The bottom of the laptop is also designed to elevate the system for easier airflow through the bottom.

Temperatures will still peak at 100C for the CPU in its highest performance mode before it throttles speeds down to prevent overheating, but it did achieve its boost clock of 5.2 GHz reliably in my testing. When it throttled, it hovered between 4.7GHz and 4.9GHz. In games, this only amounted to three to five fps on average.

The fans run at full speed under heavy load, which can get pretty loud. It doesn’t sound like a wind tunnel like some laptops I’ve tested but at full speed, I recorded a peak noise level of 64dB. The National Hearing Conservation Association (NHCA) places this at about the level of a conversation overheard from 3-5 feet away. So, not roaring, but you’ll still want to plug in a pair of headphones and use it away from anyone that might be trying to focus or watch TV.

Opening the laptop, you'll find a logo for both SteelSeries and Cherry. That's the very same Cherry behind the popular line of mechanical keyboard switches. Both SteelSeries and Cherry partnered with MSI to develop the keyboard used in the Titan 18 HX AI. The keyboard uses Cherry’s recent ultra low-profile mechanical switches, with a number pad to the right and per-key RGB backlighting. The lighting is controlled with Steelseries’ GG software, which also lets you remap keys and assign macros for gaming.

The keyboard is tactile and feels great to use. Like a full-size mech keyboard, the keys have a cleanliness to each press that’s satisfying and snappy. Interestingly, not all of the keys are mechanical. The numpad, arrow keys, and function row all use standard scissor switches. That’s disappointing, for sure, but the remaining keys are very good in their own right with great tactility and travel. Since the laptop as a whole is fairly large, the keyspace also doesn’t feel very cramped, which is usually the case when manufacturers jam in a numpad and try to make everything fit.

The touchpad is super interesting. It’s fully integrated into the palm rest, and if you turn the lighting off, it’s invisible. With the lighting on, its entire surface illuminates. Since there are no edges, the lighting is especially important, but don’t worry: if you find it to be a bit much, you can customize how the lighting appears and make it only activate when you’re actually using the touchpad. Using it is as easy as it is reliable with haptic feedback clicks that actually work well and a large enough size that it is perpetually under the thumb. This does mean accidental activations from time to time, but that’s the case for all over-sized touchpads. Give a little, get a little.

The size of the laptop has another benefit: sound quality. While most gaming laptops feature two speakers, MSI has managed to fit six into this laptop. This includes a pair of 2-watt woofers and four individual 2-watt speakers. It's one of the rare gaming laptops that's actually able to offer a decent listening experience. Its two dedicated woofers definitely beef up the sound and lend it a fuller low-end than most of its competitors. You could use this for gaming, watching movies, or listening to music and have an enjoyable experience. A quality gaming headset or pair of speakers will still outperform it, but these aren’t bad!

One of its most disappointing qualities is its webcam. It has a physical shutter, which is nice, and can be used for Windows Hello biometric login, thanks to its IR sensor, but the picture quality is pretty mediocre. I found it to be overexposed and soft out of the box. With some tweaking in the Windows camera settings, it can be improved, but it is never more than okay, despite being 1080p resolution.

Returning to the positives, the Titan 18 offers a generous selection of ports along its right side. You have the audio combo jack, a USB 3.2 Type-A port, and two Thunderbolt 5 USB Type-C ports that support video and Power Delivery 3.1. On the opposite side, you have an additional USB 3.2 Type-A port, as well as a full-size SD card reader and a Kensington lock. Around the back is the port for the power adapter, a full-size Ethernet jack, and a full-size HDMI 2.1 port.

All of this hardware is only possible with a wealth of power. To that end, it comes with a monster 400W power brick. While you can technically game without being plugged in, the highest performance mode is blocked off without the official adapter. For light gaming and normal use this is fine, but even with my 100W PD adapter plugged in, the battery still drained in about an hour playing Karma: The Dark World. According to the spec sheet, it actually supports PD up to 140W which might prevent that, but I didn’t have one on-hand for testing.

As you would hope for such a high-powered device, it sports a 99wHr battery, the biggest you can legally take on a plane. Just don’t expect it to last very long. If the RTX 5090 is enabled, it will deplete in less than an hour. If you enable Eco-Mode and just rely on the iGPU of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285 HX, as well as take other steps, like lowering brightness and using Energy Saver, you can stretch battery life out quite a bit longer. In our Procyon battery test, it lasted four hours and 36 minutes. Realistically speaking, though, you’ll want to be plugged in for the best experience.

MSI Titan 18 HX AI – Software

The MSI Titan 18 HX AI uses MSI Center for most of its configuration options. Blessedly, this now works with optional applets for different features and functionality out of the box, including basics like adjusting performance modes, and its screen calibration tool, True Color. It’s more streamlined and lightweight than Dragon Center, MSI’s old configuration tool, and it’s worth applauding that these applications aren’t bogged down with features you may not be interested in.

There are three performance modes to choose from: Extreme Performance, Balanced, and Eco-Silent. You’re also able to opt into an AI-managed performance mode called MSI AI Engine, but the presets are straightforward enough that most people should be able to infer which setting is best for them in the moment and set it accordingly in the software or using the keyboard shortcut.

Somewhat confusingly, the keyboard’s lighting cannot be controlled at all using the Mystic Light utility that’s available in MSI Center. It's understandable that you would need to use SteelSeries' GG application to do so, since the keyboard was designed in collaboration with them. But entering into the Mystic Light utility, there's really no indication that the keyboard isn't compatible. Any lighting changes you make will only apply to the logo on the back of the lid.

Thankfully, SteelSeries GG is quite good. If you've never used a keyboard configuration tool before, there will be a bit of a learning curve as you navigate between sections for programming keys and controlling the lighting, but it's fairly intuitive with just a little bit of investigation.

Controlling lighting is significantly more in-depth than most gaming laptops offer, and there are tons of different presets to choose from, as well as the ability to set your own custom color scheme. This applies to both the keyboard and the trackpad, mind you.

Bafflingly, there is no brightness control built into the software anywhere. It may be the only keyboard lighting tool I've used that doesn't have brightness controls. Instead, you'll need to use the keyboard shortcut, but that was also confusing because it adjusts the keyboard and touchpad at one point and the touchpad is significantly brighter than the keys. There is no one or the other.

I also had some trouble with the TrueColor tool skewing accuracy pretty terribly and harming picture quality rather than enhancing it. I’ll talk more about that in the performance section, but I can only recommend it be avoided.

All in all, I'm rather pleased with the software offerings. They're not perfect, but the fact that you can largely ignore them is an asset. MSI Center does offer MUX switch capability (manually toggling between the processor's integrated GPU and the RTX 5090), but most of the time, I found leaving it on hybrid mode and simply toggling performance modes with a shortcut was sufficient. SteelSeries’ GG may need to be opened more often if you like to record macros. If all you care about is lighting, however, it allows you to bind your favorite lighting presets to hotkeys, so you don't have to revisit it very often either. This makes the software feel much less intrusive and necessary than it might otherwise be, while still providing the necessary options at your fingertips.

MSI Titan 18 HX AI – Performance

I’ve been able to spend several weeks with the Titan 18 HX AI so far and, putting the lack of G-Sync aside, it has been a pretty fantastic experience for the most part. Getting the obvious out of the way first, this is absolutely not a laptop I would choose to travel with. The days that I chose to carry it with me through the day, it felt straight up heavy and was so big that my co-workers routinely commented on its massiveness. If you want killer gaming performance on the go, the Titan will get you there, but it’s much better suited for use in one place.

The keyboard is excellent. The entire keyset really should be mechanical, but with all of the letters and numbers using mechanical switches, that’s what I found myself using most of the time. In fact, I didn’t even realize the whole keyboard wasn’t mechanical until a couple of days in. It’s one of those things that you never un-notice, though. And, again, six thousand dollars and we can’t make all the keys mechanical?

The touchpad has been hit or miss with users so far, but I like it. I didn’t experience many misclicks at all and the haptic feedback worked well. I just wish there were separate brightness controls for it and the keyboard because the touchpad stands out much more.

The display is great, sans G-Sync. It’s bright, colorful, and fast. Playing games at such a high resolution really benefits from upscaling and frame-gen, even with the RTX 5090, but it’s plenty powerful to run many games without it below its 120Hz refresh rate.

There’s one caveat here. Avoid the True Color calibration tool. It may just be my sample, but any of the other presets, including those for reference modes like sRGB, actively worsened the picture. And I’m not saying that subjectively. Measured with my colorimeter, both reference modes were measurably less accurate than just keeping the standard picture mode enabled.

Let’s dive into measurements. Starting with accuracy, the Delta-E average was 2.46, which isn’t far off at all. In fact, it was really only teal that was too high, which I believe is what made the display look off during my first impressions. Swapping picture modes only makes things worse, so if the picture isn’t to your taste, I would recommend making adjustments straight through your graphics driver.

Continuing through the DataColor SpyderPro colorimeter’s assessment, the display performed mostly well. Its gamma mapping was a bit off, but not terribly so. Its color gamut coverage was great with 100% of the sRGB color space, 99% of DCI-P3, and 93% of Adobe RGB included. If you do have access to a colorimeter, you can dial in its accuracy very well. With a 10ish minute calibration, my color accuracy was down to an average of 1.52, which is perfectly fine for creative work.

Brightness is also impressive. Plugged in using the included power brick, I measured peak SDR brightness at 694 nits. On battery, or even using a 100W GaN charger, that drops to 498 nits. In HDR, peak brightness reached 1,113 nits in a ~10% window. After running through my colorimeter’s calibration, HDR mode looked good, but I was surprised to find that Windows HDR Calibration tool didn’t work correctly. The white and black test patterns simply didn’t adjust at all, which made the resulting picture very inaccurate.

Once it’s dialed in, it looks stunning and provides a big part of what makes gaming on it so much fun.

Moving into performance, note that generally we test all of our games at maximum settings and use DLSS upscaling unless otherwise noted. For 1080p/1200p resolution, we set DLSS to Quality. At 1440p/1600p, we use balanced. At 4K/2400p we use Performance mode. We also use a mix of 3DMark’s gaming benchmarks and Procyon to get a broad overview of each system’s capabilities.

Considering how new the RTX 50-series laptops are, we're still gathering data. I did have two other competitors to compare against for this review, however: the Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 and the Razer Blade 16 (which also has a recently launched 18-inch version). It’s not exactly apples to apples, however. The Aorus Master 16 I reviewed came with an RTX 5080, not a 5090, and the Blade 16 operates with less wattage: 160W instead of 175W like the Titan 18 HX AI. Still, these comparisons are salient because all three are very expensive, high-end options from their respective manufacturers… and the results may not be as far apart as you might think.

Beginning with synthetics, the Titan performs admirably and achieves wins across the board. I would expect this from the 3DMark gaming tests given its higher CUDA core count and wattage, but the massive lead it achieved in Procyon’s Office Productivity benchmark impressed me most. The Aorus Master 16 is built around the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and is only a single step below the 285HX included here. The Blade meanwhile utilizes the AMD Ryzen 9 AI HX 370. Both CPUs feature NPUs, but the Core Ultra 9 285HX just smoked it in this test.

Moving onto gaming, I started testing our game roster using the laptop’s native resolution, the 16:10 version of 4K, 2400p (3,840 x 2,400). This is a demanding resolution: the Titan is driving almost a million more pixels than a 4K gaming monitor and doing so with a GPU that is roughly equivalent to a desktop RTX 5070 Ti. That GPU is typically considered the best fit for 1440p, so how does the RTX 5090 mobile fare with its larger 24GB pool of VRAM?

Not bad, actually. Without any frame generation we see a range from 41 to 104 fps. Turning on frame gen – and this is standard 2x, not even the multi frame generation that debuted with DLSS 4. It does highlight that you’re not going to hit 120 fps without taking advantage of frame gen or multi frame gen. Even though the Titan is a beast of a laptop, 4K+ with all the bells and whistles and path traced lights with triple-digit fps is still a pipe dream on gaming laptops without a helping hand.

At 1600p, the Titan comes into its own. Compared to the Blade 16, it’s simply no competition. The additional wattage and higher performance Intel processor simply blow it out of the water in every single example. Now, the Blade 16 is quieter and, well, actually works as a laptop you can easily carry every day. That’s the trade-off. That and about $1,300. The Aorus competes well and has the expected performance differential, except in AC: Shadows where it pulls a surprisingly large lead.

Rounding out with 1200p benchmarks, the Titan 18 HX AI echoes the results we observed at 1600p. It easily hits triple digits in multiple games and will easily hit 120 fps with FG or MFG in certain games. With that in mind, I don’t see anyone spending nearly $6,000 on a laptop to turn down the resolution so much that everything looks noticeably softer.

The last thing I wanted to test was MSI’s claims of incredible transfer speeds with its SSD RAID array. While I didn’t hit the promised 18,000 MB/s, I did hit around 16,000 MB/s early on in my testing, though I regretfully neglected to take a screenshot. I wasn’t able to re-achieve that in the drafting days for this review, but did grab the results above. There’s a big difference between read and write speeds, which is to be expected with a RAID setup, but even at 14,444 MB/s for read speeds and 8,901 MB/s for writes, it’s still a very fast storage setup.

MSI Titan HX AI – Who Is It For?

With all of the testing and daily use impressions out of the way, it begs the question of who this laptop is really for. The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of options that cost significantly less if all you’re interested in is gaming. But I think that only tells part of the tale. Let me know in the comments below, but to my knowledge, the Titan 18 HX AI is the only laptop of its type that goes quite this “kitchen sink” with what it’s offering. For gaming, you don’t need all of that. Three SSDs packing 6TB of nVME RAID storage and a base config with 64GB of memory are overkill for gaming.

Instead, this is a system you choose when you want to be decadent and truly get closer to a desktop level gaming experience. The combination of its features are what elevate it to being just so good. In sheer fps, it beats the Razer Blade 16, but that’s what you would expect from a bigger, higher power laptop, with more room for cooling. Put it against a more evenly matched RTX 5090 gaming laptop and you’ll find that its performance lead closes significantly. But when you bring all of its features together, from its big and bright mini-LED screen, to its mechanical keyboard and next-gen touchpad, solid speakers, and great programmability, the experience as a whole feels like you’re trading less for its portability.

That’s one side. The other is for the technically minded and demanding sort that want this level of top-shelf componentry and expandability straight out of the box. If you’re a 3D artist or video editor, this system is more than up to the task of rendering your models with its fast CPU, high CUDA core count, and huge frame buffer. Its large memory capacity and four M.2 storage slots also lend this system an edge for that kind of non-gaming, high-performance workstation use.

This isn’t a laptop for the every-gamer. And though MSI is clearly targeting it toward gamers broadly, it’s honestly a terrible value for pure gaming. The fps boost just doesn’t make a big enough difference to justify how much more it costs on that factor alone and the memory and storage are overkill for gaming alone. The HP OMEN MAX 16 drops the memory to 32GB, storage to 1TB, and swaps the screen for a 1600p OLED for only $3,200. The Razer Blade 18 will set you back $5,200 and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 $4,500 for similar size and specs – and both offer G-Sync support.

So, the Titan HX AI occupies a unique spot. You have to want those four M.2 slots and higher memory capacity and be willing to pay significantly for it.

A poster for Predator: Badlands released ahead of San Diego Comic-Con 2025 has revealed a first proper look at the new Predator's armor and mask, what is perhaps an Aliens reference — and might even contain a spoiler for the film.

Warning! Potential spoilers for Predator: Badlands follow:

Predator: Badlands, from Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers director Dan Trachtenberg, revolves around a new Predator called Dek. Dek is described as an underdog Yautja “runt” in the protagonist role. Predator movies typically feature Yautja (the name given to the race of alien hunters) in antagonist roles. Dek selects his hunting ground, a “Death Planet” called Kalisk, and it’s here he fights to prove his worth to his father and for acceptance within his own clan.

Predator: Badlands is Dek’s story, but he’s not alone on Kalisk. He also works with a character called Thia, played by Elle Fanning, who as IGN has discussed very much looks like a synth from the Alien franchise.

The poster, reported on by the unofficial SDCC blog, reveals Dek armored up and carrying Fanning’s character on his back. Look closely and you can see that Fanning appears to have suffered significant damage of a kind that rekindles memories of the iconic scene in beloved 1986 action sequel Aliens where Lance Henriksen’s Bishop (also a synth) is torn in half by the xenomorph queen. In the poster, tendrils of synth innards appear to hang from Fanning’s torso, as they did from poor old Bishop all those years ago.

It's beginning to look a lot like #SDCC! The first Gaslamp banners are up, and looks like we're going to be hunting #PredatorBadlands this year (via @BigAhi): https://t.co/bCmGanFCse

— SDCC Unofficial Blog (@SD_Comic_Con) June 16, 2025

Fans have already established theories as to what this all means, and are pointing to comments Trachtenberg issued earlier this year that help make sense of it all.

Trachtenberg has said the on-screen relationship between Dek and Fanning’s character was inspired by 2005 PlayStation masterpiece Shadow of the Colossus.

“As inspired as I am by movies, I’ve been very inspired by video games [like] Shadow of the Colossus, where you have a protagonist paired with someone else who provides color and connection,” Trachtenberg explained.

“There’s a thing with a horse in Shadow of the Colossus that’s devastating when you play the game. And so [Predator: Badlands] was a little bit inspired by that in terms of wanting to see the Predator with someone else, this character who’s the opposite of him. He’s very laconic, [Fanning] is not. She’s capable in ways that he is not. Physically, she’s got a real thing that I’m so excited for you guys to see. But I want to let eventually some of that speak for itself.”

It looks like this poster has teased what Trachtenberg was saying here (“physically, she’s got a real thing that I’m so excited for you guys to see”). But as fans have already noted, there were hints at Fanning’s character suffering this injury in the debut Predator: Badlands trailer, where we see her crawling away from what may be a ship crash. Interestingly, we do not see Fanning below the waist in the trailer, either.

There are a number of other Alien references in the Predator: Badlands trailer, as well in the recently released animated film Predator: Killer of Killers, which had sparked speculation Trachtenberg is setting up Aliens vs. Predator 3. Trachtenberg was, as you’d expect, tight-lipped on those Alien connections and Fanning’s character’s nature. “There’s a unique hook to her character that is exciting in the pairing of [her and Dek],” Trachtenberg teased.

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.

Pokémon Go will continue its summer events plan by driving a big red truck around seven cities in Europe, beginning in the UK next month.

Manchester will host the tour's first stop, before subsequent visits to London, Paris, Valencia, Berlin, Den Haag in the Netherlands and finally Cologne, just in time for Gamescom.

Players who make the trip to a host city will get an array of bonuses around the truck location, including Phanphy, Venipede and Wooloo spawns with boosted Shiny rates, plus raids for a costumed summer Pikachu with the possibility of a Location Background. Timed Research, meanwhile, will offer up a Varoom — the engine-like Pokémon. Plus, of course, you get to look at the big red Pokémon Go truck.

Across the host city, other bonuses will be activated — including 3-hour lures and up to 5 Special Trades per day. Nationwide, meanwhile, Timed Research advertising the upcoming arrival of the Road Trip will award the same summer costumed Pikachu.

Earlier this week, Pokémon Go announced an unprecedented $20 event pass featuring the game's first Golden Bottle Cap item — something that will allow players to increase a Pokémon's stats until they are a rare 100%. Ahead of the item's introduction, fans expressed concern the feature could see the game straying into pay-to-win territory, something director Michael Steranka discussed at length in our exclusive interview.

Separately, IGN also chatted with Steranka about this year's biggest change — that Pokémon Go is now owned by Monopoly Go! maker Scopely, a company backed by the Saudi-founded Savvy Games. How will the change impact the game? IGN put that question to Steranka as well.

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

Prime Day 2025 is fast approaching, officially kicking off on July 8 and lasting a whole four days through to 11:59 PM PT on July 11. That's the biggest Prime Day event since its inception around a decade ago.

To celebrate the big event, Amazon already has a healthy selection of early deals that are worth checking out before the big day(s). That includes some discounts for Prime members, alongside a few cheeky discounts for those who aren't currently under the boot of Bezos and Co.

TL:DR: Best Early Prime Day 2025 Deals

I kid, and joke, and josh. Fairly sure Bezos isn't even running things anymore, and I'm hardly going to tell cheap deals are a bad thing (unless you want me to, IGN overlords).

Anyway, to get me to stop rambling, I'm going to run through the 12 big ol' early Prime Day deals that you'll actually want to shop before the event officially kicks off.

Prime for Young Adults Is The Deal of the Year

Anyone who doesn't currently have an active Audible membership should be eligible. That includes new subscribers as well as existing members whose subscriptions have since expired.

There's always a small your-mileage-may-vary disclaimer with these types of promotions, but fortunately it's easy to check if you qualify: log into your account, and if you see the $0.99/mo banner right on Amazon's Audible page then you're eligible for this promotion.

Kindle Unlimited - Get Three Months Free

Kindle Unlimited is a great service if you read a lot of books, but only really if the books you like to read are actually included. There are a lot of great reads on Kindle Unlimited at any given time, but it certainly doesn't include everything.

Just like Audible, popular new releases like Sunrise on the Reaping and Onyx Storm, for example, were not included with the subscription and needed to be purchased separately. That being said, if you mostly read LitRPG books like I do, Kindle Unlimited is an incredible value, especially with the early Prime Day deal going now.

Prime Members Can Grab Six Free PC Games Ahead of Prime Day 2025

Star Wars: Rebellion is a nice little bonus too, as it’s a fun little 1998 RTS game set in the franchise’s expanded universe. It wasn’t received amazingly upon release, but it seems to have found new life in the modern community, getting a “mostly positive” rating on its Steam page.

Beyond Audible and Prime Gaming, you can also find some excellent deals that may not be "Prime Day" exclusive, or branded for that matter, but that are that good that they are worthy of inclusion and discussion.

Switch 2 Accessory Deals at Amazon

We've seen the official Nintendo Switch 2 case and it could be better for the price. It fits the console well enough, but the build quality and protection is lacking and it looks boring for a $40 case.

If you want something that protects your Switch 2 while looking a lot nicer and still maintaining a slim profile, I'd suggest getting the tomtoc Slim Nintendo Switch 2 Carrying Case. In fact, it currently costs $36.99 on Amazon, which is a few dollars cheaper than the official case.

That's not all, however, as you can find plenty more great Switch 2 accessory deals at Amazon right now as well, including his JSAUX 3-pack of Switch 2 screen protectors is $4.99 with promo code SWITCH2GO. That's a mega discount, and well worth picking up.

Used: Like New PlayStation Portal for Under $150 on Amazon

A new PlayStation Portal has never been discounted, even during the PlayStation Days of Play Sale that recently happened, but at least you can save on a used one. Amazon Resale just dropped the price of the Used: Like New PS Portal to below $150.

Right now you can pick one up for only $148.81 with free shipping. It retails for $200 new, so that's 26% in savings. A Sony warranty may or may not be included, but Amazon Resale items still get a 30-day return policy.

Save 33% Off the Apple AirPods Pro, the Best Noise Canceling Earbuds for iPhone

Whatever your budget may be, there's an AirPods for you. Apple's newest AirPods are all on sale including our favorite earbuds for iPhone, the AirPods Pro. The second generation model with USB Type-C charging has dropped to $169 from $249 after a 33% off instant discount.

The next step down, the Apple AirPods 4 with ANC (active noise cancelation) is down to $148 (normally $179). Finally, the value-packed AirPods 4 without ANC drops to $99.99 (normally $129).

MTG Sale on 2025 Booster Boxes and Bundles Today

Tons of Magic: The Gathering sealed products are on sale at Amazon right now. From commander decks and bundles to booster boxes and prerelease kits, there's plenty of options for any level of MTG player.

Aetherdrift, one of the latest expansions from 2025, is the main focus of the sale, but you can also pick up products from other sets like Tarkir: Dragonstorm and Bloomburrow, or even check out new deals from Universes Beyond: Final Fantasy.

Silver Buffalo FRIENDS Central Perk Black Ceramic Mug

What more can I say? It's a Friends MUG, and it's just over $6! And it's MASSIVE! Why haven't you already bought five of them? Apparently it's also great to use for soup. Unreal, I want mine to arrive already.

Should You Wait Till Prime Day Proper?

Or even just shop the 4th of July sale? My answer is going to be a reasonding, and unsurprising: do all of the above. Waiting until Prime Day is the smart choice for most things you're looking to buy between now and July 8.

Unless I say otherwise (such as the early deals above that likely won't get any better). Prime Day is hot for discounts on everyday items like batteries, command strips, and everything else you might be interested in like games and tech, so wait it out and find yourself with even more savings.

4th of July weekend sales are also incoming soon, but will likely feature a selection of different deals at other retailers like Walmart and Best Buy. These probably won't be anything amazing, but there does tend to be a few more deals on gaming monitors and TVs during the July 4th sales compared to Prime Day every year.

Will There Be Switch 2 Stock During Prime Day?

Nintendo Switch 2 consoles are currently sold out at every major retailer. While launch day stock was solid, helping the console shift over 3.5 million units in just four days worldwide, it's been tough to come by ever since. But, there's hope yet with Amazon now almost certainly set to stock the console in the coming weeks.

One possibility is that Amazon could restrict Switch 2 availability to Prime members during the sale, a move that would align with the event's exclusivity model, and give subscribers early access to one of the year’s most in-demand consoles.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Senior Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter/X or Bluesky.

James Gunn has moved to clarify comments he made in a recent interview where he said Disney “killed” Marvel by demanding an increased output for the Disney+ streaming platform.

Gunn, who directed the hugely successful Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy of films for Marvel Studios before becoming co-CEO of DC Studios, told Rolling Stone that Disney’s mandate to increase Marvel’s output for the launch of Disney+ — a move Disney CEO Bob Iger has since admitted "diluted the focus and attention of fans" — “wasn’t fair” and “wasn’t right.”

“And it killed them," Gunn added.

Some took this “it killed them" comment as Gunn declaring the MCU dead for good, but in a follow-up post on social media, he clarified that that was not what he was saying at all. Rather, he’s saying the Disney mandate “screwed” Marvel at that time, but it has since managed to recover after the “insanity” died down.

“To be clear — & as IS clear in the context of the interview — I didn't say ‘it killed them’ like they're over but they were screwed by the situation they had no control over,” Gunn said in a post on Threads.

“They're on the other side of that now, which is good. The sacrifice-everything-for-streaming craze killed many good things by forcing a demand for ‘content’ that couldn't possibly be met, putting movies on TV before they had a proper theatrical run & much more. The insanity has died down & balanced out everywhere. Thank God.”

In a subsequent post, Gunn called what was asked of Marvel “an impossible task.”

Marvel’s post Avengers: Endgame struggles are well documented, and MCU movie box office numbers since that record-breaking phase-ender came out in 2019 have been relatively poor, save for breakout hits such as the billion dollar Deadpool & Wolverine.

At the same time, the sentiment is that MCU’s output following Endgame hasn’t met the quality bar set by prior phases. Again, there are exceptions to this, with the likes of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home and Gunn’s own Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 proving a critical and commercial success.

Marvel currently releases far fewer movies and TV shows, with just three MCU movies (Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolds* / The New Avengers, The Fantastic Four: First Steps) out in 2025. 2026 currently has just two MCU movies in the books: Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday.

The pressure is now on Marvel Studios to deliver with a ‘less is more’ philosophy, and after the box office stumbles of Captain America and Thunderbolts*, all eyes are on The Fantastic Four to see if the MCU can rekindle its money-making magic. For what it's worth, last month Disney boss Bob Iger bigged up Thunderbolts*, insisting it was “the first and best example” of Marvel’s new commitment to quality over quantity.

In the Rolling Stone interview, Gunn said DC Studios is under no such pressure from parent company Warner Bros. to crank out a certain number of movies and TV shows each year.

“So we’re going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality,” Gunn explained. “We’re obviously going to do some good things and some not-so-good things, but hopefully on average everything will be as high-quality as possible. Nothing goes before there’s a screenplay that I personally am happy with.”

To that end, the rebooted DCU kicks off with July’s Superman, with Supergirl set to follow next July, and Clayface currently down for September 2026. Peacemaker Season 2 comes out this August, with Lanterns due out at some point early 2026. Batman, though, is causing Gunn more than a few problems.

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery.

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.