If it feels like every streaming service has gotten more expensive this year, you’re not wrong. One of the best ways to cut down on streaming costs is by stocking up whenever there’s discounts. And when’s the best time to find a discount on just about anything? Black Friday. Here’s what streaming deals I expect from this year’s iteration of the sales event.
What Streaming Deals to Expect During Black Friday 2025
Hulu Is Usually the King of Black Friday
Hulu has historically offered the best Black Friday streaming discounts, with last year’s deal dropping the service down to $0.99/month for up to 12 months. I would definitely bank on Hulu bringing back a similar discount, dropping subscriptions to $2.99/month given the recently increased pricing.
There’s one caveat to this assumption: Hulu is in a bit of an awkward spot right now. Disney has announced that Hulu will be blended into the Disney+ app starting in 2026, which does not necessarily mean Hulu is going away, just that you’ll access the Hulu library in a different spot. As such, I'm betting we see more attention on the Disney+ and Hulu bundle, which was 70% off (down to $2.99/month) last year and could see a similar discount in 2025.
Disney+ Will Be All About the Bundles
Not to beat a dead horse, but Disney+ really is going all in on the bundles these days, and it's unlikely we see any discounts on the standalone service. As I mentioned above, it’s almost certain we see a substantial discount on the joint Hulu and Disney+ offer. I'm personally crossing my fingers for a discount on the HBO Max bundle with Disney+ and Hulu (our favorite bundle overall), but this seems less likely.
The most recent Disney+ bundle launched alongside ESPN Unlimited. Both the ad-free and Premium versions of this bundle have around a 20% discount for new subscribers until January, and I’d assume that discount is as low as Disney’s willing to go. Still, it’s possible we see a small discount on the standalone ESPN service.
Paramount+, HBO Max, and Peacock Are Worth Keeping an Eye on
A spread of subscriptions had solid Black Friday deals last year I would expect to see replicated in one form or another in 2025. Peacock is a particularly generous service, typically offering a full annual subscription at a discount. Keep in mind, however, that all of these services increased prices in 2025, so a similar discount percentage (ie 70%) will not lead to as low of a monthly cost.
Prime Video Will Discount Channel Add-Ons
While discounts on Prime Video itself are typically reserved for Amazon’s own Prime Day sales (though there’s an ongoing 50% discount for young adults), it’s pretty much certain that additional Channel Add-Ons will get discounts during Black Friday. This includes Crunchyroll, one of the best anime streaming sites which doesn't typically offer its own deals.
Never Expect Deals on Netflix
The day Netflix announces a direct discount will be glorious, and I will be happy to be proven wrong here. However, that day has yet to come, as we haven't seen any kind of discount since Netflix ended its free trial period back in 2020. Netflix deals are limited to offers through internet providers like Verizon and Xfinity.
Blythe (she/her) is an SEO Coordinator at IGN who, when she isn't following streaming news, spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.
Paramount reportedly wants to make a new Star Trek movie without Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and the rest of the J.J. Abrams reboot crew.
In August, Skydance closed its $8 billion deal to take over Paramount, which owns Star Trek, with a new board led by Skydance boss (and Star Trek fan) David Ellison.
While there hasn't been a full Star Trek film released in theaters for nearly a decade, stars of Abrams’ Star Trek films are often asked about reprising their roles in interviews, and always say they would love to do so. For example, in August Simon Pegg, who played Scotty, said the time was right for another Kelvin Universe movie.
(The Kelvin Timeline is an alternate universe in the Star Trek franchise created by the 2009 movie reboot. It diverges from the original "Prime" timeline when the U.S.S. Kelvin is destroyed by a Romulan mining ship from the future, which leads to a new history for the characters, including a young James T. Kirk, played by Chris Pine.)
“Well, I know David Ellison is a big Star Trek fan,” Pegg said during a recent STLV: Trek to Vegas panel, according to TrekMovie.com. “I know he cares about the series. So I would love it. I would be delighted if we could make another film. I love those guys. And despite how we had a tragedy in our group [the death of Anton Yelchin in 2016], which was extremely painful. It would be wonderful to come together again. J.J. [Abrams] has always said that there are scripts being developed and this and that. I think it’s about time. It would be great to see us 10 years after the five year mission, where we are.”
(Paramount partnered with Skydance for the last two Stark Trek films, with David Ellison down as executive producer for Into Darkness and Beyond.)
Zachary Quinto, too, has spoken enthusiastically about returning to Star Trek. Recently, he said that with Skydance in charge of Paramount, “now’s the moment” for a new Kelvin Universe movie.
Speaking to Today in September, Quinto said: “I feel like it’s a great time. It’s been 10 years since the last film. We all love each other. We had a great time making those movies. I think we’d all love to come back together and tell them more. I think fans would be really excited by it. And I think the time is right, if you ask me. So, we email. I was in touch with [J.J.] about something else recently, and sort of floated it out there that it feels like now’s the moment. So let’s bring it back around.”
“I would love to put back the ears on,” he added.
You’d think, then, that Ellison would be into the idea of continuing the Kelvin Universe, but according to a report by Variety, he wants to move past it and release yet another Star Trek reboot.
Here’s the note from Variety:
The hope is to have a fresh Star Trek movie, though the studio has moved on from the idea of bringing back Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and the rest of the ensemble from the J.J. Abrams reboot.
Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Star Trek Beyond, released in 2016, disappointed at the global box office with $343.4 million, down versus 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness ($467.3 million), and 2009’s Star Trek ($385.6 million), not adjusted for inflation.
“Beyond didn’t perform as well as we wanted it to,” Pegg continued from the same panel referenced above. “I personally think the marketing wasn’t quite right. I felt like they were almost frightened. It was the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. It was a perfect moment to celebrate the entirety of Star Trek and lean into that. But they kind of didn’t. Some of the posters, you couldn’t even tell what the film was. It just said ‘Beyond’ and then the Enterprise. It wasn’t going to draw anybody new in.”
So, the Kelvin Universe dream appears dead, but there is more Star Trek coming down the line in the form of TV shows. Strange New Worlds Season 4 is due out next year, with a fifth and final season coming afterwards. Starfleet Academy kicks off early 2026.
Photo by Franziska Krug/Getty Images.
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.
Ahead of Black Friday, Best Buy has dropped the price on a powerful gaming PC. For today only you can pick up this Skytech Rampage gaming PC, featuring a liquid cooled Intel Core i7-14700 CPU and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU, on sale for just $1629.99 shipped. This prebuilt PC can run the latest and most demanding games at high framerates in 4K resolution.
Skytech Rampage RTX 5070 Ti Gaming PC for $1629.99
The Skytech Rampage gaming PC is equipped with an Intel Core i7-14700F processor, GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics card, 32GB of DDR5-6000MHz RAM, and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 M.2 SSD. The system is cooled by a seven 120mm fans: three in the front, one in the rear, and three top-mounted fans that are part of the 360mm liquid cooling system. The Intel Core i7-14700F is a capable general purpose processor with a max Turbo frequency of 5.4GHz and 20 total cores (28 threads). There's absolutely no need to upgrade to a Core i9 processor if your intention is to use this rig for gaming.
The RTX 5070 Ti GPU Has Excellent 4K Gaming Performance
The RTX 5070 Ti offers the best bang for your buck in terms of 4K gaming performance. It performs neck-and-neck with the previous generation RTX 4080 Super and pulls ahead in any game that supports DLSS 4 with multi-frame generation. It is fully capable of running any game in 4K at 60fps. It also has 16GB of VRAM like the RTX 5080, making it viable for AI work. Check out our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU review by Jacqueline Thomas for our hands-on impressions.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Max is officially back to being HBO Max. Even though the name has changed (returned?), the library is still full of great films and shows to watch. HBO Max is home to some incredibly high-quality watches, including House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, The Last of Us, and Sinners. You can tune in to Season 2 of Peacemaker and even catch up on James Gunn's Superman beforehand.
If you've been hoping to start up an account to dig into that library, we're here to help. While HBO Max recently increased the price of all of its monthly plans by around $1, we're keeping track of the best price for subscriptions, along with any deals as they appear. Let's get into what's available right now.
Our Top Pick: The Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max Streaming Bundle
There are no active discounts available for HBO Max, so your best bet for savings (assuming you're already on the hook for more than one subscription) is by checking out some bundles.
Our favorite streaming bundle includes Disney Plus, Hulu, and HBO Max. The deal can be purchased through any of the three streaming services and starts at $19.99/month for the ad-supported tier or $32.99/month for ad-free access across all three platforms. It'll save you quite a bit compared to what you'd pay for the three of them separately per month – 43% on the ad-supported plan and 42% on the ad-free plan.
We're officially entering Black Friday season. Last year, HBO Max dropped the price of its ad-supported subscription by 70%, offering six months at the price of $2.99/month. If you're considering a standalone subscription, I recommend waiting until the end of the month to stock up on discounts. If you're an existing subscriber, I'd still recommend keeping an eye on the deals, as you may be able to stock up on the discounted price (though you may need to use a different e-mail address).
Students Get 50% off HBO Max Basic With Ads
If you're a student, you can score the HBO Max Basic With Ads plan for just $5.49/month. That's 50% off the usual price, which is a very nice deal to take advantage of. In order to get the discount, you'll need to verify your student status with UNiDAYS, then you'll get a unique code that you can use to redeem the discounted plan.
Subscribe to HBO Max
If you're just looking to sign up for a HBO Max subscription, there are a few different options to choose from:
The Basic and Standard tiers allow up to two concurrent streams and offer Full HD resolution. The Standard tier allows users to download shows and movies to watch on the go, too.
HBO Max also has an additional Premium tier, which offers 4K UHD resolution and Dolby Atmos sound alongside four concurrent streams. The details are as follows:
$22.99/month, ad-free with four concurrent streams
$229.99/year, ad-free with four concurrent streams
There is currently no HBO Max free trial available, so you'll need to be a paying subscriber to access the service.
Otherwise, the service includes shows from brands like HGTV, Food Network, TLC, and the Magnolia Network. Of course, one of the big draws of HBO Max is HBO Originals like The Last of Us, Succession, Barry, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The White Lotus, House of the Dragon, and more. It also includes DC's slate of movies and shows like Superman and Peacemaker, as well as other popular Warner Bros. films like Mickey 17 and Sinners. Plus, HBO Max continues to house popular streaming series like Friends, Full House, and the Harry Potter movie collection.
Back when it was still called 'Max', we gave the streaming service an 8/10 in our review, stating that, "For all its problems and an app that still runs a little too heavy, the extensive selection of well-curated choices make Max a worthwhile investment for cinema and TV lovers."
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
Upcoming Doctor Who spin-off The War Between The Land And The Sea will introduce a new name for the series' classic Sea Devil villains — who prefer to be called "Homo Aqua."
Speaking to Radio Times magazine, current Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies said that the sea-dwelling race now go by the name of Homo Aqua, as viewers will learn "it's racist to say Sea Devil."
Davies continued by saying that fans should also not call the race monsters, as humans would be highlighted as the villains of the series. Set to debut in the UK via the BBC later this year (and internationally via Disney+ at a later date), The War Between The Land And The Sea features a sci-fi take on climate change.
"I had this idea separately first," he continued. "But weirdly, it needs the Doctor Who setting. If I just go and pitch this cold, saying, 'There is a race of creatures that live in the sea,' They'd say, 'Really? You sure?' The pre-existance of the Sea Devils takes all the problems out of it."
The aquatic race originally featured in the 1972 Jon Pertwee-era serial The Sea Devils, and notably returned in the 1984 Peter Davidson story Warriors of the Deep, where they battled alongside their sister reptilian race, the Silurians, to reclaim Earth (both races having existed prior to the evolution of humanity).
Reaction to the upcoming name change has been mixed, with fans noting that the Silurians themselves previously referred to their sister race as Sea Devils, and that the genus "homo" is specifically used for the branch of great apes (mammals, not reptiles) from which humans are descended.
Others have likened the change to Davies' previous decision to no longer show Davros, the creator of the Daleks, using a wheelchair-like device.
"We had long conversations about bringing Davros back because he's a fantastic character," Davies said previously of his changes to Davros. "Time and society and culture and taste has moved on, and there's a problem with the Davros of old in that he's a wheelchair user who's evil. And I had problems with that, and a lot of us on the production team had problems with that, of associating disability with evil, and trust me, there's a very long tradition of this.
"I'm not blaming people in the past at all, but the world changes, and when the world changes Doctor Who has to change as well."
Nintendo recently raised the price of the new Nintendo Switch 2 Pro controller from $85 to $90, but here's an opportunity to get one for less than either price. AliExpress is currently offering an official Switch 2 Pro controller for just $77.03 after you apply $12 off coupon code "AEUS12" during checkout. Your order ships free locally from the United States.
This is a brand new, genuine model, most likely from Hong Kong, China, or Japan. All Switch hardware (including the Pro 2 controller) is region unlocked, meaning you can use the controller with any US-based Nintendo Switch console without any additional steps. The only caveat is that imported peripherals don't come with a Nintendo warranty however AliExpress does offer a 15-day free return window.
LG Evo C5 77-inch Deal
This is the kind of deal that beats Black Friday TV offers before they've even begun. 77-inches of LGs finest with $2,300 knocked off plus a free soundbar and wall mount packed in, which is another $299.98 saved. This is a dream gaming setup thanks to 120Hz native support that can be pushed to 144Hz through HDMI 2.1 inputs. Don't wait on this deal, this is one of LGs best panels for the money.
Steelseries Arctis GameBuds
Sick of bulky gaming headsets? Well Steelseries has a $60 discount on their Arctis Earbuds that fit snug and have over 100 sound profiles for various games. They're great for on the go and versatile, working on pretty much anything whilst packing in Spatial Audio, Noise Cancellation and Bluetooth 5.3. So guess what? These are your new personal audio solution too, one set of earbuds for everything.
Meta Quest 3 512GB VR Headset
Waiting for a good Quest 3 deal on Black Friday? Well this was the same discounted price on Amazon last year and one of the best deals going right now. By using the code "TECH4THEM", you can knock 20% off and get peace of mind with a cheeky 2-year warranty. Plus you're buying from the official Meta Store.
Bambu Lab - P1S Combo 3D Printer - Black
If you want one of the best filament 3D printers that can handle multiple spools at once, Bambu Labs P1S is a fantastic choice even at full price. Best Buy has it as an Early Black Friday deal for $549 over $750, and its a steal. It just works, easy to maintain and can be operated via a mobile app. You're getting Premium 3D printing tech without the begginer headaches.
An Nvidia RTX 5080 build for near $2,000 would have been impossible just a few months ago, but as more stock hits the market and sneaker bros move onto scalp something else, the tech world is beggining to heal. Most Black Friday 5080 deals will bump towards the $2,500 mark, so this Alienware build is really worth a look.
Hyperkin knocked it out of the park with their OG Xbox S controllers. Yes, they're wired, but that also means they're perfect for competitive play thanks to zero input lag. There's also three special edition controllers which never stick around for long, and one of the best controllers ever made, Xbox Elite V2, is on offer for $139.99 currently too. Don't sleep on these deals.
Resident Evil: Requiem Deluxe + Steelbook
No discounts, but this is one for steelbook collectors. You'll get the base game, deluxe edition content and a cool steelbook and sleeve for this special edition of Resident Evil: Requiem. The Deluxe Edition include's the Apocalypse costume for Grace as they flick between first and third person views whenever they want, a first for the series.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
Director Dan Trachtenberg takes his third crack at Yautja lore with Predator: Badlands, and this time the protagonist is the galaxy’s most notorious trophy hunter himself. It’s a pretty wild shift in perspective for the franchise, but one that I think Trachtenberg pulls off.
After Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers got Hulu-only releases, the Yautja are finally back on the big screen. Predator: Badlands follows Dek, a little brother, runt of the litter, as he’s exiled from his clan and on the deadliest planet in the galaxy trying to earn his stripes. Well, his stripes and a cloaking device. It’s a rite of passage storyline that should sound familiar, which is exactly why it works so well for this movie and the point-of-view change it’s attempting.
It’s hard to flesh out mythology like this, though. Being seven movies deep into a franchise that’s had a handful of twists and turns and failures, deciding where to shift focus is a near impossible task. Trachtenberg’s answer to that is an elegant solution, which is to say, “you know, just being a little brother can be hard.”
Dan Trachtenberg’s track record (his Dan Track-ten-record?) shows that he knows how to build a good movie. His films are structured with clean and simple storylines, but he stages sequences well, blocks scenes efficiently, and puts the camera in all the right places to get the most out of those simple premises. Badlands is yet another example in his filmography of doing all the small things right. Little, personal details get set up early in the movie, like the reason Dek’s missing a fang and what that means to him and his brother, that come back to play an important role in the plot later on. It’s simple but effective filmmaking, textbook even.
But most importantly, there’s always a relatable, emotional core to what Trachtenberg’s doing. That’s what made Prey and Killer of Killers such novel entries in the Predator canon. Amber Midthunder’s Naru and Killer of Killers’ cast of poor frozen bastards from across time all had proper emotional reasons to fight and survive. Dek in Badlands is no different.
The other half of the protagonist duoe is Dek’s new Weyland Yutani synth pal, Thia. Elle Fanning is programmed to be an ‘aww shucks’ kind of synthetic that ultimately learns as much from Dek as he does from her. She’s got a hard-coded good nature that takes her on a similar emotional journey as her new Yautja bestie. She’s got a wholesome quality that I don’t think has been seen outside of some quieter, family based moments in Trachtenberg’s other two Predator entries. By the end of the movie though, Thia has some of the most charming and creative ass-kicking in the whole story and Fanning really pulls it off.
But the ass-kicking that had me chuckling and giddy? That was all Dek’s. There’s a moment in the final act that had me saying “yes, that. THAT is the Predator.” Granted, it came a little late in the runtime, but it’s definitely there. The fighting is a mix of a clever use of his surroundings and brutal head-stomping, which, by the way, is how I would describe the action in all the best parts of Predator as a franchise.
But speaking of the ass-kicking, that they’re on a distant alien planet is really the only reason this movie is PG-13. As the first non-R-rated Yautja hunt this movie still goes pretty hard. The biggest difference is that it’s all alien gore splashing around. If it were people, like it was in Prey and Killer of Killers even, the brutality with which Dek goes about his business would be an easy R rating.
Aesthetically speaking, the creature design is pretty good. The alien death planet is populated with ravenous flora and fauna and, while they compare unfavorably to the creatures of Avatar, for example, they are better than most. And there’s something very engaging about Dek and Thia encountering one deadly thing after another, learning a quick and important fact about them, then killing and eating them. And nothing dies the same way. All those vine things we see him fighting in the trailer? Not a single one of them gets a repeat dispatching.
To be fair, there is also a certain amount of (and hold on to your shoulder cannons here) cuteness in this movie. It makes sense and it moves the story along, so it’s not cuteness just to sell toys or shill a new ride at Disneyland, but it is ironically an alien idea in a Predator movie.
Some of it works, some of it doesn’t, of course, but Dek is such an earnest young Yautja. The kid tries to make a joke. It’s one of the moments that doesn’t really work, but it plays as that overly literal style of humor you get from characters like the Terminator. He’s just programmed a certain way and he’s slowly learning a different way. But even though the joke didn’t fully land, I appreciate the effort. Once you open the door to the Yautja having a language, they can immediately start telling you who they are. From there it’s no surprise that Dek is a unique specimen among his clan, a little different from the rest, which is fine because how boring would that be if they were all the same!
You need the familiar to get away with the new.
Trachtenberg and screenwriters Patrick Aison and Brian Duffield take great pains to portray Dek as eager to prove himself and passionate about the Yautja way of life, but also a little worried about his place in it. And actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi manages a subtlety in his performance that makes Dek a downright relatable dude. He’s not any less strong, less violent or more gore averse than any Predator that’s been on screen so far. He’s out for vengeance. He loves stabbing his prey in the head and bathing in its viscera. But he’s also mad and smart and capable and underestimated. It’s the same story we saw with Naru from Prey. They even repurposed a line of dialogue from Prey to drive that point home making Dek’s story a very familiar one, surrounded by equally familiar imagery from the Yautja ship and weapons, to the Alien franchise easter eggs. But that’s exactly what’s needed to shift the POV. You need the familiar to get away with the new.
One of those new things is the Yautja Codex, which we got our first peek at in Killer of Killers. Badlands gives us another look at these Biblical commandments that guide the entire culture of the hunters. And even though there was a divided reaction to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch and Danny Glover’s Harrigan showing up in a post-release post-credit Killer of Killers scene (which i believe set the record for the furthest post credits a post-credit scene has ever landed), I like what Trachtenberg and his team are doing here. There’s something to be said for not revealing too much of your monster though. It’s the “don’t show the shark” rule of filmmaking. But as much as the last three entries in this franchise have added to the lore, there’s still plenty we don’t know about the Yautja. But Trachtenberg isn’t only interested in breaking new ground. Badlands makes great use of everything Predators have done to be interesting in the 40 years since that original ugly mother fucker first blew up a jungle and all the special ops badasses in it.
In fact, the thing Badlands seems to understand better than anything is that there are only so many ways you can do “oh no, what are these giant things that are trying to kill us?” before that well runs dry. After all, there are literally decades worth of movies that failed to live up to the first one. Dan Trachtenberg cracked the code a little with Prey by giving the protagonist something to prove, Killer of Killers took it the next step by digging a little further into the culture of the Predators, and the natural progression is putting a Yautja in the protagonist's seat with a chip on his shoulder. These three movies are almost an equation. Prey multiplied by Killer of Killers equals Badlands.
What if the 1980's became the jumping off point for the future? Like how this year's Fantastic Four movie was a '50's version of the future? Enter ROUTINE, an upcoming first-person sci-fi horror game set on a lunar base. Like all good horror games, silence and loneliness are your worst enemies, and that's true in ROUTINE – except for the part where you discover a foe who thinks the primary threat is, in fact, you. Piece together the events that took place prior to your arrival, and try to survive.
ROUTINE is our IGN First "cover story" game for November, ahead of its December 4 release for PC (Steam and Xbox on PC) and Xbox (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Xbox Cloud) – including Xbox Game Pass on day one. This first exclusive video (watch it above) introduces you to the C.A.T. Ultraview Module, a tool you'll need to make frequent use of as you explore the lunar base. It looks like a camcorder and a radar gun had a baby, and...you'll have to check out the video to see what it does.
ROUTINE has quite the development story, having originally been announced over a decade ago. It was re-revealed in 2022, and we finally played it for the first time earlier this year. Stay tuned all November long for more exclusive IGN First coverage. In the meantime, you can wishlist ROUTINE on Steam if you're interested.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
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