Call of Duty: Black Ops is a decades-spanning tale of deception, betrayal, and questionable psychiatry. It’s just one of CoD’s several separate subseries, but it’s by far the beefiest.

Back in 2010, it would have been easy for developer Treyarch to whip up some jungle assets and ship Call of Duty 7: Vietnam, but instead it unleashed a sprawling techno-thriller with all-you-can eat acronyms in which half of the characters are hallucinations and the rest are historical figures up to no good.

Black Ops is where Call of Duty gets weird– a stylish head trip with plot twists to spare. There’s a century’s worth of storyline in this epic espionage saga with more on the way, so consider this your pre-mission briefing ahead of Black Ops 7. Here is everything you need to know about the Black Ops story so far.

BLOPS is a twisted web of flashbacks, dream sequences, and choice-driven alternate endings, so we’re charting the most chronological and canonical path we can. It begins with a World at War.

1942

Stalingrad, September 1942. Red Army soldier Dimitri Petrenko claws his way through streets of corpses guided by his comrade, Soviet sniper Viktor Reznov. Reznov’s father was killed by the Nazis, creating in him a thirst for payback so deep that not even death will quench it.

1945

Petrenko and Reznov blast into Berlin and plant the hammer and sickle atop the Reichstag in 1945. Black Ops 1 reveals their post-war fates. Treacherous officer Nikita Dragovich and his pet sadist Lev Kravchenko drag our heroes into a task force hunting German scientist Friedrich Steiner– the evil genius behind a doomsday nerve gas called Nova 6. They corner the unrepentant jerk in the Arctic Circle where Steiner defects, to Reznov’s disgust.

Dragovich betrays Reznov and gasses his men with the Nova 6, killing several including our POV character from World at War. Reznov is rescued by the British but sinks the Nova stockpile beneath the ice.Dragovich, Kravchenko, and Steiner escape with the formula. Reznov is recaptured and sent to the Vorkuta prison camp where he waits 16 years for a new protagonist to bro out with.

1961

During the Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States supports a coup that fails to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government. In real life, the U.S. provided funding, training, and air support for the revolution. In Black Ops 1, the CIA sends some special ops assassins to eliminate Castro: Alaskan Marine Alex Mason, Navy Seal Joseph Bowman, and chain-smoking, nigh unkillable veteran Frank Woods. Mason and Woods become the bedrock characters of BLOPS. Bowman, not so much.

Treyarch’s trio take down El Commandante’s body double. Mason is captured and taunted by an alive and well Fidel. Castro hands his prisoner over to returning Soviet heavies Kravchenko and Dragovich, who throw him in the gulag at Vorkuta.

The bad guys rewire Mason’s brain to become a sleeper agent controlled by a cryptic numbers station. Mason resists with the help of Reznov, his lone ally in the bowels of the Russian prison– Shawshank Redemption in a Soviet labor camp. As the men bond, Reznov programs a backdoor into Mason’s brain, compelling him to annihilate Steiner, Kravchenko, and Dragovich by any means necessary.

1963

Reznov engineers an uprising with a catchy 8-step plan that doubles as a conditioning tool. Big Vik sacrifices his own freedom so Mason can catch the last train out of Vorkuta, ending his two year imprisonment.

The extremely traumatized Mason is assigned to handler Jason Hudson and summoned to the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara briefs them on Dragovich’s plans while Mason, who probably should have taken some self care PTO, starts to unravel. Mason’s mental breakdown crescendos when he meets John F. Kennedy as Dragovich’s programming surfaces.

Despite the fact that he just crashed out in front of the President, Mason’s bosses send him to sabotage the Soyuz space program and torch the team of Nazi scientists working on Nova 6. The team rescues double-agent Grigori Weaver, who loses an eye in the process. He doesn’t have a massive role beyond BLOPS 1, but he plays a pivotal part in the Zombies’ Dark Aether Saga– one of many characters who found new life within the mode.

Most operators would call it a day there, but because of Reznov’s programming, Mason literally cannot stop until he finds and ends Dragovich. The gang blows up his limo but they bail before the kill is confirmed.

Five days later, President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Mason is present at the scene, but the CIA is quite unbothered by the brainwashed killing machine’s proximity to the crime of the century and keeps him on the payroll.

1968

In Vietnam, Mason joins up with old buddies Woods and Bowman in search of Soviet intel on Nova 6. Mason meets with a defector that he believes is Viktor Reznov and they survive a lot of action setpieces together. The crew eventually arrives in Laos to secure a crashed plane carrying a cargo of Nova 6, but the gas is gone when they arrive.

VC and Spetsnaz troops ambush team BLOPS and force them to play Russian Roulette in a gruesome homage to The Deer Hunter. After Bowman is brutally murdered, Mason and Woods fight their way free, hijack a Hind, and bust up Kravchenko's headquarters, saving “Reznov” once again. Woods sacrifices himself to save Mason from the cornered Kravchenko, and both men are presumed dead. In true Call of Duty fashion, neither are.

Meanwhile, Weaver and Hudson make contact with Dr. Steiner, who is now terrified of Dragovich and desperate to flip on him. He reveals that Dragovich is hours away from ordering sleeper agents to unleash Nova 6 across the U.S., provoking nuclear war. Hudson and Weaver rush to Steiner’s lab on Rebirth Island, but Mason and his guardian angel beat them to it. They infiltrate the facility on their own and find Steiner. Reznov executes the Nazi scientist, but that’s not what Hudson and Weaver see. Mason is alone, and they watch him pull the trigger.

Hudson and Weaver take Mason in and race to unravel his severely compromised brain to stop World War 3. Their desperate interrogation makes up the iconic frame narrative of Black Ops 1. “The numbers, Mason!” ranks among Call of Duty’s most immortal lines– right up there with “50,000 people used to live here” and “f***ing campers.”

We learn the truth: Reznov died in Vorkuta and the disgruntled old soldier who's been following Mason around is a Fight Club-style figment of his imagination.

Mason decodes the sequence and leads a strike on Dragovich’s undersea numbers station. In the final showdown, Mason strangles Dragovich and puts an end to his decades-spanning plot. This will not be the last of Mason’s problems.

With Black Ops in the bag, we leap forward four games in the release order to Black Ops: Cold War, set in the brief window of the 1980s before the flashback sequences of Black Ops 2. Dragovich is dead, Mason is half out of his mind, and a new figure named Persus has emerged from the ashes.

1981

Soviet spymaster “Perseus” amasses power and creates his own rogue intelligence network to sow discord across the world. By 1981, they’ve stolen an American-made nuclear bomb courtesy of Operation Greenlight, an extremely dubious top-secret program that hid scorched-earth nukes all across Europe.

Woods is back in action after blowing up and escaping from a POW camp. Hudson asks him to join Mason and new super spy guy Russell Adler to hunt down Perseus for the CIA. They capture an injured Perseus lieutenant and bring them in for some light MKULTRA. M16 agent Helen Park helps implant the Perseus agent with false memories of serving with Adler in Vietnam in order to exploit them for intel.

Reborn as “Bell,” the new player character joins Adler’s team, where they are kept in check with a “would you kindly” style control phrase: “We’ve got a job to do.” They gather a CIA Scooby gang and uncover a Spetsnaz training ground dressed up like an idyllic American suburb, complete with an arcade and period-appropriate Doritos. They confirm the stolen nuke was of U.S. origin, and learn the truth about Operation Greenlight– and their boss’s role in it.

Hudson was not only aware of the plan, he was in charge of it. The squad shelves their beef and plots to steal a list of sleeper agents from KGB headquarters in Moscow.

With the help of a mole named Belikov, Adler and Bell infiltrate the Lubyanka and cross paths with Mikhail Gorbachev and a bunch of Soviet spooks, including young Imran Zakhaev, the future final boss of Modern Warfare. The two series don’t cross over very often, but there are sporadic hints that the worlds of Treyarch and Infinity Ward aren’t as separate as they seem.

The agents go loud and escape with the sleeper list, which points them to a Greenlight scientist named Hastings. By the time they find him it’s too late– Perseus has the activation codes.

Adler abandons his totally subtle mind-meld scheme and force-feeds drugs directly into Bell’s brain instead. Their past as a Perseus agent resurfaces along with the location of the secret base.

The story can go a few different ways from here, but as far as canon is concerned, Bell lets Adler’s intrusion slide and gives up the real location. The team destroys Perseus’ monastery stronghold and secures the nukes, but the man himself escapes. Hudson, wanting to clear up any loose ends, orders Adler to execute Bell as the story concludes.

Cold War sits awkwardly in the Black Ops timeline– you’d think someone would mention the whole “seeding a continent with nukes” thing over the next few decades of the story. Still, the retcon works, and characters like Park will pop up in future games.

The real main event of Black Ops in the 1980s isn’t Perseus, however– it’s Black Ops 2's Raul Menendez, a ruthless arms dealer turned charismatic cult leader locked in a 40-year blood feud with Mason and Woods.

1986

Alex Mason has retired to Alaska’s frozen tundra, raising his son David and being generally irritable. He should try mushing wolf-dogs. Ex-handler Hudson and Oliver North come a-knocking with one last job: “Uncle” Woods has gotten himself captured again while messing around in the Angolan civil war.

Mason and Hudson rescue Woods and in the process Mason crosses paths with an ice-cold young arms dealer named Raul Menendez. The men scuffle, Mason shoots his eye out and leaves him for dead.

At this point in his career, Mason has slaughtered entire legions of hostile NPCS. What difference does one more gun-runner make? But Menendez survives with a gnarly scar and swears vengeance on the spook.

Raul was raised during Nicaragua’s dirty wars, watching U.S. backed Contras tear his homeland to shreds. His animosity towards America became personal when his beloved sister Josefina was nearly burned alive by a greedy American businessman.

Raul and his father built a massive drug cartel that attracted the ire of the CIA. The agency merced Papa Menendez in front of his son, which further soured Raul’s feelings towards the United States.

By 1986, he’s running arms with the Soviets in Afghanistan. Mason and company are sent to intervene, linking up with local freedom fighters and a Chinese contact named Tian Zhao. They survive a Soviet attack led by Lev Kravchenko, last of the Dragovich loyalists.

The sight of Kravchenko does a number on Mason’s, let’s face it, completely cooked brain, but it’s Woods who canonically delivers the killshot after they learn about a mole in the CIA.

The Mujahideen leader turns on the Americans under orders from Menendez, leaving the squad to die in the desert. A delirious Mason sees “Tricky Vik” Reznov ride in on horseback to save the day.

The CIA finds the Menendez family compound in Nicaragua and cuts a check to Manuel Noriega, the real-life Panamanian dictator on the U.S. payroll. Noriega’s goons storm the compound and brutalize Josefina. Raul goes berzerk. Noriega shoots his own men and lets Menendez go as a favor, which Raul returns by nearly beating the general to death.

When they finally meet, Woods hurls a grenade meant for Raul, but a bad bounce means it kills Josefina instead. Raul survives, and vows that Woods, and the entire world, will one day feel his absolute loss. Three years later, Menendez puts his plan into motion.

1989

The U.S. invades Panama with the aim of overthrowing Noriega. In real life, Noriega was smoked out of the Vatican embassy by Van Halen music on loop. In BLOPSworld he’s captured by (who else?) Mason and Woods. Hudson informs his men that Noriega is a “high-value individual” to be exchanged for an anonymous prisoner.

Hudson tells Woods that the hooded captive is Raul Menendez, and orders him to shoot the restrained prisoner during the swap. To Woods’s horror, the man is really Alex Mason, and while the canon isn’t absolutely clear about this, it’s widely believed that Mason is no more.

Afterwards, the real Menendez appears, blows away Woods’s kneecaps, and reveals that he’s kidnapped Mason’s son David. Menendez used the boy as leverage to force Hudson to do his bidding. He slits Hudson’s throat with Josefina’s locket, leaves David traumatized, and spares Woods to suffer with the guilt of killing his closest friend.

In one fell swoop, two lead characters from the previous Black Ops game were wiped off the board and another horribly mutilated, leaving young David to pick up the pieces– a story to which we’ll return after a detour through the early ‘90s for Black Ops 6.

Woods spends the intervening years riding a desk and raising David as best he can without revealing the truth behind his father’s death. The CIA believes that Russell Adler is the mole, paid off by Menendez to teamkill his CoD clan. Woods doesn’t buy it, and suspects a shadow faction inside the agency itself: Pantheon.

Pantheon began as a CIA subdivision in the ‘70s, experimenting with a psychotropic super-soldier serum called Project: Cradle. After a disastrous outbreak of the Cradle virus turned survivors into hallucinating rage monsters, Deputy Director Daniel Livingstone officially disavowed it.

The group reformed as an independent rogue cabal, reviving Cradle in secret while fanning the flames of America’s forever wars.

Speaking of which, grab your best bootleg Bart Simpson shirt and get ready to rip some packs of Gulf War generals, because it’s 1991 and we’re invading Iraq… the first time.

1991

Wheelchair-bound Woods is fielding a new team: his protege Troy Marshall, ops specialist Jane Harrow, and the enigmatic William “Case” Calderon. The squad is tasked to extract Saddam Hussein’s defecting defense minister Saeed Alawai, but their target is executed on the spot by fugitive Russell Adler.

Adler insists that the CIA is compromised, and says he couldn’t allow the man to fall into Pantheon’s clutches. He surrenders himself with a simple riddle for Woods: “Bishop takes Rook.” Livingstone dismisses his warning and suspends the squad, who decide to follow Adler’s trail anyway.

“Rook” refers to an old KGB safehouse in Bulgaria that Adler and Woods discovered during their adventures in the ‘70s. The disgraced team shacks up there and recruits some new allies: German tech guy Felix Neumann and Sev Dumas, an assassin from the fictional city-state of Avalon. She was trained and betrayed by the Guild, an underground criminal network that will become way more important in the sequel.

With the gang assembled, they break out Adler from a CIA black site deep beneath the U.S. Capitol building while Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton works the room at a glitzy gala upstairs..

Back at the Rook, Adler explains that Pantheon was in bed with Hussein, trading experimental weapons for access to his definitely-real WMD facilities. He tells them about Cradle and where they might find it. Next stop: Saddam’s palace.

With help from Cold War’s Helen Park, the rogue BLOPers infiltrate Hussein’s gilded bunker. Among his hoard of treasures, the squad finds a sample of Cradle. They also discover that Jane Harrow is Pantheon’s mole within the CIA and trace the virus’s origin to a research facility on American soil.

When they arrive in Kentucky, Case falls down an elevator shaft and is exposed to the Cradle, experiencing a Zombie nightmare.

Case overcomes his BLOPs protagonist amnesia and unlocks his past– he was the failed original test “case” for a Cradle-powered super-soldier. The project was scrapped, his memories were erased, and he was welcomed back into the loving arms of the CIA, which remains oddly unconcerned with the scrambling of its employees’ minds.

A casino heist points the squad towards Gusev, Harrow’s Cradle scientist. He’s hiding out in Kuwait, so Case, Adler, and Lawrence Sims, another Cold War veteran, ground his flight.

Gusev tells the gang that Pantheon’s headquarters is located in an old Soviet prison camp– Victor Reznov’s old haunt Vorkuta, ground zero for the entire Black Ops saga.

In the most shameless nostalgia fest since Snake returned to Shadow Moses, team Rogue BLOPs revisits the gulag and apprehends the traitorous Harrow. They dose her with truth serum and drag the whole story out of her: She blames Adler for the home-invasion deaths of her parents and joined Pantheon for revenge.

Their master plan is to use the Cradle for a false-flag terror attack on Washington, D.C. The Iraqis would take the fall, Livingstone would be KIA, and Harrow/Pantheon would be in charge of the CIA.

Pantheon invades the Rook, setting off a climactic safehouse standoff. Harrow attempts to escape on a helicopter, but Case boards her vessel mid-flight. Completely geeked on Cradle, Case strangles Harrow in a blind rage and sends the chopper crashing into a river, where both are presumed dead. Sure they are!

Livingstone makes peace with Woods, Adler, and Marshall and encourages them to hang out their shingle as an off-the-books Black Ops cell. In a final stinger, we see that Pantheon is down but not out as another mole, Jackson Caine, slips into Livingstone’s office and hacks into his computer.

The story continues 44 years later in Black Ops 7, but first there’s the matter of Menendez to attend to.

In 2014, a social movement named Cordis Die emerges from the internet. Its charismatic leader Odysseus gains followers with his impassioned rants against the corrupt 1%. He engineers riots in Iran and North Korea and develops an unstoppable computer worm out of the rare earth metal Celerium with the help of hacker Chloe Lynch.

He uses it to hack the Chinese stock exchange in 2018, pinning the blame on the U.S. and triggering a second cold war between NATO and China amid an escalated drone arms race. Mason’s former ally Tian Zhao is in charge of China’s SDC and working with Menendez, combining their vast resources to heat up the conflict and usher in a new world order.

2025

By the far off distant future of 2025, Cordis Die has amassed two billion followers, none of whom realise their cult leader is the Nicaraguan narco-terrorist, and that the entire “Occupy BLOPS” movement was just a cover for one man’s mad-on against Woods and Mason. Young David Mason is now a Navy Seal operator named “Section” who still checks in on his dear old Uncle Frank.

Menendez makes the first move by visiting a still-living, still-smoking Woods in the Vault, a retirement home for Mimis and Pop Pops with red in their ledger. He leaves behind the pendant used to murder Hudson.

Section and his JSOC boys Mike Harper and Javier Salazar visit Woods for some action-packed ‘60s flashbacks. The old man gives them the dirt on his tragic history with Menendez and clues them in about Celerium. The young bucks embark on a series of missions investigating Menendez, and his massive mercenary army.

The gang eavesdrops for intel about a cyber weapon called “Karma.” Section, Harper, and Salazar search for it on the decadent floating city of Colossus, where they discover that “Karma” is actually Chloe Lynch, and that Menendez is trying to kill her to keep her quiet about the Celerium computer worm.

Her fate has yet to be confirmed by canon, but if they do save Karma from top henchman DeFalco, she uncovers Menendez's ultimate plan: on June 19th, Freedom Day, he’s going to hijack the U.S. military’s drone system and unleash an electronic rumbling on every major city within both global superpowers. That’s tomorrow.

Over Section’s objections, his commander Admiral Briggs decides it’s high time to grab Menendez. They contact Farid, a deep cover operative observing Menendez ignite a revolution in Yemen. Farid sacrifices himself to save Harper and Melendez is easily captured and taken onboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Barack Obama.

Surprise! We were playing right into Menendez’s brilliant ruse the entire time. It’s the “getting caught was part of my plan” gambit that was all the rage in the late aughts, though to be fair, Black Ops 2 scribe David S. Goyer also wrote the screenplay for the trope-defining Dark Knight.

Cordis Die goons storm the Obama and Menendez seizes control of the ship with the help of his double agent, your now ex-BFF Salazar. He uploads the virus and takes over the U.S. military drone network before escaping.

Since canon presumes you completed the bonus Strike Missions and took down Tian Zhao, Chinese planes will save the ship and ally with JSOC against the drones, ending the cold war for good.

As thousands of metal death machines swarm upon populated cities, Section, Harper, David Petraeus, and the President of the United States are shot down in a war-torn Los Angeles. Under siege by an army of killer drones, the men escort POTUS to safety in one the most spectacular setpieces in a series that has a lot of them.

JSOC and China trace the drone control signal to a Cordis Die facility in Haiti and stage a full-scale invasion. Menendez goes live when they arrive, but instead of destroying the world’s cities he blows up every single one of the drones instead, crippling American military infrastructure.

Section finally captures his father’s murderer and makes a martyr out of Menendez– which is exactly what he wanted. He posts a posthumous YouTube video instructing his billions of followers to take advantage of the drone-free power void and seize control of the United States.

Treyarch has been pretty firm that the "Menendez dies” ending of Black Op 2 is canonical, although his promised Cordis Die uprising fizzles out.

2035

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is set a decade after the end of BLOPS 2. Frank Woods has finally gone to that old soldiers’ home in the sky and David Mason is still dorkily calling himself Section and leading a new team named “Specter One,” with old faces like Harper and Marshall and new ones like the bionic 50/50.

The world is still shaken from the drone incident. The Guild has shed its shady beginning and is reborn as a powerful tech giant offering protection in uncertain times. In 2035, the dead Menendez shocks the world with a prophecy and a threat: in three days, your streets will run red with your blood. He’s presumably referring to a new fear-based macguffin that pushes minds to the edge of consciousness with typical Black Ops trippiness.

It’s a “five minutes into the future” setting, a touch more sci-fi than Modern Warfare but closer to a tomorrow that seems just around the corner. It’s not the first time that Black Ops has moved forward in the timeline, and it’s nowhere close to the giant leap taken by Treyarch for Black Ops 3.

2062

Set in 2062, Black Ops 3 is the odd duck in an already pretty weird franchise. It depicts a surreal, Phillip K. Dickian future that’s been forged in the fallout of Cordis Die’s drone war, where the old geopolitical order has collapsed and optimized into two bloated megafactions locked in endless proxy wars. New technology makes air supremacy obsolete. Mechs roam the battlefield, and wallrunning supersoldiers interface directly with the grid.

Black Ops 3’s campaign is ambitious and strange, but it feels less like the next chapter in the Black Ops saga and more of an optional epilogue, the kind of ending you’d reload a save to avoid. There’s connective tissue to the larger mythos, but none of the classic characters or grudges survive the time skip. Also, BLOPS being BLOPS, most of the action turns out to be the digital experiences of a disembodied dying consciousness inside a simulation.

While there’s no reason to doubt its canonicity, Black Ops 3 is not the focus of Black Ops 7– The latest title has far too much unfinished business in the past to linger in the far-flung future. Still, the slow drift towards sci-fi is undeniable, and it makes total sense: Black Ops has spent the last 15 years strip-mining the shadow wars of the 20th century, and there’s really only one direction left to go.

Will Black Ops lose its psycho wetworks swagger if it moves beyond the current day? Is there still more juice to squeeze from our clandestine past? Or is it time for Treyarch and Raven Software to invent something entirely new? After all, if we learned anything from Call of Duty: Black Ops, it’s that identities are anything but permanent.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on December 4, 2025.

The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition will be available digitally for players priced $69.99/£64.99. The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Upgrade Pack will also be available for $10/£10 to owners of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, allowing both content and progress to transfer over.

A physical version is coming — which Sega says will "feature the full base game on the cartridge" — but that's not expected to release until "early 2026." Sega also revealed there will not be a Limited Run Games Collector's Edition for Nintendo Switch 2, nor any pre-order sweeteners for this particular version of the game.

The publisher confirmed there "will not be a Digital Deluxe Edition on Nintendo Switch 2 Edition," however, you can "still access the Nintendo Switch 2 enhanced Digital Deluxe Edition content by buying the Nintendo Switch Digital Deluxe Edition and the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Upgrade Pack." If you already own the game, you can also upgrade by purchasing the Nintendo Switch season pass.

CrossWorlds features a huge roster of playable characters, both in the base game and additional DLC. Characters you’d expect to see, such as Sonic, Dr. Eggman, Knuckles, Shadow, and Tails are present and correct, but there's also characters like SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Mega Man, whose appearance leaked early when retailers broke the game's official street date.

We thought Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was 'Amazing,' awarding it 9/10 in IGN's review, writing: "Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds fires on all cylinders with a fantastic roster, excellent courses, and lengthy list of customization options."

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Mass Effect developer BioWare has reaffirmed its commitment to making the series' next game, just weeks after publisher EA agreed a $55 billion deal to go private.

In a blog posted today to mark the Mass Effect franchise's annual N7 Day celebrations, franchise boss Mike Gamble said he wanted to set "the record straight" after all the "rumors lately."

"Let's start by setting the record straight: the next Mass Effect game is in development, and EA and BioWare remain committed to telling more stories in this universe," Gamble wrote.

Fans had questioned whether EA would remain committed to Mass Effect — and BioWare in general — following the completion of its enormous deal, and after a lackluster response to the studio's previous game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Today's statement is clearly meant to calm fan concerns — though actual new information on the next Mass Effect game remains scarce.

"The truth is, the last few years have been an incredibly busy time at BioWare," Gamble continued today. "But currently, the team is heads-down and focused exclusively on Mass Effect. We have a lot of universe to cover, lots of features to build, and lots of romances to figure out."

Yes, while it's not a surprise, fans at least now have solid confirmation that you will be able to romance more sci-fi characters, head tendrils and all.

"We're excited by what we're building, and we promise you: when we're ready, it'll be a lot of fun to show," Gamble concluded. "Until then, thank you for your patience because y'all are thirsty for news and I see you looking for secret meaning in my tweets (okay, sometimes they have secret meaning)."

It's worth noting that numerous letters of the above text are italicised in BioWare's original blog post, which when put together spell out the words "url krogan." Is there some fresh new krogan lore sitting hidden somewhere on the BioWare blog for fans to find? We are scouring the site now to find out.

Other celebrations today will include new Mass Effect gear to buy, and free crossover items within both Apex Legends and Skate (which should hopefully avoid the criticism of Skate's recent and rather pricey Dead Space crossover).

Finally, in other Mass Effect news, BioWare today confirmed that Amazon's upcoming TV adaptation would feature a new story set after the events of the series' original trilogy — rather than rehashing Commander Shepard's adventures, as seen in the series' original trilogy. It's a canny move which avoids contradicting players' own stories — and something that could potentially see the TV show tying into the next Mass Effect game, which fans believe will be set hundreds of years after Mass Effect 3's endings.

"For everyone yelling at me because we didn’t use N7 Day to provide a whole bunch of info... I mean, I get it," Gamble subsequently posted on social media. "I’m a fan too. I want you to see stuff. But it’s not the time... yet. Has it been years since announce? Yes. Have we been busy? Yes. Are we NOW 100% on Mass Effect? Also yes."

BioWare first confirmed it would develop another Mass Effect game back in 2020, via a cinematic trailer that showed a return for fan-favorite character Liara, now sporting an older look. Subsequent years have seen the studio tease out a handful of further Easter eggs pointing to the state of the galaxy, many years on — but clearly the project remains some way off from actually releasing.

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

Ever since digital streaming was introduced as an alternative to cable, companies like Disney, Warner Bros, Netflix, and Amazon have been finding new ways to "revolutionize" monthly subscriptions, which has more or less come right back around to the concept of cable. (Only now every "channel" requires its own login and password, and costs at least $10 a month.) As the streaming service war wages on with constant changes, mergers and acquisitions, "bundles" are becoming more common as more streaming services are created, and some of these have gotten creative with including both digital and physical services.

The ability to combine multiple networks and major streaming platforms into a single subscription is becoming simpler than ever (thankfully) and gives better savings over subscribing individually to every service you'd want. Depending on your needs as a subscriber and your interests as a streamer and/or online shopper, the options available should tick many of your boxes.

Check out our picks below for the best streaming bundles in 2025 to help you save on your streaming bill. Keep in mind, however, that we're quickly approaching Black Friday, which will almost certainly offer a spread of limited-time streaming discounts.

Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max Bundle – $19.99/month (with ads)

This might be a big one, folks. The first teaser trailer for the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic film Michael has been released — and believe it or not, the sneak peek racked up a whopping 30 million views in its first six hours online.

According to Deadline, that’s an incredible 50% more views than the trailer for John Wick: Chapter 4 managed to get in its first six hours after release. That says quite a bit about the audience’s anticipation for the biopic, considering how much the masses love the John Wick series. The news of the teaser trailer’s success was announced during yesterday’s earnings call.

Lionsgate motion picture chair Adam Fogelson also opened up about the status of the second part of Michael, which was split into two parts due both to its three and a half hour runtime and the fact that much of the second part focused on one of Jackson’s accusers. The Jackson estate seemingly overlooked the detail that guarantees that accuser can never be dramatized or have their story dramatized as part of their settlement with the estate, which led to massive reshoots.

“Since the last time we worked together on an earnings call, we’ve had the great pleasure of seeing the director’s cut of the first film, and it is exceptional,” Fogelson explained on the call. “While we’re not yet ready to confirm plans for a second film, I can tell you that the creative team is hard at work making sure that we’re in a position to deliver more Michael soon after we release the first film.”

He added about the film and star Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s nephew, “People have been waiting a long time for this. I think people are stunned with Jaafar’s performance.”

The film is directed by Training Day director Antoine Fuqua, written by John Logan, and produced by Graham King, who produced the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. It will hit theaters on April 24, 2026 — well, at least the first part.

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

Amazon's upcoming Mass Effect TV adaptation will focus on an original story rather than rehashing BioWare's classic trilogy of video games starring Commander Shepard.

BioWare revealed the news today as part of its annual N7 Day celebrations, as it hinted at what's next for the Mass Effect franchise.

"We’ve been partnering closely with Amazon on [the series], and we’re really excited with what the talented team over there is coming up with," Mass Effect boss Mike Gamble wrote in a blog post. "The writers room is going strong, and we’ve got a lot figured out about how it fits within the Mass Effect canon, and where it sits in respect to the new game. The show will explore a brand-new story within the universe’s timeline, and will be set after the original trilogy. It won’t be a retread of Commander Shepard’s story – because after all … that’s YOUR story, isn’t it?"

Back in August, Amazon was spotted as having listed a Q4 2026 production date for the series — meaning that it is still a year away from shooting. At the time, a placeholder plot description was shared that read like a rehash of Mass Effect 1's plot, though fans have long considered a straight retelling unlikely.

For starters, the franchise's choice-based narrative would be difficult to adapt without alienating fans who picked other options in their playthroughs — starting with their choice of either male or female Shepard, down to which alien races they choose as allies, or hop into bed with.

There's also the fact that, when player choices are concerned, the Mass Effect series has never established a singular canon. When developing Mass Effect Andromeda, the series' fourth main video game, its plot was set hundreds of years into the future and in a different galaxy in order to ensure that players' Mass Effect 3 ending choices were respected. It would be tough for any TV series to show the same events and it not be presented as the franchise's definitive version.

Amazon is no stranger to adapting video games with an established narrative, of course. The streaming service's Fallout series has won over fans and newcomers alike by telling an original story woven into that franchise's existing lore.

As previously announced, Fast & Furious 9 scribe Daniel Casey is attached as the series' writer, while Star Trek Beyond and Mindhunter writer Doug Jung is set to serve as showrunner.

BioWare's Mass Effect boss Mike Gamble and legendary former Marvel Studios producer Ari Arad are executive producing the series alongside Karim Zreik, previously executive producer on Marvel TV's Jessica Jones series.

Back in the world of video games, progress is continuing on the still-untitled Mass Effect 5 which, like Andromeda, is believed to be set hundreds of years after the original Mass Effect trilogy. An early trailer showed a return for fan-favorite character Liara, now sporting an older look.

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

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Roblox for allegedly "deceiving parents" and "flagrantly ignoring" safety laws. It follows similar action Paxton has taken against "several Big Tech social media companies" and TikTok.

"I'm suing Roblox for putting pixel pedophiles and profits over the safety of Texas children," Paxton wrote in a social media post. "We cannot allow platforms like Roblox to continue operating as digital playgrounds for predators where the well-being of our kids is sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed."

In a press statement, Paxton expanded on this, writing he was suing Roblox Corporation, "a multi-billion-dollar company that operates one of the largest online gaming sites for children, for flagrantly ignoring state and federal online safety laws while deceiving parents about the dangers of its platform."

Humans like to consider themselves the top of the food chain, and while that idea might work on Earth, we barely scrape by in the galactic gladiator competition. The Predator franchise, which began with the classic Scwarzenegger film in 1987, is all about the "Yautja" - towering trophy-seeking hunters from space who travel to different worlds for lethal competition and have been known to kidnap species for hunts back on their home planet.

Two initial Predator films in 1987 and 1990 created a baseline for the Predator saga. Since Xenomorphs from the Alien moves are also a cinematic scourge for humanity, it made perfect sense in the 2000's to create a shared universe with two Alien vs. Predator flicks. In the following decade, directors such as Robert Rodriquez, Shane Black, and Dan Trachtenberg all put their spins on the franchise.

With Predator: Badlands now available in theaters, it's a better time than ever to binge the original sci-fi classics. If you want to watch every Predator movie in order, we've got you covered! Below you'll find the full timeline of the Predator movies and where to watch them online.

Jump to:

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

You can also check out our guide to the Alien movies in order to incorporate the whole timeline.

How Many Predator Movies Are There?

There are a total of nine movies in the Predator franchise — four in the mainline series of films, two Alien crossovers, one prequel, and one anthology film. The latest film, Predator: Badlands, also seemingly sets up a sequel as well as the possibility of a another AVP crossover. Neither film has been announced just yet.

Predator Movies in (Chronological) Order

1. Predator: Killer of Killers (2025)

Killer of Killers is an anthology film featuring different iterations of Predators doing what they do best across three different timelines. The first two timelines, set in the Viking Age and Feudal Japan, take place hundreds of years before even the prequel Prey. The third timeline, however, is set after World War 2, after Prey and before the original Predator. I'd argue Killer of Killers is best enjoyed with context from the original movie, but the animated anthology can be watched at any point in a Predator marathon.

Read IGN's review of Predator: Killer of Killers

2. Prey (2022)

Prey is a prequel and therefore designed to be watched after everything else (especially Predator 2) but if one is truly looking to take in the Predator franchise in chronological order this is the place to begin. Set in 1719, across the the Great Plains, Prey follows a young Comanche woman, Naru (Amber Midthunder), who gets more than she bargains for when she accompanies her brother on a hunt and winds up in the crosshairs of a (more primitive) Predator. Determined to prove herself, Naru sets her sights on taking the alien stalker down in this fresh and thrilling take from the three-decade saga.

Read IGN's review of Prey

3. Predator (1987)

It all started with 1987's Predator, directed by Die Hard's John McTiernan and starring heyday Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Bill Duke, and Shane Black (who would direct his own Predator film many years later). Predator is an awesome action classic where a near-unstoppable military rescue team gets their asses handed to them by a terrifying invisible force in the jungles of South America. When the attacker is revealed to be an alien hunter out on its own version of a sinister safari, Schwarzenegger's Dutch must figure out how to ambush and defeat a monster light years ahead of him in tech and tactics.

4. Predator 2 (1990)

A few years later, Predator returned to multiplexes for more massacres and mayhem, but this time with a complete change of cast and setting. Taking place amongst a near-future heatwave/crimewave -- 1997 Los Angeles -- Predator 2 follows cops played by Danny Glover, Bill Paxton, Ruben Blades, and María Conchita Alonso as they attempt to not only deal with a bloody Cartel war on the streets, but a badass alien Predator too, stalking the cityscape for victims.

5. AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

After 14 years -- with novels, comics, and video games keeping the franchise flames lit -- Predator came back in a huge way with a full crossover movie, merging with the Alien saga, which hadn't been dormant but definitely struggled to find its footing in the '90s. Alien vs. Predator, from Resident Evil/Event Horizon's Paul W. S. Anderson, was a big hit, injecting new life into both sci-fi/horror properties. Set in "present day" America, AVP introduced a nasty bit of history connecting the Yautja and Xenomorphs. Namely that Predators had been conducting hunts on Earth for centuries using humans as breeding bodies for Xenos, and then hunting down the Xeno swarm for "right of passage" sport. Sanaa Lathan, Lance Henriksen, Raoul Bova, and Ewen Bremner star.

Read IGN's review of AVP: Alien vs. Predator

6. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007)

The sequel to AVP, Aliens vs Predator: Requiem, picks up right where AVP left off, so timeline-wise this is all the same battle. Not as successful as its predecessor (hence it being the final crossover film) Requiem delivered an Alien-Predator hybrid, known as the "Predalien," as it attacked a small Colorado town and a Predator "cleaner" being dispatched to take down this new monstrosity.

Read IGN's review of Alien vs. Predator: Requiem here.

7. Predators (2010)

The only Predator movie to not take place on Earth, Predators, from Robert Rodriguez, looked to shake up the formula a bit by bringing audiences to a distant planet, a Yautja game reserve. With a killer cast including Adrien Brody, Walton Goggins, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, and Alice Braga, Predators showed fans how humans, specifically "established killers," are abducted and used for sport between two warring Yautja tribes.

Timeline-wise, this is a tricky one. It's never clearly stated when this all happens. Meaning, the Earth year. But it's easy enough to just assume it's 2010, when the movie was released. Or, in the very least, based on the characters, the early 21st Century. So Predators can fit into your chronological viewing plans here, at number six, or you can save it for last.

Read IGN's review of Predators

8. The Predator (2018)

Despite Predators being a modest hit it would still be eight years before a new Predator film hit the big screen and with 2018's The Predator, director/co-writers Shane Black (Iron Man 3, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) would take the franchise back to its original formula (which he himself starred in) by presenting a squad of unstable soldiers -- played by the likes of Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane and Game of Thrones' Alfie Allen -- who take on a pair of rampaging Predators and thwart their Yautja schemes (which involve DNA splicing). The film ends with a tease for more, while alternate/unused endings featured time traveling versions of both Alien's Ellen Ripley and Rebecca "Newt" Jorden in a new grab for crossover gold.

Read IGN's review of The Predator

9. Predator: Badlands (2025)

Predator: Badlands is the latest entry in the series and also the latest entry in the timeline. We don't know exactly when it takes place, but we do know that it's far enough in the future that it isn't anywhere near the other movies in the Predator franchise. The story is about an outcast Prdator named Dek who travels to a dangerous planet to hunt the ultimate foe and prove he is worthy of the Predator name.

Read IGN's review of Predator: Badlands

How to Watch the Predator Movies by Release Date

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

1. Predator (1987)
2. Predator 2 (1990)
3. AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
4. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007)
5. Predators (2010)
6. The Predator (2018)
7. Prey (2022)
8. Predator: Killer of Killers (2025)
9. Predator: Badlands (2025)

The Future of the Predator Franchise

There is no official word on the next Prdator movie in the franchise just yet. With that being said, Predator: Badlands seemingly ends on a cliffhanger that could potentially result in a Badlands 2 should Disney decide to greenlight a sequel. Director Dan Trachtenberg has also mentioned that he he sees the franchise building toward another Alien vs. Predator moment down the line, citing the MCU as his inspiration.

So despite a lack of official announcements, it seems like there will indeed be more Predator movies down the line.

Matt Fowler is a freelance entertainment writer/critic, covering TV news, reviews, interviews and features on IGN for 13+ years.

Hunty Zombie is a Roblox experience that sees you go up against hordes of... well, zombies. You can play solo or in a group of up to 6 people, but for each zombie you take down, you'll be closer to leveling up and gaining mastery of special weapons, perks, and more. Complete quests, roll spins for perks, and customize your character to be the ultimate zombie-slaying machine. So, whether you're jumping into specific maps like the school or sewer, taking on a raid, or completing campaign mode, here are codes for Hunty Zombie that will give you a boost when tackling the undead.

Working Hunty Zombie Codes

You need to be Level 5 before you can use codes. But once you've hit that level, here are the codes you can redeem:

• ChainsawWP - 10x Lucky Weapon Spin (NEW)
• REBIRTH! - 200,000 Coins (NEW)
• DIVINEPET - 200,000 Coins (NEW)
• LOYKRATHONGDAY - 15x Traits (NEW)
• REDUCEDMGPERK - 10x Lucky Perk Spin (NEW)

How to Use Hunty Zombie Codes

Before you can redeem codes in Hunty Zombie, you'll need to reach level 5. If you have already, here's what you need to know: launch the Hunty Zombie Roblox experience. When you're in the main lobby, follow these steps to get your goodies:

1. Locate the codes menu on the right side of the screen. It's the icon of the open book at the top of the submenus.
2. Copy the code from this article and then paste it into the bar that says "enter code here..."
3. Click confirm and receive your rewards!

Expired Hunty Zombie Codes

These codes are no longer valid:

• Handfan - 15x Lucky Weapon Spins
• NewCamp - 200,000 Coins
• Beach - 15x Traits
• Pirate - 10x Lucky Perk Spins
• ChasingDollars - 200,000 Coins
• Reaper - 15x Lucky Weapon Spin
• RIP67 - 200,000 Coins
• ScytheRP - 10x Traits
• NEWBOSSRAID123 - 15x Lucky Perk Spin
• HZ4EVER - 300,000 Coins
• Halloween - 300,000 Coins
• SpinalBlade - 10 Weapon Lucky Spins
• NewSwordHW - 10x Traits
• SIRJACKY - 10x Perk Lucky Spins
• SpookyPet - 150,000 Coin
• hwticket - 5x Halloween Tickets

Why Isn't My Hunty Zombie Code Working?

Codes for Roblox experiences are usually case-sensitive, so the best way to ensure you've got a working code is to directly copy it from this article. We check all codes before we upload them, so you can guarantee they're working. Just double-check that you haven't copied over an extra space!

When Is the Next Hunty Zombie Update?

Hunty Zombie's newest update launched on Friday, 31 October. This was part of the Island Adventure Update that added the new Handfan weapon and bundle, new maps, a new zombie boss, cosmetics, and more. The next update isn't currently scheduled.

Lauren Harper is an Associate Guides Editor. She loves a variety of games but is especially fond of puzzles, horrors, and point-and-click adventures.

If LEGO sets are on your holiday season shopping list, there's no need to wait for Black Friday to score some discounts. Early Black Friday deals have already started popping up at various retailers, with plenty of LEGO sets already on sale to look through. Among them is a sweet offer on the LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar 2025, which has received a 40% discount at both Amazon and Target that's dropped its price to $26.99.

Keep in mind this deal only lasts through tomorrow, so if you've been hoping to pick up this advent calendar ahead of the holidays now is a great time to do it and save some cash.

LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar 2025 Down to $26.99

Cygames and Konami Digital Entertainment announced today that they have resolved their patent disagreement regarding Cygames’ mobile title Umamusume: Pretty Derby.

Umamusume: Pretty Derby is a hugely popular anime racehorse-girl management game in which racehorses are reborn as cute anime girls, complete with equine ears and tails. The franchise started off in 2018 as an anime, followed by a Japan-only release of the mobile game in 2021. In the game, players can talk to, train and manage horse-girls like Special Week and Mejiro McQueen, sharing in their triumphs and losses. As a result, the Umamusume franchise has inspired a cult following, and many fans have become interested in the real-life Japanese racehorses behind their favorite characters.

Back in March 2023, Konami filed a lawsuit against Cygames, claiming that Cygame’s Umamusume: Pretty Derby infringed upon 18 of its patents. Konami originally called for over 4 billion yen (approx. $26 million at current exchange rates) in damages, and for Cygames to cease all production, usage and distribution of the mobile game. In response, Cygames requested invalidation trials against all the patents involved.

Cygames revealed in a press release today that it has decided to settle the disagreement to ensure that players can continue to enjoy Umamusume: Pretty Derby in the long run. Despite this decision, Cygames “remains confident that no patent infringement has occurred.”

Both Konami and Cygames expressed respect for each other’s creators and games in their press releases about the settlement. Cygames stated that their group company “respects the efforts of creators at companies in the game industry, including Konami Digital Entertainment, and the numerous games they have created.” In turn, Konami commented that “we will respect each other’s creative works and strive to provide content and services that please our customers.”

According to a press release from 2023, Cygames had been in discussion with Konami about patent rights “pertaining to certain aspects of Umamusume: Pretty Derby’s game systems and programs,” however, it seems Konami disagreed with Cygames and filed the lawsuit. Both companies have been secretive about exactly which aspects of Umamusume: Pretty Derby caused the disagreement. Considering Konami’s history of making sports management games like Powerful Pro Baseball, it is possible that Umamusume: Pretty Derby’s in-game system for training its anime horse girls was part of the issue.

Both companies stress that due to a confidentiality agreement, the details of the settlement will not be made public.

Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.

Amid confirmation that GTA 6 really has been delayed again, we have word that Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 has become the fourth best-selling game of all time.

As detailed in publisher Take-Two's investor call yesterday (November 6), the sequel has sold over 79 million units — making it the "best-selling title of the last seven years in the U.S. based on dollar sales" — and taking sales of the entire series to 106 million.

To give that some context, think of all the hugely successful games that have been released in the last seven years — Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Hogwarts Legacy, Elden Ring, to name but a few — as well as everything that's released over the last few decades. Apart from Minecraft, GTA 5, and Wii Sports, which have sold 350 million, 220 million, and 82.9 million copies, respectively, Red Dead Redemption 2 has outsold everything.

With 79 million sales, that puts Red Dead 2 just ahead of the prior fourth-place Mario Kart 8's estimated 78.02 million sales, as well as PUBG (75 million), The Oregon Trail (65 million), Terraria (64 million), The Witcher 3 (60 million), and the original 1985 Super Mario Bros. (58 million).

You'd think then, that Red Dead Redemption 3 is a dead cert. But Rockstar has yet to announce a sequel. Earlier this week, Rockstar Games co-founder and former lead writer Dan Houser said he’d feel more sad to learn Red Dead Redemption 3 was in development without him than he feels about GTA 6, but admits the game "will probably happen." As lead writer, Houser wrote almost all of Rockstar’s games, but having left the company over five years ago, Houser recently confirmed to IGN that GTA 6 won’t have a story or a character set he developed, but expects the game to be great nonetheless.

“Of course, letting go of something I worked on in one way or another for like 20-odd years, and wrote on them for the last 10 or 11 that came out, wrote all of them, or you know, lead writer on all of them, whatever it was… letting go of that is a big change. And sad in a way,” Houser said.

“Because each of the [Grand Theft Auto] games was a kind of standalone story it’s not quite the same as… I think probably it would be in some ways sadder if someone continued on Red Dead, because it was a cohesive two-game arc. That might be more sad to hear someone working on that. But again, that will probably happen too. I don't own the IP. That was part of the deal. It's a privilege to work on stuff, but you don't necessarily own it.”

In 2023, Roger Clark, who played Arthur Morgan, the main playable protagonist of Red Dead Redemption 2, said he was “certain” fans will see Red Dead Redemption 3 “one day,” but qualified that statement by saying he had no idea when that would be. Clark also ruled out the return of Arthur Morgan in the game, should it come to be. If you’ve played Red Dead Redemption 2, this might seem like stating the obvious, but there’s always the chance Rockstar may consider another prequel of some kind.

“I’m certain we will see Red Redemption 3 one day,” Clark said. “When that will be — I have absolutely no idea. Don’t count on Arthur’s involvement either. His story has been told, I feel.”

In a subsequent interview with IGN, Clark expanded on his thoughts: “Yeah, that got really picked up! I would have thought that was obvious though. Wouldn’t you? And it’s not like I have any insider information whatsoever, but of course there’s going to be another Red Dead. It sold over 60 million copies!”

He continued: “Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two said it himself. He said GTA and Red Dead are prominent franchises for Rockstar Games and that they will be returning to them in the future. So there’s no doubt there will be another Red Dead. But if Arthur Morgan will be involved? I highly doubt it, to be honest. And I think it’s going to be quite some time before we even see a snifter of anything new Red Dead related. I have no idea how it would pan out, but I wouldn’t bet on Arthur being a part of it.”

Today, Red Dead Redemption 2 is widely considered to be one of the best video games of all time. We thought it was a masterpiece, too, with IGN's review returning a 10/10. "Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game of rare quality; a meticulously polished open-world ode to the outlaw era," we wrote.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but GTA 6 has been delayed again. Yes, Rockstar has pushed back Grand Theft Auto’s return to its Miami-inspired setting of Vice City to November 19, 2026. I, for one, am sad about this, as I’m sure you may well also be. But this announcement isn’t necessarily bad news for everyone. So, let’s see who may profit and who might take a hit from Grand Theft Auto 6’s latest change of date.

Every Spring 2026 Game - Winners

Congratulations, Crimson Desert, 007 First Light, Saros, and any other game currently planning on a March or April 2026 release. I’m sure a huge sigh of relief was let out at the South Korean headquarters of Pearl Abyss and the Scandinavian studios of IO Interactive and Housemarque. Not only should it benefit the sales of these games due to players’ money that was set aside for GTA 6’s previous May date now being freed up to be spent elsewhere, but it may even give them a little wiggle room to delay a few weeks themselves and avoid that dreaded crunch in order to get out before Rockstar’s behemoth — something Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra has already done by moving “beyond early 2026”.

PC Gamers - Losers

Sorry, PC gamers, but if history is anything to go by, then the wait for GTA 6 has just got even longer for you. If Rockstar is to follow its normal pattern of releases, it could well be a couple of years yet until the state of Leonida makes its way to Windows. For reference, Red Dead Redemption 2 launched on consoles on October 26, 2018, but didn’t find its way onto Steam until a whole year later November 5, 2019. The wait for GTA 5 on PC was even longer, with its April 14, 2015 release coming 19 months after its original September 17, 2013 console arrival. So, apologies again, but if PC is your chosen place to play, you may well be looking deep into 2027 or even early 2028 to play GTA 6.

GTA 6’s Developers - It’s Complicated

In theory, delaying GTA 6 is a good thing for the development team at Rockstar, hopefully preventing excessive crunch impacting the studio as it races towards deadlines. But this week also saw 30 to 40 Rockstar employees fired from their positions at the company for what Rockstar describes as leaking “confidential information in a public forum”. The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) claims this was "blatant" and "ruthless" union busting, though. This is a developing situation with no clear answers at the moment. What is clear, though, is that having a few dozen fewer employees definitely won’t ease the burden on the developers still at the studio. Let’s hope that the theoretical crunch time saved by the delay won’t have been completely negated by this reduction in workforce.

The Mandalorian and Grogu - Winners

Pedro Pascal wins again. Yes, The Mandalorian’s feature film debut alongside his little green friend, Grogu, is scheduled to release on May 22, 2026 — the same week as GTA 6’s previous release date, May 26, 2026. Well, the upcoming Star Wars film now seemingly has a clear runway to rake it in at the box office, with people being more likely to leave their house now that the distraction of Grand Theft Auto glueing them to their TV screens is being taken away.

Microsoft - Loser

Microsoft and its Xbox Game Studios are due for a big 2026. But with no release dates currently known for its big hitters — Fable, Forza Horizon 6, Halo: Campaign Evolved, Gears of War E-Day, and 2026’s Call of Duty included — could this spell a problem for the publisher? We can safely assume that Call of Duty would’ve been eyeing up a similar release date to GTA 6’s new November one, which would no doubt impact its playerbase, and surely at least one other game from that list has a late 2026 window pencilled in. Could this scupper Microsoft’s plan for the end of next year and mean one or two games have to get pushed back to early 2027? Of course, it would be wise to get something out the door before Grand Theft Auto arrives, but there’s only so fast developers can work, and I’d much rather wait than hear more horror stories of studio crunch.

Summer Game Events - Winners

The bad news? You won’t be playing GTA 6 in late May. The good news? You’re now free to attend IGN Live in early June, our special event in Los Angeles, open to the public to come and enjoy all the fun of new and upcoming video games. But apart from that, it also means that all of the summer shows, such as Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest, are in no trouble of being overshadowed by the release of Grand Theft Auto just a couple of weeks prior. This means we can enjoy all of the new game announcements and looks at gameplay without having to tear ourselves away from Vice City. I’d just recommend that nobody pick November as their chosen release date at the end of those trailers.

Marvel’s Wolverine - Loser

Currently scheduled for a “late 2026” release window, one of Sony’s biggest hitters for next year, Marvel’s Wolverine, may want to get out before the end of October at the latest to avoid being impacted by GTA 6. In truth, any game looking to launch towards the end of next year is probably scrambling to put together a plan right now, and it will be no different between Insomniac and PlayStation as they work out the best course of action.

Black Friday 2026 Console Sellers - Winners

GTA 6 will now drop just before Black Friday 2026, so expect both PS5 and Xbox Series X/S bundles to be in more demand than ever across Capitalism’s favourite weekend of the year. Expect low stock as electronic stores around the world make all the money they can as people get their Grand Theft Auto machines into their homes.

Us, The Players - Losers (and Winners)

Another six months of waiting may feel painful right now, but let’s try to look on the bright side. We get our summer back. Go outside. Enjoy an ice cream. Run around on the beach and get sand between your toes. Catch up with an old friend in a leafy beer garden. Watch every minute of the World Cup. November will be here before you know it. Those shorter winter days are much better suited to locking all the doors and playing games all day, anyway.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

Mass Effect Day has arrived, which means the time has come for Dark Horse to reveal another exclusive Mass Effect collectible. This year, it's time for Tali'Zorah fans to geek out, as the fan-favorite quarian tech specialist is getting a new 1'6 scale statue.

IGN can exclusively reveal the first images of Dark Horse's Tali'Zorah 1/6 Scale Statue. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

This statue was sculpted by Gentle Giant Studios and features a highly detailed rendition of Tali'Zorah in her classic enviro-suit. The statue depicts her wielding her Arc Pistol and standing alongside her trusty combat drone Chatika vas Paus.

The Tali'Zorah statue measures 12.6 inches tall and is limited to 1000 units worldwide. It's priced at $229.99, with an initial $20 discount available for those who preorder between now and November 14.

The statue will be sold exclusively through the Dark Horse Direct website. Preorders are expected to ship between June and August of 2026.

For more Mass Effect fun, why not check out the many Mass Effect collectibles available on the IGN Store?

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

IGN and Nintendo Life have come together to build the definitive list of The 100 Best Nintendo Games of All Time. We'll be rolling that ranking out from Monday, November 10 to Friday, November 14, revealing 20 picks a day until one game is crowned Number One.

But we also want your opinion. Below, you'll find a Faceoff packed full of Nintendo Games for you to pit against one another. Once we've revealed our full list, we'll publish yours to see how it compares and contrasts. Which Mario will come out on top? Which Zelda makes its way to the top of the pile? Will a Metroid crack the top 10? All of these questions and more will be answered in the week ahead.

For more on our Top 100 Best Nintendo Games, make sure to check out the latest episode of our Nintendo podcast, NVC, where the team will be previewing the list, as well as discussing some of their personal favourites. Which game do you think will end taking first place? Let us know in the comments below.

Rockstar has updated the main GTA 6 website to reflect the game’s most recent delay, and it’s sticking with its console-only launch for now.

GTA 6 was delayed from May to November 2026, with Rockstar saying the extra half year “will allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve.”

Some had wondered if this latest delay — its second since it was officially revealed in December 2023 — would cause Rockstar Games to revise its launch plans, which so far include PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S only. But, as spotted by @videotechuk_, now Rockstar has updated the official GTA 6 website to mention the November 19 release date, it lists the consoles as the only launch platforms.

For over two decades, the LEGO and Star Wars partnership has endured and thrived. It is nothing if not consistent; the sets are geared toward every skill level, from beginner to advanced, and all of the sets – even the most rudimentary – are reliably high-quality. The massive ship and droid replicas get the most press. But even the more idiosyncratic sets – like the movie dioramas, for example – still capture the look, feel, and whimsy of their inspirations.

TL;DR: These Are the Best Star Wars LEGO Sets

LEGO is a costly hobby – one that requires a selective eye, so that only la crème de la crème makes it on your shopping list. Here are the Best LEGO Star Wars sets that you can buy in 2025. You can also check out our broader list of LEGO space sets for more science-focused options or dive into our picks for the best Star Wars gifts to buy right now.

Jango Fett's Firespray-Class Starship

Grogu with Hover Pram

Droideka

AT-TE Walker

TIE Interceptor

X-Wing Starfighter

Jabba's Sail Barge – Collectors' Edition

Millennium Falcon (Collector's Edition)

Battle Droid with STAP

AT-ST

Gingerbread AT-AT Walker

From Red and Blue to Scarlet and Violet, Pokémon is known for often launching its games with two different versions — and now, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto has discussed one of the reasons why: to try and rival the sales of his own creation, Super Mario.

Since its inception on the Game Boy, Pokémon has typically released its mainline games twice, ensuring diehard fans pay double to own both varieties. Over the years, the decision has proven lucrative — and, of course, that was the plan all along.

Speaking during an investor Q&A meeting this week, in response to a question about whether Mario Kart's enormous sales could ever be lapped, Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto said he'd once spoken to Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri and heard his plan to beat Mario.

"A long time ago, before creating the first Pokémon game, Satoshi Tajiri, the director of Pokémon, joked with me that to surpass Nintendo's Mario he'd have to sell two copies of the game to each consumer," Miyamoto revealed.

"That is one reason why Pokémon started with both Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue," he continued. "I believe that new ideas are born precisely because of people like him, who challenge themselves to surpass what came before."

In the past, official discussion of why Pokémon frequently arrives in two flavors has centered on the possibilities for player interaction this opens up. Each Pokémon version traditionally offers a different set of creatures to collect, encouraging players to meet and trade. More recent Pokémon games have also offered minor story differences between versions, tempting fans to play both games for the full experience. And, frequently, Nintendo has sold double packs of the two versions together, sometimes at a slight discount.

As for whether any game could ever actually beat Mario Kart — and specifically, the enormous sales of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch 1 — Miyamoto was coy.

"If some Nintendo IP or innovation is widely accepted by consumers as something new and never before seen, the numbers could potentially reach beyond the boundaries of entertainment," he suggested. "One thing that is interesting about Nintendo is that it’s okay to try anything.

"On the other hand, even if something like that happens, Mario Kart would probably continue to sell well in that undertaking as well, so it may never be surpassed!"

Last month saw the launch of Pokémon Legends: Z-A, the series' latest spin-off that features a menagerie of new Mega Evolutions. Fans widely expect next year — the 30th anniversary of the Pokémon brand — to host the next mainline Pokémon games: the series' 10th generation of titles. And yes, recently-leaked information suggested these would also be sold in two different versions.

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

Nintendo has suggested it is comfortable with Switch 2's current price point, despite rising component costs and recent price hikes by both PlayStation and Xbox.

Speaking during a shareholder Q&A session, company president Shuntaru Furukawa said Nintendo believed Switch 2 would continue to retain its profitability despite the rising prices of some components, as it could offset these against unspecified savings made through "ongoing mass production efforts."

Fans have taken the statement as a signal that Nintendo does not have plans to raise the price of Switch 2 in the near future — though Furukawa does go on to caveat his response regarding the matter of tariffs.

"We believe that we'll be able to maintain the current level of profitability for hardware for the time being unless there are significant changes in external factors, such as a shift in tariff assumptions, or other unexpected events," Furukawa said.

"While we are aware that the costs of various materials are rising, we also anticipate some areas where cost reduction may be achieved for Nintendo Switch 2 through ongoing mass production efforts. Therefore, currently we do not expect the recent rise in material costs to greatly impact profitability. We will continue our efforts to maintain the same level of profitability as we currently have."

Nintendo has so far resisted the urge to increase Switch 2's price amid a turbulent year of tariffs, though the company has offset some of its losses with price rises for Switch 2 accessories, as well as a price increase for the aging Switch 1.

In August, Nintendo increased the cost of a standard Switch 1 console from $229.99 to $339.99, while the Switch OLED's price was hiked from $349.99 to $399.99. The Switch Lite went up from $199.99 to $229.99, and there was even a $5 price rise for Nintendo's Alarmo clock, to $100.

Both Sony and Microsoft has increased the cost of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, respectively, domestically and internationally. In August, Sony slapped an extra $50 on the price of its various PS5 models, and blamed the decision on a "challenging economic environment." In September, Microsoft raised the cost of all Xbox Series X and S models for the second time this year, after previously hiking prices back in May.

The price of video games themselves has also been a hot topic this year, after Mario Kart Tour launched at an unheard-of $80. Xbox initially announced it would also introduce $80 games this holiday though backtracked on that decision shortly after — though not before raising its prices for Game Pass.

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

GTA 6 is delayed again, this time from May to November 2026. Perhaps we should have seen it coming. After all, aren’t all Rockstar games delayed multiple times before they eventually come out and break sales records?

We’ve got plenty of coverage on the delay already, including comments from Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick, who told IGN in an interview he was “highly confident” in the new release date (I’m sure he’s said that before?). And, if you need a reminder, here's a whopping 89 details from GTA 6 Trailer 2.

But how has the internet reacted to the GTA 6 delay? Fans are, as you’d expect, in tatters. And spare a thought for PC gamers, who now face the prospect of having to wait to play GTA 6 in 2027 at the earliest. But video game publishers — some, publicly at least — are having fun with it, while some are expressing concern for any game that might have earmarked a fall 2026 release window. And then there are the memes. Lots of memes.

Let’s start with Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt, which took the opportunity to remind everyone that it once promised no more delays to Cyberpunk 2077, and look how that turned out when its sci-fi action RPG came out in December 2020. What CDPR is saying here is trust in Rockstar to deliver — it’s better to delay the game and ensure it’s great than launch it when it isn’t ready.

https://t.co/SqC2ZYRK6s https://t.co/l5o58PULml

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) November 6, 2025

Hotline Miami and Cult of the Lamb publisher Devolver Digital, meanwhile, continued the bit by continuing to promise (threat?) to release a game on the same day GTA 6 comes out. Now it’s moved whatever game it had in mind to GTA 6’s new release date: November 19, 2026. Devolver won’t — can’t at this point — stop. It even cheekily asked Rockstar if it needed help getting GTA 6 out the door, tweeting: "DO YOU NEED A PUBLISHER TO GET THIS THING BACK ON TRACK? DMs are open. Our work on @BALLxPIT speaks for itself." Those scamps!

You can’t escape us.

November 19, 2026 it is then. https://t.co/EMLwGWb1yY

— Devolver Digital (@devolverdigital) November 6, 2025

Speaking more seriously, Christofer Sundberg, founder of Liquid Swords and former boss of Just Cause developer Avalanche, called the delay “a gravitational shift.” He continued: “When giants move, the ground shakes. That’s not competition. That’s opportunity.”

This is a comment about how publishers will be left scrambling to adjust their own release dates in the wake of GTA 6 moving from May to November. Some may be able to hit May or thereabouts now GTA 6 has moved out of that window. Others already locked into fall 2026 may now be set for crisis talks. Will next year’s Call of Duty be okay, for example? COD usually launches in November, so we're potentially set for a GTA 6 vs Call of Duty showdown in 2026. I know what my money's on.

But the delay may even impact games set to launch in 2027. John “Bucky” Buckley, Communications Director and Publishing Manager at Palworld developer Pocketpair, took to X / Twitter to say "expect to see many games (especially AAA ones) swerve to avoid the 2027 awards season," now GTA 6 is set for a November 19 launch, which puts Rockstar's game outside the nominaton window for most game awards in 2026. "Intentional or…?🤔" Bucky wondered.

Microsoft might be the publisher most heavily impacted by this GTA 6 delay.

Halo Remake, Gears E-Day, Fable, AND Call of Duty 2026 are all almost certainly scheduled for next Fall. Maaaaaybe Forza Horizon 6 too? Better ship 'em well before Nov. 19 now! https://t.co/UWp6h1aMO1

— Ryan McCaffrey (@DMC_Ryan) November 6, 2025

every other publisher right now https://t.co/MZcSrpEVxM pic.twitter.com/uYSNVQiGzG

— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) November 7, 2025

Looks like Batman needs to delay his trip to Miami. #LEGOBatmanGame pic.twitter.com/EAGQYXhgff

— LEGO® Batman™: Legacy of the Dark Knight (@LEGODCGame) November 6, 2025

And then there are the memes. So many memes! Too many, of course, to fit into a single article, but I would like to highlight a BBC Sport Live Report journalist who, while covering last night’s round of soccer matches, dropped in the news of the GTA 6 delay.

The BBC Sport Live commentator can’t believe they’ve delayed GTA 6😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/vMfwlglUcl

— The 44 ⚽️ (@The_Forty_Four) November 6, 2025

Even Guinness World Records took a shot.

Current record for the longest development period for a videogame? 14 years and 43 days.

Officially announced on 28 April 1997 by developer 3D Realms, the FPS 'Duke Nukem Forever' was finally released on 10 June 2011. https://t.co/8XBZGM3i98

— Guinness World Records (@GWR) November 6, 2025

There are now 376 days until GTA 6 comes out, with fans having to wait another half a year for what is expected to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time. What to do in the meantime? Play other games! And there are many to choose from. Hell, even GTA 5 is returning to PS Plus.

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.

It looks like Grand Theft Auto V will soon return to PlayStation Plus.

While the news hasn't yet been confirmed by Rockstar Games or Sony, Dealabs' billbil-kun once again has the scoop on what games are coming to the PlayStation Plus library, and reported that GTA 5 will pop up on November 18 for all PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers. (Unfortunately, no, those on the Essential tier will not be able to access it.)

This isn't the first time Rockstar's smash shooter has been given away as part of the PS Plus library, of course, but it does mark the first time in a year that GTA 5 will be playable for no extra cost as part of the PS Plus library.

Given GTA 5 has sold an eye-watering 220 million copies, so it's hard to imagine there are many gamers left who haven't tried it at some point, but if you've somehow avoided it until now, this could be a good time to find out what all the fuss is about. In news unlikely to surprise you, we thought GTA 5 was "preposterously enjoyable, breathtaking in scope, and bitingly funny." It returned a 10/10.

Don't forget, you have until December 1 to grab November's free monthly games: Stray, EA Sports WRC 24, and Totally Accurate Battle Simulator.

ICYMI, yes, Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed until November 19, 2026. This news was announced yesterday, November 6, by Rockstar as a part of parent company Take-Two's second-quarter earnings. In a release shared with IGN, Take-Two said the delay was about "giving the team some additional time to finish the game with the high level of polish players expect and deserve. Rockstar has our full support of course, and we are confident they will deliver an unrivalled blockbuster entertainment experience."

GTA 6 was originally announced for a fall 2025 release, which CEO Strauss Zelnick said he felt confident in, even amid speculation of a delay. The game was then delayed to May of 2026, with Rockstar citing a need for extra time "to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve." And now, of course, it's been delayed again. Find out why some people think the delay could be a good thing.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

If you've ever wanted to run your own zoo, then Raise Animals is the Roblox experience for you. Though you'll start with just a single animal, you can race along an obstacle course, taming new animals with your lasso to bring them back to your farm. Feed your animals, level them up, and unlock new mutations that will increase the value of your zoo, so visitors will pay more to see your collection. Want a head start? Here are all the codes that are currently active for Raise Animals.

Working Raise Animals Codes

These codes are currently active and can be redeemed in Raise Animals:

• Primordial - 2,500 Rubies (NEW)
• Jurassic - 5x Daily Spin Wheel (NEW)
• Ancient - 1x Dinosaur Egg (NEW)
• TRADING!!! - 2,500 Rubies, 5,000 Candy, 5 Daily Spin Wheel spins
• Sorry4Bugs - 1,000 Rubies, 1,000 Candy, 1,000 Coral
• 150MVisitsTysm - 1,000 Rubies
• HALLOWEEN2025! - 500 Rubies, 500 Candy
• FreeCorals - 1,000 Coral and 150 Rubies

How to Use Raise Animals Codes

When you're ready to redeem your Raise Animals codes, launch the Roblox experience. You'll then need to join the Raise Animals Studio group before you can redeem codes. Once you've done that, follow these steps to get your freebies:

1. Click the gear icon in the top right corner to open settings
2. Scroll down to "Redeem Code"
3. Copy the code from this article and paste it into the box
4. Click redeem!

Expired Raise Animals Codes

The following codes have now expired:

• HappyHalloween!
• 1MGroupMembers
• SorryForAllTheBugs
• Update1
• 50MVisitsTysm
• Ocean
• SryForTheGamepassIssue
• 10MVisitsTysms
• 10KActiveTysm
• Release!
• FREE RANDOM ANIMALS
• 5MVisitsTysm
• 1MVisitsTysm
• 5KActiveTysm
• 3KActiveTysm
• SorryForBugs

Why Isn't My Raise Animals Code Working?

Codes for Roblox experiences are usually case-sensitive, so the best way to ensure you've got a working code is to directly copy it from this article. We check all codes before we upload them, so you can guarantee they're working. Just double-check that you haven't copied over an extra space!

Lauren Harper is an Associate Guides Editor. She loves a variety of games but is especially fond of puzzles, horrors, and point-and-click adventures.

Netflix has released the first five minutes of Stranger Things Season 5, showing a crucial moment in the story that teases answers to one of the biggest questions fans had from Season 1.

The creators of Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers, had already teased that Season 5 would finally answer questions surrounding the kidnapping of Will Byers, played by Noah Schnapp. Stranger Things began with the mysterious disappearance of Will, and Season 5 will finally answer why he was taken to the Upside Down in the first place. In the latest Season 5 trailer, we see evil monster Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) in full control over Will’s body. “You are going to help me… one… last… time,” it says.

For years fans have theorized about why Will was kidnapped, rather than simply killed like so many others. What happened to him when he was in the Upside Down, and to what end?

Warning! Spoilers for the first five minutes of Stranger Things Season 5 follow:

The first five minutes of Stranger Things Season 5 starts to answer those questions. We see a de-aged Will terrified in the Upside Down and running for his life from the Demogorgon. While Will puts up a valiant fight, he is eventually dragged to the lair of Vecna himself. It’s here that things get strange, as Vecna summons vines to prop Will up. Vecna then pumps some sort of substance through a tendril and into Will via his mouth. Will does not look like he’s enjoying the experience.

Clearly, whatever is inserted into Will is designed to take him over in some capacity and potentially become a part of the Upside Down itself. It’s all part of Vecna’s master plan, of course. “At long last,” Vecna says, menacingly. “We can begin. You and I, we are going to do such beautiful things together, William. Such beautiful things.”

November 12, 1983. Watch the first 5 minutes of Stranger Things 5 now. pic.twitter.com/F8S9y6Y2dV

— Netflix (@netflix) November 7, 2025

If you’ve watched Stranger Things you’ll know that Will's mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Chief of Police Jim Hopper (David Harbour) eventually find Will and bring him back to our world, although he is much changed. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ross Duffer said that fans should go back to Season 2, Episode 6, called ‘The Spy,’ to help them understand what’s going on. This is, Ross said, “the most important episode,” and shows Will “working, in a way, for the Mind Flayer.”

In The Spy, Will is brought to Hawkins National Laboratory. At one point, a severed tendril from the tunnels is burnt, causing Will to experience pain. Will later points soldiers in the direction of a place the monster doesn’t want him to see, which turns out to be a trap. Will says "he made me do it" because "they upset him." Will, it seems, is the spy.

Season 5 begins in the fall of 1987, near the anniversary of Will’s disappearance in the Upside Down. “So much of the season was built around the idea of coming full circle, answering many of the questions that were posed all the way back in Season 1,” Matt Duffer told EW. “I think the two biggest questions that we didn’t really answer in Season 1 that we do answer this season is ‘what is the Upside Down, truly?’ and ‘why was Will taken?’”

“We reveal really everything about the Upside Down, all of which was planned out in season 1,” Matt added. “It was fun to finally pull back the curtain on all of that.”

Here’s the official blurb on Stranger Things Season 5:

The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they’ve faced before. To end this nightmare, they’ll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time.

Stranger Things Season 5 debuts on Netflix in three parts, with the first four episodes arriving for the Thanksgiving holiday on November 26. The next three episodes premiere on Christmas, and the series finale will debut on the streamer and in over 350 theaters nationwide on New Year’s Eve.

Stranger Things Season 5 release dates:

• VOL 1 - November 26, 5pm PT
• VOL 2 - Christmas, 5pm PT
• THE FINALE - New Year’s Eve, 5pm PT

Season 5 arrives over three years after the finale of Season 4. For more, check out the burning questions we still have from Stranger Things Season 4. Meanwhile, Millie Bobbie Brown and David Harbour have reunited for the Stranger Things Season 5 premiere, with Stranger Things and Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy addressing alleged bullying concerns.

Image credit: Netflix.

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.

The Pokémon Trading Card Game shows no signs of slowing down in 2025. Whether you're a competitive player, a casual collector, or someone who's just dropped way too much money on framed booster art, this year's TCG lineup is going all in with new mechanics, nostalgic reprints, and plenty of chances to chase that cardboard high.

Pokémon TCG: 2025 Release Calendar - At a Glance

• Prismatic Evolutions: Jan. 17, 2025 (Out Now)
• Journey Together: Mar. 28, 2025 (Out Now)
• Destined Rivals: May 30, 2025 (Out Now)
• Black Bolt / White Flare: Jul. 18, 2025 (Out Now)
• Mega Evolution: Sep. 26, 2025 (Out Now)
• Phantasmal Flames: Nov. 14, 2025 (Preorders Live)

Mega Evolution: Phantasmal Flames - Nov. 14, 2025

Amazon recently shadow-dropped preorders for the Booster Bundle for under market value at $59.99 (compared to resale prices at trusted sites such as TCGPlayer).

Featuring six booster bundles, there's every chance that you'll pull a Mega Charizard X ex double rare, alt rare, or even Secret Art Rare or Gold Rare. I've pulled three normal Zard ex's so far, so no need to worry about deck building with Phantasmal Flames.

They also had the Phantasmal Flames Elite Trainer Box live for a moment (at $79.99), but it looks sold out for now. It's been going in and out of stock all day, so I'd suggest keeping an eye on that too.

What makes this set even more exciting is its size , about 90 cards before secret rares, which makes it the smallest English set in nearly a decade. For collectors like me, that usually means a much more manageable chase, while still packing in plenty of heavy hitters for players.

The product lineup looks pretty stacked too. We’ll be getting the usual booster packs and booster box (36 packs), a 9-pack Elite Trainer Box featuring a shiny new Charcadet promo, and an Ultra-Premium Collection built around Mega Charizard X ex.

On top of that, two theme decks for Mega Gengar ex and Mega Diancie ex are arriving a few weeks early on October 24, which is a fun way to get a taste of the set before launch. If you’re like me and love cracking packs, the booster box is the way to go, but the UPC is already looking like the big collector piece this time around.

What ties it all together is the Japanese set Inferno X, which hit shelves there in late September. That set had only 80 cards, and once you add in the Mega Gengar and Mega Diancie decks, you basically get the full Phantasmal Flames lineup.

We’ve already seen some killer reveals, including the Mega Charizard X ex secret rare previewed at Worlds, so I’m fully expecting that to be the chase card when this launches. Between the smaller set size, Charizard hype, and some solid gameplay cards, I think this one’s going to fly off shelves and I’m definitely locking in my preorder.

The Pokémon Company started releasing annual holiday calendars back in 2022, inspired by the Pokémon Countdown Calendar from 2008.

These products are surprisingly good value in the current TCG market, as well as for casual fans of the series in other forms. You can see the listing here at Amazon or scroll on for more details.

The 2025 Pokémon Holiday Calendar released on August 22 and initially retailed for $49.99 at Target before quicklly selling out. It's now available at Walmart for a pricier $64.99 or at Amazon for $69.