You’d be nuts to march into March without a battle plan. You’re outnumbered, for starters. There’s an absolutely ridiculous amount of things to watch and practically no time in the month to see it all. So let’s get to maximising your blessed, precious free time with nothing but the greatest picks from a swathe of award-winning films, social calendar destroying TV series and original content gems.

Below are the litter picks from thousands of hours of content from Australia's six major streaming networks. Click your provider from the list below, grab some popcorn and kick back into some sweet, sweet escapism.

Table of Contents

• Foxtel/Binge
• Netflix
• Disney+
• Apple TV+
• Amazon Prime Video
• Stan

New in March on Foxtel and Binge

TV litter pick: The White Lotus S03 (continued) – 1 Mar :Dark secrets and twisted truths of the guests, the staff and the locale of a resort are unveiled over the course of a week that was supposed to be a relaxing vacation.

Movie litter pick: A Quiet Place: Day One – 15 Mar : Day One combines expertly done moments of terror and tension combined with a story about two people it’s easy to care for, as we watch them forge a relatable human connection while trying to evade freaky alien monsters with really strong hearing.

What notable movies are coming to Binge?

• Death Race: Beyond Anarchy – 1 Mar
• Wyatt Earp – 1 Mar
• Innerspace – 1 Mar
• Jarhead: Law Of Return – 1 Mar
• Sound Of Metal – 3 Mar
• Kelly’s Heroes – 3 Mar
• Mercury Rising – 3 Mar
• The Watchers – 4 Mar
• Touch – 6 Mar
• It Ends With Us – 6 Mar
• This Time Next Year – 15 Mar
• A Quiet Place: Day One – 15 Mar
• Venom: The Last Dance – 22 Mar

What notable series are coming to Binge?

• Call Me Kate – 1 Mar
• The White Lotus S03 – 1 Mar
• S.W.A.T. S08 – 2 Mar
• Walking Through History S01 – 3 Mar
• The Chelsea Detective – 3 Mar
• Eyes on the Prize Prize III – 3 Mar
• Curious Case of Natalia Grace – 3 Mar
• The Madame Blanc Mysteries – 3 Mar
• The Righteous Gemstones S04 – 10 Mar
• The Cleaning Lady – 26 Mar

Sign up for a free 14–day Binge trial

Back to top

New in March on Netflix

TV litter pick: Formula 1: Drive to Survive S07 – 7 Mar :Drivers, managers and team owners live life in the fast lane — both on and off the track — during each cutthroat season of Formula 1 racing.

Movie litter pick: Plankton: The Movie - 7 Mar : Sheldon J. Plankton is finally getting his close up. When Plankton’s latest evil scheme is thwarted, Bikini Bottom and the surface world become threatened by an unexpected danger. Now, before Plankton can take over the world, he’s going to have to save it.

What notable movies are coming to Netflix?

• A Man Called Otto – 2 Mar
• With Love, Meghan – 4 Mar
• The Watchers – 4 Mar
• Chaos: The Manson Murders – 7 Mar
• Plankton: The Movie - 7 Mar
• Delicious – 7 Mar
• American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden – 10 Mar
• The Electric State – 14 Mar
• Twister: Caught in the Storm – 19 Mar
• The Residence – 20 Mar
• Revelations – 21 Mar
• Chelsea Handler: The Feeling - 25 Mar
• The Life List – 28 Mar

What notable series are coming to Netflix?

• Halo S01 – 1 Mar
• Tyler Perry's Beauty in Black S01 Part 2 – 6 Mar
• Formula 1: Drive to Survive S07 – 7 Mar
• Love is Blind: Sweden S02 - 13 Mar
• Below Deck S08 – 15 Mar
• Survival of the Thickest S02 – 27 Mar

Secure your subscription to Netflix

Back to top

New in March on Disney+

TV litter pick: Daredevil: Born Again - Mar 5 :An all-new series sees Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), a blind lawyer with heightened abilities, fighting for justice through his bustling law firm, while former mob boss Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) pursues his own political endeavors in New York.

Movie litter pick: Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years - Mar 14 : Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years is the latest one-hour special from one of the greatest stand-up comedians working today. In what might be his most personal and introspective hour yet, Bill offers hilarious takes on everything from male sadness to dating advice.

What notable movies are coming to Disney+?

• Another You - Mar 7
• Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years - Mar 14
• Memes and Nightmares - Mar 15
• O’Dessa - Mar 20

What notable series are coming to Disney+?

• Daredevil: Born Again - Mar 5
• Bob's Burgers: S15 - Mar 5
• Deli Boys - Mar 6
• Good American Family - Mar 19
• David Blaine: Do Not Attempt - Mar 24

Sign up for Disney Plus

Back to top

New in March on Apple TV+

TV litter pick: Dope Thief - 14 Mar :Follows long-time friends and delinquents who pose as DEA agents to rob a house in the countryside, but end up unintentionally revealing and unraveling the biggest hidden narcotics corridor on the Eastern seaboard.

What notable series are coming to Apple TV+?

• Dope Thief - 14 Mar
• BE@RBRICK - 21 Mar
• The Studio - 26 Mar
• Side Quest - 26 Mar

Sign up for a free 7–day trial of Apple TV+

Back to top

New in March on Amazon Prime Video

TV litter pick: The Wheel of Time S03 - 13 Mar :The Wheel of Time, which first premiered on Prime Video in 2021, is based on Robert Jordan's fantasy book series that follows Rand al'Thor, a farm boy who learns he's The Dragon Reborn, destined to either destroy the world or save it.

Movie litter pick: Holland - 27 Mar : Nicole Kidman is the meticulous Nancy Vandergroot, a teacher and homemaker whose picture-perfect life with her community pillar husband (Matthew Macfadyen) and son (Jude Hill) in tulip-filled Holland, Michigan tumbles into a twisted tale.

What notable movies are coming to Prime Video?

• Picture This - 6 Mar
• It Ends With Us - 6 Mar
• F*** Marry Kill - 14 Mar
• Venom: The Last Dance - 22 Mar
• Holland - 27 Mar
• The Crow - 27 Mar

What notable series are coming to Prime Video?

• The Wheel of Time S03 - 13 Mar
• Knuckles S01 - TBA
• Bosch: Legacy S03 - 27 Mar
• The Divorce Insurance - 31 Mar

Sign up for a free 30–day Prime Video trial

Back to top

New in March on Stan

TV litter pick: Long Bright River: S01 - Mar 13 : A suspense thriller series that tells the story of Mickey (Amanda Seyfried), a police officer who patrols a Philadelphia neighborhood hard-hit by the opioid crisis.

Movie litter pick: Hereditary - Mar 7 : Our own Toni Collette gives a virtuoso performance in a terrifying horror drama that defies expectations.

What notable movies are coming to Stan?

• Hereditary - Mar 7
• Me Before You - Mar 8
• Meet Dave - Mar 9
• Only The Brave - Mar 14
• Beau Is Afraid - Mar 15
• Mississippi Burning - Mar 18
• Teen Wolf - Mar 20
• Tremors - Mar 21
• Overboard - Mar 27
• When Harry Met Sally - Mar 29
• Spider-Man: Homecoming - Mar 31

What notable series are coming to Stan?

• Thelma & Louise - Mar 1
• The Secret Garden - Mar 1
• Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue: S01 - Mar 2
• Power Book III: Raising Kanan: S04 - Mar 7
• Long Bright River: S01 - Mar 13
• Happy Valley: S03 - Mar 16
• Gangs of London: S03 - Mar 20
• The Good Doctor: S07 - Mar 31

Score your free 30–day trial of Stan

Back to top

Anime and sports have crossed paths more than once, and for good reason. Just in the past couple of years, sprinter Noah Lyles "Kamehameha-ed" after winning gold at the Paris Olympics, and tennis player Coco Gauff made headlines for watching My Hero Academia "to warm up" at the U.S. Open.

The fact is, anime is awesome, and part of what makes it so great is its motivational storylines. Few anime have made as much of an impact in that department as One Piece. Tonight, that anime is being featured by none other than the Los Angeles Lakers, headlined by Lebron James and Luka Doncic, in their NBA game against the L.A. Clippers.

Will the Straw Hat Pirates (and a pretty stacked team) bring the Lakers to victory? Predictions say… probably? Maybe? Either way, it's a solid game to watch.

If you’re wondering how to stream the Lakers vs. Clippers game online, check out the details below.

When Is the Lakers x One Piece Collaboration?

The Lakers x One Piece collaboration takes place during their game against the Clippers tonight, Friday, February 28, at 10pm EST/7pm CST. It’s a home game for the Los Angeles Lakers at the Crypto.com arena.

Where to Stream the Lakers vs. Clippers Game Online

The L.A. rivalry game is airing on ESPN, Sportsnet LA, and FDSSC. If you have those channels on cable, you’re good to go. Otherwise, there’s a couple of ways to stream the game live:

ESPN on fuboTV

DirecTV is another live TV streaming subscription that includes ESPN in a number of its plans, including its cheapest one, the Entertainment Package, which starts at $74.99/month. NBA League Pass Premium, which offers “continuous in-arena coverage during breaks,” is included in the Choice package and is also available as an Add-On for other plans. DirecTV also offers a free trial, though a slightly shorter one at only five days.

How Is One Piece Involved?

This isn’t the first time One Piece has collaborated with a major sports team, and it won’t be the last. The Straw Hat Pirates made their way to Fenway Park for a Boston Red Sox game in 2024, and they’ll be returning to Fenway Park in May of 2025.

Ahead of the game, Crunchyroll unveiled new visuals highlighting the Straw Hat Pirates in Lakers attire. Tonight’s game will feature a new animation of the one and only Monkey D. Luffy shooting hoops, and attendees will receive the Lakers x One Piece T-shirt. Prizes will be handed out at the game itself, where there will also be a “One Piece Bounty Rush” photo booth.

When Is the One Piece Anime Returning?

The Lakers x One Piece collaboration is taking place while the One Piece anime is on a break. While series creator Eiichiro Oda continues to produce new chapters for the manga on his regular schedule, the anime has been off air for almost four months. The wait should be over soon, though: New episodes of One Piece will begin airing again in April, with the Spring/Summer anime season.

French crime drama Bastion 36 – or Squad 36, depending on where you’re logging into Netflix from – starts with a bang, but goes out with an extended whimper. Directed and co-written by Olivier Marchal, it has the look and feel of a mid-2000s Hollywood thriller (down to the frigid color palette), but its clunky cop-corruption plot overwhelms any sense of fun.

Led by Victor Belmondo, Squad 36 kicks off with a propulsive vehicular chase scene in the pouring rain, as the elite police unit of the movie’s title pursues a dangerous crime boss, Karim Mahmoudi (Jean-Michel Correia). This sequence ends in a thrilling stalemate, with undercover officer Antoine Cerda (Belmondo) holding Mahmoudi at gunpoint, but being forced to let him go rather than engaging in a public shootout. As the two part ways, it feels like a promise of more intrigue down the line.

Unfortunately, this turns out not to be the case. Mahmoudi, though he technically factors into the plot, remains absent for much of Squad 36’s runtime, as Cerda follows up on numerous leads surrounding the deaths and disappearances of several of his comrades one year and an unceremonious transfer to a different unit later. The key issue with this transition isn’t so much that Squad 36 shifts focus to a different, mostly invisible antagonist working in the shadows and pulling the strings, but that the way it tells its story grinds any sense of momentum to a halt.

Cerda, who’s involved with his coworker Hanna (Juliette Dol), also has a penchant for getting beaten up during underground, bare-knuckle fights. It’s an intriguing wrinkle to the character, but apart from giving him a consistently scarred and puffy appearance, it adds little to his psychology. The inner lives of the characters seem of little concern in Squad 36, despite much of the plot unfolding in the form of Cerda asking people questions whose answers lead him to even more people to mildly interrogate.

There’s little sense of mystery to the unfolding police saga, other than ballistic evidence pointing towards a cop being involved in a number of recent shootings. Cerda is of a one-track mind in his mission to find out more – the dead and disappeared were his closest allies, after all – but there’s little to actually challenge his sense of self, or his righteous morality, until very late into Squad 36’s two hours and change.

In the meantime, a who’s who of wonderful French actors (like Yvan Attal and Soufiane Guerrab) waltz in and out of scenes to deliver news to Cerda, ask him for updates, or simply assure the audience that things are moving elsewhere, far away from the investigation – all but promising these disparate parts will eventually meet. The further Cerda tumbles down the rabbit hole of corruption, the more he discovers information about what might actually be going on, though none of it is ever presented with subversion or surprise. At the very least, Belmondo (the grandson of iconic French New Wave lead Jean-Paul Belmondo) moves through this plateauing plot with a sense of control and reserve, leaving any potential emotional explosions for more significant moments.

Without its superficial appearance – its cool tones, its slick handheld camera, and its editing that emphasizes information over emotion – Squad 36 wouldn’t move forward quite as neatly, given how flimsy it feels beneath the surface. Its resemblance to a thousand other cop procedurals is both its biggest strength and its ultimate undoing, since it leaves little room for delight or surprise. The one time it attempts to pivot (and to shock), the result is a climactic development that springs up out of the blue, introducing a completely unearned sense of cynicism. Then again, it’s hard to nail a thematic exclamation point when little else in the movie has much to say.

Best Buy is offering a great deal on a well equipped RTX 4070 gaming laptop. Right now the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 RTX 4070 gaming laptop is on sale for just $1,079.99 shipped after a $570 off instant discount. This is an outstanding price for a gaming laptop that, despite its slim dimensions, boasts excellent build quality and powerful gaming capabilities.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 RTX 4070 Gaming Laptop for $1,080

Of all the things one might expect from a brand new Gundam series, an opening episode dedicated to recreating and revising the events and aesthetics of 1979’s Mobile Suit Gundam isn’t necessarily one of them. Though perhaps it’s no surprise that a series led by a team that includes former Gainax collaborators Kazuya Tsurumaki, Yôji Enokido, and Hideaki Anno – a trio of names best known for shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL, and Revolutionary Girl Utena – would be so interested in rooting their own unique vision in the past of the mecha-anime franchise’s.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX – a mouthful that even its characters joke is confusing to pronounce, but boils down to “quacks” – kicks off by throwing us back to the very first episode of MSG, “Gundam Rising!!!,” with an intriguing, “what if?” twist: Instead of Amuro Ray becoming the Gundam’s pilot for the Earth Federation, Char Aznable from the Principality of Zeon steals the robot for himself, landing a victory via truce in the One Year War.

The first act of this theatrical release, which is edited together from footage we’ll eventually see after the full series premieres in April, is entirely designed for fans of Mobile Suite Gundam. Shots from that series are lovingly remade with a fresh coat of paint (à la the Evangelion rebuilds) and exact musical cues are reused and recontextualized. It’s fascinating to see how every part of the show that started it all is framed or sped up when Char is the protagonist instead of the antagonist. Char’s sheer drive and skill allowing him to sidestep all of Amuro’s insecurities and stumbles is particularly interesting.

Think of this first act like a speedrun of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, though one that undoubtedly requires a certain level of context to fully appreciate, down to an almost immediate introduction of Newtypes and seeing how one-off characters from MSG, like Challia Bull, become full-fledged protagonists themselves. Fortunately, gestures toward larger repercussions (particularly with Char) blessedly prevent the playful references from turning into a shallow easter egg hunt. The intro is ultimately a loose history lesson that preps the uninitiated viewer with just enough information about the One Year War to anticipate the new world that GQuuuuuuX seems to be diving into.

And what a world it is. The attempts at relative fidelity toward the classic UC79 designs are contrasted with colorful characterization and design work by take that recalls their work on Pokémon but also boasts personality and flourishes that point to the influence of Gainax classics like FLCL, Gurren Lagann, and DieBuster. Not once do these aesthetic shifts feel out of place, instead emphasizing the way life and culture has progressed in the years since the war ended (GQuuuuuuX takes place in UC85) and the fact that this is a world in which the Zeon have the luxury of enacting fascistic rule and continue to harm refugees.

Within this world are a trio of fresh faces: Nyaan, a refugee of the war who smuggles illegal goods to survive; Shuji Ito, a mysterious graffiti artist who also happens to pilot Char’s own Gundam, which disappeared half a decade prior; and Amate Yuzuriha (who goes by MACHU), a high schooler whose longing for more than what life has given her leads her to piloting the gundam GQuuuuuuX in Clan Battles. These battles are seemingly no more than illegal (but live streamed) street fights for quick cash, but they’re where GQuuuuuuX indulges in the spectacle it rightfully deserves. That many of Evangelion Rebuilds’ 3D-based animators are at work here is clear the second we see how these giant machines move and the way their fights are choreographed.

Even their mere slenderness and speed – as opposed to the beautifully clunky fights of the classic series – could be considered something of an Eva-ification of these bots. (It could be considered blasphemy, but I found it engrossing.) When it comes to the current era of Gundam (and Japan’s Reiwa era), it’s a stark contrast to the 2D animation and fight scenes of The Witch from Mercury. There’s a real fluidity to the way action unfolds, whether in or out of a gundam, and such fun being offered this early on makes me wonder what’s to come.

For all the intrigue and fun that Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX Beginning has to offer, it’s still ultimately just a teaser for a series and not anything that can stand on its own two, gigantic, heavily armored feet. If this first segment is any indication though, GQuuuuuux promises to be a series that’s as playful as it is intriguing, the ideal bridge between the past and the future of what Gundam can look like.

The Sony PSVR2 Headset is the best VR headset for PS5 owners, but it has always been an expensive purchase. Thankfully, Sony announced just yesterday that the company would be dropping the recommended retail price of the headset down to $399.99. This price cut brings it more in line with the Meta Quest 3 competitor, which is currently $499 for the Quest 3 and $299 for the Quest 3S.

If you're hoping to pick up the PlayStation VR2 headset for yourself at this new price, now you can! Retailers have already started adopting the price cut and you can purchase the PSVR2 Horizon Call of the Mountain Bundle for just $399.99 at Target. The bundle has already sold out at Amazon, so Target is your best option.

The Best PlayStation VR2 Deal Today

Welcome to Beyond! Game Club, a new segment for podcast Beyond! where each month we will be picking games to play as a group and talking about our experiences as we progress through them. The games will range from various classics to quintessential PlayStation games we consider must plays, and even revisiting some recent favorites to prepare for upcoming sequels (looking at you Ghost of Tsushima and Yotei)! However, for March we decided it would be a great time to revisit one of our favorite superhero games of all time: Batman: Arkham Asylum.

It's been at least 10 years since many of us dove into 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum and now feels like the perfect time to revisit the game that almost singlehandedly revitalized the superhero genre. Whether it was the excellent freeform combat of snapping back and forth between enemies with precision, to unleashing devastating kicks or takedowns, or the way it trained our detective skills to solve the numerous riddles by the Riddler – Arkham Asylum gave us the best depiction (for its time) of Batman and what it would be like to wear the cowl.

The Beyond! team is eager to dive back into this amazing game, and over the month of March we will be talking about it weekly on each episode of the podcast as well as updating this column with our thoughts and hope that you will all do the same in the comments below.

You Must Take Part in Revolution made IGN's list of the most anticipated graphic novels of 2025, and for good reason. It's ideal reading material in a very politically tumultuous year, exploring the lengths three friends will go in their efforts to resist a techno-fascist dictatorship.

With You Must Take Part in Revolution releasing in March, IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of this timely graphic novel. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

You Must Take Part in Revolution is written by Melissa Chan, an Emmy-nominated foreign correspondent based in Los Angeles and Berlin. The book is illustrated by activist artist Badiucao, who is often referred to as "China's Banksy." Both creators are making their comic book debut with You Must Take Part in Revolution.

Here's the official description for the book:

From Emmy-nominated journalist Melissa Chan and esteemed activist artist Badiucao comes a near-future dystopian graphic novel about technology, authoritarian government, and the lengths that one will go to in the fight for freedom.

It's 2035. The US and China are at war. America is a proto-fascist state. Taiwan is divided into two. As conflict escalates between nuclear powers, three idealistic youths who first met in Hong Kong develop diverging beliefs about how best to navigate this techno-authoritarian landscape. Andy, Maggie, and Olivia travel different paths toward transformative change, each confronting to what extent they will fight for freedom, and who they will become in doing so.

A powerful and important book about global totalitarian futures, and the costs of resistance.

You Must Take Part in Revolution will be released on March 4, 2025. You can preorder a copy on Amazon.

For more on what's coming up in the comic book world, check out a new preview of Batman: Hush 2 and learn how Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell pays homage to The Dark Knight Returns.

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

Dragonite and the Special Delivery is free to watch on YouTube.

Dragonite and the Special Delivery feels truer to the initial spirit of Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri's vision than just about all of the franchise's recent output combined. The short, released as part of this year's Pokémon Day festivities, commemorates the unassuming whimsy, joy, and earnestness of Tajiri’s creation – and looks incredible while doing so.

The plot is predictably slight for a 14-minute animated short, but no less fun because of it: Hana, whose childhood encounter with a Dragonite mail carrier inspired her to join the postal service, struggles to keep up with the steady bustle of her chosen field. After receiving a mysterious envelope, she finds herself on an urgent errand with youngster Rio, who wants to send a birthday present to his father but is worried it won't reach him. It's all very light, fluffy stuff, perfect for a low-commitment romp through familiar (to us) locales. Even better, its stunning visuals lend it an almost otherworldly sheen, an ethereal glow that instantly makes this world and its characters even more enchanting.

Pokémon comes by its appetite for wonder honestly, rooting it in Tajiri’s childhood bug-collecting hobby. Dragonite and the Special Delivery reclaims some of the spark and magic the franchise has lost through years of frantic output and repetitive storytelling – not by adhering to Pokémon’s “Gotta catch ‘em all!” conceit, but by spotlighting other manifestations of passion in its mythos. Hana’s drive to use the mail to connect people is as obsessive and singular as Ash Ketchum’s ever was, and everything from the opening shot of young Hana opening an envelope to her breathless quest to deliver Rio’s present illustrates her devotion.

We don't learn much about Hana beyond her aspirations, but that's really all we need to know . This feels strange to write, but it's true: Dragonite and the Special Delivery isn't trying to tell a story as much as it's attempting to honor a franchise, which means I can’t fault it for coming up short narratively. However, it does seem to be shooting for emotional resonance it doesn’t fully achieve. Hana’s story isn’t hollow. It just won’t linger. Instead, the special focuses heavily on its visual appeal (and with animation from Your Name studio CoMix Wave, why wouldn’t it?), treating us to welcome yet unexpected appearances of certain Legendary Pokémon and using its casual splendor to counter the monotony of delivering the mail.

Its most stirring scene – Dragonite, carrying Hana and Rio, zipping across the ocean, the music swelling around them – is Pokemon at its purest. It’s in this simple, beautiful moment that the franchise regains its clarity.

In Mickey 17, Parasite writer-director Bong Joon-Ho travels to the future – and outer space – to tell the story of Robert Pattinson’s title character… or rather, to tell the story of Robert Pattinson’s at least 17 title characters. Because, see, Mickey is a clone.

In the new sci-fi movie, which is based on the 2022 novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton and also stars Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo, Pattinson’s Mickey takes a job on a colony spaceship as an “expendable” worker. Basically, he’s onboard to do, as Harry Callahan once said, every dirty job in the book. Even if it kills him. Which it often does. Take, for example, what happens to Mickey in the exclusive clip from Mickey 17 that we just debuted at IGN Fan Fest:

So a deadly alien virus takes you out, what’re ya gonna do? Just print out a new Mickey, it’ll be fine!

That’s certainly the trick to much of Bong Joon-Ho’s work, which often straddles a line between sci-fi, satire, and social commentary: He somehow finds the humor in the tragic, and the tragedy in the humor too at times. I spoke to him recently about Mickey 17, how important it is to him to straddle that line between the funny and the messed-up, and more.

“There is a lot of humor in this film,” says Bong (through a translator), “but it doesn't roll with the singular goal of making the audience laugh as many times as they can. I think humor really strengthens sadness, and especially with those bitter laughs, you get a huge mixture of different emotions.”

It’s certainly a hoot seeing a not-quite-dead-yet Robert Pattinson being tossed to his molten grave even as he says “thank you” to the guys who are throwing him in, but as Bong’s films like Parasite, Snowpiercer and The Host have shown us, there’s more going on here than just goopy, sci-fi fun.

“When you're exploring social-political themes, instead of just going super hard on a serious tone, if you use humor to deliver that story, it leaves the audience with a longer-lasting impression,” the filmmaker continues. “Because the audience, they can laugh out loud at something, but then afterwards they're like, ‘Was that worth actually laughing about?’ You kind of feel guilty. You start ruminating on what it was that you were actually laughing at, and you slowly discover what was in that humor and what meanings it was trying to deliver.”

Obviously there’s a long tradition of using science fiction storytelling to talk about real-world issues and current events, masking hot topics beneath the guise of mutant monsters, alien cultures, and maybe even poor bastards who sign up to be expendable clones.

Solving puzzles may happen in your daily life from various word puzzle games like Wordle, or through strategy-based games and puzzle books, but piecing together a physical puzzle is a great way to focus your brain, relax and unwind. As a hobby for all ages, there are hundreds of jigsaw puzzles to choose from these days. However, as avid puzzlers ourselves, we put together a list focuses on what we've found as the most challenging yet rewarding puzzles with adults in mind, and even included some 3D gems in the mix.

TLDR: These are the Best Puzzles for Adults

What’s even better is they come in a variety of different styles and designs once put together. Whether you want the finished product to reflect your favorite franchise, game, artwork, or a piece of beautiful scenery, there are puzzles for everyone to enjoy. The below list includes a nice range of sizes as well, from 1,000 pieces to a whopping 3,000 pieces, so you’ll still have quite the challenge when putting them together.

The Legend of Zelda Hyrule Map Jigsaw Puzzle

How to Choose a Jigsaw Puzzle

As an adult, choosing the right puzzle for you requires a bit more thought than it did as a kid. There's more to it than just finding a picture you like and making a purchase. If you're new to the puzzle game, here are some key things to consider before you buy:

How Many Pieces?

The difficulty of a puzzle can almost always be directly attributed to how many pieces there are. For most adults a 100-piece puzzle will likely be too easy, but a 1000-piece puzzle might cause you to get frustrated and lose interest. Because of this, you need to consider how much time you're willing to dedicate before you choose a piece count. If you want something you can finish in a single afternoon, a 500-piece puzzle is likely enough of a challenge.

How Big Is It?

Another thing to consider when purchasing a jigsaw puzzle is how big it is once its completed. If you purchase a massive 2000-piece puzzle that won't fit on your table, you may have trouble ever finishing it. Make sure you have enough room available that you'll be able to slowly piece your puzzle together over multiple days. You can also buy yourself a good puzzle table or board if you need extra space.

Do You Plan on Displaying It?

Perhaps the most important factor in your puzzle purchase is what you plan on doing with your puzzle once you're done. If you are looking for something that's just fun to put together, you will want to focus more on the number of pieces and how the colors fit together in the image. However, if you're looking for something to display when you're done, you'll want something that looks more like a work of art. You'll also likely need to purchase puzzle glue and a frame, depending on what type of puzzle it is.

Need a better table for puzzling? Check out our picks for the best board game tables and board game storage that work great for all of your puzzles as well.

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

IGN Live, a one-of-a-kind in-person fan event dedicated to the biggest names in games and entertainment, is returning to Los Angeles this June.

In its second year, IGN Live will welcome audiences of all ages to the MAGIC BOX @ THE REEF in downtown LA for a multi-day celebration of everything fans love in games, movies, TV, comics, collectibles, and more.

We’ll have an epic live stage show featuring new trailers, gameplay, advance clips, major interviews, and a live DJ making IGN Live a wall-to-wall party you won't forget. Ticket holders can expect exclusive reveals, celebrity panels, game demos, photo ops, exclusive merch, gaming stations, screenings, lounges, live episodes of IGN shows, food trucks, gaming tournaments and tons of prizes and giveaways.

And for those who can’t make it to Los Angeles this June, don’t fret. We’ll be streaming IGN Live all IGN Entertainment around the globe so viewers at home don’t miss a moment.

In 2024, IGN Live featured huge guests like Xbox’s Phil Spencer, the cast of The Legend of Vox Machina, the cast of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Casper Van Dien, plus more than 10,000 giveaways and over 100 gaming stations for the thousands in attendance. Additionally, millions watched around the globe as new games, previews of upcoming series, and sneak peeks of major movies from more than 100 studio partners were revealed.

This year aims to be even bigger with up-close looks at the most exciting new titles across entertainment and video games.

For more information, head to IGN.com/live and sign up for news about dates, ticket sales, and more.

And be sure to stay tuned to IGN for more details about what games, movies, shows, celebrities, and special guests you can expect at IGN Live 2025.

McFarlane Toys, the company founded by comic book creator Todd McFarlane, is ready to play havoc with your financial planning once again. As well as turning up to IGN Fan Fest for an exclusive unboxing of the new limited edition Spawn: Black, White & Red All Over statue, it also gave IGN a look at its new upcoming lines Mortal Kombat Klassic and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

"We love the more modern games like MK1 that came out just this past year and Mortal Kombat 11 which we made many figures from including Spawn, but we've seen the more nostalgic games resonate with collector fans way more," says Brian Walters, Director, Brand Creative at McFarlane Toys.

"We didn't think those character designs had ever been given the proper justice in 22 points of articulation, 3D sculpting, all the production advances that have occurred over the last 30 years that collector and action figures have been made. So we wanted to go back and start from the beginning and go from there."

The Mortal Kombat Klassic line will be released as single figures and deluxe two packs starting this summer, and Walters says the company hopes to launch four to 12 figures a year.

If your tastes lean more towards the amphibious, there are the 5 inch scale Page Puncher Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures based on the IDW comic book line. Every 5 inch scale figure comes with an IDW TMNT book with that character as its cover star.

"You're going to have the source material right there," says Walter.

"Ultra-articulated on par with what we've done with DC and Mortal Kombat. There's going to be great posability and we've really honed in on the IDW look which has been established by so many great artists."

Todd McFarlane is best known as Spawn's daddy, and the special boy isn't getting left out of the Fan Fest celebrations. Not only did we get an unboxing of the Spawn: Black, White & Red All Over resin statue which was inspired by Spawn Issue #1.

The Spawn: Black, White & Red All Over statue has been produced in a limited edition run of just 930, but MacFarlane Toys has agreed to give IGN Fan Fest viewers the chance to win one, signed by Todd McFarlane himself. Head over to IGN Rewards now for your chance to win.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY to enter the Win a Spawn #1 Statue Signed by Todd McFarlane Giveaway. Open to legal U.S. residents in the 50 U.S. & D.C., 18+ yrs of age. Other restrictions apply. Begins 2/28/25 at 12:00pm PST and ends 3/28/25 at 12:00pm PST. Void where prohibited. Subject to Official Rules: https://www.ign.com/rewards/win-a-spawn-1-statue-signed-by-todd-mcfarlane. Sponsor: IGN Entertainment, Inc.

The LG UltraGear 27GX790A-B gaming monitor was released at the tail end of 2024. This was LG's first ever OLED monitor with an incredible 480Hz refresh rate. It launched at a starting price of $999.99, which hadn't been discounted at all - until now. For a few days only, the LG online store is offering a 25% off coupon code "MONITOR25" that drops the price by to $749.99 shipped. This is one of the best 27" QHD gaming monitors you can get right now, especially if you're aiming for the highest frame rates possible in your FPS games.

$250 Off 27" LG UltraGear 480Hz OLED Gaming Monitor

IDW has been nothing if not ambitious in its approach to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise lately. In 2024 alone, they relaunched the flagship TMNT comic under writer Jason Aaron, kicked off the sequel to the best-selling TMNT: The Last Ronin, and embarked on a ninja-heavy crossover in the form of TMNT x Naruto. Now in 2025, the main TMNT series has a new regular artist and a new status quo. The four Turtles are finally back together, but they’re not exactly on friendly terms these days.

As part of IGN Fan Fest 2025, we had a chance to speak with both Aaron and TMNT x Naruto writer Caleb Goellner to find out what’s next for their respective books. How do these stories grow with time? What’s the mission statement for the TMNT line? And will Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo ever learn to get along again? Here’s what we learned.

The Mission Statement of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Again, IDW has launched a lot of new TMNT series in a short span of time, including their flagship monthly series. The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 was certainly a hit, selling around 300,000 copies and ranking among the top-selling comics of 2024. We were curious if IDW had a guiding vision or mission statement for the TMNT line that Aaron was seeking to execute. As he explains, it’s all about getting back in touch with the classic Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird TMNT comics from the Mirage days.

“For me, on this book, the guiding principle was just looking back at that original series, the original Mirage Studios book,” Aaron tells IGN. “Last year was the 40th anniversary of that series, kicking off and introducing the Turtles, and that was my expert first experience with those characters. Before the films or the cartoons or anything, it was that original black and white Mirage Studios book. So I wanted to try to recapture some of the grittiness and griminess and the big double-page spreads and action scenes of grimy turtles fighting ninjas in New York City alleyways.”

Aaron continues, “That's kind of the spirit we were going for, but also to tell a story that felt new and felt like it was taking these characters forward after all the stuff they'd been through in the previous 150 issues of the IDW series, to see how they've kind of grown up a little bit and reached a turning point in their lives where they're going in four different directions and trying to figure out how do they come back together and be the heroes they used to be that they need to be to win this fight.”

As mentioned, TMNT #1 was among the best-selling comics of last year, alongside other major successes like Marvel’s Ultimate Universe line, DC’s Absolute line, and Skybound’s Energon Universe. There seems to be a common thread there, with audiences responding very strongly to comics that seek to reboot and/or streamline major franchises. Is there a pent-up demand for books that offer easy jumping-on points for these big properties?

“It certainly seems like it after last year, and I'm very happy to have been a part of a couple of those, even though I've been doing this for 20 years and I've written, wrote a whole bunch of stuff for Marvel in the last few years, I've written for what feels like every company in comics. I still don't really even think about that stuff,” Aaron says. “I sit down to do my job here at my desk, in an empty basement by myself, and I'm just trying to make up stories that get me excited. And I knew as soon as I got the call about doing Turtles, which was not really a job I'd ever imagined would come my way when I got that call, I was excited for that opportunity and realized I think I can do something kind of cool.”

Aaron continues, “And then got to work with an incredible, ridiculous cavalcade of artists over the course of those first six issues. So I just knew we were doing a book that made me really, really excited. As someone who grew up a Turtles fan and as someone who just loves good comic book stories, I think this is a story for you if you've loved The Turtles for 40 years, if you've never heard of them until this moment in time. And so, thankfully, that excitement seems to have translated to other people.”

A TMNT Family Reunion

Aaron’s TMNT run started off with a very unusual status quo. As issue #1 opens, the four Turtles are scattered to the four corners of the globe. Raph is in prison. Mike is a TV star in Japan. Leo is a brooding monk. And Don? Let’s just say he’s the worst off of the bunch. Only by the end of that first storyline does Aaron bring the family back together in their old stomping grounds in New York City. We were curious if Aaron feels a certain sense of satisfaction in bringing the brothers back together (even if it’s clear most of them would rather be anywhere else).

“Those first four issues were really fun to write when you're seeing each of the brothers kind of in a different situation around the globe,” Aaron says. “I had a lot of fun with those - what kind of trouble they had gotten into and then what starts to bring them back together. But the real fun is what happens once they are all together, seeing how those four characters bounce off each other. At this point in time in the book, things aren't great. They’re not really happy to see each other, and they're not reliving old times. They're very much rubbing each other the wrong way.”

Aaron adds, “None of them really want to be there, the pieces don't fit together anymore like they used to. And then in issue #6, when they finally make their way back to New York City, we see that the city has changed as well. The entire city of New York City has been weaponized against them by this new villain who's a part of the Foot Clan. So the Turtles find themselves the most hated entities in the Five Boroughs, the Six Boroughs, I guess, including Mutant Town. So the odds are stacked against them in a huge way, and again, they can't even stand to be around each, it seems like. So how are they going to come together and win this fight?”

Apart from the Turtles being back together, the biggest change beginning with issue #6 is the fact that Juan Ferreyra has become the new regular artist on the series. Aaron makes it clear he’s thrilled to be working with Ferreyra and to have a more consistent visual style going forward.

“Again, it made sense to use different artists for those first five issues because we focused on the different Turtles, and then issue #5 focused on our new bad guy who's the District Attorney of New York City,” Aaron says. “But having Juan come on with issue #6 made sense when the main bulk of the plot picks up. And Juan, even though he was following this group of titans on this book, artistic Titans, he's doing incredible work. I think anybody who sees issues #6 and #7 realized this guy was born to draw the Turtles. He was born to draw this kind of Turtle story again, jumping through alleyways, running across the rooftops of Manhattan. Juan's work on this has been absolutely killer. So I think even though he's following all those legends, he's really making this book his own, I think, in a huge way.”

Merging the TMNT and Naruto Universes

It’s no easy challenge combining two franchises as iconic as TMNT and Naruto, but that’s what Goellner and artist Hendry Prasetya have managed with their crossover series. The first two issues of TMNT x Naruto introduce a universe where the Turtles and the Uzumaki Clan coexist in the same world, though they’re only just now encountering one another for the first time. Goellner gives Prasetya all the credit for redesigning the Turtles and making them feel like a cohesive part of the Naruto universe.

“I couldn't be happier,” Goellner tells IGN. “I only had a few basic little suggestions about how to do that. I can't take any credit for the Turtles’ awesome redesigns. I was like, ‘I don't know, put them in masks in the first issue, like in Naruto,’ and what they came back with was, it's unreal. I hope they get made into toys. I don't have any say. I don't have any insight, but that's my wish, just so I can put them up on my shelf with my collection.”

As with so many comic book crossovers, half the fun of TMNT x Naruto is seeing the various personalities clash and the interactions between the gathered heroes. We were curious if Goellner had any favorite character pairings in these first few chapters of the series.

“The job for me is sort of to make sure all of the characters have a moment together through the course of the book, because you don't want to leave anybody hanging,” Goellner says. “I really like seeing Kakashi with anyone because now that I'm a dad, Kakashi is my viewpoint character to the Naruto world. I'm like, ‘How do you manage all these kids?’ Splinter, you know, I'm not as wise and strong and as good at fighting as Splinter, so I love him, too, but Kakashi is doing a lot of internal face-palming, but he's staying profesh and he's keeping the trains moving for the youth. I'm going to cheat and just say all of them.”

Goellner adds, “I mean, it's funny. I write this stuff and I just kind of forget what I even did. You are trying to do a good job, and all of it's a surprise. It comes back. I'm like, ‘I wrote that? That's pretty good. That's pretty funny.’ Mikey's being funny with the group. I really like the heavies. I like Raph and Sakura. I like the way they bounce off each other, both kind of like the tanks of the teams, but I'm super excited to keep going. I think there'll be some even more cool surprises once the fighting with the adversary of the story heats up in #3.”

Finally, Goellner teased what fans can expect from the series as the two ninja clans make their way into Big Apple Village. It all centers around a major TMNT villain who was specifically requested by Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto.

“He had one request for this crossover. It was to have a certain villain appear and for the Naruto characters to fight that certain villain,” Goellner says. “I'm not going to say who, but I think everybody's going to be pretty stoked. I know I am, and I can't wait to see how folks react because so far the vibe on the book's super positive, and I really appreciate everybody coming on this journey.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #7 just hit stores on February 26, while Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto #3 releases on March 26. Also, be sure to check out IGN’s exclusive preview of the final chapter of TMNT: The Last Ronin II - Re-Evolution.

Also as part of IGN Fan Fest 2025, we got an early look at IDW's new Godzilla shared universe and a sneak peak of an upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog storyline.

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

IDW may have just recently relaunched its flagship Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic, but there's also a big finale looming on the horizon. This April, IDW will publish the fifth and final chapter of TMNT: The Last Ronin II - Re-Evolution, as a new generation of Turtles make their final stand in a dystopian future version of New York.

As part of IGN Fan Fest 2025, we can exclusively debut a new preview of The Last Ronin II #5. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

TMNT: The Last Ronin II - Re-Evolution #5 is written by Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz, with art by Ben Bishop, Isaac Escorza, and Esau Escorza.

Here's IDW's official description of issue #5:

The second installment in the legendary Last Ronin saga comes to its fiery and climactic conclusion! The streets of New York have erupted in an all-out war and no one is safe. Casey, April, Odyn, Yi, Moja, and Uno are all in the crosshairs. Will everyone make it out alive? Their fate is in the hands of legendary writers Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz as curtains close on this chapter of The Last Ronin!

"One of the things that we did want to do was really update the characters. There's two male, two female Turtle characters, and me and Tom trying to write what teenagers might think and say and do," Eastman told IGN in 2024. "There's a nice cross section of different personalities, much like the original Turtles. You want to have them always love their family, but not always like them. And so they might argue. They might spat. They might have disagreements, but when they need to work together as a team, it's the heart and soul of the family that always keeps them together. And that's always going to be the foundation of anything we do with Turtles."

TMNT: The Last Ronin II - Re-Evolution #5 will be released on April 30. You can also preorder The Last Ronin II hardcover collection on Amazon.

In other TMNT news, check out our exclusive interview with TMNT writer Jason Aaron and TMNT x Naruto writer Caleb Goellner.

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

For years and years, the Dragon Ball fandom has been mainlining hype – for whatever power up, fusion, super-fusion, or sick moves that will take down the baddie of the moment. So if the wildly destructive battles between stupidly powerful beings have always been the indisputable best parts of Dragon Ball, then the franchise’s latest TV series does itself a disservice by stuffing its blowout fight into the back end of its run. Don’t get me wrong: The third act of Dragon Ball Daima delivers – Goku achieving Super Saiyan 4 being the highlight, obviously – but the pace of the action zooms forward so exponentially from its kickoff to the final blows that any feelings about the relatively ordinary first two-thirds of the episodes are instantly overwritten.

That’s not to say that the front chunk of Daima is bad. For one thing, Dragon Ball has probably never looked better, even with the majority of the cast chibi-fied. The animation is crisp, wisely using techniques like 3D modeling to naturally enhance spaceships and other orbs that add a fun Y3K sci-fi twist. It brings gorgeous color to its alien world that seems inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha. But it also treats this new dimension as a stage set to tear down once an area is all clear. The three Demon Realms themselves, each full of otherworldly ecology, are fascinating, and I could have happily watched several Scavengers Reign-style montages about the strange plants, creatures, food, bugs, even air that made each distinct.

But the fights, the fights! Of course they’re great; they’ve been Dragon Ball’s bread and butter for basically 40 years. Even though the first real tete-a-tete doesn’t happen until episode 8, the confident direction keeps the action in every bout crystal clear – which, shockingly, is a huge compliment in 2025 when one too many series abandon intelligible fisticuffs for a muddled VFX mess. The last few episodes especially, with Goku at full adult strength in Super Saiyan 4 form, are a dazzling spectacle, some of Dragon Ball’s coolest battle choreography and glowiest beams of energy from opening to closing credits.

A new batch of characters also brings some fresh life into a huge but largely stagnant cast whose personalities, for better or worse, are set in stone. Vegeta always has been and will be a surly wife guy and Goku a food-and-fighting-obsessed maniac. Daima still reliably wrings humor out of these kinds of truths, largely through the perspectives of new core crew members Glorio and Panzy, who both expand the scope of the adventure with their own Demon Realm connections and motivations. Daima gives every character their own brief moment of glory, but some are practically cameos within the limited screen time of a 20-episode season. (For comparison: Six of Dragon Ball Z's nine seasons ran for more than 30 episodes.)

The main big bad, the Demon King Gomah, meanwhile, is baffling to me. Many times throughout Daima, different characters warn that he’s “not to be underestimated.” But there was never any evidence that he was anything other than a twerpy screen addict, obsessed with studying the tapes of the Majin Buu fight and watching Goku and company go after the three Demon Realm Dragon Balls, until he just happens to get his hands on a legendary item that turns him into a ’roided-out, seemingly indestructible giant who can be bested by Nintendo-boss logic. Of all the Dragon Ball evil guys, Gomah ranks toward the bottom for me.

Even after the finale, there’s a lot that Daima failed to follow through on: the seeds of foreshadowing that didn’t really germinate, and the glossed-over plot points. (Take, for example, the odd employee-employer-savior relationship of Glorio and Supreme Kai’s sister Arinsu that is little show and mostly tell.) I found that, for my own joy, it was better not to focus on this while I was watching, and instead got swept up in the hype of the next Kamehameha, the tides of battle, the journey to the end. Dragon Ball Daima is like a fireworks show: The tedium of sitting around beforehand and the small morsels of flashiness at the beginning are mostly forgotten and forgiven by the time spent staring at the biggest sparkles in the sky.

Here are the best deals for Friday, February 28. Highlights include a 75" TV for $400, 25% off the fastest ever OLED gaming monitor, a 2-pack of Anker wall chargers for $15, the lowest price we've seen for a four pack of Apple AirTags, a new Harry Potter Illustrated Edition book up for preorder, $300 off the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL smartphone, and more.

Check out "the best deals under $30" for any impulse buys on items that you never knew you needed until you visited this page. Read on lower for some great deals that cost over $30 and may require a bit more involved decision-making.

Preorder Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Interactive Illustrated Edition on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Universal Studios Hollywood is cooking up a new experience for theme park enthusiasts called Fan Fest Nights where guests will be able to enjoy immersive experiences from Star Trek, Back to the Future, Dungeons & Dragons, One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Harry Potter, Nintendo, and so much more.

Universal Fan Fest Nights will take place from April 25 - May 18 and, as part of IGN Fan Fest, we had the chance to chat with Stephen Siercks, the Senior Director of Entertainment at Universal Studios Hollywood, all about what fans can expect from this brand-new, one-of-a-kind event you won’t want to miss.

-

IGN: So, Stephen, first off, I want to welcome you to IGN Fan Fest. Obviously, it has no relation to Universal Studios Hollywood's Fan Fest Nights. I really want to talk about what Fan Fest Nights is. I believe someone once said that it’s as if San Diego Comic-Con gave birth to a baby with Halloween Horror Nights.

Stephen Siercks: Exactly. We're really excited to be bringing the fandoms of sci-fi, gaming, anime, and fantasy to Universal Studios Hollywood this spring for Fan Fest Nights. And that's really what this is. It’s bringing all of those fandoms and genres to life just like we do with Halloween Horror Nights, and we’re excited to continue that storied legacy of dropping our guests into these environments, letting them explore it, and further tell the stories of each of these different brands.

What sparked the idea to bring in these other properties for fans to enjoy in the evening? Was it as simple as let’s take what we’re doing with Halloween Horror Nights and see if we can adapt it to some of our other properties?

Siercks: That's exactly it. We wanted to build from the legacy that has been built around Halloween Horror Nights for the last several decades and be able to bring that to these other fandoms. Our fans were asking for more and we certainly wanted to deliver more in terms of these immersive in-world experiences and the celebrations that go around them.

And you’ve got quite an impressive list of brands and IP, including Star Trek, Back to the Future, Dungeons & Dragons, One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Harry Potter, and Nintendo. So, I’d love it if you could walk us through what we can expect from each one of those properties, starting with Star Trek.

Siercks: Sure. We’re going to have Star Trek Red Alert, which is a story-based walkthrough attraction where guests are invited to board the Enterprise D and take an exclusive tour of the ship. However, in typical fashion, something goes horribly wrong and you're immediately thrust into the action. During your journey through the Enterprise D, you’ll get to visit iconic environments like the sickbay, the engineering room, turbo lifts, and, of course, the bridge.

Oh, and it’s not just any bridge of the Enterprise D, it's an actual screen-used version that was first built for Picard. Through a great partnership with Paramount, we’re able to make something that is truly authentic.

That's one of the things that I love about what you all do, you have access to these incredible items that you can bring into the theme park for fans to actually experience. With that being said, I'm guessing there’s going to be DeLorean there with the Back to the Future experience?

Siercks: Oh, yes, for sure. And to talk about something that is so uniquely Universal, we’re going to be able to bring our guests to Courthouse Square. Guests will get off the tram tour and experience the sets where the magic happened 40 years ago for the original filming of Back to the Future. We're bringing it back to life through light set dressing, characters, and photo opportunities. And yes, the time machine will be there.

What about Enchantment of the Sea?

Siercks: We couldn't do Back to the Future without doing a recreation of the Enchantment Under the Sea prom. It will be as though the prom spilled out into Courthouse Square, and we'll have a band onstage and Marty will actually get up there every once in a while and rock out on guitar for our guests.

Are we going to see anyone go back to the future in the time machine?

Siercks: Oh, oh, yes.

Are we going to see that be recreated?

Siercks: We’re doing an environmental recreation of the epic finale. So, everything from the lightning strike all the way to when the time machine goes back to the future for the last time will be celebrated several times throughout the night down at Courthouse Square.

So, should I dress the part though? Should I find my grandparents' old, 1950s suits and whatnot?

Siercks: Yes, yes. So, cosplay is a huge part of Fan Fest Nights. And we’re really encouraging our guests to come dressed up and celebrate alongside each other. We know that those who have an affinity for these genres have such a strong community around them, so, we’re also creating space for us to celebrate the fans throughout Fan Fest Nights too.

To do that, we’ll have a block party festival at our Universal Plaza where we'll have cosplay, celebrations, trivia contests, fan meetups, and more.

Now, let's talk about some fantasy. I want to know about Dungeons & Dragons.

Siercks: Dungeons and Dragons: Secrets of Waterdeep. This one is very exciting. Similar to Star Trek, it's a story-based attraction that will send groups of people on a traditional quest. So, for a casual D&D fan, something has been stolen and we're there to help find it. For those who are a bit deeper into the Dungeons & Dragons lore, you're going to find iconic characters, environments, and some of the setups that will really make you appreciate the experience that much more.

We're members of the Waterdeep clan and Xanathar the Beholder, one of the big bads of D&D, has stolen a Dragonstaff and we're being recruited to help find it. Along the way, we encounter dragons, we get to solve a puzzle, and ultimately, we get face-to-face with Xanathar the Beholder. This will be really special because we actually partnered with Jim Henson's Creature Shop to build this 12-foot puppeted character that our guests are going to be able to meet as they work to resolve the conflict, steal that Dragonstaff back, and return the town of Waterdeep back to normal.

Now, for our anime fans, you have One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen. I’d love to know what we can expect from those?

Siercks: For One Piece, we're developing a fan zone concept. Where Halloween Horror Nights has scare zones, fan Fest Nights has fan zones. It's going to be taking over a street and there will be character meet and greets, scenic photo opportunities, and more throughout the night.

Jujutsu Kaisen, on the other hand, is taking residence in our DreamWorks Theatre space where we're able to bring some content from Cool Japan and Universal Studios Japan and debut it here in Hollywood for Fan Fest Nights. It's going to be a multisensory media-based experience for our guests based on the lore and story of Jujutsu Kaisen.

Ooh, it's going to be exciting. Now, let's talk about two properties that already have a presence at Universal Studios Hollywood - Harry Potter and Nintendo. Let's start with Harry Potter. What can we anticipate from that magical world?

Siercks: Well, you nailed it on the head. What we want to do with Wizarding World of Harry Potter is that as soon as you cross through the town gate of Hogsmeade, you immediately feel as if something new, unique, and different is happening.

To accomplish that, we're bringing two new experiences for Fan Fest Nights. The first one is the debut of Hogwarts Always, which is the latest projection mapping experience on Hogwarts Castle that debuted at Universal Orlando last year and will now happen at Universal Studios Hollywood for Fan Fest Nights.

The second one is taking an experience that was developed first for Universal Studios Japan - the Magical Creatures - and bringing them here to Hollywood as well. So, guests will be able to meet their favorite magical creatures like the Niffler and a baby dragon. We're also debuting a brand new magical creature, the Occamy, which is developed exclusively for Universal Studios Hollywood.

Oh, wow. That sounds amazing. The Niffler in particular excites me a lot. Okay, next. What can we anticipate from Nintendo?

Siercks: Gaming's a big part of Fan Fest Nights and, as you know, Super Nintendo World is something that we've been able to debut and have our guests experience on a day-to-day basis. So, in a similar fashion to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we want something new, unique, and exclusive to be happening as soon as you walk through the Warp Pipe. So, we're very excited to debut Yoshi as a brand new meet-and-greet character for our guests at Fan Fest Nights.

And to help introduce and celebrate Yoshi, we're creating a few different activations throughout the night, including a fun scavenger hunt activity. Guests will be invited to find five hidden eggs throughout the land and, once they find them all, they’ll get exclusive access to a multicolored Yoshi meet and greet.

Additionally, guests can look forward to some drone moments that will be taken to the skies above Super Nintendo World as well.

So, how close should we get to Yoshi? Because you know what happens if you get too close… I really don't want to get eaten and turned into an egg.

Siercks: No. He's lovable. He's playful. He's a fan favorite.

Now, onto exclusive merch! Can you talk to us about the items that you’ll have at Universal Fan Fest Nights?

Siercks: So, we’ve got some great offerings here from an assortment of our different brands. We've got some merch around Yoshi, Jujutsu Kaisen, Back to the Future, and so much more.

Speaking of which, Back to the Future is celebrating its 40th anniversary, so what better time and place and moment to celebrate this film with a Destination Hill Valley experience at Courthouse Square?

When I attended the press day, some people thought different experiences would happen on different nights. However, I think you can enjoy each and every one no matter what night you go, right?

Siercks: It's a really important point that all of our guests will be able to experience everything we talked about each and every single night. So, all of the different genres, all of the different brands, and all of the different fandoms will be celebrated each and every night of Fan Fest Nights.

Amazing. And what are the dates one more time?

Siercks: Universal Fan Fest Nights opens April 25th and runs for 12 nights through the middle of May.

Yes. And you’ve got your anime, your sci-fi, your fantasy, your video games, and so much more.

Stephen, thank you so much for telling us a little bit more about Fan Fest Nights right here on IGN's Fan Fest. No relation, please don't sue us.

Siercks: Fan Fest meets Fan Fest Nights. We love it and we look forward to seeing you at Universal Studios Hollywood this spring.

-

For more, check out everything else happening at IGN Fan Fest.

Reuniting after their sleeper hit The Beekeeper, director David Ayer and action star Jason Statham are back with A Working Man. The Amazon MGM Studios release, which opens in theaters on March 28, is an adaptation of Chuck Dixon’s book Levon’s Trade.

Statham portrays Levon Cade, a decorated military black ops soldier who now lives quietly as a construction worker. That is until his boss’s (Michael Peña) daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers. Now Levon is going to call upon his old skill set to bring her home while uncovering a vast network of corruption.

As part of this week’s IGN Fan Fest, David Ayer shared an exclusive clip from A Working Man with us, which you can watch via the player above or the embed below. In it, Levon confronts some bad guys and, well, what the hell do you think happens when a bunch of goons get on the wrong side of The Stath?!

Ayer was also generous enough to answer some of our questions about A Working Man via e-mail while shooting his next project overseas.

IGN: What makes Jason Statham such a relatable everyman (despite his characters always possessing a badass skill set precious few could)?

David Ayer: Jason is a guy that has worked his way up in life, started humbly-so he has that working man mindset. He is that man next door-incredibly gracious and respectful of everyone-there's a truth to what the audience sees.

IGN: Sylvester Stallone shares screenplay credit on A Working Man. What can you say about his involvement in the development and writing of the script?

David Ayer: Sly (Stallone) gave me an amazing starting point and was incredibly collaborative. He managed to find a cinematic arc within Chuck Dixon’s book. It was a pleasure to collaborate with such a lauded writer.

IGN: How faithful is the script to Chuck Dixon's source material Levon's Trade?

David Ayer: The character Levon is ripped directly from the novel. The circumstances are similar but we wanted to have some fun with Jenny’s character.

IGN: You've worked with Michael Peña a few times now. Would you say that he’s your lucky charm?

David Ayer: He’s definitely my lucky charm, he brings a truth to every role he plays, in this case the family that Levon is a part of. Every time I work with Michael I'm surprised by his depth and range.

In addition to Jason Statham and Michael Peña, the cast of A Working Man includes David Harbour, Jason Flemyng, Merab Ninidze, Maximilian Osinski, Cokey Falkow, Noemi Gonzalez, Arianna Rivas, Emmett J. Scanlan, and Eve Mauro.

For more from IGN Fan Fest 2025, enjoy our deep dive on Monster Hunter Wilds, our big scoop on Mike Flanagan’s Dark Tower adaptation, and discover everything announced at the ID@Xbox Showcase.

True Keanu Reeves fans know that The Matrix and Cyberpunk 2077 star is a man of many talents, and his latest project sees him co-hosting a show about human creativity with Gard Hollinger, his cofounder in the company ARCH Motorcycle. The pair spoke at IGN Fan Fest 2025 to take viewers behind the scenes of their new docuseries and to explain that Visionaries, a new series airing on Roku in March, isn't just about their passion for creating bikes.

"We're two people that are curious, that are interested in storytelling and creating and so this is not a motorcycle show," says Reeves.

"If you see a cooking show and you have someone who loves food and they go to meet great chefs of the world, we love creativity and people who are creating and innovating. And so we're your hosts to this meal of innovation and creativity."

Along with giving an inside look of their new show to IGN Fan Fest, Reeves and Hollinger also provided an exclusive clip from the upcoming series.

"I think the show really takes us on this hopefully inspiring journey of the intimate and the grand, the way it kind of grows out," Reeves says of the show's exploration of creativity.

"Here's someone thinking personally about creativity and what they create and how that turns into a collaborative act and how it touches other people."

Reeves picked out flying and arriving at the Roden Crater, the remains of an extinct volcano, as one of his favorite moments of the series, while Hollinger highlighted meeting Mattie Rodrigue, the head of Science Operations at oceanic exploration initiative OceanX.

"This realization that there's this whole huge world that we take for granted and don't know about when we're so focused on what's up there," Hollinger says of OceanX's deep sea missions.

Asked what they'd like to tackle for a second season of Visionaries, Reeves and Hollinger suggested AI, music, more form the world of art, and even medicine.

"We'd like to see who's on the forefront of what will eventually impact and change our lives," says Reeves.

Visionaries is just one part of IGN Fan Fest, and if you've missed any of it you can catch up with

All the Biggest Announcements From Fan Fest So Far.

Clone Hero streamer and content creator CarnyJared has completed a full combo (FC) for DragonForce’s infamous Guitar Hero 3 song Through the Fire and Flames — at 200% speed.

The streamer's description of the event says it all: “IT. IS. OVER.” Posted yesterday, February 27, is recorded evidence of the unbelievable feat and world record CarnyJared managed to pull off while streaming. As he launches into his final, successful attempt at hitting all 3,722 notes without missing a beat, on-screen text reminds viewers that this grand finale is the result of nine months of practicing.

“I am rightfully thankful for everybody that has supported me throughout this ridiculous grind. I have the best supporters on the entire platform of Twitch and YouTube,” CarnyJared explains in the video’s description.

“We all spent an unfathomable amount of time staring at the same 3,722 notes, figuring out any possible way to hit them more efficiently. Somehow it worked out, and somehow I am able to sit in front of this computer which you have all cumulatively provided to me, and make a living playing Clone Hero.”

IT’S OVER

9 MONTH GRIND

THROUGH THE FIRE & FLAMES
(200% SPEED) FULL COMBO pic.twitter.com/IllxUxNYdq

— CarnyJared (@CarnyJared) February 27, 2025

Through the Fire and Flames running at regular speed can be a lot to process for the untrained eye, so watching CarnyJared blaze through the song at 200% speed feels completely incomprehensible. There’s not much else to say; FCing a seven-and-a-half-minute song in just over three minutes is extremely impressive.

Achieving an FC on the open-source Guitar Hero-like known as Clone Hero requires playing a song in its entirety without missing a single note. On-screen stats in the streamer’s video reveal that he’s reached nearly 2,000 FC runs past the song's first bridge, only 662 past its second bridge, and 227 to its solo section. The Through the Fire and Flames 200% FC you see today marks only the fourth time CarnyJared has managed to pass the solo.

“I am blessed every single day to wake up and have food in the kitchen, and a place to sleep because of you amazing group of people,” CarnyJared adds. “And I also thank my family, who has not only supported me my whole life, but they all specifically watched and supported this entire grind at my lowest and highest points. This is a moment that will live with me forever.”

He called the Through the Fire and Flames 200% FC the “hardest thing” he’s ever done in his life, so the celebration that follows his successful run tracks with the effort he’s put into completing it throughout the last nine months. For those interested in seeing how such an inhuman achievement can be accomplished in the world of Guitar Hero and Clone Hero, CarnyJared teased that fans can expect a “1 hour+” documentary in the next few months.

#CarnyJared CarnyJared full combos Through The Fire and Flames on 200% speed pic.twitter.com/bscIumlvhy

— Livestream Fails (@LSF_Forwarder) February 27, 2025

For more on how the Guitar Hero community is keeping the game alive, you can watch music game streamer Acai test out CRKD’s new guitar controller in Fortnite Festival as part of IGN Fan Fest 2025.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Hulu has been around for a while and, for our money, it's one of the absolute best streaming services available. From great movies like Anatomy of a Fall and Prey to excellent television series like the Golden Globe-winning Shogun, Abbott Elementary, and The Bear there is always something awesome to watch.

Below, we've detailed all of the best Hulu deals and bundles so you can get started on your streaming adventures with its library right away. This includes the brand-new Hulu, Disney+, and Max streaming bundle, which starts at just $16.99/month and is currently the best value available for the streaming services following the Disney Plus and Hulu price hikes. To see even more streaming and bundle deals, make sure to check out our roundups of the best Disney Plus deals and the best Max deals.

How to Get The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max Streaming Bundle

The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle can be purchased on any of the three streaming services and starts at $16.99/month for the ad-supported tier or $29.99/month for ad-free access across all three platforms. If you're looking to cut down on streaming costs and currently own all three of these, this is an excellent bundle to invest in. It'll save you quite a bit compared to what you'd pay for the three of them separately - 43% on the ad-supported plan and 42% on the ad-free plan.

Hulu deal for students — Get Hulu (With Ads) for just $1.99/month

If you're a student enrolled in a university (a US Title IV accredited college or university, per Hulu's website), you can sign up for Hulu (With Ads) for $1.99 a month. That's an excellent deal if you're a student, saving you $8 on the usual monthly price.

Hulu subscription tiers

Hulu: Bundle to Best

If you want a more affordable option when it comes to a Hulu subscription, you can't go wrong with a bundle, and Hulu has several to choose from:

• Hulu + Live TV (With Ads) — Hulu + Live TV (With Ads) is $82.99/month and includes Disney+ and ESPN+. It also gives you access to more than 75 channels with live TV and unlimited DVR functionality.
• Hulu + Live TV (Ad-Free) — The ad-free version of Hulu+Live TV is $95.99/month and comes with ad-free versions of Hulu and Disney Plus, although ESPN still shows ads.
• Disney Bundle Duo Basic — This is the most economic bundle. It will set you back $10.99/month and comes with subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu. Duo Basic lets you stream on multiple devices at once and comes with ad-supported versions of both Disney+ and Hulu.
• Disney Bundle Trio Basic — The Trio Basic bundle builds on the Duo Basic by adding ESPN+ into the mix, bumping up the price to $16.99/month. You can also download and watch select content on ESPN+ at this level.
• Disney Bundle Trio Premium — The Trio Premium bundle is $26.99/month and comes with ESPN+ (with ads) and ad-free versions of Disney+ and Hulu. You can also download select content across all three streaming services.

What can you watch on Hulu?

There is a bonkers amount of shows and movies you can watch on Hulu. Let's start at the top and simply talk about the verticals on offer with the base subscription, because if we also talk about what is available via Disney+, ESPN+, or live TV, we'll be here forever. (You can also sync up Hulu with HBO to gain access to things like Succession and House of the Dragon.)

Here's what you get:

• Network and Hulu Original television shows (AMC, Adult Swim, ABC, A&E, FX, etc.)
• Movies (HBO, Hulu Originals, anime films, etc.)
• Sports (NHL, Soccer, MLB, Auto Racing, NFL, College Football, PGA, Tennis, etc.)
• News (ABC News Live, Good Morning America, World News Tonight, 20/20, The View, etc.)

Hulu television

Hulu has some amazing shows, both those that are finished and many which are ongoing. For comedy, there are plenty of options to choose from, including New Girl, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, What We Do In The Shadows, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Broad City, Abbott Elementary, and so much more.

There are also some big Hulu originals to watch, including The Bear, The Old Man, The Handmaid's Tale, and Only Murders In The Building.

As far as animated fare, there are modern adult classics like Rick and Morty and Bob's Burgers, as well as Futurama, Family Guy, and King of the Hill. Anime staples like Cowboy Bebop are also available. And if you want to bring more youth-friendly fun, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Curious George are just a small sample of what Hulu has available.

The future of Hulu

Hulu isn't going anywhere. As a matter of fact, beyond it being awarded the best streaming service by us and receiving a 9/10 in our updated Hulu review, it was bought in full by Disney in November 2023 and the House of Mouse has created a one-app experience for those bundling Hulu and Disney+. With an FX partnership, Hulu is also home to those shows, including the latest drama miniseries, Shogun.

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

Original story from Brian Barnett.

Monster Hunter Wilds is out and millions of players are making their hunters. It might be worth spending some extra time in the character creator though, as frequent extensive edits can run up a tab.

Character Edit Vouchers make a return in Monster Hunter Wilds (as pointed out by VGC), adding a microtransaction for returning to the creator screen. While smaller edits to your character — say, hair color or voice pitch — won't consume a voucher, more extensive edits will require a voucher.

"You can edit hair, eyebrow color, facial hair, makeup and clothing from the Appearance Menu in tent without using a voucher," the description on the Steam page states. More extensive edits, anywhere from changing the actual voice to swapping from a male to female hunter, will however eat up one voucher.

Capcom is handing out one free voucher for players, but anything beyond that will require purchasing a new one. The same rules apply to your Palico, which will also need a voucher for any extensive edits. The vouchers are sold in various denominations, including three-packs for character edits at $6.99 and a bundled Character & Palico Edit Voucher three-pack for $9.99.

It's worth noting that this is not the first time Monster Hunter has had this particular microtransaction. Both Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise had their own Character Edit Vouchers. That's not to say they're a particularly beloved facet of the series, though.

A Monster Hunter subreddit thread from three years ago lamented the Vouchers in Monster Hunter Rise, for example. "Worst part of gen 5 for sure," one user replied at the time. "I hate the introduction of completely unnecessary [microtransactions]."

Even in the days leading up to Monster Hunter Wilds' launch, players voiced disdain for this system. As some in a recent thread noted, other games like Elden Ring offer character edits for free, and an unlimited amount. With Capcom's current system, there's a hard cap to how many times a player can return to the creator and edit their hunter.

"On top of having to pay in MH, there's a hard limit where you can never customise that character again once you've used all the available vouchers. What purpose does this serve?" one player asked. "When I return to a game I haven't played for a while I like to change my character's looks to keep it fresh, but I just don't bother in Monster Hunter and whack a helmet on lmao."

The system itself is fairly reminiscent of some MMOs where making a "new character" might require an additional sub or added cost. Yet the Voucher system has been a routine point of frustration, to the point that some PC players have found ways to get around it with mods.

Users also left negative feedback in the Steam reviews for Character Edit Vouchers for both Monster Hunter World and Rise. Even the Character Edit Voucher - Free Trial Version for Monster Hunter Wilds has garnered nearly 200 reviews as of the time of writing, sitting at a "Mixed" overall rating. On the negative side, the complaints seem clear: "It's not ideal, but I can live with cosmetics 'DLC', but limiting character edits is a bit much, should be free and unlimited."

As for the rebuttal, the positive reviews stress how little the Vouchers impact the game itself: "The amount of people that will never actually read, or actually use the in-game feature that allows this shocks me. But then again, it's the internet here we're talking about."

The whole kerfuffle feels reminiscent of Dragon's Dogma 2, where a legion of microtransactions rolled out at launch and immediately garnered frustration. Those particular exchanges offered in-game goods; ones still acquireable through gameplay means, but players still found ways to work around them anyways. In the case of Monster Hunter Wilds, there's one free Edit Voucher, and everything after has to be bought out-of-game.

It remains to be seen how the community will react to this, long-term. Monster Hunter Wilds is only just now getting into many, many people's hands, and I do think that other concerns like difficulty and PC performance will take precedence over microtransactions, especially since these aren't a new problem. Whether they remain a problem, or players learn to live with — or work around — the Voucher limit, we'll see in the coming weeks and months.

To help get your Monster Hunter Wilds adventure started, take a look at what Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t tell you, and a guide to all 14 weapon types in the game. We’ve also got a detailed Monster Hunter Wilds walkthrough in progress, a Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer guide to explain how to play with friends, and if you’ve played one of the open betas, here’s how to transfer your Monster Hunter Wilds Beta character over.

IGN’s Monster Hunter Wilds review returned an 8/10. We said: “Monster Hunter Wilds continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge.”

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Yesterday's Pokémon Legends: Z-A gameplay reveal flooded us with new information about the upcoming Pokémon games set in a futuristic Lumiose City, including looks at dozens of Pokémon we should expect to see there. But one trio of monsters that fans were really hoping to see did NOT appear: the elemental monkeys Panpour, Pansage, and Pansear.

Why are fans so hung up on the monkey trio? It's a bit complicated. The three monkeys and their evolutions have been a part of an increasingly shrinking list of Pokémon that are currently unavailable in any Nintendo Switch game. If you want to truly catch 'em all, you still can, by transferring them from other Pokémon games pre-Switch to Pokémon Home. But at the moment, the following Pokémon are unavailable for capture natively in any Nintendo Switch Pokémon game:

• Panpour
• Pansage
• Pansear
• Simipour
• Simisage
• Simisear
• Patrat
• Watchog
• Furfrou

This list used to be much longer, but Game Freak added a ton of new Pokémon in the DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet that culled the list down to these nine. What's more, the trailer we saw yesterday showed both Patrat and Furfrou, confirming these two at least will be available in Legends: Arceus. And since Watchog evolves from Patrat, it's a safe bet it will be in the game too. So that just leaves the three monkeys.

The elemental monkey trio was first introduced in Pokémon Black and White, and are somewhat beloved by fans due to the unique way the player obtains them. In Black and White, the first Gym the player encounters will use a typing that the player's starter Pokémon is weak against. However, if the player visits a certain person in the Dreamyard, they'll receive the monkey that has an advantage against that Gym, making it easier to tackle. Their designs are also memorable for being based on the "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" wise monkeys of Japanese folklore.

No matter which platform you prefer, there's an excellent variety of video game deals to check out right now. Whether you're gaming on PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, or PC, we've rounded up the best offers to help you get more for your money. And while not a deal, we've also included where you can preorder Elden Ring Nightreign, in case you're itching to return to The Lands Between. Best Buy's also offering a free $10 gift card with your purchase. What can be better than that?

Preorder Elden Ring Nightreign

Best PC Game Deals

Best Physical Video Game Deals

If you're looking to save on physical games right now, there are plenty of deals worth checking out across PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. We've included just a few of our favorites above, but if you'd like to see more game deals for each platform, check out our individual roundups for these consoles: the best PlayStation deals, the best Xbox deals, and the best Nintendo Switch deals.

Best PS5 SSD Deals

Best Xbox Accessory Deals

Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Gaming Handheld for $449.99

HP Omen 45L RTX 4080 Gaming PC for $2,199.99

Do you prefer to play on a dedicated PC tower? Navigating the options online can be quite the ordeal. Desk space, portability, and price point are often factors in the decision. However, there are some great PC deals that pop up every now and again that are worth jumping on. One of our favorite deals at the moment is on this HP Omen 45L RTX 4080 gaming PC for $2,199.99. To see even more PC deals, check out our roundup of the best gaming PC deals.

Yellowjackets is back, just in time for Valentine's Day. What's more romantic than cannibalism and betrayal? With looming threats in both timelines, Season 3 might finally offer some answers about the Man With No Eyes and certain people's accountability for their actions. The new season also introduces even more cast members, so get ready to take notes on who's who. Before you dive into Season 3, I’d recommend a solid rewatch, or at least checking out a recap of the Yellowjackets story so far.

If you’re wondering where to stream Yellowjackets online, we've collected everything we know about the new season below.

Where to Stream Yellowjackets Season 3

Yellowjackets Season 3 Cast

Yellowjackets was created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson and features a pretty large ensemble cast across its two timelines. Here are some of the main actors that star in the show:

• Melanie Lynskey and Sophie Nélisse as Shauna
• Tawny Cypress and Jasmin Savoy Brown as Taissa
• Christina Ricci and Samantha Hanratty as Misty
• Simone Kessell and Courtney Eaton as Lottie
• Lauren Ambrose and Liv Hewson as Van
• Sophie Thatcher as Nat
• Kevin Alves as Travis
• Steven Kreuger as Ben
• Warren Kole as Jeff
• Sarah Desjardins as Callie
• Elijah Wood as Walter
• Ella Purnell as Jackie

It's also been reported by Rolling Stone that Hilary Swank and Joel McHale will be joining the cast of Season 3.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 developer Saber Interactive and publisher Focus Entertainment have published early 7.0 update patch notes, while teasing the long-awaited Horde mode.

In a community post, the companies said the 7.0 update is in the works and a release date is coming. But it also outlined several awaited features it’ll bring:

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Update 7.0:

• One Chapter Pack
• One Champion Pack
• Private PvP lobbies
• A new weapon (only in PvE for now)
• New Operation
• Weapon perks rebalance
• Class weapon loadouts rework
• PvE Prestige Rank

The PvE Prestige Rank is perhaps of most interest to veteran players of Space Marine 2 looking for a new challenge or goal to work towards. Here’s how it works: once you reach level 25 on a class, you can buy a Prestige Level that will unlock a unique Prestige Perk.

“Choose them wisely,” Focus and Saber said, “because you won’t be able to change your selected Prestige Perks before unlocking the four Prestige Levels.” On top of that power boost, each class will have a unique cosmetic reward that emphasizes the class’ iconic armour part.

Space Marine 2 will get Public Test Servers (PTS) on Steam only in March before Patch 7 comes out. This will give fans early access to the upcoming features and the chance to share feedback so the developers can refine the content ahead of launch.

Meanwhile, Focus and Saber teased the upcoming launch of Horde mode, a feature Space Marine 2 players have been looking forward to ever since the game came out last year.

“You’re very eager to get more info on the Horde Mode, it’s one of our top priorities right now,” Focus and Saber said.

“One thing we can say is that it will be very different from the Space Marine 1 Horde Mode, and that there are surprises we can’t wait for you to find out about.

“Once we get really interesting things to show you about it, we will do it!

“Bear with us.”

In the same post, Focus and Saber also stamped out live service game talk amid a backlash to 'FOMO' Community Events. Last month, Focus and Saber addressed growing frustration over a lack of content and outlined what players can expect from Space Marine 2 in the coming months.

Space Marine 2 enjoyed a record-breaking launch late last year, eventually shifting 5 million copies while becoming the fastest-selling Warhammer video game of all time.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy has called the scrutiny Star Wars movie development comes under “troubling and frustrating,” while revealing how many projects she's confident will come to fruition.

In November, Lucasfilm owner Disney announced yet another trilogy of Star Wars films was in the works, and some fans said they were getting a bit sick of perpetual announcements with no releases in the legendary sci-fi franchise.

Disney hasn’t released a Star Wars film since the universally panned Star Wars: Episode 9 - The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, but it has cancelled several films in that time, such as one from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and another trilogy from Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff. In November, a Star Wars movie that had previously staked out a late 2026 release date was pulled from Disney's calendar.

At 2023's Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm announced three new Star Wars feature films: a Dave Filoni-directed New Republic film set in his Mando-verse, a Dawn of the Jedi movie led by James Mangold, and a New Jedi Order feature directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy that's set to have Daisy Ridley reprise her role as Rey after the events of The Rise of Skywalker.

That Obaid-Chinoy project has gone through several changes, with screenwriter Steven Knight recently departing after taking over for Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson. Still, Rey as a character is still apparently a major priority for Disney moving forward, with a recent THR report saying that she's set to appear in several upcoming Star Wars films.

And, believe it or not, that's not even all Disney has on the Star Wars docket moving forward. It was revealed late last year that X-Men producer Simon Kinberg is set to write a new trilogy that isn't, contrary to initial reports, a continuation of the Skywalker Saga.

Also announced is a film from Thor Ragnarok and Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi, one from Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy, an entire trilogy from Star Wars: Episode 8 - The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, a Donald Glover-starring Lando Calrissian film, and another from Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins. The Mandalorian & Grogu is the only Star Wars movie with a release date: May 2026.

Speaking to Deadline (to which she addressed recent retirement reports), Kennedy responded to a question about the challenge of dealing with so much public scrutiny by Star Wars fans.

“What’s troubling and frustrating is that our development gets scrutinized, and I don’t know any other production company where their development gets scrutinized like that,” Kennedy replied.

“It’s very hard for anything to happen within Star Wars without some aspect of it becoming public before you even want it to become public. So I guess managing the message in some way is also quite a challenge because, of course, not every single thing we put in development we [are] going to make. That’s not unusual. We want to make those things that we feel are the best. We want to make those things that, as time passes, feel relevant to what the audience is responding to. So there’s constant discussion around that. So yeah, that’s a tricky one because a lot of the scrutiny around Star Wars and the negativity has been about development. Of course, we’re going to develop lots of different things with an understanding that not everything gets made.”

So how many in-development Star Wars projects will actually end up as something? Kennedy said there are three or four right now that she’s confident will end up coming to fruition.

Kinberg’s trilogy “has gone exceptionally well,” Kennedy said. “We’re really excited about where that’s headed.” Shawn Levy is working on a script for his Star Wars film. There is of course The Mandalorian & Grogu, due out next year. Kennedy is waiting for Mangold after a delay due to his work on the Bob Dylan movie, A Compete Unknown, and the awards season. Similarly, Kennedy said she’s still waiting for Taika Waititi, saying “if we ever do get a script from Taika, it’s going to be fantastic.”

Kennedy said part of the challenge is that Lucasfilm is having to wait for "top talent" as they juggle their busy schedules. Star Wars, she insisted, is a major commitment of two to three years, and there can be no competing work going on during that time. So, she said, it's hard to get talent to carve out that sort of time.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Monster Hunter Wilds is now out in the wild, and monster hunters are logging on in droves to start exploring the Forbidden Lands. Before they go, though, a few are taking a moment to remember some beloved NPCs from games past who kept their bellies full for every hunt.

Over on the Monster Hunter subreddit, posts have popped up reminding players to leave well-wishes for the chefs of previous Monster Hunter games, specifically Monster Hunter World and Rise. Cooks aren't just the NPCs you tend to interact with pretty often, ensuring you've got good food buffs before heading out to fight against a scary beast; they're also, broadly, pretty well-liked in the community.

The Grammeowster Chef from Monster Hunter World Iceborne, for instance, is a sweet elderly Felyne all bundled up in scarves, since she's the head chef at Seliana's Canteen. One post reminded players to let her know they'd be away for a while, because of Wilds' launch.

Similarly, another post jokes about letting Monster Hunter Rise's dango chef Yomogi know that they'll be gone for a bit, saying they're "going out to get cigarettes." Though, the chef certainly made some decent revenue on all those dango. "Bro it's fine, I've paid her entire college tuition by this point," said one commenter.

We can't talk about chefs without mentioning the classic one from Monster Hunter World, the Meowscular Chef, either. He's a personal favorite NPC, with his eye scar, giant knife, and incredible poses every time he served up a new meal. The "best, most muscley boy", as one commenter so aptly said.

It might seem silly to get sentimental over this, but chefs are a core part of the Monster Hunter loop. They're the NPCs you tend to visit often, and you always get little cutscenes of them serving up the food that fuels your hunts. It doesn't hurt that their designs are often fantastic, from a burly Felyne chef to the sweet Grammeowster.

A nice meal before heading out was routine for my own multiplayer ventures, and it might even be why Capcom is adding a new "place to gather" in its first Title Update for Monster Hunter Wilds. Having those little zones adds a lot, and having the right character in place only helps, if it wasn't clear from all the players of previous Monster Hunters wishing the chefs goodbye before heading to Wilds.

Players are certainly digging into Monster Hunter Wilds too, with player numbers hitting massive peaks within 24 hours of its official launch. It hasn't all been perfect, as PC players have been reporting concerns over performance, prompting Capcom to issue an official response.

To help get your Monster Hunter Wilds adventure started, take a look at what Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t tell you, and a guide to all 14 weapon types in the game. We’ve also got a detailed Monster Hunter Wilds walkthrough in progress, a Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer guide to explain how to play with friends, and if you’ve played one of the open betas, here’s how to transfer your Monster Hunter Wilds Beta character over.

IGN’s Monster Hunter Wilds review returned an 8/10. We said: “Monster Hunter Wilds continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge.”

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson opens his talk at DICE Summit 2025 by talking not about success, but about one of Diablo’s most high-profile failures: Error 37.

Error 37 was an error that appeared to players at the launch of Diablo 3, preventing them from accessing the game due to extremely high numbers of players all trying to join at once. The issue, which impacted massive amounts of players, resulted in widespread criticism of Blizzard’s handling of the launch, and even became meme-ified. Blizzard eventually fixed the error and Diablo 3 was ultimately (with a lot of time and work) a success.

But understandably, Blizzard and Fergusson have been eager to avoid anything like that ever happening again, especially as Diablo evolves into a more complex live service endeavor than it’s ever been before, with frequent small updates, ongoing seasons, and major expansions planned at regular intervals. Diablo 4, moreso than any of its numbered predecessors, has embraced live service.

Another Error 37, or something like it, would be catastrophic. Especially if Blizzard wants Diablo 4 to persist beyond its major content releases: a true live service juggernaut.

Diablo, Immortal

At DICE Summit 2025 in Las Vegas, I spoke with series general manager Rod Fergusson following his talk entitled: “Evolving Sanctuary: Building a Resilient Live-Service Game in Diablo IV.” On stage, Fergusson covered four key components to ensuring the resilience of Diablo 4: successfully scaling the game, keeping the content flowing, not getting too attached to purity of design, and keeping players updated on what’s coming at the expense of surprising them.

Throughout his talk, Fergusson reiterated the team’s goals of keeping players around regularly, consistently, and for the long haul. His descriptions of content roadmaps and seasons-ahead planning is a stark contrast to past numbered Diablo games - while the series is certainly no stranger to expansions and updates, Diablo appears to be committing to a live service trend that’s seeing massive AAA games stick around for much longer and change more rapidly and significantly than they ever have before, rather than leaning on new, numbered releases every few years.

So I asked him what the plan was: is Diablo 4 eternal, or rather, immortal? Is there a marker Fergusson is looking for to know when it’s time to move on to Diablo 5, or will Diablo 4 simply be the Diablo forever, similar to Blizzard’s endlessly popular MMO World of Warcraft?

Maybe not forever, Fergusson replied. But certainly for a very long time, if he has his way.

“We want it to be around for years,” he said. “I don't know if it's eternal. I think Destiny tried and did that like, ‘This is a ten-year game,’ and then they quickly were not. We want people to see the road ahead, because we know that, to play a Diablo game, you're probably putting hundreds of hours in and we want people to know that we're respecting their time and that we're not just here and gone.”

Fergusson reminds me that there was over a decade between the release of Diablo 2 and 3, and another decade between Diablo 3 and 4. Granted, neither of these games had anything near the aggressive update cadence that Diablo 4 is planning. But they also didn’t have Fergusson at the helm, as he joined in 2020 after years of leading the Gears franchise. And Fergusson, for his part, believes in looking ahead…but not too far ahead.

For instance, Fergusson announced in that same DICE Summit talk that Diablo 4’s second expansion would not be arriving until 2026. Despite originally planning for an expansion a year, the team’s timeline for Vessel of Hatred was extended when they moved staff working on the expansion onto necessary, immediate updates to the live game when Diablo 4 launched, and again when the first season dropped. There were 18 months between the launch of Diablo 4 and Vessel of Hatred, not 12 as planned. But when I ask Fergusson if 18 months is the new normal for expansions, he’s not willing to commit to a specific time frame. He knows better now.

“I learned my lesson about calling the shot too early. So I think giving, ‘Hey, you can relax for the next 11 months,’ is about as far as I want to go in this right now…We're not at a place where we want to put a stake in the ground and call it. Because we're still building it and learning from it…Our process is generally that we get internally to a place where we have the certainty to make a call, and then you get to a place where you publicly want to make that call. We're not at the public part yet.”

Ruining the Surprise…on Purpose

Fergusson’s caution is warranted here, especially as his team prepares to be more transparent than ever before about their future plans. Part of that is the aforementioned content roadmap, due to be shown off in April. Another element is the Public Test Realm, or PTR, where players who opt in can play through a version of upcoming patches before it’s pushed live to the wider public. Fergusson says in his talk that the team initially struggled with the decision to use features like a PTR or content roadmaps, for fear of spoiling the surprise for players. But he’s overcome that fear.

“You just realize that it's better to ruin the surprise for 10,000 people so that millions of people have a great season,” he said during his talk. “And even if you mess up PTR, even if whatever you're offering to them in the mechanics is bad, I would much rather have a bad week of a PTR than a bad three months trying to recover from putting in something that we were surprising players with and it turned out to be wrong.”

“You can get really spun up on it,” he added to me later in our conversation. “And we've had it in the early days. We're like, ‘Oh, this got data mined, people know this.’ Okay, how many people saw it? And it’s on this Reddit thread, and there’s probably 8,000 people there. But we are going to have millions of people. So at the end of the day, it’s okay. We haven’t ruined the surprise for everybody.”

One challenge Fergusson’s facing now is that he wants to offer the PTR to more people, via consoles. Right now, players can only access the PTR via Battle.net on PC, which Fergusson says is due to certification challenges and the general difficulty of releasing new builds on consoles. But he says it’s something Blizzard is investing in, now with the support of parent company Xbox.

Another perk of Xbox, he says, is Diablo 4’s presence on Game Pass. Put simply, it lets Diablo amass as many players as possible. He compares it to why Blizzard decided to release Diablo 4 on Steam in addition to Battle.net - it was simply a matter of reaching more people.

“One of the things that's different from when you think of a live service that's behind a pay gate, like a premium live server, which is what Diablo is, versus a free-to-play live service like Diablo Immortal is, there's an opportunity easier to grow Immortal because there's no barriers to entry, right? Whereas, buying the boxed product or buying the main game is a barrier for some. So that's what Game Pass gets rid of, that barrier. You have this opportunity where you can see new Game Pass players coming in all the time, because they're just like, ‘Oh, I just got Game Pass. Oh, cool, that's in there?’ And off they go. So it is interesting in terms of sustaining continued new players.”

All Hours Diablo

As we wrap up our conversation, I ask Fergusson about what he’s been playing lately, in hopes of getting a grip on what he’s inspired by. I ask if he’s picked up Path of Exile 2, and how he feels about people comparing it to Diablo 4. Fergusson disagrees with the comparison. “They’re very different games,” he says.

But he’s still trying to keep folks who love both games in mind for future updates. “A lot of people actually tell us, ‘do what you're going to do, but just do us a favor and don't line up your seasons over top of each other. Let me play one season for three weeks and let me play another season for three weeks. Don't make me have to pick and choose.’ So I get that. As a person who plays lots of games, I totally understand that.”

So what is Fergusson playing right now? He tells me his top three games of 2024 by playtime. In third place, NHL 24. In second, Destiny 2.

And in first, no surprises here, it’s Diablo 4. He has 650 hours of Diablo 4 playtime on his home retail account alone, not counting work time. He tells me he’s currently playing Companion Druid, but he also just rolled a Dance of Knives Rogue. He just loves Diablo that much. Always has.

“It's something about the habit of the game,” he says. “I get interrupted from- I'm halfway through Cyberpunk, I'm halfway through Witcher 3, I'm halfway through Space Marines 2000. I get to these points where I am into a non-service game, then I get distracted by something shiny. But I have this habit of, I got to go do my daily in NHL to go open my free pack of cards, and I have to go play with my brother in Destiny 2 because this is what the game we play together on. And then I just...The reason I came to Diablo five years ago was because it was my favorite game to play. So just because I work and I work doesn't stop me from going home and playing it for hours and hours too.”

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

Looking for a new board game to bring to game night? Amazon's offering a great discount right now on strategy game Red Rising, based on the books by Pierce Brown, that's worth picking up for your collection. It's currently on sale for just $10.99, 54% off its list price of $24. That's only a couple dollars more than its lowest price that it hit over the holiday period last year, according to price tracker camelcamelcamel, so if you've had your eye on it now's a great time to scoop it up.

Stonemaier Games: Red Rising Board Game for $10.99

Last year, Asus debuted its 16-inch Zenbook to great acclaim. When I reviewed the Zenbook S 16, I awarded it top marks for all but heat, crowning it as one of the best ultrabooks of the year so far. With the Zenbook S 14, Asus has shifted from Team Red (AMD) to Team Blue (Intel), addressed the heat issue, and once again delivered one of the best premium Windows ultrabooks available today.

Asus Zenbook S 14 – Design and Features

The Zenbook S 14 shares a lot of DNA with its larger sibling. It’s clear that they’re both from the same product line as, aesthetically, the only difference is the S 14’s smaller screen. This, in my opinion, is a wholesale win because this year's Zenbooks have been some of the best-looking laptops to release in years. There are a number of changes under the hood, however, that make this a compelling option and, at least in one core way, a significant upgrade over the AMD-bearing S 16.

Starting with the fit and finish, Asus really deserves kudos for the new direction it went with the new Zenbook series. The S 14 has the same Ceraluminum lid as the S 16 and it's just as striking as before. This new lid is a composite of ceramic and aluminum alloy and has a silky-smooth texture that's impressively resistant to fingerprints. It's criss-crossed with diagonal stripes that catch the light and gleam with their glossy finish. It's elegant, eye-catching, and unique, allowing it to stand out from the masses of other gray, black, and silver productivity laptops.

The entire frame is made of metal and feels durable and premium. Open it up and you'll find the same on the keyboard deck, as well as the intricately CNC-milled vent just below the screen. Each circular recess has two miniature circles offset from one another. Asus claims this helps improve airflow and cooling and I have no reason to doubt that; however, it also seems clear that this was a design decision intended to elevate the appeal and premium nature of the laptop.

The S 14 is available in either gray or white colorways – sorry, Zumaia Gray or Scandinavian White. I was sent the white version, a nice change from the gray S 16 I tested. They both look great in their own way; however, the white version has that extra something that’s reminiscent of Apple and I very much enjoy it.

Internally, it appears this model is only available in a single configuration. Our sample was sent with the following specs:

When it comes to specs, the Zenbook S 16 is no slouch. It uses the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor, the most recent generation of Intel's AI-enabled processors, code-named Lunar Lake. It's a significant advancement over the first generation of Core Ultra processors in both performance and power efficiency and is more than up to the task of any productivity application you would care to throw at it. It's even able to take on content creation in the form of photo editing and even some video editing. That said, video editors will still be better served by a notebook with a dedicated graphics card or Apple’s latest M4 processor.

Still, the S14 is nothing to shake a stick at. Its 32GB of LPDDR5X memory is more than enough to handle web browsing, the Microsoft office suite, the Google suite, and the majority of the most popular photo and video editing software in use today. Unfortunately, it’s not upgradeable (as is usually the case with such thin, lightweight notebooks), so if you anticipate needing more than 32GB, the S 14 probably isn’t the best choice for you. It also comes with a large, 1TB nVME SSD, so you can store all of your projects and important files without resorting to the cloud or an external drive right away.

It also offers expanded connectivity with an array of ports that exceeds most other ultrabooks. It features dual USB-C ports, Thunderbolt 4, each spec’d to 40 Gbps and capable of DisplayPort and power delivery for charging. There is a full-size USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, which is handy for connecting a flash drive, an HDMI 2.1 port for full-speed video output, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack. While you will still receive much better connectivity with a full-size laptop, this is a welcome expansion that improves its usability in different scenarios.

The screen is downright gorgeous. It uses Asus's Lumina OLED technology and is exceptionally color rich, detailed, and accurate. It has a very crisp 2,880 x 1,800 (3K) resolution, which translates to 243 pixels-per-inch (PPI) for an impressively sharp image. It also excels up to 120Hz for smooth motion both in games and on long websites and documents. Like a smartphone, it can be set to change the refresh rate dynamically to save on battery or locked to either 60Hz or 120Hz to match your preference.

It's a good choice for entertainment as well as productivity for this reason alone, but it also packs an impressive pair of speakers. Given its small size, you wouldn't expect to have the level of volume that it does, nor its surprisingly full-bodied sound. While it won't replace a good pair of speakers (it does distort a touch at its highest volumes), it's perfectly fine for watching videos or even playing single-player games.

For typing and mousing, it features an impressive keyboard. The aluminum deck is firm and didn’t flex under my hammering keystrokes. The keys have been designed to offer 1.1mm of key travel, which is noticeably deeper than many other chiclet-style keyboards. They also have a defined bump when pressed and have a crisp bottom out that makes it a pleasure to type on.

The S 14 also brings back the oversized glass touchpad from the S 16. Measuring 5 x 3 inches and centered on the bottom of the deck, it’s positioned directly underneath your thumb anytime you’re using the keyboard. It feels good to use and is reliable with the bare minimum of misclicks. Like last time, it uses integrated buttons with tactile feedback so you can easily tell when clicks are registered. There are also touch controls along the top and sides to control brightness, scrubbing video timelines, and adjusting volume. These can be disabled inside the software, though they're not difficult to get used to and proved to be very convenient in my testing.

Asus Zenbook S 14 – Software

As with the ZenBook S 16, the S 14 uses MyAsus for all of its configuration options. This software suite is designed to be easily accessible even if you’re not computer savvy, so don't expect overclocking options or highly-detailed system monitors, though it does provide basic readouts for CPU use and temperature, battery level, memory usage, and available storage.

The software is broken into several different tabs for easier navigation. The main Home tab provides the aforementioned information as well as one-click options to run diagnostics if you find the system is encountering performance issues. It also provides the warranty date, so you can tell ahead of time if you’re covered by its warranty or not.

The majority of its core settings are found within the Device Settings tab. This page is broken into three scrollable categories: Power & Performance, Audio & Visual, and Input Device Settings. Power and Performance details battery options, fan profile, which is essentially the device settings tab, and how much memory is dedicated to the integrated GPU.

The Audio & Visual tab provides options for the noise canceling microphone and speakers, and EQ settings (including custom EQs through the Dolby Atmos app). To customize the screen, it provides a handful of different modes that include sRGB, Display P3, and DCI-P3, as well as normal and Vivid color modes, a color temperature slider, and a blue light filter. There’s also a Tru2Life settings which is supposed to intelligently adjust sharpness and contrast of video content to increase clarity and a Target Mode that darkens everything but your active window to protect the OLED panel. You can also toggle several different OLED care settings and choose between a dynamic refresh rate or locking the screen to 60Hz or 120Hz.

Finally, the Input Device Settings tab houses all of the options for the touchpad and keyboard. This is where you can enable or disable the touchpad or the keyboard's backlight. Choose how the function row operates and decide whether you want to keep or disable the Smart Gestures on the top and sides of the touchpad.

One area that I especially like for mainstream users is the System Diagnostics tab on the left. Clicking this takes you to a menu that allows you to do a one-click system checkup, targeted problem diagnosis for each of the laptop’s systems (memory, battery, SSD, etc.), or to do a checkup based on different use scenarios. For example, if your computer is running sluggishly, you can simply use the checkup option under “Slow System” and the appropriate diagnostic will run. The available scenarios cover the most frequent issues you might encounter. While power users will likely know their way around diagnosing different issues, if you are coming to this laptop purely from a productivity standpoint, these options provide a helpful gateway to diagnose and solve performance issues you might encounter.

The biggest issue I have is that the software will sometimes demand updates without allowing you to adjust settings. It can be quite frustrating to sit down to work and just want to change your power setting, only for the system to force you to do a BIOS update before you can even toggle a single option. Thankfully, this doesn't happen often, but it has happened frequently enough that I dread having to open the software just in case.

Asus Zenbook S 14 – Performance

The Zenbook S 14 is a fantastic laptop if you value portability and don’t want to sacrifice performance. Its Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor is a tiny powerhouse for productivity, entertainment, and general day-to-day use. It even offers relatively good gaming performance as long as you're willing to adjust the resolution and settings accordingly.

The first generation of Intel Core Ultra processors caught a lot of flack, and understandably so, but I'm happy to report that most of those issues have been addressed with this latest generation. The processor offers snappy performance and, thanks to its fast memory and storage, that applies across the board. I’ve been using the S 14 for around two months and haven’t encountered a single situation where it felt laggy or unreasonably slow. On the contrary, it has felt consistently high-performance for its price point. If anything, it over delivers.

While that might seem like high praise, I assure you that it's deserved. Assuming you can get on with its smaller form factor, it's hard to find much fault with this system. Unlike the Zenbook S 16, its larger AMD-bearing counterpart, it doesn't get exceptionally warm to the touch. It doesn't get loud either, even under full load (although it does get louder). Its screen looks just as gorgeous, if not slightly more so thanks to its higher pixel density. The build quality is fantastic, and the Ceraluminum lid is just as good here as it was on the S 16. In fit, finish, and performance, it knocks it out of the park.

As seen in the benchmarks above, it offers great performance in the majority of cases. It excels well beyond the Snapdragon X Elite in the Surface Pro 11 and is natively compatible with all standard Windows apps. The presence of a physical GPU offers major benefits to gaming frame rates and rendering benchmarks, but at the expense of weight and heat. I’ve included those results here to show what’s possible in the thin and light form factor if you care more about fps and less about unplugged battery life. (For that, check out our list of the best gaming laptops.)

The most interesting comparison is against AMD’s equally AI-centric competitor, and the results are good for Intel. The Core Ultra 7 258V trades blows with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, winning across the board in 3DMark’s synthetics as well as a handful of games. In others, the HX 370 pulls ahead. The AMD processor does have a significant advantage in games that support AMD Fluid Motion Frames (i.e. frame generation). When I initially tested the laptop, that feature wasn’t supported yet, but it is now, so certain games will indeed play better – with a caveat. AFMF works best when you’re able to maintain a high enough base frame rate to begin with (45-60 fps minimum), so real world performance is going to vary game by game.

When it comes to gaming, it's best approached like a handheld. That might sound counterintuitive, but the same principles apply since it's using an integrated GPU. This means leveraging power by turning the laptop onto its highest performance mode and plugging into a wall outlet if at all possible. It also means dropping the resolution 1200p – which still looks great on its display, and brings many games to playable frame rates – as well as adjusting graphics settings and using Intel XeSS upscaling whenever possible. Even with those considerations, you might be surprised at how well it runs games while still maintaining strong visuals.

Or, you could game over the cloud. Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming both work very well. GeForce Now is especially good, with crisp visuals, 120Hz gameplay, and a large, ever-expanding library of supported games.

Tying it all together is the Zenbook S 14’s outstanding battery life. In synthetic testing using the PCMark Modern Office Battery Test, I was able to log upwards of 16 hours of uptime at 50% brightness. If you’re mainly watching video and doing lower intensity tasks, that can reach to around 20 hours. In real-world use running at 80% brightness with near-constant internet use, I averaged around ten hours. That’s upwards of a full work day without much regard for battery conservation. That’s impressive.

The developer and publisher of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 have insisted they’re not trying to turn the game into a “full live service” after a backlash to community events described as promoting “FOMO.”

FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is a tactic often used by live service game developers and publishers to encourage rapid engagement and spending on virtual items that are released for a limited time. The suggestion with these sorts of events is that if players do not obtain the items while they’re available now, then they will lose the chance forever.

This practice is often criticized for creating an unhealthy relationship between a video game and its community. In 2021, new research commissioned by the UK’s GambleAware charity said many games use a "psychological nudge" to encourage people to buy loot boxes - such as the fear of missing out on limited-time items or special deals.

Space Marine 2 does not contain loot boxes, of course, but it does have community events that were recently introduced as a way to unlock coveted cosmetics. And it’s these community events that have triggered a backlash, with some applying the dreaded “live service” label to Space Marine 2.

In a post addressing the complaints, Space Marine 2 publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive admitted the community events had received “cold feedback” since their introduction, and “we saw that many of you mentioned FOMO generated by the events.”

But the companies promised all the items made available in these events will be released again later, for everyone. Here’s the statement:

We have noted that the Community Events have received cold feedback since we introduced them as an additional way to unlock cosmetic items. We saw that many of you mentioned FOMO generated by the events. Rest assured, we are not looking to transform Space Marine 2 into a full live service game. The items available through events WILL be available later, for everyone. We want Community Events to be a way to unlock the items in advance, for the most dedicated players, and not to be a source of frustration and stress for everyone.

However, that means we must provide a smooth experience in unlocking said items, which has not been the case so far. We deeply apologize for the trouble, and are currently working on a simplified process to unlock the items, to make the experience less constraining.

To that end, Focus Entertainment is giving away the much-wanted emblem-less Mk VIII Errant Helmet for free to all who link their PROS account (Focus Entertainment’s account system) to Space Marine 2. This helmet is a part of the Imperial Vigil community event that ends on March 3, and was previously only available to those who achieved a victory with each of six classes in Operations Mode by the end date.

Space Marine 2 players are currently awaiting its 7.0 update, which is set to add a new weapon, a new Operations map, and PvE Prestige Ranks. Last month, Focus and Saber addressed growing frustration over a lack of content and outlined what players can expect from Space Marine 2 in the coming months.

Space Marine 2 enjoyed a record-breaking launch late last year, eventually shifting 5 million copies while becoming the fastest-selling Warhammer video game of all time.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Microsoft has confirmed plans to shut down Skype in May and replace it with a free version of Microsoft Teams.

Confirmation comes at a time when the likes of WhatsApp, Zoom, FaceTime, and Messenger dominate communication via voice over IP (VoIP), consigning direct calls to cellphones from the likes of Skype to the history books.

As reported by The Verge, current Skype users will be able to log into the Microsoft Teams app and have all their content (message history, contacts etc) available without the need to create another account. Meanwhile, Microsoft will phase out domestic or international call support.

Skype users also have the option of exporting their Skype data, including photos and conversation history, and Microsoft has made a tool to help those who don’t want to move to Teams view their current Skype chat history.

You have 60 days to decide, as Skype goes offline from May 5. Either way, Microsoft will honor existing Skype credits, but will no longer offer new customers access to paid Skype features that let you make or receive international and domestic calls.

What’s truly lost with the Skype shutdown, then, is the ability to make calls to cellphones. Speaking to The Verge, Microsoft said that while telephony functionality was useful at the height of Skype’s popularity, it is now less so.

“Part of the reason is we look at the usage and the trends, and this functionality was great at the time when voice over IP (VoIP) wasn’t available and mobile data plans were very expensive,” said Amit Fulay, vice president of product at Microsoft. “If we look at the future, that’s not a thing we want to be in.”

Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion back in 2011, saying at the time the deal was about “deepening the company’s longstanding focus on real-time video and voice communications, and providing new market opportunities serving Skype’s 160-plus million active users.”

At one point Skype became an important part of all Windows devices and was even touted as an Xbox console selling point. But, by Microsoft’s own admission, the Skype userbase has been flat in recent years. The focus now is on Microsoft Teams for consumers.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Streaming Wars is a weekly opinion column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. Check out the last entry Severance May Have Just Laid the Groundwork For the Greatest Betrayal Yet

This column contains spoilers for Severance Season 2, Episode 7.

I try to avoid column entries focusing on the same show two weeks in a row, but Severance has been on one lately so we’re absolutely headed back to Lumon this week.

“Chikhai Bardo” takes us back in time (sometimes), weaving flashbacks with what appear to be current events as we learn about Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and Mark’s (Adam Scott) relationship alongside Gemma’s fight to free herself from Lumon. On our journey with the two, we learn about her miscarriage and their subsequent struggles to conceive even after consulting with a fertility clinic. But, while the glimpse into their past lives makes us feel closer to Gemma, it’s what’s happening in the (presumed) present that blows the lid off things.

While we knew Gemma was alive, we weren’t sure how or to what extent. Her presence at Lumon indicated that perhaps it was only her Innie’s brain that survived, but we never knew how she had an Innie persona to begin with. Additionally, the episode’s title gives us hints as to what might actually be going on while also potentially adding more questions, and we may be closer than ever to learning what the hell is going on with Miss Huang (Sarah Bock).

Buckle up, we have a lot to talk about.

What Does Chikhai Bardo Mean?

In the episode, Gemma and Mark briefly talk about a set of cards. It doesn’t go well.

“Chikhai Bardo… it looks like two guys fighting,” Mark quips.

“No, it’s the same guy fighting himself, defeating his own psyche. Ego death,” Gemma responds. She adds later that she "thinks she got onto the mailing list at the clinic.”

Mark makes fun of her for doing something he thinks is stupid, she responds in kind that he’s being an asshole, and their brief argument ends with him telling her that maybe they should just stop trying to conceive. It’s a rough moment in the couple’s life, but what’s most interesting here isn’t their fight, it’s what Chikhai Bardo actually means.

Tibetan Buddhism breaks down the cycle of existence into six states, called bardos. Each bardo represents a different stage of life, death and rebirth. Chikhai Bardo is the fourth stage — the bardo of dying. This begins when the body internally and externally senses signs that death is close and results in what is known as the “clear light of death.” The goal in the midst of the clear light of death is to maintain lucidity, but many black out during the process. Meditation and training help with the aforementioned lucidity, but ultimately it’s not something that everyone can achieve.

The above is, of course, a very brief look at this complex and layered aspect of Buddhism; I highly recommend you read up more on the subject if you’re curious, but that’s about as much as we can discuss here without getting too rabbit hole-y. It’s also important to note that the other bardos may very well have their part to play in this story as well, but more on that in a bit!

Was Gemma the First Severed Person?

The structure in “Chikhai Bardo” intentionally keeps the timeline of events muddy and difficult to follow as we experience disorientation alongside Mark, but Gemma is far from the first person severed. The severance procedure was introduced 12 years ago to the public — though recent events imply that it could have been started as early as 20 years ago in the series. Mark joined Lumon and elected to have the severance procedure done only two years prior in the show’s timeline, which means Gemma has been held hostage during that period.

However, it does seem likely that Gemma may be the first severed person of her kind. What I mean by that is the fact that she seems to have multiple severed personas. We have the most experience with Ms. Casey, who is relegated to the severed floor, but we see a new kind of severance with Gemma while she’s deeper in the Lumon facility. There, it’s not severed floors but severed rooms. We see a host of them as she walks down the hall to a room called Wellington, where she meets with her “dentist” (who is presumably playing with severance technology in one way or another), with others including Cairns, Dranesville, Siena, Loveland, and Tumwater. She then passes Rhodes immediately when she leaves with her handler (Sandra Bernhard), and eventually passes Cold Harbor — a room featuring the code name of Mark and MDR’s actual work. It’s later confirmed that Gemma has visited six rooms during the day that the episode takes place: Billings, Locknau, St. Pierre, Cairns, Zurich, and Wellington.

We see Gemma visit one final room before her daring attempt to escape: Allentown. It’s here where Robby Benson’s “Doctor” plays house with her, forcing her to write hundreds of thank you notes for fake Christmas gifts the “happy couple” recently received.

What’s most interesting on Gemma’s home floor is that it seems like different rooms may bring out different personalities even further beyond Ms. Casey and whichever personas she’s meant to be during Lumon’s experiment below the severed floor. In Wellington, she seems almost frightened, asking if she may please have a break. In Allentown, her frustration with “her partner” is evident alongside her pain. In an undisclosed room, she’s seemingly on a flight and experiencing extreme turbulence that seems likely to lead to a plane crash. Additionally, each room that we’ve followed her into includes Benson’s The Doctor, with no questions as to why she keeps meeting different versions of him. How many different ways has Gemma’s brain been severed? And what do her teeth have to do with it?

Was Gemma Ever Really in a Car Accident?

At the beginning of the episode, I didn’t think so. It was my assumption that they found Gemma through the fertility clinic and tricked her by dangling the potential of a child in front of her. However, knowing what we now do about Chikhai Bardo, I absolutely believe that Gemma was, indeed, in an accident. But I also believe that it was Lumon who caused it.

Earlier in the season, Mark also insists that he “saw the body!” when people are trying to convince him that Gemma is alive, making those cloning fan-theories seem more likely than ever. Especially given the fact that they had access to Gemma’s DNA thanks to the fertility clinic which, at this point, I feel pretty confident that they either own or partner with.

Why Is Lumon Holding Gemma Hostage?

Y’all… The possibilities feel endless at this point. What are those little freaks doing with her?

Right now, a prevailing fan-theory posits that Ms. Huang is somehow Mark and Gemma’s kid. Obviously, the math doesn’t math with there only being two years since Mark saw Gemma last, but given that we’re looking at clones, metaphysics and an all-powerful global cult, Lumon’s walking child labor violation sure does seem like she could somehow be their offspring. That would certainly answer the “to what end” aspect of the question, but not necessarily the why part of it.

But the why aspect is likely ultimately pretty mundane. As far as the outside world is concerned Gemma Scout died in a car accident two years ago, Lumon proffered a fake body, and if she (literally) resurfaced, people would start asking a lot of questions. Especially given the fact that keeping Gemma’s outie consciousness seems imperative to their research. She goes outside and you bet she’s going to tell the world what the Eagans and their cult empire are up to.

What at first seems to be a throwaway line ultimately ties everything together in a neat little bow. There are two separate scenes where Gemma notes that she has visited six rooms on her no-good-very-bad-day, and it sure does appear as if each room has a corresponding Bardo, and whatever the Eagans are up to is intrinsically tied to Buddhism and a bastardization of its tenets for their own means.

These are the six bardos:

Kyenay Bardo (Life)

Samten Bardo (Meditation)

Milam Bardo (Dream)

Chikhai Bardo (Death)

Chonyid Bardo (Dharmata)

Sidpa Bardo (Existence)

And these are the six rooms Gemma confirms she’s entered that day:

Billings

Locknau

St. Pierre

Cairns

Zurich

Wellington

Kyenay Bardo (life) explains why they need Gemma’s core personality to remain. Throughout the episode we see her doing yoga (Samten Bardo/meditation). Milam Bardo (dream) remains in question, but Chikhai Bardo (death) goes beyond her car accident and explains the near-death plane ride we saw her on, despite us not knowing the corresponding room. That leaves her dentist experience as well as Chonyid Bardo and Sidpa Bardo in question. Allentown — her thank you card nightmare with Dr. McCreepy — is not one of the six rooms corresponding to a Bardo, which feeds into the idea that it isn’t part of the experiment. The guy just wanted some extra time to be a predator.

What’s particularly interesting when it comes to the “to what end” aspect of the why is what Lumon needs her for and how the bardos play into it all. They’ve made it abundantly clear that Mark’s participation in and completion of Cold Harbor is imperative, but is Gemma there for whatever Cold Harbor is or something else entirely? Is Mark somehow killing the last vestiges of the wife he knows? Are they trying to grow an army of child laborers so they don’t have to deal with the question of Outies vs. Innies ever again? Or is it an army of clones for the same purpose? AND WHAT DO THE GOATS HAVE TO DO WITH ALL OF THIS?!

All we know at this point is that the introduction of the bardos all but confirms the longstanding theory that the master plan here involves helping Kier Eagon continue eternal life, but I suspect we’re gonna get a good amount of explanation on the “how” real soon.

Who Is the Doctor?

The Doctor, as seen in different personas for each room we’ve met him in, including Gemma’s private chambers where she bludgeons him with a chair and makes her escape, is key to everything involving Gemma. He’s in love with her, but that seems to be more of a complication that came later rather than a reason for her current incarceration.

I have no evidence to support it yet, but there’s something about this guy that just screams Eagen descendent. Perhaps much of that is tied to the fact that Eagens seem to be the only people at Lumon allowed to show emotion, or maybe it’s just because (bless you, Robby Benson) he’s got hardcore cult leader face.

Ultimately, I have no idea if this guy is anything more than just a creepy mad scientist. But I mostly just hope Gemma hits him with a chair again.

PlayStation is no stranger to releasing unique colors for its accessories throughout its 30-year history. Since the PS5 launched in November 2020, PlayStation has expanded the DualSense controller line to include 12 additional standard colors, along with a swath of limited edition controllers featuring popular PlayStation characters and vibrant patterns. Whether you're looking to replace an existing controller, add to your collection, or just want to take a trip down memory lane, we've rounded up every PlayStation 5 DualSense controller for you below in order of release date.Every DualSense Controller Color

If you're in the market for a Dualsense alternative, our guide to the best PS5 controllers features a variety of different options we've reviewed.

All Dualsense Controller Colors by Release Date

White DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 12, 2020

Midnight Black DualSense Controller

Release Date: June 11, 2021

Cosmic Red DualSense Controller

Release Date: June 11, 2021

Starlight Blue DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 14, 2022

Galactic Purple DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 14, 2022

Nova Pink DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 14, 2022

Grey Camouflage DualSense Controller

Release Date: October 14, 2022

Cobalt Blue DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 3, 2023

Volcanic Red DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 3, 2023

Sterling Silver DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 26, 2024

Chroma Pearl DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 7, 2024

Chroma Indigo DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 7, 2024

Chroma Teal DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 23, 2025

White DualSense Edge

Release Date: January 26, 2023

Midnight Black DualSense Edge

Release Date: February 20, 2025

Special Edition DualSense Controllers

In addition to the standard DualSense controller colors, Sony has also released several limited edition controllers over the over the past few years. Arguably the most popular limited-time offering was to celebrate PlayStation's milestone anniversary where it launched an entire PlayStation 30th Anniversary collection in November 2024 that included a standard DualSense controller, PS5 Slim, PS5 Pro, PlayStation Portal, and DualSense Edge controller, each sporting the iconic grey color of the original PlayStation console.

While you may still be able to get your hands on some special edition controllers, it's often well above retail as Sony only manufactures a limited amount. In addition to the 30th Anniversary collection, Sony has also released limited edition DualSense controllers celebrating the release of God of War: Ragnarok, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, the ill-fated Concord, and Astro Bot throughout the years.

Matthew Adler is a Commerce, Features, Guides, News, Previews, and Reviews writer for IGN. You can follow him on the site formerly known as Twitter @MatthewAdler and watch him stream on Twitch.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has responded to reports that she is set to retire later in 2025.

Earlier this week, Puck News claimed the veteran film producer was looking to retire at the end of her contract this year. Additionally, Puck claimed Kennedy previously considered retiring in 2024, but decided to hold off on making a decision.

While Variety reported that a source close to Kennedy called Puck’s story “pure speculation," The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the report.

Now, Kennedy has responded herself. According to Deadline, Kennedy is working with Disney boss Bob Iger on a succession plan 13 years into the job, with Star Wars Rebels creator and current Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni apparently in a “strong position” to take on the role. However, she insisted: “The truth is, and I want to just say loud and clear, I am not retiring.”

"I will never retire from movies," she continued. "I will die making movies. That is the first thing that’s important to say. I am not retiring."

While Kennedy confirmed that Lucasfilm has “every intention of making an announcement months or a year down the road” on an eventual succession, she is “continuing to stay at Lucasfilm.” That involves producing the upcoming Mandalorian movie and a Star Wars film from Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy.

It sounds like plans are very much in the works for Kennedy to step down from her current role as president of Lucasfilm, but that doesn’t mean she is leaving the company behind or retiring from the movie business.

“I’m not going to be here forever,” she said. “George [Lucas] asked me 13 years ago to step in, and now I’m looking at who’s going to replace me. And as I said, we have a bench of people internally to handle the business, the creative side. The job has grown also since I stepped in. There was no streaming, there weren’t a lot of the things that we’re involved in right now going on. So it has grown.”

AMD has finally released more information about its upcoming graphics cards, the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070. Both the Radeon RX 9070 XT and the Radeon RX 9070 launch on March 6.

The Radeon RX 9070 XT was unveiled at CES 2025, the same time as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, though Team Red was a bit more cautious about revealing detailed information about its next-generation GPU. Now, though, AMD has released everything there is to know about these new GPUs.

Both of the new AMD graphics cards are built on the new RDNA 4 graphics architecture, which improves performance across the board, but the biggest uplift is in ML, or Machine Learning performance. This is largely thanks to new AI Accelerator units that are much more powerful than their counterparts in RDNA 3 GPUs like the previous-generation Radeon RX 7900 XT. These new AI cores are also the driving force behind FSR 4, which finally brings AI upscaling to Radeon graphics cards.

Just like DLSS, FSR 4 – short for FidelityFX Super Resolution – uses a machine learning algorithm to accurately upscale lower resolution images to your native resolution. Though, keep in mind that accuracy is the name of the game here. Because while FSR 4 is going to be much faster than rendering a game at your native resolution, any machine learning solution will have a bigger performance impact than something like FSR 3.1. We don't know how much performance will be impacted, but don't expect it to be faster than the more traditional upscaling in FSR 3.

While both graphics cards pack 16GB of GDDR6 memory, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is significantly more powerful, packing in 14% more compute units than the regular RX 9070. Combined with a higher power budget, the 9070 XT is going to be a much better fit for 4K gaming, where the 9070 will fit comfortably at 1440p. We went ahead and listed the specs below:

Luckily, you won't have to wait long to get your hands on one of these graphics cards. Both the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and the Radeon RX 9070 launch on March 6, starting at $599 and $549, respectively. However, because AMD is not launching a reference design, like it did with its last generation of graphics cards, you can expect prices to fluctuate drastically at launch. However, give it a couple weeks and it should calm down a bit.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

Cosmic horror, along with sci-fi in general, is a difficult genre to get right. It thrives on the unknown, the creeping sensation that something is just out of sight, not entirely clear, itching at your reality. But, if you don't get the balance right, you'll end up with a galaxy wide narrative that's as deep as a puddle. Shroud understands this well, twisting its story in ways that leave you adrift in its dark world. It’s a book that revels in disorientation, pulling you deeper into its mysteries the more you struggle to grasp them. When it’s at its best, it makes you feel lost in all the right ways.

Shroud is an utterly gripping story of alien encounter and survival from Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Children of Time, and paints a grim and grotesque vision of the future, where humanity’s expansion into the cosmos is as much a test of endurance (and capitalist hell) as it is a descent into existential dread.

The descriptions of Shroud itself—its tendrils curling through the void, the sensation of alien briar tightening around the atmosphere—are striking. The opening chapters, in particular, are a masterclass in setting the tone, so much so that I found myself rereading them just to soak in their gnarly brilliance again and again.

Tchaikovsky’s writing heavily leans into ambiguity, using a mix of perspectives and deliberately vague language to reinforce the unknowable nature of Shroud and its horrors. The book constantly shifts, leaving you unmoored in a way that mirrors the characters’ own descent into fear and uncertainty. Alien encounters are presented in strange, fragmented imagery rather than overtly explicit detail, making them all the more unsettling.

The prose itself even feels unstable at times, as if the words are bending under the weight of something beyond comprehension. Tchaikovsky does his best at making the sci-fi elements accessible, but it’s still a style that won’t work for everyone—those looking for clear explanations or firm resolutions may find themselves frustrated at times—but it’s undeniably effective at immersing you in a world that feels utterly alien.

The characters, particularly Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne, are an interesting study in detachment. They begin as almost intentionally blank slates, their personalities stripped down to what’s necessary to survive in their assigned roles. There’s a sense that they’re meant to be shaped by their time on Shroud, and they do develop more emotion as they struggle against its horrors. Yet there's also moments they also regress, hollowed out by their experiences for the faceless corporate machine that sent them there in the first place.