Dune: Awakening developer Funcom said there's a fix coming for players sick of getting squished by helicopters — known in-game as Ornithopters — in PvP.

As admirably reported by redditor Bombe18 in the video below, there's pretty much nothing you can do if an Ornithopter sets its sights on you, as the moment you self-revive, the Orni will be back to rinse and repeat. It's a particularly egregious way to die given there's very little you can do to stop it unless you have a missile launcher with you.

"Dune developers, I agree to have a defeat in PvP," Bombe18 wrote (thanks, Eurogamer). "But been [sic] crushed by orni that do[es] not take any damage? No." They even suggest a couple of solutions: either let the Orni take damage when it crashes into players like this or, you know, just disable crushing and its ability to make aerial assaults.

The good news is it didn't take long for Funcom to notice Bombe18's (and many others') plight.

"Sorry about this," replied Funcom's Chief Creative Officer, Joel Bylos. "We have people working on fixing the goomba stomping ASAP."

It's not just the Ornithopters that take no damage, either — it's the same with all vehicles. So unless Funcom addresses them simultaneously, players fear the PvP meta will simply roll from Ornis to something else. Fingers crossed we get a solution soon.

Apart from this PvP griefing, Dune: Awakening has enjoyed a superb launch, with a 'very positive' user review rating on Steam. Within hours of going live on June 10, Funcom's survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent players on Valve's platform, and that peak is expected to swell this weekend. You can also see what we make of it so far in our Dune: Awakening review in progress.

To help you survive on Arrakis, we've got Dune: Awakening resource guides that'll help you find iron, steel, aluminium, and more. If you're just getting started, check out all the Dune: Awakening classes you can choose from, and keep an eye on our in-progress Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step guide to the story.

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

Devil May Cry 5 has hit the impressive sales milestone of 10 million, with Capcom pointing to the recently released Netflix anime as helping push the video game over the line.

DMC 5 launched in Mar 2019 across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and was a hit with fans and critics. IGN's Devil May Cry 5 review returned a 9.5. We said: "Devil May Cry 5's trio of outstanding combat styles set a new high bar for the series, and its mysterious story keeps things interesting along the way."

Six years later, Devil May Cry 5 must go down as a blockbuster success for Capcom. “The title has garnered strong support from users due to its exceptional gameplay experience, leading to expanded sales as a catalog title since its release,” the company said.

“Capcom provided an even more advanced story and action elements in the game with the addition of a new playable character, and more recently, on April 3, 2025, the company released the new Devil May Cry animated series on Netflix, in line with the company’s Single Content Multiple Usage strategy.

"The animated series has garnered critical acclaim from around the world, and with more than 5.3 million views it ranked fourth during its first week globally in the "Shows | English" category, while also ranking in the top 10 for seven consecutive days in Japan. As a result of the game’s exhilarating action, and due to efforts to enhance brand awareness by leveraging the title beyond the scope of video games, including television adaptations, the title has now exceeded 10 million units in cumulative sales worldwide.”

Devil May Cry 5’s success (the franchise as whole has sold more than 33 million units since the first game came out in 2001), begs the question: when will Devil May Cry 6 be released? It seems inevitable that another game will be greenlit, if it hasn’t already, given DMC5 has sold 10 million in the six years since launch in 2019.

Capcom isn’t giving anything away at this point, of course, and it has a lot on its plate already. Apart from continuing to work on already released games such as Monster Hunter Wilds and Street Fighter 6, it has the just announced Resident Evil: Requiem on the way as well as the re-revealed Pragmata.

But Devil May Cry 5 is by some margin the best-selling Devil May Cry game, and has now cracked the top 10 best-selling Capcom games ever list. Dante and friends will return at some point. The question is, when?

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

My Nintendo Store UK has finally dropped its preorders for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and it’s by far the biggest selection of preorder bonuses we’ve seen for the upcoming Switch 1 & Switch 2 RPG so far.

Any version of the game you buy also comes with a PokémonLegends: Z-A Partner Figurine, with Tepig, Chikorita, and Totodile in one collective pose, as a bonus item.

Other retailers had already put their preorders up with their own incentives. Amazon UK’s at £52.95 is still among the cheapest for the Switch 2 version, and the Pokémon Center UK is bundling starter Pokémon plushies with copies of the game.

The UK Nintendo store, however, is offering three separate bundles, each offering various new Pokémon merchandise, ranging from £56.99 to £78.99.

That’s along with the standard editions of the game. For instance, the Switch 1 version of PokémonLegends Z-A is selling for £49.99 both physically and digitally.

The physical version on Switch 2 is selling for £58.99, but you can buy it digitally for £57.99 through the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade pack. If you buy the Switch 1 version physically, you can also buy the Switch 2 upgrade pack for higher frame rates and resolutions, for £7.99.

For an added £7/8 of each version, though, you can buy the very good-looking Pokémon Legends: Z-A Mega Evolution Bundle. Each variation contains both a Z-A starter Pokémon pin set, enclosed in a snazzy case, and a figurine each of Mega Charizard X (8 x 10 m) and Mega Charizard Y ( 8 x 8cm).

As far as the promo images go by, they seem like decent figurines considering the added price and included pins. On the other hand, if Pokémon swag is more your thing, then the Legends: Z-A Trainer Bundle is more for you.

For an extra £13/14 from the standard editions, £62.99 for the Switch 1 version & £71.99 for the Switch 2 version, you’ll also get a Mega Evolution-themed umbrella, cap, and mug featuring Tepig, Chikorita, and Totodile.

The huge Champion’s Choice Bundle, for an added £20, though, gives you the entire lot from the Mega Evolution and Trainer Bundles. With the bonus figurine included as well, the Champion's Choice Bundle by far gives you the best value.

If you're as excited for Pokemon Legends: Z-A as Nintendo could hope following the boosted performance of Scarlet & Violet on the Switch 2, the biggest set wil grant you the largest bang for your buck.

Ben Williams – IGN freelance contributor with over 10 years of experience covering gaming, tech, film, TV, and anime. Follow him on Twitter/X @BenLevelTen.

MindsEye may look like an exciting, GTA-adjacent action-adventure in short clips and GIFs, but actually playing it through to the end of its story has revealed an unfinished, overly ambitious project that’s plagued with performance problems, makes precious little use of its open world, and is crippled by unconvincing combat and dull mission design.

While it’s natural to draw comparisons with GTA, in basic terms MindsEye is more akin to the Mafia series. That is, it’s a tightly linear, single-player story where the open world largely exists as a backdrop for you to drive from mission to mission. That doesn’t end up serving it very well. Mafia is great. MindsEye is not.

You are Jacob Diaz, a former soldier and drone operator who has been railroaded out of the military after a botched mission, albeit with an extremely rare piece of tech still embedded in his neck. He’s a pretty thinly drawn amnesiac hero overall, with no especially memorable characteristics beyond his ability to follow instructions. After securing a security job at mega-company Silva Corp in the Las Vegas-inspired city of Redrock, Diaz is quickly embroiled in an AI-gone-bad, robots-gone-wild adventure that starts slow, gets a little more intriguing a few hours in, and then ends like someone’s yanked the plug out of the wall.

Credit where it’s due, MindsEye does have style, and its near-future setting is accomplished and credible. It fuses locations like normal homes and strip malls that wouldn’t look out of place in the present day with the proliferation of high-tech robotics and drones. The result is a world that appears appropriately futuristic, but doesn’t feel alien or unrecognisable. From an aesthetic perspective, it really does appear a few years from now in a well-executed way.

It also includes a genuinely impressive fleet of vehicles – and there’s a practicality to them that makes them look like real cars from, say, five to 10 years in the future. It basically takes modern trends – like today’s massive, chunkily-accented pick-up trucks, teardrop-shaped electric sedans, and battery-powered retromods – and successfully projects a decade of tweaks onto them. More importantly, the handling is actually genuinely good in a way open-world action games rarely manage. The cars you actually get to drive are weighty and really love to be whipped into high-speed handbrake turns through the realistically thick traffic. There’s none of that stickiness that’s typical of GTA clones like Sleeping Dogs (which I love regardless) or Saints Row (which I do not). You know, the kind of superficial handling that feels like you’re turning the world under the car, rather than the car itself.

Unfortunately, this is largely where the praise stops.

Mind Over Matter

The very first mission is a short drive into the desert to shoot four robots who barely have the vigour to fire back, and the second requires you to track a slow-moving thief by monitoring a security console and… switching cameras. It’s not exactly an explosive opening stanza, but things don’t get that much better when the bullets really start flying. It’s around 10 hours of the most boringly straightforward missions from the past decades of open-world action games.

Combat against the handful of bot types and human soldiers is mostly just plain, and dud enemy AI doesn’t make for particularly satisfying shootouts. Humans are the least sensible. Sometimes they take cover; sometimes they just walk towards you waiting to get shot. Run out to meet them and they’re confusingly slow to react (not that this is a particularly strong tactic, as there is no melee attack).

It’s just janky. On the one hand, you can actually shoot individual pieces – including weapons – off the bots. That’s nice. On the other, put a round into a human standing behind some scenery and they’ll often blink back into cover with no linking animation whatsoever. That’s shoddy.

It’s not due to a lack of firepower, because MindsEye does feature plenty of guns, although it mostly just chucks them into your arsenal with so little fanfare I usually didn’t notice. I’d just spot something new in my weapon wheel, like another assault rifle, or some kind of energy blaster. It’s rarely clear about what you should be using at any given moment, and it doesn’t seem to matter much.

The action does improve towards the back end of the story, as Diaz gets access to all his partner drone’s special perks. The ability to zap an enemy robot and turn it into an instant ally gives the action some zest that it absolutely lacks out of the gate. Your drone’s grenade ability is also neat for a while, but it’s probably a bit too effective at clearing out enemies ahead. I spent most of the late game missions as my drone, dropping endless grenades on soldiers and robots from high above. It made what turned out to be the penultimate battle into one of the easiest because the bad guys just have no defense against this.

The primary problem I had with MindsEye, though, was its drastically uneven performance on my high-end PC (RTX 4080, Intel Core Ultra 9 185H). While the auto settings placed the bulk of the configurable options at ‘High’ – and capped the frame rate at 60fps – my playthrough was rife with issues. It’s regularly blurry and choppy when panning, and the frame rate would flutter and sometimes hang. During one car chase performance chugged to a crawl and was only barely playable. Sometimes even the cutscenes would stutter and display ghosting. Experimenting with lowering the settings hasn’t yielded much in the way of positive results. It’s in really rough shape technically.

To be fair, there are definitely moments in MindsEye when it looks quite stunning. Explosions are excellent. The sunlight piercing through Redrock’s glitzy hotels is seriously snazzy. I liked the sheer scale and complexity of the Silva factory’s rocket loader, and at one point the metallic sheen of a parked jet in the desert glare stopped me in my tracks. When it runs well and looks good, it looks very good. But six months ago I played through Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on this machine and it performed fabulously. MindsEye does not. It’s like Steven Seagal circa 1990: Looks cool – just doesn’t know how to run properly.

Performance optimisation won’t solve MindsEye’s myriad other issues, though. A lot of these are really just baked into how it’s designed. Too often, the missions are simply restrictive and dull. All you can do is drive a pre-assigned vehicle to a marker. That triggers a cutscene. Then you shoot everything. Then drive somewhere else. It’s all so rigid and leaves no room for the kind of goofing around or antics you can get into in comparable games, and there’s certainly none of the emergent fun you constantly get in something like GTA. MindsEye rarely trusts us to even park at a mission marker; it generally just splutters into a cutscene when you get close enough.

It doesn’t help that there are no radio stations or songs to listen to as you’re commuting between missions. Travel time from A to B mostly seems to exist to feed you phone calls to prod the story along a little further. Exploration is actively disencouraged, and you’ll be constantly scolded for not heading directly to your destination, or failed out. There’s no reason to explore anyhow, as it isn’t the sort of living world you might have expected. Police don’t even respond to Diaz’s crimes, so what’s even the point?

And there’s not really anything out there to find. Hunting for a cool vehicle to use? Don’t bother. Other vehicles are off-limits. Wreck the car you were assigned? That’s a mission fail. You won’t even be able to get out of it if it's burning. It’s a baffling choice for a game like this – the entire genre is built around stealing cars.

MindsEye has some good ideas. An effective stealth mission mid-way is a positive change of pace, and there are some unexpected puzzles late in the piece that gave me a break from blasting. But it relegates the rest of them to its roughly two hours of cutscenes and wastes their potential. At one point a squad of robots are set sprinting after my car at highway speeds. While I was preparing myself for a potentially thrilling chase, the robots caught the car and destroyed it before the cinematic finished. This kind of thing is a real rug pull in a game that, a few hours earlier, made me play through a frustrating, one-off CPR minigame that could’ve just been a cutscene.

GameStop is doubling-down on trading cards.

In its 2025 Annual Meeting, CEO Ryan Cohen told shareholders that the company had seen its first profitable opening quarter since 2019 due to "reducing costs, cutting excess inventory, streamlining headcount, closing unprofitable stores, exiting under-performing geographies, and focusing on the core fundamentals of the business."

And those fundamentals, it turns out, are trading cards, which Cohen called a "natural extension" of a game retailer with a chain of physical stores.

"We are focusing on trading cards as a natural extension of our existing business," Cohen said. "The trading card market — whether it's sports, Pokémon, or collectibles, is aligned with our heritage — it fits our trading model, it appeals to our core customer base, and it's deeply embedded in physical retail. Unlike software, it's tactile. Unlike hardware, it has high margin potential. It's a logical expansion." The announcement sent stocks tumbling 22%.

While running around in a match of Elden Ring Nightreign, it's not exactly easy to stop and carefully think about numbers and details. In fact, the leveling system for the characters in Nightreign is streamlined compared to the more-freeform point-system of Elden Ring. So what do they all mean, and what numbers are worth chasing over others?

YouTuber Zullie the Witch recently dove into the behind-the-scenes numbers to figure that out. While Nightreign simplifies progression down to level-ups, these pre-assigned values can be looked at and charted, as Zullie has done in their video.

One fascinating detail they found was that the jump from level 1 to level 2 adds "far more" than any other level up, making that first Site of Grace a big one. On the other hand, levels 13 through 15 apparently add fewer attributes for most characters, imposing a "softcap" around level 12. You'll get more stats, but they won't be as drastic as those early levels.

They also note statistics seem to have different scales between the different properties. Duchess, for example, has a B in Dexterity and A in Intelligence, but her point values across the levels end up fairly even. Also, strangely, no one gains points in Arcane across their levels.

If you're curious, the highest total level character if one were to build them in Elden Ring would be Recluse. Per Zullie, this is due to the Recluse having the same stat growth for both Intelligence and Faith; her points cap out at 51 on both values, at level 15.

There's some actionable advice here for build-crafting. Zullie found that each point of Vigor always adds exactly 20 HP at any level. Additionally, it looks like Relics that raise attack statistics will seem stronger at lower levels, but get outpaced by "other damage bonuses" as the game goes on.

It's some fascinating datamining that's sure to help with build-crafting, as you put together your Relics and aim for different rewards in the field. If anything, just remember: that first level-up is big, so don't delay it. And if you're curious about other details, it's worth looking into Zullie's videos about what lies behind the mask of the Nightfarers and other videos, which you can find on their YouTube channel here.

We’ve got plenty of Nightreign tips and tricks to help you take down all the eight Nightlord Bosses, and if you’re wondering how to unlock the two locked Nightfarer Classes, check out How to Unlock the Revenant and How to Unlock the Duchess, plus How to Change Characters.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Sony has said it remains committed to live service video games despite high-profile failures such as Concord, and insisted Marathon will be out before April 2026 despite admitting the recent alpha had seen “varied” feedback.

Sony’s live service hero shooter Concord is one of the biggest flops in PlayStation history. Amid disastrously low player numbers, Sony pulled Concord offline just two weeks after launch, with one estimate suggesting it sold just 25,000 copies. It has proved a costly failure for Sony, with hundreds of millions of dollars wasted amid the closure of its developer, Firewalk Studios.

What has Sony learned from the Concord disaster, and how does that relate to Marathon, Bungie’s in-development extraction live service shooter? Hermen Hulst, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Studio Business Group, was asked that question during an investor focused interview. Responding, Hulst admitted that feedback to Marathon’s recent alpha test had been “varied,” but insisted the game will be released during Sony’s current fiscal year ending March 31, 2026, and promised that the mistakes it made with Concord would not be repeated.

“Live service, we really see that as a great opportunity for us,” Hulst said. “But with this great opportunity are some unique challenges associated. We talked about some early success as with Helldivers 2. We’ve also faced some challenges, as with the release of Concord.

“I think some really good work, actually, went into that title, some really big effort. But ultimately that title entered into a hyper competitive segment of the market. I think it was insufficiently differentiated to be able to resonate with players.

“And so we have reviewed our processes in light of this to deeply understand how and why that title failed to meet expectations and to ensure we’re not going to make the same mistakes again.

“As I said earlier, we’ve introduced much more rigorous processes for validating, for re-validating, our creative, our commercial, our development assumptions and hypotheses, and we now do that on a much more ongoing basis. That’s the plan that will ensure we are investing in the right opportunities at the right time, all while maintaining much more predictable timelines.

“For Marathon, it’s our goal to release a very bold, very innovative, and deeply engaging title. It’s going to be the first new Bungie title in over a decade. So we’re really excited for that release. We’re monitoring, we’re going through the test cycles. We’re monitoring the closed alpha cycle the team has just gone through. We’re taking all the lessons learned, we’re using the capabilities we’ve built and analytics and user testing to understand how audiences are engaging with the title.

“Some of that feedback, frankly, has been varied. But it’s super useful. That’s why you do this testing. The constant testing, the constant re-validation of assumptions that we just talked about, to me is just so valuable to iterate and to constantly improve the title, so when launch comes, we’re going to give the title the optimal chance of success.

“This cycle of test, of iterate, test again, that is such a key component of the live service success, both leading up to launch but also throughout the life of the game. And we’re committed to continuing to leverage our learnings, to maximise engagement and player satisfaction throughout the lifecycle of the title.”

Hulst failed to address the recent art plagiarism scandal that embroiled Bungie and Marathon, however. Last month, Bungie was left scrambling to recover its reputation after yet another independent artist accused the studio of "lifting" their artwork in Marathon.

The accusation prompted an "immediate investigation" and acknowledgement from the studio that a "former Bungie artist" had indeed used Fern Hook's work without compensation or credit. Soon after, Marathon game director Joe Ziegler and art director Joe Cross apologized on a painfully uncomfortable livestream that featured no Marathon art or footage at all, as the team was "still scrubbing all of our assets to make sure that we are being respectful of the situation."

Sony’s live service plan has seen significant success but also catastrophic failure. The Concord flop came after Sony had already canceled Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer game. And earlier this year, Sony reportedly canceled two unannounced live service games, one a God of War title in development at Bluepoint, the other in the works at Days Gone developer Bend, which recently suffered mass layoffs as a result.

Sony announced plans in February 2022 to launch more than 10 live service games by March 2026, later saying the push would bring games of different genres to different audiences. It spent big on studio buyouts as part of the drive, bringing in Destiny developer Bungie, Jade Raymond's Haven Studios (Raymond has since left the company), and the now shuttered Firewalk Studios.

But in 2023, Sony president Hiroki Totoki said the company was reviewing the 12 live service PlayStation games it had in the works, and committed to launching only six of them by the end of financial year 2025, meaning by the end of March 2026. Totoki said Sony was still working on when the other six live service games would come out, adding: "It's not that we stick to certain titles, but for the gamers quality should be the most important.”

Earlier this month, Sony announced a new PlayStation studio called teamLFG and teased its debut game, which is a live service incubation project. Guerrilla’s Horizon multiplayer game is also in development, as is Haven's Fairgames.

Speaking more generally about Sony’s live service ambition, Hulst said the company remains “very, very committed to building a diverse and a resilient live service portfolio.” He pointed to MLB The Show, Destiny 2, and Helldivers 2 as “really good examples of the type of titles we’re looking to develop.”

“These titles have already established an enduring set of player experiences and communities across quite a wide range of different genres,” he said. “Together that provides a really good foundation for our ambitions in this category.

“I would say additionally we are continuing to invest in new live services, with Helldivers 2 providing such a great example of the level of success we can achieve — if we get everything right.

“That game has been a true breakout success, it’s been attracting and retaining significant community and very engaged players since we launched that back in February 2024. And its ongoing success I think is further evidence in how we deal with the monetization. Microtransactions now in that game make up more than half of the revenue.”

And then, the kicker: a commitment to releasing Marathon by the end of March 2026: “We’re also very excited about Marathon’s anticipated launch in this fiscal year,” Hulst confirmed.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

As the PS5 nears its fifth birthday, Sony executives have begun to talk about the next-generation of consoles, and answered in vague terms the question of whether one is already in development.

In an investor-focused interview published on Sony's corporate website, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and president Hideaki Nishino was asked directly: with cloud gaming more of a viable option than ever before, do we need a next-generation console? Is SIE developing one?

Nishino began by explaining why console hardware is still needed despite the rise of cloud gaming:

“We have been in cloud gaming for over the last 11 years. We deployed a cloud gaming service to support the PS3, PS4, and PS5 generations and we are really proud about the quality we have been delivering.

“Cloud streaming through PlayStation Plus Premium, and we have a cloud streaming beta on the PlayStation Portal, is one such way we are doing this.

“However, the business model for cloud gaming must be sustainable for the longer term growth. Cloud gaming is progressing well from a technical standpoint, as we have demonstrated with these offerings. But end-to-end network stability is not in our control.

“Cloud gaming is increasingly providing an additional option for players to access content. But our belief is the majority of players continue to want a play experience, the gaming through a local execution, without dependency on network conditions. PS5 and PS5 Pro have validated this thesis, I believe.”

So, Sony remains committed to video game consoles, at least for now. But is a new console, a PS6 perhaps, currently in development?

Here’s Nishino again:

“Our console business has evolved into a multi-faceted platform, and we now have a large ecosystem of highly engaged players across both the PS5 and the PS4 generations. So naturally, therefore, there is a huge interest in our next-generation console strategy.

“While we cannot share further details at this stage, the future of the platform is top of mind. We are committed to exploring a new and enhanced way for players to engage with our content and our services.”

The answer, then, is yes, Sony is developing a next-generation console, although that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Console manufacturers often start work on next-generation consoles soon after they release current-gen consoles. In fact, Sony started development of PS5 almost immediately after PS4 came out back in November 2013. Following what’s gone before, perhaps PS6 has already been in the works for five years.

Nishino’s comments do not tell us much about what to expect from Sony, but it’s worth speculating based on its recent moves and where the market is going. While fans expect a traditional PS6, a home console that is more powerful than the PS5 in every way, perhaps Sony is also considering following Nintendo’s lead with a portable hybrid. If you look at the PlayStation Portal and how it has evolved, Sony is clearly steering in that direction.

Indeed, Nishino was asked during the investor interview about Sony's strategy around the PlayStation Portal, and whether handhelds are a part of its next-generation strategy, although he failed to answer in a meaningful way.

The ‘will there be a next-gen?’ question has been bubbling under the surface ever since the current-gen kicked off in November 2020. With the PS5 now pushing past the halfway point of its life and Microsoft releasing Xbox-branded handhelds, change, clearly, is coming. What isn’t clear is exactly what that looks like when both Sony and Microsoft finally pull the trigger.

In February, former Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios CEO Shawn Layden said Sony can't get away with launching the PS6 as an all digital, disc-less console. Layden told Kiwi Talkz that, while Xbox has found success in that regard, PlayStation has such a large market share that it would be shutting out too many people by removing physical and offline games from its library.

"I don't think Sony can get away with it now," Layden said. "I think Xbox has had more success in pursuing that strategy, but Xbox is really most successful in their business in a clutch of countries: the U.S., Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. Coincidentally enough all English speaking countries.

"Sony, which is the number one platform in probably 170 countries around the world, has an obligation or a responsibility to say, 'If we go discless, how much of my market is not able to make that jump? Can users in rural Italy get a decent connection to enjoy games?'"

And in September last year, it was reported that Intel lost the PS6 chip contract to AMD in 2022. The PS4 came out November 2013, and the PS5 seven years later, in November 2020. If this pattern repeats itself, the PS6 will come out November 2027. One game that may be set to launch on PS6 is Physint, Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima’s long-awaited return to the “action espionage” genre. The Witcher 4 isn't due out until 2027 at the earliest, so perhaps that's a next-generation game, too.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

The Warhammer 40,000 story, such as it is, is a slow moving beast. The scribes at Games Workshop sometimes take years to inch the overarching plot forward. Take, for example, the return of beloved Primarch, Lion El'Jonson, which was announced in March 2023. Now, over two years later, the character is yet to do much of anything in the setting, his hotly anticipated reunion with his brother, Roboute Guilliman, seemingly further away than ever.

Tantalizing plot threads are left dangling, sometimes for decades. Answers remain frustratingly out of reach. Cliffhangers seem destined to hang in a perpetual state of anticipation, never to be fulfilled. Such is the nature of Games Workshop's grimdark 41st millennium, which has exploded in popularity over the last decade. At this point any news on how the story might actually move forward is analyzed to within an inch of its life, as if under investigation by the Inquisition itself.

And so it is with the latest Facebook post by celebrated Black Library author Dan Abnett. Abnett, perhaps the most high-profile Warhammer 40,000 writer today, is at the heart of the setting’s development. His long list of Warhammer 40,000 books established much of the lore fans know and love, including the wonderful Gaunt's Ghosts and Eisenhorn series, and key entries in the sprawling The Horus Heresy saga.

Let’s zero in on Eisenhorn, because that’s the subject of the latest speculation. Eisenhorn is a strilogy of sci-fi crime novels that revolve around inquisitors Gregor Eisenhorn and Gideon Ravenor, who got his own spin-off series. The gist is the hunt heretics and daemons while fending off the brain-melting powers of Chaos. While the story is set within the Warhammer 40,000 universe, it is more focused and smaller in scope than some of the other, galaxy-spanning 40K stories that involve long-running space battles and thousands of Space Marines fighting alien monstrosities and even each other.

The Eisenhorn saga includes a spinoff series that revolves around an Inquisitorial agent called Alizebeth Bequin. The first novel in the Bequin series, Pariah, came out in 2012. Its sequel, the Warhammer 40,000 lore treasure trove that is Penitent, followed nearly a decade later, in March 2021. The hotly anticipated third novel in the series, Pandaemonium, does not have a release date, and the wait for an announcement is fast becoming Warhammer 40,000’s version of George R. R. Martin’s M.I.A. Game of Thrones book, The Winds of Winter.

Why should so many Warhammer 40,000 lore lovers care so much about Pandaemonium? Because it promises to actually move the overarching plot forward. Penitent ended with a significant lore revelation (it has to do with the identity of the mysterious King in Yellow, which we won’t spoil here), and so the ramifications of Pandaemonium could be huge. Everyone wants to know what happens next, and is badgering Abnett to get on and write the damn book.

Which brings us to now, and a seemingly innocuous Facebook post by Abnett himself promoting his attendance at this weekend’s Broadside Games Show in the English town of Gillingham, Kent. It includes a warning of sorts:

By the way… my previous posts about this event (and, actually, pretty much anything I post) have resulted in many comments asking for Pandaemonium (Bequin book 3). Positively demanding it. And I’m delighted you’re keen, because so am I. But for those who don’t know, it is not MY decision when Pandaemonium gets finished and published. For reasons an NDA prevents me from discussing, Bequin 3 — and some other things — are held up for a while. It’s coming — and I’ll be delighted to bring it to you — but in the meantime, try to be patient… and maybe try to enjoy the things that I AM writing.

This message was brought to you by peace, love, and shooty-death-kill-in-space. See you Saturday.

So, Abnett is bound by a non-disclosure agreement that prevents him from explaining why Pandaemonium and “some other things” are “held up for a while.” That on its own wouldn’t warrant such attention, but in combination with a reddit post from March, it certainly does set the cat among the pigeons.

Three months ago, redditor Zigoia described a meeting he had with Abnett at a book signing in a Warhammer store in Maidstone, Kent. Zigoia reported that Abnett told him that the delay for Pandaemonium “is because of the potential lore impact it’s going to have on the setting — and is due to GW wanting to get the lore in the TV show totally settled first. They apparently don’t want to end up having some of the potentially galaxy shaking events of Pandaemonium contradict what they lay out in the show.”

The TV show! So, this is Henry Cavill’s Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Universe, the result of a deal struck between Games Workshop and Amazon for movies and TV shows based on the tabletop. It’s all hugely exciting, especially given Cavill’s well-documented love of Warhammer 40,000. Not only is he set to star in whatever comes from the project, but he is down as executive producer. Cavill is among those steering this ship, hopefully in the right direction, like the Emperor guiding humanity safely through the Warp.

We know next to nothing about Cavill’s Warhammer 40,000 adaptation. We do not know which characters it will deal with, where in the setting it will take place, or even when in the setting it will take place. Who will Cavill play? We don’t know. But one character is often mentioned by fans as a great fit: Eisenhorn, from Abnett’s saga of the same name.

With this in mind, it's easy to see why Abnett would be tied up in NDA knots over the future of his saga. If the delay to Pandaemonium is due to Games Workshop wanting to get its Amazon ducks in a row so the movies and TV shows slot neatly into Warhammer 40,000 canon and veteran fans and newcomers alike aren’t faced with two sets of contradicting lore, you can see why the revelations of Pandaemonium might have to wait.

Unfortunately for Warhammer 40,000 lore fans, that probably means an even longer wait for Pandaemonium than they had expected. When Games Workshop confirmed the deal in December 2024, it said a synopsis and ordering for the stories set to be told in Amazon’s Warhammer 40,000 films and television series was in place. But, Games Workshop warned, “it’ll be some years” before the first project hits screens. Perhaps this is why the Warhammer 40,000 narrative feels like it has ground to a halt, with pockets of isolated developments that tell hardcore fans little they didn’t already know keeping us going until Pandaemonium rewrites the rule book.

So, to fill the gap, let’s enjoy some fun speculation. Does Abnett’s NDA suggest Amazon and Cavill are adapting his Eisenhorn series? Remember I mentioned it was tighter in scope than some of the grander Warhammer 40,000 stories? That might make it a more realistic adaptation for Amazon to bankroll than something that would need The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power kind of money, like the gargantuan Horus Heresy.

If Amazon and Cavill have gone for Eisenhorn, perhaps Abnett is involved in the project in some way, and thus Games Workshop has locked him down. Maybe Cavill is set to play Eisenhorn, as many fans would like. Just this week, Cavill said he was enjoying the challenge of adapting what he called the "tricky" and “very complex” Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game. Perhaps realizing Eisenhorn in live-action is a part of that challenge.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Thank your own personal deity—possibly The Old Gods of Nightreign—it's Friday again! With prices dropping harder than a boss fight on easy mode, now’s the time to stock up for the weekend. Whether you’re playing solo, with mates, or just hunting for your next obsession, the below haul covers everything from co-op chaos and sportsball simming to cult classics and free gems.

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro news, I'm celebrating the 13th birthday of Lollipop Chainsaw, a Suda51 cult-hit. Admittedly, it didn't garner much in the way of high scores, but I still recall it being the best game about a zombie-slaying cheerleader armed with a portable power tool and the disembodied head of her boyfriend... I've ever played. Had a whole buncha rock solid references to horror flicks and IRL musicians, too.

Aussie bdays for notable games

- Civilization Revolution (PS3,X360) 2008. eBay

- Lollipop Chainsaw (PS3,X360) 2012. Redux

- Cadence of Hyrule (DS) 2019. Get

- Persona 4 Golden (PC) 2020. Get

Contents

• Nintendo
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC
• PC Gear
• LEGO
• Headphones
• TVs

Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch

On Nintendo Switch, It Takes Two delivers emotional whiplash wrapped in joyful platforming. It was inspired by director Josef Fares' love–hate experiences with real relationships. Meanwhile, Hogwarts Legacy is worth revisiting not just for its wizarding wonder but because the devs spent months crafting a bespoke broom physics system that most players never even notice.

• It Takes Two (-43%) - A$34
• Hogwarts Legacy (-46%) - A$49
• Life Is Strange: Double Exposure (-33%) - A$57
• Sid Meier's Civilization VII (-23%) - A$69
• Lego Skywalker Saga (-50%) - A$49

Expiring Recent Deals

• No Man’s Sky + S2 Ed. (-60%) - A$31.90
• Pokémon Legends: Z-A (-13%) - A$78
• Dragon Ball Fighterz - Leg. (-75%) - A$41.20
• Persona 3 Portable (-50%) - A$14.90
• Mortal Kombat 1 (-67%) - A$19.70

Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.

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Exciting Bargains for Xbox

• The Witcher 3 Comp. (-56%) - A$34.80
• Tekken 8 (-53%) - A$39.90
• NBA 2K25 (-80%) - A$24
• Farming Simulator 25 (-32%) - A$68
• FC 25 (-57%) - A$34

Xbox One

• Red Dead Redemption 2 (-78%) - A$20
• Lies of P (-19%) - A$73
• Lego Jurassic World (-65%) - A$22.50

Expiring Recent Deals

• Xbox Controller Robot White (-36%) - A$58
• Seagate 1TB Expansion (-33%) - A$205
• GTA V (-60%) - A$24
• 40K: Space Marine 2 (-37%) - A$68
• Monster Hunter Wilds (-23%) - A$88
• Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 (-11%) - A$249
• Middle-earth: Shadow of War (-85%) - A$8.20
• The Crew Motorfest (-48%) - A$51.80
• TopSpin 2K25 (-81%) - A$23

Or just invest in an Xbox Card.

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Pure Scores for PlayStation

• Horizon Zero Dawn Rem. (-41%) - A$44
• Lego Horizon Adventures (-51%) - A$54
• The Last of Us Part II Rem. (-41%) - A$44
• Elden Ring (-51%) - A$49
• Spidey: Miles Morales Ult. (-53%) - A$59

PS4

• GTA: The Trilogy (-80%) - A$20
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (-78%) - A$20
• Uncharted The Col. (-40%) - A$15

Expiring Recent Deals

• Rise of the Ronin (-53%) - A$59
• Astro Bot (-31%) - A$75
• DualSense Edge (-25%) - A$249
• PS Portal - Midnight Black (-9%) - A$299
• PS5 Pro Console (-13%) - A$1,049
• God of War: Ragnarok (-57%) - A$54
• Sea of Stars (-32%) - A$36
• Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (-55%) - A$42.40
• God of War (-40%) - A$15
• The Last of Us Rem. (-32%) - A$17

PS+ Monthly Freebies
Yours to keep from May 1 with this subscription

• Ark: Survival Ascended (PS5)
• Balatro (PS5/PS4)
• Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (PS5/PS4)

Or purchase a PS Store Card.

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Purchase Cheap for PC

• Stellar Blade (-10%) - A$98.90
• Elden Ring Nightreign (-12%) - A$48.30
• Two Point Hospital (-100%) - FREE
• Death Squared (-100%) - FREE
• Mordheim: City of the Damned (-100%) - FREE
• GOG “Fantasy Medieval” Promo (≤80%)

Expiring Recent Deals

• Forza Horizon 5 (-50%) - A$44.90
• This War of Mine (-95%) - A$1.40
• Ori and the Blind Forest: Def. (-80%) - A$5.90
• Mortal Shell (-95%) - A$2.20
• RoboCop: Rogue City (-83%) - A$12.40
• Watch Dogs 2 (-87%) - A$10.50

Or just get a Steam Wallet Card

Laptop Deals

• Apple 2024 MacBook Air 15-inch (-12%) – A$2,197
• HP Laptop 15.6" 15-fd0233TU (-20%) – A$799
• Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 (-36%) – A$849
• Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 14", Gen 9 (-41%) – A$1,229

Desktop Deals

• Lenovo neo 50a G5 27" AIO (-47%) – A$1,379
• Lenovo neo 50q G4 Tiny (-35%) – A$639
• Lenovo neo 50t G5 Tower (-20%) – A$871.20
• Legion Tower 5i G8 (-29%) – A$1,899

Monitor Deals

• Samsung QE50T 50" (-31%) – A$596
• ARZOPA 16.1" 144Hz (-55%) – A$159.99
• Z-Edge 27" 240Hz (-15%) – A$237.99
• Gawfolk 34" WQHD (-28%) – A$359
• LG 27" Ultragear (-42%) – A$349

Component Deals

• MSI PRO B650M-A WiFi Motherboard (-41%) – A$229
• AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (-7%) – A$876
• Corsair Vengeance 32GB (-35%) – A$82
• Kingston FURY Beast 16GB (-30%) – A$48

Storage Deals

• Seagate One Touch Portable HDD (-24%) – A$228
• Kingston 1TB USB 3.2 SSD (-17%) – A$115
• SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO (-63%) – A$29
• SanDisk 32GB Ultra SDHC (-53%) – A$9.90

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Legit LEGO Deals

• Wicked Shiz University (-50%) - A$25
• Hogwarts Castle: Dueling Club (-40%) - A$23.90
• Grogu With Hover Pram (-34%) - A$99
• City Doughnut Truck (-33%) - A$20

Expiring Recent Deals

• JP T. Rex Skull (-40%) - A$41.90
• Harry Potter Aragog (-40%) - A$17.90
• Rocket & Baby Groot (-34%) - A$59
• Super Mario Yoshis' Egg-cellent Forest (-33%) - A$10
• Millennium Falcon UCS (-29%) - A$929
• Krusty Burger [NEW] - $329

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Hot Headphones Deals

Audiophilia for less

• Bose QuietComfort Ultra Wireless (-38%) – A$399.95
• Soundcore by Anker Q20i (-43%) – A$68.79
• Sony MDR7506 Professional (-30%) – A$169
• Technics Premium (-46%) – A$299
• Bose SoundLink Flex (-31%) – A$171
• JBL Charge 5 - Portable Speaker (-28%) – A$144
• JBL Flip Essential 2 Waterproof Speaker (-26%) – A$96
• Sony SRS-XB100 Travel Speaker (-41%) – A$84.15
• Ultimate Ears Boom 3 Portable Speaker (-41%) – A$134.95
• Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro (-26%) – A$259.29
• Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless (-46%) – A$275

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Terrific TV Deals

Do right by your console, upgrade your telly

• LG 43" UT80 4K (-24%) – A$635
• Kogan 65" QLED 4K (-50%) – A$699
• Kogan 55" QLED 4K (-45%) – A$549
• LG 55" UT80 4K (-28%) – A$866
• Prism+ Q75 Ultra 75" 4K QLED (-47%) – A$1,229
• Gaimoo Mini Projector 1080p w/ 4K (-33%) – A$119.99
• GooDee 4K Projector (-58%) – A$169.99
• VOPLLS Mini Projector 4K (-19%) – A$168.99
• XuanPad Mini Projector (-36%) – A$128.99
• LG S70TY Q Series Sound Barn*-22%) – A$546
• Sony HTG700 Atmos Soundbar (-15%) – A$594
• Yamaha NS-SW050 Subwoofer (-13%) – A$270

Smart Home Deals

• Arlo Video Doorbell 2K (-53%) – A$107.76
• Google Nest Doorbell (-44%) – A$183
• Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (-40%) – A$149
• TP-Link Tapo Smart Doorbell (-20%) – A$183
• XTU Doorbell Camera Doorbell (-40%) – A$59.99
• D-Link DCS-8302LH Wi-Fi Cam (-62%) – A$75
• Google Nest Cam (-25%) – A$247
• Ring Spotlight Cam Pro Battery (-43%) – A$187
• Swann 4 Channel DVR with 4 x 4K Cams (-34%) – A$399
• WUUK 2K Outdoor Cam (-32%) – A$249.99

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For today only, HP has dropped the price of the powerful Omen Max 16 GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Gaming Laptop to just $1,399.99 with free shipping after a massive $700 instant discount and no coupon code required. That is the best price for any RTX 5070 Ti gaming laptop I've seen online since it first launched back in March of 2025. The RTX 5070 Ti offers gaming performance on par with the previous generation's RTX 4080 GPU.

HP Omen Max 16" RTX 5070 Gaming Laptop for $1,399.99

The Switch 2 might pack much better hardware than the original, but a game I’m still surprised to see running at all (much less pretty well) on a Nintendo system is Cyberpunk 2077. I spent a few days with CD Projekt Red’s latest port to get a feel for how it runs, how it holds up, and how the Switch 2’s fancy new mouse controls work when applied to a high-octane FPS. The answer across the board is impressive, and if you haven’t had the pleasure of exploring Night City before, this seems like a solid way to do so.

But first, let’s look back at what I said in my review of Cyberpunk 2077 when it first launched in 2020.

Of course, that was just for the PC version, and the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions were such a notorious mess that we had to go back and do a separate review with a much lower score once we got our hands on it at launch. (And don’t forget we also reviewed its excellent Phantom Liberty DLC in 2023, which is included in the Switch 2 version.) Thankfully, the Switch 2 port is nowhere near the disaster it was on the old console generation – in fact, it’s pretty dang great.

Cyberpunk 2077 looks pretty great on Nintendo Switch 2

All it takes is a quick glance to see that Cyberpunk 2077 still looks very good on Nintendo’s new console. The distinct neon glows and dirty streets of Night City all come through alive and well here, even if they aren’t quite as crisp and clean as you’d find on PC, PS5, or Xbox Series X. This isn’t exactly the “definitive” way to play this game, but it’s more than good enough from a practical standpoint. This isn’t like the Switch 1 port of The Witcher 3, which felt like an “I guess we can make this function” sort of last resort way to play more than anything else.

The framerate is decent but not jaw-dropping

You can check out the technical specs in our story about how CD Projekt managed to get Cyberpunk 2077 running on the Switch 2 – in short, it’s running at 1080p when docked, and 1080p or 720p in handheld, depending on if you’re playing in Quality or Performance mode, and it maxes out at 40fps. Your mileage may vary here, because despite my PC gaming background, I am not a huge performance snob and I have no issue playing at less than 60fps. So to my eye, Cyberpunk 2077 runs fairly well in docked mode, even if far from perfect. It has some dropped frames in parts and doesn’t run as buttery smooth as the Switch 2 Editions of Tears of the Kingdom or Breath of the Wild, but nothing is so distracting that it actively harmed my time with it in this context. If you can’t stand anything below a solid 60fps, this might be one you need to skip – anyone who is used to playing games entirely on the original Switch, however, should be comfortable enough here.

Switch 2 mouse controls work surprisingly well

One of the biggest draws of the Switch 2 for me was its ability to mimic mouse control with a sideways Joy-Con, potentially giving you greater accuracy in a first-person game like this. I am happy to say that’s exactly the case, as it was super easy for me to jump from my PC to this control option and get far more headshots than I would have with a regular gamepad. It’s not at the same level as a high-DPS gaming mouse or anything, but it’s absolutely my preferred way to play this game whenever I sat down to do so, and that’s a huge win. That said…

The Joy-Con mouse isn’t great for long sessions

You see, the problem with the Switch 2’s mouse mode isn’t actually the quality of the mouse control itself, but the physical feel of using it. The Joy-Con is tiny compared to a normal mouse, and my hand was cramping up trying to get a good grip on it after long play sessions – even when I used a 3D-printed shell to make it feel better. That’s because there’s nowhere to comfortably put your thumb while still being able to press the right stick, Y button, and A button, all of which are required for various actions as you jump between combat, conversations, and menu management. So while the mouse is better than I expected, I’m worried this awkward grip is going to stop me from consistently using it in the future.

Cyberpunk 2077’s motion assist options aren’t great

That said, the mouse controls are at least better than using motions to shortcut certain actions. The usual method of aiming with the right stick primarily and then fine-tuning that aim with motion controls is available and works just as well here as it does in stuff like Zelda, but the motion assist options are pretty useless beyond that. You can swing your Joy-Con to use your melee weapon in a way that gave me unflattering flashbacks to early Wii games, or twist and flail it to do actions like reload or heal, but doing so almost always made my camera wobble about at the same time. It may hurt my hand, but I’ll take mouse controls over this any day.

This is still an awesome RPG worth playing

Finally, revisiting Night City reminded me just how great this game is, especially after all the improvements after launch. The world is moody and dangerous, and it does a great job of dropping you in and immediately making you feel like a part of the culture. I also maintain it stages its quest conversations better than any RPG I’ve ever seen, giving simple chats a cinematic quality without ever taking you out of the driver seat. If you’ve never played Cyberpunk 2077, I can absolutely recommend you check it out here.

I am still working on my final Switch 2 review, but you can check out our reviews of Mario Kart World and Welcome Tour in the meantime. And if you want insight on other ports, we’ve got a look at Tears of the Kingdom, Breath of the Wild, and Hogwarts Legacy.

Bugs, Daffy, and the whole Looney Tunes bunch are back in action with newer versions of Volume 1 and 2 of the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection. Arriving on June 24, each edition features hours of Looney Tunes shorts, now remastered in HD. After HBO Max removed historic Looney Tunes episodes from its platform to ‘prioritize adult and family programming’, there’s no time like the present to lock down physical copies. You can preorder both volumes on Amazon for $29.98 each.

These two collections are the first new releases in Looney Tunes Platinum line since 2014 when Volume 3 was released. They are new remastered versions of the original Volume 1 and 2 (rather than a Volume 4), but it's still noteworthy for any collector looking to add the shorts to their personal collection.

Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Blu-ray Preorders

The Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Blu-ray Volume 1

Among Us developer Innersloth has found a reference to its game in the new chapters of Deltarune, sparking a little bit of friendly back-and-forth between Innersloth and Deltarune developer Toby Fox on social media.

Warning! No major plot spoilers will be discussed in this article, but if you don't want to know anything about anything that happens in Deltarune Chapter 4, maybe this article isn't for you!

The reference can be found at the start of Chapter 4, when Kris, Susie, and Noelle are exploring Noelle's house. Kris can lead the gang into a closet full of empty gift boxes, and if Kris chooses to examine several of the boxes, Noelle will ask Kris what they're doing.

To this, Susie reponds, "I mean... gotta admit this room is kinda sus... especially that vent." Noelle then replies, "Haha, nice reference, Susie!" ...though Susie doesn't seem to know what Noelle is talking about ("Huh? ...reference?")

Susie was, of course, accidentally calling to mind Among Us, both by using the word "sus" and referencing vents, which Among Us players frequently hide in. This has seemingly thrilled the Innersloth social media person, who took to X / Twitter to say, "AHHHHH AMONG US REFERENCE IN DELTARUNE SKDJDSLSLX;LSKDK IMMA CRASH OUT" followed by "thanks king @tobyfox"

In response, Fox decided to do a little trolling:

pic.twitter.com/2D52MGxkrD

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) June 12, 2025

He posted a fake screenshot of Deltarune patch notes, which read:

We are releasing a hotfix for PC & Mac to remedy some issues occurring in the game. You can confirm the version number on the bottom right of the file select screen.

Changelist

Ch4 v.0.0.088 8

Removed among us

Innersloth replied with "RESPECT." If it's not apparent, Fox didn't actually remove the reference; he's just goofing around. Funnily enough, this gag is also a silly way to note that Fox has been playing around with version numbers: the 2021 release of chapters 1 and 2 was marked as version 1.0, but instead of chapters 3 and 4 being 2.0, the new release was v.0.0.087.

Deltarune chapters 3 and 4 launched last week to immediate skyrocketing popularity on Steam, and our own reviewer gave the full game a 9/10, saying that even though the story's only halfway done, "Deltarune's incredible story is already bursting with hilarious charm, unforgettable characters, and an iconic soundtrack that make it worth investing your time in."

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.

Lots of comedies have attempted to cynically rely on actors’ improvisation skills to patch up their uneven, unready scripts. By comparison, the way Deep Cover uses improv comedy as a major engine for its plot feels like a loving tribute to the form – in theory, at least, if not necessarily in practice.

Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard) knows a lot about improv theory; having failed for a decade to get a comedy career rolling, she’s now teaching the value of “yes, and” – an improv refrain encouraging participants to add onto an idea, rather than contradict it – to beginner classes in London. That’s where she meets novices like Marlon (Orlando Bloom), a wannabe-Method actor who cooks up intense character backstory despite booking mostly cheesy ads, and Hugh (Nick Mohammed), a meek IT guy whose soft-spoken awkwardness will be familiar to Ted Lasso viewers. (Which is to say Mohammed is largely recycling his shtick from the earliest episodes of that show.)

Somewhat improbably, Kat is approached by a cop (Sean Bean) who needs improvisers to help with a series of minor sting operations. Supposedly, comedians are better at thinking on their feet than a lot of cops. With her best students just signed to a real-deal talent agency, further inflaming Kat’s sense of inadequacy, she ropes Marlon and Hugh into the venture. A job’s a job, after all.

The idea of applying improv’s guiding principles to undercover police work is funny. It offers a new approach to the limp, familiar comic routine of non-criminals poorly bluffing and feuding their way through crime-movie misadventures: Where the typical imitation of Game Night requires a band of unwilling participants,Deep Cover depends on how eager Kat and the gang are. Improv team members are supposed to support each other’s wildest ideas and sell them with pure straight-faced commitment; Marlon in particular takes to his self-created criminal “character” with relish.

However, this also winds up explaining why Deep Cover doesn’t actually work that well as a comedy. A lot of broad comedy is based on some sense of surprise. Good improv employs it twice: surprising the audience, and challenging its performers to stay in the moment while they themselves are potentially surprised by each other. Deep Cover, however, is entirely predictable. By necessity, its in-movie improvisations are obviously scripted (only Mohammed has any firsthand experience with this type of thing). But there’s no rule dictating that the actors-pretending-to-be-criminals concept has to proceed with such thundering obviousness. Every escalation (like a sudden switch-up from illegal cigarette sales to drug deals), every bit of side business (like the cop accompanied by an oddball underling undermining his sense of gravity), every “surprise” betrayal or reversal… they’re all easily anticipated, lacking the spark of unexpected invention. The screenplay, credited to Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, and Ben Ashenden, never feels all that steeped in the delirium of great improv, It begins and ends with the “yes, and” concept.

Formulaic comedy can still get laughs, of course, and there are bits and pieces of Deep Cover that get the job done: Bloom is particularly and appropriately committed as an actor who simply refuses to stop generating incoherently traumatic backstory. But doing a mild comic gloss on crime-movie clichés using familiar jokes and dim lighting has its limits, which director Tom Kingsley reaches well before the halfway mark. Howard and her sidekicks keep Deep Cover watchable, but it’s never as exciting as a real thriller – or, more importantly, as a good improv show.

We may take it for granted today, but imagine telling a younger version of yourself that one day there will be a magical app that will gather everything Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and National Geographic in one place you can watch whenever and wherever you want for a relatively low monthly price.

That is what Disney+ is thanks to all of the companies Disney owns, and it’s obviously one of the leading streaming platforms as it offers a wide collection of classics and original programming featuring some of the most beloved characters and stories ever told. However, there are so many streaming services out there and it can be tough to keep them all, no matter how much they claim to offer.

That being said, if you are considering signing up for Disney+ for the first time or feel the time is right to jump back into the vault as Scrooge McDuck would dive into his money bin, this guide will provide you with everything you need to know about the current Disney+ subscription plans, bundles, and more.

As of June 2025, Disney+ offers two main plans - Disney+ Basic and Disney+ Premium - and the main differences between the two are whether you get ads, if you are able to download content to watch on the go, and if you get Dolby Atmos. One thing you may not know, however, is that there are various Disney bundles that can get you multiple streaming services for a much lower price than you’d be able to get each individually. The newest streaming bundle includes Disney+, Max, and Hulu, but you can also bundle Disney+ with ESPN. You’ll be able to see all the options below, and we hope it helps make the decision of joining or not an even easier one!

Does Disney+ Have a Free Trial?

Disney+ does not currently offer any sort of free trial for new subscribers. However, there are quite a few other streaming services that do offer a free trial. And one potential work around is to sign up for a Hulu + Live TV free trial, which grants you access to Disney+ as a bonus bundle.

Disney+ Plans and Prices (As of June 2025)

All Disney+ plans increased in price on October 17, 2024. The following information has been updated to reflect these changes. Below is the most up-to-date information we've found from the Disney+ help page.

Disney+ Basic - $9.99/month

• Steam Disney+ with ads
• No downloads
• Supports up to 5.1 audio
• Up to 4K UHD video quality
• Watch on four screens at once at no extra cost
• Over 300 titles in 4K UHD and HDR

This is the cheapest Disney+ option and is excellent for those who don’t mind watching a few ads and don’t feel the need to have movies and shows ready for those times when no Wi-Fi or cellular service is available. If you travel a ton or have kids and want to load up some episodes of Bluey or Spidey and His Amazing Friends on a tablet for a vacation, you may want to consider an upgrade to the premium plan.

It’s also important to note that, while Disney+ Basic does offer over 300 titles in 4K UHD and HDR, it does not offer Dolby Atmos like Disney+ Premium does.

Disney+ Premium - $15.99/month or $159.99/year

• Stream Disney+ with no ads
• Unlimited downloads on up to 10 devices
• Watch on four screens at once at no extra cost
• Over 300 titles in 4K UHD and HDR
• Dolby Atmos

There are only two tiers of Disney+ and this is the top one. With the increase in price, you get everything Disney+ Basic offers, but you also don’t have to sit through ads and can download as much as you want on up to 10 devices.

Another big benefit you get from upgrading to Disney+ Premium is the addition of Dolby Atmos, which is one of the leading surround sound technologies on the market. In addition to having sound enveloping your room, Dolby Atmos features spatial audio that allows creators to place sounds in specific places and fully immerse you in your favorite stories.

Disney+ Bundle Pricing

Disney+, Hulu Bundle Basic - $10.99/month

• Disney+ with ads
• Hulu with ads
• No downloads
• Watch on four screens at once at no extra cost
• Over 300 titles in 4K UHD and HDR

This bundle is for those who want to watch everything Disney+ and Hulu have to offer, but don’t mind watching ads and don’t need to download content to their devices.

Disney +, Hulu, and Max Bundle Pricing

Piecing together a puzzle is a great way to relax. Whether you enjoy the hobby on your own or with others, there's quite a few different formats to choose from these days, too. There are some puzzles that offer fun 3D builds that bring your efforts to life and some even tell a story with a secret ending that ties it all together. If you don't frequently build puzzles, though, finding a good option like the ones previously mentioned means tracking down a reliable brand first.

One visit to Amazon will show you that there's an abundance of companies offering different puzzles, which can feel quite overwhelming. We're here to help, though. In this list, we've gathered up some of our favorite puzzle brands that we believe are worth dropping money on and noted some puzzles from each that we highly recommend. If you've been itching to pick up something new to get stuck into, have a look at our collection of the best puzzle brands below.

Ravensburger

Ravensburger is a brand that's been around for a while, offering a wide range of puzzle sizes from smaller 500-piece options - and even lower, if you prefer - to one of the largest puzzles with 40,000 pieces. Yes, really! The puzzle pieces are cut to fit neatly into place, with the company stating on its website that its "puzzles are made using custom-built tools and steel strips, handcrafted by skilled artisans. This meticulous process ensures each piece fits perfectly, providing a flawless puzzle experience without any false fits." The company also notes that each puzzle goes through quality checks, so you know you're getting a product that'll last. It's also worth noting that Ravensburger puzzles are even used in the world jigsaw puzzle championship.

Below you can find some Ravensburger puzzles we'd recommend in a wide range of sizes. Starting from just 500 pieces and going up to a whopping 5,000, there's a puzzle for every challenge level available. We've even included a couple of their 3D puzzles if you want a finished product that you can set up afterward. Ravensburger also has many officially licensed puzzles from franchises like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.

Recommended Puzzles From Ravensburger

Magic Puzzle Company

The Magic Puzzle Company really lives up to its name. Its magical puzzles combine a "traditional jigsaw puzzle experience with ideas from the worlds of tabletop games and magic," according to its website. It's become a very beloved brand as well, with its Kickstarter boasting 62,284 backers from when it was last updated. Each of its 1,000-piece puzzles features over 50 easter eggs for you to find, but the coolest part about them is the special secret ending you get after finishing the first part of the puzzle. This important element helps tie together the story from the first set of pieces in the box, making it even more satisfying to finish. There are now a total of four series' releases of these puzzles with series four arriving at Amazon earlier in 2025.

Each puzzle from the Magic Puzzle Company offers a unique experience with original art, to boot. We've included a few of our recommended puzzles below that each have something interesting to bring to the table, from the magical Mystic Maze to the colorful Gnomes' Homes.

Recommended Puzzles From Magic Puzzle Company

Springbok

Springbok is another well-regarded brand that's been around for a very long time - since 1963 to be exact. The company offers a variety of different puzzles to choose from so you can find an option that best suits your personal tastes and skill level. Each one is made with a lot of love, too. The company prides itself on creating quality puzzles, stating on its website that, "The quality of our dies and above average thickness of our chipboards ensures the interlocking pieces will come together flawlessly multiple times."

From piecing it together to admiring the final work and all of the details within it, Springbok's puzzles will keep you busy for quite a while. Below we've included a few fun puzzles from their collections, from a selection of sweet treats to a puzzle paying homage to some excellent films.

Recommended Puzzles From Springbok

Heye

Heye's puzzles come in a fun variety of unique designs and ones with incredible amounts of detail. On its website, you can find the 'Puzzle' category broken down into five sections: Art Lab, Cartoon, Fantasy, Fine Art, and Photo Art. Each of these is further broken down into more sections so you can explore the many different styles of puzzle that are available. Not only that, but Heye also offers a range of puzzle sizes, from 500 pieces to 6,000, so you can easily find one that fits the challenge level you're looking for.

On top of its creative puzzle designs, the company also notes on its website that, "HEYE puzzles have been successively converted to plastic-free production without plastic bags and shrink wrap." That's a very big win for sustainability. Below you can find just a few of our recommended puzzles from Heye.

Recommended Puzzles From Heye

Rokr

Not all puzzles come in a 2D format. If you're looking for something a little different to work with, Rokr offers a great collection of 3D builds that can up your puzzling game with their intricate designs. With 10 years of experience and, according to its website, 4,190 Happy Members, Rokr is a reliable brand for those looking to expand on their puzzling skills. Its models are built to last, too. On its website, the company states that it prioritizes, "the use of durable, child-safe materials to ensure that our products not only withstand the rigors of play but also provide a reliable and secure play environment."

Below we've listed just a few of our favorite puzzles from Rokr, from an illuminated globe to a miniature pinball machine. These come with varying amounts of puzzle pieces as well, so there's a little something for every challenge level here. If you're looking for a good LEGO alternative, we recommend starting witht his brand.

Recommended Puzzles From Rokr

Buffalo Games

Buffalo Games is another brand that's been in the game for a while, since 1986. The company has crafted numerous puzzles since then, with care for their construction at the forefront of its mind. According to its website, the company states that, "With a careful eye for quality and sustainability, our puzzles use the thickest graphic board, premium paper, and sturdy set-up boxes." Each puzzle is also "manufactured using a precision cutting technique that guarantees every piece snaps into place with our signature Perfect Snap™ technology."

Whether you want a puzzle with a scenic view or one that captures your favorite piece of entertainment, Buffalo Games has quite a few options to choose from. We've included just a few of our favorites below in varying sizes, from 300 to 2,000 pieces.

Recommended Puzzles From Buffalo Games

How Do You Know if a Brand Has Quality Puzzles?

It's always worth researching a brand when you come across a puzzle that interests you to learn more about them. Quite a few companies will have further details about them on their website to read so you can have a better idea about who you're buying from. Another great way to learn more about a brand is by reading reviews or comments from fellow puzzlers online who have bought from the brand previously. Doing this can help you make a good judgement call about a brand and if they're worth your time and money.

Jigsaw Puzzle FAQs

What is the best piece count for puzzles?

Puzzles come in a pretty wide variety of piece counts, but some of the most common are 300, 500, and 1000-piece puzzles. Choosing what piece count is right for you depends on a mixture of how good you are at puzzles, how much time you have, and whether or not you have a dedicated space to do puzzles. Lower piece counts are usually better for casual puzzlers and kids, but higher piece counts are better for adults and challenge seekers. That being said, the most common piece counts you'll see from the best jigsaw puzzle brands are 500 and 1000-piece puzzles.

What type of material is good for quality puzzles?

For most quality jigsaw puzzles, a sturdy cardboard base is what you'll find used as the material. You can usually judge a puzzle's quality by just how sturdy and thick the cardboard is. Puzzle cardboard (also known as chipboard) comes in a pretty wide variety of thicknesses and this can affect how easily the puzzle fits together. Lower-quality puzzles will usually use thinner base coardboard resulting in flimsier pieces that don't have that same 'click' when you put them together. Outside of cardboard, wood can be a good material for puzzles. However depending on the type of wood used you might end up with chipped or splintered pieces. Most of the time high-quality cardboard is what you should be looking for.

If you're in the mood to pick up even more puzzles, it's worth it to have a look at our roundup of the best jigsaw puzzles for adults. That selection even features a couple of the brands from this list, so you can see more of what they have to offer. And if you need a good table to work off of after picking up a new puzzle, why not check out our roundup of the best puzzle tables and boards for some recommendations?

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

Revival premieres Thursday, June 12 on Syfy.

The most interesting storytelling decision in Syfy’s Revival (an adaptation of the Image comic by Mike Norton and Tim Seeley) is also the source of its most frustrating issues: After an effectively scary opening scene in which the corpses in a morgue all suddenly spring to life (including a man in the middle of being cremated), we’re fast-forwarded 35 days into the future – when everyone has largely accepted a new normal shaped by what they dub “Revival Day.” On that day, everyone who had died within a seemingly arbitrary two-week period in Wausau, Wisconsin was mysteriously resurrected, and in the month or so that followed, all of the obvious drama stirred up by such a bizarre event was seemingly addressed offscreen. The juicier philosophical questions that flow out from this premise are grim, powerful stuff – there are a lot of predictable religious questions surrounding the so-called “revivers” – but they’re also frequently undone by a less-predictable sense of humor. It might seem counterintuitive to the scenes where Revival is aiming to be more of a thriller, or a drama, or a full-on horror-story – but it’s also, weirdly, where it feels most alive.

The time jump frees Revival up to explore what “everyday” life now looks like in this small town, and it’s pretty fascinating when it does. One of the revivers was a criminal who died of a stroke while serving a life sentence in prison and is now walking free – so does the fact that he died mean he paid his debt to society? There’s also a grieving woman whose husband died the day before the Revival Day cutoff, meaning he stayed dead. The characters also question if some people revived without knowing it, like if they died in their sleep and just woke up as usual the next morning.

So what’s to be made of the funny energy that gives Revival its biggest spark? This is no Shaun Of The Dead-style “we’re all having fun with this weird situation we’re in” kind of thing; it stems almost entirely from central character Dana Cypress (Syfy original vet Melanie Scrofano), who is pretty much the only person in Wausau who isn’t going through some larger weird thing tied to Revival Day. And because Revival refuses to commit to any of the more obvious tones for a show about the dead rising from the grave, it’s the comedy that becomes easiest to connect with.

Dana is a cop, and her father (JAG’s David James Elliott, who unfortunately seems to think he’s on a more serious show) happens to be the sheriff. Her dream of someday getting out of Dodge was dashed by a post-Revival Day government quarantine, so she’s stuck dealing with her authoritarian father and the weirdly active criminal community of her hometown.

Her response to the disappointments in her life (her mother died tragically and the father of her son is a rarely mentioned deadbeat) is to approach every situation with dry sarcasm and a deranged lust for chocolate, and Scrofano impressively pulls it off without devolving into a Joss Whedon-y quip machine. The smart distinction is that her humor is a defense mechanism for boredom, not for deflating danger or anxiety, so she’s more likely to make a funny comment when there’s nothing happening than when there’s something scary going on. The trade-off is that the dramatic scenes can’t lean on “Dana says something funny” as a crutch, because she locks in and becomes a good cop, which is why those scenes can feel a little flatter – save for some touching ones involving a little girl who revived and her bad, religious parents.

Luckily, Dana has backup from Ibrahim Ramin (Andy McQueen), a CDC scientist who carries some of the more expositional plot stuff and serves as a carefully pitched foil to Dana. Though her first name implies a certain, X-Files-derived stock dynamic for this kind of show (one weirdo, one skeptic), Ibrahim isn’t the Scully to her Mulder or the Mulder to her Scully – rather, it’s like Dana is both Scully and Mulder and Ibrahim is a normal person who happened to cross paths with them and is quietly impressed that everyone around him has a big personality. They make for a lovable duo.

But while the characters are mostly compelling, the town of Wausau itself doesn’t fare as well. It’s a real place that is genuinely in the middle of nowhere (no offense to Wausans), but Revival treats it like the setting of every other TV show about a small town with a mystery. Think Twin Peaks but not as strange, or the Alaskan town in season 4 of True Detective but it’s not always nighttime. Most viewers wouldn’t notice, since most viewers probably don’t know Wausau is even a real place, but Revival occasionally uses establishing shots of the real city that make it clear that 40,000 people live there and that its downtown boasts a couple of high-rises (including one that is the tallest commercial building in the state outside of Milwaukee!). Yet the specificity of those images never carries over to the anonymous way Wausau is pictured and depicted – a casualty of TV production on a Syfy budget, not to mention filming in Canada.

That slight incongruity adds to a larger issue that Revival has with the world it takes place in. Because those first 35 days get skipped, we don’t see anyone’s reactions to Revival Day – we’re told that the cops are setting up a registry of revivers, we’re told that the federal government won’t let anyone in or out, and everyone has already either learned to accept the revivers or is quietly stewing about how much they hate them (but is perfectly willing to sit on their hands and do nothing until the events of the series premiere).

The rules of this fictional universe are so vaguely established that it takes some time before Revival establishes that revivers can heal super fast, but only from injuries that occurred after they died. A character who died from an untreated infection still has a gross wound on his hand but can cut his chest open with no repercussions, while another character rips out their own teeth just for them to grow back in seconds. But if that’s the case, why doesn’t the reviver who gets a dramatic haircut at one point not have their old hairdo seconds after the scissors were put away?

It’s not a show-breaking issue, but it does weaken its structure. When one of the revivers goes rogue early on and starts attacking people, it seems like a setup for the inevitable dark side of this apparent miracle, but it’s explicitly presented as a one-off with a direct cause (even if no one is quite sure what that cause is right away). This is used as an opportunity for the government to research whether or not revivers can be re-killed, which is a smart/scary thread, but… surely someone would’ve thought of that in those 35 days, right? Why does it take over a month to find out that they have Wolverine-esque healing powers, or for either the state or federal government to get directly involved? For every interesting question Revival poses, there are two more that are just hand-waved away.

And that can be okay! A fixation on “plot holes” is destroying our enjoyment of TV shows and movies as it is, but it is a problem when a show lets you wonder why one thing matters and another thing doesn’t matter. Eventually, I started to ask whether or not anything in Revival even matters at all. What’s good here is impressively solid – it’s just that the standout performances and clever hooks get buried by tonal inconsistencies and muddy logic.

The PlayStation Days of Play Sale officially ended on Wednedday June 11, however one deal is available for just a little while longer. Amazon currently still has the PlayStation 5 DualSense Edge Controller on sale for just $169 after a $30 off instant discount. Unlike the standard DualSense controller, which sees regular price drops, the DualSense Edge is rarely discounted. This is a professional grade controller for the PS5 console, much like the Xbox Elite is for the Series X.

PS5 DualSense Edge Controller for $169

It almost goes without saying if you’ve been paying attention to LEGO over the years that they put out some neat sets. But I’m going to reiterate it anyway: When building a LEGO set, I’m often amazed by the ingenuity of the designers. Their ability to turn a pile of blocks and pieces into everything from flowers and Marvel superheroes to space ships and the Titanic is really something.

But some sets go beyond just depicting things from pop culture or our own world. Some sets actually function, actually do something. The LEGO Minifigure Vending Machine is one such set, and it’s incredible that, given an instruction manual and 13 bags of interlocking plastic pieces, you can, after five or six hours, end up with a working machine that dispense LEGO minifigures. It’s just plain awesome, in every sense of the word.

For a fully functional end result, the LEGO Minifigure Vending Machine build is fairly straightforward. You piece it together it from the ground up, starting with the base of the machine and building out the scaffolding on which it all sits. As you piece together the walls of the base, the instructions often have you stop to build a disc-like internal piece as a separate component before placing it into the guts of the machine.

At a few points during the build, placing these components properly was somewhat tricky, which is why it’s a LEGO set for adults, aimed at the 18+ age group. For instance, you have to wedge a particular plastic flap just so between a rubber piece and a plastic piece, in a way that’s hard to discern from the drawing in the instruction manual. But because it’s a difficult step, the designers dedicate an entire page of the manual to show the right way and the wrong way to make sure you take extra care on that step.

Overall, the Minifigure Vending Machine is a fun and satisfying build. Most of the bags include one of the 16 minifigures that you place into clear plastic capsules, so you don’t have to assemble all of them at once. I never got bored as I built the set, something that can happen occasionally in other sets when you have to piece together repetitive parts.

Of course, the coolest part of this build happens when it’s all done. You take a coin comprised of two LEGO pieces pressed together, and you drop it into the coin slot. Then you turn the crank, and the coin drops into the machine, and a capsule containing a minifigure rolls out. It works just like you’d expect, to the point where, if you don’t put a coin in, it won’t dispense a minifigure. It’s kind of incredible.

I’ve been in charge of the LEGO content for IGN for years, and the company continues to impress me with its feats of design, imagination, and plastic technology. I know LEGO sets are expensive, and no should break the bank buying what's effectively a toy or piece of decoration. In nearly every article I publish on here, someone in the comments complains about LEGO’s pricing, which is entirely fair.

But the quality of the sets is also generally very high. They're built from hundreds of pieces that are machined so carefully that that they fit together with pieces produced decades ago. And the designs of the sets just keep impressing, year after year. To me, that’s worth quite a bit.

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

The new live-action How to Train Your Dragon movie is now in theaters and has already been getting pretty good reviews. Our own reviewer went as far as to say it "re-creates the original film's heart and soul (as well as its entire plot and most enduring images)." And while I haven't seen the movie myself just yet, I am already feeling like it would be better to just skip it entirely and rewatch the originals.

The original How to Train Your Dragon movie is one of my favorite animated films of all time. The fact that DreamWorks has seemingly tried so hard to recreate the exact movie in live-action only reaffirms my belief that it was already perfect the way it was. So with the latest discount on the Blu-ray trilogy currently available on Amazon, I'm considering picking up a permanent copy for my own personal collection and skipping the live-action version entirely.

How to Train Your Dragon Trilogy Deal at Amazon

Starting today, Walmart is offering a great deal on a budget HP prebuilt computer. Right now you can pick up an HP Omen 16 RTX 4060 gaming PC for only $799 with free shipping. It's sold and shipped by Walmart directly, not a marketplace vendor. The GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card can comfortably play most games at 1080p. If you mostly play older games like Fortnite, League of Legends, PUBG, or World of Warcraft, there's no need to spend more money.

HP Omen 16L RTX 4060 Gaming PC for $799

DC's Absolute Universe is in full swing, with more series on the way. If you're unfamiliar, the Absolute Universe is a publishing initiative by the comics publisher that gives some of the best talents in comics free reign with their most prominent characters without the limitations of preexisting lore. What does this mean? In Absolute Batman, legendary Batman writer Scott Snyder was able to explore Bruce Wayne/Batman from a fresh perspective—what if Bruce wasn't a billionaire playboy and didn't have his hi-tech gadgets?

Absolute Batman #9 Is Out Now

Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy finally launches this week, and while there are boosters, Commander decks, and even a new Starter Kit to pick up (if you can find it in stock), collectors will perhaps be most interested in the new Secret Lair drops.

It’s been a busy year for Wizards of the Coast’s limited-time mini-sets, and while the company sold out of all three Final Fantasy drops in record time (leaving many disappointed), you can still get them via third-party sellers... if you're willing to pay the inflated costs, that is.

Every Final Fantasy Secret Lair Drop and Where to Buy Them

Before we start, it’s worth pointing out that you won’t find Secret Lair drops at the same price as you’d find them directly from Wizards of the Coast (standard $30 nonfoil, $40 rainbow foil), with most being listed anywhere between $80-$150 or above.

This is a huge markup, so if you're looking to buy, be sure you're 100% informed of what you're paying for. You can buy them from eBay, but we’ve always found TCGPlayer, while still eBay-owned, to be the most secure and trustworthy way to nab Secret Lair drops post-release.

There are a trio of Final Fantasy Secret Lair sets, Weapons, Grimoire, and Game Over, each offering unique art and names for Magic: The Gathering cards. Everything is available in standard and foil, alongside the Japanese variants as well.

Here’s how you can grab each, what’s included, and all the key info you need to help you decide whether you still want these to add to your collection via third party seller listings selling at a premium.

Weapons

Focused on, well, weaponry from the long-running RPG franchise, the Weapons drop offers the following:

• Yuna’s Sending Staff (Staff of the Storyteller) - Final Fantasy 10
• Clive’s Invictus Blade (Blade of Selves) - Final Fantasy 16
• Cloud’s Buster Sword (Umezawa’s Jitte) - Final Fantasy 7
• Gaia’s Dark Hammer (Colossus Hammer) - Final Fantasy 14
• Tidus’s Brotherhood Sword (Sword of Truth and Justice) - Final Fantasy 10

Grimoire

Grimoire is all about spells and the characters casting them. Here are the five cards included:

• Yuna’s Holy Magic (Prismatic Ending) - Final Fantasy 10
• Hope’s Aero Magic (Cyclonic Rift) - Final Fantasy 13
• Noctis’s Death Magic (Damn) - Final Fantasy 15
• Vivi’s Thunder Magic (Lightning Bolt) - Final Fantasy 9
• Aerith’s Curaga Magic (Heroic Intervention) - Final Fantasy 7

Game Over

Final Fantasy would be nothing without its iconic villains, and this set gives them a chance to shine.

• Spira’s Punishment (Day of Judgment) - Final Fantasy 10
• Absorb into Time (Temporal Extortion) - Final Fantasy 8
• Merciless Poisoning (Toxic Deluge) - Final Fantasy 6
• Unseat the Usurper (Praetor’s Grasp) - Final Fantasy 15
• Meteorfall (Star of Extinction) - Final Fantasy 7

Lloyd Coombes is Gaming Editor @ Daily Star. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay. He's also a tech, gaming, and fitness freelancer seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar, Tom’s Guide, IGN, and more.

Here's a rare chance to pick up a well-sized OLED TV at an affordable price and from a trusted retailer. Starting this week, Amazon has discounted the 2024 65" Panasonic Z85 4K OLED Smart TV with Amazon Fire TV for just $997.99 with free delivery. This is an excellent TV to pair up with your PlayStation 5 since it has HDMI 2.1 inputs and a 120Hz refresh rate.

65" Panasonic Z85 4K OLED Fire TV for $997.99

At first glance, Toy Battle might look like a Clash Royale knockoff, but there’s more in this toy box than meets the eye. This two-player battler delivers deceptively simple gameplay and lightning-fast matches, with eight unique game boards and strategic troop abilities that keep each round feeling fresh. If you can look past its playful aesthetic, Toy Battle offers some genuinely satisfying moments that players of all ages can enjoy.

What's in the Box

Toy Battle comes in a compact box designed to resemble a locking metal toybox, adding a playful touch right from the start. Inside, you'll find a short instruction manual (with a QR code for a video overview), a player aid sheet, and several thick punchboards containing all of the troop tiles. There isn’t much to punch out – just 48 total troops (24 blue and 24 red), with three copies each of the eight unique toy units you'll control during the game.

Two high-quality wooden stands are included to keep your troops upright, organized, and hidden from your opponent during play. A small brown bag holds 16 medal markers used for scoring, and you’ll also find two simple-to-assemble storage boxes (one blue, one red) that help keep your troops separated and secure when the game is packed away.

Beneath everything are four double-sided game boards, each featuring a distinct terrain for a total of eight themed battlefields. These range from castles and cities above the clouds to volcanic jungles, cemeteries, and space stations. But they’re more than just cosmetic changes; each board has a unique layout and special bases that can be activated to trigger game-altering effects. Every square inch of the game's box is used efficiently, with everything fitting snugly back inside when playtime’s over.

Rules and How It Plays

The goal in Toy Battle is to be the first player to either conquer your opponent's headquarters or collect the required number of medals by controlling terrain. To achieve this, players take turns placing troops onto the battlefield, starting near their own headquarters and advancing along connected paths until one of the win conditions is met.

To begin, players select one of the eight terrain maps. For your first game, the rules recommend playing on the Castle Field map as it features a symmetrical layout and straightforward special base effect. One player takes control of the blue troops, while the other commands the red. Medal markers are distributed based on icons shown on the map, and each player shuffles their troops into facedown stacks. The starting player draws three troops and places them on their rack, while the second player draws four.

Players perform one of two actions on their turn: either draw two troops from their reserve or place a single troop on the terrain. Drawing troops gives you more options to work with, but it also gives your opponent a chance to advance toward victory. When placing troops, you can claim an empty base on the board or cover one of your opponent’s troops if your unit’s power is higher. Balancing the need to maintain pressure with the need to keep your rack full is one of the core strategic dilemmas in Toy Battle.

If you can look past its playful aesthetic, Toy Battle offers some genuinely satisfying moments that players of all ages can enjoy.

Each troop has a power level from one to seven and a unique effect that activates when played. For example, Skully, the 1-power unit, doesn’t offer much raw strength but lets you draw two additional troops, making it a valuable early-game play.

Other troops include Cap'n, the 2-power unit that allows you to play an extra troop during your turn; Jumbo, the 3-power unit that lets you discard one of your opponent’s adjacent troops; Hook, the 4-power unit that can be placed onto any base on the board to get behind enemy lines or disrupt your opponent's plans; XB-42, the 5-power unit that allows you to randomly discard a troop from your opponent's rack; and Star, the 6-power unit that lets you draw a troop from your reserve while putting a strong body on the board.

Roxy, the 7-cost unit, doesn't have any effect, but is the strongest standard troop in the game. Then there's Kwak, the joker unit that can be played on top of any troop but can also be covered by any other, making it both flexible and vulnerable.

While the troops are designed to resemble familiar children’s toys like green army men, dragons, and robots, I never really felt like I was waging an epic toy box war. Most of their abilities didn’t feel thematically appropriate, and they often came across more like generic meeples than distinct characters with charm.

There are three copies of each troop in a player’s stack, but four are removed at random before the game begins. This adds bit of randomness and a layer of uncertainty that carries throughout the game as you try to deduce what you and your opponent might still have in reserve. Anticipating and playing around potential moves becomes a crucial skill in Toy Battle, creating constant micro-decisions that ultimately shape the outcome of the match.

Another key element to consider is the terrain you and your opponent are playing on. Each of the eight maps offers a unique layout, with multiple paths leading to your opponent’s headquarters, similar to a MOBA. Bases along these paths serve as spaces where troops can be deployed, and with only about five between headquarters, you'll be fighting for control almost immediately.

Most maps also feature special bases that trigger unique effects, like returning a troop to your rack, drawing from your reserve, or reclaiming a discarded unit. These hotly contested spaces can swing the momentum of a match if used wisely. Some boards introduce variety in other ways, such as an asymmetrical layout with an extra headquarters for one player to defend, or a central zone that nullifies all troop effects. These twists force you to rethink your approach and keep each match feeling distinct.

As mentioned earlier, reaching your opponent’s headquarters isn’t the only way to win. Each map has medal tokens scattered across both sides, appearing as single medals or grouped in twos or threes. If your troops control every base surrounding a medal or medal group, you claim it. Be the first to collect the required number for that terrain, and you win. This alternate victory condition makes for tense moments and forces you to adjust your strategy on the fly depending on the state of the board.

While Toy Battle doesn’t offer the layered complexity found in some other battlers and may not appeal to players seeking deeper strategy, its quick setup and lightning-fast matches make it a fun addition to any collection. It’s approachable for all ages, can be taught in minutes, and ideal for families or younger players. With most games wrapping up in about 10 minutes, it’s easy to play a few rounds and walk away feeling satisfied without committing your whole afternoon.

Where to Buy Toy Battle

• Get it at Amazon
• Get it at Walmart
• Get it at Asmodee

More Family-Friendly Board Games We Recommend

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. This includes some deals leftover from Days of Play, including the PS5 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 bundle, which is still available at select retailers.

On top of that, PC players can score discounts right now on Doom: The Dark Ages at Fanatical and GMG, Elden Ring Nightreign at Fanatical, and even Stellar Blade at Fanatical, which made its PC debut yesterday. These deals just scratch the surface of what's available, though. Have a look through our favorite video game deals at the moment below.

PS5 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Bundle

Best PC Game Deals

Humble Choice Games for June 2025

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.

PSVR 2: Horizon Call of The Mountain Bundle Deal

Best Xbox Accessory Deals

Best PS5 SSD Deals

Best Gaming PC Deals

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 the Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5070 Ti Gaming PC (16GB/1TB), which has dropped to $1,999.49. To see even more PC deals, check out our roundup of the best gaming PC deals.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has sold a huge 7 million copies in less than a year, publisher Focus Entertainment has announced.

The Saber Interactive-developed Space Marine 2 launched in early September 2024, which means it hit the 7 million copies sold mark in just over nine months.

Space Marine 2 was an instant hit, selling 4.5 million in just over a month. Indeed, Space Marine 2 has done so well it “changes everything” for Saber, Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits told IGN soon after the game came out.

As a result, it was a big financial success for Warhammer 40,000 owner Games Workshop. CEO Kevin Rountree has said it contributed significant royalty revenue to the tabletop company's business last year.

Focus and Saber surprised some Space Marine 2 fans when it announced Space Marine 3 was in development back in March, half a year after the game came out. But given the huge sales you can see why the project was greenlit so soon.

"Space Marine 2 has proven to be a transformative game for Saber," Matthew Karch, CEO of Saber Interactive, said at the time.

"It is the culmination of everything we have learned about game development in our 25 years in the business. We are now starting to develop Space Marine 3, a game that carries with it tremendous expectations from our rapidly expanding fanbase. While we will continue to support and grow the Space Marine 2 universe over the coming years, we will take all our learnings and apply them to an even bigger and more spectacular game for the third installment. We view this as an opportunity to create a true love letter to the Warhammer 40.000 universe."

Still, Focus and Saber had to put out a statement reassuring players of its commitment to Space Marine 2, which is still working through its year one roadmap of content.

Without spoiling the Space Marine 2 campaign, it strongly suggests a continuation (IGN has reported on the enemy faction we’ll probably see in Space Marine 3).

In the shorter term, Space Marine 2 is due to get the Siege Update (Patch 8) very soon. It makes a big weapon change not for balance reasons, but because it’s just really, really cool.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

There’s a scene in the premiere of Underdogs where Ryan Reynolds makes a brutal tongue-in-cheek joke at the expense of his MCU colleague Hugh Jackman. The first episode of the Nat Geo show delves into the lives of the so-called “superzeroes” of the animal world: uncelebrated oddballs who nevertheless possess some pretty breakthaking abilities.

We see a wild “aye-aye” lemur tapping its finger to locate grubs inside a tree, a jewel wasp mind-controlling an unsuspecting cockroach, and a fleeting glimpse of a wolverine, whose name Reynolds humorously claims derives from the “antiquated Canadian word” for “boring millionaire.” Speaking exclusively with IGN, Reynolds, who serves as the Executive Producer and narrator of the series, won’t say if he’s heard from Jackman about the bit.

DC and Warner Bros. have announced Mister Miracle, the second animated series to be produced under the DC Studios banner. As revealed at the Annecy Animation Festival, Mister Miracle will be overseen by showrunner and producer Tom King.

A prolific DC Comics writer, King previously collaborated with artist Mitch Gerads on 2017's Mister Miracle series, which released to major critical acclaim and won the 2019 Eisner Award for Best Limited Series. That comic appears to be the basis for this animated series, judging from DC's official logline:

Moviemaking icon Mel Brooks and Amazon MGM Studios have published a teaser trailer to announce that Spaceballs 2 is moving full steam ahead with plans to premiere in 2027 – and it sounds like Rick Moranis is coming back as Dark Helmet, too.

A trailer for the sequel to the classic '80s sci-fi Star Wars parody arrived today. Although it mostly comes with a special message from Brooks himself and a familiar text crawl that pokes fun at the long, long list of sequels that have come to theaters in the last 38 years, this is the most official look at Spaceballs 2 we’ve seen yet.

"After 40 years, we asked, 'What do the fans want?' Brooks says in the Spaceballs 2 trailer. "But instead, we're making this movie."

He added one final send-off: "May the Schwartz be with you."

The sequel, which was announced last year, already has Brooks attached as a producer with Josh Greenbaum attached to direct. While Frozen's Josh Gad was previously the only name joining its cast, Deadline reports that there are a few other notable names set to appear onscreen. These include original stars Bill Pullman, who will reprise his role as Lone Starr, and even Dark Helmet himself, Moranis.

The site reports that Nope and One of Them Days star Keke Palmer is also onboard to play a mystery character. Additionally, Amazon has announced that the 98-year-old Brooks is set to reprise his role as Spaceballs’ comedic take on Yoda, Yogurt (via THR). It's unclear if he will also return as President Skroob.

Joining Brooks as producers are Gad and Imagine Entertainment's Brooks, Greenbaum, Brian Grazer, and Jeb Brody. Gad, Benji Samit, and Dan Hernandez are handling the Spaceballs 2 script, with Samit, Hernandez, Adam Merims, and Kevin Salter also onboard as executive producers.

It's a stellar cast to kick off a sequel nearly 40 years in the making, but it's Moranis' inclusion that should really have fans excited. With credits in films like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, and, of course, Spaceballs, the star primarily made a name for himself with apperances in movies throughout the '80s. It was an impressive run that came to a halt in the mid-2000s, though, as the actor would step away then stepped away from the limelight. One of his most recent onscreen appearances was a simple ad for Ryan Reynolds' Mint Mobile in 2020.

A firm release date, additional casting information, and plot details all remain to be revealed, but judging by today's first look, it sounds like Brooks and co. haven't missed a beat. We'll learn more about how Spaceballs 2 will follow up the original classic Star Wars spoof movie when it premieres in 2027. In the meantime, be sure to check out our 7/10 review from 2000.

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).

Dune: Awakening is back online after patch 1.1.0.13 was rolled out.

The patch — which sought to implement a "number of backend changes to improve client and server stability" — was deployed after servers were taken offline for a couple of hours earlier today.

Players should also expect some "minor fixes," the details of which are listed below. (If you don't see the latest patch, Funcom recommends you restart your Steam client).

The update comes as Dune: Awakening deals with an influx of new players. Although Head Starters have been visiting Arrakis since June 5, Dune: Awakening released for all players on June 10. And within hours of going live, Funcom's survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent players on Steam: 142,050 to be precise.

Dune: Awakening – 1.1.0.13 Patch Notes

CHANGES

• Made several backend changes to improve the client and server stability.
• The option to betray Jocasta Cleo in the “Impact of Ecology” contract has been temporarily removed due to reports of players being unable to retake the contract after betraying her.
• Updated dialogue lines of the “Planetologist: Advanced: the Search for Kynes” contract to reflect the fixed issue where the players who defected from the Atreides faction couldn’t progress if they picked it up before defecting.

FIXES

• Fixed an issue where players couldn’t change the description of their guild, the name of the sub-fief console, or a base blueprints.
• Fixed an issue where the “Limit CPU Usage” graphics option would not apply to all quality presets.

Ahead of launch, Funcom confirmed the console version of Dune: Awakening isn't expected now until "sometime in 2026"). We've also reported on how Dune: Awakening players found a way to ride sandworms, even though it's not an officially supported feature.

To help you survive on Arrakis, we've got Dune: Awakening resource guides that'll help you find iron, steel, aluminium, and more. If you're just getting started, check out all the Dune: Awakening classes you can choose from, and keep an eye on our in-progress Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step guide to the story.

You can also see what we make of it so far in our Dune: Awakening review in progress (spoilers: we're having fun).

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

If you were wondering what the legal definition of Shrek is, the Disney / Universal lawsuit against AI company Midjourney confirms exactly what it is.

According to court documents posted to BlueSky: "Shrek's namesake character is a large, bald, dull-green ogre with a broad, round face, brown eyes, and highly distinctive trumpet-shaped ears. Shrek typically wears crude clothing consisting of a canvas-like shirt, a leather vest, and brown leggings."

That little descriptor — as hilarious and accurate as it actually is — is one of the excellent tidbits to come out of the landmark lawsuit. Yesterday, Disney joined forces with Universal to sue Midjourney for copyright infringement, stating that the AI-powered image generator is a “bottomless pit of plagiarism.”

Shrek is one of the properties that is being cited as part of Midjourney’s infringement offenses, as well as Marvel characters, Star Wars characters, Despicable Me’s iconic Minions, and others. According to a BlueSky user who combed through the docs, there are over 30 comparisons between studio artwork and Midjourney outputs.

Further, according to the docs, this suit has been percolating since November 2024, when Midjourney was served a demand letter — essentially an attempt to settle an issue out of court — from Disney, but they allegedly did not respond and then proceeded to develop more models that infringed on existing copyrights. Universal recently served the company another demand letter at the end of May, which means the studios finally decided to hit the gas pedal on taking down Midjourney.

Generative AI is one of the hottest topics within the video game and entertainment industries, which have both suffered massive layoffs in recent years. Generative AI thus far has drawn criticism from players and creators due to a mix of ethical issues, rights issues, and AI’s struggles to produce content audiences actually enjoy.

In March, social media platforms were flooded with AI-generated Studio Ghibli-inspired images as part of a trend sparked by the launch of OpenAI’s new GPT‑4o image generator. It caused a vociferous debate that resurfaced anti-AI comments from creator Hayao Miyazaki.

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

Had I not known in advance that I was going to be playing Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree at Play Days last weekend, I might have overlooked its trailer during Summer Game Fest. The announcement itself was less than two minutes long, and what we saw mostly looked like Hades, but with character selection. However, after playing 15 minutes of the game at Play Days, I'm far more interested than I initially expected to be in Towa's take on the roguelite genre...though I'm going to need waaay more than 15 minutes to get good at it.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree stars Towa, the guardian of Shinju Village and a child of the gods. When a dark god begins consuming the land around Shinju with an evil miasma, Towa rallies eight villagers to fight back. These "Prayer Children" head out into the field, two at a time, to fight against the minions of darkness, with one taking on the role of "Tsurugi", or sword, and the other taking on the supportive staff role, or "Kagura."

At the start of each run, you pick which of the eight characters you want in each role, with all characters having different abilities depending on which role they took on. In my preview, I selected the solumn Rekka as my sword, who attacks with short, quick slashes and a lingering spin attack. My staff was Nishiki, a Koi-inspired fish person who can summon lightning orbs to surround the player and shoot a wave of water in any direction.

Immediately, I struggled a bit to adapt to the twin-stick controls. Nishiki automatically followed Rekka, who I controlled with the left stick, but it was clear that for optimal play I needed to break Nishiki free of Rekka and run him around with the right stick simultaneously as I fought enemies. Easier said than done. I think this is a really interesting twist on what I'm used to for top-down games, almost reminiscent of the original The World Ends With You having you control two characters on two different screens. But I do think I needed more than 15 minutes in a demo to get used to it. Apparently, you can also play Towa in co-op, with one person controlling each character, and that's an appealing prospect, too.

A second unique element that I really, really wanted more time to master was Quick Draw. In Towa, your sword wielder carries not one, but two swords, but only has one equipped at a time. Each sword has a different ability, with Rekka having her short slashes attached to one and her chargeable spin attack on the other. As you use one sword, it begins to dull until it's unusable, and you have to use a Quick Draw ability to swap to the other one so the first can recharge. Successful combat in Towa revolves around smoothly swapping between the two swords so you're never caught in a situation where you need one attack ready, but have a dull blade and are stuck with an inefficient ability. It's a cool system in principle, certainly a unique one, and I'm curious as to how it will play out at higher skill levels.

Everything else I saw in Towa will be familiar to your average Hades-lover. You'll clear all the monsters in a room, and get a choice of a "Grace". Graces enhance your power in all sorts of ways, from straight power increases to changing how different abilities work and interact with one another. Doors to the next room may denote enemies or shopkeepers or other room types, and you'll smash stuff as you go to collect currency for upgrades at shops and special ore that can be enhance your characters' abilities when you take it back to the village.

My time with Towa was cut short just as I walked into a boss battle, so unfortunately I can't speak to how that would have played out. But this preview absolutely succeeded in making me want to play more. I want to muck around with the different character configurations and see what other upgrades are available, and I want to practice my twin-stick game so my staff user doesn't die on me before I even hit the halfway point (oops). I don't know if Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree can live up to the lofty legacy of Hades necessarily, but I do think it has the potential to carve out a space in the roguelite genre all its own.

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.

I’ve been keeping an eye on Pokémon TCG: Scarlet and Violet's latest expansion, Destined Rivals, and things are finally starting to settle. A few weeks ago, the Destined Rivals singles market was bouncing all over the place.

Some cards were doubling in price overnight, and it was tough to tell what was hype and what would hold. Now prices feel a lot more stable.

TL;DR: The Most Expensive Destined Rivals Cards

Some have dipped. Some Destined Rivals bangers are just cruising right at market prices. It feels like we’re finally seeing what these cards are actually worth.

Here are the ten most expensive cards in the set right now. A couple of them are legit strong in decks. A few are pure collector bait. Let's break down what I like about each one and how the price has moved now that the dust is starting to settle.

Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex - 231/182

No one will claim that Renown, the Medieval European-flavored base-building survival game, is bringing brand new ideas to the genre. If you’ve played anything like it, from its primary inspiration, Rust, to more modern iterations like Runescape: Dragonwilds, you have a good idea of what you’re in for when you drop into a server to start your journey from humble homesteader to lord of the realm. My brief hands-on time with it was fun, but also raises and doesn’t clearly answer an important question: if you currently have a favorite survival game, is it worth making the switch right now?

My crash course started with a tour of some aspirational structures that were all built with in-game resources. Some of them, like a huge castle complete with a small village lingering in its shadow, were things the team taking me on the tour, lead by Game Director Jesse Jacobsen, didn’t expect to see players to ever be able to make without concerted team efforts. But the ones that were within reasonable player reach were cool in their own rights. Tall sturdy stone walls with mighty working gates to keep enemies out and winding halls and spiraling stairs is a step above what is often just square rooms with storage stuffed in them. The couple I walked through myself came with a significant investment of time and in-game gold, and was positioned as the form your typical endgame stronghold would want to look like before the regular server resets.

So it's only right that we spent the first bit of our session tearing one of them up in a raid, right? After taking a quick spin on a catapult, a few of the devs entrenched themselves inside a nearby fort, while my group attempted to conquer it. We left the siege machine behind and opted for something more mobile: hammers and door-breaching petards to turn them into splinters. When inside, we ran through the halls and stairways looking for fights, eventually culminating into a sprawling skirmish up on the battlements. After putting down the foes, we took the castle’s banner, and claimed it for ourselves.

These fun scenarios make up the bulk of Renown, which is heavily skewed towards players who would rather raise a sword to fight versus a hammer to build. This is reinforced by its mechanically nuanced melee system that takes cues from games like Chivalry, Mordhau, or Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Swinging your weapon at various angles creates different offensive maneuvers which can be useful for getting around shields, the safest and most reliable defense you’ll encounter. For the bolder player, a parry exists that, when timed right, can be followed up with a fast attack that helps poke holes in stubborn defenders. In one-on-one duels, all of this nuance shines and creates a tense back and forth that you won’t find in simpler melee systems. It’s not quite realism, but the lethality of every strike mixed with the motion captured HEMA animations really elevates swordplay in the moment. In multiplayer brawls, I relied very little on these tools, opting to just gang up on whoever my squad was bullying to overwhelm them with blows they couldn’t possibly deflect. Maybe it's pretty realistic after all.

Getting the combat right was the driving force behind Jesse and Executive Producer Charlie Ettershank’s need to make Renown a reality. “Ever since me and Charlie met, we would spend most nights after school discussing how cool it would be for Chivalry combat to be in a survival game.” Jesse told me. They played games like Realm of Kings and Rust and would love everything about it except the melee combat, and took it upon themselves to create the thing they wanted to see in the world.

You of course can’t become a badass knight decked out head-to-toe in plate armor without first knocking trees over with a stick in order to build the workbench that will produce all you need for your empire. The gathering process in survival games like this is never one that I would confidently call “engaging,” but Renown’s is especially boring in comparison to its peers. Some parts of the process are streamlined – you still need to build individual fixtures to craft specific things like a tailor’s bench to make leather armor and a stone furnace to smelt metals – but all the crafting can be done in your inventory menu so you don’t have to stop at every little building to make and receive stuff. But gathering materials felt like more of a chore than ever. Things are pretty expensive, so you'll need a good amount of wood and stone to get the basics. At least they’re easy to find. I spent 10 minutes walking around in search of animals to hunt for hide and fat, essential for moving through the tech tree, and couldn’t find any. I imagine all of this plays differently with a server full of other players who can potentially harass you during your gathering and construction campaigns, but in this leisurely environment, I found it tough to stay motivated to grind. The “survival” part of Renown is also exclusively a PVP thing, as there isn’t much to manage as far as keeping yourself alive if there are no enemy arrows to dodge. Without genre staples like hunger meters or day/night cycles I was free to exist completely at my pace. These mechanics are often nags but without them there’s uncomfortably little push back when playing alone.

There are quite a few steps between crafting your first workstation and creating a sword, steps that can be bypassed if you're willing to venture out into the wilderness to find loot. I did not get to experience this part of Renown in any meaningful way, but I was told that prebuilt points of interest, like the aforementioned grand castle, double as hot spots full of gear and trinkets that could be an instant upgrade to a players kit or at least worth lots of in game gold. I can only speculate that in a PVP environment, this kind of skulking around presents the same dangers as other popular survival games, but I couldn’t speak on how this flows with Renown’s heavy focus on intimate close quarters combat. There were a lot of features that sound great but either I didn’t experience them directly, or they weren’t available yet.

This biggest feature coming that I think will be a pivotal one for Renown’s success long-term are server events. As it stands pre-early access, the 8000 or so playtesters in the alpha right now are tasked to find their own fun, with the construction and combat systems both being toys in an open sandbox of possibilities without any explicit direction from the game itself. Right now, a solid contingent of players collaborate to build strongholds and siege weapons and march on enemy camps without much prompting, but even the RDBK team admits that some guided play would bring some necessary balance. One event they’ve been prototyping would turn an NPC settlement into a claimable fortress when signaled, driving all of the disparate bands of warriors on the server to join one another in chaotic combat over it. Other ideas are based in similar form as this, with caches of loot spawning in specific locations on the map to be claimed by whoever can secure it first.

But Jesse really emphasized how important, and frankly proud, he is of being a facilitator of the sandbox for individual communities to flourish in. His team has even reached out and recruited almost all of the official Rust server hosts to run Renown servers. “That’s mostly because we’ve provided them the tools… to make that an easy process.” Jesse assured, as well as providing financial compensation for the effort. The goal being that they can use their particular expertise to help modify and regulate game tools and create server climates that can cater to all sorts of players. Maybe I'm not the only one who thinks the grind speed is slow, as there could be a server that picks up the pace or starts players off with kits of goods to get off of the blocks faster. Servers wipe weekly to keep player progress from being insurmountable, but a server can exist where those wipes happen less often, if at all. The Renown team want as close to infinite player adaptability as possible, and they want to be as involved as a server host needs them to be to make it happen. “We think we have a good idea of what makes the most enjoyable gameplay aspect, but we're not going to kid ourselves and think that no one else could think of something better inside of this sandbox, ya know?”

A lot of the ruggedness of Renown’s alpha state is manageable, and is probably even great when you have a dedicated community to play it with. But there are a few pain points that are going to make it a tough sell for people not already bought in for the long haul. I had quite a bit of performance issues when playing – both with the devs and on my own. Framerates jolted and lag really did its best to undermine me when I needed the stability most. The current UI and menus are rough around the edges and inconsistent throughout, some tooltips are arrayed across selection wheels while others sit in lists that are difficult to navigate while in the thick of the action. All of these things are on the list to reform and fix as the development team expands, hopefully before its slated Q3 2025 Early Access launch.

Renown’s crunchy combat has a lot of potential in a genre not known for making close combat an elaborate affair. The basic and sometimes mundane gathering and building game that you have to trudge through to get to cool stuff is very raw and still has a ways to go to meet the quality standard of the games it hopes to compete with. While its dearth of content, stability issues, and ragged UI are strictly RDBK Studios’ responsibility, the community is poised to have a lot of control over the day-to-day experience. Time will tell if the former can come together quickly enough to nurture the latter.

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 Anora and Predator: Killer of Killers to excellent television series like Shogun, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Bear (which returns with season four on June 25), there is always something awesome to watch. We've also got the highly-anticipated Alien: Earth series on our radar this year, which premieres its first two episodes on August 12 on Hulu at 8pm ET, and on FX and Disney+ at 8pm PT / ET.

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 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 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 per month - 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. The Hulu + Live TV plan also has a three-day free trial to test out the service.
• 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+, Hulu Bundle Basic — This is the most economic bundle. It will set you back $10.99/month and comes with subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu. It lets you stream on multiple devices at once and comes with ad-supported versions of both Disney+ and Hulu.
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle Basic — This bundle adds ESPN+ into the mix alongside Disney+ and Hulu, bumping up the price to $16.99/month. You can also download and watch select content on ESPN+ at this level.
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle Premium — This 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 Max to gain access to things like The Last of Us 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. With an FX partnership, Hulu is also home to those shows, including Shogun and the upcoming Alien: Earth series.

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. Beyond it being awarded the best streaming service by us, it also received a 9/10 in our updated Hulu review. Writer Rosie Knight said, "Hulu's ease of use, solid UI, and ever- expanding catalog has moved it ahead of top competitor Netflix to secure our highest score for a streaming service."

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

Original story from Brian Barnett.

Gears of War is officially making its way to PlayStation. Yep, you read that correctly. Gears of War: Reloaded is a remaster of the first Gears of War game, featuring 4K resolution, up to 120 FPS in multiplayer, and cross-play. It's now available to preorder in a physical format for PS5. Unfortunately there's no physical release for Xbox, but you can preorder a digital copy of it right now which we've listed below.
Both the physical edition of Gears of War: Reloaded for PS5 and the digital versions for PS5 and Xbox are listed for $39.99. It's set to release this year on August 26, so head to the links below to secure your copy before it drops.

Gears of War: Reloaded – Physical (PS5 Only)

Gears of War: Reloaded - Digital Edition

• Get it for Xbox Series X|S
• Get it for PS5
• Get it for PC (Steam)

For those who opt to preorder a digital copy of the game instead, you get a little bit extra to go with the preorder bonuses above. By preordering a digital version of Gears of War: Reloaded, you'll get access to the Exclusive Multiplayer Beta alongside the character skins above. To learn more about when the multiplayer beta is taking place, Xbox Wire has a helpful post up with everything you need to know

Gears of War: Reloaded Will Be on Game Pass

Gears of War: Reloaded Is Free for GoW: Ultimate Edition Owners

It's also worth noting that Gears of War: Reloaded will be "a free upgrade for players who purchased the digital version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition," before the remaster was announced, per Xbox Wire. That's a wonderful little bonus for long-time Gears fans.

Gears of War: Reloaded Preoder Bonus

This physical release comes with a nifty little preorder bonus as well. By preordering Gears of War: Reloaded for PS5, you'll get two character skins, Adam Fenix and Anya Stroud, to use in multiplayer.

What Is Gears of War: Reloaded?

Gears of War: Reloaded is a new, upgraded version of the original game, which launched for Xbox 360 in 2006. Below you can find a list of all the upgrades brought to Gears of War: Reloaded as well, from that same Xbox Wire post:

• 4K resolution
• 60 FPS in Campaign
• 120 FPS in Multiplayer
• High Dynamic Range (HDR)
• Dolby Vision & Dolby Atmos
• 7.1 3D Spatial Audio
• Variable Refresh Rate (VRR)
• 4K assets and remastered textures
• Enhanced post-processing visual effects
• Improved shadows and reflections
• Super resolution with improved anti-aliasing
• Zero loading screens during Campaign

It's been a very busy kickoff to summer, between new game announcements and the release of the Switch 2. If you're still trying to keep up with everything, have a look through our breakdowns of everything announced at the Xbox Games Showcase, Sony State of Play, and Summer Game Fest to see what's coming down the pipeline.

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Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

Now here’s an interesting filmmaker-studio twist. The Witch and Nosferatu maestro Robert Eggers is being eyed to helm a remake of A Christmas Carol at Warner Bros., and he has his sights set on none other than Willem Dafoe to play his Ebenezer Scrooge.

According to a report from Variety, no talent — that means Eggers nor Dafoe — is attached to the project at this stage, but Eggers is being considered and he has interest in having his longtime collaborator take up the leading role. The film is currently in development at the studio, so it would be a while before this would come to fruition anyway.

Eggers is currently set to write and direct Werwulf, a period horror film he has in the works at Focus Features, ahead of anything else. So it stands to reason that this project would come after that, and maybe would be ready to shoot just as Eggers finishes with his 13th century nightmare. But wrenches can always be thrown in the mix, so who knows.

The filmmaker previously called Werwulf “the darkest thing” he’s written “by far,” so it’s interesting to think what he might do with a classic story like A Christmas Carol. He could continue on that streak we now know him so well for, or he could lighten things up a tad — but something tells me he might take the darkness of A Christmas Carol to its logical extreme. And that’s really exciting.

Werwulf was co-written by Sjon, with whom Eggers wrote The Northman and will write the upcoming Labyrinth sequel, and currently has a Christmas 2026 release date on the books. It remains to be seen when we’ll see an official announcement on A Christmas Carol, but if they aim for a 2027 release, it might not be as far off as we think.

Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images.

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

The five-year mission of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain Christopher Pike is coming to an end. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been renewed for its fifth and final season, Paramount+ announced Thursday.

Production on the final season begins later this year; Season 4 is currently in production.

The first two episodes of Season 3 premiere on Paramount+ on July 17. After that, new episodes will drop weekly on Thursdays, with the season finale premiering on September 11. IGN recently exclusively debuted the season’s latest trailer at IGN Live.

“From the very beginning, Strange New Worlds set out to honor what Star Trek has always stood for — boundless curiosity, hope and the belief that a better future is possible,” said executive producers Akiva Goldsman, Henry Alonso Myers and Alex Kurtzman in a statement.

“We’re deeply grateful to Paramount+ for the chance to complete our five-season mission, just as we envisioned it, alongside our extraordinary cast and crew. And to the passionate fans who’ve boldly joined us on this journey — THANK YOU.

With three more spectacular seasons ahead for you to see and enjoy, this adventure is far from over.”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 3 stars Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Babs Olusanmokun and Martin Quinn, along with guest star Carol Kane and special guest star Paul Wesley.

The series is produced by CBS Studios, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment.

For more Star Trek coverage, boldy go read our op-ed on why the TNG-era holodeck appearing in Season 3 of Strange New Worlds doesn't break continuity and our Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 review, which we hailed as "another must-see season of Star Trek."