Amazon, one of the wealthiest corporations in the world, paid a relative pittance for control of the James Bond franchise: $20 million.

That means Amazon paid less than the $25 million that Daniel Craig was reportedly paid for his final Bond film, No Time to Die.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, this revelation comes from a U.K. tax filing made by EON Productions, the former 007 franchise production company run by Barbara Broccoli and her stepbrother, Michael G. Wilson.

The duo sold the rights to the Bond franchise to Amazon in February, granting the tech giant complete creative control over all James Bond intellectual property, a stunning move that rankled some Bond fans and Amazon critics.

“On 20 February 2025, the company entered into an agreement for the sale of its interest in the Bond franchise, all associated assets as well as its subsidiary companies, B24 Limited and B25 Limited. The total consideration for the sale amounted to $20 million (USD),” according to EON’s filing.

But, as THR notes, it’s likely Broccoli and Wilson will ultimately make far more than a mere $20 million off the franchise that their family had run since the 1960s.

According to the trade, “the Broccoli family will continue to have economic exposure to the Bond franchise through the joint venture structure of the deal. It is also possible that there are other elements like earnouts or stock options that could impact the value of the final sale price. Sources said at the time that the total value could be closer to $1 billion.”

Amazon MGM Studios is actively developing the 26th James Bond film with Dune’s Denis Villeneuve directing, David Heyman and Amy Pascal producing, and Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight writing the screenplay.

The filmmakers are reportedly looking to cast a “fresh face” as 007, specifically an unknown male British actor in their late 20s to early 30s.

James Bond 26 begins filming in 2027 for a 2028 release date.

Ahead of the holiday season, the official LG Store just dropped the price on a current generation LG OLED TV. Right now you can order a massive 77" LG Evo C5 4K OLED Smart TV for $1,999.99 with free delivery, which also includes your choice of free stand setup or free wall mounting. LG is also offering a free LG S40T 2.1ch soundbar and subwoofer bundle when you add it to the same order. If you can't wait until Black Friday, this is a great deal on a current gen 2025 OLED TV.

Note that Amazon has price matched the TV, however you do not get the soundbar.

77" LG Evo C5 4K OLED Smart TV for $1,999.99

Free LG S40T 2.1ch soundbar and sub (must add to the same order)

IDW has been busy establishing a new shared universe of Godzilla comics in 2025, including the flagship Godzilla series by writer Tim Seeley and artist Nikola Cizmesija. It seems Seeley and Cizmesija aren't wasting any time before shaking up the status quo in a profound way. Godzilla #6 features nothing less than the death of Godzilla himself, complete with a cover homaging one of the most iconic Superman images of all time.

Godzilla #6 features a cover by artist Dan Jurgens, inker Breet Breeding, and colorist Gregg Whitmore, all of whom worked on the cover to 1992's best-selling Superman #75. This new cover pays direct tribute to that memorable image of Lois Lane cradling a dead Man of Steel. Check it out below:

If you're looking to cut the cord with cable, then Hulu + Live TV is one of the best alternatives right now. Hulu + Live TV is a complete streaming package that combines the base Hulu subscription with over 95 live TV channels as well as Disney+ and ESPN. Right now you save save 30% off your first three months, which comes out to $64.99 per month. Afterwards, you'll be enrolled into the standard $89.99 rate plan unless you choose to cancel before your subscription ends. This is the perfect opportunity for you to sign up and watch all of the 2025 baseball World Series games that starts October 24.

This particular ends at 3pm PT on November 5. New subscribers and anyone who hasn't had an active subscription in the past month are eligible. Current subscribers of Hulu, Disney, or ESPN are not eligible.

Save 30% Off Your First 3 Months of Hulu + Live TV

Most folks know building a gaming PC can save quite a bit of money, but not everyone's looking to assemble components and tinker before they can jump into a match of their favorite game. Pre-built PCs offer less tech savvy players an opportunity to pick a performance level that matches their budget and get right to the fun. And for those looking to game at 4K with high framerates, the NZXT Player Three Prime might just be one of the most attractive and powerful options available right now.

Design and Features

The NZXT Player Three Prime comes in the company's roomy H9 Elite PC case in either black or white. I love this case's dual-chamber design, which isolates the power supply and SSDs in the chamber behind the other components. This makes cable management much more efficient while allowing the main compartment to remain tidy. It's as gorgeous as it is spacious, sporting tempered glass paneling that wraps from the left side to the front so you can admire the build from multiple angles.

The cable management is so orderly that it'd be a shame to see any of it undone, but there's always a chance you'll want or need to tinker a bit. Luckily, getting into either chamber just requires removing a small screw on the back before popping off the side panel. The top panel features a small lip on the back, so lifting it with medium pressure is enough to remove it, and it snaps back into place with a bit of pressure. Easy peasy.

The top of the H9 Elite provides one USB-C (3.2 Gen 2x2) port and two USB-A (3.2 Gen 1) ports, as well as a combo audio jack for headphones or microphones. That's fairly standard, but there are plenty more ports along the rear, including a total of ten USB-A ports, one USB-C port, and an ethernet port. There are also HDMI and DisplayPort connections on the motherboard I/O, but those are more for audio or troubleshooting – you should definitely be plugging into one of the ports on the GPU for video output.

There's plenty of customizable RGB, too, which can be easily changed via the NZXT Cam app. You can set unique lighting for each fan, both memory sticks, and the Gigabyte logo on the GPU. You can even personalize the 360mm AIO's 1.5-inch LCD display with a clock, infographics for GPU/CPU temps, or even a GIF. So, naturally, I put an Ace Ventura GIF on mine because I'm an adult and can do what I want.

Though I love the way NZXT takes advantage of the H9 Elite's features, there's no denying that the Player Three Prime is a large, heavy pre-built that won't fit in everyone's setup. At 19.49 inches tall and 18.35 inches in length, it takes up a significant amount of space on my desk. And considering it weighs around 40lbs, moving it can be cumbersome – especially if you've got a bad back like me.

Speaking of moving it around, I'm happy to report that my Player Three Prime arrived densely packed inside and out to prevent any of its expensive components from getting out of whack during shipment. In a time when some companies don't take as many precautions to protect the delicate pieces housed within their cases, it's wonderful to see NZXT taking this concern seriously.

Go Big Or Go Bigger

NZXT changes up its configurations randomly – including at least once during the time between me receiving my unit and reviewing it – but at the time of this writing, the base Player Three Prime comes with a GeForce RTX 5080, Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, 32GB DDR5 RAM, and 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD for $3,499. Every configuration above it, however, includes an RTX 5090, which means you'll see a minimum price bump of $1,000.

The most enhanced unit currently available is $4,899, which includes an RTX 5090, 128GB RAM, and a whopping 8TB of storage. There's no denying that the 128GB RAM is brag-worthy, and it could be a good call if you're running a streaming setup or doing intense video rendering, but it's absolutely overkill for gaming at the moment. I'd argue that the $4,699 version with 64GB should be more than enough for most folks.

With either of these configurations, though, the upgrade to an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the real reason to dish out a few hundred extra bucks. The Core Ultra 9 285K is a flagship processor with excellent productivity and gaming performance, but the 9800X3D blows it out of the water for gaming, specifically, while also running a bit cooler in most cases. Since it's paired with the upgrade to the RTX 5090, this makes for substantial future-proofing.

All of this is super premium stuff for the most frame-chasing enthusiasts, so none of it is required to have a good gaming experience. Unless you're determined to spare no expense in pursuit of bleeding-edge tech, the base configuration of the Player Three Prime is a perfectly safe choice that will keep you satisfied for quite a few years without needing any meaningful upgrades.

Unfortunately, you're never able to be quite sure which components you'll receive in the Player Three Prime. A glance through its tech specs on the NZXT website makes it clear that the motherboard, memory, and storage brands used in their systems vary. This isn't entirely unusual in the world of pre-builts, but it does mean that you're essentially playing the lottery. You could get, say, a brand of SSD that is known for being extremely reliable or one that has a higher failure rate than others. The fact that you don't get to know ahead of time just, well, sucks –— especially when you're paying so much money for a PC.

The wording on NZXT’s site also sends mixed signals about what to expect from the Player Three Prime's CPU cooler. The "overview" section mentions that it will sport a Kraken 360, while the image carousel at the top of the page states it only comes with a Kraken 280. I can confirm that it does come with the Kraken 360, but little miscommunications like this –- along with the random configuration updates and inconsistency with certain components – can make the buying process more frustrating than it needs to be.

That said, NZXT does offer free returns within 14 days if you find that you're unsatisfied with how your PC turned out. It also offers a decent 2-year warranty, meaning you stand a fairly good chance of having any failed components replaced.

Performance

As someone who plays a lot of my games on consoles, I'm simply not a graphics or performance snob. I've been using a pre-built with a 4070 Super since last year, and I doubt I've ever spent more than thirty seconds in the graphics settings of any game I've played on it. But that hasn't stopped me from being wildly impressed with the overall performance leap I've seen from the Player Three Prime during my time with it over the past few weeks.

NZXT sent me an upgraded configuration with an RTX 5090, AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and 64GB RAM. Unsurprisingly, it dominated every game I maxed out at 4K while maintaining very reasonable noise and cooling ranges.

Cyberpunk 2077's Ray Tracing Ultra preset with DLSS in performance mode consistently hovered around 125 fps with no frame generation. Black Myth: Wukong, despite being notorious for its poor optimization, was still getting between 100-110 fps using the Cinematic preset at TK resolution, with DLSS set to 40%.

Games like these can benefit from frame generation to reach some outrageous framerates (often beyond the refresh rate of all but the highest-end monitors). I'm not very sensitive to any added latency that comes with frame generation — especially in single-player games — so I enjoyed letting the Player Three Prime flex its muscles just to watch the big, fancy numbers dance around on the top left of the screen while I played.

The only game to (barely) average under 100 fps was Metro Exodus, but that's not too abnormal. The game is known for being problematic even on exceptional hardware, and its benchmark tool pushes things even harder than most gameplay sequences, not to mention that we run this benchmark with ray tracing and without any upscaling.

Do note, though, that the upgraded specs in my Player Three Prime unit make for a consequential bump in performance over the base configuration, so the cheaper version simply won't put up numbers quite as high. Even so, it's like comparing different models of Ferraris — no matter which you pick, you're getting an immensely capable machine.

Billy Givens is a freelancer at IGN with over a decade of experience writing gaming, film, and tech content. His work can also be found on GameSpot, USA Today, Digital Trends, Tom's Guide, and more. You'll find him blabbering on about video games and more on Twitter at @mektige.

Magic: The Gathering’s next big collaboration brings PlayStation’s biggest worlds to the table, with Secret Lair drops inspired by God of War, The Last of Us, Horizon, and Sucker Punch’s Ghost duology. It follows June’s record-breaking Final Fantasy set, marking yet another major gaming crossover with Magic.

Fresh off the launch of Ghost of Yotei, we caught up with Jason Connell, Creative Director at Sucker Punch, along with Wizards of the Coast’s Jacob Covey, Steve Sunu, and Annie Sardelis, to learn how Jin Sakai’s world was reimagined in card form.

They shared how brushstroke met blade, and how Sucker Punch’s involvement went far beyond a simple seal of approval. And even more excitingly, IGN has also got an exclusive first look at Ghost of Yotei’s Atsu card, joining the upcoming PlayStation superdrop.

A Cardboard Ghost

“Part of the fun of working with game studios is the mutual fandom between us—there’s usually a Magic fan or three on their side and a group of fans for their game on our team,” WOTC Art Director, Jacob Covey, explains.

When it comes to Sucker Punch, there are even a few tournament games being played within the development team.

“It's about 10-12 folks who play monthly, mostly Commander format,” Jason Connell explains. “A few people who regularly come into the office have decks at their desks just in case the mood ever strikes.”

As for making it happen, the conversation began a while ago, and it was Wizards who wanted to work on a PlayStation collaboration.

It's safe to say that Wiccan is among the most important new characters introduced in the Marvel Universe over the past two decades. He was a founding member of the Young Avengers. He and his boyfriend Hulkling were central players in 2020's Empyre crossover. And even now, these two heroes have a key part to play in Jonathan Hickman's Imperial event.

At this point, it's surprising to think that Billy Kaplan has never had a solo comic to call his own, even after the character made his full MCU debut in 2024's Agatha All Along series. That's finally changing soon, with writer Wyatt Kennedy (Marvel United: A Pride Special) and newcomer artist Andy Pereira teaming up for Wiccan: Witches' Road.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive look inside Wiccan: Witches' Road #1, and then read on to see commentary from Kennedy.

Kennedy agrees that Wiccan was overdue for his own solo series. He sees the series as a chance to better define Billy Kaplan on his own terms and develop a larger supporting cast and rogues gallery.

"I think the thing that I was most interested in exploring was creating a cast and environment that felt exclusive to Billy," Kennedy tells IGN. "The Marvel universe is wonderful in how sprawling it is, but what always attracted me to their books were the ways in which Spider-Man’s cast felt exclusive to his world, his own perspective. I wanted to give Billy his own villains both new and old as well as a firmly placed status quo that serves as a jumping off point for other creators to play with."

As mentioned, both Wiccan and Hulking are major players in the Imperial storyline still raging in the Marvel cosmos. Wiccan: Witches' Road essentially picks up right where that storyline leaves off for the two characters, with Wiccan making an unexpected return to Earth.

"I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say the series opens with Billy and Teddy (aka Hulkling) literally crashing down to Earth after they’ve lost their kingdom," Kennedy teases. "We’re definitely gonna explore that emotional fallout."

Obviously, the "Witches' Road subtitle" evokes the plot of Agatha All Along, where Kathryn Hahn's Agatha Harkness is joined by Joe Locke's Wiccan and other witches on her fateful journey. We were curious how much inspiration this new book takes from that MCU series. As Kennedy reveals, while the road itself plays a part, fans shouldn't be expecting much overlap between the two projects.

"So, total transparency, I’ve not seen the show and to this day I still haven’t. I’m planning on watching it once my work’s concluded, but it felt important to me to not be overtly beholden to the show either consciously or subconsciously," Kennedy says. "There are no Agatha appearances, and iterations and discussions of what a “Witches Road” can be are present, but I wanted to craft something that felt wholly its own, but still rooted in gothic horror and dark fantasy."

As Kennedy says above, part of the goal with the new series is to give Wiccan a rogues gallery all his own. Kennedy is hesitant to reveal too much about the first villain anchoring the series, except to say that they may not be as much a villain as readers are expecting.

"All I’m willing to say right now is that they’re rooted in our own real world mythology and folklore, but they’ve never been explored like this in the Marvel Universe," Kennedy says. "I hesitate to even call them a 'villain' in the traditional sense, because they represent a big part of earth magic’s presence and what role Billy plays in protecting that."

Finally, Kennedy has plenty of praise for Pereira's artwork, saying, "Andy’s absolutely incredible, and a blast to work with! Everything I’ve seen exceeds how I imagined it at the time of writing, and he’s someone who I’m thrilled to work with again very soon."

Wiccan: Witches' Road #1 will be released on December 3, 2025. You can preorder a copy at your local comic shop.

In other news, check out our exclusive excerpt of the Batman 1989 sequel Batman: Revolution and see why Marvel seems serious about ending the new Ultimate Universe.

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

I don’t know when or why or how, exactly, Star Wars became associated with Christmas. But in recent years, when the holiday season rolls around, I see giant inflatable R2-D2s and Millennium Falcons in people’s yards, right next to reindeer, Santas, and snowmen. Somewhere along the way, our collective unconscious seems to have linked Yoda with Yuletide. After building LEGO’s new Gingerbread AT-AT Walker set, I have to say, I’m officially a convert. This thing is an absolute delight.

LEGO Gingerbread AT-AT Walker (it feels ridiculous just writing those words) is a relatively modest set, made up of just shy of 700 pieces (see the just-released LEGO Death Star for a much larger take on the franchise). It comes in five bags, and the whole thing took me around three hours to assemble. Even though I don’t understand the connection between Christmas and walking Imperial war machines, I was consistently giddy as I put the pieces together. This murderous vehicle packs holiday flourishes into every part of its construction.

The build starts off on a towering high note, because the first thing you do is put together Gingerbread Darth Vader. It’s the standard Sith Lord minifigure, but from the tip of his helmet to the hem of his fabric cape, he’s gingerbread-brown. And his details look like cookie toppings. He comes with a Lightsaber accessory, of course, but in his other hand you place a cookie with red and green sprinkles. It might be the best minifigure I own.

You might not think things could stay at the extraordinarily high level of a gingerbread Vader for long, but they really do throughout the rest of the build, especially the first major portion. The first part of the AT-AT you build is the chunky body of the thing, the torso. That might sound like a boring piece to build, but within it lies a veritable Christmas miracle.

Somewhere along the way, our collective unconscious seems to have linked Yoda with Yuletide.

You build the base (the belly), complete with four circular pieces where you’ll eventually attach the legs. You then stack some blocks to make a wrapped Christmas present and a little fireplace, complete with translucent flames pieces. On the mantle goes a little green wreath and a pair of stockings. In front of the fireplace is a latticed grate and a table with a mug on it (we can assume Vader likes to relax with a warm cup of cocoa). Then you plop down a chair and decorate the wall behind it with another wreath and a candy cane. Later, you’ll enclose this room with hinged side panels that hide it from view entirely, unless you want to open it up to show it off.

This room is a hidden pocket of holiday cheer, and I absolutely love it. It’s a Christmas tableau for Vader to enjoy when he’s done blasting Rebel scum for the day. It’s the delightful surprise at the center of this set.

The rest of the build is quick and enjoyable to assemble as well. You make the AT-AT’s giant head and legs, which are decked out with colorful circular dots to add a seasonal touch. Some accent pieces are darker brown to add visual depth. The head is adorned with two candy canes in place of the blasters, and the feet are festooned with icing and ribbons. Along the sides flanking the AT-AT, you string up multi-colored Christmas lights.

Some of my favorite details are the white pieces where the flat brown panels come together. These are meant to evoke the frosting you’d use to connect the walls of a gingerbread house. They really tie the whole build together.

Overall, I have no real complaints about the LEGO Gingerbread AT-AT Walker. It’s one of those perfectly scaled sets that doesn’t take too long to build and, while it’s substantial, it doesn’t take up too much shelf space. The modest scope also keeps it in the $59.99 price range, which is just right for something as silly-yet-delightful as this.

I still don’t fully understand the connection between Star Wars and Christmas decorations, but it got us a LEGO Gingerbread AT-AT, and that’s a real gift. Any LEGO fan, either with kids or without, will get a ton of Christmas joy putting this set together. Merry Christmas, Vader.

LEGO Star Wars Gingerbread AT-AT Walker is available for $59.99, exclusively through the LEGO Store. For more, check out our picks for the best LEGO Star Wars sets available.

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.

Borderlands 4 looks like a big hit in the U.S. at least, where it has outperformed Borderlands 3 in terms of money made.

U.S. video game data company Circana said Gearbox’s looter shooter was the best-selling premium video game of September, debuting as the third best-selling game of 2025 so far. It was September’s best-seller on both the Xbox and aggregated PC storefront charts.

Most importantly for publisher 2K Games, Borderlands 4 generated the highest launch month dollar sales of any title in the franchise’s history, nearly 30% higher than the previous best, Borderlands 3.

It’s worth noting this stat isn’t about unit sales, rather revenue generated. Borderlands 4 launched at $69.99 (eventually, after a weird kerfuffle online about whether it would jump to $80), with the Deluxe Edition priced $99.99 and the Super Deluxe Edition at $129.99. At its launch in September 2019, Borderlands 3 cost $59.99 for the standard edition, $79.99 for the Deluxe Edition, and $99.99 for the Super Deluxe Edition. It's also worth noting that Borderlands 3 was a PC exclusive to the Epic Games Store for six months after its release, whereas Borderlands 4 launched across PC via Steam as well as consoles.

So, we don’t have hard sales figures yet (2K Games has made no announcement so far). But according to Circana, Borderlands 4 was the first Borderlands title to launch as the best-selling game of its release month, so there’s that.

There were encouraging signs for Borderlands 4 when it came out last month. It set a peak concurrent player number record for the franchise on Steam (neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public). But it has suffered from performance issues that have contributed to its ‘mixed’ Steam review rating on Valve’s platform. Gearbox has issued a series of patches since launch, but fans are waiting for the Borderlands 4 ‘Day 30 Update,’ which is due out later this week.

NBA 2K26, by the way, is 2025’s best-selling game year-to-date, ahead of Capcom’s Monster Hunter: Wilds. Helldivers 2 was the fourth best-selling game of September on Xbox platforms, after debuting third during its August launch month. Helldivers 2 ranked as the sixth best-selling game overall in September and was 19th for the 2025 year-to-date period.

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.

If you're looking for an affordable high-capacity power bank that will fast charge your most power hungry gaming handhelds, then this deal might be the one you've been waiting for. Amazon is offering the compact Iniu 20,000mAh 65W Power Bank for just $22.94 after an extra 49% off coupon that's automatically applied during checkout. The 65W power output is the same output as the charger that comes bundled with the new Xbox Ally X handheld gaming PC.

Iniu 20,000mAh 65W USB Power Bank for $22.94

Only the first two episodes of Dispatch's eventual eight have been released so far, but it's safe to say I’m already quite invested in this unique narrative adventure, which feels like a spiritual successor to the Telltale Games of the 2010s. Half TV show, half puzzle game, this superpowered workplace comedy quickly captured my attention with its cavalcade of oddball characters, engaging minigames, and giggle-inducing dialogue. It’s too early to say where the story will lead across the next three weeks of its episodic release schedule (and we'll have a final, scored review at the end), but the threads AdHoc Studio are pulling on are immediately compelling, and I’m cautiously optimistic.

Dispatch takes place in an alternative take on modern Los Angeles where superpowered beings, aliens, demons, and all manner of hyperpowered humanoids live amongst the regular folk. Naturally, some of these gifted beings use their powers for good, while others opt for a distinctly villainous approach. With so many supers roaming the streets, an organisation called the SDC has stepped in, launching an insurance-type racket that allows citizens to pay for the privilege of a powerful watchdog. One of the aforementioned good guys is the series’ protagonist, Robert Robertson — otherwise known as Mecha Man — whose heroic aspirations are quickly thwarted when a rogue explosive takes his suit out of commission and plops him into the role of a call centre worker at a small branch of the SDC. So far we've only experienced his first day on the job, but I’m already compelled by his predicament and curious to see how this desk job will impact his halcyon dreams of helping people.

Dispatch is split into two distinct parts: most of the time you’ll be chatting through beautifully animated scenes, picking amusing dialogue options, and doing quick-time events like those seen in The Wolf Among Us or the Life is Strange series. Certain decisions trigger a heart-pounding ‘X Person remembered that’ notification at the top of the screen, which feels like a refreshing jolt of nostalgia in 2025. Crucially, though, I often couldn’t feel the weight of my decisions until I had already committed to them. So far, my choices haven’t seemed false or meaningless — I was frequently surprised by how even the most nonchalant comment could impact the tale, and only time will tell how considerable these ripple effects may become.

The rest of your time in Dispatch is spent at work in the role of a titular Dispatcher, assigning superheroes to a variety of jobs. Unlike the animated sequences, these sections take place on a computer screen and resemble a point-and-click puzzle. Using your mouse and wits, you’ll monitor a city map where orange exclamation points periodically pop up with a timer, alerting you to various jobs SDC needs to handle efficiently. Each hero under your command has a stat matrix, similar to that seen in Pokémon, and as a job appears, you’ll receive a verbal description of the issue with aligned icons denoting the stats needed to successfully resolve it.

From here, your job is to match your best hero, or in some cases heroes, by their stats and personalities and then send them on their way. You'll be told right away whether you’ve passed or failed, with success earning you a stat boost you can apply to your hero for future shifts. It’s a moreish feedback loop that works well with the tonal complexity of the context surrounding it. Dispatch carefully balances your team’s tongue-in-cheek banter with the stressful necessity of saving citizens on time, which is a blast.

That’s not all, though, as there’s a secondary hacking minigame folded into your workday. Here, you’ll roll a 3D object through a cybernetic maze as the clock ticks down, using arrow key inputs to forge a path towards the end goal. Given that these scenarios are often blended with an intense event happening across town, the stakes feel high, and it was easy to get absorbed in the fantasy. Dispatch’s ‘augmented episode’ approach is compelling so far — it helps that the script is so witty and satirically acerbic, and delivered well by its ensemble cast.

As well as the puzzles in play, your team is another complication to your success. Robert Robertson is new to the job, so naturally, he’s not exactly running a gold star operation. The group you’re trying to control is entirely comprised of former villains who, after a life of crime, are trying to reintegrate into society. As you can likely imagine, it’s not going well. The concept of ethically murky superhumans has been explored across film and TV before, but Dispatch often diverts expectations through a steady mix of dirty jokes and sincere interactions that keep you on your toes.

For example, in a meeting after my first shift, my boss, Blonde Blazer, asked why I had a bloody nose. Moments earlier, due to some potentially ill-advised decisions during a conversation, one of my ‘heroes’ promptly smacked me in the face. I had a choice here: I could snitch on her, or pretend everything was fine. Hoping not to get hit again, I chose not to fess up, which led to a warm interaction between myself and another member of the SDC. Dispatch could have chucked in another joke here for a cheap laugh, but it didn’t. This measured restraint imbues the world with a sense of realism that’s easy to get emotionally invested in.

It helps that the pool of characters I’ve met so far have wormed their way into my heart, even when their attitudes stink. No one is one-dimensional, and while it’s unclear what’s hiding in their layers, it already feels like there is a lot to unpack. There’s Invisigal – formerly Invisibitch – a bratty, quippy menace escaping a dubious past voiced by Laura Bailey; the SDC leader Blonde Blazer played by Erin Yvette, whose noble front hides a world of insecurity; and Jeffrey Wright's Chase, a retired hero and potty-mouthed veteran of the game, just to name a few standouts. I would be remiss not to mention Robert here, too, who, thanks to Aaron Paul's emotive and nuanced performance, feels deeply flawed but lovably human.

Just a quarter of the way through this story, it’s still too early to say where Dispatch might end up. It’s clear there’s lots still to come, from levelling up my heroes in the Dispatch minigame to living out Robert’s saviour fantasy after his accident. I'll be back with a scored review shortly after the release of the final episodes on November 12 – but, as of right now, I’m totally enthralled in this world, and I’m keen to get tangled up in Robert’s fractured personal life.

IT: Welcome to Derry debuts on HBO on October 26, 2025.

The astronomical box office success of 2017’s IT: Chapter One led to a historically high volume of Stephen King adaptations in the years that followed, so there’s a sense of homecoming that permeates IT: Welcome to Derry, the new HBO Max series rooted in the cycle of Pennywise carnage which precedes the events of Andy Muschietti’s two-part movie version. Muschietti returns to help guide this prequel series as director for the first four episodes. Though the premiere episode rushes to lay a lot of groundwork, it suggests we’re in for a thoughtful and savage exploration of just how deep the rot of It runs through Derry.

Welcome to Derry has the benefit of starting off on incredibly solid ground: not only did the creative team - including producer Barbara Muschietti and co-producer Jason Fuchs, who serves as co-showrunner here with Brad Caleb Kane - have two feature films to establish their own version of Derry and its relationship to Pennywise, but this new series has a ton of untapped material from the original King novel to pull from: the interstitial Derry town history chapters which punctuate the interweaving kid and adult timelines. These passages give the reader a sense of how Pennywise’s hunger for fear has flared up in predictable 27-year intervals over time, usually in the form of child disappearances that crescendo into some sort of mass casualty event.

Muschietti’s films moved the events of the book up so that Chapter Two could be set in the modern day… or maybe it was more so that Chapter One could be set in the 1980s and take advantage of the decade’s Stranger Things-fueled popularity (casting Finn Wolfhard as Richie Tozier didn’t hurt those efforts.) That leaves the originally 1930s-set and racially-charged tragedy Welcome to Derry’s first season adapts to land squarely in the middle of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, which feels like a pretty compelling and dramatically fertile shift. And given that the 1990 miniseries set its kids storyline in the book-accurate 1950s, the 1960s time period here gives Welcome to Derry an instant sense of cohesion to what It should feel like onscreen, something helped along with some really fantastic production design and costume work already apparent through this first hour.

Welcome to Derry’s premiere tracks two storylines: the kids on the front lines of Pennywise’s latest cycle of torment, and the arrival into Derry of Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo). There’s a widely held opinion about pretty much every iteration of It that the Losers’ Club’s first encounter with Pennywise as children is more entertaining than their final confrontation with him as adults. Nothing about Welcome to Derry’s premiere is going to dispel the notion that the younger characters’ perspective on Pennywise is the more interesting one.

As Hanlon, a B-52 test pilot who will go on to be the grandfather of Losers’ Club founding member Mike Hanlon (he appears briefly in IT: Chapter One), Adepo brings a steadiness to Leroy that’ll be fun to see get challenged by the supernatural horrors ahead. But it’s on the airbase that the Welcome to Derry premiere’s efforts to lay groundwork for the season ahead feel the most laborious. Hanlon’s icy reception from some of his white colleagues, a “special projects” building no one will answer questions about, and the warning glances of another black airman (Andy Muschietti revealed at SDCC 2025 that this character is The Shining’s Dick Hallorann, played by Chris Chalk.) portend more sinister conflicts he’ll have to navigate as the season goes, but the intrigue they’re setting up here isn’t all that intriguing yet, and with no obvious connection to the more interesting Pennywise stuff going on in town, not even the attack Hanlon suffers from masked assailants elevates this storyline past feeling like more than setup, even if it’s for what will prove to be a critical fork of the plot going forward.

No, Welcome to Derry’s premiere is at its scariest and most effective while following the kids of Derry as they first begin to encounter Pennywise. Muschietti’s movies nailed the creeping weirdness and dread that sets in as kids get closer to It, and Muschietti marshals that surreal sensibility to great effect in this episode’s stellar opening sequence, as loner Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt) hitches a ride home with the wrong family. As Matty realizes he’s in trouble, Muschietti dials up the intensity with increasingly quick cuts around to everyone inside the car as they act stranger and stranger… poor little Matty Clements, you were doomed from the second we met your nearly-teenaged ass sucking on a pacifier in a movie theater. That’s just not something you can do in a horror story and expect to make it to the end credits, kid.

The way Muschietti draws out the demise of the young outsider, and how he subjects Matty to satisfyingly shocking imagery before he goes, promises an eye towards plenty more psychologically-oppressive wind-ups to come in future episodes. The payoffs in this first episode, though, do yield mixed results. Scares that lean on quick glimpses of something that shouldn’t be there, or voices coming from where they shouldn’t, go a lot farther than ones reliant on letting the monster fully out from under the bed. If you found the scares in the It movies which leaned more on CG a letdown, the main form Pennywise takes when it does appear in this first episode will likely be more distraction than nightmare fuel. Still, Pennywise’s first attacks definitely communicate one thing about Welcome to Derry: there’s likely no shortage of blood and gore coming our way, and a few plot-armored characters aside, no kid or adult is safe.

What both the adult and kid storylines do highlight effectively, and set up as an important dynamic to follow going forward, is the parallel between Pennywise’s malice and the banal indifference of Derry’s citizenry towards the plights of others: how kids recognize and rail against it, how young adults get cynical and tend towards it, and how those in middle-age and beyond seem doomed to it entirely. Matty’s disappearance weighs heavily on classmates Lilly, Teddie and Phil, and though none of them were particularly close with the missing boy, all three feel varying degrees of guilt at having missed chances to connect with him before he disappeared. Lilly’s the most intriguing of the younger characters introduced, as the Matty situation is compounding some pre-existing grief that young actor Clara Stack handles capably. Lilly also brings along her no-bullshit best friend Marge, whose big personality and take-no-prisoners attitude already makes her a candidate for best character on the show.

And how’s Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise in this first episode? Well, if there was something to say, it’d have been said by now! He’s not around! No, Welcome to Derry seems intent to parse out its Pennywise appearances sparingly… and whether that's for purely narrative reasons or because Skarsgård’s schedule’s a lot more full than it used to be doesn't matter when the end result leaves Pennywise feeling as ominous a background presence as he should through the series premiere. Glimpses of Pennywise’s cocked eye or his giant buck teeth appearing in the mouths of those antagonizing the kids are as much as we see, but for now, that feels in keeping with the limited amount of information the kids have on the monster whose bloodthirst they’ve only scratched the surface of.

With new developments re: Xbox and they're rumoured future combining console and PC gaming come next generation, it's a good idea to get a PC gaming setup running that sweet Xbox full screen experience. Not a fan of Xbox? Well gamers usually save atleast $10 on new releases and have plenty of opportunities to get ridiculously cheap game key bundles for Steam from storefronts such as Humble and Fanatical.

TL;DR: Deals for Today

Luckily for our readers, Alienware has some fantastic discounts on gaming desktops and laptops from their latest Auorora and Area-51 lines. Already got a rig but need an upgrade? It's time to hop on the Nvidia RTX 5000 series line thanks to Woots deals on refurbished graphics cards. Let's get into it:

Alienware Gaming Desktop Discounts

Fancy a solid RTX 5080 build for under $2,000 including free delivery? You'll be able to take advantage of DLSS 4 with more gas in the tank than a RTX 4080 Super, which is one of Nvidias best graphics card releases last year. Buyers can look forward to high frame rate 4K gameplay with all the bells and whistles added. We're talking ray tracing and definition sharper than any console can currently output. Check our review out for more information on this epic GPU.

Alienware Gaming Laptop Discounts

When it comes to gaming laptops in general, picking one within your budget is the first major step. For something worth gaming on, the $1,000 mark is the price of entry. That will include a RTX 5060, going all the way up to $3,549 for a RTX 5090 build if you really want that mobile gaming flex.

Nvidia RTX 5000 Series Refurb Deals

Still running a Nvidia RTX 1000 to 3000 series? This is your chance to upgrade your rig to DLSS 4 and Ray Tracing with Woots RTX 5000 series refurbished sale. The sweet spot with this generation has to be RTX 5080 that includes 16GB of GDDRR6 RAM that can handle 4K gaming and all the frames. Need to upgrade on a budget? RTX 5070 12GB is a great option for $529 too.

MTG: Cheapest at Amazon

There's a handful of booster boxes available for slightly less at Amazon this week, but it's a bit of a poor turnout for Magic: The Gathering players. Most of the listing on Amazon are above MSRP and higher than secondary market values, but the carosel above are good deals when compared to TCGPlayer.

MTG: Cheapest at TCGPlayer

TCGPlayer's sellers are keeping away from the sneaker-heads and crypo bro mentality that's hit Magic and Pokémon TCG is 2025 and is keeping prices down. Market value for MTG sealed product goes off what people are willing to pay, and it shows. There's so much here that's at a lower price than big box retailers it's embarassing. But, it's great for your pocket!

Blaziken ex & Volcanion ex Premium Collection

Poké Price Check: Mega Evolution In Stock

Mega Evolution seems to be a well-printed start to the next era of Pokémon TCG. I'm seeing boosters in convienience stores and some products on physical shelves, not to mention the Booster Bundle ($52.89), Gardevoir ETB ($88.81) and Three Booster Blister ($28.90) available on Amazon. Like the rest of the products in this carousel though, the cheapest is TCGplayer right now.

Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.

Bethesda has outlined what it has planned for this week’s Fallout Day broadcast.

In a social media post, Bethesda said the broadcast, set for 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm UK tomorrow, October 23, will feature more on Fallout 76, Fallout Shelter, Fallout 4, and more.

Specifically on Fallout 76, Bethesda will show more of the Burning Springs update. This big expansion, due out in December, sees Walton Goggins reprise his fan-favorite role as The Ghoul from the Fallout TV show.

Fallout Shelter is also mentioned, as is Fallout 4 and Creations, which suggests the decade old role-playing game will get some new content soon. Creations are community created mods released officially for Bethesda’s video games.

Elsewhere, there are new merch drops, community in-person events, and a post-show celebrating the community. There is no specific mention of the Fallout TV show, either. Season 2 is due out in December.

There is no mention of any Fallout remaster, either. There are all sorts of rumors floating around about potential Fallout remakes now that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is out the door (Fallout 3 Remastered was leaked back in 2023, but those plans may have changed). And we know Bethesda plans to eventually get to Fallout 5, albeit after The Elder Scrolls 6.

October 23, 2077 is of course the day in the Fallout timeline the bombs fell, sparking The Great War that caused the irradiated wasteland fans of the franchise have been playing in over the last few decades.

The last we heard on Fallout 5, by the way, was back in June 2024, when Bethesda Softworks head Todd Howard said he wasn’t interested in rushing it out the door. Howard opened up about the future of the hit post-apocalyptic RPG series during an interview with YouTube content creator MrMattyPlays.

"For other Fallout games in the future, you know, obviously I can’t talk about those right now, but I would say, sort of rushing through them, or we kind of need to get stuff out that is different than the work we’re doing in 76… we don’t feel like we need to rush any of that," he said. "The Fallout TV show fills a certain niche in terms of the franchise and storytelling."

The last mainline Fallout game was Fallout 4, which was released in 2015. DLC content for the entry was steadily released for PC and consoles over the next year, and in 2018, Bethesda launched its multiplayer-centered offshoot, Fallout 76. While fans slowly flocked to the West Virginia-set open-world RPG, it wasn’t until the premiere of Prime Video’s Fallout TV show that the Bethesda series leveled up in terms of attention.

Still, Howard wouldn't budge when it came to desires for a substantial video game release. For him, it comes down to wanting to treat Bethesda's franchises with care.

"Totally get the desire for a new kind of mainline single-player game," he said. "And look, those things take time. I don’t think it’s bad for people to miss things. We just want to get it right and make sure that everything we’re doing in a franchise, whether it’s Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or now Starfield, that those become meaningful moments for everybody who loved these franchises as much as we do."

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 first Battlefield 6 Season 1 trailer is here, revealing a first look at the new Blackwell Fields and Eastwood maps, new weapons, and more.

EA and Battlefield Studios published the debut trailer for the Season 1 update ahead of its launch next week, October 28. The two-minute video shows off glimpse of the team’s plans to keep Battlefield 6 content flowing following its strong October 10 launch for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S.

"Blackwell Fields spans besieged facilities and homesteads under a burning horizon, supporting all combat sizes with land and air," an official description for the new Battlefield 6 Season 1 maps says. "Eastwood turns a quiet villa and golf retreat into a frontline, with land vehicles and helicopters in play."

Today’s Battlefield 6 Season 1 trailer shows off first gameplay on the Blackwell Fields map and Eastwood map, but it also serves as an update for content fans have already been told to expect. BF Studios previously shared a roadmap for its first seasonal content run earlier this month, revealing three waves of updates that are set to roll out from next week through December 9.

Miraculously meditative and frantic in equal measure, Once Upon A Katamari scratches the same carnal itch that the rest of the series always has. It delivers relentless charm, a wheeze-laugh-inducing sense of humor, brain chemistry-altering music, and soulfully satisfying-but-simple gameplay in psychedelic technicolor. This time-trotting adventure rolls out the red carpet for The Prince, The King of All Cosmos, The Queen, and their cadre of silly little cousins with flamboyant aplomb. And with more levels and a greater focus on replayability, there’s more Katamari to go around than ever before. The first new mainline Katamari game in 14 years doesn’t try to reinvent the misshapen mass of things you roll around, and that’s fine by me, because Katamari doesn’t need fixing.

At first blush, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the original Katamari Damacy from 2004 and Bandai Namco’s latest iteration aside from the obvious jump from 480p to 4K. That’s because developer Rengame understood the assignment: Once Upon A Katamari is just as funny, satisfying, joyful, and energetic as the series has always been.

After showing off his juggling skills with a powerful scroll, the godlike King of All Cosmos flings it into the night sky, yet again destroying the heavenly bodies that inhabit it. It’s up to his son, The Prince, and his cousins to go to Earth and roll up everything in sight to make stars and planets to repopulate the sky. It might not make sense if you haven’t played a Katamari game (or, frankly, even if you have), but this setup has proven as reliable as Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach, and serves as a vehicle for some spectacularly funny stuff.

The King, a flamboyant, self-important, all-powerful – though overall benevolent – god who likes to wear really tight pants is beloved by all, even though he talks down to The Prince and his goofy-looking cousins. Making the most of every last syllable of dialogue, I chuckled at least once just about every time he mused on the nature of the universe or paid himself a compliment with his record-scratch-sound voice. Once Upon A Katamari is a masterclass of comedic writing and localization, efficiently using its humor to set up the goal for each level before the rolling starts without ever letting a joke get stale.

Completing a level will often reveal a quick and silly scene showing The King or The Queen getting up to some kind of shenanigans, like rolling a bunch of wild west outlaws into a katamari after a standoff that pays homage to The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, or The King catching a giant crab and flinging it into the sky. Even failing a level has some cheek to it, as The King berates you for messing up, softening the sometimes frustrating blow of falling short of the goal. Despite this pervasive sense of humor, it never becomes cloying or overly self-aware, reliably delivering a smile at nearly every turn beyond The King’s pompous monologues. The overworld level-select maps are just as full of funny touches, like cats and dogs wandering around the Ancient Greek agora in Spartan armor or a cow sitting at a campfire like a human, warming its hooves next to its owner.

Each level takes advantage of just how much stuff there is to find within the seemingly chaotic splatter of candy, flowers, statues, lanterns, and TVs that camouflage a subtle, effortless sense of humor and direction within the madness. Tumbleweeds chase cowboys around in circles, titanic Super Sentai-style heroes practice wrestling their moves on kaiju over the horizon, bears and cows prepare for an all-fronts war, and mummies make TV shows underneath the pyramids. Again: madness. But even in the immense, sometimes overwhelming, chaos of each level, every object you can roll up is placed with deliberate care for either comedic effect or a satisfying sequence, like an octopus wreaking havoc on a pirate ship or bottles of soy sauce set up like bowling pins that will quickly push you into the next weight class so you can finally pick up that bowl of ramen in the other room.

Controlling your designated roller, you’ll whirl your massive ball of stuff around different time periods like the Jurassic period or Edo-era Japan, picking up anything smaller than your dung beetle-like ball. You might start a level the size of a pushpin or matchstick, but you could end it picking up cities or even planets by the end. The classic goal is simply to get your katamari (which literally means clump or mass in Japanese) as big as possible, but sometimes you’ll need to follow special rules. They could be as simple as collecting as many fish as possible, or as complex as only rolling up sweet items while avoiding savory or bitter things like hot sauce or charcoal because the child who asked you to do so wants to eat something sweet after a big meal.

No matter what you’re picking up, snowballing your katamari into a bigger and bigger collection of books, cannonballs, eggs, and flatware is oddly cerebral. Tapping into the same inexplicably satisfying, brain-scratching sensation you get from games like Tetris or PowerWash Simulator, there’s a zen-ness to decluttering Japanese palaces, Ice Age caves, and the decks of pirate ships washed in a low-poly-day-glo look.

Once Upon A Katamari’s oddly gripping, maximalist soundscape counters this calm with gusto. Different items snap to your odd ball with a satisfying zhoop, with certain things making unique noises like a wailing cat or a street punk scatting, turning your katamari the strangest chorus you’ve ever heard. As you roll up a ball of various odds and ends, Once Upon A Katamari matches your collection with an equally eclectic soundtrack. Inspired by the poppy hodge-podge sound of J-Pop subgenre Shibuya-kei, Once Upon A Katamari’s soundtrack stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the musical giants it’s following as a spectacular album in its own right, with or without a game to accompany it.

The only unifying themes among the notes are paying subtle homage to the Katamari riff (you know: that catchy one that goes na naaa nanana nana na na na na nana naaa) that permanently tattoos itself on your hippocampus after playing any game in this series. Otherwise, Once Upon A Katamari’s soundtrack is a diverse smorgasbord of different sounds and genres, from the energetic techno-rap opening theme, Katamari Time, to the funk-jazz-fusion jam, Power of Katamari Damacy, to the unexpectedly lovely choral title track from one of the series’ original composers, Asuka Sakai, featuring the San Francisco Boys Choir. There’s not a bad track among the 36-song bunch.

But Once Upon A Katamari is happy to oblige your sonic nostalgia for the other games, too, with nearly every track from the series’ 21-year history available in a music selector that has a handful of options to tweak. You can make a playlist of your favorite songs from across the series or loop a specific favorite over any of Once Upon A Katamari’s levels. It’s frustrating that you can’t just play an individual game’s soundtrack in order, and that multiple games are inexplicably clumped together in two separate eras instead of game by game, but the playlist feature at least more or less makes up for those shortcomings. The shuffle feature also has an odd hiccup where whichever song played last starts over when you start the next level. And since some of these levels are shorter than much of the near-100-song tracklist, you might wind up hearing some songs more times in a row than you’d want when choosing shuffle, but you can always select a new song before starting a level to fix that.

Rengame’s surgical approach to recreating the immutable charm of this series deftly avoids the uninteresting pitfalls of hollow nostalgia. Instead of treating iconic levels from the original as gospel doomed to be worn out in every Katamari game like the requisite recreation of 1-1 in the Mario series, nearly every stage here is wholly original. Katamari’s newest custodians toy with the formula with careful precision, supplementing the flow of what I’ve come to expect from a roll-icking good time with new level types and even power-ups to augment your rolling while taking care not to disrupt the delicate balance of calm and chaos that defines Katamari. Combining that with subtle modernizations established in more recent Katamari games, like a clearer scoring system, Once Upon A Katamari threads the needle between old and new surprisingly well.

For example, using both joysticks to control where and how you roll has always been deliberately awkward, with the mass becoming harder and harder to maneuver as you grow exponentially. Once Upon A Katamari makes zooming around at smaller sizes feel a little more precise than it used to, which I didn’t like at first, but this ultimately helped highlight the sense of scale this series has always been good at in bright yellow.

The power-ups add a nice layer to the rolling as well, and let Rengame play with new design ideas that emphasize the puzzle element of efficiently finding your way around – even breaking the trance-like flow for a certain level or part of one to instead experiment with puzzle-like problems to solve. The Rocket power-up, for example, helped me brave a powerful wind storm to pick up a few extra items, but only lasted for a short burst of speed, adding an extra layer of challenge and strategy I wasn’t normally used to. The Radar power-up helped me find specific items to complete a pharaoh’s series of requests in one of the Ancient Egypt levels as he asked for 10 bananas or a dozen eggs. None of these drastically reshape or redefine the rolling at Katamari’s core, but do open up new level design ideas that offer fun diversions from the standard “make your katamari as big as possible” levels.

Once Upon A Katamari is by far the biggest game in the series to date, though still relatively small in scope overall - it took me around 10 hours to complete every main level at least once. Rengame acknowledges and helps buttress this with new collectibles to find in each level and unlockable challenges to keep me coming back with a new approach. In addition to finding cousins who serve as additional playable characters and gifts that unlock new customization options for them, three crowns are hidden in each level, adding extra challenges and legitimately compelling reasons to revisit levels. Having a certain number of cousins or crowns will open up extra levels, too, adding even more reason to roll around the same place a few times. Challenges don’t offer the same rewards, but they’re a nice nod to players like me who regularly revisit completed Katamari games.

That all said, the stages that are available are unfortunately lopsided, with a majority of the levels taking place in Edo Japan – it holds more than double the amount of levels as the next biggest era. I understand that this series has always embraced Japanese culture, but in the context of Once Upon A Katamari’s time travel concept, it feels like a lot of ground was left uncovered across the nine other eras, some of which only host as few as three or four levels.

Rengame also builds on the multiplayer modes established in the other Katamari games with the series’ best take on multiplayer to date. While co-op control of a single katamari isn't available this time around, the PvP mode once again has you and other rollers try to pick up the most stuff. But unlike previous entries, you earn points by depositing your hard-earned stuff in a UFO, giving more utility to the new power-ups and adding a more dynamic flow to competition than just rolling as much as possible. Once your time’s up, The King intervenes to hand out bonus points in a Mario Party-style round-up that awards competitors for stuff like the number of times they’ve used a power-up or rolled up their opponents. It’s nothing revolutionary, but a step up that makes multiplayer feel like more than just an afterthought.

Call it the sentiment of an aging millennial, but I can't help but feel somewhat comforted while playing Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted. It not only updates the original's stellar blend of approachable tower-defense and puzzle gameplay, but it's also a reminder of how quirky and endearing games were in the late 2000s. Developer PopCap Games returns to give this classic another well-deserved moment in the sun, adding new content, quality-of-life improvements, and features from other ports to create a more complete package. That said, Replanted struggles to balance its updates with its attempts to preserve the look of the original. In doing so, it presents an uneven remaster that is the most complete version of Plants vs. Zombies ever released, but also one that feels less polished in the ways that matter most.

The charm of PvZ comes from its cheerful and fun vibes, which feel akin to an afternoon cartoon show you'd watch on Nickelodeon. In keeping with the series, Replanted never attempts to explain how this quirky side of the zombie apocalypse started, or, even more strangely, how the plants gained heightened sentience to fight back. And honestly, that still works out for the best, because vibes alone have helped the Plants vs. Zombies series go far. The tone always stays fast and loose with its premise to keep the absurdity ramping up, which it does plenty.

The Replanted edition brings back everything from the 2009 PC release along with nearly all of the additions from the various console and mobile ports that followed – including material from the discontinued Chinese release of PvZ. Even the local co-op and competitive modes from the console ports make a return, which I missed the first time around. This makes Replanted such a neat opportunity to get reacquainted both with why the original still holds up today and the many upgrades it got over the years.

What made Plants vs. Zombies so engaging was how it blended real-time strategy with the feeling of placing pieces of a puzzle onto a table. It really leans into the satisfaction of finding a particular approach and adapting your units as needed. When the action gets going, and your squads of peashooters and walnuts are holding the line against zombie quarterbacks, 'zomboni' drivers, and other oddball undead, it's so captivating to see play out. Even as someone who played it plenty 16 years ago, I still found myself immediately drawn back in, arranging my plants in the best tactical positions to keep the zombies off my doorstep.

The overall challenge of the original generally stayed fair and easygoing, but there were a few moments of unexpected difficulty spikes, and Replanted doesn't do much to fix that. Granted, many of the sudden challenges that arise are because of how breezy the campaign can be, which made the more difficult stages catch me off guard thanks to the tough new zombie units that came my way. I found the challenges to be reasonable overall, but the difficulty can still hit hard when you least expect it.

Replanted does make efforts to switch things up and add its own stuff that's not been seen elsewhere. One very welcome update for returning players is the ability to speed up battles. You can hit the fast-forward option to speed animations up three additional notches, which adds the challenge of making battles feel a bit more hectic at that heightened pace. It was generally helpful for clearing out the waiting periods in missions, which previously took up a lot of time. However, one downside of this is that changing the speed unfortunately alters the music, too. While I did like the remixed songs with faster beats, it means the classic music that ramped up as the battles escalated has been disappointingly removed from the soundtrack.

One of the more novel additions is the Rest in Peace Mode, PvZ's take on a permadeath run for the main adventure. With fewer defenses protecting your home, even one zombie breaking through your lines will result in an instant fail and send you back to the beginning of a run. As a concept, it fits perfectly with the style of PvZ, and I did feel that familiar tension that comes from the more intense missions. However, letting you bring in all your unlocked plants and seed slots at the start of a run does undermine a lot of the intended challenge, which is an odd choice if this is supposed to be the most difficult mode in PvZ. It's ultimately not as developed as I had hoped, so trying to make a go of the new mode mostly felt underwhelming.

The most interesting and inventive Replanted addition is the Cloudy Day mode, which combines elements of day and night gameplay into a single battle. This twist introduces an interesting change by making the sunny phase focus more on resource gathering and planning, while the cloudy phase is all about building units with the benefit of lower resource costs. It's a clever mash-up of the two battle styles of PvZ, and it kept me very engaged as I tried to maximize my moments in battle when the tide changed. It's by far Replanted's most impressive innovation.

This remaster generally looks great in motion as well, especially when the action heats up with zombie hordes in full force and your plants tossing everything they can to stop them. Unfortunately, the upgraded visuals often stick a little too closely to the style and structure of the original, and their expansion to larger resolutions can sometimes feel very artificial and uneven. This creates instances where the quality can be inconsistent and unintentionally below standard, such as blurry and rough character portraits or animations in menus, and the unsightly grim filter overlay in Rest in Peace mode.

This unevenness also contributes to one of the more bizarre changes: how the original iconic ending music video was handled. Without spoilers, instead of a rousing splash of an ending, this finale is shown as a video within another cutscene, condensed onto a classic tube TV set inside your character’s home. This unnecessary flourish diminishes the final sequence, which was previously on the same level as Portal's fantastic 'Still Alive' ending. It was an unexpected downer to see that celebration of the fun energy of Plants vs. Zombies instead turned into something that feels like I'm just watching a 16-year-old recording of the credits on YouTube in full 360p resolution. This type of decision is largely emblematic of the problems with Replanted overall, as it plays things overly safe as a remaster in order to avoid remaking elements of the main game, which has the downside of making it feel reductive in its attempt to preserve it.

Microsoft has announced Wave 2 of its Xbox Game Pass October 2025 lineup, fleshing out the rest of this month’s titles.

It’s worth noting today’s announcement on Xbox Wire follows Microsoft’s Game Pass price hike and rebranding of some tiers. So, we’re now talking about what’s on Game Pass Premium and Essential, rather than Standard and Core. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass keep their names.

Xbox Game Pass Tier and Price Changes, October 2025:

• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: $29.99 a month, up from $19.99 a month
• Xbox Game Pass Premium: $14.99 a month, the same as the old Standard subscription
• Xbox Game Pass Essential: $9.99 a month, the same as the old Core subscription
• PC Game Pass: $16.49 a month, up from $11.99

So, available today, October 22, on Game Pass Premium, is Commandos: Origins (Cloud, Console, and PC), now with Game Pass Premium. Here’s the official blurb: “Commandos: Origins revisits the six iconic commandos from the original series. Witness elite stealth-tactics gameplay, use your team’s unique abilities to execute complex strategies, and combine your forces in 2-player co-op multiplayer. The battlefield is calling. Do you have what it takes?”

Also now on Game Pass Premium is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S). “Pursue your aviation career with dynamically generated missions, compete against other pilots, and explore the most detailed digital twin of the world to date. Set out on your global adventure with our largest fleet of aircraft as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 takes simulation to new heights of authenticity and realism. The sky is calling!”

Tomorrow, October 23, PowerWash Simulator 2 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) hits Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass as a day one Game Pass launch. IGN's PowerWash Simulator 2 review returned an 8/10. We said: "PowerWash Simulator 2 smartly sticks to what made the original formula such a blast while throwing in some upgrades to deal with few of its pesky problems."

Also on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass as a day one title on October 23 is Bounty Star (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S). “Bounty Star is an over-the-shoulder 3D action game that marries mech combat and customization with farming and base building. The player takes on the role of a broken but powerful ex-soldier named Clem, a war veteran, talented fighter and expert mech pilot.”

The day one launches continue on October 24 with Super Fantasy Kingdom (Game Preview) (PC) via Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. “Rebuild your kingdom and explore a vibrant fantasy world in this roguelite city builder. Defeat hordes of monsters with a unique team of defenders as you harvest, build, mine, cook, brew, and grow. But if your defenses should fail, be prepared to watch it all burn!”

Halls of Torment (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) hits Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass on October 28. “Slay hordes of terrifying monsters in this horde survival roguelite. Descend into the Halls of Torment where the Lords of the Underworld await you. Treasures, magical trinkets, and a growing cast of heroes will grant you the power to vanquish these horrors from beyond. How long can you survive?”

Here’s a big one: Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds 2 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) launches straight into Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on October 29. “The Outer Worlds 2 is the eagerly-awaited sequel to the award-winning first-person sci-fi RPG from Obsidian Entertainment (just look at the exciting number of dashes in this sentence!). Time to clear your calendar – get ready for an action-packed adventure with a new crew, new weapons, and new enemies in a new colony! Pre-order the Premium Upgrade Edition now to get up to 5 days early access, the Commander Zane’s Anti-Monopolistic Battle Pack, DLC Pass for 2 future story expansions, and more!”

And moving into next month, 1000xResist (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) hits Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass on November 4. “1000xResist is a thrilling sci-fi adventure. The year is unknown, and a disease spread by an alien invasion keeps you underground. You are Watcher. You dutifully fulfil your purpose in serving the Allmother, until the day you discover a shocking secret that changes everything.”

Rounding out the lineup is another big hitter: Football Manager 26 (PC) via Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass as a day one launch on November 4. “New foundations set the stage for you to define your football destiny. Built on the Unity engine, FM26 is the legacy, redefined and where storytelling evolves, placing you at the heart of the beautiful game. A reimagined interface and more immersive matchday experience brings you closer to the action and combine to elevate every decision and match-defining moment.” This also includes Football Manager 26 Console (Cloud, Console, and PC) on the same day via Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

Xbox Game Pass Wave 2 October 2025 lineup:

• PowerWash Simulator 2 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – October 23, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
• Bounty Star (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – October 23, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
• Super Fantasy Kingdom (Game Preview) (PC) – October 24, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
• Halls of Torment (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – October 28, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
• The Outer Worlds 2 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – October 29, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
• 1000xResist (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – November 4, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
• Football Manager 26 (PC) – November 4, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
• Football Manager 26 Console (Cloud, Console, and PC) – November 4, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

As always, a number of games leave Xbox Game Pass this month. You can save up to 20% off your purchase to keep playing.

Leaving Xbox Game Pass on October 31:

• Jusant (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Metal Slug Tactics (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Return to Monkey Island (Cloud, Console, and PC)

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.

Here we go: KPop Demon Hunters is poised to be a global phenomenon. Why are we just saying that now? Well, because Netflix has officially announced that the hit film will work in joint partnership with toy giants Mattel and Hasbro to license a ton of cool toys for HUNTR/X and Saja Boys fans alike.

Once a movie or TV show starts getting toy lines, it’s serious, folks. The global co-master licenses for both companies will allow them to both produce toys, games, collectibles, role-play products, and more.

“Kpop Demon Hunters unleashed a global fan frenzy — we’re talking dancing, singing, and more screaming than anyone was emotionally prepared for,” Netflix’s Chief Marketing Officer Marian Lee said in a statement. “HUNTR/X showed us that a truly great trio is more than the sum of its parts. Netflix, Mattel and Hasbro joining forces on this first-of-its-kind collaboration means fans can finally get their hands on the best dolls, games, and merchandise they’ve been not-so-subtly demanding on every social platform known to humanity. As Rumi, Mira and Zoey say — for the fans!”

With Mattel, Netflix plans to develop a full range of products that naturally will include dolls and action figures, as the company is responsible for the legendary and iconic Barbie doll line. Additionally, the collaboration with Mattel will also include playsets, collectibles, accessories, and even collaborations with co-brands. Mattel's first product drop will be a three-pack of HUNTR/X dolls, which will be available for pre-order beginning November 12, 2025.

As for Hasbro, Netflix will develop some new youth electronics products, special feature plush products, and role play products with the company. Hasbro’s first KPop Demon Hunters product to hit the market will be Monopoly Deal: KPop Demon Hunters, which will be a branded version of the Monopoly spinoff game. It is available for pre-order now at Amazon, Target, and Walmart, and will ship January 1, 2026.

Most of the Hasbro and Mattel lines will debut in spring 2026 and be available for the 2026 holiday season and onward. KPop Demon Hunters, which is the most watched original title in Netflix history, is available to stream on the platform now.

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

Nintendo and Retro Studios brought Metroid into stunning 3D with 2002's Metroid Prime, rebooting the series in a first-person shooter style through a sometimes challenging but ultimately fruitful relationship between Japanese and Western teams -- each with their own unique backgrounds and perspectives. But it wasn’t always smooth rolling for Samus along the way.

Do you have time to talk about my lord and saviour, PowerWash Simulator? The unexpected cult hit hooked weirdos like me back in 2022 with its relaxing, satisfying premise; clean dirt off things. Has the sequel, PowerWash Simulator 2, changed the fundamental act of power washing? Has it given new meaning to slowly blasting graffiti off a wall? Will it make you question what it truly means to be filthy in 2025? No. And thank Mr. Clean for that, because it's the simplicity that makes it so satisfying. What you do get is what fans like me - I've got over 400 hours logged in the original - really needed; some quality of life upgrades and lots of new things to wash. I can see myself racking up another 400 hours on this installment easily.

In case you missed out the first time, it really is as straightforward as it sounds. You are given a vehicle or location to clean, a selection of power washers (they all function the same way, just with varying power), soap, and if a level is feeling saucy, some ladders. You choose your washer, your nozzle (I'm a green girl, yellow for detail work, any one who uses white wasn't loved enough by their mother), and you're left to clean at your own pace, sluicing down sections in whatever way you please. One of the real beauties of PowerWash Simulator is that you can't eff it up. As long as you're blasting water at dirt, eventually things will get clean. Even if you never upgraded anything, you'd still get there in the end.

The big headline for the sequel is all the new cleaning jobs to work your way through, and they don't disappoint. There are vehicles like a mobility scooter or a car decorated like a dog; there are buildings like bandstands, public toilets, and grand houses; and there are even new multi-stage jobs where you'll need to clean a particular part of a map to reveal a new area. There is the perfect balance of large buildings and complex structures, for when I wanted to spend a solid hour spraying, alongside smaller vehicles for a quicker splash of dopamine. Less exciting for purists like me is the addition of a home base you can decorate (with items you get to wash first) and some pet cats. I mean, everyone likes virtual pets, but unless I can tie mops to their feet I have no interest in them when I'm busy jetwashing a billboard.

You'll understand the beautiful mundanity of this game when I tell you that one of the most exciting innovations is that soap is now free and multipurpose. Not just a blow against capitalism, it actually removes one of the biggest annoyances about the first game. Soap had to be purchased, came in limited quantities, and a different soap was required for each surface. Now you just switch to the soap attachment and any surface, on any job, can be your own personal foam party as it breaks down tough stains. I've gone from a soap dodger to a detergent dilettante. While you're cleaning there are also new icons to help you track down things that still need polishing up, which might sound minor, but as someone who spent hours of their life looking for a 1% speck of dirt on a huge restroom wall, I am hugely grateful for it.

The other new tricks in your cleaning kit similarly make things that were a bit of a fiddle or a grind easier, without letting you skip the work. There's an abseiling rig for large structures like billboards, a cherry picker lift so you're not balancing on ladders to get to hard to reach areas, and a spinning surface cleaner - you know, like school janitors mysteriously push around after hours - to make polishing up large flat surfaces a little less daunting. There are even tiny tweaks, like that tall scaffolding now has a ladder on the outside when you just want to get to the top, no more zig zagging up and down.

What's key is that the improvements aren't about speeding you through the jobs more quickly or letting you skip chunks, because the whole point of PowerWash Simulator 1 and 2 is the meditative flow state you achieve just working away at the grime and graffiti, back and forth, up and down, all with the gentle hiss of water accompanying your progress. It's underrated as an ASMR experience, although you will need to pee every 10 minutes.

If you've yet to discover the wonders of jet washing random buildings and vehicles, good news; there's no lore you have to catch up on. The loose story is delivered through text messages while you're working, but you could skip them all without a problem. They usually explain why you're cleaning, for instance, a street sweeper covered in huckleberry jelly, or will give you weird information about the area. There are some nice touches for devotees of the original, too. A shooting gallery has miniature versions of the landmarks you'll recognize, and the chatter will reference the iconic merman statue or strange temple. It's nonsense, but it's nonsense I appreciated.

Halloween is a little over a week away, making now an excellent time to start marathoning scary movies in celebration of spooky season. If you're in the mood to watch some horror classics this year, Amazon has a sweet little treat to check out right now. The A Nightmare on Elm Street: Seven-Film Collection on 4K has dropped to a new low price at the retailer, according to price tracker camelcamelcamel, making now a great time to add it to your collection if you're interested.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4K Collection for $90.40

Hello Games has released yet another No Man’s Sky update, this time adding space wrecks to explore. The patch notes, courtesy of the No Man's Sky website, are below.

Just over a month after the Voyagers update released for the long-running space game, and the highest player numbers since launch over nine years ago, the Breach update lets players salvage wrecks, unlocking new ship building parts along the way.

Hello Games has also improved and expanded ship building “in response to watching players spend so much time in the workshop designing their dream ships,” Hello Games chief Sean Murray said.

There’s also a new expedition where players will traverse a desolate and abandoned universe to discover what happened to a mysterious abandoned wreck. “Voyaging to the edge of space will be required if you are to salvage from the wreckage of the ill-fated ship and add unique parts and modules to your ship-building workshop,” Murray teased.

“The Breach expedition also brings players together to explore the strange and rare purple-star solar systems,” he continued. “The planets in these systems are particularly fun to explore with their deeper oceans, incredible terrains and volatile gas giants. It guides players towards the new space wrecks, is a great way to salvage some new rare ship parts, while uncovering a spooky story - suitable for the Halloween season!

“It has been a crazy year for the No Man’s Sky team and we’re so proud and pleased to be able to continue working on this game we all love so much nine years after launch.Seeing so many folks enjoying Voyagers has really inspired us, and we can’t wait for you to see what we have in store in future.”

No Man’s Sky continues to receive free updates even now, years after launch. And it’s clearly keeping players interested. No Man’s Sky launched in August 2016 on PS4 and PC to tens of thousands of negative reviews on Steam, with players complaining about broken promises and a lack of meaningful content, particularly on the multiplayer side. The game quickly settled on the dreaded ‘overwhelmingly negative’ Steam user review rating, a clear sign to anyone who visited its Steam page that something was very wrong.

But Guildford, England-based developer Hello Games has continued to update No Man’s Sky over the years, improving player sentiment to the point where it is now considered superb. It took two years to hit ‘mixed,’ then another three to hit ‘mostly positive.’ At the time, five years after launch, Tim Woodley, Head of Publishing at Hello Games, explained how hard it was to claw back Steam user reviews from such a low base.

As Hello Games continues to work on No Man’s Sky, it’s developing its next game, Light No Fire. It's about adventure, building, survival and exploration together, set on a fantasy planet the size of Earth.

No Man's Sky Breach update 6.10 patch notes:

BUG FIXES AND QOL

• Fixed an issue that could cause the player to be ejected into space if on an internal stair in a corvette while the pulse drive was active.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the corvette "current flightpath" autopilot from cancelling when the ship came into proximity of a large object such as a Space Station.
• Fixed an issue that prevented exiting the corvette pilot seat in the Space Station and Space Anomaly when using the Quick Menu in VR.
• Fixed an issue that prevented stairs in corvettes from being traversable using VR teleport movement.
• Fixed an issue that caused weapons to be misaligned with the crosshair when flying a corvette in first person.
• Fixed an issue that caused the corvette teleporter to persist after the corvette had landed on a planetary surface.
• Fixed an issue that could cause water to behave erratically when teleporting from a corvette into water.
• Fixed an issue that caused newly-assembled corvettes to appear at the wrong scale if another owned Corvette was docked nearby.
• Fixed an issue that could cause corvette interior doorways to become blocked.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the corvette Torpedo Launcher module from correctly installing the Rocket Launcher weapon.
• Fixed some corvette structural modules appearing under the exterior decoration category of the build menu.
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause corvette assembly data to be replaced with planetary base data.
• Improved the placement of corvette-class ships when teleporting to a Settlement with a corvette as the primary ship.
• Improved the behaviour of floating exotic creatures, especially in response to being offered Creature Pellets.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent biological monstrosities on derelict freighters from reacting aggressively to nearby Travellers.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent some varieties of hazardous flora appearing on planets.
• Fixed a timing-specific issue that could cause the player's wanted level to get stuck when using the pulse drive to exit planetary atmosphere.
• Fixed an issue that caused the current primary ship's thrusters to be used for launch fuel calculations when attempting to summon other ships from the Quick Menu.
• Fixed an issue that caused refiners to reset their requested output value to the maximum when refining was started.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Personal Refiner from automatically starting when an input substance was inserted from the Inventory screen.
• Improved the error messaging when attempting to install duplicate technology in the inventory.
• Fixed an issue that caused rain to be audible when standing inside a corvette.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent the Corvette Assembly tutorial from starting in abandoned star systems.
• Fixed an issue that could cause Exosuit upgrade stations to lose their interaction prompt after a single use, especially in Abandoned Mode.
• Fixed an issue that could cause misleading instructional text during missions requiring planets with extreme weather conditions.
• Fixed an issue that caused some markers to persist unnecessarily in excavation and flora extermination missions from the Corvette Mission Radar.
• Fixed a number of minor messaging inconsistencies in missions requiring the player to prepare ingredients in the Nutrient Processor.

ART AND VISUALS

• Fixed an issue that could cause large waves to abruptly appear and disappear on the surface of water.
• Improved lighting transitions when changing environments - notably when warping between solar systems, when entering or exiting planetary atmosphere, or when moving between interior and exterior locations.
• Fixed a number of minor visual "seams" in lighting.
• Improved the appearance of holographic previews of corvette modules during corvette assembly.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Boundary Herald starship to render incorrectly.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the jetpack from displaying on the Inventory screen when using first-person camera view.
• Fixed an issue that prevented some varieties of aquatic creature from rendering in the Discoveries page.
• Fixed a number of minor visual and collision issues with corvette modules.
• Improved the appearance of corvette modules when viewed from a distance.
• Improved the icons on a number of corvette modules.
• Improved the collision of several planetary curiosities, such as large mushrooms.
• Fixed missing collision that allowed you to walk through the back of some freighter hangars.
• Fixed a number of issues that could prevent decals from being placed on Corvette modules.

INPUT

• Enabled Steam Input on Mac.
• Fixed a Steam-only issue that could cause controller bindings to shuffle or not respond on the first boot after the game was updated.
• Fixed an issue that prevented jetpacking while the Terrain Manipulator was in Create mode.

UI

• Improved the readability of several UI elements.
• Fixed a UI overlap issue on the Corvette trade menu, which could cause the "Make Offer" button to be activated when selecting a part to trade.
• Fixed an issue that caused markers for other players in a multiplayer session to appear at their feet instead of above their head.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the display of additional recipes in the Catalogue.
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause an incorrect UI to appear when absorbing a Memory Fragment to expand inventory slots.

STABILITY AND PERFORMANCE

• Fixed a crash that could occur on Corvettes with a large number of attached weapons.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a hang when opening the airlock door of a derelict freighter.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a hang when jumping through the centre of a galaxy in a freighter.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a softlock if opening the corvette parts menu while a dialog box was open.
• Implemented a number of engine optimisations to improve performance, especially when rendering complex objects such as corvettes.
• Implemented a number of lighting optimisations to improve performance.
• Implemented a number of optimisations and performance improvements on Nintendo Switch.

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.

Microsoft is keeping its next-gen Xbox console plans under wraps, but it has suggested it will be ultra premium hardware.

The company has confirmed — as recently as earlier this month — that it still plans to follow the Xbox Series X and S with a next-gen console, and has announced an agreement with AMD to make it happen.

Microsoft has promised “next-level performance, cutting-edge graphics, breakthrough gameplay, and unmatched compatibility,” and said everything it’s working on will be “fully compatible” with users’ existing Xbox game library.

But how much will it cost, and just how powerful will it be? In an interview with Mashable, Xbox president Sarah Bond talked in vague terms about what Microsoft is going for with its next-gen console, but did suggest it will be a premium hybrid PC and console.

"The next-gen console is going to be a very premium, very high-end curated experience," Bond said. "You're starting to see some of the thinking we have in this handheld [ROG Xbox Ally], but I don't want to give it all away."

That’s a reference to the recently released ROG Xbox Ally X handheld, which costs $1,000. (In another interview, Bond said this and the less powerful, $600 ROG Ally are ultimately Asus-made handhelds — and because of this, Asus set the price.)

So, Xbox fans are now wincing at the thought of how expensive the next-gen console will be, particularly in the context of recent price rises to Xbox Game Pass and the Xbox Series X and S.

The cost of being an Xbox fan has been a hot topic in recent months. After announcing a jump to $80 for its games due out this holiday, Microsoft back-tracked to stick with $70 for the likes of The Outer Worlds 2.

But it's worth noting how much the Xbox Series X and S cost today, which perhaps gives us an idea of where Microsoft might go when the next-gen rolls around. In September, Microsoft increased the price of the Xbox Series X and S as follows:

• Xbox Series S 512GB: $399.99 (up $20 from $379.99)
• Xbox Series S 1TB: $449.99 (up $20 from $429.99)
• Xbox Series X Digital: $599.99 (up $50 from $549.99)
• Xbox Series X: $649.99 (up $50 from $599.99)
• Xbox Series X 2TB Galaxy Special Edition: $799.99 (up $70 from $729.99)

Earlier this year, Microsoft was reported to be targeting a 2027 release window for both its next-gen Xbox and a Xbox handheld. At the time, it was said that the next-gen Xbox would be more like a PC than any Xbox before it, and would support third-party storefronts such as Steam, the Epic Games Store, and GOG.

Prior comments from Bond have backed this suggestion up. "This is all about building you a gaming platform that's always with you, so you can play the games you want across devices anywhere you want, delivering you an Xbox experience not locked to a single store or tied to one device," Bond said.

"That's why we're working closely with the Windows team, to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming."

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.