Looks like LEGO isn’t done with The Legend of Zelda franchise yet. A new previously teased (and leaked) set based on the Nintendo 64 classic Ocarina of Time is up for preorder. It costs a relatively reasonable (for LEGO) $129.99 and will release on March 1. Comprised of over 1,000 pieces, it depicts the game’s final battle against Ganondorf. You can preorder it now, exclusively at the LEGO Store.
LEGO The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - The Final Battle
The set features Ganon’s ruined castle, with flames and rubble strewn around, as well as various brick pieces and spires leaning at odd angles. It comes with minifigures for Link, Princess Zelda, and Ganondorf, plus a buildable transparent Navi. The set’s pièce de résistance is a hulking, towering buildable Ganon, who is clearly the focal point of the build. H with two swords, each of which are roughly twice the size of the minifigures.
LEGO sets based on pop culture almost always have hidden Easter eggs, and this set is no different. It has three Recovery Hearts and the Megaton Hammer hidden in the movable rubble. Pressing a button raises Ganondorf into the castle, just like in the game. You can also equip Link with the Master Sword and the Hylian Shield.
This set looks pretty great and will almost certainly earn a spot in our list of the best Nintendo LEGO sets on the market once it comes out. It’s not the first Zelda-themed set, either. In 2024, LEGO released an impressive re-creation of the Great Deku Tree that you can build in both its Breath of the Wild or Ocarina of Time versions. This Final Battle set looks to continue the tradition of high-quality Zelda LEGO builds aimed at adults.
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.
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 2 debuts on January 16 on Crunchyroll.
Perhaps one of the best things about Frieren: Beyond Journey's Endis how comfortable it is with low stakes even in a fantasy world full of potential excitement and turmoil. The Season 2 premiere luxuriates in daily rituals and understated reaffirmations of the bonds between its core trio: Frieren, a long-lived elven mage, her stern prodigal apprentice Fern, and the warrior Stark.
The show is set long after Frieren and her previous party of adventurers helped end the reign of a tyrannical demon king together, and became storied heroes with statues and tales told about them. The series began with the passing of her closest companion Himmel from old age. By comparison, Frieren, who is already hundreds of years old, still looks like a young woman, and will for centuries to come.
The melancholic tone of the series was set almost immediately in Season 1's (excellent) feature-length premiere, which quietly observed the passage of time for Frieren, who sees decades as though they were mere weeks. This is how the death of her longtime friend (and potential love interest) Himmel snuck up on her. The first episode of Season 2, with the invitational title "Shall We Go, Then?", marks 29 years since that time. It also marks the arrival of a new series director, Tomoya Kitagawa, an episode director on the previous season who takes over here from Keiichiro Saito (also known for the great and hilarious Bocchi the Rock).
Sinking back into the comforts which made the show stand out in the first place, the dramatic stakes remain relatively low in this premiere, which is simply focused on Frieren's current party continuing to travel, bicker and reflect on the state of the world together. It's not without adventure, as giant angry beasts pursue them through the wilderness, but the show treats this as just another day. Like in the first season, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End's simple pleasures come from both its beautiful animation production (courtesy of the artists at Madhouse) as well as in seeing people underestimate the depth of Frieren's knowledge. That may be in the context of demons quietly trying to take over a city, or as in this episode pulling out a magic nullifying rock buried decades prior – either way, the main character's coyness about her stature and power is a delight. The depiction of the changing world around her is equally pleasing to the eye and ear, with the lush soundtrack from Evan Call contributing greatly to the latter area.
"Shall We Go, Then"has a little bit of everything as it gets reacquainted with familiar faces from the back half of the first season and the relationship dynamics between the main three: Fern and Stark's will-they-won't-they, when-the-hell-will-they bickering, and Frieren's quiet amusement at this situation. It's not a particularly plot-forward episode but this is part of why Frieren is enjoyable. As ever, the style of dialogue is very reserved and clipped; they also talk about things which are rather mundane, like how that magic nullifying rock works. It's refreshing to get an anime series as capable at action design as Frieren which also has the patience to not overindulge in the bloodshed. There's actually room for the character work to breathe.
It's refreshing to get an anime series as capable at action design as Frieren which also has the patience to not overindulge in the bloodshed.
The episode is comprised of two rather simple tales, especially when compared to the previous arc of the show, which had Frieren and Fern undertaking a complicated magic exam. The Season 2 premiere focuses a little more on Stark and his feelings about the group and himself – first through the tale involving the aforementioned rocks, and then in a plot concerning a job offer.
This interest in exploring even just the geological curiosities of this fictional world ties in with Frieren's hunger for knowledge and how she uses her vast amount of time on the Earth to learn everything she can. Previously this knowledge had no direction, and though this first episode of Season 2 is deliberately sparse and slow-going, it still shows a world of difference simply in how Frieren is applying the fountain of knowledge at her command. Chiefly, that’s by sharing it with a younger generation, and watching what they do with it.
"Shall We Go, Then?" doesn't really give a strong indication of where the season is going other than the next destination on the map, which is actually a point in its favour: just as Frieren savours new experiences, the show thrives on finding stories in unexpected places.
Solo: A Star Wars Story was made "too soon" after audiences had last seen the iconic Han Solo played by Harrison Ford, outgoing Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has suggested.
Asked by Deadline if she had any regrets from her tenure as chief of Disney's production company behind Star Wars, Kennedy said she had belatedly realized that "you cannot replace Han Solo, at least right now."
Solo: A Star Wars Story launched in 2018, just three years after Harrison Ford reprised his role as legendary scoundrel Han Solo in Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens. (Ford would then cameo in the role one final time in 2019's Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker.)
Despite positive reviews, Solo was a commercial flop, earning just $393 million back on a budget of at least $275 million. In comparison, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story earned $1.05 billion at the box office, against a budget of between $200-280 million.
Solo's status as a box office bomb immediately froze Lucasfilm's plans for more standalone Star Wars films — and other continuations in general. Indeed, this year's big screen Disney+ spin-off The Mandalorian and Grogu will be the first Star Wars movie to launch since the divisive Rise of Skywalker, following a gap of seven years.
"I don't really have any regrets," Kennedy said, reflecting on her time at the top of Lucasfilm. "Well, maybe a bit of regret about Solo: A Star Wars Story," she continued. "I brought [screenwriter] Larry Kasdan in on, and we were so excited about that idea. And then when you're into something and you realize fundamentally, conceptually, you cannot replace Han Solo, at least right now.
"As wonderful as Alden Ehrenreich was," Kennedy added, "and he really was good, and is a wonderful actor, we put him in an impossible situation. And once you're in it and once you're committed, you've got to carry on. I think I have a bit of regret about that, but not about the moviemaking and filmmaking. I don't have regrets about that. I just think that conceptually, we did it too soon."
As part of the same interview, Kennedy listed out a swathe of other upcoming Star Wars projects she had overseen during her tenure, though many have now been canned or placed on the back burner. One of these is the long-gestating Solo: A Star Wars Story spin-off centering on Donald Glover's incarnation of Lando — who clearly is believed to have had an easier time of things than Ehrenreich's attempt at Han Solo.
Speaking during the New Game+ Showcase 2026 earlier this month, Gerighty said: “So, The Division 3 is in production, right? This is not a secret. It's been announced. It's shaping up to be a monster. I can't really say anything more than that. But this is, within these walls in Massive, we are working extremely hard on something that I think will be as big an impact as Division 1 was.”
He then went on to enthuse about other The Division projects in the works at Massive Entertainment, which he has now left for fellow Swedish studio DICE.
“It's time for me to hang up my go bag (keeping the watch) as I go on another grand adventure,” Gerighty said. “The Division future burns bright, and I can't wait for you to discover what the teams have been working on. Long live The Division and Godspeed!”
Two months ago, Massive Entertainment introduced what it called a "voluntary career transition program," (the studio asked its staff to volunteer to be laid off) as part of a move to focus on The Division franchise and its Snowdrop game engine. It came as part of significant restructuring at Ubisoft that has seen multiple studio closures and rounds of layoffs. Massive Entertainment's Star Wars Outlaws, released in 2024, was a big sales disappointment for Ubisoft, despite significant development and marketing costs. Julian Gerighty was Outlaws' co-director.
In a social media post, Massive Entertainment told The Division fans not to worry about Gerighty's departure, saying the teams who built The Division with him remain.
Once an Agent, always an Agent. We’re thankful for everything you gave this universe. You’ll always be part of it. Good luck at @EA_DICE, @jgerighty 🧡 pic.twitter.com/QlzuV4XtVV
— Massive Entertainment - A Ubisoft Studio 🎮 (@UbiMassive) January 16, 2026
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.
LG's White-OLED technology (WOLED) has been improving for years, each iteration boosting output, efficiency, and color volume. And while 2025's C5 doesn't get LG's new Primary RGB Tandem tech from the flagship G5, it still boasts incremental improvements to peak and overall brightness. My measurements confirm: the C5’s separate RGB primaries generate excellent DCI-P3 coverage, real HDR content hits 1050 nits, and we get an impressive 290 nits fullscreen white. Otherwise the C5 looks a lot like last generation’s C4: same premium build quality, same inputs and full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 support, 144 Hz max refresh rate with G-Sync/FreeSync. All this to say that the C5 continues to deliver a fantastic gaming TV experience.
Incremental improvements are, of course, always welcome, but LG might be falling behind the QD-OLED competition. At the 65" size, the C5 and Samsung's S90F are now matched at $1400 (a great deal for each), and despite the C5 being a remarkable performer for gaming and movies, Samsung's S90F is just that little bit better.
LG C5 – Setup, Design, and First Impressions
Whether on a TV stand or a deep desk, I really like the look of the C5. I received the 55" version for review, and the brushed aluminum and faux marbling on the rear of the display works for me. And with the TV off, the glossy, purple-black screen looks like some sort of magical mirror. (More on that AR coating later.) LG keeps the outer, OLED portion of the display reasonably thick – 6 mm – so it doesn't feel as delicate as Samsung's S90F, which I thought would snap every time I touched it. The flimsy plastic cover plate and cable guide seem a bit out of place on the otherwise premium design. That plate also covers the permanently affixed power cable, an odd choice; other brands opt for a detachable cable.
Assembling the C5 on its stand, I hate to admit, was a bit of a struggle. In retrospect, I realize now that the backplate of the stand screws into the stand stand, which screws into the screen, but LG's manual is nigh inscrutable. Because the parts don't look anything like a traditional stand, we're tasked with assembling rectangles with other rectangles, flipping them over and screwing a thing into a thing that doesn't really seem like it belongs. Once in, though, I found hoisting and handling the 55" version substantially easier than any of the 65" televisions I've previously reviewed. The screen stays fairly stable with minimal wobble even with some aggressive keyboard typing, but if you’re going to move your stand/table with the C5 still on it, I’d suggest keeping a hand on the top of the screen.
For connectivity, all four HDMI 2.1 ports are full bandwidth, so 120/144 Hz is supported on every input. There's a cluster of three USB ports, ethernet, optical SPDIF, and RF antenna. Interestingly, there's no headphone jack, which is a feature I quite miss, although LG does support Bluetooth headphones.
Interacting with the TV: webOS and the Remote Control
Shortly before this review was released, my colleague Jaron Schneider reviewed LG’s flagship G5 model, one step up from the C5. In that review, he was miffed by LG’s backward “progress” with webOS and the G5’s remote. I, independently, echo that sentiment for the C5. It’s hard to say exactly whether LG’s webOS is more or less frustrating than Tizen (read my Samsung S90F review for details), but both have the blood-boiling sluggishness that screams low-end mobile phone. And yes, just like in Tizen, webOS throws up a loading throbber on the screen when accessing the picture menu, or going to the home screen, or doing just about anything.
Once in the Home menu, accessing apps like Netflix or Apple TV is straightforward. LG’s magic remote works with motion control, but I found myself constantly selecting the wrong option or mis-clicking because of the force needed to press in the scroll wheel. You can turn this off, but the menus don’t seem designed for standard D-pad control. For example, the app list, likely the thing you’ll be using most on the home screen, is just a long horizontal band of weirdly small tiles. It’s a really poor use of the screen’s space.
Jaron was also baffled, correctly I might add, by the decision to remove the input selection button from the remote. LG’s Home screen only shows one recent input, your latest, so it’s only good for getting back to where you were. Switching inputs proper now means pulling up the slow-loading Home Hub, selecting the input, waiting for the preview to show up (while white balance and other picture settings load in), and then clicking again to load. There’s no reason any of this should be difficult.
Hisense’s U8QG, using Google TV, is a pleasure to use in comparison: pared back, fluid, fast, and easy to navigate.
Sound
We still include a section on sound because it is important that manufacturers ship TVs with a usable audio solution; not everyone will have a surround sound setup or a soundbar, although that’s definitely our recommendation. TVs simply don’t have the form factor necessary for audio: forward facing drivers for stereo imaging and cabinet volume for deep bass. (There’s a reason our top pick, Samsung’s HW-Q990F, includes a subwoofer.) The C5 isn’t as thin as Samsung’s S90F, so LG does have some room in the chassis to play with, but the results aren’t amazing, even with our generally low expectations.
Music on the C5 sounds thin; it’s all mid-bass and treble. The down-firing stereo speakers do a good job, though, of keeping dialogue and voices intelligible – better than aiming the speakers at the rear wall, which has the opposite effect. At higher volumes, the sound doesn’t really improve, but at least there’s not any scratchiness, rattling, or obvious distortion coming from driver over-excursion.
Reflection Handling and Viewing Angles
Given that the C5 can't quite reach the fullscreen brightness of backlit LCDs, it's important that the screen coating is good. I really like LG's solution here: glossy for clarity, but with a very good AR coating which does an impressive job of attenuating reflections, giving them a deep purple hue. The shot below gives a good comparison: the C5 (on the left) against Hisense's U65QF, both against an overcast sky. Don't mind the white balance on the C5 (this was before calibration), but even with a roughly 2x brighter panel, reflections on the U65QF can completely obliterate the visibility of scenes, evidenced by this relatively bright hallway shot from Severance.
I don't want to pick on the U65QF too much since it's less than half the cost of the C5. So what about more similarly priced competition like Samsung's S90F or Hisense's U8QG?
The image above shows a comparison of how some of our tested TVs handle reflections. I take a shot, using the exact same exposure, of the reflection of a compact fluorescent bulb for each screen. Samsung's S90F is basically as good as it gets for reflections, followed closely by Hisense's U8QG. The C5 isn't quite on that level; reflections are still a bit too bright, and the purple halo is a little distracting.
I'd rank the C5 in a tie for third with Samsung’s QN90F, which is fully matte and tends to diffuse reflections over a larger area. I generally prefer glossy screens, but I think there's a large element of personal preference here.
Off-axis viewing of LG's WOLED panel is vastly better than VA LCD panels like the U8QG or TCL's QM8K. Emissive displays like OLEDs can generally maintain their brightness, contrast, and white balance at shockingly large angles off-axis, whereas VA panels tend to fall off in all those metrics starting around 20 degrees. This is important if you're sitting close to the screen, or if you want everyone on your couch to see the same picture. OLEDs also don't have the viewing-angle dependent gamma shift for dark colors, which is a major plus for close viewing or watching any dark content.
I have the 55" version of the C5 in for review, and I've found that it's actually a pretty decent desktop "monitor" if you have a deep enough desk. But sitting right in front of it, one thing immediately stuck out to me: the C5's picture has a fairly strong green push off axis.
The image above shows a wide-angle closeup of the LG, with the color temp calibrated and dialed in to a standard 6500K, roughly what I see sitting here at my desk. I've masked off the edges of the photo with the same color as the center of the screen, and it's apparent that the periphery goes quite green. I'll get into calibration soon, but each of LG's "accurate" picture modes (ISF, FILMMAKER, etc.) are too red out-of-box. This might have been an effort to balance the color across the panel for different viewers, who, if they were off to the side, would be getting a picture that's too green instead.
It's not the end of the world, but it's something to keep in mind if you intend to use the screen up close or as a PC monitor. Interestingly, Samsung's QD-OLED S90F doesn't have this problem at all.
Color, Calibration, and SDR
I'm not sure if LG's addition of a 4th, white, subpixel to goose OLED brightness made engineering the C5's color, white balance, and gamma performance 33% more difficult, but I don't envy the engineers who had that task. The white subpixel adds another spectral component, different from but also overlapping the standard RGB primaries.
The image above shows the difference; the spectrum at the top next to the mercury reference shows the C5's white output, which is quite different from the RGB primaries below. The wavelength and purity (or separation) of the RGB primaries is what gives the C5 excellent coverage of the DCI-P3 space, extending the points of its gamut triangle to nearly perfect alignment.
I'm a sucker for deep, vibrant colors, so I prefer displays that extend beyond P3 (like the Samsung S90F or U8QG, both using quantum dots), but I can't really complain about LG's accuracy here.
It's important that the quality of a TV's "Game" mode doesn't take a back seat to the movie modes. Without the need for heavy processing like motion smoothing, noise reduction, or super resolution, I expect game modes to have color and gamma performance at nearly the same level of their best film-style picture modes. In the C5's case, my first instinct was to test LG's "Game Optimizer" mode. Confusingly, LG opts to use "Game Optimizer" for two different purposes. The first is very important: access to gaming features like the display's max refresh rate of 144 Hz, VRR with G-SYNC or FreeSync, ALLM, etc. The second is the Game Optimizer Picture Mode, which enables access to wildly inaccurate profiles like RPG, RTS, and FPS, which have been standard fare in PC monitors for ages.
Happily, LG gives us the option to keep Game Optimizer on without using its picture mode. I found ISF Bright and FILMMAKER give the best, most accurate default settings. Both settings, though, have trouble tracking 2.2 gamma and are far too red, which I mentioned earlier. I had to dial red all the way down to -16 to reach 6500K. Dark Detail also needs to be increased, otherwise near-black is badly clipped. Dark detail being lost is a problem in HDR as well, which I’ll get to later.
In SDR, LG controls the ABL (Automatic Brightness Limiting) behavior of the C5 with the Contrast setting. Higher contrast will allow for higher SDR peak brightness on smaller windows, but the display will more aggressively dim the screen, especially when displaying PC-style content. At a setting of 100, I measured the C5 hitting 450 nits up to a 50% window, which is excellent, but fullscreen brightness fell to only 220 nits. Dropping contrast down to 70 levels off the display to a flat 290 nits – good for a consistent, ABL-free experience for PC use. LG’s default of 85 strikes a balance between these:
SDR brightness isn’t really a strong suite for the C5. Even with a good AR coating, LG can’t overcome a 2x or 3x brightness deficit to more potent FALD backlit LCDs. Most content is still SDR, so if you’re looking for a television for a bright room, something like Hisense’s U8QG is a much better choice.
HDR
HDR on an OLED, whether that's LG's WOLED C5 or Samsung's QD-OLED S90F, hits different than FALD backlit LCDs. I really liked the HDR experience on Hisense's U8QG, but with "only" 2048 zones, it simply can't compete at generating the extreme local contrast that 8.3 million individually controlled pixels can achieve.
I measured the C5 blasting around 1060 nits at a 10% window size in HDR. Not quite at the level of the S90F, but very good. In games that are mastered to take advantage of this, Cyberpunk 2077 being an excellent example, the experience is astonishing. Every neon light at Lizzy's is punchy, brilliant, and deeply colorful. In a dark room, the performance is hands-down superior to LCD.
But my dark room caveat is an important one due to LG's EOTF tracking in HDR, which is simply too dark. In both FILMMAKER and ISF picture modes, across the critical "dark" region for HDR target luminance, from a very dark 0.05 nits to about 10 nits (which is actually brighter than you'd expect), LG has missed the mark... by a lot, presenting a contrasty, but crushed and inaccurate image. My EOTF tracking measurements for both 2% and 10% window sizes show just how off the C5 is. And this is a log scale! My colorimeter wasn't even able to measure anything at the 0.05 and 0.1 nit levels.
Perhaps this was intentional – a way to differentiate LG's OLED offerings against LCD competition – but it causes real problems when gaming or watching movies. When watching The Gorge on Apple TV, at night with no room lights, I had trouble making out what was happening in almost every nighttime scene. I had a similar problem when rewatching Until Dawn on Netflix. It's clear that no one would master content this way. Hisense's U8QG does a much better job of accurate EOTF tracking; the scene above with Anya Taylor-Joy's character crouched in a sniper position is intentionally dark, mostly below 1 nit, but detail is visible on the Hisense. On the C5, the frame is basically a floating face in a sea of black. LG does offer a "Dark Detail" adjustment, but even at its max of +3, tracking is still too dark.
For both dark room and HDR performance in general, Samsung's S90F is a better display than the C5: brighter highlights and more accurate EOTF tracking.
Gaming on the LG C5
I was sent the 55" version of the C5 right in the middle of my playthrough of The Outer Worlds 2, so I played the latter half of the game on the C5. In HDR, the game looks incredible – tons of fine detail, bright highlights, and super colorful – and while performance on my aging 3060 Ti isn't the best in UE5 games, the C5 handles motion well even at lower framerates. The images I picked for this review show off some scenes from TOW2 and Cyberpunk 2077, where 1000 nit highlights really contrast against the dark remainder of the frame. On LCD, dark content can smear in motion, but OLED stays sample-and-hold perfect.
In fact, the C5 is right up there with the S90F for gaming: amazing performance throughout the VRR range, OLED near-instant response times, and LG's Game Optimizer mode has very low input lag at 144, 120, and 60 Hz.
Response times for the C5 are basically perfect, topping the RT chart along with another OLED: Samsung’s S90F. Averaged across 60 Hz, 120 Hz, and the C5’s max of 144 Hz, I measured gamma-corrected response times at about 0.4 ms, but that comes from a few stragglers; most responses are faster than 200 microseconds. This means that the display is nearly a perfect sample-and-hold limited device, so the only way to reduce motion blur further is to increase refresh rates. A max refresh rate of 144 Hz is good, but I'd still like to see this being pushed out more. 240 Hz at 4K is something that remains limited to the best gaming monitors, as even the more expensive TV models (LG G5 or Samsung S95F) from both brands top out at 165 Hz.
The group of VA panel LCDs is more than an order of magnitude slower, and those averages include many responses in the 30 ms range, which is why VA’s tend to have a hard time showing motion without smearing/trailing, especially in dark scenes.
Most of the C5’s transitions look like the graphs above: essentially a square wave response rising or falling. But the display does overshoot the target occasionally. For the black to RGB 223 transition, the C5 plateaus to RGB 234 in 165 microseconds before landing back at the target after one 144 Hz frame. Similarly, falling from white to RGB 95, the C5 drops a little too much. The sharp, periodic dips each frame aren’t visible, but the overshoot is, leading to a bit of “inverse ghosting.” That said, unless you go out of your way to look for it, it’s not a major problem.
I take pursuit shots of BlurBusters’ TestUFO at a very fast 1920 pixels per second; it's important, though, to use higher speeds to better differentiate the response time behavior of displays as their response times get quicker and quicker. But as mentioned before, there's nothing to be really concerned about here: no smearing, trailing, or excessive overshoot. Other than the differing subpixel layout, it’d be hard to tell the C5 from the S90F.
LG’s Game Optimizer mode (not the picture mode) reduces latency down to excellent levels for all refresh rates. At 144 Hz and 120 Hz, input lag was about 1.1 milliseconds, a fantastic result. 60 Hz latency is also the best of the bunch tested so far: only 4.5 ms. Without GO turned on, 144 Hz lag is still good, but it gets progressively worse as the refresh rate drops (~22 ms at 60 Hz), and you can definitely feel it when gaming with a mouse. Game Optimizer doesn’t lock you into any particular picture mode, so I’d suggest keeping it on.
I had an absolute blast gaming on the C5. For pure gaming performance, OLED is simply superior to VA LCDs. Yes, FALD LCDs can throw more brightness at you, but the instant response, the extreme local contrast of 8.3 million “zones,” and excellent viewing angles makes OLED the best choice for gamers. Cyberpunk’s HDR implementation is so good that I had to wrestle myself away from just playing the game in order to take photos.
VRR Flicker
All OLED panels are susceptible to VRR flicker, and the C5 is no exception. Large and erratic frame time swings can cause the screen to rapidly brighten and darken; the cause seems to be a slightly different near-black gamma response at different framerates. The shot below compares a scene from Cyberpunk 2077 at 30 and 144 fps. Unless the screen is actively flickering, it’s pretty hard to notice this shift in real content; I chose this scene because it was particularly illustrative of the difference.
Interestingly, the gamma shift doesn’t seem to happen with the white subpixel, e.g. measuring a pure grayscale test patch didn’t show much gamma difference at any framerate. That particular AC unit and the ceiling seem to have the right mix of red and green to excite the shift. I’ll need to investigate this more.
At 30 fps, RGB values below about 30 are quite a bit darker than they should be; the C5 already has trouble with crushed detail, but the lower framerate causes even more deviation from the 2.2 gamma target, giving the picture a very different look.
That said, I didn’t have much flickering in hours and hours of play time in Cyberpunk or The Outer Worlds 2; keeping a smooth-ish, consistent framerate is key. Most of the flickering was isolated to loading screens in TOW2.
One additional thing I noticed at lower framerates was that the C5’s picture has a visible stairstep pattern. This is absolutely not a problem if you’re sitting at normal couch distances, but I wanted to mention it for PC folks and as a comparison to Samsung’s QD-OLED S90F, where I didn’t notice any unusual pixel behavior.
The Competition
If you're willing to make the jump to OLED, but still have some budget constraints, I wouldn't consider anything other than LG's C5 or Samsung's S90F, both now matched at around $1400. Yes, the one-tier-down B5 and S85F exist at $1000, but their fullscreen brightness performance is decidedly last-gen, and very dim; at that price, you can get a FALD LCD that’s 5x brighter.
Performance-wise, both are top tier. For gaming in rooms where you can control the ambient light, both make excellent choices, but I think the winner here is the S90F: brighter HDR highlights, better HDR EOTF tracking (the C5 is too dark!), and it’s better off-axis. The S90F isn’t worlds better, but it is better. The S90F won our Best Gaming TV of 2025, and that still stands.
If you need major brightness, though, the Hisense U8QG is our pick for bright rooms. Pixel response times are slower than OLED, of course, and you lose the amazing viewing angles, but Hisense has done a remarkably good job of delivering superb brightness while controlling blooming/haloing.
After a few quiet months, Magic: The Gathering is bringing back Commander Decks with Lorwyn Eclipsed.
The first set of a packed 2026 schedule, we’re getting the first precons for the EDH format since Edge of Eternities (which, to their credit, were great).
With Wizards of the Coast revealing the full decklists for both, should you pick one up? Or both? Or skip them entirely in favor of the five-color Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one arriving in March? Let’s dig in.
Despite that, our Commander, Ashling, the Limitless, is a red card that makes it easier to bring an Elemental into play, albeit to be sacrificed if you don’t cough up the required mana.
From a gameplay perspective, I can see it being fun, particularly with Mass of Mysteries giving your Elementals the Myriad keyword, but the reprint value is pretty solid, too - with some caveats.
Omnath, Locus of the Roil is currently going for $12 or so, while Endurance isn’t far behind. The big draw is likely to be Cream of the Crop, which, to my knowledge, hasn’t been reprinted in a long, long time (maybe ever).
It’s going for a decent chunk of change (around $24 and upwards), but therein lies the rub - as soon as these decks hit shelves, that price will plummet. So while you’re getting some value, it’ll be gone as quickly as you can say Timeless Lotus - another card which will likely see the same result.
Expect the deck to offer around $130 in value, but that’ll drop to around $100 within a fortnight it seems.
That’s not to say it won’t be fun to play, but as an investment, I’d only recommend buying it if you need specific cards or just want to play with it (imagine that!).
Blight Curse
From a rainbow of colors to the dreariness of -1/-1 counters, Blight Curse is a little bit spooky in truth.
Auntie Ool is all about Blighting creatures to trigger opponents to lose life or to give you card advantage, but the backup commander, The Reaper, King No More is a 3/3 scarecrow that turns your opponents’ cards into yours if you kill them with -1/-1 counters.
With that in mind, I’d be leaning into the sheer chaos of The Reaper, but one of the biggest draws here is the Necroskitter. It essentially mimics The Reaper’s ability, bringing creatures to your side of the board, and is worth around $30. Will that drop? Yes, for sure, from the moment this deck hits shelves.
Other decent reprints here include Tree of Perdition, Chimil, the Inner Sun, and Midnight Banshee.
Again, the reprint value is likely to be around $130 again, but you’re losing a chunk of that with Necroskitter. And yet, I still think this is the better deck of the two.
Which One Should You Pick?
First up, a caveat: I’ve put links on this page to pick these up, because, well, that’s my job, but if you give it a few weeks, I reckon the pricing will settle down as more decks are printed. You shouldn’t be paying too much over the odds for these decks. Keep an eye on TCGplayer as well, as the market price on these should come down comfortably post release.
With that said, I think each inhabits a unique design space for Magic: The Gathering. I’ve been buying precons to upgrade, take apart, or just play out of the box for a few years, and both of these are pretty unique.
I’m particularly excited about Blight Curse as a way to slowly grind an opponent’s game plan to a halt, potentially flipping cards to your side of the field, while Dance of the Elements, while exciting, is likely to lead to some wild plays.
The choice is yours, of course, but I really don’t think you can go wrong with either.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay.
Sony is set to release the Hyperpop Collection of PlayStation 5 accessories, bringing eye-popping new colors to PS5 console covers and DualSense controllers. The colors in question are bright hues of red, green, and blue, all of which fade to black toward the top of the item in question. The console covers cost $74.99, while the controllers cost $84.99. All are available to preorder now and will launch on March 12 (see the controllers at Amazon and the console covers at PS Direct).
As with all new PS5 controller and console cover releases, the colors have been given catchy names. They’re Techno Red, Remix Green, and Rhythm Blue. Leo Cardoso of the design team told PlayStation Blog, "We’re cranking the volume all the way up with a collection that doesn’t just stand out, it takes over the room. Inspired by the glow of the RGB lights of your impressive gaming setups, these new colors go LOUD in the best possible way."
Sae Kobayashi, another designer behind the collection, said, “A seamless gradient wraps around the front and back of the DualSense, finished in a high-gloss coat that makes the colors POP more than ever. The console covers are also getting the same glow-up, featuring a subtle hint of transparency.”
If you take a look at the slideshow above, you can see the glossy sheen. No matte finish here. These new colors might not be for everyone, but they’re sure to appeal to some PS5 owners. They're some of the boldest colors Sony has ever released.
Anyone who's getting tired of their current controller selection and is interested in potential alternate color schemes for their gaming accessories, check out our look back on every PS5 DualSense controller ever released, in chronological order.
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.
Ted Sarandos, the co-CEO of Netflix, has committed to a 45-day window for theatrical movie releases once its $82.7 billion deal for Warner Bros. goes through.
Earlier this month, Deadline reported that Netflix “have been proponents of a 17-day window which would steamroll the theatrical business.”
However, in a new interview with The New York Times, Sarandos pushed back on the widespread belief that Netflix’s deal for Warner Bros. will spell disaster for theaters and moviegoing, insisting Hollywood misunderstands what it’s trying to achieve.
“The general economics of the theatrical business were more positive than we had seen and we had modeled for ourselves,” Sarandos said of Warner Bros.’s movie arm. “It’s a healthy, profitable business for them. We weren’t in that business not because we hated it. We weren’t in that business because our business was doing so well.
“I understand that folks are emotional about it because they love it and they don’t want it to go away. And they think that we’ve been doing things to make it go away. We haven’t.”
At this point in the interview, Sarandos committed to the 45-day window.
“When this deal closes, we will own a theatrical distribution engine that is phenomenal and produces billions of dollars of theatrical revenue that we don’t want to put at risk. We will run that business largely like it is today, with 45-day windows. I’m giving you a hard number. If we’re going to be in the theatrical business, and we are, we’re competitive people — we want to win. I want to win opening weekend. I want to win box office.”
Netflix’s decision here could have an enormous impact on everything from James Gunn's DC Universe movie, Man of Tomorrow (July 9, 2027), to The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum (December 17, 2027). Then there's Matt Reeves' The Batman: Part 2, which is due out October 1, 2027, and Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, due out March 26, 2027.
And it’s worth pointing out that Sarandos hasn’t committed to a 45-day window forever. Indeed, in a financial call discussing the deal last year, Sarandos said Netflix would continue to release Warner Bros. movies in theaters for now, though expected theatrical release windows to shorten over time to become "more user friendly."
"We've released about 30 films into theaters this year, so it's not like we have got this opposition to movies into theaters," Sarandos said at the time. "My pushback has been mostly in the fact of the long, exclusive windows that we don't think are that user friendly."
"I wouldn't look at this as a change in approach for Netflix movies, or for Warner movies for that matter," Sarandos continued. "I think over time the windows will evolve to be much more consumer friendly, to be able to meet the audience where they are, quicker. All those things we'd like to do. But I'd say right now you should count on everything that is planned as going to the theaters through Warner Bros., will continue to go to the theaters through Warner Bros."
In the New York Times interview, Sarandos was challenged on his much-quoted dismissal of cinemagoing as an “outmoded idea.” He clarified that he said going to the theater was outmoded “for some."
“I mean, like the town that Sinners is supposed to be set in does not have a movie theater there,” he said. “For those folks, it’s certainly outmoded. You’re not going to get in the car and go to the next town to go see a movie. But my daughter lives in Manhattan. She could walk to six multiplexes, and she’s in the theaters twice a week. Not outmoded for her at all.”
Sarandos also insisted that the idea of Netflix as competition for going to the theater is a myth, adding that people will leave the house to go to the movies if they’re truly excited about a film.
“When you go out to see a movie in the theater, if it was a good movie, when you come home, the first thing you want to do is watch another movie,” he said. “If anything, I think it helps, you know, encourage the love of films.
“I did not get in this business to hurt the theatrical business. I got into this business to help consumers, to help movie fans.”
The future of cinemagoing is top of mind as 2026 kicks off, with Netflix’s Warner Bros. deal waiting in the wings. Meanwhile, box office revenue is struggling, with even Marvel movies — previously guaranteed hits — having trouble getting fans into theaters. The big question right now is, are we witnessing the beginning of the end of going to the cinema?
Hollywood legend Leonardo DiCaprio recently expressed concern about the future of cinemagoing, asking whether it would become a niche pursuit. In an interview with The Sunday Times, the Titanic, Inception, and The Wolf of Wall Street star wondered whether “people still have the appetite” for theaters, and, if not, whether they might “become silos — like jazz bars.”
Meanwhile, Avatar director James Cameron has said Netflix buying Warner Bros. would be a “disaster.”
“Sorry, Ted [Sarandos], but geez,” he said on The Town podcast ahead of the launch of Avatar: Fire and Ash. “Sarandos has gone on the record saying theatrical films are dead. ‘Theatrical is dead. Quote, unquote.’” Indeed, Cameron remains unconvinced that Netflix would truly commit to any meaningful theatrical distribution if it expanded. “It’s sucker bait," he said. "‘We’ll put the movie out for a week or 10 days. We’ll qualify for Oscar consideration.’ See, I think that’s fundamentally rotten to the core. A movie should be made as a movie for theatrical, and the Academy Awards mean nothing to me if they don’t mean theatrical. I think they’ve been co-opted, and I think it’s horrific.”
That said, Cameron isn't opposed to Netflix playing the game if it actually, well, plays the game. “They should be allowed to compete if they put the movie out for a meaningful release in 2,000 theaters for a month,” Cameron noted.
Photo by Vincent Feuray / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Kennedy announced the project on-stage alongside Ridley and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who was confirmed to be helming the project. But in the years since — as with so many other Star Wars movies — little more has been said.
"We're pretty far along," Kennedy said of the slate of Star Wars films announced back in 2023. "These are things, as you can imagine, certainly looking at what Dave [Filoni]'s been doing with Ahsoka, that'll be at least six, seven years building to what it is we're going to be doing in a movie. As [for the project being made by] Sharmeen, we've been working on that for a couple years already."
Discussing the standalone Rey movie's plot in more detail, Kennedy described it as set 15 years after Rise of Skywalker. "We're post-war, post-First Order, and the Jedi are in disarray, and there's a lot of discussion around who are the Jedi, what are they doing, what's the state of the galaxy?" Kennedy teased. "[Rey is] attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order based on the books, based on what she promised Luke."
Perhaps notably, The Hollywood Reporter suggested in late 2024 that Rey's future had subsequently become a matter of debate within Lucasfilm, as multiple projects from different directors sought to make use of the character. And while Kinberg's trilogy was then earlier in development, it was noted that Obaid-Chinoy's standalone movie had suffered setbacks, including the departure of writer Steven Knight.
By way of contrast, Kinberg's trilogy was discussed again by Kennedy this week — though it too now seems to have faced upheaval.
"[Kinberg] wrote something that we read in August, and it was very good, but not there," Kennedy told Deadline. "We've pretty much upended the story, and then spent a great deal of time on the treatment, which he finished literally about four weeks ago. And it's a very detailed treatment, like 70 pages. And so he is expected to give us something in March."
Once again, Kennedy referred to Kinberg's project as a "trilogy," though ready to film this seems not.
"Mangold's is really on the back burner as is Soderbergh's," Kennedy continued, listing off other Star Wars projects that have failed to materialize. Logan director James Mangold also had his Star Wars project announced at Celebration 2023, though little is known of what it would have entailed. Steven Soderbergh's project, meanwhile, was The Hunt for Ben Solo — a movie that was reportedly blocked from progressing by Disney president Bob Iger, to the uproar of fans. (As part of the same interview, Kennedy suggested it could still be made if someone was "willing to take a risk.")
"I think the ones by Taika and Donald are still somewhat alive," Kennedy continued. "That's going to really be up to the new team to figure out." Here, the executive is referring to Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi's Star Wars project originally announced in 2020, and Solo star Donald Glover's Lando project, originally discussed as far back as 2018.
Numerous other Star Wars projects have been mentioned over the past decade, including a Jabba the Hutt film from Guillermo del Toro, a Knights of the Old Republic trilogy written by Shutter Island screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis, a Star Wars: TIE Fighter idea written by Luke Cage series scribe Matt Owens, and a Jedi origin movie (or perhaps full trilogy) from Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff. There's no suggestion any of these will ever be made.
Kennedy also made no mention of the Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and Boba Fett crossover movie previously announced by Dave Filoni, though it's likely Filoni himself will be the one to give an update on this as he succeeds Kennedy, and as its fate likely rests on the performance of The Mandalorian and Grogu this year.
Amid all this, only two Star Wars films have been definitively confirmed to release. The Mandalorian and Grogu launches in theaters on May 22. The Ryan Gosling-starring Star Wars: Starfighter arrives on May 28, 2027.
Image credit: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Outgoing Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy has indicated it may be some time before we see another Indiana Jones movie, saying: “I don’t think anybody is interested right now in exploring it.”
It’s been two-and-a-half years since the critically panned Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny came out, and Lucasfilm has yet to indicate that a follow-up is in the works.
In an interview with Deadline confirming her exit from Lucasfilm after 14 years, Kennedy stood by Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which saw Harrison Ford reprise his role as the much-loved whip-cracking archeologist. Indeed, Kennedy said the reason Lucasfilm went forward with the film was Ford was so keen to do it.
“I have no regrets about that because Harrison wanted to do that more than anything,” she said. “He did not want Indy to end with the fourth movie. He wanted a chance at another, and we did that for him. I think that was the right thing to do. He wanted to do that movie.”
The question now is, will there be another Indiana Jones movie? Harrison Ford, who is approaching his 84th birthday, has said he’s done playing the character, so if Disney were to greenlight a new Indy film or TV series, it would have to be with another actor in the iconic role.
“I don’t think Indy will ever be done, but I don’t think anybody is interested right now in exploring it,” Kennedy confirmed. “But these are timeless movies, and Indy will never be done.”
IGN’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny review returned a 4/10. We said: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny fails to recapture Spielberg’s magic. With uninspired action and conflicting themes and character motivations, it’s proof that some things should just be allowed to end.”
"When [Indy] had suffered the consequences of the life that he had to live, I wanted one more chance to pick him up and shake the dust off his ass and stick him out there, bereft of some of his vigor, to see what happened," Ford said. "I’m still happy I made that movie."
Following the release of Dial of Destiny, director James Mangold told Variety he had no interest in continuing with Indiana Jones. "I refuse. I just can't do it," he said. "The amount of lore and Easter eggs and fan service starts to become antithetical to any of this stuff at a certain point. It isn't storytelling anymore. It's large-scale advertising."
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.
New details on the cancelation of the Game of Thrones Jon Snow sequel have emerged, with HBO reported to have found Kit Harington’s idea for it too depressing to move forward with.
As part of a sweeping interview with Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin, The Hollywood Reporter said Harington worked with two writers from drama series Gunpowder to come up with the story, which would have seen Snow living alone as a broken man with PTSD following his exile to north of the Wall as a compromise after he killed Daenerys Targaryen.
The story would have also shown Snow having chased off Ghost, his much-loved direwolf, and ditched Longclaw, his Valyrian steel bastard sword. According to THR, in this story Snow would have spent his time building cabins and burning them back down again, with Harington calling for his character to die and avoid being a hero.
It’s worth noting that Harington has spoken about the personal difficulties he faced coming out of the end of Game of Thrones. According to a recently published New York Times profile, Harington had become a “dry drunk” and spent time in rehab after wrapping up work on the hit show. After he emerged, he “was also finding it hard to escape Jon Snow.” Harington took a year out and prepared to act again, but the pandemic hit, tearing up his plans.
When work became possible again, Harington told his agent he wanted a “no swords” rule for vetting potential jobs, but he took on the role of Black Knight in high-profile Marvel flop The Eternals, which was released in November 2021. After the movie's disastrous box office, Harington apparently “toyed” with the idea of reprising his role as Jon Snow for a spinoff, but eventually decided against it.
Harington was said to have been “shocked” by the negative response to the final season. “That [petition] genuinely angered me,” Harington said, because he knew how much effort the show’s writers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, had put in. “Like, how dare you? Sorry, that’s just how I feel. I think it was a level of idiocy that can only come about through social media.”
During a Game of Thrones fan convention in 2022, Harington hinted that his spinoff would focus on his character's struggle to overcome past traumas following the Season 8 finale. "He's gotta go back up to the place with all this history and live out his life thinking about how he killed Dany, and live out his life thinking about Ygritte dying in his arms, and live out his life thinking about how he hung Olly, and live out his life thinking about all of this trauma, and that, that's interesting," Harington said at the time.
As THR points out, Harington’s story idea for the Jon Snow sequel had echoes of his personal struggles, but it was too depressing even for HBO. According to the report, HBO found the “broken Jon Snow” idea “too much of a bummer” and “pushed it aside.”
Last month, Harington indicated he was done playing Jon Snow for good. "No, god no," Harington told Variety, when asked whether he'd reprise his old role again for an audiobook version. "I don't wanna go anywhere near it. I spent 10 years doing that. Thanks, I'm alright."
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.
Magic: The Gathering is set to have another big year in 2026, but there's no harm in looking back at the best of 2025 as well right now, especially with the latest discounts available on booster boxes and more.
My favorite deal in Amazon's latest MTG sale is on the Edge of Eternities Booster Box, featuring 30 packs, which has dropped to just $139.99 today. That's just $1 off its best price ever ($139.98), and a brilliant offer to kick off the year with.
Amazon Has Big Discounts on Magic: The Gathering Today
However, that's not all. You can also find some of the most recent 2025 Universes Beyond sets, like Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Marvel's Spider-Man, at low, low prices right now as well. That includes Spidey's Play Booster Box, which is available for just over $110.
That's a pretty big discount compared to the almost $210 asking price back when preorders kicked off last year, just about $100, in fact. Avatar only came out in November, and you can already pick up its Play Boosters for even less than Edge of Eternities, and now just $134.99 at Amazon.
You can also score the Collectors versions of these Universes Beyond sets as well, both of which have seen tidy price drops since last year, and are your best bet of finding the rarest cards from each set.
Play Boosters are now the standard way to crack open Magic packs, having replaced both Set and Draft Boosters. But if you're on the hunt for rare cards, Collector Boosters are the best option.
These packs are more expensive, but are much more likely to include various foil treatments, extended arts, and all sorts. There are usually 5 Commons, 4 Uncommons, 5 Rare or Mythic Rare cards, a Land and a Token, but the rub here is that 6 of the included cards have a 'booster Fun frame' and 12-13 of them are foil.
In terms of 2026 sets, Magic's highly anticipated Lorwyn Eclipsed set is getting closer as well, but we can already expect another trip to New York not long after in March.
In other TCG news, there are also some great deals on Pokémon cards right now at Amazon and TCGplayer, including a great deal on the most recent expansion's ETB, Mega Evolution - Phantasmal Flames. It's down to its lowest price ever at Amazon after its market price took a mighty tumble over the New Year, dropping almost 50% in a matter of weeks.
Unsurprisingly, stock is still running low on Amazon for a lot of Pokémon cards, even from last year, and even upcoming MTG sets like Lorwyn and TMNT. That said, sites like TCGplayer still have a solid supply, and in some cases, better prices too, so are definitely worth checking out while on your hunt for cheap boosters.
Robert Anderson is Senior Commerce Editor and IGN's resident deals expert on games, collectibles, trading card games, and more. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter/X or Bluesky.
HBO's new Harry Potter series will be scored by Hans Zimmer, the award-winning composer behind Interstellar, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Gladiator and countless other blockbusters.
Zimmer will work with Kara Talve and Anže Rozman from Bleeding Fingers Music, an Emmy Award-winning collective of muscians he co-founded, to produce the new Harry Potter TV series score. Their work will first be heard when the show launches via HBO Max in 2027.
Warner Bros.' previous Harry Potter movie series initially featured a soundtrack from the legendary John Williams, though other composers took over for later entries. Still, Williams' themes remained throughout, and became synonymous with the franchise's sound. It'll be interesting to hear how Zimmer takes this legacy on.
"The musical legacy of Harry Potter is a touch point for composers everywhere and we are humbled to join such a remarkable team on a project of this magnitude," Zimmer said. "The responsibility is something that myself, Kara Talve and Anže Rozman do not take lightly. Magic is all around us, often just beyond reach, but as in the world of Harry Potter, you simply must look for it. With this score we hope to bring audiences that little bit closer to it whilst honoring what has come before."
While it is unlikely Zimmer will include Williams' themes in this new soundtrack, his statement suggests the sound of HBO's series likely won't feel like a huge departure from what fans have come to expect from the wizarding series.
Zimmer's back catalogue extends to more than 500 projects which have collectively grossed more than $28 billion at the box office. His scores for The Lion King and Dune won Oscars, and he is also the recipient of three Golden Globe Awards, five Grammy Awards and a BAFTA. You'll have heard his work in The Pirates of the Caribbean series, Black Hawk Down, Inception, No Time to Die, Man of Steel and Top Gun: Maverick.
The Harry Potter TV series is expected to debut on HBO in early 2027, with an eight-episode first season. Subsequent seasons will adapt each of the Harry Potter books in turn, with their release expected to last much of the next decade.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Amazon has announced that its MMO, New World, will be officially taken offline from all platforms on January 31, 2027.
The game is now delisted, which means it is no longer available for purchase. You can still play New World until January next year, with the Nighthaven season extended until the servers are taken offline.
“We want to thank the players for your dedication and passion,” a statement on the New World website reads. “We are grateful for the time spent crafting the world of Aeternum with you. Together we built something special. While we are saddened to say goodbye, we’re honored that we were able to share so much with the community.
“It has been our pleasure to work on New World: Aeternum and evolve this unforgettable adventure with you all. We look forward to one more year together, and giving this fantastic adventure a sendoff worthy of a legendary hero. From the bottom of all our hearts, thank you for sharing this world with us.”
New World was a rare hit for Amazon in the video game space, and followed multiple flops that resulted in game and studio closures. The MMO set in an alternate 1600s America saw huge player numbers on Steam, with a whopping 913,634 peak concurrents on Valve's platform back in 2021. Player numbers significantly declined following that peak, however.
Bloomberg had reported that Amazon was cutting back especially on MMOs, but would continue to develop Amazon Games Montreal’s March of Giants, its new Tomb Raider game in the works at Crystal Dynamics, and "casual and AI-focused games" for its cloud gaming service Luna. UK studio Maverick Games were said to be continuing to work on its racing game, too. Following the news about New World, there was concern over the status of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings MMO. Amazon has yet to provide an update on it.
But is there hope for New World yet? Alistair McFarlane, COO and company director at Rust developer Facepunch Studios, tweeted to offer Amazon $25 million for New World, adding: “Games should never die.” “If you need tips about buying cancelled games, lmk,” Hypixel Studios founder Simon Collins-Laflamme, who rescued Hytale after years spent in the doldrums at League of Legends maker Riot Games, replied.
It sounds like McFarlane has thought about this, explaining what should happen to New World rather than closure: “As with everything we do at Facepunch, empower the community. Give them control, make servers publicly hostable. A game will live forever in the hands of a dedicated community.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
It was a huge deal last year when these were even in stock, let alone at a new best price. At $75, I'd snap this up ASAP, as it's even cheaper than the market price seen at trusted resellers like TCGplayer.
I don't have to tell you why ETBs are the marquee product for each set, and Phantasmal Flames is no different. Packed with nine booster packs, a 1 full-art foil promo card featuring Charcadet, themed sleeves, dice, and all the accessories needed for play.
There's been a significant drop in price on these ETBs compared to last year as well. You'd be lucky to pick one up for around $150 resale, closer to launch in November 2025. But, now, we've seen a big ol' crash in market price, upwards of 50%.
There's a whole lot more Phantasmal Flames goodies up for grabs right now, at more reasonable prices. But, I'd still recommend checking on TCGplayer to ensure you're getting a good deal, or even just ordering from there altogether, as it often has the best prices.
Still, even with the prices coming down, I'd snap up the ETB at Amazon ASAP, especially while you can get it at the best price possible; with 1-2 day delivery on Prime, and so you can use any handy Amazon gift cards you've got saved up as well.
If you're looking to just chase cards, however, I'd also recommend checking out how much some of the best single chase cards are going for right now, to pick up individually. Or, to consult after you've cracked open all your packs. Good luck!
From aggressive Mega attackers to powerful evolution support, Phantasmal Flames brings a fiery mix of competitive threats and high-demand pulls. Let us know in the comments if you've pulled anything super rare since last year.
Robert Anderson is Senior Commerce Editor and IGN's resident deals expert on games, collectibles, trading card games, and more. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter/X or Bluesky.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson "got spooked by the online negativity" while considering his future with the franchise, according to outgoing Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.
In a Deadline interview published alongside the news of her departure, Kennedy suggested that Johnson was put off continuing early plans with Lucasfilm for him to produce his own Star Wars trilogy, following the intense online backlash to The Last Jedi.
It's a notable admission from Kennedy, especially after numerous interviews with Johnson and others previously blamed the filmmaker's work on hit Netflix murder mystery movie series Knives Out as the main reason why he was now too busy to continue on Star Wars. Kennedy mentions Knives Out too, but then goes further — describing the online response to The Last Jedi as "the rough part."
"Once he made the Netflix deal and went off to start doing the Knives Out films, that has occupied a huge amount of his time," Kennedy began when asked why Johnson had not yet returned. "That's the other thing that happens here. After Shawn [Levy, now the director of Star Wars: Starfighter] and I started talking about Star Wars, Stranger Things kicks in and he was completely consumed for a while by that. That's what happened with Rian.
"And then I do believe he got spooked by the online negativity," she continued. "I think Rian made one of the best Star Wars movies. He's a brilliant filmmaker and he got spooked. This is the rough part. When people come into this space, I have every filmmaker and actors say to me, 'What's going to happen?' They’re a little scared."
Lucasfilm initially announced plans for Johnson to write and direct his own Star Wars trilogy, separate to the franchise's main Skywalker Saga. But as the years have worn on — and numerous other Star Wars projects have fizzled out or been placed on the back burner — it has become increasingly clear this trilogy will never materialize.
Speaking only last month, Johnson said he had intended The Last Jedi to be a film that "shook the box" in order to upend fan expectations, rather than simply serve up another movie that handled the franchise and its audience with "kid gloves" — something other entries in Disney's Star Wars sequel trilogy have also been accused of.
"I was hoping for that — I wasn't afraid of it per se," Johnson told Polygon in December 2025. "Having grown up a Star Wars fan, I know that thing where something challenges it, and I know the recoil against that. I know how there can be infighting in the world of Star Wars. But I also know that the worst sin is to handle it with kid gloves."
Yes, it marks our second trip to New York in less than a year, thanks to last year's Spider-Man set (seriously, there are infinite dimensions we could travel to!), but the Heroes in a Half Shell are doing things a little differently.
Not only does it offer our first Universes Beyond Commander Deck since Final Fantasy, but there are some new product types, too. Here's everything you can preorder.
TMNT MTG Preorders in a Half Shell
As you can probably imagine, there are more products coming than you can shake a Bo Staff at launching on March 6, with pre-release a week prior from February 27 to March 5.
You can also grab the now-customary booster bundle, which includes a promo card, a series of nine Play Boosters, a storage box and a spindown life counter. That’s dropped to $61.01 right now, making it an even more appealing gift option for a Turtle-loving Magic player in your life (there are dozens of us!).
We promised something new, and here it is: The Turtle Team-Up box, which offers co-op gameplay where "2-4 players battle for survival against an onslaught of villainous adversaries". It's still $49.99 at Amazon, and includes four pre-built 60-card hero decks, one Enemy deck with 11 bosses, seventeen Event Cards, and four 14-card boosters.
Also new this time is a Pizza Bundle, which includes 9 Play Boosters, 1 Collector Booster, 25 non-foil Pizza lands (yes, really), five foil Pizza lands, 2 foil promo cards, and a spindown life counter. Amazon had this for $99.99, but they're all gone - almost certainly because there's a single Collector Booster inside.
Also out of stock is the Collector Boosters. As with any set, these are where you’ll find the high-value cards, and Amazon sold out fairly quick for both boosters and a box of them. Expect them to be expensive, though, with an MSRP of $37.99 each, or around $479.99 for the box.
While they are out of stock now, they could come back, especially since the Spider-Man Universes Beyond Collector Boosters are also back at Amazon recently as well. As a reminder, Collector Boosters include alternate art treatments and foils, but they're functionally the same cards. Buy them, or don't, but don't feel like you have to spend almost $500 for a box just to play this great card game.
Draft Night, a new boxed product making its debut in January’s Lorwyn, is also included. It has a bunch of packs (twelve in total) to play sealed draft, and a Collector Booster for the winner to take home. It’s $119.99 at Amazon, but also out of stock for now as well (probably for the same reasons outlined above).
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is Getting a Commander Deck
Finally, Commander players can expect a return to precon decks… but just one. After being absent since Edge of Eternities, there’s a new precon coming, which is a five-color deck called Turtle Power!
It's also interesting that after very few five-color decks in recent years, we're now getting two in consecutive sets after Dance of the Elements from Lorwyn: Eclipsed.
UK Preorders
I can’t remember the last time a set came with a single Commander precon. In 2025 alone we’ve had sets with no precons (Spider-Man, Avatar), sets with two (Aetherdrift, Edge of Eternities), a set with four (Final Fantasy) and a set with five (Tarkir Dragonstorm).
Why just the one? I honestly can't complain. Even at my age, picking my favorite turtle is serious business, so having the whole gang in one, 100-card boxed product means I don't have to make any tough choices.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay.
UPDATE: LEGO has now officially unveiled its highly-anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time — The Final Battle set, and detailed its interactive elements.
Amid the ruins of Hyrule Castle, the N64 classic's climactic battle is brought to life at the touch of a button as a minifigure of Ganondorf rises up, ready to take on Link and Zelda. Inside the set's crumbling tower, three Hearts can also be uncovered.
Included with the set are the Master Sword, Hylian Shield and Megaton Hammer. Ganondorf's minifigure also comes with a snazzy cloth cape. Finally, the set is now available to pre-order online ahead of its March 1, 2026 release date.
ORIGINAL STORY: LEGO's upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time set featuring Link and Zelda's climactic battle with Ganon has leaked online, alongside its pricing and release details.
The Final Battle will be a 1,003-piece design that launches on March 1, according to Brick Tap. The set will be priced at $129.99 / €119.99 / $99.99 — a cost that has raised eyebrows among fans when compared to other, non-licensed LEGO offerings.
At least the design itself is going down well, with fans praising the look of Ganon in his pig-human guise, and the inclusion of three The Legend of Zelda minifigurines: Link, Zelda, and a human form of Ganondorf. You'll also get a set of recovery hearts, Navi, and the Megaton Hammer.
The set features the flaming rooftops of Hyrule Castle, where Ocarina of Time's dramatic final boss fight takes place in the classic N64 video game. LEGO had teased this location previously in an earlier sneak peek at the set — presumably an official reveal isn't far off.
"It’s INCREDIBLE," wrote Zelda fan TheLegendofCap via reddit. "I’m buying this day one for sure. Happy we’re getting a Ganondorf minifigure." Added Donkeyrocket: "Yeah, the Deku Tree set is pretty cool but I’d be far more eager to have this one as a display piece. Really good size and detail."
LEGO's first foray into The Legend of Zelda came in September 2024, when it launched a Great Deku Tree set. This included versions of the tree from both Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild, as well as two sets of Link and Zelda minifigures.
This week, Nintendo finally removed an infamous, adults only-themed island from Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Existing since 2020, the suggestive fan creation was almost as old as the game, and gained much attention from Japanese streamers for its distorted, humorous world view and huge level of detail. Despite years of work being deleted, the island’s creator expressed gratitude to both Nintendo and those who have visited over the years.
Literally named Adults’ Island (otonatachi no shima 大人たちの島), the suggestive location was crafted by a dedicated Animal Crossing player who goes by @churip_ccc on X. As spotted by Automaton, the island’s creator took to Twitter / X to comment on its removal from the game. “Nintendo, I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” they said in a tweet with 3.1 million views so far. “Rather, thank you for turning a blind eye these past five years. To everyone who visited Adults’ Island and all the streamers who featured it, thank you.”
The creator of Adults’ Island first publicized the location’s Dream Address in 2020, and it was quickly picked up and featured by streamers in Japan. Plastered with colorful Japanese signboards, vending machines, arcade cabinets and a lot of attention to detail, the island mimicked an entertainment and red-light district in the evening. While not explicit, the version of the characters that it presents turned Animal Crossings’ cute and wholesome image on its head.
As many Japanese streamers mentioned, the island had the atmosphere of a nostalgic entertainment district in Japan, with many details recalling the mid-to-late Showa period (1926-1989). Its vibe was also similar to the Wall Market area from the original Final Fantasy 7, with a sense of parody reminiscent of Lost Wages from 1987’s Leisure Suit Larry. The first place you came across on the island after getting off the plane was a “Free Information Center.” While this might sound innocent enough at first, such places are often found in real night life districts in Japan, and tell potential customers about adult-oriented establishments and services in the area, including bars, hostess clubs, and brothels. The inside of Adults’ Island’s Free Information Center was amusingly covered in glamorous posters of Animal Crossing characters, with advertisements for shops including a Hong Kong “massage” parlor. The island also had a smoking area with one villager dropping the bombshell that Animal Crossing character Isabelle smokes Seven Stars.
Places you could visit included a 24-hour sauna called “Love Attack,” a beach-front love hotel (complete with Michelangelo statues and strategically-placed palm trees), a cabaret, and a pachinko parlor. The interiors of the residences of popular Animal Crossing characters on the island often added a naughty twist to the character (for example, Blather’s room has pictures of Isabelle surrounding his bed and used tissues on the floor- likely a side of Blather that no-one wanted to think about). The overall tone was humorous, with an NPC even explaining to you that the island’s theme park (which could also be visited and seemed to be a parody of Disney’s “It’s a Small World”) had gone bust because “there are no children here.”
It also had a dark side as well, with the hut for new employees featuring a bunch of futons crammed together on a dirt floor, providing a sharp contrast to the colorful and comfortable interiors on the rest of the island. The island’s colorful Gorilla Magazine (perhaps run by Violet?) also parodies the real-life free magazines that encourage young women into nighttime work. Speaking of Violet, she is working as an oiran, a term for high ranking prostitutes in Japan’s Edo Era (1603-1868).
Considering that content creators in Japan had been streaming Adults’ Island since 2020, it seems likely that Nintendo was aware of the fan-created area’s existence for a while. However it's not clear why it took until 2026 for the company to delete the kinky island’s Dream Address. Perhaps the recently released Animal Crossing: New Horizons Switch 2 update jolted Nintendo into action.
In response to the creator’s tweet, Japanese-speaking fans mourned the island’s demise. Former visitors reminisced about the first time they explored the location or saw it streamed. “The shock of ‘you can do something like THIS?!’, the points of interest that made me think ‘you’re recreating THAT?!’, the sense of style, the black humor... I really liked all of it. I’ll treasure my screenshots,” said one user, who first visited when the Dream Address system went live. Others made similar comments: “I’m sad that it’s gone,” “It’s such a miracle that it lasted that long,” and “From now on, I’ll enjoy it through the screenshots.”
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
In the future, the human race has been divided into 14 different color castes that determine every individual's role and placement in the hierarchical structure of society. This underlying idea is at the core of Pierce Brown’s epic science fiction series, Red Rising, and tells the story of one man, Darrow of Lykos, and his mission to tear it all down.
First released in 2014, the first title, Red Rising, introduces us to the series' protagonist, Darrow, a Red Helldiver of Mars and the lowest of the citizens. Events out of Darrow’s control put him on a path that will see him go from the bottom of society to the top, becoming a symbol and legend that strikes fear into his enemies and inspires hope in his allies. Unlike many other science fiction series, Red Rising isn’t a tale of a utopian society that has spread out amongst the stars. Instead, it is a world of war, betrayal, and uneasy alliances, where some of the worst societal practices have flourished and evolved. Yet it is still a universe where hope still finds a way to survive, and joy and love can still be found, even in the darkest and most profound places.
Compared to other series, like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere or George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, reading through the Red Rising series is a straightforward affair. The series is divided into two arcs, with the first three novels - Red Rising, Golden Son, and Morning Star- being referred to as the “Red Rising Trilogy”. The second half, which takes place 10 years later, being the “Iron Gold Quadrilogy” and consisting of the remaining novels. Despite being a science fiction series, this series deals with mature themes and graphic violence, and isn’t advised for younger readers.
How Many Books are There in the Red Rising Saga?
Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series will comprise seven books in total, but currently, all but the final book have been released. The first three titles, composing the Red Rising Trilogy, are told strictly through the viewpoint of the character, Darrow. In contrast, the rest of the books, the Iron Gold Quadrilogy, are told through multiple characters' viewpoints.
Red Rising Trilogy Reading Order
Red Rising
The first book in the Red Rising Saga, titled “Red Rising”, tells the story of Darrow of Lykos - a Red Helldiver, born in the mines of Mars whose only prospects are to live out his days in the mines, with the belief that he is helping to bring about the terraforming of the planet. A tragic event sets Darrow’s life on an entirely new trajectory, where he now fights as a member of the rebel group Sons of Ares in a bid to overthrow the society that has oppressed him his entire life and bring about equality for mankind. But, to do so, he will have to become what he hates the most.
Golden Son
Picking up two years after the conclusion of Red Rising, Golden Son follows Darrow’s continued exploits as he carefully navigates the Gold society. As his reputation continues to grow, he has to be more careful and not risk being exposed as a Red. Golden Son ratchets up the stakes for Darrow, with some fantastic twists and tense white-knuckle moments that will leave readers biting at the bit to dive right into the third book after finishing this one. Where Brown’s first novel felt like a mix of Hunger Games and Ender’s Game, Golden Sun starts to define what the series will be moving forward, and how it sets itself apart from other science fiction series.
Morning Star
Taking place one year after Golden Son, Morning Star sees the Reaper at his lowest yet as he deals with the effects of being betrayed, and his year-long isolation. His work isn’t done yet, however, and his mission must go on, but at what cost? This third book brings the conclusion of the original trilogy of the Red Rising Saga, setting Darrow and his friends on a path they could never have imagined, one that will require relying on old enemies to make it through alive.
Iron Gold Quadrilogy Reading Order
Iron Gold
Picking up 10 years after Morning Star, the Reaper’s legend continues to grow and has even outgrown the man, as mankind is struggling to adapt to the events of the previous book. Iron Gold marks a departure from the previous books, and a shift for the series, as no longer do they follow strictly Darrow’s perspective and instead show events from the four different views, including Darrow and two brand-new characters, Ephraim ti Horn and Lyria of Lagalos.
The points of view that this follows include Darrow, Lysander, and two new characters, a Red named Lyria and a Gray named Ephraim.
Dark Age
War has come to Mercury. Picking up directly after the events of Iron Gold, Dark Age lives up to its name, being the darkest in tone and subject matter of the series. It’s a book that's overall pretty gruesome and may be difficult for some readers to get through. The repercussions of many of the Reaper’s past decisions and debts have come to be paid. As author Pierce Brown puts it - “The Solar System is at War. No one is safe”.
The points of view in this fifth entry of the Red Rising series include Darrow, Ephraim, Virginia, Lyria, and Lysander.
Light Bringer
It has been eight months since the events of Dark Age, and the surviving members of the Republic struggle and prepare for the war that is just over the horizon. After the events of Mercury, the struggle between the Republic and Society has shifted to Mars and beyond, as both sides struggle to secure the needed allies and resources to grasp victory once and for all. Enemies will become unwilling allies, allies who will betray one another, and new threats will arise from the shadows that could throw everything into chaos, but hope can always be found, even in the darkest of nights.
Lightbringer is told through the points of view of four characters (omitting who to avoid potential spoilers)
Red God (forthcoming)
Red God is currently planned to be the final novel in the Red Rising series, and also the longest. In a brief interview, Brown teased that he hopes that this final book will be released late next year, but only if he is happy with it.
Other Content
Red Rising: The Sons of Ares
Taking place before the events of the first book, the Sons of Ares comic series offers a deeper look into the rebel faction and its various actors, who play such an important role in the first few books of the Saga. These comics do contain some massive spoilers for events that are revealed throughout the first three books, and it’s advised that you only read them after completing the third book, Morning Star.
If you want to wait for the full omnibus to be released, you can currently preorder the harcover or paperback editions. They will be release don March 3, 2026.
Red Rising: The Board Game
Red Rising: The Board Game, published by the talented team over at Stonemeier Games (the developers of games including Wingspan and Scythe), is a competitive hand management game where players will be playing out cards representing characters from the various books and colors of the Society. This game is not only a good time for fans of the books, but also features some wonderful art that helps give readers a better mental image of this world and its characters, such as Eo, Victra, Sevro, and of course, Darrow.
To avoid spoilers, it’s best to try out this game after you’ve gotten through at least the Iron Age. You can check out my full review of this game for more information on the rules and gameplay.
Upcoming Red Rising Books
The final book in the Red Rising series, titled Red God, is currently on the horizon. Although we don't have a specific date as to when the book will be released, we do have an estimation from the author himself. In an interview in back in January 2025, Pierce Brown stated that Red God would "most likely" be coming out in Summer 2026.
In the meantime, the omnibus for the Red Rising: Son of Ares grapchi novel series is currently set to come out on March 3, 2026.
The Colors of the Society, Explained
In the world of Red Rising, humanity is divided into distinct castes, each associated with a specific color, with individuals born with both a sigil and eye color that correspond to their class. Ruled over by golds, this “Society” has been in charge for over 700 years by the start of the first book. Here is a breakdown of all 14 colors and their respective roles within the Society.
The High Colors
Golds
Rules over all other colors.
Silvers
Composed of business owners
Whites
Members of the clergy and judges
Coppers
The lawyers, administrators, and bureaucrats of the Society
Warning: This review contains full spoilers for The Pitt Season 2, Episode 2!
“Was The Pitt always this funny?”
That’s a question I found myself mulling over a lot while watching Season 2, Episode 2. Season 1 certainly had its moments of levity, but there definitely seems to be more of a concerted effort to inject some humor into the mix this time around. Not that this is a bad thing by any stretch. We’ve seen how dire things can get at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, and no doubt the situation will take a turn for the worse soon enough. We might as well have some fun before then.
There’s a lot to be entertained by in Episode 2, whether it’s rookie nurse Emma Nolan (Laëtitia Hollard) undergoing her first day trial by fire or our heroic doctors responding to the dreaded penile injection gone awry. Then you have Javadi’s (Shabana Azeez) personal and professional struggles and Mel’s (Taylor Dearden) sorry situation, where a seemingly innocuous and very flirtatious patient turns out to be a real POS.
Rather than immediately hit the ground running with a barrage of depressing medical cases, the goal is clearly to explore the more surreal side of life in emergency medicine. And why not? Hell, it’s the 4th of July, so it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing the obligatory, gnarly fireworks accidents start rolling through. If anything, it seems like the show is attempting to lull us into a false sense of security before the other shoe drops.
This also raises the question of which of these bizarre cases is going to take a turn for the tragic first. I certainly have my concerns about Louie (Ernest Harden Jr.), as he seems like a guy who might have finally pushed his luck too far. And there’s the cloud surrounding the mysteriously injury-prone girl. As relatively lighthearted as the show feels at present, it sure hasn’t forgotten that life in the ER is one plagued by human misery.
It’s also nice to see the new interns start to develop more coherent personalities. Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson) is rapidly becoming the character everyone loves to hate with his insufferable know-it-all routine. I can only imagine that he’ll get blasted with a cold, hard dose of reality before long. In the meantime, his abrasiveness helps take the pressure off of Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), who still isn’t doing much to endear herself to Robby (Noah Wyle). Of course she’s a big proponent of generative AI in the ER…
My main complaint with the direction of the season at this early stage is that we don’t get enough focus on Dr. Langdon (Frank Ball) as he tries to readjust to life in The Pitt. It really feels like he, not Robby, should be the focal point of Season 2 in light of everything he’s been through and his isolation from the rest of the group. Ball makes the most of what he’s given, though, with the quiet scene between him and Dearden’s Mel post-head injury easily being the highlight of the episode.
Now is the time to retire that pedal-powered bike of yours and upgrade to electric. The price of electric assisted bikes has plummeted over the past year. Nowadays you can find a decent bike for well under $500. To kickstart the new year, AliExpress is offering the 5th Wheel AB17 500W 375Wh Electric Bike for a rock bottom price of $231.02 after you apply $30 off coupon code "30USAFF". This bike ships locally from a warehouse in the United States, with most orders being delivered within a week. That means you don't have to worry about tariffs, import fees, or egregiously long shipping times.
5th Wheel AB17 500W 375Wh Electric Bike for $231
The 5th Wheel AB17 bike is an adult electric bike featuring a 500W (700W peak) motor that can get up to speeds of 23mph. The 36V 375Wh lithium battery provides up to 25 miles on electric only mode and up to 45 miles on pedal-assist mode. The actual distance is dependent on other factors like your speed, terrain, elevation, and so forth. The frame is made of carbon steel so it's on the heavier side at about 50 pounds, but it also has a generous weight capacity of 265 pounds. The bike comes 85% preassembled and includes a 1 year warranty. It's also UL 2849 certified for safety.
There are plenty of bikes out there that offer high-quality components, a more powerful motor, better upgradeability, and/or domestic customer support, but only if you're willing to shell out hundreds of dollars more. The 5th Wheel AB17 bike will stay within anybody's budget. It offers a perfectly respectable assisted ride that will satisfy most casual bikers.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
2026 has already seen recent surges in the cost of DDR5 RAM and higher end Nvidia GPUs. Unfortunately this also affects the price of prebuilt gaming PCs, which is also expected to rise through this year. Obviously this isn't an ideal time to be buying new computer parts, but if that's not stopping you from upgrading, I would suggest jumping on a deal you find now rather than waiting a little longer. There are still good deals to be found.
Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5080 Gaming PC for $2280
Dell is currently offering an Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5080 gaming PC for $2,279.99 with free delivery after a $550 instant discount. This isn't the lowest price it has ever been, but it's a significant drop from the beginning of the year when it was priced closer to $2,800. If you're looking for a future-proof system, this PC should be powerful enough to set you up for 4K gaming for many years to come.
This customizable system is equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F CPU, GeForce RTX 5080 GPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265F is a 20-core processor with a max turbo frequency of 5.3GHz. It's cooled by a 240mm all-in-one liquid cooling system. The 1,000W power supply gives you headroom for upgrades down the road.
The GeForce RTX 5080 GPU will run any game in 4K
Performance-wise, the RTX 5080 is no slouch. It's one of the fastest cards on the market, bested only by the $2,000 RTX 5090 and the discontinued $1,600 RTX 4090. This is a phenomenal card for playing the latest, most demanding games in 4K resolution at high settings and ray tracing enabled. The RTX 5080 supports DLSS 4 with multi-frame generation, which means you can push even more frames out of games that support the technology with minimal visual compromise. Recent games that support it include Doom: The Dark Ages, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Borderlands 4, Stellar Blade, and Battlefield 6. Check out our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 FE review for our hands-on impressions.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Switch 2 owners, if there's one upgrade you'll absolutely need, it's additional storage. The Switch 2 only has 256GB of onboard storage, and chances are you'll run out of space down the road. Fortunately, Amazon just lowered the price of the 256GB Samsung P9 MicroSD Express card, which will double your available storage, to just $34.99. This matches the best deal that I saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You don't have to worry about performance, either. We recently reviewed this exact card and strongly recommend it.
256GB Samsung P9 MicroSD Express Memory Card
Nintendo Switch 2 compatible
As you should already know, the Switch 2 console will only accept MicroSD Express cards. If you have a standard MicroSD card from your previous Switch, you sadly won't be able to use it to store games in the Switch 2. Although the two might look similar, MicroSD Express cards are much, much faster than their precedessors, with speeds of up to 800MB/s. MicroSD cards, on the other hand, cap out at well under 200MB/s.
This Samsung P9 Express is guaranteed to be compatible with your Switch 2 console. In fact, Samsung is the company that manufactures Nintendo's official Switch 2 memory card. It's very likely these two cards are identical.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
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