The Alienware Area-51 is Dell's highest-end gaming laptop and the only model that can be equipped with the super powerful GeForce RTX 5090 mobile GPU. Prices have gone way up for the new year, but fortunately there's still an easy way to get a good deal. Dell Outlet recently restocked its inventory of Alienware Area-51 16" gaming laptops, including RTX 5090 models. You can currently get one for as low as $3,564, which is about $500 cheaper than the least expensive brand new 5090 config (with worse specs). These are "Like New" models with 1 year warranty.

Highguard is out now following its high-profile showing at last month’s The Game Awards — and its developers have said a full year of post-launch content is already “deep in development.”

The free-to-play PvP raid shooter is live on PC, Xbox Series X and S, and PlayStation 5, with full crossplay. Development studio Wildlight is made up of former Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare staff, and promises “a new competitive structure that blends siege warfare and territory control in an evolving match where power levels escalate until only one base is left standing.”

Here’s how Highguard works, according to Wildlight:

Players step into the boots of Wardens, arcane gunslingers sent to fight for control of a mythical continent where magic, gunfire, and siege warfare collide:

• Teams of three select a unique base and fortify their defenses, then ride out across vast, uncharted lands to loot, harvest resources, and upgrade their gear while clashing with a rival Warden crew.
• As magical storms roll in, teams battle over the Shieldbreaker, a powerful sword required to breach enemy defenses. Carrying the Shieldbreaker to the opposing base triggers a full raid — forcing teams to attack, defend, adapt, and escalate in power as the match continues.
• Most of the time, victory doesn’t come with a single raid. When that happens, the enemy base shields repair, the siege tower dissipates, and the fight escalates as loot, gear, and weapons all upgrade in the field, and a new Shieldbreaker forms in a different location in the world. From there, the fight for control continues — until only one base is left standing.

Each Warden is built specifically for Highguard’s PvP Raid Mode. Wardens combine guns, raid tools, and arcane abilities, each designed to support raiding, destruction, defense, infiltration, resource acquisition, and open-world combat.

Mounts allow teams to move quickly across massive maps, fight on the move, and transport the Shieldbreaker. Magical abilities supplement combat, but Highguard is still a gun game at its core. Gunplay remains central, with abilities and tools adding tactical depth.

At launch, the game features a wide array of content: five large-scale maps, six distinct bases, eight Wardens, three mount types, ten weapons, three raid tools, eleven weapon and raid-tool mods, and a wide range of lootable items. More content will be added via seasonal updates.

Like lots of folks, I didn’t have much to say after Highguard’s underwhelming reveal at The Game Awards last month. Yet another hero shooter that I couldn’t pick out of a lineup from the dozens of other options that are available? Not exactly riveting stuff. But as I’ve learned over a couple decades of gaming, you never really know what you’re in for until you’ve got the controller in your hands – and after doing just that, it turns out Highguard has plenty going for it. I spent about five hours learning the ropes and playing matches at a pre-release hands-on event last week, and what I’ve seen so far had polished gunplay, a compelling roster of characters, and a trailblazing game mode that serves as its killer feature.Of course, that limited play session means it’s still hard to tell if it will have staying power beyond the initial novelty, but with a promising roadmap for the next year already charted out, I’m surprised to say that I like Highguard’s chances.

This competitive shooter has components from lots of FPS games, like playable characters with special abilities that are very much drawn from hero shooters and a simplified loot system that’s reminiscent of battle royale games, but it sets itself apart with a unique multiplayer gametype: Raid Mode. In this mode, two opposing teams of three players battle it out to invade and utterly destroy the enemy base in incredibly chaotic sieges. Inspired by the developers’ experience attacking player bases in survival games like Rust, Highguard looks to condense that high-stakes attack/defend showdown into minutes-long matches, rather than serving as the climax to hours of preparation in a game with less structured PvP. After several hours running matches, my first impression is that this formula both stands out as a fresh shooter experience and is a lot of fun to play.

Raids are smartly broken into a few phases: a short defensive phase where players pick their starting weapon loadout and reinforce their own base, then an exploration and looting phase where teams leave their base in search of weapons, armor, and other upgrades to use in battle. But the real fun begins during the Intercept phase when a sword called the Shieldbreaker spawns on the map for one team to claim, making conflict between the two teams inevitable and showcasing Highguard’s stellar gunplay (more on that later). Whichever team is able to claim the Shieldbreaker and carry it to the enemy’s base then begins the final phase, called the Raid phase, where the invading team temporarily tears down the shield protecting the other team’s base and assaults it in an attempt to destroy defensive structures and plant bombs to destroy generators – by far the most exciting and high stakes part of each match. Depending on the outcome of the raid phase, this process can repeat itself up to four times during each match, making games last anywhere from eight to 30 minutes, depending on how heated the competition is.

I really dig the structured, phased approach used in this game mode, as it offers a very clear objective every step of the way, where I never felt like I had a bunch of things competing for my attention. I could very easily see a version of these matches where I’m having to choose between adding defenses to my base, looting better gear, or trying to invade an enemy base, which sounds like way too much to juggle at once. Having my crew always be on the same page about how we were supposed to be spending our time was great, and helped build suspense as we inched ever closer to the absolute mayhem that is the Raid phase, regardless of which side of that confrontation we ended up on.

That said, I also saw areas that could likely use some tweaking, like how the loot system limits you to lower-tier items before the first raid but increases the rarity that can be found in chests or bought from the vendor during each subsequent round. While it’s a nice feeling to get more powerful for each new raid in a match, it felt a bit underwhelming to know that practically all the loot on the map had been upgraded, making both teams roughly equally geared at all times. If both teams are increasing their power at the same rate consistently, it sorta makes it feel less impactful – like level scaling in an open world RPG. It’d be nice if there was a way for players to gain access to better loot by performing better in raids or by making better use of their time during the exploration phase where they’re searching chests. As of now, it’s just too easy to find all the loot you need, and being capped on the rarity of loot available during each round means you’re almost never in a position where you’ve got a shiny toy your opponents aren’t ready for.

It’s no big surprise that developer Wildlight Entertainment has built a shooter that immediately feels great, as this new studio is made up primarily of people who worked on Titanfall and Apex Legends. Whether I was sniping enemies at a distance or getting in close for a cheeky submachine gun or shotgun kill, combat was crisp and immediately reminded me of my days sweating it out in Apex Legends lobbies (especially the extremely recognizable feel of the sliding). The selection of weapons is quite small, with just one of each type available, but the upside of that slim arsenal is that each feels incredibly well tuned – and when you start to find higher rarities, you’ll see little modifiers and buffs randomly rolled on each that slightly tweak things like reload speed, magazine size, or stability. Those become more interesting at higher levels, where you might find things like a fully automatic version of the normally slow-firing hand cannon, which can provide that game changing power I was looking for. I didn’t have enough time to really dig into how many variations there are during the preview event, but so far everything was a blast to bring into battle.

Similar to the small but mighty number of weapons, Highguard is launching with eight playable characters, called Wardens, who will feel quite familiar to anyone who has spent time in a hero shooter like Overwatch or Apex Legends. Each character fulfills a specific magic-based fantasy, like Atticus, the flying, lightning bolt-chucking DPS machine, or Kai, an ice magic user who can turn into a massive frost oni and is unmatched in his ability to defend an area. Following in the tradition of most hero shooters, they all have two abilities on a cooldown, plus an ultimate that can be used a few times per match. These might be helpful little tricks, like one character’s ability to temporarily make walls intangible so your team can pass through them discretely, or powerful combat abilities, like another character who can lob balls of lava over an area, making the whole zone impassible. There’s nothing particularly original to this formula, but Highguard does a really good job at making each character someone I’m eager to master. Seeing someone form a giant ice wall and then magically push that wall right at my team as we tried to cross a narrow bridge convinced me to immediately try that character out in the next match.

The highlight of Highguard, and the thing that really sets what I saw of it apart from all the other shooters out there, is the raid mechanics, where one team brings down the full force of their squad’s destructive capabilities on a heavily fortified base, while the other uses their superior positioning to bring their advance to a halt. There aren’t many things cooler than a castle siege, and Highguard channels the battle of Helm’s Deep as the meat and potatoes of its one and only game mode. At the beginning of each match, your team votes on which fortress to call their own, each of which comes with its own set of strengths and weaknesses. For example, one volcanic base called Hellmouth is a classic castle surrounded by a lava moat, with dangerous choke points for invaders to cross and long lines of sight for defenders to shoot from. The downside is that if they manage to get through these narrow entryways, there’s not a lot stopping them from blasting through your inner walls and planting bombs on your all-important generators. Or you could instead choose to call Smuggler’s Den your home; a multi-leveled base that lacks narrow chokepoints, but has layers of defensive walls to get through that can be tough for invaders to navigate before getting ambushed by a defending squad.

As the attacking team during a raid, you’ll make use of some interesting raid tools in addition to your standard guns and abilities. The zipline allows you to create shortcuts and new pathways when assaulting a base, while the rocket launcher and blast hammer have a more straightforward solution to sieging by allowing you to blast through reinforced walls, killing enemy players in the process. Fighting your way through the enemy’s ranks to plant and defend a bomb deep within their territory is exactly as thrilling and tense as it sounds, but watching the enemy panic and despair as a giant explosion rocks their base and their defensive walls crumble around them makes it well worth the effort.

Holding the line against the enemy while on the defensive end of a raid can be incredibly stressful, but also extremely rewarding, like one time where I reinforced a series of walls to box the invaders into a choke zone, then used a well-placed ice wall to cut their team in half, then ambushed them before they could reorient themselves. I do wish there were more opportunities to set traps and go full Home Alone with your base, though – as of now, the only way to make your base harder to assault is by making a select number of walls harder to destroy. There are a few tricks, like intentionally breaking through floors and walls to create new lines of sight when the enemy steps into your domain, but aside from that it really comes down to your ability to outplay the invaders on your own turf, using the static advantages and disadvantages of whichever base your team ends up with. Still, managing to stave off an enemy assault and kick them out on their ass is extremely satisfying.

When you’re not defending or attacking a base, you’ll spend your time out in the much larger areas of the map where you’ll find yourself greatly in need of a faster way to get around, and that’s where mounts come in. While they don’t have a role in raids, as they aren’t permitted within the bounds of a base, they’re absolutely essential out in the world, where you can instantly mount or dismount them at any time to close long distances quickly, as well as leap to normally out of reach areas. Once you start fighting against the enemy team for the Shieldbreaker, you’ll find them extremely important in the capture the flag style of that phase, where victory often comes down to being able to outmaneuver the enemy. Riding your mount isn’t without risks though, as it turns you into a huge target, and if your mount gets killed, you will lose access to it for a while which makes you a sitting duck for your enemies and leaves you vulnerable for a small period of time as you fall to the ground and pick yourself back up.

One thing that feels like it’s missing from Highguard at the moment are PvE opponents, which there is a complete lack of even during the phase where you’re just exploring the map in search of gear. I’d assume there would be baddies trying to stop you or bosses to hunt down to claim rarer loot along the way, but instead you’ll find the map complete devoid of life aside from the enemy team, who more often than not I didn’t bump into until the next phase where we ran to the same location in search of the Shieldbreaker. The lack of NPC enemies is mitigated somewhat by supply drops that spawn during the gear up phase, giving you a reason to engage in PvP earlier in each round, but I still feel like it would be nice to have more to do before the big conflict at the end.

Wildlight has clearly learned some other lessons from the various lumps in the road that Apex Legends faced, particularly when it comes to the live-service model. After taking a peek at Highguard’s roadmap for the next year, which includes new content every single month, I’m pretty impressed by how much is supposedly coming down the pipe. That roadmap includes five new playable characters, as well as several new bases, maps, and weapons, all within the first year, with seasonal content coming every two months. I’m sure at least some of this won’t go according to plan, as even the best intentioned roadmaps can often get bumped off course, but it’s at least great to see Wildlight has come prepared for long-term support.

I still have many more hours of matches to play with Highguard now that it’s out in the wild, but my first impressions are much better than the reveal trailer left me with. Once I’ve had a chance to spend time with with every class and figured out the ins-and-outs of every base (as well as see how the live servers hold up), I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say and a score to go with it. For now, it’s back to the lobbies with me!

Lenovo's best deals use coupon codes that aren't advertised on its website. Case in point, you can get a Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 gaming laptop, equipped with a 15" OLED display and RTX 5070 GPU, for just $1,259 after you apply coupon code "GAMINGDEALS" (apply this on the shopping cart page). That's a $737 discount, making it one of the least expensive RTX 5070 laptops I've seen for the new year and just a good deal overall considering the build quality of Lenovo's laptops.

Lenovo Legion 5 RTX 5070 Gaming Laptop for $1,259

With Riftbound's second set, Spiritforged on the horizon, the meta is about to experience a huge shake-up. We've seen this in practice already, since the set has been out in China since December 12.

They recently had their first Regional Qualifier in Fuzhou, and the new meta is slowly shaping up into a Draven-filled wasteland, but it's far from solved.

There are still plenty of cards from the previous set, Origins, to keep an eye on as things evolve that will still be big players when the new cards come out. Spiritforged releases February 13.

Top 10 Riftbound Origins Cards to Get Before Spiritforged Is Out

10. Nocturne, Horrifying

Capcom has responded to ongoing fan speculation about Resident Evil Requiem being an open world game with a definitive-sounding response.

Fan discussion and leaks around the game have long pointed to Requiem featuring more open exploration than in previous Resident Evil titles. This suggestion was fuelled further earlier this month by the release of a fresh gameplay snippet that included a look at a bustling city street, complete with pedestrians and traffic.

Now, however, Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi has stepped in to set the record straight, having seen the discussion online. In short, anyone hoping for an open world Resident Evil should reset their expectations.

"[The development team] did just want to make clear one point," Nakanishi told Game Informer. "They've seen some speculation of whether there's any open world elements in the game, and they just want to set the record straight that this isn't an open world game.

"The main concept behind this game is combining the very different gameplay of Grace and Leon into a cohesive package, and having those two gameplays represent the Resident Evil series, and I think when you play the game, you realize that, or you will find as well that the development team picked the best approach to do this."

In other words, what you should expect from this game is for Grace and Leon's portions to feel like how they've already been pitched, with Grace's focus on horror and Leon's focused on action, as an extension of the Resident Evil franchise's existing games.

In IGN's just-published Resident Evil Requiem final preview, we described Grace's gameplay sections as familiar to anyone who has played Resident Evil 2 or 7. Leon's gameplay sections, meanwhile, stirred up our muscle memory of playing Resident Evil 4. Neither of those games were open world, so it sounds like we shouldn't expect Requiem to be open world either.

"This year is the 30th anniversary of the Resident Evil series, so it feels like no coincidence that 2026’s Resident Evil Requiem is combining the best ideas of the saga into what appears to be a fantastically constructed tribute to everything that makes the series so great," IGN wrote. "Do you like tense survival horror? It’s here. Wanna go all guns blazing with intense action and a quip-obsessed hero? You get that too."

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

What toy collector doesn't love a good blind box? Half the fun is not knowing exactly what you're getting. That's the thinking behind Funko's latest series of Funko Pop! figurines, which gives the blind box treatment to iconic horror movie villains like Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Annabelle, and The Exorcist's Regan.

Funko revealed first details about the Mystery Pop! line at the London Toy Fair today. The first Mystery Pop! line is a collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery and focuses on horror villains from various WB films. While all of these characters have been tackled in Funko Pop! form before, this series features a brand-new, two-tone paint deco.

Check out the Mystery Pop! figurines in the slideshow gallery below:

The six characters included in the Mystery Pop! line are:

• Pennywise
• Regan
• La Llorona
• Annabelle
• Pennywise Classic
• The Nun

Again, fans won't know which figure they're getting until they open the outer packaging. Each figure also comes with an accompanying Pop! card, with a 1:72 chance of receiving a chase foil collector's card.

Funko will reveal more details about pricing and release date for the Mystery Pop! line in the months to come.

For more on the Funko Pop! line, check out the newest Stranger Things line and see where you can preorder the upcoming Tomb Raider figures.

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

The Raiju V3 Pro is one of those rare PlayStation-layout controllers that also works brilliantly on PC, augmented with modern tech like drift-resistant TMR joysticks, Hall Effect triggers, six extra buttons and polling rates up to 2000Hz. After a month with the Raiju V3 Pro, completing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the latest MechWarrior 5: Clans DLC and a long-running F1 23 campaign, I'm happy to call it: this is the best symmetric controller I've ever tested.

Design and Features

The Raiju V3 Pro's matte black plastic shell outwardly resembles the DualSense, but conceals a multitude of features – some intended for competitive gamers and plenty of others that benefit everyone. The most obvious example of the latter are the Raiju's advanced thumbsticks: unlike the similarly premium Sony DualSense Edge, the Raiju uses TMR (tunneling magnetoresistance) sensors. This tech has just gone mainstream in the last couple of years, and has both longevity (anti-drift) and precision (no dead zone) benefits over traditional potentiometer-based alternatives, making them a natural choice for a $220 gamepad that you'll want to use for years to get your money's worth.

The stick caps are also swappable, with a taller concave cap and a same-size convex cap awaiting you in the included carry case. That same case also includes a minute screwdriver for installing or removing the four rear buttons, which come attached by default and are labeled M3 to M6. These back paddles, plus two additional clicky M1 and M2 keys hiding out near the shoulder buttons, can all be remapped using the Synapse software on PC or the Razer Controller iOS/Android app. There's also an additional button below the PlayStation button to swap between profiles quickly without software.

The regular face buttons are also interesting, with what Razer calls 'mecha-tactile' switches - essentially clicky, short-threw variants of a traditional membrane button under a PBT cap. These give each button and d-pad direction a pleasing amount of tactile and audible feedback when pressed, while the short travel distance is nicely calibrated to feel immediate without making accidental presses too easy.

The same fine-tuning is evident on the Hall Effect triggers, which are also more durable than their potentiometer-based forebears. A trigger lock on each side allows you to swap the full travel distance for a short and snappy digital input with a mouse click – ideal for timing-dependent games like Elden Ring or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The d-pad is also customizable, with four-way and eight-way modes, plus four SOCD settings that let you choose what happens when two opposing directions are held at the same time, whether that's prioritising the first or last input, cancelling the inputs or recognising both simultaneously.

Moving deeper down, into the guts of the controller, there's a high-end microcontroller that allows for a maximum polling rate of 2000Hz when wired to a PC. For a wireless PC connection to the included 2.4GHz USB dongle, the maximum is 500Hz, while on PlayStation 5, it's 250Hz – a platform limitation, Razer tells me. Higher polling rates cut down input latency, though genres like fighting games and shooters will feel the difference most readily.

Gaming and Performance

With its comfortable grips, TMR sticks and familiar layout, adapting to the Raiju V3 Pro was the work of a moment, but I really came to appreciate it while playing through Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The Raiju V3 Pro carried me through the end game and its increasingly challenging optional content, proving more comfortable for timing parries than the keyboard-and-mouse setup I was using before. Being able to lock the triggers helped for executing Gradient Parries or quickly setting off at a run, and even aiming for moving weak points using the left thumbstick was easier than I expected.

F1 23 was a sterner test of the analogue triggers and thumb sticks, which the Raiju V3 passed with precision, and I appreciated having extra buttons on-hand for changing brake bias or differential settings without taking my eyes off the next corner. MechWarrior 5: Clans is another game that has more functionality than can easily be mapped to a default controller, so having a conveniently-placed rear button to quickly enable a MASC boost or change weapon control groups often came in useful. I found aiming a challenge here versus my usual mouse-and-keyboard, but setting the deadzone to 3% in Synapse and opting for a taller stick cap made things easier.

While most of my testing took place on PC, I also dug out the PlayStation 5 to get some impressions there. The Raiju V3 Pro can't wake the console from sleep, nor can its software be run on the PlayStation directly – that luxury is only afforded to Sony's own DualSense Edge. Similarly, there's no counterpart to the DualSense's adaptive triggers, which means games that heavily rely on haptic feedback, like Astro's Playroom, fall flat. In every other sense though, the Raiju V3 Pro felt as hooked-up and comfortable on PlayStation as it did on PC, whether I was flying through intersections in Grand Theft Auto 5 or gunning down adversaries in Battlefield 6's Redsec battle royale mode.

Battery life for the Raiju V3 Pro is rated at 36 hours, which felt accurate – getting the platinum in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 only took two charges, and the rest of my testing was done with only a single further top-up. One silver lining of the highest polling rates being locked behind wired play means that you don't need to choose between longevity and performance, as you do on high-end gaming mice that perform at their best at 8000Hz – but tend to run out of juice within a day or two of sustained play.

Will is deputy tech editor for IGN, specialising in PC hardware, sim racing and display tech. He has been publishing about games and technology since 2001 (age 12). Will was formerly Deputy Editor at Digital Foundry. He is currently playing MechWarrior 5: Clans.

Send Help opens in theaters on January 30.

I’m really shooting myself in the foot here, but I feel compelled to open with a statement which itself constitutes a fulsome review of Send Help, and I’d totally understand if it’s all you needed to hear before buying your ticket and going about your day: if the idea of a Sam Raimi survival thriller centered on Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien going batshit bananas on a beach sounds like a good time at the movies, Send Help is for you.

After turning in one of the better post-Endgame Marvel movies – Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – Raimi returns to simpler delights: namely, putting his leads through harrowing hell as they struggle to survive the elements and each other. There’s nothing better than seeing a master at work and at play at the same time.

There’s some immensely satisfying symmetry in how Raimi scales down here after Multiverse of Madness in the context of his last movie before that: 2010’s gooptastic Drag Me to Hell, which you’ll remember followed a woman gunning for a promotion and reckoning with how much of herself she’s willing to compromise in order to get it. Send Help goes in completely different directions with that conceit, but takes off from spiritually similar ground: Rachel McAdams plays the terminally chipper Linda Liddle who’s toiled for seven years crunching numbers for Preston Strategic Solutions working towards a vice president role within the company, and those efforts are derailed once Dylan O’Brien’s interminably annoying nepo baby Bradley Preston takes over as CEO.

Developer Embark Studios is launching into new Arc Raiders content when the Headwinds update brings a solo vs. squads matchmaking option, a Bird City map condition, and more to the experience tomorrow.

Following a few social media teases and a month of waiting, Embark confirmed plans to deliver the first real content drop of 2026 with a tense teaser trailer and release date of January 27 just moments ago. The announcement has the Headwinds update set to bring a set of smaller additions to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S tomorrow, as fans wait to really get the ball rolling in February.

Although the next new map, new Arc threats, and major map conditions won’t arrive for a few more weeks, the January update sets Arc Raiders up for all of its future plans. Solo vs. squads matchmaking is probably the biggest addition here, with Embark describing the new queue option as a way to let the more skilled players really test their mettle.

Where players thus far had been pitted against squads of equal count, solo vs. squads is only available to those over level 40, allowing them to match as a solo Raider against teams of as many as three people for extra XP. Players will also benefit from quality-of-life changes with open parties, which allow players to join between matches, and expanded squad invites, which lets squadmates invite additional players directly.

Arc Raiders players can also look forward to a rather bizarre new minor map condition for Buried City called Bird City. It’s more than a cheeky play on words, as it sees the population of topside birds swarming as they leave better loot on top of buildings. Other highlights from the Headwinds update include an Arc Trophy display, a new long-term player project, new quests, the Sandwalker cosmetic set, and what Embark describes as “a range” of gameplay updates and adjustments.

“Headwinds is about opening up new ways for the community to approach ARC Raiders and additional challenges for advanced players,” Embark design director Virgil Watkins said in a statement. “Between the expanded matchmaking options, new map condition and new player project, we’re excited to see how Raiders adapt and experiment — and we can’t wait to see the unexpected, funny moments and short clips the community starts creating as the update rolls out.”

Headwinds is the first of a four-phase roadmap that has content scheduled out through April 2026. Next on the docket is the Shrouded Sky update, which adds a new map condition, Arc threat, player project, map update, Raider Deck, and more sometime in February. Flashpoint will then arrive in March with another map condition and Scrappy update, with Riven Tides rounding things out with a new map and a new large Arc in April.

Arc Raiders launched for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X | S October 30, 2025. For more while Embark’s 2026 plans roll out, you can read up on how the developer feels about players who spawn into matches late. You can also check out the real-life Stella Montis hotel that Arc Raiders fans have bombarded with positive reviews.

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

Just a week after announcing the cancelation of six games, the closure of two studios and further job losses at another three locations, Ubisoft is now aiming its cost-reduction initiative at staff working inside its Paris headquarters.

Ubisoft has proposed the loss of up to 200 jobs within the French capital, where it currently employs around 1100 people. This process will be organized under the voluntary Rupture Conventionnelle Collective (RCC) process, where staff can agree to form a collective, voluntary mutual termination agreement.

"In line with last week's announcements on its new operating model and the acceleration of cost-reduction initiatives, Ubisoft International has initiated discussions regarding a potential Rupture Conventionnelle Collective, a collective, voluntary mutual termination agreement that could involve up to 200 positions at its headquarters in France," a Ubisoft spokesperson told IGN today.

LEGO has gradually been releasing new Lord of the Rings sets for a few years now, racking up an impressive collection over time. The brick-building company has just announced another one, and it’s actually relatively affordable this time. It’s a display piece depicting Sauron’s Helmet (see it at Amazon), releasing on March 1 for $69.99. Read on for details.

LEGO Icons The Lord of The Rings: Sauron's Helmet

More LEGO Lord of the Rings Sets

LEGO initially released a whole series of Lord of the Rings sets starting way back in 2012, but all of those sets are now long retired. This latest batch of sets kicked off in 2023 when LEGO released the massive Rivendell set. This was followed by Barad-dur in 2024, and The Shire in 2025. Also in 2025, LEGO released a Balrog book nook you can expand or fold up to nestle in among your collection of Lord of the Rings books.

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.

Actress Eman Ayaz has said she's lost three years of work in a "life-changing role," just days after Ubisoft canceled its long-awaited Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake.

"So hi, my name is Eman, I'm an actor, and last week I experienced the most devastating moment of my career," Ayaz said in a video message posted online today. "I'm still under NDA so I'm going to try my best to speak as vaguely as possible about the details, and I hope you understand."

At no point does Ayaz specifically say the game she worked on was Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake, but the actress has also retweeted comments from those who have linked her to the role of Farah in the game, seemingly making the connection clear.

The most devastating moment of my acting career: https://t.co/ZzbWftGL1t

— Eman Ayaz (@emanayazz) January 26, 2026

"Three years ago I booked a life-changing role on a life-changing project," Ayaz began. "It was a rigorous audition process, including a self-tape audition, an in-person callback, and a chemistry read that I had to fly out of the city for. When I got the role I remember crying my eyes out.

"I've spent the last three years getting to know the team which has become like a family to me. I've watched it grow through countless stages of development and I've waited and waited for it to finally be released so I could talk about it. And this week, I found out through the internet that the project was canceled."

Ayaz says she was first contacted by her brother who had seen the news of the game's cancelation via an online article. Ubisoft confirmed it had canned its Prince of Persia: The Sans of Time Remake last week, as part of a wider reorganization that featured layoffs at three development studios, the closure of two more, and the shutdown of five other game projects.

"I was in total shock," Ayaz continued. "Just two months ago I filmed marketing for this project, everything had been running smoothly and that was the last I had heard. We were all looking forward to it being released this year, so it felt like an emotional whiplash to suddenly find this out in such a random way."

Indeed, a report late last year suggested Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake was finally just a few months away, after first being announced in 2020. The project was then rebooted, with its most recent incarnation having been in development since early 2023.

"When I initially booked this role, what it said to me was that all the sacrifices I had made, going against my parents' advice, pursuing my dreams, all the heartbreaks I'd had along the way, all the close calls, all the rejections, they finally had added up to something," Ayaz added, discussing the personal toll the cancelation had taken.

Ayaz said she'd turned down other job oppurtunities during the process and worked on the job while recovering from an injury as she had been passionate about not missing out. "It was the best performance of my career, and now no one will ever see it."

A Canadian citizen, Ayaz said she had planned to apply for a U.S. work visa based on having the game on her CV, something she can no longer do as she is unable to officially acknowledge her work on it. And as someone with Pakistani heritage, Ayaz said the cancelation had been yet another setback after working "twice as hard as non-marginalized actors to find space in the industry." She added: "It's an upward battle and it's going to continue to be that way. It's like you think you had your foot on a ledge, and it's crumbled. And you have to start again, and it's just as steep."

For its part, Ubisoft told Prince of Persia fans that despite six years of work, the game was still too far away from being ready to fund any further. "We weren't able to reach the level of quality you deserve," the company said in a statement, "and continuing would have required more time and investment than we could responsibly commit."

"Sadly the entertainment industry isn't just about entertainment," Ayaz concluded, "it's about guaranteeing a cash flow. And that means making decisions that treat people's lives as collateral damage, and art as disposable content... This project existed, even if the world never got to see it. So many talented artists devoted countless hours to make this happen. And that doesn't just disappear, it'll be in our hearts forever, as fricking corny as that sounds... The only way these stories survive is if the audience demands them."

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

With the triumphant return of Leon Kennedy, Resident Evil Requiem is forced to straddle an awkward line between all-out action and methodical survival horror. I’ll be honest, before getting my hands on the game and seeing the transition in action, I was extremely skeptical that Capcom would be able to create a coherent experience involving both Leon and Grace, the series’ latest, highly vulnerable protagonist. The switching between their polar opposite styles sounded jarring, which is almost never a good thing, and although it's been a while, it’s not like we haven’t been burned by Capcom’s desire to push the series towards action before. But I’m pleased to share that, from my all-too-brief three hours of hands-on time with Resident Evil Requiem, not only does this design really, really work, but there’s a lot more going on than just a merging of Resident Evil’s greatest hits.

My playtime started with a short test drive of Leon, and Resident Evil 4 muscle memory kicked in immediately. Make no mistake, this plays just like the recent remake, enhanced with some clever new additions suitable for a veteran badass. Leon is more handy than ever, with a deadly hatchet that he can swing mercilessly added to his regular arsenal. Leon can also heave axes found in the world, can perform new contextual finishing moves such as a handgun shot to the chin, and finally wield the violent chainsaw. There was once a time Leon feared the chainsaw, but now, Leon has become chainsaw, destroyer of ghouls. After a short 15 minutes, the gameplay shifted perspective to Grace Ashcroft, Requiem’s second protagonist, picking up her journey immediately after the events of the previous demo I wrote about in August last year. Grace and Leon are polar opposites. Gone were the tense gunfights and forward momentum of Resident Evil 4, as I was immediately thrust into what felt like a sterile, white, clean version of Resident Evil 7. For the next two hours, I explored the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, a somewhat traditional Resident Evil mansion that contains much of what you might expect among its rooms and corridors, but with plenty of new surprises. Surprises that mostly arise thanks to Grace’s abilities, or rather, lack thereof.

Much like in the previous demo, Grace’s section was focused almost exclusively on survival horror. She is armed with small pistols she finds in the environment, but her firepower and combat skills are negligible compared to our favorite floppy-haired icon. Where Leon can round-house kick zombies in the face, Grace makes do with a clumsy push. Leon is all-out assault, but the best course of action for Grace is slow and deliberate stealth, because if you do try to take some of the new enemies head-on, you’re going to have a bad time.

Last year’s demo revealed a new and much-celebrated stalker enemy, a towering, hunched, bug-eyed warden, but even within the span of my short three-hour session, I was introduced to another two, giving me the impression that Resident Evil Requiem won’t have one Mr. X or Nemesis-like persistent threat, but rather several smaller pursuers that seem to guard certain wings of the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center. Most notable was a hulking mass of blubber called Chunk, who burst through the wall and into my heart as he very slowly, but surely, ground his way through halls, stairwells and doorways in pursuit of me. Uniquely, Chunk fills the space entirely, so your only chance of survival is to find and navigate the loops built into the level design in order to outmaneuver the walking lardarse. It’s a clever design that generates a (somewhat) living, breathing wall of terror, and one you can’t simply sidestep or combat roll away from.

Much like the stalker I escaped last year, Chunk is cleverly implemented in the context of traditional safe rooms. Where the room’s bright light caused the previous stalker pain, Chunk simply can’t physically squeeze his sheer mass through the door, making sure there’s a logical in-world justification for a room of respite.

As well as Chunk, I also ran into a 7-foot-tall hulking unit masquerading as a chef, who, until he noticed me, was completely focused on his chopping chores. This soon-to-be stalker wasn’t yet in searching mode; rather, he was fulfilling, I assume, his pre-infection duties. This kind of behavior isn’t unique to the chef: It turns out in Resident Evil Requiem, the traditional zombie fodder is just as much the star of the show. You see, zombies not only talk now, but also have their own personalities.

The undead are no longer unfortunate, generic lost souls, but rather husks that retain a smidge of living personalities, hanging out in the space they once occupied. There’s the lounge singing shrieker in the bar area, who, before being alerted, entertains herself by belting out a ditty. There are the zombies who were formerly patients in recovery that insist on wheeling around their drip stands, which are then, unsurprisingly, wielded as weapons when they’re aggro’d. Some zombies hate loud noises and will repeatedly yell at you if you even so much as smash a vase, and then there’s one that loves nothing more than turning lights on and off until you rudely interrupt him.

If it’s not clear by now, Resident Evil Requiem, aside from being packed with action and fear, is now also funny, something the series has never (at least intentionally) achieved before. As Grace creeps around the hospital, there’s the continual threat that around every corner awaits horror, or laughter, or sometimes even both! When you can hear the undead nattering away in a room you know you have to enter to achieve your next objective, it’s hard to know whether to be scared or have a good chuckle. On paper, this sounds like it could be awful – I’m aware of that, but honestly, it’s so good! I laughed so hard when I caught one particularly dopey zombie red-handed (both literally and figuratively), lifting a large and, importantly, red canister to throw my way. I’m sure you can imagine what happened next.

The zombie fodder isn’t just around to entertain and quickly be disposed of, though. As Grace, the undead are a significant threat, always moving a little faster than you anticipate. Their fallen corpses also pose a significant conundrum, as they have the ability to turn into “Blister Heads,” a reinvention of the Resident Evil remake’s Crimson Heads for a new generation that reanimate with a bulbous cranium and become significantly tougher to take down. Fortunately, Grace has a new tool at her disposal: a Hemolytic Injector that weaponises the buckets of blood lying around the place (seriously, it’s everywhere), creating a lethal injection that can be used as a preventive measure against Blister Heads when injected into fallen enemies, and as a stealth attack against anything moving.

Beyond the new enemy types, playing as Grace does feel very familiar if you’ve played either Resident Evil 7 or Resident Evil 2, although obviously it leans more towards the latter if you choose to play as Grace in third person. You’re exploring a huge mansion with locked doors, there are obtuse puzzles to solve, antique coins to find that can upgrade your equipment, Mr. Raccoons to shoot, safe rooms with a typewriter for saving and a storage box for inventory management, and so forth. Leon, however, can brute-force open certain doors that Grace can’t and is far more aggressive with combat compared to Grace’s methodical stealth. You can also choose to play as Leon in first person, though after a brief dabble, it felt very unnatural to do so. I can’t help but think Capcom built this game with Leon in third person and Grace in first person in mind, but it’s hard to complain about more choice, despite knowing deep down the development team surely has a preference.

My demo ended with a second, all-too-short stint as Leon, which allowed me to revisit sections of the Care Center I’d previously experienced with Grace. Interestingly, this section demonstrated perhaps my favorite element of this hybrid experience. Leon is also exposed to some of the tougher combat encounters that I’d suffered through as Grace, although the perspective (much like my viewpoint of choice) is very different. When I met Chunk as Grace, I immediately retreated and was forced into a game of cat-and-mouse. The threat is intimidating and encourages you to tread lightly. As Leon, however, emboldened by my newly acquired shotgun, I felt instantly trigger-happy, unloading shells right up in Chunk’s face and launching hatchet attacks on his head as part of a fight that felt somewhat reminiscent of the El Gigante encounters of Resident Evil 4. To Grace, Chunk and his fellow creeps are stalkers; to Leon, they’re targets. This ethos was reaffirmed when taking on a wave of Blister Heads with Leon at the end of my play time. With Grace, I waited patiently for a stealth attack opportunity; with Leon, I was hurling hand grenades and throwing axes for fun.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Resident Evil series, so it feels like no coincidence that 2026’s Resident Evil Requiem is combining the best ideas of the saga into what appears to be a fantastically constructed tribute to everything that makes the series so great. Do you like tense survival horror? It’s here. Wanna go all guns blazing with intense action and a quip-obsessed hero? You get that too. Do you prefer playing RE games in first or third person? Doesn’t matter; you can do either. All these choices, along with my fears of a jarring play experience being mostly squashed, make it easy to believe that Capcom’s bold move to have its cake and eat it is going to pay off in a big way.

Dale Driver is an Associate Director of Video Programming at IGN. Be thoroughly bored by following him on Bluesky at @daledriver.bsky.social

I know it’s been sacrilege for nearly three decades now, but I’ve always preferred 2D Mario games to those newfangled 3D ones. (I’m an elder Millennial; leave grandpa to his ramblings). So I couldn’t be happier Super Mario Bros. Wonder is getting the “Switch 2 Edition + expansion” treatment in March. To celebrate the new-gen upgrade and the Meetup in Bellabel Park DLC, Nintendo is releasing three new amiibo based on the game. They cost $24.99 each, and are set to release March 26, the same day as the game’s new content. They’re available to preorder now (see them at Amazon).

Super Mario Bros. Wonder amiibo

• See at Amazon
• See at GameStop
• See at Target

The new amiibo are Elephant Mario, Captain Toad & Talking Flower, and Poplin & Prince Florian. Elephant Mario is a delightful amiibo, with the pachyderm plumber squeezing his portly torso into a pipe. As for the Poplin amiibo, the orangesicle-colored character holds a watering can while Prince Florian sits on his head. And in the Captain Toad amiibo, our hero is doing a victory pose in front of the Talking Flower.

Talking Flower Preorders Are Live

Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch) on Sale

Destined Rivals has been one of the trickier 2025 sets in the Pokémon TCG to find at a half-decent price, but Amazon’s just come in with a price cut that puts it well above TCGplayer.

Right now, the six-pack Destined Rivals Booster Bundle is available on Amazon for $52.98, shipped and sold directly by Amazon. The reason that this 9% price drop is especially notable is because That’s notable because TCGplayer currently lists the market price at roughly $52.90, with recent sales consistently landing in the low-to-mid $50 range.

Another Nintendo Direct is coming this Thursday, January 29, dedicated to the company's upcoming social sim game Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream.

Coming just days after a Nintendo Direct focused on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie which debuted our first look at Yoshi, Birdo and more, the next scheduled broadcast from the company will instead return to its games.

You'll be able to tune in for more details on the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 life sim game this Thursday at 6am Pacific, 9am Eastern or 2pm UK time. The stream is set to run around 20 minutes.

Living the Dream will be the third game in Nintendo's Tomodachi Life franchise, which lets you oversee a community of Mii characters. While a relatively niche series in the West compared to its bigger brands, Tomodachi Life enjoys a strong following among its fans, and particularly so in Japan.

Now, the franchise will be getting its first dedicated Nintendo Direct, similar to how Kirby Air Riders was treated to its own presentation (and then a second!) last year.

The series' first game, Tomodachi Collection, launched in 2009 for Nintendo DS (albeit only in Japan). Its 3DS sequel, Tomodachi Life, was then released worldwide and went on to sell a very respectable 6.72 million units.

Memorably, Tomodachi Life experienced a backlash over its lack of same-sex relationships, something that Nintendo found itself having to comment on after rumors spread online that they were something that had been originally programmed into the game that was later removed. Nintendo denied this, though not before the controversy blew up to the point that it was parodied on late night TV by John Oliver, via a skit which featured crudely animated versions of Mario and Link snogging. Notably, Nintendo then promised that if it did make another Tomodachi Life game, it would make it "more inclusive, and [something that] better represents all players."

While the status of same-sex relationships is yet to be confirmed (though may be this week), Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is already notable for finally allowing Mii characters to have ears. It only took 20 years.

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

It has recently been revealed that Nintendo veteran Hideki Konno retired from the company last summer after almost 40 years.

Joining Nintendo in 1986, Konno shaped many of the Japanese game company’s major series. He worked as assistant director on Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, as well as designing the games’ levels and characters. Later, as a director, he helmed games including Yoshi's Island, the SNES version of SimCity, and Luigi’s Mansion on the GameCube.

However, Konno is probably best known for his extensive work on the Mario Kart series. He directed the original Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64, before going on to produce Mario DS, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart 7, Mario Kart 8 (plus the Deluxe version), and Mario Kart Tour. He got a special thanks credit on Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World.

Anyone that has to do a lot of work – or even gaming – on a computer knows the virtue of having multiple displays. After all, it makes multitasking easier, without having to rely on alt-tab going to the right window. That’s kind of what the Asus Zenbook Duo is looking to capitalize on, and unlike some of the half-baked designs seen on this laptop line in the past, Asus has actually nailed the formula this time around.

In a nutshell, the Asus Zenbook Duo is just like any other thin-and-light laptop. It’s powered by Intel’s new Panther Lake CPU – specifically the Core Ultra X9 388H – which is powerful, but not the kind of desktop-class performance you’d expect in a heavier workstation or gaming laptop. Still, because of the improvements Intel has made with this generation of mobile processors, this laptop is actually capable of gaming at decent quality settings with a high-ish frame rate.

That said, I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone looking for a strictly gaming laptop. But if you’re a creative person that wants something thin, light, and able to do some gaming on the side – while having a whole second display attached – the Asus Zenbook Duo has a lot to love. That is, if you can get past the $2,299 price tag.

Design and Features

The ZenBook Duo is ostensibly a ‘thin and light’ laptop, but it’s not actually that thin when everything is folded up, measuring about 0.9 inches thick at its thickest point. But when you consider that thickness is two displays, a keyboard and a whole system, it’s actually impressive that Asus was able to fit it into such a thin package.

The extra display also makes the Zenbook Duo a little heavier than it’d otherwise be, coming in at 1.65kg, or 3.63 lb, with everything included. That’s much lighter than something like the Razer Blade, but considering it’s not packing the same kind of hardware, that’s only to be expected.

When the laptop is first opened, it looks like pretty much any other 14-inch laptop. There’s a lovely 16:10 OLED display, and a keyboard. But when I glanced at the side of the laptop I could immediately tell that the keyboard can be removed, just by the difference in tone between the keyboard and the rest of the chassis. The difference is subtle, but it’s just enough that they look like two separate pieces.

However, it’s not immediately clear how the keyboard should be removed. I mean, in theory, it’s not complicated, because it’s just magnetic, but the first time I opened the device I found myself gingerly pulling up on the keyboard in random places making sure I was removing it from the right place. It would have been nice if Asus added a little grip of some kind to the top-right corner of the keyboard, just to make pulling the keyboard off the bottom display a little easier – even if it’s not that complicated.

The keyboard itself attaches magnetically to a set of POGO pins at the bottom of the second display. This serves two purposes: it connects the keyboard to the PC without relying on Bluetooth, and also keeps it charged wirelessly.

When you pull the keyboard off of the bottom display, the PC should automatically enable the second screen, and the keyboard itself will automatically switch to Bluetooth mode. The only time it didn’t do this for me was in the middle of testing, and I was very upset until I figured out that I had disabled Bluetooth for the battery test. Every other time, though, it just worked.

Due to how thin it needs to be, the keyboard doesn’t sport the deepest travel. It’s just a chiclet keyboard at the end of the day, but it’s comfortable enough to type on. However, what’s really annoying is the gestures Asus built into the trackpad. For years now, Asus has had a fascination with making its trackpads as feature-packed as possible, but what actually ends up happening is that my palm is constantly turning up or down the brightness as I’m typing. This is a feature you can thankfully disable in the MyAsus app, but it annoys me every time. What’s wild is that when the feature is disabled, the trackpad actually has excellent palm rejection. Make it make sense.

On the left side of the laptop, the ZenBook Duo sports an HDMI cable, a Thunderbolt 5 port and a headphone jack (they still make those). The keyboard also has a USB-C port on its left side, but that’s just there for charging the keyboard. On the right, you’ll find the power button, another Thunderbolt port and a singular USB-A port for legacy peripherals.

Around the back, there’s a kickstand. That seems weird at first glance, but it’s actually necessary to use the Zenbook Duo in dual-display mode. It works excellently when the displays are sitting horizontal, but for some reason the kickstand only covers the center of the device, which means if you want to turn the device sideways – which would be great for working on documents or coding – you have to kind of angle the displays in a weird book configuration. And even then, it’s not very stable.

A Second Display?

Having a second display is always going to be useful – that’s why portable monitors exist in the first place – but having one built into the laptop is a compelling idea. This isn’t the first time Asus has made a device like this, with the ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 debuting way back at Computex 2019. However, that laptop looks a lot different than the new 2026 model.

On that previous model, the second display was cut in half and placed above the keyboard deck. This immediately limited its usefulness, as you couldn’t put full-sized apps on it. Plus, this was around the same time that Asus was experimenting with the Screenpad concept, which embedded the numpad into the touchpad – and it’s never really been executed on properly.

In 2024, though, Asus debuted the Zenbook Duo with a full second display, which made it a much more usable device. Now, the company has followed that up with a more refined Zenbook Duo for 2026. For the first time in the 7 years since I saw that first ZenBook Pro Duo at Computex 2019, I’m sold on the concept.

Critically, the Zenbook Duo simply works like a normal laptop in its one-screen-configuration. The second display is only there when I need it, meaning I don’t have to sacrifice a comfortable keyboard like on the original models. And then when I do want to whip out that second display, it’s incredibly useful.

It was really when I sat down to write this review that it started to click for me. I put the laptop in its dual screen mode with Asus’ review guide on the second display, while typing on the top as normal. You see, I do most of my writing on a laptop, and I’ve gotten very good at using touchpad gestures to swap between multiple displays to look at reference material. That’s just how I’m used to working these days, but this laptop makes it so much easier to reference or access a second document or other source of information.

With the Zenbook Duo, I have Google Docs open on the top display with the reference materials right below it. And, because they’re both touch displays, I can just scroll through documents with the touch screen. It feels incredibly natural.

It doesn’t hurt that they’re both gorgeous displays, either. In my colorimeter tests, both displays hit 100% of the RGB and P3 color gamuts, making pretty much any content spring to life. This is also great for photo and video editing, as I can be sure that the edits I’m making are accurate without having to second guess anything.

You can also just remove the keyboard and summon an on-screen keyboard on the second display by using a gesture by pressing four fingers from both of your hands on the screen at the same time. You can even shrink the on-screen keyboard by pressing those same fingers on the screen, and dragging them down. With the latter, it is almost like the Zenbook Duos of old, even! However, actually typing this way is a nightmare, so I wouldn’t recommend it as anything more than a party trick.

Even though I’m not the biggest fan of the physical keyboard and trackpad, the Zenbook Duo is quickly becoming one of my favorite laptops to work on. Even if I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for gaming.

Performance

The Zenbook Duo that Asus sent for review is powered by an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. And even though it doesn’t have a discrete graphics chip, the integrated Intel Arc B390 is no slouch.

Intel spent the months leading up to CES bragging about how good Panther Lake – the architecture behind the 388H – is at gaming. So I did what any sensible tech reviewer would do and ran it through the same testing regimen as any other gaming laptop. And while it definitely does struggle at its native resolution of 1800p, at 1200p you’ll be able to play pretty much anything, as long as you stay away from the highest quality settings.

Our standard benchmark suite for gaming laptops tests all the games at their max quality settings, and as such, the integrated graphics in the Zenbook Duo do start to struggle. In Cyberpunk 2077, on the Ray Tracing Ultra preset at 1200p, this laptop gets 29 fps – not great. However, turn the settings down to the High preset and it gets 65 fps – and that’s before frame generation.

Oh, yeah, Panther Lake’s integrated GPU supports up to 4x multi-frame generation, just like DLSS or FSR Redstone. With frame generation enabled, Cyberpunk on the High preset goes up to 103 fps at 2x FG and 165 fps at 4x FG. Those numbers look good, but keep in mind that it also comes with a slight increase in latency, going from around 39-42ms without frame gen to 55-72ms with frame gen maxed out.

Compare that to the Lenovo Legion Go 2 – also powered by a mobile-class integrated GPU – which gets 37 fps at 1200p with the same settings. The two processors aren’t directly compatible, as the Legion Go 2’s Z2 Extreme tops out at 35W, compared to about 54W for the ZenBook Duo, but it’s close enough that I’m really looking forward to seeing how this architecture does in a handheld gaming PC.

Gaming performance does really suffer when you play games at the native 1800p resolution, though. For instance, in Cyberpunk, the frame rate drops to 21 fps with the Ray Tracing Ultra preset and XeSS set to the performance setting. And, in Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition, the framerate goes from 20 fps with the Extreme Preset at 1200p all the way to a measly 13 fps at 1800p.

Even with the new Panther Lake architecture, the Zenbook Duo is clearly still not a gaming laptop, but it does have good enough gaming performance that you should be able to play some games in your downtime.

Battery Life

When a laptop really wants you to work all day on it, it actually has to last most of the day. After all, you don’t want to be in the middle of an important project only to have it die on you halfway through. Luckily, the Zenbook Duo does last quite a while on battery.

In the Procyon Office Productivity Battery benchmark, the ZenBook Duo lasts a whopping 17 hours and 35 minutes on battery, which makes it one of the longest lasting laptops we’ve tested by a lot – though admittedly we almost never review this class of laptop at IGN. The battery puts the Zenbook Duo in the same class as the MacBook Air. Only, Apple’s laptops don’t have a second screen attached to them.

Even outside of the tests, in the week or so I’ve spent with the Zenbook Duo, I never had to rush to plug it in, with it sitting on my desk for a couple of days of intermittent use before needing to charge. This is definitely the type of laptop I’d like to take with me to an event like CES, where its creative chops and long battery life would help me out immensely.

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

Intel technically revealed Panther Lake back in October 2025, leading with the Xe 3 graphics architecture, which Intel claimed was a massively improved integrated graphics chip. Well, shortly after these new laptop processors were "launched" at CES 2026, I’ve finally been able to sit down and test it for myself.

And while the Asus Zenbook Duo I used to try out the Intel Core X9 Ultra 388H isn’t exactly what I’d call a "gaming laptop," what with it not having a discrete graphics chip, it’s more than capable of playing AAA games at high settings. You just have to temper your expectations a bit. If you ask me, though, a thin and light laptop playing games at high settings isn’t the most exciting thing in the world. What’s going to be much more interesting is how Panther Lake is going to perform in handheld gaming PCs.

The Laptop Processor as a Handheld Processor

While Intel has hinted at a handheld-only Panther Lake chip making its way to market some time this year, we don’t necessarily have to wait that long to see these laptop CPUs make their handheld debut. After all, there are plenty of gaming handhelds out there using laptop chips – even if they’re not exactly the most efficient models out there.

Handhelds like the Ayaneo Kun and the GPD Win 4 have been using full-fat laptop CPUs since before the Steam Deck even existed, and that’s not going to stop any time soon. These chips are powerful, especially for the kind of lower-resolution display you find on a handheld, but thus far they’ve been held back by subpar battery life.

That’s one of the reasons, after all, why Valve elected to toss a 15W custom AMD APU in the Steam Deck, otherwise it’d run out of battery after an hour like these other handhelds. That was also the driving force behind AMD’s Z-series chips, starting with the Z1 Extreme that showed up in the ROG Ally and the original Legion Go.

And for the last few years, these Z-series chips have been kind of the default when it comes to gaming handhelds, giving AMD the majority of the handheld market. However, with the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and its Lunar Lake-powered Core Ultra 7 258V, Intel started to sneak into the market.

That was, like the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H I tested in the Zenbook Duo, a laptop chip, albeit one with a slightly lower 37W max power.

I’ve done a lot of the testing on the MSI Claw 8 AI+, and one thing that’s fascinating about that handheld is how long the battery lasts. In PCMark10, which is admittedly not a gaming test, the Claw 8 lasts more than 15 hours, compared to 10 hours from the Legion Go 2. Obviously, those numbers are a lot smaller when you’re actually playing games, but it shows how much better Intel is at handling battery life.

And, in my early tests of Panther Lake, the new Core X9 Ultra 388H is getting northwards of 17 hours in the Procyon Office Productivity battery test. That’s not the same test, but the workloads being tested are similar enough that I’m definitely interested in seeing something like this in a handheld.

Panther Lake Gaming Handheld Chips Are Already Going to Be a Thing

At CES 2026, Intel told us that a Panther Lake handheld chip was on the horizon. We don’t know anything about what this chip will actually look like, just that it’s called the “Intel Core G3” and that it’s coming some time this year. But either way, I’m excited to see what it can do.

I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be as powerful as the Core Ultra X9 388H found in the Zenbook Duo, but I do think it’s going to be close. Intel claims that this G3 chip will be leveraging the full power of the Arc B390 graphics in the 388H, just likely with less CPU cores and maybe a trimmed down NPU (neural processing unit).

We won’t know how Intel is going to spec this thing out until it’s announced, but if it’s the same B390 that’s in Panther Lake, we might be looking at 60fps gaming in high-end games with high graphics settings. And that’s before Intel’s new multi-frame generation enters the equation.

For instance, in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1200p with the High preset and XeSS set to “Quality,” I was able to get an average of 65fps in a slice of gameplay from the opening mission. When I turned on frame generation, that number went up to 103fps with FG set to 2x and 160fps at 4x multi-frame generation. Now, those higher numbers pushed latency up from 45-55 ms of PC latency up to around 72ms with 4x frame gen, but I don’t know how much that matters in a single player RPG.

AMD’s Old Architectures

If Intel’s nascent handheld chip does come with the same B390 GPU as its high-end Panther Lake laptop chips, Team Blue could actually pull ahead of AMD. As good as the Ryzen Z2 Extreme is, AMD’s handheld chip uses RDNA 3.5 graphics, which isn’t exactly ancient, but it’s also a generation behind the flagship Radeon RX 9070 XT that debuted at the same time. More importantly, it can’t leverage Team Red’s latest upscaling tech. And that’s the best handheld chip AMD has to offer at the moment.

The rest of the Z2 series of handheld chips is in a much worse position. The regular Z2 is using an RDNA 3 GPU, and the Z2 Go, primarily found in the entry-level Legion Go S, has an RDNA 2 graphics core. For reference, RDNA 2 debuted back in 2020.

In AMD’s defense, it makes sense to pair lower-end processors with older architectures to save cash, but if Intel is coming to market with a handheld chip that offers a faster and more efficient architecture, it’s not hard to imagine that Team Red has to be sweating a little bit. It’s going to be a few months before an Intel Panther Lake handheld gaming PC makes its way to market, but when it does, I’m going to be very interested to get it in the lab to see how it holds up against AMD’s established Z-series chips.

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

Surprise! It looks like a 30th Anniversary Edition of Rayman is on the way.

Though not formally confirmed by Ubisoft, the unannounced game has popped up on the Australian Classification website, and it's apparently coming to both Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5.

While the franchise is owned by Ubisoft, both the developer and publisher are listed as Atari, which has previously distributed physical editions of games and remakes. Sadly, the listing gives us very little detail on what to expect aside from confirmation that it has "very mild" violence (thanks, Gematsu).

Director Sam Raimi has ruled out making a belated fourth film for Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man despite once having plans to do so, as his versions of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson now "have gone elsewhere."

Speaking to Screenrant, Raimi said that he still loved the Spider-Man franchise but could not see a way he would return to direct another entry himself, despite the enduring popularity of Maguire's incarnation and calls from fans for more following the character's reappearance in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home.

That film featured Maguire's Spider-Man temporarily crossing over into the MCU and meeting Tom Holland's iteration, before returning to his own universe — and in an earlier version of the script, there were reportedly plans for Kirsten Dunst to reprise her role as Mary Jane as well.

"For a brief time I was handed the torch to carry on after 40 years of Spider-Man comics," Raimi said of his time working on the franchise. "And then after my three movies, I handed the torch off to someone else. And I think they've got to keep running with the storyline and the audience that is now following the torchbearer."

Raimi had once planned a further full trilogy of Spider-Man movies starring Tobey Maguire, and reportedly had lined up John Malkovich to play Vulture, Anne Hathaway as Black Cat, and Bruce Campbell as Mysterio to appear across the new films.

Alas, Sony ultimately decided to cancel work on the new trilogy amid disagreements over the film's script and Raimi's schedule. The company then opted to instead reboot the franchise with Marc Webb directing Spider-Man's new Andrew Garfield incarnation.

Now, Raimi has suggested he'd be unable to tell more stories with his versions of Spider-Man and Mary Jane as their lives have continued off-screen (while Marvel Studios has now come up with its own versions of Vulture and Mysterio to face up against Tom Holland's Spider-Man). Because of that, Raimi has said it wouldn't "be right for me to go back and try and resurrect my version of this story" and that he had been able to "pass the torch happily."

Marvel fans still expect they haven't seen the last of Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, however, with a further return for the actor expected, though certainly not yet confirmed, in Avengers: Secret Wars, Marvel's upcoming climactic conclusion to the MCU's Multiverse Saga.

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

Whether you log in to keep up with the NBA or you’re just a casual fan of video games, chances are, you’ve seen a lot of talk about content creators Kingsman265, Cece, zazzastack, and an infamous $40,000 Marvel Rivals tournament recently.

What began as a livestreamed spat between esports teammates has since evolved into an inescapable beast of a trending topic that quickly broke containment in the Marvel Rivals community. But who are these people? Why are thousands rallying behind their favorite online personalities? And why are the Atlanta Hawks posting TikToks about a Marvel Rivals tournament?

The saga many are calling the “Kingsman265 drama” began just earlier this month and is transforming every day, so we did our best to explain the story so far for those who need to know what’s got the internet so worked up.

🏆 DEADPOOL CREATOR CUP 🏆
$40,000 Prizepool - 8 Captains - 48 Creators

🎴 CAPTAINS DRAFT DAY - Jan 13th
🎴 TOURNAMENT DAY - Jan 18th

Marvel Rivals Tournament hosted by @BasimZB @MarvelRivals #MarvelRivals #DeadpoolCreatorCup pic.twitter.com/6GtTcxzJQA

— BasimZB (@BasimZB) January 12, 2026

The Deadpool Creator Cup

NetEase Games’ Marvel hero shooter became the center of attention when a relatively small Marvel Rivals esports content creator named Kingsman265 uploaded a YouTube video titled, “I was kicked from a $40,000 tournament…” on January 17, 2026. That tournament, hosted by streamer BasimZB, was known as the Deadpool Creator Cup, a somewhat small competition advertised to feature 48 creators as Deadpool joined Marvel Rivals. According to a number of competitors invited to the tourney, the competition didn’t include a $40,000 prize pool until after invites had been sent out and many had already signed on.

“In this video I show all perspectives, POV's and exactly why I was removed,” Kingsman says in the video’s description. “With this being one of the biggest tournaments I've played in, and $40,000 on the line with the prize pool being $18,000 for first place, AKA $3,000 per person.”

Most of Kingsman’s videos hover around 25,000 views, with many struggling to break 10,000 views as recently as eight months ago. At the time of this piece’s publication, his upload covering the creator tournament has amassed 2.7 million views. Kingsman says numerous times, both in and outside of the video, that he’s a college student, and that winning the $3,000 would go a long way toward helping pay his bills.

“It is an insanely big deal for someone like me,” his description adds.

Debuting at The Game Awards 2025 with an end-of-show reveal trailer, Highguard is a new free-to-play PvP raid shooter hailing from some of the creators of Respawn's Apex Legends and Titanfall.

Though we've heard very little since, Highguard reemerged last week with the promise of a launch showcase that confirmed the January 26, 2026 release date. The showcase will offer a "full gameplay deep dive, year one plans, and much more."

In Highguard, players will "ride, fight, and raid as Wardens, arcane gunslingers sent to fight for control of a mythic continent," although it has suffered from a degree of negativity online since that The Game Awards reveal.

Highguard is set to launch across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. Confirmation of its release time comes from SteamDB, which of course relates only to the global Steam launch, but it is likely Highguard will go live simultaneously across all platforms.

Highguard global release times:

Depending on where you are in the world, Highguard is set to go live on:

Monday, January 26, 2026:

PST (San Francisco):

• 10am

CST (Austin, Mexico City):

• 12pm

EST (New York):

• 1pm

GMT (London):

• 6pm

CET (Paris):

• 7pm

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

JST (Tokyo):

• 3am

CST (Beijing):

• 3am

AEST (Sydney):

• 5am

NZST (Wellington):

• 7am

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