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© Activision Blizzard
The House of the Dead will be the latest video game to head to the big screen, and it's got a seasoned adaptation director at the helm.
Per a Deadline report on Thursday, Paul W.S. Anderson will write and direct the big-screen version of The House of the Dead, the Sega horror shooter series. He'll also be producing alongside his longtime creative partner Jeremy Bolt.
And it seems Anderson just can't stay away from this genre, with The House of the Dead marking his fourth adaptation of a video game property. Previously, Anderson directed Mortal Kombat (1995), Resident Evil (2002), and most recently Monster Hunter (2020).
Anderson also gave an interview to Deadline where he gave a quick glimpse as to how he'll be approaching this adaptation, revealing that he'll be basing it on the story of The House of the Dead 3. "If you know the mythology, that is all about family conflict, amidst the action and scares," he told the outlet.
"It’s about a woman, Lisa Rogan, who’s attempting to rescue her father," he explained. "And it’s also about Daniel Curien, who’s the son of the man who caused this mutant outbreak in the first place and who has to deal with the sins of the father."
Anderson added he's been a fan of The House of the Dead games since the '90s, which is when the Sega series kicked off. It became known not only for its use of the light gun, but for its different take on the zombie genre, featuring fast-moving creatures.
“My approach will be to reflect what this hyper-immersive, kinetic video game is, which is why Zack Snyder took these creatures and made them fast moving (in 2004's Dawn of the Dead),” Anderson said. “This is a full-on terror ride. It’s different than what we did with Resident Evil, where there were lots of traps and puzzles and things to be figured out. House of the Dead is at heart a light rail shooter game, so it drags you straight into the middle of the action. I’m going to make a movie that mirrors that approach and plays out in real time, dragging the audience straight into the action."
It's only the latest big-screen take on a Sega game, with the Sonic the Hedgehog movies continuing to move along with Paramount Pictures. And just earlier this month, Sega announced a film adaptation of its Shinobi movies at Universal.
Interestingly, the Deadline report notes that Sega has been protective of The House of the Dead IP. However, Toru Nakahara, Sega's Head of Production for Movies/TV, tells the outlet that the Sonic films "changed the dynamic toward our transmedia policies and since then we’ve been actively developing a lot of productions, looking at it as an initiative to expand the whole Sega brand."
Further details, including a cast or release window, are still pending. For more on the series, check out our review of the 2022 House of the Dead remake, where we said it "can be an enjoyable return to the classic arcade rail shooter, but performance hiccups and frustrating controls are scarier enemies than the zombies themselves."
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
A trio of new Lego movies is in development, although these ones might look a little different than what you're expecting.
Deadline reports on Thursday that Universal is developing three live-action Lego movies, and it's already tapped three buzzy directors for the job. Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), Jake Kasdan (Jumanji), and Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) are attached to direct one movie each.
Plot details are being kept under wraps, but Deadline's report does reveal the writers of each film. Jenkins' was written by herself and former DC Entertainment President Geoff Johns; Kasdan's was written by Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul based on an original idea and previous draft by Matt Mider and Kevin Burrows; and Cornish is rewriting a draft by Heather Anne Campbell (Rick & Morty, One Punch Man) based on a treatment by Simon Rich.
It's quite the turn for the Lego film franchise, which has found success in animation. The series kicked off in 2014 with The Lego Movie, which was a big enough hit to spawn three follow-ups: The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego Ninjago Movie, and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.
Those movies all came out through Warner Bros., but Universal bought five-year rights to make separate films in 2020 with the goal "to develop, produce and distribute theatrical releases based on its intellectual property and original ideas." Still, there's been little news about Universal's plans with Lego since that initial announcement, and the franchise has been basically on hold since The Lego Movie 2 in 2019.
No release dates or production windows have been revealed for any of the three movies. For more in the meantime, check out our 7.5/10 review of The Lego Movie 2, where we called it "a vibrant, likable sequel that's just a little too ambitious for its own good."
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
EA and Respawn Entertainment are making a change to Apex Legends that will no longer allow players to access the game via Linux OS, including Steam Deck using Linux.
The developers announced the shift away from Linux support in a post on its website. Although it’s a move that will no doubt surprise those affected, EA says dropping support for the OS option is part of the company’s wider initiative to maintain “competitive integrity” and fight off cheaters.
“In our efforts to combat cheating in Apex, we've identified Linux OS as being a path for a variety of impactful exploits and cheats,” the post says. “As a result, we've decided to block Linux OS access to the game. While this will impact a small number of Apex players, we believe the decision will meaningfully reduce instances of cheating in our game.”
EA calls Linux an “attractive” OS for those looking to cheat for a variety of reasons. The thought process behind the decision involved weighing the number of legitimate Linux players against the impact the growing number of cheaters has had on the average Apex Legend fan. While it’s unclear exactly how many players utilize Linux when playing Apex Legends, EA and Respawn say it’s a tradeoff they are willing to make.
The reason the team says it’ll be ending support for Steam Deck, which uses Linux by default, is that there is “currently no reliable way for us to differentiate a legitimate Steam Deck from a malicious cheat claiming to be a Steam Deck (via Linux).” However, if handheld users manage to install and use Windows on Steam Deck instead, they’ll be able to continue playing on the device. So, while the developers continue to crack down on cheaters plaguing the long-running battle royale game, all Linux users will no longer be able to enjoy the experience at all.
“To eliminate this cheat vector, we have made the decision to prevent access to the game for Linux users,” EA continues. “This means that Apex Legends will be unplayable immediately for those running this operating system.”
Apex Legends brought the Titanfall universe into the free-to-play battle royale world in 2019. We gave it a 9/10 in our review, saying that the experience’s “mix of exciting characters, excellent gunplay, and unmatched FPS movement keep it a consistently fresh thrill.” Although fans took the first-person shooter’s gameplay upon launch, it’s not been without its struggles. Respawn announced that it would make alterations to its Battle Pass model in July of this year but quickly reverted many changes after widespread outcry from fans.
Apex Legends Season 22, titled Shockwave, is currently wrapping up, with Season 23 set to soon continue a long run of seasonal updates. As for the far-off future, EA has recently confirmed that it has no interest in making Apex Legends 2.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.
As we gear up for Season 2 of Squid Game, the highly anticipated follow-up to Netflix's 2021 breakout smash, we've just gotten our latest trailer — and it looks like there's a couple twists to the games in store.
There’s no stopping the game 👧🏻 Squid Game Season 2 arrives December 26. pic.twitter.com/z1yDgowXxs
— Netflix (@netflix) October 31, 2024
The trailer shows Lee Jung-jae reprising his role as Seong Gi-hun, as we find him in the deadly Squid Game once again after winning Season 1's competition. There's a look at the familiar — namely, the iconic Red Light Green Light game from Season 1 — but this latest trailer also presents an interestingly new rule: after each game, the contestants will place a vote. If the majority agrees, the games will end and the surviving contestants can take the money they've accumulated and leave. Barring that, however, the games will continue.
Unsurprisingly, that voting mechanic sets up some new drama, with Gi-hun urging the other contestants to do whatever they can to get out of there. It doesn't seem like that's going well, though, as the others ignore his pleas and push to continue.
In addition to Gi-hun, we get a look at another familiar face as well: there's a brief glimpse of Lee Byung-hun, who's returning as the mysterious Front Man. Wi Ha-jun is returning too as Hwang Jun-ho, a detective on his own relentless mission.
Netflix also unveiled some new key art and images, which you can see below.
South Korean thriller Squid Game quickly became a massive international hit after its 2021 release, garnering rave reviews and word-of-mouth with its dark story of a secret contest that saw 456 players risking their lives for a massive cash prize. A second season was confirmed the following year, and it'll end with a third season in 2025.
Squid Game Season 2 will premiere on December 26. In the meantime, check out our 9/10 review of Season 1, where we called it a "candy-coated battle royale that thrives on making its players — and audience — squirm."
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
A reboot of 1993 action-thriller Cliffhanger has officially been confirmed, but it'll be missing a key star.
Production company Rocket Science announced on Thurday that it's in production on a reboot of Cliffhanger, and that this version will star Lily James and Bond actor Pierce Brosnan. However, Variety reports that original star Sylvester Stallone, who was part of the reboot's initial package, has dropped out amid a "creative overhaul."
Rocket Science has also unveiled a first look image and a behind-the-scenes photo, both of which you can see below.
Also part of that creative overhaul, the reboot has a new director. It was originally meant to be directed by Ric Roman Waugh from a script by Mark Bianculli, but Jaume Collet-Serra (Jungle Cruise, Black Adam, The Shallows) will now take the helm, directing from a script based on a story by Ana Lily Amirpour. The Variety report notes that the reboot is being described as a "father-daughter take on Die Hard."
You can read the official synopsis from the production company below:
In this reboot of Cliffhanger, seasoned mountaineer Ray Cooper (Pierce Brosnan) and his daughter Sydney run a mountain chalet in the Dolomites. During a weekend trip with a billionaire's son, they are targeted by a gang of kidnappers. Ray's older daughter Naomi (Lily James), still haunted by a past climbing accident, witnesses the attack and escapes. To save her family, she must confront her fears and fight for survival in the Italian Dolomites.
In addition to James and Brosnan, the new Cliffhanger will also star Nell Tiger Free, Franz Rogowski, Shubham Saraf, Assaad Bouab, Suzy Bemba, and Bruno Gouery. A release window has not yet been announced, but filming is currently underway in Austria.
The original Cliffhanger starred Stallone as a mountain climber who encounters a group of violent criminals after they lose their heist loot in a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains. It was a hit at the time, becoming one of the highest-grossing movies of the year with $255 million at the box office.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
The Dell Early Black Friday Sale has commenced and Dell has once again come out in front with some pretty outstanding deals on Alienware Aurora R16 gaming desktops and Alienware m-series and x-series gaming laptops. Check out all of the deals below, and we'll keep adding to the list as we find more.
You can quickly browse through all of the listed products on sale above. See below for our favorite picks.
The R16 is Alienware's current 2024 desktop PC design. It's 40% smaller in volume compared to previous iterations. It features a simple yet proven airflow pattern; air is drawn in through the side intake vents over the GPU area and a 120mm fan at the front of the case, and exhausts by way of a 120mm rear fan and two 120mm top fans. A 240mm radiator for the all-in-one liquid cooling system is mounted to these top fans. Some configurations don't actually include the liquid cooling system, but we rarely include them in this roundup. That's because Alienware's liquid cooling solution is far superior to their stock air cooling and is easily worth the price premium.
The Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 4090 Super gaming PC drops to $2,999.99 after a $700 instant discount. The RTX 4090 is the most powerful GPU on the market. In his RTX 4090 review, Chris Coke writes, "The RTX 4090 may be huge and expensive, but holy smokes if it doesn’t blow the competition out of the water... Until the rest of the pack can catch up, between its impressive hardware specs and its DLSS 3 AI wizardry, even the $1,599 price doesn’t seem unreasonable for the unrivaled frame rates that this card can crank out." The 4090 is also great for AI thanks to its 24GB of VRAM.
The Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 4080 Super gaming PC drops to as low as $1,999.99 after an $800 instant discount. The 4080 Super is a second generation card that supersedes the RTX 4080. It's Nvidia's second most powerful card and a superior GPU to AMD's Radeon RX 7900 RTX if you factor in DLSS and ray tracing performance. In our RTX 4080 Super review, Jacqueline Thomas writes, "If you're in the market for a 4K graphics card around $1,000, it's hard to think of any GPU that's a better purchase right now. This is the RTX 4080 that should have launched in 2022."
Dell has dropped the price on this Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 4070 Super gaming PC to $1,499.99 after a $400 instant discount. Alternatively, you can save $100 and get the RTX 4070 (non-Super) model instead. The performance difference between the two is about 15%. This is the best value for gamers who want a PC that can run any game currently available, but don't want to spend to overspend. The RTX 4070 Super is the best graphics card for most people; it's not exorbitantly priced, and it's powerful enough to run games at up to 4K resolution (although 1440p is its sweet spot).
The Alienware Aurora R16 gaming PC features a Intel Core i7-14700F CPU and RTX 4060 Ti GPU for only $1,199.99 after a $400 instant discount. The RTX 4060 Ti video card is a very good option for 1080p gaming at high frame rates. It's also the minimum NVIDIA GPU we'd recommend for 1440p gaming, although you'll see noticeable gains by jumping to an RTX 4070.
This Alienware Aurora R16 gaming PC boasts a multitasking-friendly Intel Core i9-14900F CPU and RTX 4070 Ti Super GPU for $1,799.99 after a $600 instant discount. The RTX 4070 Ti Super is a second gen RTX 40 series GPU; it's about 10% more powerful than the RTX 4070 Ti and 15-25% faster than the RTX 4070 Super. This is a great card for both 1440p and 4K gaming. The VRAM count is upped to 16GB compared the the RTX 4070 Ti's 12GB, which means it has the same amount of VRAM as the RTX 4080 Super.
There are two important tidbits that deserve mention concerning graphics cards found in laptops. First, mobile GPU variants are not as powerful as their desktop counterparts. For example, a mobile RTX 4060 doesn't perform as well as a desktop RTX 4060. The mobile versions are generally about one to two tiers lower in performance. For example the mobile RTX 4060 performs more similarly to a desktop RTX 4050.
Second, not all laptops feature the same performance out of the same GPU. For example, the RTX 4060 found in the Alienware m16 will be more powerful than the RTX 4060 found in the Alienware x14. In order to roughly tell how good a GPU will be, you can look at the TGP rating. That's basically the amount of power supplied to the GPU. A higher TGP rating means more power will be delivered, equating to stronger performance, however the wattage consumption and heat generated will be higher. Here are the maximum TGP rates for the RTX 40 series graphics cards:
Dell is offering an Alienware m16 R2 16" RTX 4060 gaming laptop for $1,199.99 after a $300 instant discount. You'll need a decent amount of GPU power to be able to run games smoothly on the display's bumped-up QHD+ resolution. The RTX 4060 sits between the RTX 3070 and the RTX 3070 Ti, so it's definitely no slouch in terms of gaming performance. Alternatively, you can upgrade to an RTX 4070 for only $300 more. The RTX 4070 mobile is on par with the RTX 3080 but with newer features like DLSS 3.0.
The Alienware m18 is the biggest Alienware laptop you can buy with an imposing 18" 2560x1600 display and top-of-the-line components. There are two models that are on sale today. The higher end model includes an Intel Core i9-14900HX CPU and RTX 4090 GPU for $2899.99. The RTX 4090 is still the most powerful mobile GPU on the market, and by a very substantial margin. It's roughly equivalent to a desktop RTX 3090 GPU. If that's beyond your budget, there's also a model equipped with an Intel Core i7-14700HX CPU and RTX 4070 GPU for $1,899.99.
The Alienware x16 gaming laptop is a slimmer and lighter redesign of the traditional m-series laptop. It's the thinnest 16" Alienware laptop ever and compares in build quality and performance to other high-end ultra-thin laptops like the Razer Blade. This Alienware x16 R2 laptop is built with premium materials, like a magnesium alloy chassis and palm rest, anodized aluminum lid, stainless steel keyboard tray, and Micro LED RGB accent lighting. It's only 0.73" thin and weighs in at 6lbs. That's impressive considering the fact that this laptop can be equipped with the most power Nvidia GPU.
Dell has dropped the prices on both this Dell G15 RTX 4060 gaming laptop to an incredibly low price of $799.99. Dells G-series laptops are great options for budget gamers. They offer excellent gaming performance equal to a comparably equipped Alienware laptop but at a much lower price point. They also have better build quality than Dell's consumer-oriented Inspiron lineup, with nicer materials that include anodized aluminum, and an aggressive cooling design borrowed from Alienware laptops.
And bonus $250 Dell promotional gift card with purchase
Right now, the Alienware AW3225QF 32" 4K QD OLED gaming monitor is down to $1,019.99 after a 15% off coupon code "MONITORS15". Although we've seen this monitor discounted as low as $999.99, Dell is also throwing in a bonus $250 promotional e-gift card this time. There are some T&Cs to take note of: You'll receive the gift card within a few weeks after the monitor ships, and you'll have 90 days to use it. It's good on pretty much anything at Dell (excluding gift cards). If you're looking for the best 4K gaming monitor, this should definitely be on your short list. This is the monitor I personally use and I absolutely recommend it.
If you're in the market for a prebuilt gaming PC, Dell is one of best gaming brands we'd recommend. The Alienware gaming desktops offer a staggering array of options, all built into a custom chassis. Alienware gaming laptops in recent years have been redesigned to be thinner and lighter while still offering the same immense power under the hood. Consistent build quality, available inventory, frequent sales, and solid customer service are the main reasons why Dell is at the top of our buying list for gaming laptops and PCs.
In most cases, we would say that Black Friday has the best deals of the year. Dell, however, is quite the opposite. Historically, Black Friday hasn't always been the best time to buy an Alienware computer. Aside from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the best times of year to score Dell deals are actually Memorial Day and right before Black Friday from September to early November. Either way, the deals that are going on right now are quite good.
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.
It's still October and Amazon just wrapped up its fall Prime Day sale earlier this month, but it's never too early to start looking at Black Friday deals. Amazon offers one of the largest Black Friday sales out of any online retailer every year, and we expect 2024 to follow this same pattern. The Amazon Black Friday sale will be the best time of the year to buy pretty much anything, but when exactly will it start?
We've been covering Black Friday deals for years, and using this expertise, we should be able to pretty accurately predict when Amazon's sale will actually begin in 2024. We've gathered our prediction below, as well as what deals you can likely expect as the sale kicks off this November. There are already quite a few deals worth taking a look at right now if you're impatient to start shopping.
The actual date for Black Friday this year lands on November 29, but we expect the deals to arrive much earlier than Thanksgiving week. The Amazon Black Friday sale officially kicked off about seven days before actual Black Friday last year. We expect the retailer to follow this same pattern this year, which would mean Amazon Black Friday 2024 will likely start on Friday, November 22 this year.
Although Black Friday tends to get the most attention, Amazon's Cyber Monday sale is usually just as good if not better. The official date for Cyber Monday in 2024 is December 2, but you can expect Amazon to kick off its own sale the Sunday before. Last year, the Amazon Cyber Monday sale actually ended on Monday, but it's possible deals will continue on throughout the following week as "Cyber Week" deals.
We don't expect the official Amazon Black Friday sale to start until later in November, but that doesn't mean there won't be an early Black Friday sale. Amazon will likely start offering early Black Friday deals at the beginning of November to Prime members only, depending on when competitors begin their sale. Last year, Best Buy started offering early Black Friday deals before Halloween, which meant Amazon started matching some of those prices. You can expect early deals on Amazon devices and subscriptions services at the very least.
Although we don't know everything that will be on sale during Amazon's Black Friday sale this year, we know enough from previous sales to put together an idea of what you can expect in 2024. We've highlighted some of the key categories we expect to see significant discounts this year below, as well as insights into what deals you likely won't see.
The most obvious discounts we expect to see from the Amazon Black Friday sale are on Amazon's own devices. It has discounted these during all of the Prime Day sales and Black Friday should offer the same, if not better, price reductions. This includes all of the Fire TV devices, which will likely be bundled with Xbox Game Pass again now that you can play Xbox games with a Fire TV Stick. Echo speakers and displays will also see significant discounts alongside Blink and Ring security cameras. We also expect to see some of the best Kindle deals of the year, since we didn't really get those during Prime Day this year.
Throughout 2024, we've reviewed some really great video games. Unfortunately, we don't expect a lot of the newer games to actually be discounted during Black Friday. That being said, Black Friday is the very best time to buy video games and most popular games from last year will go on sale. This includes games like Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to name a few. You will likely be able to nab older PS5 and Switch games for less than $30 in most cases if you are a few years behind the latest game trends.
While it's true that Apple has a Black Friday sale of its own every year, the best Apple Black Friday deals are usually at Amazon. If you're hoping to buy the new AirPods or any of the latest iPads at a discount, you will most likely find these deals at Amazon. The online retailer has been offering discounts on Apple devices throughout all of 2024, but Black Friday is still the best time to buy an iPad, Apple Watch, or pair of AirPods at a significant price reduction. The only deals you likely won't see on Amazon are discounts on the new iPhone 16 models, but you can certainly expect discounts on the best iPhone accessories at the very least.
Black Friday is the best time every year to buy a new console. With the new PS5 Pro still available to preorder and Nintendo Switch Black Friday bundles already announced, we have a decent idea of what to expect. Xbox consoles will likely see the biggest direct discounts, with the Xbox Series S being the overall best deal. There will also most likely be good PS5 Slim bundles available thanks to the release of the PS5 Pro. In terms of VR headsets, we already know that we are going to see some discounts on the Meta Quest 3, because those deals already started earlier this year with the release of the new Quest 3S.
The best time to buy a TV every year is Black Friday. This has been true since before online shopping was even a thing and will be true long after in-store shopping fades away. Since it isn't really hard to find a good TV for cheap these days, Black Friday is more like the best time to buy an expensive TV at a discount. Some of the best gaming TVs like the LG C4 or the Sony Bravia 7 that just recently came out will likely get some of their biggest discounts on Amazon during this time.
For similar reasons, Black Friday is also a great time to buy a gaming monitor every year. If you're trying to decide between a TV and a monitor for your console or PC, you should have plenty of options available from popular brands like Samsung Odyssey and LG UltraGear.
There are a few times a year where we see really good laptop deals and Black Friday/Cyber Monday is one of them. Some of the better laptop deals will be direct from brands like Dell and Lenovo, but Amazon always has some great discounts on Asus, Acer, and Samsung laptops during Black Friday. It also tends to have the best overall deals on the popular gaming laptop brands MSI and Razer. Additionally, you can usually find a pretty good price on a new MacBook from Amazon that you won't find from Apple directly.
Black Friday is arguably the best time to buy a new gaming PC every year. Whether you're looking to buy a prebuilt gaming rig or build one yourself, Amazon always has some great deals that make it worthwhile. The main brands we expect to see on sale at Amazon are CyberPower and iBuyPower, which usually come packing some of the latest Nvidia GPUs. You most likely won't find big discounts from major brands like Dell on Amazon, but these other brands will often come in at much lower prices during this time of year.
Due to its proximity to the holidays, Black Friday is always an amazing time to find discounts on popular toy brands. For example, some of the most expensive LEGO sets in existence tend to only really drop in price during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. This makes these sales a great time to find discounts on LEGO sets, but also other popular brands like Hasbro, Hot Wheels, Fisher Price, Bandai Namco, and Nerf. If you're hoping to pick up gifts for the kids, or even a Nerf Gun for yourself, Amazon is one of the best places to do so.
Amazon is one of the best places to buy books and one of the best places to buy manga online. This means it's also one of the only places you can consistently find deals on physical copies of popular books and comics. During both Amazon Prime Days this year, we saw some of the lowest prices of the year on book sets, illustrated editions, and collectible hardcovers. You can expect similar discounts during Black Friday to start early with a buy two, get one free sale that Amazon usually offers the week before.
With Amazon's Prime Video service wrapped up into it's subscription, the retail giant tends to offer some of the best deals on streaming services every year. You can choose to add services like Paramount+, Apple TV+, and more to your Amazon subscription via add-ons, and every year these end up getting discounts for Black Friday. You can check out our guide to Black Friday streaming deals for more details about what to expect in 2024.
With Black Friday still a month away, it's a good time to start planning your shopping in earnest. Here are a few Black Friday tips that you should be considering ahead of the event:
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AMD has just shared the first official gaming benchmarks for its upcoming Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU. According to the red team, this CPU will be 20% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, and 8% faster than the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Going into more details, the red team has benchmarked these CPUs in … Continue reading AMD shared the first gaming benchmarks for the Ryzen 7 9800X3D →
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Note: This review specifically covers the Zombies mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. For our thoughts on the other modes, see our single-player campaign review or our multiplayer review.
You ever wonder how we got here? Not in an existential, “where did we come from?” kind of way, but more specifically “how did a one-off, co-op survival mode in a video game that used to put quotes about the horrors of war on screen when you died turn into this?” 16 years on, it’s hard to reconcile what the original Nazi Zombies mode from 2008’s World at War used to be with the outrageous, Resident Evil 6-inspired campfest Zombies has become. I’m not saying any of this in a bad way, mind you; Black Ops 6’s take on the mode is thrilling and unique thanks to all new movement mechanics, good map design, some absolutely killer Easter Eggs, lots of truly absurd guns, and the glorious return of round-based gameplay. Zombies hasn’t been the thing it was in World at War for a while, and I still find myself wondering how we got here, but I’m definitely not complaining about the end result.
Let’s carve out the bloody guts of this thing, shall we? Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode features two all-new maps: Terminus, a prison complex-turned-bio-research-station, and Liberty Falls, a small town in West Virginia whose slice of quaint Americana is about to test itself against The Worst Day Ever (spoiler: it doesn’t seem to be going well for the Americana). The story itself is a direct sequel to the Zombies campaign in 2020’s Black Ops Cold War, and if you, like me, have largely forgotten what happened in the intervening four years, there doesn’t seem to be much attempt to catch you up. That means you’re going to hear a lot of proper-noun-filled dialogue that could be important or fun references, but instead had me going “I vaguely remember that person,” a little too often. That said, there are some neat story beats here that I unfortunately can’t talk about without spoilers, and you’ll get more out of each map if you pay attention to the subtle details.
I wish I could say the same for the mid-combat dialogue. Mostly, I wanted the voices in my ear (and the characters I was playing) to shut up. They have what I’m going to call The Modern Video Game Character Problem™, which is to say they all talk too much – especially since half the time they’re just broadcasting their thoughts out loud. I’m not saying each and every one of them is a deeply annoying, terminally unfunny, outrageously unlikeable person, but I’m not not saying that, either. Their mid-combat banter is like something compiled from a Schwarzenegger film penned by ChatGPT – I’m not expecting poetry here, but at least give me Gears of War-level banter, you know? I can only hear lines like the one where someone is complaining about how the zombies make them so mad they “boil their piss” or how we need a mop to clean up all the brains we’re splattering everywhere so many times before I want to turn my gun towards my allies instead. Some of it is admittedly funny — I like Grey’s one about how she wanted a protractor to calculate an impact angle — but mostly it’s just kinda there.
You know what’s pretty sick, though? The gameplay. The biggest change here is Omnimovement (Zombiemovement?), Black Ops 6’s complete overhaul of Call of Duty’s basic movement mechanics. You can sprint, slide, and dive in every direction, even chaining these moves together. You’ve also got a full 360 degrees of motion, which means you can do sick stuff like sprint backwards, pull off a retreating dive, mow down the zombies approaching you from every angle, and then get up and keep moving before they even get close. We haven’t seen zombie-killing moves like this since Resident Evil 6, minus a few suplexes here and there. (Dear Treyarch, please add suplexes. Love, Will.) Even if Treyarch misses what might be the easiest post-launch, patch-introduced layup with that, though, the point I’m making is that this feels good, and I like it. That said, I feel like Omnimovement is more of a cool addition rather than something you’ll use all of the time, especially as the zombies get more numerous in the later rounds.
My favorite thing about this year’s Zombies are the maps themselves. I prefer Liberty Falls over Terminus because I vibe with its more open areas and the unique travel options you have, like the extremely entertaining ziplines that let you zoom from roof to roof. I also enjoy its more traditional structure of “pay Essence to open doors and access new places” over Terminus’s “restore power to the generators and defend them from zombies so you can earn the ability to open doors” twist, but that’s not to say Terminus doesn’t do anything cool. At one point, you’ll have to use a little outboard-powered raft to venture to the smaller islands around the main area to do the next step in the map’s Easter Egg-fueled story mode. Even then, you’re not going to escape any zombies that were chasing you on the mainland. When my team and I landed on a beach, a horde of zombies popped out of the ground like a bunch of really angry, undead cabbages, but c’est la vie, right? C’est la undead? I don’t speak French.
What I do really like are the Easter Eggs unique to each map. Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode has you constantly moving, unlocking new areas, and trying to complete that map’s Main Quest during each round. That means a lot of running for your life and trying to earn enough Essence (which you get from offing zombies) to open the way to the next area, buy a new weapon, or upgrade a gun you like at a Pack-a-Punch Machine, which does exactly what it sounds like. Discovering the Easter Eggs is most of the fun. You’ve got your Main Quest ones, of course, like solving the math equations in Terminus’s science lab to build your Wonder Weapon (an incredibly powerful gun you’ll need to progress the Main Quest) or using that weapon to shoot some ceiling tentacles you’ve summoned to find the hard drive they’ve eaten. But the truly fun stuff are the optional Easter Eggs. Finding all the bowling shoes on Liberty Falls and going zombie bowling, for example, or shooting a hidden skull on top of the church to do your own cover of It’s Raining Men for extra resources. I don’t want to spoil all of these, but there are a lot of them, and they’re all fun, some in some pretty wild ways.
My only complaint is that, to do the fun stuff, you’ll essentially need a pre-built group. Every matchmade group I ran with either had no idea what they were doing or didn’t feel like talking, so our ability to make progress was limited. To complete the Main Quest on Black Ops 6’s Zombies, you’re going to either have a lot of patience and be willing to learn or know how to do it already. And I don’t just mean the Easter Eggs. You’ll need to know what perks, like increased speed and faster reload times or buffed health, to buy first from the soda machines (and where the machines are, so you can eventually grab them all), when to Pack-a-Punch your weapons with Essence and upgrade their rarity with Salvage, where to buy armor upgrades, what Easter Egg goodies to save for the late game, how to keep a single Zombie alive at the end of a round to progress the Main Quest more easily, and a whole lot more. There are a lot of mechanics in Black Ops 6, and you’ll need to know how to take advantage of… most of them.
The only one I found not getting a lot of spin in my runs were Gogglegums, single-use candies that return from Black Ops 3 and provide unique power-ups during matches. Essentially, you bring a customized pack into matches, and then spend Essence at Gobblegum machines to get them mid-match, though you can also earn them. It’s a cool idea, and there are some strong Gobblegums out there, like Perkaholic, which gives you every perk on the map, or Wonderbar, which will give you a guaranteed Wonder Weapon the next time you use a Mystery Box – but my team generally felt it was better to spend money on more expensive, guaranteed boons like a Pack-a-Punch upgrade than to gamble on the less expensive Gobblegums. We basically never used them. I don’t think they’re bad, per se, I just don’t think they’re necessary, either, given everything else you have access to and how tight Essence can sometimes be.
Don’t get me wrong: learning to make sense of all of this stuff is part of the fun. If you’ve played Zombies before, some of it will come naturally, but it does require a lot of coordination. And if don’t have that, well… based on some of the groups I got matched with, some folks just aren’t going to have much fun. Treyarch plans to provide an optional, more guided, story-focused version of the mode later on to preserve the sanctity of the Easter Egg hunt – that will disable Easter Eggs and Side Quests, but I kind of wish it was here now so I didn’t have to roll the matchmaking dice every time my friends were busy. At least any account progression you earn in Zombies carries over to the multiplayer if you wanna take a break, though. Get you some new guns before you go into matchmaking.
Oh, and if you want to do the Main Quest, you’d better be in it for the long haul. Completing a map can take a hours, even if you’re doing it right, and you can’t save your progress unless you’re playing solo – the first time I cleared Liberty Falls, for instance, it took our group about three hours; we were, admittedly, doing a lot of optional stuff, but that is still a long time. So, for the optimal experience, you’ll need a team, all available at the same time, a few spare hours, and for nothing to go wrong. Getting near the end of a map and dying is soul-crushing, not because you failed, but because of how long it can take to do it all again. One night, we got most of the way through a map, died, and then… tried again for about ten rounds before all of us realized we were exhausted and should probably just pick things back up tomorrow.
There are also some annoying bugs. Sometimes, I couldn’t interact with objects and my teammates would have to so we could progress, or trying to pick our Wonder Weapon would always drop the same, super-upgraded Pack-a-Punch gun instead of the cheap one we wanted to give up, or we’d have mid-match disconnects or stuttering. No big multiplayer game launches without similar problems, but they’re no fun either way. Once, we couldn’t even get out of a match properly. We didn’t lose progress, thankfully, but it was still obnoxious.
Sometimes playing No More Room in Hell 2 feels like actually being in hell. One minute, you're approaching a console to start flipping switches with friends, and the next, you're completely stuck – no keyboard inputs work, you can't equip any of your items, and your teammates have to try and lure a zombie over hoping it will put you out of your misery. Issues like this are part of a large pile of problems that could be excused by its Early Access label on Steam; there's only one map released so far, character models are incomplete, and there are plenty more bugs to encounter. But that grace only goes so far. While No More Room in Hell 2 is technically playable, it's not close to actually feeling Early Access-ready. And even if it weren’t riddled with bugs and light on content, it still doesn't have a distinct identity to differentiate it from being yet another co-op survival horror shooter.
No More Room in Hell 2 follows a similar structure to its predecessor's objective-based game mode. Eight players are dropped onto a forest-covered map, and must complete tasks while trying not to get killed by zombie hordes. As is common in survival horror games, you'll have to scavenge for weapons, health items, ammo, and other gear to get a leg up, all of which will be in generally short supply. The first No More Room in Hell took a lot of inspiration from George Romero's Dawn of the Dead with how the zombies (here called "stiffs") function, and that continues to be to its benefit in the sequel: They're slow and shambling, but are huge threats in groups. And the further you get into the map, the more dense the hordes get.
This is all pretty standard for a co-op zombie shooter, but No More Room in Hell 2 uses some smart tricks to help you boost both your kit and your team. You'll spawn randomly at one of eight points around the edges of the sole map, called Power Plant, and work your way towards the middle, completing objectives along the way that'll provide you with all-important gear but also up the difficulty as the hordes get bigger. The map isn't huge, but it's large enough that you might not run into another player until the final area at the center – your teammates don't even show up on your HUD unless you're in a party (in which case you’ll also spawn near them), and you'll only hear them through voice chat if they're physically close enough. That does mean a lot of each round involves going out of your way to team up, but it's an excellent added objective that can make things feel more tense. If you fail, you'll be stuck with some poor loot and nobody to help you up if you go down. It also adds a sense of progression that changes up the map as you go, and a great way to make it feel like your actions are rewarded.
This is the key area where No More Room in Hell 2 excels: fostering cooperation. Sure, I may have been trapped in a horrible glitch that prevented me from evacuating successfully with the rest of my team, but at least I got to watch them try everything they could to free me from my prison. As you all descend on the final area, you're cleverly forced to work together, and you form some temporary camaraderie as a result. If you squint through the egregious bugs — clipping through walls, zombies not dying despite taking damage, guns not dealing damage at all — you can see a game that emphasizes teamwork in smart ways. And despite having just one map, it's the perfect place to watch your crew's story unfold.
The Power Plant offers plenty of opportunities for grouping up through optional objective locations. Completing them will provide you with loot: guns, bullets, health, and sometimes special items that give passive bonuses. You could potentially make it to the end without stocking up at one of these points, but this is a survival horror game where supplies are scarce, so you will want to get through at least one of these areas. They're also easy to find; you can either navigate towards one with the help of your map and compass, or you'll just stumble upon them. When one of two commanders comes over the radio (one of which is surprisingly voiced by Deux Ex's Elias Toufexis) and tells you that there's a church nearby with supplies or a bar that's been booby trapped, I always wanted to swing on by — and any other player in the vicinity usually did too.
Gradually, you'll find your teammates at these locations, where you'll have to work together to complete a series of tasks for your reward. Usually that involves things like finding fuses and placing them inside fuse boxes to power up rooms, turning on generators, or connecting wires within wire boxes. Most require basic puzzle solving and timing to complete, but that's infinitely more difficult when you're being hounded by zombies. Additionally, solving these puzzles brings you into a separate menu that you have to exit if you want to fight back. It's times like these where it becomes important to watch your teammate's back. If they can focus on the task at hand, and you somehow defeat all the zombies, you can move onto the next one. There are even tasks that involve having one player read a randomly-generated code to another to unlock a screen or move a process forward.
By the time you reach the final objective, everybody still alive will have grouped up naturally. Of course, this is when the difficulty is amped up, all but requiring you to work together and coordinate your moves. It’s a tense finale where you're running around, flipping switches, and entering codes to boot the plant back up — all while trying to avoid the biggest zombie horde yet. You can all split up and handle different parts of this objective, but you will all still be in the same area working toward the same goal, and it's, quite frankly, impossible not to help your teammates at least a little bit since there are so many zombies to kill.
Outside of a few tips (save your ammo, jump on cars to get away briefly, etc.), you won't get any in-depth tutorials when you first launch No More Room in Hell 2, and your first round will likely be stressful and confusing as a result – especially if you run into a game-breaking bug. Since there's only one map, it doesn't take long to figure out how to complete the various objectives and where to go to successfully complete a run, but this is also where things get the most repetitive. The first time you encounter some of these locations, like the Lookout Tower or the Ranger's Station, it can be a tense battle to turn on the power, fill up generators, and hit all the correct buttons before getting overrun by zombies or going through all your supplies. After a few rounds, though, you start running through those areas easily. At least, that is until you run into some unwelcome difficulty spikes depending on if you happen to encounter a teammate or have enough gear.
You also don't need to approach every zombie encounter by making a decision to shoot or not to shoot. The tools you have in your arsenal and how you use them have an impact, too. You're always equipped with a flashlight, but having it on will alert zombies. Using a shotgun can disperse a group, but will quickly alert even larger groups waiting nearby. There are items that can let you control crowds, such as a radio or a deployable lamp, but they're rare and tough to throw down in late-game scenarios where you're completely surrounded by zombies, making them interesting ideas that aren’t very useful in practice.
There's a sort of immersive sim quality to how you complete each No More Room in Hell 2 run. Beyond how you approach combat, you can take multiple routes to different locations – there isn't a lot of variety, but it's enough that you can run in any given direction and most likely find a path forward. The level design is on its way to being excellent, with strategically placed dirt piles or trucks that let you climb over fences and lead you to alternate routes. That said, there are also a few areas that are too large or feel outright unnecessary to begin with that can lead to you getting lost.
There are also multiple character types you can choose from before starting a run, each with forgettable names and descriptions like "Football MVP" or "Marine Veteran." They all provide distinct but small buffs to things like two-handed melee damage, stamina, or flashlight battery lifespan. You don't get a choice of character on your first run, but after you die, you'll select between three randomly-generated types each time. As long as you don't die, you can continue building these characters up through experience and supplies collected during a run. If you do die, you lose everything, and you’ll still lose progress if you leave a match early to try and avoid death. It incentivizes you to do well and provides an actual end if you die in-game (and come back as a zombie your teammates can kill). That connection would be more impactful, however, if there were more than the small handful of character models that frequently repeated.
It's these cut corners that currently pull me out of what could be a game on track for a standout full release one day. Yes, there's a lot of leeway you can give to an Early Access launch, but many of the pieces of No More Room in Hell 2 aren't even close to complete. For all the things I like about the map, there are also paths on it that quite literally lead to nowhere. While there are plenty of objectives scattered around, they're obnoxiously inconsistent in terms of difficulty; Some feel downright insurmountable in small groups, while crossing a bridge after opening its gates — something that should feel like a huge moment — can be completed by simply running forward and occasionally strafing.
Then there are the bugs — so, so many bugs. Every Early Access game (and most fully released ones, for that matter) has them, but many here are inexcusable. When I first started playing at launch last week, shotguns didn't always do damage. I was clipping through walls into closed off rooms where I quickly became trapped by zombies, some of which didn't die despite constantly being peppered by bullets. Objective markers wouldn't show up on the HUD, which is kind of a problem when you're a newcomer and don't know where you need to go. Sometimes I'd look at a teammate and they'd just be a floating head. It's a mess.
To its credit, developer Torn Banner Studios has been working diligently on hotfixes since launch, and has released some very impactful updates over the course of my review period. Shotguns are now more reliable, map markers consistently show up, and I can actually accomplish puzzles without getting stuck or clicking on a switch multiple times before it responds. There is still a long way to go before it reaches an acceptable state, but prioritizing hotfixes instead of working on the planned content roadmap is the right call in the short term, and has already resulted in some huge improvements.
Unfortunately, those content updates are desperately needed, too, and ideally something in them to help it stand out from the pack. It's been eight years since No More Room in Hell 2 was first teased, and over a decade since the original No More Room in Hell was spun off from a Half-Life 2 mod into its own standalone game. While the sequel follows a similar structure to its predecessor, with the same darkness-drenched atmosphere, scarce loot, and relatively weak characters, it doesn't offer the same ethical dilemmas and tension building. Gone are the child zombies that were much faster than the standard ones and left you understandably uncomfortable about killing them, for example. The goal was to build a world that felt like an actual apocalypse, where your choices mattered beyond just survival. In contrast, No More Room in Hell 2 is on its way to presenting a world that feels like it's falling apart around you, but in terms of tone and the underlying story, it's just another standard zombie shooter with a focus on getting rescued at the end.
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