PlayStation has officially announced plans for its upcoming Black Friday 2025 sale, which will run from November 21-29. It includes up to 33% off PlayStation Plus memberships, alongside up to 60% off consoles, games, accessories, and more.
More specifically, PlayStation has announced discounts for games such as Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Lost Soul Aside, Astro Bot, and God of War Ragnarok, alongside $100 off PlayStation 5 consoles, including the PS5 Pro, and more.
PlayStation's 2025 Black Friday Plans Revealed
Here’s the full list of deals confirmed for PlayStation's 2025 Black Friday sale, including standouts such as 33% off PS Plus, $20 off DualSense controllers, $100 off PS VR2, and $20 off PS Portal.
Most of these deals will be available via PlayStation Direct, but also via other major retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, to name a few in the US.
That price undercuts the upcoming PS5 Black Friday listing ($169.99) by $10, which only adds fuel to the idea that Amazon might roll out an even stronger deal once the main sale kicks off.
33% off PlayStation Plus
PlayStation Plus will also be discounted as part of the Black Friday sale.
It's 33% off 12-month memberships for new players, and those already part of PS Plus can save 33% when upgrading the remainder of their membership from Essential or Extra to Premium or Deluxe.
This is an improvement compared to the deal from Black Friday last year, which had 20% off Essential, 25% off Extra, 30% off Premium, alongside a 25% off Extra upgrade and 30% off Premium upgrade.
While this deal doesn't quite reach the heights of PlayStation's Lunar New Year Sale (25% off Extra, 37% off Premium, and 35% off Premium upgrades), it does match or improve on the 2025 Days of Play Sale (20% off Essential, 25% off Extra, 33% off Premium, and 33% off Premium upgrades).
$100 off PS5 Consoles
For those looking to pick up a PlayStation 5 in the Black Friday sales, you're in luck. PS5s are $100 off in the sale, starting from November 21. That includes the PlayStation 5 Pro, which will be down to $649.99, a significant drop from its $749.99 MSRP.
There's also brand new PS5 Fortnite Flowering Chaos Bundle, available for $399.99 for the 825GB digital edition, and $449.99 for the 1TB disc edition. The bundle feature PlayStation-exclusive in-game content and 1,000 V-Bucks.
But, while a $100 discount is notable, back in August, the PS5 jumped in price by $50, rising to $549.99 for the disc version, digital $499.99, and Pro $749.99. The Black Friday discount cancels this out, and then some, but is still worth noting for any potential buyers.
Robert Anderson is Senior Commerce Editor and IGN's resident deals expert on games, collectibles, trading card games, and more. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter/X or Bluesky.
LG has been, for years, at the pinnacle of television technology. Its OLED panels are exceptional and with boosts to brightness without any sacrifice to color accuracy, the G-series televisions have been an easy recommendation as one of the best gaming TVs for several years. Now in 2025, LG has boosted peak brightness even further to make the G5 more suitable for bright rooms, and updated its AI processor to improve its picture and audio boosting capabilities.
These improvements are all welcome, but WebOS is feeling particularly bloated and slow these days. The new remote control also brings some welcome changes but at the same time makes it harder to access features that should be easy to get to.
LG G5 – Design and Build
The LG G5 looks very similar to the G4, which isn’t particularly surprising given that televisions aren’t doing a whole lot to stand out – especially because, for most buyers, a television needs to do the opposite: blend in. Basically, everything about the physical design of the G5 feels like a copy of the G4, and that’s perfectly fine.
Unfortunately, LG doesn’t include a stand with the panel, so if you’re like me and you don’t like wall mounting your television, you will need to shell out an extra $100 for the G5 stand accessory. I can’t say I agree with the sentiment that a stand is an “accessory,” but the G5 isn’t the first time LG has gone with this sales model, so I shouldn’t act surprised.
For $100, the stand is fairly priced as it is sturdy and provides an excellent system for routing cables so they are not visible from the front. As a center-column design, which is my preference over the two-foot design, it is much easier to keep a clean look. I do wish I could mount the G5 a bit higher up on the stand, though, as it doesn’t leave a lot of room for a sound bar.
LG continues its excellent legacy of providing great support for inputs. The G5 has four HDMI ports and all of them support 2.1, meaning 4K at 120Hz. It also supports WiFi 6E.
Sadly, LG still opts for an integrated power cable. I don’t like this because if that cable gets pulled out or damaged, you cannot easily replace it, meaning you are in for an expensive repair lest your TV become a giant rectangular piece of e-waste. Every other major TV brand has removable power cables at this price tier, and it would be nice to see LG join them.
There isn’t much else to say about the design, which is probably the goal. It is a simple, understated television with minimal borders and bezels and a beautifully thin frame. It looks good even from the side, which isn’t common.
LG G5 – The Remote and Software/UI
I typically group the remote and the operating system into two separate sections, but for the LG G5, they really need to be combined for reasons that will become clear.
Up until this year, LG has used a Nintendo Wii-like remote design, with a rounded grip that contours to the hand. It looks weird until you realize it’s designed to go with the motion-controlled system of WebOS, and then it makes sense. That said, I don’t like the motion controls and I typically ignore them. I probably was not alone there as LG has changed the design to be more standard to what is expected, and the G5 remote is just a flat rectangle now just like the rest of the industry.
While the motion controls are still present, they are pushed to the wayside more than in previous years. You can use it if you want to, but this remote is no longer as comfortable to hold for that purpose as it once was. I can’t help but think this is LG’s way of slowly phasing this whole feature out.
The issue I have with the new remote is not the change in physical design, but the adjustments to the options. LG really, really wants you to use its AI features and has dedicated two buttons on the remote to accessing them. In the upper right-hand corner is a button that brings up the accessibility panel, which allows you to customize how you want to use the TV. I don’t know why this needs a button, because once this is set up, you’ll never be coming back to it. There is also a centrally located “AI” button which brings up content recommendations it thinks I want to see.
Maybe I am alone in this, but I am wholly uninterested in what my television thinks I should watch. I never use this button.
There is also a TV Guide button (what year is it?), a home button, a button that brings up three quick settings options, a back button, a “Home Hub” button, and a settings button.
You’ll notice one button, a constant on remotes for a good reason, is missing: the input selection button. When I first fired up the G5, I thought I was going crazy because I could not for the life of me find a quick way to access the inputs. Sure, I like using the built-in smart TV interface to fire up streaming channels, but I play video games on my PC and my PlayStation 5 and I want a fast way to select those options. With this new remote, you just can’t do it.
LG has hidden that option inside of the Home Hub, which means it’s now an additional step to get there. Once you select it, you can find it again in the “recently used” section, but that only sticks around if you recently used it. If you watch Hulu, then YouTube, then HBO, and then want to go back to gaming, that input is no longer “recent” and you have to navigate back to the Home Hub.
But don’t worry, we’ve got six pre-installed shortcut buttons: Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, LG Channels, Sling, and Alexa are all here.
Despite touting a new and improved AI chip, WebOS does not navigate what I would call “quickly.” When I first turn on the television from standby, WebOS takes a few seconds to spin up, and then it takes a few seconds more to load Home Hub. So I have to wait for WebOS to load, wait for Home Hub to load, then navigate over to the input, and then I can finally use my PlayStation.
This is, quite frankly, an insane design choice. I had to go back and make sure that this wasn’t something LG had done before, but looking at my review of the G4 last year, I can clearly see an input select button on the remote, so I know my memories are correct. Why LG got rid of this, I don’t think I can ever understand.
WebOS is now also the second-most cluttered interface out of the box that I have ever used, behind only the advertisement-loaded Vizio interface. You can, and should, turn “Content Recommendation” and ”Home Promotion” off by going to Settings, General, System, Additional Settings, Home Settings, and then turning off Content Recommendations, which then removes autoplaying ads and makes the home screen less of a visual overload, but the fact that it fires up with so much bloat is pretty frustrating.
Overall, changes to WebOS are a “miss” and LG needs to take a good hard look at user experience in next year’s model, because this is actively dragging down the G5 experience.
LG G5 – Picture Quality
Moving back to a more pleasant topic, the picture quality of LG’s G5 is outstanding.
LG says brightness has been improved 45% over the prior model, but I’m not seeing that in practice. Instead, I would say it’s about the same, generally, in real-world situations. It actually rarely gets as bright as the G4 panel did last year, but it sustains at an average that is well above last year’s model. I think this is a better balance.
While it falls short of pure brightness power found in LCD televisions like the TCL QM8K, it is plenty bright. I’m seeing about 2,000 nits peak in HDR content, with it sometimes getting as high as 2,300 depending on the content. That is way more than I need in my basement studio and should be enough to mostly overpower a bright window in a living room. Pure brightness has never been OLED’s strength, and the WOLED technology LG uses doesn’t typically get as bright as QD-OLED technology from Samsung, but the performance here is pretty great.
It’s good to see that despite being brighter for most uses, color reproduction remains strong. The LG G5 tested at 100% of sRGB, 93.6% of Adobe RGB, and 91.5% of the DCI P3 color gamuts with an average Delta E of 1.38 – which is outstanding. OLED basically always provides fantastic color accuracy results and that remains the case here.
Panel uniformity is pretty good, although my review unit did show some issues on the lower left side. Uniformity is the most variable-prone issue on televisions, so your results will likely differ from mine.
Looping back to HDR, the LG G5 supports a bunch of common HDR profiles too, including Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG. It’s great to see native Dolby Vision support since that is one HDR format Samsung doesn’t support, which gives LG’s competing OLED tech something to hang its hat on. It would be nice to see HDR 10+ and IMAX Enhanced added in the future, however.
Off-angle viewing is spectacular, which is another benefit of OLED, meaning your whole living room can enjoy content equally, no matter where they’re sitting, and not have to worry about weaker contrast or a washed-out picture. Equally impressive are stutter and judder, which I did not notice any of and enjoyed a super-smooth picture even when the camera slowly panned across the screen. Virtually infinite contrast also adds to the visual fidelity of whatever you’re watching.
Also because it uses OLED technology, you will not see any halo or bloom on any bright object, unless that is by design (the Apple TV+ logo, for example, has halo by choice). Captions set against a black background have a clean, crisp look that is so far not fully replicable on non-OLED panels.
LG G5 – Gaming Performance
LG televisions have been a top choice for gaming for years and I’m happy to report that doesn’t change with the G5. While it takes longer to navigate to your console or PC’s input (as mentioned), once you’re there, you’re in for a treat.
When the G5 detects a console or PC, it automatically swaps over to Game Mode, which optimizes color and brightness for the best experience, although you can tweak it manually beyond that if you want.
The G5 is excellent at displaying bright, clean, neutral picture quality. Unlike other televisions, saturation and highlights are not overly juiced, so it’s easier to see a game how the developers intended. Shadow balance is outstanding, too, and if you need to boost shadows a bit to make it easier to see what might be hiding there, LG provides that option in its gaming hub via the Black Stabilizer.
I have always liked LG’s gaming options menu because it loads quickly, provides great at-a-glance information, and also lets you dive deeper into specific settings should you want to. You can also customize the color, which is a nice touch.
I’ve played many hours of Marvel Rivals, Apex Legends, and Battlefield 6 on the LG G5 and enjoyed every second of it. This is a fantastic gaming television and strongly carries LG’s well-earned reputation forward.
LG G5 – Audio Quality
No surprise here, but another weak point of the LG G5 is its audio quality. While LG’s AI audio enhancements absolutely help make sounds both louder and more distinct, the laws of physics will always come into play when it comes to flat panels.
No flatscreen television on the market has what I would call “good” audio: they are all levels of middling to poor. I would say the G5 is more on the middling end of that spectrum, as the mids can be muddled and the lows are very weak. I will say voices are very easy to make out, especially with LG’s AI enhancements on. You’re not going to get the theater experience when watching Dune, but you will absolutely be able to hear every word they’re saying.
If you care about an even audio and visual experience, my advice echoes what I said about the G4: get a soundbar or some kind of standalone sound system. It’s the only way to do the picture quality of the G5 justice.
TCL QM8K – The Competition
LG finds itself competing against Samsung, Sony, TCL, and itself. The G5 is an expensive television that retails for $3,400 but can often be found on sale for about $2,000 (not including the $100 stand). That means the $2,600 Samsung S95F, Sony Bravia 8, TCL QM8K, and the LG C5 and B5 are all possible alternatives.
The Bravia 8 disappointed me with its low brightness and Samsung’s televisions tend to have way poorer customization options and over-saturated images. TCL’s QM8K is a great television, but it’s not an OLED and even though it has some really lovely benefits and features compared to LG’s G5, it is not yet possible to replicate all of the benefits of OLED with an LCD panel. That said, if you care more about brightness power than anything else (let’s say your living room is very bright), then the QM8K is a better buy.
LG’s C5 and B5 are both outstanding televisions with only a few compromises, namely brightness and AI features, separating them from the G5. Only you can answer if those features are worth the premium.
Microsoft has announced the second wave of games coming to Xbox Game Pass in November 2025.
In a post on Xbox Wire, Microsoft highlighted today’s addition of Fortnite Crew to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Included with Ultimate is access to the current Battle Pass, OG Pass, LEGO Pass, and Music Pass. In addition, you get 1,000 V-Bucks each month while you’re subscribed. Fortnite Crew also includes a bonus benefit: Rocket Pass Premium in Rocket League, which means you get the current Rocket League Season’s Rocket Pass Premium, plus future Seasons’ while you’re still subscribed.
Speaking of day one Game Pass launches, November 19 sees the release of Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault (Game Preview) (PC) across Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Here’s the official blurb from Microsoft:
Dive deep into this action RPG with roguelike elements and a tale about new beginnings. Live the double life of a fearless adventurer and a crafty merchant. Dive into vibrant dimensions brimming with shiny loot and pesky enemies. Grow your shop, tinker with weapons and gadgets, as well as make your mark among a ragtag community of castaways.
Also on November 19, Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo (Cloud, Console, and PC) hits Game Pass Premium, as does Revenge of the Savage Planet (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S).
On November 20, Monsters are Coming! Rock & Road (Handheld & PC) arrives on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass (Games with a ‘Handheld’ designation represent those that are optimized for handheld play). Also on November 20, Ubisoft’s 2023 racer The Crew Motorfest (Cloud, Console, and PC) releases in Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
November 25 sees Don’t Nod’s Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) release across Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass. Also on that day, Kill It With Fire! 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC) hits Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass.
Here’s a big day one release: Marvel Cosmic Invasion (Cloud, Console, Handheld, and PC) launches straight into Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on December 1.
A cosmic battle awaits! Choose between 15 Marvel heroes in this frenetic action beat ‘em up to fight against the deadly Annihilation Wave threatening the galaxy. From New York City to the depths of the Negative Zone, the future of the Marvel Universe will be fought for across the stars!
And, a day later, on December 2, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) arrives in Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass. This is the latest game from the creators of Life is Strange.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
The CEO of Genvid — the company behind choose-your-own-adventure interactive series like Silent Hill Ascension — has claimed "consumers generally do not care" about generative AI in games, stating: "Gen Z loves AI slop."
Jacob Navok, a former Square Enix director, evidenced his claim by reminding us that the biggest game of the year, Steal a Brainrot, "had 30m concurrents or approximately 80x the Arc Raiders concurrents, and is named after/based on AI slop characters."
"For all the anti-AI sentiment we're seeing in various articles, it appears consumers generally do not care," he wrote on X/Twitter (thanks, GamesRadar+). "All the brainrots are just 3D models of AI slop. Gen Z loves AI slop, does not care. The upcoming generation of gamers are Bane in Dark Knight Rises saying 'You merely adopted the slop, I was born in it.'
The Alters developer, 11 Bit Studios, and Jurassic World Evolution 3 developer, Frontier Developments, meanwhile, similarly faced fan backlash recently when they were caught using undisclosed AI images, which doesn't quite track with Navok's assumption that "consumers do not care."
Suggesting that a "tipping point has been reached," Navok also stressed that because "Activision isn't shying away from AI, neither is Arc Raiders," the tech was here to stay.
"I should add that in-game art and voices are merely the tip of the spear. Many studios I know are using AI generation in the concept phase, and many more are using Claude for code," he added. "It will be hard to find a non-indie title that isn't using Claude for code, and ignoring Claude's AI use because it's code while focusing purely on art shows that a lot of AI sentiment is being driven by emotion rather than logic."
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.
Alienware is beefing up the gaming chops of its flagship prebuilt Area-51 gaming PCs with Ryzen 9000 X3D processors – the best gaming processors in the business. Alienware has announced that, starting today, North American gamers can choose an Area-51 desktop with either a Ryzen 7 9800X3D or a Ryzen 9 9950X3D. The Ryzen 7 9700X, a respectable CPU in its own right, will also be available.
When we reviewed it last year, we found that the 8-core 9800X3D outperformed non-X3D chips almost across the board, thanks to AMD's so-called 3D V-cache that puts its on-die memory just under the core chiplet die (CCD) to allow for more and lower-latency memory. Months later, IGN reviewed the even more powerful 16-core 9950X3D and found it impressive... and probably overkill for most people.
Both chips are power-hungry – the 9800X3D pulled up to 160.3W of power during testing, while 9950X3D peaked at 200W. That didn't stop them from getting the top two slots in IGN's list of best gaming CPUs; they're just that good, and will help Alienware's best gaming PC to compete with gaming prebuilts from the likes of MSI and Asus.
Beyond the new AMD chips, available configurations look to be the same as before. For instance, you can outfit the machine with Nvidia GPUs ranging from the GeForce RTX 5070 to the RTX 5090 – but you won't find the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT that's our current favorite graphics card. RAM, port count and type, and storage options all remain the same, as well. And of course, you'll have that front cooling vent that I assume every owner of one of these uses as a grab handle for when they need to pull the chassis out to get at its ports in the back.
Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.
With the 20th anniversary of Guild Wars this year, developer ArenaNet has prepared a substantial visual and gameplay refresh of the 2005 MMORPG, which launched December 3.
In an exclusive reveal with IGN, we got a first look at Guild Wars Reforged, and learned from ArenaNet game director Stephen Clarke-Wilson, along with Brandon Dillon, CEO and co-founder of new studio 2weeks, what's in store for the new and improved Guild Wars.
Co-developed by ArenaNet and 2weeks, which is made up of former ArenaNet creatives, Guild Wars Reforged is a modernized edition of the original MMORPG and its expansions. The Reforged edition features an HD overhaul that enhances the in-game visuals, performance, and user interface, along with proper controller support and full Steam Deck optimization. Furthermore, the price point will be lowered to $20 for the complete package for newcomers, but will be a free update for current owners of the game.
Speaking with IGN, Stephen Clarke-Wilson, game director of the original Guild Wars, spoke about the enduring popularity of the subscription-free MMORPG and why the developers wanted to give the original game a refresh.
"Reforged means we've toughened it up!" said the Guild Wars game director. "There's a certain charm to the game, and besides being an MMO and letting you play with friends, you can play solo, you can have henchmen, and you can play with anyone, anywhere in the world at any time. We've had 100% uptime [of new players] for the last over six years now, even with the changes we've made, it's so easy to get into. It was a good time to give it a refresh."
Here's a quick rundown of the key features coming with Guild Wars Reforged:
A free update for all existing Guild Wars players — including free upgrades to expansions — and with a new $20 price point for new players.
HD visual update with improved resolution, along with enhanced ambient occlusion and bloom effects.
Official controller support via X-Input.
Accessibility options for improved readability and gameplay, including an optional objective guide to assist with world navigation.
Steam Deck verified.
The original Guild Wars campaign was released in 2005, and it was one of many MMORPGs released in the wake of World of Warcraft's breakout popularity. ArenaNet's online game found its own success and a loyal following due to its being an MMORPG that allowed for a more free-form approach to exploration and didn't require a subscription fee, which made the barrier to entry significantly easier for players stepping into a new game world.
The Reforged edition features a sweeping set of visual improvements and gameplay tweaks. However, the developers stated that gameplay changes are largely minor tweaks, allowing existing players to seamlessly jump into the updated version, adjusting visual and UI improvements as they see fit.
According to the developers, the Reforged edition of Guild Wars began development in early 2025, with 2weeks working in tandem with ArenaNet. 2weeks CEO and co-founder Brandon Dillon stated that the speedy turnaround for Guild Wars Reforged was due to the developers having experience working on both Guild Wars 1 and 2, as well as extensive access to technical archives.
"It's been great returning to [Guild Wars], and honestly, ArenaNet had a really strong engineering culture right from the beginning, and they've done an impeccable job maintaining the code base for the original game," Dillon said. "Like when we showed back up, it was in much better condition than when I had left it 15 years ago, and it was really nice returning to all of those systems and getting to work in it again."
Last April, the original Guild Wars hosted an anniversary event that brought in a variety of veteran players and newcomers to the game, highlighting the sustained popularity of the original. However, according to the developers during our interview, it also revealed areas for improvement, such as a crash bug that affected players running the game on 4K monitors. The Reforged edition will run the game properly on 4K displays.
One of the larger motivators for the Reforged edition of Guild Wars was to build upon support for the game on Steam Deck. The current version had compromises to get it running. However, with the Reforged edition, the MMORPG will be Steam Deck verified and will also support full controller functionality.
"It's not a remaster, but we've really focused on modernizing the experience and reacting to the big influx of new and returning players around the anniversary, and finding all the limitations the game had with modern PCs," Dillon explained. "For instance, the UI was really tiny on super high resolution displays, because we didn't have anything bigger than 1024 by 768 in 2003. This was all about ensuring that Reforged worked seamlessly with the modern system while maintaining the core aesthetic and beauty of the original game. The biggest chunk of work really was building the right user experience on Steam Deck and supporting controllers, which was a deep and interesting problem, but really rewarding to work on."
Guild Wars Reforged arrives at a time when gamers have been showing interest in revisiting classic online games. For the developers, revisiting the original Guild Wars for a sweeping update allowed the team to rediscover a renewed appreciation for the game and their experience working on it.
"Guild Wars was a very nostalgic game to play, but it was also a very nostalgic game to come back to, because as we're digging into these systems and updating things and re-experiencing the content," said Dillon.
"I was remembering all the amazing developers on the project, the programmers that I worked with who built these cool features that we were adapting, and the artists and designers who just built this fantastic content and these beautiful worlds. It's an amazingly handcrafted and huge experience; it's kind of conceptually overwhelming to engage with. But it's in active development for years and years and years, and it's a special thing that resonated with the community, and it's been rewarding on multiple levels, to revisit all this craft of work."
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Gabrielle Zevin's novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow has quickly become regarded as a modern classic in the years since its debut. It's not at all surprising to see that book join the ranks of The Folio Society's lavish illustrated editions.
With The Folio Society's edition of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow now available for preorder, IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of artist Manshen Lo's illustrations. Check them out in the slideshow gallery below:
Written by Zevin and originally published in 2022, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a book that should hold special interest for IGN readers, as it's about a pair of childhood friends and aspiring game designers. Here's the official description of the book:
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts. Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s contemporary classic examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Clever, nostalgic and quietly profound, TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW explores what it means to play—and keep playing—through everything life throws at you.
We can also debut an exclusive excerpt from Zevin's new introduction, which offers insight into Zevin's gaming background and how that inspired the novel. Check it out below:
Without a shadow of a doubt, Call of Duty is primarily a multiplayer game. Following the meteoric rise of the original Modern Warfare’s PvP, the series has become an industry behemoth, and its success is entirely down to its online modes. And yet, year after year, Activision has dedicated a significant amount of cash to funding elaborate single-player campaigns. As someone who grew up on the likes of Half-Life and Halo, these campaigns are the reason I’ve come back to Call of Duty year in, year out. Sure, it’s been a rocky relationship, but it’s been worth enduring for the really good ones – like last year’s fantastically orchestrated Black Ops 6, with its conveyor belt of exciting mission concepts.
But this year is different. Black Ops 7 specifically brands its story mode as a “co-op campaign,” and has been designed around a four-person squad. As our review points out, it is a significantly worse experience solo, to the point we could never recommend playing it alone. And so the entire Call of Duty package this year is multiplayer, a fact that has me wondering about the future of the series. Has it finally given in to the writing on the wall? Is COD single-player over?
Co-op support does not always spell the death of solo play. Halo and Gears of War have both built legacies on campaigns that support both equally. But in Black Ops 7, developers Raven Software and Treyarch haven’t made a classic Call of Duty campaign that can be played with a couple of buddies. The mission structure is fundamentally different from the series’ traditional template. There are none of the scripted cinematic moments that have defined Call of Duty’s reputation, nor the experimental concepts that characterised last year’s campaign. Instead, the entire mission pool is geared around simplistic corridor shooting and bullet sponge boss fights – scenarios that are easy to orchestrate with multiple players who are potentially more interested in chatting than engaging with a plotline. Perhaps understandably, trying to support multiple players across something as delicately railroaded as Modern Warfare’s iconic stealth affair, All Ghillied Up, or as attention-dependent as last year’s social espionage-flavoured Most Wanted, was considered a flight of fancy.
As a result, a great deal of Call of Duty’s foundational campaign DNA has been replaced. And by that I don’t just mean the addition of online infrastructure that eliminates the series’ atmospherically vital AI-controlled squadmate characters, and enforces no pausing and being kicked after a period of inactivity. No, I mean the introduction of enemy types with healthbars and, in the case of the new Endgame mode that caps off the story, damage numbers. The arrival of colour-coded, tiered weaponry that’s found in boxes, not on corpses, effectively turns guns into loot, and the open-world Avalon, frequently visited across the campaign before becoming your home for the Endgame, is peppered with small-scale objectives and activities, akin to Warzone’s battle royale map. Or a Destiny planet. Or a Helldivers world.
In fact, while there are 11 missions that lead into it, Endgame feels like the actual “point” of this campaign, more so than story, characters, or level concepts. This 32-player PvE mode will be supported throughout Black Ops 7’s lifetime, essentially turning it into an evolving, not-quite-live-service mode… one that, eventually, will be completely divorced from its original campaign packaging. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Activision already has plans to allow players to skip the missions entirely and get straight into Avalon. In a recent conversation with IGN, Black Ops 7’s associate creative director, Miles Leslie, revealed that on “day one, we want to make sure that people progress into [Endgame] naturally. We want them to get through that story, understand the world, the abilities, the characters. [But] what we've talked about is, at some point, and we haven't figured out just yet, when does it unlock it for everyone?”
Just 5% of PlayStation players have unlocked the campaign completion trophy of last year’s Black Ops 6.
It’s clear that Black Ops 7 is a new breed of Call of Duty campaign, one foremost designed around co-op multiplayer trends, rather than simply inviting other players to be involved in a traditional narrative shooter. From my perspective, it’s a much less interesting direction, but it’s undoubtedly a sign of the times. Just five percent of PlayStation players have unlocked the PS5 campaign completion trophy of last year’s Black Ops 6, and that only rises to eight percent if you go back to 2022’s Modern Warfare 2. Rewind even as far as 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot, arguably the last one that was universally agreed to be a must-play, and just 12.6% have the competition trophy. These stats clearly show that the vast majority of Call of Duty’s audience simply isn’t interested in playing alone, even for just the handful of hours required to clear these short campaigns. And with the budgets demanded, no wonder Activision has been investigating other, more multiplayer-focused alternatives… and no wonder it’s landed on something that feels like a mish-mash of Destiny, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead, and Warzone – games that have secured millions of players over the years, and broadly speak to “modern” tastes that have been more widely engineered by the likes of the always online, always social Fortnite.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that Call of Duty has attempted to go all-in on multiplayer. In fact, it’s been something of interest for Black Ops studio Treyarch for almost its entire COD career, starting with 2008’s World at War, where the campaign had (somewhat tacked-on) co-op support. A few years later, the studio would make a bolder effort with Black Ops 3, but that came with its own mistakes – a series of missions designed to be played in any order you wanted, akin to choosing multiplayer maps, meant the story lacked propulsion, coherence, and meaning. For its next game, it chose to scrap the campaign entirely, redirecting single-player resources towards Blackout, Call of Duty’s first stab at battle royale. This made Black Ops 4 the first and so far only purely multiplayer Call of Duty package – one I’m doubtful Activision will ever return to, but something that I think did signal inevitable shifts in development priorities.
We can see the colossal influence of multiplayer in other aspects of Call of Duty’s campaign design, too. 2023’s disastrous Modern Warfare 3 didn’t have co-op, but it did fully lean into the sensibilities of battle royale, tooling many of its missions to allow for the type of gameplay that those trained on Warzone would instinctively use. That went as far as even using whole sections of the Verdansk map as locations within the campaign, an idea Black Ops 7 has since pilfered with its use of Black Ops 6’s Skyline multiplayer map in the tail end of its campaign.
The infamously squashed development timeframe of Modern Warfare 3 is likely the most significant factor to blame for its “multiplayer recycled as single-player” feel, but I think there’s more to it. It wasn’t just that battle royale assets were there and ready to be Frankensteined together… it was also that Warzone was colossally more popular and more widely understood than the old-fashioned story campaign. And you can see that thinking in Black Ops 7, albeit from a new angle. Its campaign is designed around the interactions of a multiplayer shooter, not a cinematic story, and the result of that is a mode you can technically play alone, but one where the structure and balancing simply don’t make sense for it. And so, for the first time since Black Ops 4, Call of Duty is arguably a multiplayer game in its entirety.
But is this the future of Call of Duty? Will traditional campaigns be replaced by roughly-story-shaped co-op modes? It’s impossible to tell, since the series zigs and zags with yearly frequency. 12 months ago, we were given Call of Duty’s most ambitious take on its traditional single-player template since 2017’s Infinite Warfare, and yet the very same developers who made Black Ops 6 created this year’s wild left turn. In 2026, we’ll presumably get Infinity Ward’s next project, which could just as easily be a re-try of Modern Warfare 3’s Warzone-tinted experiment as much as it could be an emulation of the 2019 MW reboot or something else entirely. But as much as the future is impossible to see, the present paints a clear picture: Activision is assessing what Call of Duty means for the modern generation.
For years now, Call of Duty has been a trifecta of single-player, multiplayer, and co-op, expressed through its campaign, online, and zombies/spec-ops modes. And when you see the resources that went into Black Ops 6’s spectacular campaign, only for it to be completed by barely anyone who bought it, you have to be amazed at (and even respect) Activision’s historic dedication to big-budget single-player. But returns can only diminish for so long. The triple-A campaign shooter is an endangered species, with barely a Doom or a Wolfenstein to bank on regularly, and often, Call of Duty is the only one of its kind to arrive each year. It’s clear that Activision knows the era of the narrative FPS is practically over, and that it’s spending money on something barely any of its mammoth audience wants. And so things change. That started with multiplayer elements repackaged as single-player content, and it’ll very likely go much further than campaigns reimagined as multiplayer – you can now play Call of Duty entirely in third person, just in case you thought some things were invulnerable to the influence of Fortnite and Sony’s first-party titans.
While significant, permanent change may not come next year, or even the year after, I think this year’s campaign is a sign of things to come. At this point, when Call of Duty is a Game Pass tentpole and needs to demand engagement month after month to spin up never-ending subscriptions, why wouldn’t you turn your formerly five-hour-and-forget campaigns into a mini Destiny?
Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.
The second season of Daredevil: Born Again has given the show's creative team a new sense of freedom, series producer Sana Amanat has said, after the awkward mid-production reset experienced while shooting the show's first run.
Speaking to Empire, Amanat described the ability to freely craft Born Again's second season as "liberating," after being forced to stitch together Marvel's original plans for Born Again — including various first season scenes that had already been shot — with fresh material designed to make the series match up more closely to Netflix's fan-favorite original.
"The landscape was open, and that was so liberating," Amanat said of the series' sophomore run, which is due to air on Disney+ next year. "We were like, 'We can do whatever we want.'"
Marvel famously changed its mind on plans to make Daredevil: Born Again a full reboot for the character after seeing early footage of its first season. Initially pitched as a case-of-the-week legal drama with no link to Daredevil's Netflix era, executives ultimately decided the series had gotten off on the wrong path. A new pilot and finale were written, alongside other new material. Returning characters such as Deborah Ann Woll's Karen Page and Elden Henson's Foggy were brought back, and the series' setting was shifted from a full reboot into something closer to a revival.
"I think I'm not speaking out of turn in saying that there was an effort to make the show very separate from the Netflix [series] and kind of a new concept," Born Again writer Jesse Wigutow previously told IGN, discussing Marvel's big Daredevil pivot. "I feel like some of that worked well, and some of it didn't. And there were expectations that weren't necessarily being met, and there was a pointed effort and a left turn — to not necessarily return to Netflix, but honor the Netflix origin of the show. It is meant to be more aligned with the Netflix show now."
Ultimately, the end result felt like something of a continuation — though the seams showed through where Marvel had stitched its two visions of the series together. Free of the need to deal with this, however, Amanat suggested that Born Again season two would finally see the series back on track.
"What does it mean for Fisk when he's gotten everything he wants?" Amanat teased of Born Again's second season plotline. "When you give a person whose thirst cannot be quenched his most valued treasure, is it enough? Or does he squeeze his treasure too hard?"
Born Again will also further double down on its connections to Daredevil's Netflix run by reintroducing Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones, who Amanat said was a good fit for the series' ongoing story. "The reason she's back is because it feels like it's very personal." Amanat concluded. "She brings edginess and lightness — Daredevil can be very dark and dramatic, and she cuts through the BS in a really fun way."
"It's a very big muscular season that revolves around Fisk in office as mayor," Wigutow teased of the upcoming season, speaking to IGN. "There's a lot of political intrigue and palace intrigue.
"[We have] all these moving pieces and this big kind of canvas of New York City, but at the end of the day, it's about these two characters that you care about most," Wigutow continued, referencing Daredevil himself and his nemesis Wilson Fisk, "almost the two face-to-face in a playground. That's the idea. They hate each other, but they need each other. And how do they get through that? That's ultimately what it all comes down to. And I think we did a really fun job of delivering that."
Magic's Avatar: The Last Airbender Collector Booster Box is finally back in stock and available to preorder at Amazon. But, it's now listed for $550, which is rather a steep increase compared to its previous high of $456.
It's a little cheaper at trusted MTG reseller TCGplayer, listed at around $528, which, in all fairness, is still kinda pricey. These collector boosters have been incredibly hard to come by, hence the high pricing at both retailers.
But, if you play your cards right, there are also a couple of amazing promo offers that could bag you this crazy expensive booster box for under $250. If you fancy saving a small fortune, you'll need to check if you're eligible for an Amazon Visa card (see here).
After signing up, you'll receive an instant $60 gift card credited to your Amazon account. This will bring down the total price to $489.99, which is well below market value.
Once you've applied the gift card at checkout, make sure your AMEX or Discover credit card is on your Amazon account and use it to pay for $1 of your order.
MTG's Avatar doesn't drop until November 21, but we're already seeing top chase cards in the wild, which are ridiculously hard to pull. Feel free to try your hand at the Collectors Booster Box, but you'll likely save money just buying the cards you need outright.
Here's the top five chase cards right now, including where to buy and up-to-date market pricing information. But, also note that these prices will rapidly change come release next week on November 21, so it could be worth holding out until then as well.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
Escape from Tarkov game director Nikita Buyanov has apologized to players for the "rough" release of the extraction shooter's 1.0 version and Steam debut, saying the team is "willing to continue fighting" to "finally crack the performance problems."
On Steam, Escape from Tarkov currently has a 'mixed' user review rating, with most of the complaints around server issues that are causing long queues, performance problems, and bugs.
Writing on Twitter/X, Battlestate's Buyanov thanked players "for this overwhelming interest for the game," adding: "servers get full really fast so we['re] adding more and more servers worldwide to cut matching times more. We are also fixing all of the incoming bugs, and as I said, we will continue to improve and fix the game for the next months.
"The release was rough for sure, sorry for that. But we are willing to continue fighting for everything good against bad. We will continue to provide to you, actual fans of the game, things that you will enjoy. We need to finally crack this performance problems, outdated stuff and legacy bugs which [are] left. Yes, a lot of things were fixed in release version, but it's not enough."
In a separate statement posted to Steam, Battlestate thanked players for "supporting the project throughout all stages of development and testing, and for deciding to share this important event," and said, "despite careful preparation, unforeseen situations may arise during the process. Your bug reports help us quickly find and fix issues, making your gaming experience more comfortable and stable."
Battlestate also promised in-game compensation for all players in the near future: a Bear Classic and USEC Night Patrol set. If these sets have already been purchased, an in-game reward will be credited, the developer continued.
A technical update released on Monday, November 17, issued a handful of issues. Patch notes are below:
Fixed an issue with a broken character model appearing in the Hideout in certain cases;
Fixed the game client freeze when switching to Trader interaction screen from the Hideout;
Fixed the incorrect lighting for Jaeger when SSR is enabled in graphics settings;
Fixed the cause of main menu elements appearing during matching in certain cases;
Disabled several PostFX settings;
Fixed the cause of bots teleporting while using stationary weapons in certain cases;
Fixed the cause of bots flying in the air in certain cases.
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.
Shroud has accused The Game Awards of being “rigged” following its Game of The Year Arc Raiders snub.
The Game Awards confirmed the nominations for 2025 this week, with Sandfall’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 receiving 12 noms — the most in the Awards’ history. Embark Studios' Arc Raiders, meanwhile, has just one nomination, in the Best Multiplayer category alongside Battlefield 6, Elden Ring: Nightreign, Peak, and Split Fiction.
Shroud is a former professional Counter-Strike player who has built an enormous online audience of 6.8 million subscribers on YouTube and 11.3 million followers on Twitch. He threw himself into Arc Raiders upon its explosive launch, and in a recent Twitch stream reacted to The Game Awards nominations reveal to suggest that the game’s controversial AI-generated voice work had contributed to it missing out on recognition for GOTY.
"The world is just not ready for AI in video games, not yet,” Shroud said. “They're just not ready. But, hey, at least they nominated it for something. I genuinely thought they wouldn't nominate it for anything because they were scared to get backlash. But at least they nominated it for something, so that's good.”
Shroud continued: "Once again, another year, another rigged year. That's crazy.”
With the end of 2025 in sight, single-player role-playing game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has emerged as a frontrunner for GOTY. Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive Donkey Kong Bananza is also up for GOTY, which Shroud certainly took issue with.
“Imagine Donkey Kong, too… if Donkey Kong would win, this award show is just chalked,” Shroud said. “Who the f*** is playing Donkey Kong Bananza? Nobody’s playing Donkey Kong Bananza. Nobody. That is insane.”
Admitting Expedition 33 is probably going to win GOTY, Shroud said he hoped Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 would emerge victorious instead. He believed Arc Raiders will win best Multiplayer, and Battlefield 6 will win best Action. He expressed confusion that Arc Raiders was not nominated for best Audio Design, given the plaudits it has received in that area.
Shroud had previously claimed that voting in The Game Awards doesn’t matter. “All the f***ing awards are rigged anyway, who cares?” he said. “When have you ever seen an award that’s actually legit?”
Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards uses a combination of votes from the games media and influencers as well as public fan voting. The voting jury has in the past had more of an influence on the outcome. Keighley has said he’s considered going all in on public voting for The Game Awards, but expressed concerns about “social engineering.”
The Game Awards ceremony is set for December 11, 2025 at 5pm PT/8pm ET.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Cloudflare has confirmed a server issue that has knocked out significant parts of the internet.
Social networks such as X / Twitter, as well as websites such as Downdetector and even some video games are inaccessible following the outage. Some affected websites are reporting an internal server error code and pointing users to Cloudflare for more information. Downdetector itself is reporting a 'Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed' error message. Tweets on Elon Musk's X are failing to load.
Downdetector, which is recovering itself, reports the Cloudflare outage has knocked out a number of websites and services.
In a statement, web infrastructure company Cloudflare said it was “aware of, and investigating an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers.”
In a status update, Cloudflare said it had identified the issue and implemented a fix. "We have made changes that have allowed Cloudflare Access and WARP to recover," Cloudflare said. "Error levels for Access and WARP users have returned to pre-incident rates."
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Jon Snow actor Kit Harrington has said he felt awkward smooching his former Game of Thrones co-star Sophie Turner, who previously played his on-screen sister Sansa Stark.
The two actors share romantic scenes in the upcoming gothic horror film The Dreadful, and Harrington has said his situation while filming the movie wasn't helped by the height difference between the couple.
"It was slightly embarrassing, having to get on an apple box to kiss her because she's about a foot taller than me," Harrington told E! Online. "But other than that, my dignity was pretty intact."
Still, the former Game of Thrones actor said he recalled being surprised that Turner had even suggested him for the part, considering the fact that their characters would be romantically involved.
"She was one that sent that movie to me and somehow didn't see what I saw in it," he continued. "I was like, 'These guys, these are lovers, right?' I felt very odd about that." As for filming the scenes themselves, Harrington concluded that the whole thing had been "a bit weird."
It's now been six years since Game of Thrones finished its final season, and in the meantime the pair have remained close friends. Harrington has also now married his former Game of Thrones co-star Rose Leslie, who played Jon Snow's on-screen wildling lover Ygrrite.
Earlier this year, Turner recalled her side of the story — and insisted that, yes, filming the movie had been an odd experience for her too.
"I did a movie last year which I'm really excited about with my old — but very good friend — Kit Harington who played my brother on Game of Thrones," Turner told Vogue, via E! Online. "And we're doing a gothic horror, but we play lovers... It's really weird for all of us."
Turner went into more detail on Late Night With Seth Myers, where she recalled Harrington responding to her suggestion he take on the role via a text message stating: "Yeah, I’d love to, but this is going to be really f***ing weird, Soph.”
Turner then claimed it was only then that she looked at the script in more detail. "And it’s like, ‘Kiss, kiss, sex, kiss, sex…" Turner admitted. "And then I’m like, ‘Oh, shoot, that’s my brother.'"
Set during the 15th century Wars of the Roses — a conflict between families over the English crown which directly inspired Game of Thrones itself — The Dreadful sees Harrington and Turner play a couple thrown together by fate. No release date has currently been announced.
Image credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Rebecca Heineman, known best for co-founding original Fallout developer Interplay alongside Brain Fargo, Jay Patel, and Troy Worrell in the early 1980s, has died aged 62.
The news was shared by her friend Heidi McDonald, who wrote on BlueSky that "my trailblazing game industry bad-ass friend Rebecca Heineman has passed away. F**k cancer. Friends, let's not forget her."
On a GoFundMe page set up by Heineman shortly after her diagnosis, she described herself as "the very first video game champion, creator of Bard’s Tale 3, Dragon Wars, and one of the founders of Interplay Productions and MacPlay. Creator of Sailor Ranko the webcomic and software archivist." The fund remains open to support Heineman's family.
In her final message, penned yesterday, November 17, she wrote: "It’s time. According to my doctors. All further treatments are pointless. So, please donate so my kids can create a funeral worthy of my keyboard, Pixelbreaker! So I can make a worthy entrance for reuniting with my one true love, Jennell Jaquays. My daughter Cynthia Elizabeth heineman, will be making the arrangements."
Heineman rose to fame when she won a national Space Invaders tournament in 1980 aged 14, then carved out an impressive gamedev career, having taught herself to code by reverse engineering. Her development and publishing credits include Wasteland, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and The Bard's Tale 3: Thief of Fate. She most recently served as CEO of Olde Sküül.
Bard’s Tale 3 stands out as one of her defining moments at Interplay and of her entire career, Heineman told Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play in 2024. "Being able to head the project and be the decision maker was what started me on the path to being a studio head,” she said. Heineman left Interplay in 1995, seeking a return to small teams.
She was honored as the 2025 Gayming Icon Award for "her advocacy for LGBTQ+ inclusion, accessibility, and diversity in tech has inspired countless developers and players," (thanks, PC Gamer).
Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo called her "one of the most brilliant programmers around," and said news of her death was "a real gut punch." "Rebecca Heineman sadly passed away. Known her since the 80s when I'd drive her to work, one of the most brilliant programmers around. A real gut punch earlier today when she messaged me: 'We have gone on so many adventures together! But, into the great unknown! I go first!!!'"
Rebecca Heineman sadly passed away. Known her since the 80s when I'd drive her to work, one of the most brilliant programmers around. A real gut punch earlier today when she messaged me: "We have gone on so many adventures together! But, into the great unknown! I go first!!!" :( pic.twitter.com/lu3i0fyt5C
Other game developers have also shared their memories, including Rami Ismail and Josh Sawyer, with many others sharing stories of Rebecca's mentorship, kindness and support.
A game industry legend died a few mins ago, Rebecca Heineman (@burgerbecky), taken away by aggressive lung cancer. She oversaw the porting of Wizordum to the Mac OS most recently for Apogee. My local friends would often have dinner with her and I loved her industry stories and…
— Scott Miller - Apogee/3D Realms Founder ☢️ (@ScottApogee) November 17, 2025
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.
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