Today’s lineup of deals includes some heavy hitters in gaming and productivity. Alienware’s sleek 16X Aurora laptop with an RTX 5070 is down to $1,599.99, its lowest price yet. If you’re shopping for a tablet instead, Amazon has the latest iPad Air M3 for $449.

TL;DR: Deals for Today

You’ll also find an Alienware desktop with an RTX 5080, Lenovo’s OLED-equipped Legion Pro 5 laptop, and practical accessories like an Anker power bank and a cordless air duster. Fancy upgrading your gaming setup or grabbing a travel essential? Today’s deals are for you:

Bluetti 448Wh LiFePO4 Power Station for $226.82

Eligible for Retailmenot's 30% cashback sitewide offer

Alienware 16X Aurora

2025 Apple iPad Air

Alienware Aurora

JVSCAM Cordless Electric Air Duster

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Gen 10

Anker 737

DRAGON QUEST VII Reimagined Preorders

Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is now up for preorder on Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, ahead of its February 5, 2026 release. This reimagined classic brings Akira Toriyama’s character designs into a vivid diorama-style world, blending familiar charm with fresh visuals. Players will travel through time by piecing together ancient stone fragments, restoring lost islands, and uncovering mysteries that shape the present. With streamlined storytelling, revamped turn-based combat, and the new Moonlighting mechanic that lets you level two vocations at once, it’s designed to feel both nostalgic and modern. Preordering also nets early buyers a special Hero costume and bonus items to start the adventure.

LISEN for iPhone 17 Charger Cord

INIU Portable Charger

A Charlie Brown Christmas (60th Anniversary) [Zoetrope LP]

Lexar 512GB Play PRO microSD Express Card

Pokémon TCG Price Watch

If you’re looking to stock up on sealed Pokémon TCG product, TCGPlayer remains the most reliable place for market-low pricing across the board. The vast majority of booster packs, tins, and trainer boxes are sitting cheaper there than on Amazon, often by $5-$15.

Bundles like the White Flare Binder Collection and the Shining Fates Collection Pikachu V Box are up to $40 off, deals that everyone should be snapping up right now. It’s worth keeping an eye on these dips, since Amazon tends to fluctuate prices more often than dedicated TCG retailers.

Pokémon TCG Below Market Value

While TCGPlayer is often the go-to marketplace for low Pokémon TCG prices, a handful of sealed products are currently cheaper on Amazon, making them below market value and worth grabbing. Right now, the Black Bolt Booster Bundle is available for $50.01 on Amazon, while the White Flare Booster Bundle has dipped under $46.

Collectors looking for nostalgic sets can also snag the Team Rocket Tin at $41.24, or the Paradox Pokémon Stacking Tin at $26.32. Even seasonal products like the Trick or Trade BOOster Bundle (2024) are under market at $21.22, and the Unova Mini Tin rounds out the list at just $19.99.

Invest In Silver Tempest Now

Silver Tempest has proven to be one of the most collector-driven sets of the Sword and Shield era, with prices pulled between nostalgia, competitive play, and limited supply. The clear winner is Lugia V (Alternate Full Art) 186/195, which has surged 68% since July to $427, cementing itself as the set’s chase card.

Trainer Gallery standouts like Rayquaza VMAX TG20/TG30 and Blaziken VMAX TG15/TG30 have also doubled or tripled in value thanks to strong artwork and nostalgia, while even Lugia VSTAR continues climbing on competitive strength. At the same time, cards like Regidrago V (Alternate Art) and Alolan Vulpix VSTAR have cooled as the meta shifted away from them, with values slipping back toward the $12–$14 range.

Snag Classic Mega Evolution Cards Before Market Rise

The market for XY-era Mega Evolution Pokémon cards is heating up fast ahead of Pokémon Legends: Z-A and the upcoming Mega Evolution TCG set. Collectors aren’t waiting for modern reprints, they’re chasing the originals, and prices are showing it. Some cards have exploded in value, while others have steadied after sharp climbs, creating both momentum plays and entry points for buyers. Leading the surge is M Rayquaza EX (Shiny Full Art - Ancient Origins), which has skyrocketed over 426% this year, from $275 in January to $1,450 today.

M Gengar EX (Secret Rare - Phantom Forces) isn’t far behind, up nearly fivefold to $415, cementing its place as one of the most sought-after Megas. Other heavy-hitters include M Rayquaza EX (Full Art - Roaring Skies), now at $656, M Charizard EX (X - Flashfire) climbing past $349, and Primal Groudon EX (Shiny Full Art), which has more than doubled to $349. These climbers show how nostalgia, unique mechanics, and iconic artwork are driving a collector frenzy.

But not every Mega Evolution is running away in price. Some cards have plateaued after strong early-year gains, leaving a rare buying window before the next spike. M Mewtwo EX (Full Art - BREAKthrough) climbed from $37 to $145 but has leveled off in recent weeks, while M Alakazam EX (Full Art - Fates Collide) sits steady just under $100 after jumping from $28 earlier this year.

Even Charizard is showing signs of cooling, M Charizard EX (Generations) and M Charizard EX (Full Art - Evolutions) have tripled since January but are holding in the $190-$200 range for now. These pauses don’t signal weakness; rather, they reflect consolidation before the broader Mega Evolution wave hits with new set releases. For collectors and investors, the message is clear: the grails are climbing fast, but the plateaued cards may be the smarter pickups before Mega hype takes over the market again.

Crown Zenith Prices Are Rising

The Crown Zenith market has been showing two very different stories this month. On one hand, several Galarian Gallery Ultra Rares are slipping as hype fades, with fan-favorites like Leafeon VSTAR and Suicune V dropping more than 20% from their peaks.

On the other hand, the gold Secret Rares are climbing steadily, led by Giratina VSTAR and Arceus VSTAR, as collectors chase the scarce, high-end pieces of the set. This split reflects a maturing market: casual collectors are less interested in mid-tier Eeveelutions and V cards, while serious players and investors are doubling down on the big four golds.

Among the crashers, Leafeon VSTAR has fallen from nearly $50 to the $43 range, and Glaceon VSTAR is down 26% since February, hovering in the mid-$30s. Deoxys VMAX has slipped under $37, while Suicune V and Raikou V both lost more than a quarter of their value since spring. These are still striking artworks, but set fatigue and limited competitive relevance are pushing prices down.

Meanwhile, the climbers are commanding all the attention. Giratina VSTAR (Secret) has surged nearly 20% since July to $180, making it the definitive chase of Crown Zenith. Mewtwo VSTAR is also up more than 30% this summer, with its Charizard battle artwork driving collector demand. Rounding out the gains, Arceus VSTAR, Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR, and Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR are all trending higher as well, thanks to their powerful abilities and limited supply. Taken together, the set still holds broad collector appeal, but it’s clear the market is consolidating around the golden Secret Rares as the safest long-term holds.

First Party Nintendo Switch 2 Preorders

Nintendo’s 2025 first-party lineup is shaping up to be one of its strongest in years. Pokémon Legends: Z-A is set to arrive in October, followed closely by Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 bundled together for Switch 2.

Then in December, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond lands with its own set of new amiibo figures, alongside Kirby’s big return in Kirby Air Riders. Between new entries in cornerstone franchises and fresh collectible amiibo launches, fans will have plenty to keep their Switch 2 libraries stocked through the holidays.

Third Party Switch 2 Preorders

The third-party slate for Switch 2 is just as impressive, with several big franchises making the jump to the new hardware. Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection launches in December with a full set of classic fighters, while Borderlands 4 and Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake hit this fall.

Beyond that, titles like Hades II, Octopath Traveler 0, and Cronos round out the lineup for RPG fans. Whether you’re into fighters, shooters, or sprawling JRPGs, the Switch 2’s preorder catalog already feels packed, and today’s deals cover every one of them.

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.

The Boox Tab X C brings color to big-screen e-ink tablets. It’s one of the best examples of the e-ink tablet maker at its strongest pulling together the strengths of its prior tablets – great screens, versatile Android software – to deliver an experience that elevates the color e-reader to a place where it could become a laptop replacement (if you bring your own keyboard) that gives the iPad a run for its money. It is simply one of the best color e-readers for ebooks, comics, and browsing the web, and its large, A4 paper-sized screen, also makes it an equally good fit for the classroom and office as a feature-rich digital notebook. It occasionally stumbles with a handwriting experience that doesn’t quite match its Wacom predecessors, but the experience is overall one of the best e-ink has to offer today.

Boox Tab X C – Design and Features

The Boox Tab X C makes a compelling case for paper-sized digital notebooks. I was a daily user of the same-sized Boox Note Max, the Tab X C’s note-centric monochrome counterpart, and used to its A4 paper-like size but even still, the Tab X C makes an impression. At 13.3 inches, it’s large for any tablet – even the largest iPad Pro is still 13 inches – and for one with an e-ink display, which is usually associated with handheld e-readers, it seems especially big. But for large PDFs and handwriting space that’s a good match for an actual sheet of paper, it’s great.

At the same time, Boox has done a good job of making it easy to hold and use, whether you’re writing with its stylus on a desk or holding it in your hand to read a book. Three sides have a slim bezel of about a quarter of an inch, but the left is much wider and acts as a natural hand-hold. It’s thin, measuring only 5.3mm and weighs 625g, or just a couple of ounces more than the aforementioned iPad Pro.

The frame is made of aluminum and the screen is glass instead of the softer plastic found on some other digital notebooks. The back has a matte texture with a glossy stripe down the side and some script branding in the corner. It’s simple but refined. If you use it without a case, it can be a little slippery. (I wish more brands would opt for a grippier finish like the recent ReMarkable Paper Pro Move.) With a glass screen, the Tab X C is naturally more fragile and susceptible to pressure, so picking up a case is definitely advisable.

The display on the Tab X C uses a color e-ink Kaleido 3 panel, which is currently the most recent and highest-performance from the E Ink Corporation. It has a resolution of 3,200 x 2,400 in black and white and 1,600 x 1,200 for color, giving it pixel densities of 300 PPI and 150 PPI, respectively. I’ll go into more detail shortly, but the display also has fewer layers separating the actual panel and the front glass and both color and clarity look better than I’ve seen on any other Kaleido 3 panel so far.

Unlike traditional LCD tablets, e-ink renders black and white and color content differently. Below the screen are masses of black and white particles that rise to the surface when charged with electricity. There are no colored particles to directly render the hues that appear on screen. Instead, a color filter is used to split red, green, and blue hues from the white particles only. Since only the white particles, or half of the total “pixels,” are able to be split, the resolution for color content is also half of the total display.

In practice, what matters most is the 300 PPI, as blacks cover most text and outlines of illustrations. Colors more frequently “fill in” so the lower resolution isn’t as noticeable as the crisp, paper-like text and line work. Even in color graphic novels and apps, the screen looks very sharp for e-ink and is definitely at the top of its class.

Part of its impressive performance is also due to how well it handles ghosting, or afterimages of what last appeared on the screen. The Tab X C comes with Boox Super Refresh (BSR) technology, powered by its Snapdragon 855 octa-core CPU. Without any user intervention, the tablet automatically works to remove any visual remnants for a clean reading experience.

That processor is hardly new, first released in 2018, but still works very well for anything you would typically do on an e-ink tablet. It’s responsive to the touch, reacts to the pen immediately and reliably, and runs most apps without hardware-related slowdowns. Handwriting latency can be an issue, but typically only if you’re using apps that weren’t designed with e-ink devices in mind.

One of the most controversial aspects of the Tab X C is that it uses an active stylus with haptic feedback instead of the Wacom EMR stylus found on previous models. Wacom styluses work with a special under-screen layer that detects handwriting input with high accuracy and without the need to keep the stylus charged. It’s a community favorite and approaches a standard-level of adoption among e-ink tablets. Because of this, there are also tons of aftermarket pens right on Amazon, as well as low-cost replacement tips to keep your writing experience sharp.

The Tab X C’s new stylus, the Inkspire, uses the USI 2.0 protocol. It’s capacitive, not magnetic, and many people were worried that it wouldn’t be as accurate as Wacom. It attaches magnetically to the side of the tablet and recharges wirelessly while there, so you won’t have to be concerned about that, at least.

It’s not as accurate as Wacom. That’s an objective fact. But, as far as capacitive styluses go, this is one of the better ones. In fact, unless you’re making slow straight lines, the accuracy feels pretty spot on. While I can’t say for sure, I’d wager that Boox went out of its way to make sure that the capacitive layer built into the screen is higher-resolution than standard.

The bigger issue is that the screen is perfectly smooth and doesn’t have the microtexturing to make handwriting feel like paper on its own. The haptics help and can even be convincing at times, but it’s not the same. As of this writing, there also aren’t any replacement tips available for purchase in the United States (though I would expect them to appear in the future). There are several included in the box, though, and without texturing on the screen to wear them out prematurely, they should last virtually forever.

If you add your own paper-like screen protector, though, you’ll quickly burn through these — mine didn’t last a week before needing to be replaced. Until replacement tips are available, you’ll be stuck buying a whole new Inkspire stylus which currently retails for $99. You could also pick up a different stylus that does have replacement tips available (any USI 2.0 stylus should do), which will run you anywhere from $30 to $70.

With all of that in mind, while Wacom purists won’t be content with the Inkspire, I didn’t mind it. If you can get past the smooth screen, I found it to be accurate, responsive, and perfectly fine to write on.

Like many of Boox's other tablets, the Tab X C runs a full version of the Android operating system, but one that has been customized to work best with its e-ink display. It comes with the Google Play Store pre-installed so you can load your own applications in addition to those provided by Boox. This gives you a wealth of choices and an open door to integrate the tablet into your existing mobile workflow. This does diminish its distraction-free design a touch, as it's possible for applications to inundate you with notifications and for you to install social media. Getting sidetracked is less likely due to the slower refresh rate of its e-ink screen.

Because Boox has been refining its implementation of Android across multiple products, its capabilities, features, and level of polish generally exceed the competition in this space, though that gap is closing quickly. A good example of this is within the Microsoft OneNote app. While handwriting in the app were initially too laggy to use on other tablets, updates and an innovative solution to this problem have rendered that a thing of the past. Now, the application easily functions across platforms, with all changes synced automatically to the cloud.

Boox Tab X C – Performance

More than many other e-ink tablets, the Boox Tab X C is able to fill multiple roles depending on how you would like to use it. It's a fantastic e‑reader, excellent for typing and getting work done, and also acts as a digital notebook and sketchpad. The Android integration adds a welcome amount of versatility. So even if the built-in applications don't meet your needs, it's very likely that another application will and is readily available on the Google Play Store.

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way first: the writing experience. Much has been made about its active stylus and lack of tactile feedback from screen texturing. The criticisms aren't wrong, but they are overblown. Though the writing experience is absolutely better with some kind of screen texturing (I tested this myself with a paper-like screen protector), the included stylus feels high-resolution enough that my writing always felt accurate and immediate.

The classic test of writing slow, straight lines does reveal a small amount of jitter that's not present with Wacom. However, for e-ink tablets, this is a stress test and not something you will encounter often in normal use unless you’re an artist. For handwriting and a more typical movement speed, I didn’t notice it much at all.

The stylus’s haptic feedback is hit or miss depending on your tastes. It can be set across six preset points from Low to High and Off, but anything below halfway was difficult to feel. Setting it to its maximum highlighted the haptic motor instead of feeling like writing on a textured surface. Your mileage will vary but this essentially left me with one choice. I enjoyed it and found it to be better than simply writing on a completely smooth screen. Over time, it does become less convincing, however.

I want to give Boox kudos for its implementation, though, because different tools provide different types of haptic feedback. Writing with the pencil tool feels rougher than the pen tool, for example. I like that quite a bit; it’s a neat touch.

The screen quality is excellent. Text is clear and legible, and colors have a bit more vibrancy than on the Note Air 4C I reviewed previously. Since there’s no Wacom layer, there’s also less space between the screen’s surface and its e-ink layer, reducing a bit of the dimness inherent to Kaleido 3 displays and making writing feel slightly more natural. The lack of screen texturing also makes this one of the crispest Kaleidos available.

Its responsiveness is very good. I was a bit concerned about this because the Boox Note Max had significant ghosting issues when it launched and made me question whether Boox Super Refresh was working correctly. That was addressed with firmware updates and is much less of an issue today, but the Tab X C launched in a great state and has only gotten better with time.

This, combined with its support for apps like Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and Obsidian, make it a great tablet for typing. E-ink is known for its latency while typing, and while the Tab X C isn’t quite to the level of an actual laptop, it can easily be used for essays and other typed note-taking when set to its highest refresh mode. So, if you like the benefits of e-ink’s reduced eye strain and distraction-light design but don’t want to write by hand, this might just be the perfect option for you.

The biggest issue with the screen is that it pretty much requires using the frontlight. Kaleido screens are noticeably darker due to the color filter layer, so white looks very grey and colors are duller without it. The frontlight is very well done, evenly illuminating the screen without shining any light directly into your eyes, but impacts overall battery life.

The Tab X C comes with a 5,500mAH battery. With regular use of a couple hours each day and the frontlight on 80% brightness, it typically lasted me three to four days before needing a recharge. This will vary depending on what you’re doing, but just know that it won’t last weeks at a time like a Kindle.

Of course, it has all of Boox’s staples, including dedicated apps for note-taking, managing your calendar, reading, and browsing the web. In these applications, you can really see the years of polish shine through. Boox’s Neoreader app allows you to highlight, annotate, screenshot and markup, and manipulate books and PDFs in a wide array of ways. The Notes app has an assortment of writing tools and a keyword linking system similar to Supernote, handwriting-to-text conversion, a full art suite including Photoshop-like layering and drawing tools, and more.

If you instead opt for a third-party app, like Amazon Kindle, you can raise an “E-Ink Center” menu to adjust key settings to ensure it works well. You can customize how colors appear, contrast, refresh behavior, animation filtering, and more to make sure it works well. I would love to see Boox implement “best settings” for popular apps out of the box, but the tools are there.

Taken as a whole, the Boox Tab X C is one of the most fully featured, best implemented e-ink tablets available. It’s only a couple of steps shy of being the ideal e-ink tablet for users that prefer larger screens, with only its handwriting experience holding it back. If Boox can continue to improve its onboarding and user-friendliness for future releases, it could dominate the market and propel e-ink Android tablets into the mainstream.

If you want a ready-to-go gaming PC that’s affordable, strong, and pretty, the iBuyPower RDY Slate 9MP R01 may be for you. Despite it being incredibly smooth to access the internals with the clip-on platings, the PSU in this gaming PC is completely inaccessible, with all the wires trapped in a mysterious black box that you’d need to void the warranty to open. The Nvidia RTX 5070, an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and 32GB of RAM do perform well enough to make gaming in 1440p with max settings more than possible. But while it’ll be easy to upgrade this PC if all the connectors remain the same, this PC comes with a non-modular power supply, which means you’ll have to outright replace it to add any new cables – not a great look from a ‘premium’ PC builder.

Design and Features

Ever wonder what a prism being eaten by a prison looks like? Well, me neither, but the iBuyPower RDY Slate 9MP R01 kind of looks like that. The full glass panel takes a sharp chunk out of the front of the case, which contrasts against the grilles and vents around the chassis. I love this look, especially with the RGB turned on, because it makes the interior look like it’s floating.

There’s RGB lighting on the three front fans, CPU fan, back fan, and even the RAM. What ties everything together, though, is the L-shaped light bar on the interior that starts at the top of the front fans and ends toward the back ports. It gives the whole case a more three-dimensional feel. Both the glass and back panels just snap into place, too, so you can pop them off and on easily, which is great because the GPU that ships with the PC does not come installed.

Installing the graphics card took little effort. There’s a panel on the back ports that covers a hole next to the expansion slots. It’s attached via a thumb screw, so it’s easy to pop off and slide the edge of the graphics card into place, and then reattach the panel. However, when I went to connect the GPU to the PSU, I realized that the PSU is non-modular, which means you’re stuck with a mess of pre-installed cables that you can neither remove or add to. The cable for the GPU was available but it wasn’t pre-routed through the case, so I still needed to feed the wire through the chassis to plug it into the graphics card.

As far as the ports go, you’ll find two USB Type-A, two audio ports, and a USB Type-C on the top right of the chassis. It might be only slightly inconvenient for folks that position their PC on the right side of their desk.

The back features four USB 2.0 Type-A, two USB 5Gbps Type-A, and one USB 10Gbps Type-A. I wish we got at least one more 10GBps Type-A port, but there is one USB Type-C back there. There’s also one DisplayPort and HDMI slot, an RJ45 Ethernet port, and 3 audio ports. There’s a Wi-Fi module, too, with two prongs jutting out of the I/O.

Connecting the Wi-Fi extender was vital for me, as my office is above where my router is. The motherboard comes packaged with a ASUS Wi-Fi moving antenna, which was kind of a pain to connect. The prongs are surrounded by a piece of plastic that’s designed to warp around the ports upon connection. However, it took great strength and grace to connect these without snapping it in half. Why couldn’t it have just been screwed on?

Configurations

Do you want a prebuilt gaming PC from a custom PC-building company without having to customize anything? Well, boy howdy, do I have a PC for you: the iBuyPower RDY Slate 9MP R01. For $1,799, it's outfitted with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Beyond that, there’s a 750-watt PSU and a five-fan cooling system, all packed into a ASUS Prime B650M-A AX6 II motherboard. That’s a pretty decent price for an RTX 5070 gaming PC, but you’re still going to want to pick this thing up on a sale.

There’s only one other model that features the Slate 9MP case, and that’s the RDY Slate 9MP Valorant R02, which costs $1,499. It comes with all the same specs as our review unit except downgrades the GPU to an RTX 5060 Ti. There’s absolutely nothing tying it to the game, Valorant, other than signaling that this PC can run it well. But that’s pretty solid for the price.

The iBuyPower RDY Slate 9MP R01 ships with the iBuyPower MK9 RGB mechanical keyboard and mouse. The keyboard sports tactile brown switches that felt dull to type on – it wasn’t very snappy and produced a mushy thonk with every press. It’s fine for a “free” mechanical keyboard, even the RGB looked nice. Although, if you’re anything like me, you’re going to hate that the right Shift key is so small. The mouse elicited a similar middling experience, and the RGB was not as good-looking due to the mouse’s cheap transparent plastic. The real issue, though, is that it felt flimsy, and the clickers produced a dull bassy sound as opposed to a pleasant sharp click.

Performance

Jumping in the mid-range of GPUs is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, which is packed into the iBuyPower RDY Slate 9MP R01 alongside the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and 32GB of RAM. Despite being in the more affordable range of gaming PCs, the RTX 5070 manages to take on a decent load, achieving near 60 fps at 4K Ultra settings and near triple digits at 1440p in select titles, all without DLSS 4. Unfortunately, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is a bit old at this point — it launched 2022. It could’ve had the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X at the very least, although it would’ve been pricier.

Whether you’re jumping across the rooftops of Night City or hacking your local grocery store, you should be averaging 56 fps at 4K set to Ray Tracing Ultra and DLSS Performance in Cyberpunk 2077. You’ll get the most out of the RTX 5070 in 1440p, however, as it scored 95 fps. And of course, frame generation takes that up to a whole new level. At 1440p, we got 146 fps at x2 and 236 fps at x4, whereas at 4K it hit 92 fps and 159 fps, respectively.

You’ll be able to saturate a high-refresh rate display when playing multiplayer games like Black Ops 6 and Forza Horizon 5, which scored 147 fps and 154 fps at 1440p, respectively, and then 99 fps and 118 fps at 4K. Those clutch around-the-corner encounters and sharp turns on the track might be a little easier to manage. However, the RTX 5070’s biggest weakness is revealed when there’s no upscaling tech available. I ran Metro Exodus at Extreme, 4K settings with no upscaling, and it averaged only 39 fps. At 1440p, it did cross the 60-fps threshold, at 69 fps.

I queued Cloak & Dagger in Marvel Rivals, and as I was racing down our tank who made the mistake of pushing too hard, the RTX 5070 hit 113 fps with a 67ms delay when set to 4K, Ultra, Native DLSS, 4x Multi-Frame Generation. (Our tank was a menace, but the RTX 5070 pulled through).

At the highest settings, you’re likely to get close to 60 fps in most games, even at 4K. But if you want to make use of a high-refresh rate monitor, then you should settle for 1440p. One of the biggest issues I noticed, however, is that the PC blasted its fans under the slightest pressure, even when a game wasn’t running. When running all the benchmarks, the fans went wee and woo like a jet engine, so keep that in mind if you don’t like blaring fans – or at least get ready to tweak the fan curve.

Rami Tabari is a contributing writer at IGN with over 9 years of experience in the tech and gaming industry. You can find his bylines at Laptop Mag and Tom's Guide (and on a random Predator review at Space.com). When Rami isn't wading through a sea of the latest gaming tech, he's agonizing over the worldbuilding in his upcoming novella.

I’ve put over 100 hours into Donkey Kong Bananza since July. I reached 100% completion on my first playthrough, did a zero-banana run on my second, and I’ve been using a third to practice crazy speedrun techniques and push DK’s incredible movement in more extreme ways. Two months after giving Bananza a 10 in my original review, I remain in awe of how DK’s frenetic, destructive abilities work masterfully in tandem with the underground’s meticulously-designed breakable environments. Nintendo nailed the relationship between Bananza’s world and its main character, and the new DK Island and Emerald Rush DLC is a really fun excuse to keep experimenting in this playground in a remixed, more frantic way, even if a slight lack of content and a few minor issues keep it from reaching the same inspired heights as the base game.

Before we get too far into things, a quick note. Bananza’s DLC is only accessible after clearing the main story, and it acts as somewhat of an extended postgame. I’m not going to outright spoil Bananza here, but if you’re still drilling your way to the planet core and don’t want to know anything about it, you may want to come back to this review once you’ve reached the end credits. That said, you should also do so before you dive too far past them, because the DLC makes some helpful changes to the original endgame grind that you may want to know about. There are two intertwined halves of the DLC to discuss: DK Island is a new level to explore, while Emerald Rush is a roguelite take on Bananza that makes up the majority of the content found in this combined package.

DK Island is a wonderful love letter to Rare’s Donkey Kong Country trilogy and Donkey Kong 64. It’s a nostalgic return to where DK platformers really began, comparable to exploring Super Mario 64’s Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey’s postgame. It’s overflowing with great references, from obvious ones like DK’s treehouse and King K. Rool’s Gangplank Galleon from Donkey Kong Country, to deeper cuts like DKC 2’s goal target tucked away in the corner on the ship’s main deck. As a huge fan of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat – the last DK platformer Nintendo developed internally prior to Bananza – my favorite part of DK Island has to be the bongos out at sea. There are so many more references to DK history I don’t want to give away, but if you have any love for this series, you’ll probably get a kick out of discovering all its easter eggs too.

Beyond that, though, there’s actually not that much to do on DK Island. There are no Banandium Gems or fossils to hunt down and no challenge rooms to conquer. Instead, the gold bonus stages found in Bananza’s main layers are all collected here, making DK Island a convenient place to grind for cash. Bananza’s original postgame sees Grumpy Kong demanding tens of thousands of gold pieces to unlock some of the final collectibles and reach 100% completion, and those who have access to DK Island will have a much easier time grinding than I did before the DLC was out. Elsewhere, DK’s old parrot companion Squawks is here, and he will hunt down one of DK Island’s dozens of collectible statues in exchange for Banandium Chips. Shiny replicas of Bananza’s allies, enemies, and Kongs live in galleries across DK Island, adding to its value as a nostalgic DK history museum. In classic Bananza fashion, you can pick them up, turf surf on them, and use them to carve through the island’s central mountain. You’ll need to grind thousands of Banandium Chips to buy them all, but thankfully, those are the main reward of the Emerald Rush mode.

Besides DK Island’s role as a rush of 90s nostalgia and a place to store cool trinkets, there’s not much to it, and I wouldn’t recommend buying the DLC if you’re only interested in this component. It’s a little odd that DK Island wasn’t included as a postgame reward in the base game since it’s so comparable to Odyssey’s Mushroom Kingdom, and gating it behind paid DLC feels kind of like a money-hungry move from Nintendo. This is the company that just charged $10 for Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, though, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at this somewhat eyeroll-worthy choice.

Fortunately, Bananza’s DLC does a much better job justifying its $20 price tag in its Emerald Rush mode. Void Kong has found his way to DK Island, and he’s moved on from his obsession with Banandium Gold to set his sights on a new prize: emerald ore… which is the exact same, but green. Void hires DK and Pauline to collect as much emerald ore as possible, and this introduction includes some cute followups and resolutions for Bananza’s main story and characters.

I’ve seen some online chatter calling Emerald Rush a simple minigame that should have been free, but it’s much more than that: it’s a fully-featured side mode that turns Bananza’s destruction-based platforming into a fun, replayable roguelite. Each run takes place across a series of rounds – ranging from six to 15 depending on the difficulty level selected – where you have 100 seconds to reach a quota of emerald ore to pay Void. If you don’t reach the goal, your run comes to an end right there. If you do, you can keep working on your build for the rest of the timer to stock up for the next round, where the quota progressively multiples.

Emerald Rush feels like a combination of Splatoon’s Salmon Run and Side Order modes. Personality-wise, it clearly takes inspiration from Salmon Run: both feature a hilariously mean boss screaming at you to meet your quota through a walkie talkie over increasingly difficult rounds. This is also Nintendo’s first take on a roguelite since last year’s excellent Side Order DLC for Splatoon 3 which, notably, also came bundled with a nostalgic hub to explore. It feels like Donkey Kong is following the exact same playbook, as Emerald Rush features dozens of perks that impact your score multiplier in a very similar fashion.

Each run of Emerald Rush begins by stripping DK of all his skills – including his five Bananza transformations at higher difficulties – and it’s up to you to power him back up while also gathering piles of emerald ore. This is done by frantically exploring layers, fast traveling around with a limited number of barrel cannons, collecting emerald bananas and fossils that restore DK’s skills and give you the choice of one of three perks, and completing goals Void Kong assigns you at specific locations across the map. I love starting from nothing, giving me a place to put all of DK’s high-level base techniques to use, and I found I was able to reach a lot of areas in really cool, satisfying ways – for example, using a chunk to essentially quadruple jump to a platform I traditionally would have used Ostrich Bananza to reach. Emerald Rush challenges advanced players to go for the highest score possible, and there’s always room to grow by deepening your understanding of how DK moves.

But even if you’re not interested in crazy parkour tricks, the most important part of Emerald Rush are the perks that alter how much emerald ore appears. There are generic power-ups like generating more when defeating a certain type of enemy, but the most exciting ways to score are the Groove subset of perks, which revolve around multipliers that increase the more you perform a specific action. For instance, my favorite is Turf Groove, where more emerald ore appears based on the total distance traveled by Turf Surfing. The second this perk shows up, my whole playstyle changes. Suddenly, I’m trying to get everywhere by Turf Surfing, which is a big challenge on denser layers. Emerald Rush leads to scenarios you’d never see in the base game, and with such an incredible foundation to build a roguelite on, it’s always fun seeing how you can push the mechanics.

Stacking multiple perks like this on top of each other can lead to completely busted results, and I scored well over one million points on a few runs where my target goal was less than half that. If you thought the base game had a lot happening on-screen at once, Emerald Rush achieves a new level of unregulated chaos, like one run where I got tons of bonus emerald ore for defeating enemies as Zebra Bananza, leading to 30 minutes of sprinting around nonstop, destroying everything in sight to flood the screen with an overwhelming, borderline unbelievable amount of emerald ore.

It’s not always a breeze, though. Like most roguelites, a lot of your success depends on what skills randomly show up, and I lost multiple runs by banking on a certain Bananza to spawn by building my perks around it, and ultimately failing when it never arrived. Speaking of Bananzas, Emerald Rush really rewards mastery over these five powered-up forms, as knowing the best way to take advantage of their unique strengths and swapping between them on the fly results in a high skill ceiling fitting of an endgame mode.

I do wish Emerald Rush went a little bit further with its abilities, though. Seeing big numbers get bigger is always enjoyable, and the way Emerald Rush overlays your multiplier onto every individual explosion is a nice touch – but with a few rare exceptions, there are no brand new abilities to find, and the perks simply make DK’s already-existing moves worth more points. It changes the scoring and the way you play, but beyond reclaiming powers I’m already very used to using in the base game, it never meaningfully expands the options available to you. The best roguelites make you feel more powerful throughout a run by giving you fresh moves as you go, and adding more exciting techniques to DK’s toolkit could have elevated this from a good roguelite mode to a great one.

Completing runs earns you piles of Banandium Chips and rating points that unlock cute bonus costumes, more powerful perks in the rotation, and new layers to tackle. Emerald Rush doesn’t take place in new areas besides DK Island. Instead, DK and Pauline return to familiar locations from Bananza’s campaign, and one of the coolest parts of this mode is how it rewards you for being intimately familiar with these layers. Emerald versions of Banandium Gems and fossils are found in the same locations as their counterparts in the main campaign, and knowing exactly where to find a vein of three fossils or a bunch of bananas makes Emerald Rush feel like a cool B-side to the main story. And, the Getaways you’ve built during the main story become essential fast travel points during a run, further incentivizing you to explore each layer to the fullest.

In that same vein, Void Kong’s objective will sometimes vaguely order you to do something like give Cranky Kong a high five, or take a swim in a layer that doesn’t have much water in it. Unlike the usual orders, these objectives don’t place a marker on your map, leaving it up to you to find them on your own. Thanks to my 100+ hours and multiple playthroughs, it didn’t take long for me to pinpoint Cranky hanging out on a big tree branch in the Forest Layer, or to find a quick pond to dive into in the Hilltop Layer. I initially thought reusing areas from the base game would be a weakness of Emerald Rush, but the way it leverages your knowledge of familiar locations is a really smart, novel way to effectively reuse old content.

Still, this is another place I wish Emerald Rush had added a little bit extra to keep things fresh. There are no new enemy types, and it never introduces boss encounters that could’ve nicely broken up the pace of runs that last up to 45 minutes. I reached the end credits after about six hours, and while the DLC’s postgame opens up several more layers to play Emerald Rush in, I’m starting to feel a little burnt out on the formula. I’ll probably only stick around to reach 100% completion out of obligation to the base game I’ve so thoroughly completed. And when I do return, I’ll almost certainly throw on my own music or a podcast – the pair of main themes is undeniably catchy with flourishes from Pauline that change depending on your active transformation, but I could definitely go without hearing either for a while after 10 hours in the DLC.

For this weekend only, Lenovo is offering this outstanding deal on a Legion gaming PC deal. Right now you can order a pre-configured Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D GeForce RTX 5070 Ti gaming PC for just $1,759.99. Free delivery is included. This CPU/GPU duo can run even the latest and most demanding games with high framerates at up to 4K resolution.

Lenovo Legion RTX 5070 Ti Gaming PC for $1,759.99

The Last Son of Krypton is back in the public consciousness again after the release of James Gunn’s new Superman movie earlier this year, and while the movie hits HBO Max and is already available to purchase digitally, Amazon already has the 4K, Blu-Ray, and DVD versions discounted.

Looking to experience the Man of Steel’s cinematic journey so far? Amazon also has the Superman 5 Film Collection, and it’s discounted it by more than 50%.

If you're looking for the least expensive brand new PlayStation 5 console you can get your hands on, AliExpress is going to be your best bet. Right now they're offering an imported Sony PlayStation 5 Slim Digital Edition gaming console for just $369.73 after $80 off coupon code "AEUS80". Alternatively, the PlayStation 5 Disc Edition is down to $425.16 after an even bigger $100 off coupon code "USDEAL100". Shipping is free. These are brand new and retail boxed products that are stocked in a US warehouse and qualify for local delivery.

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After spending a lot of time playing Yu-Gi-Oh! in my younger years, I must admit that I did end up swaying towards other card games in the years since. But, that's changed again recently, and I’ve appreciated that Konami is putting in the work to bring new players in (and lapsed players back like myself) to this most unique of card games.

I've been loving my reentry into the TCG, with last year seeing the arrival of a Two-Player Starter Set and some 25th Anniversary reprints, alongside the Early Days Collection that offers a fantastic nostalgia hit for digital players. New this year is the 2025 Mega Pack Tin, and Konami kindly sent it over for me to take a look. So, let's discuss my impressions and then run through what the big chase cards are from this year's Mega-Pack, even if I had no luck in pulling them!

The 2025 Mega-Pack Tin Is Great For Collectors

Kicking off with the tin itself, it’s about the same size as the Legendary Collection and Two-Player Starter Set that we’ve seen in recent years.

It’s worth stressing that there are three packs inside, so the tin is far from full, but the packs included are Mega-Packs. You can buy them with the tin, or in a Tuck Box instead.

These contain 1 Starlight Rare, 1 Prismatic Super Rare, 3 Ultra Rares and 8 Commons for building out your collection, so you’re getting 39 cards in total out of the full sets 450 cards.

It’s a drop in the ocean when you look at it that way, but there are some great reprints on offer from across the game’s long history. Many of which you should be keeping an eye out for.

I’ve always been impressed by Yu-Gi-Oh’s consistent art. Even common cards like Zoma the Earthbound look like a final boss from a video game. Still, as a big fan of dragons in any medium, my favorite has to be the hilariously-named Number 95: Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon.

Given there are cards that run the gamut from the classic Pot of Greed to Destiny Hero - Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer, there’s a huge array of options you could find, whether you’re buying pack bundles or the tin.

If you do get the tin, you’ll also find a trio of card dividers that call to mind classic playing cards with their two-sided designs. There’s one for Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey, with their respective monsters on the opposite side of the card, and the designs are inverted on the other side.

It’s a nice touch, and while it’s a little redundant given how large the tin is considering the number of cards, it feels like a great way to organize your deck.

The 10 Most In-Demand Cards From the 2025 Mega Pack Set

I enjoyed my time opening the 2025 Mega Tin, and while I wasn't pulling anything super rare, I can still confidently say it's a fun way to dig for chase cards without breaking the bank. It would definitely make a good stocking filler going into the holiday period as well.

That being said, what's actually popping off from the new set? For starters, S:P Little Knight is rearing its head… again. Turning games since its release, it’s the one of the most popular pick-ups 2025 tins right now (according to data from our friends at TCGPlayer), and well worth chasing... or even buying standalone if you so choose.

Infinite Impermanence is another standout you'd rather not see played against you; it's endlessly reprinted yet never cheap, and now back to flex in shinier rarities. Alongside other trap cards Dominus Purge & Impulse, these are demanding medium to high price tags on resale right now, with market values shifting between $20-$34 at the time of publication.

And then the Mulcharmys; Fuwalos already has eight rarities and can still be hard to find even on the secondary market, while Purulia keeps creeping up despite have five printings of its own. Both are in high demand, and both are worth keeping an eye out for when cracking packs.

There's plenty more to consider in the top ten most popular cards from Yu-Gi-Oh's 2025 Mega Packs, so ensure you're also looking out for the likes of Primite Lordly Lode, The Black Goat Laughs, Lacrima the Crimson Tears, Fiendsmith's Tract, and more.

Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay.

This article contains contributions from Robert Anderson.

If the Battlefield series has ever been known for one thing, it’s the massive, chaotic scale of destruction that takes place in its largest multiplayer maps, and I got a wonderfully refreshing taste of just that when I dove into Battlefield 6’s upcoming 64-player game modes earlier this week. Mirak Valley, the biggest map available at launch, is a fantastic new warzone that reminds me a bit of a much bigger version of Blood Gulch from Halo, with two bases on each side battling it out in a massive, deadly no man’s land, while a remastered version of the iconic Operation Firestorm from Battlefield 3 made an appearance to kick me right in the nostalgia. Both were a literal blast to play, each in their own way, and it just felt so good to be back in large scale war games with bombs exploding and bullets flying every which way, especially with the environments being more destructible than ever and which alter the map in creative ways. Since I skipped Battlefield 2042, it’s been a good, long while since I felt the itch to play a military shooter with this kind of crazy player count, and after a few hours with Battlefield 6 I don’t know how I’ve managed to go so long without it. It feels good to be back!

As I Walk Through the Valley…

The first map I played was Mirak Valley, which Battlefield Studios says will be the largest map at launch, and yeah, this thing’s pretty huge. Though it’s got small settlements and rocky terrain across long stretches of dirt road on each side, the main attraction are the two unfinished skyscrapers found in the center of the map where a lot of the action takes place. Battling in these claustrophobic concrete boxes and stairwells allows for plenty of close-quarters gunplay, but with unfinished walls all around you, it also leaves you exposed to the outside world to snipe you of launch a missile in your direction, which adds a unique challenge as you attempt to capture the all-important zones found in each of the buildings. And while the gradual destruction of these buildings can make them harder to control, they also allow for interesting opportunities to alter the geometry of the map, like how part of a destroyed building can fall down to create a ramp, which can then be used to reach the second floor of the skyscraper from the outside and make it much easier to navigate (but also harder to defend from would-be invaders).

Mirak Valley ended up easily being my favorite of the two maps I played, both because it’s a fantastically well-designed and ridiculously large warzone to master, but also because of these moments where the new destruction engine makes itself so clearly known. For example, in one match I spent a lot of time in a small two-story building picking off the enemy from a distance and trying to remain hidden, but over the course of the match (and many deaths) the building I was in continued to lose pieces of itself until there was almost nothing left. The window I was shooting out of at the start became half of a wall absent a room, which then fell away as I retreated to a staircase, until there was almost none of the structure left by the end of the battle and I found myself peering out behind rubble to take my shots. Moments like that are an excellent showcasing of just how much mayhem you can cause over the course of the match, all of it which organically takes place over the course of battle instead of being pre-determined events that inevitably happen every match.

Into the Fire(storm)

After not nearly enough time exploring (and blowing up) Mirak Valley, we moved on to more familiar terrain with the returning Battlefield 3 map of Operation Firestorm. If you’ve never played this one before, it takes place on an oil refinery with a big warehouse where you can get your fill of close-range encounters, or you can take the the labyrinth of metal stairs and walkways that is the refinery itself, complete with the unforgettable giant fuel tanks that explode in gobsmackingly beautiful fashion with a little provocation from the business end of your assault rifle.

The return of this map is sure to bring back fond memories of good times had and bitter rivals slain, but it was noticeable to me how some of the legacy map design choices didn’t exactly jive with modern day multiplayer expectations. To their credit, Battlefield Studios certainly made some adjustments to line of sight, destructible setpieces, and the available combat lanes you can use to take it to the bad guys, but they also had to keep a lot the same to make it recognizable as the map we know and love. That means there are plenty of barren areas you’ll have to run through, especially on the outskirts of the arena, where you’ll be wide open for someone to pick you off without much trouble or simply be a bit bored waiting to get to your destination with not much to do along the way.

That said, the virtues of this map are still as clear as ever, especially the long-range potential of the refinery’s elevated walkways, which are a sniper’s dream that I took full advantage of. Plus, being able to blow up key parts of the warehouse to do things like kill the prone enemies hidden on the rooftop by blasting away part of the ceiling and shooting them through it, is just *chef’s kiss*. It definitely didn’t click with me as much as the sparkly, new Mirak Valley though, especially since this Battlefield 3 throwback feels like such a tiny arena by comparison.

On Target

No matter which map I was on though, I was consistently impressed by how good Battlefield 6 felt, whether it was the customizable character classes, more grounded gunplay, or the handful of game modes that put my combat prowess to the test. Each of the four classes – Assault, Support, Recon, and Engineer – have their advantages that made it difficult to stick to any one, like how easy it was to get my teammates back in the fight with the support class, or how awesome it was to have sniper dummies to distract my enemies as the Recon class. One cool aspect though, is that I was able to swap out weapons I preferred with one class when I decided to change over, like how I gave my Assault character the Support character’s machine gun so I wouldn’t have to bother reloading in between kills (and because I tend to play more stationary than most and so didn’t mind the list accuracy). This felt like a nice middle ground between locking classes out of using the arsenal not natively a part of their class, since gadgets and unique abilities were still exclusive, but weapons could be freely traded, and I got a kick out of experimenting with different combinations.

I also really appreciated some of the adjustments to gunplay that made engagements a bit less goofy, like how accuracy with weapons is diminished while in motion, or especially when midair or jumping around. This meant I saw less of players bouncing up and down cartoonishly to kill me, which always feels out of place in a military shooter that’s aiming for some level of realism. Don’t get me wrong, there was still plenty of couch spamming and ducking in and out of corners to get shots off, and mastering mobility certainly plays a role in your ability to dominate the competition, but I also felt more rewarded for calming taking my shot against players scrambling around wildly to evade me.

The game modes we played on each map were variations of area control game types we’ve seen before and one new one that added a heavy helping of chaos. Conquest served as the classic game of maintaining control of as many key parts of the map as possible while scoring kills, while Breakthrough put one team on the offense to take control of specific regions of the warzone that the other team fought to defend. Escalation, on the other hand, has an interesting concept where throughout the match the capture points in play are gradually reduced, forcing conflict onto certain parts of the terrain that directs the flow of battle and reduces stalling. This made for absolute chaos as everyone rushed to certain areas for all-out warfare that usually just involved lots of tanks blowing everything to smithereens, and was maybe not as balanced as the more vanilla game modes, but damn if it didn’t make for a hilarious time.

Comedy Central has delayed tonight’s episode of South Park just hours before it was due to air.

Co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone issued a statement insisting the blame lay at their door.

“Apparently when you do everything at the last minute sometimes you don’t get it done,” the statement read, as reported by Variety. “This one’s on us. We didn’t get it done in time. Thanks to Comedy Central and South Park fans for being so understanding. Tune in next week!”

Parker and Stone create each episode week-by-week, which makes for a chaotic production but topical shows. But they have switched to a bi-weekly schedule for this season, with the elongated production time allowing the pair more room to work on each episode, something Paramount is reportedly happy with.

It’s worth noting that during their San Diego Comic-Con 2025 panel, which took place the day after the Donald Trump-skewering Season 27 opener aired, Parker said the pair were unsure what the next episode would be, revealing the decision was “super stressful.”

As far as we at IGN are aware, Parker and Stone have missed the scheduled release of South Park just once before, due to a power outage, but never for not getting an episode done in time.

Last week, Comedy Central pulled the scheduled repeat of the recent South Park episode following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Comedy Central pulled the episode from a showing on the night of Wednesday, September 10, after Kirk, an ally of President Trump, was shot at a Utah university earlier that day.

The episode in question is Season 27, Episode 2, titled Got a Nut. In it, Eric Cartman cosplays as Charlie Kirk, becomes a right-wing podcaster and issues messages similar to those used by Kirk in the past as he "masterdebaters" college graduates. Cartman even dishes out an award called 'The Charlie Kirk Award for Young Masterdebaters.'

Kirk had responded to the episode at the time in a TikTok post, calling it “hilarious” and even saying “South Park gets this right. I think they've been watching a lot of Charlie Kirk videos.” He added: “We have a good spirit about being made fun of. This is all a success, this is all a win. We as conservatives, we have thick skin, not thin skin, and you can make fun of us and it doesn’t matter.”

@thecharliekirkshow

♬ original sound - The Charlie Kirk Show

Some MAGA conservatives had hit out South Park, drawing a line between the show and Kirk’s murder. Kirk is not mentioned in Parker and Stone's statement.

South Park’s recent episodes have drawn some of the series' best-ever ratings, as well as global attention, for their no holds barred depiction of President Trump. But the episodes are taking longer to produce, with just four arriving in the eight weeks since Season 27's debut.

The delayed episode will be the first since Kirk's death, and is now due to air next Wednesday, September 24. Variety reported South Park will then take a further two weeks off before resuming its bi-weekly schedule from October 15 to December 10.

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.

Publishers Paradox Interactive and White Wolf, as well as developer The Chinese Room, have announced that the Lasombra and Toreador clans will be available in the base Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 experience following backlash from players.

The team behind the long-in-development sequel revealed its launch shakeup today alongside two new story packs – Loose Cannon and The Flower & the Flame – which will be available as part of the Expansion Pass in 2026. Additionally, Paradox, White Wolf, and The Chinese Room have pulled back the curtain on a new Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 overview trailer for players to sink their teeth into while they wait for its October 2025 release date.

Fans expressed disappointment in the handling of the Lasombra and Toreador clans when they learned they would be accessible at launch as $21.99 DLC or via the $89.99 Premium Edition. This original plan would have seen players locked out of finished content if they chose to stick with the four clans included in the $59.99 standard edition of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2.

It didn't take long for players to bring their criticisms to the developers' attention, and Paradox's explanation to IGN only seemed to increase the tension. The uproar led the publisher to offer refunds to those who pre-ordered through the PlayStation Store, while promising to announce "big changes" September 17. Now, the day is finally here, and as many expected, Lasombra and Toreador are no longer locked behind DLC.

“Thanks to our community for the frank feedback on Bloodlines 2 and the Premium Edition. That feedback made it clear: Lasombra and Toreador belong in the base game, so that is what we are doing,” White Wolf executive vice president and Bloodlines 2 executive producer Marco Behrmann said in a statement. “We’d also like to thank The Chinese Room for their quick turnaround on the concepts for the post-launch Story Packs. We’re constantly impressed by their creativity and skill in weaving enticing narrative threads that expand on the main story in Bloodlines 2.”

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 will now have more content when it launches October 21, 2025, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S, but its Loose Cannon and The Flower & the Flame story packs will offer even more to chew on next year. The former is said to "allow players to explore Seattle" as Camarilla Sheriff, while the latter focuses on Primogen Ysabella Moore.

Paradox says the Loose Cannon and The Flower & the Flame packs will be available via the Expansion Pass, which can be purchased individually for $34.99 or as part of the Premium Edition. Loose Cannon will arrive first in Q2 2026, with The Flower & the Flame set to follow in Q3 2026.

One of Leonardo DiCaprio’s biggest career regrets, and one of the biggest casting “what ifs” of all time, was the actor’s near-miss playing Dirk Diggler in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights. One Battle After Another, the latest film from PTA, and one which finally teams the writer-director and actor, may not be a time machine. But like Boogie Nights, it goes hard.

Boogie Nights is one of my favorite movies of all time. My dad recorded it off of HBO in the late ’90s, and when he and my mom went to sleep, I would sneak downstairs, snag the tape, and quietly watch in my room over and over. I’m not sure what came first – my love of movies, or my love of Boogie Nights.

Now, PT Anderson is back with One Battle After Another—a film I’m so excited for, I rewatched most of his back catalog and read the book it’s loosely based on. (Time well spent.) Despite the absurdly high expectations I set for this movie, Paul Thomas Anderson’s first $100M+ budget delivers an S-tier PTA flick about a stoner ex-extremist trying to reunite with his daughter before a Colonel with a penchant for martial law and secrets to hide can get to her first.

One Battle After Another: The Plot

The film follows DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson, a former lefty revolutionary, who is raising his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). He’s been living in hiding ever since things went bad with his revolutionary group, the French 75, years earlier.

One Battle opens with the group’s back story, with one of its leaders, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), exclaiming, “Free borders. Free choices. Free from fear,” before they forcibly release all the detainees in a detention facility near the Mexican border. That line pretty much sums up the French 75’s politics, who spend the rest of the first act robbing banks and blowing up buildings as a means to that end.

Things move pretty quickly here. Think Bonnie & Clyde, Wild at Heart, Queen & Slim: the old romantic outlaws plot on fast forward. There’s a lot of sex and violence, but with a twist.

Perfidia may be hot and heavy with Leo’s Bob, but there’s also a simmering Dom/Sub sexual tension building between her and Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who has had the hots for her ever since he got a massive erection while she held him up during the detention liberation scene.

That sexual tension ultimately pays off in one of the strangest sex scenes I’ve seen in a while. (It’s kind of like that sex scene in The Sopranos between Richie Aprile and Janice, but the roles are reversed. You know the one. I’ve actually got a lot to say about this scene, but we’ll get to that later.)

Anyway, the freewheeling rebellion of the French 75 ultimately comes to an end after a botched bank robbery and Perfidia’s arrest, which sends everyone into hiding. Sixteen years later, Lockjaw is back on the hunt for Bob and his daughter. But when Willa goes missing, Bob has to battle with his past and years of substance abuse in his quest to reunite with his daughter.

The Performances

Perfidia

I’m trying not to give away the whole movie here, just enough for context and to highlight what really makes this plot sing: the performances. We need to start with Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia Beverly Hills, who owns the first act and is the kind of femme fatale that would make Faye Dunaway and Sharon Stone blush.

Taylor’s performance goes far deeper than just being a smokeshow who brings out the worst in Bob and Lockjaw. This especially true after she has Willa, as the actress does an incredible job of externalizing Perfidia’s struggles with depression, guilt, and the loss of the individual autonomy that comes with starting a family. When she tells Bob, “I put myself first,” and storms out, you understand why. And when she regrets her decisions later in the film, you feel for her then, too.

The end of One Battle – and how it tugs on your heartstrings – wouldn’t be nearly as effective if it weren’t for Taylor’s performance.

Willa

You know what they say: Like mother, like daughter. Chase Infiniti’s Willa is the heart and soul of the film. Unfortunately, for the purposes of this review, some of Infiniti’s best scenes are really spoiler-laden. But one that isn’t is Infiniti’s first moment onscreen with Leo.

You know the scene – the responsible child scolding the irresponsible parent – but this one is written by PTA. One of the biggest laughs in my theater came when Bob responds to Willa’s grilling with, “I know how to drink and drive. I know what I’m doing.”

They bicker, for sure, but it’s clear they care for each other, which Bob shows by threatening her friends in that fatherly way, while also casually insulting them, as they pick her up for the high school dance. It’s moments like these that give One Battle After Another its soul. This is a very politically-charged film, but it can also transcend the politics and remind the audience that this story, at its core, is about a father trying to connect with his daughter.

Bob

Bob Ferguson is an odd mix of Leo’s previous characters. Think of Bob as a cross between The Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort and his love of drugs, and Killers of the Flower Moon’s Ernest Burkhart and his stupidity. Bob genuinely loves his daughter, but he’s not the brightest bulb, dimmer now thanks to decades of drugs and alcohol, which is unfortunate because he’s being hunted.

There’s a great ongoing bit throughout the film that’s heavily featured in the trailer, with Bob on a payphone talking to someone from the resistance. But he can’t remember the super secret password. After multiple interactions with the mysterious voice, Bob goes full Karen, essentially demanding to speak to a manager. This all ends up being a very funny button to his plotline.

But Leo’s performance as a degenerate fuck-up revolutionary isn’t all about laughs. It’s got heart too, especially when he connects with Benicio del Toro’s Sensei Sergio.

Sensei Sergio St. Carlos

In the production notes for the film, Leo refers to Sensei Sergio St. Carlos as Bob’s Obi-Wan, and it’s kind of true in a PTA way. And while he does help Bob out, and is a rebellious do-gooder himself, del Toro’s character isn’t in the film as much as the trailers would lead you to believe. There’s one scene where he and Bob are sharing some road sodas, while Bob is being really vulnerable about Willa, that continues to elevate the story above today’s contemporary political environment. But just because it’s heartfelt doesn’t mean it’s not funny. It's the scene that culminates with del Toro’s “Means no fear, like Tom Cruise!” moment. Great line.

IDW Publishing has been busy expanding the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of late, including debuting new solo series for both Shredder and Casey Jones. Fans of 1990's TMNT movie and other stories exploring the rivalry between Casey and Raphael will be pleased to know that their feud is heating up again in the second chapter of TMNT: Casey Jones.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive preview of TMNT: Casey Jones #2:

TMNT: Casey Jones #1 is written by Alex Paknadel (Cult of the Lamb: The First Verse) and drawn by Amancay Nahuelpan (Crush & Lobo), with colors by Luis Antonio Delgado. This issue features covers by Nahuelpan, Nikola Čižmešija, and Jared Cullum. Here's IDW's official description of the issue:

Before Casey Jones meets his brand-new enemy Ludovic, he’ll have to do battle with his best friend Raphael first! Casey is investigating the rumors of a phony mutagen hitting the streets and seeking out whoever is going after mutants on the street, knowing in his gut they are connected. But he’s soon stopped by Raphael, who thinks Casey is pushing himself too hard and not listening to his better instincts. Casey and Raph fight through their feelings before being stopped by Ludovic, who wants to battle them both.

"Now you've met Ludovic, and you just know he's on a collision course with our all-too-human Casey," Paknadel tells IGN. "Trust me, our boy is about to be put through the wringer in ways you've never seen before. We hope you'll join us for the ride because we're just getting started."

Nahuelpan adds, “I had a blast drawing Casey and the whole team in issue 1, and I can’t wait for the fans to see what’s coming next, with bigger fights and bigger threats for our boy!”

TMNT: Casey Jones #1 is available in comic shops now. Issue #2 will be released on November 19, with a final order cutoff of October 13. You can order both issues at your local comic shop.

For more on TMNT, find out how to read IDW's TMNT comics in 2025.

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

Sega and developer Ryu Ga Gotoku (RGG) Studio have seemingly leaked Yakuza Kiwami 3, suggesting an official reveal could be just around the corner.

Users across X/Twitter and Reddit began drumming up hype after some noticed traces of Yakuza Kiwami 3 on the series developer’s official website. The original listing, which simply mentioned a third entry in the series of Yakuza remakes, has since been removed, though fans were able to capture screenshots of the supposed leak before it was taken down.

The Kiwami series is RGG’s line of remakes of the original Yakuza games. Yakuza Kiwami 1, for example, is a 2016 reimagining of the original Yakuza, with Yakuza Kiwami 2 tackling Yakuza 2. Yakuza Kiwami 3 hasn’t been formally announced, but if RGG does announce it as soon as fans expect, we can safely assume it will be a remake of the 2009 PlayStation 3 title, Yakuza 3.

If the Yakuza developer does have something to share about Yakuza Kiwami 3, it won’t be much of a surprise. The studio will host its yearly RGG Summit September 24, with an RGG Direct set to follow immediately after. Many were already expecting major updates for the Like a Dragon franchise, with the alleged website leak arriving just one week before the festivities kick off.

Like a Dragon series director Masayoshi Yokoyama also commented on Yakuza Kiwami 3 in April 2024. While he cautioned fans from getting too excited for a third game while it worked on other projects, he did tease that it was definitely not off the table.

“I'll just say that I think I'll do Kiwami 3 at some point,” Yokoyama said at the time. “I'm sure I'll do it someday.”

Now, more than one year later, fans believe RGG may finally be ready to talk more about Yakuza Kiwami 3. In the meantime, you can check out our 7.9/10 review of Yakuza Kiwami and our 8/10 review of Yakuza Kiwami 2. You can also read up on other new RGG Studio projects, including Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, which launched in February, and Stranger Than Heaven, which was announced earlier this year.

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

We recently got a closer look at the upcoming Switch releases, thanks to the September Nintendo Direct. One of the surprise announcements, in addition to a Mario Movie sequel, was that a new collection of Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 is coming to Switch. And as we all know, one certainty in life is that when a new Switch game comes out, amiibo figures are sure to follow.

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To that end, Nintendo is releasing two new Super Mario Galaxy amiibo. One is Mario and Luma. The other is Rosalina and Lumas. And despite that the game they accompany is out October 2, these figures aren’t out until April 2, 2026 – a day before the movie hits theaters. They available for preorder for $39.99 each, but they’ve already sold out at Amazon and Walmart. (They may come back into stock, but then again, they may not). Here’s where you can still get them.

Mario and Luma amiibo

Rosalina and Lumas amiibo

Rosalina's Storybook (Hardcover)

Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2