Norwegian electronics retailer Komplett has promised it will give away free copies of GTA 6 to anyone giving birth on the game's launch day, exactly nine months ahead of its arrival.
The cheeky store chain has even encouraged fans to, er, get busy with their efforts to ensure this happens. Images on social media and reddit show posters for the campaign have been spotted, while the retailer's Instagram has confirmed that this offer really isn't just a joke.
"GTA 6 dropping in 9 months ;)" declares advertising posters seen in the Norwegian capital of Oslo this week, designed to promote the country's major electronics chain. The posters also feature an image of a messy bed, strewn pillows, and a scattering of rose petals. It's not subtle.
You can get GTA 6 for free if you give birth to a baby on the game's release date in Norway. pic.twitter.com/d4fANWhAnr
On Instagram, Komplett describes the idea of having a baby on GTA 6 launch day as a "life hack" — with the obvious implication being that you could time your parental leave perfectly for when Rockstar's highly-anticipated blockbuster drops.
(Of note, Norwegian parental leave offers a total of 49 weeks at 100% salary, or a total 61 weeks at 80% salary, shared between two people.)
"This is actually not nonsense," Komplett wrote in a caption for an accompanying Instagram video. "GTA 6 is released in 9 months (🤞) and if you have a baby on the launch date, we'll give you the game for free."
Of course, the campaign is primarily designed to make headlines and get Komplett some attention — and it's certainly doing that, even if the responses on social media are full of people pointing out that having a baby is quite a time-consuming thing all on its own.
"Lol, you're not getting time to play gta 6 if you have a screaming baby at home," wrote Low_Possibility_8893 as part of a lengthy thread on reddit.
"That baby is gonna cost alooooot more than 70 dollars..." suggested sopedound, hinting that actually this didn't represent much of a financial saving.
"Haven't slept in 6 days, nipples are like bullets and I've been hit in the face with explosive diarrhea," concluded the appropriately-named PloppyTheSpaceship, suggesting what life with a newborn was actually like. "I don't even know what my name is right now let alone how to turn on a game, but I'm sure it's good."
X-Men actress Halle Berry is adamant she won't be reprising her role as Storm in Avengers: Doomsday, but has left the door open to a return in future — potentially in the subsequent Avengers: Secret Wars.
Marvel fans have been eager to see Berry return in her role from the 2000s X-Men films alongside other classic characters who are back for Doomsday — but the actress has now made a point of doubling down that she's "not there."
“Storm’s not there,” Berry told Variety this week at the premiere of her new film Crime 101 in Los Angeles. “I promise you. You all think I’m being coy and I’m being silly, but I’m not there.”
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time this month Berry has spoken about the hope that she’ll appear in Doomsday. Last week, she had a chat with ScreenRant during which she opened up more about Storm and the film. “Storm is a very special character to me. I've been so blessed when I gotten to play her," she explained.
“[Those movies] have so much to say that I thought has been really important, especially for my children as they've grown. So they're beloved,” she added, before dropping what fans hope could be a major hint. “And while I'm sad I won't be in Doomsday this round, there are other rounds. And I would do that in a heartbeat."
There is, of course, still the possibility that Berry is being exceptionally good at staying tight-lipped about her involvement and that her Storm will end up gracing our screens along with the rest of Doomsday’s massive and exciting cast. But considering how long she’s been effusive about not joining the fray, the chances are pretty low at this point. Time to reset our hopes for Secret Wars, then?
Berry first revealed to fans she would not be appearing in Avengers: Doomsday back in April 2025, when Black Girl Nerds told the actress on the red carpet at CinemaCon that fans were waiting for her to show up in the next major Avengers entry. Her response? “Keep waiting. Not gonna be there.”
Avengers: Doomsday is set to arrive in theaters on December 18… without Berry, as far as we know.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
Presidents Day is Monday, February 16, but Best Buy isn’t waiting to pull the trigger on its annual store-wide mega sale. The sale is live now, and runs through February 16. You can check out the whole sale here, or read on to see our picks for the best deals available right now. Pretty much every item category Best Buy sells has gotten the discount treatment, from TVs and video games to PC gaming and Apple products.
Let’s take a look.
Top Deals in Best Buy’s Presidents Day Sale
You can scroll through the catalog above to get a quick look at the items we suggest. If you're intereseted in partuclar product categories, keep on reading.
4K TVs
If your TV could use an upgrade, there are plenty to choose from in the sale. A big variety of sizes and price points have gotten discounts, from manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Insignia, and more.
Gaming Computers
As Sony and Microsoft continue to release their games on PC, PC gaming is looking more and more like the platform of the future. While gaming PC parts are getting more expensive thanks to the demands of AI centers, some terrific pre-built machines and gaming laptops can still be found at discount. If I were in the market, I’d buy sooner than later, because it doesn’t look like prices are going to stop going up anytime soon. For more powerful gaming rigs, check out the Alienware Presidents Day sale.
Video Games
A smattering of new console games are on sale right now, including Ubisoft PS5 games like Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - From the Ashes Edition. A bunch of accessories are also on sale, including everything from controllers and headsets to Switch 2 cases and screen protectors.
Apple Products
Famously, Apple almost never offers discounts on its products. Thankfully, those products are also available at other retailers that have no such qualms over dropping prices. Best Buy’s Presidents Day sale has discounts on every major category of Apple’s hardware, including MacBooks, iPads, Apple Watches, and even AirTags. Garb what you want before prices go back up.
Magic: The Gathering is kicking off its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set in a few weeks, and while we’ve seen plenty of deals on upcoming sets, Collector Boosters have been like gold dust… until now.
How much?! That’s right, the fee is high. The reason for this is that Collector Boosters are the best way of grabbing the most expensive cards in any given Magic: The Gathering set because they’re full of alternative art treatments and foil variants.
The rub in this instance is that we don’t know what the most valuable cards in the set are going to be because Wizards of the Coast hasn’t started card reveals outside of a handful just yet.
If you want to snag some great Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cards for your Magic: The Gathering collection, this is the way to go, but with the $37 per pack around the same price you’d pay anywhere, don’t expect any discounts.
Honestly, in the time it’s taken us to write this article, there’s a good chance a bunch more of these have been sold, and they’re not likely to be reprinted after the fact, either.
As a reminder, Collector Boosters don't necessarily contain 'better' cards than Play Boosters, they just contain rarer versions. If you're looking for cards to play with, you can grab a bundle at a discount right now.
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.
At some point, somebody at Capcom must have looked at Monster Hunter and said, out loud, “You know, the monsters in this bad boy are actually pretty cute. And there’s these talking cats, and they’re pretty cute, too. We’re kinda leaving money on the table by not making this a turn-based monster-capturing RPG.” And the executives did grin, and the sky opened, and the money rained down. And they saw that that somebody was right, and they said, “We gotta make more of these.”
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is the third one of these, in fact, if the number didn’t give it away, so that somebody’s idea had some staying power, but it’s this writer’s first. Not my first Monster Hunter; like most folks in the West, mine was Monster Hunter World. But it’s the first one of these babies. And after spending several hours with it, I’m pretty impressed. There’s a lot to get used to, but I enjoyed my time in this world and with these characters, and I’m itching to head back and do some monster huntin’.
Twisted Reflection starts with a pretty fantastic character creator that does a lot to introduce you to its gorgeous art style. I made a woman with long red hair and mismatched eyes, and not knowing that I was making a princess, kept Leia as her default name. Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection 1, Will 0.
Pull off the right moves in combat, and you’ll build kinship with your Monstie. Max out that meter, and you can mount your Monstie and unleash a beautifully animated, cinematic smackdown.
Our story begins with a woman discovering a monster egg preserved in crystal. Naturally, I thought this was Leia. Extremely loud incorrect buzzer. It was actually her mamma, who is the queen of Azuria. She hacks the egg out of the crystal and brings it home, where it hatches into the Monster Hunter poster child, a Rathalos. The Rathalos is extinct in Azuria, so everyone’s pretty stoked about this, especially little Leia, who says she hears two sounds coming from the egg. Turns out she’s right, and a second Rathalos has hit the throne room. As Leia, enamored, reaches out for her new friends, a vaguely vizier-shaped dude informs the king that while one monster is all fine and dandy, two monsters, especially two Skyscale Rathalos (Rathaloses? Rathalosi?) is Bad News, Chief ™ and only one may be allowed to live. Cut to black. Surely this will not irrevocably traumatize my girl Leia for the rest of her days and become a crucial part of her backstory. Surely.
Several years later, Leia, now a young woman, is following in her mother’s footsteps and studying a monster preserved in egg quartz when her buddy Simon appears and summons her back to the castle. Once there, we learn that Leia is the Captain of the Rangers and that she’s studying something called the Encroachment. Proper nouns are generally bad, and Leia has really made progress on the Encroachment, but that’s maybe not the most pressing concern. Relations with the neighboring kingdom of Vermeil are fraying, and her father warns Leia that the Rangers might see combat. Leia protests, as that’s not what Rangers exist for (they’re here for the monsters), but she rides Azuria’s only Rathalos (uh oh), and they may need her. My girl is also informed that she will attend talks with Vermeilian envoys, and that her conspicuously absent mother was Vermeilian. In a later conversation with Simon, Leia reveals that her mother is known as “The Turncoat Queen.” The plot thickens.
But Leia can’t spend too much time thinking about that. She’s the captain of the Rangers, and she has a job to do. That means training new recruits, and you’re got a fresh one in Thea, who is stoked to be here and learn from Azuria’s only Rathalos rider and Rudy, my Felyne. This is where my time with Twisted Reflection really takes off. In training Thea, Twisted Reflection is training me.
I learn how to ride my Rathalos (your monsters are called Monsties), but things really kick into gear once we enter combat for the first time. Like I said at the jump, combat is turn-based. Attacks come in three types; Power, Technical, and Speed. Power beats Technical and Technical beats Speed, which loops around and beats Power. Normally, these attacks work, well… normally. But if a monster is targeting you and you attack it, you’ll enter a Head-to-Head where the rock, paper, scissors of it all will play out. And if and your Monstie are attacking the same foe and a Head-to-head happens, you’ll get a Double Attack. Monsters have their own attack preferences. Velociprey, for instance, will prioritize Speed, so you gotta go Technical if you want to win. If you’re in the market for something a little fancier, you’ve also got abilities, though these take Stamina, so you can’t just spam them.
Of course, you’ve also got your Monstie. You don’t control them directly so much as give them standing commands that they carry out when it's their turn, whether that means going for a regular attack or an ability, some of which carry elemental properties like fire, lightning, or water. Since Leia’s the main character, she’s also got additional Monsties she can switch to if the one she needs isn’t right for what you’re up against. Thea and her Monstie, Kaguchi, are also in my party, but I don’t control them. They do their own thing, for better and worse.
Because of this, combat goes quickly, and like your more traditional Monster Hunters, there’s strategy when it comes to which part of the monster you’re fighting that you target. Break the right body part, and you can weaken an attack or open it up to more damage. Stagger a monster, and you can unleash a Synchro Attack where everyone in your party lays on the hurt. The biggest spectacle, though, comes in the form of kinship attacks. Pull off the right moves in combat, and you’ll build kinship with your Monstie. Max out that meter, and you can mount your Monstie and unleash a beautifully animated, cinematic smackdown. I dig it.
Once Thea and I are broken in, we get to explore a bit. We pick up plants and bugs and other items on the ground, get into some fights, and I give Ratha a break so I can use my Tobi-Kadachi to scale a lookout point and meet an Explorer Felyne who gifts me a map. We continue on, learning how to use melee and breath attacks to interact with the environment and start fights early for an advantage, or roar and get monsters out of the way. We also manage to rescue a Poogie, an adorable, pig-like creature who somehow got up somewhere my Rathalos needed wings to reach, and even get Thea a taste of the Encroachment, which seems to be what causes those egg quartzes we saw earlier.
Yeah, things are looking pretty good for the home team, until we come across a nest and make a Paolumu mad. Once we whack him enough, he transforms, altering his attacks and weaknesses. Since he’s inflated an air pouch, it’s bow time. It’s a fun fight that puts everything I’ve learned so far to the test, but it’s nothing compared to what comes next.
Here, we run into our first feral monster, which has been altered by the Encroachment. Crystals sprout from its back, and it’s extremely powerful. Hitting the crystals provokes a backlash attack, so we have to be smart. It tests our smarts and our patience, but eventually he wears down, and we destroy the crystals. Then it’s game on. Eventually, he falls, and we take the eggs we’ve gathered home and add some new Monsties to our ranks.
Before we start feeling too good about ourselves, Leia is called into that meeting with the Vermeilian envoys. Things are going badly – Vermeil is getting hit hard by the Encroachment, and they’re convinced salvation lies in the Sacrosanctum, which would mean breaching an ancient pact. They’ve come to ask Azuria for help getting there – and war seems inevitable until Vermeil’s Princess Eleanor offers herself as a hostage until Azuria relents. Unwilling to treat her like a prisoner, Leia offers to show her around, and she ends up palling around with the Rangers.
If bringing Thea along was about learning the game, Eleanor’s arrival is really where things open up. Before setting out, we acquire new skills and forge new armor and weapons. It’s a good thing, too, because while we’re showing Eleanor around, we run into a new feral monster. Eleanor, her Anjanath (which I’m pretty jealous of, honestly), my Monstie cohort, and I take it down, but not before we’re knocked down a few times ourselves. Losing all your HP isn’t fatal. You can get back up a limited number of times, but it lets us know that the challenge is ramping up.
Soon after, we set up a camp, and Eleanor shows off her cooking skills. This is a Monster Hunter game, so eating food naturally boosts your stats and the cooking cutscene is immaculately rendered. I go for some experience-boosting bread, because who doesn’t love bread? Leia and Eleanor also bond over their shared realization that their countries don’t really understand each other. The situation in Vermeil is worse than Leia realized, and Azuria isn’t at all like Eleanor thought. Neither is as bad as they’ve been led to believe.
Our goal now is to investigate invasive monsters and track them to their dens so we can save eggs from the species they’re crowding out. From here, the world is essentially our oyster. We have to operate at night to track these invasive species, but otherwise we can kinda do what we want, whether that means fighting monsters in the field, or completing side quests where we reunite a Felyne with his lost master or help another Felyne get rid of some bug monsters.
Eventually, we find an invasive Yian Garuga. We steer clear long enough to analyze its tracks and get a feel for how it works, but eventually, the fight is on. The Yan Garuga is incredibly strong; in a stand-up fight, we probably wouldn’t stand a chance, and we’ve got to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off a few times before it’s over. But our goal isn’t to kill it, it’s to make it retreat to its lair. That means figuring out its weakness – in this case, its legs – and piling on the hurt fast enough that it stumbles when trying to hit us with a powerful charge attack and retreats. Once it does, we track it to its lair and steal a Rathian egg, but we’re not looking to make it a Monstie. By releasing it into the wild, we can restore the natural ecosystem. That means new and better monsters for us to catch. Restoring a habitat has benefits for us, too. You might get monsters with elemental skills unique to that habitat, or unlock mutations that imbue monsters with elements outside of the norm. It’s sad to see our Rathian go, but it’s for the greater good.
Our task complete, the Rangers return to the castle. The king’s still focused on what might happen if the Rangers have to go into battle, and we learn why Leia’s so opposed to it. Remember that other Rathalos that came out of that egg? She saved it as it was about to be executed and fled. Everyone assumes she headed to her native Vermeil. The whole Traitor Queen thing makes a lot more sense now, and it explains why Leia’s so fond of her own Rathalos – he got her through her mom leaving – and why she’s so devoted to the Rangers. She wants to find out what happened to her mom.
As if inspired by this revelation, Twisted Reflection decides to open up Side Stories – escapades you can head on with other Rangers to get to know them better. I decide to pal around with Eleanor, who, impressed with Azuria’s beauty and abundance, tasks us with tracking down some items that are native to Vermeil: a Sucklebug, Witherweed, and a Molted Gumshell. After getting the lay of the land from a nearby lookout tower – and a few side excursions where we grabbed some eggs from monster dens – we headed out. The first couple were easy enough. Hitting a Paolumu with a breath attack snags us our Gumshell, and we find Witherweed in a shady area.
The real bugaboo turns out to be the Sucklebug, which likes to hide behind rocks. I searched for it behind rocks for a while before realizing that “behind the rock” means “break the rock, Will, you doofus.” Once we’ve got all the ingredients – yes, ingredients – Eleanor turns them into Vermeil Dumplings. Leia and Rudy are grossed out, but it’s a nice moment that helps them understand just how dire things are in Vermeil – and how lucky Azuria is by comparison. Plus, it unlocks a new recipe for our camps, and Eleanor is excited to share her local cuisine with everyone else.
My time with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection ends shortly thereafter. I could have kept going – we had access to a generous amount of the game – but my next story mission saw me getting absolutely rocked by a pair of Feral Velocidomes. I clearly needed to get some new Monsties with different elements and upgrade equipment to continue, but it felt like a natural end. I’d spent half a dozen hours with Twisted Reflection by that point, and gotten a feel for what it was shaping up to be: a gorgeous RPG that combines the traditional elements of Monster Hunter with a turn-based RPG and a surprisingly compelling cast and narrative that invited me to befriend and train monsters, not just hunt them. Don’t get me wrong, those Velicidomes are going down the next time I fire Twisted Reflection up, but for now, I have a feel for this world, these characters, and the game they inhabit. And it was more than enough to convince me to turn this snack into a meal. I might just stick with the bread, though, you know? Vermilian Dumplings don’t really seem like my bag.
Amazon is offering a box of 30 Play Boosters for $149.99, reduced from its $164.70 list price. That 9% discount might not sound huge, but Amazon’s preorder price guarantee means if it drops even lower, you’ll pay less.
That makes each pack of 14 cards $4.99, down from $5.49, and if you’re excited about the return to Strixhaven, you’ll no doubt be grateful for it.
It’s also worth noting that, as we get closer to release, we’ll find a lot of the chase cards in terms of gameplay and financial value. Depending on how previews go, demand could pick up and make it harder to grab a box at MSRP, let alone below. You’ll have a better chance of grabbing a pricey card with a Collector Booster, but for actually opening cards with which to play the game, this is a great way to get an instant collection.
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.
Avengers: Doomsday directors Joe and Anthony Russo have further discussed their claim that the film's four recent trailers were not actually trailers — and now described them as "narrative information."
Disney released a quartet of Doomsday trailers through subsequent weeks in December and January, premiering first in theaters with Avatar: Fire and Ash before eventually also appearing online. Successive instalments saw fans reintroduced to Chris Evans' character Steve Rogers, catch up with a newly-solemn Thor, get a glimpse at an aged selection of X-Men, and finally see The Thing turn up in Wakanda.
Discussing the trailers, the Russo brothers previously said that they did not actually see them as teasers or trailers, but instead something else. And now, speaking to Empire magazine, the Russos have elaborated further on what exactly they had meant.
"Each one of these trailers is narrative information," Joe Russo said, "and it's all part of larger story. So I would argue that Doomsday has already started for you."
Is the suggestion here that these sequences were filmed just for the trailers? Or that they're more filmic because they are more akin to clips than action-packed highlight reels? His next answer seems to lean more to the latter.
"Look, the movie is very complex," Joe Russo continued. "We thought one of the best ways to celebrate what the movie is was to give characters their own space and highlight some moments."
As part of the same interview, the Russo brothers doubled down on their previous statement that the newly-returned Chris Evans would play a "central role" in Doomsday, despite his character's apparent retirement in Avengers: Endgame and a whole host of new heroes being introduced in the years since.
"We have a special affinity with the character," Anthony Russo said of Steve Rogers, referencing the directors' past work on Captain America films. "We can't see this narrative without his central role in it, basically. The special place he holds among the ensemble, he sort of retains that moving forward."
Marvel's decision to bring back Evans in Doomsday has proved controversial among fans, who have variously complained that the move is a desperate-feeling attempt to win back lapsed audiences at the expense of newer characters, and especially Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson — the current Captain America.
Mackie's only lead movie in the MCU saga is Captain America: Brave New World, which unfortunately is one of the worst-reviewed instalments in the entire franchise. Marvel boss Kevin Feige raised eyebrows by pinning the film's financial failure on being "the first without Chris Evans." No plans have since been announced for a fresh Captain America sequel.
Modder ‘QTmodz’ has just released a must-have HD Remaster Mod for the original 2007 Assassin’s Creed game. This mod will overhaul the game’s graphics. As such, it’s a must for those who want to replay it. Going into more details, this HD Remaster Mod brings HD shadows, HD reflections, and HD Textures to the game. … Continue reading The Original Assassin’s Creed Got a Must-Have HD Remaster Mod→
THQ Nordic has announced that Gothic 1 Remake will be released on June 5th. To celebrate this announcement, the publisher has also shared a new trailer that you can find below. In Gothic 1 Remake, you will explore a handcrafted open world that reacts to your choices. Whether you’re a long-time Gothic fan or this … Continue reading Gothic 1 Remake will be released on June 5th→
Amazon has a great range of Pokémon Squishmallows on sale today as part of its ongoing efforts before Pokémon Day, and the franchise's 30th anniversary, on February 27.
The Pokémon range of Squishmallows makes for some of the best franchise plushies around, and Amazon has made them better by letting you buy select 8 to 20-Inch plushies from just under $9 each.
On the other side of things, both in price and size, the 20-inch Torchic and Eevee Squishmallow plushies are also on a limited-time lightning deal discount at Amazon. Torchic is down to $38.20, while Eevee is an even better deal at just $30.
While both are a bit more expensive compared to Rowlet, you've just got to remember that they are significantly bigger as well, with the 20-inch plushies easily being the size of most people's torso, if not bigger.
Plus, both are down from $49.99, so they are still significantly good deals. I wouldn't wait around on these, however, as both are lightning deals, so once the allocated stock has been sold, the deal will expire immediately.
The next best deals are on Sprigatito, with its 8-inch plus down to just $10.10, alongside Fuecoco and Marill, with their 14-inch plushies available from $17.99 to $19.47, respectively.
An important thing to keep in mind is that Amazon has seemed to have made it very hard to find these deals when you're browsing directly, with some plushies' lower product pages only appearing with very particular searches.
With that, we'd recommend clicking through our dedicated catalogue above so you can go to each page directly, buy quickly, and save without none of the fuss. As more become aware of these massive offers, grab yours quickly before you lose out on this very limited-time deal.
If you're still after the generally best Squishmallows in the entire Pokémon range—like Pikachu and Snorlax—most seem to be available to still buy on Amazon as well, albeit listed at $24.99, at least for now.
Here's hoping we see more discounts on some of these as well soon, but still, they're worth the investment if you want some squeezable and comfortable cushions added to your living space with some Pokémon flair.
Robert Anderson is IGN's Senior Commerce Editor and resident deals expert on games, collectibles, trading card games, and more. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Bluesky.
Development studio ZA/UM has announced that a free demo for its upcoming espionage-flavoured RPG, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, will be available to play on PC as part of Steam Next Fest.
Launching on February 23 and available until March 16, the demo features a “tailored” version of Zero Parade’s opening hours. While not everything from this section of the full game will be available as part of the demo, it does include two full quests, a variety of side activities, and the freedom to explore the city state of Portofiro. You can get a small taste of what awaits in the gameplay video below, which showcases the very first minutes of Zero Parades.
The demo also allows you to choose from three different character archetypes, which dictate the skills and stats of protagonist Hershel Wilk. ZA/UM encourages replaying the demo with each of the archetypes to see how a physical, soulful, or analytical build affects your choices and opportunities.
IGN recently interviewed several developers from ZA/UM to learn more about Zero Parades, which tells the story of a spy brought out of retirement to complete one last job. Its key theme is failure, and ZA/UM states that it has designed its dialogue system around that. “Every door closed is an open opportunity to go through the window instead,” said the studio in a press release.
Zero Parades features a similar design to Disco Elysium, ZA/UM’s previous game, and has been created by a team made up of both old and new employees. The full game is scheduled to launch in 2026, first on PC through Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store, and then later on PlayStation 5.
Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.
Dark Horse Direct and Crystal Dynamics are teaming up for another Tomb Raider statue, and it's one that will appeal to anyone with nostalgia for the original games.
IGN can exclusively debut the first images of Dark Horse Direct's Tomb Raider: Lara Croft - Classic Motorbike Premium Statue. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:
The Tomb Raider: Lara Croft - Classic Motorbike Premium Statue features the iconic treasure hunter perched atop her motorcycle with gun in hand. This statue was sculpted by Bigshot Toyworks, with prototyping and paint by J.W. Productions.
The statue is 9 inches tall atop a base that measures 10.3 inches by 6 inches. The statue is exclusive to the Dark Horse Direct website and is limited to 500 units worldwide. It's priced at $249.99 and is slated to ship between July and September of 2026.
Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Episode 6, “Come, Let's Away,” which is available on Paramount Plus now.
The latest episode of Starfleet Academy is exciting at times, touching at others, but then there’s another mode that it sinks into here or there which I can only describe as, well, boring. Essentially, “Come, Let's Away” tries to do too many things in one episode, and as a result it feels overly long and bloated – and as such it’s indicative of one of my biggest complaints about the show so far this season.
I’ve been pretty positive about Starfleet Academy through the first half of this first season, but one element that I’ve found consistently troublesome is the streaming bloat of the individual episodes. So far, each segment has been roughly an hour long (not including the pilot, which was 75 minutes), and frankly, that’s too long for a standard episode of TV, Star Trek or not. We don’t need all of our TV to be 60-minute episodes if they don’t need to be 60-minute episodes, and in the case of Starfleet Academy Episode 6… well, this definitely did not need to be a 60-minute episode!
So in what could’ve been a tight adventure tale with a dose of character development in the classic Star Trek mode, we instead get an overly-stuffed story with too many characters, too many detours, and not enough oomph.
Things start interestingly enough with the reveal that Caleb (Sandro Rosta) and Tarima (Zoë Steiner) have taken their relationship to the “let’s get down to business” level, which is a refreshingly realistic approach for the often staid and chaste relationships of much of Trekdom. While Captain Kirk was doing his thing with various alien ladies of the week back in the day, the 1990s era of Star Trek more often than not played the sexual side of its characters down in a big way. Anyone writing off Starfleet Academy as just a kids show should take note here.
Of course, the scene isn’t about the sex, but rather is an opportunity for us to learn more about Tarima’s telepathic abilities and the troubles they’ve caused her (and will continue to cause). It turns out she’s the reason her father, seen in Episode 2, is deaf, having inadvertently injured him when she lost control of her heightened powers as a child. And even here, she doesn’t quite have control, as she accidentally violates Caleb’s trust by pulling from his memories of his mother. It’s a nice little wrinkle in their relationship that adds depth to things, where the couple could’ve topped out at batting eyelashes and flirting. And by episode’s end, not only does Tarima use her abilities to help save the day, but she also winds up the worse for wear as a result. To be continued there.
The idea of a lost relic of a ship that's at least a century old is pretty compelling, and the lighting and atmosphere for the scenes onboard the Miyazaki are effectively creepy.
The other major thread of Episode 6 involves a training exercise on a long-abandoned Starfleet ship, the USS Miyazaki, which really does have all the makings of a great Captain Picard (“Starship Mine”) or Captain Kirk (“The Doomsday Machine”) story. The Academy kids team up with the War College gang for what is apparently a ritual for the Federation's finest students to go on a joint mission to the wreck, but of course things don't go as planned once they're onboard.
The idea of a lost relic of a ship that's at least a century old is pretty compelling, and the lighting and atmosphere for the scenes onboard the Miyazaki are effectively creepy. This also goes for the new villainous race introduced here, the Furies, who we're told are “human/alien hybrids.” We don't get much more on them beyond that, and I kind of assumed that the episode was going to culminate in the reveal that the failed singularity drive of the Miyazaki actually led to the creation of these mutant freaks (who by the way are also described as cannibals). The fact that they're not the lost crew of the Miyazaki and are instead simply puppets of a returning Paul Giamatti’s Nus Braka is kind of disappointing, actually.
Still, putting Caleb and Jay-Den and Sam and the rest in the situation of having to fight these things off is pretty exciting, and there's lots of cool bits and pieces to be found in solving the puzzle of how they're going to get out of this mess, including Sam plugging into the ancient computer and the Vulcan B’Avi (Alexander Eling) falling back on his knowledge of a Star Trek comic book about Starfleet history in order to troubleshoot their situation. (B’Avi’s interest in, or perhaps reliance on, comic books to learn about Starfleet as a child actually makes a ton of sense when you consider that these kids grew up in the era of The Burn, when it was no easy task to visit or even communicate with other worlds.)
It's a shame then that the Vulcan is killed in the climax of the episode, even if it’s somehow dramatically satisfying in that we now know that Starfleet Academy is at least willing to kill off its B-tier characters. Not everyone is safe here, it seems. Still, B’Avi had seemed as though he was being set up to be a recurring player, and now he's gone, which is kind of a bummer.
But where the episode really does stumble, and this gets back to my earlier point about a 60-minute episode that should have probably been 52 minutes, is in the return of Giamatti's character and his tête-à-tête with Holly Hunter’s Captain Ake. Sure, the history between these two is of some interest, and we knew that Giamatti would be back after the pilot eventually. But this doesn't seem like it's the right place for it, and their scenes frankly drag. The charged character dynamics that the writers and actors are striving for between these two just don't feel like they're there in these scenes, and I hate to have to say that because I've really been hoping that the show would find some kind of center to Ake/Braka’s adversarial relationship since the pilot. Of course, we still have four more episodes to go this season, so there's still a chance that they'll get there. But this wasn’t their week.
Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:
A USS Miyazaki apparently was featured in a piece of fan fiction called Harry Potter and the Return of James T. Kirk (!)… but this is the first time it’s appeared in actual canon as far as I can tell.
I wonder who the ship is named after?
Captain Ake says the Miyazaki was destroyed after its singularity drive failed back in the day, but that seems like a weird turn of phrase since the ship, while damaged, seems mostly intact.
Speaking of which, the “ship graveyard” that the Miyazaki is in… is it composed just of the one ship? What’s all the debris floating around it?
The creature design of the Furies is pretty scary in that they seem to be trans-spatial or otherwise displaced in time and space, which again would have supported the idea of them being the byproduct of some kind of singularity/wormhole event gone wrong.
I love the comic book bit, but why are the characters in the book – who are supposed to be from a century before this episode – wearing 23rd century uniforms? What did I miss?
They’re still quoting Spock in the 32nd century, eh?
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