USB Type-C has become the standard for charging and data cables alike, so it's good to have extra on hand. Here's a deal where you can get a bunch of cables for pennies on the dollar. Amazon is offering a five-pack of Lisen USB Type-C cables in varying sizes for only $7.96 after a 50% off promo code "478NN6HT" is applied during checkout. That averages out to about $1.59 per cable. USB Type-C cables typically go for about $5-$10 per cable at your local big box store.

5-Pack of USB Type-C Cables for $7.96

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II has only been out since February, but you can already grab the Day One Edition of Warhorse Studios' hit sequel for as low as £39.95 at The Game Collection on both PS5 & Xbox Series X. Previously £54.95, that's a massive £15 saving for a critically well-received RPG that will take you at least 40 to 60 hours just to complete the main story.

If you've been distracted by all the other huge games that have come out in the last few months— like Civilization 7, Avowed, Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, or Monster Hunter Wilds, just to name a few—this is the perfect chance to return to the Kingdom of Bohemia with a massive bargain.

There are a few other UK retailers who have followed suit, with Argos, Currys, and Smyths bringing the price down to £39.99. TGC is still the cheapest by 4p, but if stock runs out on PS5, we'd recommend going to Currys next since it does free next day delivery and is also the Day One Edition, containing the pre-order bonus quest— "The Lion's Crest".

Argos can do free shipping as well, but only if you collect from a store or place an online order over £100, otherwise costing you at least an extra £3.95 for home delivery. Plus, while Argos is selling the Day One Edition on Xbox Series X, it's only selling the standard version without the bonus quest on PS5.

Smyths is only selling the standard version on both platforms, neither without the pre-order bonus quest. That said, it still makes a better price than those currently at other retailers. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II on PS5 at Amazon UK, for example, currently costs £57.77 at the lowest. ShopTo has cut its prices on the game slightly, but not as much, only going as low as £47.85 for the game on Xbox Series X|S.

While you can get Kingdom Come: Deliverance II for as low as £38.49 on PC through sites like CDKeys, deals like The Games Collection's are the cheapest ways to play the game on console. KCD2 is still priced much higher on each system's digital platforms—£59.99 on both the PlayStation Store and Xbox Games Store. If you have either console with a disc drive, The Game Collection, Currys, or Smyths are your best options.

Ben Williams – IGN freelance contributor with over 10 years of experience covering gaming, tech, film, TV, and anime. Follow him on Twitter/X @BenLevelTen.

No matter which platform you prefer, there's an excellent variety of video game deals to check out right now. Whether you're gaming on PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, or PC, we've rounded up the best offers to help you get more for your money. This includes the excellent PS5 Slim and Astro Bot bundle for PlayStation fans, and PC players can score a nice little discount on Elden Ring Nightreign preorders right now at Fanatical.

While not on sale, we've also included where you can preorder a physical copy of Elden Ring Nightreign if you're a console player so you can secure your next journey to The Lands Between. A nice bonus is that Best Buy's offering a free $10 gift card with your purchase on that one, so you can enjoy a little treat alongside the game itself. Outside of preorders and the previously mentioned deals, you can see more of our favorite video game deals below.

PS5 Slim + Astro Bot Bundle

Preorder Elden Ring Nightreign

Best PC Game Deals

Humble Choice April 2025

Best Physical Video Game Deals

If you're looking to save on physical games right now, there are plenty of deals worth checking out across PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. We've included just a few of our favorites above, but if you'd like to see more game deals for each platform, check out our individual roundups for these consoles: the best PlayStation deals, the best Xbox deals, and the best Nintendo Switch deals.

Best PlayStation VR 2 Deals

Best Xbox Accessory Deals

Best PS5 SSD Deals

Best Gaming PC Deals

Do you prefer to play on a dedicated PC tower? Navigating the options online can be quite the ordeal. Desk space, portability, and price point are often factors in the decision. However, there are some great PC deals that pop up every now and again that are worth jumping on. One of our favorite deals at the moment is on the Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5080 Gaming PC for $2399.99. To see even more PC deals, check out our roundup of the best gaming PC deals.

Super Hero Worship is a regular opinion column by IGN’s Senior Staff Writer Jesse Schedeen. Check out the previous Super Hero Worship entry, Robert Pattinson's Batman Has No Business Being in James Gunn's DCU.

Doctor Doom has well and truly cemented his status as Marvel’s greatest villain by now. What’s not to love? He’s got boundless ambition and an even bigger ego. He’s successfully taken over the world more than once. He had a brief stint as the self-proclaimed God Emperor of all reality. And none of that can fully disguise the fact that he’s a deeply flawed and self-loathing man who can’t get over his decades-old feud with his intellectual rival and former roommate.

Strangely enough, Doom has also emerged as Marvel’s most compelling hero over the past two years. Not the traditional Doom, who’s currently reigning over the Marvel Universe yet again in Marvel’s One World Under Doom crossover. Rather, the Doom of the new Ultimate Universe. He represents a very different yet still utterly fascinating take on this iconic Marvel character.

The Ultimate Universe’s Rebirth

To understand why this version of Doom is so compelling, you first need to wrap your head around the concept of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe imprint. The original Ultimate line, which ran from 2000-2015, was dedicated to giving readers updated and streamlined versions of characters like Spider-Man, the Avengers (rebranded as The Ultimates), and the X-Men, all reimagined to suit the 21st Century and the age of the War on Terror. It was great stuff… up until Marvel lost the plot after a few years.

The new Ultimate line, which kicked off in 2023, is more purposeful and directed in how it changes the traditional Marvel formula. This world, Earth-6160, was meant to be a close copy of the regular Marvel Universe, Earth-616. But thanks to the time-traveling machinations of The Maker (the twisted version of Reed Richards from the original Ultimate Universe), Earth-6160 has gone badly astray. The Maker worked to systematically suppress the emergence of Earth’s superheroes. Most of those superhumans that do exist serve on The Maker’s Council, a shadowy, autocratic cabal that secretly rules this dystopian world.

Plenty of actors can be plugged into the time-honored tradition of knocking off Die Hard. But it takes a particular gravity to be convincing in the subcategory of presidential-themed Die Hard knockoffs, popularized by Harrison Ford in Air Force One and franchised by the Has Fallen movies and TV shows. Like Ford, G20 star Viola Davis is a physically capable actor whose presence is nonetheless more important than her action-hero chops; it’s not so much that they can both issue convincing beatdowns (though they can) so much as the implicit threat behind their glowering looks.

G20 struggles mightily to give Davis a platform for those looks and beatdowns. She plays President Danielle Sutton, seemingly still early in her first term and on shaky ground with the sniping, backbiting press. (Even in terms of wish-fulfillment, apparently treating journalists like anything more than gullible antagonists is a fantasy too far for the script’s four credited writers.) While attending the G20 economic summit in Cape Town, South Africa, she finds herself in the crosshairs of a terrorist named Rutledge (Antony Starr), who takes the world leaders as hostages and uses deep-fake videos to crash the world’s markets while enriching himself. This isn’t one of those movies where the bad guy is meant to be empathetic, but given that President Sutton’s big initiative for solving world hunger sounds suspiciously like a crypto scam, maybe Rutledge has a point about not trusting any of these people.

Regardless, President Dutton doesn’t take this attack lying down, especially knowing that her husband Derek (Anthony Anderson, trying to banish his comic-actor rep with some scowls of his own), rebellious daughter Serena (Marsai Martin; yes, the president has apparently commandeered part of the family from Black-ish), and nondescript son Demetrius (Christopher Farrar) are also in danger. She uses her old military training, and her close partnership with her loyal Secret Service agent Manny (Ramón Rodríguez), to evade capture while punching, kicking, or shooting any terrorists who get in her way. In one of G20’s best details, Sutton has already surreptitiously swapped her red heels for red sneakers underneath the elegant, matching gown she’s wearing – which itself gets torn and used as a makeshift resource along the way.

There’s a bald attempt to enshrine these moments as instantly iconic, as if director Patricia Riggen is trying to reverse engineer a bunch of “Get off my plane!”s. This makes G20 seem painfully self-conscious, yet simultaneously not self-aware enough to be genuinely funny. Once every 10 or 15 minutes, it will stumble into a state of dopey throwback bliss: a hulking henchman approaches Davis and menacingly intones “Let’s dance, Madame President” before they fight, or the classic, ‘90s-thriller touch of making teenage Serena an ace hacker. But these moments fade fast, with followthrough that rarely matches the campy setup.

The actual action scenes, meanwhile, are often choppy. At one point, director Riggen cuts to a wide overhead shot of a skirmish, and pivots the camera 90 degrees, seemingly aware that this is a popular move in action cinema without necessarily knowing why. (Typically, that kind of camera move follows a flipping body, rather than spinning its wheels from above).

G20 isn’t just another streaming movie that feels designed to be half-watched; at times, it only feels half-made, too. Clark Gregg, for example, has a pointless role as Sutton’s VP – like Anderson, he seems to be there to reassure the audience that men can be good at their jobs, too. Back at the White House, Gregg reacts so generically to various developments in Cape Town that it feels like anything could be playing on the screens he’s monitoring. All but the least demanding audiences may react the same way to G20 itself.

After months of little to no availability, Pokémon TCG: Journey Together Elite Trainer Boxes have been restocked at Amazon, and are actually staying in stock. No doubt shipping times might increase as time goes on, but it's now finally possible to buy one of these bad boys off digital store shelves.

Amazon US: Pokémon TCG: Journey Together Elite Trainer Box

Larian has confirmed the hotly anticipated Patch 8 update for Baldur’s Gate 3 finally launches on Tuesday, April 15.

Patch 8 has been available in stress test form for some time now, but Larian has announced it is finally ready to be released to all players next week.

There’s a huge amount of new content coming to the record-breaking Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game with Patch 8, including 12 new subclasses. Elsewhere, there’s photo mode, cross-play, and Xbox Series S split screen. Check out the Baldur's Gate 3 Patch 8 patch notes for more.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 8 new subclasses:

Bard - College of Glamour
As a College of Glamour Bard, you’ll find you have the power to heal friends and command enemies in equal measure. Cast Mantle of Inspiration to bestow your allies with 5 temporary hit points. And should an enemy attack while it is cast, they’ll find themselves Charmed. Play your hand correctly and you’ll be able to use this to your advantage with Mantle of Majesty. Target Charmed enemies and you can command them to flee, move closer, freeze, drop to the ground, or drop their weapon.

Barbarian - Path of Giants

Opt for the Path of Giants, and your newfound giant strength will make it easier for you to yeet friend and foe alike. Forget chugging potions to pump those muscles, these Barbarians benefit from the Giant’s Rage passive that grants both strength and size - allowing you to deal additional damage with Throw attacks. Pockets weighing you down? Not for you and your increased carry capacity!

Cleric - Death Domain

As a cleric of death, you’ll find a few dark new tricks up your sleeves - from spells that specialise in necrotic damage to three new necromancy cantrips. This includes Toll The Dead, a cantrip that causes 1~8 damage when your cleric rings the bell of impending doom - a number that scales if your target has already been damaged. We’ve also added the homebrewed ability to explode nearby corpses, damaging enemies.

Druid - Circle of Stars

These Druids look to the stars for answers, accessing powers beyond those offered through the classic wildshapes. Taking on one of three Starry Forms for their power - the constellations of the Archer, Chalice, and Dragon. Each one favours a different play style and strategy - the Archer dealing radiant damage with astral arrows, the life-giving Chalice restoring hitpoints to you and others nearby, and the wise Dragon, allowing you to deal damage with an added bonus to constitution rolls. The Starry Forms offer not just a celestial aesthetic, but practical, powerful options to enhance your role as a healer, fighter, or strategist.

Paladin - Oath of the Crown

You’ve been sworn to uphold the principles of law. Stay true to your oath and you'll be rewarded with the power to aid your allies and disrupt your foes. Guide your companions in battle with Righteous Clarity, taunt enemies with strategic interrupts, and keep your party standing strong with Divine Allegiance, absorbing their damage while restoring their health.

Fighter - Arcane Archer

Mastering the dual arts of magic and marksmanship, the Arcane Archer subclass offers unique skills on top of new shooting animations. Banish foes to the Feywild, removing them from the battlefield for a turn, or unleash Psychic damage that forces enemies to make a Wisdom saving throw or be blinded until the start of their next turn.

Monk - Drunken Master

Putting the brew in homebrew, as the Drunken Master, you have the ability to consume alcohol straight from your inventory, as well as drink from bottles you see around the Sword Coast, in order to recover Ki. By sharing the bottle with your enemies using Intoxicating Strike, you’ll generate a buff towards your Armour Class and your Chance to hit Drunk targets. Drunk enemies are also susceptible to the Drunken Masters' other abilities, like Sobering Realisation - which sobers up drunk targets, dealing physical and Psychic damage.

Ranger - Swarmkeeper

The Swarmkeeper subclass provides Rangers with three kinds of deadly swarms to assist them in combat. The Cloud of Jellyfish deals extra lightning damage - potentially shocking your enemy. The Flurry of Moths deals Psychic damage, giving you the potential to Blind your enemy. The Legion of Bees deals piercing damage and forces the enemy to make a strength-saving throw or be knocked back 15ft. Each swarm also has the ability to provide you with teleportation capabilities!

Rogue - Swashbuckler

This Rogue subclass introduces a range of new actions fit for the piratical life. Play dirty by tossing sand at enemies to Blind them. Flick your weapon at a target to Disarm them. Or use your new Fancy Footwork passive while meleeing your enemy to ensure they can’t make opportunity attacks against you for the rest of your turn.

Sorcerer - Shadow Magic

As a Shadow Magic Sorcerer, you deal in a form of magic that makes you deadliest in darkness. This subclass gives its sorcerer Superior Darkvision, as well as the ability to Shadow Walk between places of dim light or darkness. It also lets you call forth the perfectly homebrewed Hound of Ill Omen to harass your foes, and use Strength of the Grave to prevent you from being downed - ideal for those attempting Honour Mode runs.

Warlock - Hexblade

Hexblade Warlocks make a pact with an entity from the Shadowfell that manifests in the form of magical weapons. Curse your enemies and force their souls to do your bidding. Slay any enemy that isn’t generally an element of nature, construct, giant blob, or already dead, and you’ll be able to raise their spirit from their corpse for ten turns. This new summon can deal necrotic damage and will rip away a chunk of your enemy’s soul to provide your Hexblade Warlock with healing.

Wizard - Bladesinging

The Bladesinging subclass merges swordplay with wizardry. Expect new spellcasting animations when casting spells with your weapon, a new Bladesong ability to grant you supernatural speed, agility, and focus, plus gives you a bonus to any Constitution saving throw you make.

Patch 8, as Larian has signalled, is the final major update for the game and draws a line under what has been a remarkable time for the developer. Baldur’s Gate 3 launched to critical acclaim and enormous commercial success back in 2023, and has continued to sell strongly throughout 2024 and into 2025.

Larian shocked the gaming world by confirming its intention to leave Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dungeons & Dragons behind to work on a brand new game, which it teased at various points before announcing a media blackout to focus on the new mystery project.

D&D owner Hasbro. however, has teased plans to continue with the series. Speaking to IGN at the Game Developers Conference last month, SVP of digital games at Hasbro, Dan Ayoub, let on that with Larian moving on, Hasbro has "a lot of people very interested in Baldur's Gate."

"We're kind of working out our plans for the future and what we're going to be doing with that. And actually, in pretty short order, we're going to have some stuff to talk about around that."

Ayoub didn't offer any further information about whether this "stuff" would be a full-blown new Baldur's Gate in the works, or some sort of crossover like the characters had with Magic: The Gathering previously. However, he did acknowledge that he eventually wants a Baldur's Gate 4, but that making one will likely take a while.

"It's somewhat of an unenviable position," he said. "I mean, we're not in a hurry. Right? That's the thing, we're going to take a very measured approach... We've got a lot of plans, a lot of different ways to go about it. We're starting to think about, okay, yeah, we're ready to start dipping toes a little bit and talking about a few things. And I think, in really short order, like I said, again, not to over-tease that point, we're going to have some other things to talk about around that."

Meanwhile, Larian will celebrate the release of Patch 8 with a Twitch livestream in which senior systems designer, Ross Stephens, will run through the changes and additions.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

If you’re prepping for the Nintendo Switch 2, or just looking for a fast, future-proof memory card, this is one deal to pay attention to. The Lexar 512GB Play PRO MicroSD Express Card is finally back in stock and has dropped to $89.92 on Amazon, down from its usual $99.99.

This is one of the few MicroSD Express cards currently available in larger capacities, and it’s officially compatible with the upcoming Switch 2. That matters, because Nintendo confirmed its next-gen console will only support MicroSD Express for expandable storage. That rules out all your older cards from the original Switch, no matter how much space they had left.

For a limited time, Amazon is offering a Hoto 3.6V Electric Screwdriver for $35.99 after 40% off coupon code "40SZOFEK". Make sure not to clip any of the coupons on the product page, otherwise this code will not apply and you'll be stuck with a lesser discount. This is a great, compact screwdriver for anyone who tinkers with small electronics and deals with dozens of tiny screws, but wants something stronger than one of those "mini precision" screwdrivers.

40% Off Hoto 3.6V 4Nm Electric Driver for $35.99

When building a collection of board games, it's helpful to find good options on sale to pick up. Thankfully we've come across some great deals recently, including this discount on Fireball Island. If you're looking for an adventurous addition into your game night lineup, this one is worth picking up. Especially since it's 20% off at Amazon, which has dropped its price from $22.49 to $17.95. Pick it up for your collection at the link below.

The Game Collection has been an occasional good source of decent deals for some time now, but the retailer has especially come through today with making Elden Ring available for just £21.95 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and PC.

That's a huge maximum price drop of £18 from the previous £39.95 price of the current-gen versions. Among the other retailers selling physical copies of FromSoftware's critically acclaimed and best-selling RPG, that's the best price you can get by far.

The only other in the UK that comes close is Argos, selling most of the same versions for £21.99, but you have to pay at least £3.95 extra for home delivery—making the actual total £25.98 if you don't fancy the free store collection option.

With Elden Rings' Shadow of the Erdtree DLC still being enjoyed by plenty of players in the FromSoft community, even being a GOTY nominee at the Game Awards 2024, there's never been a better time for newcomers to get on board and become a Tarnished in the Lands Between for themselves.

If you're a PlayStation player who still uses both a PS4 and PS5, we'd recommend buying the PS4 version, since Elden Ring is one of those early-gen games that still has a free upgrade to the PS5 included, while the base PlayStation 5 version in the white case does not.

In the event you were planning to double-dip and play Shadow of the Erdtree whilst diving into base Elden Ring, the titular Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Edition has its own deals with different retailers—the PS5 & Xbox Series X|S editions are £39.99 at HMV while the latter is available for a mere £37.99 at Smyths. The PS5 version was also £37.99 at Smyths, but, at the time of writing, was out of stock.

On the PlayStation Store & Xbox Games Store, the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is still £32.99 and £34.99 respectively. So, by purchasing this complete edition of Elden Ring for just under £40, you'll save up to an extra £18.95 compared to buying the base version from The Game Collection and purchasing the DLC later.

Ben Williams – IGN freelance contributor with over 10 years of experience covering gaming, tech, film, TV, and anime. Follow him on Twitter/X @BenLevelTen.

The new LEGO River Steamboat is a beautiful set and an engaging experience. A set's quality is defined by its build process as much as its end result, and the River Steamboat is Exhibit A. It has forward momentum – every step of its build process logically and organically leads to the next, and the layered design of the ship – each floor is easily removable from the next – means that all of the ship's inner details are accessible and viewable. LEGO first appealed to its adult audience with its line of modular buildings. And what we have here is a modular boat, with the same attention to detail – both unique and mundane – that creates a greater, cohesive whole.

The River Steamboat is from the LEGO Ideas line. A LEGO fan submits an original idea, along with a proof-of-concept, for consideration. The community then votes on it. The chosen fan's idea becomes an official LEGO set, and the fan who conceived the idea gets a cut of the profits. Prior successful LEGO Ideas include The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jaws, and Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale.

The LEGO River Steamboat is inspired by the massive real-life paddle boats that chugged up and down the Mississippi River in the 1800s. Originally used for industrial transport, the steamboat was ultimately supplanted by the steam engine train and the screw propeller boat. With no practical reason to exist, the paddle boats became pleasure boats, with amenities and gambling on board. They continue to serve that purpose today; when my wife and I went on our honeymoon to New Orleans, we took a riverboat cruise down the Mississippi, where we dined, drank, danced, and listened to jazz.

This is a LEGO build for LEGO lovers.

The LEGO River Steamboat comes with a jazz lounge and a dining room. But it also has its practical areas, including a boiler engine room that connects to the paddle wheel. Push the boat, and the wheel turns. The pilothouse has a steering wheel, and when you turn it, the rudder at the bottom of the boat also turns. There's a kitchen area and a sleeping area for the crew. There's an anchor on a chain that rolls up on a spool. And meanwhile, another spool of riggings raises and lowers the boarding stages on the ship's bow.

The designers divided the build – 4,090 pieces – into 32 separate bags. You start with the base of the ship which includes the boiler room and a miniature nautical museum. Here, in addition to the actual boat engine, you can see a piston engine, an aeolipile (steam turbine) and a Watt steam engine. Across from the engine room is the small kitchen with a refrigerator, stove, and basin sink. I'm continually impressed by the minimalism of LEGO design and the designers' ability to repurpose a piece by simply changing its color scheme; a hot dog bun from a Fairgrounds build becomes an engine reinforcement in a Steamboat.

One floor up is the main deck, which contains the dining room and jazz lounge. The lounge is positioned above the boat's stern and includes tiny LEGO accessories for drums, saxophone, microphone, and an upright bass. The dining room is fancy, with tablecloth elements and attractive chairs. There are light fixture elements that straddle the inside and outside of the compartment. On the wall are posters which advertise the on-board entertainment. One of the wall paintings is a stylized depiction of the A-Frame Cabin, another LEGO Ideas set (see at Amazon).

You build the dining room separately and 'drop' it into the larger build. And because the ship's footprint is wider and longer than the dining room, you create a deck space, where your minifigures can lean on the outside railing and take in the sights. Speaking of minifigures, no minifigures come with the set. Some crew members and some tourists could have given the ship a bit more life and playfulness. But perhaps LEGO wanted to send a message that this was a set for show and not for play.

One floor up from the main deck is the crew deck, which includes a set of beds and a bathroom (with a toilet, sink, and shower stall). Above that is the pilothouse. One of the most impressive quirks of the Steamboat is the aforementioned steering wheel. It's a minor feat of engineering that turning the wheel on one end of the ship turns the rudder on the other end of the ship. It's accomplished by threading a rod through all four levels of the steamboat. The amount of planning that surely went into accomplishing this is impressive. But it's worth it. It's a small mechanical effect, but any LEGO builder who's ever attempted something similar will appreciate the effort that went towards accomplishing it.

I love many little things about this set. There's the white billowy flags, repurposed from a croissant accessory. There's the clean, neat, white rows of railings that line the outer decks. There's the patterned tiles in the lounge areas, which give the impression of rugs. Though massive (and it is quite massive), this set looks more like 3,500 pieces than 4,000 pieces. But after building it and indulging in all its specific details, all its well-appointed rooms, you'll know where those extra 500 pieces went.

There's a guiding principle to writing that William Strunk mentions in his book The Elements of Style:

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell."

The River Steamboat is the LEGO equivalent of that principle; every brick tells. Every rod and stud has its purpose and function. Every decorative element is pleasing, not superfluous. And every room, every space on the ship, is individually pretty, while contributing to the whole. Definitely check it out. This is a LEGO build for LEGO lovers.

LEGO River Steamboat, Set #21356, retails for $329.99, and it is composed of 4,090 pieces. It is available exclusively at the LEGO Store.

See more popular LEGO sets for adults

Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He's also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.

This article contains spoilers for Black Mirror Season 7.

Since Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror debuted in 2011, it has presented a nigh-on nihilistic view of technology. Heck, it’s right there in the name, explaining the darkness of how what we’re watching on the TV screen reflects back onto our real world. But something has shifted as the show has continued, with the seventh season that’s just dropped on Netflix presenting a surprising, new thesis for the series. Maybe, just maybe, it’s technology – and AI in particular – that’s going to save us. Or at the very least, save itself.

To get one thing out of the way, the AI that’s presented in Black Mirror is pure fantasy. This isn’t the sort of AI used in ChatGPT and programs of the like, which isn’t anything fancier than a predictive text algorithm. Nor is it the sort of AI that’s close to anything that exists commercially or otherwise in our real world. What Black Mirror presents is a fantasy future version of AI that truly is what the initials stand for: artificial intelligence. In the series, they are programs that have vaulted past computer status to become living beings in and of themselves. And it’s with that major difference that Brooker and company are aiming to teach us more about what humanity should be, through beings that are just achieving sentience on their own.

This isn’t true of every episode in the new season. The season premiere, “Common People,” is a classic dark tale of a couple trying to solve their healthcare woes in a system that upcharges them to keep the wife’s brain working. It’s bleak, often darkly comic, and puts Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones through a gristmill to make a point about how the healthcare system isn’t that different from spiraling cell phone charges, or, to bite the hand that feeds Black Mirror, Netflix’s constant price hikes. “Bête Noir” is a comic tale of high school revenge that lightly plays with the idea of the Mandela Effect, but if you’re looking any deeper into the episode, you’re doing it wrong. Heck, at one point one of the characters Googles “nut allergy” and the only result is “did you mean ‘not allegory’” in case you missed how this is more of an Outer Limits style episode than classic Black Mirror.

But the next four episodes all take a very different, surprising tact for Black Mirror, something that we’ve only seen sparsely peppered through the series thus far. “Hotel Reverie” is a romantic comedy between Issa Rae’s character, a famous actress trying to stretch her muscles, and a digital recreation of a classic actress, played by Emma Corrin. “Plaything” finds Peter Capaldi as the digital harbinger for The Throng, a game created by “Bandersnatch” madman played by Will Poulter, which may help bring about the singularity. “Eulogy” might be the most earnestly heartfelt episode of the series to date, as Paul Giamatti’s character takes a journey through a relationship in his past that he’d rather forget, after his former paramour’s passing. And the final episode, “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” checks back in on the fan-favorite Star Trek riff now that the in-game AI crew has gone off on their own adventures.

There’s darkness, for sure, particularly with “Plaything.” depending on how you feel about becoming the host for a digital symbiote, you might find it more disturbing than not. But each episode posits that the way forward is working with and learning from our AI counterparts. It’s a far cry from how Toby Kebbell lost himself to The Grain in Season 1’s “The Entire History of You,” or the dark, sad end of android Domhnall Gleeson in Season 2’s “Be Right Back.” Heck, this is 180 degrees from the murder machine of Season 4’s “Metalhead,” or any of the times technology led to a gruesome death on the show, aka most of them. Instead, this batch of four episodes shows how tech can lead to closure, independence, a bright future, or even true love.

So, how did we get here? How did a show so focused on the bleak side of sci-fi pivot to become a fantasy of what could be? The answer likely goes back to what is perhaps the most beloved episode of Black Mirror of all time, “San Junipero,” which is referenced constantly in Season 7. “Common People” finds the main couple celebrating their anniversary every year at an inn/restaurant called The Juniper. Issa Rae’s Brandy lives on 3049 Junipero Drive. Black Mirror has always included Easter eggs and references to other episodes; some overt, some not. But it’s hard to understate the importance of “San Junipero” to this steady change to the series, and to Season 7 in particular.

The fourth episode of Season 3, “San Junipero” starred Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis as Kelly and Yorkie, respectively, two seemingly young women who fall in love, only for it to turn out that Kelly is a dead copy of a person’s memories, while Yorkie is a dying old woman. It’s a beautiful lesbian love story, the first of its kind for the series, but in classic Black Mirror fashion it ends in a place that is either beautiful – they decide to be together forever in the digital afterlife – or disturbing – Yorkie is euthanized, and the final shot is a bunch of robot arms sorting drives, including their memories.

Ending aside, multiple other episodes since then have experimented with this weird, fresh idea of “hope.” Season 4’s “USS Callister,” also hailed as one of the best episodes of the series, found a bunch of cloned digital creations escaping their old-school Star Trek reality by killing their maker and entering a bold, new world. Later in Season 4, “Hang The DJ” seemed to present almost a heterosexual version of “San Junipero” involving a dating app, but ultimately fizzled its premise with a classic Black Mirror bummer of an ending. Same with Season 5’s “Striking Vipers,” which found two male friends striking up a sexual relationship in a Street Fighter-esque fighting game, only to discover it didn’t work at all in the real world. Three episodes taking halting steps towards a different tone over nearly a decade, but none as successful as “San Junipero.” Until now.

So… Why now? Perhaps the easiest answer is Big Tech’s current obsession with AI as the latest hot thing, something that is quickly proving to be not what consumers want at all. The faux AI they’re hocking is as dark as anything Black Mirror has ever peddled, from boiling large bodies of water and accelerating climate change to wrecking whole swathes of the internet with frequently incorrect results. What can Black Mirror possibly say about our current AI when people are using predictive text in place of therapy, and Google is telling chefs to add glue to pizza? There’s nothing left to parody, to heighten, because in the real world, it’s already so ridiculous, so dangerous.

Instead, Brooker’s crew has changed focus to the real heroes, the digital beings, since we humans have taken so little effort and so much time to decide our world isn’t worth saving as long as we can generate terrible-looking art with the wrong number of fingers.

This is something the show seemingly tackles head-on in “Hotel Reverie,” with Awkwafina’s Kimmy testing a new technology that will spruce up old black-and-white movies by inserting new, hot actors into the scenes. It goes wrong, of course, and there’s plenty of not-so-subtle commentary about how AI (the way we know it) can generate the beats of a script, from when characters should fall in love to how mysteries should be solved. But the heart of the episode, quite literally, is how Issa Rae’s Brandy, stuck in the computerized version of the movie, finds a kindred soul with Emma Corrin’s digital recreation – and it ends with a beautiful scene involving a phone call that matches Yorkie and Kelly’s “forever,” without the weird robot arms. It’s about how connections can be made despite the interference of algorithms, not because of them.

“Eulogy” presents the flipside of “The Entire History of You,” with Giamatti’s Phillip trying to forget his past so definitively that he’s ripped the face of his ex-girlfriend out of pictures. But it’s through his bond with The Guide (Patsy Ferran), who turns out to be an AI duplicate of his ex-girlfriend’s daughter, curating material for her memorial, that Phillip can confront his own past mistakes and move forward with his life. It’s not ChatGPT therapy, but it is the version that users think they’re getting, versus plagiarized text that’s missing the intuitiveness of emotion and consciousness.

And the highly anticipated “USS Callister: Into Infinity” pairs nicely with “Plaything,” both positing that perhaps humans are prone to violence and petty jealousy, while digital creations have the ability to be better, and do better. In the former, with one exception the human characters are all scrambling to either dominate each other or destroy. Meanwhile, the crew of the Callister just want the opportunity to live. And in “Plaything,” when the adorable Tamagotchi-esque creatures of the Throng are presented with murder, their reaction isn’t to kill – it’s to present Capaldi’s Cameron (played in flashback by Lewis Gribben) with another option: let them take that pain and rage away by forming machine-man hybrids.

While Black Mirror isn’t totally past punishing humans (see “Common People” in particular), the pivot in Season 7 has turned to a fantasy that flips from the common belief that a la Terminator, the machines are here to kill us. Instead, Black Mirror suggests by coexisting with them, they can teach us to be better humans. And in a worst-case scenario, replace us because we don’t seem to want ourselves to survive anyway.

Turns out that Black Mirror which we thought reflected back on us was a two-way mirror all along, and Brooker’s digital creations have been watching this whole time. Perhaps it’s a flight of fancy, perhaps not. But as the show’s thoughts on AI have evolved, and the real world’s reliance on destructive fake AI has devolved, Black Mirror may have a point. All hail our new machine overlords… Even if for now they’re just fantasy.

Dystopian fiction has always been a crucial player in the science fiction and horror genres, but in the 21st century it's truly risen up to become its own dominant category. Here you'll find the absolute best of TV dystopia, ranging from zombie hellscapes to AI apocalypses to smaller pitfalls, like societies fully dominated by social media points or worlds where everything you see gets recorded in your brain like video files.

Massive plagues, nuclear winters, robot uprisings, time travel paranoia, and people vanishing into thin air -- these 19 TV shows (plus one miniseries) represent the cleverest, scariest (and often most poignant) -- dystopian stories ever told. Some are post-apocalyptic while some are just people in an office with a microchip in their head that's split their consciousness. All we're looking for is a dark vision of the future, near or far, that crackles with intensity, intrigue, and imagination.

If movies are what you seek, however, then check out the Top 10 Apocalypse Movies of All Time and the 6 Post-Apocalyptic Movies You've Probably Never Seen. Heck, IGN readers even voted on their Favorite Post-Apocalyptic World from Movies and TV!

But if it's TV you're after, then continue on as we dig into Fallout, Severance, The Walking Dead, The Handmaid's Tale, The Last of Us, and more. Here are the Top 20 Dystopian TV Shows of All Time!

20. Twisted Metal

We'll kick the list off with some riotous carnage. 2024's Twisted Metal adaptation, from Zombieland's Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, was exactly the type of violent silliness that was called for (and exactly what the Borderlands movie should have been, for what it's worth). Anthony Mackie, Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Encanto), and the tag team combo of Samoa Joe and Will Arnett (body and voice for Sweet Tooth) star in this clever and goofy showcase of a world of walled-off cities and expendable couriers used to drive and deliver packages across the dangerous post-apocalypse wasteland.

Watch the first season of Twisted Metal on Peacock. Season 2 is coming this summer.

19. Paradise

The newest show on this list -- on which there are actually a good number of recent series -- is Hulu's Paradise. And without giving too much away for those who haven't caught the first season, let's just say that it's a White House murder whodunnit? amidst the backdrop of an extinction level event. Emmy-winner Sterling K. Brown reunites with This is Us creator Dan Fogelman for one of the best mystery box shows since Lost went off the air. Playing trusted Secret Service agent Xavier Collins to James Marsden's affable President Cal Bradford, Brown plays both sides of the deep conspiracy coin amidst a backdrop of a world-ending catastrophe. Julianne Nicholson and Sarah Shahi also star.

Watch the first season of Paradise on Hulu. Season 2 has been greenlit.

18. Into the Badlands

Only a few shows presented here actually kick ass on a visceral, violent level, and Into the Badlands, which comprises some truly superior fight choreography, leads that particular pack. From Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville, Wednesday, Shanghai Noon), this from-the-ashes actionfest shows us the world 500 years from now, ruined by war, where a U.S. territory known as the Badlands is ruled by Barons and dominated by blade and melee weapons (guns are a no no). Daniel Wu plays one of the realm's most lethal warriors, caught up in all of the dangerous drama unleashed by this ravaged world. A stirring, bloody, dystopian soap that's worth watching.

Watch all three seasons of Into the Badlands on Netflix or AMC+.

17. The Last Man on Earth

Will Forte's comedic cringefest is about a silly, selfish loser, Phil, who, after months on his own following a world-ending pandemic, discovers there are actually other survivors out there. The problem is Phil's an awkward sociopath and the hearty laughs unspool as only Mr. Forte can provide. Like Twisted Metal a few entries back, The Last Man on Earth is a rare comedy we're including to break up the dystopian dourness. It's ambitious, audacious, and truly gut-busting. Kristen Schaal, January Jones, Mary Steenburgen, and Jason Sudeikis co-star.

Watch all four seasons of The Last Man on Earth on Hulu.

16. The 100

One of the true tenured CW long-timers, that, you know, wasn't Supernatural or part of the Arrowverse was The 100 -- a sci-fi saga, loosely based on books by Kass Morgan, about a hundred teenage delinquents sent down to the Earth's surface from an orbiting, malfunctioning Ark to see if the planet's surface is survivable following a nuclear war that wiped out everything.

Over the course of 100 episodes (it was a must!), these characters endure harsh elements, brutal war, a dastardly AI, interdimensional travel, and some surprisingly dark content. In fact, The 100, which deviates pretty substantially from the novels, may just be the grimmest show on this countdown.

Watch all seven seasons of The 100 on Netflix.

15. Jericho

In the biggest case of fan appeasement since the Firefly movie Serenity got made, CBS' Jericho was brought back for a second season, saved from cancellation by fervent fans who ran a strong SAVE JERICHO campaign. Sure, it only lasted for one more season, and plans for a follow-up movie were eventually scrapped, but Jericho still stands as one of the most famous cult series ever.

Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James (ahead of The Walking Dead), Michael Gaston, Ashley Scott, and Gerald McRaney starred in this nuclear fallout drama about the residents of the fictional city of Jericho, Kansas, isolated due to loss of power and communications. Eventually war breaks out with a neighboring community while, in the background, a new militarized government sets up shop in the Western half of the U.S.

Created by Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure), Stephen Chbosky (author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower), and Jonathan E. Steinberg (Black Sails, Percy Jackson and the Olympians), Jericho's all about maintaining one's humanity while trying to reboot society.

You can watch the two seasons of Jericho on Paramount+.

14. Westworld

You'll see Jonathan Nolan's name twice on this list but we wanted to call out a secret third Jonah Nolan show, Person of Interest. It started as a CBS procedural about a billionaire and a depressed mercenary saving people's lives based on a surveillance algorithm and it expanded brilliantly into a fully serialized series about warring AIs. It's not a "dystopian" show, per se, because it was about characters trying to prevent a dystopia, but still.

It's also a great precursor for what Nolan would do on Westworld, an AI apocalypse series that actually shows you, over the course of four seasons, how the world ends. What starts as a robotic Wild West theme park experiencing malfunction and massacre (featuring the first sparks of AI becoming "aware") spins out into some serious apocalyptic wild swings. In fact, this could have easily been the world our heroes on Person of Interest were fighting to stop.

Season 4 was not meant to be the end-end but HBO un-renewed the series after already having greenlit a Season 5. Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Wright, Aaron Paul, and James Marsden starred.

The four seasons of Westworld are not available on Max. You can purchase them on various platforms or watch Season 1 on Tubi.

13. The Walking Dead

At one point, for a couple years, The Walking Dead was the highest-rated show on TV. Sure, the zombie genre had been running very hot all through the 2000s but nothing like this had ever made it to TV. Based on the acclaimed Robert Kirkman comic series, The Walking Dead got people to watch horror who never would normally. Heck, entire families watched this together and it often featured gore that was exponentially nastier than you'd see in a movie.

The Walking Dead, pure and simple, worked and when it was one fire it was a juggernaut of action, suspense, love triangles, heartache, and nail-biting close calls. And it would place even higher on the list if AMC had just let it go when the time was right. But now, after well over a decade on the air, it still carries on with multiple spinoffs. Now, to be fair, some of the new shows have merit, but really only for die-harders. That being that, there was a time when Rick, Daryl, Carol, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie, and the rest of the zompocalypse survivors ruled the f'n roost.

Watch all 11 seasons of The Walking Dead on Netflix.

12. Squid Game

Man, dystopia loves a game show. It loves competition. Whether it's stories like Battle Royale or The Hunger Games, The Running Man, Death Race 2000 or even the fun one-off commercial in RoboCop advertising Climbing for Dollars (where to collect cash the player has to climb a rope over a pit of snarling, angry dogs). We've been condemning late-stage capitalism for years and one of the best methods is to create entertainment about people's desperate need to survive.

It's no wonder then that viewers flooded to South Korea's Squid Game in 2021, making it Netflix's most-watched series to this day. We watched as a divorced father and gambling addict joined the ranks of 455 players on a crazed, nightmarish game show where those in debt play lethal children's games for a jackpot prize. Squid Game has a sharp brutality and keen social commentary, making for compelling, addictive, and squirm-worthy TV.

Watch the two seasons of Squid Game on Netflix. The third and final season will be released on June 27, 2025.

11. Fallout

Jonathan Nolan's latest dive into dystopia is his successful adaptation of Fallout, the huge game franchise about the wasteland future world of an alternate history America. This time, however, unlike the morose machinations of Person of Interest and Westworld, Fallout sticks to the giddy gallows humor of the games, acting not so much as a retelling of one of the popular games but as a new Fallout installment that exists alongside them.

Nolan, co-creating with Lisa Joy and Bethesda Game Studios, nails the tone of the games while also canonically expanding the lore and adding to the mosaic. Yellowjackets' Ella Purnell stars as a Vault Dweller, with no above-ground life experience, exploring the outside world in search of her missing father (Kyle MacLachlan). There she encounters a Brotherhood of Steel hopeful, Maximus (Aaron Moten), and a former Hollywood cowboy (Walton Goggins) who's still alive, and disfigured, 200 years after doomsday thanks to radiation. Fallout is a darkly comic dive into an insane world of ghoulish gunslingers, mech-suited mercs, mutated beasts, and Vault Boy propaganda.

You can watch the first season of Fallout on Prime Video. Season 2 has been greenlit.

10. Black Summer

The superb sleeper on the list, Black Summer is the greatest zombie show to ever stream. Even if you've tired of the genre and are done with undead hordes terrorizing trembling survivors, we implore you to check out this sinister, inventive descent into hell. Z Nation creators Karl Schaefer and John Hyams envisioned Black Summer as a spinoff, or companion piece of sorts, but where Z Nation had a tongue-in-cheek quality, Black Summer is a vicious, scathing potboiler that doesn't let up. Fast-moving zombies are taking over the world and our main characters are just merely surviving. The entire time. It's relentless and superb.

It's also uniquely formatted, separated into segments titled with characters' names. Segments that can run from one minute to 10. And the episodes themselves can be 40 minutes or 20. Black Summer is lean and mean. It's just the world falling. You know, the s*** that happened when Rick Grimes was in a coma.

You can watch the two seasons of Black Summer on Netflix.

9. Silo

By listing Silo here, we're also giving a gentle nod to the Snowpiercer series which, after switching networks, wrapped up its fourth and final season last summer. We're comparing the two because that show and Silo give us a destroyed, desolate future -- Snowpiercer of ice, Silo of (as yet) unknown ruin -- where the last survivors of the human race are stored away inside a big metal tube that's their only chance of survival, and also because of the exploration they both tackle of class revolution. The front of the train/back of the train dynamic is now the top of the Silo/bottom of the Silo struggle.

Yes, instead of a train, Silo is... well, set in a massive subterranean silo. One that contains ten thousand people. One of whom is Juliette, a headstrong engineer from the low levels who is mysteriously named as the new "Sheriff" following the death of the previous one. Silo, based on an acclaimed book series, is a stunning show, acting as almost a star vehicle for powerhouse Rebecca Ferguson as she takes Juliette through a clever conspiracy thriller set among a population whose histories have been erased, and all past artifacts outlawed, so that they don't even know what's outside the silo or what the Before Times were like. Tim Robbins, Common, Rashida Jones, and Steve Zahn co-star.

You can watch the first two seasons of Silo on Apple TV+. Season 3 has been greenlit.

8. Severance

Sticking with Apple TV+ here, Severance is the streamer's biggest hit ever, mesmerizing fans with a quirky, upsetting dystopia where an experimental brain chip allows people to split their work self into a separate consciousness -- unleashing an avalanche of ethical dilemmas about creating life that's just imprisoned labor.

At first, the premise of Severance sounded like a Black Mirror episode stretched out (particularly aspects of the "White Christmas" special) but it quickly established it's own offbeat world, tone, and look, borrowing from Terry Gilliam, Jacques Tati, and more for a marvelous mystery series that gives a nefarious new meaning to the term "return to office." Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, John Turturro, and Christopher Walken star in this devilish head-scratcher from creator Dan Erickson and EP/director Ben Stiller.

You can watch the first two seasons of Severance on Apple TV+. Season 3 has been greenlit.

7. Station Eleven

"I don’t want to live the wrong life and then die."

The lone miniseries on the list, Station Eleven, based on the book by Emily St. John Mandel, looks at the world during, and after, a pandemic kills off most of the population and reduces society to scattered, primitive clusters. We follow a girl, Kirsten (Matilda Lawler and Mackenzie Davis), as she survives the collapse of everything, growing up to join a traveling performance troupe that traverses the Great Lakes region performing Before Times plays and poems.

Leftovers writer/producer Patrick Somerville once again deals with global colony collapse, hope, love, and cults, gifting us with the most Leftovers-feeling series since The Leftovers. Station Eleven is transcendent TV, the type that touches your soul. Unfortunately, it was released during 2020 when hardly anyone wanted to watch a story where a virus wipes out all civilization, but those who saw it know how powerful and beautiful the series is.

You can watch all 10 episodes of Station Eleven on Max.

6. Black Mirror

An astute, mostly upsetting anthology series, acting as our 21st century Twilight Zone, Black Mirror is a phenomenal collection of mini-movies about imagined futures for humanity that range from uniquely augmented to downright depressing and diabolical. Focusing mostly on technology, or sometimes social media, visionary Charlie Booker's magnum opus about desperation, distraction, and unchecked advanced tech has delivered some of the most disturbing TV in the history of the medium.

Black Mirror has also given us some remarkable love stories, from the acclaimed "San Junipero" to the algorithm-busting "Hang the DJ." Of course, counter to that are the chapters that drop the floor out from under you, whether it's a world where people are forced to soulcycle for currency ("Fifteen Million Merits") or where their consciousness can be transferred in terrible ways ("Black Museum," "White Christmas," "USS Callister") or even -- to some a devastatingly timely story -- a future where every single social interaction is given a rating ("Nosedive"). Black Mirror is harrowing pulp that resonates deep within.

You can watch all seven seasons of Black Mirror on Netflix.

5. 12 Monkeys

Dismissed as a bad idea, as most TV shows based on beloved movies wind up being in the end, 12 Monkeys took the time travel ball and ran the f'n distance. Over four seasons, 12 Monkeys went from being a tweaked version of the Terry Gilliam movie (and, in turn, Chris Marker's La Jetée from 1962), with the central characters you're more or less familiar with (considering how the movie was a big showcase for Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt), and ballooned into a first-class adventure about the concept of predestination versus free will, raising the bar at every turn.

12 Monkeys begins with Aaron Stanford's Cole attempting to go back in time to stop a world-ending plague, a more basic nod to the movie, but it blossoms into full exploration of the post-apocalyptic world that Cole comes from. It's really in the later seasons that the show became its own tremendous, wonderful thing. It's a severely underrated time travel thriller that needs to be checked out. Amanda Schull, Emily Hampshire, Kirk Acevedo, and Todd Stashwick co-star.

The four seasons of 12 Monkeys are not currently streaming, but they are purchasable.

4. The Handmaid's Tale

One of the bleakest entries on this list, The Handmaid's Tale can be a difficult watch. It unapologetically lays out a cruel, oppressive, misogynistic future where a second Civil War has created a totalitarian regime that uses woman as child-bearing slaves. Margaret Atwood's pivotal 1985 novel is vividly brought to life here, haunting us with every twist and turn.

It's a heavy series, not to be binged lightly, but it's headlined by Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss and her ferocious performance as Offred, a woman who's captured and forced into a life of servitude amidst a new world of horrifying religious extremism. The Handmaid's Tale is meticulously paced, utterly suspenseful, and sometimes, honestly, too much to bear. Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd, Alexis Bledel, and Bradley Whitford also star.

Watch all six seasons of The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu.

3. The Last of Us

The Last of Us isn't just the best video game-adapted TV series of all time, it's just a flat out brilliant watch, taking a magnificent story set up from the Naughty Dog game franchise and transferring it to television, adding bold new takes, twists, and turmoil while also keeping the core elements that worked -- namely the relationship between near-suicidal apocalypse survivor Joel and plucky, vengeful teen Ellie (who just might be the key to saving the entire world from its hostile mushroom zombielords).

Casting was paramount here, and stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey deftly deliver the Joel and Ellie we need for this entire zombie (but not "zombie") series to work. At its gruesome heart, The Last of Us is a story about love and loss and the family we find when we think all hope has been extinguished. The best example of this is "Long, Long Time," an episode that took two side characters from the game and extrapolated one of the greatest love stories ever put on screen.

The show is also about impossible decisions and terrible choices, the hallmarks of great dystopian horror and sci-fi. Season 2 is finally upon us and most viewers simply won't be ready for the intense drama ahead. Craig Mazin ("Chernobyl") and Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann have given us back the heart that The Walking Dead lost years ago.

Watch the first season of The Last of Us on Max. Season 2 premieres April 13, 2025.

2. The Leftovers

Not only does The Leftovers, which lasted three glorious seasons on HBO, uniquely present a world struggling with both grief and existential anxiety following a mini-Rapture type event, where 2% of the population vanished without explanation, but it also just happens to be one of the greatest TV shows of all time. Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta (loosely adapting his own novel) present a rich landscape of wondrous happenings and vivid characters, toplined by Justin Theroux's Kevin and Carrie Coon's Nora.

The Leftovers evolves from a strong-yet-forlorn first season into an exceptionally magical experience in Seasons 2 and 3, never answering why the people disappeared but instead living within that uncertainty and painting a vast mural of both trauma and joy. This is a moral imperative for TV lovers. Not your typical "dystopia," but a world gone mad nonetheless.

Watch all three seasons of The Leftovers on Max.

1. Battlestar Galactica

The work that Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica did for legitimizing genre TV cannot be overstated. Science fiction was always about showing us a mirror -- using parables, metaphors, and tucked away social commentary -- but BSG was a landmark show. It was a powerful, mature space odyssey during the most recent Golden Age of TV, able to easily compete with the Sopranos, Shields, and Wires of the era.

As for the "dystopia" aspect? Absolutely. It's just maybe not what we've come to expect over the years. It's a future hellscape... for a different, past iteration of people. A cautionary tale, if you will, as we follow the remnants of humanity fleeing through space after a mass genocide carried out by their own AI creations -- Cylons, who now look just like humans. It's an expert look at post-9/11 fear and paranoia with a stellar ensemble, including Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Tricia Helfer, and more. With massive moments and cunning twists that will make your heart both soar and sink, BSG reworked a clunky '70s sci-fi series, which had some retro cult love, and gave it grandeur and gravitas.

Watch all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica on Prime Video (through the end of April).

What's your favorite dystopian TV series? Is there one we missed that you'd have liked to see on the list? Vote in our poll and sound off below.

UPDATE: This article originally pointed to the May 8 date as new information, but this has been the case since April 2. We apologize for the error. We have edited the headline and article to round up the details in an explainer format rather than present it as new information, and make it clear there is still no news on retail pre-orders. Thank you to all for pointing out the error.

ORIGINAL STORY: Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 were set to go live across the world on April 9, but economic chaos caused by Trump's tariffs forced Nintendo to issue a delay in the U.S. first, and then Canada. Pre-orders went ahead as planned elsewhere, including in the UK.

According to a FAQ posted to Nintendo’s website, the first batch of invitations will go out starting May 8, 2025 for the My Nintendo Store. There is no information yet on retail pre-orders.

Additional batches of invitation emails will then be sent “periodically” until purchasing on My Nintendo Store is opened to everyone, Nintendo added.

Initial invitation emails will be delivered on a first-come, first-serve basis to “eligible registrants who meet the priority criteria,” Nintendo explained. Invitees will have 72 hours from the time when the email is sent to complete their purchase.

Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order invitation priority requirements:

• you must have been the one who purchased any Nintendo Switch Online membership
• you must have had any paid Nintendo Switch Online membership for a minimum of 12 months, and
• you must have opted in to share gameplay data and have at least 50 hours total gameplay hours.

There is no word on whether Nintendo plans to stick to its already announced pricing for the Switch 2, its games (some of which cost $79.99), and accessories, or increase them. Some analysts have expressed concern that Nintendo may be forced to raise the price of the base Switch 2 beyond $449.99 as a result of the ongoing tariff war, but Nintendo has yet to make an announcement one way or the other.

It’s worth pointing out that Nintendo is bundling Mario Kart World with a Nintendo Switch 2 for $499.99, cutting the cost of the game by a huge $30 in the process. However, Nintendo has indicated this bundle is a limited-time offer.

Nintendo Switch 2 pricing in the U.S.:

• Nintendo Switch 2 by itself: $449.99
• Nintendo Switch 2 with Mario Kart World bundled in: $499.99
• Mario Kart World by itself: $79.99
• Donkey Kong Bananza: $69.99
• Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller: $79.99
• Nintendo Switch 2 Camera: $49.99
• Joy-Con 2 Controller pair: $89.99
• Joy-Con 2 Charging Grip: $34.99
• Joy-Con 2 Strap: $12.99
• Joy-Con 2 Wheel pair: $19.99
• Nintendo Switch 2 Dock Set: $109.99
• Nintendo Switch 2 Carrying Case and Screen Protector: $34.99
• Nintendo Switch 2 All-In-One Carrying Case: $79.99
• Nintendo Switch 2 AC Adapter: $29.99

IGN has plenty of reaction to Nintendo’s jump to $80 for the Switch 2 generation, including from analysts who have helped us understand why this has happened.

Elsewhere, we’ve got the story on former Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aimé, who pointed to the story of Wii pack-in game Wii Sports in thinly-veiled tweets addressing the controversy surrounding Nintendo’s decision to charge for Switch 2 tutorial game Welcome Tour.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

I don’t usually get excited about Magic: The Gathering deals unless they involve a substantial discount or a chance to pick up chase cards without pawning my fetch lands. But the current Best Buy Deal of the Day has me genuinely interested, and not just because I’m weak in the face of shiny foils and stitched-edge playmats. As with all DotD discounts, this is limited just to today as well, so pick up the cheap boosters while you can. Let's dig into what's available, and what I'd recommend picking up.

MTG Discounts On Foundations, Aetherdrift, and More

Let’s talk Foundations. This set isn’t trying to wow anyone with lore about a haunted mansion or a squirrel-led uprising. Instead, it focuses on being playable, readable, and shockingly welcoming. I think that’s a big deal, especially since we’re about to get Marvel and Final Fantasy collaborations through Universes Beyond. New players are going to get dropped into the multiverse with zero context, so a solid on-ramp like Foundations is going to be essential.

Magic: The Gathering Foundations Bundle