© Raw Fury
© Epic
The Microsoft Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S offer some of the best gaming experiences available today, and the best games demand the best gaming monitor. If you're ready to upgrade from a TV, or just want a display to match the killer quality of your favorite games, this list is for you. These are the best monitors for the Xbox Series X|S of 2025.
While the best gaming TVs can deliver an incredible gaming experience, gaming monitors offer better visuals and enhanced responsiveness, so you'll experience less delay than what most TVs can offer. Because they're designed for gaming, they often come with additional features and picture presets while leaving out the bloat and system-slowing extras found in the average smart TV. As a result, the best gaming monitors tend to offer a superior picture, better performance, and a competitive edge.
A gaming monitor can also be a better fit if you're limited on space or also enjoy gaming on PC. Generally, gaming monitors come in at 32 inches or less, making them a better fit for bedrooms, dorms, and offices, though it is still possible to find monitors larger than this size. That more compact size offers the benefit of increased pixel density, which can make games appear more crisp and detailed.
The Xbox Series X is able to output 4K resolution up to 120fps and monitors that offer these specs typically offer a beautiful picture and plenty of extra features and picture presets that gaming TVs do not. If maxing out these specs is your goal, chose a monitor that supports HDMI 2.0 or above to ensure it's compatible.
The Xbox Series S supports 1440p at 120fps, and there are plentiful monitors to choose from the match or exceed these specs. You'll still want to look for HDMI 2.0 if you want to game at 1440p, but you'll still find plenty of options to choose from, even at relatively affordable prices. Because of the power of the system, however, a 1080p monitor can be a better choice, especially if you want games to run as smoothly as possible.
There's a lot to consider when choosing a gaming monitor, especially if it's your first time, but I've gathered the best picks to take your console gaming experience to the next level.
The BenQ Mobiuz EX321UX is a fantastic monitor for gaming on Xbox. Not only is it incredibly responsive, but it features outstanding brightness and full-array local dimming with mini-LED technology to enable next-level HDR gaming. Add in a suite of gaming features, reactive image quality settings, and HDMI eARC, and you have a recipe for the best gaming monitor for Xbox available today.
The EX321UX uses an IPS panel enhanced with quantum dots to deliver outstanding colors and viewing angles when it's time to share your screen. Unlike the legions of competing flagship monitors which use OLED panels, there's no risk of burn-in here. And thanks to its mini-LED backlight, it's able to get exceptionally bright, making colors more vibrant and highlighting just how great its picture is. At its highest, it can reach upwards of 1,300 nits, but even in SDR it can maintain more than 700 nits of brightness, lending it headroom to spare to dial in your preferred settings.
Those local dimming zones also allow it to offer great contrast that exceeds what a standard IPS panel is able to. In my review, I remarked that I felt this was the gateway to the best picture and puts it alongside OLED panels in how good it's able to look. The monitor also comes with an intelligent contrast setting that monitors black levels to ensure you can always pick out details even in dark settings.
This monitor also takes a unique approach to picture settings and tunes the colors based on the genre of game you're playing. For example, the Fantasy setting comes with very vibrant bright colors, while the Sci-Fi setting is still vibrant but a bit more muted and adjusts the contrast to view the shady corridors of spaceships and interplanetary cave systems.
It offers plentiful connectivity options with an extensive USB hub and support for both HDMI and DisplayPort 2.1. One of its HDMI ports even supports eARC to easily connect a soundbar or speakers. If you also plan to use it to play games at your PC, you'll appreciate its one-click KVM functionality. This allows you to quickly swap your peripherals between systems and to reduce downtime when you're ready to swap platforms.
It doesn't offer per-pixel dimming like competing OLED panels. It's still susceptible to blooming when you have light objects on dark backgrounds. This is especially noticeable with white text on a dark background. It's not terrible since each zone is relatively small, but it's noticeable and takes some getting used to. Still, as a whole package, it's pretty great and is clearly designed to cater to console gamers just as much as PC players.
If you're looking for a monitor for your Xbox that won't break the bank but that will still deliver a great gaming experience, then Lenovo Legion R25F-30 is worth your attention. This 24-inch display retails for less than $170 and offers a great balance of image quality, responsiveness, and versatility. It's not the absolute brightest, but it does still manage to be brighter than a lot of the competition around its price. For the money, it's a great value.
This monitor has a number of features that make it stand out, so let's break it down. First off, it uses a VA, or vertical alignment, panel. This panel technology doesn't suffer from low contrast and backlight bleed like IPS panels do, which means that blacks and shadows are deeper and more lifelike. A monitor with full array local dimming will surpass it, but you'll need to pay a whole lot more to get there.
Lenovo has also worked its magic to make this monitor exceptionally responsive. It comes with a 280Hz refresh rate for improved input latency, even though your Xbox will be capped out at 120Hz. This is also a benefit if you happen to be a PC gamer and can push higher frame rates. Whether you're gaming on the Xbox Series S or Xbox Series X, you'll have no trouble turning on the 120Hz mode for fluid gameplay. And because the monitor supports AMD FreeSync Premium, screen tearing also won't be a concern.
Finally, if you don't want to use a headset, it also comes with two 3 watt speakers. These aren't going to blow you away with their quality, but I appreciate that the option is there for quick audio when you need it. My review of this monitor is forthcoming, but so far I've been impressed with its value proposition and am comfortable recommending it to any Xbox gamer considering a switch to a fast but affordable monitor.
Alienware, owned by Dell, has been one of the leaders in gaming monitors for years, and its latest release, the Alienware AW2725Q, is a great example of why. Coming in at less than $1,000, it offers a fantastically crisp 4K picture at an easily managable 27-inch screen size. It uses a quantum dot enhanced OLED panel that offers deep blacks and beautiful colors with a peak brightness of a thousand nits to deliver great HDR performance to help you get lost in your favorite games.
When I reviewed the monitor earlier this year, I was impressed by its picture and feature set. This release seems to be part of a strategy from the manufacturer to drive down QD-OLED prices, but you don't sacrifice much at all for the hundreds in savings it offers compared to some competing OLED gaming monitors. Its colors are rich and vibrant, its dynamic range is expansive, and once you're adjusted its settings to your preference, offers a picture that easily competes with its more expensive counterparts.
It's easy to use with your Xbox thanks to its support for HDMI 2.1, so you'll have no trouble gaming at 4K 120Hz (though on PC, you can push the refresh rate all the way to 240Hz). It also supports Dolby Vision HDR, which most gaming monitors still lack. One of its HDMI ports supports eARC to easily connect a soundbar and – surprise – it also supports Dolby Atmos, so you can enjoy surround sound gaming without resorting to a gaming headset.
The biggest thing this display lacks is a KVM to quickly swap accessories between gaming platforms. This should be an issue if you play with a controller, though. You'll also need to bear in mind the usual OLED caveats: SDR brightness isn't suited to gaming in direct sunlight and you'll want to take care to avoid burn-in. The monitor comes with a suite of protection features to ward that off, so it's less of an issue than it's ever been.
For 4K gaming, this monitor is tops.
The Asus ROG Swift PG27AQDP is a fantastic 1440p monitor that's fully compatible with Xbox (as well as PlayStation) and makes for a killer PC gaming monitor too. It features outstanding peak brightness, infinite blacks, and a 480Hz response rate that, while overkill for Xbox, makes this monitor incredibly responsive and perfect for dual-purposing for PC gaming.
In my review, one of the things that stood out to me was just how beautiful its out-of-box image quality is. While total color accuracy is less important for Xbox gaming, it does mean that the monitor is a treat for the eyes since it uses an OLED panel, it's able to offer infinite contrast, so blacks are well and truly pitch. It also offers a high peak brightness, so highlights truly pop. If you are playing a game that supports HDR, this monitor will guarantee it looks its best.
Asus has also outfitted this monitor with a suite of gaming features to give you an advantage when you need it most. You can enable an on-screen reticle to give yourself crosshairs in games that don't offer them, and even turn on a sniper mode that zooms in on the center of the screen. Playing on a dark map? No problem there. Turn on Shadow Boost or a Night Vision Sniper mode that highlights enemies even when you can't see them very well on your own. Just be a good gamer and only use these features in single-player games, yes?
And if you're worried about the OLED screen leading to burn-in over time, don't be. Asus has equipped the monitor with a suite of OLED protection features to ward off any kind of image retention. If you do experience this, it also comes with a three-year warranty to offer extra peace of mind.
The only thing this monitor is missing is a KVM to quickly switch peripherals between your Xbox and PC. But considering everything else that it brings to the table, this is a fair trade-off. The Asus ROG Swift PG27AQDP won't disappoint.
This year is shaping up to be the year that smart monitors finally became a thing, bringing together TVs and gaming monitors in a way that we've been waiting far too long to see. The Samsung Odyssey G8 (G80SD) was one of the first monitors I've tested and reviewed that brings these two categories together. As a PC gamer, I felt like its Tizen OS was a bit too intrusive. For Xbox, however, it's a great and lets the G8 completely replace a TV if you want it to.
The G80SD is part smart TV and part gaming monitor. When you first turn it on, you'll need to go through a setup process similar to that of a television where you'll connect it to Wi-Fi, log into accounts, choose apps, and so forth so that it can prepare apps and recommendations based on your answers. Once that's done, you'll enter into the TV half of the monitor, complete with live broadcasts, streaming apps, and premium channels. It even includes game streaming apps like Xbox Cloud and Nvidia GeForce Now so you can play games without connecting anything at all.
Plug in your Xbox and you'll find that it's also a great gaming monitor. It features a QD-OLED panel with all the benefits other QD-OLEDs offer (infinite contrast, amazing colors, high peak brightness) while offering picture settings that hew closer to a TV. You won't be left guessing about which setting does what, and even if you're already familiar with typical gaming monitor options, you'll find that the way it presents options is accessible and easy to use.
Its gaming performance is excellent. Once it's dialed in with your picture preferences, you'll be able to enjoy rich colors, inky blacks, and realistic highlights – exactly what you would expect from a high-performance Samsung display. For content creation such as photo and video editing, its out-of-the-box color accuracy isn't amazing, but perfect accuracy isn't likely to matter, because with a little time tweaking color settings, I was able to get it looking great nonetheless.
If you're in a space-constrained environment and need one screen for all of your entertainment needs, the Samsung Odyssey G8 (G80SD) is a great choice.
Generally, gaming monitors are considered higher performance than TVs in sheer on-paper specs, but which one is best for you will depend on your preferences and needs. If you enjoy gaming on the couch and relish the "big screen" gaming experience, a great TV is hard to beat. When it comes to speed and specs, gaming monitors still have the advantage, albiet usually at a higher cost. For Xbox gaming, the difference is closer than its ever been. Still, if you're looking for the best responsiveness and up-close image quality, a gaming monitor is still the way to go.
Yes, though you probably don't want to. The current generation of gaming consoles only support standard widescreen, or 16:9 aspect ratios. While you can technically use an ultrawide monitor, you'll get black bars on either side of the screen. Because of this, monitor manufacturers also may omit console-friendly features like HDMI eARC for easy soundbar support.
While the easy answer is 4K, it really depends on the Xbox console you're gaming on. For Xbox Series S, it can be a better decision to purchase a 1440p or even 1080p monitor to match its entry-level performance. For the Xbox Series X, 4K is the natural choice. The other consideration is refresh rate. The Xbox Series X is able to play games at up to 120fps at 4K, but getting a monitor to match this can be very expensive. Additionally, most games that offer this are actually upscaling 1440p. If a 4K, 120Hz monitor is too expensive, a 1440p monitor with at least HDMI 2.0 can be a much more cost effective solution.
If you're looking to grab a monitor for console gaming, you may want to check out sales events throughout the year. The biggest discounts on Xbox-compatible monitors tend to be available over Black Friday weekend, but Amazon Prime Day has quickly become one of the best times to find solid gaming monitor deals. Otherwise, watch out for tech clearance sales at major retailers like Best Buy and Walmart.
Christopher Coke has been a regular contributor to IGN since 2019 and has been covering games and technology since 2013. He has covered tech ranging from gaming controllers to graphics cards, gaming chairs and gaming monitors, headphones, IEMs, and more for sites such as MMORPG.com, Tom’s Hardware, Popular Science, USA Today’s Reviewed, and Popular Mechanics. Find Chris on Twitter @gamebynight.
A Minecraft Movie's first weekend in theaters put up a record-breaking box office showing, setting it on track to become the biggest video game movie of all time. An overwhelming reaction to the "Chicken Jockey" scene has been the biggest trend to come out of that.
An interesting thing about this viral scene is that LEGO was on top of this trend before the movie came out. Two Minecraft Movie LEGO sets were released at the beginning of March, and one of these is a build around the entire Chicken Jockey scene. The Woodland Mansion Fighting Ring set includes minifigures of Jason Momoa and Jack Black's characters, as well as a baby zombie riding a chicken.
Alongside the Chicken Jockey set, LEGO also released The Ghast Balloon Village Attack set. While it's not enjoying the same level of viral success as the Chicken Jockey, it does include more minifigures. Both of these sets were released as official tie-ins to the film, but they join a much larger LEGO Minecraft line of sets that has become very popular with kids in recent years; two other new Minecraft options also joined the collection at the beginning of March 2025.
LEGO's not alone: Plenty of other brands have hopped onto the merch train. Crocs recently released a set of Minecraft Jibbitz, those Crocs-specific charms, to accessorize your slip-ons. This 5-pack includes, of course, a little Chicken Jockey. Adidas also released a Minecraft-themed line of clothes for kids and adults, but mostly kids.
Pull up the Google shopping tab after searching for "Chicken Jockey" and you'll get an absolute avalanche of merch already available. There are T-shirts, hats, posters, and even water bottles that you can buy right now.
Over five years after Steve Rogers passed his vibranium shield to Sam Wilson, Anthony Mackie's Captain America is finally taking center stage. The hero returns alongside both new and familiar heroes, likely setting up the new generation of Avengers that will take the lead in Doomsday next year. Critic Tom Jorgenson’s review of Brave New World for IGN notes some frustration with "recycled MCU plotlines," though he also describes how “Mackie brings each side of Sam’s personality to life well against seasoned scene partners like Harrison Ford, Carl Lumbly, and Tim Blake Nelson.” Are solid performances enough to save the day? We'll leave that to you to decide.
If you're planning to watch Brave New World in theaters or want to know how long you might have to wait to stream it, check out the details below. For an in-depth, spoiler-filled breakdown of the events leading up to Brave New World, you can also check out IGN's Captain America Recap: The Messy Marvel Timeline That Led to Brave New World.
The new Captain America is still showing in select theaters. You can check for showtimes near you at the main theater links below:
Brave New World will eventually stream on Disney+ instead of Netflix or Hulu. In 2024, both Deadpool & Wolverine and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 were in theaters for a little over three months before landing on Disney+. Assuming Brave New World follows a similar timeline, the new Captain America movie should be available to stream around May or June. We know for sure that Captain America: Brave New World will arrive on digital platforms like Prime Video on April 15.
Brave New World continues to take inspiration from Marvel Comics. In terms of the MCU timeline (we're currently in Phase 5), Brave New World follows The Marvels and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, though the most relevant plotlines carry over from the Captain America movies, The Avengers movies, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Here’s the movie’s official synopsis:
This is the MCU, so of course it does. You can learn more about how the post-credit scene connects to the future of the MCU in our guide to the ending of Brave New World.
Looking to catch up on the MCU beforehand? The entire franchise is streaming on Disney+. While it might be a little overwhelming to navigate the entire timeline, some of the best Marvel movies are the original Captain America's. To get started, feel free to check out our guide to the Captain America movies in order.
Brave New World was directed by Julius Onah. It stars the following cast:
Captain America: Brave New World is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some strong language. The movie runs for a total of one hour and 58 minutes.
Bringing a super-sized canine back from extinction after 12,500 years sounds like the start of a movie where the special effects include gnawed flesh and buckets of fake intestines, but apparently some people decided it was a good idea, and now the world has three dire wolves living in a secret location in the US.
The "some people" behind this extreme Game of Thrones fandom are the biotech company Colossal Biosciences, who used the DNA of the common gray wolf, gene-editing, and domestic dog surrogates to conceive Romulus, Remus, and their younger sister, Khaleesi. They look exactly the way any mother of dragons would hope; huge, white, and just sort of awesome.
“I could not be more proud of the team. This massive milestone is the first of many coming examples demonstrating that our end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works,” said CEO of Colossal Ben Lamm.
“Our team took DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies. It was once said, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Today, our team gets to unveil some of the magic they are working on and its broader impact on conservation.”
This isn't the first time Colossal Biosciences has made the headlines, it previously engineered a Colossal Woolly Mouse – think a mouse wearing a very shaggy hipster coat – to resemble a mammoth phenotype, and used the computational analysis of 59 woolly, Columbian, and steppe mammoth genomes ranging from 3,500 to over 1,200,000 years old to do it. The company has its critics, who argue that the dire wolves are the genetic equivalent of normal wolves in fancy dress. They might look like dire wolves, but the dire wolf DNA that still exists today would never be good enough to make a real genetic clone.
The motives of Colossal Bioscience aren't just making a social media fuss and suddenly owning awesome pets. The company wants to use its findings to help preserve the creatures that populate our earth now for future generations.
“The de-extinction of the dire wolf and an end-to-end system for de-extinction is transformative and heralds an entirely new era of human stewardship of life,” said Dr. Christopher Mason, a scientific advisor and member of the board of observers for Colossal.
“The same technologies that created the dire wolf can directly help save a variety of other endangered animals as well. This is an extraordinary technological leap in genetic engineering efforts for both science and for conservation as well as preservation of life, and a wonderful example of the power of biotechnology to protect species, both extant and extinct.”
As for these dire wolves, Colossal Biosciences has worked with the American Humane Society and the USDA to vet its 2,000+ acre preserve they call home, and like any good superstars have an entourage of staff to care for them.
Rachel Weber is the Senior Editorial Director of Games at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, and French Bulldogs. Those extra wrinkles on her face are thanks to going time blind and staying up too late finishing every sidequest in RPGs like Fallout and Witcher 3.
The award-winning director Bong Joon Ho returns, and this time he brought Twilight and The Batman veteran Robert Pattinson along for the ride. Mickey 17 stars Pattinson as an "expendable," someone who's sent into hostile environments to die, only to be repeatedly brought back as a clone and die again. One could argue the original "Mickey" was Cedric Diggory, who Pattinson himself claims is the character he'd most like to "give a second chance at life."
In his Mickey 17 review for IGN, critic Siddhant Adlakha highlights the philosophical underpinnings of the otherwise "depressing" sci-fi comedy: "Mickey 17 is confrontational by virtue of its pessimism, transforming a mostly straightforward novel into a stark reflection of how the current political moment came to be – albeit without letting anyone (least of all, those of us at the mercy of these larger forces) off the hook for our own transgressions."
After just one month in theaters, Mickey 17 is now available on digital platforms. Whether you still plan on catching Mickey 17 in theaters or want to watch it at home, check out the details below.
Mickey 17 is still showing in theaters. You can check for showtimes near you at the main theater links below:
Mickey 17 just released on digital marketplaces and is now available to rent or buy, though notably at similar prices to the physical release.
Mickey 17 will eventually stream on Max instead of Netflix or Hulu because distributor Warner Bros. owns the Max streaming service. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a 2024 movie from Warner Bros., arrived on Max exactly three months after its theatrical release. Assuming the new Bong Joon Ho movie follows a similar timeline, Mickey 17 will most likely arrive on Max by late July.
Mickey 17 is already set for a physical release, with a limited edition Mickey 17 4K UHD steelbook up for preorder. The limited edition steelbook, Blu-ray, and DVD are all set to release on May 13.
Mickey 17 was inspired by Edward Ashton’s genre-bending sci-fi novel, Mickey7. The titular character, Mickey, is sent on deadly research expeditions only to be replaced by a clone each time he dies. Here’s the movie’s official synopsis:
Nope! But for those curious, feel free to check out our full guide to Mickey 17's ending.
Mickey 17 was written and directed by Bong Joon Ho, based on the novel by Edward Ashton. The movie stars the following cast:
Mickey 17 is Rated R for violent content, language throughout, sexual content and drug material. The movie runs for a total of two hours and 17 minutes.
Blythe (she/her) is an SEO Coordinator at IGN who is always looking for the next great horror story and fantasy RPG.
Sometimes you're in the mood for aliens, sometimes babies scare you, and sometimes the adult toys that live in your bedside drawer have eyes. Whatever your thing is, Love, Death + Robots Vol 4 will have you covered when ten new animated shorts drop on Netflix on May 5.
All Netflix is giving us right now is a teaser trailer heavy with the trademark Love, Death + Robots gut punch of visuals combined with what look to be more promisingly weird ideas. Here's just a few we spotted in the single minute of footage.
Deadpool director, Tim Miller, and Seven and The Social Network director, David Fincher, are executive producers on the series, with Jennifer Yuh Nelson, an artist on Kung Fu Panda 2 and Shrek Forever after, returning to the supervising director's chair.
"If the legacy of Love, Death + Robots is that there are a handful, fifteen people, ten years from now who became directors or became animators or became motion capture performers or doing voice work because they were such big Love, Death + Robots fans, that's all I care about right now," Fincher told Collider in a 2022 interview.
"This show was never going to pay for your Gulf Stream. You're either here because you want to be here or you're not here. We're hoping desperately to get to waste more of our lives toiling in obscurity."
Rachel Weber is the Senior Editorial Director of Games at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, and French Bulldogs. Those extra wrinkles on her face are thanks to going time blind and staying up too late finishing every sidequest in RPGs like Fallout and Witcher 3.
As technology rapidly marches on, the line between real-life motorsport and the racing simulations that seek to replicate them is getting thinner and thinner. It’s certainly no secret that many of the most successful drivers in real life spend a good deal of their spare time in racing simulations – and that should speak volumes about how racing hardware is getting better than ever. Of course, there also seems to be more of it than ever, and that can make choosing your first (or next) racing sim gear purchase a little tricky.
With that in mind, I’ve assembled a shortlist of 10 racing wheel suggestions for PC, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and even Nintendo Switch. Based on how much you have available to spend (and how serious you plan on taking your sim racing), the list below should give you a little more clarity on the strengths and weaknesses of all the wisest low-price, mid-range, and high-end options available today. If you're big on racing games, a racing wheel is easily one of the most clutch gaming accessories you can buy.
The Thrustmaster T-128 is very much an entry-level sim racing product, and its pricing and build reflect that, but it still has a lot of merit as a great first step into sim racing for kids and racing fans on the tightest budgets.
The small and entirely plastic rim does feel a little toy-like (as does the small and also entirely plastic two-pedal set), but you do get real force feedback – and that’s a crucial distinction between the T-128 and lower-priced options like the T-80. The juice is absolutely not worth the squeeze on super budget options like the T-80 and its equivalents, which operate on bungee-style resistance systems with zero force feedback. If you’re thinking about buying one of those, save your money and just stay on a controller.
The T-128’s small rim diameter may seem a little dinky initially, but it’s important when a wheel base isn’t packing a huge torque number, as the closer your hands are to the centre of rotation the stronger it will feel. The T-128’s 2 Nm of peak torque is certainly modest compared to the power of its more expensive peers, but it’s still sufficient enough to communicate enough of the on-track information you’ll need to feel your car’s behavior and react intuitively.
If you do take the plunge and are having fun, the good news is the T-128 can also be augmented with add-ons, like the TH8S shifter – which is a 7-speed + reverse H-pattern shifter. The pedals can also be upgraded, so you’re not locked in to just what comes in the box. For those looking for a wheel for trucking and farming sims rather than racing, a bracket system for mounting the T-128 wheel base horizontally is also available (which also comes with a rotary spinner knob for one-handed operation).
The Thrustmaster T-128 comes in two versions: one compatible with both Xbox and PC, and one compatible with PlayStation and PC. Broadly speaking, PlayStation compatibility adds an additional premium to the RRP of a wheel, although this can vary depending on retailer pricing.
With the Thrustmaster T-128 more expensive on PlayStation than the Xbox version, the Logitech G-29 is a sound alternative choice in this scenario. After a decade on sale, the G-29 might seem positively geriatric, but there are at least several good reasons you can still buy new G-29s: They’re robust, they’re great bang-for-your-buck, and they remain a very reliable place to start a sim racing journey.
With a metal rim, wrapped and stitched, the G-29 does immediately feel a little less toy-like than the T-128 in the hands. The included three-pedal set is also a class above, with metal pedals and a better overall feel (a rubber stopper mounted behind the brake pedal simulates the building hydraulic force of a brake pedal). The fact that you get a clutch pedal out of the box also means you don’t also need to upgrade your pedals if you opt to add Logitech’s standalone shifter to your setup later on. Unfortunately, Logitech’s standalone shifter has a shorter throw than Thrustmaster’s TH8S shifter and it doesn’t feel as good to use.
The G-29’s core weakness, however, is that it does tend to make a bit of a racket at times – particularly when there’s a lot of force feedback information being pumped into it. They definitely clunk and rattle quite a bit. Rally gamers take heed.
Why are we recommending the G-29 over the considerably newer G-923? Well, the G-29 is essentially the exact same thing as the G-923, only without Logitech’s recent “Trueforce” technology. Trueforce is a layer of haptic feedback extracted from the physics and audio packages of certain supported racing games that delivers some extra sensations and vibrations to the wheel rim and into your hands. The result does feel richer in comparison (and the G923 bundle also replaces the rubber stopper on its brake with a progressive spring which helps hard braking firm up nicely without the stopper’s two-stage effect) but the general whine Trueforce adds does make the wheel even noisier. Unless you can find one discounted to closer to the price of a G-29, the price bump isn’t really worth it.
Moza’s first Xbox-compatible racing wheel is the latest addition to the company’s increasingly extensive sim racing ecosystem and we've reviewed it. It’s a complete, ready-to-race set that will put you behind a direct drive wheel that’s only marginally more expensive than much older, non-direct drive bundles like the Thrustmaster T300 RS GT or TX (which boast basically the same amount of torque, but are belt-driven).
The brushed metal rim has a polyurethane wrapping that looks a little cheap but feels fine and suitably grippy during use. Importantly, the core benefit of the R3 over its belt-driven, mid-price range competitors is that it’s direct drive, so force feedback is smooth, silent, and instant. The effect really is night and day, and it’s very hard to go back to gear- or belt-driven alternatives after using direct drive.
It’s also extremely upgradable. Xbox compatibility is baked into the wheel itself (which is called the Moza ESX wheel and is now available separately) so you can move up to other wheel bases later on (like the R9 or R12, which are far more powerful, and will still attach to the same table clamp that comes with the R3). Snap on your wheel via Moza’s excellent and rigid quick release system, and bam – it’ll still work on your Xbox. The pedals can also be upgraded, although the bundled pedals are all-metal and extremely sturdy. Just keep in mind that, at this price point, resistance in the bundled pedals is provided by springs and input is determined by Hall effect sensors that are detecting the position of the pedals rather than the force you’re applying to them.
One thing to note is that Moza add-ons, like the standalone shifters and handbrake, are currently not compatible with most Xbox racing games.
Fanatec’s cheapest “Ready2Race” bundles (based around its CSL DD wheelbase) hover somewhere slightly above the price of the Moza R3 bundle, which makes the CSL DD is another good starting point when it comes to getting into the world of direct drive. There are caveats, however, like the table clamp being sold separately, and the fact that they’re… currently sold out.
Fanatec’s GT DD Pro bundles are considerably more expensive for what’s basically the same thing with PlayStation compatibility baked into the wheelbase (which, as you’ve seen, appears to add a PlayStation premium to pricing on any wheel product).
Again, due to the direct drive technology, the quality of force feedback is streets ahead of belt-driven rivals, and it’s totally quiet during operation. The GT DD boasts a totally adequate 5 Nm of torque by default, but that can be raised to 8 Nm with a boost kit for an additional cost. The all-metal, two-pedal set uses Hall effect sensors to detect the position of the pedals rather than the force you’re using, so keep in mind braking won’t feel like the real thing without an additional purchase of a load-cell brake pedal.
The GT DD’s power play, however, is that it’s probably the most elegant solution for racing enthusiasts who want the flexibility to play racing games across multiple consoles (and PC). Long story short, PlayStation compatibility is achieved via the GT DD wheelbase itself but, if you purchase and attach an Xbox-compatible Fanatec wheel rim, your whole set up becomes Xbox compatible too. This means you’ll be able to hop from Gran Turismo 7 to Forza Horizon 5 without needing to own and mount entirely separate wheel bases. Until Moza can secure PlayStation compatibility for itself, the GT DD is arguably the top all-in-one(-ish) choice.
The Hori Mario Kart Racing Wheel Pro Deluxe is a low-end racing wheel that makes use of elastic resistance to add weight to the wheel as you turn. The effect is very toy-like but may be sufficient for kids and beginners to have some fun once they get a feel for it (which can be a little tricky at first because it doesn’t really feel anything like an actual steering wheel and it’s easy to over-correct). Reduce the rotation range if you find you’re struggling to stay in a straight line.
The pedal set is very small, but the fact that they’re naturally analog makes the pedals a step up over the strictly digital triggers on Switch Joy-Con. The selection of serious racing games may be a little slim on Switch, but this is a highlight for stuff like the excellent Grid Autosport.
“Best Nintendo Switch Racing Wheel” is an easy title to win in what’s essentially a one-horse race but, to be fair, the Nintendo Switch is not really the console of choice for racing sim connoisseurs. Either way, if you absolutely must own a Nintendo Switch wheel, choose this one over the Hori Mario Kart Mini (which is a tiny 220mm in diameter and only mounts via suction cups).
Like the Logitech G-29, the Thrustmaster T300 RS GT is another very old steering wheel that’s still available new today. Indeed, it’s been on sale since 2016 – and the original, non-Gran Turismo-branded T300 RS was released in 2014. That’s well before the release of Gran Turismo Sport, a game that has since come out and subsequently been delisted.
The T300 RS GT relies on belt-driven force feedback, meaning it’s not capable of the same level of nuance as you can get in (more expensive) direct drive systems, but it delivers a sturdy level of feedback without the louder clatter you get in its cheaper Logitech competitors.
The 280mm metal wheel itself is typically sized and, while the rubber coating isn’t as nice as the leather-wrapped Logitech options, it’s appropriately grippy. The included three-pedal set doesn’t feature load-cell pedals, but it does come with an effective-enough rubber stopper mod to mount behind the brake pedal and add resistance to the last moment of pedal travel.
With its advanced age (and with direct drive wheels coming down in price), the T300 RS GT is admittedly a slightly outmoded option in 2025. It is PC compatible, but it definitely shouldn’t be your first choice for PC these days considering the aggressive prices of the entry-level direct drive Moza options. However, with no direct drive options on PlayStation at its price point, the T300 RS GT remains a very serviceable choice.
Logitech has long made dependable racing wheels for players new to the racing simulation scene or with more modest budgets. The G29/G920 and the G923 are robust options and, as mentioned earlier, the G29 in particular has more than stood the test of time. Logitech’s G-Pro Racing Wheel, however, was new territory for the veteran racing peripheral manufacturer: a higher-end, direct drive system that far eclipses its enduringly popular but more primitive gear-driven systems.
The wheelbase of the G Pro Racing Wheel certainly isn’t as compact as alternative direct-drive options from Fanatec and Moza, and the more traditional-looking plastic case around the system does actually make it resemble old-school belt-and-pulley-type systems. However, don’t be deceived; it’s very much a direct-drive unit – and the 11 Nm of torque it has on tap is just right to meet the demands of the serious side of sim racing (10 to 12 Nm of torque is near enough the best compromise you can currently get between authentic power and pricing that isn’t outright bonkers).
As a direct drive wheel, the difference in driving feel between the G Pro and Logitech’s older models is stark. It also includes Logitech’s Trueforce haptics technology, but it comes without the extra wheelbase noise you get out of Trueforce on the G923. In the G Pro’s case, Trueforce (in supported games) is actually a pretty great boost to the value of this wheel. The rim itself shares a lot in common with other past Logitech rims, but it's a little larger, which is another tick for authenticity. The pedals are strong, too, both figuratively and literally, as they’re extremely adjustable and come with a 100kg load cell brake. The brake can also be modified to be softer to simulate street cars or much firmer to replicate race cars.
With its power and its quality of feedback, the G Pro is punching up a weight class here. The G Pro’s RRP is certainly a non-trivial amount of money (especially for the bundle which includes pedals), but it absolutely holds its own against high-end options.
For clarity, the VelocityOne Race wheel and pedal set is a first for Turtle Beach, and it probably doesn’t represent the absolute best driving feel you can get for your bucks at this price point. The sim racing market is more competitive than ever, and there are a lot of options.
We are, however, going to give the VelocityOne Race a nod in this instance for being a solid, all-inclusive bundle that would potentially set a new racer up with a direct drive wheel, load cell pedals, and a button box (which is admittedly only really useful on PC as, on Xbox, it’s only capable of duplicating the existing finite functions of an Xbox controller’s buttons). This is without any additional purchases. For perspective, you can certainly build yourself something equivalent to the VelocityOne Race – say, by buying a Moza R9 wheel base, the ESX wheel rim, and the SR-P load cell pedals and clutch add-on. This hypothetical Moza set-up would be a genuinely good investment, albeit without a button box. However, if your own margins are thin and price is an issue, the RRP of the VelocityOne Race will typically sit a fraction below the above set of individual Moza purchases (and much less than the likes of the Logitech G Pro or Thrustmaster T818, which also have three-pedal sets with load-cell brakes, but they’re an additional add-on).
The VelocityOne Race may not quite have the quality of force feedback that some of our other recommendations have but, if your only previous experience of sim racing wheels is older gear- and belt-driven bases, the difference will still be extremely striking.
If you want the absolute best high-end sim racing gear available, you can drop tens of thousands of dollars on the same professional-grade sim racing equipment actual racing drivers use. Max Verstappen’s sim racing setup includes a Leo Bodnar wheelbase, which can cost well over $4,000. Shane van Gisbergen uses a Simucube 2, another high quality but hideously expensive wheelbase targeted mainly at literal motorsports professionals. The kinds of systems from these boutique sim gear outfits pack shoulder-shredding levels of torque. The Simucube 2 Ultimate, for instance, peaks at 32 Nm.
Of course, if you’re here reading this guide, you probably aren’t a professional racing driver. In this case, a more logical choice is something like the Moza R12.
The R12 is not cheap, by any stretch, but it’s a terrific wheel base that sits right in the sweet spot for price versus power. There’s little to be gained from spending almost double on Moza’s R21 if you’re only going to find yourself dialling down the peak torque so you can realistically lap with the same intensity for long periods of time. As it stands, 12 Nm of torque is enough for the R12 to layer a powerful degree of force over a spectrum of more granular sensations. As usual it’s also extremely quiet during operation.
As a wheelbase alone you do, of course, need to consider the fact that you’ll need a rim and pedals to actually make use of it – both of which will significantly increase your spend. If you already have some Moza gear but are looking for more kick, the R12 is a no brainer. However, if you’re already invested in the Thrustmaster ecosystem, the 10 Nm T818 wheelbase is a similarly priced and similarly solid choice.
With the consistent popularity of highly-successful heavy vehicle simulators like SCS Software’s Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator, it’s genuinely baffling it actually took as long as it did for a company to build a dedicated truck wheel for eastbound-and-down gamers who have a long way to go and a short time to get there.
With an aluminium four-spoke frame and wrapped in stitched leather, Moza’s TSW Truck Wheel is 400mm in diameter. This makes it extremely close to a typical real truck steering wheel, which are commonly 18 inches (approximately 450mm), so the extra immersion it adds is terrific. The width will knock out a lot of the grunt on low-torque bases, but that’s not a huge issue in the context of the sorts of games the TSW is designed for.
Either way, the result is a wheel that feels wonderfully authentic to use for heavy vehicle sims, especially when paired with Moza’s special truck wheelbase mount (which allows us to reverse mount any Moza wheelbase on the edge of surfaces so the wheel is properly positioned for trucking).
One of the first things you should ask yourself before investing in a racing wheel is how much do you plan on using it? If you just want something to have a little fun with every now and then that feels a bit more interesting and intuitive than a controller, an entry-level option will probably suffice. If you’re planning on diving face-first into the world of racing simulation, you can probably justify something a little more serious with sterner force feedback.
Speaking of force feedback, there are three main types:
Small rim sizes may contribute to a slightly more toy-like feel in some wheel systems, but it is a factor in making low torque bases still feel like they have enough bite.
To be great, racing games need to be fun on a controller and a wheel. However, translating a complex racing simulation to a controller without any sort of dampening will result in a game that’s essentially too twitchy and impossible to play. When you’re playing on a controller, there are generally things going on under the hood of the simulation to take the edge off aggressive movements (to keep the car settled). Otherwise, flicking the stick from left to right would be like going from lock to lock virtually instantaneously! You may find now that being on a wheel is a little harder than you anticipated but just remember, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. The most common error a new sim racer will make is overdriving their car. Be precise and smooth with your inputs, and your feel for the limitations of your car will improve – and so will your lap times.
The list of racing games you can enjoy on a sim racing wheel is huge. If you want some serious motorsports simulation, you can’t really go past Assetto Corsa Competizione, F1 24, and Dirt Rally 2.0. Despite its initial faults, EA Sports WRC also feels terrific on a wheel – and if you can get hold of a physical copy of the now-delisted Project CARS 2, do it. If the big, mainstream car-PG collect ’em ups like Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Motorsport are more your speed, they’re also well-suited for wheels, as are the more accessible thrills of Forza Horizon 5, The Crew 2, and Wreckfest. For Nintendo Switch users, you can never really go wrong with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
There are piles and piles of settings available within your games and on your wheels themselves. Before losing hope, consult the community for settings recommendations to dial in a driving experience you may find is exactly what you were after.
For those who just occasionally play driving games, you might want to save money and invest in other gaming accessories or grab a cheap wheel. However, if you’re constantly hitting the virtual open road, a great racing wheel is worth the splurge. Compared to your typical input devices, you’ll enjoy deeper immersion in games thanks to force feedback, which provides a more realistic driving experience, letting you better feel the limits of grip and performance. Your racing should improve, as a wheel offers more precision and accuracy. Just be prepared for a slight learning curve as you master the controller.
Racing wheels can provide a realistic driving experience by reproducing accurate force feedback that you would feel by driving a real car. Of course, the quality and features of your chosen racing wheel will play a big part in the level of realism, but there are some incredible options available if you want to up your racing sim game. There is a reason that some of the most successful racing drivers around the world can be found sim racing in their spare time, and that sim racing has turned gamers into successful racing drivers.
Take Max Verstappen. In 2024, Verstappen won the iRacing Nürburgring 24 Hours sim race, then turned around, got into his Red Bull, and immediately won the real-life Imola Grand Prix. In 2021, professional Australian Supercars driver Brodie Kostecki won the series’ official sim racing championship – the Supercars Eseries – against his pro driver peers. In 2023, he won the real championship racing against many of the same drivers. Sim racing is extremely popular amongst real life racing drivers.
Moreover, sim racing has absolutely turned former gamers into actual racing drivers. In 2015, former Gran Turismo Academy winners Wolfgang Reip and Florian Strauss, alongside Japanese Formula 3 and Super GT driver Katsumasa Chiyo, won the 2015 Bathurst 12 Hour at Australia’s world-famous Mount Panorama circuit. They aren’t the only ones the GT Academy has uncovered, either. Hell, they even made a whole (slightly flawed) movie about it.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
Shinichirō Watanabe has been blazing a sci-fi trail since his co-direction stint on the popular Macross franchise, Macross Plus. Over his 35 year career he has created some of the most beloved and influential series like Cowboy Bebop, his jazz-infused magnum opus which follows a ragtag group of badass space adventurers as they neo-noir their way through deep space. Cowboy Bebop's iconic score by Yoko Kanno is part of what has made the series feel so timeless and has helped it stay in the public consciousness, through live performances, soundtrack rereleases and more.
The renowned science fiction show has long been shaping cinema and storytelling with creators like Star Wars' Rian Johnson, Avatar: The Last Airbender's Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and Victor And Valentino's Diego Molano citing Cowboy Bebop as massively influential on their work.
Cowboy Bebop also stands as one of the few anime series that many non-anime fans have taken the time to check out. All of those reasons and more make it one of the most vital and long-lasting entries into the anime canon, so if you're wondering what to watch after your latest (or first) Cowboy Bebop binge we're here with a list of the best space-faring, globe-trotting, morally-ambiguous anime that you can dive into next.
Our first recommendation is Watanabe's newest series, Lazarus, the first episode of which arrived on Adult Swim at midnight on April 5th. Produced by MAPPA and Sola Entertainment, with John Wick director Chad Stahelski in charge of art and original compositions from Kamasi Washington, Floating Points, and Bonobos, Lazarus comes with more hype than maybe any other anime release of the year. Lazarus is a great stylistic companion to Cowboy Bebop, a return to the grungier underdog sci-fi of that series — compared to his newer series like Carole & Tuesday —that feels shockingly relevant in 2025.
The events of the series follow the invention of a life-saving miracle drug that reveals itself as fatal three years after its use, putting millions of people at the risk of sudden death. Here enters our hero, regular-convict and jail breaker Axel who has to put a team together to find the enigmatic doctor who created the drug and enlist him to make an antidote in just 30 days. So start the countdown and lock in for a darkly wild ride.
Keeping with the more grounded and bleak takes on sci-fi, next up is this impressive addition to Terminator lore from director Masashi Kudō, Production IG, and creator Mattson Tomlin (director of the Netflix, Jamie Foxx vehicle Project Power). Though it's more serious than Bebop — and much of Watanabe's work — it has a stylistic flair to the action and impeccable gun-work that will sate that particular hunger and fill the Cowboy Bebop shaped hole in your action-anime viewing life.
When it comes to up to date sci-fi reckonings with the technology and culture of our current times, Terminator Zero is second to none, making it a must watch in 2025. Plus, if you're looking for an aesthetically pleasing contemporary anime to watch — that's just as easy on the eye as Cowboy Bebop — you'll struggle to do better than this stunningly slick, boundary pushing series that tells the story of the Terminator franchise's Judgement Day through a distinctly Japan lens for the very first time.
This addition to the Shinichirō Watanabe catalog saw the trailblazer stepping back to serve as general director to Shingo Natsume's director on this hilarious serialized space opera brought to screens by Japanese animation studio Bones. If you want an easy, breezy throwback to classic Saturday morning cartoon fare that'll make you just as nostalgic as Cowboy Bebop, then this is a fantastic pick.
Filled with nods to tons of classic sci-fi and anime, this charming adventure follows the titular Dandy, an outer space bounty hunter whose entire purpose is to discover and register new alien lifeforms. He's just as stylish as Spike and Faye Valentine and has enough swagger to save the world. While it sounds like a simplistic setup the show goes to unexpected and existential places as Dandy discovers the truths of the universe and his own existence while hunting for aliens alongside his cute crew of a robot and a cat. While it might not have had the same global reach and massive success as Cowboy Bebop, it is deeply rewatchable, beautiful to look at, and incredibly fun.
If you’re looking for a series that will fill you with the same adventurous joy and feeling of unlimited potential as Cowboy Bebop, then look no further than the delightfully fun crime caper Lupin III. Since its debut in 1965 — written by Kazuhiko Katō using the pseudonym Monkey Punch —, the charming franchise has expanded over manga, anime, video games, and multiple cinematic releases. But when it comes to on-screen adaptations, the best place to start is the 1971 anime adaption of the same name that introduced audiences to Lupin, a uniquely laid back criminal whose creation was a spin on the legendary and fictional gentleman thief Arsene Lupin.
The first season runs 23 episodes and features directors like Masaaki Ōsumi, and soon to be Studio Ghibli legends Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. It's a great place to explore the best of what Lupin III has to offer and the good news is, if you're a fan then you have five decades of stories, movies, and shows to dive into next.
Samurai Champloo is the spiritual successor to Cowboy Bepob. The series started to take form while Shinichirō Watanabe began work on Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, which you can feel in the art style, structure, and storytelling of Champloo. That said, it might surprise you that this is a historical action tale rather than the sci-fi that he's best known for. While the genre might be different thematically, the series is just as concerned with life, the cost of living free, and the battle to overcome and eventually accept mortality.
Like much of Watanabe’s other work, the story centers on a ragtag group of morally-compromised heroes, this time an outlaw called Mugen, a tea server Fuu, and as with any good Edo period set tale, a ronin named Jin. One of the standout things about this series is that, due to the period setting, Watanabe was inspired to add an ahead of his time focus on the importance of inclusion and tolerance to avoid nationalistic overtones.
If the thing that gets you most excited about Cowboy Bebop is the stylistic action and the hook of a morally complex anti-hero against the world, then Trigun is likely going to be your next favorite anime. The series was adapted from the hit manga of the same name by Yasuhiro Nightow that originally ran in Monthly Shonen Captain. It debuted in Japan in 1998 and in the US three years later at the cusp of the new millennium.
The series is, like Cowboy Bebop, a noir-inspired space western, but with amped up stakes as it follows Vash, a man with an immense bounty on his head due to some out of control superpowers that led to him accidentally destroying a city. As we learn about the man they want to kill, we also learn about those trying to kill him, setting up a great conflict that would launch the anime onto multiple best of the year lists, and would make the manga it was based on so successful that it would go onto sell out in the US.
Rosie Knight is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to horror flicks. She has over half a decade of experience in entertainment journalism with bylines at Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.
If you're looking for an affordable power bank that will fast charge your Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, or Apple iPhone 16, then check out today's deal. Amazon has the Iniu 10,000mAh Power Bank with up to 45W of Power Delivery over USB Type-C for only $11.25 after you redeem the 50% off coupon on the product page. Iniu power banks have solid reviews and are less expensive than equivalent Anker models.
This Iniu power bank holds a 10,000mAh, or 37Whr battery capacity. If you factor in 80% power efficiency, here are the approximate number of times you can fully recharge each gaming handheld:
The Iniu power bank has three output ports: one built-in 45W USB Type-C cable, one 45W USB Type-C port, and one USB Type-A port. The 45W of Power Delivery is enough to charge the Nintendo Switch (18W) and Steam Deck (40W) at their fastest rate. This power bank is also a solid choice for charging your Apple iPhone 16, since ChargerLAB has shown that the maximum charging rate caps at about 30W, even for the Pro Max model.
The built-in cable is a popular feature on newer and generally pricier power banks because you no longer have to bring along your own USB Type-C cable. When you're on the go, the USB plug can be clipped onto the power bank to form a handy little lanyard. The cable itself is quite sturdy with a respectable break strength of 44 pounds and the lanyard loop when clipped to the power bank itself has a break strength of 13 pounds.
For more options, check out our favorite portable power banks for traveling.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion is set to release for Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on September 5. In it, you strap yourself into an Arsenal mech and fly through an open world on your way to battle various enemies and create your very own loadout. It’s available to preorder in two different editions (see it at Amazon). In fact, this is one of the very first Switch 2 games available for preorder since preorders the Switch 2 itself have been delayed in the U.S. Read on for more info.
PS5
Switch 2
Xbox Series X|S
PS5
Switch 2
Xbox Series X|S
The limited edition costs $30 more than the standard edition, but it comes with the game itself, plus the following extras:
Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion is a followup to the 2019 original Daemon X Machina game that was released on Switch and PC. This sequel is also helmed by Kenichiro Tsukuda, a producer for the Armored Core series.
Titanic Scion is all about speccing out your Arsenal mech to turn yourself into a fast-flying killing machine. It takes place in an open world, where you’ll blast your way through enemies, picking up the weapons and equipment they drop in order to expand your arsenal and abilities. Customization is key, so you can direct your abilities to your own particular play style. You can play solo or co-op with up to two friends online.
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Bluesky @chrislreed.com.
If you want a gaming PC that can follow wherever you may roam, a gaming laptop is likely your best bet. While desktop parts will usually still beat out a gaming laptop, the best of them offer excellent performance in the latest games. Best of all, some models are able to offer peak performance while still remaining thin and light, like the Razer Blade 16, which is my pick for the all-around best gaming laptop of 2025 so far. Unfortunately, as of April 8, Razer has taken down the direct link to buy the Blade 16 and other laptops, replaced with "Notify Me" buttons, ahead of tariffs kicking in. We'll update this page as we hear more.
The first thing I always recommend to people hunting for a new gaming laptop is to consider is what PC games they actually hope to play. The second is what settings they hope to play them at. These two questions can guide your purchase to higher- or lower-end hardware and what trade-offs you're willing to make. Now more than ever, gaming laptops come in every shape and size, from thin and light devices to moderately heavy powerhouses like the Gigabyte Aorus Master 16. Larger performance-driven laptops (like the ones that come with a 4K display) achieve their enhanced performance with more powerful, and power-hungry, components, which means sacrificing on portability, battery life, and fan noise.
There are countless to choose from a ton of different gaming laptop brands, and finding the best for you can be more than a little daunting. I've tested dozens over the years, and I have a deep understanding of what it takes for a laptop to ascend to greatness for different types of gamers and can confidently say: These are the best gaming laptops of 2025 so far.
Looking for discounts on laptops like these? Check out our guide to the best gaming laptop deals.
Let's get this out of the way: The Razer Blade 16 isn't the most powerful RTX 50-series laptop. Instead, this notebook earns my top pick because of sum of its parts. See, the team at Razer understood that a huge crosssection of laptop gamers carry their machines with them every day, and flat-out making it nicer to use while also being powerful can dramatically enhance the use experience. And, as an extra, if you're willing to invest in Razer's laptop cooling pad, you can unlock the full wattage for performance that goes toe-to-toe with other RTX 5090 laptops.
Make no mistake: The Razer Blade 16 is still a gaming beast. In my review, I threw everything and the kitchen sink at it and there was nothing it couldn't run well on its crisp 1600p OLED screen. While running those games and benchmarks, the system stayed surprisingly quiet. This is a gaming laptop you could use in a school library without attracting attention.
It's true that a high-powered RTX 5080 like the Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 also recommended in this guide will get you similar, if not better, performance. What most other laptops can't offer, though, is the Blade 16's level of portability and noise.
Measuring just 0.59 inches at its thinnest point, it's a marked improvement from its predecessor and, well, most gaming laptops with such powerful hardware. It also weighs only 4.7lbs; you won't forget it's there, but it won't leave your back and shoulders sore from lugging it around every day. That portabilty makes it more appealing as a daily carry, so I didn't second guess taking it with me every day even when I might not actually need it.
The Blade 16 does a great job of feeling like the premium product it is. The chassis is milled from a single block of aluminum and feels solid and robust. It also helps with heat dissipation, but solid engineering ensures that the keyboard never gets more than warm while gaming. Its screen is also excellent with impressive factory calibration and multiple professional color modes that allow it to be used for creative applications straight out of the box. It's per-key RGB keyboard is completely programmable, complete with SOCD (Snap Tap) and macro support to better emulate a dedicated gaming keyboard.
On top of that, it also offers great battery life while gaming. Thanks to the new advancements in how the RTX 50-series handles power management, you can play games for around two hours instead of one or less like last generation.
The Razer Blade 16 is an excellent laptop that, while pricey, is something special in this space. If you want a great gaming laptop that will impress you with its portability, look no further.
The MSI Thin A15 AI offers great FHD gaming performance at a reasonable price. At less than $1,000, it offers an impressive array of specs that are more than up to the task of 1080p gaming and even open the door to streaming and content creation. Best of all, as you might have guessed from the name, it does this in a package that's comparatively thin and light for a gaming laptop.
Its portability might lead you to believe it wouldn't be able to keep up with the latest games, but in fact, the opposite is true. By going for a 1080p screen (that runs at a smooth 144Hz), its Nvidia RTX 4060 is perfectly suited to dialing up settings and enjoying the bells and whistles your games have to offer. It also comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 8845HS processor that includes eight cores and 16 threads and is able to hit a peak clock speed of 5.2GHz. The laptop also comes with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD, ensuring that you won't run short on memory or storage.
It's a killer machine that I recommend for anyone on a budget, but there are some trade-offs you make to bring home this kind of performance sub-$1,000. Foremost is cooling. More to the point, noise. Thin gaming laptops often have roaring fans to dissipate the heat, and the A15 is no exception. It also has static backlighting for the keyboard, so your customization options are more limited. In my opinion, the hardware you're getting in exchange is more than worth the sacrifices it takes to get there. If you go for it, I recommend pairing it with one of the best laptop cooling pads.
In reviewing the Gigabyte Aorus Master 16, this laptop surprised me. Coming hot on the heels from testing the Razer Blade 16, my top pick for this guide, the size and weight of this laptop put me off, but there's no arguing with how great it performs. The RTX 5080 in our test sample outperformed the Blade 16's RTX 5090 in every one of our formal tesst, blowing my socks off in the process.
I don't mean that literally, but I could, because running its hardware as intensively as it does generates a lot of heat that the system needs to exhaust. It gets loud, but it works well, allowing this laptop to perform at its top potential for long periods of time. Keep the vent cleared and gaming headset on, and you'll be all set to enjoy a top-tier PC gaming experience on the go.
Its performance in games lies in its combination of high-performance hardware and the way its engineers have designed it. In addition to the RTX 5080, it comes with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, a 24-core beast that hits a top speed of 5.4GHz. Its core count and clock speed ensure that you can multitask to your heart's content and that the processor will never bottleneck what the GPU is capable of.
The added thickness has allowed Gigabyte to implement a high performance Windforce cooling system with chambered, high-fin fans, and a vapor chamber to pull heat away keep temperatures in operable levels. While some of its competition, like the Razer Blade, has opted to lower the GPU's power draw (and thereby performance) to use a thinner, quieter design, the Aorus Master 16 puts performance at the forefront.
If you're not super techie, don't worry. The laptop comes with an AI-enhanced configuration suite called GiMate. Built into this system is an AI chatbot that can talk to you using natural language and configure the system to match what you're up to. Tell it that you'd like to play a game and it automatically sets the system into its highest performance mode. Tell it you're going into a meeting and it will ramp the fans down while leaving performance in a balanced state that can handle virtual meetings and presentations without sapping the battery with needless options. It's user-friendly and perfect for beginners.
The Aorus Master 16 is hardly perfect, but it so effectively punches above its class in gaming performance that it's hard not to love it. If Gigabyte can find a way to slim it down a bit, it would come close to perfect for a huge amount of laptop gamers.
If you're looking for a gaming laptop that's slim, light, and professional enough for work, the Asus ZenBook S16, which I've reviewed, is the laptop for you. This isn't the laptop to turn to for the absolute best in gaming performance, but when you need something that balances professionalism, capability, and responsiveness in everything from spreadsheets to solos in Call of Duty, this is the laptop to choose.
The Asus Zenbook S 16 is a beautiful laptop. It's exceptionally thin, measuring 0.47 inches at its thinnest point, and weighs only 3.31lbs. You can carry it through an entire workday and barely notice it's there until you need it. It features a bright 500-nit OLED touchscreen that is vibrant, crisp, and offers deep contrast for a killer HDR experience. It's also a touchscreen, so you can easily interact with it in the way that's most natural for you in the moment. For gaming, the screen is also able to reach 120Hz, ensuring smooth gameplay with a minimum of motion blur.
In most circumstances, a laptop like this couldn't be considered a gaming laptop at all. While it's true that's not the S 16's main purpose, I was surprised to find just how great it was for gaming in my testing. That's because its AMD Ryzen 9 Al HX 370 CPU features Radeon 890M graphics. As of this writing, it's one of the highest performance integrated GPUs out there, topping many of the handheld Windows gaming PCs available to date. It also allows you to take advantage of AMD's performance-enhancing graphics features, including FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and frame generation. When both aren't available, you'll need to lower the resolution and graphics settings, but if you're willing to do that, the S 16 is able to run a wide array of games at playable frame rates.
Just as importantly, it offers excellent battery life with up to 15 hours for day-to-day work tasks. Once you boot up games, this drops substantially because of how demanding they are, but it makes this the perfect laptop to get through your workday and then kick back for some PC gaming in the evening.
Connectivity is also strong with two USB Type-C ports capable of power delivery and video, a full-size USB-A port that's perfect for a gaming mouse, and a microSD card reader. You won't need to carry around a bulky charging brick, either. The included charger is small and lightweight, but it also works with aftermarket GaN chargers too, which can be even smaller.
Your coworkers will be none the wiser to the ZenBook S 16 is one of the most stylish and elegant laptops I've ever tested. It features the company's new Ceraluminum lid, which is a composite of ceramic and aluminum alloy for a durable, fingerprint-resistant finish. It genuinely looks stunning, and no one will second guess whether your laptop is a suitable fit for professional work.
The biggest drawback to this laptop is that its surface temperatures can get quite toasty. Since it emphasizes quiet performance, much of its heat transfers into the case, making it best suited for use on a desk or laptop stand. Even with this issue, the S 16 is a remarkably strong pick from anyone that needs a laptop for both work and gaming.
If you're a student, the Asus TUF Gaming A14 is an excellent pick that I simply adored in my review. It's surprisingly thin, exceptionally quiet, and offers impressive battery life. If you need a notebook you can carry between classes, and that also lets you sneak away into the library to play your favorite games (shh!), look no further: This is the laptop for you.
While "thin and light" might be the watch words for productivity laptops, the design pays dividends for students that want to enjoy some games in their downtime. At only 3.2lbs and 0.78 inches at its thickest point, it's compact enough to fit into any bag without weighing you down. When it's time for gaming, its 8th-gen high-performance AMD Ryzen processor and Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU are well-matched to its 1600p display, though I'd recommend dropping the resolution to 1200p to push the frame rate even higher. The picture stays crisp on its 14-inch display and the higher fps really make the most of its 165Hz screen.
The biggest nitpicks I made about this machine really had to do with its expandability and relatively high price for the level of hardware it features. While you can't expand the memory, the overall balance between performance, portability, and noise that Asus struck here is pitch perfect for on-the-go students.
Gaming laptops have come a long way in relatively little time. Power, portability, and price have all seen dramatic improvements in just the last five years, and somehow gaming laptops are getting thinner and adding even more features.
Where will you be taking this gaming laptop? If you'll be taking it out every day, you’ll want something portable, such as a 15-incher or even smaller. Users who just want a laptop to live at home as more of a desktop replacement should go for a 17-inch rig or bigger for the larger screen size and greater power.
Weight is another consideration if you'll be carrying the laptop around all day. Anything more than 5lbs is going to be very noticeable. This can be an issue because gaming laptops have a tendency to be a bit bigger than competing options that don't need larger and more advanced cooling solutions. It's not impossible to find thin and light gaming laptops with great performance, but you should definitely take the time to consider what you're comfortable with and if you're willing to trade performance for portability.
With integrated GPUs, with the integrated graphics on modern processors getting to be so good, it's also possible to find gaming laptops in form factors that just didn't work before. The ROG Flow Z13 is a prime example; it is essentially a 2-in-1 gaming laptop that can double as a tablet for artists and students, but offers impressive gaming performance thanks to its AMD Ryzen AI MAX processor.
The point is, you don't need to limit yourself to bulky clamshell designs in the same way you used to. Depending on your budget and performance needs, there are more options than ever out there.
The newest gaming laptops come equipped with the latest Nvidia RTX or Radeon RX graphics chips. These mobile chips are nearly as capable as their desktop version, plus they support the latest ray tracing, DLSS, and frame generation technologies.
On that front, it can also be important to consider what games you plan on playing, their minimum and recommended specifications, and what advanced features they might support. If the game is equipped with the latest version of Nvidia's DLSS, for example, and supports frame generation, you can probably get away with a lower-powered, lower-cost graphics card since the tech will improve your frame rate even on a cheaper card. As you get into higher tiers of laptop GPUs, prices skyrocket quickly.
Choosing the latest processor isn't quite as necessary, but it's nice to have and can help ensure that it doesn't bottleneck the potential performance of your GPU. If you're looking at a laptop with an Intel processor, be sure that the processor isn't more than a couple generations behind. Both Intel and AMD offer gaming processors with built-in neural processing units for enhanced AI performance. For Intel, these are referred to as Core Ultra processors while AMD dubs its lines AI and AI MAX. Both can offer great gaming performance.
If you only plan to take part in light gaming, a recent Core Ultra or AI Max processor can also take the place of a dedicated graphics card and save you hundreds in the process. Both of these chips feature powerful integrated graphics, and so long as you're willing to adjust settings and resolutions, can deliver playable frame rates. They're also great if you plan on streaming your games through the cloud through services like Xbox Cloud Gaming or GeForce Now.
If you're set on a gaming laptop and just need to decide which one to get under a certain price point, then your choices will be narrowed down based on your maximum budget. If that's you, you'll probably want to explore our full list of cheap gaming laptops we'd recommend instead, but here's our top budget pick right now:
Most gaming laptops are only as portable as the nearest electrical outlet. All that power comes at a price, though. The general rule of thumb about gaming laptops is that their battery life stinks. In general, you should plan on plugging in your laptop before loading a game. Playing on battery power typically lasts an hour or less and also delivers worse performance due to the power limits the laptop imposes on the graphics card and processor. It's just not ideal, but may still be better than lugging around a heavy power brick, depending on what you're playing.
One recent exception to this is Nvidia's RTX 50-series laptop GPUs. These new chips feature enhanced power management features, so you can count on closer to two hours instead of one.
Another consideration when choosing a gaming laptop versus a gaming desktop is its price. It costs quite a bit more to stuff all those components (i.e. the built-in trackpad, keyboard, speakers, and display) into an easy-to-carry shell.
Depending on how tech-savvy you are, You can save some money by choosing a laptop with less memory and storage at checkout and upgrading these components yourself. It's usually much cheaper to do so. However, you'll want to research carefully to ensure that both are upgradable at all and, if so, are easily accessible. Some laptops hide components inside, beneath others, making them especially difficult, if not impossible, for anyone other than an expert to access. Bear in mind, however, that a laptop in general is much less upgradable than a desktop gaming PC. Outside of memory and storage, changing out other components likely means buying a whole new PC.
When considering a gaming laptop over a gaming desktop, ask yourself: Is the premium price worth it for the luxury of portability? In virtually every case, you'll pay more for a gaming laptop with similar on-paper specs to a well-matched gaming desktop. It doesn't stop with the cost: Just because two graphics cards have the same name doesn't mean that they're the same in all circumstances. Laptop versions of same-name GPUs usually offer reduced performance due to their thermal and power limitations. Gaming desktops provide more bang for your buck, are less expensive to upgrade and repair, and last longer before they go obsolete. See our guide to gaming PCs vs. gaming laptops for a deeper comparison.
Both are important, but you should consider the graphics card more than the processor. Even though a slow processor can throttle the graphics card and lower your fps, usually this is much less of a concern than simply having an underpowered GPU. Remember, it's the graphics card that renders your games and is the single most influential component to gaming performance.
Not always. This depends on what you're hoping to achieve. If you're interested in running the latest games at high graphics settings and resolutions, you definitely need to invest in a laptop with a great graphics card. If you only plan to do light gaming, enjoy older games that aren't very demanding or stream your games from the cloud. A modern processor with integrated graphics can also be a good way to save some money. With that in mind, relying on an integrated graphics card hasn't always been as possible as it is today. As such, I would recommend this only for gaming laptops with AMD Ryzen 7000-series or Intel Core Ultra processors.
Many modern gaming laptops come with ample cooling solutions baked into the chassis. But given their much smaller form factor than traditional desktop gaming PCs, thermal throttling can occasionally be an issue. If you are experiencing a downgrade in performance or your device seems a little too hot to the touch, a laptop cooling pad could be a simple, affordable solution. Laptop cooling pads often feature fans and ventilation slots or mesh for better airflow than when your laptop rests on a gaming desk or your lap, helping to ensure your device is working to its full potential and can even increase its longevity. If you're looking to keep your gaming laptop cool on the cheap, the Havit HV-2056 is an excellent option.
Christopher Coke has been a contributor to IGN since 2019 and has been covering games and technology for more than a decade. He has covered tech ranging from gaming controllers to graphics cards, gaming chairs to gaming monitors, headphones, IEMs, and more for sites such as MMORPG.com, Tom’s Hardware, Popular Science, USA Today’s Reviewed, and Popular Mechanics. Find Chris on Twitter @gamebynight.
Image Credit: Annalee Tsujino is a multi disciplinary designer and illustrator. Check them out on Instagram @antsu_illustrations.
Not only is the next live-action Predator movie, Predator: Badlands, releasing this year, but we just confirmation that the second Predator movie in the works is called Predator: Killer of Killers, and it's an animated anthology that's coming out two months from now (!).
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg with Josh Wassung from the animation company The Third Floor, Predator: Killer of Killers will be released on June 6, 2025, exclusively on Hulu.
According to 20th Century Studios, the film follows three "of the fiercest warriors in human history: a Viking raider guiding her young son on a bloody quest for revenge, a ninja in feudal Japan who turns against his Samurai brother in a brutal battle for succession, and a WWII pilot who takes to the sky to investigate an otherworldly threat to the Allied cause." Of course, all three will have to face the Predator. Or presumably a series of Predators, considering the different eras. (Unless Predators have time travel now? I'm not sure.)
Watch the trailer for Predator: Killer of Killers here:
Trachtenberg also directed Predator: Badlands, which stars Elle Fanning and hits theaters on November 7, 2025, as well as Prey, which starred Amber Midthunder in another tale of historical Predator conflict. That film also was released directly on Hulu (to much acclaim).
Check out some stills and the poster from Killer of Killers right here:
For a limited time, Amazon is offering the wildly popular and well-reviewed Monster Hunter Wilds game for PlayStation 5 for just $57.95, which is an 18% discount off its $70 list price. This is the best deal we've seen for the PlayStation 5 edition that isn't reserved for just Amazon Prime members.
It's easy to see why Monster Hunter is one of Capcom's best selling IPs. This open-world game offers dozens of hours of exploration, exciting combat, excellent creature design, a satisfying grind for better loot, and most importantly, cats! According to How Long To Beat, the main story takes 17 hours, with another 13 hours to tackle all of the sidequests. Completionists should expect to spend a whopping 90 hours to reach 100% and attain that Platinum Trophy.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
© Raw Fury
© Semiwork
Marvel has published an eight-hour video of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine breathing in hopes of helping fans de-stress.
The lengthy project, which Marvel Entertainment has labeled a “breathing exercise,” found its way to YouTube as a surprise upload earlier today. It’s remarkably strange and arrives around eight months after Deadpool & Wolverine came to theaters and about five months after it premiered on Disney+. Of course, to no one’s surprise, it’s already racking up the views.
The Marvel Entertainment YouTube channel has posted an 8 hour and 36 minute video of Hugh Jackman in his Deadpool & Wolverine suit just staring at the camera breathing... menacingly! pic.twitter.com/Yue9479cpa
— IGN (@IGN) April 8, 2025
Around 40,000 superhero fans have already tuned in to hear Jackman growl in their ears since Marvel uploaded the video a few hours ago. Most are calling the eight-hour video an April Fools’ Day joke that got left behind, but oddly enough, Marvel is actually directing fans to use it to de-stress.
“April is National Stress Awareness Month, so breathe deep and feel your adamantium bones melt away,” Marvel explains in the Wolverine Breathing Exercise video’s description.
Every one of Wolverine’s gravelly breaths is backed by tense Marvel music, so to some, it may not be the most calming way to spend a casual April evening, but others may find it meditative. If you’re brave enough to stick around throughout the entire eight-and-a-half-hour runtime, you might even catch a few jump scares that look a lot like Jackman is doing his best to recreate an iconic Wolverine pose.
hugh recreating the wolverine #1 cover🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/HrLlWvS8WJ
— MV (@mvlsraff) April 8, 2025
Deadpool & Wolverine has been out in the wild for one year this July, and while it’s unclear if the duo will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) any time soon, we at least know a little bit about how their story may continue. Late last month, Marvel revealed a good chunk of the cast set to appear in its upcoming Avengers: Doomsday movie. Included in the lineup of named chairs was none other than Channing Tatum, who made his on-screen debut as Gambit in the third Deadpool movie last year. It’s unclear if his return means we’ll also see Jackman and Ryan Reynolds suit up for the next Avengers film, but it’s at least a good sign that audiences may soon hear Wolverine’s heavy breathing once again.
For more on all things MCU, you can see the full list of every upcoming Marvel project here.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Gamers shared a collective howl of pain last week when the Nintendo Switch 2 preorder date went from April 9 to "who the hell knows?" after import tariffs enacted by President Trump sent financial markets spiraling, and the issue has spread across the border. Nintendo Canada confirmed that pre-orders are also delayed there, so you can forget all about making a pre-order via your cousin that lives in Winnipeg.
"Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in Canada will not start on April 9, 2025 in order to align with the timing of pre-orders to be determined in the U.S.," Nintendo of Canada said in a statement to Canadian tech site MobileSyrup.
"Nintendo will provide updated information at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged."
It's an echo of the statement given to IGN by Nintendo of America on April 4, though the Canadian version doesn't specifically mention new tariffs.
Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions. Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.
While tomorrow marks the original pre-order launch, there's still no word on when we can expect to start desperately refreshing our browsers and checking our credit card security numbers, leaving gamers in limbo and concerned about a possible increase on the initially announced price of $449.99.
As for other countries, Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders went live in the UK today, with smaller retailers like EE, GAME, and Smyths experiencing selling out quickly and scalpers taking to eBay to sell their pre-orders for £500 ($639) or more, compared to the retail price of £395.99 ($506).
For more, check out everything announced at the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct, and our big Nintendo Switch 2 interview with Nintendo of America's Bill Trinen.
Rachel Weber is the Senior Editorial Director of Games at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, and French Bulldogs. Those extra wrinkles on her face are thanks to going time blind and staying up too late finishing every sidequest in RPGs like Fallout and Witcher 3.
Mobile Suit Gundam: GQuuuuuuX is finally here for North American audiences. The new Gundam series features a new "alternate history" storyline, a name that’s harder than ever to pronounce (allegedly “G-Queue-x”), and, of course, a new line of model kits. In IGN's review of the GQuuuuuuX theatrical release, critic Juan Barquin calls the new series “exactly the kind of inventive reimagining of Gundam we deserve.”
There’s the notable influence of another massive sci-fi series in the credits of the new Gundam anime. GQuuuuuuX is directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki (co-director of End of Evangelion), and written by Yoji Enokido – who also wrote stone-cold anime classics like FLCL, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Ouran High School Host Club, and Bungo Stray Dogs, as well as scripts for several episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion – and the Evangelion creator himself, Hideaki Anno. One can only imagine where this series will go with these minds behind it.
If you’re wondering where to watch new episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX or catch up on the original Gundam series beforehand, I’ve listed everything you need to know below.
The new Gundam show is streaming on Prime Video instead of Netflix or Crunchyroll. Standalone Prime Video subscriptions start at $7.99/month, but are included in general Amazon Prime memberships, which cost $14.99/month and include Prime shipping benefits. Amazon Prime also offers a 30-day free trial for new subscribers.
Mobile Suit Gundam: GQuuuuuuX initially premiered in Japan as a feature film containing four individual episodes. Starting April 8, individual episodes will become available to North American viewers on Prime Video every Tuesday. We don't know for sure how many episodes to expect, though the most recent Gundam anime, The Witch from Mercury, included 12 episodes in each season. I’ll be sure to update this article with any new developments.
Alternative histories aren’t new concepts for the Gundam universe, but GQuuuuuuX introduces a particularly massive twist where the Principle of Zeon gets its hands on the prototype Gundam instead of Amuro and the Earth Federation. Here’s the new show's official synopsis:
A world where Zeon secures the ultimate advantage in the One Year War leads to some distinct Gundam designs. Tons of model kits and figures inspired by the new series are already up for preorder. You can check out the full collection here.
While you can probably enjoy GQuuuuuuX regardless of your Gundam experience, the “alternative” history is likely best enjoyed with knowledge of, well, the original history. You can watch the original Gundam anime as well as most Gundam series on everyone’s favorite anime streaming service Crunchyroll.
Blythe (she/her) is an SEO Coordinator at IGN who spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.
NetEase has published Marvel Rivals Season 2 update patch notes ahead of its April 11 release date.
Details on how the Version 20250411 update will change the Marvel game were published on its website today. It comes with a laundry list of changes as NetEase introduces diamond-plated X-Men regular, Emma Frost as Marvel Rivals’ newest playable character.
Headlines for the Season 2 patch include content that NetEase had largely already covered before today. That includes new Domination map Krakoa, X-Revolution and Blue Sapphire costumes for Emma Frost, a brand-new battle pass, a nine-division rank reset for Competitive players, and the added ability to gift cosmetics to other players. Marvel Rivals Season 2 has more than new content in store, however, as the team behind the hero shooter has also detailed many other setting changes for players across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S.
PC players can now take advantage of what NetEase is calling “an experimental feature” called Switch Shader Compilation Mode. The option allows players to – in theory – make Marvel Rivals run smoother by compiling shaders only when launching Marvel Rivals for the first time after an update. The team warns that you may run into issues depending on the power of your PC, so more tweaks for this experimental feature are sure to arrive in the future.
Marvel Rivals Season 2 console changes include several sensitivity adjustments that should make aiming and movement a bit easier to tailor to your liking. All platforms will also benefit from a variety of fixes to notification-related issues as well as problems related to a few maps, modes, and heroes. For example, players should find that they’re clipping through areas less with the upcoming update, while Captain America’s shield has also been fixed and should now reflect projectiles more reliably.
Marvel Rivals Season 2 launches April 11 for players on all platforms. While it will introduce Emma Frost (and Ultron with the mid-season 2.5 update), the soon-to-be-released update also marks the beginning of a new era for NetEase as it shifts its post-launch plans to account for speedier content releases. As explained last week, players can expect to receive at least one new hero every month as seasonal drops are shortened from three to two-month periods.
For more on Marvel Rivals, you can read up on how players reacted to that infamous Venom twerk emote, which goes away in just a few days. You can read up on the full Marvel Rivals Season 2 patch notes, as well as all the hero balance adjustments posted last week, below.
Greetings, Rivals!
We trust you've received your exclusive invitation to the illustrious Hellfire Gala! The excitement is electric as everyone gears up to head to Krakoa for this extraordinary event! So, don your finest attire, and let's dive into the thrilling new content and captivating surprises that await you!
Heroes and Costumes
1. Emma Frost makes her dazzling debut in Marvel Rivals!
2. New Costumes: Emma Frost - X-Revolution & Blue Sapphire!
Maps and Modes
1. Get ready for an all-new Domination map - Hellfire Gala: Krakoa.
2. Map Rotation Update: Hellfire Gala: Krakoa will enter the Competitive pool, while Yggsgard: Royal Palace and Tokyo 2099: Shin-Shibuya will be retired from ranked play. Tournament maps will align with the competitive mode, while Quick Match and Custom Game will still feature all maps without rotation.
3. Optimized the settlement logic for substitute players in Quick Match battles: victories will count normally, while losses will not affect combat history or scoreboard.
Battle Pass and Season Events
1. Unlock a dazzling shiny new Battle Pass featuring 10 brand new sets of heroic costumes!
2. The season event Cerebro Database has officially launched; participate to earn the free costume Mantis - Flora Maiden.
3. This season also brings exclusive bonus seasonal rewards: Complete 9 matches to receive the free costume Scarlet Witch - Chaos Gown.
4. An all-new Twitch Drops event is here! This event will gift players the Namor - Will of Galacta costume, nameplate, spray, and emote. (Stay tuned to official announcements for details!)
5. The mission system has been revamped: new weekly missions and rewards have been added, and the balance of daily and challenge missions has been adjusted while maintaining the overall Chrono Token distribution. The proportion of hero-specific missions has also been reduced.
Ranked
1. Rank Reset: based on your final Season 1.5 rank, ranks will be demoted by 9 divisions. For example, if you ended Season 1.5 at Diamond I, your Season 2 journey begins at Silver I.
2. New rank rewards are in! A dazzling new costume for reaching Gold — Emma Frost - Golden Diamond, along with new Crests of Honor for Grandmaster, Celestial, Eternity, and Top 500.
3. The minimum level required for new players to participate in Competitive has been adjusted to 15. (If you have previously completed at least one valid competitive match, you can still join Competitive in Season 2.0 even if you are below level 15.)
4. Pick/ban will now come into play starting from Gold III rather than Diamond tier.
5. When a team includes players from Eternity or One Above All, only solo or duo queuing will be allowed.
6. Currently, the score you earn per Competitive match is determined by both the outcome and your individual performance. After Season 2.0 launches, we will be increasing the weight of individual performances. The better you perform, the more points you will earn in victory, and the fewer points you will lose in defeat.
Tournament Updates
1. The second season of the Marvel Rivals Championship is here! The champion, runner-up, and third-place nameplates have been upgraded to dynamic designs, showcasing your hard-earned glory! This season features adjusted rank requirements and a revised sign-up phase. For all the details, please refer to the Marvel Rivals Championship rules.
2. The global tournament regions have been enhanced! North America (NA), Europe (EU), and Asia (AS) have now transformed into the Americas (AMERICAS), Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and the Pacific (PACIFIC). This upgrade allows for a more compatible and organized classification of server nodes across various regions.
3. A new faction search function has been added for the Knockout Stage.
4. The Tournament Overview page has been revamped! Players can now quickly access core tournament information in a visually engaging manner, with detailed explanations of each process and the specific rules for advancement and elimination in various tournament formats.
5. Introducing a new custom feature for the Marvel Rivals Championship nameplate emblem! Players with a Championship Emblem can now customize its display in Career - Customize.
6. A new Tournament Room option has been introduced in Custom Game, featuring additional tournament-related functionalities.
7. In the Custom Game - Tournament Room, we've added a pause function. The room host and authorized players can now initiate a game pause.
8. In the Custom Game - Tournament Room, an "Away" feature has been added. Non-host players can set their status to away, making it visible to others in the room.
Faction Updates
1. Introducing the all-new Faction Recruit and Seeking Factions system! Factions and players can now use this system to form their dream squads and prepare for various in-game tournaments.
2. A fresh batch of faction emblems has been added! Players can freely switch emblems in the faction details interface.
3. New reporting functionality for factions has been implemented. Players can report inappropriate custom content for factions, including names, abbreviations, and announcements.
General Updates
1. A new gift feature for friends has arrived! Now you can gift cosmetics to your friends.
2. The Career Overview page now supports the selection of specific hero forms.
3. Rank leaderboard display has been added to Career.
4. Real-time voice chat has been optimized! An interface prompt now appears when you activate voice chat using push to talk.
5. In Custom Games, spectators can now temporarily exit during matches, enabling them to rejoin the action anytime.
6. A new room host transfer function has been introduced. The current host can right-click on other players to transfer host privileges.
Graphics and Settings
1. We've introduced an experimental feature: Switch Shader Compilation Mode. When activated, shaders will only compile the first time you launch the game after a new version or graphics driver update. This feature can significantly reduce memory usage and minimize in-game stuttering. —Especially on systems with 16 GB of RAM or less.
However, if you're using a CPU with less threads in combination with AMD FSR3 Frame Generation, you may notice occasional additional stutters with this feature enabled.
*Please note: This is an experimental feature. If you encounter any issues during use, our support team is standing by ready to assist.
2. We've added support for AMD FSR 4, using an AI-accelerated upscaling algorithm to deliver image quality improvements over AMD FSR 3.1. (Available exclusively on the AMD Radeon™ RX 9000 series graphics cards)
⦁ New Vertical Deadzone Sensitivity Settings: Players can now customize the additional acceleration sensitivity after reaching the vertical deadzone.
⦁ Additional Sensitivity Acceleration Delay Settings: Players can tailor the delay time for acceleration to kick in after reaching the deadzone.
⦁ Character Movement Stick Deadzone Settings: Players can set the maximum and minimum deadzone values for the joystick controlling character movement.
⦁ Trigger Deadzone Settings: Players can now define the trigger depth required for activation.
⦁ New Player Initial Settings Feature: First-time players will receive a reminder of default sensitivity settings, vibration, and trigger effects upon entering the game, making their introduction as smooth as a Super Hero landing.
⦁ Focus Memory Optimization: The focus feature has been upgraded to intelligently remember the last position on the screen.
2.1 All Platforms
General Updates
⦁ Resolved numerous issues related to notifications.
⦁ Rectified various text errors.
⦁ Fixed an issue in Custom Game where spectators would incorrectly exit the room after a match.
⦁ Fixed a rare occurrence where settings would reset to default upon restarting the game.
Maps and Modes
⦁ Fixed terrain issues that could cause characters to become stuck or clip through odd locations.
⦁ Resolved various issues including floating broken objects, collision errors, etc.
⦁ Addressed several sound issues on maps.
⦁ Resolved a rare issue in Custom Quick Match, where on the Empire of Eternal Night: Midtown map, spawn room transfer could sometimes not work correctly.
Heroes
⦁ Captain America's Shield Bounce: Resolved an issue where Captain America couldn't ricochet enemy projectiles while moving backward. Now, the Sentinel of Liberty can send those pesky projectiles flying no matter which way he is moving!
⦁ Spector Sightings: Fixed a glitch that sometimes caused abnormal camera angles after being revived by Adam Warlock's Ultimate Ability. No more wobbly views for our heroes—everyone deserves to enjoy their epic returns in all their heroic glory!
⦁ Namor's Super Soldier Shenanigans: In Hydra Charteris Base: Hell's Heaven - Super-Soldier Factory, Namor's Ultimate Ability could occasionally fail to deal damage when targeting the raising pillars. This issue has been resolved, ensuring the Sub-Mariner delivers his Giganto impact!
⦁ Winter Soldier's Time Warp: Addressed an issue where Bucky would sometimes descend before ascending while unleashing his Ultimate Ability in unstable network conditions. Now, the Winter Soldier rises to the occasion without any time-traveling hiccups—no need for a Doctor Strange intervention!
⦁ Cloak & Dagger's Form Flaw: Fixed an issue where Cloak or Dagger sometimes left their character model lingering for a brief moment during form switches. Now, they'll slip into action smoother than a stealthy shadow.
⦁ Iron Fist's Floating Fumble: Resolved a rare glitch where Iron Fist could end up floating indefinitely. The Immortal Weapon is now back on the ground, delivering justice and martial arts mastery without any unintended levitation!
⦁ Wolverine's Ferocious Leap: Fixed a rarely occurring issue where Wolverine's Feral Leap could leave him stuck in an abnormal state, unable to finish the move. Now, Logan can unleash his claws with confidence, ensuring his foes don't get a second to breathe!
⦁ Claws and Consequences: Resolved a rare occurrence where being hit by Wolverine's Feral Leap could render all abilities unusable. No more claw-induced chaos—heroes can now fight on without fear of losing their abilities mid-battle!
Graphics and Settings
⦁ Fixed an issue where the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card renders with excessively low brightness in certain scenarios.
2.3 Console
⦁ Fixed a rare issue where raw mouse input settings unexpectedly affected controllers, potentially causing crosshair drift.
⦁ Fixed an issue in console matches, where there was a chance that button prompts were displayed as keyboard and mouse inputs.
We will continue to vigilantly monitor game bug issues and fix them as fast as we can. Stay tuned for ongoing content updates and keep an eye on the official channels for the latest news!
Captain America
Steve will undergo some adjustments to his survivability, leading to a slight decrease in his overall resilience.
- Reduce base health from 675 to 650.
- Reduce the shield value of Living Legend from 400 to 350.
Doctor Strange
The Sorcerer Supreme will see a reduction in his offensive capabilities, limiting his battlefield control.
- Decrease Daggers of Denak damage per projectile from 18 to 16.
- Reduce the Maelstrom of Madness conversion ratio of Dark Magic to damage from 1.3 to 1.2.
Hulk
The Green Goliath will boast enhanced maneuverability and improved survivability upon entering combat.
- Increase base movement speed from 600 to 650.
- Reduce cooldown time for Indestructible Guard from 12 seconds to 10 seconds.
- Decrease minimum charge time for Incredible Leap from 0.7 seconds to 0.5 seconds.
Magneto
The Master of Magnetism will experience a slight decrease in the frequency of his Ultimate Ability.
- Increase energy cost for Meteor M (Ultimate Ability) from 3100 to 3400.
Peni Parker
Peni will receive enhancements to her primary attack damage efficiency and a boost to her survivability and combat capabilities.
- Cyber-Web Cluster now has a chance to crit; reduce movement speed penalty while firing Cyber-Web Cluster from 40% to 20%.
- Increase base health from 650 to 750.
The Thing
The Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing will see a slight reduction in his damage reduction effect.
- Decrease Embattled Leap's damage reduction effect for himself and teammates from 30% to 25%.
Thor
The Mighty Thor will receive an increase in survivability.
- Increase base health from 525 to 600.
- Increase base movement speed from 600 to 650.
Black Widow
Natasha is receiving optimizations to her shooting experience.
- Added a new effect where Black Widow can directly shoot after releasing the second kick of Edge Dancer and after using Electro-Plasma Explosion (Ultimate Ability).
Hawkeye
We're improving Clint's mobility while drawing his bow, enhancing his combat capabilities, and increasing the threat of his Ultimate Ability.
- Reduce the slow effect while charging the bow from 30% to 20%.
- Increase both instances of damage for Hypersonic Arrow from 50 to 55.
- Decrease energy cost for Hunter's Sight (Ultimate Ability) from 3700 to 3100 and improve the bow draw speed increase from 1.35x to 1.5x.
Hela
The Goddess of Death will see a reduction in mobility while slightly enhancing her offensive power.
- Increase cooldown time for Astral Flock from 12 seconds to 15 seconds.
- Increase Spell Field Damage of Piercing Night from 30 to 35.
- Decrease cooldown time for Soul Drainer from 12 seconds to 10 seconds.
Human Torch
Johnny's attack feedback and survivability are being improved to enhance his impact across various combat scenarios.
- Reduce attack interval for Fire Cluster from 0.6 seconds to 0.5 seconds; the launch timing of the primary attack projectile has been advanced.
- Increase the cooldown for Flaming Meteor from 12 seconds to 15 seconds, but add a new effect: After releasing Flaming Meteor, immediately gain 75 Bonus Health, which will start to falloff 3 seconds later at a rate of 30 per second.
Iron Man
Iron Man is seeing improvements to his mid-range combat effectiveness.
- Slightly reduce Iron Man's hitbox size.
- New feature: Gain 100 Bonus Health activating Armor Overdrive or Gamma Overdrive that will start to falloff 5 seconds later at a rate of 30 per second.
Iron Fist
Lin Lie will see an increase in his combat effectiveness against Vanguards, a slight improvement to his mobility, and a slight reduction to his survivability when first entering the battlefield.
- Reduce the Bonus Max Health gained from Harmony Recovery from 150 to 100, but slow the falloff rate of that health from 25 per/s to 15 per/s.
- Lower fixed damage of Yat Jee Chung Kuen from 10 to 9, but increase the percentage damage of the enemy's Max Health per strike from 1.7% to 2.1%.
- Decrease the cooldown for K'un-Lun Kick from 12 seconds to 10 seconds.
Mister Fantastic
We're enhancing Reed's capabilities while making some balance adjustments to his ultimate energy charge rate, adding additional control ability, and optimizing the release experience of his Ultimate Ability.
- Increase base health from 350 to 375.
- Boost the damage of Stretch Punch from 60 to 65 and from 75 to 80 while in Inflated state.
- Flexible Elongation New Effect: Enemies within range now suffer a 35% slow effect; reduce Flexible Elongation cooldown time from 10s to 8s.
- Reduce the Elasticity gained from Elastic Strength (passive ability) from 30 to 20, while the Elasticity provided by Stretch Punch is increased from 5 to 8. After entering the inflated state, the Bonus Health provided to self has been reduced from 450 to 400.
- New Feature: When Mister Fantastic uses Brainiac Bounce (Ultimate Ability), immediately gain Bonus Health equal to that gained when entering inflated state.
Moon Knight
We're optimizing Marc's Moon Blade projectile bounce feedback while improving maneuverability, Ultimate Ability, and survivability.
- Increase Crescent Dart projectile speed from 120m/s to 150 m/s.
- Moon Blade New Effect: Gain 25 Bonus Health with each enemy hit, up to a max of 100. 3 seconds after the Bonus Health stops increasing, it will start to falloff at a rate of 20 per second.
- Speed up Moonlight Hook pull startup time after hit from 0.4 seconds to 0.15 seconds.
- Extend the duration of the Hand of Khonshu (Ultimate Ability) from 3.5 seconds to 4.5 seconds, and increase the number of talons generated during this period from 14 to 18. Additionally, the fall speed of the talons has been slightly enhanced. A new damage falloff mechanic for the spell field has been added, beginning at 1.5 meters from the center and reaching a maximum reduction of 70% at 5 meters.
Scarlet Witch
We're reducing Wanda's survivability but increasing her threat level against Strategists and Duelists while optimizing her Ultimate Ability release experience.
- Remove Chaos Control percentage damage while increasing fixed damage from 60/s to 80/s.
- Increase Chthonian Burst projectile damage from 35 to 40 and spell field damage from 35 to 40.
- Increase the cooldown of Mystic Projection from 8 seconds to 10 seconds, and reduce Phased state time from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
- Rework the slow effect of Reality Erasure to start at 1.5 seconds instead of starting immediately, with a linear increase to a 35% slow over 3.5 seconds.
Star-Lord
We're reducing Peter's damage output and the efficiency of his Ultimate Ability charge rate.
- Reduce Blaster Barrage damage from 80 per second to 75. Introduce a new damage falloff mechanic, starting at 4 meters and maxing out at 80% reduction at 8 meters.
Winter Soldier
We're lowering Bucky's threat level against Vanguards and reducing the margin for error in his Ultimate Ability.
- Increase the cooldown time for Bionic Hook from 8 seconds to 12 seconds.
- Reduce base damage of Kraken Impact (Ultimate Ability) from 100 to 80, but lower the culling threshold from 20% of maximum health to 15%.
Wolverine
We're tuning Logan's Rage acquisition rate and slightly lowering his control intensity over enemies:
- Increase Rage gained from Savage Claw hits from 7 to 10, while Rage gained from Berserk Claw Strike has been decreased from 7 to 5. Reduce Rage gained from Feral Leap from 20 to 10, and from Vicious Rampage from 20 to 15. However, Rage gained from taking damage has been increased from 3 to 5.
- Reduce the time an enemy is knocked down after impact from Last Stand (Ultimate Ability) from 1 second to 0.75 seconds.
Adam Warlock
We're slightly reducing the frequency of Adam's abilities and adjusting the healing provided by his Ultimate Ability after reviving teammates.
- Increase the cooldown for Soul Bond from 30s to 40s.
- Karmic Revival (Ultimate Ability) now restores 30% of a fallen ally's maximum health instead of a fixed 100 Health.
Cloak and Dagger
We're optimizing the logic of this dynamic duo's Ultimate Ability
- After activating Eternal Bond (Ultimate Ability), the duration of the first three healing zones will no longer be calculated separately; instead, they will remain active until the duration of the final healing zone ends, at which point all will be removed together.
Invisible Woman
We'll be fine-tuning Susan's protective capabilities to create a more strategic gameplay experience.
- Decrease the shield value of Guardian Shield from 300 to 250.
Loki
To balance Loki's influence in matches, we're making a small adjustment to the frequency of one of his key abilities.
- Increase Regeneration Domain cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.
Mantis
To emphasize strategy over speed, we're modifying Mantis' health and buff mechanics.
- Reduce base health from 275 to 250.
- Effects of Healing Flower and Allied Inspiration can be stacked, up to a maximum of 16 seconds.
Rocket Raccoon
Rocket's healing abilities will see some adjustments to enhance team survivability while balancing his mobility.
- Decrease the healing area of Repair Mode spheres from 70 health/s to 50 health/s, but add a new effect of one-time healing of 55 health to allies hit. Projectile speed reduction increased from 4.5 m/s to 7 m/s.
- Extend cooldown for Jetpack Dash from 6 seconds to 10 seconds; reduce dash distance from 10 meters to 8 meters.
- Reduce C.Y.A. (Ultimate Ability) damage boost from 40% to 25%, but add a new effect: during the ability's duration, linked allies will receive an additional 100 Bonus Health points per second, capping at 150. After breaking the link, this bonus starts to falloff after 1 second at a rate of 75 per/s. Additionally, increase the energy cost from 3700 to 4000.
Arcane Order (Doctor Strange - Scarlet Witch)
This mystical duo is set to enhance their powers!
- As the Team-Up Anchor, Doctor Strange gains a maximum health increase of 100.
- Scarlet Witch unlocks a new magical Mystic Burst ability through her team-up with Doctor Strange.
Stars Aligned (Captain America - Winter Soldier)
A classic partnership now with added strength!
- As the Team-Up Anchor, Captain America gains a maximum health increase of 100 and a 5% boost in damage output.
- Winter Soldier unlocks the devastating Stellar Impact ability through his team-up with Captain America.
Mental Projection (Emma Frost - Psylocke/Magneto)
A powerful trio that connects minds and abilities!
- As the Team-Up Anchor, Emma Frost gains a maximum health increase of 100.
- Magneto receives the Magnetic Resonance ability through his team-up with Emma Frost.
- Psylocke receives the Soul Resurgence ability through her team-up with Emma Frost.
Ammo Overload (Rocket Racoon - Winter Soldier)
A slight change for this battle-hardened hero!
- Winter Soldier loses the Infinite Grit ability he once had through his team-up with Rocket Raccoon.
Chilling Charisma (Luna Snow - Namor)
Things are heating up as synergies change!
- Namor has lost the Frozen Spawn ability from his team-up with Luna Snow.
Dimensional Shortcut (Magik - Psylocke)
A temporal reconfiguration for these powerful souls!
- Psylocke has lost the Psionic Disc ability previously attained from her team-up with Magik.
Gamma Charge (Hulk -Doctor Strange/Namor)
Changes in synergy for these heavyweights!
- Doctor Strange loses the Gamma Maelstrom ability previously gained from his team-up with Hulk.
- Namor now gains the Gamma Monstro ability through his team-up with Hulk.
Metallic Chaos (Scarlet Witch - Magneto)
A disconnect in family synergy!
- The Team-Up Anchor enhancement effect for Scarlet Witch has been removed, along with the Metallic Chaos Team-Up Ability.
- Magneto loses the Metallic Fusion ability he had through his team-up with Scarlet Witch.
Voltaic Union (Thor - Captain America/Storm)
A shift in electrical dynamics for this trio!
- The Team-Up Anchor effect for Thor has been removed, along with the Voltaic Union Team-Up Ability.
- Captain America loses the Charged Aegis ability from his team-up with Thor.
- Storm loses the Charged Gale ability gained from her team-up with Thor.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
2025 is set to be a big year for Diablo 4, Blizzard’s near two-year-old action role-playing game, and that’s despite the delay to its second expansion from this year into 2026. It’s set to launch Season 8 later in April, with Season 9 currently due out in the summer, and Season 10 later in the year. Each will improve the game in key ways, addressing fan feedback and adding long-requested features. And then, looking into 2026, Blizzard will launch Diablo 4’s second expansion, following on from last year’s Vessel of Hatred, add a new ranking system, and, finally, leaderboards.
Today, for the first time ever, Blizzard has published a Diablo 4 roadmap of content, providing fans with the kind of long-term insight into what to expect from the game they’ve never had before. There are even teases for upcoming IP collaborations thrown in there for good measure.
So why is Blizzard doing this now, and what, exactly, are the juicy details on Diablo 4’s upcoming updates? IGN sat down with game director Brent Gibson to quiz him on all that and more in an exclusive interview to coincide with the roadmap, below.
IGN: This [roadmap] is new for Blizzard's Diablo team, right? So there's got to be a reason why you're doing it now for the first time. What are the factors that have gone into you making that decision?
Brent Gibson: We've never really been in the position to deliver on a roadmap with the game up until now, right? So when we released the base game, we were getting an influx of feedback from the community on what we should be going after. And so we were in this very reactionary, like, let's stay on top of the big emerging issues that are coming out with the game. And we wanted to be in a position by this year to be able to be more proactive and be in a spot where we can predict out to a year on some of our ambitions and what we want to go after, and be able to do it confidently, knowing the types of things we wanted to commit to.
And so the value of a roadmap is us getting out there saying, 'hey, look, these are the things that we want to go after. We hear you.' We really want to make sure we're going after the things that really matter during the seasons, and create consistency and quality in those releases. And so for the first time, we're actually in a spot where we can see out into that future.
IGN: When I think of Diablo historically, it's not as a live service game. It was more, you paid for the game and you had the expansions, and the expansions were a big deal, almost like mini-releases. But for Diablo 4 it does feel different. It feels like more of a live service. So I wonder if that creates more of a condition for a roadmap to be appropriate for Diablo 4 as opposed to the previous games?
Brent Gibson: It does. There's a reason why they're called roadmaps, because it literally is a road leading to what we want to do in 2026 with the expansion. A lot of the strengthening of our core from season to season are things that we're building upon, to taking those bigger swings in the expansion itself. And so it's important to us that there is that connectivity. That it is all working out in order and in a plan. And so even though it's not always very transparent about what that plan is, we're hoping that the roadmap is something that shows players those steps that we're taking, so that when we get to the point of announcing the expansion, all those pieces come together.
IGN: Do you feel like the audience now when it comes to live service games is hungrier than ever for constant content and constant transparency? Needing to know what's coming at any given moment, and wanting a relentless release of updates? I've been watching the Marvel Rivals team and it's just incredible with the pace of their updates. And they've just said a new hero every month. Is this just the way things have to be now if you're operating a successful life service? Is it more brutal than ever?
Brent Gibson: I definitely feel like gamers are more hungry than they've ever been. And even if you delivered on their appetite today, that appetite will shift tomorrow. And so you just have to be in a really good spot to adapt to that situation. Because a lot of times too, what's important this month is going to be completely different three months from now. The priority of things can shift very, very quickly based on another game release or the state of your own game. Or maybe we've discovered something really cool and we want to be able to get it in there to change the formula.
And so it is definitely a new way of developing. It is definitely high interaction with the community. The interesting thing about Diablo is that we have a lot of different community types, right? We have our casual players, we have our hardcore players. They all fall into subdivisions of types of players inside of that. And so what we look to do is season upon season, look at the things that are important to some of those groups and go after them with focus.
When you take a look at something like what we're doing in Season 8, we know we have a ton of boss lair feedback and so we're adding in the quality of life improvements for those players where that is a big focus of their gameplay type, or we might shift to nightmare dungeons when we're in Season 9. And so it's an opportunity for us to address different groups at different times, leading to an expansion where we're going to be addressing everybody all at once with something big.
IGN: And that's a really nice lead into my next thought on this, which is you are trying to do it all with Diablo 4. It's not just live service with seasons as we're familiar with live service games, but you're also building big paid expansions on top of that. I can only imagine the challenges you must face trying to do everything with Diablo 4 to keep it interesting and everyone engaged. I know the original plan was for an expansion every year, but that's obviously not happening. Is that one of the byproducts of having to do all of this stuff all at the same time, and also trying to do an expansion as well, when most games don't have to think about doing both of those things?
Brent Gibson: Yeah, we've learned a lot about what it means to do both at the same time. I feel like we've done a good job at trying to not be beholden to the plan. And so if we needed the extra time for the expansion based on everything we learned on Vessel of Hatred, we're taking the time to focus on the expansion in a responsible way. We don't want to push it out 10 years. That's crazy. But the adjustments you've seen are because of key learnings and the feedback that we're seeing. And some of the strategy you're seeing with what we're doing with seasons is to bring consistency and control in one area so that we can get a little more aggressive in another area. And so the roadmap is a really good example of that where you can see that consistency, while also shifting our focus from activity type to activity type to refresh things for different style of players that have feedback for the game.
IGN: So let's let's dig into the roadmap a little bit. 'Dungeon escalation' — what are we getting there?
Brent Gibson: So you'll notice with the roadmap as we make our way out further into the year, the words are fancy and they have some meaning and they have intent. You could see in that season that the word 'dungeon,' we're going to be focusing on dungeons here, right? You got new nightmare dungeon activities that are in this mix as well. We know that nightmare dungeons, or dungeons in general is the bread and butter of Diablo, is playing that procedural content. And based on a lot of feedback, variety and challenge is one of those things that is a major ask for bringing nightmare dungeons back into the spotlight.
And so even though I'm not going to share the details that far out, you can see that the spirit of our intent is going to address that part of our game. The idea there for that season is about challenge and variety and that's the goal that the team has, and they're in development of that right now.
IGN: Part of the sentiment among the core community is that Diablo 4 isn't hard enough. Is that season about addressing some of that feedback?
Brent Gibson: Yeah, and it's not exclusive to that season. We met as a team at the very beginning of the year and bringing challenge back into the spotlight is something that we're focusing on over the course of all the seasons. And how does a statement like that apply from activity to activity in our game?
You're seeing with Season 8, we're bringing a lot of challenge back into the boss lairs, and trying to make sure that difficulty is something that we're keeping an eye on, while also not losing sight of accessibility. Because this is a game where we got a lot of people come in just to blast and relax. And so we don't want it to be an experience that is hard at the sacrifice of fun. But we know that areas in our game that we can tackle that in a way that will be good for the casuals and great for the blasters, and we should be in a good spot.
IGN: It must be a really tricky balancing act.
Brent Gibson: Yeah. If we did that to the game as a whole, it would not service our goal. This is one of the reasons why our difficulty system has such a wide band in it, all the way from easy to the later stage in Torment. The goal isn't to just say we're dialing everything up. That is not the case. It is to take a look at the progression of a character and look at those spots where we can create an additional spike that is appreciated by the audience that just needs that one last little push, right? And so that's the way that we've been looking at it, is more of like, how does the entire curve play across our broader audience, and not sacrificing one audience for the other.
IGN: Console keyboard and mouse support also caught my eye. How come it took so long?
Brent Gibson: I can't answer on why it took this long from a deep level. But it's one of the things that the players have been asking for quite a bit, and now that we are starting to get into the groove with the ongoing development of the game, we're in a spot where we can start addressing issues like that and bring something new to the table.
My son was super happy because he's converted to a keyboard and mouse guy but he loves his console. And so, being in a position where we can create more access to all different types of players is very important to us. Accessibility is huge for us. We put a ton of attention on it. We don't want the hardware to be the barrier. So we implement anything we can to create that quality of life, and I think this is going to be a pretty big one in that season.
IGN: I know this is probably not something you can talk deeply about, but people get excited by new IP collabs, and there's two of them in there. People might think of silly stuff, start talking about Microsoft stuff, Activision stuff and all sorts. Is there anything you can say about what people can expect, or maybe how you approach them and what's right and what isn't right for Diablo 4?
Brent Gibson: When you think about Diablo, it is one of the dark fantasy IPs, right? And as developers, we're also fans of lots of other IPs that are that power fantasy of being in that dark gothic universe. So you can imagine that there's a pretty heavy influence that is even beyond Diablo itself in that regard.
At the heart of the game we're role-playing through those dark fantasies. And so I think something you can expect is us reaching out to other IPs that fit really well inside of our universe, and we can do some really cool cosmetic stuff and make it really exciting. But it's not anything that is actually going to betray the brand, right? We talk a lot about, 'hey, when's the French Fries sword coming?' We are avoiding the French Fries sword at all costs.
And so we really selected the collaborations we're looking at very carefully. Even though I don't want to expose what we're doing coming up, it is one of those things where it's like it, it's going to be fun, it's going to be super cool, it is totally Diablo. And so once it goes live, hopefully you'll log in and check it out.
IGN: I play a lot of Call of Duty and COD has this thing where the mil-sim fans are like, 'I hate that there are lizards and dragons and fairies and unicorns shooting me.' In the context of everything that's happened with Activision Blizzard in the last couple of years, some fans are worried that's going to happen to Diablo. But from the sounds of things it's not going to end up like that.
Brent Gibson: No. That is absolutely counter to our goal. And so when we're looking at these things, we take a really hard look at making sure that the things that we're bringing to the table, our fans are also fans of. So there's never a moment where you're like, 'wait, really? That's in there?' And so we're holding the line on that. I say holding the line, but we're all aligned on it. There's no question that this is the way that we want to approach it. And the one we have coming up in Season 8 is pretty cool and very spot on.
IGN: Is there anything in September to December that players should be excited for or should be keeping an eye out for?
Brent Gibson: Season 10 is a really good example of us taking a hard look at not only the activities that need to get refreshed because their role has maybe waned in popularity, but also looking at the things that are working really well and continuing to invest.
Infernal Horde is one of the most popular activities in the entire game. People really enjoy playing it. They put tons of hours into it. So we're going to take the opportunity to also give it a little bit of love and put a little more player choice options out there for you to have in the experience and plus that up.
And so very similar to what we did with Helltide very early on where it's like, yeah it's going well, but we're still gonna do something more. Not only are we shoring things up, but we're gonna continue to push some of our activities forward. Season upon season, I really like the idea of us keeping our house in order as we're making our way through the 2025 year.
IGN: So now the juicy stuff. Before we talk about new expansion, there's a new ranking system and leaderboards in 2026. Finally! I mean it's next year, but still at least it's coming and we know now. What can you tell me about the leaderboards and the new ranking system?
Brent Gibson: I can talk about it philosophically. I remember having the conversation: 'we want to be able to say leaderboard when we come out with this roadmap, even if it is a year out, right?' The important thing to us is that players know that we're listening, but we want to make sure that we get it right. Doing a leaderboard is really, really challenging. When we took a first stab at it with Gauntlet, we learned a lot of things with Gauntlet. We had a lot of new power being injected into expansion one, so that led us to take a breath and see where we're at with classes and bring that back into harmony. And now that we're here, we're like, 'OK, what's the right way to do this?'
So we're investing into leaderboards as we move forward. I won't exactly say how. That will be revealed as time passes by, but we want to work with the community on getting to a place where we've done it right.
Now, we also know that leaderboards speak to the very upper echelon of our players, and so we want to also introduce something that speaks to everybody. And so this is where we want to have a system that also tells you, 'hey, as you're playing, as you're building your character, how are you doing? Where do you sit rank wise with the rest of the world?' And being able to have a very casual, friendly understanding of am I good or not? Am I doing good or not, right? And so it was important that we deliver both parts of that equation together so that there is something for everybody. And then there's that hard, aspirational go get it at the very end as well. I am super excited about the designs that we've been talking about, and we've been iterating on this for quite some time, and hopefully in the near future we can talk some details.
IGN: Exciting. OK, new expansion. Is there anything that you can say about that, for the fans?
Brent Gibson: I definitely can say that there's a lot coming in the expansion. What we did with Vessel of Hatred was fantastic and just the beginning. And as we've learned from that. We feel like we're even more on the money with what we need to do with the second expansion. We have a whole team dedicated to getting ready to start announcing stuff over a really great campaign, to let you know what's going in on this. We're paying attention to it right now. The team is just like, that is priority number one. And so they've been putting all their heart and energy into making sure that it is the best release we've had.
Reflecting on what we're talking about before, we're taking that time to steady the core season to season so that this expansion is the biggest expansion we've delivered yet. So, feeling really great about it. I'm dying to talk more about it. Can't at this time, but hopefully very soon we can revisit this chat.
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.
One of last year's breakout successes in the multiplayer game-space was Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2, which aimed to spread democracy across the stars via shooting aliens and robots with lots and lots of bullets. Now, hot off the heels of releasing their monolithic board game adaptation of Elden Ring, Steamforged Games is doing another adaptation of a video game: the fast-paced and frenetic experience of Helldivers 2. The board game is now available to back on Gamefound – and IGN had a chance to play a prototype of the game and sit down with designers Jamie Perkins, Derek Funkhouser, and Nicholas Yu to pick their brains about this new tabletop rendition.
Having begun its development shortly after the launch of the video game early last year, Helldivers 2: The Board Game captures a majority of what has made the video game so popular and exciting, recreating the tense fire fights, chaotic surprises, and teamwork-centric experience while also offering its own little tweaks to the formula.
Helldivers 2 remains a purely cooperative objective-based skirmish game where one to four players (the designers recommend solo players play using two characters) work together to complete the selected objective while surviving the mobs of enemies and events that pop up. Each player takes on the role of a different class of Helldiver, each having a unique perk, a set of action cards to use on their turn, and a powerful one-per-game “Act of Valor” ability. The demo included the Heavy, Sniper, Pyro, and the Captain. Each player outfits themselves with a kit consisting of primary, secondary, and support guns, a grenade, and three strategems they can call in, with a recommended loadout listed on their class card. Still, once you know what you’re doing, you can choose before a game.
Gameplay takes place on grid-based boards that grow as you explore, requiring you to place down new boards, which reveal various sub-objectives you can try for, along with the locations where your primary objectives can be found – which, in my prototype’s case, are the various Terminid hatcherys to destroy. As you explore, more and more difficult enemies begin to spawn, and with the mission timer that puts a round-limit on how long you can take to complete your objective and evacuate, it all keeps games of Helldivers feeling frenetic and tense.
The prototype I played only had one objective, tasking me to destroy a certain number of Terminad hatcheries, but the actual release will offer a number of options. Regarding the enemies, Jamie explained that the base game would include two of three main factions – the aforemention Terminads and the robotic Automatons – with each faction featuring 10 unit types. While they couldn’t confirm anything, knowing Steamforged Games and their tendency for stretch goals in their campaigns, I bet we will see the Illuminate via an expansion.
Perhaps the aspect I was more curious to check out with this video-game-to-board-game adaptation was how it would handle the game’s sense of being overwhelmed and outnumbered. Would it go a similar route as the Zombicide games and try to stop me with numbers, with creatures that, while easy to kill, would quickly overwhelm the helldivers with their sheer numbers? Or would it opt for something more akin to Nemesis, where the threat came more from fewer but stronger enemies? Helldivers opts for the latter, with a more tactical close-up fight approach with progressively more challenging enemies spawning the further into a mission you go.
Turns consist of players and enemies adding their action cards to a pool, everything getting shuffled and then placed down onto the initiative tracker (very similar to Steamforged’s Elden Ring game), with combat based on dice rolls. One neat addition is that for every four action cards that are played, a random event occurs, which tended to throw a wrench into our plans, such as spawning a bunch of horde enemies or randomly spawning another enemy to contend with, normally followed by a few expletives being hurled. It’s a good time.
On the side of the Helldivers, combat is handled by way of dice rolls with each weapon offering its type and number of dice for the player to roll, with each damage being determined by the total value of the roll. For every five points, a single wound is placed on an enemy. I enjoy this approach to damage, as it can get confusing and annoying if you need to account for various modifiers and defense values or even see if you hit. In Helldivers, being the elite trained soldiers of democracy that you are, you always hit – the only question is how much pain do you dish out. Sure, there is a chance you may hit your friends in the process – especially with attacks that hit an area – but sometimes, to take out a particularly persistent and annoying enemy, you have to sacrifice your fellow Helldiver (thank goodness for reinforcements).
Something brand new to this board game that the designers are especially proud of is the ‘Massed Fire’ mechanic, which aims to recreate the feeling of you and your friends all firing on the same enemy in the video game.
“In the video game, obviously, you're encouraged to work together as a team," Nic explained. "You have a heavily armored armor enemy, you need to kind of flank around and shoot at the weak points if you don't have a support weapon to deal with it. But there wasn't a really good way to do that in a board game without going to lot of facing and armor mechanics. So what we implemented was we called 'massed fire,' so when anyone shoots at a target, if that's within range of another helldivers primary, secondary target, they can also focus far with you at that time, and so you're kind of explicitly rewarded or incentivized to work as a group.”
The designers made it clear players can always go off lone-wolf style and explore on their own if they wish, but what I appreciate the most with this addition is that it helps cut down on player downtime, allowing some involvement during other players' turns and a chance to roll more dice. Both of these things are always a plus in my book.
When it comes to enemies, though, things are a bit more bland with them simply doing a set amount of damage or effects dictated by what's on their card, causing the player to draw wound cards. Each wound causes some sort of detrimental effect, and if a player ever gets three wounds, their character dies. Death isn’t the end however, as depending on the difficulty you pick prior to starting the game, you have varying amounts of times after which players can respawn, which causes them to come back with their full load-out of ammo and resources filled back up.
One part of the Helldivers 2 experience that doesn't make the jump from video game to tabletop is the galactic war. The designers considered including this important part of the original game. But it was inevitably dropped, thanks in part to Arrowhead wanting this game to feel unique and different and not simply a cut-and-paste board game simulation of the source material.
Jamie did reveal a fun and very Helldivers-esque piece of “lore” around the board game: “We're positioning it effectively as a training simulation. So you would get this board game as a helldiver as a training simulation to learn how to be a better helldiver.” I’m keeping my fingers crossed that one day we will see Helldivers in the video game sitting around a table playing this board game.
Thanks to Nic, Jamie, and Derek's talent, this latest release from Steamforged Games is already feeling pretty good. The three of them have made it a big focus that, despite the new medium, their goal is for it still to feel like a Helldivers game.
“We wanted to make sure that even though had different mechanics, it felt like Helldivers – like we want to have unexpected things that you have to deal with from turn to turn. We want to have stratagems that could go awry and actually blow up your friends in addition to the enemies. The pool of reinforcements that dwindles as you go through the game and calling in stratagems, those are things that feel uniquely Helldivers,” Nic said.
Derek added, “We knew we needed to keep the core loop of what Helldivers is with the mission objectives, and just being able to chase the shiny, right? We've got points of interest and sub-objectives and the objectives to uncover and find, while also having to deal with enemies that are, you know, trying to eat you.”
As it stands now, the core of the game and how everything works, Jamie estimates, is at around 75-80% locked in, which is right at the spot that Steamforged likes to have their games when they launch their campaigns. This bit of wiggle room will allow the team some flexibility based on community feedback, additional balance adjustments, or if they come up with a really cool idea. And for those that may be concerned with the recent events surrounding tariffs and their impacts on the board gaming space and the worries developers are having, Jamie stresses that right now it isn’t going to slow down their plans and that they are pressing ahead exactly as planned. If any adjustments need to be made, the studio has people to handle and advise them on the best course to take.
Coming off of my time with the prototype, I'd say the systems they have in place already are fun with things like the random events and the Massed Fire mechanic leading to some really epic moments during my games. At the same time though, while I appreciate and understand the decision to want more of a tactical focus with larger heavier-hitting enemies on the board, I do kind of wish that the gameplay had more little chump enemies on the board to wipe out with your friends. But that's just how I like to enjoy the video game, too. Less thinking, more shooting. I also would like a bit more depth in how enemy attacks are handled, because right now it feels incredibly static compared to the rest of the game. Perhaps adding in a couple of different potential outcomes from an attack that are determined by a die roll would help bring enemy combat more on par with the chaos the other parts of the game delivers.
I'm eager to see what other surprises Steamforged Games has behind the curtain for Helldivers 2. What I’ve been able to play so far has left me antsy to try out new classes of Helldivers, discover what game types there will be, and mix and match all of them with the other enemies and biomes. All I know is that my friends and I are already asking: Where we dropping next?
Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
© PlayStack
© Valve
© Grinding Gear Games
© Blizzard
There's drama in the PC gaming, meth cooking world, and it's all about whether or not the latest Steam craze, Schedule 1, is getting sued by the publishers of Drug Dealer Simulator, Movie Games. After some review bombing of its titles Movie Games has now come forward to clarify the situation, stating that currently, there is no lawsuit against the creators of Schedule 1.
Movie Games suggested that the confused reports were probably the result of attempts to translate the news from the original Polish source of the information, but added that it was investigating the similarities between the games.
"Due to repeated opinions that Schedule I is very similar to DDS, we were obliged to request a legal analysis from an intellectual property specialist. It has indicated that there might have been an infringement by the Schedule I developers in relation to Drug Dealer Simulator," said Movie Games spokesperson Michal P (AKA Movie Games head of marketing Michał Puczyński) in a Discord post on Sunday.
"Now we are obliged to follow up further, but we are yet to contact the Schedule I developers. Our goal at this point is discussing the situation with them and we have an open approach."
Drug Dealer Simulator was released in 2020 and like Schedule 1, focuses on the mechanics of producing and selling illegal substances. While the subject matter is similar, Drug Dealer Simulator leans into a more realistic look while Schedule 1 has a look that screams "what if I designed Rick and Morty while having a nervous breakdown?"
Puczyński went on to assure gamers that "it is not our intention to prevent TVGS from selling or developing their game." He also made clear that Drug Dealer Simulator's developers, ByteRunners, had no role in the decision to investigate. Byterunners also made that clear in a post on social media.
Dear fans, in light of the legal investigation controversy taking place between our publisher, Movie Games, and Schedule I, here is our official statement regarding the situation. pic.twitter.com/NkK9fLRYQz
— Byterunners (@ByterunnersGS) April 8, 2025
"Overall, our goal is to support all devs, but we need to consider our legal obligations if law specialists determine that there are grounds to claim infringement;" continued the Movie Games statement from Puczyński.
"We even contacted TVGS via email just before the release, when the game was already huge, and wished them all the best - but that was before that legal analysis. Back then no one expected it to be needed, not to mention that it would bring these results."
So good news for Schedule 1 addicts who, at least for now, go back to growing Coca Leaves for completely innocent reasons.
Rachel Weber is the Senior Editorial Director of Games at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, and French Bulldogs. Those extra wrinkles on her face are thanks to staying up too late finishing every sidequest in RPGs like Fallout and Witcher 3.
Not everyone is the DIY type. If you're in the market for a prebuilt gaming PC, Dell is one of the best brands we'd recommend. Alienware desktops and laptops feature solid build quality, top-of-the-line gaming performance, excellent cooling (further improved on the newer models), aggressive styling, and pricing that is very competitive with other pre-built options. Best of all, there are plenty of sales that happen throughout the year, so it's not difficult to grab one of these computers at considerably less than their retail price. This page includes all of the best deals that are currently available.
You can quickly browse through all of the listed products on sale above. See below for our favorite picks.
Earlier this year, Dell rebooted the legendary Alienware Area-51 lineup of prebuilt gaming PCs, but until recently you could only configure it with one graphics card option - the RTX 5080. That's no longer the case. Starting now, you can choose to equip your Alienware Area-51 with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU and - finally - an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 GPU starting at $5,499.99. Better yet, you won't have to wait months for your system to arrive; Dell estimates an early April ship date.
Starting today, Dell is offering an Alienware Aurora R16 gaming PC equipped with the new GeForce RTX 5080 GPU for just $2,399.99 shipped. This is one of the best prices you can get right now for an RTX 5080 equipped prebuilt, especially since most other brands seem to be jacking up prices steadily since the RTX 50 series launch in January. The only other prebuilt you can get at Dell with an RTX 5080 GPU costs over $4,000. Good luck trying to find a standalone GPU to build out your own DIY PC; you'll probably spend as much for the GPU as you would this entire system.
This Alienware Aurora R16 gaming PC is equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F CPU, GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, 16GB of DDR5-5200MHz RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. The processor can also be upgraded up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. If you're getting system with a focus on gaming, then the upgrade is unnecessary. Gaming at higher resolutions is almost always GPU bound, and besides, the default Intel Core Ultra 7 265F is a solid processor with a max turbo frequency of 5.3GHz and a total of 20 cores. It's cooled by a robust 240mm all-in-one liquid cooler and the entire system is powered by an 1,000W 80PLUS Platinum power supply.
Alternatively, get an upgraded RTX 4090 model for $3,599.99 after a $400 instant discount. It's $600 more than the base model Alienware 4090 gaming PC, but that's because the processor has been upgraded to a much more powerful Intel Core i9-14900KF CPU. You also get quadruple the RAM and double the storage.
In our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 review, Jackie Thomas wrote that "The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 is complicated. It does what it says on the tin: play games at 1440p at a high frame rate. But the problem is that it doesn’t necessarily do that better than the RTX 4070 Super, or any other graphics card in this price range. It does add Multi Frame Generation, which is nice to have for anyone with a high-refresh monitor, but that alone isn’t worth the upgrade."
Dell announced the return of the venerable Alienware Area-51 gaming laptop back in CES 2025, and starting today it is finally available to order. It comes in two size variants: the 16" model starts at $3,199.99 and the 18" model starts at $3,399.99. As expected from Alienware's new flagship laptop, the Area-51 is equipped with current generation components, including the latest and greatest Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU and NVIDIA Blackwell GPU. Orders are expected to ship out starting April 30, so get your reservation in now to prevent any additional delays.
Dell is offering an Alienware m16 gaming laptops starting at $1,879.99 shipped (there are no discounts currently available for this model). The m16 R2 is Alienware's most popular gaming laptop, which isn't surprising considering its excellent build quality, top-of-the-line gaming prowess, and reasonable price point. The "R2" is the second generation model that was released in 2024; it's 14% lighter and more compact than its predecessor without compromising on performance.
The Alienware x16 gaming laptop is a slimmer and lighter redesign of the traditional m-series laptop. It's the thinnest 16" Alienware laptop ever and compares in build quality and performance to other high-end ultra-thin laptops like the Razer Blade. This Alienware x16 R2 laptop is built with premium materials, like a magnesium alloy chassis and palm rest, anodized aluminum lid, stainless steel keyboard tray, and Micro LED RGB accent lighting. It's only 0.73" thin and weighs in at 6 pounds. That's impressive considering the fact that this laptop can be equipped with the most power NVIDIA GPU.
Dell has dropped the prices on the G16 16" gaming laptops. Dells G-series laptops are great options for budget gamers. They offer excellent gaming performance equal to a comparably equipped Alienware laptop but at a much lower price point. They also have better build quality than Dell's Inspiron lineup, with nicer materials that include anodized aluminum, and an aggressive cooling design borrowed from Alienware laptops.
There are two important tidbits that deserve mention concerning graphics cards found in laptops. First, mobile GPU variants are not as powerful as their desktop counterparts. For example, a mobile RTX 4060 doesn't perform as well as a desktop RTX 4060. The mobile versions are generally about one to two tiers lower in performance. Using the same example, the mobile RTX 4060 performs more similarly to a desktop RTX 4050.
Second, not all laptops feature the same performance out of the same GPU. For example, the RTX 4060 found in the Alienware m16 will be more powerful than the RTX 4060 found in the Alienware x14. In order to roughly tell how good a GPU will be, you can look at the TGP rating. That's basically the amount of power supplied to the GPU. A higher TGP rating means more power will be delivered, equating to stronger performance, however the wattage consumption and heat generated will be higher. Here are the maximum TGP rates for the RTX 40 series graphics cards:
Dell just dropped the price of one of its best gaming monitors to the lowest price ever, better than even Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Right now you can pick up an Alienware AW3423DWF 34" QD-OLED gaming monitor for only $552.49 after 15% off coupon code "MONITORS15". This is one of Alienware's highest end monitors, with a gorgeous QD OLED panel, WQHD resolution, and a respectable 165Hz refresh rate.
If you're in the market for a prebuilt gaming PC, Dell is one of best gaming brands we'd recommend. The Alienware gaming desktops offer a staggering array of options, all built into a custom chassis. Alienware gaming laptops in recent years have been redesigned to be thinner and lighter while still offering the same immense power under the hood. Consistent build quality, available inventory, frequent sales, and solid customer service are the main reasons why Dell is at the top of our buying list for gaming laptops and PCs.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
The Amateur offers a clever spin on a classic, globetrotting thriller thanks to its title character. It’s easy to cheer for officebound CIA cryptographer Charles Heller (Rami Malek), who transforms from Guy in a Chair to agent of retribution in the wake of his wife’s murder. It’s as though Q suddenly took center stage in a James Bond film – and yes, it’s funny that Malek played an actual Bond villain, given that 007 gets referenced along the way.
The story kicks off when Heller’s wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), takes a trip overseas, only to be killed when she gets swept up in a hostage crisis. After deciding his bosses aren’t doing enough to track down the culprits, Heller takes matters into his own hands – despite his lack of combat and field-work training. To work from a different secret-agent reference point: He’s MacGyver with a Vengeance, relying on ingenuity, intelligence, and resourcefulness to avenge Sarah’s death, rather than conventionally violent means.
Commendably, The Amateur doesn’t rush through Heller’s transformation into a skilled killer. When he tries to use a gun, he’s a terrible shot; even his most darkly clever plans have a notable learning curve, and we see him make some big mistakes early on. Malek’s innately introspective, thoughtful demeanor makes him a good fit for this type of role, though there are a couple of moments where it feels like he’s perhaps too introspective and some more overt emotions would feel appropriate. But when he’s, say, calmly and coldly laying out the intricate details of a bad guy’s impending doom, he sells us on Heller’s damaged psyche.
Among the supporting cast, Laurence Fishburne is, per usual, terrific, bringing just the right world-weary, seen-it-all attitude to his character, an old-school spy initially tasked with trying to train Heller as much as possible before going on a different journey as the story continues. Holt McCallany and Julianne Nicholson are also a lot of fun as Heller’s superiors at the CIA, engaging in a subtle showdown over what this rogue cryptographer is doing and the events that led up to it. It makes for an entertaining subplot.
Unfortunately, Brosnahan’s few scenes stick her with the thankless role of Heller’s Manic Pixie Dead Wife; another accomplished actor lost in the mix is Jon Bernthal, playing a badass field agent who seems like he’ll play a more significant part in Heller’s saga than he ultimately does. Better served is Outlander’s Caitríona Balfe, who is given the opportunity to convey loss and empathy as an ally Heller finds along the way – one whose own tragic past forges a connection between them.
Heller’s plot, and how he executes it, feels realistic within the larger-than-life world of spycraft depicted by director James Hawes and screenwriters Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli (and based on Robert Littell’s novel of the same name). Hawes does a good job of evoking an appealing, throwback spy/espionage story that engagingly cuts between Heller’s journey around the world and its ramifications back home. Nolan and Spinelli, meanwhile, take the spine of Littell’s story and effectively update it for modern times, complete with the use of spy technology that wasn’t possible at the start of the Cold War’s final decade. Their conclusion doesn’t quite hit the mark, but on a whole, The Amateur is a well-told tale of what happens when you push a spy’s tech-savvy support too far.
Some days I wake up and think, “I should probably act like a responsible adult.” Then I see deals like these and immediately revert to gremlin mode, hoarding peripherals and anime bundles like the digital dragon I aspire to be. ASUS went on a full-blown spree today, slashing prices on wireless headsets, featherweight mice, mechanical keyboards, and a decked-out wrist-rest model that basically demands a pinky-up gaming posture. And if that wasn’t enough to drain the wallet, Humble Bundle is tempting me with 29 volumes of post-apocalyptic vampire drama. I mean, who needs savings when you have style?
What really gets me about today’s lineup is how weirdly practical it all is — for gamer gear, anyway. The Cetra earbuds? Ideal for rage-queuing in Apex without broadcasting my choice words to the household. The Harpe mouse? So light it practically teleports. And the keyboards? One is tiny and portable; the other has a wrist rest thick enough to double as a nap pad. I’m not saying these are must-haves... but I’m also not not saying that. Let's break them down.
I’ve tried more wireless earbuds than I care to admit, but the Cetra lineup actually gets it right for gaming. I want latency low enough that my killshots sync with the sound of glory, not a second later. These deliver that, with the added bonus of active noise cancelation that’s good enough to block out my neighbor’s saxophone practice. The 27-hour battery life doesn’t hurt either, especially for marathon gaming sessions — or, let’s be honest, Netflix binges. Wireless charging is just the lazy cherry on top.
This thing weighs 54 grams. Fifty-four. I’ve had granola bars that were heavier. I think it’s illegal to call something this light a “mouse” without an asterisk. The Harpe’s low-latency tri-mode connection and snappy AimPoint sensor make it feel like an extension of my brain. If you’re the type to tweak DPI mid-match just because you can, this one’s built for you. Also, shout out to ASUS for not naming it something ridiculous like “ShadowFang X69 Ultra.”
Here’s the deal: for less than the price of a mediocre pizza, you get 29 volumes of vampire-fighting, post-apocalyptic drama illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano. I want this bundle just so I can say I finally read the source material instead of quoting the anime like a poser. And since it supports World Central Kitchen, I've checked off my good deed for the day whilst reading about bloodthirsty aristocrats. Win-win.
If the Harpe is the Ferrari of gaming mice, the Spatha is a tank with RGB. I mean, 12 programmable buttons, a magnetic charging stand, and enough battery life to outlast the apocalypse? I think this one’s for the MMO players and spreadsheet warriors who want their macros locked and loaded. The hot-swappable switches are a nice bonus for anyone who treats mice like seasonal accessories.
I grew up spamming Hadoukens, and now I can channel that energy into shiny cardboard form. I want the Collector Box because ripping open packs and chasing rare inserts scratches an itch I didn’t know I had. But if you’re a “go big or go home” kind of collector, the Inner Case ($240) or Master Case ($960) options are basically loot crates for adults — minus the digital regret.
I don’t always want a full keyboard taking up half my desk. The Falchion understands that. It's compact, mechanical, and still manages to squeeze in arrow keys and a weirdly satisfying touch panel for volume and macros. I love that it’s wireless but still offers USB-C when I’m feeling traditional. Bonus points for the cover case—it makes me feel like I’m carrying a fancy typewriter to a LAN party.
This one’s a mouthful in name and a handful in features. I think this keyboard is perfect for anyone who wants their setup to scream “I game and I have taste.” The wrist rest is plush, the switches are fast and precise, and the tri-mode connection lets me hop from work laptop to gaming rig like some sort of digital nomad. It’s absurdly overbuilt, and I kind of respect that.
I think this is one of the smartest ways to get your hands on an RTX 5070 without building from scratch or skimping on quality. MAINGEAR’s setup skips all the common bottlenecks — no mismatched parts, no airflow nightmares, no “good enough” corners cut. For $2,095, you’re getting a clean combo of a Ryzen 5 7600X CPU, 16GB of DDR5 RGB RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD, all assembled by people who care about things like cable management. It’s future-ready, quiet, and fast enough to leave your current rig feeling like a potato in comparison.
This tin is pure Pokémon chaos in the best way. You get one random promo card—Kyogre ex, Xerneas ex, or Dialga ex—and five booster packs; 2 x Surging Sparks, 1 x Stellar Crown, 1 x Temporal Forces and 1 x Obsidian Flames. It’s a fun, low-stakes gamble for collectors or casual players who want a shot at good pulls without needing to take out a second mortgage.
EDF is the kind of game where logic goes out the window and fun takes over, and this $25 Humble Bundle gives you the best of it — EDF 5, EDF 4, World Brothers 2, plus a ton of downloadable content. I think this is worth it just for the laugh-out-loud co-op mayhem alone, and it doesn’t hurt that part of the proceeds go to charity while you blast oversized bugs into space.
If your current microSD card loads like it's on a coffee break, or if you need to expand your Nintendo Switch 2 storage on launch day, this one’s a serious upgrade. I want this SanDisk Express card purely for the ridiculous transfer speeds — up to 880MB/s read and 650MB/s write. It’s built for 4K video, gaming, and surviving every possible disaster short of lava, and it’ll likely outlive every other accessory in your bag.
The Shining Fates Pikachu V Box is a great grab if you’re chasing shiny cards or just really into oversized electric rodents. You get a Pikachu V promo, a jumbo card version for display, and four Shining Fates booster packs. It's pricey, but Shining Fates is out of print.
This Skyrim Dragonborn helmet replica isn’t going to protect you in battle, but it will absolutely level up your desk setup. At just under six inches tall, it’s small enough to display but detailed enough to show off. I think it’s a solid collectible if you’re still emotionally tethered to Skyrim and have no shame in displaying that fact proudly.
This Shrouded Fable ETB is the kind of set that makes you feel like you’ve got your TCG life together. It comes with nine booster packs, a Pecharunt promo, energy cards, dice, and a nice little collector’s box to keep your chaos organized. Shrouded Fable is a slept on set, perfect for trainers who are sick of chasing Journey Together and Prismatic Evolutions stock.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
There's no surer way to grapple with one's mortality in 2025 than to realize that Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith is now 20 years old. But the silver lining there is that the movie is returning to theaters in May as part of Lucasfilm's anniversary celebration. And not only that, but author Matthew Stover's surprisingly excellent Revenge of the Sith novelization is also getting a 20th anniversary rerelease (you can preorder it at Amazon).
As revealed by Collider, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith is getting a new Deluxe Edition hardcover due out in October. In addition to new cover art and upgrades like red foil edge pages and a removable acetate jacket, the Deluxe Edition includes over 170 new annotations by Stover.
“We couldn’t be more excited to publish this incredible deluxe edition of the Revenge of the Sith novelization," said Tom Hoeler, Editorial Director of Fiction and Special Projects for Random House World, in a statement. "It has been thrilling to work with author Matthew Stover and Lucasfilm to create a fully annotated edition that gives readers unprecedented insight to the creation of this masterpiece. Across nearly 50 years of Star Wars books, it stands alone, and even among film novelizations its approach to adapting characters and story from screen to page is unique. Two decades later, this novelization is as essential, enduring, and influential – on readers and creators – as it has ever been. Bringing the book back to hardcover in a stunning deluxe keepsake edition is a perfect way to celebrate 20 years of Revenge of the Sith.”
For those who have never read Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelization, the book is widely regarded as being one of the best Star Wars novels, as well as being superior to the film itself. While it generally follows the plot of George Lucas' screenplay, the book greatly embellishes many scenes and subplots and offers a deeper look into the minds of characters like Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Count Dooku. The book also relies on a recurring system of second-person narration that stylistically sets it apart from the rest of the Star Wars line. Case in point, the following passage offers a much different take on Anakin's tragic reawakening as Darth Vader:
By comparison, here's how the film handles that scene:
And that's why sometimes it pays to crack open a book.
The Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith novelization is available in paperback and audiobook form now, with the Deluxe Edition hardcover releasing on October 14. You can preorder a copy on Amazon.
For more Star Wars funm why not check out the many Star Wars collectibles available on the IGN Store?
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
Minor spoilers ahead for A Minecraft Movie.
The team behind A Minecraft Movie revealed to IGN that one of the funniest moments in the video game adaptation was actually inspired by The NeverEnding Story.
There is a certain scene in A Minecraft Movie where Jack Black's Steve has to fly on Jason Momoa's Garrett because he only had enough Elytra wings for Garrett and Sebastian Hansen's Henry. It's a great moment of physical comedy where Steve has to climb all around him to save himself from falling hundreds of feet to the ground. And as it turns out, this was much more than an attempt at laughs.
"We definitely wanted a Falkor moment from The Neverending Story that was both majestic and beautiful, but also one that goes south pretty quickly," A Minecraft Movie director Jared Hess said.
"It was so funny in between takes when they cut," producer Torfi Frans Ólafsson added. "Jack is sitting on top of Jason and they're in this complicated rig... and Jack starts singing, because he does that in between scenes, but he starts singing the words to The NeverEnding Story and riding him like he's riding Falkor."
It's a funny call-back because Jack Black actually played Slip in The NeverEnding Story 3. And for Momoa, it was great because he was integral in bringing this scene to life.
"I got to participate in writing that, and this big guy [Jack Black] wanted to do it too," Momoa shared with a laugh. "This was after Top Gun: Maverick came out, so I also wanted to be able to go into into it and then hit the brakes and then have them slide down and I switcheroo on them. We were sitting there at the hotel dying about this idea of Jack and I doing this stunt and it made it [into the movie] and it's phenomenal."
"I don't know if it made it in the final cut because there were different versions of that scene, but it could have gone hard rated R," Jack Black noted. "In the end, I think we made it family-friendly!"
Momoa also hilariously went into a recreation of the two of them on set (watch the video to see this firsthand!).
"Let my hips guide you! You can't just ride me like I'm majestic," Momoa said. "I was dying, man. I was dying."
For more, check out our A Minecraft Movie review, how the team had a private server they played on while making the movie, and our explainer of the film's ending and post-credits scene.
Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.
Max is home to some incredibly high-quality films and shows, including House of the Dragon, Succession, The Penguin, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us, which has season 2 coming soon on Sunday, April 13. You can read our spoiler free The Last of Us season 2 review to see our thoughts.
If you've been hoping to start up an account to dig into that library, we're here to help. We're keeping track of the best price right now for Max subscriptions, along with any deals as they appear. This includes bundle deals like the Max, Hulu, and Disney+ bundle, which is one you absolutely don't want to miss out on. This mega bundle starts at just $16.99/month, which is an astonishing price to have three very popular streaming services right in the palm of your hand. You can learn more about that bundle deal and Max's subscription plans below.
The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle can be purchased on any of the three streaming services and starts at $16.99/month for the ad-supported tier or $29.99/month for ad-free access across all three platforms. If you're looking to cut down on streaming costs and currently own all three of these, this is an excellent bundle to invest in. It'll save you quite a bit compared to what you'd pay for the three of them separately per month – 43% on the ad-supported plan and 42% on the ad-free plan.
To learn more about how to get started with this bundle as a new or existing subscriber, head to our guide on how to get (or switch over to) the Disney+/Hulu/Max streaming bundle. It's worth signing up for this right now as well, given Hulu and Disney Plus have increased their prices, so you'll ultimately be saving money with this bundle.
If you're a student, you can score the Max Basic With Ads plan for just $4.99/month. That's 50% off the usual price, which is a very nice deal to take advantage of. In order to get the discount, you'll need to verify your student status with UNiDAYS, then you'll get a unique code that you can use to redeem the discounted plan.
If you're just looking to sign up for a Max subscription, you have four different options to choose from:
The Standard tier also allows users to download shows and movies to watch on the go. Both of the tiers allow up to two concurrent streams.
Max also has an additional Premium tier. The details are as follows:
There is currently no Max free trial available as of April 2025.
Alongside the big Max/Hulu/Disney+ bundle deal, Hulu also offers its own bundle deal with Max if you just want to have those two services. Simply pick out your Hulu base plan, which starts at $9.99/month, and then add Max to your account for an additional $9.99/month with the ad-supported plan or $16.99/month for the ad-free plan. If you'd like to learn more about Hulu's bundles, visit our page on Hulu's best bundles and deals right now.
Max brings together content from the old HBO Max service and Discovery+ under one roof. From Discovery, this includes programming from brands like HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Magnolia Network, and more. Some of the shows include Property Brothers, House Hunters, Fixer Upper, among others.
The service also maintains much of the content from HBO Max, including its slate of HBO Originals like The Last of Us, Euphoria, Succession, Barry, Curb Your Enthusiasm, White Lotus, House of the Dragon, and more. It also includes DC's slate of movies like Black Adam and The Batman, as well as other popular films like Dune: Part Two and Barbie. Plus, Max continues to house popular streaming series like Friends, Full House, and the Harry Potter movie collection.
In our updated 2024 review of Max, we gave it an 8/10, stating that, "For all its problems and an app that still runs a little too heavy, the extensive selection of well-curated choices make Max a worthwhile investment for cinema and TV lovers."
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
Original article from Logan Plant.
Considering what it offers, Disney Plus is one of the best streaming services on the block. From classic Disney animated films to the latest Marvel shows and Star Wars movies, excellent kids' programming like Bluey, and so much more, Disney Plus puts an incredible range of high-quality viewing options at your fingertips. And with so much to check out, including season 2 of Andor on April 22, you'll want to find a plan that best suits you. We're here to help.
At the moment, one of the best Disney Plus bundle deals available is the massive Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle. This starts at $16.99/month to get you all three streaming services with ads. It's one of the best bundles available at the moment, but we've included more Disney Plus bundle deals worth exploring below. If you're looking for more streaming deals from other services, check out the best Hulu deals and bundles and the best Max deals.
The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle can be purchased through any of the three streaming services and starts at $16.99/month for the ad-supported tier or $29.99/month for ad-free access across the three platforms.
If you currently own all three and want to cut down on costs, this is a great way to bundle them together and save big on what you'd pay for them separately per month – 43% on the ad-supported plan and 42% on the ad-free plan.
In an effort to crack down on password sharing, Disney has unveiled a paid sharing plan for individuals outside of your household. Basically, anyone using your account that's not within your household will have to be added as an "Extra Member" to your account. This costs an additional $6.99/month for the ad-supported Basic subscription and $9.99/month for the Premium ad-free plan, and only one Extra Member slot is available per account. You can learn more from Disney's paid sharing explainer here.
Disney+ is available in a couple of different tiers. You can get the least expensive option (called Disney+ Basic) for $9.99/month, which gives you access to everything except the ability to download select shows to watch on the go. This tier is ad supported. If you want to get rid of ads and be able to download certain shows, you can spring for the $15.99/month or $159.99/year Disney+ Premium package.
Want a way to save on your Disney+ membership? Bundles are a great, affordable way to go. As far as bundles go, there are two ad-supported bundles and two ad-free bundles. Here's the breakdown:
If you want to help someone out and give them a gift that will keep on giving, gifting a one-year Disney+ card is a great way to go. It provides all the great things Disney+ offers and it costs a fraction of what it would take to buy even a small sampling of those movies physically.
There is a bonkers array of shows and movies you can watch on Disney+. Let's start at the top and simply talk about the verticals on offer here with the base subscription.
Here's what you get:
On the Disney front, you have awesome classic movies like The Sword In The Stone, Robin Hood, 101 Dalmations, Hercules, and Sleeping Beauty, modern classics like The Princess & The Frog, Tangled, and Frozen, and a wide range of animated shows, including Phineas & Ferb.
You also gain access to a ton of vintage content like Escape to Witch Mountain, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, The Love Bug, and a whole lot more. The Disney Junior section is home to absolutely top tier animated shows like Bluey (which, for my money, is worth the price of admission on its own).
There's way more on offer, too, including a ton of Muppet movies, new live-action films and adaptions, nature programs, documentaries, Pirates of the Caribbean, and musical programs featuring Taylor Swift (like her wildly popular The Eras Tour), Elton John, Ed Sheeran, and more.
When it comes to computer generated films, Pixar stands alone. Kicking off the revolution with Toy Story, Pixar has consistently put out fantastic films, and they are all here. From the Toy Story series to Finding Nemo, Cars, and more recent hits like Inside Out 2, there is a ton to love.
Beyond even that, there are incredible shorts like Bao and Party Central, as well as a wide range of originals and series based on major films, such as Dory's Reef Cam, Forky Asks A Question, Cars On The Road, and more.
The MCU has become a true juggernaut, and there are many viewers who subscribe to Disney+ purely for access to nearly the entire MCU lineup of films and shows.
Whether you are a fan of the blockbuster action films, you are an appreciator of the classic 90s runs of "Saturday morning" cartoons like X-Men, or you are currently vibing to the funky theme of the 1981 Spider-Man series, there is a ton of Marvel to enjoy on Disney+. And with new movies and shows being added to the MCU all the time, including most recently Deadpool & Wolverine and Your Friendly Neigborhood Spider-Man, there is always more coming.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a film that changed everything. The original Star Wars is a seminal sci-fi fantasy work that inspired generations of creators, but there is still nothing quite like that far away galaxy. Disney+ grants access to all things Star Wars, including the remastered versions of the original trilogy (hopefully some day they'll add the theatrical cuts, too), as well as the prequels and sequels.
You can also stay up-to-date on all the latest shows, including The Mandalorian and the critically-lauded Andor, which some viewers say is "the best Star Wars has ever been." There are also fantastic short series like Star Wars Visions, and longer-form series like The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, Young Jedi Adventures, and a whole lot more.
Take a look at our list of Disney+ alernatives for additional streaming services. To play while you watch, see our roundup of the best LEGO Disney sets. For more deals, dive into our Daily Deals page.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
Original story from Brian Barnett.
In my opinion, the Amazon Kindle is one of the best electronic devices ever. Maybe the only piece of tech I use more than my Kindle is my phone, but even then, I have the Kindle app if I decide I just want to stick some knowledge into my craw. If you're on the hunt for a good deal on Kindle devices, there are some great discounts to check out right now on a selection of Kindle bundles.
At the moment our favorite deal is on the Kindle Essentials Bundle, which comes with a 2024 Kindle, a matcha colored fabric cover, and a power adapter for $146.97 ($15 less than what it would cost to buy them all separately.) We've included that deal and a few more below.
Kindle is one of the devices you're most likely to find on sale during Amazon events like Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday. The available Kindle lineup has expanded quite a lot over the years, too. Amazon will oftentimes sneak Kindle deals into its Deal of the Day or offer a bonus deal like free Kindle Unlimited or other Amazon services as well.
Amazon released quite a few brand-new Kindles in October 2024. Alongside upgraded versions of the standard Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, Kindle Kids, and Kindle Paperwhite Kids, they also revealed the brand-new Amazon Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition. This features a color display to make your favorite stories and comics pop. There's also a new Kindle Scribe with a redesigned display that's available now.
If you own a Kindle, it's absolutely worth investing in Kindle Unlimited. Right now, when you sign up, you can take advantage of a 30-day free trial before its $11.99/month price kicks in.
But you may be wondering: what is Kindle Unlimited, and is it really worth it? The answer is... absolutely, dear reader. With this, you'll get unlimited access to millions of digital titles, audiobooks, and magazine subscriptions. That way you can read all of the latest bestsellers, classics, biggest hits, and more in the realm of books and comics. What better way to get started on your Kindle adventure?
Wondering where to start once you pick up your new Kindle? Have no fear, we're here to help with that, too. Below, we've listed out the current Kindle bestsellers so you can start up an exciting new book right away. Some of these titles can be read for free if you're a Prime member or as part of Kindle Unlimited, or they can be purchased if you'd like to own them.
If you want to see the latest and greatest Kindle book deals available, there's an excellent variety to pick through. Whether you're looking for new comics to dig into or just want to sink into a thrilling novel, there's always great book deals available for Kindle users. We've listed just a few of our favorites below, but if you want to see the full list of available deals, head to Amazon's Kindle deals page here.
I've been rocking the Kindle since the earliest model was available, and not only do I prefer it to any other method of reading, I've found myself reading more than I would have with traditional paper books. Not that there's anything wrong with reading from a traditional book, I just personally appreciate the ease of use and form factor afforded me by the Kindle.
Since the Kindles use e-ink instead of traditional screens like your phone or iPad, they can be read in just about any lighting. In fact, the pages look like actual paper pages, so any artificial light or even bright sunlight are no factor when using the Kindle. It only uses energy when you turn the page, use the backlight or leave Wi-Fi turned on, so if you go into Airplane mode you can go weeks, even months, between charging your Kindle. Generally I go long enough to completely forget where I put my charging cable.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
With contributions from Seth Macy.
If you're looking for DTI codes, IGN's got you covered! In this article, you'll find a list of all the active and working Dress to Impress codes in April 2025 that you can redeem for free rewards and bonuses in DTI, including outfits and accessories like hats, bags, and jewelry.
Here are all the active Dress to Impress codes in April 2025 and the free rewards you get for redeeming them:
Below, you'll find a list of expired DTI codes that no longer work and can't be redeemed as of April 2025:
Follow the steps below to redeem Dress to Impress codes and claim free rewards in DTI:
If the code you're trying to redeem in DTI isn't working, it's likely because of one of two reasons:
When inputting a DTI code in Roblox, make sure it's spelled correctly (for example, a capital I isn't a lowercase l, 0 and not O, and vice versa) and that there are no spaces before or after the code. We'd recommend copying and pasting codes straight from our article to ensure they're correct as we've tested and verified that the codes on this page are working ourselves.
If your DTI code still isn't working after checking for typos, it's more than likely expired and can no longer be redeemed in Dress to Impress.
To get more Dress to Impress codes, the best way is to join the official DTI Discord server. While we check for new codes daily, the quickest way to know about new Dress to Impress codes is to follow the Roblox experience's official Discord server where updates are posted in real time.
You can also check the Dress to Impress X account and the official DTI Roblox Group page.
There aren't any upcoming Dress to Impress codes that we know of now that the April Fools' Day codes have been released, though the Petal Update is set to drop on April 26, 2025, so we will likely see a new code or two then. We'll update this page once we know more!
Dress to Impress is a popular dress-up Roblox Experience available on PC, console, and iOS and Android mobile devices. In it, you put on your best outfit to complete a specific theme and walk the runway in a bid to earn votes from other players and become a top model. As you gain votes, you gain ranks and can access more clothing and accessories, so make sure you're truly dressed to impress!
Meg Koepp is a Guides Editor on the IGN Guides team, with a focus on trends. When she's not working, you can find her playing an RPG or making miniatures.
© Warner Bros
© Koei Tecmo
Connexion