Marc Laidlaw wrote 400 Boys in 1981 aged 21, long before he ended up Valve’s lead writer and one of the chief creators of the Half-Life games. The short story was published in Omni magazine in 1983, before it was picked up for Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology and enjoyed a wider audience. On Marc’s website, at the bottom of the short story itself, he points out 400 Boys has probably been read by more people than anything else he’s written, except perhaps Dota 2 seasonal ad copy. Yes, the video game world knows Marc Laidlaw as the lead writer of the Half-Life series. But he’s done a lot more than video games. It’s funny how things work out.

In a post-apocalyptic city where warring gangs follow a bushido-like code of honor, a new gang, the 400 Boys, forces them to unite. A blend of beauty and brutality from Canadian director Robert Valley, whose LDR episode “Ice” won the Emmy for Outstanding Short Form Animation.

“The inspiration for it just came out of walking around,” Marc remembers. “I lived in Eugene, Oregon and there was always the phone poles with the names of bands that were playing in town, and it was just name after name of super cool bands, and I just wanted a way to do that. I just wanted to make up lots of band names. So I came up with the idea of, if I have all these gangs in the story, I can come up with names for all these different gangs and that would be fun. And it was funny. That was kind of the thing that drove a big part of the story, just wanting to make band names.”

As far as package-shipping simulators go, Deliver At All Costs more closely resembles drunk driving than it does Death Stranding. There's no need for complicated weight management or careful navigation through its 1950s small-town USA setting; instead, this kooky courier quest loads your pickup truck with increasingly quirky cargo and sends you careening through road signs, fences, shopfronts, and countless pedestrians, with almost every dispatched delivery quickly devolving into a full-on destruction derby. It’s a riotously good time for a while, but it soon starts to sputter out and eventually breaks down well before it reaches the end of its 10-hour journey when its nonsensical sci-fi story fails to pay off and this world turns out to be far more rewarding to reduce to rubble than it is to actually explore.

There is a plot connecting all of its street-shredding shipments, but honestly the less said about it, the better. You’re Winston Green, a likeable fresh hire at the We Deliver corporation who’s seemingly on the run after a mysterious incident in his past. Though it begins as a sort of goofy workplace comedy it soon makes jarring tonal shifts into corporate crime conspiracies and eventually a preposterous tale of time travel, before crashlanding into a fast-tracked climax that left me feeling about as hollow as someone who’s tried to make a meal out of packing peanuts. Deliver At All Costs’ story is a bit like a box of flatpacked furniture delivered from IKEA; it’s full of interesting parts to pore over, but once you’ve put it all together it seems noticeably wonkier than you expected and it’s clear that there’s more than a couple of screws loose.

The real star is the staggering destructibility of its world, which is viewed from your choice of two top-down angles. Pretty much everything above ground can be satisfyingly smashed asunder as you tear around in your delivery truck turning every apartment block into a potential Jenga tower. There’s admittedly an overly fragile and weightless feel to it all – it’s a bit like crashing through houses made of cards rather than bricks and mortar because you rarely feel the impact or lose momentum – but punching my own shortcuts through everything from hotel lobbies to tennis courts and tombstone-covered graveyards kept me consistently amused for at least the first half of the drive. I gleefully sped around chewing through scenery like I was Nicholas Cage in Face/Off. Pretty much the only time I pumped the brakes was when I had to keep something from spilling out of my truckbed, or whenever I hit one of the abrupt loading screens that separates each district of the three cities that make up its decently sized open-world map.

Can’t Hardly Freight

Deliver At All Costs’ 20-mission-long chain of violent cargo hauls aren’t so much door-to-door as they are wall-through-wall, but that’s not to say I didn’t face some resistance along the way. Different challenges are introduced in keeping with the object that’s dumped into the back of your truck or dragged behind you with a winch, and a few entertainingly wacky work orders had me laughing out loud. In one mission reminiscent of Pixar’s Up, I was hired to transport a bouquet of helium balloons, which meant that even the smallest bump in the road launched me into a clumsy aerial drift that left me struggling to stay on terra firma like a mailman on the moon’s surface. In another, I had to steer around a leaking tank of napalm that was igniting a growing wall of fire behind me, turning a simple pick-up and drop-off into a citywide game of Snake that blew me to smithereens if I attempted to double back on my delivery route.Then there was the time I had to drag a new statue of the local mayor towards the town square without it getting bombed by the swooping seagulls dropping their own special deliveries.

Unfortunately, though, there are almost as many duds in the mix as there are standouts. Being asked to drive recklessly to scare a limousine full of crooked executives doesn’t really come as a break from the norm when you’ve been otherwise hurtling around like a madman during each and every other job, for example. A mission to photograph a series of cows being abducted by a UFO can be passed simply by mindlessly spamming the camera button. Meanwhile, the on-foot retrieval of your stolen truck from under the nose of a patrolling security van becomes less of a daring infiltration into a scrapyard and more of a walk in the park because Deliver At All Costs’ stealth system is non-existent, to the point where you can just stroll in there unopposed with minimal thought or effort. That’s not to say the rest of the on-foot action is much better – pretty much whenever you’re forced to leave your car for more than a moment it becomes a dull stretch of basic platforming where your only actions are walk, jump, climb, and shove.

Haul or Nothing

Elsewhere in Deliver At All Costs there’s rarely any substantial consequences for your actions, and that makes it start to get dull sooner than it seems like it should. If you accidentally flip your car over it will automatically right itself. If you bust a tyre you can hop out and instantly repair it with the tap of a button. If you bring down an entire building because you’re doing doughnuts through all four corners of its foundations you will almost certainly draw the attention of the police (who, the intro movie explains, are all but non-existent in this island town), but you can instantly lose that heat by leaving your truck and diving into a dumpster – even without necessarily breaking the line of sight. In fact, even if you’re caught, you just instantly respawn with no punishment served anyway. On the one hand, the general lack of rules or repercussions gave me the freedom to drive as recklessly as I wanted to, but it also meant that almost everything felt noticeably low in stakes.

Sometimes, in fact, Deliver At All Costs is so forgiving that it completely sucks any tension out of the task at hand. Steering your delivery truck from one side of the city to the other with an armed atom bomb couched in its cargo bed shouldn’t just have you flirting with danger, but buying danger a drink, beckoning danger onto the dance floor, and giving danger an open-mouthed kiss. But in practice, it’s surprisingly lacking in intensity: there’s no ticking clock to pressure you into keeping your foot clamped down on the accelerator, allowing you to take things as slow and steady as you like. That means the only challenge here is to not drive like a maniac. Even when I did accidentally bump into a car and blow myself to bits, generous checkpoints meant that I was back on the road with my unstable payload with minimum penalty to my progress. I don’t want a game to be overly punishing, but there’s a happy medium to be struck that this one never manages to nail.

Elsewhere, and despite the consistently impressive amount of environmental detail to be found throughout its toy town world from Christmas tree-lined main streets to a giant drive-in theater projecting black and white films, there’s not a great deal of interesting activities to amuse yourself with when you’re off the clock. There are a further 10 side missions to be found dotted around the map, but few of them are particularly memorable. There’s a basic circuit race to place first in and a couple of missing persons to track down, but there’s little here to match the more creative courier tasks found in the main story path. Well, there’s one enjoyable exception that had me piloting a satanic sports car straight out of Stephen King’s Christine. Deliver At All Costs could’ve used a lot more like her to make its map call me back for more.

There are other unique vehicles to track down too, but these are uniformly disappointing on a number of counts. For one, their locations are clearly marked on the map from the outset, so you’re not provided with the same thrill of discovery of, say, a Forza Horizon barn find. You also don’t have a garage to store them in, and nor can you use them for a delivery mission, so they’re mainly there for a brief joyride before being ditched in favour of a return to your trusty We Deliver truck. Worse still, they don’t provide any real point of difference to make them even remotely worth the minimal effort to uncover – they each handle more or less the same, and there are no unique emergency missions to undertake in the ambulance or dessert drops in the ice cream van to trigger like you might find in a Grand Theft Auto game. They’re just sort of… there.

Another underwhelming factor is the upgrades you can weld onto your truck using spare parts found throughout the world (as ridiculous as it may be to open a giant chest to find someone has stashed a single roll of duct tape in it). They seem like they should open up new possibilities for mayhem and creativity in a world that’s as eager to be knocked down as this, but these, too, are disappointingly limited in their use. The crane is handy for the job that sees you load a giant marlin onto your truck and then literally fishtail your way to a drop-off point, but both it and the winch you get access to afterwards can’t actually be used outside of a mission to mess with objects at will. You can’t, say, attach the winch’s tow cable to a random car or pedestrian and drag them around town just for kicks like you can in Saints Row or Just Cause. You can supercharge your car horn to blast the windows out of shopfronts, but you can't use the cargo bed catapult at all outside of a handful of specific story moments. There’s a lot of potential for Deliver At All Costs to achieve the same sort of freeform fun that we see in games like Goat Simulator, but it just doesn’t give you enough flexibility to really revel in it after you’ve grown tired of blasting into people’s living rooms like a Kool-Aid Man on wheels.

The Last of Us’ hugely successful TV adaptation was confirmed for Season 3 before Season 2 even kicked off. But will it have a Season 4? Showrunner Craig Mazin has indicated a fourth season is pretty much essential for the series.

Speaking to Collider, Mazin agreed that in order to wrap up The Last of Us’ story from the two Naughty Dog-developed video games in Season 3 would mean Season 3 itself "would take forever." So, while there's a "decent chance" Season 3 will be longer than Season 2, at the end of the day "there’s no way to complete this narrative in a third season."

He continued: "Hopefully, we’ll earn our keep enough to come back and finish it in a fourth. That’s the most likely outcome."

Warning! Spoilers for The Last of Us follow:

Here’s Mazin’s quote in full, which includes a big spoiler for The Last of Us Season 2:

Yeah, and it would take forever. There are natural perforations in the narrative where you can go, “Okay, let’s tear it here.” I think there’s a decent chance that Season 3 will be longer than Season 2, just because the manner of that narrative and the opportunities it affords us are a little different. The thing about Joel’s death is that it’s so impactful. It’s such a narrative nuclear bomb that it’s hard to wander away from it. We can’t really take a break and move off to the side and do a Bill and Frank story. I’m not sure that will necessarily be true for Season 3. I think we’ll have a little more room there. But certainly, there’s no way to complete this narrative in a third season. Hopefully, we’ll earn our keep enough to come back and finish it in a fourth. That’s the most likely outcome.

The Last of Us premiered in January 2023 to major acclaim, even being touted by some as the best video game adaptation thus far. Season 1 collected a whopping eight Emmy awards out of the 24 nominations it received.

Season 2 sees leads Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal return as Ellie and Joel, alongside newcomer Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, a soldier who is dead set on revenge in the wake of losing someone close to her. Beef star Young Mazino, Alien: Romulus star Isabelle Merced, Captain America: Brave New World star Danny Ramirez, and legends Catherine O’Hara and Jeffrey Wright are also in Season 2.

In March, series creator Neil Druckmann cast doubt on the prospect of The Last of Us 3, saying: “I guess the only thing I would say is don’t bet on there being more of Last of Us. This could be it.”

But if there’s no The Last of Us 3, would Naughty Dog and Druckmann keep the TV show going past the games?

That’s the question IGN put to Druckmann himself on the red carpet ahead of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere, and he replied to say that while he has an ending of The Last of Us story in mind, because he’s not sure if he’ll get the chance to make The Last of Us 3, he’s leaving nothing on the line.

“I have to have an ending,” Druckmann said. “When I made The Last of Us 1, I didn’t know if there was going to be a sequel, so that had to be a definitive ending. When I worked on Uncharted 4, I don’t know if we’ll ever get to do it again. I need it to be a definitive ending. Last of Us 2, same way. All these things have to line up.

“I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing this or whether I’ll be given another opportunity. So I leave nothing on the line.

“Right now it’s like, we have an ending in mind. And that ending will be it. That ending will be it for this story.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Naughty Dog chief Neil Druckmann has revealed the studio has a secret, unannounced second game in the works other than Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

In an interview with the Press X to Continue podcast, Druckmann discussed his ongoing roles at Sony-owned Naughty Dog. On Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, Druckmann works with two game directors: Matthew Gallant and Kurt Margenau, and is co-writing the game with narrative director Claire Carré. Druckmann did not say which director is working on the second game, however.

“There’s another game that’s being worked on at Naughty Dog where I am more of a producer role and I get to mentor and watch this other team and give feedback and be like the executive in the room,” he said.

“I enjoy all those roles, and the fact I jump between one to the next, it makes my job very exciting and always feeling fresh. I’m never bored.”

It is unclear at which stage each game is in production. Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is announced, so you’d imagine it’s further along. But what is the second game?

There are some obvious candidates. Could it be The Last of Us 3? Druckmann has expressed his uncertainty in the past about being able to make the game, but has said he has an ending in mind for what the game would be. Based on Druckmann’s comments about having more of a producer role on this mystery second game, it doesn’t sound like it’s The Last of Us 3, as you’d imagine he’d want to be heavily involved and take on a director role for that game.

Alternatively, it could be another Uncharted game. There hasn’t been a brand new Uncharted game since 2017’s The Lost Legacy. Could it finally be time for a return? And there’s always a chance this second game could be a brand new intellectual property, as Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is.

It’s worth noting that there’s always a chance this second game never comes out, or is never properly revealed by Sony. Naughty Dog has endured a tumultuous time in recent years, with the cancelation of its The Last of Us multiplayer game to focus on single-player games coming amid an apparent pull-back of live service titles at Sony.

Naughty Dog stopped development on The Last of Us Online in December 2023, saying it would have needed to put all its resources into post-launch content for years to come — an approach that would have severely impacted its ability to develop future single-player games.

Historically, Naughty Dog has struggled to work on two big games at the same time, with one tending to end up top of the tree internally. The studio hasn’t released a brand new game since 2020’s The Last of Us 2, with remakes and collections in the interim.

With over a hundred years of history and a stacked portfolio of films and TV shows, it’s no surprise that Disney has its own horse in the competitive streaming service race. Since the inception of Disney+ in 2019, the streaming giant has grown its portfolio beyond its classic fairy tale roots and now boasts a catalogue of box office-busting films and bingeable series alike. From Star Wars to Marvel, you might be wondering: How can I stream Disney+ in 4K? Look no further, as our guide will run you through everything you’ll need, from subscription types to hardware.

How to Stream Disney+ in 4K

Unlike most streaming services on the market, Disney+ doesn’t require you to have a premium account to access 4K content. That means no matter what kind of subscription you’ve chosen, whether it be a bundle or basic plan, you’ll have access to 4K streaming on Disney+. So if you’re considering which bundle or account type to pick, the decisions will come down to what extras you’d like, such as offline downloads or ads.

Here are the current Disney+ US plans and their prices and what they include:

• Disney+ Basic (with Ads) – $9.99 per month
• Disney+ Premium (without Ads) – $15.99 per month
• Disney+ Hulu Bundle Basic (with Ads) – $10.99 per month
• Disney+ Hulu Bundle Premium (without Ads) – $19.99 per month
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Basic (with Ads) – $16.99 per month
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle Premium (without Ads) - $26.99 per month
• Disney+, Hulu, Max Bundle (with Ads) - $16.99 per month
• Disney+, Hulu, Max Bundle (without Ads) - $29.99 per month

Make Sure Your Setup Is 4K-Compatible

To stream Disney+ in 4K, you’ll need to ensure all aspects of your setup can support streaming in 4K. That means it’s not just your Smart TV that needs to be compatible, but also every other piece of hardware, too. If you use an Apple TV or Firestick, you’ll need to shop around for the 4K compatible versions. Same goes for buying a HDMI cable to connect your hardware.

One important caveat to consider is that, as of right now, streaming Disney+ in 4K is not possible on computer browsers. That means if you're using a laptop, your content will be limited.

Check Your Connection

When streaming 4K content on Disney+, there aren’t any internet settings to adjust, as the app automatically detects internet quality and adjusts your content’s video format accordingly. With that in mind, if you’re still running into problems, you can reset your device’s cache. To do this, we recommend following the official guide Disney+ has on its website.

Are There Other Ways to Watch Disney+ Movies and Shows in 4K ?

From keyrings to theme parks, Disney loves to flaunt its vast collection of iconic IPs. As such, the media conglomerate has released a slew of its best content as physical Blu-rays. From Marvel’s catalogue of high-octane superhero flicks to Pixar’s collection of heart-rending animated films, much of the Disney+ catalogue can be purchased separately from the platform. Better still, many seasons of Disney’s beloved TV shows have also found a home on 4K Blu-ray, including The Mandalorian, Loki, and Hawkeye, to name a few.

Even though your pile of shame’s already teetering and your backlog is the size of a felled sequoia, who are you and I to resist yet another bargain? Today's gaming treasure trove spans mischievous birds, noir cyborgs, and wizarding wonders, all at prices that’ll have your wallet breathing a sigh of relief. Whether you’re deep in console country or loyal to your trusty PC, there’s a little something here to make your day but ruin your bandwidth.

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro news, I'm lighting a 15-candle cake for WarioWare D.I.Y., one of my favourite Nintendo DS time-wasters. Nintendo essentially handed players the keys to the microgame factory and somehow didn’t burn the place down. Armed with a stylus and too much free time, you could compose janky 8-bit music, draw unhinged sprites, and script chaotic games that lasted all of five seconds but felt like fever dreams.

The tutorials starred Wario’s development crew trying (and mostly failing) to teach you game design basics without causing a workplace accident. Honestly, it was less Super Mario Maker and more Mario Paint meets GarageBand on a sugar high. It even let you upload your madness online, meaning no DS cartridge was safe from your homemade horrors. A beautiful, timeless mess.

Aussie bdays for notable games

- LostWinds (Wii) 2008. eBay

- WarioWare D.I.Y. (DS) 2010. eBay

- Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands (PS3,X360) 2010. Get

- L.A. Noire (PS3,X360) 2011. Get

- Transistor (PC) 2014. Get

- Fire Emblem Echoes: SoV (3DS) 2017. Sequels

Contents

• Nintendo
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC
• PC Gear
• LEGO
• Headphones
• TVs

Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch

Nintendo players can dash into Sonic Frontiers for A$49, a sprawling open zone adventure that lets the blue blur stretch his legs like never before. Or stir up some trouble in the minimalist mayhem of Untitled Goose Game, a local Melbourne creation that nabbed a BAFTA and inspired real-life goose protest signs.

• Sonic Frontiers (-51%) - A$49
• Sifu (-70%) - A$18
• Lego Ninjago Movie (-45%) - A$49
• Shin Megami Tensei V (-32%) - A$54
• Dragon Ball FighterZ (-44%) - A$50
• Untitled Goose Game (-50%) - A$15

Expiring Recent Deals

• The Witcher 3 Comp. (-75%) - A$19
• Lego Skywalker Saga (-80%) - A$17
• Dead Cells (-50%) - A$18
• Yooka-Laylee (-80%) - A$6
• Blasphemous (-75%) - A$9
• Unicorn Overlord (-36%) - A$61

Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.

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Exciting Bargains for Xbox

• Robocop- Alex Murphy Ed. (-90%) - A$10
• Metaphor: Refantazio (-27%) - A$83
• Mafia: The Old Country (-12%) - A$79
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps (-67%) - A$13
• No Man's Sky (-60%) - A$35

Xbox One

• Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (-51%) - A$39
• It Takes Two (-65%) - A$20
• Unravel Two (-75%) - A$7

Expiring Recent Deals

• NBA 2K25 (-68%) - A$38
• Seagate Expansion Card 1TB (-25%) - A$230
• UFC 5 (-65%) - A$39
• EA Sports FC 25 (-55%) - A$49
• Star Wars Outlaws (-64%) - A$40
• Red Dead 2 (-67%) - A$29
• Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (-90%) - A$10
• Mass Effect Leg. Ed. (-90%) - A$9

Or just invest in an Xbox Card.

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Pure Scores for PlayStation

• Ghost of Yōtei (-21%) - A$99
• Mafia: The Old Country (-12%) - A$79
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows (-19%) - A$0
• The Last of Us Part II Rem. (-14%) - A$69
• Cyberpunk 2077 (-35%) - A$71

PS4

• Ghost of Tsushima Dir. Cut (-58%) - A$46
• Spyro Reignited Trilogy (-65%) - A$24
• Tactics Ogre: Reborn (-21%) - A$55

Expiring Recent Deals

• Doom: The Dark Ages (-17%) - A$99
• Split Fiction (-16%) - A$59
• Star Wars Outlaws (-64%) - A$40
• 40K: Space Marine 2 (-27%) - A$79
• Judgment (-48%) - A$28
• UFC 5 (-65%) - A$39
• Octopath Traveler II (-32%) - A$57
• Night in the Woods (-50%) - A$14
• Rogue Legacy (-80%) - A$5

PS+ Monthly Freebies
Yours to keep from May 1 with this subscription

• Ark: Survival Ascended (PS5)
• Balatro (PS5/PS4)
• Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (PS5/PS4)

Or purchase a PS Store Card.

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Purchase Cheap for PC

• Elden Ring Nightreign (-12%) - A$55
• Dungeons of Hinterberg (-67%) - A$11
• Sleeping Dogs: Def. Ed. (-85%) - A$4
• Witcher 3 Comp. (-90%) - A$5
• Baldur's Gate 3 (-20%) - A$71

Or just get a Steam Wallet Card

Laptop Deals

• HP Envy x360 16" 2-in-1 (-39%) – A$1,399
• HP Laptop 15.6" Ryzen (-34%) – A$1,049
• ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 (-35%) – A$869
• Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 (-41%) – A$1,229
• Apple 2024 MacBook Air 15-inch (-16%) – A$2,094
• Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 (-36%) - A$879
• Lenovo ThinkBook 16 Gen7 (-27%) - A$1,018

Desktop Deals

• Lenovo neo 50q Gen 4 Tiny (-35%) – A$639
• Lenovo neo 50t Gen 5 Desk (-20%) – A$871.20
• Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (-29%) – A$1,899

Monitor Deals

• ARZOPA 16.1" 144Hz (-55%) – A$159.99
• Z-Edge 27" 240Hz (-15%) – A$237.99
• Gawfolk 34" WQHD (-28%) – A$359
• LG 27" Ultragear (-42%) – A$349

Component Deals

• MSI PRO B650M-A WiFi Motherboard (-41%) – A$229
• AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (-7%) – A$876
• Corsair Vengeance 32GB (-35%) – A$82
• Kingston FURY Beast 16GB (-30%) – A$48

Storage Deals

• Seagate One Touch Portable HDD (-24%) – A$228
• Kingston 1TB USB 3.2 SSD (-17%) – A$115
• SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO (-63%) – A$29
• SanDisk 32GB Ultra SDHC (-53%) – A$9.90

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Legit LEGO Deals

• Botanicals Daffodils (-48%) - A$12
• Minions’ Music Party Bus (-42%) - A$35
• Deep-Sea Research Submarine (-33%) - A$39
• Construction Steamroller (-33%) - A$10

Expiring Recent Deals

• Captain America: Civil War (-47%) - A$79
• TIE Fighter & X-Wing (-42%) - A$105
• Technic Porsche GT4 (-28%) - A$179
• F1 Garage Mercedes (-27%) - A$95

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Hot Headphones Deals

Audiophilia for less

• Galaxy Buds2 Pro (-31%) – A$239
• Technics Wireless NC (-33%) – A$365
• SoundPEATS Space (-25%) – A$56.99
• Sony MDR7506 Pro (-18%) – A$199

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Terrific TV Deals

Do right by your console, upgrade your telly

• LG 43" UT80 4K (-24%) – A$635
• Kogan 65" QLED 4K (-50%) – A$699
• Kogan 55" QLED 4K (-45%) – A$549
• LG 55" UT80 4K (-28%) – A$866

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The market is already chock full of RGB LED decor, but Govee has still managed to release a unique product that might just deserve a spot on your desk. The Govee Pixel Light, which was first unveiled at CES 2025, is finally available for purchase for immediate delivery. This is essentially a 52x32 or 32x32 LED array panel that allows you to display personalized content. Prices start at $119.99 with free shipping, but there's a 30% off coupon code "PX30". This would make for a very cool toy for streamers, or maybe even for tech savvy and gadget-happy dads, since Father's Day is fast approaching.

Save 30% Off Govee's New Pixel Light

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card is still nigh impossible to find a standalone GPU, and your best bet is to get it pre-installed in a ready-made gaming computer. HP is currently the only online retailer I've found that has an RTX 5090 prebuilt gaming PC priced under $5,000. It's at least $400 less than every other prebuilt 5090 configuration out there. You'll need to follow my directions to configure the options, and HP's estimated June 4 delivery seems pretty optimistic, but if you're bent on getting one of these cards then you have to put in the effort.

HP Omen 45L RTX 5090 Prebuilt Gaming PC for $4489.99

This list contains spoilers for the Mission: Impossible franchise.

A new Mission: Impossible film is hitting theaters this month – the final one in the franchise, if we’re to believe Tom Cruise and the suits at Paramount – and if you’re like us, you’re probably knee deep in a series rewatch right now.

The focus of the films, spectacular action set pieces aside, has been Cruise’s lead spy, Ethan Hunt. Fellow team agents have often come and gone, and supposedly impossible missions have varied time after time, but Ethan has remained. The only other constant has been a steady supply of villains – men and women with big plans fueled by greed and/or malice, who think they’ll be the one to outwit, outsmart, and outrun Hunt. Fools.

It might seem counterintuitive ranking the Mission: Impossible villains under the banner of “best,” but every great hero needs an equally great villain. Numerous elements come into play when determining the best villain, but we’re zeroing in on the scale of their threat, the weight of the violence (both physical and emotional) they commit against Hunt and his team, and the palpable degree of villainous charisma they exhibit.

So cue up that classic Lalo Schifrin theme, here are the 10 Best Mission: Impossible Villains, Ranked!

10. A.I. The Entity (Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One)

“A self-aware, self-learning, truth-eating digital parasite infesting all of cyberspace” sounds like a pretty cool threat in any other high-octane thriller, but in the Mission: Impossible franchise it’s only good enough to land at number ten. It underwhelms compared to its human counterparts, because let’s be real – zeroes and ones ain’t got shit and madness and guns – but its power and immense reach are undeniable. The Entity began “life” as a digital weapon designed by the U.S. government before going rogue and hopping through cyberspace with the giddiness of a puppy experiencing its first snowfall.

Most villainous act of villainy: While toying with and killing a submarine filled with Russian sailors is an act of murderous cruelty, it’s the Entity’s bigger, broader acts of deception that mark it as a true villain. Its early days of online manipulation saw it shifting public opinion and behavior through social media, and it’s a brutal reminder of events in the real world. We live in a present where people with nefarious agendas are influencing easily shaped minds, and with the increased use of A.I. in our online dealings, it’s not hard to imagine something like the Entity stepping in and really turning our daily lives into a nightmare.

9. John Musgrave (Mission: Impossible III)

Not every villain has direct blood on his hands, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less dangerous. Musgrave is Hunt’s Operations Manager at the IMF, and it’s suggested they may even be minor friends – understandable as he’s played by Billy Crudup, and who wouldn’t want to be friends with Billy Crudup. He brings Hunt in on a mission to rescue one of his proteges, Lindsey Farris, and when that goes wrong and Hunt is blamed for the fallout, it’s Musgrave who helps the agent escape to pursue justice. See? A friend.

Surprise! It’s all a ruse, and Musgrave is actually a traitor working with a man named Owen Davian on some elaborate plan to retrieve a piece of tech nicknamed “the rabbit’s foot.” Musgrave’s a hero in his own mind, though, as he’s hoping to use this as motivation for first strikes against enemy forces. He wants the U.S. and the IMF to play a more aggressive role in the fight against terrorism, and if that means supporting terrorists along the way, well, he’s all for it.

Most villainous act of villainy: Musgrave might think his heart is in the right place here, but in addition to enabling a murderous terrorist in Davian, he crosses an equally big line by pulling Ethan’s wife, Julia, into danger. Worse, he lets Davian shoot Julia in the head right in front of Hunt. Sure, she’s revealed to have been a minor henchwoman in a mask, but the emotional damage is real.

8. Kurt Hendricks (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)

While some villains act out of greed and others cause misery simply for the fun of it, Kurt Hendricks is a man who only wants the best for humanity. What is the best, you ask? Well, in Hendricks’ mind, our species would benefit from something of a cleanse. From the great biblical flood to the atomic bombing of Japanese cities during World War II, immense disasters lead to rebuilding, recovery, and real improvement… apparently.

Sounds logical, so Hendricks sets out to trigger just such a global debacle starting with a massive attack on the Kremlin in Moscow and leading to the acquisition of nuclear codes. He proves himself to be one of the greatest threats Ethan Hunt has faced to that point.

Except, and this is where casting comes into serious play, the film wants us to see him as a physical threat to Hunt – but that’s nearly impossible. Michael Nyqvist was a fantastic actor, and he makes for a compelling villain through dialogue and intent. But a serious contender in a fight with Cruise? It’s difficult to buy, but that doesn’t stop director Brad Bird from letting him go toe to toe with the film’s star for a weirdly long fight. (To be fair, Chad Stahelski started it by letting Nyqvist seemingly hold his own for a bit with Keanu Reeves in John Wick.) So, while Hendricks is a grand threat on the world stage, he tumbles some in the ranking here as an unserious brawler against the highly trained and in far better shape Hunt.

Most villainous act of villainy: Like Musgrave above, Hendricks seriously thinks he’s doing the world a favor by causing harm. His final act results in a nuclear missile being fired towards San Francisco, something that would have killed tens of thousands of people immediately before triggering the death of millions more. That’s no small thing, and he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling IMF agents.

7. August Walker (Mission: Impossible - Fallout)

Hunt and his IMF team have been betrayed by double agents and traitors on numerous occasions, but most of them are greedy middle-aged men in suits who don’t pose an immediate physical threat to our intrepid hero. August Walker is something different entirely. He towers over Hunt and is jacked from his mustache on down. Henry Cavill’s portrayal ensures that he’s already menacing even while pretending to be on Hunt’s side, but once the truth comes out, the gloves come off.

Walker is revealed to be working in cahoots with the brilliant Solomon Lane, and together they frame Hunt and once again pull the love of his life, Julia, into harm’s way. His motivation for it all is a bit over the top and dramatic – he wants the old world to implode and give rise to something better – but what else would you expect from a man who seems to cock his arms like guns during fist fights.

Most villainous act of villainy: Walker and Lane are planning to detonate nuclear bombs, and while the latter stays behind to die in his greatest act of terror, Walker is on a chopper heading to safety. Hunt, of course, catches up to him in pursuit of the detonator that’s needed to stop the countdown. While Walker could have easily escaped by giving up the detonator, his desire to cause suffering – especially Hunt’s suffering if Julia were to die – leads him to a one-on-one fight to the death with the agent. It’s a decision built on rage and self-righteous justification, and it rightfully ends in his painful demise.

6. Paris (Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One)

When it comes to villains in the Mission: Impossible universe, few can touch Pom Klementieff’s Paris on style and charisma points. A henchwoman to Gabriel, she lets her gleefully murderous skillset do most of her talking, and it’s a refreshing change of pace from baddies who seem compelled to share their life stories before pulling a trigger.

Her costume and face makeup see her stand apart from the crowd, but don’t let her doll-like appearance fool you. Paris is a merciless fighter who refuses to quit despite the odds, as evidenced by a shootout and car chase in Rome that sees her literally plowing through obstacles both human and otherwise in her pursuit of Hunt.

Most villainous act of villainy: While Paris makes mincemeat out of numerous threats, she ultimately succumbs to Hunt during an alleyway brawl. He spares her life, though, and after being punished by Gabriel – he basically tries to kill her – she chooses to betray both him and her villainous tendencies by saving Hunt’s life. Maybe I’m stretching the definition here, but it takes a real badass to turn your back on villainy with the discovery of unexpected morals and a change of heart.

5. Gabriel (Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning)

The mysterious Gabriel arrives in the penultimate entry of the franchise, and he’s a man with deadly skills and an alliance with the Entity. He also comes with a backstory suggesting an integral role in Ethan Hunt’s life. It seems Gabriel killed a woman named Marie thirty years ago, someone Hunt was apparently fond of, and it’s that murder that landed Hunt at the IMF – where he went on to save thousands of lives. Hundreds of thousands, even. So maybe Gabriel is a hero? I kid, I kid.

He’s obviously a villain, and he may even be something of a seer (?), but while his late-to-the-party franchise arrival unavoidably undercuts his dramatic weight, the character’s casting lifts Gabriel right back up again. Esai Morales brings real charm and a calm menace to the character, and it’s immediately made clear that he’s not someone to be trifled with. You believe both his physical abilities and deadly intentions, and Morales’ added dramatic weight makes him a real threat to Hunt. He also earns a bump in the rankings by gifting viewers with the best, most unforgettable villain death in the entire franchise.

Most villainous act of villainy: Gabriel’s killed a lot of people, and he even destroyed a rolling Agatha Christie landmark, so it’s clear he’s a bad guy. His most vicious act, though, comes as a bookend to having “fridged” Marie three decades earlier. Gabriel threatens to do it again by killing either Ilsa or Grace – Hunt’s current love interest or the woman who just landed in his lap mere hours ago – and while the film wants to trick viewers into thinking it’s going to be the latter, it’s Ilsa who dies by Gabriel’s blade instead. McQuarrie and Cruise are obviously the real villains here for introducing this tired trope of a woman’s death being responsible for a man’s life, but it’s ultimately Gabriel who thrusts the knife into Ilsa’s gut. It could have been Grace who died. Hell, it should have been Benji. Instead, Gabriel extinguishes the franchise’s brightest flame this side of Hunt himself. J’accuse!

4. Jim Phelps (Mission: Impossible)

Jim Phelps wasn’t the only friend/fellow agent to betray Hunt over the years, but he was the first – and arguably the most shocking. The character, as played by Peter Graves, was the IMF’s lead agent for the bulk of the television series’ seven-season run from 1966 to 1973. He was unquestionably a good guy, so there was no reason to suspect that his presence in the first Mission: Impossible film would be anything different – well, Jon Voight in the role was probably a clue.

Audiences expected Phelps to essentially hand the reins over to Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, but while he did just that, he did so with a major act of betrayal. As he tells Hunt once his ruse is discovered, the end of the Cold War threatens to end the need for the IMF – this is as naive a statement as ever uttered in the entirety of the franchise – and he was worried about becoming a relic barely scraping by on sixty-two thousand dollars a year.

Most villainous act of villainy: The betrayal itself is already brutal as Phelps turns his back on friends and agents who’ve risked their lives together over the years, but it’s the specifics of his traitorous act that hits hardest. In his effort to frame someone else for his crime, Phelps kills off three members of his team during an operation and then fakes his own death. What could have been a simple theft, instead becomes an act of cruelty making his betrayal sting even more.

3. Sean Ambrose (Mission: Impossible II)

“That was always the hardest part of having to portray you,” says ex-IMF agent Sean Ambrose to a beaten and angered Ethan Hunt, “grinning like an idiot every fifteen minutes.” That line alone makes Ambrose a top villain as it’s a terrific zing at both Hunt and Cruise himself. He’s equally dismissive of women as evidenced by his comment that they’re like monkeys when it comes to the men in their lives, that they “won’t let go of one branch until they get a grip on the next.” Say what you will about his greedy desires, but Ambrose (Dougray Scott) understands the assignment when it comes to being a charismatic villain.

That greed has led him to steal a deadly plague with plans to unleash it on whole populations if his demands aren’t met. While cash money is his primary motivator, though, Ambrose also seems fueled by a splash of jealousy towards Hunt. That makes their faceoffs all the more entertaining whether they’re jousting on motorcycles or sharing beatdowns in the sand as only the great John Woo can capture it.

Most villainous act of villainy: The film opens with Ambrose masquerading as Hunt in order to acquire the Chimera plague, but rather than just kill one man, Ambrose and his team crash an entire passenger jet filled with innocent civilians. Acts of terror would claim higher body counts in later films, but this puts faces to the dead in a far more direct way making it more personal and affecting.

2. Solomon Lane (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation)

Whether due to low pay or poor benefits, the world is seemingly overflowing with ex-government employees ready and willing to betray their nations and jump on the train to villain town. Solomon Lane is one such agent, but he goes a step or three further by helping create an organization called The Syndicate that’s built entirely on those bitter, trigger happy ex-agents. They want to sow chaos and reap financial rewards, and they’ve been doing it for years.

Lane is introduced killing a young, unarmed female agent right in front of Hunt, and it’s soon revealed that he’s responsible for thousands of deaths over the years through events made to look like accidents or the work of wholly unrelated perpetrators. Lane’s history of manipulating trust and the world’s various systems makes him one of the most dangerous villains in the franchise. He’s ahead of Hunt at every step, and his mantra – “The greater the suffering, the greater the peace.” – marks him as a man willing to do anything to accomplish his goals.

While many actors go big playing villains, Sean Harris takes the opposite approach and makes Lane a weasel of a man who you just want to see get beaten senseless. It’s an unusually bold choice that leaves him without a darkly appealing persona or personality – he’s just a very bad man who couldn’t care less about you or your loved ones.

Most villainous act of villainy: As the rare villain to be an active threat across more than one film, Lane inflicts plenty of pain, suffering, and stress on Hunt and his team. The bulk of his evil acts were committed before Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation even begins, but his cruelest and most personal action unfolds during the followup, Fallout. Along with August Walker, Lane manages to activate two nuclear bombs threatening not only the water supply for billions of people, but also the life of Hunt’s greatest love, Julia. Seeing her in harm’s way is the kind of gut punch that Hunt felt only once before, and it’s clear just how sorry he is that his choices have once again brought her so close to dying.

1. Owen Davian (Mission: Impossible III)

There’s a lot of competition when it comes to selecting the best villain in the Mission: Impossible franchise, but there was never any doubt who’d land at the top of the heap. Davian doesn’t care about much beyond his own wants and needs, and the film reflects that by never revealing exactly what his end goal is – we know he wants the so-called rabbit’s foot, but what it is and what it does are never made clear. We just know that Davian will cut through anyone and anything to get it, and that makes him an exceptionally dangerous man.

J.J. Abrams’ Mission: Impossible III is unfairly maligned, but even those underwhelmed by the film itself can’t help but applaud Philip Seymour Hall’s frighteningly effective and highly entertaining portrayal of Davian. His blistering stares, his lightning quick shifts from dead silence to raging outbursts, and his deceptively calm way of threatening everything that Hunt holds dear all work to make him a villain who commands the screen and even steals every scene from Cruise himself.

There may not be a big, global threat at play here, but Davian is the man who arguably gets closer than any other villain to actually killing Hunt. He injects the agent’s head with an explosive device that gets within seconds of churning Hunt’s brain tissue into ground beef, and he even gets some serious licks in while brawling. You wouldn’t think a Cruise versus Hoffman fight would convince, but the latter’s pure ferocity paired with Hunt’s incapacitation due to the pain in his head makes for a viciously compelling bout.

Most villainous act of villainy: Davian is a mean bastard who, while still in restraints, coldly threatens to murder Hunt’s fiance Julia. “I’m gonna make her bleed and cry and call out your name”, he says, and it’s one of the few times where Hunt’s legendary control tips into real fear and emotion. Davian later comes close to doing just that after abducting Julia, tying her up, and appearing to shoot her in the head. Hunt’s pain is palpable, and it’s enough to damage his heart to the point that he’d go on to never let someone that close again. Davian has literally halted Hunt’s ability to connect with someone on a deeply personal level, and it’s the kind of attack that bullets and bombs just can’t compete with.

Ahead of its official Memorial Day Sale event, Sonos is offering an extra 25% off its two most popular portable speakers: the compact and rugged Sonos Roam 2 and the bigger sounding and more feature rich Sonos Move 2. These deals are available from Sonos direct and at various retailers, although I recommend buying from a retailer to get faster shipping.

Sonos Move 2 for $336

Some of the best LEGO sets that have ever been created are now retired. While you can still find ways to buy them online, it is nearly impossible to find them below their original retail price. So if you find yourself face to face with a LEGO set that really sparks joy, it's best to pick it up before it's gone forever.

That being said, there are some rare cases when you can still find a set for below MSRP even after it gets retired. One such case is this current discount on the Green Hill Zone LEGO set at Amazon. It isn't much of a discount, but we don't expect it will still be at this price for much longer now that its been over five months since it was retired.

LEGO Sonic The Hedgehog – Green Hill Zone Sale

There’s no way to talk about mechanical keyboards without bringing up Cherry and their prolific brand of switches, which you’ll see in some of the best gaming keyboards throughout time. Following the introduction of the new generation of switch components last year, the accessory company highlights its new wares in the Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 keyboard. In what should have been a brilliant showcase for the company’s new product lineup, those fantastic new keys are marred by some odd design flaws on what’s otherwise a rather pleasant-feeling keyboard.

Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 – Design and Features

Cherry packed a few frills into the XTRFY MX 3.1. It’s a wired full-size keyboard complete with a full set of Cherry’s new MX2A Red mechanical switches. It’s available in black and white color schemes as well as a light pink edition, although that’s only available in Asian territories. You can spice up the look with full RGB customization and shine through the keycaps and vents on board’s sides. Inside the box, you’ll find only the keyboard, a sturdy braided USB-A to C cable, and in lieu of any adjustable legs built onto the keyboard itself, Cherry provides a pair of screw-on feet to adjust the keyboard’s height. It’s nice that there’s an option of some kind to change the angle at which the keyboard sits, but I wish there were something to make that adjustment quicker and easier for users to switch between positions on the fly. That’s just the first of my issues with the MX 3.1’s design, but thankfully, the majority of my complaints are skin deep.

Like other products in the XTRFY line, the MX 3.1 isn’t a particularly handsome piece of tech. Its key layout is crowded, eliminating the gaps between the main keyboard and the number pad area, leaving space only for a trio of notification lights above the arrow keys. However, while it should be saving space, it’s still about as wide as the full-sized Logitech G413 SE, which manages to give each section more room to breathe than the MX 3.1. Thankfully, in practice, the MX 3.1 manages not to feel as cramped as it looks.

The frame is comprised of a solid chunk of aluminum that’s machined into an angular base that houses the recessed switches and folds into feet on the front and rear edges. It’s flanked with dotted RGB side plates with a dotted pattern that aren’t quite flush with the frame – although it creates a sort of textured look, it makes the whole look of the keyboard rough and unpolished. The build quality is great, however, and doesn’t feel flimsy even if there are still a handful of edges that could use some cleaning up in its design philosophy.

Cherry is clearly aiming for the gaming crowd with the aesthetic of the XTRFY MX 3.1, going with a pseudo-futuristic look, but it feels like it’s living in the past. The stock keycaps are emblazoned with a sharp sci-fi-inspired font, making the unit as a whole look like some of the try-hard budget keyboards on sale over a decade ago. It’s not a complete eyesore, but it’s one of a few questionable choices Cherry made with the MX 3.1.

However, there are more confusing choices, specifically how some of the punctuation keys are depicted on the stock keycaps. When a key has multiple functions, the represented characters are oriented vertically, with the top character being the default and the bottom requiring a press of the Shift or Function keys. It’s a pretty standard configuration for most keyboards, except Cherry has decided that some of the punctuation keys have the same vertical orientation, while others are displayed horizontally. Here’s the kicker: there’s no consistency on whether the left or right character is supposed to be the default. For example, the bracket keys and forward slash, which are in line next to each other, are flip-flopped on each sequential key. It is truly a UX disaster.

Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 – Software and Customization

When it comes to making things colorful, the adjustable RGB lighting is one of the best aspects of the MX 3.1, and brings the overall aesthetics back from the brink of being irredeemable. Using the Cherry Utility software, the keyboard can be customized with a variety of pulsing, waving, or static lighting styles, including on the side plates. For those who want to get granular with the look of their setup, each key can be individually lit with bespoke colors, which thankfully is becoming more common, and is especially great to see here. The lighting, which illuminates the characters on each key, gives a neat underglow to the recessed base of the device, with bright, colorful luminescence pouring through each crevice.

The Cherry Utility allows for multiple profiles to switch up the lighting as well as changing the functions of individual keys. There are options to remap keys, create macros, add specific multimedia functions, or type out a pre-written 1000-character field of text with a single keystroke, which is great for mapping your passwords to a key. The utility itself is simplistic, splitting customization up into “Lighting” and “Actions” segments, which are easy to navigate and use. There’s not a lot to do, but it’s great that Cherry has a clean interface for users to easily make the MX 3.1 more their own.

Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 – Performance

The XTRFY MX 3.1’s saving grace is that it’s overall a pleasant keyboard to type with, especially for long periods of time. This is my first experience with Cherry’s MX2A Red switches, and I’m fairly impressed with how they feel. The switches require only a light touch to press, only 45g of actuation force, which is on the lower end of what Cherry offers with its various switches. As is pretty standard, each key has a total travel distance of 4.0mm and an actuation point in the direct center of that at 2.0mm. Cherry boasts that this reduces strain and fatigue when playing games and while I wouldn’t go as far as to fully endorse that statement, after a couple of weeks using the keyboard as my daily driver at work and while playing games, I haven’t come away from long sessions feeling like I needed to rest my hands and wrists.

Cherry claims the MX 3.1 is built to dampen the sound of its switches, and in practice, they’ve done a pretty great job. The MX2A Red switches are already designed as a linear switch which means it doesn’t have the clickiness of other Cherry switches, and when typing on the MX 3.1, it’s noticeably quiet. They aren’t completely silent, mind you, but they provide a satisfying sound like a couple of plastic measuring spoons gently tapping one another. There are layers within the keyboard to help dampening which isn’t visible without taking apart the chassis, but whatever it’s doing works really well.

The ABS keycaps themselves are largely unremarkable in look and feel, though they are comfortable enough to use. Laid out in the standard Cherry height and formation, the keys feel smooth when pressed. A common complaint about ABS keys is how they wear over time, and with Cherry suggesting these caps are abrasion-resistant, I gave them a minor stress test to find out. Lightly scraping a key with a small flathead screwdriver is obviously not a normal use case, but the tool hardly left a mark on the plastic. Pressing slightly harder did leave a more noticeable abrasion, but it’s hardly visible at a glance, and invisible enough to pass my quick test flying colors.

Amazon’s Memorial Day Sale is already in full swing, and with it, Apple’s latest iPad is back to its lowest price ever. The classic 11-inch iPad with an A16 processor just came out in March, and we’re excited to see it already getting discounted. It’s rare for these sales to happen so soon after an Apple release. However, this isn’t even the first time it’s dropped in price, as the newest iPad had $50 knocked off a couple weeks ago, with the same savings leading up to the unofficial start to summer this weekend. Right now, every color of the iPad is a great deal, so grab an option that fits your aesthetic while it lasts.

The 11th-generation iPad isn’t the only iPad model seeing discounts right now; a bunch of Apple’s latest tablets, including the iPad Air (2025) and iPad mini (2024), plus some other great tablets, are on sale before the holiday weekend.

Score $50 off the new 2025 Apple iPad (A16)

With its combination of affordability and capability, the 11th-generation iPad is the best iPad model for most people. This iPad has slight upgrades from previous generations. Most notably, it now comes with an A16 processor rather than an A14, making for even snappier performance in everyday tasks from scrolling socials to streaming. Base storage also doubled to 128GB, leaving extra space to download apps and games, while the screen only got a minuscule size increase from 10.9 inches to 11 inches. But even with these changes, Apple didn’t up the cost from the 10th-generation model, so the starting price is just $349.

Not much else has changed with the newest iPad. It looks nearly identical and still offers the same Wi-Fi 6 connection, camera, and USB-C charging. Support for Apple’s Magic Folio keyboard and the Apple Pencil (USB-C) also makes it a viable option for lighter workflows, but if you're after serious power, the iPad Air or iPad Pro may be a better option.

Save up to $100 on the Latest iPad Air (M3) models

Amazon dropped one of the best games of 2024 to the lowest price I've seen. As part of the Amazon Memorial Day Sale, you can pick up a physical copy of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 for PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X for just $39.99. That's 43% off the $70 list price and beats the previous price low (during last year's Black Friday) by $10.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (PS5, Xbox) for $39.99

Memorial Day weekend is still a full work week away, but the sales have already arrived at some of the biggest online retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. While prices may not be quite as good as Prime Day or the Black Friday season, these discounts are still a great opportunity to save money. To help you sort through what's live and what isn't, I've put together a quick list of all of the biggest Memorial Day sales already happening ahead of the weekend. I'll be updating this page with all of the new sales as they go live this week.

The Best Memorial Day Sales Live Now

I've been covering and shopping Memorial Day sales for years and, honestly, I'm not that impressed with the discounts we've seen so far. That being said, it is still really early in the week and I expect to see prices drop a bit more before the weekend. Memorial Day isn't until May 26 this year, and many smaller retailers will likely launch their sales closer to the actual holiday weekend.

Should you shop Memorial Day sales or wait for better discounts?

The biggest question around Memorial Day sales in general is whether you should shop now or wait for better deals later in the year. In the past, we could usually count on upcoming sales events like Prime Day and Black Friday to have the lowest prices of the year on just about everything. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of confusion around tariffs and price increases in 2025 and it seems almost certain that baseline prices on many goods in the U.S. are probably going to go up before the end of the year.

If you're hoping to save as much money as possible in 2025, Memorial Day sales are definitely worth considering. Tariffs on most Chinese imports are likely to affect prices later in the year, so if you find a really good price on something you need right now, don't hesitate to pick it up before the price can go up.

What Should You Buy During Memorial Day Sales?

While there are certainly exceptions, I have generally found that the best Memorial Day sales tend to be for the same few categories every year. Unlike bigger shopping events like Black Friday, discounts tend to be more focused around home goods, consumer electronics, and clothing. Here's a quick breakdown of what is absolutely worth buying during Memorial Day weekend.

Furniture

Perhaps the overall best thing to buy during Memorial Day sales is furniture. Unless you're getting a really cheap nightstand from Ikea, furniture is generally expensive. Memorial Day deals are an excellent time to save a ton of money on pretty much every type of furniture, including desks, gaming chairs, and outdoor patio options. While you can find these deals at most major retailers like Amazon, Target, and Walmart, I'd recommend starting with the Wayfair Memorial Day sale.

The Crunchyroll Store is currently offering a 30% discount on all Viz Media books. Anyone familiar with manga knows Viz is a primary publisher of official English translations, so the sale includes a wide range of individual tankōbon volumes, as well as deluxe editions, art books, and even coloring books. With more than 2,000 volumes of manga on sale, every type of manga reader should be able to find something. While there are plenty of options for reading manga online, there's always something special about flipping through the pages of your favorite series and getting to see it on your shelf.

Although Crunchyroll usually struggles to match Amazon prices, many of the manga deals I've listed here have actually gone lower. Otherwise, you can shop the full sale here. It ends tonight, so if you’re trying to stock up, now’s your chance.

30% Off Viz Manga at Crunchyroll Store

The sale is a great opportunity to try out a new manga or pick up new volumes of something you’ve already been reading (online or otherwise). Highlights include every single volume of Dan Da Dan, which is about to start airing its second anime season. In general, the sale is a great opportunity to check out the manga that inspired recent anime hits like Sakamoto Days and Frieren.

Of course, if we’re talking about iconic anime, you'll also find discounts on classics like Dragon Ball, One Piece, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. One series I personally recommend that hasn't gotten an anime adaptation (at least not yet) is Kagurabachi. Otherwise, your best bet is scrolling through the full sale, which you can sort by individual series.

Art Books Also Included

Viz Media also publishes a substantial amount of art books and other physical merchandise. Aside from the standard slate of popular manga, these publications highlight authors like Junji Ito and animation giants like Studio Ghibli.

Do You Need a Crunchyroll Account to Shop the Sale?

Three gaming monitors have been announced at Computex that are pushing the limit on refresh rates. The fastest of these shown off at the giant computing trade show in Taipei is the Asus ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG, a 1080p display with a 610Hz refresh rate. Both MSI and Acer have released 1440p displays with 500Hz refresh rates – a spec you'd be hard pressed to drive, even with an RTX 5090 and multi-frame generation.

Acer's model is the Predator X27U F5, which is not only fast but also has a QD-OLED display, so it'll have incredible color accuracy. Currently, this monitor is only launching in Europe and China, starting at €899. I have reached out to Acer, and it said that the monitor will be coming to the US eventually, but wouldn't share a price on it. Acer attributes this delay in pricing to Tarriffs, and it's actively negotiating its pricing with retailers. The company will announce the US price closer to the X27U F5 hitting store shelves, but given how expensive tech products are getting here, I wouldn't hold my breath that it'll be affordable.

MSI is also launching a QD-OLED panel with the 27-inch MPG 271QR X50, though it didn't share pricing information. What's interesting here isn't necessarily the fast, beautiful panel, but a cool AI feature. According to a report from PC Gamer, which went hands-on with it, the monitor has a tiny sensor at the bottom of the display that'll sense when you move away. It then sends that data to an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) so the display automatically turns off, starting its burn-in protection.

Burn-in protection is common in any OLED display, especially in a gaming monitor that'll have static images just sitting there over most of its lifespan. The monitor shuts off periodically to refresh the pixels and prevent burn-in. While having it be AI-based is a little spooky, it's at least better than the OLED protection popping on when you're in the middle of something.

Do Gaming Monitors Need to Be This Fast?

It's a little wild that we're getting three monitors that are this fast, but the Asus ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG obviously takes the cake. Even at 1080p, a 610Hz display is incredibly fast, even in a time where we have Nvidia's multi-frame generation boosting frame rates higher than ever. Even in a game like Marvel Rivals, you're going to need an RTX 5090 to hit that frame rate, and that'd require multi-frame generation, which is generally not advised in competitive games as it adds a little bit of latency.

You'd need more than just a powerful graphics card with this kind of refresh rate; you'd need one hell of a CPU, too. You see, at these super-high frame rates, your CPU needs to be powerful enough to keep your graphics card fed with data. Technology like Nvidia Reflex and frame generation mitigates that to a point, but when you start getting up around 600-ish fps, you're going to need a powerful CPU regardless.

However, if you were able to render a game that quickly – especially if you didn't have to use frame generation to get there – you'd get incredibly low render latency, which is a huge deal for competitive games. After all, there's a reason why competitive Counter-Strike 2 players run the game on the lowest settings, even though the game can run on a potato: A higher frame rate means less input lag, and that can be the difference between life and death. Whether or not that'll be worth the doubtlessly expensive price tag for most people is another question.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

The Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is filing an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Epic Games, after the company implemented an AI-voiced Darth Vader NPC in Fortnite last week.

The complaint, which can be viewed here, alleges that over the last six months, Llama Productions (owned by Epic Games) has failed to bargain in good faith with SAG-AFTRA's video game actors and has made "unilateral changes to terms and conditions of employment, without providing notice to the union or the opportunity to bargain, by utilizing AI-generated voices to replace bargaining unit work" on Fortnite.

Fortnite added the AI Darth Vader last week, as an NPC character that can join or leave your Fortnite squad and have conversations with players over voice chat in the persona of Darth Vader. Though the AI Darth Vader has been programmed to offer support for individuals who express they might be struggling with mental health, Epic Games also had to patch it almost immediately after it launched to keep it from dropping F-bombs.

It might seem early, but Best Buy’s Memorial Day sale for 2025 is already live. You can hit up the big blue retailer to save on basically every category of item it sells, including TVs, laptops, iPads, gaming PCs and, yes, appliances. Below, I’ve picked out some of the best deals available in the Best Buy Memorial Day sale, but you can visit the sale page to see a whole lot more, divided handily by category. Without further ado, let’s hop in.

Best Buy Memorial Day Sale 2025

The main draw for a lot of people during Memorial Day sales is appliances, and Best Buy has plenty of discounts in that department. You can save up to 50% off refrigerators, washers, dryers, ovens, dishwashers, and more. Most of the major brands are accounted for, from Whirlpool and Frigidaire to Samsung and LG. If you have an aging appliance that’s acting up, now is a good time to pick up a replacement.

In addition to all that, you can save on gaming PCs and laptops, as well as more work-oriented machines. Monitors, mice, keyboards, and other accessories are also on sale. Apple products, from the souped-up Apple Watch Ultra 2 to iPads of all stripes, are on sale. OLED TVs are the best-looking ones on the market, and a bunch of them are on sale, including the LG C4, our pick for the best high-end 4K TV.

Springtime is a big one for yard work, and gas-powered tools are on their way out. If you could use some new battery-powered tools, you can actually get a free 80V battery when you buy select Greenworks tools. This includes items like leaf blowers, string trimmers, lawn mowers, and chainsaws.

A whole lot more items (and entire categories of items) are on sale, from pizza ovens to electric scooters. So take a look at the sale and pick up whatever you could use. The sale ends May 26, so you have a bit of time yet.

More Memorial Day Sales Already Live

In addition to Best Buy, many other retailers have decided to launch their sales early. The Amazon Memorial Day sale started last week and both Walmart and Target also have new deals for the event. If you're looking to save some money this week, here are some of the other biggest sales worth shopping right now.

Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.

The best computer monitors don't usually come cheap, but that doesn't mean you need to go broke to pair great picture quality with your PC. In fact, as technology has advanced, it's more possible than ever to have a great viewing experience at a relatively low cost. Features, resolutions, and high refresh rates have all trickled down to affordable prices, and I've done the research to help you find the best of the best. These are the top budget monitors of 2025.

TL;DR – These Are the Best Budget Monitors:

I've been a PC builder for more than 20 years and have spent the last 12 years as a tech journalist trying the latest and greatest gadgets, including monitors, from the biggest brands available today. I know what it takes to find a great monitor for different kinds of users. Having spent most of my life counting every last penny in my budget, I know what it's like to have limited funds to devote to a PC.

But one of the key things I’ve learned is that your monitor is one of the most important aspects of your computing experience. A great monitor will engage you, satisfy you, and make you want to spend more time at your PC. A bad display will just remind you of cut corners every time you sit down to work or play a game.

In this guide, I’ve pulled together the best on a budget so you can receive the very best value out of every dollar you have to spend.

1. Asus TUF Gaming VG279QM

Best Budget Monitor

For less than $250, the Asus TUF Gaming VG279QM is a value king. It’s more than up to the challenge for everything from daily work tasks to high-end competitive gaming. Compared to most competitors even at the $300 mark and higher, it offers better performance and, most importantly, a better viewing experience all around.

The heart of the VG279QM is its well-tuned IPS panel. At 27 inches, it’s spacious enough to really maximize its 1080p resolution. Since it’s an IPS, you can count on great colors and viewing angles. It’s the perfect screen for sharing your work with a colleague or letting a friend watch on as you demonstrate your latest strategy in Rocket League. The panel also rises to 400 nits of peak brightness, so it looks vibrant even in a brightly lit room.

Speaking of gaming, this monitor is incredibly well suited to deliver an outstanding gaming experience. It offers a refresh rate that extends all the way to 280Hz for ultra-smooth gameplay with reduced motion blur. It’s tuned for speed in response time too, with a 1ms gray-to-gray transition speed, so ghosting simply shouldn’t be an issue. On top of that, it also sports adaptive sync with support for AMD FreeSync and compatibility with Nvidia G-Sync for added smoothness across frame rates.

I wasn’t the reviewer on this particular model, but my colleague, Whitson Gordon, did the honors for testing and sharing his impressions. Even at its $400, he scored this display a 9/10, which is Amazing on our scale. And it’s no wonder. The Asus TUF Gaming VG279QM is a well-rounded, well-tuned, and high-performing option that anyone on a budget would be wise to consider.

2. Arzopa M3RC - 32" 4K 144Hz Gaming Monitor

Best Budget 4K Monitor

How is this monitor so cheap? That's the question I asked myself when I first discovered the Arzopa M3RC 32-inch 4K 144Hz monitor. It wasn't that long ago that 4K 144Hz monitors were closer to or even more than $1,000. And yet, the ever-onward march of technology has finally allowed 4K high refresh rate displays to become financially accessible.

Priced around $300, this monitor offers a lot for a very reasonable price. In addition to its resolution and refresh rate, it comes with a color-rich and surprisingly accurate IPS panel. You don't need to worry about slow response time with this monitor either because it carries the same 1ms input latency as many of the best gaming monitors.

Usually you would expect a display with such solid specs at this price to cut corners when it comes to connectivity, but that's not the case here. In addition to its pair of HDMI 2.1 ports and its DisplayPort 1.4 jack, it also includes USB Type-C video and a two-port USB 2.0 hub for connecting peripherals. This makes it a good fit for dual purposing with a console if you have gaming in mind. But for productivity, it's also easier than ever to connect a laptop and your mouse and keyboard to get up and running quickly.

I do have to caution you, however. If you plan to use this monitor for gaming, you'll need a powerful GPU to push anywhere near the frames and the fps to take advantage of its full refresh rate. It's hard to get any kind of modern game running close to 144fps (though it's easier now that Nvidia DLSS Multi Frame Generation is a thing). Even if you're not maxing out its refresh rate, you can still enjoy the benefits of reduced input latency and, with a compatible GPU, low frame rate compensation for smooth gameplay.

So, what do you sacrifice? The biggest thing is that its brightness peaks at only 350 nits, so it's definitely not the brightest display around. As long as you're not gaming in direct sunlight, it will work just fine. Just don't plan on any kind of "true" HDR gaming experience due to this, as well as its lack of local dimming support. Arzopa is still an up-and-coming brand as well, so it takes a bit of faith to pull the trigger on a purchase. But you can take some reassurance in its stellar reputation in the portable monitor scene.

Still, at this price, it's worth a leap of faith, and current users seem to love it.

3. AOC Agon Gaming Q27G40XMN Mini-LED Gaming Monitor

Best Budget 1440p Monitor

The AOC Agon Gaming Q27G40XMN gaming monitor is currently one of the best values in gaming monitors today, full stop. That's because it uses a mini-LED backlight to deliver a true 1,000-nit HDR experience while also offering enough local dimming zones to balance that out with great contrast. This doesn't make a big difference for productivity, but for any kind of entertainment, this display simply excels.

The AOC Agon Gaming Q27G40XMN isn't the only affordably priced mini-LED monitor, but it’s currently the best. It's a successor to AOC's earlier mainstream mini-LED, the Q27G3XMN. Unlike that display, as well as pretty much all of the other competition remotely near this price (as of this writing, anyway), it offers a whopping 1,152 local dimming zones. That's more than triple its predecessor (and most competitors) and enough to offer pinpoint brightness and contrast.

In combination with its exceptionally high peak brightness of 1,000 nits, it can offer real high dynamic range. At this price, it's common to see gimmicks like HDR 400, which translates to "HDR-compatible" rather than actually being able to display a wide dynamic range. This monitor offers a ticket into a viewing experience usually reserved for displays that cost hundreds of dollars more.

I reviewed a very similar monitor from Xiaomi, which is sadly no longer available, and was absolutely blown away. The Q27G40XMN takes that baton and runs with it. Its screen is spacious and crisp, and with a 180Hz refresh rate, motion is smooth and crisp even in fast motion. It’s killer for gaming, but its local dimming is so good that I left it on all the time.

This monitor does have at least one major drawback: connectivity. You can count on a single HDMI 2.0 port and a single DisplayPort 1.4. There's no USB hub, not even a headphone jack. But you know what? Foregoing extras for such an improved picture and viewing experience feels completely fair after spending some time with this monitor for 1440p on a budget. You owe it to yourself to give this one a closer look.

4. Samsung Odyssey G3 (G30D)

Best Budget 1080p Monitor

For a range of reasons, shopping for a great 1080p monitor on a budget can feel extra confusing. Because the prices tend to be lower, there also tend to be more options flooding search results that all promise to be amazing in every way that matters most. In cases like these, it's possible to find a great display from a brand you may never have heard of before, but it can also come with great peace of mind when you can find a stellar pick from a major brand with proven quality and warranty service.

Enter the Samsung Odyssey G3 (G30D), a monitor that checks all of the boxes for quality and price with the confidence that comes with a product produced by one of the biggest brands in the business. It's available in three sizes: 24, 27, and 32 inches. Though this particular recommendation is for the 24 inch, which frequently goes on sale for $150 or less, I would just as enthusiastically recommend the 27 inch if it happened to be on sale instead. (The sizes tend to trade sale prices at different times.) With a resolution of 1080p, however, I would recommend avoiding the 32-inch variant, as it's likely you'll experience a bit of screen door effect due to its larger size.

Its IPS panel offers great color reproduction and solid viewing angles when you need to share your screen. This is reinforced by its ergonomic stand, which allows you to adjust it for height, angle, pivot, and rotation. It can even be turned into portrait mode, making it a good option as a second display to show long pages like chat logs for your stream or the code you're currently working on.

It's not the brightest at 250 nits but still manages to look good due to the quality tuning Samsung has applied. If you plan on playing games, you'll appreciate its seamless support for AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync, as well as its 180Hz refresh rate. It also comes with a Black Equalizer setting to help you peek into the shadows in competitive shooters and a built-in reticle for aiming in games that lack one.

Its connectivity isn't great, offering one HDMI port and one DisplayPort. There's also no USB hub or charging ports to power up your phone through the day. It might not be the best fit if you're looking to connect two machines at once or for extra frills in addition to your viewing experience, but it offers a good picture with quality support and frequent sales that lend it an especially accessible price point.

5. Dell S3422DWG Curved Gaming Monitor

Best Budget Ultrawide Monitor

If you crave more space, look no further than the Dell S3422DWG. This ultrawide monitor is ostensibly aimed at gamers but has a lot to offer everyday users too. It's a bit on the pricier side at around $400, but with everything it offers, it's fair and more than a little compelling.

Affordably priced ultrawides frequently use the 21:9 version of 1080p (2560x1080). While this is fine, the Dell S3422DWG instead offers its take on 1440p, coming in with a total resolution of 3440x1440. This makes for a significantly crisper picture while still requiring mid-level hardware for a quality gaming experience. For productivity, it won't be a concern for most people, and you'll be able to enjoy a more detailed picture without more to consider.

Unlike most monitors around this price, the S34 supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. Like normal FreeSync, this synchronizes the monitor's refresh rate with the frame rate currently output by your GPU for a smoother experience without screen tearing. It adds on to this with low frame rate compensation, HDR support, and wide color gamut support. Put simply, it has AMD's stamp of approval for the quality of its viewing experience.

Of course, it doesn't quite reach the 1,000-nit and local dimming requirements; that's a tall order for any monitor around this price, but that doesn't mean it doesn't offer something extra. In SDR mode, it's able to run at 400 nits, but set Windows to HDR, and that bumps it to just above 500 nits, which is exceptionally bright for an affordable monitor with a traditional backlight.

Its panel is also quite high quality. It supports 10-bit color with 99% coverage of the sRGB color space and 90% of the DCI-P3 gamut. Unfortunately, its out-of-box calibration leaves something to be desired, but the panel is certainly capable of being dialed in to near-professional standards. For gaming, it has a fast 1ms response time and a fluid 144Hz refresh rate.

As one of the most expensive monitors on this list, you would rightfully expect some frills, and the S34 delivers. It comes with two HDMI ports and a DisplayPort 1.2, has an integrated sound card to power its headset jack, and features a three-port USB Type-A hub, as well as an additional 2A Type-A charging port.

All in all, this is a killer and affordable way to enter the ultra-wide game. But be warned, once you get used to 21:9, it's hard to go back – especially if you're a content creator that works with video timelines.

6. Arzopa Z1FC 144Hz Gaming Monitor

Best Budget Portable Monitor

How to Choose the Best Budget Monitor

If you're on the hunt for the best bang-for-your-buck monitor, you're probably already aware of just how much there is to consider. The market is drowning in options right now, but there are a few key things you should look for to make sure you get the monitor that best meets your needs.

Here's what to keep an eye out for:

Resolution: A monitor's resolution is a measurement of how many pixels make up the screen. It is usually represented by two measurements separated by an x. The most common resolutions break down as follows:

• 1080p is 1920x1080
• 1,440p is 2560x1440
• 4K is 3840x2160

Higher resolutions result in a crisper image but can be more difficult to run if you are playing games. While 1080p is still the most popular resolution today, 1440p is a close second. 4K is also on the rise, so I expect this to shake up over the next several years.

Refresh Rate: The term refresh rate refers to how often a monitor flashes its image every second. Standard monitors have historically offered a 60Hz refresh rate, which is still perfectly fine for productivity. Many have begun to creep higher, however, up to 100Hz, 120Hz, 144Hz, or even higher. For gaming, smoothly browsing spreadsheets, and scrolling long web pages, a higher refresh rate results in smoother, more natural motion.

Panel Type: Monitors come with several different types of panels. These break down into IPS, VA, TN, and OLED. Unless you are a gamer looking for the fastest response time possible, TN is best avoided, which is easy because it's not as common these days. IPS is the panel of choice for the best colors and viewing angles. VA is slightly behind in color reproduction but offers much better contrast. OLED, on the other hand, sits on the top of the pile, offering the best responsiveness and best contrast, so you can enjoy high dynamic range in all that you do. This panel type tends to cost more, and it certainly looks beautiful but does require maintenance to prevent burn-in.

Variable Refresh Rate/Adaptive Sync: Many monitors come with variable refresh rate (VRR) as a key feature. This is also known as adaptive sync. This technology synchronizes your monitor's refresh rate with the frame rate of the game or application you're running, preventing screen tearing. VRR is the successor to VSync; however, that still exists as an option. The two main manufacturers of graphics cards each have their own version of this technology. For AMD, it is known as FreeSync. For Nvidia, it is known as G-Sync. Both do essentially the same thing; however, if you're a gamer and know you'll be utilizing one brand of video card over another, it doesn't hurt to make sure that your monitor works well with its form of adaptive sync before committing to a purchase.

Extra features: Now that you know all of this, you may have gone out and already begun searching on Amazon or another storefront. If you have, you've probably already found that there are many options with identical features as described above. When this happens, you can weigh the value of additional features they offer, such as a built-in USB hub or KVM for gaming. Dedicated monitors for this purpose often feature special modes dedicated to individual genres, including toggleable on-screen reticles and special picture options like Shadow Boost.

My Recommendation: For the best experience, I recommend first identifying the resolution that's going to work best for you. If you are a gamer or a graphic artist, a 1440p or 4K monitor might be the way to go, especially if you have a reasonably powerful graphics card. If you’re on an integrated or entry-level GPU, don’t worry: You can still have a good experience at 1080p for both of those purposes, and the picture can still look great below 27 inches.

Next, you'll want to consider the size of your monitor and make sure it will fit your space and allow you to absorb the whole screen without turning your head. Additionally, you’ll want to consider the crispness of the final image. To avoid softness or screen-door effect from being able to make out individual pixels, take the following as rules of thumb: 1080p resolution is usually best up to 26 inches, 1440p up to 32 inches, and 4K for everything in between and well above. Still, I would usually suggest avoiding 4K for anything below 27 inches so you're not paying for clarity that's not perceptible with the naked eye.

Refresh rate is next. Personally, even if I'm working on something productivity-based, I enjoy the smoothness and fluidity of a high refresh rate screen. Thankfully, there are so many affordable options with triple-digit refresh rates, you probably won’t need to spend much, if anything extra, to receive this feature.

Finally, I suggest looking to brightness and trying to get as close to, or as far above, 400 nits as you can. Not only will this make your picture pop, but colors are likely to look more vibrant and the whole screen will be more engaging and fun to use.

It's crazy out there right now. So, if even you're still unsure after looking at all those different qualities, I always recommend reading professional and user reviews to get the best idea of each option's strengths and shortcomings.

Budget Monitor FAQ

What is the biggest drawback of budget monitors?

Budget gaming monitors have come a long way over the last 5 to 10 years, but there are still trade-offs when you're looking to net a good deal. In my experience, the biggest sacrifices you'll make going with a budget monitor versus something more expensive are out-of-the-box color accuracy and brightness. It's not uncommon for affordable monitors to be a bit off-spec for content creation where accuracy matters.

With that said, they can often be brought much closer to reference values with a colorimeter. Then again, if you're trying to save money, investing another $100 in a colorimeter might not be the best choice when you could just spend that same amount on something more accurate out of the box.

Likewise, brightness tends to come in around 250-350 nits. Generally, I recommend avoiding anything below 300 nits unless you plan to use the monitor in an environment with dim lighting.

How much should I spend on a budget monitor?

Value is always a subjective thing, but in general, anything over $400 is no longer considered budget, and that's on the expensive end. You will find monitors that still meet the classification if they're offering something extra, such as a built-in KVM or extra screen real estate. A good monitor isn't always cheap, but that doesn't mean it needs to be exorbitantly expensive either.

Are budget gaming monitors worth it?

They certainly can be! As someone that has watched the market evolve for more than a decade, I'm consistently impressed at how features and picture quality have trickled down to far more affordable price points than they were ever at in the past today. You can get a monitor that will meet your needs for years into the future for hundreds of dollars less than that same monitor would have cost even five years ago. The key is to pay attention to its features, reputation, and the specifics of its tech specs.

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.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2025, and developer CD Projekt is already giving fans a taste of the concerts, merch, and more it has in store.

The third Witcher video game undeniably left an impression on gamers when it launched May 19, 2015, so the studio behind it is pulling out all the stops to make sure today’s milestone feels special. Included in its list of festivities are videos that fondly look back at The Witcher 3 as well as special events and unique merch.

It all starts with the trailer, below, celebrating the series’ monster-hunting protagonist, Geralt, highlighting some of his most memorable moments as fans are treated to actor Doug Cockle’s gravelly delivery. It’s not quite a Witcher 4 update, but it does do a good job of reminding viewers of what made The Witcher 3 so special in the first place.

Meanwhile, Cockle joined the latest installment in CD Projekt Red’s REDstreams to reminisce about the 20 years he’s spent providing his voice for the English version of Geralt while sharing how he helped shape the White Wolf.

If you’re looking to join in on The Witcher 3’s 10th anniversary celebration, CD Projekt has further outlined its plans to bring The Witcher concerts to fans this summer. The first is in Boston at the Emerson Colonial Theater, come May 31, with the second following in Poland at Poznan's Sala Ziemi. Tickets for both events, as well as the European leg of an upcoming tour, are available now, and more tour dates will be revealed in the future.

CD Projekt said more surprises, including art from 10 different Witcher artists, are on the way in the form of a Displate collaboration, T-shirts, and mugs. The vibrant The Little Witcher comic series and Embody’s Immerse Gamepack, which were both recently released, are also included in CD Projekt's recommended list of goodies for fans looking to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Witcher 3. More details about what to expect will be revealed in the near future.

Each item, stream, and event will help die-hard fans celebrate the critically acclaimed 2015 RPG, but it should also help with the wait for The Witcher 4. Since pulling back the curtain on the Ciri-focused follow-up at The Game Awards 2024, CD Projekt has (mostly) kept its head down when it comes to its progress. It’s not scheduled to arrive for quite a while, so don’t expect any serious updates anytime soon.

For more on The Witcher 3, you can read our original 9.3/10 review. You can also click here for our thoughts on how the team at CD Projekt Red became masters of choice and consequence.

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).

Final Fantasy 11 producer and director Yoji Fujito has revealed that had it not been for a resurgence of players around the game's 20th anniversary in 2022, there was a "real possibility" support for the MMORPG would've come to an end.

In an interview with Dengeki Online (thanks, Automaton), Fujito suggested that ahead of the 20th anniversary in May 2022, Square Enix had considered shifting the game into "maintenance mode" in or around 2024, effectively cancelling all ongoing development of the decades-old game.

"There was a real possibility that 2024 would be the year updates would come to an end, with the game shifting into a so-called maintenance mode, where only system upkeep would be performed," Fujito said, suggesting the game could have been retired when The Voracious Resurgence storyline had finished up.

However, as the 20th anniversary arrived and fans jumped back into Final Fantasy 11 — even after The Voracious Resurgence wrapped up — Fujito realized there was still "a lot of support" for the game.

"We thought, if The Voracious Resurgence wrapped up and Final Fantasy 11 clearly started losing its momentum, then maybe we really should prepare to end it," he added. "But that didn’t happen. I took this as a sign that we should keep running the game."

In other Square Enix news, the developer recently reaffirmed that Kingdom Hearts 4 was still on the way even though Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link, the GPS-based action-RPG for mobile, had been canceled.

"We’re currently working hard on Kingdom Hearts 4 and will continue pouring ourselves into the game’s development. We’re dedicated to making this an experience that lives up to your expectations!"

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

IGN Live is set to be an epic event for fans of all types of games. And now lovers of indie games have something to look forward to: 10 popular ID@Xbox titles will be availalbe to play on the show floor for attendees of the event.

Studios like Xbox, Sandfall, Ubisoft, and Survios have already announced their plans for IGN Live, including new looks at Anno 117, Alien: Rogue Incursion, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and more. And now ID@Xbox is joining in on the fun. Check out the titles that will be availalbe for IGN Live tickethodlers to play:

• Ultimate Sheep Racoon from Cleaver Endeavor
• Wheel World from Annapurna Interactive
• The Alters from 11 bit
• Herdling from Okomotive/Panic
• Truckful from MythicOwl/Pocketpair
• Rematch from Sloclap/Kepler
• Relooted from Nyamakop
• Speedrunners 2 from TinyBuild
• Robots at Midnight from Snail Games

Plus a brand new game from Serenity Forge that will be featured at IGN Live!

But that's not all. In addition to a slew of games to play, ID@Xbox will present a special panel at IGN Live on their approach to empowering independent developers through programs like Indie Selects.

Tickets for IGN Live are on sale now. Happening June 7-8 in Los Angeles, the event is open to the public and will feature celebrity appearances, new game announcements, exclusive trailers, gameplay, demos, giveaways, and much more.

In addition to games, fans can expect to see new looks at Squid Game Season 3, Rick and Morty, Critical Role, and more. For those who can't make it, IGN Live will be streaming across all IGN Platforms.

If you're looking for a budget Blackwell graphics card for 1080p gaming, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is as good as it gets. Just make sure to get the 16gb variant and not the 8GB. Right now Amazon is offering the PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Graphics Card for only $429.99. This is the only model currently at Nvidia's launch pricing with no markup. I can pretty much guarantee that this card will go out of stock quickly (and possibly by the time you read this article).

Update: This card is now out of stock.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti GPU for $429.99

The Pokémon TCG market is moving, and not quietly. With Black Bolt and White Flare coming in hot, many Black and White-era cards are suddenly on every collector’s radar again.

We're seeing massive jumps on cards that have sat stable for years, all because Gen V is back in style. If you're looking to trade, cash in, or just gawk at how weird card prices can get, I’ve got you covered.

Here are five cards that are flying and five that are faceplanting. Some of these are smart buys. Others? Let’s say I wouldn’t want to be the one who paid full price three weeks ago.

Pokémon Card Crashers

Unless you're dead set on grabbing the promo cards and poster in the 151 poster bundle, grabbing booster packs from TCG Player is where it's at (Or just the poster and promos seperately).

Currently sitting at $10.33 a pack, it's obvious that Amazon is now going above MSRP and secondary market value. If you're not bothered about opening packs and just want 151 chase cards, here's some of my favorites as well.

If you've dedicated your life to pulling chase cards yourself, here's what we can find in stock right now. Just watch out for pricing over MSRP, we're in a weird spot as Pokémon trainers right now, so don't pay more than what you have to.

If you're desperate for some big box retailer products, here you go. Just make sure to be savvy before buying, as 9 times out of 10 TCG Player will be cheaper in this climate.

Here's the Pokémon TCG full Release Schedule so far for this year, too, so you don't miss anything. Buying singles is the cheapest way to collect right now, but don't feel like you have to "Catch Em' All!".

The AutoFull M6 Ultra gaming chair distinguishes itself from other premium offerings by providing built-in heating, cooling, and massage functionality. Fortunately, despite these unique additions, AutoFull didn't forget to make the chair itself high quality with the same type of comfort features found in some of the best gaming chairs that sometimes significantly more. It still has some room for improvement in certain areas, but the M6 Ultra nevertheless makes a compelling argument for becoming your go-to desk chair.

AutoFull M6 Ultra Gaming Chair – Options and Assembly

Available in black with gold accents, or white with blue accents, the M6 Ultra is the top-of-the line offering in AutoFull's M6 series, providing nearly every available option you’d see in a high-end chair. The M6 Ultra features an elastic lumbar massage, 3D ergonomic neck pillow, ventilated (cooling) and heated seating, dynamic tracking lumbar support, 6D adjustable armrests, and a retractable footrest.

Aside from the aesthetic differences, the rest of the M6 series, labeled Pro, Elite, and Basic, successively lose features as you go down the tiers – the M6 Pro lacks the M6 Ultra's massage option and headrest, the M6 Elite drops the cooling and heating, and the M6 Basic lacks the 6D armrests and retractable footrest. But the M6 Ultra is the full package that earns its higher asking price.

At roughly three feet long, just over two feet wide, and about 17.5-inches high, the M6 Ultra ships in a more compact box than similar chairs, but at nearly 80 pounds, is still a two person job to move. Per usual, the box arrived in bad shape from shipping, but the contents survived without damage.

Upon opening the box, you're greeted with a visual assembly poster, as well as a separate glossy sheet with a QR code leading to an assembly video on YouTube. As is typical, I found neither the assembly poster nor video sufficient on their own to put the chair together. For instance, although the video was clearer to me than the poster, it was also slightly out-of-date, with, for example, the arms not being shown pre-assembled like they are now out-of-the-box.

Overall assembly was relatively easy, however, requiring just the two included Allen key wrenches for tightening various screws and bolts. The only hard part for me, and a step that needed a second person, was sliding and aligning the backrest into the slots and screwing it in.

Further easing the assembly process is that the headset and lumbar support are already pre-installed on the seat’s back. Neither is surprising considering that the headrest is on a telescoping rail for adjustment and the lumbar both auto adjusts and has dual massage motors built-in.

AutoFull M6 Ultra Gaming Chair – Comfort and Performance

Once assembled, the overall feel of the M6 Ultra is solid. The cushioning inside the PU leather material is on the firmer side, but with just enough give, making me believe it would hold up well long-term even if a user was near the chair's maximum 396-pound weight limit.

Unlike a lot of chairs in this category, the headrest neck pillow is permanently attached. Fortunately, it moves both up and down, as well as forwards and backwards, for good adjustability. The sides of the neck pillow can also be bent inwards, which I like for the cradling effect it provides. While the neck pillow is also on the firm side, it's filled with gel, so it has more give. It's easy to adjust, and, more importantly, stays in place once set.

Marketing buzzwords for armrests have descended into meaninglessness of late, with everything from 360-degree to 4D used for how adjustable they are. AutoFull is no different, using the term "6D" for the armrests on the M6 Ultra. While they don't split like they would at the end of the "5D" armrests on the Cougar Armor Evo M, for example, the M6 Ultra's armrests do just about anything else you can think of.

The armrests can be raised up and down, tilted down, tilted up, tilted to the side, rotated 360-degrees, and more. In short, you can place these in just about any position that's needed, including out of the way. Even better, the arms generally stay in place once set, a seemingly simple concept other chairs have struggled with realizing.

The footrest slides out and unfolds when you want to use it. It's not the sturdiest footrest out there, but works well enough when reclining the chair to its maximum 160-degrees. Combined with the adjustability of the armrests, there are some good reclined use cases with the M6 Ultra, including reading a book or portable gaming with something like a Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch.

The firm seat is comfortable enough, although I would have preferred the better ergonomics of the more cradled design found on chairs like the Armor Evo M. It's likely that AutoFull chose this type of seat design in part to accommodate the ventilation and heating system, as well as the three control buttons accessible on the right top of the seat itself. Surprisingly, even after sitting for hours at a time over several months of usage, I never once noticed or felt any of the embedded electronics. If you like a supportive seat without a lot of give, then you'll no doubt like sitting on this for even your longest gaming or working sessions.

There's a single USB-A cable that extends about four feet from the back of the chair. This is used to power the graphene heating system and dual fans in the seat, as well as the dual massage motors in the lumbar support. As opposed to an insert, like on the Mavix M9, the M6 Ultra's massage and climate system is seamlessly integrated, which is why it's unfortunate that no battery pack is included. You either need to be tethered to a USB port, or, like me, supply your own USB battery pack, which I placed in the sleeve on the back of the chair. Fortunately, the M6 Ultra's massage and climate system is quite efficient, using only roughly 1 - 2% of my USB battery pack's capacity per session, even with everything set to maximum.

Heat can be set to three levels and tops out at a toasty 122° F, which is comforting, but can be intense. Cooling similarly has three fan levels, with the lowest setting barely audible. The coolest setting, although the noisiest in that it clearly sounds like a fan is running, does a surprisingly good job at chilling my bottom and keeping me cool overall during even the most intense gaming sessions.

The lumbar massage, surprise, also has three intensity levels to choose from. Although it's called massage, there's no movement up and down or left and right in the lumbar support, just two points of vibration at roughly the apex of the outward curve. It's not the most nuanced type of massage, but it does feel good for what it is.

Looking to upgrade your desk, too?

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The Best LG TV Deal on Amazon Today