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The LEGO Tropical Aquarium is beautiful. It might not be $480 beautiful, but for the right person with the right amount of disposable income, the price might not matter. The person who owns a set like this one might be older or might have been gifted it. They might be part of the emerging LEGO-as-lifestyle audience, the same audience that would buy LEGO wall art or LEGO flowers that integrate into the living space. The LEGO Tropical Aquarium has a trendy pop art appeal that LEGO's more play-intensive sets lack.

The tank's dimensions are 14 inches high, 20.5 inches wide, and 11 inches deep; were this a real tank, it would hold approximately 13-and-a-half gallons of water. You build the black framed edges of the tank, the floor of the tank (which is designed to look like sand), and the background scenery of the tank (a blue, aquatic backdrop decked with little waves and bubbles). You're not building the glass that forms the tank itself. But when you look at the aquarium from a small distance, the scenery does some heavy lifting, and your brain concludes that all the negative space is water. It's a cool optical illusion that enhances the set's attractiveness; I can easily imagine people doing double takes when walking past it.

Building the tank itself is straightforward – you layer bricks to establish tactile strength and build notches to "fit" and strengthen the connection points. But the most fun parts of the build are the tank's inhabitants: the fish, crustacean, rocks, coral, seaweed, anemones, and thematic elements that the LEGO designers thoughtfully arranged into a colorful pastiche.

The closest equivalent to building the LEGO Tropical Aquarium scenery is building one of the LEGO Botanical sets. Like the flowers in a bouquet, the coral is also composed of numerous colorful pieces, which are arranged in symmetrical, circular patterns. It is a redundant process, admittedly. But the variety of coral means you're never building one formation for too long before you're moving on to the next one. My favorite part of the scenery are the sea anemones, which sprout from the rock facade like a bouquet of poisonous flowers.

The animals do not have real-life equivalents. They bear strong resemblance to actual species, but LEGO is content to refer to them as "brickfish" in their promotional materials. A fanciful approach allows the LEGO designers to play with size and scale. Looking at this aquarium feels like looking at one through a magnifying glass; everything is larger than life. The entire tank seems a little more crowded than it ought to; there's no way that a fish of such large proportions could navigate a tank this small.. But the variety and aesthetic impact overrides practical quibbles.

Each animal and type of corral gets its own plastic bag, which makes it easy to divide the work among multiple friends or family members. You build an element, install it into the tank, and then build the next element; there is no sequential necessity to any of it. This is the sort of set that, owing to its diverse yet isolated elements, lends itself to collaboration.

There are several mechanical functions built into the tank. The rocks hide built-in gearboxes, rods, and pins, which allow you to animate four different elements by turning a crank or dial. A crab emerges from its cave. A massive fish waves its tail and torso. A cluster of orange coral sways in the waves. And a treasure chest, half buried in the sand, opens and closes. Inside the chest are gold bars and a note in a corked bottle.

As an 11th grade high school English teacher, I read a lot of college essays, and one of my students wrote a particularly memorable one this year. He detailed his efforts to incorporate a freshwater fish tank into his bedroom. For him, it was a lesson in patience, consistency, and long-term planning – of realizing there is a league's difference between creating something wonderful and maintaining that thing for an extended length of time.

The LEGO Tropical Aquarium is a stress-free alternative to the real thing – for people who want the ambience but not the ongoing costs and labor that go into establishing a nitrogen cycle and minimizing algae growth, not to mention cleaning the tank itself.

LEGO Tropical Aquarium, Set #10366, retails for $479.99, and it is composed of 4154 pieces. It is available exclusively at the LEGO Store.

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

Director and DC-boss James Gunn announced on social media Saturday that he has cast German actor Lars Eidinger as the villainous Brainiac in his Superman follow-up film Man of Tomorrow.

“In our worldwide search for Brainiac in Man of Tomorrow, Lars Eidinger rose to the top,” Gunn wrote on his Instagram account. “Welcome to the DCU, Lars.”

Eidinger, 49, may be relatively unknown to North American audiences, but he can currently be seen in the George Clooney-Adam Sandler movie Jay Kelly, which is streaming on Netflix.

His other film and TV credits include Babylon Berlin, All the Light We Cannot See, High Life, Tim Burton’s Dumbo, My Little Sister, Dying, Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper, White Noise, and Irma Vep. Eidinger is also a rapper, musician, and DJ.

It’s December, meaning it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Yes, I’m cliché and enjoy the holidays for the warmth and celebrations they bring, but today I’m more interested in reflecting on the evolution of accessibility throughout 2025. And thankfully, this year brought improvements to long-standing franchises, as well as surprise additions to the triple-A and indie scenes.

From my perspective, there were no accessibility moments that revolutionized the industry in 2025. Instead, the year demonstrated a continuous evolution of what disabled players have rightfully come to expect when purchasing a new release. In my opinion, no one game has been better than another, especially in terms of innovation, but that’s not to say this year didn’t surprise me in unexpected ways. So, for this Access Designed, let’s explore some of my favorite examples of accessibility during 2025.

Runner-Up: and Roger

This section contains mild spoilers for and Roger.

The inclusion of TearyHand Studio’s and Roger on my list may surprise some. This roughly hour-long visual novel features numerous quick-time events that guide you through the loving memories of Sofia and her husband, Roger, as Sofia succumbs to dementia. Each minigame puts you directly in control of Sofia as she completes everyday tasks like brushing her teeth, making soup, or looking through old photographs. While these may seem mundane activities, Sofia’s dementia makes each simple event feel like a monumental task. And for disabled players, the intensity of the QTEs is exacerbated by the game’s notable lack of accessibility features.

And Roger features no accessibility tools to help you complete the game. There are no alternatives to finishing QTEs, options to skip them, or settings that have the game natively complete them for you like in this year's Assassin’s Creed Shadows. You are forced to continuously mash or perfectly drag a white button for every single QTE, something that was immensely exhausting with my physical disabilities. Yet, after completing an event within the first chapter that had Sofia push Roger’s hand away by rapidly mashing a button on the screen, I realized its inaccessibility made the experience much more powerful.

And Roger, through its lack of accessibility, made me reevaluate how I critique games, something I’ve been professionally doing for six years. Sofia’s struggles with dementia were far more pronounced when I was struggling with her. And in an industry where proper disability representation is still relatively lacking, and Roger masterfully captures the truest expression of disability. There are moments of love, grief, pain, joy, and suffering – all emotions I’ve personally felt or witnessed disabled friends and family experience. I have never played a game so dedicated to having, and occasionally forcing, the disabled experience on the players, thus making and Roger one of my favorite games of not only 2025, but of all time.

Runner-Up: EA Sports FC 26

I will be the first to admit I don’t like sports games. The genre just doesn’t appeal to me, which is admittedly ironic considering I live in a very sports-centric city. Yet, EA Sports FC 26 made me appreciate soccer games (football for non-Americans) because of its incredible attention to accessibility detail.

FC 26, like most games with accessibility offerings, provides customizable controls, subtitles, and colorblindness settings. However, I appreciated the features for varying gameplay assists. Shooting, passing, defending, switching, and dribbling all have their own settings to provide relief during extended play sessions. When I was too fatigued to properly shoot, I would activate Auto Shots, which would trigger as I came close to the goal. If passing becomes too much, I can simply increase the sensitivity, making the game natively pass the ball without the need for immense precision. Even as the goalkeeper, I can use assists to help with saves. And for longer sessions, I can activate one or two button control schemes, significantly reducing the number of inputs needed to play (unfortunately, one and two button use cannot be used in competitive play).

Yet, FC 26’s greatest accessibility achievement doesn’t impact my disability. For the first time in the series, as well as in a competitive multiplayer setting, players can activate High Contrast Mode. Everything from the home team, away team, referees, to even ball color can be customized to increase their contrast. This provides blind players with crucial visual information when playing frantic matches. It’s easy to lose control of player and ball position when matches become intense, especially with online PvP, but FC 26 redefines what accessibility can be in the competitive scene. The potential to challenge industry perspectives for competitive games is why FC 26 deserves a spot among the most accessible games of 2025.

Winner: Doom: The Dark Ages

Doom: The Dark Ages, id Software’s latest in the iconic FPS series, is by far my favorite entry, as well as its most accessible. While the newest game includes relatively common accessibility options like customizable controls, adjustable subtitles, and varying difficulty modes, The Dark Ages adds new tools that redefine accessibility in this fast-paced game.

Shooters like Doom rely on immense speed and precision to slaughter enemies and complete levels. You are constantly dodging enemy fire, sprinting through levels, jumping over obstacles, and switching weapons within your extensive arsenal to play the game. And if you don’t have the strength or stamina to perform any of the above, the gameplay formula becomes abysmally inaccessible, even with lowered difficulty settings. But The Dark Ages has a solution: it introduces modifiers that adjust game speed, enemy projectile speed, enemy aggression, player damage, and even enemy damage. Further, The Dark Ages includes options to change the parry windows for melee encounters. Every piece of the combat system is customizable.

With accessibility, there’s often this incorrect notion within Internet spaces that options and inclusive designs ruin the intended gaming experience. The Dark Ages completely nullifies this argument with its customizable settings, which indicate that the "artistic intent" is the experience that you as a player want to have. There's no punishment for modifying the experience. Whether you have a disability or not, you control how you play. Are you a masochist that enjoys frantically throwing yourself against an onslaught of demons? Simply adjust every setting listed above to maximize their values. In my case, I would customize parry windows and game speed if I was particularly tired, but would find myself increasing enemy aggression for more of a challenge. I’ve never played a game that allows me to fine-tune every aspect of combat, and that is why Doom: The Dark Ages is my game of the year for 2025.

These three games represent only a fraction of the excellent accessible titles throughout 2025. Assassin’s Creed Shadows, South of Midnight, Split Fiction, and even Kirby Air Riders all deserve credit for their accessible tools and designs. And while the three games listed above are my personal favorite, 2025 has arguably been my favorite year as a critic, not for the innovations, but for the continued dedication to disabled players.

Grant Stoner is a disabled journalist covering accessibility and the disabled perspective in video games. When not writing, he is usually screaming about Pokémon or his cat, Goomba on Twitter.

It’s been a tough few years for voice actors. While it’s perhaps never been more obvious how much value they provide to a game’s characters and story – the huge success of Baldur’s Gate 3 and its beloved cast put the profession in perhaps the brightest spotlight it’s ever had – voice actors and motion capture performers face a daunting threat in artificial intelligence. That’s just one of the reasons why we wanted to honor the art of performance in this year’s IGN Awards. Actors bring our games to life, and our digital worlds would be poorer without them.

As with our other awards, we asked the IGN team to nominate their favourite performances from across the past 12 months, and then we all voted for which one we felt was the very best example. These are our picks for the best individual performances in video games this year:

Runner-Up – Erika Ishii (Atsu, Ghost of Yotei)

The role of a revenge-seeking samurai is well-trodden ground, but Erika Ishii breathed refreshing new life into Atsu, the protagonist of Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei. Lending the character a believable “rough around the edges” feel, Ishii ensures that Atsu’s bloodlust has depth.

Runner-Up – Aaron Paul (Robert Robertson, Dispatch)

Unlike Hollywood, which has long cast animated movies using celebrity movie stars, video games have predominantly held onto the idea that voice acting and performance capture is a distinct skill, and that hiring people who specialize in that is the way to go. But while Dispatch features industry titans like Laura Bailey and Matthew Mercer, it’s screen actor Aaron Paul who’s the standout; our review explains that he's able to deliver "a nuanced performance as a man struggling to hold onto his optimism while reconciling with who he is outside of his giant mech suit."

Runner–Up – Konatsu Kato (Hinako Shimizu, Silent Hill f)

Lending both her voice and likeness to Silent Hill f’s protagonist Hinako Shimizu, Konatsu Kato brought to life one of the series’ most tortured heroes. While many of us will have relied on subtitles to understand her Japanese-language lines, her delivery helped instill every scene with the heavy, complex emotions intended by the script’s nuanced tale.

Runner-Up – Ben Starr (Verso, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33)

In Verso, Ben Starr was able to take the gruff, dark hero voice he adopted for Clive in Final Fantasy 16 and perfect it. The maturity of Expedition 33’s themes, particularly in its final act, allow for Starr to explore a character who must revel in tragedy, but who carries enough optimism and conviction to never allow the dark to obscure the light.

Winner – Jennifer English (Maelle, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33)

Maelle is the heart of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and a major reason her journey rings so true is Jennifer English’s performance. Grief is a difficult emotion to wrestle with, especially when it’s part of a story that happily leans into the melodramatic, but English keeps Maelle eternally grounded and completely believable. Expedition 33 may be a game with flashy combat, monstrous deities, and an army of goofy paintbrush people, but what it’s really about is the human condition and, more specifically, how we deal with loss. As Maelle, Jennifer English ensures that Clair Obscur’s loftier, more literary themes and ambitions are never lost among the more video game-y, JRPG-inspired tropes.

While individual performances are important, a strong ensemble cast can help bring a level of consistent immersion to a fictional world. When everyone in an ensemble gives their A-game, there’s no fracture in your belief that these video game characters are genuine people. Our picks for the best video game ensemble cast are:

• Runner-Up – Ghost of Yotei
• Runner-Up – Hades 2
• Runner-Up – Dispatch
• Runner-Up – Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
• Winner – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Congratulations to Jennifer English, the entire cast of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and the team at Sandfall Interactive, as well as the casts and development teams of all the games we nominated. For more from the IGN Awards 2025, be sure to check out our complete list of winners.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.

Warning: This piece contains spoilers for Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Grab your ikrans and fly to your nearest cinema, sci-fi fans, because Avatar: Fire and Ash is now in theaters. The third of five planned entries in James Cameron’s epic space opera, this installment sees Jake Sully and his family continue their war against the Resources Development Administration and the Recombinant version of Colonel Miles Quaritch while also dealing with a new threat in the form of Varang and the Ash People, villainous Na’vi with an affinity for fire. Reviews have skewed positive with some reservations, but IGN’s Max Scoville was particularly impressed with this installment as an ending to the first Avatar trilogy, writing in his 9/10 review that the film is “an immensely gratifying finale that’s well worth the wait.”

Still, even with its impressive technical achievements and enjoyable action set pieces, some aspects of the film have left us scratching our heads. Let’s dive into the biggest burning questions we have after Avatar: Fire and Ash!

Why is Varang Not a Bigger Part of the Story?

If you went by the trailers and the title, you’d likely assume that Varang (Oona Chaplin), the leader of the Ash People, would be Fire and Ash’s main antagonist. She’s certainly the film’s most exciting addition to the Avatar mythology, with Chaplin blazing onto the screen with a level of menace and sexuality that we haven’t yet seen in the franchise. Essentially a cross between a warrior queen and a blood witch, Varang hooks up with Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch (in more ways than one), and the two seem set to be co-villains ready to literally take the fire to the Sully clan… until they don’t. The back half of the film doesn’t forget that Varang exists, but she becomes much less important in the later acts as the film settles into a retread of Avatar: The Way of Water’s finale. We end up learning very little about the Ash People’s way of life and how they use fire beyond a couple of weapons and minor rituals, and there’s only one scene set in their home territory, which is an encampment at the base of a volcano. Varang is apparently set to reappear in Avatar 4 and 5, but given that this film is called “Fire and Ash,” we can’t help but wonder why this movie doesn’t make more use of the, well, fire and ash people.

"For those who come after." It's a simple but effective phrase from this year's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, one that was stuck in the minds of many for nearly an entire year. But although Expedition 33 won the hearts of many, it was far from alone. 2025 saw the release of the hotly anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong, and with the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 we got a new Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, and the sequel to IGN's 2020 Game of the Year, Hades 2. Over in the world of entertainment we got plenty of great movies like Superman, Sinners, Weapons, and possibly the best Predator movie ever in Predator: Badlands.

Every year, across all forms of media, there are situations where critics and audiences either agree or disagree. That's never going to change, we're talking about opinions, after all, although this year we definitely saw more alignment than normal. Every year, we ask you all to vote on each of our award categories, and many of our awards have gone to the games, shows, and movies that you chose, too. That's a great sign that our thoughts and opinions are aligned with our community's.

But what did you vote for? Here are the complete results for each Community Award, voted on by you, the IGN community (Results finalized at 12/20 12AM ET).

Best Sci-Fi or Fantasy Movie 2025

Winner: Predator: Badlands (33.1% of the votes)

Best Comic Book or Graphic Novel

Winner: Batman: Dark Patterns (40.4% of votes)

Best Anime of 2025

Winner: Dan Da Dan (49.4% of votes)

Best Action-Adventure Game of 2025

Winner: Ghost of Yotei (29.6% of the votes)

Best Horror Movie of 2025

Winner: Sinners (41.5% of votes)

Best Playstation Game of 2025

Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (43.6% of votes)

Best RPG of 2025

Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (66.8% of votes)

Best Nintendo Game of 2025

Winner: Donkey Kong Bananza (49.9% of votes)

Best Xbox Game of 2025

Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (60.2% of votes)

Best PC Game of 2025

Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (51.2% of votes)

Best Strategy Game of 2025

Winner: Anno 117: Pax Romana (25.5% of votes)

Best Puzzle Game of 2025

Winner: Blue Prince (72.9% of votes)

Best Roguelike Game of 2025

Winner: Hades 2 (57.2% of votes)

Best Action Game of 2025

Winner: Hades 2 (58.8% of votes)

Best Shooter Game of 2025

Winner: Arc Raiders (28.3% of votes)

Best Superhero Movie of 2025

Winner: Superman (57.3% of votes)

Best TV Show of 2025

Winner: Andor (38.0% of votes)

Best TV Episode of 2025

Winner: Andor Season 2, Episode 8 - “Who Are You?” (46.9% of votes)

Best Ensemble Cast in a TV Show or Movie of 2025

Winner: Andor Season 2 (39.9%)

Best Performer in a TV show or Movie

Winner: Genevieve O'Reilly (Mon Mothma, Andor) (29.2% of votes)

Best Performer in a Movie of 2025

Winner: Michael B. Jordan (Elijah "Smoke" Moore and Elias "Stack" Moore, Sinners) (36.8% of votes)

Best Ensemble Cast in a Video Game of 2025

Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (65.2% of votes)

Best Performance in a Video Game of 2025

Winner: Jennifer English (Maelle, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) (36.5% of votes)

Best Video Game Music/Score of 2025

Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (67.5% of votes)

Best Art Direction in a Video Game of 2025

Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (58.5% of votes)

Best Remake or Remastered Game of 2025

Winner: The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered (34.6% of votes)

Best Movie of 2025

Winner: Sinners (24.7% of votes)

Best Game of 2025

Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (50.8% of votes)

Thank you to everyone who participated in our community-voted awards categories this year. In 17 of the 23 categories, the winner garnered over 40% of the total votes, showing a sense of unity on what you found to be your favorites in 2025. Clair Obscur, as expected by many, ran the gauntlet to win all nine of the categories it was nominated in. Meanwhile, Andor was a huge audience favorite, sweeping all four of the categories around TV. The win by the most narrow margin goes to Predator: Badlands, which took home the win for Best Sci-fi or Fantasy Movie over Frankenstein by only 1.1%, while Blue Prince won by the biggest margin, taking home over 72% of votes in the Best Puzzle Game category. Thank you again to everyone who voted. And now, with big games like GTA 6, Marvel's Wolverine, and other major releases on the horizon, we look forward to seeing how 2026 turns out and learning your favorites this time next year.

Keepin' It Clean

Throughout the year, we have been monitoring those who do not foster a positive experience here at IGN. We remove the most problematic users regularly to improve everyone's overall experience. But we also use this time, before the end of the year, as an opportunity to remove those who were given more time to see if their infractions throughout the year was part of a pattern, or if they were potentially just someone having a bad day or week. So, in addition to recognizing the users who uplifted our community, we have also removed several users who have consistently violated our community guidelines. These banned accounts are those who have engaged in hate speech, harassment, or other toxic behaviors. We know these actions are not always popular, but they are necessary in our commitment to creating a safe and welcoming space for everyone at IGN.

As we continue to build upon our community, we will continue to monitor and address any problematic behavior to ensure that our community remains a positive and inclusive place for everyone. We can create a respectful, supportive, and enjoyable community by working together.

We appreciate our readers who regularly make us their home for gaming, entertainment, and more. We are excited to continue building and improving together in the coming months and years. Once again, thank you to all of you who regularly do your best to create a positive experience on IGN.

Jada Griffin is IGN's Community Lead. If she's not engaging with users here, chances are she's developing her own games, maxing the Luck stat in her favorite games, or challenging her D&D players with Intense combat or masterful puzzles. You can follow her on Bluesky @Jadarina.bsky.social