The original Switch is now officially Nintendo's best-selling hardware ever, while Switch 2 has already eclipsed the sales of the company's disastrous Wii U in just nine months.
Nintendo's latest financial results have revealed updated hardware totals for both of the company's Switch generations, with the original Switch now sitting on lifetime sales of 155.37 million units. Finally, this edges it past the Nintendo DS' total of 154.02 million units — making it Nintendo's most popular console family.
As for Switch 2, while we already knew that the console was the fastest-selling hardware the company has released, a fresh sales total has placed the console on 17.37 million sales as of December 31, 2025. This is enough to ensure it has already beaten the lifetime sales of Wii U — which only managed a paltry 13.56 million and is considered one of Nintendo's few failures.
Comparing the Switch and Switch 2, a sales graph published by Nintendo shows its newer console passing the 15 million sales milestone after 30 weeks, while the original Switch had not hit this mark after 45 weeks. But, of course, the original Switch launched off the back of the Wii U — while the Switch 2 has been able to pivot customers over from the Switch itself.
"We believe we have been able to get off to a good start," Nintendo said of the Switch 2 launch today. "With our dedicated video game platforms prior to Nintendo Switch, our relationship with consumers was interrupted whenever they purchased a new platform, which presented challenges," Nintendo said. "In contrast, the Nintendo Switch install base, which is our largest ever, and the fact that many consumers continue to play on the platform, provide a strong business foundation that has supported the launch of Nintendo Switch 2."
Recent reporting has suggested that Switch 2 experienced a sales slowdown in the U.S. and some European countries towards the end of 2025, though globally the company's totals paint a more positive picture. According to Nintendo's stats, 129 million people played on its hardware during 2025, down 1 million from the year before but still Nintendo's second-best total ever. In accompanying notes, Nintendo suggested the slight dip reflected the "juncture between platform generations."
But while the Switch may be Nintendo's best-selling hardware ever, it still has a few million units to go before it dethrones Sony's best-selling hardware ever: PlayStation 2. Sony has estimated it sold around 160 million units of its hit console (and DVD player), meaning the Switch still has just under 5 million sales to go if it wants to close the gap.
Rather amusingly, Sony only revised its PS2 sales estimate upward to 160 million in November 2024, as Nintendo's console neared its crown. Had Sony not done this, the Switch would have now become the best-selling console globally of all time. Can Nintendo still surpass this? It's going to be tough, but not impossible. The Switch sold another 3.25 million units over the past nine months, though with Switch 2 now established, the older console's sales momentum will only continue to decline. Still, should Nintendo keep the original Switch on sale for another couple of years, it may still take the title yet.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Magic: The Gathering has a busy year in 2026, particularly when it pertains to Universes Beyond.
June 2026 will see a Marvel Super Heroes set arrive, and unlike Spider-Man, it’s bringing Commander precons. We’re still waiting for more information about what’s in each, but we’ll update this page as we hear more. Any you’ve got your eye on? Let us know in the comments!
There are four Commander Decks for the Marvel Super Heroes set, following in the footsteps of other Universes Beyond sets like The Lord of the Rings, Warhammer 40,000, and last year’s Final Fantasy.
Here’s the lineup, including the brief description on the box of each precon, as well as their color identity.
It’s worth noting that Marvel’s Spider-Man, which launched in 2025, didn’t get the Commander Deck treatment. Given it’s Magic’s most popular format, we’re unsure if this is Wizards of the Coast correcting that oversight, or if it was always planned this way.
I'm glad you asked! The Marvel Super Heroes Commander Decks come in another, yellow box version. You're getting functionally the same cards, except these are all foil.
As the name suggests, you're probably better off storing these in your collection rather than playing with them, but they command a high price because they're likely to be a limited printing a la Collector Boosters.
Commander precons trailed off last year, with the last two being found in August’s Edge of Eternities set, with none in Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Still, Wizards is back onto Commander decks in a big way. Lorwyn Eclipsed has two decks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has one, while Secrets of Strixhaven has a whopping five.
Adding in the four from the Marvel Super Heroes set, and you’ve got 12 already - with multiple sets still planned for the second half of the year.
By our count, there were 13 in the whole of 2025, so if you’re looking for a way to jump in and play with minimal fuss, this is probably a good year to try your hand.
For more on the game’s current set, Lorwyn Eclipsed, be sure to check out our list of the best chase cards in the set right now, and our rundown of its Commander offerings. You can also check out our list of the best Commander precons from recent years that are still worth picking up - including The Lord of the Rings, Fallout, and some great beginner options.
The highly-anticipated Universes Beyond set Marvel Super Heroes is coming in June, and will be featuring our favorite heroes, villains, locations, and more from the iconic comic books.
It's out right after Secrets of Strixhaven, and preorders are now live on Amazon, with some boxes already going out of stock. So, I'd act fast if you want to secure the rest of the set on release day.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay.
After weeks of heated speculation about whether Netflix was done with Stranger Things, including thousands of TikToks and social media posts about #ConformityGate and whether there was a secret, ninth episode of Season 5, the streamer has finally revealed the first look at new episodes of the hit series. Well, sort of. They actually unveiled the official, two-ish minute teaser for Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, a new animated series that’s been in the works for at least the past three years.
So yeah, sorry Season 5 truthers, Netflix has moved on with something new… Or rather, moved backwards, as this new series takes place smack in the middle of the action of Hawkins, Indiana, with some new characters, new creatures, and a whole lot of those ’80s vibes you know and love.
That said, there’s a lot that’s changed, and it isn’t just the fact that everyone is looking a whole lot more cartoony. So with that in mind, let’s break down some of the biggest burning questions about Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, and answer everything we know about the series so far.
Okay, before we get into it, to set the stage – and we’ll expand on some of this later – here’s the official synopsis for the series:
Return to Hawkins with Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, an exciting new animated series from Showrunner Eric Robles and Executive Producers the Duffer Brothers. In the winter of 1985, snow blankets the town and the horrors of the Upside Down are finally fading. Our heroes Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and Max have settled back into a normal life of D&D, snowball fights, and quiet days. But beneath the ice, something terrifying has awakened. Could it be from the Upside Down? From the depths of Hawkins Lab? Or from somewhere else entirely? Our heroes must race to solve this mystery and save Hawkins in this untold story set in the Stranger Things universe.
So they might solve a mystery? Perhaps rewrite history? What is this, DuckTales? Well, sort of. Except for the ducks. And the large, swimmable bin filled with money.
In addition, this is – as you may be able to tell from the footage – being done with computer animation, despite being partially inspired by ’80s cartoons. The reason? Originally, the show was going to be made in the style of cartoons from the 1980s. But then they realized it was much darker, and characters might die. Because of this, they updated the look.
This might get a little bit of a deserved groan from you, dear reader, because yes, it takes place in 1985. And as you might have either read in the synopsis or seen in the trailer based on the snowball fights, this takes place in the winter of 1985. But for those wondering when it takes place in the continuity of the live-action show, the answer is between the end of Season 2 and the beginning of Season 3.
More specifically, at the end of Season 2, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) sealed the gate to the Upside Down in Hawkins Lab after a legion of demodogs had invaded tunnels under the town. The final episode took place at the Snow Ball, a winter dance, so this happens after Max (Sadie Sink) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) kissed for the first time, El and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) are together, and Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) have hooked up.
Season 3 kicks off the next summer with the opening of the Starcourt Mall, and the emergence of a goopy, rat-filled Mind Flayer, so we’re not quite there yet.
Point being, the Upside Down is closed off, the threat has dispersed, and mostly everyone is exploring new romantic relationships. And perhaps more importantly, they’re all still in eighth grade. Or at least, the kids are. Hopper (David Harbour) is not in eighth grade. FYI.
Great question! With previous spinoffs of Stranger Things, they’ve mostly touched on things that could maybe be supernatural but ultimately are not. Specifically any of the in-continuity Dark Horse Comics or novels will have things like Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) thinking he’s dealing with a Jason-style slasher at summer camp (he’s not), or the kids trying to find a secret treasure left by Bob Newby (Sean Astin) that isn’t really rich stuff so much as emotionally rich stuff.
The reason for that is pretty simple: If they fought monsters between seasons, why wouldn’t that come up in conversation during seasons? Tales From ’85, on the other hand, clearly has what looks like demogorgons with pumpkin heads, giant plant beasties, and more.
The answer is that Tales From ’85 exists in its own continuity. And in that continuity, Hawkins Lab is messing with the Upside Down. Showrunner Eric Robles explained to Tudum that, “All of it is still connected to the Upside Down, so there is the DNA of Upside Down creatures in all of our creatures. It’s like Hawkins Lab science meets Upside Down matter. When you put them together, those are the kinds of creatures we have in our world.”
Er, yes and no on the in canon thing. The closest comp to Tales From ’85 is The Real Ghostbusters, which Robles has noted was an inspiration for the show. Like that Ghostbusters spinoff, it didn’t do anything to contradict the live-action adventures, but also it followed its own path and ideas. So, for example, Dustin isn’t going to lose an arm on Tales From ’85, and we aren’t going to find out the Upside Down is not a wormhole – in fact, it’s likely nobody will mention wormholes at all. Probably.
So by not contradicting, one could simply imagine that fighting plant monsters before the summer of ’85 in Season 3 just never came up in conversation on screen, but they were talking about it all the time off-screen. It’s a narrative trick to allow the writers of Tales From ’85 to not be constrained in the same way that, for example, Broadway play The First Shadow had to cut out certain plot points so as to not spoil them before Season 5 of the show. Basically, it’s everything we said about the novels and comics, but with some of the restrictive guard-rails taken off.
That’s a big “N-O,” good buddy. The entire voice cast of the show is new, with probably the most famous member being Jeremy Jordan – who you nerds might know as Winn from Supergirl – as the voice of Steve “The Hair” Harrington.
In addition, there will be a new character named Nikki Baxter, who is described as a tinker with pink hair. A pinker, if you will. You won’t? Okay then.
Odessa A’zion, Janeane Garofalo and Lou Diamond Phillips are also in the cast in undisclosed roles.
That doesn’t preclude a surprise cameo from any of the live-action cast, but they won’t be playing the roles they made famous on TV. At least part of the reason for that is likely that the “kids” don’t, uh, sound like that anymore.
Nope. Tales From ’85, as mentioned, has been in the works for a while now. But the live-action spinoff the Duffers are working on that has yet to be officially announced is not the animated series. That will involve entirely different characters than Stranger Things did, and in a different setting than Hawkins. Given Tales From ’85 includes the same characters in the same place… Well, you can probably figure it out from there.
Another big clue that this animated series is not the Duffers’ live-action spinoff? One is animated, and the other is live-action. And no, this show does not Roger Rabbit it up (probably).
Last one first! Tales From ’85 premieres on April 23 on Netflix. As of now, we don’t have any info about how many episodes the show will run, or how long the episodes will be. We also don’t know if there will be additional seasons, or if those additional seasons would also be set in 1985… While animation has a long lead time to get ready (see above re: this taking three years), it’s possible Netflix may be waiting to see how this goes before greenlighting Season 2: Tales From Slightly Later In 1985.
As for now, we’ll just have to wait for April, when we find out that life is like a hurricane, here in, Haw-kins.
Welcome to the HP OmniBook X Flip 14 experience.
Your workday will start as it always does. Inbox. Calendar. Couple of documents. Too many tabs, but handled like a boss. A vid conference where you’re nodding like a bobblehead but yawning through your eyeballs. The HP OmniBook X Flip chews through this stuff without fuss.
The Intel Core Ultra 5 keeps everything feeling responsive, Copilot+ features handle the background admin like live captions and image tweaks, and the 5MP IR camera with Poly Camera Pro does a heroic job of making you look perky and present even when you’re spiritually down the street.
Then you get five minutes.
Five minutes is enough time to check on your Baldur’s Gate 3 save. Maybe respec a character. Maybe roll a newy, because that’s the kind of office-based number crunching that truly matters. On this beast, BG3 loads quick and looks a treat on the 14 inch 2K touchscreen. Turn based combat is perfect here. It waits. It understands your life is dungeons & dragons + deadlines.
Back to work. Creative time now. Premiere Pro open. Timeline scrubbing. Exports running. The HP OmniBook X Flip stays cool and cooperative, which is exactly what you want from a work machine. This is the part where you feel smug about the purchase. See? Work.
During a mid morning commute or coffee break, jack into Cyberpunk 2077. Experience preem Night City visuals, cybersexy escapism, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing the beast from your lappy bag can handle it without begging for a charger. Intel Arc graphics keep things smooth enough to stay immersed, and the battery holds on like it knows what’s coming later.
Another meeting. Notes this time. Flip the OmniBook X Flip into tablet mode. Touchscreen. Jot things down. Pretend you are sketching ideas, not thinking about optimising perks. The 2 in 1 design is genuinely useful here, which makes the inevitable pivot back to games feel earned rather than cheeky.
Lunch break. Controller out. One reality hop later and you’re in Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, another PS5 crown jewel ported up into PC Valhalla. Tent mode works beautifully, load times are short thanks to the SSD, and clueless meerkating co-workers ask you when Pixar started making interactive movies.
Afternoon slump. Your day slides into (hopefully paid) overtime as you indulge in a particular joy of irony. Using a laptop bristling with AI features to play Terminator 2D No Fate feels like tempting fate on purpose. Running a sprite heavy love letter to 90s action excess on a Copilot+ PC barely taxes this beast, obviously, but it scratches that old school itch.
The cleaners are vacuuming, but you’re headphoned up for a night of AAA delights. Grip a ripcord and zip into Battlefield 6 REDSEC, avoiding peak hour traffic with fully loaded graphics. Or sling into Marvel’s Spider Man 2 for spandex-tight combat as you Peter parkour like his rent’s due and you both should be doing real work instead.
Art imitating life.
The HP OmniBook X Flip does not force you to choose between work or play. It lets you oscillate between the two grinds that matter. Better yet, it looks sensible enough to justify itself in any room, and is capable enough to reward every stolen moment.
So yes, “I need it for work”…works. Spreadsheets. Creative projects. Vid calls. Whatever.
It just also happens to slay at play.
You can check out the HP OmniBook X Flip for yourself at your nearest JB Hi-IFiI (head to the link: https://w2buy.net/8i2d188u) or via the HP online store.
Samsung has added Nvidia G-Sync support to its 2026 OLED TVs and gaming monitors, the company announced over the weekend. In addition, a couple of TVs – the S95H and S90H – will also come with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro.
Both of these VRR technologies aim to smooth out your gaming experience by preventing things like one part of an image moving ahead of another part, aka screen-tearing. In the past, Samsung displays have instead relied on its own version variable refresh rate, or VRR.
Besides the high end S95H and S90H, Samsung says it'll make the midrange S85H G-Sync Compatible, too. Over in gaming monitor land, the company named the new 27-inch Odyssey G6 – its absurdly high-refresh-rate 1,040Hz model – and its 240Hz refresh 27-inch Odyssey G6 sibling. (We love confusing lineup naming, don't we? Those are the G60H and G61SH, respectively). Equipped with G-Sync Compatible screens, Samsung's gaming displays could fare a little better when compared to some of the best gaming displays; the company has struggled to outperform the likes of Dell or Asus, at least by our estimation. It has done better in the OLED arena, though – the Odyssey G9 is, after all, our favorite OLED widescreen gaming display.
Besides G-Sync and FreeSync, Samsung's OLEDs this year will also get support for HDR10+ Advanced, which the company previewed late last year. That's the fancy-pants HDR standard meant to fix the soap opera effect, or the unnaturally fluid movement you see on your parents' TV when you go home for the holidays every year (I know you've been surreptitiously turning that off every chance you get, you sneaky old so-and-so).
Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.
Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach shared an emotional moment with fans after his new movie, Iron Lung, managed to win big at the box office over the weekend.
The YouTube star took to a livestream in the wake of the theatrical premiere of his debut feature film to speak about its success and clear up any confusion about how it compared to competing films. He starts the 25-minute video crying as he speaks about the response he’s received so far.
“Man, it’s been a bit of an emotional day. I’m not gonna lie. It’s been a bit of an emotional day in a good way, in the best way possible,” Markiplier, fighting back tears, said during the Sunday broadcast. “Everything good. Everything’s fine. I don’t even know where to start. OK, so I’ll first say… man, just thank you, guys. Just thank you, guys, so much, because it’s been a really special day.”
What starts with Markiplier’s reaction to a positive review from fellow content creator Hbomberguy then turns into a moment reflecting on his mark on independent filmmaking. Iron Lung premiered alongside Sam Raimi and Disney’s R-rated Send Help, but both films spent the weekend neck-and-neck for the number one spot.
Although Send Help will continue its run while Iron Lung drops out of the box office race (and most theaters), the $21.5 million the film has made globally means it more than made up for its reported $3 million budget. It also means Markiplier is going to be able to “give the crew a big bonus.”
“I had a conversation today with a fan, and it was a perfectly normal conversation,” he said through tears. “They mentioned that they were a film student, and they said how cool it was that this was done independently, and that this was really kind of an inspiration for people that wanted to get into making movies, that it was even possible.”
When Markiplier told the film student that he had “some conversations going” about bringing a studio in to help with distribution, they replied, “please don’t because it’s really cool and kind of a hero moment to showcase that indie filmmaking was possible.” After going back home shortly after, he received an email stating that Send Help was “closing the gap” and only $300,000 away.
“I’m almost hesitant to ask this, but I think it might be a big win for independent filmmaking,” Markiplier added, calling on fans to see Iron Lung before it left local cinemas. “It’s not to shutout Sam Raimi. It’s kinda to shutout Disney for winning 10 weeks in a row – maybe they could only win nine weeks in a row and the one weekend that Iron Lung is here, it could, you know… I think that might be pretty cool.”
He continued: “And maybe if I could inspire someone to keep making films, that would be pretty cool. And maybe if it could open up the door for other people to do their projects independently, and know there could be success in it, I think that would be pretty cool. I think that might actually be really cool.”
Markiplier wrote, directed, self-financed, distributed, and starred in Iron Lung. It’s a live-action adaptation of the 2022 independent horror game of the same name and follows a man trapped inside an iron submarine in an ocean of blood. We gave it a 4/10 in our review.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
This morning Wizards of the Coast put a new Magic: The Gathering product up for sale with an unexpected twist. The “Prints Charming” Secret Lair drop contains four reprinted cards with pretty excellent new art – but rather than simply telling us how much it costs, it was given five different non-foil store listings and five more for the foil version, each with a different price ranging from $10 all the way up to $50. The product description on all of them is careful to point out the following: “The only difference between listings is the price. Higher-priced listings do not include anything extra.”
This, by my estimation as someone who has been playing Magic since the 90s and literally wrote the announcement for the very first Secret Lair, is pretty lame. Taken graciously, it’s a goofy marketing stunt meant to do something silly and get folk talking about it, but it nevertheless leaves those who arrived too late with a very sour taste in their mouth. A more pessimistic reading would be that WOTC is price testing what people are willing to pay for a Secret Lair drop in broad daylight, shedding even the thinnest veneer that may be hiding the capitalist hunger a lawsuit recently alleged is designed specifically to hide shortfalls in other parts of Hasbro’s business.
The reaction amongst the Magic community has been muddled. Some were confused. Some very generously assumed the higher price points were to bait automated scalper bots into spending more while real people could snag a more affordable version – an argument that doesn’t exactly hold water when you consider that they could just make them all cheaper if that was the desire. And some were just angry, either because the cheapest versions sold out so fast, or because they similarly see this as bold-faced market research in cardboard form.
I actually really love the idea of Wizards of the Coast’s Secret Lair line overall. Directly selling small drops of thematically linked cards with cool and unique art treatments is quite fun, and often comes at little-to-no cost for those who just want to ignore it. Being able to give Kratos or Aloy their own cards without the production lift a larger product would require is a neat tool in WOTC’s toolbelt. The “Chaos Vault” moniker this latest one was released under intentionally pushes the envelope even further with weird, off-schedule ideas and one-offs that are explicitly meant to experiment. I dig that!
But that does not mean Secret Lair is free from criticism. Most pressing here, folk (myself included) were already displeased by WOTC’s 2024 decision to move these drops from a “print to demand” model to one with limited and undisclosed quantities. The former system meant anyone who wanted a certain drop could get it within a specific timeframe, while the latter has historically meant you need to get in line right when a popular drop arrives in order to have a chance at purchasing it – something you can’t do if you, say, have work or school at the same time.
So, given there is already anxiety around the availability of Secret Lairs, one that got almost no pre-promotion offering an early bird discount (alongside the option to pay WOTC more money) is understandably frustrating. It’s the sort of thing that independent creators admittedly do with their products from time to time without drawing any ire, rewarding their most dedicated fans while also providing a way to support them even further for those who want to. But for a multibillion-dollar corporation to do it is not endearing in the same way – it comes across more like profit analysis wearing a sign around its neck that reads “it’s just a prank, bro.”
Much to my dismay, both the lowest and highest priced versions of Prints Charming sold out the quickest, either lending some credence to the “ha ha stupid bots” theory or offering evidence that “speaking with your wallet” is and will always be a doomed suggestion. The standard Secret Lair pricing of $30 for non-foil and $40 for foil lasted much longer than the others, so it seems likely the “stock” for those versions was intentionally the largest of all the options. But even if that does make this one big stunt, or even a cute way to subsidize a few discounted drops through folk who are willing to spend a little more, the ultimate result is still that a majority of players feel like they are the ones left holding the proverbial bag.
I don’t know, maybe I am yelling at the clouds. The card-selling company is experimenting with how much money it can sell its cards for. This should not be a shock, nor am I surprised to see Prints Charming sell out within hours (the art is really excellent, even if its total reprint value of around $5 is not). But the quiet part is being said louder than usual here. The teacher has handed us a test, and I fear what the results will be. The theme of this drop is cards that speed up your green resource production, and if that’s not as on the nose as naming your giant evil space station the Death Star, I don’t know what is.
Tom Marks is IGN's Associate Reviews Director and local MTG Cube obssessive. He loves puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.
Now is the time to retire that pedal-powered bike of yours and upgrade to electric. The price of electric assisted bikes has plummeted over the past year. Nowadays you can find a decent bike for well under $500. To kickstart the new year, AliExpress is offering the 5th Wheel AB17 500W 375Wh Electric Bike for a rock bottom price of $272.34 after you apply $25 off coupon code "025USAFF". This bike ships locally from a warehouse in the United States, with most orders being delivered within a week. That means you don't have to worry about tariffs, import fees, or egregiously long shipping times.
The 5th Wheel AB17 bike is an adult electric bike featuring a 500W (700W peak) motor that can get up to speeds of 23mph. The 36V 375Wh lithium battery provides up to 25 miles on electric only mode and up to 45 miles on pedal-assist mode. The actual distance is dependent on other factors like your speed, terrain, elevation, and so forth. The frame is made of carbon steel so it's on the heavier side at about 50 pounds, but it also has a generous weight capacity of 265 pounds. The bike comes 85% preassembled and includes a 1 year warranty. It's also UL 2849 certified for safety.
There are plenty of bikes out there that offer high-quality components, a more powerful motor, better upgradeability, and/or domestic customer support, but only if you're willing to shell out hundreds of dollars more. The 5th Wheel AB17 bike will stay within anybody's budget. It offers a perfectly respectable assisted ride that will satisfy most casual bikers.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Full spoilers follow for Primal Season 3, Episode 4, “Prey for the Wicked,” which is available on Adult Swim and HBO Max now.
Wow, I didn’t see this coming so soon. Fang is back! And so are her babies and Mira, all of whom we last saw in the Primal Season 2 finale back in 2022. Not only has our favorite T. rex returned, but by the end of this episode she’s been reunited with Spear… or what’s left of him, anyway.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first three episodes of this season have taken their time just getting us acquainted with the zombie version of Spear, and while it was clear that our undead hero was looking for his lost family – and specifically for Fang – even if he wasn’t entirely conscious of it, it didn’t seem like series creator Genndy Tartakovsky was in any rush to reunite them. Yes, Tartakovsky hinted that the beautiful girl would return eventually, and a trailer gave us a glimpse of her too, but so far Primal Season 3 has very much been centered on zombie Spear, so much so that it wasn’t even clear how much time had passed since his death – er, “death” – in the Season 2 finale.
So I was a bit surprised to find that this episode opens with a flashback, and not just any flashback, but one to Spear’s funeral. How heartbreaking is it when, among the array of villagers mourning Spear, we see Mira intensely dancing in her grief? And even more touching, there’s Fang off in the distance, watching the ceremony with her babes. She might not fully understand the nature of the funeral, but she knows well enough what it means.
Months later, Fang and her (growing) offspring are living harmoniously with Mira’s people, though when a child playfully winds up straddling one of the little dinos and raises a spear a la Spear, Fang reacts badly to the sight. But it’s in this moment that she realizes that Mira is pregnant with Spear’s child, and damn if we don’t have our second tears-worthy moment in the episode as Fang starts digging a nest for Mira.
Of course, Mira and Fang are both heartbroken over the loss of Spear, and they’ve formed a close bond in the months since his death. As usual, Tartakovsky and his team of artists convey these emotions wordlessly, if not silently – never underestimate how many different meanings a growl from Fang can carry. The scenes between the two also raise the question of how exactly Mira and Fang will react when they meet the zombie version of Spear.
But first, there’s this week’s action, which involves a swarm of hateful hog-like creatures that invade Mira’s village. That they don’t straight-up kill their prey, but instead take them back to their even more horrible queen hog-like creature so that she can feast on the villagers while she nurses her giant baby-hog things… well, it’s all just a reminder of the bloody cycle of life that permeates the world of Primal.
But one of the themes of Primal has always been that friendship and love are stronger than any, well, primal instincts to survive. What purpose was left in Spear’s life, or Fang’s, after they lost their original families if they hadn’t found each other? So when Fang’s offspring make it clear that they want to be part of the search party that will attempt to rescue the missing villagers because they want to save their little human friend, you can basically see that very notion written on Mira’s face. This is what it’s all about.
So while it seemed at the start of this season as if Spear’s revival as a zombie could’ve taken place years – or many years – after his death, possibly even after the epilogue of Season 2’s finale when we met Mira and Spear’s young daughter, we now know that it’s only been a matter of months. And beyond the question of what will happen next, now that this unlikely family is finally reunited, there’s also the matter of where – and what condition – Spear will be in by the time that Season 2 epilogue comes to pass years from now. The way the scene played, Spear was gone from their lives. So now we must ask ourselves: Will Fang and Mira lose him again?
Questions and Notes From Anachronistic History
Cosmere fans, rejoice! At long last, Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe will be officially coming to both big and small screens courtesy of Apple TV. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the deal will adapt his most popular Mistborn (Era 1) and Stormlight Archive book series into film and television series, respectively, with Sanderson himself set to “write, produce, and consult” on the projects.
As a big fan of Brandon Sanderson and his works, (check out my reviews of both the Cosmere TTRPG and Mistborn deck building card game), I thought I would put together a short little helper guide for any of you out there that want to get a jump on the stories and characters that will soon be jumping out of your screens.
If once you finish these books and find yourself chomping at the bit for more, check out our full reading guide on The Cosmere to figure out where to go next!
Mistborn and its metal-burning allomancers will be the first of the Cosmere works to coin-push their way from the pages and onto the screen in the form of films. Along with the Stormlight Archive’s world of Roshar, Mistborn’s Scadriel forms what could be considered the backbone of the entire universe-spanning story that Sanderson has been weaving together for the past two decades. The world of Scadrial is told over the course of multiple Eras, with only the first set of books, referred to as “Era 1” being the focus of the first film.
Mistborn (Era 1) follows Vin, a thief with the ability to use Allomancy, Scadrial’s special type of magic, which allows a person to burn specific metals for various effects. We don’t know just yet if Apple and Brandon will attempt to condense into a single film the entire Vin saga (I highly doubt it), but here is what you should check out beforehand.
Besides being perhaps the best jumping-in point for the whole Cosmere, Mistborn Era 1 consists of three main books, starting with Mistborn: The Final Empire. These should all be read in order, but they will provide a great idea of the sort of quality and creative magic systems you can expect in the rest of the Cosmere.
Other stuff:
While we have no idea just what will be covered in the film (Brandon has said that he is taking the next six months to work on its screenplay), there is a good bit of supplemental material focused around Mistborn you can enjoy as well. It’s advised to read them only after completing the trilogy. There is also a really fun deck-building card game, Mistborn: The Deck-Building Game, that lets you and your friends fight against the antagonist of the books or against each other, which has an expansion releasing this year.
Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king. Taking place on the world of Roshar, readers are dropped into the middle of a decades-long war between the Parshendi who inhabit the Shattered Plains and the Alethi from the kingdom of Alethkar.. A powerful storm known as the Everstorm endlessly circles the planet, bringing with it precious Stormlight which powers the magic and devices of the land. With immortal champions known as the Heralds holding back the tide of evil from engulfing their world, this world and its champions and the heroes who rise up may just turn out to be some of the most important people in all of The Cosmere.
The Stormlight Archive is what the television series will be based off of, but to what extent remains a mystery still. As someone who has read the books, it’s hard to imagine that each book will only be a single season, but regardless of what is decided, here are the books you will want to read to make sure you’re ready when the show is released!
The Stormlight Archive is Sanderson’s giant epic fantasy series and will be the focus of the television series in the deal made with Apple. The fifth book, and conclusion to the first arc of the Stormlight Archive, released in December of 2024 with the sixth book not expected until 2031 (seriously). With most of the books surpassing 1000 pages, tackling these books is a quest in itself, and much like Mistborn, they should be read sequentially.
Other stuff:
Much like Mistborn, Brandon has written small short stories and novellas that further flesh out Roshar and some of the characters within the Stormlight Archive. As the first one, Edgedancer, doesn’t take place until between the second and third books, it will probably be quite some time yet before their influence or details are incorporated into the show. Regardless, for Cosmere fans, these are still great reads and are worth your time.
Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
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