Calling all Xbox fans: whether you're on the hunt for new games to add to your library or just you're doing a bit of Christmas shopping, this year's Black Friday sale event is stacked with stellar discounts. Across a few different retailers we've gathered up some of the best Xbox game deals available right now, including Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater for $30 at Walmart, Silent Hill f dropping to $49.94 at Amazon, and even Elden Ring plummeting to just $15 at Walmart.

These deals are just the tip of the iceberg, though. Have a look at our selection of all of the best Xbox video game deals available right now as part of Black Friday sales below.

Black Friday 2025 Video Game Deals

Some of the games above have even hit their lowest prices yet – such as Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Space Marine 2, and Star Wars Outlaws – so there's no better time to grab them. And alongside physical video game deals, Xbox's Black Friday sale officially kicked off last week with a great selection of digital game and controller deals. Unfortunately, no console deals have dropped yet.

If you're looking for even more video game deals outside of Xbox, both PlayStation and Nintendo have similarly huge selections of game deals right now. Check out our breakdowns of PS5 games already on sale and every Switch game already on sale.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

No matter how much you may prefer a mouse and keyboard for PC gaming, some games and genres are just built with gamepads in mind – and play much better with one as a result. That's why I've tested dozens of gamepads during my PC-centric career, and why I feel confident in recommending the nine picks below. Whether you're looking for something simple and inexpensive for occasional use, or something altogether more advanced for competitive or accessible play, you should find at least one great option here.

TL;DR – These Are the Best PC Controllers:

1. Xbox Core Controller

Best PC Controller

2. PowerA Advantage Wired Controller

Best Budget PC Controller

3. Hyperkin Competitor

Best Wired PC Controller

4. Sony DualSense Controller

Best PC Controller for PlayStation Games

5. Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller

Best High-End PC Controller

6. Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra

Best Customizable PC Controller

7. Razer Kitsune

Best PC Fight Stick

8. Logitech G Pro Wheel and Pedals

Best PC Racing Wheel

9. Xbox Adaptive Controller

Best Accessible PC Controller

How to Choose the Best PC Controller

Choosing the best PC controller for gaming can seem daunting, especially given the excess of options available. However, it’s easier to nail down the right choice by assessing what kind of gamer you are, what types of games you play, and whether you want to use your controller across other devices.

Sticks and triggers

While almost all classic controllers use potentiometers to sense when a thumbstick has been moved or a trigger has been depressed, many modern options now use more advanced HE (Hall Effect) or TMR (Tunneling Magnetoresistance) magnetic sensors instead. These tend to be more expensive than potentiometers to include in a controller, but they allow for more precision, in the form of smaller deadzones. These technologies also tend to offer better long-term durability, with fewer physically interacting parts, helping prevent stick drift. HE sensors typically require more power than potentiometers, potentially reducing battery life in wireless controllers, while TMR sensors are more power-efficient than either option. However, implementation by manufacturers also matters, so while TMR and HE sticks and triggers are worth looking for, they're not a guarantee of a good-quality experience.

Ergonomics

One of the biggest factors to consider is the ergonomics and comfort of the controller. Since you'll likely be using it for extended gaming sessions, it's crucial to pick a controller that feels comfortable. Look for controllers with well-placed buttons, responsive triggers, and a shape that fits naturally in your hands. Beyond that, grips can be important in games that require extra control.

Controller type

Think about the types of games you'll be playing. Different genres may benefit from specific controller designs. For instance, if you're into racing or flying simulators, a controller with analog sticks and precise triggers might be ideal. On the other hand, if you're primarily playing fighting or platformer games, a controller with a good D-pad and responsive face buttons could be more suitable. Playing a lot of FPS, a gamepad with adjustable triggers and a tighter stick will make for quicker reactions and better control. Of course, if you’ve got the budget, you can also grab specified controllers for certain games, like racing wheels, PC joysticks, and fightsticks.

Compatibility

While the majority of controllers are designed to work seamlessly with Windows PCs, it's always a good idea to double-check compatibility with your specific gaming setup. If a controller offers a wired connection via USB, using it with a PC should be relatively simple. Oftentimes, there will also be software that allows for button remapping and other customizations.

Wireless controllers may be trickier. Most come with Bluetooth support, which makes them great phone controllers. However, a good deal of latency is often introduced. Sometimes wireless controllers offer a 2.4Ghz USB dongle to plug into PCs for a faster and more stable connection; if you're a competitive gamer, this is the way to go. Luckily, most wireless offerings come with the option for a wired connection.

Features and customizations

Don't forget to consider additional features and extras. Many controllers come with programmable buttons, vibration feedback, or even customizable lighting effects. Adaptive triggers are a boon in FPS or sensory-focused games. Some higher-end controllers even come with swappable controls and a degree of modularity to adjust the feel for certain games. While these features may not be essential, they can enhance your gaming experience and provide added value for your money.

Cost

Perhaps the biggest factor in choosing a PC controller is cost. If your controller will only be used occasionally, since you’re more of a mouse and keyboard hero, a budget controller is perfectly suitable. Expect to find some great options in the $30 to $60 range. Upping the budget slightly to somewhere between $60 and $100 will bring a great balance of features, comfort, and quality. Stick to this price if you're more of a casual player. Anything above $100 should bring awesome customizability and durability; competitive players should expect to shell out a bit more for a high-end, reliable controller.

PC Controller FAQ

Is PC gaming better with a controller?

Compared to a keyboard and mouse, some gamers opt to use a controller. However, it comes down to your personal preferences, as each of these input devices has its own advantages and disadvantages.

A keyboard and mouse combo will be much larger and more spread out than a controller, which means you’ll need a great gaming desk or reliable lap desk to use them successfully. But thanks to a larger size, there is a wealth of inputs that a typical controller just can’t offer. Many of the keys and buttons are customizable with secondary functions. When gaming, keyboards and mice usually pull ahead in precision, accuracy, and responsiveness, which is especially beneficial to competitive players.

Now, don’t get me wrong, controllers are equally great. They are much smaller and more ergonomic than a mouse and keyboard, making all the inputs easy to reach. Great controllers will also have customizable or remappable buttons and triggers. The analog sticks bring smoother control over certain movements, and with some controllers offering a dose of haptic feedback, gaming can be more immersive.

Ultimately, it tends to depend on the game. Many titles are designed with one input method or the other in mind, so having the flexibility of a good controller to hand is frequently useful.

Do all controllers work with PCs?

While not every controller is guaranteed to work with PC, almost all current controllers are supported in some way. Xbox controllers are your best bet for native compatibility. Whether it's connected via wired USB, Bluetooth, or Xbox Wireless (with adapter), the devices should be instantly detected by either Windows or Steam. With the Xbox Accessories app, remapping, vibrations, and more should be supported. Be sure to check out our guide on how to pair an Xbox controller to PC for even more info.

The latest PlayStation 5 controllers are another safe bet when it comes to compatibility with PC, especially when you connect using a wired USB or Bluetooth. You can always grab a great Bluetooth adapter for your PC if your PC doesn’t support it. Steam and the majority of modern games recognize PlayStation gamepads, allowing for button remapping and other customizations. However, adaptive triggers and haptics will only work with certain games. Still, for the most part, a PS5 controller pairs seemlessly with PC.

Third-party controller brands, like Turtle Beach, Razer, and PowerA, should also be completely compatible with PC and recognized by Steam if not Windows. These devices connect either using a wired USB connection or wirelessly via Bluetooth or a 2.4Ghz USB dongle. Now, not all the controllers' features may necessarily work with PCs, but you should have no problem with basic controls.

Of course, it’s always good to check that a controller supports PC and what limitations it may have when used with PC before purchasing. All the ones I’ve selected for this guide will make a great addition to your PC battlestation.

Can you play any PC game with a controller?

Not all PC games are designed to work well with a controller. If you’re playing games on Steam, you can visit the store page to see if the game is compatible with a controller before buying the game. However, other platforms, such as Epic Games, do not list if the game is compatible with a controller, but you can often find out which games support a controller with a quick Google search. The PCGamingWiki is another great resource for checking what input methods PC games support, including fan-made fixes where relevant.

Will is deputy tech editor for IGN, specialising in PC hardware, sim racing and display tech. He has been publishing about games and technology since 2001 (age 12). Will was formerly Deputy Editor at Digital Foundry. He is currently playing Battlefield 6.

Additional contributions by Danielle Abraham, a tech freelance writer based in Los Angeles who spends her free time creating videos and geeking out over music history.

Ladies, gentlemen, beloved they/thems, the Zombie-curious, wretched undead, at last, my watch is over (mostly). After two weeks of ups and downs with Call of Duty Black: Ops 7’s Zombies mode, my feelings are mixed. I think this version has all things that make Zombies good – a cleverly designed quest line, a cool map, the joy and despondence of the Mystery Box and Call of Duty’s consistently fun gunplay. But those returning strengths don’t shine this year in the way they usually do, with an Easter Egg hunt that’s too big, too time-consuming, and too unwieldy to wholeheartedly recommend. It’s not bad, per se, but it can be frustrating in a way that might make you bow out early. And that’s lousy.

First, I come with a confession, one that serves as the foundation for the thesis of this review: my squad and I, brave souls who conquered Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode last year, and several others before, have not beaten Black Ops 7's signature Ashes of the Damned map at the time of this writing. Instead, the attempt fractured our group, perhaps permanently. One member threw up his hands and simply walked away after a particularly devastating loss, leaving us down a man and his not-insubstantial institutional knowledge and skill. Another was temporarily banned from our Discord after our last, best run. We were so close, friends. So tantalizingly close. And we came up short.

“Well, Will,” you might reasonably ask, “why issue a review if you haven’t finished it?” A few reasons, dear reader. First, we always try to learn the map and discover the process for ourselves, because that is how the average person will do it; second, because our failure mirrors what I feel many other teams will experience playing Ashes of the Damned, making it a crucial part of both this year’s game and this review; and third, because I have seen damn near everything the mode has to offer except the finale itself, and I already have a good idea of what Ashes of the Damned is: a very good map that can be exceptionally frustrating, especially if you use matchmaking to team up with random players, that often doesn’t work as it should.

Before we get started, allow me a chance to tee off on Black Ops 7’s PC anti-cheat system. This is Call of Duty. We will not be playing this game in a year because there will be a new one, and requiring me to flash a new BIOS to my computer and then go into my BIOS so I can flip the right switches until the Powers That Be decide I can play Call of Duty is ridiculous, even if this anti-cheat requirement remains in next year’s game, as Activision claims it will. You will never create an anti-cheat so good that it can’t be beaten, and whatever is gained from requiring all this is likely not worth it, nor the access it requires you give Activision to your computer. It is ludicrous, frankly, and the battle is unwinnable. If you create a better shield, the other guys will simply craft a better spear. Okay, rant over. Back to Zombies.

There is allegedly a story here – your characters are dropped somewhere into the Dark Aether where they run into a guy called the Warden who looks like the sexy ghoul from the Fallout TV series. After transmogrifying you into the semi-living by having a weird skull in a birdcage sap some of your life essence away like he’s the six-fingered man from The Princess Bride, you’re dropped into Ashes of the Damned and left to figure out what the hell is going on. All of it is very well-produced and so goofy that the only thing I could do was watch the introductory cutscene while emulating the face that I imagine a cow would make if you gave it cocaine, chuckle a little, and get on with it. Yeah, choosing certain characters gives you more story dialogue, but there’s nothing crazy here unless you’re already far too invested in Zombie lore. If that’s your bag, Godspeed. I’m here to shoot stuff.

Many of the pain points from last year remain early on – for instance, you can’t make your loadout until you hit level four, which means if Zombies is all you want to do in Black Ops 7 (and for me, it is), you’re stuck with a pistol and whatever you can earn by buying stuff on the walls after you’ve dispatched enough undead. Remember when games just let you have fun from the outset instead of unlocking it?

Otherwise, the underpinnings of Zombies feel much the same. You’re on a map, you open up new doors and paths with currency you earn, and you’ve got Pack-a-Punch machines to upgrade your guns. There’s additional armor you can apply plastered to the walls, an Arsenal to really crank up specific aspects of your weapons, Gobblegums for a little flavor if your mouth is lonely and you want a mid-battle pick-me-up that can make your run easier, and so on. And of course, while you’re managing all of this, the undead rise and hunger for flesh. Ghouls, man.

The gameplay here is similar to last year’s – I still love sliding at a group of zombies and firing off a shotgun until they’re just paste and all that. No, what’s new are the maps. Vandorn Farm is there for your classic, round-based survival attempts on a smaller map, Dead Ops Arcade for something a bit more ridiculous, and Cursed for the ultra hardcore (there’s no guidance here, loadouts and your HUD are limited, and you can equip Relics for additional difficulty). But the seven-course dinner of it all is Ashes of the Damned, the Easter Egg-heavy, “how does anyone figure any of this out?” gauntlet that you’ll have to clear if you really want to say you’ve beaten this year’s iteration. Ashes of the Damned is utterly massive, a monstrous figure eight with several different sub-sections (including Vandorn Farm) that, in years past, might have stood alone as a single map. Now they’re all connected by roads you’ll travel in a truck called Ol’ Tessie.

I love Ol’ Tessie. You can stand on the roof and lean out her windows, and if she takes too much damage, she’ll explode and you’ll have to repair her. She’s your way to and from places without dying (short of the jump pads you can activate), but early on she also becomes your Pack-A-Punch machine (which juices any gun you use it on, essential for the tougher zombies of later rounds), so something as simple as where you park her becomes a lot more important because you might need that boon or to get going in a hurry. You can also slot her with a turbo booster and three monster heads that shoot lightning. Tessie forever.

A lot of our runs began the same way: get Tessie outfitted, pray to pull the Ray Gun at the randomized Mystery Box (we had a shockingly good track record here; my friend Thomas kept pulling one on on his first or second try, and I am baffled by his power), and then start doing the rest of the Easter Eggs. Part of this becomes something you can brute force – you can use certain extremely rare Gobblegums to make it spawn a Ray Gun or the map’s Wonder Weapon – but it’s kind of essential for your long-term survival. Doing the map right means doing it quickly, before the round count gets too high and the Zombies get too strong, and there’s a fun sense of progression that comes with that. Not in a “yay, we’re getting more/better stuff” sense, although that is true, but in a “look at us mastering this” sense that I appreciate, especially since so many games now are about making your numbers go up and not actually improving as a player.

All the wacky Zombies stuff is still here. At one point, you have to throw an axe at the foot of a zombie hanging from a barn and then use a molotov cocktail to turn the severed foot into bones you can use for something else. At another point, you’re killing zombies inside of an old diner until one of them drops a key to the refrigerator in the back carrying a pretty grotesque surprise. It’s goofy and fun and I don’t know how anybody solves this stuff through anything other than trial and error, much less how the dev team comes up with it every year.

This is what makes Zombies so hard. Not only do you have to figure out all these steps, but you have to do them in order and remember where everything is on the map, and do all of it without your team dying. A full Zombies clear will take you several hours, and if you screw up and your whole team buys the farm late in that process, you’ll need to restart from scratch. You will lose every Gobblegum you spent, every weapon you jacked up with a Pack-A-Punch, every Perk you guzzled from a soda machine. Do everything you just did all over again.

It can be demoralizing, but I don’t actually mind this stuff. I’m a fighting game sicko, an action game degenerate, a beat ‘em up guy. I play in a competitive Madden league. I like learning the ins and outs of a system, mastering it, and watching what felt impossible become routine. That is one of the joys of playing games for me. But one of the crucial things you have to understand is that my Zombies group has never been made up of other game critics. It’s regular guys with nine-to-fives in fields like accounting and medicine and law and IT who play games only for fun. It’s always been something I’ve felt is necessary to review something like this: playing it with regular people. And this year, it was too much for some of them.

Part of that is how big Ashes of the Damned is. It’s a well-designed, varied map with a ton of different environments, but its sheer size means it can take a minute to get from Point A to Point B, even with Ol’ Tessie or a jump pad, and you’ll have to go all over Creation to finish it. The other issue is the number of steps involved to get things done. It’s a lot to remember! A lot to figure out! A lot to execute! And you’re expected to do it all in one run without all of you dying.

Even the rare Gobblegums that feel necessary for a good run are limited with the $250 Vault Edition, which was the version of Black Ops 7 we were provided by Activision for review. Using one of the rare ones that essentially makes the Mystery Box spawn a Ray Gun or loads you up with every perk at once and then failing on a run feels bad because you’ve lost a limited resource with little to show for it aside from whatever progress you’ve made in learning the map and whatever experience you gain for meta progression. Naturally, you can buy Gobblegum packs for real money, because of course, right? But the whole thing feels exploitative, like it’s hard because it wants you to give in and open your wallet and just buy the stuff that will make it easier.

And that’s assuming the map works properly. At one point, you have to use stun grenades to wake up a robot named Klaus. He’ll join up with you afterwards, and you can command him to interact with a computer that will then trigger a retinal scan that someone in your group has to stare at until a meter fills up. The problem is you’re being attacked by zombies the whole time. If everything’s working right, you can just have someone do that while the rest of the crew defends them. But we ran into an issue where Klaus simply wouldn’t activate the control panel no matter how many times we commanded him to. Instead, he’d stand dumbly in front of it like “Well, what do you want me to do?” while we fought off zombies before peacing out, requiring we spend valuable currency to bring him back. That time, he did activate it, but no matter how hard I stared at the retina scanner, the little bar wouldn’t go up. Needless to say, we died.

And that’s the thing, right? You’re going to die. You’re going to die because someone forgot to get an item you needed and you weren’t high enough level to craft it at the bench (this, for the record, is extremely dumb; just let me make a throwing axe! Yes, you can find one on the map if you know where to look; that isn’t the point); because OI’ Tessie took a bunch of damage and exploded, stranding you in the No Man’s Land between proper segments; because somebody got knocked off a truck and you had to go back for them; because you got cornered and made a mistake; because you forgot what to do for step 227 and had to look it up; and on and on and on. You will have to start over again, and remember, a full run takes hours and must be done in a single sitting.

And yeah, I know the tricks to make it easier. Kill all but one zombie that you kite around so the next wave doesn’t spawn, make sure everyone has a self-revive, load up with perks and armor, and so on. All of that adds interesting depth. But if you screw up and you all die, it doesn’t matter how good that run was because, aside from whatever account progression you earned during it, it all gets wiped away when you fail. After a ton of attempts, I understand why some folks just throw up their hands and spend their limited time on this Earth doing something else.

Again, this doesn’t personally bother me; failure is part of the gig, and I fully intend to finish this year’s Zombies mode at some point in the next few weeks. But it did break up a group that has a long history of doing this, and I get why they were demoralized. After our best run, where we got really close to the end before someone screwed up and it all came crashing down, one of our best guys just refused to play anymore. “I already have a job and it's really stressful,” he told me afterwards. “The last thing I need is to come home and have to deal with this nonsense.” I wonder how many people are going to try Ashes of the Damned and come to a similar conclusion.

That sentiment feels like an indictment of this year’s Zombies to me. It is so big and so long and so unforgiving that a lot of people simply won’t be able to complete it naturally even if they do know all the steps because they’ll either have bad teammates or get unlucky or just get discouraged after failing several times and give up. It also feels more than a little pay-to-win with the Gobblegum situation, and with how much simply grinding levels improves your chances because you have better stuff. If all you want to do is play Zombies, both of those things drag the experience down. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be a challenge, but it probably shouldn’t have people comparing it to their job, either. I fear the good folks behind this year’s Zombies mode have gotten so lost in the sauce that attempting to please the hardcore Zombies community may have come at the cost of letting regular people complete the map.

Honestly, the biggest problem we ran into on most runs was other people. We had teammates that didn’t speak English (I don’t hold that against them at all, it just makes communication difficult), teammates that ran off and left the rest of us to die, teammates that barely contributed or didn't collaborate at all, and so on. In fact, basically every good run we had early on was derailed by our matchmade fourth player; we normally roll with a full squad of four, but not everyone was available to play every night. I cannot imagine trying to do this with an entirely matchmade group. Eventually, I just turned off auto-fill and we ran a group of three when our fourth couldn’t make it, which was better than adding another random player to the mix.

PlayStation's official Black Friday 2025 sale is live from Nov. 21 to Dec. 1 at PlayStation, and the clear standout this year is the new Ghost of Yotei PS5 bundle.

Both versions, the black and the gold edition, are down to $499.99, a straight $100 drop from the usual $599.99 MSRP.

Each bundle includes the themed console covers, a matching DualSense controller, and a full copy of Ghost of Yotei, which already puts it ahead of most standard hardware deals.

Editor's Note: This article is brought to you in partnership with PlayStation.

Prices are dropping all over the place as Black Friday draws near. One of Amazon’s best Blu-ray deals is on the complete run of Batman: The Animated Series (see it at Amazon). You can get all 109 episodes, plus the movies Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, spread across 12 Blu-ray discs for $28.49. That’s a new all-time low price for the set, so there’s literally never been a better time to buy it. That’s just facts.

Batman: The Animated Series for $28

There's no better time to find an excuse to start 3D printing your own products than Black Friday, because that's when 3D printers drop to their lowest prices of the year. Bambu is widely considered one of the better 3D printer brands on the market, and its most popular models are all on sale today.

New for 2025, Best Buy has become an official reseller of Bambu Lab. Although Bambu Lab now ships its products from US-based warehouses if you order from them directly, I'd still recommend getting the printer from Best Buy because the return policy is much easier (simply return to your local Best Buy store) and you accrue Best Buy rewards.

Black Friday Bambu 3D Printer Deals

Bambu P1S Combo 3D Printer

For Black Friday, the official LG Store just dropped the price on a current generation LG OLED TV. Right now you can order a massive 77" LG Evo C5 4K OLED Smart TV for $1,999.99 with free delivery, which includes your choice of free stand setup or free wall mounting. LG is also offering a free LG S40T 2.1ch soundbar and TV wall mount when you add them to the same order. They cost of the soundbar and wall mount will be subtracted in your shopping cart.

Although I expect this deal to continue through Black Friday, the freebie soundbar and wall mount have been going out of stock more often than not. If you're considering getting this package and you see all three in stock, you shouldn't hesitate.

77" LG Evo C5 4K OLED Smart TV for $1,999.99

Free LG S40T 2.1ch soundbar and wall mount (must add to the same order)

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.

If you’re reading this, you already know the importance of good audio when it comes to gaming, but it’s tough to find out which is the best gaming headset for you among the sea of options. As is the case when you're looking for a gaming mouse or gaming keyboard, there are several factors to consider. You'll want to account for your budget and seek out the best sound quality and comfort, as well as the kinds of features most important to you. The easiest way to find that personalized experience is to know exactly what you’re getting into and rely on those who have first-hand knowledge.

I’ve reviewed plenty of headphones and gaming headsets in my time, so I’m familiar with what makes them great, and I’ve put my expertise and ears-on experience to use here. Each pick was made with careful consideration for what each headset offers as a whole, but also for the aspects they excel in most based on their category. With that in mind, I’ve included options for the best mid-range wired headset like the HyperX Cloud III and the best high-end wireless option in the Audeze Maxwell, for example. But more sophisticated features like virtual surround, active noise cancelation, or customizable EQ profiles can be defining for certain wireless headsets like the Razer Kraken V4 or Razer BlackShark V3 Pro. And if money is no object and want the absolute best no matter what, well, we can confidently point you to the $600 SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite. There's a little something for everyone!

TL;DR: These Are the Best Gaming Headsets:

This guide is intended to be a comprehensive look at the best options based on specific categories in which certain headsets prioritize or do better than the competition. This doesn’t mean there aren’t amazing headsets outside of the ones I’m recommending, but these are all headsets I can vouch for based upon the first-hand testing done by me and my colleagues. These are also great options whether you play games on PC, PS5, Xbox, Switch 2, or any mix of consoles (just be sure to get the right model when picking something out). I will also be updating my picks as new ones come out and I test more of what’s out there, so be sure to check back periodically, or whenever you need some advice on choosing a new gaming headset.

This guide contains contributions by Danielle Abraham and Adam Matthew.

1. SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless

Best Gaming Headset

2. Beyerdynamic MMX 300 Pro and MMX 330 Pro

Best High-End (Wired) Gaming Headset

3. Audeze Maxwell

Best High-End (Wireless) Gaming Headset

4. HyperX Cloud III

Best Mid-Range (Wired) Gaming Headset

5. Asus ROG Pelta

Best Mid-Range (Wireless) Gaming Headset

6. SteelSeries Arctis Nova 1

Best Budget (Wired) Gaming Headset

7. Turtle Beach Stealth 500

Best Budget (Wireless) Gaming Headset

8. SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite

Best Audiophile Gaming Headset

9. Razer Kraken V4

Best Surround Sound Gaming Headset

10. Razer BlackShark V3 Pro

Best Noise-Canceling Gaming Headset

11. SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds

Best Gaming Earbuds

How to Pick the Best Gaming Headset

First thing’s first: How much are you willing to spend? Next thing to ask yourself is, what are your biggest priorities when looking for a gaming headset? Is it overall sound quality, comfort, microphone clarity, durability, or something else? And if you want to go wireless, you have to consider battery life and what a headset’s software suite is capable of. You’ll likely want some mix of all those things, but while you don’t have to pick one particular feature or strength to seek out among a wide array of options, some headsets simply do certain things better than others.

Sound quality

For me, this is the primary factor to look for regardless of price range (it’s rather a matter of managing expectations with more budget-friendly options). While the size of the drivers – the actual hardware in each earcup that produces sound – is an easy shorthand for determining a headset’s potential, it’s certainly not the be-all-end-all. How the headset is tuned, the material and physical construction of the drivers, and how it sounds in specific scenarios are things you can only learn about through reviews and first-hand accounts, if you can’t test it for yourself.

Pay attention to what reviewers say about frequencies like bass/lows, mids, and highs and how they describe their experience. Sometimes bass drowns out other frequencies, mids might be distorted in hectic gameplay, or the highs are harsh at loud volumes – these are the types of things we say when describing audio shortcomings. Some folks like deep bass even if it’s overpowering, so some detractors may not matter as much to some, for example.

Positional or spatial audio

This is also crucial for competitive gamers. The best headsets are able to express the details and nuances of sound effects, not just produce clear frequencies. This helps you judge direction and distance of footsteps or gunshots in games like Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant, for example, and can also result in a more immersive experience in single-player games or even movies. Some of this can be simulated through software but things like Turtle Beach’s Superhuman Hearing tend to sound too artificial, so be wary.

Comfort

How comfortable a headset is can be challenging to understand without trying on a headset first. If you absolutely cannot try them on on first, pay attention to descriptors such as clamp force (how hard a headset latches onto one’s head), the density of the earpads, the type of material used to wrap the earpads, or how the headband rests above the user’s head. Materials like leatherette, sports mesh, and velour all have their pros and cons, with the former being better for sound isolation but not as great as the latter for airflow and mitigating sweat around the ears.

Durability

Many premium-level headsets use an aluminum frame, which may be heavier but can withstand much more contortion and mishandling. Some budget-friendly headsets opt for a flexible rubber-like plastic headband that offers a similar level of flexibility, so it doesn’t feel like you’re going to break the thing when putting it on or taking it off. Any gaming headset worth its salt shouldn’t have durability issues, but it is something to consider.

Builit-in microphones

I typically find the microphones on gaming headsets to be an afterthought, mainly because you can get much better sound quality from a standalone external microphone – that’s what I use most of the time. That doesn’t mean I overlook microphone clarity altogether.

It’s rare to find a headset outside of the premium price range with a great mic, but it’s something we as reviewers always test because it’s certainly nice to have. Something like the HyperX Cloud III was truly impressive for a mic on a $100 gaming headset, and the Beyerdynamic MMX 300 Pro is close to approaching mid-range standalone mics – and those who often use voice for communication or some sort of content creation can get a lot out of a good headset mic.

Noise isolation is worth paying attention to, as well as how well it picks up your voice – software-side features like controlling the noise gate can also be useful. And don’t overlook the importance of sidetone, which is a rare feature that automatically feeds your voice back to you.

Battery life

Wireless headsets have evolved to the point where battery life is either a non-issue or manageable with good habits of charging them whenever you can. But for headsets you’re planning on using for multiple purposes (like ones with simultaneous Bluetooth connectivity for music on mobile devices, for example), total battery life can be a more important factor. Many should last in the 40-hour range from a full charge and higher-end ones can last upwards of 80 hours, although several variables feed into how long they last in actuality.

Customization

The last thing I’ll mention is a headset's customization, at least through software. Every gaming peripheral manufacturer has its own software suite it wants you to download, and they tend to be all-encompassing apps for all its gaming gear. But good software lets you get granular with your headset, such as Turtle Beach’s Swarm app. You can fiddle with equalization, make your own EQ presets, use premade profiles, control certain aspects of your microphone, and so much more. While it’s not as important as the essentials like sound quality and comfort, a proper software suite can help you get the most out of your purchase.

Gaming Headset FAQ

How do you determine sound quality on a gaming headset?

There are ways to extract audio data from a headset to get a look at how they handle various frequencies, like artificial ear and audio analyzing software, but that alone won’t be able to tell you what the actual audio experience is like. Admittedly, it can be quite abstract to have someone describe what games, music, or movies sound like. Paying attention to descriptors like distortion, drowning, cleanliness, or balance when talking about frequencies are common ways to explain the sound quality of a device, and at some point you need to trust the reviewer’s trained ear.

There’s also the factor of driver size, the actual hardware that delivers the audio. Generally, bigger drivers means better potential for cleaner and bolder sound, but again, that alone isn’t going to determine whether or not a headset sounds good. Quality can also come down to spatial or positional audio which gives the impression of sound effects having distance and direction – it’s important for competitive settings but can make for more immersive experiences outside of trying to get an advantage over your opponents.

What makes gaming headsets different from headphones?

Gaming headsets tend to pack additional features that support the actual gaming experience, some of which may be gimmicky, but many that I would call essential. Not everyone wants to have a standalone microphone, for example, but the key feature that separates a headset from headphones, is a built-in microphone. While most headset mics are passable in terms of clarity that can suffice for in-game communication, some go the extra mile to provide better clarity or mitigate ambient noise spilling through.

Good gaming headsets are generally tuned to pick up on certain sound effects and have a more intimate sound profile since you’re an active participant in the experience rather than a passive observer (especially in competitive games). When it comes to wireless capabilities, most gaming headsets come with 2.4GHz USB dongles for the lowest latency possible – something that wireless headphones rarely include. As you’ll see in the next section, software suites for USB-based headsets (wireless or otherwise) have gotten sophisticated as well and sometimes offer a level of customization for specific gaming scenarios.

Should I go wired or wireless for a gaming headset?

Of course, it depends on your needs. I still gravitate towards wired headsets and headphones since I tend to prefer the sound profiles of a properly-tuned analog audio device (I also tend to forget about charging devices until it’s too late, but that’s a me-problem). However, battery life and latency of modern gaming headsets have come so far that you rarely, if ever, see them being issues on the latest releases. Good software suites and apps can also help you get more out of your headset by letting you customize EQ settings or swap sound profiles for certain games.

Wireless headsets are also sometimes capable of multi-device connectivity and simultaneous Bluetooth, which makes them versatile and opens them up to more use-cases (especially swapping to a mobile connection within seconds). Even though they tend to be more expensive, there’s a lot of upside to going with a wireless gaming headset, just be sure you know what you’ll be getting out of it.

Is virtual surround sound worth seeking out?

Virtual surround sound had been a bit of a gimmick when high-end headphones started simulating the experience of a 7.1 speaker setup. But I will admit that the technology has come a long way. It’s not always best suited for gaming, especially in the competitive scene – there’s some artificiality with virtual surround that can lead to misjudging audio cues. But damn does something like DTS Headphone:X or Dolby Atmos sound impressive when done right – especially in action games or movies.

Some virtual surround sound software requires you to purchase a license, and personally I find the overall applicability of them fairly niche, but that doesn’t take away from how they simulate theater-like qualities. Just because a headset is compatible with features like Dolby Atmos or DTS Headphone:X, it doesn’t mean you’ll get an equal virtual surround experience – the headset itself has to be equipped to express a level of nuance in its sound quality for it to work well.

Michael Higham is the tech reviews editor at IGN and has a passion for good audio, which often drives him nuts when picking out headsets, headphones, earbuds, and speakers. He graduated from downloading low bitrate music to seeking lossless versions of his favorite songs at an early age. Having grown up playing Counter-Strike 1.6, and now keeping up with the Valorant competitive scene, he finds positional audio to be just as important as sound quality. But he actually just wants the best and most immersive audio for all the RPGs he plays, especially the ones with banging soundtracks.

The person behind the viral GTA 6 gameplay “leak” video has admitted it was created using generative AI, amid a growing backlash from fans.

IGN had reported on X / Twitter posts made by the Zap Actu GTA6 account, which included "leaked" gameplay clips of GTA 6 while pointing to a Discord. One video posted earlier this week — now deleted — showed playable character Lucia walking in the rain. It went viral, securing 8 million views in just over 24 hours despite a community note warning against trusting it as official footage from Rockstar. But there were many other similar clips, also with millions of impressions, from the same account, and based on the replies, a number of people believed they featured genuine leaked gameplay footage.

In Zap Actu GTA6’s Discord, a growing backlash emerged today as newcomers flooded in to seek clarity on whether these were genuine leaks of AI-generated videos.

Now, ZapActu has come clean, issuing a statement and responding to questions from IGN. They insisted the videos were designed to “observe people’s reactions and to demonstrate how easy it has become in 2025 to blur the line between reality and AI-generated content.” ZapActu apologized “to anyone who felt frustrated, disappointed, or misled by these posts.” They continued: “This was never done with bad intentions.”

ZapActu said they did not make any money from the posts, nor was there a financial motive behind “this experiment.” ZapActu is now in the process of deleting posts and closing accounts.

“My intention was never to harm anyone,” they continued. “I simply wanted to create something intriguing that could bring people together and spark discussion within the GTA 6 community. I genuinely never expected a single video to generate such massive engagement and reach.”

And, in a direct message to IGN, they concluded: “It was a huge joke actually, I did it just to entertain the community. Sorry for the false hope lol.”

Misleading videos made by generative AI have exploded on the internet in recent years as the technology has become more popular and accessible. And it is a problem that affects all entertainment. Last month, IGN reported on physicist Brian Cox, who went public with complaints about YouTube accounts that had used AI to create deepfakes of him saying “nonsense” about comet 3I/ATLAS. Similarly, Keanu Reeves recently hit out at AI deepfakes of the John Wick star selling products without his permission, insisting "it's not a lot of fun." In July, it was reported that Reeves pays a company a few thousand dollars a month to get the likes of TikTok and Meta to take down imitators.

Can anything meaningful be done? Last month, the Japanese government made a formal request asking OpenAI to refrain from copyright infringement after Sora 2 users generated videos featuring the likenesses of copyrighted characters from anime and video games. Sora 2, which OpenAI launched on October 1, is capable of generating 20-second long videos at 1080p resolution, complete with sound. Soon after its release, social media was flooded with videos generated by the app, many of which contained depictions of copyrighted characters including those from popular anime and game franchises such as One Piece, Demon Slayer, Pokémon, and Mario. Despite the protestations of the Japanese, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has declared Sora 2 videos using copyrighted characters "interactive fan fiction."

As for GTA 6, given the game isn't due out for another 12 months, expect more, increasingly convincing AI-generated gameplay "leaks" to hit the internet as fans desperate for official information from Rockstar - and, hopefully, Trailer 3 - wait on.

If you're hunting for the best offers this week, we're actively rounding up the strongest Black Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full Black Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals.

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.

Sega is pointing to consumer expectations for “definitive editions” as one potential cause behind lower-than-expected sales for some of its recent games.

As spotted by GameBiz, the Sonic the Hedgehog and Persona company opened up about its performance throughout the last few months during a Q2 financial briefing Q&A session with shareholders yesterday. The conversation (via Automaton) saw Sega address the thought process behind why sales for its new premium and free-to-play games failed to meet expectations despite generally positive reviews from critics and fans.

Sega says a number of elements could be contributing to disappointing returns, including competition from other releases within the same genre, as well as launch prices. The gaming publisher also suggested gamers could be passing on purchasing games at launch due to an expectation they will eventually be able to purchase “definitive editions” of those same titles further down the line.

Definitive editions, which typically encompass video game re-releases with relatively minor visual upgrades and additional content, have become a popular tactic for publishers to utilize throughout the last decade. Sega is no stranger to the idea either, especially when it comes to Persona and Shin Megami Tensei developer Atlus.

The studio has a history of pushing re-releases for games like Persona 4 and 5, which received Golden and Royal versions a few years after their initial launches. There’s also Shin Megami Tensei V, which originally released in 2021 and went on to come to more platforms with its Vengeance counterpart in 2024. Atlus’ latest, Metaphor: ReFantazio, released for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S late last year.

Sega didn’t specifically call out any game or franchise when pointing to its definitive edition theory. The company also generally seems hesitant to directly place the blame on any one factor for now.

“While we haven’t been able to pinpoint a precise cause of [the lower-than-expected sales performance], we believe the problem also lies in our marketing, which wasn’t able to sufficiently convey the appeal of our games to users,” a Sega spokesperson told investors.

It’s unclear if Metaphor: ReFantazio or any other Sega series will receive a definitive edition or equivalent re-release in the future. For now, fans are eagerly awaiting any news Atlus may have to share about Persona 6. A Persona 3 remake, subtitled Reload, launched early last year, with Persona 4 Revival set to give its sequel the same treatment sometime in the near future. Sega is also continuing to roll out new content for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, which launched in September.

If you're hunting for the best offers this week, we're actively rounding up the strongest Black Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full Black Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals.

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).

It may be one of the most influential and widely played online games, but Destiny 2 has been experiencing a rough patch as of late. And developer Bungie knows it.

"For years now, Destiny has been on this steady hardening of the core [audience],” explains game director Tyson Green. “More and more core players are staying and playing the game, but relatively few [new] people come into the game. There's a tightening and contraction, and this presents problems for a game that you're trying to maintain as a live service, especially when you want to keep serving those core players with great, compelling expansions."

Following the launch of The Edge of Fate expansion in July, Destiny 2 saw a slump in player activity. Not necessary due to the vision of its new storyline, but rather in how it redesigned the flow of power progression to see the campaign through. Since then, Bungie has been steadily working to make changes to build up its audience again, and the upcoming expansion, the Star Wars-themed Renegades, will mark the developer’s next effort to lay a better path forward for its evolving universe.

For many developers working on online games with live-service elements, calcifying player numbers has been a recurring obstacle. Often this can be simply a matter of time – Destiny 2 has been running for nearly 10 years now, and it’s inevitable that only the most dedicated will stay for the entire ride. But one of Destiny’s most recent hurdles is one of its own making: Bungie wrote an end to the story.

Since the first Destiny arrived in 2014, each new expansion and update has formed chapters of the Light and Darkness saga, a decade-spanning, lore-dense story. But with the 2024 expansion, The Final Shape, Bungie brought that saga to a finish. It did, of course, set the stage for what's next – another multi-year storyline with a brand new focus. However, much like the current state of the post-Endgame Marvel Cinematic Universe, this presented an issue for Destiny 2, where many long-time and casual players saw it as a natural end-point to their journey. As you can imagine, this has made further adventures a bit of a challenge to present as must-see experiences.

"The Final Shape brought things to a crescendo, where it's like a fantastic ending that tied off a lot of the threads,” says Green. “People were pleased and satisfied with what they played, and then the big [downwards] spike in population [came after]. That happened because we ended the saga. So you get what you pay for, right?"

“That wasn't the plan from the business perspective,” Green continues. “We still want to keep making Destiny; we still have many stories to tell in this universe. There are still lots of things to do, and we have to keep building the game. Unfortunately, it was not gracefully managed, but we had to try something."

The first steps toward providing a compelling reason to return to Destiny following the end of the Light and Darkness saga arrived in July’s The Edge of Fate expansion, in which Bungie laid the groundwork for its next major storyline, titled the “Fate saga”. It transported players to a new region of space, where they came into conflict with the enigmatic Nine faction. This new campaign introduced new story threads and twists that shook up the lore of the series, and was an intriguing setup for the next phase of Destiny 2. However, the expansion received mixed responses from dedicated players – and struggled to bring in new ones. The most controversial change was the refreshed power levels and a steeper grind that made progression more daunting than intended, creating hurdles for reaching higher-end activities.

Green is frank in his assessment of The Edge of Fate. He recognises that the expansion didn't deliver a more satisfying way for players to advance their characters – a hard, but necessary lesson for the development team to take in.

"We looked at the problem that we had [after The Final Shape], and we said, 'We think there's a route here,' which is leaning into more systems of pursuit, getting new tiers of gear, armor sets, and power progression, and things like challenge customization," Green said. "These things that can allow a core audience of players to really say, like, 'I'm really gonna take this game and put it through its paces, and get good rewards for it.'

“It sounds great on paper, but it didn't work,” he admits. “I think we've been taught a bunch of hard lessons about what our players want, and there are really two kinds of live games: those that listen to the players and respond, and those that don't. And we don't want to be a dead live game, we want to keep building Destiny. So we're listening to our players, and what our players are telling us is that they don't want to chase a simple number that goes up, they want real rewards."

Following The Final Shape's release, Bungie announced a change to its release plans for major expansions. Instead of a single annual release, the developer would deliver two mid-sized expansions per year, each with seasonal events. With the upcoming Renegades expansion, Bungie has an opportunity to showcase its realigned power progression, which has been steadily built over recent updates, while also delivering a new campaign that celebrates Star Wars and the Destiny universe.

According to Green, the new release model has allowed the team to be more flexible with adapting to feedback, which has aided the development of Renegades. This new expansion not only re-evaluates the current game flow and the controversial system changes made earlier in 2025, but also presents a new campaign that hits at the same tone of the 2018 expansion, Forsaken, and a darker-edged Star Wars story that's filled with blaster weapons and lightsabers to acquire.

"One of the advantages that the new release model gave us, which is two expansions a year, means you can experiment more within those individual expansions – you can try different things," Green said. "So we saw what we wanted to do with a 'space western' revenge story, and we figured, let's do it in that one, let's aim for this. So we took the idea of Star Wars as total inspiration and built a Destiny expansion around it; that's kind of how we always do it. In this case, I think it comes through much more richly, because it's being more deliberate with its influences and style, but it's still fundamentally a Destiny expansion."

From my hands-on time with Renegades, it’s clear that Bungie took away valuable lessons from The Edge of Fate's release and post-launch content. I found the new campaign to be more direct in its objectives and offered a fairly generous power grind that focused more on engaging with new activities than on grinding for rare gear to move power levels up by a tick. It also touches upon classic Destiny by reintroducing a more developed version of the faction system. Many thoughtful changes really invigorate the Destiny 2 experience, but the question remains whether this will bring back players in droves.

It's a type of challenge that has become very common for live-service games in 2025. And while the Destiny series has been influential on other games, it's now in a similar position to many of its imitators. Still, Bungie sees this as an opportunity to reassess what Destiny 2 can be. When reflecting on Destiny 2's current state, core creative director Ben Womack is confident in the current roadmap, and believes that, by re-thinking the rules, it will build a new future for the game going forward.

"When you're making something new, you often have a bunch of conventions and boundaries that you have to consider, especially for games that have been around for a long time like Destiny," he said. "It's tempting to stick to those conventions as being the boundaries of the rules, but the truth is that you need to re-examine all of them every single time when trying to really create something special and make a splash. This is especially true when working with Lucasfilm.

“We looked at how we made the sandbox stuff we've done, we now have blaster weapons that will stay with us going forward, seeing how the [lightsaber-like] Praxic Blade turned out, and we have the various new syndicates that turned out well. There are things that we definitely wouldn't have done, but we had to accept and push past those usual boundaries to do these things, and as long as it's still fun and people are responding to it, and the feel is there, then it's the right decision."

As Destiny 2 gets closer to its tenth anniversary, the shared world action-RPG is currently at something of a crossroads. Following the end of The Final Shape, many players struggled to keep up with the steep power grind and evolving saga set up by The Edge of Fate. It's hard to deny those clear stumbles with Destiny 2 in 2025, but there's still so much potential for strong storytelling and slick action within the growing universe of Bungie's satisfying online RPG.

And that's what makes the upcoming Renegades expansion an interesting next step for Destiny 2. It not only seeks to realign the ascent to greater power for players but also expands the universe with a pulpy, sci-fi storyline that leans right into the influence of Star Wars. After getting an early hands-on experience with Destiny 2: Renegades, I got to appreciate the way that developer Bungie is rethinking Destiny 2's power grind, and how they're getting players to embrace the scoundrel's life as they navigate the shifting battle zones of the new Lawless Frontier.

Renegades picks up after the events of The Edge of Fate, with The Drifter warning the Guardians of a threat led by a new Cabal faction known as the Barrant Imperium and a mysterious fallen guardian named Bael. Embarking on a new mission without support from the Vanguard, The Drifter and other returning allies will form alliances with the growing network of syndicates within the new Lawless Frontier – all to take on the Barrant Imperium, fight back against the fallen guardian, and uncover the larger conspiracy that The Nine are working towards.

What's interesting about the story with Renegades is that it's simultaneously the next phase of Destiny 2's ongoing Fate saga – setting up changes to the galaxy's power dynamics – yet it's also an expansion that pays deep homage to the Star Wars series. It's not so much the Star Wars universe invading Destiny 2, a la Fortnite, but rather Destiny 2 leveraging its own lore for its take on a Star Wars story.

According to game director Tyson Green, Destiny 2: Renegades taps into a similar conceit to the Forsaken expansion and its space western revenge plot. But the opportunity to collaborate with Lucasfilm on a Star Wars crossover allowed them to take it further with a compelling crossover for the Renegades expansion. "One of the advantages that the new release model gave us, which is two expansions a year, means you can experiment more within those individual expansions – you can try different things," Green said. "So we saw what we wanted to do with a 'space western' revenge story, and we figured, let's do it in that one, let's aim for this. So we took the idea of Star Wars as total inspiration and built a Destiny expansion around it; that's kind of how we always do it. In this case, I think it comes through much more richly, because it's being more deliberate with its influences and style, but it's still fundamentally a Destiny expansion."

On the surface, it can come off as an extended series of cheeky references, and it initially took me some time to get used to the visual homages to Star Wars iconography – such as a near one-to-one recreation of the opening of A New Hope, complete with movie-accurate sound effects. But I got more into it as it went on, and I appreciated the attempt at trying to make a front-facing mash-up of sorts. I especially had a blast hopping into a giant walker to mow down foes. So far, it feels like a good fit, and honestly, much of the Star Wars aspect fits, given that Destiny and most modern sci-fi and fantasy media already have Star Wars DNA baked in.

In keeping with the Star Wars connection, Renegades also introduces the Blaster weapon variant, and just like Han Solo's and Chewbacca's guns from the movies, the Blasters hit hard and can fire quickly. They're essentially laser weapons that require venting to avoid overheating, which is a fair tradeoff considering how useful they can be in a fight. To be clear, these aren't totally new weapon archetypes, but rather new guns with a twist, some of which are variants of older guns like the Sweet Business exotic. But the added wrinkle of venting guns in between downtime does change up firefights a bit, and it can be super satisfying to tear into enemies with a Gatling Blaster rifle that feels right out of The Clone Wars.

By far the most unique weapon to acquire is the exotic Praxic Blade, Destiny 2's take on the lightsaber. Though similar to Destiny 2's existing power swords, the Praxic Blade is an exotic special weapon that deals heavy damage and grants guardians the ability to deflect incoming enemy fire, and can even be thrown like a boomerang to deal ranged damage. It's a very satisfying weapon to use, and the exotic quest to acquire it was a strong mission that made me feel like I was taking on a trippy Jedi challenge. I don't use swords too often in Destiny 2, but I ended up using the Praxic Blade a lot more than I thought I would, given how useful it was against crowds. Also, playing as my Warlock really allowed me to live out that Jedi fantasy within Destiny.

Unlike The Final Shape and The Edge of Fate, the primary campaign of Renegades takes a less guided approach and doesn't steer you into the core missions to make progress. Outside of the key story missions that will take you to bespoke locales, the majority of the action in Renegades focuses on building up your reputation within the Lawless Frontier, where you'll take on various missions ranging from smuggling, sabotage, and bounty hunts of key targets. Your new home base is the Tharsis Cantina on Mars. In this social space, you and other guardians will build up your reputation with the different syndicates vying for power within the Lawless Frontier.

Unfortunately, the expansion doesn't introduce a new destination to explore. It instead focuses on building up the Cantina social space and the excursions into the new battle zones across Mars, Europa, and a remixed Venus in the Lawless Frontier activities. This does make for a smaller scope, but I felt more engaged with how I could take my time before jumping into new activities, which focus on solo or fireteam missions fighting rival syndicates.

One of the new systems in the Cantina is the Syndicates, three factions vying for control of territory across the Lawless Frontier. In keeping with the scoundrel fantasy, you'll have to decide which of them you'll work with to build up a reputation and unlock rewards. My favorite faction was the Tharsis Reformation, a Vex sect that broke away from the machine hivemind and gained its own sentience – and it also wears its own jackets to showcase its individuality.

The syndicates are an interesting addition, and it really helped to showcase the Cantina as a fully realized den of scum and villainy – and you can even bribe characters within the social space to get tips on secrets within the Lawless Frontier. But what I really liked about the Syndicates in particular is that they felt like a more developed version of the Faction system from Destiny 1. In Renegades, you're actually helping these syndicates amass power within the Lawless Frontier, which will unlock bonus Renegade abilities to use in the field and more specialized gear. This especially comes into play with some missions that focus on contested territories, which require you to take on priority contracts to help your chosen syndicate secure them.

Speaking with core creative director Ben Womack, he stated that a valuable lesson learned was that it's necessary to think beyond boundaries and try to expand upon the usual structure and tone when necessary. The opportunity to make a Star Wars-themed Destiny 2 expansion helped the team rethink elements of the game's signature style and structure.

"I think my big lesson that I learned is that when you're making something new, you often have a bunch of conventions and boundaries that you have to consider, especially for games that have been around for a long time like Destiny," Womack said. "It's tempting to stick to those conventions as being the boundaries of the rules, but the truth is that you need to re-examine all of them every single time when trying to really create something special and make a splash. This is especially true when having a partnership with Lucasfilm. We looked at how we made the sandbox stuff we've done, we now have blaster weapons that will stay with us going forward, seeing how the Praxic Blade turned out, and we have the various new syndicates that turned out well. There are things that we definitely wouldn't have done, but we had to accept and push past those usual boundaries to do these things, and as long as it's still fun and people are responding to it, and the feel is there, then it's the right decision."

I was really impressed with how chaotic and exciting the Lawless Frontier jobs were. These PvE-focused missions feel like stepping behind enemy lines, where you have to complete dynamic objectives. It really kept my team constantly on the move, and once the job was complete, we had to make one last sprint to the exfil to complete the mission, or else suffer the consequences. One of the big twists with these missions is that you can activate new Renegade abilities to call in support drops. I was able to summon a vex shield for protection, call in an aerial bombardment, or even activate battle armor to dish out to help even the odds.

Depending on what difficulty you're playing on, the challenge can really ramp up quickly, especially when playing on a mission that allows for enemy player invasions. Much like the Gambit mode, a lone rival player can step into your squad's game and take you out to earn rewards for their syndicate. You can opt out of missions with invasions. Still, it does present a fascinating and unnerving twist to the missions, and you're not totally punished for getting wiped out by a particularly devious player who can get the jump on you.

Of course, gaining power and earning the new gear to develop your guardians is the big drive for playing Destiny 2. Unfortunately, players struggled to keep up with The Edge of Fate's shifting power levels and steep grind, leading many longtime players to move on. During our hands-on, the developers were candid about how they handled that approach in the previous expansion, and one of the larger updates coming with Renegades is realigning the game's power approach so it won't require as many hurdles to overcome.

Along with a refocused loot pool that will be a bit more generous and balanced with getting players powered, there are also new and refreshed activities and pinnacle ops for players to take on, which include more difficulty tuning options for players who want to maximize their chances for gaining solid loot. Along with 300 new storage slots in the vault, the portal menu and its variety of noteworthy missions to tackle will also see a refreshed version of the Seasonal Hub, which offers additional rewards for players to acquire by completing daily and weekly challenges that will give more incentive to dive into the activities of the hubs. This system was introduced in The Edge of Fate, but Renegade's updated version is easier and more inviting to engage with.

According to the game director, they took the criticism to heart following the release of The Edge of Fate and have been steadily releasing updates to make the next expansion one that keeps players engaged and not frustrated by the grind.

"We looked at the problem that we had and we said, 'We think there's a route here,' which is leaning into more systems of pursuit, getting new tiers of gear, armor sets, and power progression, and things like challenge customization," Green said. "These things that can allow a core audience of players to really say, like, I'm really gonna take this game and put it through its paces, and get good rewards for it. It sounds great on paper, but it didn't work. I think we've been taught a bunch of hard lessons about what our players want, and there are really two kinds of live games: there are live games that listen to the players and respond to them, and then there are dead ones. And we don't want to be a dead live game, we want to keep building Destiny. So we're listening to our players, and what our players are telling us is that they don't want to chase a simple number that goes up, they want real rewards."

Though I wasn't able to get a sense of the larger pursuit of power with my limited hands-on time, I did appreciate that Destiny 2: Renegades feels a bit more generous with its loot quality and ways to move up. Those pain points in Edge of Fate made the progression a slog, but with Renegades, I found myself getting a lot more into the flow – plus I really liked that it allowed me to get the Praxic Blade fairly early on. However, I do worry that D2's new direction with the Portal hub continues its menu-heavy focus. It's convenient, for sure, but it's also a bit of a headache to navigate, and it lessens the motivation to visit the various social spaces and destinations.

So far, Destiny 2: Renegades feels like a proper step forward for the live-service pioneer's next chapter, making for a more player-conscious experience. It's certainly not looking to reinvent Destiny 2 with a new sprawling campaign, but rather, realign its approach to getting players back into the right flow that doesn't feel like a drag. Along with the new Star Wars-inspired campaign that taps into it, it could end up being the right kind of course correction that Destiny needs – plus it's fun to see a Star Wars story play out in the Bungie’s universe.

Wendy's is offering small Frostys for 67 cents on Black Friday as a nod to the viral ‘6-7’ meme.

The offer for the fast-food restaurant' chain's frozen dairy dessert will be on Black Friday (Nov 28, 2025) via the Wendy’s app or online.

Wendy's is leaning into the ‘6-7’ meme after it went viral just in time for kids to return to school. It involves saying the words six and seven while moving your hands — palms up — up and down.

Wendy's is leaning into the 6 7 meme this Black Friday, selling their iconic Frostys for just 67 cents. Will you be picking one up? pic.twitter.com/C1ugrsBQur

— IGN (@IGN) November 24, 2025

Where does the meme come from? It’s all a little fuzzy. Rapper Skrilla might have had something to do with it. Skrilla's 6 7 (which may be in GTA 6) blew up earlier this year on TikTok and Instagram. It's a slang term referring to gun violence but became popular when it began appearing in clips about basketball players like LaMelo Ball, who is 6ft 7 inches tall. It then went viral when a boy known as the 67 Kid used it in a meme, and now kids the world over are saying it.

What does the 6-7 meme mean? Well, nothing really. But kids get a real kick out of saying it whenever they hear an adult say six and seven, or they see the numbers six and seven together... anywhere.

But even as the 6-7 meme starts to wane, as all memes eventually do, Wendy's is leaning into it for Black Friday, selling its iconic Frostys for just 67 cents.

If you're hunting for the best offers this week, we're actively rounding up the strongest Black Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full Black Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals.

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.

As part of PlayStation's Black Friday sale this year, Sony has marked down every available DualSense color by $20 - including limited edition controllers that hardly ever see any discounts. After Sony quietly increased the price of all DualSense controllers last year, this sale should help ease that sting a bit.

The DualSense controller sale is running through December 18 while supplies last. I have a feeling many of these colors will sell out by then (especially the limited edition models), so if you've been meaning to replace your aging DualSense, or add another to your collection, now's the time.

$20 Off Every DualSense Controller Color

Most DualSense controllers are between $55 and $60, depending on color, for Black Friday this year – that's $20 off the regular price. DualSense controllers rarely go on sale as it is, so any discount is better than paying full price.

The cheapest options are going to be the standard white, Midnight Black, Gray Camo, the Galaxy Collection (Cosmic Red, Starlight Blue, and Galactic Purple) and the Sterling Silver colors for $55, while the newer colors, including the Chroma Collection that released earlier this year, are $60.

Limited Edition DualSense Controllers Are Also $20 Off

Limited Edition DualSense controllers rarely go on sale, so this is a great opportunity to add one of these designs to your collection for $5-10 more than a standard DualSense. The most recent releases are the Ghost of Yotei limited edition gold and white controller and the updated Astro Bot controller, which now features a cheerful smile on the Touchpad.

For those looking for a more premium gaming experience, the DualSense Edge is also $30 off in both white and black colors. PlayStations "pro" controller offers interchangeable thumbstick modules to combat stick drift, customizable back buttons, and deep integration with the PS5's software to create and swap between profiles with ease.

Some other standout deals during PlayStation's Black Friday sale include $100 off PS5 consoles and PlayStation VR2 bundles, markdowns on dozens of PS5 games, as well as savings on PlayStation Portal and PlayStation Plus memberships.

Elsewhere this Black Friday, there are major sales happening at just about every retailer, including Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target. We'll be highlighting the best deals all week long, so make sure to check back often so you don't miss out.

Matthew Adler has written for IGN since 2019 covering all things gaming, tech, tabletop games, and more. You can follow him on the site formerly known as Twitter @MatthewAdler and watch him stream on Twitch.

Kirby has been so many different things since he first floated into our lives in 1992. Besides his dozens of transforming copy abilities, he’s been split into four differently-colored Kirbys, turned into yarn, warped into a ball we controlled on the DS touch screen, and so much more. And now that he’s hopped back on the Warp Star with the release of Kirby Air Riders on Nintendo Switch 2, we thought it was the perfect time to look back at the history of the pink puffball. Here are IGN’s top ten Kirby games of all time.

10. Kirby and the Amazing Mirror

Two iconic Nintendo heroes were split into four different versions of themselves on the Game Boy Advance: Link in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords and Kirby in Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. The latter is a 2004 GBA platformer that took advantage of the system’s link cable functionality to allow four players to adventure together, calling each other on a cellphone to regroup if they ever got split up. Just make sure the batteries don’t run out! And even if you played Amazing Mirror on your own, it stands out thanks to its lite Metroidvania setup. Rather than adventure through linear levels like pretty much every other Kirby platformer, Amazing Mirror’s branching paths let players explore levels in different orders at their own pace.

9. Kirby’s Dream Land 2

Before becoming an industry celebrity thanks to the Super Smash Bros. series, Masahiro Sakurai directed the humble Kirby’s Dream Land on Game Boy. Back in those days, Kirby was white instead of pink (at least on the North American box art), and he didn’t have copy abilities! But the 1995 Game Boy sequel, Kirby’s Dream Land 2, improved on everything the first game set up, bringing Kirby Adventure’s copy abilities into the fold, and introducing the iconic rideable animal friends like Rick the hamster. It’s a classic example of a bigger, better sequel, and our pick for the best game in Kirby’s original Dream Land trilogy, even though we really love the pastel art style of Dream Land 3 on Super Nintendo.

8. Kirby: Triple Deluxe

Kirby’s debut outing on 3DS took full advantage of the handheld’s screen, as Kirby: Triple Deluxe (a wordier way to say Kirby: 3D) sees Kirby platforming in the foreground and background in very unique ways. Its main hook is the Hypernova ability, which makes Kirby suck harder than he’s ever sucked before, essentially turning his stomach into a black hole. This is used in all sorts of clever puzzles, including one level where Kirby eats an entire train like it’s a light snack. It also introduced one of my favorite subgames in the series: Dedede’s Drum Dash, a rhythm game where Kirby’s best frenemy bounces to the beat in stages set to familiar Kirby tunes.

7. Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland

Kirby’s Adventure is an important entry in the franchise, as it’s responsible for introducing copy abilities. And it wasn’t just two or three; Adventure came out swinging with more than 20 different powers for Kirby to steal from enemies, setting the blueprint for every Kirby game to come. It also established both minigames and Kirby’s longtime rival, Meta Knight, as staples for the series. This NES classic got remade as Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land on the GBA in 2002, which we’re picking as the definitive version because of its improved controls and additional content it brought with it, like the bonus Meta Knightmare mode, where you can play the whole campaign as Meta Knight — another new wrinkle that would become commonplace in future Kirby games,. But shoutout to the NES Kirby’s Adventure cover, where Kirby is literally eating the box art and revealing the endless void that lies underneath.

6. Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is probably the easiest game on this list – which is saying a lot, given the general approachability of almost all of the Kirby series – but it’s also one of the most charming. Developed by Good-Feel instead of series steward HAL Laboratory, Kirby’s Epic Yarn transforms the pink sphere into, you guessed it, yarn, completely changing the aesthetic and overall gameplay. There aren’t traditional copy abilities – instead, this Kirby simply morphs himself into a yarn submarine, car, or parachute as he travels with the adorable Prince Fluff through an arts and crafts-themed world. It’s relaxing, beautiful, and fits in right alongside the best Kirby games despite being so different.

5. Kirby Air Riders

Kirby Air Riders is only a few days old, but it’s already one of the all-time franchise greats. After more than two decades away, Masahiro Sakurai returned to the franchise he created to take another crack at Kirby Air Ride, which was a fun but somewhat underbaked experiment back on the GameCube. And Sakurai didn’t let any part of this second chance go to waste, creating a definitive sequel that feels like the ultimate realization of its simplistic one-button racing formula. Air Riders is packed with modes, unlockables, and tons of little details that show how much love and attention went into its development. The racing is frantic and fun, but the star of the show is still City Trial; the battle mode / collectathon hybrid that’s a wonderful throwback to local multiplayer modes from the N64 and GameCube days. Its unconventional controls aren’t going to be for everyone, but if you go along for the ride, you’ll find a fantastic Kirby game that’s brilliantly unique.

4. Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe

Return to Dreamland on Wii was the first traditional home console Kirby platformer since Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (which we love but narrowly missed out on our top 10). It delivered the classic Kirby adventuring fans were craving, but introduced fun new copy abilities like Leaf and Water, had multiple well-hidden collectibles to track down in each level, tasked players with mastering every copy ability in its challenge rooms, and a lot more. Most importantly, it’s a blast in local multiplayer, allowing up to four friends to play the entire campaign together as either Kirby, King Dedede, Meta Knight, or Bandana Waddle Dee. Return to Dreamland got a fantastic deluxe treatment on Nintendo Switch, adding a bonus epilogue and a ton of returning subgames from across the series, complete with dozens of achievements to chase, so we’ve gone with that version here.

3. Kirby Super Star Ultra

Sakurai is known for stuffing his games full of side modes that all build around the same gameplay foundations, and that tradition started in Kirby Super Star, the Super Nintendo classic that hosted a small handful of bite-sized adventures to run through. These were repackaged and expanded upon in the excellent DS remake, Super Star Ultra, which brought everything back and added even more, continuing the tradition of a Meta Knight campaign established in Nightmare in Dreamland. Super Star’s biggest strength, though, is its sheer variety: collecting every last treasure in The Great Cave Offensive, racing to eat more treats than Dedede in Gourmet Race, or infiltrating the Halberd as terrified crewmates discuss the best way to stop Kirby. Every mode offers its own flavor, and it all comes together to create the strongest game of Kirby’s early days.

2. Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Every game series takes a different approach when transitioning from 2D to 3D, and fittingly for this franchise, Kirby kept things delightfully simple by keeping its formula largely intact as it made the jump. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a fantastic realization of classic Kirby platforming in a 3D space. Kirby hops, floats, and dodges just like you’d think he would, and the upgradeable copy abilities work seamlessly. Its most memorable new addition is Mouthful Mode, which lets Kirby wrap his enormous mouth around a car, staircase, or even a vending machine, making for fun puzzle platforming that proves this isn’t just a retread of Kirby’s greatest hits. The Forgotten Land also takes some inspiration from the 3D platforming greats, such as Super Mario and Banjo-Kazooie, by sprinkling hidden collectibles and secret objectives across every level, and it’s a joy for completionists to hunt down every last Waddle Dee to send back to town.

1. Kirby Planet Robobot

The best Kirby game of them all is Kirby: Planet Robobot, an unassuming sequel to Triple Deluxe on 3DS that turned out to be his finest adventure. That’s largely thanks to the Robobot armor, a hulking mech suit Kirby pilots across the campaign, complete with its own unique copy abilities. While Triple Deluxe’s Hypernova and Return to Dreamland’s Super abilities felt more like gimmicks relegated to setpiece moments, the Robobot armor is seamlessly integrated into the stages, leading to fantastic puzzles with the most depth, variety, and challenge in the series, especially if you’re trying to collect everything. Robobot expands upon Triple Deluxe’s foreground and background platforming and features some of the coolest settings in the series, as a mechanized Planet Popstar is just a great idea that ties each world together. Robobot is an absolute treat, and we can only hope that Nintendo rereleases it on Switch or Switch 2 sometime soon so more people can experience the best Kirby game of them all.

There you have it – IGN’s top ten Kirby games of all time. Would you inhale this list, or spit it out? Are we leaving off your favorite? Drop a comment and let us know. For more Kirby, check out our review of Kirby Air Riders, or our Nintendo Voice Chat podcast that posts new episodes every Friday on the IGN Games YouTube channel and your favorite podcast app. And for everything else Nintendo, stick with IGN.

Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN's Database Manager & Playlist Editor. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he is patiently awaiting the day Nintendo announces a brand new F-Zero. You can find him online @LoganJPlant.

Tron: Ares will ride onto digital platforms for rent and purchase — including Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home — on December 2.

The film will also be getting a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and DVD release just over a month later on January 6, 2026. Disney is also releasing a limited-edition Steelbook DVD which will include custom packaging and artwork. The DVD set will have some bonus features for fans to dig into as well, including deleted scenes and five featurettes.

According to Variety, the first is The Journey To Tron: Ares, where star and producer Jared Leto and director Joachim Rønning, as well as other cast and crew members, discuss visuals, stunts, costumes, and sets. The next is Lightcycles On The Loose, where Rønning goes into detail on one of most action-packed sequences in the film and explains how ILM artists were involved in the process.

The third featurette is called The Artistry Of Tron: Ares, and in this one, Rønning and Leto “unpack key moments and the striking visual, sonic and artistic philosophies that drive the storytelling both in and out of the Grid.” The fourth behind-the-scenes clip is called Cast Conversations, where performers in the film reveal their process and “personal insights” about working on the movie. Finally, the last featurette is called “The Legacy of Tron,” which explores the entire franchise and highlights easter eggs and cameos throughout.

In addition to the physical media coming from Tron: Ares, fans will also soon be able to snag a Tron franchise three-movie collection, which will include the original 1982 film and the fan favorite 2010 follow-up film starring Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund.

Something interesting to note about the release of Tron: Ares: Disney appears to be respecting the theatrical window to the degree not many studios are willing to right now. Tron: Ares took 53 days to become available to audiences in their homes with the digital release and the Blu-ray/DVD window is even longer at 88 days.

The digital and Blu-ray release comes after Tron: Ares flopped at the global box office, raising questions about the future of the franchise.

The hope with Tron: Ares was that it would reboot the Tron franchise 15 years after the last entry and usher in a wave of sequels. Those hopes now appear in doubt. IGN’s Tron: Ares review returned a 5/10. “Tron: Ares somehow forgets where it came from and relentlessly revisits the original, only making the latest version of the Grid paler by comparison,” we said. For what it’s worth, check out IGN’s Tron: Ares Ending and Post-Credits Scene Explained feature to find out how it sets Tron 4 up.

If you're hunting for the best offers this week, we're actively rounding up the strongest Black Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full Black Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

Sony has announced its next batch of PlayStation Plus Monthly Games, due to arrive for subscribers in December 2025.

Notably, the list includes this year's LEGO Horizon Adventures, the family-friendly retelling of the franchise's first entry (that's also notable for bringing the PlayStation franchise to Nintendo Switch).

Also included in next month's offerings is the decidedly non-family friendly Killing Floor 3, a first-person shooter where you and other co-op buddies hunt down bioengineered creatures of a more disturbing nature. (IGN's Killing Floor 3 review returned a 7/10.)

If you're still not over the spooky season, then you should look no further than The Outlast Trials, which developer Red Barrels itself describes as a game featuring "mind-numbing terror." IGN's The Outlast Trials review surfaced with another 7/10, saying The Outlast Trials had "all of the gory appeal of a cheesy horror movie." Which is to say some, but also that it's something of an acquired taste.

If you want something a little less creepy, the stylish but tense extraction shooter Synduality Echo of Ada features mechs and a cool sci-fi premise. IGN's Synduality review returned, you guessed it, another 7/10, praising its mech-based gameplay but saying it was a bit of a grind to get to its best bits.

Next month's final game is Neon White, the even more stylish shooter-meets-visual novel featuring angst-ridden assassins. IGN's Neon White review awarded the game an 8/10, praising its "airtight level design and fantastic sense of momentum."

PlayStation Plus December 2025 games lineup:

• Lego Horizon Adventures (PS5)
• Killing Floor 3 (PS5)
• The Outlast Trials (PS4, PS5)
• Synduality Echo of Ada (PS5)
• Neon White (PS4, PS5)

As a reminder, existing subscribers have until next Monday, December 1 to add this month's PlayStation Plus Monthly Games to their libraries, including Stray, EA Sports WRC 24 and Totally Accurate Battle Simulator.

Anything you're keen to play?

If you're hunting for the best offers this week, we're actively rounding up the strongest Black Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full Black Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

The impressively detailed Illustrated Editions of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the Silmarillion are all discounted on Amazon and included in the retailer's buy 2, get 1 free deal. These are the definitive way to read J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth epic, with fully reset and corrected text that's consistent with his original vision. They also come with dozens of illustrations, hand-drawn maps, and various notes and about the history of the vast lore.

If you already own the illustrated editions, we published a handy Lord of the Rings gift guide with plenty of other Tolkien-inspired goodies right in time for the Winter holidays.

The Lord of the Rings Illustrated Editions Sale at Amazon

The illustrated versions of these legendary books come in a jacketed hardcover binding, complete with the full texts, color illustrations and maps, notes, and so much more. To activate the deal, you just need to add three eligible books to your card and the least-expensive one will be discounted from the total price. So in this case if you buy all three, you'll be saving an extra $39.78 on all of the books on top of the already discounted sale price.

The Lord of the Rings Illustrated Edition

Cyberpunk 2077 has sold a whopping 35 million copies, CD Projekt has announced. Sales of the five-year-old sci-fi action RPG were boosted recently by its release on the Nintendo Switch 2 as well as Mac devices.

Reporting its latest financial results, chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 had reached 35 million copies ahead of The Witcher 3 in the same period since its release. Cyberpunk is currently CD Projekt’s main source of revenue, Nielubowicz added, due to the expansion of the game's availability. Cyberpunk was also added to PlayStation Plus, boosting new players and further encouraging sales of the expansion, Phantom Liberty.

In its financial briefing, CD Projekt said it was “laying the foundations” for Cyberpunk 2, outlining plans to scale up its development teams in Boston, Warsaw, and Vancouver and through to the end of 2027. 135 people were working on Cyberpunk 2 as of October 31, 2025, up from 116 at the end of July.

We know very little about Cyberpunk 2, although in May, Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith teased some previously unknown details when he was asked about the scope of his involvement with what was then known as Project Orion, back at the Digital Dragons 2025 conference.

Pondsmith admitted he wasn’t as involved this time around, but said he had reviewed scripts and had been to CD Projekt to check out the ongoing work.

“Last week I was wandering around talking to different departments, and seeing what they had, ‘Oh look, this is the new cyberware, what do you think?’ ‘Oh yeah, that’s pretty good, that works here.’"

And then, the morsel on the sequel: that it features a brand new city in addition to the Night City we know from Cyberpunk 2077. Pondsmith described this new city as “like Chicago gone wrong.”

“I spent a lot of time talking to one of the environment guys, and he was explaining how the new place in Orion, because there’s another city we visit — I’m not telling you any more than that but there’s another city we visit. And Night City is still there. But I remember looking at it and going, yeah I understand the feel you’re going for this, and this really does work. And it doesn’t feel like Blade Runner, it feels more like Chicago gone wrong. I said, ‘Yeah, I can see this working.'”

It’s worth pointing out that Pondsmith’s comments do not necessarily suggest the Cyberpunk sequel will feature a future Chicago, rather a city that has the feel of a dystopian version of the city. It may well be a take on future Chicago, but that isn’t confirmed based on these comments. There is also some debate about whether Cyberpunk 2 will expand upon the Night City that’s in Cyberpunk 2077 or feature a new version, and the extent to which it is playable.

In September, speaking with IGN while promoting his movie Good Fortune, Keanu Reeves said that he wanted to be part of the sequel to CD Projekt's 2020 game. “Absolutely. I’d love to play Johnny Silverhand again," Reeves said when asked if he’d be interested in revisiting his legendary rockstar terrorist character in Cyberpunk 2. Pondsmith later said he'd worked out a way to make it make sense, and has told the much-loved actor: “contact me.”

It sounds like we'll have to wait some time to find out. CD Projekt is of course focusing on The Witcher 4, and CD Projekt co-CEO Michał Nowakowski has suggested Cyberpunk 2 won’t be out until at least 2030. According to the company's latest official figures, 447 staff were working on The Witcher 4 — a figure slightly up from the previous quarter. Overall, CD Projekt enjoyed strong revenue and profits as its games continue to sell.

If you're hunting for the best offers this week, we're actively rounding up the strongest Black Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full Black Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals.

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.

It's happening people! The house of mouse has kicked off its Black Friday sale with up to 30% off toys, soft toys, clothing, pajamas and even adult loungewear. Of course there's some Christmas goodies thrown in for good measure, and most importantly, a shopping bag. That's right people, this bag for life bargain is going to blow your mind.

Disney Store Black Friday Event

Christmas Deals

Disney Christmas merchandise is always awesome, and you're guaranteed to find something you love to put on your Christmas Tree or put on display this year. Whilst I wouldn't reccomend putting the shopping bag on your tree, it would be on-brand for a Disney Christmas. I'd probably use it to put presents in for Father Christmas to pick up.

There's a full 30% off the Tinker Bell Christmas Tree Topper, coming in hot at £31.50, it lights up too. £12 off the Home Alone Jumper is well worth a spot in your Christmas Jumper lineup this year too. £28 for one of the best quotes in family film history is worth every penny.

If you want something different to decorate your Christmas Tree with, the Mickey Mouse Icon White Snowflake Light-Up Bauble is £13 off, which is a 46% discount down to £15. I thought Disney Store Black Friday was only up to 30% discount?

Well this gorgeous MIckey and Minne 2025 Christmas Glass Droplet Tree Ornament is 30% off at £16.80, down for £24. It's a proper unique decoration or gift, and it'll probably start off a new collecting obsession.
A Lightsaber Advent Calander people, I don't even need to try with that one, that's awesome.

The Muppets Christmas Carol is one of my earliest core memories as a kid, and I also remember crying my eyes out seeing the Ghost of Christmas Future, such happy times. But I'll 100% be picking up the light-up ornament of Kermit and Miss. Piggy, just for the nostalgia alone. And the Gonzo Cushion is ridiculously ugly, which means it's perfect for Christmas time.

Soft Toy Deals

It's such a shame we don't have nationwide Disney Stores anymore, I used to love taking the kids in to pick out a new soft toy every now and again for a treat. But that doesn't mean you can get yours a couple of cuddly treats in time for Christmas Day with these Black Friday deals.

No doubt someone you know is a Stitch and Angel fan, and you can get a 52cm version of each for £20 each at the moment. They feature a "soft feel" finish, which means they're all nice and fuzzy and great embroidered details the kids (and adults) will love. Just to clarify, that a half-meter Stitch teddy bear for 50% off is usual £40 price tag.

Infact most of the soft toys in the Black Friday sale are £20 or below, including the pure evil that is Lots-O-Huggin' Bear from Toy Story. Or you could get a 67cm Mickey and Minnie for £40, guess how much they are each?

Bath Toy Deals

Mums and Dads all know how valuable it is having toys for the bath, it just makes life so much easier. Each of these sets are £14, knocked down from £20 and includes Frozen, Disney Princess, Cars, Moana 2 and Toy Story. They all come in a little bucket to chuck them in after bathtime too, which again is extremely useful for babies, todlers and stumps that can't/won't tidy up.

Toy Deals

Here's where it starts getting good, the toys! Of course Toy Story is dominating this section. Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Jessie and all your favorites are here. I remember when the first Toy Story released, that Christmas Buzz Lightyear was the hottest toy on Earth. Luckily my Mum and Dad booked a trip to Disneyland Paris, and their were hundreds of little Tim Allan's.

The Cinderella Doll, Horse and Light Up Carriage toy is a great deal, £21 off or a full-fat 30% down from £70. Every penny saved helps on the run up to Christmas, and this is a fantastic main present for your little princess.

Looking for a budget Disney Princess gift instead? How about Ariels Palace Micro Playset for £14, down from £20. Remember Polly Pockets? Think that but with Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian.

Kids Costumes

I can't make it any clearer that these are childrens costumes and you all need to calm down. With the exception of Spider-Man, it seems that ever sindle Disney Princess costume has been knocked down to £24.50 from £35 , which is a cheeky £10.50 saving that can go towards Cinderellas Glass Slippers or Elsa's boots for example. Even Belle is flogging her flippers in this Black Friday sale.

Kids Pajama Deals

Christmas isn't Christmas without new Pajamas, and that goes for the adults too (more on that next). If you've never got a set of jammies from the Disney Store before, they'll last until they grow out of them, and they're always so soft and cosey, perfect for this time of year. They're all down to £14 or lower from around £20, including Spider-Man, Lightning McQueen and Frozen, although I'd try defrosting them before making you kids wear them. I should look for a job writing Christmas cracker jokes, I'm wasted here...

Adult Loungewear

Oodies are expensive, but these Oversized Lounge Hoodies aren't, £28 knocked down from £40 by Goofy (The one with severe anger issues that Walt killed and replaced with the daft one). And and you want to be ridiculously cosey this Christmas, you'll also have to get the Fantasia Weighted Throw, It's only £38.50 down from $55 and it counts as a lifting session at the gym. Stay swole this Christmas with Disney's Black Friday deals!

Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.

Stranger Things creators the Duffer brothers have revealed the four episodes they recommend rewatching ahead of the release of Season 5 on Netflix.

Ross and Matt Duffer told The Hollywood Reporter that the four episodes, below, are key to understanding where the story goes in Season 5, which kicks off on November 26.

The four Stranger Things episodes are below:

• Season 2, Episode 4, “Will the Wise”
• Season 2, Episode 6, “The Spy”
• Season 4, Episode 7, “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab”
• Season 4, Episode 9, “The Piggyback”

Matt Duffer told THR that Season 2 “is when we really started to build out the mythology and started to dive into everything, and how this was going to be an ongoing [series]. That’s where we started to really plant the seeds for the mythology, and I think probably that’s why that is as relevant as it is.”

Ross pointed towards the Season 4 episode, The Massacre at Hawkins Lab, which “starts unveiling some of the Upside Down mythology and starts giving some answers, and, of course, all the stuff with Henry (Bower) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) continues to resonate throughout Season 5.”

Earlier this month, the Duffers promised fans that Season 5 would finally answer one of the biggest questions left hanging since Season 1 made its explosive debut a decade ago.

Warning! Spoilers for Stranger Things follow:

This isn’t about an explanation for what the Upside Down is; Matt and Ross Duffer have already said the fifth and final season will reveal all on Stranger Things’ hellish alternate dimension. This is about the kidnapping of Will Byers, played by Noah Schnapp.

Stranger Things began with the mysterious disappearance of Will, and Season 5 will finally answer why he was kidnapped and brought to the Upside Down in the first place. ‘Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers’ is the first episode of Stranger Things and the first episode of the first season. It was written and directed by the Duffer Brothers and premiered on Netflix on July 15, 2016, along with the rest of the season.

For years fans have theorized about why Will was kidnapped, rather than simply killed like so many others. What happened to him when he was in the Upside Down, and to what end? The first five minutes of Stranger Things Season 5, which Netflix has released, starts to answer those questions. We see a de-aged Will terrified in the Upside Down and running for his life from the Demogorgon. While Will puts up a valiant fight, he is eventually dragged to the lair of Vecna himself. It’s here that things get strange, as Vecna summons vines to prop Will up. Vecna then pumps some sort of substance through a tendril and into Will via his mouth. Will does not look like he’s enjoying the experience.

Clearly, whatever is inserted into Will is designed to take him over in some capacity and potentially become a part of the Upside Down itself. It’s all part of Vecna’s master plan, of course. “At long last,” Vecna says, menacingly. “We can begin. You and I, we are going to do such beautiful things together, William. Such beautiful things.”

If you’ve watched Stranger Things you’ll know that Will's mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Chief of Police Jim Hopper (David Harbour) eventually find Will and bring him back to our world, although he is much changed. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ross Duffer said that fans should go back to Season 2, Episode 6, called ‘The Spy,’ to help them understand what’s going on. This is, Ross said, “the most important episode,” and shows Will “working, in a way, for the Mind Flayer.”

In The Spy, Will is brought to Hawkins National Laboratory. At one point, a severed tendril from the tunnels is burnt, causing Will to experience pain. Will later points soldiers in the direction of a place the monster doesn’t want him to see, which turns out to be a trap. Will says "he made me do it" because "they upset him." Will, it seems, is the spy.

Season 5 begins in the fall of 1987, near the anniversary of Will’s disappearance in the Upside Down. “So much of the season was built around the idea of coming full circle, answering many of the questions that were posed all the way back in Season 1,” Matt Duffer told EW. “I think the two biggest questions that we didn’t really answer in Season 1 that we do answer this season is ‘what is the Upside Down, truly?’ and ‘why was Will taken?’”

“We reveal really everything about the Upside Down, all of which was planned out in season 1,” Matt added. “It was fun to finally pull back the curtain on all of that.”

Here’s the official blurb on Stranger Things Season 5:

The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they’ve faced before. To end this nightmare, they’ll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time.

Stranger Things Season 5 debuts on Netflix in three parts, with the first four episodes arriving for the Thanksgiving holiday on November 26. The next three episodes premiere on Christmas, and the series finale will debut on the streamer and in over 350 theaters nationwide on New Year’s Eve.

Stranger Things Season 5 release dates:

• VOL 1 - November 26, 5pm PT
• VOL 2 - Christmas, 5pm PT
• THE FINALE - New Year’s Eve, 5pm PT

If you're hunting for the best offers this week, we're actively rounding up the strongest Black Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full Black Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals.

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.

A fresh update for the Nintendo Switch Online Game Boy app has added a new startup Easter egg, alongside the arrival of several more retro titles.

Switch Online subscribers can now update their Game Boy app to Version 3.0.0, which adds the ability to view the original boot screen of your preferred Game Boy title when loading up a game.

If you've set your app to play the game as if on Game Boy, then it's the OG Game Boy startup screen that you'll see. If you've selected Game Boy Pocket, then you'll see that instead. Finally, if you're playing with your app set to Game Boy Color mode, you'll get that startup screen — colors and all.

So, how to see this Easter egg for yourself? Well, it's as easy as holding the left control stick on your Switch console when loading the app. Sound familiar? Yes, this is the same Easter egg and unlock mechanism that Nintendo previously added to the Switch Online's Game Boy Advance app.

(And yes, Switch 2 owners, if you want to view all the GameCube startup noises, you can also unlock those too.)

Finally, today's latest regular Switch Online catalogue update adds four more games to the service for subscribers, listed below.

• Battletoads (NES)
• Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos (NES)
• Bionic Commando (Game Boy)
• Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters (Game Boy)

Anything take your fancy?

If you're hunting for the best offers this week, we're actively rounding up the strongest Black Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full Black Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

I probably could have held off on writing this until what I like to call "Black Friday proper," on Nov. 28. But I've already seen several top offers fall into the shadow realm, never to return. I've got a sneaking suspicion that my top Black Friday picks will soon meet a similar fate.

Don't get me wrong, there are still some brilliant offers up for grabs, with some of 2025’s best games dropping to $30 or less, while plenty of other big PS5, Xbox, and Switch releases from the past couple of years are also heavily discounted (at least for now).

That's been massively helped by Walmart, which has stocked up on some of the best Black Friday discounts going this year. Yet, with retailers like Amazon and Best Buy still refusing to auto price-match most deals, once Walmart sells out, we likely won't see some of these low, low prices again for a while.

So, writing this article, I am.

You might have already seen my $20 or less roundup, which is still packed with heavy hitters from the last few years and perfect if you want maximum bang for your buck. Some deals are so good, they even feature in this article as well. But I've also tried to keep things as fresh as possible for returning readers.

I've also got you covered if you're looking for a more comprehensive roundup of the best video game deals for Black Friday. My advice is to snap up the following games up ASAP, because once they're gone, they're gone.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

Artwork for Fortnite's new Chapter Seven era has seemingly teased a crossover with LEGO Ninjago, and confirmed a return for the game's dreaded Cube.

While LEGO already has a deep integration with Fortnite, the addition of Ninjago characters into the game will prove interesting — as it remains to be seen whether the characters will appear as non-LEGO versions. Indeed, this teaser simply shows a set of golden nunchuks belonging to Ninjago hero Jay, without the character himself being present.

Lego Ninjago's characters are, obviously, LEGO minifigures — but in Fortnite, playable characters always have a regular (non-LEGO) skin version as well. Perhaps we'll see a full, human-like version of Jay make its debut? Or perhaps fans will be allowed to run around Fortnite's battle royale as over-sized LEGO figurines (this seems less likely).