In general, the best Memorial Day sales are on things like furniture or clothing. But that doesn't stop retailers from sneaking in discounts on other stuff. Although the Amazon Memorial Day sale has been rather unimpressive so far, the online retailer does actually have a few surprisingly good 4K movie deals going on right now.

These discounts aren't quite as good as the big three for $33 sale Amazon had last month, but if you're looking to add any of these specific films to your physical media collection, these prices are worth considering.

The Best Amazon 4K Movie Deals Today

While there aren't a ton of deals on 4K movies in this sale, the ones that are available are all pretty good. The overall best deal right now is on the Batman (1989) 4K Steelbook. It has dropped to the lowest price we've ever seen and it also comes with a Blu-ray disc. If you're a fan of Michael Keaton's Batman, this is a must-have for your collection. The Schindler's List 25th Anniversary Edition Steelbooks is also at its lowest ever price. The Oscar-winning film was one of the first big movies that put Liam Neeson on the map and is arguably still his best performance to date.

If you're looking for the overall best value, the Get Out/Us Double Feature bundle is sitting at a great price. You get two of Jordan Peele's horror movies for only $25.99, which is the lowest price we've ever seen for this combo.

Outside of those three deals, a few other price drops are worth noting that aren't necessarily a part of Amazon's Memorial Day sale. The latest Captain America movie only recently came out on 4K and Blu-ray and it is already pretty heavily discounted. It's worth adding to your Marvel collection if you already have one, but it wasn't very well-received by critics, so it's potentially worth skipping if you haven't actually seen it yet. There's also a pretty substantial discount on House of the Dragon Season 1, which isn't a movie but noteworthy all the same.

Should You Buy Now or Wait for Amazon Prime Day?

Since Memorial Day sales aren't exactly a treasure trove of 4K movie deals (at least so far), it's probably safe to say you can wait to make any major purchases for your collection until later on. That being said, Prime Day might not be the only time worth buying physical media. Amazon has had two major buy three for $33 movie sales in 2025 and these have been the best overall chances to build yourself a collection. We expect there to be a lot of movie deals on Prime Day this year, because there were last year, but keep your eye out for other special promotions if you want to save the most money possible.

A jump starter is an essential part of car's emergency kit, and a cordless one eliminates the need to plug it into an available cigarette lighter. You don't need to pay a premium for a jump starter that reliably gets the job done, either. Amazon is currently offering Amazon Prime members this AstroAI S8 Pro 12V 3,000A cordless car jump starter for $32.99 shipped after you clip a 45% off coupon code "AQ97FOMC". Not only does it function as a car jump starter, it can also be used as a power bank to recharge your smartphone in a pinch.

Update: This deal is no longer reserved for Amazon Prime members only.

AstroAI S8 Pro 12V 3,000A Car Jump Starter for $32.99

George Wendt, the comedian-turned-actor best known for his role as “Norm Peterson” on the classic sitcom Cheers, died Tuesday at the age of 76.

Wendt died peacefully in his sleep at home, according to The Hollywood Reporter, who received the following statement from a family representative:

“George was a doting family man, a well-loved friend and confidant to all of those lucky enough to have known him. … He will be missed forever. The family has requested privacy during this time.”

The Chicago native began his career as a standup comic in the 1970s with the improv troupe Second City. As an actor, Wendt found fame – and earned six consecutive Emmy nominations for best supporting actor in a comedy series – during his 11 seasons on Cheers.

Memorial Day 2025 is coming up (the day itself is May 26), but some retailers have already pulled the lever on their sales. You can find Memorial Day sales live at Amazon, Best Buy, and more stores. Among the many appliances and yard tools on sale, you can find some killer deals on video games. Below, you'll find our picks for all the best video game deals in all of the Memorial Day sales that are currently live. Let’s dive in.

The Best Video Game Deals Today

Above is a blurb-free carousel of all the best video game deals for Memorial Day 2025. For details and links on some of the games, keep on reading.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 for $49.99

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 for $39.99

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake for $39.99

Star Wars Jedi Survivor for $19.99

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition for $49.99

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol.1 for $19.99

See More Memorial Day Sales Live Now

Looking for more discounts outside of video games? There are already a ton of Memorial Day sales live for 2025. Below are some of the biggest ones we've found so far.

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

The graphic novel Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir (MCD, 2024) by Tessa Hulls has won the Pulitzer Prize, announced on May 5.

Feeding Ghosts is the second graphic novel to ever win the Pulitzer, the first being Art Spiegelman’s Maus in 1992. In that instance, Maus received a Special Award. Feeding Ghosts, however, won in a regular category, Memoir or Autobiography, having competed against the best English prose in the world. What’s more, it’s Hulls’ debut graphic novel.

Widely considered the most prestigious award in journalism, literature, and music in the US, the Pulitzer Prize is second only to the Nobel Prize internationally.

It’s a momentous accomplishment, ostensibly the biggest news in the field of comics. But surprisingly, it’s barely been reported on. Since the book won two weeks ago, only a handful of mainstream and trade press reported about it—notably Seattle Times and Publishers Weekly—and only one major comic book news outlet, Comics Beat.

The book, which according to Hulls took almost a decade to create, was called by the Pulitzer Prize Board “An affecting work of literary art and discovery whose illustrations bring to life three generations of Chinese women – the author, her mother and grandmother, and the experience of trauma handed down with family histories.”

Feeding Ghosts traces the reverberations of Chinese history across three generations. Hulls’ grandmother, Sun Yi, was a Shanghai journalist swept up by the turmoil of the 1949 Communist victory. After fleeing to Hong Kong, she wrote a best-selling memoir about her persecution and survival, but then suffered from a mental breakdown, from which she never recovered.

Growing up with Sun Yi, Hulls watched both her mother and grandmother struggle beneath the weight of unexamined trauma and mental illness, which she dealt with by leaving home for the most remote corners of the globe. Eventually, though, she returned to face her own fear and trauma, a generational haunting that could only be healed with the love of family.

“I didn’t feel like I had a choice. My family ghosts literally told me I had to do this,” Hulls said in an interview last month. “My book is called Feeding Ghosts, because that was the beginning of this nine year process of really stepping into something that was my family duty.”

Hulls’ first graphic novel may also be her last, however. “I learned that being a graphic novelist is really too isolating for me,” she said in another interview. “My creative practice relies on being out in the world and responding to what I find there.” On her website, she says she’s “setting out to become an embedded comics journalist working with field scientists, indigenous groups, and nonprofits working in remote environments.”

Whatever the future holds for this groundbreaking artist, Feeding Ghosts deserves to be recognized and celebrated outside the world of comics and especially within.

Roy Schwartz is a pop culture historian and critic. He is a former CNN regular contributor, the author of Is Superman Circumcised? The Complete Jewish History of the World’s Greatest Hero and co-producer of the documentary JewCE: The Jewish Comics Experience. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @RealRoySchwartz and at royschwartz.com.

If you're in the market for a mechanical keyboard that skips the flashy RGB in favor of something a little more classic, you're in luck. Best Buy has dropped the price of the 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard, which includes the Best Buy-exclusive joystick, from $100 down to just $80. This is a feature-rich keyboard that not only feels great to use but also looks the part. Check out the full breakdown of the deal below or dive into the full Best Buy Memorial Day sale for more deals like this.

8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard with Joystick on Sale

Eddington opens in theaters Friday, July 18. This review is based on a screening at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

With Eddington, 21st-century horror maestro Ari Aster makes an ambitious swing towards politically flavored comedy – but he misses just as wildly with this dusty, small-town modern Western. The first misfire of Aster’s directorial career makes a futile attempt to capture and satirize the rampant paranoia and cultural fault lines of the summer of 2020 via its COVID-era tale of bitter rivals running for mayor. With flailing jabs in every direction, Eddington ends up with shockingly little to say, and meanders for much of its 145-minute runtime.

There’s some superficial enjoyment to be found, especially in the lead performances: Eddington is an extremely slight work in the body of a comedy that’s only ever funny because the likes of Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone make real attempts at finding something beneath the surface. But given the material they’re working with, they often come up short. Phoenix plays Joe Cross, the rebellious, alarmingly individualistic sheriff of the fictional Eddington, New Mexico, who spends his time listening to right-wing talk radio and attempting to politely (but aggressively) navigate his way around pandemic mandates (or insisting that others do so). His messy domestic life informs at least some of his frustrations, between his withdrawn, younger wife, Louise (Stone), and their intrusive, extended-stay house guest: Louise’s mother, Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell).

Whenever Joe comes home, he finds Louise and Dawn lost down their own separate online rabbit holes. Louise gravitates towards the teachings of new age self-help messiah Vernon Jefferson Peak (a severely underused Austin Butler), while Dawn constantly absorbs and regurgitates absurd conspiracy theories from YouTube. At a glance, these details are not entirely unfamiliar: When Joe scrolls through his phone, he’s met with a variety of content that’s either incendiary or mind-numbingly banal, as any of us might. However, much of this is just window dressing, worthy of a chuckle before we forget about it (Eddington certainly does). Fed up with the state of things, Joe decides to run for mayor against incumbent candidate Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), a smirking politician who harbors an angry streak at home, and who hopes to inject the town with tech jobs by welcoming the construction of a massive data center – portending the popularity of AI in a few years’ time. This is perhaps the closest Aster comes to offering any lasting social commentary.

Given Joe’s attempts to skirt the very rules he’s supposed to enforce, it’s hard not to be unsettled by some of the movie’s early interactions. Rightly so: Phoenix is incredibly adept at barely buried simmering, ensuring that Eddington begins in unnerving territory. This, however, ends up a promise unfulfilled. There’s little exploration beyond the period-piece façade of social distancing and social unrest, which hint towards wider details and context we never see, and whose effects seldom trickle down into anyone’s behavior beyond the first time we meet them. It’s a film in emotional and thematic stasis, even when things appear to change rapidly. It may be set in 2020, but the sickening roller-coaster feeling of living through that moment in time is rarely reflected.

When protests over the police killing of George Floyd begin spreading throughout the United States, the people of Eddington begin preparing for an explosion – but the blast feels only partially formed, and entirely insincere. On one hand, as the town’s more conservative residents grow furious at the increasing presence of Black Lives Matter protesters, Joe and his deputy Guy (Luke Grimes), both white, try to navigate the awkwardness of open discussion with trainee Mike (Michael Ward), who is Black. This subplot makes for an amusing flourish, but it unfolds at length without ever engaging with its central tension beyond fleeting punchlines, and the comedy is seldom informed by Mike’s perspective or experience. On the other hand, the protesters are caricatures of teenagers who don’t know better than to adopt an enlightened vocabulary they barely understand in order to get laid or to show off online. All the while, a lingering enmity between Joe and Ted looms larger, concerning a possible sexual impropriety between Ted and Louise, which may have ushered the latter into her cocoon.

Whatever Aster’s attempts with this premise, he spins far too many plates, and his approach ensures that Eddington’s satire is no deeper than a kiddie pool. The film plays with incendiary material but fumbles it constantly, by rarely (if ever) making genuine attempts to examine the humor or absurdity found within its characters’ points of view. Aster’s grief-tinged horror movies Hereditary and Midsommar depend on a genuine, detailed understanding of who he’s making suffer and why, but he doesn’t apply those skills here. Its construction is ideologically flimsy, as though drawn from a highly removed liberal angle on both right-wing frustrations and left-wing activism. For instance, the mess of conspiracies in Joe’s life keep the more paranoid characters at odds (rather than their paranoia feeding off each other), while the film’s engagement with the era’s discourse on race and policing is no more detailed or honest than that of the teen characters delving into these topics for the very first time.

When Eddington loosens its grip on reality, introducing manifestations of imagined far-right phantoms – like global cabals of child predators responsible for every crime, or an armed Antifa super-state that may as well be an organization run by Bond villains – its ravings feel distinctly un-tethered from Joe’s outlook. Imagine, for a moment, a version of the anxiety-inducing opening act of Aster’s Beau is Afraid, in which Phoenix’s Beau becomes besieged on all sides by a Fox News nightmare of a crime-ridden American city – only this time, Beau isn’t afraid. In Eddington, it’s always someone else’s worst fears peeking through the edge of the frame, rather than Joe’s. What ought to be experiential and visceral becomes distantly observed, since the concerns of Phoenix’s sheriff tend to lie far away from the plot’s strange, Under the Silver Lake-esque unveilings.

What is arguably commendable about the film is the way it shifts in tone, from broad political send-up to crime mystery, after a key turn in the plot about midway through. However, this transformation ends up feeling at odds with the movie’s attempts to dramatize one of the freakier years in recent memory. Its style never evolves in a way that goes deeper into that mood. Even its sprawling Southwestern setting is often reduced to a broad symbol of neighborly schisms and civic malaise, alongside a violent cruelty towards its characters that’s anything but nuanced – let alone as potent as an editorial cartoon.

Rigorous satire hardly demands a gentle hand. However, it does demand the rigor of knowing one’s target intimately, in order to strike it with precision. But Eddington is far from precise. Its distant perspective on the many concerns it portrays – across the bounds of party affiliation or taste – results in a disaffected work that has little to say about its chosen moment, other than the fact that some people were bothered by what they may have imagined others were believing. The film itself may as well be one of those subjects, given its old-man-yells-at-cloud approach to any topic that might remotely force the average viewer to confront their own biases, or even reflect on the festering, uncomfortable feelings that defined the era – and continue to define the current one. If you’re looking for a movie that observes the twisted emotional complexities of a world deep in crisis, and says, “Can’t we all just get along?” then Eddington may be for you.

The big Secretlab Memorial Day Sale starts now. Save up to $139 off Secretlab's popular Titan line of gaming chairs, Magnus gaming desks (including the Magnus Pro electric standing desk model), and accessories like the Secretlab Skins upholstery covers, desk mats, cable management, and more. Unfortunately, newer releases like the Titan Evo Nanogen chair and the recliner add-on are exempt from this sale.

It's no secret that we love our Secretlab gaming chairs. Three of the eight chairs in our best gaming chair roundup are Secretlab models. Of all the gaming chairs we covered in our "Budget to Best" roundup video earlier this year, my colleague Akeem Lawanson considered the Secretlab Titan Evo to be the most comfortable. No good chair comes cheap and Secretlab chairs definitely cost a premium, but we think the craftsmanship, materials, and customizability are worth it.

TL;DR - The 7 Best Secretlab Deals

You can quickly browse through all of the listed products on sale above. For more information on each product and why they are worth your consideration, read through below.

Secretlab Titan Evo

Secretlab Titan Evo Lite

Secretlab Titan 2020

Secretlab Titan Evo Nanogen Edition

Secretlab Titan Recliner Add-On

Secretlab Magnus and Magnus Pro

Jurassic Park, created through the imaginative writing of novelist Michael Crichton and the filmmaking magic of Steven Spielberg, was one of the most beloved and successful movies of the ‘90s. Two sequels and two decades later, the Jurassic World trilogy returned the franchise to relevance and, across three additional movies, added $4 billion USD to its collective box office haul.

With Jurassic World Rebirth hitting theaters in July, we’ve created a guide to help you navigate the series’ story. Scroll down to find out how to watch the Jurassic Park movies in order, by narrative chronologically or release date.

How Many Jurassic Park Movies Are There?

There are six feature-length Jurassic movies — three Jurassic Park films and three Jurassic World films. Jurassic World Rebirth will be the seventh Jurassic Park film. The canon also includes two short films and an animated Netflix series, which we’ve included in the chronology below.

Jurassic Park Movies in Chronological Order

These blurbs contain mild spoilers, including characters, settings, and broad plot points.

1. Jurassic Park (1993)

The Jurassic Park chronology is largely straightforward as the feature films’ release order lines up with their chronological order — only the short films and Netflix series may require a bit of guidance.

Jurassic Park adapts the Michael Chrichton novel of the same name and sets up the series’ narrative conceit: Dinosaurs have been cloned by extracting DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber and a reckless entrepreneur (Richard Attenborough) is using the clones to fill a theme park on the fictitious island Isla Nublar.

Paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and mathematician/chaotician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) arrive on the island to assess the safety of the park. They’re joined on their tour by Lex and Tim Murphy, the grandchildren of Jurassic Park founder John Hammond.

A tropical storm lands on the island and a saboteur kills the power to steal corporate secrets, resulting in a deactivated security system. With the dinosaurs now unrestrained, the island tour turns into a deadly escape mission against velociraptors and a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Read IGN’s Jurassic Park review or preorder the 4K Edition of Jurrassic Park.

2. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Set and released four years after Jurassic Park, The Lost World brings back Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm and Attenborough’s John Hammond to star alongside Julianne Moore’s paleontologist Sarah Harding.

The Lost World is set on a second island, Isla Sorna, where Hammond also cloned dinosaurs. The island was ultimately abandoned and the dinosaurs were left to fend for themselves. A power struggle for control of Hammnod’s company, InGen, leads two opposing factions to Isla Sorna.

One faction, led by Hammond’s nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), wants to again try exploiting the dinosaurs for profit, while Hammond, Malcolm, and Harding aim to turn the island into a nature preserve where the creatures can be studied away from human interference.

The two sides struggle against the backdrop of uncaged, territorial dinosaurs, once again resulting in frenetic chase sequences and occasional death. The exploiters are successful in capturing a T-Rex to transport to a new park in San Diego, which escapes captivity and wreaks havoc on the city. Malcolm and Harding attempt to capture it nonlethally.

Read IGN’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park review.

3. Jurassic Park 3 (2001)

Sam Neill reprises his role as Alan Grant for the series’ third film, with Laura Dern’s Ellie Sattler returning as well, albeit for a much smaller role. Another four years have passed between The Lost World and Jurassic Park 3 — both in the real world and in-universe chronology.

Jurassic Park 3 is once again set on Isla Sorna, where a man and a boy have gone missing. Grant, in need of money for his continued dinosaur research, accepts to give a helicopter tour of the island in exchange for funding. We learn the tour is actually a rescue mission chartered by the missing boy’s parents.

As expected, the dinosaurs welcome the humans with hostility. The group is pitted against a pack of velociraptors, which they must outsmart and outmaneuver while searching for the missing persons. Grant eventually contacts Settler to coordinate a rescue mission.

The end of Jurassic Park 3 began a 14-year hiatus for the franchise.

Read IGN’s Jurassic Park 3 review.

4. Jurassic World (2015)

Set and released 22 years after the original Jurassic Park, Jurassic World quickly became one of the highest grossing movies of all time after it's release. The film takes viewers back to Isla Nublar, where a new dinosaur theme park has opened. Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt as animal behavioralist/velociraptor trainer Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard as Jurassic World operations manager Claire Dearing.

Claire’s two nephews venture off on their own to explore the park, while a genetically modified mega-dinosaur, the Indominus rex, escapes captivity. Claire and Owen venture out to save the boys as the situation escalates and more dinosaurs join the fray.

With the boys safe, the action turns toward subduing the Indominus rex. Owen is tasked with confronting the beast with his trained velociraptors, which does not go according to plan. The climax of the film is an epic showdown between the Indominus and a T-Rex. The surviving humans flee and the great dinosaur theme park experiment is once again shuttered.

Read IGN’s Jurassic World review.

4a. Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (TV Series - 2020)

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous is a canonical, family-friendly animated Netflix series. It’s not essential viewing but we’re including it for those who want the complete Jurassic Park experience.

Camp Cretaceous ran for five seasons and takes place during the events of the Jurassic World trilogy. The show follows six kids who attend Camp Cretaceous on Isla Nublar. The dinosaurs break free and the kids are left to survive on their own.

The show offers tons of references and connections to the films throughout — many of which have been chronicled by SYFY. Overall, Camp Cretaceous is less about moving the overall Jurassic World plot forward and more about experiencing the trilogy’s events from a different perspective.

Read IGN’s Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous review.

5. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

As you may have noticed by now, the real-life time gaps between Jurassic films aligns with the in-universe time gaps. As such, Falling Kingdom is set three years after Jurassic World. Fallen Kingdom continues to explore the dangers of exploiting dinosaurs for the sake of profit. Jeff Goldblum reprises his role as Ian Malcolm.

A volcanic eruption threatens the lives of the dinosaurs of Isla Nublar. Malcolm promotes correcting for the unnatural creation of present-day dinosaurs by letting them die in the eruption; Claire Dearing lobbies to save the creatures through her Dinosaur Protection Group. When the U.S. Senate votes to let the dinosaurs die, Claire teams up with Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) to save them. She recruits Owen Grady to support the cause.

We learn of ulterior motives within the rescue group and discover the series’ cloning technology has not been limited to dinosaurs. The film ends with many of the dinosaurs set free and humanity entering a new era – one in which the two species must co-exist.

Read IGN’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom review.

6. Battle at Big Rock (Short Film - 2019)

Co-written and directed by Jurassic World’s Colin Trevorrow, Battle at Big Rock is a 10-minute short film set between Fallen Kingdom and Dominion, specifically one year after Fallen Kingdom. It shows the first major confrontation between dinosaurs and humans following the events of Fallen Kingdom.

The 10-minute short ends with clips of other early human-dinosaur encounters.

7. Jurassic World: Chaos Theory (TV Series - 2024)

Jurassic World: Chaos Theory is a sequel to the franchise's previous Netflix animated series, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. Chaos Theory reunites Camp Cretaceous's "Nublar Six” for a mystery-thriller set six years after their experience on Isla Nublar, placing it just before Jurassic World Dominion on the franchise timeline.

Read IGN's Jurassic World: Chaos Theory review.

8. Jurassic World Dominion: The Prologue (Short Film - 2021)

Originally shot as the beginning of Jurassic World Dominion, The Prologue is a five-minute short that was edited out and made into an IMAX preview. It’s now available to view online as a standalone short film or as part of the Jurassic World Dominion extended edition.

The short opens 65 million years ago, showing creatures of the Cretaceous. A Giganotosaurus does battle with a T-Rex, and the loser has its blood sucked by a mosquito…. The back half of the short is set in the present day, where a helicopter pursues a loose T-Rex at a drive-in movie theater.

9. Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

Dominion explores the premise set up by Fallen Kingdom: A world in which humans and dinosaurs co-exist. It’s set four years after Fallen Kingdom and unites the most recognizable characters from the franchise’s two trilogies: Owen Grady (Pratt), Claire Dearing (Howard), Ian Malcolm (Goldblum), Alan Grant (Neill), and Ellie Sattler (Dern).

The integration of dinosaurs into nature had great ecological effects and led to great ethical dilemmas. Claire and Owen work on behalf of the dinosaurs’ well-being, while genetics company Biosyn exploits the animals for profit. Elsewhere, giant locusts are destroying crops across the U.S. Ellie and Alan work together to find the locusts’ link to Biosyn.

Read IGN’s Jurassic World Dominion review.

How to Watch the Jurassic Park Movies By Release Date

• Jurassic Park (1993)
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
• Jurassic Park 3 (2001)
• Jurassic World (2015)
• Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
• Battle at Big Rock (2019 – short film)
• Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (2020 – TV series)
• Jurassic World Dominion: The Prologue (2021 – short film)
• Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
• Jurassic World: Chaos Theory (2024 - TV series)

Future Jurassic Park Movies

Next up for the franchise is Jurassic World Rebirth, releasing in theaters July 2. Rebirth is set five years after the events of Dominion and follows a team “racing to secure DNA samples from the three most colossal creatures across land, sea, and air.” Recent trailers have revealed some of the new mutant dinosaurs the new film will feature.

The film is directed by Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, Godzilla) and stars Scarlett Johansson as covert operations expert Zora Bennett, Mahershala Ali as team leader Duncan Kincaid, and Jonathan Bailey as paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis. Rumor has it the newest movie also takes some inspiration from the original Jurassic Park novel.

Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.

Three (count 'em, three) LEGO Super Mario Bros. sets are still in stock at Amazon and are on sale for surprisingly low prices. These three sets will be retired soon, so now's the perfect time to add these to your collection before they start to disappear. For a full list of LEGO sets that will be retired soon, you can visit LEGO's official website for a full breakdown in their Last Chance to Buy section.

If you're curious about more LEGO Super Mario Bros. sets, we recently built the new LEGO Mario Kart: Mario & Standard Kart (#72037).

Grab These LEGO Super Mario Bros. Sets Before They're Retired

These three sets are part of the original LEGO Super Mario Bros. modular playset line and include a ton of fun callbacks and references to classic Super Mario Bros. games. The Soda Jungle set from New Super Mario Bros. U comes with a fully posable wiggler, chopming Piranha Plant, and a to-scale Shy Guy. The Goomba Tree set, remiscent of the original Paper Mario on N64, includes three Goomba figures and a functional seesaw. Bowser's Muscle Car, seen in Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, is the coolest of the trio. It comes with a to-scale Bowser buildable figure, and the car itself is extremely detailed down to the angry face on the grill.

For a more in-depth look at recently retired LEGO sets, be sure to check out Brick Economy, a perfect source for collectors to keep track on the ins and outs of their favorite hobby.

Recently Retired LEGO Sets Still Avaialbe on Amazon

Once LEGO officially retires a set, they tend to hang around at other retailers for a bit longer. This makes Amazon one of the best places to buy LEGO thanks to their extended inventory of these products. There are a number of other recently retired sets you can currently still purchase right now. We've featured some of the most popular ones below, including a popular Sonic the Hedgehog set Nintendo fans might enjoy:

Myles Obenza is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Bluesky @mylesobenza.bsky.social.

Streaming has made entertainment more accessible than ever, but that doesn't mean it's cheap. Most streaming services have continuously hiked their own prices and limited password sharing, and confusing licensing deals sometimes make it surprisingly difficult to find an entire franchise in the same spot.

Nowadays it's common to debate, as I'm doing constantly, which subscriptions are worth keeping for the long haul. Plenty of streaming services – particularly the newer ones – offer free trials, bundles, and discounts to try and attract new subscribers. "New subscriber," of course, meaning "different e-mail address."

The best time to save on subscriptions is undoubtedbly Black Friday, when most streaming services offer their biggest discounts of the year. But if you're trying to find savings sooner rather than later, these are some of the best deals available on National Streaming Day.

TL;DR: These Are the Best Streaming Deals Right Now:

Best Streaming Bundle: Disney+, Hulu, and Max

Flexispot is running its Memorial Day Sale with up to 60% off the brand's most popular standing desks and ergonomic chairs. We like Flexispot because it offers quality electric standing desks with all the features you'd want at a fraction of the price compared to other more well-known models. We rated Flexispot's highes- end model, the E7 Pro, the best overall standing desk of 2025. I've been using a Flexispot desk for years now and wouldn't pay more for a "better" desk.

Featured in this article

You can quickly browse through all of the listed products on sale above. For more information on each product and why they are worth your consideration, read through below.

Flexispot E7 Pro Desk starting at $399.99

Our favorite standing desk for 2025

A big screen version of the original Kane & Lynch game, developed by Hitman studio IO Interactive and released back in 2007, was on the cards for years, with various Hollywood stars attached at one point or another.

Writing on social media this week, Nobody 2 director Timo Tjahjanto revealed that he had written a treatment for the Kane & Lynch film that would have starred David Harbour — that's Stranger Things' own Jim Hopper, or Red Guardian/Florence Pugh's dad in Thunderbolts*/New Avengers.

"Never seen a script, but couple years ago when that property was still kinda shit hot. I wrote a short treatment with James Badge Dale and David Harbour in mind," Tjahjanto wrote. "Never gotten anywhere."

CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, codenamed Project Orion, is a closely guarded secret, but that hasn’t stopped Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith from teasing some previously unknown details.

Pondsmith, who worked closely with CD Projekt on the 30 million-selling Cyberpunk 2077 and was involved in promoting the game ahead of its 2020 launch, was asked about the scope of his involvement with Project Orion at the Digital Dragons 2025 conference.

Responding, Pondsmith admitted he wasn’t as involved this time around, but he does review 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 of detail 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 here 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 already some debate about whether the Cyberpunk sequel will expand upon the Night City that’s in Cyberpunk 2077 or feature a new version, and the extent to which it is playable. There are a lot of unknowns, but it looks like there may be two fleshed out playable cities in this sequel.

While CD Projekt’s focus right now is The Witcher 4, it has a new studio set up in Boston to work on Project Orion. Earlier this year, CD Projekt said 84 of its 707 staff were working on Project Orion, which is still in the concept phase. Much can change, and we’re not expecting the game for some time.

There’s also a new Cyberpunk animation project on Netflix following the well-received Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. In the shorter term, Cyberpunk 2077 is set to launch on Nintendo Switch 2.

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.

TinyBuild Connect is back this year to showcase a bunch of games that are on the way from tinyBuild, the publisher behind titles like Potion Craft, Graveyard Keeper, and Streets of Rogue. And once again, it’ll be a show focused on world premieres and exclusive new trailers with no talking heads or any other fluff. Just games.

TinyBuild Connect Date, Time, and How to Watch

The full event will be livestreamed on Tuesday, May 27 starting at 1:00 p.m. Eastern / 12:00 p.m. Central / 10:00 a.m. Pacific. For our friends across the pond, that’s 7:00 p.m. CET. It’ll start promptly at those times and will jump right into the games.

IGN.com (our homepage)

IGN’s Facebook

IGN’s Twitter

IGN’s Twitch

IGN’s TikTok

IGN’s YouTube

If you’re not able to catch the show live, you’ll be able to watch the whole thing on our YouTube page after it finishes. Just like last year’s show.

What to Expect from tinyBuild Connect 2025

This will be a dense show, with lots of reveals and announcements packed into less than 30 minutes. There will be a mix of premieres of previously unannounced games, new info about announced games, and updates for released titles, highlighted by upcoming titles Hello Neighbor 3, Ferocious, and Kingmakers. You can expect a new look at gameplay for both HN3 and Ferocious, while Kingmakers is getting a Steam Early Access release date announcement.

Hello Neighbor 3 was announced last year and is the latest entry in the adventure sandbox thriller series. You’ll return to the town of Raven Brooks, this time as a stranger with no ties to the town. Raven Brooks functions as a real-time sandbox simulation, where every player’s decision is the right one. It’s populated by residents who act based on their personalities, relationships, desires, and goals. The game is currently in the playtesting phase, so now seems like the right time for an update.

Ferocious made a strong impression during last year’s Games Baked in Germany showcase with its cinematic trailer. Developed by Omyog, a small German team with veterans from the film and AAA game industries, the game is a survival-focused, narrative-driven FPS set on a remote island filled with dinosaurs and hostile mercenaries. Among the team is the former Level Design Director of Far Cry 3, Narrative Director of Far Cry 4, and Campaign Creative Director of Star Wars Battlefront II, so it’s safe to say it’s an experienced team.

Kingmakers was revealed last year too, and it took the IGN audience by storm. We featured it on IGN Next because its trailer was a surprise hit, getting more than 11 million views across our social channels. Like Ferocious, it resonated thanks to its unique premise. Kingmakers is a mix of third-person shooter and RTS set in medieval Europe. You might be thinking, “How could a shooter be set in medieval times?” Well, you’re a time traveler who’s been sent to the past with modern weapons to alter the course of history. TinyBuild has confirmed that they’ll be announcing the game’s release date in Steam’s Early Access, so you can look forward to that.

Those are some of the games you can expect to get updates, but there will be plenty more announcements and updates we can’t see coming. Tune in on May 27 to see all of it.

If you were expecting scares from Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Frankenstein film, it’s time to temper your expectations. In fact, according to the man himself, this is far from a horror movie — it’s an “emotional story.”

“Somebody asked me the other day, does it have really scary scenes?” del Toro explained during a Cannes Film Festival conversation with composer Alexandre Desplat. “For the first time, I considered that. It’s an emotional story for me. It’s as personal as anything. I’m asking a question about being a father, being a son… I’m not doing a horror movie — ever. I’m not trying to do that.”

Desplat also noted that the film’s score will complement the tonal landscape del Toro set out to achieve. “Guillermo’s cinema is very lyrical, and my music is rather lyrical too,” he said. “So I think the music of Frankenstein will be something very lyrical and emotional… I’m not trying to write horrific music.”

A massive new battle has broken out in Helldivers 2. Today, developer Arrowhead Studios brought the fight to Super Earth, as the Illuminate are touching down on the Helldivers' home turf. Everyone is joining in the fight, from the player-led Helldivers to some fresh reinforcements in the SEAF.

Short for Super Earth Armed Force, the SEAF soldiers are populating battles taking place on Super Earth, helping the Helldivers hold out against the oncoming Illuminate forces. These troops can be ordered around using several commands, and will assist the Helldivers in defending the home of Managed Democracy. In turn, Helldivers 2 players already love their new NPC helpers.

As seen in the new trailer for the Heart of Democracy update, SEAF soldiers are subject to roughly the same dire circumstances and thin survival odds as the Helldivers. Today's trailer has more than a few shots of SEAF soldiers getting absolutely routed by the invasion forces.

But the new SEAF pals are garnering both the sympathy and adoration of Helldivers, provoking the need to defend their newfound backup. Refrains of "PROTECT THE LIL UNS," a Warhammer 40K: Darktide reference, are already picking up steam in the comments.

"Aah look at them, they are so cute," wrote one r/Helldivers user, responding to the SEAF soldiers' reactions to the Super Earth salute. "Protect them at all cost helldiver."

Others draw comparisons to the Clone Troopers from Star Wars, especially the NPC allies you'd see in the classic campaigns of games like Star War: Battlefront. "Fired an EAT into a harvesters leg that was attacking a squad and one yelled out 'Glad the helldiver's on our side!'" one user noted, as it reminded them of the lines you'd hear in Star Wars: Battlefront calling out similar actions. "Now we just need overseers with wrist rockets."

Others have come up with new ways the SEAF could help the Helldivers in the future, as hopes seem high for the SEAF soldiers to leave Super Earth and venture with the Helldivers into other dangerous hotspots via stratagems. Honestly, having an NPC pal around to push those bunker buttons would be useful.

Either way, the Helldivers will absolutely need the help on Super Earth, as the new update seems quite chaotic. It's the culmination of a long series of events, stretching back to a really bad bug hive and a black hole, and it's been really fascinating to see it all come together.

Not too long ago, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani declared Helldivers 2 players would "shit [their] pants" when they found out what was coming down the pipe. You don't need to give me any unnecessary information, but I do feel like the scope of this update is living up to expectations.

Helldivers 2's Heart of Democracy update, and the Illuminate invasion of Super Earth, is currently underway.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Remember yesterday when I said Amazon was charging over market value for sealed Pokémon TCG product? Well, they still are, but trainers can save an asounding $7 vs the collectors market. If you haven't guessed yet, I'm being heavily sarcastic and trainers shouldn't buy either. in my humble opinion, single cards are the way forward right now, especially considering you can just buy the main chase card, Pikachu ex SIR, for around the same price.

TL;DR: Deals For Today

What else is on the docket today you ask? Well I'm still going to force you to get on the MTG: Final Fantasy train before release, and there's a couple of fantastic deals on Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Samsung Galaxy S25 and Galaxy Watch 7. Need to charge on to go too? INIU has all of their power banks on sale at Amazon right now. There's also 34% off the best noise cancelling headphones on the market right now, so go for it and let's get into it:

Surging Sparks Booster Box

Surging Sparks Single Cards Are Crashing

This Week's Pokémon TCG Crashers and Climbers

It's becoming abundantly clear that buying up singles on the Pokémon TCG collector market is the way forward for trainers right now. Some chase cards that have crashed recently are cheaper than some overpriced booster bundles currently.

Some of the prices above look crazy, but some of them we're nearly double just a couple of weeks ago, with the latter 5 cards climbing higher and higher. If your heart is set on ripping open booster packs, let's get into the best way to do just that without destroying your life savings (much).

More Pokémon TCG Sealed Products

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

MTG Final Fantasy Preorders

Meanwhile preorders for Magic the Gathering: Final Fantasy are still up at Walmart and Amazon, specifically the Bundle and Starter Kit for retail pricing.

This is set to be the biggest MTG set in the history of the trading card game, so it's a wise choice to preorder now. You can also preorder single cards at the moment too:

MTG FF Single Card Prices Before Launch

I've focused on some of the more popular character appearances here, but there's plenty more to secure with this set having nearly 700 cards including Extended Art, Boarderless and Surge Foil variants.

The worst thing you can do as a Magic or FF fan is to sleep on this set, it's going to explode. These are the current biggest cards in the set before launch on June 5.

Bear in mind it's mega risky to buy before release day, as prices could plummit in the meantime. Still, it's worth keeping an eye on what's hot, and what's not!

Unlock Pro 3D Modeling Skills With Blender

INIU Power Bank Sale

Amazon is running a solid range of discounts on INIU power banks, covering everything from ultra-portable 10,000mAh models to heavy-duty bricks that can charge your laptop. The compact 10000mAh 5V/3A model is just $15.98 (was $21.99), and the sleek 22.5W 10000mAh version — marketed as the smallest in its class — is down to $22.99. For more power, the 22.5W 20000mAh option is $29.99, and the MagSafe-compatible 45W 10000mAh model has dropped to $35.99 from $49.99. Need something serious? The 27000mAh 140W bank is $71.99 (was $99.99), and the 25000mAh 100W version is $48.58 with an on-site coupon. There’s also a handy 2-pack of 10000mAh banks for $35.99, or a great mid-range 20000mAh 65W model for $35.99. If your current battery pack is on its last leg, or you want one for every bag, these are easy recommendations.

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold 256GB

SAMSUNG Galaxy S25 512GB

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 + Smart Tag

Bose QuietComfort

Nintendo Switch 2 Accessories Sale

Did you manage to grab a Nintendo Switch 2 preorder in? If so you'll want to protect that tarrif-dodging investment at all costs. Luckily I've got the best cases, screen protectors and thumb grips on the market right now.

TZGZTs case and screen protector bundle is great value for money at $12.84 and is a consistent best seller.

Looking for cases that will fit inside a Switch 2 dock? JSAUX has us all covered with some option alongside some premium cases and hardshells.

I've included JSAUX as i've been hands on with the products above and can't reccomend them enough.

DOOM: The Dark Ages Limited Edition A3 Art Print

Cooler Master NR2 Pro Mini ITX

Skytech Chronos Gaming PC

ASUS TUF F16

Google Pixel 9 Pro 1TB

I always look forward to it when a studio steps out of its comfort zone to create something unexpected. Blades of Fire, a 3D action-RPG from developer MercurySteam, best known for the stellar Metroid Dread and its action-packed take on Castlevania during the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era, does just that. Combining its past successes to give you control of a blacksmith who crafts his own weapons of destruction seemed like a promising concept. Unfortunately, the superb crafting portions of this lengthy fantasy adventure are overshadowed by an uneven story and combat that lacks real depth.

You play as Aran, a commoner who gains access to a legendary forging hammer that sets him on a quest to stop the queen who is leading the kingdom into ruin. The three pillars of Blades of Fire are its satisfying but simple combat, enjoyable weapon crafting system, and emotionally unimpactful story. While very uneven, those were at least enough to keep me relatively entertained for the 55 hours it took me to reach the first round of credits. However, there’s only an unsatisfactory conclusion to find there, and it was the postgame scavenger hunt necessary to find the “true” ending that really drained what little enthusiasm I had left by the end.

Starting with the good, the crafting system stands as the tallest of the three pillars holding up Blades of Fire. Through the hammer Aran receives at the beginning of his journey, he can build the powerful weapons necessary to vanquish all that stand in his path. Initially you can only craft a singular weapon, a heavy polearm called the Hyssop that deals devastating strikes but uses a lot of stamina with each swing. However, after Aran vanquishes enough of a given enemy type, you will unlock a blueprint for the weapon they brandished against him. Dismantling 60 skeletons unlocks the claymore they would clumsily swing, while taking down just five spearmen from the queen’s transformed army grants access to a long spear that deals either piercing damage from afar or slashing damage in circular strikes. Finding and taking down each new enemy to expand your arsenal made for an enjoyable loop, and encouraged me to take down the stronger optional enemies whenever they appeared.

Interacting with a forger anvil, which function as both rest points and a fast travel system, can then transport you to a mystical forge that lets you create those weapons. When you do, you can adjust several aspects of them: For example, the Twin Mallets are limited to customizing the size and shape of the head and handle, where larger weapons like the Glaive also have options for adding a pommel. These choices modify that weapon in small but noticeable ways, tweaking weight, balance, and damage to your liking, as well as altering Aran’s maximum stamina and how much stamina it costs to dodge while using it.

The final part of forging a weapon is the actual forging itself. Crafting weapons in most games ends after selecting your materials, but Blades of Fire has you actually striking the heated metal to match the weapon's shape. This system, while underexplained and confusing at first thanks to the lack of detailed tutorial, quickly became my favorite part of the journey. A weapon’s steel appears as bars similar to those on an audio visualizer, and some will shrink while others grow as you strike. The better you do, the longer a weapon will last before you need to sunset it to be recycled for parts or traded in to an ally for specific and often rarer materials. It took me half a dozen weapons before I figured out the proper technique for managing the strength, tilt, and width of each of my strikes, but once I did, I found myself confidently crafting weapons with the maximum rating every time.

For those who end up not enjoying the crafting, there is an option to skip the process after the first time, but the maximum number of times you can repair it will be limited to the best results you’ve created manually. This smartly expedited my return trips to the forge, as I’d often hold off replacing weapons until they were all beyond repair, turning what would be a lengthy process into a short trip that got me back in the action sooner. Blades of Fire even gives you the option to name your weapon before setting out, which I initially reserved primarily for punny names like Captain Falchion or Let me Axe You something – but eventually as I saw them reach their final forms with the best materials and enhancements, giving them names suitable of their legacy like Gae Bolg or Masamune.

Though there are 35 different weapons to wield and each vary between their speed, range, and other properties, combat unfortunately boils down to just eight attacks. These are performed by pressing the button on your controller that matches the part of an enemy you want to strike: So triangle/Y will strike at an enemy’s head, Circle/B will strike on the right, and so on. There are also charged attacks that deal higher damage and mutilate enemies if fatal, resulting in more gruesome deaths. It is disappointing, though, that mutilating an enemy's head with either a blunt weapon or piercing weapon has the same animation, and seeing them fall off the same way got old after the first dozen times. There are also no combinations of attacks that offer any real benefit, so alternating left and right strikes is virtually the same as mindlessly spamming a single direction. If it wasn’t for the use of parries and perfect dodges that offer a small window of opportunity to retaliate safely, combat would have felt even more bland than it already does.

Choosing the directions of your attacks carefully becomes more necessary later on as enemies start to have different levels of resistance on each body part, and some like elementals can even move these weak points mid-combat. To its credit, Blades of Fire does have a large variety of enemies to fight – unfortunately, nearly every one of them is humanoid. That means that even though they all have their own unique quirks and attack patterns, I was rarely impressed by anything new that was thrown at me. Outside of bosses, which can be hulking behemoths that shake things up more substantially, one of the few interesting regular enemy types were the trolls: they have constant health regeneration and two health bars, requiring you to drain one bar and then mutilate a limb with a charged attack before you can attempt to finish them off. But a mechanic like that is the exception rather than the rule, and the predictability of every enemy’s clearly telegraphed attacks meant fights often just came down to my parry timing.

If you do fall in combat, the powers of the legendary hammer mean Aran doesn’t stay dead for long. However, his temporary deaths come with the penalty of dropping your equipped weapon at that location, similar to how you drop souls, blood echoes, and other currencies in games like Dark Souls or Bloodborne. Thankfully, Blades of Fire is much more forgiving, as any weapon dropped in a location turns to stone and remains in the world permanently until Aran retrieves it. This was a welcome change to the formula as the potential of permanently losing a weapon you’ve invested heavily into after consecutive deaths would have been extremely frustrating.

Last and certainly least, the most disappointing pillar of Blades of Fire is its story, characters, and world exploration. Aran’s quest to stop the queen does keep a decent pace, but it never surprised or wowed me and many moments that seemed like they should be impactful are hindered by an uneven delivery. At one point after killing a major boss, he simply fell to his knee and sat there until I struck him once more – it felt like it was set up for more, but there was no dialogue and no flair. Just this previously important character falling to the ground in anticlimatic fashion. Blades of Fire also has one of the most disappointing endings I've seen in a while, rolling credits with little resolution and then immediately sending you off on a scavenger hunt that is too long for its own good if you want to find out what’s actually going on.

Characters are generally one-note stereotypes, and often have dialogue that further enforces their simplistic nature. Aran regularly remarks that he’s not smart enough to solve the puzzles without the aid of Adso, a young scribe who accompanies him on the journey, though Adso doesn’t offer much advice outside of stating the obvious. Adso is the brains to Aran’s brawn, deciphering codices you find, reading ancient languages to reveal paths or secrets, and magically sealing coffins during fights occasionally. Adso also makes regular remarks about Aran’s size when climbing ladders, which ends up feeling like an out of place attempt at humor as Aran rarely responds or finds opportunities to tease back. They are written as if they’ve known each other for a long time despite meeting for the first time in the opening hours, which makes moments like these unearned and shoehorned in.

Rounding out the cast are Glinda the Master Forger, a cranky witch of the woods type that lives in a house on top of a flying beetle, and Arwen, an impatient and hardheaded young girl that is only involved in the final dozen hours and yet conveniently turns out to be super important. As time went on, the uncanny parallels between these characters and those in God of War and God of War Ragnarok became more and more distracting. Aran is just a less wise and somehow less charismatic Kratos, Adso deciphers ancient languages and takes note of enemies and other elements of the world similar to Atreus, Glinda fills in the role of Freya, and Arwen is essentially a less prominent Angrboða. You even fight a giant snake at one point, and explore places that strongly resemble areas like the temple resting above the Lake of Nine. Different games using similar character archetypes or tropes isn’t anything new or wrong on its own, but it does start to feel derivative to a fault here - especially when Blades of Fire doesn’t come off so hot in such a direct comparison.

That’s not the only way it’s put in a bad light, as a lackluster map system often makes exploring for secrets very cumbersome and confusing. There are a ton of little hidden paths to find that lead to cool optional collectibles like shrines for upgrading your weapon customization options, chests with items that increase your healing flasks, gems to up your maximum health or stamina, and different dyes to customize Aran’s outfits. But many locations have multiple levels of elevation, and apart from staring at the one-dimensional map while hoping that you are reading it correctly, you don’t really have a way of knowing which level you are on until you either reach the correct destination or the wrong one. You can leave markers on the map that create a streak of color in the world as guidepoints, which at least help by adding distance and elevation cues to the compass at the top of the screen, but that’s only a half measure.

Lilo & Stitch opens in theaters Friday, May 23.

In Disney’s apparent quest to remake every one of their animated classics in live-action, the difference between the good movies (The Jungle Book) and the bad ones (Pinocchio) comes down to the filmmakers and their choices. Is their approach to some of the most well-known and beloved stories ever told on screen fresh enough to make us overlook the undeniably cynical, corporate-driven “You liked this before, maybe you’ll pay for it all over again?” spirit of the enterprise? In the case of the new Lilo & Stitch, the answer is, fortunately, yes – and that’s thanks to the inspired choice of trusting the tale of an alien fugitive befriending an orphaned earthling to director Dean Fleischer Camp. The co-creator of stop-motion sensation Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Camp is a proven expert at blending quirk and silliness with genuine heart and depth. And while he and screenwriters Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Wae don’t make any shocking deviations from the 2002 original, they do make the meaningful choice to root their out-of-this-world comedy in earthly concerns.

They’ve found the perfect Lilo in Maia Kealoha, which is saying something considering so much of the film rests on the shoulders of this little girl. She exerts just the right attitude, charm, and humor in the role, and does a notably strong job of selling the reality of her scenes with the CGI Stitch (voiced once more by the original film’s co-director, Chris Sanders). The script gives Lilo a bit less of an edge than her animated counterpart: She still shoves another girl who insults her, but she doesn’t throw any punches like she does in the original. But it doesn’t shy away from her anguish over her parents’ death, either. It’s clear that Lilo is a sweet kid channeling profound grief through her volatile behavior; just the type who could use the companionship of a fuzzy, four-armed powder keg from beyond the stars.

While the friendship of the title duo remains key to this version of Lilo & Stitch, its most important relationship is actually the one between Lilo and her older sister Nani (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong). They’re the eye of the hurricane whipped up by Stitch’s arrival, working together to move past a loss whose aftermath is more deeply felt than the deaths of other mothers and fathers sprinkled so liberally throughout the Disney canon. Kealoha and Agudong have a pivotal rapport, with the two actresses making it hard not to invest in Lilo and Nani and their bond. The possibility of their separation – a social worker must decide if Nani is providing a solid upbringing for her sister – feels truly upsetting because of the connection the two make with each other and the audience. Agudong gets to play some new shades of Nani, too, diving into her personal aspirations and how difficult it is to balance them with the responsibility of being sole caregiver for the sister she loves so much.

The amplification of Nani’s role lets her and Lilo continually shine together, and Stitch’s transformation from non-stop chaos monster to someone who forges a real connection with Lilo plays just as endearing as in the original. But the further Lilo & Stitch gets from this tremendous core, the more it stumbles. The two aliens pursuing Stitch, Jumba and Pleakley, have always been a somewhat odd fit with this story, largely there to add some more wackiness around the edges. Here, they demonstrate how hard it is to balance the classically “cartoony” aesthetics of the original with a more realistic filmmaking approach. Their comically inept attempts to blend into their Hawaiian surroundings would be even harder to buy in live-action, so they take on fully human disguises: Zach Galifianakis plays Jumba, while Billy Magnussen is Pleakley. The two actors are certainly game, with Magnussen in particular looking like he’s having a lot of fun getting really goofy. But where the humor with Lilo and Stitch almost always works, the wacky hijinks with Jumba and Pleakley are more hit and miss.

One of the more curious choices of adaptation involves the character of Cobra Bubbles, Lilo & Stitch’s amusingly tough-looking g-man-turned-social worker. The remake splits his role in two, with Courtney B. Vance playing Bubbles as an active CIA agent investigating alien sightings, while Nani’s fitness as a guardian is determined by a new character, Mrs. Kekoa (played by the original voice of Nani, Tia Carrere). It ends up making one of the major figures in the Lilo & Stitch universe feel a bit extraneous, and leaves the fantastic Vance without much to do. (Better served: Amy Hill as Lilo and Nani’s sweet and sassy neighbor Tūtū And Kaipo Dudoit as Nani’s potential love interest, David Kawena.)

Visually, there are a few moments where it feels like Camp felt beholden to replicate a memorable image from the original in terms of framing it similarly. Thankfully, that sort of “What’s the point?” mimicry doesn’t become prevalent. The director is also able to have fun with some of the bigger sci-fi moments, including some clever visual gags involving an alien gun that can create portals.

As Lilo & Stitch comes to a close, it takes some of its biggest swerves from the source material. I don’t want to give too much away, but I can say that one involves giving the film a more specific and hostile antagonist, while other changes arrive at the very end to underline what this version of the story is all about. It’s an impactful conclusion seemingly designed to make you say “Aww” – and like so much of Lilo & Stitch, it certainly succeeds on that front.

Atomfall developer Rebellion has said that its hit British survival game became "immediately profitable" upon release, despite the fact that a chunk of its 2 million players came from Xbox Game Pass — and therefore did not buy the title outright for themselves.

Rebellion has not revealed sales figures for Atomfall, which launched for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S back on March 27, 2025.

Instead, the developer has simply discussed the fact that Atomfall has been its biggest ever launch in terms of player numbers — something that will have been aided by Game Pass subscribers simply checking the title out via Xbox and PC.

Still, Atomfall has clearly not suffered as a result. Speaking to The Game Business, Rebellion said the post-apocalyptic northern England simulator had immediately made back its development costs.

And now, Rebellion says, the studio is currently discussing plans for potential sequels or spin-offs, while continuing work on Atomfall's ongoing post-launch support and DLC.

In a previous interview with IGN sister site GamesIndustry.biz, Rebellion boss Jason Kingsley said that Atomfall's launch as part of Game Pass had successfully avoided the risk of "cannabilising" sales.

"What you gain from that cost is disproportionate," Kingsley said, noting that however a game sells, Microsoft does guarantee a "certain level of income" to mitigate risk.

Additionally, launching via Game Pass ensures the title is marketed and made available to a wide audience — aiding its potential for positive word of mouth to boost sales further.

"With Game Pass, you can get people to try it, then as a result of those people trying it, they like it, and they then tell their mates on social media, 'I found this game on Game Pass, I really enjoyed it, you should have a go,'" Kingsley continued.

"And then some of them are on Game Pass, and will [play] it. But some of them aren't on Game Pass, and will also want to be part of that conversation. So, they'll go and buy it."

Microsoft keeps details of its business agreements with developers confidential, so we can but guess at how much money Atomfall has made for both Rebellion and Microsoft itself — the latter of whom obviously benefits when games attract players to its subscription offering.

The latest Xbox Game Pass subscriber count released publicly by Microsoft is now somewhat outdated, but it placed the service on 34 million users as of February 2024.

"Atomfall is a gripping survival-action adventure that takes some of the best elements of Fallout and Elden Ring, and synthesises them into its own fresh mutation," IGN wrote in our Atomfall review.

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

Online gaming: Great stuff! But if you’ve encountered frustrating technical issues, like high ping preventing you from playing at your peak or geographic restrictions that limit access to certain games or servers, a VPN can help. An increasing number of gamers are turning to gaming VPNs to enjoy a more secure and less restrictive experience when playing games like Call of Duty and Forza Horizon online.

As a keen gamer myself, I’ve spent countless hours testing dozens of VPN services. Through extensive trial and error, I’ve whittled down the increasing number of options to just seven. My conclusion? NordVPN is the best VPN for gaming. Quite simply, it’s got everything a gamer could ask for, be it a global server network for bypassing blocks or fast speeds for keeping your latency low when playing Fortnite, Helldivers 2, or Minecraft. The other contenders, which include CyberGhost and Surfshark, have plenty to offer and are also well worth checking out.

TL;DR: These Are the Best VPNs for Gaming

Regardless of the Virtual Private Network you settle on for gaming, you can expect your internet traffic and IP address to be encrypted. Not only does this help protect you from DDoS attacks, it means you can spoof your location to sidestep content blocking and access your favorite games and preferred servers. In fact, the best VPNs for gaming might even improve your performance if your ISP throttles your connection or if you connect to a VPN server closer to a game’s server.

1. NordVPN

Best VPN for Gaming

2. CyberGhost

Best Free Trial VPN for Gaming

3. Surfshark

Best Gaming VPN With Extra Features

4. IPVanish

Best Gaming VPN for Unlimited Devices

5. Proton VPN

Best Gaming VPN With a Free Tier

6. ExpressVPN

Best VPN for Streaming Games

7. Mullvad

Best Gaming VPN for Anonymity

What if legendary sci-fi author Philip K. Dick were resurrected in the 21st Century? That's essentially the premise behind Benjamin, a mind-bending new sci-fi mystery series from Oni Press. This new three-issue prestige format comic revolves around an author named Benjamin J. Carp who dies in 1982, only to awaken in 2025 with no idea of how he returned.

IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of Benjamin #1. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below, but beware of some NSFW language ahead:

Benjamin marks the full-length comic writing debut of Ben H. Winters, author of the Last Policeman Trilogy and creator of the CBS series Tracker. The series is illustrated by Leomacs (EC’s Epitaphs from the Abyss, Basketful of Heads), with cover art by Leomacs, Christian Ward, and Malachi Ward.

Here's Oni's official description of Benjamin:

More than just a writer, more than just a science-fiction icon, Benjamin J. Carp was a cultural revolutionary. Over the course of 44 novels and hundreds of short stories — including the counterculture classic The Man They Couldn’t Erase — Carp pushed the boundaries of literary respectability for the sci-fi genre and his readers’ perception of reality itself . . . until decades of amphetamine abuse and Southern California excess finally ended a mind-bending career that always just escaped mainstream success. He died in 1982.

Until 2025 . . . when Benjamin J. Carp awakens, alive, in a burned-out motel on the fringes of Los Angeles. He remembers dying. He knows he shouldn’t exist. Is he a dream? A robot? A ghost? A clone? A simulation? In his own time, Carp pondered all of these scenarios through his fiction—and, now, as he treks from Studio City to Venice Beach and onward into the paranoid sprawl of 21st-century Los Angeles, he will be called to investigate his greatest mystery yet: himself.

"So, first of all, just because Benjamin is about a guy named Benjamin and it's written by a guy named Benjamin, does not mean it's autobiographical! Just because the hero is a cranky middle-aged science-fiction writer trying desperately to figure out life's purpose while he wanders around Los Angeles, and I'm—oh, wait. S***," Winters tells IGN. "The joy of writing Benjamin was in finding ways to take the most serious possible subject—you know, death and the fact that we all die and all that fun stuff—and make it into a joyous, goofy adventure, about a middle-aged dude who died and now is back, and is trying to figure out why. And how. And what to do now."

Winters continues, "I've always loved stories that have a bit of a wink to them, a bit of top spin. So a story about a sci-fi writer who may or may not be trapped inside one of his own stories—and by the way written by ANOTHER sci-fi writer—and trying to figure out how to get out...it's a very fun and crafty story that at the same time is pushing at the big questions that define our lives. Also there's a dog in it! A cute, loving dog named Strawman. Honestly, I don't know what else you could want."

Benjamin #1 will be released on June 18, 2025. You can also check out an animated trailer for Benjamin.

In other comic book news, DC Comics and Ghost Machine are having their first crossover (sort of), and the 2025 Eisner Award nominees have been revealed.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.

Stellar Blade is getting a fully-fledged sequel, developer Shift Up has confirmed.

The PlayStation-published action game launched to a positive response back in April 2024, with players saying its gameplay mixed elements of NieR: Automata and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

Now, Korean company Shift Up has confirmed a Stellar Blade sequel is on the way, via a chart showing the company's future plans published as part of its latest financial results released today.

As confirmed within a presentation slide detailing how Shift Up expects to expand its franchises going forward, a Stellar Blade sequel is listed as coming next among others that look set to be released before 2027.

Before the sequel arrives, there's mention of a "platform expansion" for Stellar Blade — this likely just refers to the game's upcoming PC version, which is set to arrive on June 11, 2025.

This development period — before 2027 — will also include the launch of Shift Up's mysterious Project Witches, a new multiplatform action RPG that's still yet to be fully revealed.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Sony’s XM-series headphones are the best in class for most people. They’re just exemplary wireless, Bluetooth, noise-canceling, over-ear headphones. At $450, they’re not cheap, but this is a case where you get what you pay for. The latest model, the XM6, is now available to purchase at all the usual retailers (see them at Amazon). If you don’t want to spend that much money, however, you can save on a bundle of previous models as well. Let’s take a look.

Where to Buy Sony WH-1000XM6 Headphones

• Get at Amazon - $448
• Get at Best Buy - $449.99
• Get at Sony - $449.99

The headphones come in three color options: Black, Midnight Blue, and Platinum Silver. They feature a new foldable design that makes them more compact the previous XM5 model. They also come with a travel case so you can toss them in a bag without worrying about them bending, breaking, or getting scratched.

So what makes the Sony XM6 headphones so much better than the competition? It’s a lot of little things, honed over many years and models. They have brand-new processors and 12 adaptive microphones built in to provide excellent noise cancellation. That makes them great for blocking out whatever sound is going on around you, so you can focus on your music, podcast, phone call, video conference, or whatever else you do with headphones on. Speaking of calls, Sony says the M6s have, and I quote, “a 6-microphone AI beamforming system” that helps isolate your voice from the noise around you.

As for battery life, Sony says you can get up to 30 hours on a single charge. They also feature fast-charging technology that gets you up to three hours of playback with just three(!) minutes of charge time – however, you’ll need an optional USB-PD compatible AC adapter to make that happen. The headband has some bend, so you don’t have to worry about snapping it in half. It’s adorned with a synthetic leather that’s supposed to be super comfortable for long listening sessions.

Older Sony XM-Series Headphones Are on Sale

Netflix and Supercell have announced that they will bring the Clash video game franchise to the small screen with an animated series set in the world of Clash of Clans and Clash Royale.

The series, which is already in pre-production, will “build upon the mayhem of the games,” according to a press release from Netflix. The streamer also revealed the series’ plot, which will follow “a determined, but in over his head, Barbarian who must rally a band of misfits to defend their village and navigate the comically absurd politics of war.”

The official Clash of Clans social media accounts also got in on the announcement fun. “Sound the horns, raise the banners, and reinforce your village walls — Clash is invading @Netflix!” they shared alongside a cute teaser video featuring the company’s devs playfully announcing the game via a group FaceTime call. “We’re making a new animated series starring your favorite mustachioed Barbarian and his high-pitched, hog-riding friends. Charge!”

Sound the horns, raise the banners, and reinforce your village walls—Clash is invading @Netflix! We’re making a new animated series starring your favorite mustachioed Barbarian and his high-pitched, hog-riding friends. Charge! pic.twitter.com/55hiZkajni

— Clash of Clans (@ClashofClans) May 20, 2025

The Netflix crew also seems very excited to be finally bringing this game to life in a whole new way. “Clash has been a global gaming phenomenon for over a decade – filled with humor, action, and unforgettable characters perfect for an animated series adaptation,” John Derderian, VP of Animation, said.

“Working with the incredible team at Supercell, Fletcher Moules and Ron Weiner, we’re bringing all the fun, chaos and spirit of the world of Clash to life in a whole new way. We can’t wait for fans - old and new - to experience the mayhem.”

Netflix's Clash animated series is still in pre-production, so we don’t have a release date quite yet. The streamer has invested heavily in turning video games into shows and movies. Arcane, based on League of Legends, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, based on Cyberpunk 2077, are the standouts, but there are Resident Evil adaptations, Tekken: Bloodline, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, Dragon's Dogma, Dragon Age: Absolution, Castlevania, and a lot more besides.

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

Doug Cockle, the voice of Geralt, has hit back at criticism of The Witcher 4 focusing on Ciri — and told so-called fans of the franchise to "read the damn books."

"That's just stupid," Cockle said of the backlash against CD Projekt's next The Witcher role-playing game, sparked due to it featuring Ciri as its protagonist for the first time instead.

"It's not woke," Cockle continued, speaking during a video published by Fall Damage. "There's nothing woke about it. [Ciri]'s a cool character from The Witcher, and they're gonna focus on that character, and that's awesome."

Cockle has voiced Geralt throughout CD Projekt's The Witcher series, and is set to return as the beloved monster slayer once again in The Witcher 4 — though not as its main character.

Still, despite Geralt continuing to have some sort of presence in The Witcher 4, the confirmation last year that his adoptive daughter would be taking centre stage for the next game (and presumably the whole of the next The Witcher game trilogy) sparked an inevitable outcry of the series going "woke" from a minority online.

"We can't just have Geralt for every single game for The Witcher ad nauseam, out through eternity," Cockle continued, explaining why his character should be taking a well-earned rest. "We've seen the end of Geralt's journey. Blood and Wine was supposed to wrap up that journey.

"I celebrate Ciri. I celebrate her being the protagonist. So all you people who think it's woke... [blows raspberry]."

Cockle then went on to suggest that The Witcher 4 features Ciri for a specific reason — one that is tied to the franchise's original novel series by Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski.

"If you read the books, then you understand why CD Projekt went down this avenue," Cockle said. "There's a whole rich world of stuff to explore with Ciri, that they didn't do when they put her into Witcher 3, because the story was about Geralt. But she hints at it.

"If you think it's woke, read the damn books — they're good, first of all. And secondly, you won't think it's so woke anymore."

CD Projekt's games are set loosely after the finale of Sapkowski's novels, though Sapowski himself has always distanced his work — and the rather definitive finale he wrote for his characters — from The Witcher video games that continue Geralt's story some time later.

Without spoiling story elements from the final novel that may be explored in The Witcher 4, it's fair to say that Sapkowski, like CD Projekt, also saw Ciri as a pivotal character — and one that is happy to pick up the action when Geralt needs some downtime.

IGN previously discussed the return of Geralt in The Witcher 4 with CD Projekt franchise and lore designers Cian Maher and Marcin Batylda, who explained how the already established timeline of events all makes sense.

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

Predator and Alien are set to have a crossover moment in the upcoming Predator: Badlands movie, but could there also be a Xenomorph link in Predator: Killer of Killers? Fans think so.

Predator: Killer of Killers is an animated anthology that's coming out in June. Directed by Dan Trachtenberg (director of Prey and the upcoming Predator: Badlands), Predator: Killer of Killers will be released on June 6, 2025, exclusively on Hulu.

According to 20th Century Studios, the film follows three "of the fiercest warriors in human history: a Viking raider guiding her young son on a bloody quest for revenge, a ninja in feudal Japan who turns against his Samurai brother in a brutal battle for succession, and a WWII pilot who takes to the sky to investigate an otherworldly threat to the Allied cause." Of course, all three have to face a Predator.

Warning! Potential spoilers for Predator: Killer of Killers follow.

At the end of the latest trailer for the show we see what looks like a Yautja (the Predator alien species) elder wearing Xenomorph parts on its back. The shape and sharpness does make you think Alien as this Yautja walks off their ship, presumably to congratulate a human on surviving a battle with one of their kin (the shot follows one of the characters wondering what happens if they survive). For me, it very much looks like this Predator is wearing Xenomorph tails as a trophy cape, which is one of the most badass things I’ve seen a Predator do. Clearly, this Yautja has seen things.

When I reviewed the Asus ROG Swift PG32UCDM last year, I was blown away. It quickly took my top spot for the Best 4K Gaming Monitor and has remained a stellar choice since. With the ROG Swift PG27UCDM, Asus is going back to the well, coming back with a more accessible screen size and even crisper image. It will still cost you a mint, but if 32 inches was just too big, this monitor offers the same outstanding performance and plentiful features.

Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM – Design and Features

The Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM is a high-end gaming monitor that both looks and feels the part. It comes well-packaged and includes a number of different accessories, including additional cables in their own zippered bag, decals for the down-firing red illumination of the stand, and even a couple of blank discs to create your own logo. It comes with the same excellent tripod-style stand that comes with other ROG Swift OLEDs and includes a heavy-duty adapter to mount to a third-party arm. The build quality of each piece is excellent, akin to the other ROG Swift monitors we've reviewed so far.

Compared to its larger sibling, the PG32UCDM, the design language is almost identical. It comes with thin bezels on three sides that are made of metal and add some reassuring rigidity to the otherwise thin edges of the frame. The back panel is plastic and includes a large Asus ROG logo that can be customized for color, animation, or turned off entirely. Like its predecessor, it looks thin from the front but peeking around the rear reveals a fairly thick compartment to accommodate its internals and airflow-based cooling solution. It still feels thinner than your average IPS or VA gaming monitor thanks to the edges being separate and, indeed, super thin.

It comes with a high-quality tripod-styled stand, the same as we've seen on other ROG Swift displays. It's familiar, but it remains excellent with a heavy metal build and completely tool-less assembly. It also offers plenty of options for positioning and ergonomics, with degrees of -15° to +5° degrees of tilt, -30° to +30° of pivot, just over four inches of height adjustment, and the ability to turn it into portrait orientation to use as a second display. It also includes a cable management channel with enough space to accommodate everything connected to its USB hub and video ports, a ¼-20 thread on top to mount a camera or other video accessory, and a down-firing red projection LED to show the Asus logo on your desk (or one of your own using the blank disks included in the box).

The display uses what is, as of this writing, the latest Samsung QD-OLED panel. It’s still relatively spacious at 26.5-inches corner-to-corner, but it’s this smaller size that Asus hopes will make it more appealing. With the same 4K resolution, it’s able to offer a pixel density that's around 20% higher than its 32-inch predecessor, with 166 pixels per inch (PPI). At 4K, the increase is marginal enough that you’d need the two versions side by side to see a difference, but for the best clarity, the PG27UCDM is measurably better.

Its other specs and features are close, for the most part. It has the same, esports-ready 240Hz refresh rate, the same rated specs of 10-bit color with coverage for 99% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, and a tight Delta E < 2 rated calibration spec, which I test in the Performance section. It also has matching deep color options, gaming picture presets, and dedicated gaming features, like Sniper Mode and ELMB (Extreme Low Motion Blur), which I’ll get into in the next section.

And because it’s a QD-OLED – that is, an OLED monitor with a Quantum Dot layer to enhance its colors and luminance – it offers the same high caliber picture we’ve come to expect from Asus’s flagship gaming monitors. OLED monitors are naturally appealing for gaming due to their incredible contrast and dynamic range (each pixel is individually controlled, lending it millions of full-range local dimming zones), and the QD enhancement only makes it better. This is especially true in SDR where brightness lags behind competing LCD monitors. Because of its enhancements and great tuning, the PG27UCDM looks great no matter which dynamic range mode you may be using.

Its KVM feature has also been carried through, making it a good fit if you plan to connect a game console or like to work side-by-side with a laptop. On the underside, flanking its joystick, is a three-port USB 3.2 hub. Anything connected to this hub can be hot-swapped to a second system with a single button press assigned through its OSD.

Opposite are its video inputs, including two HDMI 2.1 ports, a DisplayPort 2.1a, and USB Type-C video that’s also capable of 90W of PD charging. DisplayPort received a version bump this release, offering a full 80 Gbps of bandwidth to support 4K240 without the need for DisplayStream compression.

Burn-in is a constant worry with OLED monitors, but Asus is at the forefront when it comes to preventative OLED Care features. All of the staples return, like Pixel Shifting and regular Pixel Refresh cycles every four hours when the monitor goes to sleep. It can also detect logos, desktop icons, and the taskbar and adjust the brightness around these areas to reduce the risk of burn-in.

This release introduces a new proximity sensing feature that can turn off the screen once it senses you’ve moved too far away. You can adjust the distance of its sensor in the settings up to 47 inches, at which point the screen will decide that you’ve moved away and darken to protect its pixels.

The concern over burn-in is valid and isn’t likely to go anywhere until it’s no longer a risk, but it’s nowhere near as worrisome as it was in year’s past. With proper precautions, like hiding the taskbar and desktop icons and not leaving static images on the screen for extended periods of time, most people will be just fine even over many months of daily use.

Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM – OSD and Software

The PG27UCDM can be configured using a deep on-screen display or Asus’ DisplayWidget Center. The layout and features are mostly the same as other ROG Swift OLEDs, so I won’t go through everything in-depth here, but if you’re brand new, I encourage you to read my breakdown in my earlier review of the PG32UCDM.

With that in mind, I’m pleased to see that Asus again delivered one of the deepest sets of configuration options available in gaming monitors today. All of the usual picture controls are there, including brightness, contrast, and saturation, as well as a range of picture modes catering to different gaming genres. That’s the tip of the iceberg. The PG27UCDM offers a full range of color sliders to perform custom picture calibrations to perfectly tailor it to your needs without necessitating an expensive colorimeter. Though you might not need it because it comes factory calibrated with a complete calibration report viewable right within the OSD.

You're also given easy access to a number of different gaming features, including the usual customizable on-screen reticle and Shadow Booster mode, as well as ELMB to reduce motion blur even further, at the expense of brightness. It also brings back the controversial Sniper Mode, which magnifies the center of the screen, similar to the scope on a sniper rifle, as well as night vision that can highlight other players or enemies in dark environments. Since both are running at the hardware level, there's no way for games to block this in competitive settings, and it can absolutely provide a competitive advantage. Be a good citizen and save these for single player, please.

The monitor's KVM feature is also accessible through this menu. Once your peripherals are plugged into the USB ports on the underside of the monitor, you can either enter the menu to toggle the KVM on or assign it to a shortcut key for even faster switching.

If you would prefer not to fiddle with an actual OSD and its somewhat cumbersome joystick navigation, Asus also makes its settings available through its Display Widget Center software. I find this to be more convenient to use on the fly. However, perhaps due to how often I have used the on-screen display in Asus monitors, the actual OSD feels intuitively laid out, if a bit dense.

Regardless, it's not difficult to wrap your head around either option, so you're safe to go with whichever you prefer. You'll certainly be spending time adjusting settings, especially as you determine your preferred picture and HDR modes or want to use or change an OLED Care feature. Even if you don't plan to keep it, I suggest at least trying DisplayWidget Center to see if its convenience wins you over.

Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM – Performance

I've been lucky enough to test the Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM for the better part of two weeks. During that time, I've put it through its paces with many different games, as well as using it as a daily driver to get work done, watch movies, and anything else I might need my computer for. Throughout that time, it has been consistently excellent, offering a fantastic picture and enjoyable use experience across the board.

One of the things I have to commend Asus for is that even in SDR mode, its displays never look dull. Using my Spyder Pro Colorimeter, I measured peak brightness at 498 nits, when 50% of the screen was full white. With 100% of the screen white, luminance dropped to 337 nits. For day-to-day use outside of gaming, you’ll rarely be looking at a completely white screen, so brightness will fall somewhere in between. It’s great for use away from direct sunlight, which is also advisable to keep the panel from overheating.

I also verified that Asus’s claims of color gamut coverage were accurate. The display analysis pegged it at 100% of sRGB and 99% of DCI-P3. Properly calibrated, you can be confident that this display is going to be able to represent your work well if you work in a creative field where wide-gamut accuracy is important.

Color accuracy was also very good in its sRGB mode, though didn’t score a Delta E < 2, as claimed. It was close with an average of 2.46 but cyan was a bit oversaturated and the greys were also slightly off. Still, this is very good out-of-the-box accuracy. You could confidently use it for all but high-level professional color work, and few people outside of trained experts will be able to perceive its inaccuracies with the naked eye.

I did run into some trouble in mapping its tone response, however. No matter what I tried, I wasn't able to achieve accurate grayscale ramping for the Gamma 2.2 standard. To get close, I actually had to turn it all the way to 2.6, so something is clearly off here. With this setting, I was able to achieve the ramp pictured above alongside the color gamut report. This is close enough for great results, but it shouldn't be necessary to use Gamma 2.6 when Gamma 2.2 has its own setting.

Built into the OSD, you can view Asus's own calibration report, which does validate its claims. The company is using much more expensive tools for these ratings, so some small discrepancies are to be expected. Taken as a whole, however, the monitor looks great out of the box, and it's fairly easy to dial it in even further. If you do happen to have a colorimeter, it's possible to achieve even better results, which is truly impressive from a display intended for gaming above all else.

Moving on to gaming, it's really no surprise that it offers outstanding responsiveness and fantastic image quality. OLED displays are naturally much faster than LED, which allows Asus to rate this monitor at a ridiculously fast 0.03ms response time. Paired with its 240Hz refresh rate, it's able to achieve next-level responsiveness and great motion clarity. The PG27UCDM would make a great choice for competitive esports even at the professional level.

The BlurBusters Test-UFO Ghosting test illustrates this perfectly. Capturing the above picture with a high-speed camera, there simply isn't any ghosting, overshoot, or artifacts at all. This is a fantastic result, even for an OLED display. Simply put, you should never experience ghosting. If your skills are up to the task, those 360° flip headshots should be easier than ever.

To that level, gaming on the monitor is nothing short of excellent. The image quality, clarity, and responsiveness are simply fantastic. When you add in support for Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync, the consistent smoothness is elevating. While it certainly lends itself to competitive shooters, it's a treat no matter what genre you might be playing, but especially in games that emphasize bright colors like Baldur's Gate 3 or Diablo 4.

This is the case even if you decide not to enable HDR all the time, and there's good reason for that in certain games. Battlefield 2042, for example, tends to look more bland in HDR than it does in SDR. No matter what you choose, however, you'll still be able to enjoy wide dynamic range because of each pixel acting as its own local dimming zone. Even SDR content has more dynamic range, and looks better than a traditional LED monitor.

I don't keep a game console with my PC, but I tested the KVM feature with my laptop and was able to transfer my peripherals seamlessly. It's perfect if you plan to take a keyboard, mouse, controller, or headset between platforms, or if, like me, you need to trade off between two different systems quickly.

Its OLED protections do tend to nag, but this goes with the territory for OLED monitors today. I would much rather have reminders pop up on the screen every now and again than have such an expensive purchase need to be replaced sooner than necessary.

Just don't expect miracles from its higher pixel density. It's not the only 27-inch 4K monitor, and it certainly won't be the last. As I mentioned previously, unless you have both versions of this display side by side, you probably won't notice any difference. Instead, it's more important to choose the size that works for you over any of the different features here.

The introduction of this monitor introduces a quandary. The 32-inch version, the PG32UCDM, has been out long enough that you can frequently find it on sale for around $1,000 while this model is likely to remain at its $1,199 MSRP for a long while yet. If you prefer the smaller 27-inch size but like everything else, do you bend and get the larger version for $200 less on sale? Or do you hold out, or spend extra, for this more compact option? Only you can decide.

Outspoken Gearbox chief Randy Pitchford has responded to a fan who expressed concern about the prospect of paying $80 for Borderlands 4, saying: “if you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen.”

The video game industry has made the jump to $80, first with Nintendo and Mario Kart World, then with Microsoft and its price hike announcement that will kick in this holiday season. Could Borderlands 4 follow suit?

Publisher 2K Games and parent company Take-Two have so-far remained vague on whether they will go to $80, and Randy Pitchford has insisted the decision is out of his control. But, responding to one concerned fan on social media, Pitchford set the cat among the pigeons by saying that if you’re a “real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen.”

When you get a spontaneous call from the president of Nintendo of America, you don’t ask too many questions. You just take the call.

That’s the advice that was given to designer Chris Maple by a fellow designer friend back in 1998, who warned him the call would be coming later that day. At the time, Maple was no stranger to sudden phone calls from company executives. Maple ran his own design business, Media Design, which specialized in last-minute work for companies in emergency, time-crunch situations whose agencies weren’t equipped to handle the speed or size of their request. Though it was rarely, if ever, publicly credited for this type of work, over Media Design’s history, Maple says his company quietly developed a good reputation with clients throughout its local Seattle area. He recalls doing work for (among many others) Boeing, the Seattle Mariners, Holland America Line cruises, and others.

Maple had been in the business for several years when then-Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa’s secretary phoned him and asked him to come visit the office in Redmond. He was told over the phone that the company wanted him to work on a new game, but that was it. Maple, intrigued, accepted the invitation, not knowing he was about to become an instrumental part of one of the biggest cultural phenomenons in the world: Pokémon.

Go West, Pocket Monsters

“So I showed up there and I sat in their lobby for about a half hour and stared at this beautiful 21-inch crystal horse in their lobby, a crystal horse head,” Maple recalls of the day he went to Nintendo of America’s Redmond HQ. “And I was like, just staring. You get a sensation. Like I'd have to read a room when I go into these corporate arenas, since I'm the subjective person presenting the aspect of imagery and content behind whatever's bothering them that day or what's broken or what needs to be fixed. You just learn to pick up stuff. So I was sitting there staring at this crystal head, and it was the Nintendo lobby.”

Eventually, Maple was taken upstairs into a meeting room where a few individuals were sitting, waiting for something. “It looked like the inquisitor was going to come out,” Maple recalls. But when Arakawa entered, Maple says he “was a very magnetic personality. I could tell why he was in the seat.”

I’ll let Maple relate what he remembers happening next:

“He introduced himself and said that they're going to be launching a game officially in the United States and Europe. Only problem is, the prior agencies they've tried out for the situation didn't quite hit the mark, and they burnt the budget and time element. Are you okay with that? And I go, ‘Yeah, sure. It's going to cost a penny.’

With Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning hitting theaters everywhere, we've sorted and sifted through the previous M:I installments for a ranking of Ethan Hunt's high-octane IMF adventures.

The Final Reckoning is said to conclude, story-wise, the awesome ride this film franchise has been on for the past 30 years, though that doesn't mean this will be the last Mission: Impossible movie as the title is, basically, "final" in name only. So let's explore this 30-year journey by listing the M:I movies from worst to best. Or, to put it a better way, least-great to greatest. Because they're all thrilling and fun in their own way.

Previously, we ranked all of Ethan Hunt's IMF team members from each movie and the Mission: Impossible villains. Check those out when you're done here!

7. Mission: Impossible 2 (2002)

Mission: Impossible 2 was the most MTV-driven of all the M:I films, with tons of TV and nu-metal hype behind it. Yet it also continued the brief trend of these movies being sort of wild auteur-driven takes, shifting from the pulpy Hitchcockian Brian De Palma to Hong Kong action-poet John Woo. Thus, it stands as the most different of all the installments, and, ultimately the least satisfying.

For this one outing, Ethan Hunt and the IMF team -- who we'd never see again aside from ol' reliable Luther (Ving Rhames) -- went full slo-mo action opera, complete with Woo's trademark doves, wild motorcycle stunts, and an overblown love triangle involving a thief named Nyah (Thandiwe Newton) and her connection to an ex-IMFer (Dougray Scott) looking to unleash a deadly plague. It was a "cool at the time" M:I movie that didn't age all that well once a different look and tone locked in place with M:I 3 six years later.

Still, Anthony Hopkins playing Ethan's boss, just this once, was a nice addition and also we got our first taste of Tom Cruise doing a dangerous stunt -- the free solo rock-climbing up the side of Utah's Dead Horse Point. It wasn't as death-defying as his future escapades would be, since he had a harness and ropes (that were removed digitally in post) and a stunt double, but it sure looked cool to see him up there in the shots he himself performed, and it planted the seeds of more awesome stunts to come.

6. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023)

After the highs of Mission: Impossible - Fallout, which was the culmination of the franchise steadily climbing in quality with each passing movie for a decade, Dead Reckoning (originally Dead Reckoning Part One) was a deflating step down. Yes, even with that spectacular motorcycle-off-the-cliff stunt.

Firstly, Ethan Hunt and his team clashing with a rogue AI program felt out-of-step. Or, in the very least, a step too late as TV and movies had been doing AI stories for a long, long while before Ethan went toe-to-toe with "The Entity."

Then there was the human villain (Esai Morales), who felt a bit toothless compared to past Big Bads, and whose ties to Ethan's past, which had never before been explored, felt a bit "Randy Meeks' Rules of the Horror Trilogy." Then throw in a controversial death and an ending action sequence that didn't thrill like the many M:I third-act crucibles before it, and you've got just a medium-good Impossible flick. Which is not what we need right when the entire run is wrapping things up.

5. Mission: Impossible (1996)

The first Mission: Impossible movie was a blast, only really suffering here because better ones followed it down the line. Brian De Palma's strong visual eye and stylized flare for thrillers served this franchise opener well, as most of the story involves Ethan trying to clear his name and find the traitor who killed off his entire team, including his mentor Jim Phelps (Jon Voight playing the role Peter Graves made famous on the TV series).

The "dangly" Langley Heist sequence was an instant hit, and was fodder for much pop culture parody at the time, and the TGY Bullet Train sequence at the end, even with mid-'90s CGI, still holds up amazingly well. The franchise would eventually find more of a traditional action movie tone, as bold set pieces, and Tom Cruise's running, would become more and more the focus, but the first M:I, which was also Cruise's first time as a producer, will always be a solid watch. Should you choose to accept it...

4. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

J.J Abrams, who was coming from the TV world, wasn't exactly an audacious auteur pick like a Brian De Palma or John Woo, but Abrams was riding high on his series Alias, and Cruise, impressed by the show's clever, layered revival of the spy genre, chose his man.

The result was Ethan Hunt getting a true love interest, and wife, in Michelle Monaghan's Julia, which in turn gave fans a chance to see Ethan become vulnerable in ways like never before. Unlike the romance in M:I 2, which came across as glossy and flimsy, this new relationship gave M:I 3 its foundation, and set the stage for Ethan's story going forward through the franchise.

Throw in Ethan coming out of retirement to help a trainee (Keri Russell), a deliciously devilish turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain, a traitor in the midst, a fantastic Vatican (person) heist, the introduction of Simon Pegg as Benji, and a (literal) heart-stopping finish, and you get an emotionally deeper Mission: Impossible as well as the excellent M:I movie that carved a whole new path for the saga.

3. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

The final Mission: Impossible movie on the "rotating directors" train - before they'd all be directed by Tom Cruise's main collaborator, Christopher McQuarrie - was Ghost Protocol, a soaring high point for the franchise directed by Brad Bird, who was helming his first live-action movie after almost a decade at Pixar where he wrote and directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille.

Ghost Protocol is a triumph, building off the M:I 3 template, presenting classic spy thrills in fresh ways, making time for laughs, and officially kicking off the era of "Tom Cruise does a stunt where he might actually die." Because who can ever forget the scaling of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. A true leveling up of the rock-climbing in M:I 2.

Yes, it's the third time Ethan's disavowed by the IMF and labeled a traitor. But Ghost Protocol ramps up the danger, raises the stakes, gives Benji actual field work, has Tom Cruise running through a sandstorm, and caps it all off with an edge-of-your-seat fight in a 20-story car tower. And just when you think it may have pulled an Alien 3, it rewards those who were invested in Ethan and Julia in the previous movie. For many ImpossiFans, this is their favorite Ethan and Co. adventure.

2. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

By the time Rogue Nation rolled around - the fifth Mission: Impossible film - the franchise has found its true groove and Ethan Hunt's world felt truly lived-in and connected in the ways the early entries didn't establish.

With Luther and Benji now fixed at his side, Ethan would meet both Rebecca Ferguson's dangerous disavowed MI6 Agent Ilsa Faust and Sean Harris' creepy, dastardly Solomon Lane, one of the franchise's best villains. Battling The Syndicate, a global terrorist operation populated by thought-to-be-dead spies and mercenaries, Ethan faced down his toughest foe to date.

Christopher McQuarrie seamlessly stepped into the director's chair and delivered a cracking good time, with a car chase in Morocco, an underwater vault heist (featuring Cruise holding his breath for six minutes), a shoot-out at the Vienna State Opera, and an uneasy alliance between Ethan and Ilsa that felt like a shot of adrenaline for the long-running saga.

1. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Fallout delivered in big, unexpected ways. Also known as the "reason why Henry Cavill's face looked so weird and dumb in the Justice League reshoots," this seventh M:I installment not only brought back the sinister Solomon Lane for an encore, making him Ethan Hunt's Blofeld, of sorts, but it also wrapped back around to former flame Julia, connecting Ethan's greatest love to his most diabolical enemy.

Because of Lane's return, Fallout felt like a more direct sequel to Rogue Nation, though the connective tissue in Fallout in general made everything done in the Mission: Impossible-verse over the previous decade feel massively satisfying. And the action sequences were just beyond phenomenal. Yes, Tom Cruise doing a HALO jump for real was amazing, but the helicopter chase at the end was something Mission: Impossible fans - hell, movie fans - will never forget.

Back in 2018, big showy blockbusters were at all-time levels of popularity, thanks in large part to the MCU, and Mission: Impossible took this opportunity to gift us with its biggest and best film. The Final Reckoning is supposed to feel like the pinnacle, and thematic resolution, of the entire series. But if it falls short, somehow then Fallout can still be that for us. Just a few years earlier.

What's your favorite Mission: Impossible filM? How would you rank them all? Vote in our poll and let us know below...

NBC Universal has released the final trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth, showing off key elements of the film as well as a good look at old and brand new dinosaurs.

Jurassic World Rebirth, starring Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali, sees an extraction team race to the most dangerous place on Earth, an island research facility for the original Jurassic Park inhabited by the worst of the worst that were left behind. It’s directed by Gareth Edwards (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) from a script by original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp.

Here’s the official blurb:

Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures across land, sea and air within that tropical biosphere hold, in their DNA, the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind.

Academy Award nominee Johansson plays skilled covert operations expert Zora Bennett, contracted to lead a skilled team on a top-secret mission to secure the genetic material. When Zora’s operation intersects with a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized by marauding aquatic dinos, they all find themselves stranded on a forbidden island that had once housed an undisclosed research facility for Jurassic Park. There, in a terrain populated by dinosaurs of vastly different species, they come face-to-face with a sinister, shocking discovery that has been hidden from the world for decades.

So, what do we see in this final trailer? Highlights include the river raft scene from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. In January, Koepp discussed a sequence from the first Jurassic Park novel that didn’t make it into 1993’s seminal Jurassic Park movie. Koepp said he re-read Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park novels to get back in the game, given there’s no source novel to draw on for this sequel. As a result, Koepp “did take some things from them,” and one of those things is a sequence from the first novel that went unused until now. “There was a sequence from the first novel that we’d always wanted in the original movie, but didn’t have room for,” Koepp revealed. "We were like, ‘Hey, we get to use that now.’ "

The actress behind a key character in Marvel TV series Agatha All Along has said she's pitched MCU boss Kevin Feige a way she could still return — despite her apparent tragic death.

Warning! Spoilers for Agatha All Along follow.

Legendary actress Patti Lupone, who plays Agatha's coven-mate Lilia, says she's keen to appear in future MCU projects, even if it's just for a cameo appearance.

This is despite the fact that viewers saw Lilia sacrifice herself in the supernatural series' seventh — and best — episode, Death's Hand in Mine.

Lilia's fate appeared sealed as she sacrifices herself for a heroic — if tragic — ending, upending a tower to defeat the coven's enemies, the Salem Seven, causing them to fall to their deaths, impaled on swords.

"I will just say, you never see Lilia land," Lupone has now said, speaking to Entertainment Weekly in a joint interview with Agatha actress Kathryn Hahn. "[Your character] never hits those swords," agreed Hahn.

Death's Hand in Mine is an episode centred on Lupone's character, and reveals that she has been experiencing her life out of sequence since she was a child. Because of this, the episode is presented with flashbacks and flashforwards — and we see Lilia falling from the beginning of the episode.

Now, Lupone says she has suggested to Kevin Feige that this could also be a way for her character to return — even if it is just to fall past the screen in other MCU projects too, as something of an in-joke.

"I said, 'You know what you should do in all the Marvel movies? You should have a tiny Lilia falling in the corner...'" Lupone said of her conversation with Feige. "I just want to make sure that everybody knows, we never saw her [land]."

Stranger things than Lilia's return have happened in the MCU (remember when Harry Styles turned up as Thanos' brother?), and with the multiverse shenanigans of Avengers: Doomsday on the horizon, anything is possible. Alternatively, Lilia could just turn up as a ghost, as Agatha herself did in the series' finale.

Agatha's own future in the MCU remains unannounced, though the success of her series has left fans expecting a continuation of her story with Wiccan, AKA Billy, of some kind.

Earlier this week, an apparent set leak spilled details of a surprising MCU location set to return in Avengers: Doomsday.

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

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 will soon see the release of Patch 8, which publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive have already said heralds the arrival of the hotly anticipated Horde mode.

But what else might it include? Recent datamines of Space Marine 2 itself may hold clues.

Warning! Potential spoilers for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 follow:

Let’s start with perhaps the biggest question Space Marine 2 fans have right now: what is the new class? Datamines suggest it is the Techmarine. Why? Because in the files was mention of a perk called ‘shoulder gun bolter,’ which is a clear indication that Techmarines are finally in play.

For the uninitiated, a Techmarine is a Space Marine engineer-type class who’s a big fan of the Cult Mechanicus as well as their Chapter. They’re big on technology and specialize in fixing and maintaining vehicles and other big stuff, such as Dreadnaughts.

You can see how a Techmarine might slot into a Space Marine 2 squad, which currently lacks a class of this type. And this ties into another datamined detail: the apparent ability to “summon” a Dreadnaught in Horde mode. Dreadnaughts are a part of the Space Marine 2 campaign (one viral moment involves a Dreadnaught being particularly heroic and badass), and you also fight alongside one in a PvE Operations mission. Could you earn the right to summon a Dreadnaught and, as a Techmarine, keep it alive, in Horde mode?

Now onto the promised new melee weapon. Datamines suggest Space Marine 2 will finally get a Power Axe, which again, makes sense in the context of Games Workshop’s big Space Wolves push for the tabletop game. And let’s remember, in December, IGN reported on Space Marine 2 modders who put the axe from Secret Level’s Warhammer 40,000 episode into the game.

THIS is why I’m a fan of Warhammer 40k! Hats off to @PrimeVideo for producing Secret Level: And They Shall Know No Fear. Watch it here: https://t.co/Gf0i2d0Rus

I highly recommend giving the entire 19 min episode a watch. It’s immersive and awesome. It’s a happy grim dark ray of… pic.twitter.com/iuYxprAo2J

— MiniWarGamer Dave (@MWGdave) December 10, 2024

There’s more! As discussed in a recent video by Warhammer 40,000 YouTuber Chapter Master Valrak, dataminers recently unearthed evidence of a Grav-cannon in Space Marine 2. This is, typically, a big gun used by Space Marines that manipulate gravity to cause a target to crush itself to death. Could the Techmarine class, should it be a genuine upcoming arrival, exclusively wield the Grav-cannon? If so, I imagine there will be many players who gravitate towards it with the release of Patch 8.

It’s worth noting that Patch 8 remains under wraps for now, but we’re expecting Space Marine 2-related announcements during the upcoming Warhammer Skulls livestream this Thursday, May 22. Perhaps we’ll find out more there.

There’s a lot happening in the world of Space Marine 2, despite the surprise announcement that development of Space Marine 3 development had begun. Space Marine 2’s year one roadmap remains in place.

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.

Disney has signed up Conan O'Brien for a role in Toy Story 5.

The redheaded chat show host will voice a mysterious new character named Smarty Pants in the upcoming movie.

O'Brien announced his involvement in Toy Story 5 via his official TeamCoco Instagram account, via a skit in which he jokingly suggests he asked Disney if he could voice Woody or Buzz Lightyear instead. (Thankfully, Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are already signed up to reprise their legendary roles.)

No other details on O'Brien's character were mentioned, leaving fans to speculate on who exactly Smarty Pants might be.

Toy Story 5 will reunite Woody, Buzz and the rest of Pixar's beloved cast for a fresh adventure that sees the traditional toys having to grapple with a world in which kids are now more interested in gadgets, gizmos and other technology.

Could Smarty Pants be some kind of electronic toy, and perhaps an antagonist for our intrepid toy heroes? Time will tell.

O'Brien's casting is the first time a fresh character has been announced for Toy Story 5, suggesting this is a casting of some importance.

Toy Story 5 will mark the first major new entry in Pixar's series since Toy Story 4 in 2019. A spin-off, Lightyear, which focused on the in-universe exploits of the original Buzz Lightyear character, launched in 2022 but was widely considered a flop.

Now, Disney is hoping to breathe fresh life back into its main Toy Story brand once more, despite the risks of having to follow the series' universally-praised original trilogy.

Toy Story 5 is set to launch on June 19, 2026, and will be the first of several new sequels to classic Pixar films due over the next few years, with Incredibles 3 and Coco 2 also on the cards.

Photo by Daniel Boczarski/Redferns.

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

Call of Duty fans are still digesting the news that Activision is walking away from Warzone Mobile, the game that was meant to lead the battle royale into a new era.

Over the weekend, Activision pulled Warzone Mobile from iOS and Android app stores, with the scope of the game being “streamlined" and an admission it had not met expectations. While servers will remain online for now, no new content or updates will be issued to the game, and players can no longer spend real money in it.

"We're proud of the accomplishment in bringing Call of Duty: Warzone to mobile in an authentic way, [but] it unfortunately has not met our expectations with mobile-first players like it has with PC and console audiences,” Activision said.

It’s a brutal end for a game that clearly struggled right out of the gate. Warzone Mobile launched in March 2024 on iOS and Android as a Warzone-specific Call of Duty mobile experience that offered battle royale for up to 120 players, as well as cross-progression with the PC and console Warzone, Modern Warfare 2 and 3, and, later in the year, Black Ops 6.

IGN's Call of Duty Warzone Mobile review returned an 8/10. We said: "Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile includes all the best elements of Warzone, while speeding up and streamlining matches and using cross-progression to make this a meaningful extension of the traditional experience."

Activision’s hope was that Warzone Mobile would make a splash in the competitive mobile shooter market, where the hugely successful Call of Duty Mobile, developed by Tencent-owned TiMi Studio Group, is already established. With Call of Duty Mobile, which has seen 1 billion downloads since launch, revenue is shared between Activision and Tencent. Warzone Mobile, on the other hand, was developed entirely in-house at Activision, and so the company received a bigger slice of the money pie every time a player dropped cash on a battle pass or a cosmetic.

But Warzone Mobile, which requires more powerful mobile phones than Call of Duty Mobile to work well, failed to meet Activision’s expectations, and its development team was scaled down when, in September last year, Microsoft-wide layoffs hit across the games business.

Now, Call of Duty fans, especially those who did play Warzone Mobile, have lamented the state of the game and indeed the franchise.

“This game simply came out too early and wanted to be too greedy,” said redditor Maddafragg. “It could be seen on the Reddit videos, a lot of gameplay was not fluid with weird graphics, it could be seen that even if the game is playable, the device struggles to run it. The world of mobile gaming is cursed, it's not just Warzone that's dying. Dead by Daylight mobile and Star Wars hunter will also close the doors.”

“Turns out mobile games need to be optimized on most devices to be successful, you can't just cater to high end devices and hope your game succeed — it won't,” added piegeamorue.

“Greed is a dangerous thing. Activision was too greedy and when it leaked that they planned on killing CODM in favor of WZM they essentially turned tens of millions of people against the game. It became ‘us vs them’ and CODM is vastly more accessible than WZM — the loss was guaranteed.”

What's next for Call of Duty, which appears to be in a tricky spot right now? Earlier this month, The Game Business reported that while Black Ops 6 launched big late last year, the Call of Duty franchise saw its users decline afterwards, and “more sharply” than in recent years.

Here’s the relevant blurb:

... the reality is that despite a strong start, Call of Duty has struggled to engage players to the degree it has in the past. According to Ampere, in March 2025, Call of Duty had 20.6 million players. That is still a huge number, but it’s slightly less than March 2024, which had 20.8 million players, and well down on March 2023, which saw 22.4 million players.

The return of the much-loved Verdansk to Warzone did give the battle royale a much-needed shot in the arm, but with the honeymoon period over and accusations of rampant cheating once again dominating the narrative, all eyes are on Activision and this year’s Call of Duty game to see if the still-huge first-person shooter franchise can reinvent itself once again.

Related, there are a number of apparent datamined gameplay videos doing the rounds that show wall-running and even jet packs working in Black Ops 6. This, some believe, indicates this year's Black Ops 7 will ditch Activision’s ‘boots on the ground’ mantra for gameplay reminiscent of Black Ops 3.

They also added jetpacks lol pic.twitter.com/ZrFxLVfQkj

— Bikou (@Kivikou) May 20, 2025

🚨‼️WALL RUNNING CONFIRMED FOR BO7‼️🚨
There is wall running in BO6 currently It is unclear if it's leftover from BO3 that managed to make it's way into a glitch through BO6 or if it's from BO7 and is left in the BO6 files. @charlieINTEL @ModernWarzone @Dexerto pic.twitter.com/0FJ0guUIEH

— peter (@viipeter_) May 19, 2025

Activision told IGN its teams are busy and moving forward on a variety of work, so hopefully we’ll see the fruits of that soon. Microsoft’s annual June Xbox showcase is around the corner. Perhaps Call of Duty will turn up there. And, meanwhile, Call of Duty: Mobile is going strong, but, as we’ve pointed out, it’s not as lucrative a business for Activision, despite being bigger.

Activision Blizzard’s recent mobile struggles also call into question Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of the company itself, given Xbox boss Phil Spencer has made no secret that the decision was in part motivated by Xbox’s lofty mobile ambitions (Activision Blizzard owns King, the maker of phenomenally popular mobile game Candy Crush). Indeed, Microsoft plans to launch an app store of its own, taking on Apple and Google in the lucrative mobile game space.

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.

Nintendo has shown off our first proper look at a Nintendo Switch 2 game cartridge, ahead of the console's launch next month.

The latest video from the company's Nintendo Today app shows off a look at the official Switch 2 carry case, which has slots for you to safely tuck in up to six Nintendo Switch 1 and Switch 2 cartridges.

As we knew already, Switch 2 cartridges are the same size and shape as Switch 1 cartridges — meaning that the Switch 2 itself only needs one cartridge slot to play games from both Switch console generations. But there's one key difference: the cartridge's color.

Switch 2 cartridges are red — and this appears to be a universal decision, not just for the Mario Kart World cartridge seen in Nintendo's video. (If you don't have the Nintendo Today app, you can see the video via OatmealDome on X / Twitter below.)

The top of the cartridge's printed design sticker also shows a Switch 2 logo, rather than the Nintendo Switch design on original cartridges.

[Switch 2]

Here's a look inside the official Switch 2 carrying case. It has room for the console with the Joy-Con 2 attached, six cartridges, and two Joy-Con 2 straps.

(Also, Switch 2 cartridges seem to be the same size as Switch 1 cartridges, to no one's surprise.) pic.twitter.com/h7k0tqThQz

— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) May 19, 2025

Other than that, Switch 2 cartridges are identical, even down to the foul-tasting coating that Nintendo applies to discourage you from putting the cartridges in your mouth.

"We don't want anybody to be at risk of any unwanted consumption," Switch 2 director Takuhiro Dohta previously told GameSpot. "We have indeed made it so that if it enters your mouth, you'll spit it out."

Switch 2 is set to launch on June 5, 2025 — in just three weeks' time. Earlier today, a report revealed that Nintendo's key electronics partner Samsung was already thinking about a Switch 2 hardware refresh with an OLED screen upgrade.

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

Helldivers 2 finally has Super Earth maps to fight on as part of the Heart of Democracy major update.

As had leaked last week, the Heart of Democracy update — out now across PC and PlayStation 5 — sees the Illuminate invasion reach Super Earth. You can now select missions on our home planet in Mega Cities and fight back alongside SEAF soldiers.

The city biomes include operations that work towards liberating the cities, which, developer Arrowhead said, have “a significant impact on planetary campaigns.” This is a part of Helldivers 2’s ongoing Galactic War, a community-driven meta narrative that Arrowhead orchestrates behind the scenes.

The Illuminate have reached the Heart of Democracy.

Our Mega Cities are under siege. Liberty now hangs in the balance. The Ministry of Defence has authorised arsenal upgrades and placed SEAF soldiers on active duty. Today, we fight for the future of Super Earth! pic.twitter.com/GxkrAQCmKD

— HELLDIVERS™ 2 (@helldivers2) May 20, 2025

Here’s the official blurb, per the PlayStation Blog:

The Helldivers are tasked with a new objective: to repel the Illuminate invasion by gaining ground over the squids as they fight to control areas where the fleet is landing. It won’t be a walk in the park, divers. Like a game of intergalactic tug-of-war, you will struggle against the incoming forces, gaining and losing control quickly.

You can activate Planetary Defense Cannons and take down the Illuminate fleet, as shown in the trailer. And, as mentioned, SEAF troops will help join the fight to defend the cities. These small squads will fight enemies on their own, or they can be ordered to follow Helldivers and provide temporary backup as you navigate toward objectives. You do, however, need to be mindful of civilians who are still roaming the streets; Helldivers 2 is as much about friendly fire management as it is blowing aliens up.

The Heart of Democracy update is part of Arrowhead's long-term committment to keeping Helldivers 2 going for years to come following its record-breaking launch last year.

Last week, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani addressed player concern that the studio might leave the game behind to focus on its next project, dubbed "Game 6."

"Nah. It's ALL Helldivers 2 for now," he insisted. "A very, very small team will spin up something later this year and go at it sloowly. Helldivers is our main focus and will be for a loooong time."

So, how long does Jorjani expect content updates for Helldivers 2 to last?

"As long as you folks keep playing and buying Super Credits we can keep it going," Jorjani said, pointing to Helldivers 2's virtual currency that's used to buy Premium Warbonds. "Last summer we were kinda screwing the pooch so it looked like we wouldn't be able to keep the train going for a long time - but we turned the ship around, you support us a lot so it's looking bright."

Accompanying the release of Heart of Democracy is update 01.003.002. Patch notes below.

Helldivers 2 update 01.003.002 patch notes:

Fixes

Resolved Top Priority issues:

• Attempting to purchase a Master of Ceremony item in the Super Store when on PlayStation 5 while using the "Quality" visual setting will no longer change page

Crash Fixes, Hangs and Soft-locks:

• Fixed a crash that could occur when trying to enter the Weapon Customization menu on certain weapons
• Fixed crash that could happen when killing illuminates that were about to spawn

Weapons and Stratagems

• Fix drone's not returning to backpack correctly

Miscellaneous Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Stingray strafing attack sounds could get stuck for a while
• Fixed corpses of some enemies sometimes sending players flying across the map

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.

Welcome to Derry has its first trailer, revealing a creepy look at HBO Max’s It prequel series, due out fall 2025.

The trailer, below, sets up the story, which is set in Maine in 1962. Newcomers to the area appear disturbed by reports of missing children, and the slow realization that something is very wrong in this part of the world. As is It tradition, a group of kids from Derry High School band together to try to find out what’s going on, worrying the adults will never believe a word they say.

There’s blood, screaming, creepy smiles, balloons, and, right at the end, a glimpse at It iconic villain Pennywise the Clown, once again played by Bill Skarsgård.

Get ready to go back to where IT all began... 🎈 #ITWelcometoDerry is coming this fall to HBO Max. pic.twitter.com/SOhXEA6yYe

— Max (@StreamOnMax) May 20, 2025

Welcome to Derry is a nine episode Season 1 from Andy Muschietti, who adapted the two It movies from Stephen King’s iconic horror novel. It’s set 27 years before the events of those films, showing Pennywise’s murder spree before hibernation.

"This is a book we love a lot, and we felt that there was still a lot of story to be covered," Muschietti and sister, Barbara, told Entertainment Weekly last year.

"It’s so rich with characters and events, we thought we would do justice to the book and the fans by going back into this world. Specifically, we are telling the stories of the interludes, writings by Mike Hanlon based on his investigation that includes interviews he conducts with the older people in the town.

“In Welcome to Derry, we touch on the usual themes that were talked about in the movie — friendship, loss, the power of unified belief — but this story focuses also on the use of fear as a weapon, which is one of the things that is also relevant to our times.

"27 years is the dormant period of Pennywise. It’s a different part of American history with a new set of fears for children, as well as adults having in mind the cost of the Cold War. Our baseline is 1962, but we do a few jumps to the past... Every 27 years when It appears, It’s cycle is marked by two catastrophic events, one at the beginning and one in the end. We are using the Black Spot as an event in which many stories are built around."

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.