Ever wondered why Clark Kent’s glasses somehow prevent him from being recognized as Superman, despite just being… glasses? It’s a fun question that often comes up whenever a new Superman comes around, and this month’s release of the DC Universe kickstarter is no different. Indeed, official social media posts for the movie have played on this idea, with Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane) and Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen) expressing their confusion when Superman actor David Corenswet takes his glasses off.

@superman

Seriously though, where’d Clark go?

♬ original sound - Superman

But why exactly do the glasses work in this Superman movie? DC Universe steward James Gunn told ComicBook that he has an explanation that is comic book canon: they’re hypno glasses.

“That’s canon in the comics,” Gunn said. “It’s kind of been forgotten but that’s from the comics. I was sitting with Tom King, the comic book writer, and I was like, ‘You know the thing that I just don’t really know how to reconcile in myself is the glasses because the glasses always bothered me as a kid.’ They bothered me because I just don’t have that much suspension of disbelief to believe that.”

Gunn went on to insist that Corenswet did a great job making Clark Kent and Superman look like different people, “even more so” than Christopher Reeve. Reeve’s performance as Superman is often praised for the subtle changes he made to posture and mannerisms as he shifts from playing the tentative reporter and the world’s most powerful superhero.

“You know, they’re two different people even though I think out of all the actors that have played Superman, Corenswet looks the most different as Clark Kent to Superman, even more so than Chris Reeve,” Gunn said. “But he [King] said, ‘You know, there’s an answer for that in the comics, it’s canon that they hypnotize people.’”

The somewhat goofy explanation is in keeping with the tone Gunn’s new Superman is shooting for. Teaser trailers have revealed a number of fun one-liners from Superman, as well as the use of his freeze breath to blow a dog to safety. And, of course, there’s all sorts of co-op punching shenanigans with Krypto the Superdog.

The inevitable next question is, what does Clark Kent look like when he's wearing his hypno glasses? In the same interview, Gunn said the glasses make Kent look like he has a fuller face: "He looks a little bit blockier in my mind when he's got the hypno glasses on."

IGN’s new feature, How James Gunn's Superman Reinvents the Look and Feel of Kal-El's World, touched on the design of Clark Kent’s glasses in the new movie.

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.

The Tuscaloosa Police Department have issued a request for help to unmask a Scooby-Doo costume-wearing criminal who stole cash from a convenience store.

The thief, who struck at the Quick Stop on Highway 82 last weekend, was caught on CCTV cameras emptying coins from gaming machines while dressed as the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon character.

At one point the suspect removed his Scooby-Doo hood — but unlike in the show, the thief had come prepared: he was also wearing a balaclava obscuring his face underneath. Zoinks.

Police say the suspect appears to be a white male, around 5'9, and have appealed for information on the villain's true identity. (Isn't it always an old guy in a disguise?)

Images posted to the Tuscaloosa Police Department Facebook page show the criminal stomping around the convenience store at 3.45am in the morning. Cops stated he "took cash and coins, but no snacks." What, no munchies?

In a follow-up comment, the department posted a photo of the Scooby gang's infamous Mystery Machine van parked outside their headquarters, and jokingly stated: "We’ve questioned the owners of the vehicle, but no solid leads yet. Continue to be on the lookout for shady caretakers and don’t meddle if you see the suspect."

Borderlands 4 includes a slider that lets you decrease the volume of — or mute entirely — your beloved (or love-to-hate) companion, Claptrap.

The robot companion has been in the Borderlands franchise since it began way back in 2009, and you can even play as him in 2014's Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. He essentially acts as your guide and mascot, and can make you laugh/cringe in equal measure. For some, however, he can be annoying, which is likely why the developers at Gearbox have introduced a setting to let you lower the volume of his voice or simply mute him completely.

"I wrote some lines just for this feature and it includes maybe the dumbest most niche reference to a certain terrible accent in a certain classic immersive sim," teased Borderlands 4 narrative director, Sam Winkler, in a social media post responding to streamer and 2K partner, Chadly, who revealed there's an audio slider dedicated to Claptrap's voice.

When a fan suggested Gearbox shouldn't have "caved to Claptrap haters," he added: "I pitched that you should be able to put him from 0% to 200% but I think the government said no."

ICYMI:#Borderlands4 features an audio slider purely for Claptrap's voice💀 pic.twitter.com/APAtqUQu1p

— Chadly (@Chadly_99) June 30, 2025

Borderlands 4 is a looter shooter packed with billions of weapons, outrageous enemies, and intense co-op action where you'll break free from a dangerous hidden planet as one of four new Vault Hunters.

We had a good time with what we've played so far, writing in IGN's Borderlands 4 preview: "After several hours dipping my toes into what is sure to be a massive looter shooter, I’m much more optimistic about Borderlands 4’s odds of recapturing my affections after years apart."

And in case Randy Pitchford's controversial tweets had you thinking otherwise, publisher 2K Games has confirmed Borderlands 4 will cost $70, not $80, after all. Preorders are now live.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

With a new Wonder Woman movie confirmed to be in development, all eyes are on James Gunn to see who he picks to replace Gal Gadot as the world famous superhero in the rebooted DC Universe.

The attention on Gunn’s decision-making around the DCU has involved speculation sparked by who he follows on social media, and that speculation has extended to Adria Arjona, who fans believe may be the next Wonder Woman after they noticed Gunn followed the actress on Instagram.

But in a recent interview, Gunn downplayed the significance of his social media moves, although he left a tease dangling that has only fueled the rumors.

Cryptic teases from Minecraft's official social media accounts have hinted at something big coming soon to do with copper.

A post on the Minecraft X/Twitter account features a teasing message stating "C U in the mines!" while on Instagram, the inside of a cave with blocks spelling out "CU 29" can be seen alongside the message: "Teleported Steve to 29, 11, 63.54."

What does all this mean? Well, Cu is copper's chemical symbol, 29 is its number in the periodic table, 11 is its group in the period table, while 63.54 is its atomic mass. So it's definitely something to do with copper. But beyond that? Well, fans do have one big idea.

Copper has existed in Minecraft for some time, as one of the game's many ores you can harvest and smelt into blocks, ingots, stairs, doors and so forth. There are even exposed, weathered and oxidized versions of the material, so you can build using copper of various types.

Back in 2021, a concept for a copper golem was proposed by Minecraft developer Mojang as one of several potential mobs it was considering — though, sadly, the copper golem lost that year's Minecraft Live vote, and the concept was shelved.

C U in the mines! pic.twitter.com/2Pq0iG1gHl

— Minecraft (@Minecraft) June 30, 2025

The copper golem has remained something of a fan-favorite, however, popping up as an Easter egg in subsequent Mob Votes. The helpful creature would have acted as a regular golem, albeit with the ability to randomly press copper buttons.

One cool mechanic would have seen the golem slowly oxidize over time, eventually turning into a statue unless players remembered to chisel off the oxidization with an axe, or if the golem was struck by lightning.

"What is something important involving copper that Mojang has teased in the past?" one fan excitedly wrote on reddit. "I think it's pretty obvious we are getting a copper update, and I think it might be the copper golems introduction," wrote another.

Perhaps the best evidence of a return for the copper golem comes from yet another official tease, this time posted to the Minecraft YouTube channel. Here, Minecraft director Agnes Larsson is seen visiting an actual real-life mine after taking a break from playing Minecraft. As fans on reddit have pointed out, the brief snippet of gameplay shown at the beginning of the video shows a house clearly shaped like a copper golem, made out of copper blocks.

The next mainline Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon game is moving into internal alpha testing in the coming months.

That's according to Insider Gaming, which claimed the shooter, codenamed 'Over' internally, will commence alpha testing in the Fall (Q3). With testing thought to take around 12 months, IG estimated Ghost Recon may release Fall 2026.

News of a new Ghost Recon broke around the time the developer/publisher confirmed it was ceasing all new development on 2019's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. It has reportedly been in development at Ubisoft since then, although at the time, it was clear the series was undergoing a full reset, which would necessitate a lengthy development cycle.

In a statement to IGN, an Ubisoft representative said: "We do not comment on rumour or speculation."

IGN's Ghost Recon Breakpoint review returned a 6/10. We wrote: "Breakpoint offers initial fun following Ubisoft's open-world structure as gospel, but a lack of variety and conflicting pieces leave it devoid of personality."

Earlier this year, Ubisoft created a subsidiary company based on its Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six brands, with a €1.16 billion (approx. $1.25 billion) investment from Chinese megacorp Tencent.

The news came hot on the heels of the launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows, which just passed the 3 million player mark. Ubisoft suffered a number of high-profile flops, layoffs, studio closures, and game cancellations in the run up to Assassin's Creed Shadows' release, and there was enormous pressure on it to succeed after the company's share price hit an historic low.

In 2022, Ubisoft canceled development on Ghost Recon Frontline a year after it was announced. It was meant to be a free-to-play battle royale spin-off with 102-players, but never saw the light of day.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Avatar director James Cameron has said Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was “a bit of a moral cop out,” while revealing his plans for his own movie, Ghosts of Hiroshima.

Last year it emerged that Cameron, the second-highest-grossing film director of all time, will take a break from making Avatar movies to direct a film based on Charles Pellegrino’s book Ghosts of Hiroshima.

The 70-year-old Terminator creator has called his adaptation an “uncompromising theatrical film” that focuses on the true story of a man who survived both bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

The Ghosts of Hiroshima book is due out August 5, and there’s no release window yet for the adaptation. But Cameron detailed the project in an interview with Deadline, where he was asked about Ghosts of Hiroshima’s potential in the context of Oppenheimer’s $1 billion box office and seven-Oscar haul.

“Yeah… it’s interesting what he stayed away from,” Cameron replied, before suggesting Ghosts of Hiroshima may not have the kind of mainstream breakthrough appeal Oppenheimer managed. “Look, I love the filmmaking, but I did feel that it was a bit of a moral cop out.”

Cameron continued: “Because it’s not like Oppenheimer didn’t know the effects. He’s got one brief scene in the film where we see — and I don’t like to criticize another filmmaker’s film — but there’s only one brief moment where he sees some charred bodies in the audience and then the film goes on to show how it deeply moved him. But I felt that it dodged the subject. I don’t know whether the studio or Chris felt that that was a third rail that they didn’t want to touch, but I want to go straight at the third rail. I’m just stupid that way.”

Nolan has responded to this criticism of Oppenheimer before, specifically that the biopic does not meaningfully depict the true horror unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Director Spike Lee said in October 2023: “If it’s three hours, I would like to add some more minutes about what happened to the Japanese people. People got vaporized. Many years later, people are radioactive. It’s not like he didn’t have power. He tells studios what to do. I would have loved to have the end of the film maybe show what it did, dropping those two nuclear bombs on Japan.”

Nolan has countered to insist Oppenheimer is about Oppenheimer himself, and so focuses on his reactions to the events.

"The film presents Oppenheimer's experience subjectively," Nolan told Variety in November 2023. "It was always my intention to rigidly stick to that. Oppenheimer heard about the bombing at the same time that the rest of the world did. I wanted to show somebody who is starting to gain a clearer picture of the unintended consequences of his actions. It was as much about what I don't show as what I show."

Deadline suggested Nolan hopes someone tells that sort of story one day, and Cameron responded to say he’s the director to do it.

“Okay, I’ll put up my hand,” he said. “I’ll do it, Chris. No problem. You come to my premiere and say nice things…”

Ghosts of Hiroshima sounds like it will be a very different movie than Oppenheimer, then, and it also sounds like it will be some time before it’s made. Cameron clarified he has yet to write a word of the script, saying: “I’m not in that head space right now.”

Nintendo has announced an imminent "pricing update" for the original Switch in Canada, leaving fans north of the border expecting the aging console to increase in price — more than eight years after it launched.

An advisory warning issued by Nintendo of Canada states that the changes will be fully detailed later today, July 1, as prices are publicly adjusted on the official Nintendo Canada online store.

Explaining the changes, Nintendo's note simply states the move is "based on market conditions," without going into further detail.

Nintendo has said that the newly-launched Switch 2 will not be impacted by the impending price adjustment, though all models of the original Switch (the OG Switch, Switch Lite and Switch OLED) will be impacted.

Physical and digital Switch games and accessories will also see price changes, Nintendo continued — something which of course will impact Switch 2 owners, as most games and many peripherals are cross-compatible.

The sweeping changes will also hit Nintendo Switch Online memberships, the company stated, as well as amiibo figurines. If you're in Canada and need to top-up your online subscription before prices change, now might be a good time.

Canada, like many other countries, has been caught up in the ongoing financial uncertainty provoked by the introduction of US tariffs. Prior to the Switch 2 launch, Nintendo paused the rollout of pre-orders in the US and Canada as it gauged the potential impact of tariffs, before announcing price rises on some Switch 2 peripherals.

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa previously suggested the impact of tariffs could impact the company's profits by "tens of billions of yen," though cautioned that increasing the Switch 2's price to compensate would likely "decrease demand."

Fans have suggested that these price rises, aimed at the original Switch, and on Nintendo Online Memberships, are likely Nintendo's workaround — without attracting the headlines of raising the Switch 2's price so soon after launch.

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

What’s next for Halo? It looks like fans will get a further tease this October at the Halo World Championship 2025.

In a blog post, Tahir “Tashi” Hasandjekic, Esports Lead for the Halo franchise, suggested fans attend the event October 24-26 in Seattle to find out what Halo Studios has been working on.

During the same event last October, Halo developer 343 Industries announced it had changed its name to Halo Studios and confirmed multiple projects were in the works. In the same breath, Halo Studios said all its future games would be developed on Unreal Engine, leaving behind the Slipspace Engine utilized by Halo Infinite.

The announcements were unveiled in a seven-minute video shown ahead of the Halo World Championship's grand finals. This showcased the results of Project Foundry — an experimental project designed to show a Halo game built using the Unreal Engine — and offered a glimpse at a fresh beginning for Xbox's flagship franchise in the wake of 2021's Halo Infinite.

In the blog post, Tashi referenced last year’s announcements and teased more to come this October.

“Over the past few weeks, there’s been a fair amount of speculation about when and where more details might emerge about any of the multiple projects Halo Studios is actively working on,” Tashi said. “We don’t usually comment on such matters, but this time we want to enter the chat and share a little more perspective for Halo fans who might be on the fence about whether to attend this year’s event.

“Last year at HaloWC, we premiered ‘A New Dawn’ where we talked about the switch to Unreal Engine, gave you a behind the scenes look at Project Foundry, and debuted our evolution to Halo Studios as we enter a new chapter for Halo. For us, ‘A New Dawn’ was just the beginning — at this year’s HaloWC, we look forward to continuing the conversation.

“Speculation is always fun, but if you want the official scoop on what Halo Studios has been working on, you won’t want to miss this year’s Halo World Championship. We really hope you’ll join us in Seattle this October!”

So, what could Halo Studios have up its sleeve for the announcement? It seems unlikely we’ll get a full-blown gameplay reveal for the next big Halo title, but we may get a more detailed tech demo showing Halo running in Unreal Engine. Earlier this month, Microsoft was reported to be readying a Halo: Combat Evolved remaster for release in 2026. Perhaps we will get a look at that. The so-far unannounced remaster is apparently under consideration for release on rival platforms including PlayStation 5.

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.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is set for a second year of DLC, and we have the first details on its huge 10.0 update.

Breakout hit Space Marine 2 has sold 7 million copies, so it’s no surprise to see Year 2 support confirmed by publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive. In a community update, the companies said Year 2 will bring new PvE missions, enemies, weapons, and more unannounced content.

Space Marine 2 came out in September 2024, and as part of its first anniversary, a “large-scale” update is planned to release in September. Patch 10.0 sounds like a big one for Space Marine 2, but it’s worth noting that Patch 9.0 is due out beforehand. 9.0 was meant to add a new PvP mode, but that’s now delayed to 10.0, which means 9.0 will add only balance changes.

We do know a little about this new PvP mode, however. The twist here is it’s Chaos vs Chaos set on a new map, and, most interesting of all, you’ll be able to take control of the Helbrute. The Helbrute, for the uninitiated, is a variant of the Chaos Dreadnought, an evil death-dealer piloted by a Chaos Space Marine trapped within its plated metal chest. You might remember the Helbrute from the Space Marine 2 campaign, where it came off worse in a scrap with the Ultramarines’ Brother Valtus. Alongside this new Chaos-themed PvP mode are new Chaos armours, which are much-requested by fans.

Meanwhile, 10.0 adds the new Power Axe melee weapon, which has its own moveset and execution animations. We have a first look below:

If you're looking for the best TV series and movies to watch right here in Australia, we've got you covered. Because hey—why torment yourself by aimlessly hunting around the six odd streaming services? You could be wasting your precious free time watching a grade B piece of entertainment instead of something mind-blowing that's tucked away in some other library. Also, we can give you a heads-up on the hottest new things coming down the pipe, too. Don't ever be the person around the water cooler who hasn't seen the thing yet.

So, let’s get to maximising your hard-fought free time with the best award-winning films, social calendar-destroying TV series, and original content available. Below are the top picks from thousands of hours of content from Australia's six major streaming networks. Click your provider from the list, select some content, unplug the doorbell, and get some stream therapy for an hour. Or twelve.

Table of Contents

• Foxtel/Binge
• Netflix
• Disney+
• Apple TV+
• Amazon Prime Video
• Stan

New in July on Foxtel and Binge

TV litter pick: Nosferatu – 24 Jul : Robert Eggers' finest work, given how it both boldly stands on its own as a gothic vampire drama and astutely taps into the original texts — F.W. Murnau's silent classic and Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.

Movie litter pick: Arrested Development S1–5 – 29 Jul : Oldie but a goodie. This revolves around Michael Bluth, the "normal" one in a family of crazies, who get thrown together when their head of household gets sent to prison for shifty practices.

What notable movies are coming to Binge?

• Rear Window – 1 Jul
• The Game – 1 Jul
• Vertigo – 1 Jul
• Emelia Pérez – 4 Jul
• Nosferatu – 24 Jul

What notable series are coming to Binge?

• Suits Seasons 1–9 – 17 Jul
• Botched Season 4 – 28 Jul
• The Great Australian Bake Off S8 – 29 Jul
• Arrested Development S1–5 – 29 Jul

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New in July on Netflix

TV litter pick: The Sandman S2 – 3 Jul (S02) : After a fateful reunion with his family, Dream of the Endless must face one impossible decision after another as he attempts to save himself, his kingdom, and the waking world from the epic fallout of his past misdeeds.

Movie litter pick: Happy Gilmore 2 – 25 Jul : Adam Sandler returns to power-drive the everloving crap out of golf balls alongside original Happy Gilmore stars Julie Bowen, Ben Stiller, and Christopher McDonald, the latter of whom once again plays nemesis shooter McGavin.

What notable movies are coming to Netflix?

• The Old Guard 2 – 2 Jul
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – 8 Jul
• Brick – 10 Jul
• Almost Cops – 11 Jul
• The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – 12 Jul
• Happy Gilmore 2 – 25 Jul
• Nosferatu – 26 Jul

What notable series are coming to Netflix?

• The Sandman S2 – 3 Jul (S02)
• Quarterback – 8 Jul (S02)
• Too Much – 10 Jul (S02)
• The Rookie – 15 Jul (S06)
• Untamed – 17 Jul
• Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 – 29 Jul
• Glass Heart – 31 Jul

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New in July on Disney+

TV litter pick: Ironheart – 2 Jul (3 eps incl. Finale) : Dominique Thorne stars as Riri Williams, a genius inventor who creates the most advanced suit of armour since Iron Man. It’s “science and magic collide in Chicago” stuff that’s good but not great.

Movie litter pick: Jaws @ 50: The Inside Story – 11 Jul : It’s a tribute to Jaws (1975), the movie that sparked a lasting fascination with the ocean's most misunderstood predator and featured one of the most spine-chilling monologues in movie history.

What notable movies are coming to Disney+?

• ZOMBIES (Sing-Along) – 2 Jul
• ZOMBIES 2 (Sing-Along) – 2 Jul
• ZOMBIES 3 (Sing-Along) – 2 Jul
• Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest – 5 Jul
• ZOMBIES 4: Dawn of the Vampires – 11 Jul
• Jaws @ 50: The Inside Story – 11 Jul
• Transformers – 16 Jul
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – 16 Jul
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon – 16 Jul
• Transformers: Age of Extinction – 16 Jul
• Transformers: The Last Knight – 16 Jul
• Bumblebee – 16 Jul

What notable series are coming to Disney+?

• Bob's Burgers – Every Wed (S15)
• Ironheart – 2 Jul (3 eps incl. Finale)
• The Rookie – 15 Jul (S06)
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia – 16 Jul (S17)
• Washington Black – 23 Jul (Series Premiere)

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New in July on Apple TV+

TV litter pick: Foundation S3 – 11 Jul : Based off an Isaac Asimov classic, Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.

What notable series are coming to Apple TV+?

• Foundation S3 – 11 Jul
• The Wild Ones – 11 Jul
• Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical – 18 Jul
• Acapulco S4 – 23 Jul

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New in July on Amazon Prime Video

TV litter pick: Ballard – 9 Jul : Detective Renée Ballard plunges into a web of murder and corruption as she hunts a ruthless serial killer and uncovers a sinister police conspiracy. Also, Bosch cameos!

Movie litter pick: Warfare – 1 Jul : The harrowing true story of a US Navy Seal platoon surveillance mission gone dangerously wrong. Warfare captures the intensity of combat like never before.

What notable movies are coming to Prime Video?

• Warfare – 1 Jul
• Heads of State – 2 Jul
• Simple Plan: The Kids in the Crown – 8 Jul
• One Night in Idaho: The College Murders – 11 Jul
• Better Man – 26 Jul

What notable series are coming to Prime Video?

• Ballard – 9 Jul
• One Night in Idaho: The College Murders – 11 Jul
• The Chosen: Last Supper Season 5 – 13 Jul
• Romcon: Who the F**k is Jason Porter? – 13 Jul
• The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 – 16 Jul
• Shiny Happy People: A Teenage Holy War Season 2 – 23 Jul

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New in July on Stan

TV litter pick: Twisted Metal S2 – 31 Jul (S02) : The mysterious Calypso invites all the killers, vigilantes, and joyriders of the Divided States of America to participate in a demolition derby tournament with the promise of making the winner’s greatest wish come true.

Movie litter pick: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – 12 Jul : A return to the YA dystopia in which kids are forced to hunt and kill each other for the entertainment of a privileged ruling class. Works well as a faithful adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel.

What notable movies are coming to Stan?

• Spider-Man: No Way Home – 1 Jul
• Morbius – 1 Jul
• Venom: Let There Be Carnage – 1 Jul
• The Patriot (2000) – 4 Jul
• Black Swan (2010) – 5 Jul
• Uncharted – 9 Jul
• Looper – 10 Jul
• The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – 12 Jul
• S.W.A.T. (2003) – 16 Jul
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife – 17 Jul
• The Last Showgirl – 20 Jul
• American Sniper – 22 Jul
• Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City – 27 Jul
• The 355 – 31 Jul

What notable series are coming to Stan?

• Kevin Costner's The West – 1 Jul (Finale)
• The Carters: Hurts to Love You – 2 Jul (S01)
• Such Brave Girls – 4 Jul (S02)
• The Institute – 14 Jul (S01, E01 & E02)
• Sin City Gigolo: A Murder in Las Vegas – 20 Jul (S01)
• Twisted Metal S2 – 31 Jul (S02)

Score your free 30–day trial of Stan

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Time to warm up your wishlist, because this week’s gaming deals bring serious heat across every platform. Whether you're chasing cosy comfort, bold experimentation or big-ticket RPGs at slashed prices, there’s gold to be found here. From reimagined classics to cult favourites and bombastic new entries, it’s a great chance to fill those library gaps.

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro news, I'm celebrating the 38th birthday of a true great, Super Mario Bros., on the Nintendo Entertainment System. My first life-for-life playthrough at a friend's place blew me away. Every stage we conquered in the "back 4" worlds of this save-less odyssey felt like a murder gauntlet survived. Every secret pipe or warp room we found—unaided by the non-existent Internet—was a cave of wonders unearthed.

To this day, the infectious melodies and subtle physics of this 2D platformer still feel apex to me, and I can honestly say nearly four decades have done nothing to dilute my hatred of that spike-slinging Lakitu. Or, as my friend called him for some reason, Pompous Cloud.

• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (-20%) - A$64
• Super Mario RPG (-20%) - A$64
• Gang Beasts (-60%) - A$15.90
• Dragon Ball Fighterz (-45%) - A$49.80
• Valkyria Chronicles 4 (-80%) - A$12.70

Expiring Recent Deals

• Lego Horizon Adventures (-55%) – A$48.50
• EA Sports FC 25 (-43%) – A$34
• Persona 5 Royal (-65%) – A$34.90
• West of Loathing (-69%) – A$4.90
• Unicorn Overlord (-50%) – A$47.40
• Sonic Forces (-32%) – A$40.90

Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.

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Alienware released a new flagship gaming laptop this year - the Area-51 - and it brings to the table a host of upgrades over the m-series laptops including a sleeker redesign, current generation components, and better cooling potential. As part of the Alienware Black Friday in July Sale that kicks off now, select Area-51 gaming laptops have dropped to the lowest prices I've seen this year. They're all equipped with the newest Intel Core Ultra 9 processors and Nvidia RTX 5000 series Blackwell graphics cards. Check out all of the deals below.

Alienware Area-51 Laptops on Sale for 4th of July

The Area-51: New Style, More Power, Better Cooling

New for 2025, the Alienware Area-51 gaming laptop features a magnesium alloy chassis with upgraded cooling to tackle the latest and greatest heat generating components. This includes more fans and bigger cutouts enabling greater airflow, more generous use of copper, and a new thermal interface material to better transfer heat away from the core components. Dell claims that the laptop can handle a higher power ceiling of up to 240W TDP without raising acoustics.

Design-wise, the Area 51 accentuates its smooth contours, with rounded edges and soft corners replacing the squared off design you'd see in most other laptops. The hinges are also mostly internally positioned so that they're near invisible. As befits an Alienware laptop, there are ample customization options for RGB LED lighting.

The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX is a top performing CPU

The Area-51 laptop is also equipped with a very powerful CPU as well. The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX boasts a max turbo frequency of 5.4GHz with a whopping 24 cores and 40MB total L2 cache. According to Passmark, this is the second most powerful Intel mobile CPU available right now and goes head to head with AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX3D.

The RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 mobile offer the best performance for your dollar

As expensive as these laptops are, you don't want to spend even more on trivial upgrades. The RTX 5070 Ti mobile GPU boasts performance on par with the RTX 4080 but with the added benefit of faster GDDR7 RAM and DLSS 4.0. The RTX 5080 mobile GPU represents a healthy improvement over the RTX 5070 Ti for a nominal price bump; it's about 15%-20% more powerful than the RTX 5070 Ti and the RTX 4080 that it replaces. It also happens to be about 5% more powerful than the RTX 4090 and has the same amount of memory (16GB). Unfortunately, the RTX 5090 only appears to be just 5% more powerful than the RTX 5080, and its only real benefit is the 24GB of memory, which isn't that useful for gaming (but is an attraction option for professionals who work with AI applications).

Check Out More Alienware Black Friday in July Deals

Check out our Best Alienware Deals article with all of Dell's currently ongoing deals on gaming laptops and desktop PCs. Not everyone is the DIY type. If you're in the market for a prebuilt gaming PC, Dell is one of the best brands we'd recommend. Alienware desktops and laptops feature solid build quality, top-of-the-line gaming performance, excellent cooling (further improved on the newer models), aggressive styling, and pricing that is very competitive with other pre-built options. Best of all, there are plenty of sales that happen throughout the year, so it's not difficult to grab one of these computers at considerably less than their retail price.

Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the Pokémon TCG market this month, and we’re seeing two very different stories unfold. On one side, Surging Sparks cards are going through a steep correction.

On the other hand, Crown Zenith cards are showing early signs of what could be a long-term value surge. The bottom line? If you're a collector or investor, now is the time to buy into both.

I’m picking up what I can from both sets. The current dip in Sparks is a glimmer of hope for long-suffering 2024-2025 collectors. And Crown Zenith is a train I want to be on before it leaves the station. Let's go into more detail:

Pokémon Card Crashers

A lot of people don't know what the deal is with Amazon's Prime Student membership. Does it offer everything regular Prime members get? Does it cost less? Is it only for college students? As it turns out, Prime Student is an almost absurdly good deal, even if you only use the free trial. To that end, let's dig in and answer all of your Prime Student questions.

How to Sign Up for an Amazon Prime Student Free Trial

First things first. New members can try out Prime Student for 6 months for free. That's way longer than most free trials, so there's really no reason not to do it. If you like it, keep it going after the trial ends. If not, cancel before your first paid month, and you won't owe anyone a dime.

Who Can Sign Up for Prime Student?

Prime Student is available for anyone attending a college or university.

What is Prime Student?

Prime Student is a discounted Amazon Prime membership that also gets you deals on a bunch of things students would be likely to enjoy.

The Prime membership portion of it includes all the same benefits of a regular Prime membership. That means you get free two-day shipping on millions of items, full access to Prime Video, Amazon Music Prime, Amazon Photos, and Prime Gaming.

What Extra Deals Come with Prime Student?

As for the extra deals on top of the standard Prime benefits, quite a few things are included. Here are some of them:

• Grubhub - You get unlimited free food delivery through Grubhub (as long as the order is $12 or more)
• Premium Channels - Get a year of premium channels like Showtime, Epix, and Shudder for $1 each per month
• Amazon Music Unlimited - Get a year for $1 a month
• Kindle Unlimited - Get two months free
• Calm - You can try the Calm app for free for three months, then get a big discount on a subscription
• More - There are lots of other benefits, including access to special deals, early access to lightning deals, discounts on flights, hotels, and homework help. You can find full details here.

How Much Does Amazon Prime Student Cost?

After your free trial ends, the normal price of $7.49 per month kicks in. That's half the price of a regular Prime membership. And remember, Prime Student includes all the benefits of a Prime membership, plus a bunch more.

Do I Need a .edu Email Address?

Yes. While you can continue to use your standard email address for your Amazon account, Amazon does send a verification email to your .edu address.

What Happens to Your Prime Student Membership When You Graduate?

When your school days come to an end -- or four years after your Prime Student membership begins, whichever comes first -- your Prime Student membership turns into a regular Prime membership.

Is Amazon Prime Student Free?

New members can sign up for a 6-month free trial. After the free trial ends, the regular price is $6.49 per month, which is half the price of a normal Prime membership.

Is Amazon Prime Student Worth It?

This is subjective, of course, but I'd say Prime Student is absolutely worth it for anyone who orders items from Amazon or wants to watch Prime Video, or even orders food regularly from Grubhub. Even if you consider the standard price of $6.49 per month to be too much, there's no reason not to do the free 6-month trial.

Both PS5 and PC gamers looking to supplement their storage should check out this early Amazon Prime Day Deal. For a limited time, Amazon has dropped the price on the Crucial T500 2TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe solid state drive to just $124.99 with free shipping. The Crucial T500 is one of the top performing PCIe 4.0 SSDs on the market. Besides its high transfer speeds, this SSD has onboard DRAM (rare at this price point) and includes a pre-installed heatsink, making it an excellent drop-in ready solution for your PlayStation 5 console.

2TB Crucial T500 SSD (PS5 Compatible) for $124.99

We just found a great early Amazon Prime Day deal for anyone looking for an inexpensive pair of earbuds that is a perfect fit (pun intended) for sports, exercise, or fitness activities. Right now Amazon is offering the Baseus Bowie MC1 Pro Open Ear Clip-On Earbuds for just $53.79 with free shipping after you clip a $20 off coupon on the product page and apply a $16.20 off coupon code "T6A3PAYT" during checkout. All three color options are on sale. The on-ear design is the best option if you need to be aware of your surroundings while listening to your music.

Baseus Bowie MC1 Pro Open Ear Sports Earbuds for $53.79

Although Amazon has become the biggest online retailer for just about everything, it has consistently been one of the best places to buy new books. In addition to some of the lowest prices on hardcovers and paperbacks, the Amazon-owned services are also some of the best ways to read (or listen) to books in 2025. I myself have had a Kindle Unlimited subscription for over a year now and don't really see how I could go back to reading any other way.

With the official Prime Day deals coming next week, Amazon has already started dropping its best deals of the year on select books and services. Right now is a great time to try Audible or Kindle Unlimited for free, but you can also find deals on various physical books and box sets for popular series. I've gathered some of the best early Prime Day deals I've found on such things below.

The Best Early Prime Day Book Deals

Overall, Amazon has a ton of early book deals to choose from. If you're specifically looking for the biggest savings possible, I've gathered up my top picks that are definitely worth buying right now at these prices. Most of these deals, similar to Prime Day as a whole, are only available for those with an Amazon Prime membership.

My first go-to recommendations here are the Lord of the Rings books. The Silmarillion Collector's Edition has dropped to its lowest price ever and is absolutely worth buying if you're a fan of Tolkien's work. It may not be the easiest thing to just sit down and actually read, but it's a great gift for Lord of the Rings fans who want a nice copy of the book to put on their shelf. Along those same lines, the deluxe illustrated edition of The Hobbit has officially dropped to its lowest-ever price as well. This special edition features drawings from Tolkien himself.

Other notable book deals in this sale are on popular fiction box sets. The Inheritance Cycle, which you may know as the Eragon series, has dropped to a new low price for 2025. This is one of my overall favorite fantasy series and I'd recommend it for any young adult readers who just can't get enough dragons. There's also a pretty nice discount on the latest Hunger Games book bundle, which includes the newest title Sunrise on the Reaping. If you don't already have all of those books, it's a great time to pick up the full box set before the movie comes out in 2026.

Last but not least, some of the best early Prime Day deals are on Amazon's own services. The Audible promotion running right now offers three full months of the audiobook service for free if you're a Prime member. This will also include one credit per month to purchase an audibook free of charge. So you essentially get three free audibooks and the service for free for months before having to pay anything. The same goes for Kindle Unlimited, which will give you access to a ton of digital Kindle books for free for three months as long as you're a new subscriber. I highly recommend trying this service if you are into LitRPG books at all as this is what I primarily use it for.

Should you wait to buy books until Prime Day starts?

PUBG: Blindspot is a cheeky little PUBG: Battlegrounds spin off that's currently in development, and was playable on the show floor at IGN Live. It's a 5v5 top-down tactical shooter that has a classic team deathmatch mode - one we got hooked on even in the chaos of the gaming show floor - and a Demolition mode, that will see teams using traps and obstacles to outwit the enemy. It's been compared to a top-down Rainbow Six Siege and with good reason: to rack up the kills you're going to need to use your brain as well as your trigger finger.

1. Think 'Peekaboo with bullets'

Forget all your FPS muscle memory, this is a top-down strategic PvP game where your cunning is as important as your reaction times. You're dropped into a map full of corners, windows, doorways - basically anything you can think of to make line of sight a key part of gameplay - and you have to hunt down your opponents before they pop one in your back. You can see the whole map, but you'll only see enemies if they're in your cone of vision or your teammates, which sounds simple until someone snipes you through a window while you're focused on the doorway at the end of a corridor.

2. Demolition Mode is on the way

While we didn't get to play the Demolition Mode, it sounds like a step up in complexity from the 5v5 deathmatch, adding a greater need for planning and teamwork. Production Director Seungmyeong Yang explained more about it at IGN Live. "Demolition Mode can commonly be found in other games such as Counter Strike or Valorant," he said. "In this Demolition Mode there is an attacking team and a defending team, and the defense team basically tries to block the attacking team from coming in and the attacking team tries to breach the building. It was really fun to see how the gamers react, they seem to really enjoy the game!" Demolition Mode is the inspiration for those Rainbow Six Siege comparisons, albeit it from a whole new top-down perspective.

3. Start your WASD warmups

The keyboard and mouse controls are more like a twin-stick shooter set up, and it's going to take your brain a second to catch up to how they work. You control movement with WASD and your cone of vision with the mouse, while to aim and fire weapons you hold down the right mouse button. That will slow your movement, though, so it's always a balance between moving quickly to avoid enemy detection and choosing when to take your shots. Once you've mastered that you can focus on being more accurate, using the mouse wheel and keyboard to go for head shots, body shots, or aiming specifically at any crouched enemies.

4. Character choice is key

Like any team game, who you have in your five-person kill crew is going to matter. The build I played had 10 characters to choose from, each with pleasingly distinct looks and loadouts to keep things interesting. I'm not exactly a subtle operative, so I gravitated towards those with weapons that could cause carnage up close and personal, like bearded cowboy Collision, who packs a Winchester 1300 shotgun and booby traps; or Kayak, who has a semi-automatic O12 combat shotgun and a remote sticky bomb. Support players can go for Fanatic with her P90 and First Aid Kid, or sniper Buddy with her scanning drones. Some you might want to play just because of their character designs - I'm not usually one for Toxic Gas Grenades, but Dropdown has a sort of Dystopian Harley Quinn vibe that's hard to resist.

5. You can play it in August

There's no official release date for the full game, but there is a PC beta planned for August. Keep an eye on the game's official Steam page for updates.

Rachel Weber is the Senior Editorial Director of Games at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, and French Bulldogs. Those extra wrinkles on her face are thanks to going time blind and staying up too late finishing every sidequest in RPGs like Fallout and Witcher 3.

As part of its 4th of July Sale, HP is offering its newest and most powerful gaming laptop at a pretty hefty discount. The Omen Max 16 RTX 5090 Gaming Laptop drops to just $2,319.99 with free shipping when you apply 20% off coupon code "LEVELUP20". That is easily best price for an RTX 5090 gaming laptop anywhere by well over $1,000. In fact, I would place this deal squarely in the too good to be true territory and I'd be surprised if your order even gets shipped out. That said, fortune favors the bold, and worst case scenario your order will just be cancelled. The RTX 5090 is currently the most powerful mobile GPU available with tons of VRAM and DLSS 4 support.

HP Omen Max 16" RTX 5090 Gaming Laptop for $2,319.99

Some Nintendo Switch 2 owners are reporting that their Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Cons are disconnecting over and over again. However, they've also found an easy fix: just use the Nintendo Switch 2 official HDMI cable.

This comes from a number of Reddit posts, where users are reporting Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Cons disconnecting randomly, sometimes every few minutes. Our own tech editor, Bo Moore, has also suffered from this issue beginning immediately after unboxing and hooking up his brand new Nintendo Switch 2, saying his console would lose connection with the Joy-Cons every few seconds.

But it turns out, the solution was a simple one: just use the HDMI cable that comes with the Nintendo Switch 2, rather than whatever other HDMI cable you happen to have lying around.

For some this might be obvious, but it sounds like a number of users have been unhooking their old Nintendo Switch 1's from their TVs, but not swapping out the cables under the assumption that the old ones would work. Plugging in the Nintendo Switch 2 to the old Nintendo Switch 1 cables seems like it should be fine, but it turns out that it's not. This is because the Nintendo Switch 1 HDMI is not an "ultra high speed" HDMI cable, while the Nintendo Switch 2 cable is. So if for some reason you don't want to use the cable that came with your Switch 2, any other ultra high speed HDMI should work instead.

Our tech editor confirmed that using the new Nintendo Switch 2 HDMI cable solved the problem for him, as it seems to have solved it for several other users online.

Nintendo is also advising people of the same via its official support website:

Confirm that you're using an "Ultra High Speed" HDMI cable to connect the dock to the TV. If it's not Ultra High Speed, your console won't perform as expected when docked.

• If you're using a different cable than the one that came with the console, it should have printed on the cable that it's "Ultra High Speed."
• The HDMI cable that came with the Nintendo Switch is not "Ultra High Speed" and should not be used with the Nintendo Switch 2 dock.

Generally it's a pretty good idea to use the included cables and accessories with any piece of technology, but it's a good reminder too that if for some reason you need to replace the Nintendo Switch 2 HDMI cable, you'll need a special one if you want to play with functioning Joy-Con controllers.

For all the accessories not included in the box with the Nintendo Switch 2, check out our guide to the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories available now, or take a look at our in-depth guides to the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers and headsets.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Dinosaurs captivate all ages. The creatures that dominated Earth ages ago, populating our world for 165 million years, will always be fascinating. And, on screen, as part of movie history, dinosaurs have always been a go-to genre for incredible spectacle and chilling thrills - whether you're into t-rexes, pterodactyls, raptors, or gentle giant brontosauruses.

Dinosaur movies transport us back in time to the era of these wondrous reptiles, while other instances show dinosaurs living among us, either on a secluded island lost to history or as cloned beings brought back by science for our amusement (and dismemberment).

The Jurassic Park/World franchise has raked in over $6 billion in box office bucks over the past 30 years, proving that these glorious beasts can bring home the bacon. But which dinosaur films are the best?

Here are our picks of the 10 best dinosaur movies, from trampled theme parks to warring prehistoric titans.

Looking for more movies featuring giant lizards?

• The best dragon movies
• Godzilla movies in order

Jurassic Park (1993)

We have our first look at Project Hail Mary, the upcoming sci-fi movie starring Ryan Gosling and directed by The Lego Movie’s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and already one of our biggest burning questions has been answered: when are we going to get our first look at Rocky?

With the release of the movie’s first trailer we now know: right now.

Based on the 2021 novel by The Martian’s Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary follows the story of Ryland Grace, a reluctant astronaut tasked with traveling to a distant star in the hopes of saving humanity from a dying sun. Grace wakes up alone and panicked, with no idea where he is or how to complete his mission.

Enter Rocky, a five-legged space spider who Grace eventually befriends and works alongside in an effort to save both of their home planets from a near-certain apocalypse. He’s equal parts Chewbacca (a loveable alien who helps the roguish hero navigate the treacheries of outer space) and Mr. Spock (a scientific genius whose knowledge is essential to the hero’s survival).

The New Project Hail Mary Trailer Gives Us a Look a Rocky, a Fan-Favorite Character from The Book

Rocky shows up a ways into Weir’s novel and his appearance (and subsequent friendship with Grace) comes as a bit of a surprise. What seemed to be another Martian-esque solo quest for a human protagonist quickly pivots into a high-stakes buddy adventure comedy.

And that’s what makes the glimpses we see of Rocky in the movie version’s trailer a shocker. While we don’t get a full view of Rocky, we do see multiple shots of his arms and hands (feet?) along with indications that Rocky is a friendly extraterrestrial. And that’s probably for the best.

Not only are fans of Rocky (yes - there are many, if the cottage industry of fan-made Rocky t-shirts, art, and merch is any indication) given a first look at the one of the book’s central characters, but general audiences who don’t know the book get a reason to believe Project Hail Mary is more than just The Martian reloaded.

Project Hail Mary does share a lot of similarities with The Martian, Weir’s prior bestseller (and subsequent blockbuster starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain): solitary protagonists who undertake life-or-death missions far from Earth, complex (and entertaining!) scientific concepts, and lots and lots of space drama.

But Rocky is the main differentiator here. While The Martian’s Mark Watney is left solo (that’s kind of the point of the story) to, in his words, “science the shit” out of his desperate situation, the bond formed by Rocky and Grace in Project Hail Mary gives the story an added layer of poignancy, comedy, and drama.

As the story unfolds, the two characters use their complementary knowledge and skills as they face seemingly insurmountable odds - all leading to a conclusion that is at once shocking and completely appropriate. And while the trailer leaves just enough of Rocky hidden to allow for a little bit of surprise and wonder for when the movie releases, it reveals the perfect amount to get newcomers and diehard fans excited for next year.

As part of its 4th of July Sale, Best Buy has discounted both Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS gaming PC handheld models for the first time ever. The more powerful Lenovo Legion Go S AMD Z1 Extreme SteamOS model is down to $779.99 (normally $830) and the Legion Go S AMD Ryzen Z2 Go SteamOS model is down to $549.99 (normally $600). I strongly recommend you opt for the Z1 Extreme edition; it's hands down the best gaming handheld PC so far in 2025. The new Lenovo Legion Go S was released in February of 2025, but only the Windows edition; the Steam OS edition was released later in May. This is the first SteamOS gaming handheld that isn't made by Valve.

Lenovo Legion Go S Steam OS Gaming Handheld PC

Everyone loves free games, especially when they are bundled in with something you were already planning to buy. Today is the last day that you can score Doom: The Dark Ages on PC via Steam for free with the purchase of an ASUS ROG accessory. If you've been on the lookout for a new gaming keyboard, mouse, or monitor, you can score both new tech and one of 2025's biggest games to go with it.

Although Amazon Prime Day doesn't start until next week, this offer is pretty tempting if you're in the market for PC gaming accessories and don't already own the game.

Get a Free Copy of Doom: The Dark Ages with ASUS ROG Accessories at Amazon

Doom: The Dark Ages took Doom to the world of dark sci-fi fantasy. The legendary Doom Slayer returns with a Shield in tow, and he's even able to fly a dragon. This game brought what is arguably the best story in a Doom game thus far, with humans and villains more important than ever. In our 9/10 review, we wrote, "Doom: The Dark Ages may strip away the mobility focus of Doom Eternal, but replaces it with a very weighty and powerful style of play that is different from anything the series has done before, and still immensely satisfying in its own way."

The game launched just recently on May 15, and if you haven't played it yet, this offer on Amazon is the perfect excuse. Over 20 Asus ROG accessories are included in this promotion, but you only have until the end of today, June 30, to claim this offer. Keys are delivered alongside order confirmation, and you can enter the order into Gamesplanet to claim your free copy of Doom: The Dark Ages on Steam.

One of our favorite items in this sale is the 49-inch ROG Swift QD-OLED Curved Monitor. This 1440p ultrawide monitor has numerous excellent features that complement its gorgeous OLED panel. Asus has a custom heatsink inside the monitor to ensure no damage is done to the display, so no need to worry about overheating. Additionally, you also have a refresh rate of 144Hz here, which is essential for playing games in a smooth environment. The Swift monitor is priced at $899 right now, marking the lowest price we've seen yet.

If you're just looking for the cheapest item, the Asus ROG Keris II Ace Wireless Gaming Mouse is your best bet. This mouse features a 42K optical sensor, ensuring precision across any game, and it only weighs 54g! Priced at $144.99, this is the cheapest ROG accessory on Amazon that includes a free copy of Doom.

Finally, another great accessory on sale is the ROG Azoth 75 Wireless Gaming Keyboard. This keyboard is equipped with an OLED display that you can customize to showcase audio visualizations, animations, settings, or even system temperatures. The Azroth 75 can be used via Bluetooth, wired, or via RF 2.4 GHz, with over 2,000+ hours of battery life with RGB lighting off.

Noah Hunter is a freelance writer and reviewer with a passion for games and technology. He co-founded Final Weapon, an outlet focused on nonsense-free Japanese gaming (in 2019) and has contributed to various publishers writing about the medium.

While the new DCU is still very young, it’s abundantly clear that this shared universe is drawing more heavily from DC’s comic book library than any before it. Some upcoming projects, like the Supergirl movie, Batman: the Brave and the Bold, and the Mister Miracle animated series, are directly based on specific comic book storylines. And even in the case of James Gunn’s Superman, which is telling a more original story, the comic book DNA is clear. Gunn’s Superman owes a clear debt to Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s seminal graphic novel All-Star Superman.

That fact was reinforced when IGN visited the Superman set in Summer 2024. Several cast and crew members pointed to All-Star Superman as a clear and direct source of inspiration on the project. But what exactly is All-Star Superman, and how is it influencing the Man of Steel’s newest cinematic adventure? Here’s what you need to know.

What Is All-Star Superman?

DC’s All-Star line was an early, short-lived attempt at recreating the success of Marvel’s Ultimate imprint in the mid-’00s. The general idea was similar - bring together some of DC’s top creators to reinvent iconic heroes, free from the constraints of the company’s mainline continuity.

DC only wound up publishing two comics under the All-Star banner before the line was shelved, but both certainly made a lasting impression. Frank Miller and Jim Lee’s All-Star Batman & Robin: The Boy Wonder serves as a prequel to Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, revealing how the Dynamic Duo came together and hinting at why their partnership deteriorated over time.

As for All-Star Superman, that book proved to be Morrison and Quitely’s superhero magnum opus. The series is set in a standalone Superman universe, one as much inspired by the contemporary Superman comics as the classic Silver Age stories and the Richard Donner movies.

All-Star Superman opens with the Man of Steel literally flying too close to the sun, as he rescues a group of astronauts and subsequently overloads his body with solar radiation. Even as he experiences newfound levels of strength, Kal-El finds his body is slowly dying, exploding one turbocharged cell at a time.

This discovery prompts Superman to start putting his affairs in order, starting with finally revealing his secret identity to a befuddled Lois Lane. He then embarks on the Kryptonian equivalent of the 12 Labors of Hercules, doing all he can to leave the universe a better place before he goes. And, of course, the incarcerated Lex Luthor is only too happy to take advantage of his nemesis’ impending death.

All-Star Superman is widely regarded as one of the greatest Superman comics ever published (see where it ranks on IGN’s Top 25 Superman Graphic Novels list). It’s also been adapted as both a 2011 animated movie and a 2025 full-cast audiobook. Unlike those projects, Gunn’s Superman isn’t a direct adaptation. As far as we know, this movie doesn’t deal with Superman confronting his impending death. But visually, tonally, and especially in terms of the Superman/Lex Luthor dynamic, there’s a lot of All-Star in Gunn’s Superman. Both place Superman and his supporting cast in a timeless setting and embrace many of the campier trappings of the Silver Age, like Krypto and the wonders inside the Fortress of Solitude.

All-Star Superman’s Influence on the James Gunn Movie

To get an idea of just how heavily All-Star Superman inspired the new movie, just know that Gunn assigned it to his cast and crew as required reading. Production designer Beth Mickle revealed as much during an interview with journalists on the Superman set.

“All-Star Superman is, by far and away, our guiding light for this,” Mickle said. “What a magnificent guiding light it's been. A lot of the color palette notes that I had, early on, really came from that.

Mickle added, “When I first started, James said, ‘This is the one I'd like everybody to look at,’ just to start to understand where his head was, and I spent three weeks devouring it, then screenshotting it, then grouping colors together, grouping the lines and the shapes together. And there really is the most beautiful, vivid, but also simple design language in it, and upbeat, bright, but again, simple and not overworked, not stuffed with color, not stuffed with layers. So, that really became our main source, and then you'll see throughout.”

Gunn himself pointed to All-Star as a huge inspiration for the movie, above and beyond other DC comics and animated projects. Gunn particularly connected with the idea of Lex Luthor as a supernaturally gifted scientist and inventor.

“There's a lot of ways in which the DC animated universe [influenced us] and then there's a lot of stuff from the comic books, but above and beyond anything else, it’s All-Star Superman. That influenced me more than anything,” Gunn said. “I mean, being able to take that sort of Silver Age feel, that sort of science fiction approach to it with the gadgets, and Lex is really a sort of sorcerer in a way. He's a scientist, but he's so good at science that I think of him as a sorcerer.”

The LEGO Architecture line of sets recreate some of the most iconic real-world structures, like the Trevi Fountain in Rome or Statue of Liberty in New York City. The next Architecture set that was just announced is the Bavarian castle Neuschwanstein, one of the inspirations for Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland (and on the logo). It's available for preorder now and will cost $279.99, releasing August 1 of this year.

Preorder the LEGO Architecture Neuschwanstein Now

Alienware's Black Friday in July Sale has officially commenced. So far it's the best sale I've seen from Dell this year, and that's great news for gamers looking to upgrade their rigs. What many people might not realize is that traditionally the Black Friday in July deals are as good as or better than the deals we see on Black Friday proper. Score some outstanding deals on Alienware's gaming PCs, laptops, monitors, electronics, and accessories, including 2025 releases like the new flagship Area-51 systems. I'll keep updating the page with new deals as they come in.

Alienware Black Friday in July Gaming PC Deals

Alienware Black Friday in July Gaming Laptop Deals

You can quickly browse through all of the listed products on sale above. See below for our favorite picks.

Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5080 Gaming PC

Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5070 Ti Gaming PC

Alienware Area-51 RTX 5090 Gaming PC

New Alienware Aurora 16X and 16 Gaming Laptops

Area-51 Gaming Laptops: New Style, More Power, Better Cooling

New for 2025, the Alienware Area-51 gaming laptop features a magnesium alloy chassis with upgraded cooling to tackle the latest and greatest heat generating components. This includes more fans and bigger cutouts enabling greater airflow, more generous use of copper, and a new thermal interface material to better transfer heat away from the core components. Dell claims that the laptop can handle a higher power ceiling of up to 240W TDP without raising acoustics.

Design-wise, the Area 51 accentuates its smooth contours, with rounded edges and soft corners replacing the squared off design you'd see in most other laptops. The hinges are also mostly internally positioned so that they're near invisible. As befits an Alienware laptop, there are ample customization options for RGB LED lighting.

32" Alienware AW3225QF 4K OLED Monitor

27" Alienware AW2725DF 360Hz QHD OLED Monitor

34" Alienware AW3425DW QD OLED Gaming Monitor

We’re coming up on Amazon Prime Day, which, in spite of the name, will actually be a four-day sales event. Prime Day 2025 is taking place from July 8-11, with most of the deals centered around Amazon’s own site.

Most of us are looking for any opportunity to cut down on subscription costs. As someone who’s been covering streaming deals for quite some time now, I thought I’d break down what kind of discounts to expect during Amazon’s sale. Spoiler: Not a lot! But media fans still have plenty of deals to look forward to.

Amazon's Already Rolled Out New Prime Discounts

Amazon Prime memberships are, as you’d expect, a big part of the Prime Day festivities. A membership gets you access to exclusive deals and the infamous benefit of free shipping. More importantly, on the streaming side, the membership also comes with Prime Video.

The Alters developer 11 Bit Studios has responded to fan accusations it used generative AI text and translation in the game, and has promised an update to both to replace the AI-generated content with handcrafted assets.

Last week, players of The Alters spotted what appeared to be text generated by AI in the game, on a screen in the Command Center. Specifically, the text includes the line, "Sure, here's a revised version focusing purely on scientific and astronomical data:" followed by a Captain's log, which suggests that someone prompted an AI for the text and forgot to delete the AI's lead-in response.

In the English-language version of the game, that was the end of it. However, players of other language versions began to point out that some of the game's translations include lines like, "Sure! Here is the translated text into Brazilian Portuguese.", suggesting that 11 Bit Studios had used generative AI to localize at least some portion of the game. The Alters does not include a disclosure on its Steam page stating that it includes generative AI, which Valve makes mandatory for all games that use the technology.

In a statement sent via email to IGN and published across social platforms, 11 Bit Studios offered an explanation for the generative AI text and translations. The studio explained that the Captain's Log text was intended as a placeholder and simply got missed during final release, and that no other such instances appear in the game. As for the localization, 11 Bit says that generative AI translations were limited to a few cutscenes added very late in development that needed last-minute translations, and that it always intended to replace them with professional translations.

Here's the studio's statement, in full:

We’ve seen a wide range of accusations regarding the use of AI-generated content in The Alters, and we feel it’s important to clarify our approach and give you more context. AI-generated assets were used strictly as temporary WIPs during the development process and in a very limited manner. Our team has always prioritized meaningful, handcrafted storytelling as one of the foundations of our game.

During production, an AI-generated text for a graphic asset, which was meant as a piece of background texture, was used by one of our graphical designers as a placeholder. This was never intended to be part of the final release. Unfortunately, due to an internal oversight, this single placeholder text was mistakenly left in the game. We have since conducted a thorough review and confirmed that this was an isolated case, and the asset in question is being updated.

For transparency, we’ve included a screenshot to show how and where it appears in the game. While we do not want to downplay the situation, we also want to clearly show its limited impact on your gaming experience.

In addition to that, a few licensed movies that the alters can watch in the social area of the base were added at the final stage of development. While those were externally produced, our team was not involved in the creative process, and these required additional last-minute translations. Due to extreme time constraints, we chose not to involve our translation partners and had these videos localized using AI to have them ready on launch. It was always our intention to involve our trusted translation agencies after release as part of our localization hotfix, to ensure those texts would be handled with the same care and quality as the rest of the game. That process is now underway, and updated translations are being implemented.

To give you a better understanding of what a small part of the overall scope of the game’s narrative layer they are, those few external movies are approximately 10k words out of 3.4 million across all languages in the game, or just 0.3% of the overall text. The alternative was to release those specific dialogues in English only, which we believed would be a worse experience for non-English speakers. In hindsight, we acknowledge this was the wrong call. Even more so, no matter what we decided, we should have simply let you know.

As AI tools evolve, they present new challenges and opportunities in game development. We’re actively adapting our internal processes to meet this reality. But above all, we remain committed to transparency in how we make our games. We appreciate your understanding and continued support as we work towards that goal.

11 Bit Studios is just the latest company to come under fire for generative AI usage. Just last week, Jurassic World Evolution 3 developer Frontier Developments had to walk back its use of generative AI characters portraits after widespread criticism. Activision has been skewered repeatedly for its generative AI use, including recent examples of an ad for a Guitar Hero game that doesn't exist, and certain Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 assets. Other games, such as Palworld, have been accused of using generative AI but have gone to great lengths to prove the accusations were unfounded and that no generative AI was used.

Regardless of generative AI usage, we gave The Alters an 8/10 in our review, calling it "a highly atmospheric sci-fi character study mixed with simple but effective resource and base management that cleverly builds existential and interpersonal pressure throughout its story."

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

It’s hard to believe we’re a couple of weeks into the Final Fantasy set already, and yet it won’t be long until Edge of Eternities arrives thanks to Magic: The Gathering’s rapid product cadence.

In the meantime, there have been more big card price changes, and many of them revolve around everyone’s favorite new card, Vivi Ornitier.

Climbers: Let's Talk About Vivi Ornitier

Vivi has been a very popular card since his debut, and the diminutive spellcaster has made a big impression.

He’s dropped to just under $50 now, but he’s still seeing plenty of synergistic cards climbing.

One of those is Savor the Moment, which gives you a double turn for just three mana. That then powers up Vivi, too. Market price is up to $9.10, over a 50% boost versus last month.

As we covered in our recent synergies feature, Harmonic Prodigy gives double Wizard triggers – nice! That means it's gone up by 118.70% in the past month (246.76% in three) – not so nice!

That's good for those that own the card, not so good for those who are looking to pick it up standalone. Still, market is still just $12.75 right now, so it could be a lot worse.

Moving away from Vivi, Tifa’s getting some love from Bristly Bill, Spine Sower. This Outlaws of Thunder Junction card can help power up our martial artist heroine, but at a cost of almost $40 now.

Another nifty synergy that's climbing is Perch Protection. This Instant has climbed from a dollar to almost $6, since it handily ties into Chocobo decks.

Crashers: Doctor Whom?

As we also covered in our synergies feature, Doctor Who's Barbara Wright is a great companion (in and out of the TARDIS) for summon-focused Final Fantasy decks, and she’s dropping ever so slightly.

She’s just now at $3.80, down from a $4.44 high a week back (albeit still massively up versus 3-months ago... 2135.29%!)

Final Fantasy’s Golbez, Crystal Collector has dropped to well under $3 now, as has Aerith, Last Ancient, who was $15 just a short while ago.

Kefka, Court Mage has seen a big drop since pre-release, but keeps climbing and dropping ever-so-slightly since. It’s just $4 right now.

Climbers Again? A Surge [Foil] in Price

Surge Foils, which appear in other MTG Universes Beyond sets like Fallout and Warhammer 40K, are a unique style of foiling that is significantly prettier than their regular foil counterparts.

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER, currently has a $718.89 market price. Yes, you read that correctly. He has extremely powerful abilities, and is now a game-changer in Pioneer Sacrifice decks.

The market prices for some of these are obviously a little bit insane, but I expect they'll go down a bit once the hype dies down. Though, that could be a while.

Back in the old days of Magic (like ten years ago), single card prices were based mostly on their age, availability, and playability. For awhile, cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy were $100+ extreme outliers due to its power and prominence in that Standard format.

Now, with Universes Beyond sets, casual Magic fans buying into the game to chase these gorgeous treatments have driven up prices. Jace is now sitting around $4 since it's been a victim of power creep, but I'm not sure these Final Fantasy Surge Foils will follow the same trend.

MTG Sealed Sets

Everything else Final Fantasy is pretty hot right now, so if you manage to find anything in stock, it might be worth picking up ASAP to avoid disapointment.

Looking for more TCG discussion and market watch? Check out the full MTG release schedule for 2025, last week's MTG price movers and shakers, or, on the Pokemon side of things, our latest crashers and climbers for Pokemon TCG and the most expensive 151 cards going right now for Pokemon trainers.

Lloyd Coombes is Gaming Editor @ Daily Star. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay. He's also a tech, gaming, and fitness freelancer seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar, Tom’s Guide, IGN, and more.

Thanks to TCGPlayer, we’ve pulled together the biggest climbers and crashers for this week.

This article includes contributions from Robert Anderson and Myles Obenza.

The card-based, narrative-driven RPG Sultan’s Game just dropped its latest update alongside new DLC. There’s new story content, a downloadable soundtrack, new cards, and the base game is on sale for 15% as part of the Steam Summer Sale right now.

For those who aren’t familiar with Sultan’s Game, the story begins with a tyrannical sultan who has experienced every vice and pleasure life has to offer, and he’s grown bored. But then a mysterious sorceress arrives with a card game meant only for the realm’s most powerful people. Each round of the game assigns you a Sultan Card and tasks you with destroying it, but each card has different requirements to defeat it.

Cards come in four different types with four different tiers within those types. The four card types are Carnality, Bloodshed, Conquest, and Extravagance. You sate Carnality cards with nights of passion, feed the hunger of Bloodshed cards with living sacrifices, fulfill Conquest cards by capturing locations, and satisfy Extravagance cards with wealth and treasure.

Each card also comes in one of four tiers of increasing value: stone, bronze, silver, and gold. To defeat a Sultan Card, you must use a card of equal or higher value. So, for instance, if you need to destroy a silver Bloodshed card, then you must kill a character card that’s either silver or gold.

While the game is played with cards, in-world those cards represent real people, so sacrificing cards means killing actual subjects. As you might expect, this is just the kind of game a tyrannical ruler would love. But you don’t play as the sultan — at least, not after the tutorial. You are one of his courtiers who had the courage to call out the game for its cruelty and depravity. Your punishment? The sultan puts you in charge of playing the game and having to make life-or-death decisions to defeat each Sultan Card. If you fail, he’ll execute you.

The beginning of each round will see you draw a new Sultan Card, and you’ll have seven days to figure out how to destroy it. There are activities available each day, and you can choose which activities to send cards in your deck to do. But you’ll need to be strategic about which activities you do each day and which cards you assign to them. Seven days can go by quickly, and there are limited resources at your disposal.

Some of those activities require dice rolls to determine if your chosen cards are successful. When you end the day, text-based scenes will play out based on who did what, whether they were successful, and your rewards. The primary rewards are gold coins (which can be used to gain access to other activities) or information cards (which can be used for a variety of things), but as the game progresses, more events get added with more varied results.

Ultimately, the story will be shaped by how you decide to approach each task and how moral or immoral you choose to be. Will you willingly go along with the sultan or secretly plot behind his back? Will you stay loyal to your wife or spend your free time at the local brothel? How will you treat the strangers that cross your path?

No matter what decisions you make, butterfly effects will follow in their wake, some of which won’t show themselves until long after you’ve made the initial choice. Some decisions might seem innocuous at first, but the story branches they open can continue branching from there and end up with wildly different outcomes.

Many of these decisions will test your morality. That starts as soon as the game begins, when you choose the background of your main character and his wife. Are you kind and charming or strong and intimidating? Are you a slave owner (this is a sultan’s court, after all) or a more enlightened friend of the nobility? Your starting deck and stats will be determined by the choices you make during this setup, but the moral decisions only get more complicated from there.

We won’t give any spoilers here, but we will say that there are some truly dark and extreme choices you can make, and they can dramatically alter the course of the story and the things you experience in your playthrough. You’ll have to grapple with questions like, “Who am I willing to kill?” and “What makes one person’s life more valuable than another?” Some moments might elicit excitement, others fear, and others maybe even disgust. A single playthrough takes about 10 hours, but seeing every ending can easily run you to 150+ hours, so there are lots of different paths to take.

The story has an extensive script, and the latest update refined that script. It also added new Steam badges, community items, and 10 new cards crowdsourced from the community (pictured below). But the biggest new additions come in the form of two DLCs: a downloadable soundtrack and prequel story.

The OST features 15 original tracks by Zeta and international artists, and it’s a fusion of Uyghur Muqam, guzheng, and Western orchestration that’s meant to represent the cross-cultural atmosphere of the game.

The prequel DLC is a digital novella called A Game for the Sultan, which will let fans read the original story that inspired development of the game. Written by the game’s lead writer, it takes place in the sultan’s court, tells a standalone story, and delves into the origin of the dreaded Sultan Cards and how they first corrupted a sultan’s court.

Sultan’s Game and its DLCs are currently exclusive to PC and are available now on Steam. The base game sold more than 600,000 units within its first month of release and is now approaching 1 million sales during the Steam Summer Sale. It’s also reviewed well on Steam, currently sitting at “very positive” with more than 16,000 reviews and “overwhelmingly positive” with 1,600 recent reviews. You can stay up to date on the latest info by following developer Double Cross Studio on Twitter.

Back in Summer 2024, it’s safe to say all eyes were on Cleveland, Ohio. That’s when production on James Gunn’s Superman shifted to The Forest City and transformed several downtown blocks into a facsimile of Metropolis, complete with fake storefronts and a facade of the Daily Planet building. The city’s streets were swarmed with onlookers and paparazzi, all hoping to catch a glimpse of star David Corenswet in his newly revealed super-suit.

Amid all this chaos and hubbub, IGN was one of several outlets invited to the set to speak with the cast and crew of Superman. We previously showed you what we learned from Gunn himself, but equally fascinating was our conversation with production designer Beth Mickle, executive producer Chantal Nong, and costume designer Judiana McKovsky. The trio shed plenty of light on the thrill of transforming a major American city into Superman’s home, as well as the challenges involved in creating a new Fortress of Solitude and a new Superman costume. Read on to find out what we learned on-set, and why the “trunks or no trunks” debate raged right up until the eleventh hour.

How Superman Differs From Man of Steel

Obviously, Gunn isn’t the first director to reboot the Superman franchise on the big screen in the 21st Century. Just as Superman is the foundation for the larger DCU, Zack Snyder previously launched the DCEU with 2013’s Man of Steel. When asked how this particular reboot differs from Kal-El’s recent cinematic adventures, Mickle told the group it all comes down to tone.

“I feel like that's the biggest change that I see, tonally, is the Superman incarnations that we're most familiar with, at least from the 2000s, have been heavier and darker,” Mickle said. “It was very much a part of the tone that those movies had. It just put you into a heavier, heavier space. I think what we really wanted to do was really brighten everything up and really lighten it up and make it hopeful, hopeful, hopeful.”

Mickle continued, “That's really what we blend with the visuals. And the tone, the lighting, the cast, I mean, obviously they're just radiant, effervescent, upbeat... It's far more colorful than any of the other Superman films will be, you'll see. And we really derived our color from Superman's palette. It's lots of blues, reds, golds, but then oranges and greens interspersed and really try to keep it in the primary colors, secondary colors and bright, vivid, saturated color.”

Nong revealed that one of the other main goals with the film was to create a more timeless quality to Metropolis and its inhabitants, not unlike the Richard Donner’s movies or the DC Animated Universe. Superman may be set in the present, but the production design borrows liberally from many different decades.

“When you look up and down the street... the characters, the extras, the picture cars, the sets that we're doing, we want it to feel like it could be anywhere. It could be the '90s, could be 2000s, but maybe it's the '80s,” Nong said. “We do this contemporary just so that you get lost in the nostalgia of it, and it doesn't feel like precisely 2024 or 2025 movie. I think, like some of the leading words we've used are nostalgia, Americana, timelessness, bright, colorful, hopeful, and I don't feel like the superhero movies and definitely none of the Superman felt to that level before.”

“A perfect example is going to be our Daily Planet news office where it's this gorgeous, old, turn-of- the-century building, some great old phones. We brought in really timeless dressing, like tank desks and older mid-century desks, but that were just nicely kept,” Mickle added. “The idea is that they just haven't turned over and gotten new furniture in. But then the screens are modern and the phones are modern, and so it's like they updated the things that would have made sense technologically. So, the technology is actually what does keep us current. And a handful of cars that'll be in the 2010, 2020, a handful of those that'll make it in.”

You might be surprised to learn that the crew wasn’t focused much on establishing a clear visual tone for the larger DCU. Mickle indicated that this is one area where directors of each individual film or TV project are free to blaze their own trail

“I think the idea is for each movie to have its own specific feel and look and tone,” Mickle said. “But I think it was important for this first one coming out and for it being James's voice, and James's voice is often bright and colorful and visual. It was mostly sticking with James's tone, making sure that's what was the leading quote here. But we fully expected everybody else, every other film to make it their own and have their own tone.”

The Innate Goodness of Corenswet’s Superman

Gunn has been very clear on his approach to Superman from the beginning. His version of the Man of Steel is a fundamentally kind and decent guy living in a world where kindness and decency aren’t particularly valued traits. Nong told the reporters that this take is very much embodied in actor David Corenswet.

“This Superman is a guy who has never fit in, and yet there are so many ways that you can think about that,” Nong said. “But for James and for the movie, it's so much about his values. He's a really good, kind man. And if you think about goodness and kindness in the world right now, it's more anomalous than you'd like for it to be. That, I think, is really beautiful. And David very much embodies that. He's very low-key. He's such a good guy. He's always doing things for other people.”

Of course, it’s important that Corenswet be able to capture Clark Kent as well as Superman. Nong related an amusing story that illustrated just how much of Clark there is in Corenswet, even when he’s not actively performing.

‘We were in Atlanta [during preproduction],” Nong said. “I was in my office, and he had put his lunch in my fridge. And I was in a meeting, and he just… he's a big dude. And he was, at the time, gaining weight, so he was even bigger than normal. And he takes it from my tiny fridge, and then it's just like literally starts dropping some of it. I was howling, and then he just quickly exits the room and closes the door. And we were dying. It was just like Clark Kent just showed up in my office. And he hasn't shot a day, and we haven't rehearsed. That's just who he is.”

Transforming Cleveland Into Metropolis

Touring the outdoor set in downtown Cleveland was quite an experience. The attention to detail was immediately noticeable, with practically every street sign and storefront transformed into something referencing the Superman franchise, the wider DCU, or any number of other Easter eggs. The ever-present Jitters coffee shop from the Arrowverse was there, and there were subtler DC references, like the TV shop Quitely and Sons paying tribute to All-Star Superman artist Frank Quitely. According to Mickle, “every street name has lore to it, has something attached to it.”

Interestingly, for all the work that went into transforming Cleveland into Metropolis, that wasn’t originally part of the plan. Mickle revealed that Gunn and his crew originally hoped to film the city scenes in Atlanta, given that much of the interior scenes were already being filmed there. But once it became clear that Atlanta lacked the variety of architecture necessary to create a convincing Metropolis, they had to cast a slightly wider net.

“Back to the idea that we wanted everything to feel really nostalgic and timeless, we knew we wanted to have a nice architecture that went from everything to the cutting-edge glass skyscraper that Sharon Williams has just put up on the public square to the building that we're using right outside here for the Daily Planet, built turn of the century,” Mickle said. “We were hopeful that we could travel to a different city outside of Atlanta to shoot. We initially scouted Atlanta because that's where we're going to be based for all of our stage shooting, and thought, ‘Okay, can we try to make it work here?’ But they don't have quite as much diversity in the periods of their architecture, so that was a little bit hampering.”

Thus began a period of city-scouting, with everything from Toronto to Detroit being considered. But ultimately, Cleveland emerged as the only logical choice.

“Early on, we thought about Cleveland. We thought about Toronto. We thought about Chicago, Detroit. We just did a little research just poking around visuals in other cities,” Mickle said. “But Cleveland, it definitely had the mix of the architecture. Overall, Ohio definitely has the mix of the architectural periods, so that was always in the back of our heads. But then the thing that really ended up getting this here, initially, was in Cincinnati, the original Hall of Justice is based on the Cincinnati's Union Terminal station.”

Mickle continued, “We found that piece of research and just how perfectly matched it is when it has been shown in the past. So, we thought, ‘Okay, it'd be great if we could shoot that exterior for the exterior of our Hall of Justice.’ So, we came out and scouted it and just started walking around the streets in Cincinnati and know how similar it is to Cleveland. And we just thought, ‘Well, if we're already going to be here for a day to shoot that, why don't we actually do a deeper dive in Ohio?’"

Redesigning the Fortress of Solitude

The Richard Donner Superman films remain the gold standard where the Fortress of Solitude is concerned. At this point, even the comics have adopted that iconic, crystalline look to the Fortress’ Kryptonian architecture. As the various trailers have shown, the Fortress plays a significant role in the film. Mickle said that the goal wasn’t really to reinvent the wheel in this area, but to take the Donner aesthetic and run in a slightly different direction.

“We came up with our own re-imagining based on Richard Donner version where it's, again, a crystal palace and all comes up from the great landscape that we shot in Svalbard,” Mickle said. “But we've reoriented our crystal, so it has a different shape than what you'll see in the Richard Donner version. The exterior has a big monolithic, sculptural, asymmetrical shape that James and I really fell in love with.”

Mickle continued, “It was based on the way water and ocean waves splash and hit rocks and how there's just a nice big movement and projectile action that happens with water. And so the idea is that's how it came up and froze. Crystals grow very much the same way from rocks. They kind of come up projectile, reaching. Everything has movement. So that's very much what we brought into our Fortress of Solitude. That's what the exterior is. And then on the interior, we carry all that, the lines and the movement and the shapes. Those sweeping shapes all come on the inside as well.”

On the flip side, Gunn voiced a desire to have a Fortress that’s as home-y and inviting on the inside as it is cold and imposing on the outside. This is a Fortress of Solitude straight out of the Silver Age comics, with all the tools and gadgets and rooms fans would expect.

“James really wanted it to be a man cave,” Mickle said. “He wanted it to be very much based on the Silver Age comics. It's where he has his laboratory. It's where he has a zoo. It's where he has a supercomputer set up. It's where he does his research. It's where he hangs out. We brought a lot of that into the design where it feels like it's kind of man cave carved into stone, with crystals coming through it. And a lot of the language for all of the Krypton technology is very Silver Age-inspired and has a little bit of midcentury wink to it.

Mickle added, “That was, by far, the most exciting, as far as the sets of what we got to recreate. And we all know, the whole art department, we're like, ‘We peeked. It doesn't get better.’ All from design, the direction, the recreating, the Fortress of Solitude, that's literally, there's just nowhere to go from here.”

Creating the Kent Farm

Superman also introduces its own take on the Kent family farm, with Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell portraying Clark’s parents. This is one area where Gunn wanted to strike a very different tone from the typically vast, Rockwellian versions of the Kent farm in previous adaptations. This farm is small and humble, perfect for conveying Clark’s humble origins.

“James was really clear that he wanted the Kent farm and the homestead to be a big departure from what we've seen before,” Mickle said. “We didn't want it to be this idyllic two-story farmhouse with a wraparound front porch and gloriously maintained, just magically, wonderfully, hundreds of acres beautifully maintained by two older folks. He wanted it to actually feel like a very modest but very well-loved homestead. And he had said really early on - single level, small, simple, nothing overly adorned.”

Just as with the hunt for Metropolis, finding the right farm to transform into the Kent homestead took some doing, but the crew eventually found what they were looking for in LaGrange, Georgia.

“We found this fantastic location where the old original farmhouse for the homestead was down the road, but then this was this old kind of a caretaker's ranch house that they had put across the road on the property, but it's still surrounded by hundreds of acres of fields just like you'd expect,” Mickle said. “And it just happened to be empty at the time, that house. It had belonged to the father of the family who had passed away a few years before, but the family really wanted to rehab it, get it back into better shape, do something with it. They weren't sure what to do with it.”

Mickle continued, “And then we came along. It's one of those beautiful stories. We went in. We really tidied up. We mitigated any of the issues. We took care of some leaky areas and kept the old shed carpet just because it had that old great timelessness, and then really embraced a lot of what was already there, which was really great.”

Supermans Costume: The Great Trunks Debate

Gunn also had some clear ideas about Superman’s costume coming into the project. As McKovsky revealed, Gunn was very adamant that he wanted the costumes in the film to be functional, not skintight spandex. They needed to look like legitimate uniforms the characters put on when they go to work, and that’s especially true for Superman himself.

“I think the thought behind the costume is to not overthink it,” McKovsky said. “It is not a fake muscle suit. It isn't muscles built into some fake suit. Again making Superman very relatable. It's David. And it is a suit. It is a uniform. He puts it on to go fight. It isn't a magic suit. James was very adamant that it is a uniform that he goes out to fight in. It is clothing.”

That fact is reflected in the textures and materials used for the costume. Corenswet’s costume was sewn from wool, a material chosen after some trial-and-error.

“It is heavy. It is wool,” McKovsky said. “The fabric is a real fabric. We went through many things. It's kind of a printed stretch, but it has some cotton in it. We started more cotton stretch, and it was a little too wrinkly and not fitted. We went through many fabrics.”

McKovsky continued, “It's a very thin stretch that then has a print to give it a texture because James was very adamant it had a texture and not just flat to make it more modern. That always makes it look a little thicker than the fabric actually is. But I mean it has a little structure in the suit, but not muscle. There's no muscles on the suit. It's David.”

One thing Gunn wasn’t so clear on was whether or not Superman’s iconic red trunks should be a part of his uniform. Many recent live-action Superman suits have shied away from the trunks, adopting a more modern, New 52-inspired look. McKovsky told reporters that the debate raged for a long time, saying “It was a large discussion that went on literally till the night before we shot.”

“I do not do social media, but I do know the amount of tension,” McKovsky said. “And it was also a big deal for us whether it was trunks or no trunks. It was a constant poll amongst everybody, ‘Trunks or no trunks?’ And then we would end up no trunk. And getting the trunks to where we all thought they worked and made sense with this costume was a long... We tried many things, many things.”

For her part, McKovsky was firmly in the pro-trunks camp, and she was determined to make the design work.

“I actually have to admit, I would not give up,” McKovsky said. “I'm going to do my best to make sure they work if we want them, because I'll be the first to say, ‘It doesn't work with this suit,’ but I just refused to give up. And literally, the night before everybody went to Greenland, we looked at it, we shot it, and the minute we saw it, everybody had the same thought.”

What convinced them? McKovsky said that the costume ultimately seemed to be missing something crucial without the trunks to provide balance.

“I think it was just the way it's made and that it's the same kind of weight and that it is close to the original Superman design,” McKovsky said. “It just, it didn't look like Superman without the trunks. It just looked like a blue suit, honestly. It was very interesting. And it was very divided among the crew, very divided. But it's something about we took them off on the last night, and then put them back on, and everyone went, ‘Oh, it's just a blue suit with an S on it.’"

As for Corenswet’s Clark Kent look, McKovsky said that the trick was creating a more frazzled, harried look and portraying Clark as someone who dresses a little bit old-fashioned, highlighting the fact that he’s not full in step with our modern, cynical world.

“I mean, Clark is Clark,” McKovsky said. “The one thing, again, he's not very comfortable, so his clothes don't fit very well. He's not a glamorous Clark Kent. He's kind of goofy, frankly. And his clothes, they're a little old-fashioned. They don't fit well because he doesn't fit well. It was a deliberate choice to have it be kind of not, but it is, I will say right out of the comic.”

Clark’s glasses proved to be one of the most important elements. They are, after all, the closest thing he has to a mask, and the challenge was finding just the right style for a bumbling reporter hiding the fact that he’s also an all-powerful superhero.

“We've tried quite a few,” McKovsky said. “We narrowed it down on the first try that we got this pair of glasses. They're sort of vintage, but they're not. They're modern, but they give a sort of '70s vibe. I mean, James, on this movie, the sensibility is it's a modern-day movie. They have cell phones, there's all of that, but it is classic. We probably talked about this, that the sensibility is very '60s, '70s in it, almost a little '30s at times too.”

McKovsky added, “But it's very '60s, '70s, so his glasses have a little bit of a '70s feel, but they're not. They also don't overwhelm his face. I mean, that was a hard thing. You don't want it to be about the glasses. There's a story point here. They have to look like they're natural to him.”

Designing the Other Costumes in Superman

McKovsky had plenty to say about designing the other costumes in the film. Read on for a breaksdown of some of the major characters and how their comic book costumes translated into live-action.

The Engineer

McKovsky: The Engineer was challenging. I've done quite a few of these movies, and I wanted to do something new. So, the material that we make, I have to say, it's pretty beautiful. It's like this weird, reedy thing under a laser cut, so it comes through. At times, you can see where it comes through from your skin. But I think that was a challenge, how to make that actually work, and be a sexy suit, and still do all the things in the movie that it has to do.

It was, again, working with everyone and , "How do we give a leg up to visual effects so they don't have to do everything?" Because James, the more practical, that's what he wants. He wants the least amount. I mean, of course he's added a lot of visual effects. And we rely on Steph [Ceretti] for everything, but we help him, so he doesn't have to do [everything].

It's not like we're just going to put a MoCap suit on everyone, as in other movies. We don't do that. We make a good base so that they can then take it. And all these suits function. They have a function, so we try and help that.

Guy Gardner

McKovsky: Again, it's clothing. I will say, when I talk to James, he thinks of all superheroes as clothing. He doesn't think of it as some glued-on skin-tight [thing]. He never has in all the movies I've done with him. He doesn't see them that way. He sees them, even though they're superheroes or they could be slightly alien, as human. You want to relate to them. And I think he feels like you can relate to characters more if it's more clothing-based, so I think that's how he looked at all those characters, that it's clothing.

We all start looking at the comic, and we look at all the iterations that have been in the comic, and we go, "Yeah, it's great in a comic. It's not going to work." And also, if the character is funny, you don't need to make funny clothes. Let them be funny. Because there is a heroic part of them, for sure.

I think that's kind of... I mean, I do that anyway. Okay, Chris Evans always says that, "You don't put a hat on a hat." So, if it's already one thing, you don't need to push it and make it funnier or make a caricature. That character could so easily go caricature, and we decided to not go that way at all. Just let Nathan be the Green Lantern.

Lois Lane

McKovsky: Lois, in particular, was an interesting journey. She's a real reporter. It's not about fashion. She's an on-the-ground out there reporter, and it's very low-key. Her clothes, they're very functional. It's not a fashion statement, at all. They're very simple clothes. It's someone who would really go out.

I mean, this movie is very grounded. Having done these movies before, the more grounded you make them, the more you can relate to the characters. If they're so out there, then they're just comic. With Lois, particularly, we kept it really low-key for sure.

Hawkgirl

McKovsky: Hawkgirl was really difficult, actually. I think Hawkgirl was probably the hardest thing to do because there's so many iterations of Hawkgirl. She's got so many backstories. It's like, which one works with this movie?

We went with the approach that they're kind of coordinated, It's a team, and sort of a team. But it's nothing like the comic, except she does have a helmet, which is very comic-based. But any of those iterations, also, I just don't think they would have made the best costume for a movie that's reality-based, so we kind of went away from it. But, again, it was a thing, helmet, no helmet, helmet, no helmet. I'm like, "Helmet. I'm making a helmet." And they go, "I don't think we're ever going to use the helmet." "I'm making a helmet."

So, we made the helmet. I thought, "Oh, we're using the helmet." Because it's pretty cool. When you see the silhouette in the sky, then you really know it's Hawkgirl.

Mr. Terrific

McKovsky: I would say Mr. Terrific is the one closest to the comic, for sure. It's such a great image. And he's the one guy, he's so cool that he can have a suit that looks like a little superhero. Everything on him is very branded. He's got Ts on everything because that's who he is.

And I think that is the one, even though we updated a little, he's got these very cool sneaker boots, and that weren't easy to make and get all the lines to match up. That was a little why-did-I-do-that moment, "Why did I have the lines go right down through the boot?" But he's such a hipster cool guy.

Superman hits theaters on July 11, 2025.

For more on the new DC film, find out 6 huge details we learned about Superman and brush up on every DC movie and series in development.

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

Alienware's Black Friday in July Sale has officially kicked off, and one of the best deals I've seen so far is this Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5080 gaming PC for just $2,099.99 shipped. This is $250 less than the previous best deal I've seen on the same configuration, and one of the best prices you can get for any prebuilt RTX 5080 gaming PC. The Alienware Aurora R16 is a well-engineered and compact gaming rig with 240mm AIO water cooling, sensible airflow design, and a generous 1,000W 80Plus Platinum rated power supply. In the current market, buying a prebuilt gaming PC is the only way to score an RTX 5080 GPU without paying an exorbitant markup. If you were to try to find a 5080 GPU for your do-it-yourself PC build, you'll probably spend $1,400 for the graphics card alone.

Alienware Aurora RTX 5080 Gaming PC From $2,099.99

Daredevil's Kingpin, Vincent D'Onofrio, has responded to a fan's complaints about the character as seen in Disney+ series Born Again — and while polite, it's as cool a reaction as you'd expect to come from Wilson Fisk himself.

D'Onofrio returned alongside series star Charlie Cox for Daredevil: Born Again, which picks up D'Onofrio and Cox's characters several years after they were last seen in Netflix's abruptly-cancelled Daredevil show, and following their reintroduction into the MCU in other projects.

But while many fans were delighted to see the characters squaring off against each other on screen once more, you can't please everyone. And one of those viewers with complaints decided to share them directly with D'Onofrio via social media, drawing the actor's attention.

"Wilson Fisk got nerfed like the Hulk," said the fan, in response to a post by D'Onofrio. "Not your fault Disney didn't rehire the writers from the Netflix show. Hope Season 2 returns to what made the Netflix show so damn good. But Disney has a track record of ruining reboots."

The message was quickly spotted by the Kingpin actor, who offered this in response:

"I have to say I disagree with all that you say. To be honest my performances have been called many things but never nerfed. Lol. Yet I don't play the part just for you and you don't watch TV just for me. So we are even and I accept your criticism. No matter the lack of good sportsmanship, fairness and legitimacy."

Honestly, it's difficult not to read D'Onofrio's words in his Kingpin voice. Most would have stopped responding there, but the fan continued, further criticising "Disney Fisk" by suggesting "Netflix Fisk would never have a guy locked in cage [sic]. Fisk would've killed him, his family, friends and coworkers."

Step up D'Onofrio again, with a further response:

"I control my characters performance," he wrote. "You are a bit green when it comes to your knowledge on making a show. The detail, the writing, the technologies and the overall structure and architecture in laying out the storyline and executing performances. You keep saying it's the writing that is the problem. You may not like it. Many do though. We can't please everyone but we can please millions and they've said so. Our fans are very loud.

"Let's say I were you and I hated the portrayal of Kingpin as much as you do. I'd stay away from it. I'd champion storytelling that I love instead of dragging writers and someone's performance. As an actor I fail in my eyes everyday and also in my past work many times but I keep trying to get it right. All creative types have that in common. What we don't do is try and ruin millions of others fun when we don't like a piece. Instead we champion the stuff we do like and become inspired by it. Try it. It makes life so much more sustainable and yes, inspiring."

Oof.

Daredevil: Born Again will be back on Disney+ with new episodes next year, including the return of Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones, and yes, more Kingpin versus Daredevil action.

Image credit: Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images.

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

Hulu has been around for a while and, for our money, it's one of the absolute best streaming services available. From great movies like Anora and Predator: Killer of Killers to excellent television series like Shogun, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Bear (check out our glowing review of season four here), there is always something awesome to watch. We've also got the highly-anticipated Alien: Earth series on our radar this year, which premieres its first two episodes on August 12 on Hulu at 8pm ET, and on FX and Disney+ at 8pm PT / ET.

Below, we've detailed all of the best Hulu deals and bundles so you can get started on your streaming adventures with its library right away. This includes the Hulu, Disney+, and Max streaming bundle, which starts at just $16.99/month and is currently the best value available for the streaming services following the Disney Plus and Hulu price hikes. To see even more streaming deals, make sure to check out our roundups of the best Disney Plus deals and the best Max deals.

How to Get The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max Streaming Bundle

The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle can be purchased on any of the three streaming services and starts at $16.99/month for the ad-supported tier or $29.99/month for ad-free access across all three platforms. If you're looking to cut down on streaming costs and currently own all three of these, this is an excellent bundle to invest in. It'll save you quite a bit compared to what you'd pay for the three of them separately per month - 43% on the ad-supported plan and 42% on the ad-free plan.

Hulu deal for students — Get Hulu (With Ads) for just $1.99/month

If you're a student enrolled in a university (a US Title IV accredited college or university, per Hulu's website), you can sign up for Hulu (With Ads) for $1.99 a month. That's an excellent deal if you're a student, saving you $8 on the usual monthly price.

Hulu subscription tiers

Hulu: Bundle to Best

If you want a more affordable option when it comes to a Hulu subscription, you can't go wrong with a bundle, and Hulu has several to choose from:

• Hulu + Live TV (With Ads) — Hulu + Live TV (With Ads) is $82.99/month and includes Disney+ and ESPN+. It also gives you access to more than 75 channels with live TV and unlimited DVR functionality. The Hulu + Live TV plan also has a three-day free trial to test out the service.
• Hulu + Live TV (Ad-Free) — The ad-free version of Hulu+Live TV is $95.99/month and comes with ad-free versions of Hulu and Disney Plus, although ESPN still shows ads.
• Disney+, Hulu Bundle Basic — This is the most economic bundle. It will set you back $10.99/month and comes with subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu. It lets you stream on multiple devices at once and comes with ad-supported versions of both Disney+ and Hulu.
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle Basic — This bundle adds ESPN+ into the mix alongside Disney+ and Hulu, bumping up the price to $16.99/month. You can also download and watch select content on ESPN+ at this level.
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle Premium — This bundle is $26.99/month and comes with ESPN+ (with ads) and ad-free versions of Disney+ and Hulu. You can also download select content across all three streaming services.

What can you watch on Hulu?

There is a bonkers amount of shows and movies you can watch on Hulu. Let's start at the top and simply talk about the verticals on offer with the base subscription, because if we also talk about what is available via Disney+, ESPN+, or live TV, we'll be here forever. (You can also sync up Hulu with Max to gain access to things like The Last of Us and House of the Dragon.)

Here's what you get:

• Network and Hulu Original television shows (AMC, Adult Swim, ABC, A&E, FX, etc.)
• Movies (HBO, Hulu Originals, anime films, etc.)
• Sports (NHL, Soccer, MLB, Auto Racing, NFL, College Football, PGA, Tennis, etc.)
• News (ABC News Live, Good Morning America, World News Tonight, 20/20, The View, etc.)

Hulu television

Hulu has some amazing shows, both those that are finished and many which are ongoing. For comedy, there are plenty of options to choose from, including New Girl, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, What We Do In The Shadows, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Broad City, Abbott Elementary, and so much more.

There are also some big Hulu originals to watch, including The Bear, The Old Man, The Handmaid's Tale, and Only Murders In The Building. With an FX partnership, Hulu is also home to those shows, including Shogun and the upcoming Alien: Earth series.

As far as animated fare, there are modern adult classics like Rick and Morty and Bob's Burgers, as well as Futurama, Family Guy, and King of the Hill. Anime staples like Cowboy Bebop are also available. And if you want to bring more youth-friendly fun, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Curious George are just a small sample of what Hulu has available.

The future of Hulu

Hulu isn't going anywhere. Beyond it being awarded the best streaming service by us, it also received a 9/10 in our updated Hulu review. Writer Rosie Knight said, "Hulu's ease of use, solid UI, and ever- expanding catalog has moved it ahead of top competitor Netflix to secure our highest score for a streaming service."

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

Original story from Brian Barnett.

Whether it’s ahead of the regular Amazon Prime sales across the year or building up to Black Friday, Audible is regularly dropping special subscription offers, giving you practically free credits to spend on the best fictional audiobooks around.

At the time of writing, for instance, Audible is running a promo where Prime members get three months for free, each giving a monthly credit to exchange, while non-Prime members can pay 99p per month for those three instead of $14.95 (this offer also applies in the UK).

Naraka: Bladepoint is approaching its fourth anniversary, and it’s celebrating with another Naraka Fest Direct. There will be news, reveals, updates, and details about upcoming in-game events and new content, and IGN will host a livestream of the show. We have all the info you need to watch the show live, as well as some ideas of what to expect to be shown.

Naraka Fest Direct Date, Time, and How to Watch

If you’re in the United States, this will be a nighttime show. It’ll begin on Tuesday, July 1 at 9 p.m. Pacific, which means it’ll be at midnight that night in the Eastern time zone. You can watch it live on any of these IGN channels:

IGN.com (our homepage)

IGN’s Facebook

IGN’s Twitter

IGN’s Twitch

IGN’s YouTube

If you can’t stay up late to watch it live, that’s okay. We’ll save the show in its entirety on our YouTube page, same as we did for last year’s Naraka Fest. So it’ll be waiting for you the next morning.

What to Expect from the Naraka Fest Direct

Before last year’s show, we already knew about the new map, Perdoria, that was being added. So we knew a deep dive into its details was approaching. This time around, we’ve gotten trailers letting us know big changes are coming. Naraka’s very world is breaking apart and a shift is rewriting every reality. In the midst of all that chaos, we can see a lightning-like figure traversing different timelines. Is that a hint about a new hero being introduced? We’ll have to wait and see.

Could those big, world-shaking changes also mean a new mode is on the horizon? Naraka: Bladepoint has kept its players engaged through its four-year run by consistently introducing new modes, like the recently added PvP mode Blessed Brutality. Could there be another new mode coming? What about collabs? There have been a bunch of collaborations to this point, ranging from other games (like The Witcher 3) to real-life figures (like fighter Buakaw Banchamek). Maybe there’s another one on the way. You can also bet on there being in-game events and rewards to celebrate the game’s fourth anniversary, but you’ll have to tune in on July 1 to see what they are.

You might already be calling It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenny ‘Mac,’ after watching his beloved character on the raucous comedy series for a whopping 16 seasons (with another now on the way). He is Mac to many of us — and now, the comic has revealed why he will be known as Mac legally as well.

"As our business and our storytelling is expanding into other regions of the world and other languages in which my name is even harder to pronounce, I'm just going by Rob Mac," McElhenny said while alongside creative partner Ryan Reynolds for an interview with Variety in May. And now, as of last week, the actor has filed to make the name change legal, Entertainment Weekly has confirmed.

McElhenny has explained that after purchasing the Wrexham Football Club with Reynolds in late 2020 — a venture that can be seen chronicled in the pair’s FX docuseries Welcome to Wrexham — his work with the team led his production company, More Better Productions, to invest in football clubs (you know, also known as soccer, in case that wasn’t clear) in South America. And it's there that his name has ended up being a pronunciation hurdle with Spanish speakers, which inspired him to make the change.

It got to the point where McElhenny’s surname was such a conversational challenge within their work that Reynolds debuted a hilarious song highlighting the problem while celebrating Mac's birthday in April 2023. "Pronouncing all those Ns and Es and Hs can perplex 'em," Reynolds sang alongside both celebrities and local friends of the football club in the number. "So here's a little birthday gift from all your mates in Wrexham."

That said, the decision doesn’t just affect McElhenny, it’s also a change for his family. "The kids are really not happy about it, because they have that last name," It’s Always Sunny star Kaitlin Olsen — who McElhenny married in 2008 and has two children with — also told Variety. "And so do I, legally!"

At the end of the day, we’re just excited to be able to legally call him Mac forever now. It’s a win for the people.

Season 17 of It’s Always Sunny arrives on FXX on July 6.

Image credit: Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

Pokémania 2025 isn't slowing down, which means trainers need to be savvy about their sealed Pokémon TCG purchases. Whilst buying at MSRP is become the stuff of legend, it's always good practice to see what products are selling for on the secondary market compared to big box stores such as Amazon. The same goes for Magic: The Gathering. Luckily, I've gone through Amazon's current stock for both and found the best deals of these products to save trainers, wizards and witches a few dollars. I'm amazing, right?

TL;DR: Deals For Today

Amazon is also gearing up for its 4-day Prime Day sale with some early deals and a massive 6-month free prime membership deal for anyone aged 18-24 in the US. then it's $7.49 thereafter. Cool, right? Speaking of staying cool, we've got a great deal on a neck fan and something to help get a cool nights sleep for way below MSRP. Let's get into it:

Amazon Prime Day Is Coming

6 Months Free Amazon Prime For Young Adults

Pokémon TCG Price Comparison

Some of the pricing here by Amazon is insane, but there's some deals to be had when comparing these products to TCG Player. For example, Prismatic Evolutions Super-Premium Collection is a massive 56% below market value, so go with Amazon on that one. On the other end of the scale, TCG Player has Cynthia’s Garchomp ex Premium Collection at a massive 48% below Amazon's current price, which is very close to MSRP. I've compared all the prices in the carousel above, but another pro tip is clicking through to eBay to see if there's any new bargains to be had.

Pokémon TCG Classic

The Sam's Club Pokémon TCG Classic deal is back, and it's massively undercutting other big box retailers and the secondary market. Just for comparrison, the top four cards from this set, Charizard, Blastoise, Venusaur and Mewtwo, are worth the same price as this discounted offer. This deal is well worth it and should be snapped up as soon as possible.

Mega Evolution Pokémon Cards Are Climbing

I can't believe the X Y era of Pokémon cards came out 12 years ago, but it was an amazing era for the TCG introducing the Mega Evolution mechanic. Mega's will be returning later this year with the start of the Mega Evolutions era and the end of Scarlet and Violet, so snapping up these top Mega cards before prices go even higher is a wise move. We know how it'll play out, no one will be able to grab the new sets at launch, then the nostalgia will kick in and these cards will skyrocket. Just the Charizards and Rayquazzas alone are worth a look.

Magic: The Gathering Price Comparison

MTG doesn't seem to be struggling to keep up with demand despite it being one of the biggest trading card games on earth, but that doesn't stop big box retailers getting cheeky when they notice a peak in demand. Like with Pokémon TCG, i've gone through the majority of MTG stock on Amazon and compared their pricing to market values on TCG Player. The Theros Beyond Death booster made me spit out my tea. Amazon is listing a single booster for $378.08, but these can be picked up any day of the week for $5.59 on TCG Player. Go figure. Another big difference is Marvel's Spider-Man - Play Booster Box. Amazon has their preorder price guarantee on this, but it's still 17% cheaper to preorder on TCG Player.

WAOAW Sleep Mask w/ 3D Eye Cups & Adjustable Strap (Black)

The Silmarillion Deluxe Illustrated by the Author

Tunise Rechargeable Portable Neck Fan

3 Months for $0.99 Audible Deal

3 Months Free Kindle Unlimited