Mercy opens in IMAX and 3D theaters on January 23.

The screenlife genre gets a buggy update in Timur Bekmambetov’s Mercy, a rapid-action thriller in which a man accused of murder must prove his innocence to an AI judge within 90 minutes or be put to death. This clockwork setting has potential, but what it lacks, ironically, is execution. It’s often hilariously slapdash despite its conceptual prowess, and a prime example of great ideas being squished together and squandered…not to mention, made entirely headache-inducing if you watch it in 3D.

Right from the get-go, Mercy takes a strange approach to explaining its futuristic setting, beginning with a neatly edited “previously on” montage that lays out how the crime-ridden, poverty-stricken Los Angeles of 2029 came to adopt AI-driven capital punishment. Hilariously, it turns out this trailer for the film’s own premise is being shown to an accused killer, Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt), who ought to be more than familiar with the imposing AI entity Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) since he pioneered the “Mercy” project that gives the film its name. Still, this exposition is somewhat forgivable, if only because it sets up the film’s parameters with the efficiency of LED screens lining the queue for a ride at Disneyland. Raven, who’s just regained consciousness in an enormous, empty room, is strapped to a lethal chair set to give off a fatal electrical pulse unless he can prove he didn’t murder his wife Nicole (Anabelle Wallis) earlier that day.

Before the restrained detective stands an enormous screen from which the imposing Maddox – her face silhouetted and cast in shadow – makes stern proclamations, deeming him “guilty until proven innocent,” and granting Mercy a not altogether uninteresting legal conundrum. Maddox also has unlimited access to the digital and GPS data of everyone in LA thanks to a communal cloud, which Raven can also sift through in order to prove his innocence. As either the judge or the accused bring up dueling evidence (courtesy of texts, doorbell videos, and countless other digital sources), iOS windows pop up in the space around Raven’s head like nifty 3D holograms. The case seems watertight: Raven arrived home during the work day, got into a fight with Nicole, and left, only for their teenage daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers) to find her stabbed minutes later.

The only problem is that Raven has no memory of the events depicted, an idea that seems intriguing until it’s quickly handwaved. From that point on, as the on-screen clock counts down, the story switches gears at breakneck speed and introduces a multitude of supporting characters via FaceTime calls, from Raven’s fiery police partner, Jacqueline “Jaq” Dialo (Kali Reis), to his diligent AA sponsor, Rob Nelson (Chris Sullivan), among many others. The mystery is unraveled practically backwards, with clues being explained or exposed in the very same moment they’re first discovered, while Raven uses Jaq as his proxy to revisit the crime scene and even chase down other suspects, viewing the world through her body cam, then a series of drones, then digital renderings of real spaces, then insert-new-idea-here without nearly enough time for us to adjust, let alone reflect. The movie switches focus just as haphazardly, going from tech conspiracy to domestic drama to some errant mixture of drugs-and-terrorism thriller that becomes impossible to invest in given the sheer flurry of images and pop-up windows flying at you at once. These are also never in the same plane of focus, forcing your eyes to adjust faster than you can process information, which becomes even more physically demanding in 3D.

However, what is perhaps strangest about Mercy is what it has to say – and often, what it doesn’t say – about technology. Its setting involves an omniscient state apparatus that uses bare-bones facts to make snap judgements before sending people to their deaths. And yet, this instant access to all facets of people’s lives doesn’t end up remotely framed as a dilemma or inspire any hesitation (the way it does in, say, the climax of The Dark Knight). The neutral approach to all-encompassing surveillance isn’t a bad thing in and of itself – after all, it’s the foundation of Mercy’s mystery setting – but paired with the film’s eventual pro-AI bent, despite depicting AI as a fascistic entity, it’s hard not to be perturbed by what Bekmambetov is selling.

Screenlife has been one of the more interesting filmic byproducts of the internet age, dating back to webcam experiments like the French comedy, Thomas in Love (2000), and the American supernatural horror film, The Collingswood Story (2002), and culminating in perhaps the ultimate example of the concept just last year: the reviled Ice Cube vehicle, War of the Worlds. Bekmambetov has produced a number of screenlife films: the Unfriended series; the father-daughter mystery, Searching (2018); and the modern Shakespeare adaptation, R#J (2021). He knows better than anyone that the challenge of screenlife is the self-imposed limitations of telling a story as it plays out within the confines of a computer screen.

But with Mercy, Bekmambetov pushes the concept past its limits until it breaks and becomes uninteresting in the process. Sure, we see digital evidence through Raven’s eyes, but half the time, the camera is focused on Pratt’s aggressive close-ups as the story reveals his character to be an unpleasant, borderline irredeemable husband and policeman whose innocence becomes hard to root for. Ferguson’s shadowy AI magistrate, by comparison, comes off as far more human…which is an incredibly strange outcome. There’s no emotional challenge or cognitive dissonance in wanting Raven to break free – the film’s approach to morality is dispiritingly flat – and Pratt often fails to imbue the character with realistic emotions or even the kind of showiness that might make Mercy an operatic romp. If nothing else, watching Pratt struggle with the material is at least a reminder of the flawed human artistry on display.

When the story eventually departs from its courtroom confines in its final act, the question of whose perspective – or cameras – we’re seeing the world through, and why, is just as nagging as the movie’s tonal inconsistencies and sloppy action scenes that cut between too many visual sources. The promise of unfurling a screenlife story into three-dimensional space around a character forced to interact with it is an alluring concept, especially when it concerns the wealth of information at Maddox’s and Raven’s fingertips. And yet, Bekmambetov never goes beyond simply introducing these ideas, casting them into the ether without a second thought. In a world that’s as radically changed as the one we see here, and as theoretically dangerous, you need a story that engages with its own premise on at least some level, and allows its doomed protagonist to wrestle with notions of morality and his own culpability in creating this status quo. Mercy is not only not that movie, but it also seems to salivate at the thought of a world where punitive justice and invasions of privacy are possible and easy, and the only downside is rogue actors who might misuse these technologies, which is a conclusion the film practically narrates to the camera.

Perhaps the screenlife genre, or this particular rapid version of it, isn’t the right venue for the material to begin with. On one hand, the images represent a kind of voyeuristic invasion and a ceding of liberty, which might have been interesting to explore. On the other hand, the sheer flurry of these invasive pop-up windows is also how the movie conjures its few moments of intrigue and excitement. Watching Mercy, it’s hard not to wonder: Why even make a futuristic sci-fi movie set in a dystopia if your fawning aesthetic framing makes the setting feel utopic? At that point, Bekmambetov may as well just invest in a generative AI company instead; oh, wait...

Random House Worlds is gearing up to release its latest Star Wars novel, author Mike Chen's Star Wars Outlaws: Low Red Moon. You might assume the book showcases an earlier adventure in the life of goldhearted smuggler Kay Vess, but you'd be wrong. Instead, the book focuses on one of the most surprising figures in the game, Jaylen Vrax. The book explores how Jaylen met the fearsome bodyguard droid ND-5 and made his way through the ranks of the criminal underworld.

Ahead of its February 3 release, IGN can exclusively debut a preview of Star Wars Outlaws: Low Red Moon. This excerpt is set early in the book, just after Jaylen is rescued by ND-5 following an attack on his family's compound. Check it out below:

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 will be pitting two space marine chapters – the Blood Ravens and the Dark Angels – against the terrifying Necrons, with an assist from their cyborg compatriots in the Adeptus Mechanicus. But while they all brood and scheme and recite litanies, the Orks will be literally crash-landing into the middle of it all in search of good fights and making gory memories. We got to try out a swathe of units and new campaign mechanics, and if there's one idea that seems to define the faction in this new RTS, it's this: "Make it bigger!"

The WAAAGH!

The Orks wouldn't really be the Orks without the Waaagh! mechanic, representing their entire culture and warfare ethos of enthusiastic mayhem. It's been represented in various ways across many 40K games, but in Dawn of War 4, it's about as straightforward as the Orks themselves. Waaagh! is a bar that fills up from having lots of units on the field and, of course, from killing lots of humies and Necrons. Or even other Orks! Filling the bar will unlock tactical abilities, but also higher-tier units and upgrades.

The Orks are very much a snowball faction, King Art Games told us. You kind of want to throw everything at the wall, sometimes literally, and let that chaos fuel your war machine. An Ork boy who's not mixing it up with the enemy is one who isn't earning his keep. And Ork units tend to be pretty cheap to replace, so you might as well box select them and send them to the front if they're just standing around.

Ork squads gain veterancy pretty quick, so even losing experienced squads isn't the end of the world. They're usually not as potent on a one-for-one basis as a fully veteran Space Marine squad, but they can reach peak performance sooner. And one of my favorite parts of the whole faction is that some of the Orks have veterancy upgrades that actually add more models to a squad. So a fresh batch of Boyz might only consist of a handful, but once the Waaagh! really gets rolling, it'll look like a proper horde.

When you have enough violent fervor saved up, you can Unleash the Waaagh!, which gives all of your units a frantic offensive power increase for a limited time.

Scrap 'em!

Ork buildings are very much an extension of this playstyle. They're relatively cheap and fast to construct, any Ork unit can build them, and every single one has some kind of little grot with a machine gun on it at least. There are no zoning laws here. Even Ork grocery stores and kindergartens are designed to be defensive turrets, apparently. So basically, you want to more or less barf buildings out across the entire map as you advance. Most of them aren't very durable, but if your opponent has to navigate through a valley of scrap piles that are all shooting at them, that's going to wear them down at the very least.

The core of an Ork army is still the melee Slugga Boyz and the ranged Shoota Boyz, filling out the front with durable but mostly expendable troops that want to outnumber the enemy if possible. When I really needed to hold the line, though, I opted for Beast Snagga Boyz, an even meaner, and slightly more expensive, melee option who can be equipped with mid-range shotguns. I guess you could think of these as the unhinged hillbillies to the Sluggas' rowdy football hooligans.

The key to a lot of my Orky triumphs, though, actually turned out to be cavalry. Squighog Boyz charge into the fight on the backs of terrifying, sharp-toothed squighogs that are great at finding an opening in an Imperial Guard defensive line. And once they're stuck into the trenches, well, those poor humies don't stand much of a chance. For a faction that is best known for mass frontal assaults, I quite enjoyed the more tactical playstyle that these mounted boyz enable.

Wurrboys add a caster option to the roster, while extra-expendable Gretchen and the slightly bulkier Mekboy keep your smoke-belching war machines in working order. The Stormboyz are another option for dealing with hardened defenses, using what is really more of a rocket with some straps on it than a proper jetpack to leap over the top of bunkers and sandbags.

There are plenty of other, more specialized tools in the Ork arsenal, too. Flash Gitz are great at punching through the armor on hapless Space Marines or the various vehicles and mechanical monstrosities the other factions field. The stompy Deff Dread can mix it up with melee superunits that would tear the average ork to shreds. And when you really just need to make a hole in something at whatever cost, Bomb Squigs seem more than happy to sacrifice themselves to take out harder targets and enemy structures.

Orks have never been my main faction in 40K, but it would be hard to imagine Dawn of War without them. They love a challenge, and rejoice in the idea of finding the biggest and strongest foes to test their mettle against, and I can respect that. And I had a lot of fun messing around with them, even if they won't be my first choice on your average day. Especially seeing my squads of Boyz swell in numbers as they levelled up felt thematically appropriate and fantastically satisfying.And of course, we can't forget the centerpiece of every Ork incursion: the Warboss. Dawn of War 4 has two of them, actually, with fairly different playstyles and campaign goals. You can learn more about them in our hands-on Ork campaign preview coming later in the month. Until then, you can get a look at the boyz in all their glory in the Ork faction CGI trailer, and learn more about the development of Dawn of War 4 with our developer interviews, all part of this month's IGN First.

Ubisoft has announced a sweeping company restructure that will result in the cancelation of six games including its Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake, and a delay to a further seven titles. Two Ubisoft studios will be closed completely as a result of the changes, while others will be subject to further layoffs.

Of the half dozen games that have been fully scrapped, Ubisoft is only publicly naming one today — its long-awaited Sands of Time remake that was rebooted once already. Three of the canceled games were new IPs, while one was a mobile game. Ubisoft's core focus going forward, the company has said, will be on open-world games and live-services.

No specific detail has been given of the seven titles that Ubisoft has delayed, either, though this number does include the unannounced game once set for launch before March 31 that is widely expected to be the company's Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remaster. This will now launch in the coming financial year — so before March 31, 2027.

Ubisoft Stockholm will fully close as a result of the changes, having previously collaborated on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, alongside mobile studio Ubisoft Halifax (news of which first broke last week). "Restructurings" have also taken place at Ubisoft offices in Abu Dhabi, at Trials studio RedLynx and at Massive, home to The Division. In addition, all teams will be required to return to in-office working five days a week, albeit with an annual allowance of remote-working days.

"We went through a thorough review of projects across December [and] January, with the current market evolution in mind — which is consistently more selective," Ubisoft's chief financial officer Frederick Duguet told IGN today. "You've seen the last quarter showing a never-before-seen level of competition. Competition is here to stay."

In a sign of how vast an impact Ubisoft expects this restructure to have, as well as how badly it feels it is needed, the company has scrapped its previous guidance for the full financial year and now expects net bookings of around €1.5 billion ($1.75 billion), down by €330 million ($386 million).

Via a statement shared with IGN, Ubisoft said this huge reduction reflected changes to the company's upcoming release pipeline following the implementation of its updated development roadmap, and the decision to "postpone negations on certain partnerships" in the context of its new operating model.

Indeed, the shakeup comes as Ubisoft finally lays out how its global development might is to be split into five "Creative Houses" that will operate as independent business units — the first of which was detailed last year. The previously-established Vantage Studios now encompasses the development of Ubisoft's three biggest brands (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six) and soon the remaining divisions will take on themed groups that cover the company's remaining franchises.

Creative House 2 will be dedicated to shooters, and look after The Division, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell. Creative House 3 will focus on live experiences, including For Honor, The Crew, Riders Republic, Brawlhalla, and Skull & Bones.

Creative House 4 will feature narrative driven and fantasy-orientated series including Anno, Might & Magic, Rayman, Prince of Persia, and Beyond Good & Evil (yes, seemingly Beyond Good & Evil 2 still lives). Finally, Creative House 5 will center on family and casual gaming, including Just Dance, Uno, Hasbro, Idle Miner Tycoon, Ketchapp, Hungry Shark, and Invincible: Guarding the Globe.

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

Gaming earbuds have plenty of advantages over full-sized headsets. They're more portable, more versatile – many can connect to your phone for commuting and moseying around – and ditching the headband makes them more comfortable for many people, too.

They're ideal for handheld consoles like the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch 2 but the best earbuds can also become your go-to audio device for your gaming PC or console, delivering clear sound and crisp communication with your teammates.

Here are seven of the best, broken down into categories so you can pick the one that suits you most.

TL;DR – These Are the Best Gaming Earbuds:

1. SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds

The Best Gaming Earbuds

2. Sony Inzone Buds

Gaming Earbuds With the Best Battery Life

3. Momentum True Wireless 4 Earbuds

Best-Sounding Earbuds That Also Work for Gaming

4. Asus ROG Cetra

Best Budget Wireless Gaming Earbuds

5. Logitech G333

Best Budget Wired Gaming Earbuds

6. Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless SpeedNova

Most Comfortable Gaming Earbuds

7. PlayStation Pulse Explore

Best Gaming Earbuds for PS5

8. HyperX Cloud Mix Buds 2

Best for Travel

How to Choose the Best Gaming Earbuds

Price is one of the biggest factors when choosing gaming earbuds. You’ll find solid budget gaming earbuds for as low as $25 or high-end ones for upwards of $200. If these earbuds get daily usage at home and on the go, you might want to spend more for the feature set and sound quality that pricier earbuds can bring. But if you’ll only occasionally pick up these earbuds to play on your handheld gaming PC or smartphone during a short commute, stick with a budget option.

Connectivity also matters. Wired sets will bring a more reliable connection, but you'll be tethered to your device. If you go with wireless, consider getting earbuds that offer a 2.4GHz dongle – you’ll experience less latency and a more stable connection than Bluetooth. Just be sure the earbuds are compatible with your choice of gaming device. Unfortunately, a good chunk of our picks aren’t compatible with Xbox, so you may want to stick with an Xbox headset.

Battery life is big with wireless earbuds, and what you need really depends on how long your gaming sessions will last. Obviously, try to find the best-sounding buds that last as long as possible, but you shouldn't settle for anything less than four hours.

Design is also important; the earbuds need to fit comfortably. Finding lightweight options with different ear tip sizes is a great place to start. From there, it's a matter of personal preference. You’ll also want a compact case for your wireless earbuds, so they’re easier to take on the go.

Beyond that, figure out which extra features are important to you. Some gaming earbuds can offer just as many bells and whistles as headsets. Noise canceling will help keep distractions at bay while you’re out in the world. EQ adjustments let you tune the sound to your preferences, while a decent microphone ensures you're audible to your teammates. RGB lighting adds a subtle gamer aesthetic.

Gaming Earbuds FAQs

What is the difference between gaming earbuds and normal earbuds?

Wireless gaming earbuds tend to include a 2.4GHz dongle to connect to gaming devices. This wireless receiver makes for lower-latency and more reliable link to your consoles or PC: If you're playing with a regular set of earbuds, you might notice a delay between what you see on screen and what you hear.

Gaming earbuds also tend to have better quality mics than regular earbuds, making them better for voice comms.

Do gaming earbuds work with consoles?

Gaming earbuds are lightweight, comfortable, and compact, making them great for every type of gamer. But best of all, they often work just as seamlessly with your consoles as gaming headsets and even feature similar connectivity options, so there’s no reason you can’t grab gaming earbuds over a traditional headset.

If you opt for wireless gaming earbuds, many come with a 2.4GHz wireless dongle. The dongle easily ports into consoles like the PS5 or Xbox Series X/S and delivers a low-latency connection (although triple check compatibility, because not every bud works with every console). Most wireless options also feature Bluetooth connectivity. For the most reliable link between your earbuds and console, wired are the way to go and slot into a controller or directly into the console itself.

Can AirPods be used as gaming earbuds?

AirPods aren’t designed for gaming. If you’re concerned about latency in some games and simple connectivity on certain consoles, you're likely better off going with earbuds specifically designed for gaming.

Still, if you’re dead set on using AirPods for gaming, you’ll connect via Bluetooth to your devices. Connecting consoles is a bit more involved than simply connecting to your phone, so be sure to check out our guide on how to connect AirPods for more info.

When do gaming earbuds go on sale?

Gaming earbuds, much like the best gaming headsets, can be an expensive purchase. If you're hoping to find earbuds specifically for gaming at a discount, there are a few sales events every year that usually bring the price down. Amazon Prime Day in July is a great time to find deals in the summer and Black Friday in November is the overall best time to buy headphones and earbuds in general.

Additional contributions by Danielle Abraham, a freelance writer for IGN based in Los Angeles who spends most of her time updating tech buying guides.

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 Bear, and Alien: Earth, there is always something awesome to watch.

Given recent news that Hulu will soon be fully integrated into the Disney+ app, now's a great time to check out a bundle that includes both Hulu and Disney+. On the other hand, both services have gotten price hikes, making it worth doing some research before locking in a new subscription. 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.

Limited-Time Deal: Disney+ and Hulu for $9.99

The original HyperX Cloud Mix Buds were nifty gaming earbuds with batteries that could survive 10-hour sessions. For the follow-up HyperX has swapped that juice – they now last just seven hours – for extra audio quality, active noise cancelling, and a more lightweight design.

Is the trade-off worth it? And how do they compare to the best gaming earbuds like Sony's InZone Buds, SteelSeries' Arctis GameBuds or the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4?

Design and Comfort

These buds are light. I weighed each one at 4.2g, at least 20% less than most competitors, and they feel virtually weightless in your ears. The case, too, is lighter than most at 34g, and it's compact: it slipped into my jeans pocket without leaving a lump.

Most bud cases creak when you try to push the closed lid sideways but this one barely squeaks, and feels particularly sturdy, as do the buds themselves.

The USB dongle isn't quite as sturdy, but it won't wiggle from side-to-side anything like as much as the dongle on the Sony InZone Buds I recently reviewed. It sits flat against whatever it's plugged into without protruding, so you're unlikely to knock it or damage it.

The dongle doesn't fit inside the case but you can slot it into the USB-C port on the bottom. The whole thing – case, buds, dongle – weighs just 45g, and I'd feel comfortable flinging it into my bag or sliding it into my pocket. Considering the weight, build quality and flexible connectivity, which I'll discuss more later, they might be the best travel gaming earbuds around.

HyperX also includes a larger extension adapter with a peel-away strip that connects to your PC and sticks to your desk. You can plug the dongle into that rather than your PC, if you prefer. The peel-away strip was uneven on the model I tested, but still, it's an option that not many other gaming earbuds offer.

I found the buds reasonably comfortable, partly because of how light they are, and I could play for a few hours at a time without needing a break. I also tried jogging and they stayed in my ears without irritating me, although they jiggled a little more than my regular buds.

But after wearing them for the better part of a day the inside of my ears felt a little sore – that hasn't happened with other buds I've tried recently, and switching to smaller eartips didn't solve it. I'm not sure why exactly, but it could be because the ear tips are oval rather than round. That design decision makes sense – your ear canal isn't circular, after all – but it's different to what my ears are used to

And while I'm usually a fan of minimalist design, I would've perhaps liked HyperX to take a bigger swing on aesthetics. They're modest to the point of being generic.

Sound Quality and Noise Cancelling

Thanks to the low-latency dongle, the Mix Buds 2 pump out game audio with zero perceptible delay. If you've only ever used Bluetooth earbuds for gaming, either on your PC or handheld console, then these will be a revelation – and because the dongle is so slim and inconspicuous, it's never a hassle to plug it in.

They sound decent too. I tested them in multiple games, watching YouTube and films, and listening to music and podcasts. They are clear, loud, and smooth and I was able to distinguish between the layers of sounds I was hearing. Arc Raiders is my go-to game at the moment, and I could easily tell apart different gunshots, or different sets of footsteps. I could also tell which direction noises were coming from, and how far away they were.

They do feel less precise, crisp and atmospheric than other buds I've tested recently, such as the high-end Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 Earbuds and Sony's InZone Buds, which I mentioned earlier. Compared to those two buds, everything sounded smudged, particularly vocals and bass. I enjoyed audiobooks, but in Kendrick Lamar's m.A.A.d city, the bass lacked punch and his voice sounded a little tinny.

It's worth saying, of course, that the Mix Buds 2 are cheaper than both of those other buds, and because they support Bluetooth 5.3 LE Audio they're a step up from the original Mix Buds, which only supported the SBC codec. For the price they're fine, and for games where hearing clearly is more important than atmosphere – say, Arc Raiders – they'll serve you well. But for a game like Tears of the Kingdom, where the music creates a mood, I'd rather reach for a different pair of buds.

The microphone is loud, clear, and blocks out distractions. I was playing with friends while somebody was clattering around in the next room and having a conversation, and all they could hear was my voice.

The buds have active noise cancelling (ANC) and a transparency mode – both were absent from the original Mix Buds, and they make the Mix Buds 2 more viable as daily earbuds for commuting. Both work okay, but they're a step behind competitors. When I took them to the gym they blocked out most of the music coming from the public speakers, but I could still hear more than with other buds I've tested. Transparency mode has a noticeable background hiss, and only boosted external noise slightly, not enough to hear somebody talking in the same room as me while I was playing a game.

Battery life, Connectivity and Software

Speaking of battery, HyperX says they'll last up to seven hours before they need to recharge in the case, and that they'll last 26 hours before you need to plug the case in. In reality I got closer to six hours, probably because of ANC, transparency, and switching connections between devices.

It's disappointing that they fade so much more quickly than the original Mix Buds, which lasted up to 10 hours. They fall slightly short of our favorite buds on single-session charge (the SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds last 10 hours, the InZone Buds 12 hours), but 26 hours is solid for total charge time, and most people won't play more than six hours in a single session without needing a break.

I never had a problem linking them to any device, whether by Bluetooth or the dongle. That's a big advantage over the InZone Buds, which don't support regular Bluetooth and therefore need a dongle to connect to your Switch, Steam Deck, and some phones. Bluetooth audio will have more latency than the dongle, but it's more convenient and for games where immediacy isn't a problem – say, Balatro on my Steam Deck – it's fine.

While they connected instantly, that connection wasn't always stable. I counted four instances of momentary stuttering on Bluetooth, and three while connected to the dongle – the audio only dropped for a split second each time, but it was noticeable. A handful of connection slips on the dongle in tens of hours of testing isn't a huge concern, but it's hardly ideal.

I also had a few issues switching from the dongle on my PC to Bluetooth on my phone. A couple of times only the right bud worked and I had to put them both back into the case before the left one woke up.

The Ngenuity app was fine on my phone but it regularly failed to recognize the buds on PC, forcing me to restart the app and reconnect the buds. It's also laughably barebones on PC: you can change the mic volume, toggle between ANC and transparency mode, and pick between five audio EQs. That's it! There's no balanced EQ option, no way to customize your own EQ, and no other ways to personalize the sound.

Samuel is a freelance reporter and editor specializing in longform journalism and hardware reviews. You can read his work at his website.

If there’s room for the best, technically there’s also room for the worst… and that’s where the Golden Raspberry Awards, aka the Razzies, come in. The voting body has just announced their nominations for this past year, and as usual, they’re a doozy.

The live-action Snow White film, which starred Rachel Zegler in the title role, and Ice Cube’s recent remake-adaptation of War of the Worlds topped the list of nominations with six each. Just below those comes The Weeknd’s highly divisive feature Hurry Up Tomorrow, which landed five nominations with the parody awards show.

All three projects are nominated for the Razzie for worst picture alongside The Electric State and Star Trek: Section 31, and both War of the Worlds and Hurry Up Tomorrow were recognized in the worst actor category for Ice Cube and The Weeknd’s performances respectively. The music personalities compete against Dave Bautista, Scott Eastwood, and Jared Leto for the recognition undoubtedly none of them want.

Interestingly enough, the worst actress category features names normally not spoken alongside the word “worst.” Natalie Portman and Michelle Yeoh are nominated, two women who have actual Academy Awards to their name. Additionally, Ariana DeBose, Milla Jovovich, and Rebel Wilson were nominated in the category.

Worst actor nominations include Dave Bautista for In the Lost Lands and Jared Leto in box office flop Tron: Ares. The Russo Brothers, currently busy with Avengers: doomsday, get a worst director nomination for Netflix's The Electric State.

That said, this particular voting body is always making sure to throw a sense of humor into the mix. This time, they’ve quite literally nominated “all seven artificial dwarves” from the live-action Snow White remake in the worst supporting actor category.

You can check out the full list of nominations for the 46th edition of the Razzie Awards below:

WORST PICTURE

• The Electric State
• Hurry Up Tomorrow
• Snow White (2025)
• Star Trek: Section 31
• War of the Worlds (2025)

WORST ACTOR

• Dave Bautista (In the Lost Lands)
• Ice Cube (War of the Worlds)
• Scott Eastwood (Alarum)
• Jared Leto (Tron: Ares)
• Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye (Hurry Up Tomorrow)

WORST ACTRESS

• Ariana DeBose (Love Hurts)
• Milla Jovovich (In the Lost Lands)
• Natalie Portman (Fountain of Youth)
• Rebel Wilson (Bride Hard)
• Michelle Yeoh (Star Trek: Section 31)

WORST REMAKE/RIP-OFF/SEQUEL

• I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
• Smurfs (2025)
• Snow White (2025)
• War of the Worlds (2025)

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Anna Chlumsky (Bride Hard)
• Ema Horvath (The Strangers: Chapter 2)
• Scarlet Rose Stallone (Gunslingers)
• Kacey Rohl (Star Trek: Section 31)
• Isis Valverde (Alarum)

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• All Seven Artificial Dwarves (Snow White)
• Nicolas Cage (Gunslingers)
• Stephen Dorff (Bride Hard)
• Greg Kinnear (Off the Grid)
• Sylvester Stallone (Alarum)

WORST SCREEN COMBO

• All Seven Dwarves (Snow White)
• James Corden & Rihanna (Smurfs)
• Ice Cube & His Zoom Camera (War of the Worlds)
• Robert DeNiro & Robert DeNiro (The Alto Knights)
• The Weeknd & His Colossal Ego (Hurry Up Tomorrow)

WORST DIRECTOR

• Rich Lee (War of the Worlds)
• Olatunde Osunsanmi (Star Trek: Section 31)
• The Russo Brothers (The Electric State)
• Trey Edward Shults (Hurry Up Tomorrow)
• Marc Webb (Snow White)

WORST SCREENPLAY

• Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, adapted from the illustrated novel by Simon Stalenhag (The Electric State)
• Trey Edward Shults, Abel Tesfaye, Reza Fahim (Hurry Up Tomorrow)
• Erin Cressida Wilson and a bunch of others too numerous to mention, drawing from the original fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm (Snow White)
• Craig Sweeny, with original story concept developed by Bo Yeon Kim & Erika Lippoldt (Star Trek: Section 31)
• Screen Story and Screenplay by Kenny Golde and screenplay by Marc Hyman, adapting (or destroying) the classic novel by H.G. Wells (War of the Worlds)

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

The British are coming. Specifically, IGN can exclusively reveal that action man Jason Statham - star of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Hobbs and Shaw and The Meg - is coming to Fortnite today. He lent his chiselled jawline and voice to the game to promote his new movie Shelter as part of a new in-game experience.

The Stath appears as his character from Shelter, Michael Mason. In the movie Mason is a former assassin who is forced to dust off his guns (aren't they always?) to protect himself and a girl - Jessie - that he rescued from the sea surrounding the remote Scottish island he calls home. Players can fight alongside him on a new custom map inspired by the movie, taking on waves of enemies in order to protect Jessie. If that wasn't enough, a huge storm is on the way, which is actually pretty accurate for the Scottish highlands.

The custom map comes with some additional game features to heighten the roguelike experience the creators are going for, with a combination of permanent upgrades, random weapon loadouts and a 'Rebirth system' that will give you permanent buffs for resetting your progress. It's vital to mention that the weaponry is given out by a dog.

There'll also be a community tournament featuring top streamers that will let viewers vote on the specific conditions for the matches, like weapon restrictions or inverted controls.

The experience was created by Sawhorse and Chartis Interactive, with contributions to the design of the map from Fortnite creators like Jayth, the guy behind Fortnite's Zombie Escape Tag.

"It’s been exciting to combine the roguelike genre—one of Fortnite’s most popular modes—with a unique film like Shelter, especially with Jason Statham involved," he said.

The Shelter experience is available in Fortnite now. "Become the #shelter. survive the storm. play the official 'shelter' fortnite experience now! island code: 2883-8391-6703. see @jasonstatham in shelter. only in theaters january 30. get tickets now"

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development 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, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

This is a spoiler-free review of Return to Silent Hill, which opens in theaters on January 23, 2026.

Return to Silent Hill doesn’t necessarily have the highest bar to clear as it ambles its way to theaters in this winter lull period. Hollywood may have finally figured out how to do a proper video game adaptation on the streaming side of things, but decent video game movies are still pretty few and far between. And while director Cristophe Gans’ 2006 Silent Hill movie was a decent effort, the follow-up, 2012’s Gans-less Silent Hill: Revelation, is as dreadful as they come. All Return to Silent Hill has to do is not be the worst entry in the series. And it manages that, if not a great deal else.

While the previous two films borrowed fairly liberally from the first and third Silent Hill games, neither is what could be considered a direct adaptation. Return to Silent Hill, by comparison, is basically Silent Hill 2: The Movie. It doesn’t really seek to continue the mythology established in the previous films, but rather presents a standalone tale set in the spooky, ash-strewn streets of Silent Hill.

As in 2001’s Silent Hill 2 and its 2024 remake, Return to Silent Hill follows James Sunderland (Jeremy Irvine), a seemingly innocuous everyman mourning the death of his girlfriend Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson). When James receives a letter from Mary urging him to return to their “special place,” it’s off to Silent Hill and its cavalcade of shambling horrors.

What follows is a condensed version of the game’s storyline. That’s certainly a proven formula at this point, but again, Return to Silent Hill’s most glaring flaw is that it doesn’t do anything particularly new or exciting with that formula. Given the sheer graphical fidelity of the Silent Hill 2 Remake, the prospect of seeing the game’s events play out in live-action simply isn’t enough. Heck, the game is by far the better-looking of the two. Return to Silent Hill’s low-budget trappings reveal themselves in the many shots of Irvine and others standing against obvious green-screen backdrops. The creature designs are still impressive in any medium, but the remake feels more visually refined and cohesive overall.

Nor are the performances up to the standard of the remake. Irvine is mostly fine as James, but the film doesn’t always give him much to do beyond send him careening down eerie hallways, screaming one character or another’s name. Only towards the end does James undergo more of a tangible emotional arc. And while it’s fun seeing Evie Templeton reprise her role as Laura from the game remake, she’s barely in the movie long enough to leave much of an impression. That goes for most of the supporting characters, really. In the effort to trim down a lengthy game narrative to a tight 100-minute film, these characters have been reduced to shells that appear only long enough to push the story forward. “Underdeveloped” barely scratches the surface here.

Return to Silent Hill can feel surprisingly aimless despite its modest runtime. With none of the obtuse puzzle-solving and little of the combat that defines the games, the film settles for following James as he runs terrified from one familiar landmark to the next and experiences flashbacks to his life with Mary. In ditching the interactive element, the story loses much of its power. The monsters still look cool, but they and the town’s Otherworld dimension don’t really inspire the same sense of dread.

On the subject of those flashbacks, that’s the one area where Gans and co-screenwriters Sandra Vo-Anh and Will Schneider attempt to distance Return to Silent Hill from its digital source material. Here we see the rise and fall of James and Mary’s romance, a story that proves far more complicated than the straightforward explanation the game provides. But, in this case, more complicated doesn’t equal better. While I can appreciate the attempts to both turn James into a more morally ambiguous figure and greatly flesh out Mary, the added mythology in these scenes feels campy and unnecessary. Annoyingly, the flashbacks and the characters they introduce are essentially abandoned by the end of the film, leaving me to wonder why they were introduced in the first place.

Worse still, the flashbacks end up working against the movie by fundamentally changing a critical element of James and Mary’s backstory. I suspect a lot of fans will take umbrage at how a major reveal is handled, both because of how it alters their relationship and renders much of the imagery and symbolism of the film nonsensical.

Again, it’s not all bad here. Even in this diminished state, the film retains enough of the visual and aural appeal of the source material to occasionally stand out. Pyramid Head and those nurses are damned cool in any medium. And having series composer Akira Yamaoka on board certainly doesn’t hurt in that area. This may be a deeply inferior version of the game, but an inferior take on one of the best horror games ever released still carries some weight.

Fans of mysteries, crime fiction, and Nicole Kidman have been eagerly awaiting any glimpses of the forthcoming Prime Video series Scarpetta, based on the best-selling novels by Patricia Cornwell. Well, wait no longer.

IGN can exclusively reveal the very first teaser art from the upcoming show.

Scarpetta is adapted and is written for television by Liz Sarnoff from Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta book series and stars Nicole Kidman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana DeBose, Bobby Cannavale, and Simon Baker.

Prime Video says:

This mystery/thriller drama is set in two timelines, current day and the late ‘90s, allowing each season to tackle two of Cornwell’s books simultaneously. The audience gets to see the beginnings of Kay Scarpetta (Nicole Kidman) as a Chief Medical Examiner and where she is now as she returns to her hometown and picks up her old position with complex relationships – including her sister (Jamie Lee Curtis) – personal and professional grudges and secrets to uncover.

Rosy McEwan, who plays a younger version of Kidman's character (and is also seen in the poster above), told IGN that she felt a "big responsibility" in taking on the role.

"Kay is a beloved character," McEwan says, "and I wanted to make sure I did her story justice. As we had two storylines going on at once, it made for a wild ride! I hope it makes for a full immersion into her narrative. A whole world has been created, first by Patrica and then by (showrunner) Liz (Sarnoff). There is murder - yes, and detective work - yes. But these are also real people with real lives and there’s drama that lives within that too! I hope it will feel like a true insight into all the parts of working as a pathologist and beyond."

For her part, Sarnoff says that her collaboration with Kidman and McEwan was a "joy."

"Nicole and Rosy are two of the deepest most dedicated artists I’ve ever worked with," Sarnoff says. "They made every moment of Scarpetta’s inner life - the moments that defined, destroyed, and ultimately delivered her - absolutely riveting. I’m most excited for people to see these performances and experience the emotional inner life of so many great female characters in two pivotal points in their lives: the start of their storied careers and what it feels like to try and do better 25 years later."

Scarpetta premieres March 11 on Prime Video. The series is executive produced by Nicole Kidman and Per Saari through Blossom Films, Jamie Lee Curtis through Comet Pictures, writer and showrunner Liz Sarnoff through Sarnoff TV, author Patricia Cornwell through P & S Projects, as well as Jason Blum, Jeremy Gold, Chris Dickie, and Chris McCumber through Blumhouse Television. David Gordon Green directed five episodes and also serves as executive producer alongside Amy Sayres. The series is produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Blumhouse Television in association with Blossom Films, Comet Pictures, and P&S Projects.

Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment at IGN, leading entertainment content and coverage of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He's spent 20 years working in the games and entertainment industry, and his adventures have taken him everywhere from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him on Bluesky @MichaelPeyton

For Disney Lorcana fans, 2026 is already off to a strong start. The brand new Winterspell expansion is now available to preorder at Amazon, with a release date of February 20 for the booster pack, booster pack display, and Illumineer's Trove.

If this new expansion has caught your attention, we've included where you can preorder those items right now below. For those in the UK, preorders are also live at Magic Madhouse right now, which we've also included, though they're not available on Amazon UK at the time of writing. We're keeping a close eye to see when they pop up there, though.

Preorder Disney Lorcana TCG: Winterspell

Alongside the sweet snowy designs on the covers, if you're curious what comes with each of these items, here's the breakdown: the booster pack sets you up with 12 cards, including six Common cards, three Uncommon cards, two cards of either Rare, Super Rare, or Legendary rarity, and one random foil card.

If you're hoping to have a bit more than just the booster pack on hand, the booster pack display comes with 24 packs. And for a little bit of everything, the Illumineer's Trove comes with a card storage box, six card dividers, eight booster packs, six damage-counter dice, and a lore counter.

UK Preorders for Disney Lorcana TCG: Winterspell

For UK Disney Lorcana fans, there's a few extra items available to preorder from Magic Madhouse compared to Amazon in the US right now. This includes a collection starter (which is set to be released a little bit later than everything else, on March 13), a Dragon Fire playmat, a Scrooge McDuck Gift Set and a couple more items. Again, we're keeping an eye on Amazon UK to see when preorders will pop up there as well.

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

Navigating the world of live TV alternatives can be a daunting task as there are so many options to choose from. One of the best options available today is Hulu + Live TV, which features everything Hulu has to offer plus a robust library of channels that includes popular live sporting events and entertainment. Even better, Hulu + Live TV also bundles in Disney+ and ESPN Unlimited at no additional cost, giving you access to even more streaming options that include the very best of Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and more. This is by far the best streaming bundle to try out if you're looking for something that combines live TV and popular streaming services into a single bill.

If you're interested in checking out Hulu + Live TV, you're in luck. Scroll down for information on the current free trial offer, as well as details about what's included in the service, pricing, and where it's available to stream.

Does Hulu + Live TV Have a Free Trial?

Yes, Hulu + Live TV offers a three-day free trial that allows you to take the live TV streaming service for a spin. You'll gain access to more than 95 live TV channels that include sporting events and the most popular entertainment channels. Hulu + Live TV also includes the Disney Bundle, which means you'll also be able to enjoy the entire Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN Unlimited and ESPN Select catalogs at no additional cost. It's the only live TV streaming free trial offering a total of four services at once.

When you're ready to sign up, click the link below to sign up for the free trial. After your trial period ends, you'll be automatically charged for your subscription if it's not canceled.

Masters of the Universe is ramping up, with its debut teaser out now and the promise of its full debut trailer coming tomorrow.

The trailer will be released tomorrow, Thursday January 22, at 6am PT / 11am ET. The live-action Masters of the Universe movie, from Amazon MGM Studios and Mattel Studios, hits theaters in the U.S. on June 5, 2026.

Here’s the story setup:

In Masters of the Universe, director Travis Knight brings the legendary franchise back to the big screen in this epic live-action adventure. After being separated for 15 years, the Sword of Power leads Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) back to Eternia where he discovers his home shattered under the fiendish rule of Skeletor (Jared Leto). To save his family and his world, Adam must join forces with his closest allies, Teela (Camila Mendes) and Duncan/Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba), and embrace his true destiny as He-Man — the most powerful man in the universe.

And here’s the official blurb:

Masters of the Universe is a new, live-action adventure movie based on the classic 80’s toy brand. The thrill-ride of a film delivers breathtaking visuals, heart-pounding action, and exhilarating fun. It has a universally appealing story focusing on heroic transformation, it is about finding the power within. The epic action and visual effects have to be seen on the big screen.

He-Man has existed across cartoons, toys, comics, and films, making it a shared reference point for multi-generational fans. This is a film that all generations of audiences can enjoy. This movie will deliver the nostalgia that fans remember.

Masters of the Universe is based on a well-known Mattel franchise with a long legacy heritage that has been captivating fans for over forty years. Following the astounding global success of Barbie, Masters of the Universe marks Mattel Studios’ next feature film in its growing slate of brand-led entertainment. Even moviegoers who didn’t grow up with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe will love the film for its action, spectacle, and epic visual effects.

The Masters of the Universe cast includes Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Alison Brie, James Purefoy, Morena Baccarin, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Charlotte Riley, and Kristin Wiig as the voice of Roboto, with Jared Leto and Idris Elba.

Last year, Galitzine opened up about his physical preparations for the demanding role of He-Man. "I'm eating about 4,000 calories a day, but the amount of physical work I'm doing,” he explained to W magazine. “You end up hungry at the end of the day, which is quite surprising.”

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.

Oni Press has long been one of the best outlets for comic fans hungry for new horror series, and that trend continues in 2026 with the debut of a new four-issue miniseries called Estuary: A Ghost Story. Set on the Pacific coast, this visually stunning series deals with a marine archaeologist uncovering a terror hidden in an old shipwreck.

IGN can exclusively debut the first preview for Estuary: A Ghost Story #1. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

Estuary: A Ghost Story is written by Tim Daniel & David “D.B.” Andry (Crush Depth, Morning Star) and illustrated by Maan House (Mine is a Long Lonesome Grave). The first issue features covers by Maan House, Vanesa Del Rey, and Tim Daniel. Here's Oni's official logline for the new series:

Atop a rocky cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean sits the Mission at Arbués Point, a 400-year-old Spanish mission made infamous as one of California’s oldest and most haunted historical sites. But beneath its crumbling, tourist-trap facade, a reclusive nun has spent decades within the Mission’s walls, honing her prayers and practice in pursuit of a secret long-buried beneath the majesty of the chapel, and under the dark waves of the tidal estuary below. When marine archaeologist Maris Cristobal accepts the nun’s offer to begin excavating a fabled shipwreck lying in wait beneath the Mission’s turbulent waters, she’ll soon discover that the sins of past and present are about to wash together into a harrowing surge of a vengeance that can no longer be contained...

“Estuary: A Ghost Story is a pretty perfect example of Tim and I writing what we know,” said Andry in a press release. “Both of us hailing from Northern California and growing up in and around San Francisco, Bodega Bay and Monterey, this book captures the haunted vibes, the mystery, the romance and the sense of history of these areas. Myself being raised Catholic, tying the other-worldly elements of Estuary to the very real past of the Missions I grew up making dioramas of, was both natural and cathartic. This was a story that poured out of Tim and I, more like something waiting to be discovered rather than something created.”

“With Estuary: A Ghost Story, we were invited by editor Bess Pallares to be a part of Oni Press' storied history with a modern gothic tale shrouded in fog, set aflame, and driven over the cliffs of Monterey Bay,” said Daniel. “Artist Maan House and colorist Steve Canon have combined their talents to conjure a book awash with a dreadfully thick atmosphere drenched in Maan's deep blacks and alight with Steve's brazen Hammer Horror-esque colors. The mix of the spiritual and the supernatural is thick and present on every page, but a gothic tale is not complete without a touch of romance, and in Maris Cristobal and Hunt Willis readers can expect our unwitting sleuths to discover not only their desire for one another, but a deep dark malevolence lurking beneath the grounds of the old Mission at Point Arbués—an age-old vengeance enrobed in extreme piousness. Estuary: A Ghost Story is a modern gothic tale for the smartphone age.”

Estuary: A Ghost Story #1 will be released on April 8, 2026. You can preorder a copy at your local comic shop.

In other comic book news, find out which series was selected as IGN's best comic book of 2025, and see which comics we're most excited for in 2026.

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

What if you shrunk one of the best gaming mice ever made, the Logitech Pro X Superlight 2? Enthusiasts who asked that question for years have the solution with the Superlight 2c, which has the same top-end specs in a (5%) smaller and substantially lighter 51g frame. For $160/£160 at regular price, however, it's one of the most expensive compact mice you can buy. In fact, it's nearly double the cost of the HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Mini, my current favorite small gaming mouse. That's a lot to live up to.

When we reviewed the Superlight 2 we said it was a solid, incremental upgrade on the brilliant, original model. Since then, a firmware update has increased the maximum polling rate from 2000Hz to 8000Hz, and the 2c gets that too, making it one of Logitech's fastest mice yet.

Design and Shape

The Superlight 2c's gentle curves form a compact version of Logitech's safe, tried-and-tested symmetrical outline. You don't need small hands to use this mouse: mine are slightly larger than average and it still felt comfortable in fingertip or claw grip. My fingers all had a place to sit, and neither my hand nor wrist ached when I played for several hours without a break.

Its super light 51g weight helps as well, coming in under most "lightweight" mice. While it's not quite Corsair Sabre V2 Pro level – a mere 36g – it still glides effortlessly. The weight distribution feels balanced throughout your hand and it has larger feet than most compact mice. I personally prefer lighter mice, and I'm therefore glad to have a smaller option in this range. If you're considering it, compare its size (38.5mm tall, 61.4mm wide and 118.4mm long) to your current mouse and think about how it would fit your hand.

I wouldn't recommend it if you're a dedicated palm gripper (with your full palm in contact with the body of the mouse), unless your hands are small. I could just about make it work, but my fingers extruded far past the end of the mouse and my thumb was too far forward to reliably press one of the side buttons. Unfortunately I don't love the matte coating on the shell. It feels more plastic-y than competitors and less pleasant to touch than mice I've recently tested. But it grips absolutely fine and wasn't uncomfortable or chafing, so it's not a huge problem.

The left and right clicks are reassuringly heavy and secure to press, but they're not perfect. They sound a little high-pitched to my ears: the right button in particular really pings as you finish your click. They wiggle a little side-to-side if you try them, and you can press the buttons a fair distance before they fully click, known as pre-travel. None of these caused any problems when I was actually using the 2c, and the buttons felt satisfying to spam when I needed to – for example when firing a semi-automatic weapon as fast as I could in Arc Raiders. I also liked thumbing the side buttons, which are quieter. But I would expect a mouse this expensive to feel premium all the way through and, to me, the left and right clicks don't.

I feel the same way about the scroll wheel. It was reliable and solid, I could feel every bump as I turned it, and it never spun too far. But it sounds loud, grating and cheap when you scroll fast, almost as if you can hear the mechanism grinding. I would've liked a DPI toggle button too, although no Superlight mice have one, so its absence is expected.

What isn't in doubt, at least out of the box, is the build quality. Despite its weight, this mouse feels rock solid, with no bend or creak when you squeeze it hard and no sound when you shake it. I particularly like the base of the mouse: the on/off switch has a grippy criss-cross texture and the magnetic covering for the dongle storage pouch closes with a loud, sturdy snap.

Performance, Gaming, Battery Life

Logitech's sensors are some of the best around and the specs sheet for the Hero 2 sensor has big, shouty numbers – 44,000 DPI, 88G of max acceleration, and a max speed of 888 inches per second; which are some of the highest money can buy. It doesn’t mean much on paper when nobody actually needs a mouse to give that level of performance, but what you get is a mouse that feels like it's tracking you flawlessly, no matter how fast you flick. I tested it in a variety of games, including Arc Raiders, Fortnite, and Anno 117 and whether I needed slow, smooth tracking or precision in frantic gunplay, the mouse did exactly what I wanted it to.

The Superlight 2c's polling rate – the frequency the mouse reports its position to your computer – goes all the way up to 8000Hz. That's in line with other high-end mice, including the regular Superlight 2. Whether polling rate matters depends on the person. Some people can't tell the difference beyond 1000Hz. Others feel that 4000Hz is much smoother and precise than 1000Hz. The limiting factor is often not your mouse but your monitor's refresh rate and your system's power, because you need a high framerate to feel any difference.

My display refreshes at 240Hz and I have a solid rig, so I'm well placed to benefit. The mouse does feel a smidgeon snappier as I boost the polling rate from 1000Hz to 2000Hz and 4000Hz, but the difference is so minor that I keep wondering whether it's placebo. Going up to 8000Hz is, to me, overkill and drains the battery faster. I felt good using both 1000Hz and 2000Hz, knowing that I'd get nearly 100 hours or battery life out of the Superlight 2c. That longevity is nothing special but it's more than enough for what I need, and lets me go weeks between charges.

Whether the impressive performance of the Superlight 2c is worth the extra cost over, say, the HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Mini, depends on your needs and your budget. Logitech's tech is objectively better, so if you want the top of the range you won't go wrong with it, but the Haste 2 Mini's 1000Hz polling rate and 26,000 DPI is plenty for most people.

Software and Connectivity

To put it plainly, Logitech's G Hub software is awful. Not only does it lack some of the functions of competitors' software – you can't adjust the lift-off distance, scroll wheel sensitivity, or sensor axis – it's also actively confusing. When you load up the software you're presented with a list of "curated presets" for sensitivity, varying from first person shooter to MOBA. To me, it makes very little sense why a "simulation" game would require a higher DPI than a MMO but lower than a MOBA, or why some of the presets have five DPI levels to toggle between while others have only three. Better to just set your own levels. The space occupied by those presets should've been given to the polling rate, which you instead have to scroll down to find when the window isn't maximized (which it isn't by default).

Logitech's G-Shift can be an excellent productivity tool. You can assign a keyboard key or a mouse button to act as a shift function for your mouse, opening up a second set of inputs. The Superlight 2c doesn't have a DPI button but you could, for example, set the middle mouse button to toggle DPI when G-Shift is active. Unfortunately G Hub doesn't explain how this system works, or make it obvious how to set it up. I had no issues with the mouse connecting to my PC or to the software, although it's worth noting that the 2c, like other Superlight mice, has no Bluetooth, so you'll always need to plug the dongle in. That dongle is thankfully tiny and stored neatly easily inside the mouse if you need to transport it.

Samuel is a freelance reporter and editor specializing in longform journalism and hardware reviews. You can read his work at his website.

Netflix has revealed its most-watched TV shows and movies for the second half of 2025 — with the final season of Stranger Things beaten only by Wednesday.

From July to December 2025, Netflix subscribers watched a total of 96 billion hours of content via the service. Overall, the most successful title on Netflix — by quite some margin — was KPop Demon Hunters, which had a staggering 482 million views (Netflix defines views as total hours watched divided by runtime).

Stranger Things' fifth and final season (94 million views) ended up in second place on the streamer's chart of most-watched series, behind Wednesday's second season (124 million views). It's a great result for Stranger Things considering its launch late in the year, and the fact its finale actually dropped on New Year's Day 2026 — so will not have been counted here.

Overall, all five seasons of Stranger Things factored into Netflix's top 15 most-watched TV seasons over the past six months, with a combined 275 million views. With the show originally debuting in 2016, this suggests that plenty of subscribers decided to rewatch the series ahead of its final episodes' arrival.

Eric Bana's Untamed, a crime drama set in Yosemite National Park, sat just slightly behind Stranger Things with 93 million views. Squid Game's third and possibly-final season ended up with 79 million views, while Stranger Things' first season charted with 57 million views.

IGN can exclusively reveal two new Frozen-themed Disney Lorcana cards from the upcoming Winterspell expansion that have exciting implications for both the lore and gameplay of the TCG, and they are Anna - Soothing Sister and the Do You Want to Build a Snowman? song card.

Disney Lorcana's Winterspell expansion will be released at local game stores and Disney Stores on February 13 and everywhere else on February 20, and one of the Legendary cards players will be searching for is Frozen's Anna - Soothing Sister.

To learn more about these cool (we had to do it!) cards, we spoke with members of the Disney Lorcana team.

"Anna - Soothing Sister is the first Disney Lorcana card with a 0 ink shift cost," Lukas Litzsinger, Winterspell Game Design Lead, said. "This means that you can put together some truly impressive turns where you play another card, or two, from your hand in addition to shifting Anna. She can truly swing the momentum of the game in your favor. But that sort of power does come with a condition: a card has to have left a player's discard this turn. Thankfully, there are several good options included in Winterspell for this to occur, including on her shift base.

"Her second ability, Warm Heart, likewise has synergy with cards in your discard. This gives players a strong direction when building the deck: not only do you want to have a card leave your discard for her shift ability, but you also want to get characters in your discard with high lore value."

From a lore perspective, this card pairs very fittingly with Elsa - Ice Artisan, who herself is one of the leading figures of Winterspell.

"In Winterspell, we tell the story of a vine that’s growing out of control and sucking up flood ink," Jenna Giuffrida, co-lead on narrative design for Winterspell, shared with us. "In an effort to quell its growth, the Illumineers of the realm summon powerful glimmers to help deal with it. One of them, an Elsa glimmer, accidentally freezes the whole realm in her attempt to stop the vine.

"Just as Elsa’s costume demonstrates her role as the powerful force of nature that caused the storm and froze the vine, Anna’s costume reflects the ways she balances her sister. When Elsa is in need of comfort (and thawing out, so to speak), she turns to Anna for empathy and hope, so you can see some of that in the spring theming of her character card."

As for Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, this song brings together the sisters in a really wonderful way, but it was tough for the team as they really wanted to get it right.

"We get to see both these glimmers come together in Do You Want To Build a Snowman? and really feel the tension in the moment--Anna isn’t as upset with Elsa as perhaps she fears," Giuffrida said. "We also knew it would be a missed opportunity in this gloriously snowy set not to provide fans with such an iconic and recognizable song card."

"This was a difficult card for us to get right," Litzsinger added. "We went through many iterations of what it meant to build a snowman in our game, but the breakthrough came when we took a step back and realized that it wasn't actually about building a snowman. It was about asking someone else if they wanted to help you build a snowman. This led to a card effect where you ask that question, and also gave us a new template: you get to ask your opponent YES! or NO! and the card does something different depending on their response. We worked closely with Darla Kennerud and our editing team to make this new template happen, and the card is all the more charming for it."

These cards are only two of the many that fans will soon be able to chase that will continue to build the Lorcana universe even larger, and the Lorcana team has been busy teasing exciting new details about Winterspell and beyond. Alongside these Frozen characters, Winterspell will also feature fan-favorite characters from Pocahontas, Angel from Lilo & Stitch: The Series, and Darkwing Duck.

Furthermore, the two Iconic cards of this set will be Moana - Curious Explorer and Pocahontas - Peacekeeper, and they will both sport a "Papercut Style" that evokes paper snowflake decorations.

Following Winterspell, Glimmers from Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Brave will join the roster in Wilds Unknown when it is released in game stores on the Ravensburger Play Hub on May 8 and everywhere else on May 15.

Lastly, Summer will bring the Attack of the Vine! set, and that will feature glimmers of Monsters, Inc.'s Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan.

Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst, Instagram, and TikTok, and listen to his show, Talking Disney Magic.

Greek mythology and '90's mech anime come together in MECHBORN, a new roguelike deckbuilder from developer Turtle Juice and publisher Curve Games. The hook is that your mech is your deck, meaning you can swap out parts as desired using your cards.

More intriguingly, Turtle Juice says that "every card played is immediately replaced, forcing players to think ahead, position cards strategically, and chain pilot abilities to forge mech-pilot synergies and unleash attack combos that can turn the tide of battle." Lead designer Ernani Rocha said, “With MECHBORN, we wanted to rethink what moment-to-moment strategy feels like in a roguelike deckbuilder. The conveyor-belt card system fundamentally changes how players plan, adapt, and position themselves every turn.” Check out the reveal trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below.

There are 12 mech pilots with unique skills and backgrounds, allowing you to create all kinds of builds during your runs. You're also free to move and fight anywhere, though fuel will be your constraining resource that must be managed.

MECHBORN will be available on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 1 & 2 in late 2026. You can play the pre-alpha demo right now on itch.io if you're interested.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Way back in April of last year, Blizzard began making gestures at something that would eventually be called "add-on disarmament," effectively an effort to make competitive play in World of Warcraft significantly less reliant on externally downloaded mods, or add-ons.

Now, nine months later, those efforts are well underway, and uh, they haven't gone over amazingly.

The premise doesn't sound bad on paper. Initially, Blizzard talked about implementing some new in-game tools that would theoretically take the place of a lot of functions players typically wanted add-ons for. This started with rotation assistance, and has since followed in the World of Warcraft: Midnight alpha and beta with other new features such as a cooldown manager, damage meters, and other improvements. The idea is that Blizzard wants to put an end to situations where players feel compelled to download external programs for a competitive advantage in dungeons, raids, or other content. Meanwhile, the studio has said it doesn't intend to touch add-ons that are purely cosmetic, such as those that offer item or merchant organization tools, quest support, or various visual customizations. Those add-ons can stay.

Now, on the cusp of Midnight's release though, some players are still unhappy with how disarmament has turned out. Admittedly, a lot of Blizzard's new tools are excellent. The rotation assists are helpful, the damage meters are extremely accurate, and a lot of the new tools were sorely needed for a long time. But the total loss of some of the game's most popular mods (most notably WeakAuras, which essentially let players display all sorts of custom graphics and information in their game based on a variety of factors, most notably to help with combat encounters) has many hardcore players frustrated. With add-ons no longer able to draw from in-game combat information in order to function, players have lost UI set-ups, character configurations, or helpful tools they've relied on for years. It's a rough transition!

Just ahead of the 12.0 pre-patch heralding the coming of Midnight, we sat down with game director Ion Hazzikostas to talk to him about how disarmament is going, and what the plans for the future of World of Warcraft's relationship with mods might be. Here's our interview in full below, lightly edited for length and clarity:

IGN: It's been about nine months since you first started talking about add-on disarmament, around the one-button rotation idea when we first talked about that. And then it's been about four months since you began really implementing it in a way that players could see and mess around with an Alpha and Beta. So, how do you feel it's gone so far?

Ion Hazzikostas: Overall, we're happy with how things have gone. We knew that this was going to be complicated. We knew it was going to be contentious. Certainly, it's a large set of changes. And I think the path that we followed over the course of Alpha and Beta was really to start by rolling out what we saw as the most restrictive version of add-on API permissions possible, to ensure that we were hitting the mark in terms of preventing the computational stuff that worried us most. And then that cleared the air for us to spend the next few months shoring up our baseline offerings and working with the add-on developer community to restore functionality that was collateral damage. So, I think it's been movement in one direction, pretty much in terms of more and more customization, more flexibility from September through today. And as we're here on the cusp of launch, I think I feel good about what we're going to be offering. And of course the work continues in terms of continuing to improve the base UI, continuing to work with add-on developers beyond launch. But we feel we've covered the essentials for the baseline experience.

Do you find that that's reflected in player feedback? Because at least in the forums that I poked my nose into, people still seem to not be super thrilled.

Hazzikostas: I mean, I think there's a mix of experiences and perspectives. I think the nature of discussion on the topic is inherently going to be a bit skewed towards people who are concerned about the changes. Because ultimately, if you're someone who doesn't use a bunch of add-ons, or you welcome these changes, there isn't a lot to talk about really with regard to that. You're just focused on other aspects of Midnight. Whereas, understandably for a lot of players who use add-ons heavily, who rely on them in the live game and The War Within today, the prospect of significant change can be an unsettling one. And there's been a lot of changes to the landscape over the last few months. I think a big area of focus for us a couple of months ago was people being surprised that add-ons that they were used to using that didn't seemingly offer any competitive advantage, were apparently not going to be able to function in Midnight. I'm talking about add-ons like ElvUI or Console Port or Bartender. And that was entirely unintended collateral damage, but became the subject of a lot of intensive collaboration between our UI engineers and the add-on development community as we did work to give them new functions, new API hooks, to ensure that they could keep as much of this benign functionality present.

So, for the majority of people, if you're an ElvUI user, let's say, you can update your UI next week and roll right into 12.0 and the Midnight pre-launch experience with most of what you're still comfortable with and accustomed to visually. And just some of the restricted competitive advantage functionality won't be there, but we've done everything possible to make this as the least disruptive experience it can be.

Do you have any metrics related to what percentage of users actually use add-ons? And if so, how many use certain popular ones that were maybe targeted by this change, WeakAuras or something like that?

I think the majority of users use add-ons in some form. I think it's something like, 65% or 70% of players have at least one add-on. Now, there's a huge gamut that's captured by that, obviously. I think the single most popular add-on to our knowledge is some form of damage meter. So, no surprise that that was very high on the list of things that we knew we needed to offer baseline, if we're restricting the ability to parse combat events in real time. And really, to be fair, that is a great example of something that should have been part of the baseline client for years now. And that we knew add-ons could do it, so it wasn't a priority in the same way as it might have been.

But not being able to really understand your performance or whether the talents you chose are doing better for you or worse, without using an external tool, is something that we're glad to have addressed. A lot of the other most popular add-ons are mostly cosmetic in nature, or things that help with collections, or other quality of life that we're trying, that shouldn't be directly impacted or are minimally impacted. And then, I think as you go on down the list from there, there are definitely suites of tools that help with encounters and combat enhancement. And that functionality is what's going to be restricted, but it's with the goal of creating a more level playing field, where players don't need to turn to these outside resources in order to succeed.

And rather, add-ons can be about personalizing the experience in ways that suit you, rather than feeling you need add-ons that the community is asking you or requiring you to use because they're broadly agreed to be an objective advantage.

Why did you end up choosing to suddenly overhaul the add-on landscape the way you did, as opposed to developing these replacements while the add-ons still existed and then having maybe a more gradual transition?

Hazzikostas: I think it's something that, once we were resolved that a change needed to occur here, really requires a pretty clearly demarcated cutover. A world where add-ons existed in their full computational glory, and we were trying to build up some baseline offerings, is a world in which the majority of players would continue to use the full power of what add-ons could provide, where we would have to design around those add-ons. We never designed for add-ons, but we can't ignore the tools that players are using to face the challenges that we're creating. And so, it would have been another full expansion of pretty much what players have become accustomed to. There's upsides and downsides there. I think it's not something we took lightly at all.

But recognizing that this is a change that needed to happen on an expansion boundary, we spent most of the last year and a half thinking about what needed to change, how we would approach it, and how we would handle the rollout, with a bunch of check-ins along the way, to ensure that we felt good about successfully accomplishing this changeover in the Midnight expansion. There were points along the way where, if it felt this wasn't going to come together and wasn't going to be the experience our players deserve, we would have pivoted and either delayed it or taken a different approach.

But part of the last several months has been building confidence, making sure we're hearing all of the feedback from as many parts of the community as possible, including our add-on developers, and that we're able to address that feedback and feel good about where we're going to land.

I have a bunch of questions about very specific things that are either impacted or notably have not been impacted by this change that I wanted to ask you about. So, I'm going to drill down a little bit. To start, do you have any plans to overhaul the current floating combat text feature? I know that add-ons in the past have allowed for more customizability that's no longer available.

Hazzikostas: I think that is an area that is on our internal roadmap, but it hasn't been a priority. Because ultimately, it's largely cosmetic in nature. We've tried to focus on the areas that were going to be more impactful to people's experience first.

Current UI allows percentage-based scaling of various things, unit frames and stuff like that. Is there any thought to getting that updated to support independent XY scaling? So, if you want a health bar that's really long horizontally, can it not be three inches thick vertically?

Hazzikostas: Yeah. I think so, those are things we would like to continue to expand and we are continuing to expand Edit Mode functionality and the ways in which the base UI can be aesthetically tweaked. That said, that aesthetic space really is where add-ons shine. There are countless preferences that players have, for size, shape, color, flare, you name it. And add-ons continue to offer all of the power to customize that experience robustly. We want to be a bit wary of going too far with our built-in customization because that also adds layers of complexity to the interface and to the advanced options.

If we're trying to offer options to suit every player's niche preferences, at some point, that experience is going to be very, very bloated, versus people who want a particular look and are accustomed to it being able to just got an add-on that does what they want. To be clear, we embrace the power of add-ons to improve players' experience in customizing the look and feel of World of Warcraft. It's been a strength for 21 years. We do not want to change that. We do not want to retreat from that. And so, I think for purely cosmetic stuff, that hasn't been a priority for that reason.

And there's not any effort from you to stop people from having an add-on that changes the look of their boss frames or their raid frames or things like that, right? Even visual stuff that touches combat in that way. That's still something we'll be able to do.

Hazzikostas: Exactly. I think, altering the look and feel of the user interface of how information is presented, the size of things, the fonts, the colors, the shapes, that's something that we are fully supporting. That's not something we ever had any desire to restrict. The only place where there are restrictions are where combat logic is driving specific things. Where based on knowing that you have spell X, Y, Z on you, it's making a special visual appear that's just tied to that spell or something along those lines. Something that really was a big focus of our Alpha and Beta experience was understanding and fixing a lot of the collateral damage that our initial changes resulted in, for cosmetic add-ons. I've mentioned add-ons like ElvUI earlier in the conversation.

Those are the sorts of things that we never intended to break, but because of quirks of how certain add-ons were authored, 10+ years ago, when their developers first put them together, there were aspects of how they were approaching things that are incompatible with the current approach, but that's no fault of their own. That's just the approach they happened to pick a dozen years ago. And so, I know it was very concerning and alarming to a lot of players, who were hearing us talking about wanting to disarm combat enhancing competitive add-ons.

But then, we're hearing that the add-on they relied on to make their unit frames have a different aesthetic was no longer functioning, or the add-on that they relied on to be able to easily plug a controller in and play the game on a game pad was no longer going to function. We've done work and collaboration with the add-on development community to give them hooks, to give them new tools to ensure the continued functionality of those add-ons. So, for a ton of people, this will just be a matter of updating their add-ons, like they do for any new expansion and having all the aesthetic customizations they're used to, still in place, untouched.

I do think some of the frustration I'm seeing, and I'm having this problem too. I had maybe four total add-ons installed: DBM, Bagnon, probably something else, and then WeakAuras. And I used WeakAuras for rotation help, but I also used it to customize my UI and it was all just there, in one big box. And so, with that going away, I now have to seek out a bunch of other add-ons to recreate the experience that I had before. And it's not just WeakAuras, but there are other add-ons as well that have been affected because of the combat element of it that now, people have to go out and find substitutes. And that seems to be where a lot of the frustration seems to lie on the customization aspects.

Hazzikostas: And that's understandable. We can't directly control what add-on developers choose to do. We can't make an add-on developer keep developing the add-on if they're no longer interested in doing that. I think we've tried to provide support where we could, to ensure that things continue to be possible. Many add-on authors have continued to carry their work forward. Some have not, and that is going to cause some users to need to find alternate solutions. But those have been popping up in numerous supply over recent weeks and months. We expect that to only continue. We wish we could have done more to limit the need for people to find new solutions, but we've focused on what we can control and trying to help support the community as best we can.

One more question on UI while we're on it. Is there any thought to letting players be able to set a default UI or default settings for all new characters, instead of having to set it up each time? Not even just visual stuff, but even stuff just like Auto-Loot not being an account-wide selection or something like that. So, that when I make a new character, I don't immediately have to go fix the Auto-Loot stuff, and where the bars start out, and everything else.

Hazzikostas: That's an excellent point and request. I think there are several of our settings that are account-wide. There are still a bunch that are character-specific. A challenge there is that some people do prefer things meaningfully different on a DPS versus a Healer alt or vice versa. So, when we make things account-wide, often, we get complaints and push back in the opposite direction. They have to go back and undo or change things. But agreed, things Auto-Loot and the like should be as consistent as possible. I think that's something I could take back and look at with the team.

So, WeakAuras is gone. We're relying on the cooldown manager now to provide us information. Do you feel that the cooldown manager, as it is, is fairly complete in terms of the information that you want it to display for people or are there still areas where you feel you need to add more?

Hazzikostas: I think it's in a really solid place for launch. There are planned areas where we want to add further polish and customization. I think a big one that we've talked about is the ability to add more custom items, or trinkets, or potions, or things, anything that has a cool down or timer. Ideally, you'd be able to drag that into the cooldown manager and track it there if you want. The initial focus has very much been on class abilities and rotation, but there are other things that are outside your character that fit into that ecosystem. And so, that's something that we're working on that's part of our roadmap for 2026.

Alongside that stuff, filtering what buffs anddDebuffs show on party and raid frames, I don't really need to know that everybody in the raid has a 10-minute cooldown on lust. I'm a Shaman, I know that, but maybe when I'm playing my healer, I do want to know who's got Riptide on them or something.

Hazzikostas: I think so. The ability to filter, highlight, exclude specific buffs and debuffs, particularly on raid frames is something that has come up a lot, that the team talks about a lot. Our focus right now, and there's more work being done on this, as we polish things for launch, is to improve the default, in terms of visibility. I completely agree, that Sated or the like just doesn't need to show up on frames. It's not useful information, that's clutter. Our perspective is that you shouldn't need to download an add-on to be able to hide that clutter, that it should be something that we are doing for you, that the defaults out of the box should be reasonable.

Now, as we get into more power user functionality, I think there's definitely an appetite for the ability to prioritize or exclude things based on more fine-tuned inputs. That was not something we saw as a requirement at launch, but based on feedback and how things play out following launch, it may be something we add to the base UI.

Thinking about the damage meter, the information is still paired down from what some of the other add-ons like Details used to provide. So players who want that information have to go to external sites like Warcraft Logs to get information. Is that something you're thinking of filling out eventually?

Hazzikostas: I think we definitely drew a line with some of the power user functionality that some of the more popular damage meter add-ons provided. I think we're always trying to strike a balance between, "What is a broadly approachable experience that all players, including those who aren't necessarily doing high-end content, want to use and be able to understand what's there?", versus "What really gets into more fine-tuned analysis?" And the ability to take a combat log and export that and analyze that if you really want to dissect how this five-minute raid encounter went for you and understand how your cool-downs were lining up and what your uptime was and your abilities, external tools are and continue to be great for that.

And I think that's where a lot of that stuff has already happened historically. So, I think we focused more on the in-the-moment, "As I'm running this dungeon, as I'm doing this raid, or right after it completes, I want to get a sense of how I stacked up compared to my groupmates, how I stacked up compared to my performance from last time," and some of the obvious stuff there. But as always, we're going to continue to listen to feedback. If there are categories, if there's specific parts of the damage meters that players feel need improvement or that are missing, we're going to continue to expand upon them going forward.

It really does go back to a theme that I feel we just run up to again and again, when we're interviewing about any subject. It's that ultimately the loudest segment of the WoW populice are naturally the hardcore users, but there's a quieter segment of players just doing dungeons and not necessarily playing that way.

Hazzikostas: I think we are trying to strike a balance always between offering the advanced functionality for players who want it, without overwhelming players who are already potentially struggling to wrap their heads around all of the complexities of World of Warcraft and its layered systems. And so, that's an area where add-ons continue to provide a lot of value. If people want specific tailored customization of the way information is presented, that is what add-ons are for. Even if we could, it would actually not improve the experience for most people, for us to bake all of that functionality and all of those options and bells and whistles into the base UI, it would make it an overwhelming experience for most players.

What is your overall vision for support around these features, UI, the cooldown manager, things like that going forward? Should we be expecting new features and updates every patch? Is it just limited to expansion releases, just major patches? What's the thought?

Hazzikostas: No, I think definitely updates with certainly every major patch and many of our minor patches. This is going to be a mix of polish and a mix of responding to the feedback that we're getting for areas where players want to see the base UI improved. I think there are a couple of areas right now where add-ons can still offer some very useful customization of your experience that we would like to see the base UI offer down the line. For example, in Midnight, we built a new dungeon and raid encounter timeline system with Boss Alerts, and it shows you the abilities that are upcoming and when they're on fire. Players have often requested the ability to filter out or highlight specific abilities within that framework.

Maybe you're a healer and you don't care about something that only damage dealers care about or vice versa, and so, you want to filter it out. Add-ons today will let you still do that in Midnight. A lot of the common raid add-ons are now going to be a layer of visual customization on Blizzard's native tools. But down the line, we'd love to be able to let players go into the Dungeon Journal and on an ability-by-ability basis, choose what they want to suppress, what they might want to super emphasize, things along those lines. It's not something we want to restrict add-ons' ability to do, but we want to make it so that that functionality is there in the base UI if you want it.

Is there a sense that a lot of this is going to still effectively be being beta-tested even after Midnight launches?

Hazzikostas: I don't think so. I mean, I think the beta test is what's going on now and it's wrapping up, and the reams of feedback that we've gotten from that have informed what we're doing at launch. Now, that's not to say that we're not still listening to feedback and that we're not going to continue to improve things, but we have accomplished everything that we set out to accomplish with this rollout. We had an internal roadmap, a list of features and sub-features we needed to add and felt were essential to address. All of those are present, but of course, we're going to continue to listen to what players are looking to see more of or see less of, and evolve the feature going on beyond launch and thereafter.

There was a Wowhead post a couple days ago that-

Hazzikostas: Yes.

...was criticizing this whole situation. So, you've seen it.

Hazzikostas: Yes.

The big take away from it is the idea that, in trying to dismantle a certain class of add-ons and bring that functionality in-game, you've essentially pushed people to just use more different, worse add-ons. Because they went point by point and showed off all these things that you could still do that theoretically you shouldn't be able to do, that add-ons are providing. What's the response to that?

Hazzikostas: I mean, I think that theoretically, "Shouldn't be able to do," is very debatable. But I think if you shouldn't be able to do it, we're not letting you do it. And I think there are areas where players are interpreting some compromises that we've landed on, based on feedback from the community, as us either failing in our goals or backpedaling in those goals. I think we always set out to say, "We're going to roll out the most restrictive version of this implementation at the start of Alpha, and then we're going to spend the next several months triaging based on feedback, and restoring things, and building on this new foundation to get to a place where players have the functionality that they want."

And so, again, the fact that aesthetic customization, that you can customize the sounds that are associated with certain abilities, things along those lines is possible, is not a misfire on our part, that's deliberate. There's a lot of accessibility value for a lot of that functionality. And I think everyone agrees that the computational stuff that has been our focus from the beginning here is no longer possible, that dynamically solving problems based on real-time combat information is not a thing add-ons can do. Now, if you want something to remind you to cast Tranquility at three minutes and 30 seconds into a fight, you could put something on a second monitor.

Even if we didn't allow it in-game, it's not really worth our time to try to further lock something like that down in ways that will just cause more collateral damage. So, I think overall, where we have landed is a pretty deliberate result. And yes, there are a couple of places where because certain add-ons have discontinued development, players are needing to turn to find new solutions. I think that transition is understandably and regrettably, going to be a source of frustration for some players, but on the other side of it, we should have a new stable norm and a new world in which we're all living together, and it's only going to continue to get better from there.

I don't want to harp on this, but I do think the bit that concerned me the most from that was one of the examples they gave was, a dungeon or a raid encounter where the idea is you want to kill a group of enemies in a pretty specific order. And they had found an add-on that would basically mark them in the correct order, which does seem to be, on the fly, problem solving for the player.

And so, my concern is that, like I said, I have three, four add-ons maybe. Am I suddenly going to have to go into Midnight and find out that my raid leaders are saying, "Hey, you need to download these six extra add-ons because they disabled the Weak Aura functionality for this, but we need these to solve these encounters."

Hazzikostas: Our goal is for the answer to that to be no. The specific encounter that's being referenced was a Mythic mechanic on the Saldahar encounter late in the raid. There are a couple of loopholes that clever add-on developers have found that are still being closed. So, there's this cat-and-mouse game that's going on, but we're actually redesigning a portion of that mechanic to make it less about this solvable predefined order and more about just reacting to how the encounter flows. I think it's fair to say that if there are places where your raid leader tells you that you need to download a certain add-on, that's something that we're very interested in and would see as something that we need to change something to resolve.

It could be something about our encounter design, it could be something about how our add-on API works, but ideally, you are choosing the add-ons that make your personal experience suit you the best and that should be something that is personal. It should not be something that is a community norm that's imposed upon you.

So, it sounds like there are at least some differences in the 12.0 release, from what we're seeing on the Beta right now, updates, things that you've fixed. How different should we expect the add-on landscape to look like in the full release from what it is on beta?

Hazzikostas: So, it should match what's on beta, so technically we have a 12.0 patch, which is going live next week, and that has most of our systems changes, Transmog, stat squish, our pre-launch events, et cetera. But then there's a 12.0.1, small, just background systems update that's going to go live in mid-February. That's actually what's running in our beta right now. And so, there's a few more weeks of development represented in that, which includes fixes to bugs, polished to some of the add-on functionality, some new improvements to things, damage meters and more. People who are playing on the beta, I mean, week over week, you'll see changes pushed in new builds, but that experience should match what you see when Midnight goes live.

But it sounds like the goal is to close at least some of these loopholes by the time the raids are active.

Hazzikostas: Certainly, yes. I can promise that that specific mechanic is not going to play out the way it did in the article that highlighted. And that's part of the feedback we've been getting over the course of the last couple of months. I mean, I think that was one that was spotlighted, but there are other areas where raiders and folks who are very sophisticated, add-on developers testing our encounters, have pointed out places where, "Hey, there is a loophole here," or "Hey, players, if nothing changes, we are going to be able to do this and therefore, feel like we have to do this. " And that has led to changes in encounters. It's led to changes now on functionality, which is part of the point. This all needs to be harmonious and we're on the road towards delivering this ideal experience in March.

What is the best way to give you guys feedback? There's not really a feedback system in-game.

Hazzikostas: I mean, no, there are bug report suggestion and feedback tools for anyone who's playing the alpha or beta that are parsed, are read, are aggregated.

I mean on live, though.

Hazzikostas: On live, it's mainly various online discussions. Forums, social media, Reddit, YouTube, we're watching all of it. Players share their thoughts with each other and with us in a lot of different venues. And I think part of being a developer in a modern live service environment is going to seek out the feedback in all of those places to really understand what your players want and what you need to change.

Are you never going to add the feedback form from beta to live?

Hazzikostas: I wouldn't say never. It's not currently a plan though. We are actually working on having tools to do some in-game surveys to better capture maybe some of the player experience or perspectives that aren't as represented on forums or social media. Because again, it tends to be, as you noted earlier, an area of discourse that's a bit more dominated by some of our more hardcore play styles, and frustrations people are having with role play, with quests, with some of the more solo activities, aren't necessarily bubbling up in the same way as in those mediums.

How do you feel that your relationship with add-on developers has been over the course of this? Does it seem like things are cool coming out of here or is this a relationship that needs to be repaired?

Hazzikostas: That's a great question. It's hard to aggregate such a diverse community into a single sentiment assessment, but I think it's fair to say that there were, for sure, a couple of rocky months early in alpha and beta as we pulled back the curtain. Invited them into Alpha, but also rolled out restrictions and changes that were pretty wide sweeping. And it wasn't clear what was going to last, what we were going to improve. And a lot of authors were left questioning whether they'd be able to continue serving and supporting their communities. We've done as much as possible over the last few months to have very direct dialogue with the maintainers of these add-ons, to understand what obstacles they were running into as they were trying to update their add-ons for Midnight.

And a huge portion of the work, that isn't the stuff that's captured in week-over-week Beta patch notes or the like, has been improving and adding to our add-on API that's available to add-on developers, to interface with the game to let them solve the problems that they were running into. And so, when you've seen a couple of notable add-ons announce back in October, that they were ceasing development and weren't going to be able to support things from Midnight, that have now been able to come back and say, "Okay, actually we are going to have Midnight version." That's been the result of that collaboration.

And I'm not going to pretend that that wasn't a stressful experience for many of those add-on developers, but I feel we are incredibly appreciative of the partnership and excited to continue to work together to offer as much power, as much customization, to players as they want in this new era while clawing back that competitive advantage piece of things.

I recognize this is a very unique situation, and there is nothing that's going to be identical to this that you are probably ever going to do in the future of WoW. But is there anything about how this rollout happened: how you announced it, how you communicated it, how you worked with the community on it, that you have either learned or would do differently for future big changes to the game that might unsettle people? Or do you feel that this was largely about how you would want to do big changes in the future?

Hazzikostas: That's a great question. I may have a fuller perspective on it in a couple more months. I think that we definitely could have done more to communicate upfront, early in alpha and beta, about a more detailed roadmap of what was already in flight, what we were planning to change, what people were seeing that wasn't a reflection of what we intended to ship, but was just our initial implementation, knowing that we were going to loosen things based on feedback. I think that a lot of players, because of those early weeks, a lot of the uncertainty and a lot of the anxiety that we saw across the community was a result of, potentially, misunderstandings of how things were going to land. And I can't count how many people I saw talking about, "Well, I uninstalled all my add-ons to get used to how things are going to be in Midnight because Blizzard's killing add-ons."

And it's, "No, we're not. We're very specifically doing everything we can to preserve the majority of add-ons the players use today." But I think the shorthand of, "Oh, Midnight's the add-on apocalypse," "Add-ons are going away," I think, led a lot of players to be very concerned and it required lots of rounds of communication to make it clear what was and wasn't changing. And I'm sure that for many people, it's still going to be... They won't fully wrap their heads around it until they're experiencing it next week.

You've drawn a pretty clear line here that add-ons drawing combat data are out, but everything else, customization wise, still fine. Is that a line you would ever move in the future? Do you see there ever being a point in time where you're, "Actually, we need to be even more strict on add-ons?"

Hazzikostas: I think that's unlikely. I think it's very unlikely. I think that part of why we rolled out what we saw as a pretty strict ironclad rule set in September was so that we would only have to move in a generous direction of permitting and enabling and unlocking functionality rather than having to be in this back-and-forth game of locking things down and playing whack-a-mole. Now, I'm sure there will be some limited areas where very clever players and add-on developers find loopholes, find basically some exploits where they can find a way to get at some of this information. Those we would respond to by locking down. But the goal there is for that to be almost imperceptible. We fixed a bug, we fixed an exploit, not we're going to take some entirely new class of information and protect that.

I think that we very much are committed to the continued vitality of the add-on ecosystem as a way of players being able to customize the look and feel of their experience, and also express themselves. And I think that's been part of WoW strength from the start and not something we want to let go of.

Is there anything to the speculative rumor situation around the pulling back on add-ons being related to eventually considering some console release for World of Warcraft?

Hazzikostas: There's no direct connection there. I mean, that may be a bridge that we cross at some point, but I think in general, the goal has always been for us, just approachability of the game and the deep-seated belief that the game should be playable out of the box. That we're not doing our duty as developers if, in order to play the game seriously, it is just taken as a maximum that you have to pull in all these third-party tools in order to play effectively. And we were faced with the choice of just accepting that as the continued future of World of Warcraft or making a change. And I think you mentioned, we've been talking about this since earlier in last year, I would say, really, it was the end of 2024 when we first began to float this philosophical direction.

And this isn't a change that we made just to suit our own whims as developers. It's a change that was made informed by the feedback we've heard from broad swaths of the community who, while of course they want the transition to be managed as smoothly as possible, we're tired of feeling they needed to download these add-ons. They were being forced to do them if they wanted to engage in the content that they preferred. And that's really what led us to this point. And I think as we particularly look towards Midnight, look towards broadening the appeal and the range of activities that exist in Azeroth, namely housing, we want to make sure that there's few barriers to entry and into really getting into all of the depth that World of Warcraft has to offer, and add-ons have traditionally been one of them.

I'm almost out of time, but I have a couple last weird bonus weird questions that I wanted to ask since I have an extra minute. Is there any thought to considering pet battle combat as combat for add-on purposes?

Hazzikostas: In the sense of add-ons giving you an advantage?

Yeah.

Hazzikostas: I mean, technically, yes, but I think that we have never tried to make pet battles a hyper-competitive, bleeding-edge activity, and that to the extent that players want to use assistance to help them with that, it doesn't seem an area that's of major concern to players. And so, we're not looking to solve problems that aren't player complaints.

And last one related to UI, are you ever going to add in baked-in coordinates on the map?

Hazzikostas: Yes, that is something that we definitely want to do. If you're looking up a quest on Wowhead or wherever and you're seeing a location, you shouldn't have to use an add-on or some convoluted system to interpret that in the base game.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

At a glance, there are many reasons to be at least a little bit hopeful about Prime Video’s plans to adapt the Norse duology of God of War. Ronald D. Moore is a tried and tested showrunner, having helmed both Battlestar Galactica and Outlander, among others. And Ryan Hurst, who played Thor in God of War: Ragnarok, is a promising if surprising lead. The celebrated Frederick E.O. Toye of Shōgun is set to direct the first two episodes, while Cory Barlog – the franchise’s creative shepherd – will serve as an executive producer, not unlike Bethesda’s Todd Howard on Prime’s Fallout or Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann on HBO’s The Last of Us, two of the finest game adaptations of all time.

And yet, like Kratos, I have a hard time letting my guard down. Yes, Moore has a pretty nice track record, but he’s also told IGN that he is “not a gamer” – something that could prevent him from grasping the God of War experience in its entirety. Hurst clearly knows how to play big, angry guys, but can he live up to the legacy of Christopher Judge? As for Barlog: George R.R. Martin serves as an EP on House of the Dragon, but that has not prevented showrunner Ryan Condal from straying further and further away from the source material, the way Benioff and Weiss did with Game of Thrones.

Above all, I’m reminded of that cringeworthy live-action Super Bowl commercial for God of War: Ascension from 2013 – the one where Calliope turns to ash in Kratos’ arms to the sound of Ellie Goulding’s “Hanging On.” Even as an obsessive teenager amassing piles of Collector’s Editions and bombarding the inbox of Santa Monica Studio’s HR department with ideas for sequels involving Ra, Buddha, and Jesus, I couldn’t help but feel that there was something off about seeing Kratos as an actual human being as opposed to an in-game model.

So when it comes to this Prime series, there are a couple of challenges. First, a relatively minor issue: what about Greece? More than a few fans were frustrated to learn that the show will only cover God of War 2018 and God of War: Ragnarok, rather than work their way up from the original trilogy. They’re right to be upset, as the Norse games need the Greek ones to make sense, and the same can be said about any adaptation, should they want to make the same impact. Start with 2018 and you won’t fully understand why Kratos is so afraid and ashamed of his past, why he’s hesitant to open up to Atreus. Likewise, you’ll miss out on the meaning and pathos of one of the best moments in the entire series: the return of the Blades of Chaos.

Several solutions present themselves. The adaptation could sum up the entire Greek saga in an immersive, stage-setting episode à la the preamble of One Battle After Another, or it could deliver the story piecemeal through flashbacks. Or it could just do what the 2018 game does: have Kratos drip-feed his past, his confessions drawn out by the twists and turns encountered on the journey with his son. If anything, Moore and his writing team shouldn’t feel like they owe new audiences exposition: the mystery of Kratos’ relationship with Atreus, why he keeps a distance from this otherwise nice boy, should be enough to keep them engaged.

The other, bigger issue requires some explanation. In hindsight, it isn’t surprising that Fallout and The Last of Us were the ones to definitively break the game adaptation curse. Both franchises are, first and foremost, vehicles for storytelling. In Bethesda’s case, players create their own stories through sandbox gameplay and dialogue options; in Naughty Dog’s games, stories are told directly by the developers, their cinematic style blurring the line between games and movies. The transition from one medium to another is fluid, almost logical.

Narrative plays an important part in God of War too, of course, but it’s neither the only nor the most important one. Regardless of mythology, the franchise has always concerned itself above all else with spectacle, delivering action set pieces on a scale never seen before – in any medium. To this day, the opening sequence of God of War 3, in which Kratos and the Titans face off against Zeus’ pantheon as they climb up Mt. Olympus, remains the single most epic thing I have seen in my entire life. Nothing – not the Battle of Minas Tirith in The Return of the King, nor the fight against Thanos at the conclusion of Avengers: Endgame – comes close.

Fanboying aside, I think any director would have a tough time capturing this epicness on camera. Not only because of financial restrictions – Moore is unlikely to receive a budget similar to James Cameron’s latest Avatar movie, let alone the $1 billion pumped into Prime’s own Rings of Power – but also because of limitations baked into the filmmaking medium itself. Though great at representing wars and battles with many moving pieces, live-action has long struggled to depict the kind of extended, stylized, one vs. one confrontations between superpowered individuals that animation (think Legend of Aang, Legend of Korra, One Piece, One-Punch Man) and video games (God of War, Devil May Cry, Black Myth: Wukong) excel at. Not even the recent Superman films, developed during an age when CGI can theoretically help directors achieve anything, have captured the kind of supernatural brawls demanded of Kratos' story.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has set the world record for most Game of the Year awards, surpassing FromSoftware's Elden Ring.

Last week, IGN reported that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was once again sweeping award nominations, this time at the Game Developers Choice Awards, where it's been nominated for all but one award, and earlier that same week, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 absolutely dominated the Annual D.I.C.E. Award Nominations along with Ghost of Yotei.

Even with with the BAFTAs, DICE, GDC Awards and more still to go, ResetEra's Angie — who's been keeping an eye on all the nominations and wins — reports that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has clocked up a staggering 436 awards, surpassing prior top-spot-holder, Elden Ring, which has 429. The rest of the top five is rounded out by The Last of Us Part II (326 awards), Baldur's Gate 3 (288), and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (281).

Providing most of their workings and rationale, Angie also believes Expedition 33 has secured more Players' Choice awards than anything else — The Last of Part II received 115, Elden Ring 97, Baldur's Gate III has 89, while Sandfall's record-breaking JRPG has 125 — but interestingly, when Game of the Year wins are calculated by the percentage of total awards given out during the release year, Clair Obscur takes the bronze. Though it has scooped 70% of all the awards given out this year, Street Fighter II received 80% back in 2005, and 1998's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time did even better at 87%.

Not all award years are equal, of course — the number of awards will depend upon the number of outlets/organizations publishing a Game of the Year winner (Clair Obscur was IGN's 2025 game of the year), and this list includes awards given not just by gaming press, but also newspapers, radios, podcasts, and more — but it's nonetheless a testament to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's impact. Hop on over to ResetEra for the full list (thanks, GamesRadar).

It's been an incredible time for Sandfall, which has found itself thrust into the mainstream following Clair Obscur's success. Even French president Emmanuel Macron celebrated the game for winning Game of the Year. But it's not all positive for Sandfall when it comes to game awards, however. Last month, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was stripped of two awards from the Indie Game Awards after its alleged use of generative AI hit the headlines.

While accepting the Game of the Year award at last month's The Game Awards, Sandfall shadow-dropped new DLC and Patch 1.5.0, which introduces new location Verso's Drafts and some truly challenging boss fights.

IGN's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review returned a 9/10. We said: "Wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 paints itself into the pantheon of great RPGs with a brilliant combat system and a gripping, harrowing story." Here's a Handy Guide for Beginners if you're looking to give it a try, too.

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.

There's a fresh mode to try in Fortnite this week, thanks to another crossover with Epic Games' beloved Fall Guys beans.

Crown Jam will go live this Friday, January 23 and feature three-versus-three arcade action that blends elements of basketball and football with the usual Fall Guys obstacle-based chaos. There's even a touch of Rocket League in there too, as you zoom around an arena as a trio (albeit on foot), while attempting to score.

IGN has bean able to reveal the first gameplay footage of the mode today — catch a look at all the dodging, dashing and dashing action below as players attempt to yeet balls through hoops, and work up Hype along the way to unlock special abilities.

Participation in the mode will unlock Fortnite rewards such as a Jam Track and a pair of Back Blings. Over in Fall Guys, meanwhile, the Slam Dunk Costume will be available for free via the in-game shop in celebration.

It's been a little while since Epic Games added an all-new limited-time mode to Fortnite, which already juggles various permanent variants of its signature battle royale experience. Crown Jam will be playable until February 9, so you have just under a month to get yeeting.

Last night, Fortnite teased a beet-iful new collaboration with acclaimed comedy series The Office — more details of which are expected later this week.

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

Marvel and Jurassic World star Chris Pratt has hit out at Tilly Norwood, insisting the panic within Hollywood about the potential impact of AI “actors” is “bulls**t.”

Tilly Norwood is a viral AI-generated creation pushed as the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman. It was created by Eline Van der Velden, the founder of AI company Particle 6 Productions. Van der Velden sparked a backlash last year when she announcing new talent studio Xicoia, which Deadline reported was already in talks with a number of talent agents interested in signing Tilly Norwood.

The Hollywood community was quick to condemn Tilly Norwood and its creators, as well as warn producers against dealing with it. Scream’s Melissa Barrera wrote: "Hope all actors repped by the agent that does this, drop their a$. How gross, read the room.” Matilda’s Mara Wilson said: "Shame on these people. They have stolen the faces of hundreds of young women to make this AI ‘actress.’ They’re not creators. They’re identity thieves." The Fantastic Four’s Ralph Ineson, who played Galactus in the MCU movie, was more direct, posting “F**k off” on X / Twitter. The Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) ended up releasing a statement, warning producers against using “synthetic performers” without complying with its contractual obligations.

Now, while promoting his new movie, Mercy, Pratt insisted AI wasn’t coming for his job, despite the existence of AI "actors" like Tilly Norwood. “I don’t feel like someone’s gonna replace me that’s AI,” the 46-year-old actor behind the MCU’s Star-Lord, told Variety. “I heard this Tilly Norwood thing. I think that’s all bulls**t. I’ve never seen her in a movie. I don’t know who this b***h is. It’s all fake until it’s something.”

Pratt went on to describe AI is an “amazing tool” that would inevitably disrupt the movie industry by streamlining production and making it cheaper, but AI wouldn’t “replace the human soul.”

Last year, Van der Velden addressed the backlash to insist Tilly Norwood “is not a replacement for a human being.”

“To those who have expressed anger over the creation of my AI character, Tilly Norwood: she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work — a piece of art,” Van der Velden said. “Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity.

“I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool, a new paintbrush. Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories. I’m an actor myself, and nothing — certainly not an AI character — can take away the craft or joy of human performance.

"Creating Tilly has been, for me, an act of imagination and craftmanship, not unlike drawing a character, writing a role or shaping a performance. It takes time, skill, and iteration to bring such a character to life. She represents experimentation, not substitution. Much of my work has always been about holding up a mirror to society through satire, and this is no different."

In November, Tilly’s creator, Eline van der Velden, was reported to be making a shortform AI-led series for The History Channel. But Tilly Norwood’s "acting career" thus far has failed to take off.

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.