Best Buy has by far the best deal on an RTX 5080 gaming laptop if you're fine with getting a preowned model. The retailer has restocked its inventory of open box "excellent condition" OMEN MAX 16 RTX 5080 gaming laptops for just $1,808.99 with free shipping. If you were to get it new, it would cost $2,700. These are Geek Squad verified preowned units and may still have all or some of their original warranty. Note that open box availability depends on your location.

OMEN MAX 16 RTX 5080 Gaming Laptop for $1,809

Open Box - Excellent Condition

War. War never changes. What does change, however, are board games. Those suckers change all the time, with thousands of new ones coming out every year, sometimes in big boxes, others in little ones, and occasionally ones based on a popular property. That’s the case with Fallout: Power Play, a small-area control card game designed by Resurrectionist Games and published by Modiphius Games, currently up for pre-order. It's a small game with some good bones to it, but its compact design is more of a hindrance than a benefit.

Fallout: Power Play puts two to four players in command of four possible factions, each with their own unique decks and special ability. These are the Brotherhood of Steel (good at completing missions to earn influence and hunkering down in a location), Super Mutants (lots of big and powerful unit cards to deploy at locations), the Enclave (excellent at disrupting other players' turns), and Raiders (thieves, every last one of them).

On their turn, players deploy agents to locations, complete quests to earn rewards, and use their faction-specific ability, all in a bid to earn the most influence in the different places, netting you victory points. Whichever player has their agent holding a location at the end of the turn gains influence over the spot, with the top play considered to be “dominating” and earning a victory point. The first player to reach 10 points triggers the end game and scoring, with whoever has the most points winning at the end of that round.

Things get shaken up a bit thanks to the random Wasteland Encounter cards you draw at the start of each round, and unique Power Play cards that each player has in their deck. These events can range from spawning ghouls that attack everyone’s agents to even detonating an Atom Bomb Baby and destroying everything at the location(s) where players have the most influence. That one is a particularly fun card to see safely from the sidelines, as all of your friends’ units are blasted out of existence all at once in the region they were fighting so fiercely over.

If the encounter cards are the right hand of chaos in Power Play, then the titular Power Play cards in your deck are the left hand of chaos. These cards have the potential to be played not only on your turn, but also in response to other players’ actions. Think an Instant spell in Magic: The Gathering. This resulted in some tense back-and-forth, play-and-counterplay moments with my friends, and I often found myself holding my breath whenever I would put down one of my more powerful cards in hopes they wouldn’t get countered or worse.

While at first glace, Power Play may appear to be more of a simple “bigger number better” war game, the more I played, the more nuance and strategy I found in it. Each location only has spots for four agents, and in games with fewer players, this allows for you to allocate multiple agent resources to a location. But regardless of how much you are overpowering the other players in a spot, you will still only gain a single victory point at the end of the round. On the flip side, every round where you don’t have an agent at a location will result in your losing an influence at that location (to a minimum of 1), so it pays to spread out your forces.

This management almost makes Power Play into more of a worker placement game, and I often found myself opting to have one stronghold as my main “VP generator” and then spreading out and setting up at the other locations to pull off big influence gain turns by completing quest cards that would net me a boost in influence for a spot. Whenever I managed to pull off these well-laid plans, it tickled that good spot in my brain and never got old.

Resurrectionist Games, Power Play’s designer, has put together a card game with solid bones, and its focus on capturing and holding locations reminds me of the hot new TCG Riftbound. That said, issues surrounding the delivery and presentation of the game blemish and knock Power Play down some notches. The most disappointing of which is that the whole product feels less like a Fallout card game and more like something with the beloved property slapped on the side of it.

Despite the four factions and other nods to the Fallout universe, I never felt as though Power Play did much with the property. Instead of decks featuring notable characters from the games that fans would recognize, the designers opted for bland and generic fill-ins instead. Taking the Brotherhood of Steel deck, for instance, a group whose Power Armor is arguably just as synonymous with the series as the signature blue-and-yellow vault suits, your forces are composed of no-name cards like “Knight” or “Elder.” Instead of a generic Elder, why not have the lead agent be a character like Arthur Maxson or Sarah Lyons?

The home base locations of each of the factions feel rather soulless and are identical to one another from a gameplay standpoint. While “activate a location” is an option you can take on your turn, there are only two locations that have something to activate, with the others being the starting strongholds of each faction. They are “War Camp” or “Raider Fortress” instead of something memorable from the series, like Nuka-World or even a Vault. I would have appreciated these spots to be two-sided, with a generic, ability-less side and the other having an action associated with it and pulled from somewhere players would recognize if you were in the mood for a more advanced game mode. Alas, no such luck.

This more uninspired approach extends into the art and even the card descriptions. Keeping on the Brotherhood train, the Initiate and Field Scribe agent cards feature nearly identical character faces, and cards like their “Knight” read as “Each time Knight kills an Enemy…” which feels generic. Do these things impact how the game plays? No. But if you're going to adapt a well-known property, you want it to feel meaningful, and considering the attention to detail I’ve come to expect from Modiphius, especially with Fallout, thanks to the Fallout TTRPG they also publish, Power Play just doesn’t get there.

My other main gripe with Power Play has to do with some of the quality control and decisions involved with how the game is packaged. Now, I’m all for a game being nice and compact; heck, one of the most prestigious awards I can give (in my mind anyway) is the Glovebox Award, given to games that are small and fun enough that I always want them with me wherever I go (Flip 7 is an example). It’s rare that I’ve found a game that feels too small – but Power Play does. Inside its box are spots for two decks of cards, with a small gap in between. Now, these two spots aren’t quite deep enough to contain all of the standard-sized cards included, causing some annoying shifting, and unfortunately, you can just forget sleeving your cards.

Fallout: Power Play also uses tokens to mark each faction’s influence in the regions and other little reminders. Unfortunately, these tokens are incredibly tiny. And while the faction tokens are at least color-coded, some of the reminder tokens, all of which are about 3/4 the size of a dime and contain text, are barely legible from anything more than maybe six inches from your face, let alone from across a table. Power Play may also be the first board game I have that uses tokens but doesn’t come with a small bag to keep them in. And to make matters more annoying, they easily slip into the small gap between the two decks. Thankfully, my cardboard hobby has granted me extra baggies that I was able to put them in, but beforehand, more than a couple of times, I spent more time than I care to admit trying to get some of these damn cardboard pieces out of the box.

Fallout: Power Play is a great example of how a bunch of little missed opportunities and annoyances can add up, and it’s a shame. This is one of those products that I can see potential and promise if Resurrectionist Games takes a bit more care into any future properties they adapt. The underlying game is fun, and I can imagine a day down the road where Power Play becomes the system, and you can buy additional sets, akin to, say, Smash Up!, and you can have the Brotherhood of Steel facing off against the forces of the Borg from Star Trek, or the demons of Hell from Doom pushing back Super Mutants. That's a game I would love to play, and if they put a bit more care into those sets, you can count me in day one. It may even make it into the glovebox.

If you're an anime fan, Crunchyroll is the best streaming platform out there. With just one subscription, you can instantly gain access to over 1,000 different anime series. In a time when anime has never been more popular, Crunchyroll allows you to catch new and popular shows like the new seasons of Jujutsu Kaisen and Frieren while also keeping up with the classics like One Piece. Check out our full breakdown of Crunchyroll as of 2026, in addition to a free trial that allows you to try out the service for one week.

Does Crunchyroll Have a Free Trial?

What Crunchyroll Premium Tiers Are There?

Once again, Crunchyroll has three different pricing options for Premium members: Fan, Mega Fan, and Ultimate Fan. All anime is available across each of the tiers, so you won't need to worry about missing out on certain series if you do not subscribe to the highest tier.

Fan Subscription - $7.99 per month

To break down the tiers, Fan is the standard Crunchyroll Premium membership, offering the entire Crunchyroll anime library ad-free. You can actively stream on one device at a time, and you'll also recieve a 5% discount off select products at the Crunchyroll Store.

Mega Fan - $11.99 per month

Mega Fan is the most popular tier, with support for up to four different streams concurrently. This tier also unlocks offline viewing, so you can download episodes of any anime and watch them even if you do not have access to the internet. Mega Fan also gives you the Crunchyroll Game Vault, a selection of free games you can download to your mobile device. You'll also recieve a 10% discount at the Crunchyroll Store, up from the Fan tier's 5% discount, with free shipping on orders over $50.

Ultimate Fan - $15.99 per month

Finally, Ultimate Fan is the last tier Crunchyroll offers. All perks from the Mega Fan plan carry over, except you can now stream on up to six different devices at a time. Additionally, your Crunchyroll Store discount is moved to 15%, with early access to deals like Manga Madness and free US shipping on orders. Lastly, active subscribers will receive an exclusive swag bag after 12 consecutive months of subscription.

What's New on Crunchyroll - Winter Anime Season

One of the best features of Crunchyroll's Premium Tier is same-day simulcasts. New anime episodes that otherwise air exclusively on local Japanese stations promptly make their way to Crunchyroll for global audiences. While some of these simulcasts are available for free, the vast majority of new releases are behind that Premium paywall.

So, what's airing now? The winter 2026 anime season has kicked off this month, with highlights like the second season of Frieren and a new season of Jujutsu Kaisen. You can check out the full release calendar on the Crunchyroll site.

How to Watch Crunchyroll - Available Platforms

Crunchyroll is available on almost every platform out there. You can watch anime on the official website, or on your mobile device with official apps for iOS, Android, Amazon Fire, and Samsung Galaxy. Additionally, the streaming service is available on gaming consoles like Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. You can also use any media player like Apple TV, Google TV, Roku TV, and more to access the service.

For more streaming platform guides, check out 2026 Hulu Subscriptions, Netflix Plans, and Disney+ Plans.

The real magic behind all those attractions, films, and moments we hold so close to our hearts is only made possible by the tireless work of the many craftspeople responsible for them, and now a new documentary from The Imagineering Story’s Leslie Iwerks puts that effort and dedication on display in a remarkable way never before seen.

Disneyland Handcrafted details how Walt Disney and his team turned a bunch of orange groves in Anaheim, California, into the Happiest Place on Earth in just one year. The documentary debuts on January 22, 2026, on Disney+ and YouTube and, ahead of its release, I was able to interview Iwerks about this fascinating tale that is so much more than the story of how Disneyland was built; it’s about the resilience, creativity, and ingenuity that we’re all capable of, and how, despite the overwhelming doubts we may encounter from some quarters, we really can achieve great things.

“At a time when there was so much strife in the world – the Korean War had just ended and the Cold War was looming – Walt created this place for people to come and enjoy and be happy,” Iwerks told me. “Despite the fact that amusement parks had been done before and were dying because they were dirty and unpopular, Walt believed in his soul that this could be created at a higher level, in a much more experiential and immersive way that had never been done before.”

To get the full picture, you can read our story about how a century of Disney began, but our tale starts on a bench in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, where Walt Disney had a fateful adventure with his daughters that would change the world of entertainment forever.

“[Disneyland] came about when my daughters were very young, and Saturday was always Daddy’s day,” Walt said, as presented in The Official Walt Disney Quote Book. “I took them to different places and as I’d sit while they rode the Merry-Go-Round and did all these things – sit on a bench, you know, eating peanuts – I felt that there should be something built where the parents and the children could have fun together. So that’s how Disneyland started.”

Disney’s idea drew many skeptics, including his own wife, Lillian.

“But why do you want to build an amusement park?” Lillian asked, as told in The Story of Disney: 100 Years of Wonder. “They’re so dirty.”

Walt’s response? “I told her that was just the point – mine wouldn’t be.”

This mantra led to the creation of Disneyland in a year and a day. Construction began on July 16, 1954, and Disneyland Handcrafted tells the story – made up of over 200 reels of rare or never-before-seen footage – of the men and women who, against all odds, built this place in a way that hadn’t been done before.

What sets this documentary apart is how it doesn’t cut away from the action, letting you go back to 1954 and ’55 for an hour and change to experience a different time without talking heads interrupting the flow. Instead, it really transports you, with the voices of Walt and others heard over all the footage of the construction; this smartly puts the focus on the workers who don’t get the recognition that Walt or some of his most famous Imagineers often do.

The stars of this documentary are the people sweeping Main Street to get it ready for opening day; the man climbing the Rocket from the one-time attraction, Rocket to the Moon, in his socks so he wouldn’t scuff the metal after polishing and screwing on the tip that no one may ever get close enough to notice; and the countless craftspeople meticulously making every detail perfect so that Disneyland can reach the star it was soaring toward.

What’s even more impressive is that all of this footage was silent. Leslie and her team went to Skywalker Sound to enlist the help of supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer Bonnie Wild and her team to recreate every sound you hear. Yes, everything outside of the TV footage and interviews, from the hum of the vehicles to the ringing of the bell on the Mark Twain Riverboat, was recreated to make it feel as authentic as possible.

It’s also mind-boggling how talented and almost cavalier these builders were. We see them climbing up steel beams with no harnesses or support if they fell, construction vehicles toppling over and almost crushing a worker who pops up with a smile, and even – in one of my favorite scenes – an excavator carefully picking an orange off a tree to give it to someone who needed a snack. There was a sense of fun, fulfillment, and pride in the work that was being done, and it’s truly inspiring. This is also shown to great effect in what Iwerks calls her favorite scene, when that rocket from Tomorrowland’s Rocket to the Moon was lifted into place, almost as a beacon and symbol of what this group of people had accomplished.

“This is the moment when they've crossed over the threshold,” Iwerks said. “Finally, they're looking at the other side. Sure, it’s not done yet, and there is still tons of pressure, but they've shown success and that they can do it. I think it was symbolic of everything Walt did prior to this moment in his entire career and what he would achieve going forward with Walt Disney World and EPCOT, and then how that created his legacy going forward.”

A big part of his legacy was the people he brought along with him, and they are on display in great fashion at Disneyland Handcrafted. Alongside the supremely talented construction workers, a big part of the team that built Disneyland were the Imagineers from the company once known as WED Enterprises, now called Walt Disney Imagineering. What set many of these people apart from others who worked on theme parks in the past is that Walt recruited many of them from his animation studio despite their lack of experience in this field.

“Unbeknownst to them at the time, an animator would become the sculptor who created characters that would live on for generations,” Iwerks wrote in her book, The Imagineering Story. “A background artist would become a master at ride layouts. A man known for his ability to draw would write lyrics that park visitors would be humming their whole lives. A woman who painted props and sets would help build castles and create lifelike singing birds from piles of feathers. Imagineering grew beyond the confines of Walt’s mind, but it has never stopped coaxing out hidden talents from artists, craftspeople, scientists, and technicians who were, like Walt, unfettered dreamers.”

Even though Walt wasn’t everywhere at once, his vision, dream, and beliefs were there thanks to the people who chose to execute them, even if they didn’t believe they could do it… yet.

"[Walt Disney] was never interested in what you did yesterday,” former Imagineer and Disney Legend Marty Sklar said in The Imagineering Story. “He was only interested in what you were going to do today and tomorrow, because he was moving on, he was doing new things, he was challenging us constantly. That was exciting... Imagine that you have no idea whether you can perform, whether you can live up to that, but he had faith in you, so you did it."

Iwerks reflected on this and shared what Disneyland really means, why it has endured for over 70 years, and why it has become the blueprint for Disney’s other parks around the world.

“I feel like Walt handcrafted this land based on hope and a sense of optimism for the future,” Iwerks told me. “I think it’s sort of a shared experience we all can have and a sort of a belief in optimism and that he's creating, especially in Tomorrowland, an optimistic look at the future we should all be excited about. He wants us to think about what our legacy is going to be in contributing to this future. Walt was very inspirational in his ideals, and his hope for Disneyland was to inspire generations to come to a place that is ‘feel-good,’ that’s rooted in nostalgia, and that’s also rooted in the future.”

“He was also always reinvesting. He wanted to use his money. He wanted to do something with it. That hits home in a way that these ideas he had now live on all these years because he never stopped when failures arose.”

For 100+ years through the evolution of animated entertainment, Disney has been providing some the most memorable, popular classics to be enjoyed for generations. Since November 2019, all of these films and projects that Disney now owns can be streamed to any device of your choosing via a Disney+ subscription.

As with most streaming services these days, it is normally an option to try out the service for a set amount of time. Disney+ does not currently offer any sort of free trial for new subscribers, however. The company was one of the first streaming subscription services to make this change, with the free trial being taken away back in 2020. The Disney+ help center now simply states that there are no free trials available at all, which means it's not coming back any time soon.

Can You Get Disney+ for Free in Other Ways?

From portable gaming handhelds to smartphones, our lives rely on portable, untethered electronics, and it can't hurt to always have a charger on hand. Fortunately, they don't have to be expensive. Case in point, Amazon is currently offering a Baseus Picogo 67W USB Type-C wall charger for just $16.99 after you apply coupon code "T9TLS56H". This diminutive adapter has plenty of ports and enough power output to fast charge most portable electronics.

Baseus Picogo 67W USB-C Wall Charger for $16.99

Sony has announced that it's spinning off its home entertainment electronics business into a joint venture with rival TV maker TCL. The two companies plan to sign agreements by March 2026 that would give TCL 51 percent control of the business, while Sony will keep 49 percent.

This won't mean any immediate, outward changes once the ink is dry. Sony says the agreements would lead to a third, global company in April 2027, but that assumes the deal isn't slowed or halted by regulators. Even if it isn't, it could take time before any new products are released by this company. Sony and TCL expect that products produced by the new firm will carry the Sony and Bravia brands, while using TCL's display technology and manufacturing infrastructure.

Sony's release describes how the new venture will work:

"The joint venture will operate globally, handling the full process from product development and design to manufacturing, sales, logistics, and customer service for products including televisions and home audio equipment."

In a report on the change yesterday morning, Bloomberg notes that Japanese TV companies have lost ground to Chinese and Korean companies in recent years, and that although Bravia TVs have continued to maintain a niche at the high-end, Sony has struggled to compete on price. The company seemingly giving ground in its home entertainment hardware business now comes as a sting after so many decades of Sony being synonymous with high-quality TVs, from its Trinitron CRTs to its excellent Bravia OLEDs.

Over at The Verge this morning, TV expert John Higgins points out that Sony already relies heavily on various manufacturing partners. He is bearish on the idea that this is the end of Sony as a home entertainment hardware maker, and suggests that it could actually lead to something of a Bravia TV renaissance, with Sony's TVs gaining access to more panel tech and TCL's streamlined manufacturing pipeline. For those of us on the ground, that could mean more affordable TVs from the company with the best image processing in the business, and who knows? Maybe Sony Bravia TVs start competing with IGN's favorite gaming TVs.

Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.

Disney Lorcana has seemingly gone from strength to strength since its debut, with Winterspell marking its eleventh set when it arrives in February.

Ravensburger has been pulling from just about everywhere in the Disney pantheon of heroes and villains, and this one will give us some Christmas-themed cards… a little too late for the event itself (but still cute, nonetheless).

Lorcana Release Schedule 2026 - At a Glance

• Winterspell - February 20 (Preorders Live)
• Wilds Unknown - May 15
• Attack of the Vines - Q3
• Coco and More - Q4

While Ravensburger has confirmed some new products coming this year, the second half of 2026 still remains something of a mystery. Here’s all we know coming to Disney Lorcana in the coming months, and we’ll update this as we hear more.

Winterspell - February 20

Winterspell, as we mentioned, has the unenviable task of offering cards related to Christmas almost two months late (or ten months early, if you’re an optimist). The set launches on February 20, with a prerelease on February 13, and will introduce snowy variants of characters.

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. Preorders are now live, with Amazon being the best place to buy right now.

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.

Expect Mickey Mouse, Snowboard Ace, to bump shoulders with Jiminy Cricket, Willie the Giant, and Lonely Resting Place pulling double duty as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Get ready for more card reveals in the coming weeks ahead of launch. TCGPlayer also has listings for individual cards, booster packs and boxes, and the new Illumineer’s Trove.

Scrooge McDuck Gift Box - March 13

While not tied to a fresh set, there are two new releases on March 13 which Collectors will want to be aware of. The first is the Scrooge McDuck Gift Box. It’s not up for preorder right now, but will include an exclusive Scrooge McDuck, S.H.U.S.H. Agent in Glimmer Foil, and five random booster packs.

The curious thing to note is that those packs are from prior sets, so you could get five from Winterspell, or you could end up with some classics. Up next, the Collection Starter Set has a portfolio adorned with Stitch, Rock Star, a Glimmer Foil variant of Stitch, Carefree Snowboarder, and four booster packs.

Wilds Unknown - May 15

With all due respect to Winterspell, this is the set that’s likely to take up a lot of the oxygen in Disney Lorcana’s 2026 release schedule. It’ll lean into cowboy fantasies, and who better to lead that charge than Woody himself, alongside Buzz Lightyear. Wild Unkowns marks a significant change for Lorcana releases, as the TCG leans more into Disney's Pixar characters, starting with The Incredibles and Toy Story.

This will also add new Prelease Kits to the Lorcana product pool, each including a promo card, dice, six booster packs from the latest set, and a deck box. Honestly, Ravensburger, you had me at Toy Story, but I’m excited to see the game grow.

I’ve also long lauded Gateway as a great starter product for new Lorcana players, but in May we’ll get also new 2-Player Starter Set with preconstructed decks, lore trackers, tokens, and some playmats, also as part of Wilds Unknown. This one launches on May 15, as recently confirmed, with prerelease from May 8.

Attack of the Vine - Q3

Looking further ahead, we don’t know a great deal about what’s coming later, but a few details have already been confirmed by the Lorcana team. Attack of the Vine, featuring characters from Monsters Inc and Turning Red, will launch sometime in Q3 2026.

Coco and More - Q4

Then, towards then end of the year, Coco is set to make its first Lorcana appearance, but we know little more than that. Disney’s possibilities are seemingly endless, though, and while Star Wars and Marvel each have cardboard appearances in Unlimited and Magic: The Gathering to prepare for, don’t be surprised to see the House of Mouse and Ravensburger pull out some even more deep cuts in 2026, and beyond.

Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay.

Battlefield Studios is prepping for BF Labs testing by giving fans a first look at content coming to Battlefield 6 Season 2 and beyond, including the reveal of one brand-new map and a returning Battlefield 4 map.

The studio discussed its plans to get back on track with behind-closed-doors testing in a blog post published on its website. It’s a lengthy message from the EA team that comes with a few highlights as it attempts to win back fans who may have been turned off by the recent delay of Season 2.

Audible's first sale of 2026 was supposed to expire on January 21, but it has just been extended through the end of the month. Now through January 29, new and returning Audible subscribers can sign up for three months of Audible Premium Plus for just $0.99 per month, or £0.99 in the UK. This time around it doesn't look like you need to be an Amazon Prime member either. After the three months is up, your subscription will convert to the standard $14.95/mo, so make sure to cancel beforehand if you don't want to continue with the service. You also get a free audiobook of your choice for each of those three months that you get to keep indefinitely.

Note that if you recently signed up for an Audible Premium Plus promotion, you may not be eligible even if your subscription has ended. There's usually a wait period (about 3-6 months) before you are re-eligible.

3 Free Months of Audible Premium Plus

Fortnite maker Epic Games has hit back at a claim by Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski that the company's Unreal Engine toolset should be blamed for modern movie CGI looking bad — via a response from its VFX supervisor who actually worked on the first three Pirates films.

In an interview with ButWhyTho.net, Verbinski was asked why he believed visual effects in movies had changed for the poorer over the past 15 years — since he directed the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, which are notable for including the acclaimed CGI character Davy Jones.

Responding to the question, Verbinski put the blame squarely on Unreal Engine, the near-ubiquitous toolkit used by game developers across the globe that also now has an increasing presence in film production — particularly in on-set visualization.

"I think the simplest answer is you've seen the Unreal gaming engine enter the visual effects landscape," Verbinski began. "So it used to be a divide, with Unreal Engine being very good at video games, but then people started thinking maybe movies can also use Unreal for finished visual effects. So you have this sort of gaming aesthetic entering the world of cinema."

Verbinski went on to discuss the declining use of physical miniatures rather than CGI — something that has been going on for a while, well before Unreal Engine became more associated with movie production — before criticizing Unreal Engine further for its rendering of light sources, which he claimed created an "uncanny valley" effect.

"I just don't think it takes light the same way," he said. "I don't think it fundamentally reacts to subsurface, scattering, and how light hits skin and reflects in the same way. So that's how you get this uncanny valley when you come to creature animation, a lot of in-betweening is done for speed instead of being done by hand."

IGN contacted Epic Games for its take on Verbinski's comments, and received a statement from the company's VFX supervisor Pat Tubach in response. Tubach joined Epic Games in 2022 following a lengthy career at ILM, working on everything from George Lucas' 1971 classic THX 1138, as well as Armageddon, The Perfect Storm, Jurassic Park 3 and 1999's The Mummy.

Tubach has a strong knowledge of modern movies too, having worked on Star Wars and Marvel entries including The Force Awakens and the first Avengers, numerous Harry Potter films, Pixar's beloved WALL-E and... Gore Verbinski's original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

"It's inaccurate for anyone in the industry to claim that one tool is to blame for some erroneously perceived issues with the state of VFX and CGI," Tubach told IGN. "It's true that there are a lot more people making computer graphics than ever before, and with that scale comes a range of successes and failures – but aesthetic and craft comes from artists, not software.

"Unreal Engine is primarily used for pre-visualization, virtual production, and in some cases final pixels. I can guarantee that the artists working on big blockbuster VFX films like Pirates of the Caribbean 10-15 years ago could only dream about having a tool as powerful as Unreal Engine on their desks to help them get the job done — and I should know — I was one of them!"

Tubach worked as a digital compositor on the initial Pirates of the Caribbean film, The Curse of the Black Pearl, as a digital artist on sequel Dead Man's Chest, and as production support on trilogy closer At World's end. So, he would know.

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

These chilly winter months are the perfect time to watch something warm and comforting. If you've been looking for something that fits the bill, you can't go wrong with the Peanuts. At the moment, Amazon has dropped the Peanuts: 75th Anniversary Ultimate TV Specials Collection on Blu-ray to a new all-time low price, so if you've been itching to watch the TV specials, now you can do it and save a little cash in the process.

While it's usually listed for $76.99, Amazon has dropped the price of this collection down to $54.20. That's its lowest ever price according to camelcamelcamel, so why not scoop it up while the deal is still live?

Save on Peanuts: 75th Anniversary Ultimate TV Specials Collection

This Blu-ray collection is absolutely stacked with specials. There's certainly plenty to keep you busy over winter. In total, there are 40 TV specials for you to watch, but that's not all. It also comes with a 28-page collectible booklet, which seems to have artwork and little blurbs about the Peanuts inside that you can see below.

Deals like this don't tend to stick around for very long, so if you've had your eye on this collection, now is as good a time as any to add it to your shopping cart. And if you're in the mood to grab more movies and shows in a physical format for your library, there's plenty to keep an eye out for in the first few months of the year.

Outside of deals, our breakdown of upcoming 4Ks and Blu-rays highlights what physical releases are available to preorder right now and set to drop soon. If you're a physical media fan, it's well worth having a look at to plan ahead for what's worth adding to your library over the next couple of months. Especially after you've cruised through the 40 Peanuts specials, it'll be nice to have some other movies or shows to keep you busy ahead of spring.

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

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 are 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 and selection is here to stay.

"When you are coming in number one, number two, with great content quality in a given segment, then you can have a very strong reward in terms of player reception and financial performance. That's what really informed our pipeline review. We selected what would be the best projects to put the Creative Houses in the best position to succeed in that market."

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.