Developer ChillyRoom and publisher Spiral Up Games have announced ReBlade: The Death Spiral, a new cyberpunk action roguelike. You'll run through its dystopian city as many times as it takes as a condemned Synthetic fighting your way through to get at the truth.

You'll find different weapons and augments to customize your build in each roguelike run, battle evolved cyborg monsters who've been forged and shaped by the same unforgiving world you have in high-speed combat, trade with people you encounter, and build allegiances along the way. Check out the excellent reveal trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below.

ReBlade doesn't have a release date just yet, but you can wishlist it on Steam 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.

After we've seen Super Mario and even the Minions immortalized at theme parks, I’ve always wondered why Pokémon hasn't received the same treatment. We all know Pokémon is massive. I imagine children to adults all over the world would likely love to visit the world of Pokémon for real — and maybe not ever leave. I’m one of them! Finally, during Pokémon’s 30th Anniversary year, PokéPark KANTO is permanently opening in Yomiuriland Amusement Park just outside of Tokyo, Japan. And I’m one of the very, very lucky few who got to explore the park before its official opening on February 6, 2026.

As we visited well before opening day, I’m not able to share the superfluous number of photos and videos I took, but I can tell you all about my experience and a little of what to expect in PokéPark KANTO. Again, the park wasn’t in operating order, so the rides, shows, music, game booths, and food offerings weren’t available. But honestly, I wouldn’t say any of that is the draw of PokéPark KANTO—it’s simply exploring a space with more than 600 life-sized Pokémon.

PokéPark KANTO is mainly split up between two areas–Pokémon Forest, which is essentially a trail in a woodland inhabited by life-sized Pokémon statues meant to emulate living Pokémon; and Sedge Town, a small collection of buildings and stalls meant to look like what a town within the Pokémon world would look like, also inhabited by life-sized Pokémon statues. These statues don’t move, but they are amazing to spot around the area and are clearly made with care.

Valentine's Day is still a few weeks away, but Amazon is already breaking out the LEGO deals for anyone searching for a unique gift idea. One such discount is on one of the silliest builds that's been released in recent years. The Looney Tunes Sweetheart Tweety Bird set has dropped to its lowest price ever on Amazon. At just $23.99 after the discount is applied, it's really quite affordable (by LEGO standards). This set was first released back in January 2025, but this is the first time its ever been discounted on Amazon.

LEGO Tweety Bird Deal at Amazon Today

The idea of an anime-style soulslike releases plenty of good chemicals in my brain, but the first Code Vein back in 2019 turned out to be just okay in my book. Like a number of Bandai Namco's original IP, I was intrigued to see that idea get another shot, which made me optimistic for Code Vein 2. However, with a middling execution of its open world and inconsistent gameplay qualities, this sequel doesn't necessarily improve upon its predecessor, and instead struggles to stand out in a somewhat saturated genre. Its story premise still compelled me through the 50 hours I spent to finish the main quest and all of the side content at least, but that time came with a lot of ups and downs.

Coming off of From Software's Elden Ring (which Bandai Namco published) not too long ago, pulling up the map of Code Vein 2 had me intimidated and enticed in equal measure. A few hours past its opening act, I was able to grasp its cadence and scale, which thankfully wasn't as overwhelming as I initially thought. A big part of what pulled me in was its concept: a time travel story where you repair a post-apocalyptic present by going to the past to change the outcomes of pivotal moments in its history. Having an open world that subtly changes between timelines drives home a sense of place and the feeling that your character's actions have an impact, even if you're simply following your quest objectives.

Looking out to the horizon from the tower on Magmell Island (the starting region) as your leader Lady Lavinia lays down some exposition, you see the land itself transform upon completing the prologue's quest; it's a strong moment that shows promise for the road ahead. You're then asked to go back in time to aid the three heroes of the world's past in their respective regions to alter their fate, and I enjoyed the fact that you get to take part in shifting the conflicts that led to the present day's destruction.

However, its storytelling style sells itself short at times, with key moments for its major characters relegated to barren dream-like visions – vague dialogue gets overlaid as you stand there waiting for the next set of static character models to appear. It's hard to get a real gauge of what's happening or feel the gravity of the situations the story is trying to portray. It's evident in other dialogue sequences that the writing in Code Vein 2 is rather generic and missing some of the personality that would draw me in to care about the world I'm supposed to be fighting for. In the rare fully animated cutscenes that tee up certain battles, however, Code Vein 2 shows great potential and had me hyped for the moment, but like its many parts, the momentum ends just as quickly as it starts.

I do like a handful of the star characters – for example, Lou being the frail girl who has the time traveling power is an extension of your created silent protagonist, and she carries a convincing sense of sorrow. The three heroes have fitting backgrounds and are nice to team up with, too; Holly is a standout for her story as a gifted doctor put in tragic situations because it's one of the few times Code Vein 2 hits a genuine emotional note. As a whole, though, I wanted to care more about the broader struggle between revenants and humans, and the dynamics that led to so much conflict and the monsters that roam the land, but the plot threads run shallow and the way they're delivered leaves them underdeveloped. As a consequence, I came away from its conclusion fairly underwhelmed even as it tried to pull on my heart strings since I wasn't quite invested as it seemed to hope I would be.

I do think the open world serves its purpose as a vehicle for giving the story some impact. It struck a chord with me to visit a particular location in the before-times, seeing where people struggled to eke out an existence and then that same place dilapidated in the present. The Undead Forest's lush greenery turning to a cold barren wasteland is one of the starkest examples of this; the differences aren't drastic from a gameplay standpoint, but it's visually effective for showing the lifelessness of the present day.

Navigating the open world is sometimes a pain, though. You get a motorbike to drive around, and it controls like a flimsy RC car – you can glide in the air by deploying its wings, only to be met with a few invisible walls blocking you from entering parts of the map that are clearly accessible (you just have to enter from where you're supposed to). And certain falls that just don't seem like a problem result in automatic death. These seem like minor inconveniences, but they compound with several other ways that Code Vein 2 seems sloppy.

Some of the vistas are quite impressive on a macro level, but the closer you get to the details, the more you see how muddy everything looks. It's quite jarring, especially as nearly every cutscene would constantly load textures in and out every time the camera cuts to a different angle. And even playing on a PS5 Pro with performance priority mode on, the frame rate fluctuates wildly and oftentimes not even when the action gets hot.

There isn't much mystery or intrinsic reward to exploration, although once you understand what certain landmarks entail, you'll find critical upgrades to your healing item, materials for weapon upgrades, and persistent stat buffs for specific regions. You're not left completely empty-handed, just don't expect to stumble upon interesting dungeons, bosses, or rabbit holes that evoke your curiosity. I am glad that the open world is rather trim rather than being padded out with a bunch of checklist objectives, and important side quests are clearly delineated in the quest log.

Much like my sentiments about the story and open world, Code Vein 2's combat bounces around wildly in quality. It uses the design principles of the Souls-style games – experience points and currency that disappear upon death (and must be recovered), enemies respawning after hitting save points, and punishing combat that moves at a deliberate pace, among other typical mechanics. While I've experienced a bit of fatigue from games in this realm, I still lock in once I pick up what it's putting down and begin to understand its systems. There were times in Code Vein 2 where I felt close to the highs I got from others in the genre (although I wouldn't compare them to my favorites like Bloodborne or Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice).

A couple of bosses feature creative mechanics that are super tough but fair, conquerable by fully focusing on reading their attack patterns and seizing the rare opportunities you get to attack. But more often, you get bosses who are either pushovers or annoyingly frustrating in ways that bring out the worst in Code Vein 2's faults. Having played so many soulslikes at this point, I'm familiar with how the best games in the genre really nail the tough-but-fair design philosophy; Code Vein 2 is not one of them. Part of that comes from when it doesn't play by its own rules, like being hittable while recovering as your invincibility window is just a few frames shorter than when you're able to actually move again, leading to deaths that felt unfair. Or how a damage-over-time attack sometimes stops if you get hit even when the ability has been fully deployed. Or how the camera just doesn't know what to do when you're smothered and shoved into a corner by a boss that's 10 times your size. Or just hitboxes that don't really make sense for the space a character model occupies. There are ways around these things as I was eventually able to defeat every optional and main boss I encountered by adjusting my approach, but it's dejecting when a game betrays the tenets that've made its contemporaries great.

While I think some of its systems seem incomprehensible or convoluted upon first impression, it's much simpler than it presents itself to be. Instead of pumping points into stats, Blood Codes dictate your build and what you're capable of in combat. Each important character you meet offers an equippable Blood Code, and you can think of these as a way to respec whenever you want as they offer emphasis on certain stats that will then modify the effectiveness of the weapons and gear you use. You're not locked into a specific build, but the progression path of Blood Codes is tricky since they level up the more you use them – you get pigeon-holed in a way, but with some experimentation, I was quick to understand which ones worked best alongside my favorite weapon types. And using new Blood Codes for long enough will get you back to where you want to be in due time.

You have quite a few tools to work with as well. Through most of the journey, you can summon one of the story characters to join you, and it's effective for tougher battles since their attacks can draw aggro to give you room to breathe or go for a big hit. You can even fuse with them for some noticeable buffs, with the trade-off of being solo in combat. They also temporarily sacrifice themselves to revive you if you die, which is clutch for alleviating frustrating deaths. Alternatively, Ichor is the mana of Code Vein that lets you cast spells and use abilities that are necessary to diversifying your combat approach. The way Ichor feeds back to you when using your superweapon (called a Jail) forced me into cycling through all my capabilities over the course of harder fights rather than relying on a single tactic or cheese. Once I found a setup that worked for me, and some alternatives in case I needed to switch gears for different kinds of fights, I got into a comfortable groove with Code Vein 2's own brand of RPG mechanics and action combat.

The foundation for great combat is clearly here, I just don't think it offers enough interesting opportunities to make the most of its systems. The dungeons throughout the world get woefully repetitive and enemies can be a real cakewalk; you'll be punished if you're not careful, of course, but the imbalance is felt when you go for long stretches of mowing through the same fodder mindlessly. You'll also come across a lot of repeat bosses, which feels like being thrown something harder for the sake of it, and at a certain point, they too can be conquered with ease.

There are at least cases where harder versions of previous bosses show up in the critical sidequests, and a few of those do up the ante, remixing familiar attack patterns and throwing in new, demanding phases. To which I was internally saying, "Hell yeah, this is that good stuff." However, once I burned through the final dungeon, it was clear to me that it had played the hits a few too many times, reminding me of how the campaign just didn't have enough tricks up its sleeve to sustain itself in a consistently engaging way.

I come away from Code Vein 2 impressed with the timeline shifting side quests more than anything else, because those are more compelling than large swathes of the main story. As they explore the more interesting parts of the lore, they also take a few more risks and let characters shine a bit brighter. You're drawn a little closer to the struggle that led them to their fate, and they share a few bittersweet moments with your own character. Not all of it is super inventive, but I saw it breaking away from the predictable cadence at times, and I just wish Code Vein 2 did more of that.

Code Vein as a series has some good ideas I still want to see iterated upon, and this sequel touched on them in several ways. I've felt similarly about Scarlet Nexus and God Eater, both of which are clearly plays on established styles of games with an anime-inspired twist – fantastic ideas on paper with potential that still have a lot of room to grow. This isn't a genre that's sacred to From Software's catalogue, either – Lies of P and Nioh 2 come to mind as fantastic takes on the formula from other developers. I'd hoped Code Vein 2 would join the ranks of them, but it's missing some of the fundamentals necessary to do so.

I have reached the stage of my gaming life where I am deeply suspicious of anything that does not respect my time. These deals pass the test. This list is full of games that know exactly what they are, so let's just get to the good stuff quickly. End: preamble. Begin: mad savings.

Contents

• Retro
• Nintendo
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC
• PC Gear
• LEGO

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro news, I'm using the explosion from a red canister tumbling by in zero-G to light a 15-candle cake baked for Dead Space 2. Saying I was excited for this sequel is an understatement (I adored the first so much, I 1000 Gamerscored it on McStupid 'Impossible' difficulty). That said, I did have some reservations about EA's decision to up the action and unmute our hero, Isaac Clarke, mere engineer/dissector of Cronenbergian E.T.s.

Fortunately, those minor fears were superseded by a wealth of worthier white-knuckle moments in-game. Expanding the mayhem from the pokey Ishimura to "The Sprawl" delivered some great setpiece horror moments in addition to some desperate, on-the-back-boot firefights (which benefitted from streamlined gunplay and inventory handling). The part of DS2 that still lives rent-free in my head, though? That "stick a needle in your own pupil" mini-game. That failure animation still makes me wince.

Aussie birthdays for notable games.

- Disney's Aladdin (SNES) 1994. Redux

- Mass Effect 2 (PS3) 2011. Redux

- Dead Space 2 (PC,PS3,X360) 2011. Get

- Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS) 2012. eBay

Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch

• Pokemon Pokopia (-19%) A$89 A gentler Pokemon that will trade edge for vibes, but is still looking to bring that dangerous just one more catch momentum.
• Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (-23%) A$69 Retro Studios doing what it does best, trusting atmosphere, silence, and level design more than constant noise.
• Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance (-60%) A$40.30 The most confident version of SMT V, where every demon negotiation feels like a hostage situation you chose willingly.
• Dragon Ball FighterZ (-50%) A$44.90 Still absurdly pretty and still brutally honest, mash early and you will be taught a lesson immediately.
• Cult of the Lamb (-60%) A$14.90 Equal parts cute and unhinged, like Animal Crossing after a bad podcast recommendation.

Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.

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Exciting Bargains for Xbox

• Sonic Frontiers (-76%) A$24.40 Wild ideas, uneven execution, but enough genuine sparks that you start rooting for Sonic again.
• Like a Dragon: Ishin! (-67%) A$32.70 Historical drama one minute, karaoke adjacent nonsense the next, which is exactly why it works.
• Prince of Persia The Lost Crown (-51%) A$24 Tight platforming and clean combat that politely reminds you Ubisoft can still cook when it wants to.
• Hogwarts Legacy (-65%) A$39 The fantasy of being at Hogwarts finally delivered, homework optional, exploration encouraged.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (-55%) A$49 Slick, familiar, and ruthlessly efficient, like muscle memory in game form.

Xbox One

• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (-55%) A$31.60 A reminder that perfect controls never go out of fashion.
• Assassin's Creed Origins (-59%) A$40.70 The moment Assassin's Creed stopped flailing and found a new identity.
• Forza Horizon 5 (-50%) A$49.90 Driving perfection disguised as a road trip playlist.

Or just invest in an Xbox Card.

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Pure Scores for PlayStation

• Gran Turismo 7 (-40%) A$74.90 Obsessive car love rendered with the seriousness of a documentary.
• Street Fighter 6 (-44%) A$56.10 Shockingly welcoming, quietly deep, and still happy to humble you online.
• Star Wars Outlaws (-68%) A$34.90 The Star Wars fantasy that skips destiny and leans into being a professional mess.
• Final Fantasy XVI (-42%) A$49.20 Maximalist boss fights and earnest melodrama, completely unafraid of going too hard.
• NBA 2K26 (-59%) A$49 Still the basketball sim that ruins your standards for everything else.

PS4

• Dead Island 2 (-60%) A$27.90 Way better than its development story suggests, with gloriously dumb melee combat.
• Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX (-53%) A$33.10 An emotional rollercoaster powered entirely by friendship speeches and keyblades.
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (-68%) A$29 Slow, deliberate, and devastating in the way only Rockstar can manage.

Or purchase a PS Store Card.

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Purchase Cheap for PC

• Octopath Traveler (-60%) A$35.90 A gorgeous throwback that quietly asks you to care about eight different lives.
• Kingdom Come Deliverance: Royal Ed. (-81%) A$11.30 A medieval RPG that assumes you will fail first and learn later.
• Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (-50%) A$52.40 Nostalgia with ambition, refusing to play it safe at any point.
• Red Dead Redemption (-50%) A$34.90 A classic western finally freed from console constraints.
• Streets of Rage 4 (-65%) A$12.50 A revival that understands exactly what needed changing and what absolutely did not.

Or just get a Steam Wallet Card

Legit LEGO Deals

• Retro Gaming Console (-37%) A$19 A tiny dopamine hit for anyone who grew up blowing into cartridges.
• One Piece The Baratie (-27%) A$363.40 A commitment piece that basically demands shelf space and respect.
• Minecraft Chicken Farm (-27%) A$22 Small, silly, and instantly readable from across the room.
• One Piece The Going Merry (-25%) A$149 Pure Straw Hat nostalgia rendered in brick form.

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Don't miss this rare opportunity to score a well-regarded pair of noise canceling headphones for an outstanding price. For a limited time, Woot (owned by Amazon) is offering the certified refurbished Bose QuietComfort wireless noise canceling headphones for just $129.99. Amazon Prime members get free shipping, otherwise it will add on an extra $5.

This is one of the best deals I've seen for Bose headphones (better than any deal during last Black Friday, at least), especially since it's refurbished by Bose directly and comes with a 1-year manufacturer's warranty.

Bose QuietComfort Headphones for $129.99 (was $350)

Certified refurbished with 1-year Bose warranty

If you've collected any of the Harry Potter books illustrated by Jim Kay over the years, you've likely experienced the pain of an unfinished collection. The last book to get the illustrated treatment was Order of the Phoenix, which was released all the way back in 2022. Jim Kay stepped down from the project shortly after that book was released, and as someone who has slowly been buying up these books for my brother over the years, I was afraid that I'd never actually be able to finish building his collection.

Thankfully, just last year the publisher announced that Levi Pinfold would be taking up the project and finally finish up the illustrated series. According to new product listings, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: The Illustrated Edition is now officially set to release on October 6, 2026. A cover has yet to be revealed, but you can already get your preorder in at any of the major online bookstores.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: The Illustrated Edition

The Planet of the Apes franchise is one with a rich history and sci-fi lore all its own, which makes it a natural choice to be adapted into a tabletop role-playing game. That's exactly what Magnetic Press aims to do with The Role-Playing Game of the Planet of the Apes.

IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of The Role-Playing Game of the Planet of the Apes: Core Rulebook. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

The Role-Playing Game of the Planet of the Apes consists of three volumes. Along with the aforementioned Core Rulebook, there's also Planet of the Apes RPG: The Ansa Files Sourcebook and Planet of the Apes RPG: Into the Forbidden Zone. The former focuses on iconic movie characters like Caesar, Taylor, Zira, Hasslein, and Dr. Zaius. The latter features a guided campaign that includes two map posters, 64 reference cards, seven preprinted character sheets, a Game Master screen, punch-out map markers and tokens, 12 dice, and a 96-page campaign adventure module.

The creative team on The Role-Playing Game of the Planet of the Apes: Core Rulebook includes writers Andrew E.C. Gaska and E.L. Thomas and artists Runa I. Rosenberger, Chris Scalf, Shane Molina, and Chandra Free, while Bill Sienkiewicz provided the cover art.

“As you play you can become an intellectual Chimpanzee who seeks to better apekind through science and exploration. Choose an Orangutan statesape whose weapons are philosophical debate, political savvy, and the power of the Sacred Scrolls themselves. Perhaps a Gorilla soldier is more your style—honor-bound to protect Ape City and lead aggressive expansions into new territories. What else, if not an ape? Be a time-lost astronaut struggling to grasp a world gone insane. Become a mute tribal human forced to scavenge for resources as you are hunted by murderous gorillas on horseback. The rules even allow you to play mutant survivors who use the power of their minds to turn their enemies against each other,” said Magnetic Press Founder and Publisher Mike Kennedy in a statement.

Kennedy continued, “Your adventures in this world of madness will take you to the ruins of a world destroyed—see what remains of the Statue of Liberty, the ostentatious Ape City, the foreboding Forbidden Zone, and the mysterious mutant undercity. It is a world defined by the stark contrasts of brutality and civility. Are you ape enough to handle the truth about the world you live in or will you lose your mind to it?”

The Role-Playing Game of the Planet of the Apes: Core Rulebook is priced at $49.99 and will be released on February 3. You can preorder a copy on Amazon.

For more on the Apes franchise, find out how to watch the Planet of the Apes movies in order.

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

Andaseat, a popular gaming chair brand - is offering a limited time deal on one of its higher end chair. The Kaiser 3 Pro, specifically the Weiboo Limited Edition model, is on sale for $359.10 after you apply a 10% off coupon code "AndaIGN". This is a lot less expensive than the standard Kaiser 3 Pro, which retails for $490, plus it includes a bonus lumbar pillow. In fact, with this price it's even lower than the Kaiser 3 non-Pro. This chairs are stocked in US warehouses and are usually delivered within a week and come standard with a 5 year warranty.

Kaiser 3 Pro Gaming Chair for $359.10

Secretlab just launched preorders for its highly anticipated lineup of Pokémon gaming chairs and, not surprisingly, they're selling out quickly. These themed Titan Evo chairs - decked out in your choice of Gengar, Eevee, and Pikachu regalia - have all pretty much sold out of their first wave of preorders and have moved onto their second or third waves. I have no clue how many "waves" there will be for this initial batch, but if you want your chair to arrive within the first half of 2026, you should probably put in your preorder as soon as you can.

Preorder the New Secretlab Pokemon Gaming Chairs

Samsung's S84F TV features all of the advantages of OLED technology that make it the best TV for gaming minus the exorbitant price tag. For this week only, Best Buy is offering a 65" Samsung S84F 4K OLED Smart TV for just $899.99 with free delivery. This matches Best Buy's Black Friday deal and is overall an excellent price for a current generation OLED TV.

65" Samsung S84F 4K OLED Smart TV for $899.99

Prime Video announced Monday that they’re moving up the release dates for the final two episodes of Fallout: Season 2.

Episode 7 will now launch Tuesday, January 27th at 6pm PT and the season finale, Episode 8, will now begin streaming on Tuesday, Feb. 3rd at 6pm PT.

The final two episodes had originally been scheduled for Wednesday releases.

Good morning, Vault Dwellers! Due to strong participation and interest, we have amended the start times for the remaining Season Two presentations. Episode Seven will now begin Tuesday, Jan. 27 at 6 p.m. PT, and Episode Eight will now begin Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 6 p.m. PT. Your… pic.twitter.com/x1LhnwEsRL

— FALLOUT⚡️ (@falloutonprime) January 26, 2026

The first season of Fallout was a binge release where all the episodes dropped on the same day, whereas Season 2 has been a weekly rollout, “which makes viewership comparisons tricky.”

Fallout: Season 2 has thus far been receiving largely positive reviews from IGN’s Matt Purslow, although he was most critical of last week’s Episode 6 (“The Other Player”), which he nevertheless still gave a score of 7 (or “good” on the IGN review scale), writing:

“Fallout twists its big Season 1 finale by revealing that there’s an entirely different hand steering the apocalypse, finally bringing The Enclave into the picture. Back to back with last week’s Mr. House confrontation, this recent set of flashbacks are easily the best of the show so far.

But things are more uneven out in the wasteland: while Lucy’s morals and her relationship with Hank are tested in interesting, complicated ways, our first encounter with a super mutant is disappointing, as is Fallout’s refusal to make the Vault storylines feel a truly essential part of the entire stage.”

For more Fallout coverage, find out about the planned Fallout Shelter reality TV competition series and discover what it took to pull off those game-accurate Deathclaws this season.

It’s been a long winter for many of us, and after the wild weather across the US this weekend, we're probably ready for it to end. Unfortunately, we still aren’t even into February. To make this never-ending season a bit more tolerable, there are some awesome deals on everything from rechargeable handwarmers to video games and manga box sets. Check out all the top deals today below:

TL;DR: The Best Deals Today

The Legend of Zelda Complete Box Set is 47% Off

Get Tales of Graces f Remastered for PS5 for Only $16.30

Enjoy 60% Off the Razer BlackWidow V3 Hyperspeed Phantom 65% Mini Wireless Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

Save 16% on MTG: Lorwyn Eclipsed Play Booster Box

Get $20 Off a Waterpik Water Flosser

Score 42% Off Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO for Xbox Series X Hit Lowest Price Ever

OCOOPA Rechargeable Handwarmers for $10.99

3 Months of Audible Premium Plus for $0.99/mo

LEGO recently started dipping into more sports-themed sets with the Nike collaboration last year, but it looks like the company is taking it even further in 2026 ahead of the FIFA World Cup. The LEGO Soccer Ball is now available to preorder for a whopping $129.99 and will be released on March 1, 2026. This is the second set to be revealed as part of LEGO's World Cup collaboration, with the official trophy build going up for preorder back in December.

LEGO Editions Soccer Ball Up for Preorder

With the advent of PC gaming handhelds, the nearly limitless library of games on Steam and other PC clients are now at your fingertips anytime and anywhere. The best gaming handhelds have a hefty price tag and the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X - arguably the best Windows gaming handheld - retails for $1,000.

Fortunately, Best Buy is offering one easy way to get a solid discount on the Xbox Ally X. Best Buy is currently stocked with "Excellent Condition" open box units. Starting this week, the price of these units have dropped from $950 to $899.99. That makes it $100 cheaper than buying brand new. Mind you these are pre-owned, but they are Geek Squad verified and the best graded units are in like-new condition cosmetically and even include all or most of its original warranty.

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X for $899.99

Open Box - Excellent Condition

Funko Pops: they’re everywhere. And there’s at least one of the vinyl figures made of every single character in the history of pop culture. And while some find these facts annoying, there’s something to be said about a great-looking Funko Pop based on something you personally like. The latest Funkos to go up for preorder are based on Pokémon, and there are some bangers in here: an angry, electricity-summoning Pikachu, an angry, vine-summoning Venusaur, and more. Take a look and see if you want to preorder any from Amazon ahead of release.

Pokémon Funko Pops Up for Preorder

The two centerpieces of this new batch of Pokémon Funkos are the aforementioned Pikachu and Venusaur. Both are Funko Pop! Premium figures, meaning they’re 4.5 inches tall, rather than the 3.75 inch height of standard Funko Pop figures. They’re also in more dramatic stances, as if sculpted in mid-attack. They look pretty great, even for a seasoned commerce editor like me.

The rest of the upcoming Pokémon Funkos are standard Funko Pops. We have Ivysaur, Zoroark, Electabuzz, Magmar, and the adorable Goomy. Some people don’t like the Funko style, with its lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes, but I think it works perfectly with Pokemon. There’s just less stylization going on between the real thing (as depicted in the games) and the vinyl figures. They’re also made in eye-catching bright colors, so they look great wherever you decide to display them.

If Pokémon isn’t your speed, you can likely find another upcoming Funko Pop that appeals to you more. The company just keeps on pumping out these things, with everything from the Star Wars prequel trilogy and Disney Princesses to Star Trek and even Australian animals represented. Even if you just want to stick to Funkos based on video games, you can find BioShock and Silent Hill ones up for preorder at Amazon. There's even one based on the Wolverine meme. There’s something for everyone.

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

The Alienware Area-51 is Dell's highest-end gaming laptop and the only model that can be equipped with the super powerful GeForce RTX 5090 mobile GPU. Prices have gone way up for the new year, but fortunately there's still an easy way to get a good deal. Dell Outlet recently restocked its inventory of Alienware Area-51 16" gaming laptops, including RTX 5090 models. You can currently get one for as low as $3,564, which is about $500 cheaper than the least expensive brand new 5090 config (with worse specs). These are "Like New" models with 1 year warranty.

Highguard is out now following its high-profile showing at last month’s The Game Awards — and its developers have said a full year of post-launch content is already “deep in development.”

The free-to-play PvP raid shooter is live on PC, Xbox Series X and S, and PlayStation 5, with full crossplay. Development studio Wildlight is made up of former Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare staff, and promises “a new competitive structure that blends siege warfare and territory control in an evolving match where power levels escalate until only one base is left standing.”

Here’s how Highguard works, according to Wildlight:

Players step into the boots of Wardens, arcane gunslingers sent to fight for control of a mythical continent where magic, gunfire, and siege warfare collide:

• Teams of three select a unique base and fortify their defenses, then ride out across vast, uncharted lands to loot, harvest resources, and upgrade their gear while clashing with a rival Warden crew.
• As magical storms roll in, teams battle over the Shieldbreaker, a powerful sword required to breach enemy defenses. Carrying the Shieldbreaker to the opposing base triggers a full raid — forcing teams to attack, defend, adapt, and escalate in power as the match continues.
• Most of the time, victory doesn’t come with a single raid. When that happens, the enemy base shields repair, the siege tower dissipates, and the fight escalates as loot, gear, and weapons all upgrade in the field, and a new Shieldbreaker forms in a different location in the world. From there, the fight for control continues — until only one base is left standing.

Each Warden is built specifically for Highguard’s PvP Raid Mode. Wardens combine guns, raid tools, and arcane abilities, each designed to support raiding, destruction, defense, infiltration, resource acquisition, and open-world combat.

Mounts allow teams to move quickly across massive maps, fight on the move, and transport the Shieldbreaker. Magical abilities supplement combat, but Highguard is still a gun game at its core. Gunplay remains central, with abilities and tools adding tactical depth.

At launch, the game features a wide array of content: five large-scale maps, six distinct bases, eight Wardens, three mount types, ten weapons, three raid tools, eleven weapon and raid-tool mods, and a wide range of lootable items. More content will be added via seasonal updates.

Like lots of folks, I didn’t have much to say after Highguard’s underwhelming reveal at The Game Awards last month. Yet another hero shooter that I couldn’t pick out of a lineup from the dozens of other options that are available? Not exactly riveting stuff. But as I’ve learned over a couple decades of gaming, you never really know what you’re in for until you’ve got the controller in your hands – and after doing just that, it turns out Highguard has plenty going for it. I spent about five hours learning the ropes and playing matches at a pre-release hands-on event last week, and what I’ve seen so far had polished gunplay, a compelling roster of characters, and a trailblazing game mode that serves as its killer feature.Of course, that limited play session means it’s still hard to tell if it will have staying power beyond the initial novelty, but with a promising roadmap for the next year already charted out, I’m surprised to say that I like Highguard’s chances.

This competitive shooter has components from lots of FPS games, like playable characters with special abilities that are very much drawn from hero shooters and a simplified loot system that’s reminiscent of battle royale games, but it sets itself apart with a unique multiplayer gametype: Raid Mode. In this mode, two opposing teams of three players battle it out to invade and utterly destroy the enemy base in incredibly chaotic sieges. Inspired by the developers’ experience attacking player bases in survival games like Rust, Highguard looks to condense that high-stakes attack/defend showdown into minutes-long matches, rather than serving as the climax to hours of preparation in a game with less structured PvP. After several hours running matches, my first impression is that this formula both stands out as a fresh shooter experience and is a lot of fun to play.

Raids are smartly broken into a few phases: a short defensive phase where players pick their starting weapon loadout and reinforce their own base, then an exploration and looting phase where teams leave their base in search of weapons, armor, and other upgrades to use in battle. But the real fun begins during the Intercept phase when a sword called the Shieldbreaker spawns on the map for one team to claim, making conflict between the two teams inevitable and showcasing Highguard’s stellar gunplay (more on that later). Whichever team is able to claim the Shieldbreaker and carry it to the enemy’s base then begins the final phase, called the Raid phase, where the invading team temporarily tears down the shield protecting the other team’s base and assaults it in an attempt to destroy defensive structures and plant bombs to destroy generators – by far the most exciting and high stakes part of each match. Depending on the outcome of the raid phase, this process can repeat itself up to four times during each match, making games last anywhere from eight to 30 minutes, depending on how heated the competition is.

I really dig the structured, phased approach used in this game mode, as it offers a very clear objective every step of the way, where I never felt like I had a bunch of things competing for my attention. I could very easily see a version of these matches where I’m having to choose between adding defenses to my base, looting better gear, or trying to invade an enemy base, which sounds like way too much to juggle at once. Having my crew always be on the same page about how we were supposed to be spending our time was great, and helped build suspense as we inched ever closer to the absolute mayhem that is the Raid phase, regardless of which side of that confrontation we ended up on.

That said, I also saw areas that could likely use some tweaking, like how the loot system limits you to lower-tier items before the first raid but increases the rarity that can be found in chests or bought from the vendor during each subsequent round. While it’s a nice feeling to get more powerful for each new raid in a match, it felt a bit underwhelming to know that practically all the loot on the map had been upgraded, making both teams roughly equally geared at all times. If both teams are increasing their power at the same rate consistently, it sorta makes it feel less impactful – like level scaling in an open world RPG. It’d be nice if there was a way for players to gain access to better loot by performing better in raids or by making better use of their time during the exploration phase where they’re searching chests. As of now, it’s just too easy to find all the loot you need, and being capped on the rarity of loot available during each round means you’re almost never in a position where you’ve got a shiny toy your opponents aren’t ready for.

It’s no big surprise that developer Wildlight Entertainment has built a shooter that immediately feels great, as this new studio is made up primarily of people who worked on Titanfall and Apex Legends. Whether I was sniping enemies at a distance or getting in close for a cheeky submachine gun or shotgun kill, combat was crisp and immediately reminded me of my days sweating it out in Apex Legends lobbies (especially the extremely recognizable feel of the sliding). The selection of weapons is quite small, with just one of each type available, but the upside of that slim arsenal is that each feels incredibly well tuned – and when you start to find higher rarities, you’ll see little modifiers and buffs randomly rolled on each that slightly tweak things like reload speed, magazine size, or stability. Those become more interesting at higher levels, where you might find things like a fully automatic version of the normally slow-firing hand cannon, which can provide that game changing power I was looking for. I didn’t have enough time to really dig into how many variations there are during the preview event, but so far everything was a blast to bring into battle.

Similar to the small but mighty number of weapons, Highguard is launching with eight playable characters, called Wardens, who will feel quite familiar to anyone who has spent time in a hero shooter like Overwatch or Apex Legends. Each character fulfills a specific magic-based fantasy, like Atticus, the flying, lightning bolt-chucking DPS machine, or Kai, an ice magic user who can turn into a massive frost oni and is unmatched in his ability to defend an area. Following in the tradition of most hero shooters, they all have two abilities on a cooldown, plus an ultimate that can be used a few times per match. These might be helpful little tricks, like one character’s ability to temporarily make walls intangible so your team can pass through them discretely, or powerful combat abilities, like another character who can lob balls of lava over an area, making the whole zone impassible. There’s nothing particularly original to this formula, but Highguard does a really good job at making each character someone I’m eager to master. Seeing someone form a giant ice wall and then magically push that wall right at my team as we tried to cross a narrow bridge convinced me to immediately try that character out in the next match.

The highlight of Highguard, and the thing that really sets what I saw of it apart from all the other shooters out there, is the raid mechanics, where one team brings down the full force of their squad’s destructive capabilities on a heavily fortified base, while the other uses their superior positioning to bring their advance to a halt. There aren’t many things cooler than a castle siege, and Highguard channels the battle of Helm’s Deep as the meat and potatoes of its one and only game mode. At the beginning of each match, your team votes on which fortress to call their own, each of which comes with its own set of strengths and weaknesses. For example, one volcanic base called Hellmouth is a classic castle surrounded by a lava moat, with dangerous choke points for invaders to cross and long lines of sight for defenders to shoot from. The downside is that if they manage to get through these narrow entryways, there’s not a lot stopping them from blasting through your inner walls and planting bombs on your all-important generators. Or you could instead choose to call Smuggler’s Den your home; a multi-leveled base that lacks narrow chokepoints, but has layers of defensive walls to get through that can be tough for invaders to navigate before getting ambushed by a defending squad.

As the attacking team during a raid, you’ll make use of some interesting raid tools in addition to your standard guns and abilities. The zipline allows you to create shortcuts and new pathways when assaulting a base, while the rocket launcher and blast hammer have a more straightforward solution to sieging by allowing you to blast through reinforced walls, killing enemy players in the process. Fighting your way through the enemy’s ranks to plant and defend a bomb deep within their territory is exactly as thrilling and tense as it sounds, but watching the enemy panic and despair as a giant explosion rocks their base and their defensive walls crumble around them makes it well worth the effort.

Holding the line against the enemy while on the defensive end of a raid can be incredibly stressful, but also extremely rewarding, like one time where I reinforced a series of walls to box the invaders into a choke zone, then used a well-placed ice wall to cut their team in half, then ambushed them before they could reorient themselves. I do wish there were more opportunities to set traps and go full Home Alone with your base, though – as of now, the only way to make your base harder to assault is by making a select number of walls harder to destroy. There are a few tricks, like intentionally breaking through floors and walls to create new lines of sight when the enemy steps into your domain, but aside from that it really comes down to your ability to outplay the invaders on your own turf, using the static advantages and disadvantages of whichever base your team ends up with. Still, managing to stave off an enemy assault and kick them out on their ass is extremely satisfying.

When you’re not defending or attacking a base, you’ll spend your time out in the much larger areas of the map where you’ll find yourself greatly in need of a faster way to get around, and that’s where mounts come in. While they don’t have a role in raids, as they aren’t permitted within the bounds of a base, they’re absolutely essential out in the world, where you can instantly mount or dismount them at any time to close long distances quickly, as well as leap to normally out of reach areas. Once you start fighting against the enemy team for the Shieldbreaker, you’ll find them extremely important in the capture the flag style of that phase, where victory often comes down to being able to outmaneuver the enemy. Riding your mount isn’t without risks though, as it turns you into a huge target, and if your mount gets killed, you will lose access to it for a while which makes you a sitting duck for your enemies and leaves you vulnerable for a small period of time as you fall to the ground and pick yourself back up.

One thing that feels like it’s missing from Highguard at the moment are PvE opponents, which there is a complete lack of even during the phase where you’re just exploring the map in search of gear. I’d assume there would be baddies trying to stop you or bosses to hunt down to claim rarer loot along the way, but instead you’ll find the map complete devoid of life aside from the enemy team, who more often than not I didn’t bump into until the next phase where we ran to the same location in search of the Shieldbreaker. The lack of NPC enemies is mitigated somewhat by supply drops that spawn during the gear up phase, giving you a reason to engage in PvP earlier in each round, but I still feel like it would be nice to have more to do before the big conflict at the end.

Wildlight has clearly learned some other lessons from the various lumps in the road that Apex Legends faced, particularly when it comes to the live-service model. After taking a peek at Highguard’s roadmap for the next year, which includes new content every single month, I’m pretty impressed by how much is supposedly coming down the pipe. That roadmap includes five new playable characters, as well as several new bases, maps, and weapons, all within the first year, with seasonal content coming every two months. I’m sure at least some of this won’t go according to plan, as even the best intentioned roadmaps can often get bumped off course, but it’s at least great to see Wildlight has come prepared for long-term support.

I still have many more hours of matches to play with Highguard now that it’s out in the wild, but my first impressions are much better than the reveal trailer left me with. Once I’ve had a chance to spend time with with every class and figured out the ins-and-outs of every base (as well as see how the live servers hold up), I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say and a score to go with it. For now, it’s back to the lobbies with me!

Lenovo's best deals use coupon codes that aren't advertised on its website. Case in point, you can get a Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 gaming laptop, equipped with a 15" OLED display and RTX 5070 GPU, for just $1,259 after you apply coupon code "GAMINGDEALS" (apply this on the shopping cart page). That's a $737 discount, making it one of the least expensive RTX 5070 laptops I've seen for the new year and just a good deal overall considering the build quality of Lenovo's laptops.

Lenovo Legion 5 RTX 5070 Gaming Laptop for $1,259

With Riftbound's second set, Spiritforged on the horizon, the meta is about to experience a huge shake-up. We've seen this in practice already, since the set has been out in China since December 12.

They recently had their first Regional Qualifier in Fuzhou, and the new meta is slowly shaping up into a Draven-filled wasteland, but it's far from solved.

There are still plenty of cards from the previous set, Origins, to keep an eye on as things evolve that will still be big players when the new cards come out. Spiritforged releases February 13.

Top 10 Riftbound Origins Cards to Get Before Spiritforged Is Out

10. Nocturne, Horrifying

Capcom has responded to ongoing fan speculation about Resident Evil Requiem being an open world game with a definitive-sounding response.

Fan discussion and leaks around the game have long pointed to Requiem featuring more open exploration than in previous Resident Evil titles. This suggestion was fuelled further earlier this month by the release of a fresh gameplay snippet that included a look at a bustling city street, complete with pedestrians and traffic.

Now, however, Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi has stepped in to set the record straight, having seen the discussion online. In short, anyone hoping for an open world Resident Evil should reset their expectations.

"[The development team] did just want to make clear one point," Nakanishi told Game Informer. "They've seen some speculation of whether there's any open world elements in the game, and they just want to set the record straight that this isn't an open world game.

"The main concept behind this game is combining the very different gameplay of Grace and Leon into a cohesive package, and having those two gameplays represent the Resident Evil series, and I think when you play the game, you realize that, or you will find as well that the development team picked the best approach to do this."

In other words, what you should expect from this game is for Grace and Leon's portions to feel like how they've already been pitched, with Grace's focus on horror and Leon's focused on action, as an extension of the Resident Evil franchise's existing games.

In IGN's just-published Resident Evil Requiem final preview, we described Grace's gameplay sections as familiar to anyone who has played Resident Evil 2 or 7. Leon's gameplay sections, meanwhile, stirred up our muscle memory of playing Resident Evil 4. Neither of those games were open world, so it sounds like we shouldn't expect Requiem to be open world either.

"This year is the 30th anniversary of the Resident Evil series, so it feels like no coincidence that 2026’s Resident Evil Requiem is combining the best ideas of the saga into what appears to be a fantastically constructed tribute to everything that makes the series so great," IGN wrote. "Do you like tense survival horror? It’s here. Wanna go all guns blazing with intense action and a quip-obsessed hero? You get that too."

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

What toy collector doesn't love a good blind box? Half the fun is not knowing exactly what you're getting. That's the thinking behind Funko's latest series of Funko Pop! figurines, which gives the blind box treatment to iconic horror movie villains like Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Annabelle, and The Exorcist's Regan.

Funko revealed first details about the Mystery Pop! line at the London Toy Fair today. The first Mystery Pop! line is a collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery and focuses on horror villains from various WB films. While all of these characters have been tackled in Funko Pop! form before, this series features a brand-new, two-tone paint deco.

Check out the Mystery Pop! figurines in the slideshow gallery below:

The six characters included in the Mystery Pop! line are:

• Pennywise
• Regan
• La Llorona
• Annabelle
• Pennywise Classic
• The Nun

Again, fans won't know which figure they're getting until they open the outer packaging. Each figure also comes with an accompanying Pop! card, with a 1:72 chance of receiving a chase foil collector's card.

Funko will reveal more details about pricing and release date for the Mystery Pop! line in the months to come.

For more on the Funko Pop! line, check out the newest Stranger Things line and see where you can preorder the upcoming Tomb Raider figures.

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

The Raiju V3 Pro is one of those rare PlayStation-layout controllers that also works brilliantly on PC, augmented with modern tech like drift-resistant TMR joysticks, Hall Effect triggers, six extra buttons and polling rates up to 2000Hz. After a month with the Raiju V3 Pro, completing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the latest MechWarrior 5: Clans DLC and a long-running F1 23 campaign, I'm happy to call it: this is the best symmetric controller I've ever tested.

Design and Features

The Raiju V3 Pro's matte black plastic shell outwardly resembles the DualSense, but conceals a multitude of features – some intended for competitive gamers and plenty of others that benefit everyone. The most obvious example of the latter are the Raiju's advanced thumbsticks: unlike the similarly premium Sony DualSense Edge, the Raiju uses TMR (tunneling magnetoresistance) sensors. This tech has just gone mainstream in the last couple of years, and has both longevity (anti-drift) and precision (no dead zone) benefits over traditional potentiometer-based alternatives, making them a natural choice for a $220 gamepad that you'll want to use for years to get your money's worth.

The stick caps are also swappable, with a taller concave cap and a same-size convex cap awaiting you in the included carry case. That same case also includes a minute screwdriver for installing or removing the four rear buttons, which come attached by default and are labeled M3 to M6. These back paddles, plus two additional clicky M1 and M2 keys hiding out near the shoulder buttons, can all be remapped using the Synapse software on PC or the Razer Controller iOS/Android app. There's also an additional button below the PlayStation button to swap between profiles quickly without software.

The regular face buttons are also interesting, with what Razer calls 'mecha-tactile' switches - essentially clicky, short-threw variants of a traditional membrane button under a PBT cap. These give each button and d-pad direction a pleasing amount of tactile and audible feedback when pressed, while the short travel distance is nicely calibrated to feel immediate without making accidental presses too easy.

The same fine-tuning is evident on the Hall Effect triggers, which are also more durable than their potentiometer-based forebears. A trigger lock on each side allows you to swap the full travel distance for a short and snappy digital input with a mouse click – ideal for timing-dependent games like Elden Ring or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The d-pad is also customizable, with four-way and eight-way modes, plus four SOCD settings that let you choose what happens when two opposing directions are held at the same time, whether that's prioritising the first or last input, cancelling the inputs or recognising both simultaneously.

Moving deeper down, into the guts of the controller, there's a high-end microcontroller that allows for a maximum polling rate of 2000Hz when wired to a PC. For a wireless PC connection to the included 2.4GHz USB dongle, the maximum is 500Hz, while on PlayStation 5, it's 250Hz – a platform limitation, Razer tells me. Higher polling rates cut down input latency, though genres like fighting games and shooters will feel the difference most readily.

Gaming and Performance

With its comfortable grips, TMR sticks and familiar layout, adapting to the Raiju V3 Pro was the work of a moment, but I really came to appreciate it while playing through Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The Raiju V3 Pro carried me through the end game and its increasingly challenging optional content, proving more comfortable for timing parries than the keyboard-and-mouse setup I was using before. Being able to lock the triggers helped for executing Gradient Parries or quickly setting off at a run, and even aiming for moving weak points using the left thumbstick was easier than I expected.

F1 23 was a sterner test of the analogue triggers and thumb sticks, which the Raiju V3 passed with precision, and I appreciated having extra buttons on-hand for changing brake bias or differential settings without taking my eyes off the next corner. MechWarrior 5: Clans is another game that has more functionality than can easily be mapped to a default controller, so having a conveniently-placed rear button to quickly enable a MASC boost or change weapon control groups often came in useful. I found aiming a challenge here versus my usual mouse-and-keyboard, but setting the deadzone to 3% in Synapse and opting for a taller stick cap made things easier.

While most of my testing took place on PC, I also dug out the PlayStation 5 to get some impressions there. The Raiju V3 Pro can't wake the console from sleep, nor can its software be run on the PlayStation directly – that luxury is only afforded to Sony's own DualSense Edge. Similarly, there's no counterpart to the DualSense's adaptive triggers, which means games that heavily rely on haptic feedback, like Astro's Playroom, fall flat. In every other sense though, the Raiju V3 Pro felt as hooked-up and comfortable on PlayStation as it did on PC, whether I was flying through intersections in Grand Theft Auto 5 or gunning down adversaries in Battlefield 6's Redsec battle royale mode.

Battery life for the Raiju V3 Pro is rated at 36 hours, which felt accurate – getting the platinum in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 only took two charges, and the rest of my testing was done with only a single further top-up. One silver lining of the highest polling rates being locked behind wired play means that you don't need to choose between longevity and performance, as you do on high-end gaming mice that perform at their best at 8000Hz – but tend to run out of juice within a day or two of sustained play.

Will is deputy tech editor for IGN, specialising in PC hardware, sim racing and display tech. He has been publishing about games and technology since 2001 (age 12). Will was formerly Deputy Editor at Digital Foundry. He is currently playing MechWarrior 5: Clans.