There’s an old refrain among comedians that no joke survives its retelling, and you don’t need to look any further than the shoddy track record of comedy movie sequels to see the truth in that. Fortunately, funny video games tend to fare much better, from Borderlands 2 to Portal 2, and so you would hope that a weird, deeply inappropriate game about drugs and talking guns like High On Life 2 might enjoy the same kind of evolution. In some ways it does just that, with many of its existing bright spots shining even more brightly – the lovable weapons that serve as your companions are more amusing than ever, and movement outside of combat is greatly improved by radical new skateboarding mechanics. But other areas don’t hold up as well, like the significantly less polished story, jokes that don’t land quite as often, and performance issues that are even more shaky than the first game. I still enjoyed my time with High On Life 2, and truly relish the opportunity to return to a world this goofy any chance I get, but this is definitely closer to Zoolander 2 than 22 Jump Street.

High On Life 2 picks up right where our foul-mouthed cast of characters left off… sort of. After a dizzyingly fast intro recaps the events of the first game and gets you back into the action, you find yourself on the wrong side of the law and ready to begin the familiar process of hunting down a list of baddies to bring down an evil organization. Instead of a drug cartel, this time the villain comes in the form of a pharmaceutical company that I felt no guilt killing off members of over the course of the roughly 10-hour campaign, now playing the role of rogue assassin as I ply my trade of death illegally – a nice twist to the otherwise nearly identical setup of the original.

Sadly, the story built around this string of over-the-top murder missions is a bit sloppy, with a couple big reveals that don’t really land and a surprising number of monologues to explain motives and technologies. There’s a shocking amount of “tell, don’t show” for a game that is typically very intentionally about not sweating the details and following the rule of cool. It sorta reminds me of a D&D campaign that’s gone on way too long and starts to feel like the DM is twisting himself in knots trying to get to that cool payoff, missing the mark too often in the process. The good news is that the plot at least moves along at a pretty fast clip with a steady stream of silly gags to keep you guessing, even when the story gets messy.

Speaking of silly gags, like its predecessor, this is an adventure that relies a whole lot on the success of its goofiness and whimsy, and there are plenty of laugh out loud moments to be had. The high points are extremely memorable, like when you fight an incredibly annoying boss who transports himself inside your menus and starts messing with your game settings (appropriately voiced by the legendary Richard Kind), or when one mission concludes with a murder mystery that has you gathering clues and interrogating witnesses instead of shooting guns. Sometimes the lowbrow humor also just hits, like a side quest where someone wanted me to help them find a bridge troll and…y’know, I think I’ll just leave it at that. High On Life 2 is at its best when it’s trying weird and creative things, and when it manages to pull that off, there’s really nothing quite like it.

That talking Aussie blade cuts both ways though, as jokes fall flat a tad too often in this sequel, and it’s pretty tough to watch when they do. Granted, it’s always harder to pull off gags in a world that has had a lot of its juice squeezed out already – we know about the species of sentient guns, for example, and have already had most of the funny moments we’re going to get out of that surreal experience – but some of the jokes are quite literal repeats of things that happened in the first game. If I was having the most fun when High On Life 2 was trying new stuff, I was having the least when it was retreading old bits or just throwing a couple curse words onto the end of a sentence in lieu of actual punchlines.

The stars of the show in the original were the gun companions you met and befriended along the way, and that certainly remains true in this follow-up. Meeting a down on his luck pistol named Travis (who has a charmingly dorky voice from Ken Marino) and reuniting him with his estranged wife is both a satisfying arc and a clever way to introduce the first dual-wielded weapon when his spouse joins the party (I do wish they’d make out less though). All four of the new gun companions are awesome and have helpful abilities in both combat and puzzle-solving, like Sheath, whose harpoon “trick hole” attack can impale people during fights and create ziplines while platforming. Plus, most of the OG Gatlians make a return as well, including my favorite partner in crime (literally this time), Gus, the shotgun who looks like a frog and has the unmistakable voice of J.B. Smoove. Hell yeah.

Unfortunately, a wider variety of guns hasn’t done much to make the sloppy and overly simplistic gunplay any better – in fact it even feels a touch worse. Some of the new weapons are quite crisp compared to the wonky slugthrowers of yore, especially Sheath’s burst-fire that reminds me of the battle rifle from Halo. But with so many enemies and projectiles flying around, claustrophobic rooms with odd geometry that enemies get caught behind and within, and weapon accuracy being a bit all over the place, combat leans into chaos more than anything else. Most of the time that’s fine because you’re playing a game that’s all about over-the-top nonsense, but when you occasionally die due to unfair circumstances or when a fight drags on for a bit too long, it can kill the mood. To its credit, the enemy variety is mostly decent, with a stream of ugly new creatures to blast apart introduced at a steady clip, from flying robotic freaks to spooky, scary skeletons – but if you were looking for a polished FPS with gunfights that feel at all coherent, look elsewhere.

The biggest and most interesting change with High On Life 2 is mobility, as you’re given a trusty skateboard in the opening minutes that serves as your travel companion throughout the adventure. Instead of fighting on foot, most encounters highly encourage or outright require you to be grinding on rails, riding on the sides of walls, and soaring through the air on your skateboard. When it comes to traveling from place-to-place or navigating your way through platforming sections, this is pretty awesome, and a shocking amount of your time will be spent rolling around like you’re playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. I didn’t really expect the skateboard to play such a big role, but honestly I can’t imagine going back to the relative sluggishness of running around on foot.

In combat, the skateboard’s influence isn’t so positive. You’re seemingly expected to never stop moving while fighting hordes of aliens, which makes the already chaotic encounters even more noisy and hard to read. Many fights take place in open areas where you’re surrounded by more bad guys than you could possibly keep track of, and staying put is a death sentence with so little cover, so you’ll have to take shots at passersby while leaping from various parts of the environment to keep yourself going as fast as you can. Combine that juggling act with slippery weapons, enemies that teleport around, and weird foes that are often hard to even understand what you’re looking at, and oh boy, the result is just an absolute diarrhea of pixels.

Those pixels seem to be pushing High On Life 2 to its limits as well, because I saw frequent framerate dips (some that caused my screen to freeze for several seconds before getting it together) and progress-hindering bugs that required me to reload the last checkpoint. Developer Squanch Games did include “various performance issues across the game” on a list of known problems with the review build that will apparently be addressed by a patch, but it didn’t specify the extent to which those would be resolved – and in my experience, a day-one patch rarely makes all of a game’s performance problems magically disappear when they are this extensive. Nothing I saw struck me as game breaking beyond a simple reset, but it was consistent and egregious enough to make me worried for the stuff people will find when this is out in the wild.

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All three models of the Steam Deck are out of stock and have been out of stock for at least 24 hours, according to a post from Wario64. With prices for gaming PCs and components skyrocketing, it's possible that this could mean a longer-term shortage.

It's no secret that PC hardware is in a weird place right now. With memory prices going through the roof, it was only a matter of time before handheld gaming PCs started getting hit by shortages and increased prices. And that makes it odd timing for all three models of the Steam Deck to go out of stock in the US.

Because the Steam Deck has been around for nearly five years, it's possible that this is a sign that Valve is getting ready to wind down production on the most affordable handheld gaming PC. Either that, or raise the prices in response to increased RAM prices. But it's probably not that serious.

There is plenty of reason to be hopeful this is just a short-term regional shortage. Because while a post on Tom's Hardware spotted that the shortage extends to Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and Korea, the system is still available in the UK and the EU at the time of writing.

With the handheld still being available in Europe, it's likely this is just a short-term regional shortage. After all, anyone that wants to get into PC gaming right now probably finds the low price of the Steam Deck attractive, given the skyrocketing costs on pretty much every other piece of hardware. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that the demand for Valve's handheld is higher than normal.

It's likely that the demand will remain high, leading up to the Steam Machine. But recently, Valve put out a blog post saying that it's pushed back its mini gaming PC due to the memory shortages. Either way, I've reached out to Valve for comment, and I'll update this article if and when the company responds. Until then, let's just hope that this is just a temporary blip and not the end of the Steam Deck.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

The popular dark romance book Lights Out by Navessa Allen is in development for a TV adaptation at Netflix, as reported by Deadline. Allen also shared the news on her Instagram, referencing rumors that fans wanted a movie – and surprised them with the news that Lights Out is being adapted for a series instead.

The book will be adapted by Hannah Schneider, who will serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer. Schneider is known for producing on the dark comedy Why Women Kill and the crime drama The Waterfront. Peter Chernin and Tracey Cook will executive produce as well, from Chernin Entertainment.

Lights Out is the first book in Allen's Into Darkness series, published in February 2024. Allen sited fans on TikTok as creating the surge in popularity, as well as getting Lights Out on the New York Times Bestseller list, which has now been on the list for 52 weeks. The sequel, Caught Up, released in June 2025 and landed immediately at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. The next book, Game On, is set to release on March 31.

Lights Out follows two main characters in POV chapters – Aly, a trauma nurse who has been obsessing over a masked, tattooed man who posts thirst traps on social media, and Josh, said man who works in cybersecurity and can hack his way into Aly's house to give her the fantasy she desires.

The book is known for being a dark stalker story with 27 trigger warnings – but it also has a rom-com style to keep things light at times. It's unknown if Netflix will also adapt the other books in the series.

Lights Out isn't the first dark romance to be adapted to screen by a streaming service, with Netflix also scooping up the dark fantasy romance book Quicksilver by Callie Hart and Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing being adapted into a TV series at Amazon.

Jessie Wade is Associate Director of Editorial Programming at IGN. You can find her playing cozy games on her Switch or watching the latest fantasy and drama shows, as well as getting lost in way too many fantasy romance books.

I’ve used hundreds of controllers, and while the recent string of ‘pro controllers’ with extra buttons and fancy RGB lighting have been interesting, none of them have really justified the extra price tag for me. But the Asus ROG Raikiri II is one of the few pro controllers that feels just as good as a regular Xbox Series X or PS5 gamepad – and without the added weight of Microsoft’s Elite controllers.

Because rather than iterating on some of the more bizarre design decisions of its predecessor, the Raikiri II basically takes the comfortable controller part of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X and just, well, makes it into a full-blown controller. That makes it a natural companion for the handheld gaming PC for anyone that’s using it to play on a TV or gaming monitor, but even without the Ally, the Raikiri II is just a damn fine gamepad.

Design and Features

At first glance, the Asus ROG Raikiri II looks like pretty much any other third-party Xbox controller. However, look closer, and there are a few more face buttons than would otherwise be there. Just like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X that came out last year, the Raikiri II has extra menu buttons, with one on the top left, next to the Xbox button, meant to bring up the Asus Armoury Crate software, and the library button on the other side that is meant to bring up the library tab of the Xbox full screen experience.

Here’s the catch, though: these buttons straight up don’t do anything on a standard gaming PC. Asus even has a piece of software that you can download to give the Raikiri II the same functionality as the controller on the Xbox Ally X, but in my testing it only works on, well, the Xbox Ally X. That’s great for anyone plugging their Xbox Ally X into their TV to play from the couch – you’re going to get the same functionality as in handheld mode. But if you’re buying this controller for your PC, you’re going to have two essentially useless buttons on the controller. But, hey, at least they don’t actually do anything when you accidentally hit them.

Aesthetically, the Asus ROG Raikiri II borrows a lot from Asus’ latest handheld, too. It has the same black colorway, and you can even look up close and it has the same tiny “ROG Xbox” lettering on the front of the peripheral.

And of course, being an import from the Republic of Gamers, this controller has plenty of RGB lighting. There are three zones of lighting, one in the middle, in the shape of the ROG logo, and then a stripe on either side of the controller. By default, the lighting has the standard blinking rainbow effect, but you can customize it using Asus’ Gear Link web portal. Asus isn’t the first company to move hardware management to a web app, but it is much better than having some heavy software always running in the background on your PC – at least if you have a stable internet connection.

The software does allow you to customize button assignments and even the response curve of your thumbsticks. However, the paddles on the back of the controller can only be assigned to one of the existing controller buttons. That is useful, especially if you’re playing a game that requires you to press buttons while you’re moving or something, but I would have liked to see some kind of macro support here. Just let me assign button combinations to the paddles – it would, for instance, make playing Final Fantasy XIV on a controller a bit easier.

Much like other ‘pro’ controllers like the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro, the Raikiri II does allow you to swap out the thumbsticks. There is an extra set of thumbsticks included in the box, but they’re very long.

The controller also comes with a charging stand, which wirelessly charges the controller via some POGO pins on the back. The stand fits nice and snug in the included carrying case with a hole in the back for the USB-C cable, much like the Xbox Elite Controller, but Asus also includes little feet that let you set it up wherever you want.

I’d actually recommend taking the stand out of the carrying case and setting it up somewhere near your gaming setup. The charging stand has a little USB port in the front of it, which you can use to connect the 2.4GHz dongle. Then, you can just place it somewhere out in the open, and you won’t have to worry about the signal from the dongle being interrupted by anything.

Gaming and Performance

The Asus ROG Raikiri II is one of the few controllers out there right now that are using Tunneling Magnetoresistance, or TMR sensors. Just like Hall Effect, these sensors use magnets to more accurately track your inputs, they’re just a bit more power efficient. While it would have been enough to have these TMR sensors just in the analog sticks, the Raikiri II also has them in the triggers, which means both should stay accurate for years.

I obviously didn’t test this controller for years, just a couple of weeks, but even in that short time, I’ve been impressed by just how snappy this controller is. The analog sticks have this springiness to them that feels incredible – giving just enough resistance to feel like I’m moving something, without feeling like I’m fighting against them.

The triggers likewise feel incredibly accurate, especially when trying to drive around in Cyberpunk 2077, where the half-presses help me control the throttle of my car. You can also change the actuation point of the triggers with little switches on the back, but there are just two settings – all the way down and half-way. To this day, having a high-end controller stop the trigger press half-way down just feels weird, but it’s likely a boon for professional FPS players.

The face buttons, on the other hand, use micro switches, rather than TMR sensors, and they still feel incredibly responsive. However, the buttons are incredibly clicky, and they can get quite loud if you’re really mashing them. In the two weeks or so I’ve been using the controller, though, it hasn’t missed a click, so at least it’s reliable. And the micro switches will probably keep the buttons quick and responsive for quite a while.

It all comes together to a controller that just feels good to use. I’ll admit that I’m no esports pro, but even spending time in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, I’ve noticed a difference just in how smooth the camera moves when I’m using the right analog stick. And unlike something like the Xbox Elite controller, it’s not too heavy, so it doesn’t start to weigh me down after a long gaming session.

And you’re going to be able to get some long gaming sessions out of this controller, too. Asus claims that the ROG Raikiri II will last up to 50 hours on a single charge. I’m not going to sit there for 50 hours straight to see if the controller meets those claims, but I have only run out of battery once in two weeks of very heavy usage.

The battery could potentially last even longer, too, but its sleep behavior is strange. After sitting idle for a while, the lighting will turn off, but the controller will stay on. There have been a couple of times where, out of instinct, I picked the controller up and went to hit the Xbox button to turn it back on, only for the Game Bar to pop up. Annoying, but that’s something I got used to after a few days.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

There are quite a few modern first-person shooters taking notes from the bullet hell arcade games from yesteryear. Games like BPM or Deadzone Rogue throw walls of projectiles and fodder enemies at you, and demand you thread yourself through them like a gun-toting needle to return fire without getting obliterated. Luna Abyss joins these ranks but certainly stirs the formula up a bit. When we took a look at the first level of gloomy sci-fi shooter a couple of years ago, we saw just enough to get intrigued by the potential quivering in the crimson glow between all of its shadows. Now that we’ve gotten our hands on a bit more, being introduced to a new weapon, movement mechanics, and a killer boss fight, I can safely say that the optimism was justified.

Warm-Up Round

I was dropped right back into Sorrow’s Canyon, a prison colony with the most accurate name in the universe. The grimy metal halls, scaffoldings, and makeshift walkways made out of piping mixed with occasional stone floors and weird organic growths all give a sort of Chronicles of Riddick, grim dark gothic energy. Giger-esque, without all of the phallic stuff. It certainly doesn't matter what anyone was actually doing in a place like this before our hero, Fawkes, wakes up in an open coffin, finds a nifty gun, and starts shooting them all, because most of the things that move around down here that aren’t you are mindless husks who want to destroy you.

The almost sardonically chummy tone in which the sudden guiding voice in Fawkes’ ear, Aylin, takes with her charge does help add a bit of texture to what comes off as a pretty standard “everything here sucks and is bad” aesthetic. Most people, likely including her, would rather not be trapped here, but she is dangerously close to sounding like she’s having something that resembles fun, and that does make me want to know what this world is hiding, at the very least. It sits in contrast with the only other non-enemy character you meet in the demo, The Waif, who gives guidance in solemn riddles like a depressed Tom Bombadil.

Gliding from room to room, strafing gracefully through enemy fire and returning with blasts of your own is a breezy process, thanks to the aim function that auto locks to the enemy closest to your crosshairs, letting you focus more on the moving than the aiming. I liked this at first, taking the mental load off of trying to line up shots while gliding from cover to cover helps you focus on defense. But as the encounters progressed, the challenge didn’t really follow suit. Skull-faced drones chased me around the room while floating eyeballs fired from floating perches, but things didn’t get anywhere near too hairy to deal with in the canyon.

The Water Begins to Simmer

I found a second weapon, a shotgun that specialized in shutting down gleaming blue shields, and some nuance and complexity started to reveal itself. Some enemies now were cloaked in these barriers, which had to be shattered by the shotgun before doing damage to them directly. Now I was sliding from cover to cover, switching back and forth between weapons to make certain enemies vulnerable while trying not to overstay my welcome in any one spot for too long. That auto lock feature began to make more sense, but still, I found getting to the end of the Canyon to be a pretty tame experience. I know this was the extent of the original demo, and I can see walking away from this feeling tepid about what the future could hold for this goth-person shooter.

Then I played the new additional mission from further into the game and yeah, Luna Abyss might be cooking with gas.

Full Boil

The Scourge Crater is a snowy, craggy mountain face with floating platforms and a heaping helping of sunlight and sky. There are a lot of floating bits of rock and far away platforms that put Fawkes’ new double jump and air dash to great use. Theres no real indication to what has happened to Fawkes between the Canyon and now to give them these powers, likw the ability to execute low health enemies to regain health, but I don’t necessarily require exposition every time theres an opportunity to do something badass.

It doesn't take long to find a new weapon, a long ranged rifle that does big damage, but overheats in just a handful of shots (unlike your standard gun or shotgun that you can squeak many more rounds out of before havin g to cool it down). New enemies come with it, like some floating bundles of death that explode when touched, or a larger, scarier eyeball creature with its one big single-shot laser. This new weapon comes with a new color of shield to dispatch, too.

When we get off to the races, moving from little island to little island, staying fast on the trigger for the new enemies that pop up at a brisk pace, and staying on top of what the necessary weapon to take them down with was the faster-paced slobberknocker I was looking for. It’s not quite Doom-levels of expressive combat – every enemy there has a best weapon to kill them with but not necessarily a “correct” weapon, leaving room to flex however you see fit. But the limited offensive options are balanced with the sometimes overwhelming need for defensive finesse. At its best, every plan has a window of time where it will be most effective before you have to regroup and try something else, like dipping behind a pillar of rock to wait out a big beam, knowing that a handful of bomb drones are well on their way to clear you out of cover with a bang.

Traveling through this stage between combat introduced some environmental movement tricks as well, like boost gates that launch you when you dash through them, or weird flovating balloons that you can possess, jumping inside them to get a view from their perspective before erupting out of them to continue the climb. There's a cool, if not a little garish, moment a little over midway through the wintry crater where you can actually possess a Goliath, some sort of giant minigun wielding monstrosity that can mow down a small battalion of enemies with ease. Though this level kept things pretty simple, I like the potential of Luna Abyss using possession in conjunction with air dashing and double jumps for some good platforming puzzles – or even in combat scenarios.

Eye of the Beholder

The rowdiest and most difficult combat in the entire demo was against the level-ending boss, a big eyeball monster in the style of a Dungeons and Dragons Beholder by way of Dark City. It stayed in the center, relentlessly firing walls of bullets (and occasionally lasers) making it tough to find the space to take advantage of how exposed it was. Phases where it is invulnerable and you need to deal with how to fix that change the pace up well, at first its juvst breaking the connection between power points in the walls that are blasting it with an impenetrable shield, but eventually it’s surviving waves of enemies and long stanzas of incoming fire, etc. At its busiest, it almost felt a bit like Housemarque’s excellent Returnal, but in a smaller arena. I can only hope Luna Abyss’s combat can crescendo like this for all of its boss fights.

With some patience for its soft-touch opening minutes, I found myself very on board with the Luna Abyss’s brand of crowded screen shoot-em up. It’s thick with moody vibes, which can be more than just a good backdrop for the action. And don’t let that auto targeting aim get you complacent, because when the more blustery bad guys turn up the heat, you won’t have aiming as an excuse as to why surviving the onslaught takes you multiple respawns. If the gunplay and platforming can evolve further, as it did between these two demo levels, then I can’t wait to stare into the Abyss when it opens wide sometime this year.

Following an unexpected delay in January, the first trailer for Battlefield 6 Season 2 is here, revealing a first look at its three-month roadmap, a limited-time nightfall event, and gameplay for two new maps.

EA and Battlefield Studios today offered a detailed breakdown and trailer for the second seasonal content update, along with a gameplay trailer for its troubled multiplayer FPS. Season 2 spans across three phases – Extreme Measures (phase one), Nightfall (phase two), and Hunter/Prey (phase three) – with the first set to launch next week on its previously announced release date of February 17, 2026.

The forest-covered mountains of the first new map, Contaminated, are the backdrop for most of the Battlefield 6 Season 2 trailer, providing a first look at new vehicles, such as the AH-6 Little Bird, and a new psychoactive smoke mechanic. First gameplay for the location, which supports all combat sizes, shows tanks and helicopters chasing infantry into at least partially destructible tunnels. Players can enjoy all it has to offer across standard multiplayer game mode as well as the new VL-7 Strike limited-time mode, which sees players battling (and hallucinating) through the smoke in its own dedicated playlist.

Extreme Measures kicks things off with Contaminated, the Little Bird, VL-7 smoke, new weapons, and more next week. Come March 17, phase two, Nightfall, will then finally add one of the community’s most-asked-for features… kind of.

Along with its new close-quarters infantry map, Hagental Base, Nightfall brings night gameplay to Battlefield 6. Players have wanted to turn out the lights since the sixth mainline installment launched for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S last October. Unfortunately, it seems lights-out action will be restricted only to the limited-time Nightfall event, which itself is only available on Hagental Base. REDSEC players can also try out the night map via the limited-time Gauntlet mode, with the Nightfall phase also adding the Defense Testing Complex 3 point of interest to Fort Lyndon, as well as the dirt bike, CZ3A1 submachine gun, and VZ.61 sidearm across both experiences.

Finally, phase three, Hunter / Prey, launches April 14. It does not add a new map, and instead brings the Operation Augur limited-time mode, Portal updates, a new bonus path for the battle pass, the LTV vehicle, and the Ripper 14” machete.

Here comes the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man you never knew you needed. Amazon Prime just dropped the first trailer for its upcoming series Spider-Noir, which features Nicolas Cage as a 1930s private eye with spidey senses — and as you can expect, it looks like one hell of a good time.

The sneak peek trailer, below, features Cage as Ben Reilly, seasoned, down on his luck private investigator in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life, following a deeply personal tragedy, as the city’s one and only superhero. And yes, there are two versions of the trailer, reflecting the fact that the show itself will be made available in both black and white or "true-hue color" versions.

Here's the noir version first:

The trailer features Reilly opening up about how he came to have his powers to the character of Cat Hardy, played by Li Jun Li. We see Reilly struggle with the change before emerging as a Spider-Man with a makeshift mask dressed in the classic noir garb: a trench coat paired with a hat and sunglasses. He beats up bad guys and gets drunk and acts pretty kooky yet mysterious along the way.

All in all, it’s a subtle balance that only Cage could achieve, which makes the show’s tagline all the more fitting: “With no power comes no responsibility.”

Now, here's that color version:

Cage stars in the series alongside Jun Li, Lamorne Morris, Jack Huston, and Brendan Gleeson. Lukas Haas is also set for a recurring role on the show, which was created and will be showrun by Oren Uziel, writer of The Cloverfield Paradox. Uziel’s directorial debut was a neo-noir crime film called Shimmer Lake, so it makes sense he’d be tapped to tackle another noir story if he’s such a fan of the genre.

Prime is set to release Spider-Noir on streaming on May 27.

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

"What struck me most was his restlessness," said Geoff Keighley yesterday in front of an audience on the DICE Summit 2026 keynote stage. "Nothing was ever quite good enough. That relentless hunger for excellence drove him to believe he could always make a better game, a better company, be a better man. Since his passing, I've thought a lot about what made Vince unique, what's his superpower. Of course he knew how to build great teams, make great games, but inside massive companies built on process and politics, Vince was able to stay stubbornly human. He was direct, impatient with nonsense, and fiercely loyal to the people doing the work."

Keighley was speaking of Vince Zampella, the co-creator of the Call of Duty franchise, co-founder of Infinity Ward, and co-founder of Respawn Entertainment, who tragically died this past December in a car accident at the age of 55.

Keighley opened a segment of the DICE Summit keynote talks dedicated to honoring Zampella's legacy and memory, during which a number of other industry luminaries both took the stage as well as appeared in video messages discussing the impact he had on them personally, and the industry writ large.

"Technically, we never worked together, but he's had a huge effect on me," said Randy Pitchford, Gearbox CEO, in a video message. "Not just me as a game maker, but as a character."

"That is the thing from Vince's entire career," said Respawn game director Peter Hirschmann, also in a video clip. "No matter who was around him, he found a way to get the best out of them."

"[The team] always valued that Vince had their best interest," said Daniel Suarez, head of production at Respawn and similarly appearing in a video. "They knew he was going to go into the arena and fight for what was going to be best for the game. And I think because you knew he had your back, you knew he was going to be the one who was chanting for this to be the best game it could be if the team had the ability to do their best work, people loved him for it."

Xbox head Phil Spencer was the second speaker to take the stage in person, talking about his friendly rivalry with Zampella over the years, and what he learned from their friendship. "Vince's legacy of leading without ego, of leading a team, is something that I took a lot away from, just watching him in how he led his teams to achieve such greatness."

More individuals appeared in more video messages following Spencer's speech. "I didn't know what a servant leader was until I met Vince, and to be honest with you I don't know if Vince knew what a servant leader was. But he was the best servant leader I ever knew," said Stig Asmussen, former Respawn game director.

Hideo Kojima made a video appearance as well: "I think that without him, the modern game industry might not exist," he said.

"He just really wanted to make great games for players with a team of developers he liked working with. I don't think it was really about how do I change the game industry or how do I make a legendary game," said Rob Pardo, former CCO of Blizzard. "I think he's just simpler than that."

"Watching him lead, having him lead us for so long, we've become him, with a sense of discipline, drive, ambition, execution, and a standard for excellence with the players in mind first," said Byron Beede, SVP on Battlefield. "Thanks to Vince, that's in our DNA now."

The next video speaker was Bethesda director Todd Howard. "Vince was cool," he said. "He was, I think, and a lot of people who knew him all would agree, he was probably the least full of s*** person I knew. And sometimes, he didn't mind pointing out when someone else was. Vince was cool! So cool, my oldest son has only ever asked to meet or get his picture with one game developer. Vince! Twice! And Vince never would be changed. He was still that guy when we first met, except he had a new T-shirt once a year. That was a change for him. Vince was cool. He knew what was cool about a game. And he knew instinctively what a great game was. He knew how to take a game from average, to good, to great, and he knew what needed to be done to get there. He knew how hard it would be, the effort, the personal sacrifice it would take. And he wasn't afraid of doing it. It was never about him. It was always about the game. Most of all, about the team making it."

After more video messages, the final in-person speaker was Laura Miele, president of EA Entertainment. "We've talked a lot today about Vince as a titan of gaming who put out highly successful franchises he helped create," she said. "And all of that is true. But what he would say, often, is, I just want to be remembered for being a great dad. He truly lived that. There were many meetings over the years he didn't attend, because he needed to be somewhere else. At a game, at a school event, or just simply being there for his kids when they needed him This instinct to show up didn't stop with his family. He really showed up for people. He mentored, he supported, he believed in others often before they believed in themselves. He created cultures where people felt trusted and protected and challenged to be their best. Vince Zamella changed how games were made, but more importantly, he changed how people were treated while making them."

A final round of video messages concluded the presentation, including a reappearance by Kojima in which he concluded, "I hope people will look to Vince as a model and aim high."

DICE attendees have been asked to look for set-ups of blank Magic: The Gathering cards around the conference, on which they are being encouraged to write memories, tributes, and other thoughts about Zampella before depositing them in available boxes. The cards will be delivered to his family after the conference.

Zampella was well-known industry-wide, having co-created Call of Duty at the studio he co-founded, Infinity Ward. After departing Infinity Ward, he joined a number of his former team members in founding Respawn Entertainment, which went on to produce number hits including Titanfall (IGN review), Titanfall 2 (IGN review), Apex Legends (IGN review), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (IGN review), and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (IGN review). His most recent gaming contribution was as director of Battlefield 6.

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

Blogroll image credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Norwegian electronics retailer Komplett has promised it will give away free copies of GTA 6 to anyone giving birth on the game's launch day, exactly nine months ahead of its arrival.

The cheeky store chain has even encouraged fans to, er, get busy with their efforts to ensure this happens. Images on social media and reddit show posters for the campaign have been spotted, while the retailer's Instagram has confirmed that this offer really isn't just a joke.

"GTA 6 dropping in 9 months ;)" declares advertising posters seen in the Norwegian capital of Oslo this week, designed to promote the country's major electronics chain. The posters also feature an image of a messy bed, strewn pillows, and a scattering of rose petals. It's not subtle.

You can get GTA 6 for free if you give birth to a baby on the game's release date in Norway. pic.twitter.com/d4fANWhAnr

— YabaLeftOnline (@yabaleftonline) February 12, 2026

On Instagram, Komplett describes the idea of having a baby on GTA 6 launch day as a "life hack" — with the obvious implication being that you could time your parental leave perfectly for when Rockstar's highly-anticipated blockbuster drops.

(Of note, Norwegian parental leave offers a total of 49 weeks at 100% salary, or a total 61 weeks at 80% salary, shared between two people.)

"This is actually not nonsense," Komplett wrote in a caption for an accompanying Instagram video. "GTA 6 is released in 9 months (🤞) and if you have a baby on the launch date, we'll give you the game for free."

Of course, the campaign is primarily designed to make headlines and get Komplett some attention — and it's certainly doing that, even if the responses on social media are full of people pointing out that having a baby is quite a time-consuming thing all on its own.

"Lol, you're not getting time to play gta 6 if you have a screaming baby at home," wrote Low_Possibility_8893 as part of a lengthy thread on reddit.

"That baby is gonna cost alooooot more than 70 dollars..." suggested sopedound, hinting that actually this didn't represent much of a financial saving.

"Haven't slept in 6 days, nipples are like bullets and I've been hit in the face with explosive diarrhea," concluded the appropriately-named PloppyTheSpaceship, suggesting what life with a newborn was actually like. "I don't even know what my name is right now let alone how to turn on a game, but I'm sure it's good."

Komplett's offer comes in the wake of GTA 6 publisher Take-Two giving its strongest indication yet that the long-awaited blockbuster will make its current November 19, 2026 launch date, after several previous delays. Last week, as part of its latest financial results, Take-Two said marketing for what will surely be the biggest entertainment launch of all time kicks off this summer. Take-Two also denied rumors that GTA 6 will be a digital-only release upon its initial launch.

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

X-Men actress Halle Berry is adamant she won't be reprising her role as Storm in Avengers: Doomsday, but has left the door open to a return in future — potentially in the subsequent Avengers: Secret Wars.

Marvel fans have been eager to see Berry return in her role from the 2000s X-Men films alongside other classic characters who are back for Doomsday — but the actress has now made a point of doubling down that she's "not there."

“Storm’s not there,” Berry told Variety this week at the premiere of her new film Crime 101 in Los Angeles. “I promise you. You all think I’m being coy and I’m being silly, but I’m not there.”

Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time this month Berry has spoken about the hope that she’ll appear in Doomsday. Last week, she had a chat with ScreenRant during which she opened up more about Storm and the film. “Storm is a very special character to me. I've been so blessed when I gotten to play her," she explained.

“[Those movies] have so much to say that I thought has been really important, especially for my children as they've grown. So they're beloved,” she added, before dropping what fans hope could be a major hint. “And while I'm sad I won't be in Doomsday this round, there are other rounds. And I would do that in a heartbeat."

There is, of course, still the possibility that Berry is being exceptionally good at staying tight-lipped about her involvement and that her Storm will end up gracing our screens along with the rest of Doomsday’s massive and exciting cast. But considering how long she’s been effusive about not joining the fray, the chances are pretty low at this point. Time to reset our hopes for Secret Wars, then?

Berry first revealed to fans she would not be appearing in Avengers: Doomsday back in April 2025, when Black Girl Nerds told the actress on the red carpet at CinemaCon that fans were waiting for her to show up in the next major Avengers entry. Her response? “Keep waiting. Not gonna be there.”

Avengers: Doomsday is set to arrive in theaters on December 18… without Berry, as far as we know.

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

Presidents Day is Monday, February 16, but Best Buy isn’t waiting to pull the trigger on its annual store-wide mega sale. The sale is live now, and runs through February 16. You can check out the whole sale here, or read on to see our picks for the best deals available right now. Pretty much every item category Best Buy sells has gotten the discount treatment, from TVs and video games to PC gaming and Apple products.

Let’s take a look.

Top Deals in Best Buy’s Presidents Day Sale

You can scroll through the catalog above to get a quick look at the items we suggest. If you're intereseted in partuclar product categories, keep on reading.

4K TVs

If your TV could use an upgrade, there are plenty to choose from in the sale. A big variety of sizes and price points have gotten discounts, from manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Insignia, and more.

Gaming Computers

As Sony and Microsoft continue to release their games on PC, PC gaming is looking more and more like the platform of the future. While gaming PC parts are getting more expensive thanks to the demands of AI centers, some terrific pre-built machines and gaming laptops can still be found at discount. If I were in the market, I’d buy sooner than later, because it doesn’t look like prices are going to stop going up anytime soon. For more powerful gaming rigs, check out the Alienware Presidents Day sale.

Video Games

A smattering of new console games are on sale right now, including Ubisoft PS5 games like Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - From the Ashes Edition. A bunch of accessories are also on sale, including everything from controllers and headsets to Switch 2 cases and screen protectors.

Apple Products

Famously, Apple almost never offers discounts on its products. Thankfully, those products are also available at other retailers that have no such qualms over dropping prices. Best Buy’s Presidents Day sale has discounts on every major category of Apple’s hardware, including MacBooks, iPads, Apple Watches, and even AirTags. Garb what you want before prices go back up.

For more general discounts, check out Amazon's Presidents Day sale. If you're in the market for a new gaming chair, Secretlab's sale is well worth a look as well.

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.

Magic: The Gathering is kicking off its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set in a few weeks, and while we’ve seen plenty of deals on upcoming sets, Collector Boosters have been like gold dust… until now.

Amazon is offering a box of 12 Collector boosters for $449.99, but you’ll need to act swifter than one of the titular turtles to grab one.

At some point, somebody at Capcom must have looked at Monster Hunter and said, out loud, “You know, the monsters in this bad boy are actually pretty cute. And there’s these talking cats, and they’re pretty cute, too. We’re kinda leaving money on the table by not making this a turn-based monster-capturing RPG.” And the executives did grin, and the sky opened, and the money rained down. And they saw that that somebody was right, and they said, “We gotta make more of these.”

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is the third one of these, in fact, if the number didn’t give it away, so that somebody’s idea had some staying power, but it’s this writer’s first. Not my first Monster Hunter; like most folks in the West, mine was Monster Hunter World. But it’s the first one of these babies. And after spending several hours with it, I’m pretty impressed. There’s a lot to get used to, but I enjoyed my time in this world and with these characters, and I’m itching to head back and do some monster huntin’.

Twisted Reflection starts with a pretty fantastic character creator that does a lot to introduce you to its gorgeous art style. I made a woman with long red hair and mismatched eyes, and not knowing that I was making a princess, kept Leia as her default name. Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection 1, Will 0.

Our story begins with a woman discovering a monster egg preserved in crystal. Naturally, I thought this was Leia. Extremely loud incorrect buzzer. It was actually her mamma, who is the queen of Azuria. She hacks the egg out of the crystal and brings it home, where it hatches into the Monster Hunter poster child, a Rathalos. The Rathalos is extinct in Azuria, so everyone’s pretty stoked about this, especially little Leia, who says she hears two sounds coming from the egg. Turns out she’s right, and a second Rathalos has hit the throne room. As Leia, enamored, reaches out for her new friends, a vaguely vizier-shaped dude informs the king that while one monster is all fine and dandy, two monsters, especially two Skyscale Rathalos (Rathaloses? Rathalosi?) is Bad News, Chief ™ and only one may be allowed to live. Cut to black. Surely this will not irrevocably traumatize my girl Leia for the rest of her days and become a crucial part of her backstory. Surely.

Several years later, Leia, now a young woman, is following in her mother’s footsteps and studying a monster preserved in egg quartz when her buddy Simon appears and summons her back to the castle. Once there, we learn that Leia is the Captain of the Rangers and that she’s studying something called the Encroachment. Proper nouns are generally bad, and Leia has really made progress on the Encroachment, but that’s maybe not the most pressing concern. Relations with the neighboring kingdom of Vermeil are fraying, and her father warns Leia that the Rangers might see combat. Leia protests, as that’s not what Rangers exist for (they’re here for the monsters), but she rides Azuria’s only Rathalos (uh oh), and they may need her. My girl is also informed that she will attend talks with Vermeilian envoys, and that her conspicuously absent mother was Vermeilian. In a later conversation with Simon, Leia reveals that her mother is known as “The Turncoat Queen.” The plot thickens.

But Leia can’t spend too much time thinking about that. She’s the captain of the Rangers, and she has a job to do. That means training new recruits, and you’re got a fresh one in Thea, who is stoked to be here and learn from Azuria’s only Rathalos rider and Rudy, my Felyne. This is where my time with Twisted Reflection really takes off. In training Thea, Twisted Reflection is training me.

I learn how to ride my Rathalos (your monsters are called Monsties), but things really kick into gear once we enter combat for the first time. Like I said at the jump, combat is turn-based. Attacks come in three types; Power, Technical, and Speed. Power beats Technical and Technical beats Speed, which loops around and beats Power. Normally, these attacks work, well… normally. But if a monster is targeting you and you attack it, you’ll enter a Head-to-Head where the rock, paper, scissors of it all will play out. And if and your Monstie are attacking the same foe and a Head-to-head happens, you’ll get a Double Attack. Monsters have their own attack preferences. Velociprey, for instance, will prioritize Speed, so you gotta go Technical if you want to win. If you’re in the market for something a little fancier, you’ve also got abilities, though these take Stamina, so you can’t just spam them.

Of course, you’ve also got your Monstie. You don’t control them directly so much as give them standing commands that they carry out when it's their turn, whether that means going for a regular attack or an ability, some of which carry elemental properties like fire, lightning, or water. Since Leia’s the main character, she’s also got additional Monsties she can switch to if the one she needs isn’t right for what you’re up against. Thea and her Monstie, Kaguchi, are also in my party, but I don’t control them. They do their own thing, for better and worse.

Because of this, combat goes quickly, and like your more traditional Monster Hunters, there’s strategy when it comes to which part of the monster you’re fighting that you target. Break the right body part, and you can weaken an attack or open it up to more damage. Stagger a monster, and you can unleash a Synchro Attack where everyone in your party lays on the hurt. The biggest spectacle, though, comes in the form of kinship attacks. Pull off the right moves in combat, and you’ll build kinship with your Monstie. Max out that meter, and you can mount your Monstie and unleash a beautifully animated, cinematic smackdown. I dig it.

Once Thea and I are broken in, we get to explore a bit. We pick up plants and bugs and other items on the ground, get into some fights, and I give Ratha a break so I can use my Tobi-Kadachi to scale a lookout point and meet an Explorer Felyne who gifts me a map. We continue on, learning how to use melee and breath attacks to interact with the environment and start fights early for an advantage, or roar and get monsters out of the way. We also manage to rescue a Poogie, an adorable, pig-like creature who somehow got up somewhere my Rathalos needed wings to reach, and even get Thea a taste of the Encroachment, which seems to be what causes those egg quartzes we saw earlier.

Yeah, things are looking pretty good for the home team, until we come across a nest and make a Paolumu mad. Once we whack him enough, he transforms, altering his attacks and weaknesses. Since he’s inflated an air pouch, it’s bow time. It’s a fun fight that puts everything I’ve learned so far to the test, but it’s nothing compared to what comes next.

Here, we run into our first feral monster, which has been altered by the Encroachment. Crystals sprout from its back, and it’s extremely powerful. Hitting the crystals provokes a backlash attack, so we have to be smart. It tests our smarts and our patience, but eventually he wears down, and we destroy the crystals. Then it’s game on. Eventually, he falls, and we take the eggs we’ve gathered home and add some new Monsties to our ranks.

Before we start feeling too good about ourselves, Leia is called into that meeting with the Vermeilian envoys. Things are going badly – Vermeil is getting hit hard by the Encroachment, and they’re convinced salvation lies in the Sacrosanctum, which would mean breaching an ancient pact. They’ve come to ask Azuria for help getting there – and war seems inevitable until Vermeil’s Princess Eleanor offers herself as a hostage until Azuria relents. Unwilling to treat her like a prisoner, Leia offers to show her around, and she ends up palling around with the Rangers.

If bringing Thea along was about learning the game, Eleanor’s arrival is really where things open up. Before setting out, we acquire new skills and forge new armor and weapons. It’s a good thing, too, because while we’re showing Eleanor around, we run into a new feral monster. Eleanor, her Anjanath (which I’m pretty jealous of, honestly), my Monstie cohort, and I take it down, but not before we’re knocked down a few times ourselves. Losing all your HP isn’t fatal. You can get back up a limited number of times, but it lets us know that the challenge is ramping up.

Soon after, we set up a camp, and Eleanor shows off her cooking skills. This is a Monster Hunter game, so eating food naturally boosts your stats and the cooking cutscene is immaculately rendered. I go for some experience-boosting bread, because who doesn’t love bread? Leia and Eleanor also bond over their shared realization that their countries don’t really understand each other. The situation in Vermeil is worse than Leia realized, and Azuria isn’t at all like Eleanor thought. Neither is as bad as they’ve been led to believe.

Our goal now is to investigate invasive monsters and track them to their dens so we can save eggs from the species they’re crowding out. From here, the world is essentially our oyster. We have to operate at night to track these invasive species, but otherwise we can kinda do what we want, whether that means fighting monsters in the field, or completing side quests where we reunite a Felyne with his lost master or help another Felyne get rid of some bug monsters.

Eventually, we find an invasive Yian Garuga. We steer clear long enough to analyze its tracks and get a feel for how it works, but eventually, the fight is on. The Yan Garuga is incredibly strong; in a stand-up fight, we probably wouldn’t stand a chance, and we’ve got to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off a few times before it’s over. But our goal isn’t to kill it, it’s to make it retreat to its lair. That means figuring out its weakness – in this case, its legs – and piling on the hurt fast enough that it stumbles when trying to hit us with a powerful charge attack and retreats. Once it does, we track it to its lair and steal a Rathian egg, but we’re not looking to make it a Monstie. By releasing it into the wild, we can restore the natural ecosystem. That means new and better monsters for us to catch. Restoring a habitat has benefits for us, too. You might get monsters with elemental skills unique to that habitat, or unlock mutations that imbue monsters with elements outside of the norm. It’s sad to see our Rathian go, but it’s for the greater good.

Our task complete, the Rangers return to the castle. The king’s still focused on what might happen if the Rangers have to go into battle, and we learn why Leia’s so opposed to it. Remember that other Rathalos that came out of that egg? She saved it as it was about to be executed and fled. Everyone assumes she headed to her native Vermeil. The whole Traitor Queen thing makes a lot more sense now, and it explains why Leia’s so fond of her own Rathalos – he got her through her mom leaving – and why she’s so devoted to the Rangers. She wants to find out what happened to her mom.

As if inspired by this revelation, Twisted Reflection decides to open up Side Stories – escapades you can head on with other Rangers to get to know them better. I decide to pal around with Eleanor, who, impressed with Azuria’s beauty and abundance, tasks us with tracking down some items that are native to Vermeil: a Sucklebug, Witherweed, and a Molted Gumshell. After getting the lay of the land from a nearby lookout tower – and a few side excursions where we grabbed some eggs from monster dens – we headed out. The first couple were easy enough. Hitting a Paolumu with a breath attack snags us our Gumshell, and we find Witherweed in a shady area.

The real bugaboo turns out to be the Sucklebug, which likes to hide behind rocks. I searched for it behind rocks for a while before realizing that “behind the rock” means “break the rock, Will, you doofus.” Once we’ve got all the ingredients – yes, ingredients – Eleanor turns them into Vermeil Dumplings. Leia and Rudy are grossed out, but it’s a nice moment that helps them understand just how dire things are in Vermeil – and how lucky Azuria is by comparison. Plus, it unlocks a new recipe for our camps, and Eleanor is excited to share her local cuisine with everyone else.

My time with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection ends shortly thereafter. I could have kept going – we had access to a generous amount of the game – but my next story mission saw me getting absolutely rocked by a pair of Feral Velocidomes. I clearly needed to get some new Monsties with different elements and upgrade equipment to continue, but it felt like a natural end. I’d spent half a dozen hours with Twisted Reflection by that point, and gotten a feel for what it was shaping up to be: a gorgeous RPG that combines the traditional elements of Monster Hunter with a turn-based RPG and a surprisingly compelling cast and narrative that invited me to befriend and train monsters, not just hunt them. Don’t get me wrong, those Velicidomes are going down the next time I fire Twisted Reflection up, but for now, I have a feel for this world, these characters, and the game they inhabit. And it was more than enough to convince me to turn this snack into a meal. I might just stick with the bread, though, you know? Vermilian Dumplings don’t really seem like my bag.

Magic: The Gathering has plenty of Universes Beyond on its contentious 2026 roadmap, but Secrets of Strixhaven is a fan-favorite plane we can’t wait to get back to.

The set, which will feature a whopping five Commander decks, is getting a tie-in novel and sees us slinging spells with the students again, but if you’re looking to build an instant collection, you can grab a Play Booster Box at Amazon at a discount already - despite the fact it doesn’t launch until late April.

Avengers: Doomsday directors Joe and Anthony Russo have further discussed their claim that the film's four recent trailers were not actually trailers — and now described them as "narrative information."

Disney released a quartet of Doomsday trailers through subsequent weeks in December and January, premiering first in theaters with Avatar: Fire and Ash before eventually also appearing online. Successive instalments saw fans reintroduced to Chris Evans' character Steve Rogers, catch up with a newly-solemn Thor, get a glimpse at an aged selection of X-Men, and finally see The Thing turn up in Wakanda.

Discussing the trailers, the Russo brothers previously said that they did not actually see them as teasers or trailers, but instead something else. And now, speaking to Empire magazine, the Russos have elaborated further on what exactly they had meant.

"Each one of these trailers is narrative information," Joe Russo said, "and it's all part of larger story. So I would argue that Doomsday has already started for you."

Is the suggestion here that these sequences were filmed just for the trailers? Or that they're more filmic because they are more akin to clips than action-packed highlight reels? His next answer seems to lean more to the latter.

"Look, the movie is very complex," Joe Russo continued. "We thought one of the best ways to celebrate what the movie is was to give characters their own space and highlight some moments."

As part of the same interview, the Russo brothers doubled down on their previous statement that the newly-returned Chris Evans would play a "central role" in Doomsday, despite his character's apparent retirement in Avengers: Endgame and a whole host of new heroes being introduced in the years since.

"We have a special affinity with the character," Anthony Russo said of Steve Rogers, referencing the directors' past work on Captain America films. "We can't see this narrative without his central role in it, basically. The special place he holds among the ensemble, he sort of retains that moving forward."

Marvel's decision to bring back Evans in Doomsday has proved controversial among fans, who have variously complained that the move is a desperate-feeling attempt to win back lapsed audiences at the expense of newer characters, and especially Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson — the current Captain America.

Mackie's only lead movie in the MCU saga is Captain America: Brave New World, which unfortunately is one of the worst-reviewed instalments in the entire franchise. Marvel boss Kevin Feige raised eyebrows by pinning the film's financial failure on being "the first without Chris Evans." No plans have since been announced for a fresh Captain America sequel.

So, what's next? Well, Marvel is still running its live countdown clock to the release of Avengers: Doomsday that's set to run for the next 10 months. In the meantime, however you want to describe them, Marvels four Avengers: Doomsday teaser trailers have passed a combined 1 billion views.

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

Amazon has a great range of Pokémon Squishmallows on sale today as part of its ongoing efforts before Pokémon Day, and the franchise's 30th anniversary, on February 27.

The Pokémon range of Squishmallows makes for some of the best franchise plushies around, and Amazon has made them better by letting you buy select 8 to 20-Inch plushies from just under $9 each.

The lowest price tag in particular is on Rowlet, which is available for just $8.43 for the adorable 8-inch plush.

On the other side of things, both in price and size, the 20-inch Torchic and Eevee Squishmallow plushies are also on a limited-time lightning deal discount at Amazon. Torchic is down to $38.20, while Eevee is an even better deal at just $30.

While both are a bit more expensive compared to Rowlet, you've just got to remember that they are significantly bigger as well, with the 20-inch plushies easily being the size of most people's torso, if not bigger.

Plus, both are down from $49.99, so they are still significantly good deals. I wouldn't wait around on these, however, as both are lightning deals, so once the allocated stock has been sold, the deal will expire immediately.

The next best deals are on Sprigatito, with its 8-inch plus down to just $10.10, alongside Fuecoco and Marill, with their 14-inch plushies available from $17.99 to $19.47, respectively.

An important thing to keep in mind is that Amazon has seemed to have made it very hard to find these deals when you're browsing directly, with some plushies' lower product pages only appearing with very particular searches.

With that, we'd recommend clicking through our dedicated catalogue above so you can go to each page directly, buy quickly, and save without none of the fuss. As more become aware of these massive offers, grab yours quickly before you lose out on this very limited-time deal.

If you're still after the generally best Squishmallows in the entire Pokémon range—like Pikachu and Snorlax—most seem to be available to still buy on Amazon as well, albeit listed at $24.99, at least for now.

Here's hoping we see more discounts on some of these as well soon, but still, they're worth the investment if you want some squeezable and comfortable cushions added to your living space with some Pokémon flair.

Robert Anderson is IGN's Senior Commerce Editor and resident deals expert on games, collectibles, trading card games, and more. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Bluesky.

Development studio ZA/UM has announced that a free demo for its upcoming espionage-flavoured RPG, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, will be available to play on PC as part of Steam Next Fest.

Launching on February 23 and available until March 16, the demo features a “tailored” version of Zero Parade’s opening hours. While not everything from this section of the full game will be available as part of the demo, it does include two full quests, a variety of side activities, and the freedom to explore the city state of Portofiro. You can get a small taste of what awaits in the gameplay video below, which showcases the very first minutes of Zero Parades.

The demo also allows you to choose from three different character archetypes, which dictate the skills and stats of protagonist Hershel Wilk. ZA/UM encourages replaying the demo with each of the archetypes to see how a physical, soulful, or analytical build affects your choices and opportunities.

IGN recently interviewed several developers from ZA/UM to learn more about Zero Parades, which tells the story of a spy brought out of retirement to complete one last job. Its key theme is failure, and ZA/UM states that it has designed its dialogue system around that. “Every door closed is an open opportunity to go through the window instead,” said the studio in a press release.

Zero Parades features a similar design to Disco Elysium, ZA/UM’s previous game, and has been created by a team made up of both old and new employees. The full game is scheduled to launch in 2026, first on PC through Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store, and then later on PlayStation 5.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.

Dark Horse Direct and Crystal Dynamics are teaming up for another Tomb Raider statue, and it's one that will appeal to anyone with nostalgia for the original games.

IGN can exclusively debut the first images of Dark Horse Direct's Tomb Raider: Lara Croft - Classic Motorbike Premium Statue. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

The Tomb Raider: Lara Croft - Classic Motorbike Premium Statue features the iconic treasure hunter perched atop her motorcycle with gun in hand. This statue was sculpted by Bigshot Toyworks, with prototyping and paint by J.W. Productions.

The statue is 9 inches tall atop a base that measures 10.3 inches by 6 inches. The statue is exclusive to the Dark Horse Direct website and is limited to 500 units worldwide. It's priced at $249.99 and is slated to ship between July and September of 2026.

Will you be adding this Lara Croft collectible to your collection? Let us know in the comments below. You can also check out the Tomb Raider: Legend of Lara Croft statue available on the IGN Store.

And for more recent toy debuts, check out Mondo's latest X-Men: The Animated Series figure and Hasbro's new Marvel Legends reveals.

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

Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Episode 6, “Come, Let's Away,” which is available on Paramount+ now.

The latest episode of Starfleet Academy is exciting at times, touching at others, but then there’s another mode that it sinks into here or there which I can only describe as, well, boring. Essentially, “Come, Let's Away” tries to do too many things in one episode, and as a result it feels overly long and bloated – and as such it’s indicative of one of my biggest complaints about the show so far this season.

I’ve been pretty positive about Starfleet Academy through the first half of this first season, but one element that I’ve found consistently troublesome is the streaming bloat of the individual episodes. So far, each segment has been roughly an hour long (not including the pilot, which was 75 minutes), and frankly, that’s too long for a standard episode of TV, Star Trek or not. We don’t need all of our TV to be 60-minute episodes if they don’t need to be 60-minute episodes, and in the case of Starfleet Academy Episode 6… well, this definitely did not need to be a 60-minute episode!

Best Buy's latest Deal of the Day has dropped the critically acclaimed Ninja Gaiden 4 down to just $42.99 for one day only on Xbox. Not only that, but this is the Deluxe Edition as well, making this discount all the more impressive.

The Deluxe Edition of the game retails for $89.99, so that's a serious $47 saving, and available for just a few dollars more than the game was listed on sale for at the start of the year ($40), and you're getting a whole lot more for it as well.

Arc Raiders continues to be an enormous hit for publisher Nexon, with 14 million copies sold and almost a million concurrent players online at one point last month.

In Nexon's latest financial results, the Korean publisher boasted that its sticky extraction shooter had "significantly exceeded expectations" and had "approximately six million weekly active users."

January's player peak saw roughly 960,000 people online at the same time — an impressive figure indeed, especially three months after its late October 2025 arrival.

"Since its October 30 launch, the game sustained top-ranking spots on Steam's Top Sellers list as well as PlayStation and Xbox," Nexon wrote in a presentation shared with investors today. "[It] showed exceptional retention and strong player metrics... [and we] expect to sustain strong player engagement and sales momentum with monthly content drops and live events."

Developed by Swedish company Embark Studios, which is led by a team of former employees from Battlefield maker DICE, Arc Raiders enjoyed an explosive launch last year. The game shifted four million copies in under two weeks, and had sold 12 million by the start of January. Another month on, and Arc Raiders has now sold two million more.

Steamcharts figures show ARC Raiders with a peak of over 465,000 players at the beginning of January, though numbers have begun to trail off slightly in February — with the game dipping below 250,000 concurrents for the first time over the course of the current week.

Still, player sentiment for the game continues to be positive, even as it suffers from a spate of item duplication glitches. Just yesterday, fans applauded Embark Studios for swiftly stopping another set of exploits – though its efforts appear to have left a fresh inventory glitch in its place.

Since laying out a plan to deal with widespread reports of cheaters last month, the studio has done its best to keep players coming back with frequent gameplay adjustments, new content, and a four-month roadmap. Its post-launch plan currently has it sitting in the middle of its Headwinds update, with its next chapter, Shrouded Sky, set to bring a new map condition and a new Arc threat later this month.

For more, you can check out our interview with Embark CEO Patrick Söderlund, where we talked about the past, present, and future of Arc Raiders. During our chat, we also learned more about what’s next for the company following its extraction shooter’s success.

As for Nexon, today's financial briefing made no mention of the mysterious StarCraft shooter project that it has been reported as forming a team to start work on.

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

Magic: The Gathering is set to have another big year in 2026, and there's already some excellent new deals to check out now that we've got a good chunk of this year's sets up for preorder.

My favorite deal in Amazon's latest MTG sale is on preorders for the Marvel Super Heroes Play Booster Box, which is down to just $189.99 is you order today.

That's $20 off the original list price, and with Amazon's preorder price guarantee, if the price drops further, you're certain to get the best price possible from now until release day in June.

However, that's not all. You can also find preorders for Secrets of Strixhaven boosters down to $149.99 as well right now. That's another serious discount for some cards that aren't even out yet, and worth checking out if you haven't locked in your preorder yet. Just as a reminder as well, Amazon won't charge you for preorders until at dispatch closer to release day for Marvel, Strixhaven, and TMNT.

Moving away from preorders, another notable set on sale is Bloomburrow's Play Booster Display, down to just $142.99 at Amazon. That's an impressive price drop from its $203.99 list price, and a good example of its market price value falling -28.51% over the past few weeks.

There's also some notable discounts on 2025 Universes Beyond sets, like Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Marvel's Spider-Man, at low, low prices right now as well. My favorite from this selection is on the Avatar Beginner's Box, which is down to just $23.13 at Amazon.

You can also score the Collectors versions of these Universes Beyond sets as well, both of which have seen tidy price drops since last year, and are your best bet of finding the rarest cards from each set.

Play Boosters are now the standard way to crack open Magic packs, having replaced both Set and Draft Boosters. But if you're on the hunt for rare cards, Collector Boosters are the best option.

These packs are more expensive, but are much more likely to include various foil treatments, extended arts, and all sorts. There are usually 5 Commons, 4 Uncommons, 5 Rare or Mythic Rare cards, a Land and a Token, but the rub here is that 6 of the included cards have a 'booster Fun frame' and 12-13 of them are foil.

In other TCG news, there are also some great deals on Pokémon cards right now at Amazon and TCGplayer, including a great deal on the most recent expansion's booster bundle, Mega Evolution - Phantasmal Flames. It's down to its lowest price ever at Amazon.

After years of wait and fan expectation, Pokémon Go players will finally be able to capture Mewtwo once more — in just a few months.

The fan-favorite Legendary Pokémon was last available to battle in Pokémon Go all the way back in July 2022, though its Shadow form was available more recently — over a weekend in March 2024. Still, fans have been clamouring for another chance to add the creature to their Pokédex ever since — and now it's almost time.

Further details for this summer's Go Fest celebrations have now been announced at a press event held in Tokyo, which will host one of three in-person meetups, ahead of the game's usual global Go Fest celebration. Artwork shown at the event confirms that Mewtwo will return — and hints at the debut of a Mythical Pokémon species, too.