I've had the privilege of becoming IGN's "mice guy" in 2025, and since then I've amassed enough delivery boxes to build a small castle, covered my desk in dongles, and, most importantly, clicked new gaming mice tens of thousands of times.
I've tested 15 mice this year (you can read my existing reviews, with plenty more to come in 2026). I haven't scored them all but after sizing each of them up, three stand out, each satisfying very different tastes.
While they're not necessarily the three highest-scoring, they're the trio that comes to mind whenever a friend asks me to recommend one.
Corsair Sabre V2 Pro: The Light One
When I held this mouse for the first time, I cackled like a small child on a trampoline. It is almost laughably light at 36g. I put more coffee in my French press each morning. That weightlessness is not just a gimmick – as I wrote in my review, it feels like an extension of my arm and zips across my mousepad.
Most mice badged lightweight, including our picks for the best lightweight mice, are between 50g and 65g. For example, the HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Mini is my favorite compact mouse and is hardly heavy at just 59g. But when I swap it in for the Sabre V2 Pro it feels like a brick in my hand.
The Sabre V2 Pro is light to a fault. I have no idea how much Bluetooth modules weigh but I'm assuming Corsair omitted it to keep the mouse as light as possible. That decision, combined with a substantial corded dongle, makes it difficult to travel with – a shame because a mouse this light should surely be portable. The side buttons feel cheap, with one disappearing almost entirely inside the shell of the mouse when you press it, and while that shell is mostly sturdy, I found a spot on the top where it caved like play-dough when I pushed.
But I forget all those problems the moment it's back on my mousepad and I'm whipping it side-to-side, grinning between headshots. It has brought me more joy than any other mouse I've tested and if weight is your top priority, then you'll love it too.
SteelSeries Rival 3 Gen 2 Wired: The Budget One
As I hunt for the best gaming mouse, my testing skews expensive: High-end mice cost $100 or more. This month, however, I finally tried the Steelseries Rival 3 Gen 2, an older mouse that you can often buy for less than $30/£30. It reminded me that a good gaming mouse needn't upset your monthly budget, and that a lot of the flashy numbers attached to expensive mice are marketing guff.
On paper it lags behind. Its polling rate – the number of times it reports its position to your computer – is capped at 1,000Hz, where many modern mice reach 4,000 or 8,000Hz. Its maximum dots per inch (DPI), a measure of sensitivity, is either 8.5K or 18K, depending on whether you go wired or wireless. Again, that's far behind the competition. So are its maximum tracking speed and its click latency, the lag between your physical press and it registering on your PC.
In practice, I barely feel a difference.
Take the polling rate. My 240Hz refresh rate screen and solid PC specs are good enough for me to clock a difference as I push high-end mice up to 2,000Hz and 4,000Hz (hand on heart, I cannot feel any difference with 8,000Hz). But those changes are so small that sometimes I worry I'm imagining them. Slender benefits are worth less, in my eyes, than the price drop to the Rival 3 Gen 2 mouse. It is simply excellent value.
The wireless version is solid but weighs more than 100g, which is too hefty for me to recommend wholeheartedly. The wired version is a more reasonable 77g, and cheaper too. It is one mouse I'd recommend without hesitation to anyone on a budget.
Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro: The Michelin-Starred One
One mouse to rule them all. I reviewed the Razer DeathAdder V2 in 2020 and used it for years afterwards, so I expected good things from the V4 Pro. The $170/£170 price only raised my expectations.
Somehow, I was still blown away. This is a near-perfect gaming mouse and the best I've ever tested.
It's not really down to its impressive specs sheet – although that certainly helps. Alongside 8,000Hz polling rate, you get 45,000 DPI and 900 inches per second of tracking. Those numbers are mostly meaningless but they are industry-leading, and I like having the reassurance that no matter how far computing tech advances in the next five years, my mouse will never be the limiting factor.
It's everything around those specs that I love. Its weighty, spherical, embossed dongle houses three LEDs that tell me everything I need to know about my mouse at a glance. Its perfectly weighted left and right clicks, crisp and bouncy, and its taught, tactile scroll wheel. Its sturdy shell and grippy coating. Its mammoth battery, which lasts 150 hours at 1,000Hz polling rate.
If I'm being hypercritical – and I think you should be for a mouse costing this much money – then it'd be nice if Bluetooth were an option, if the DPI button was on the top of the mouse rather than the bottom, and if Razer's Synapse software was less bloated.
But those are mere gripes. It is the ultimate gaming mouse and if money was no object, this is the one you should get.
Vince Zampella, best known as the co-creator of the Call of Duty franchise and co-founder of Infinity Ward who went on to co-found Titanfall, Apex Legends, and Star Wars Jedi developer Respawn Entertainment, died in a single-car accident in Los Angeles on Sunday, NBC Los Angeles reports.
According to the NBC report, "The single-car crash was reported at about 12:45 p.m. on the scenic road north of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Mountains. The southbound car veered off the road, hit a concrete barrier and a passenger was ejected, the California Highway Patrol said. The driver was trapped in the ensuing car fire, the CHP said. The driver died at the scene and the passenger died at a hospital, authorities told NBC4 Investigates."
NBC has updated their story to note that Zampella was the driver and the vehicle was a 2026 Ferrari 296 GTS, and that an eyewitness provided video of the crash to authorities. The passenger has not yet been publicly identified.
Zampella was an incredibly talented game developer who changed the industry with Call of Duty, a franchise he co-created with Jason West in 2003 at Infinity Ward, the studio he co-founded with West, after previously serving as the lead designer for EA's Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Zampella was at the center of a high-profile lawsuit against Activision that alleged that the publisher owed Zampella and the Infinity Ward team millions of dollars in unpaid Call of Duty royalties. The bitter professional divorce led to Zampella and West taking a substantial number of the Infinity Ward team with them to EA, where they co-founded Respawn Entertainment, a studio that has produced nothing but critically acclaimed hits: 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).
Respawn's success under Zampella led to him getting promotedtwice, eventually overseeing the Battlefield franchise within his role as Group General Manager at EA.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) 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.
The new Apple iPhone 17 is now available and as usual, the best way to score a deal on these new phones is through your preferred service provider. T-Mobile, now the best mobile network in the US (according to Ookla® Speedtest®), is already advertising a couple of promotions, including excellent trade-in values on older iPhone models. If you're porting your number over from another service, then you may not even need to trade in your existing phone.
Get up to $1,100 off the New Apple iPhone 17 Pro with Trade-In
Right now you can order a new Apple iPhone 17 Pro through T-Mobile and score up to $1,100 off in trade-in credit when you sign up for a new line on the Experience Beyond plan with AutoPay. Depending on which phone you trade in, you may be able to fully pay off a new iPhone 17 Pro 256GB phone (MSRP $1,099.99).
Here are the trade-in values T-Mobile has currently listed on its site. Note that other phones may also be eligible, but if that's the case, their values haven't been advertised yet:
iPhone 13 Pro - $1100 trade-in value
iPhone 12 Pro - $830 trade-in value
iPhone 6 - $550 trade-in value
The discount is applied in the form of 24 monthly bill credits. That means you will need to maintain your service for at least 2 years to get the maximum discount. The credits end if you terminate your contract early or you pay off your phone early. Note that there is also a $35 device connection charge and your account must remain in good standing.
The Experience Beyond plan costs $100 per month for a single line with AutoPay (plus taxes and fees). The plan gives you unlimited talk, text, and 5G premium data. Other perks include Netflix (Standard with ads), Apple TV+, and Hulu subscriptions, unlimited mobile hotspot, full-flight texting and Wi-Fi with streaming where available, phone upgrade eligibility every year, and a 5 year price guarantee. International travelers can also benefit from unlimited text and 30GB of high-speed data in Canada and Mexico and unlimited text and 15GB of high-speed data in over 215 other countries.
Get T-Mobile's "Apple iPhone 17 On Us" with No Trade-in Required
For those of you who don't plan on trading in an existing phone, you can still get an Apple iPhone 17 (MSRP $799.99) simply by switching over to T-Mobile from a competing service (AT&T, Verizon, Claro, UScellular, Xfinity, Spectrum, and Liberty PR) and signing up for a new line on an $85+/mo service with AutoPay. Similar to the iPhone 17 Pro trade-in promotion, the discount is paid out across 24 monthly bill credits. That means you will need to maintain your service for at least 2 years to get the maximum discount. A $35 device connection charge also applies.
The Experience More plan costs $85 per month for a single line with AutoPay (plus taxes and fees). Like the Experience Beyond plan, you get unlimited talk, text, and 5G premium data, but not as many extra perks. Benefits include Netflix (Standard with ads) and Apple TV+ subscriptions. 60GB of mobile hotspot, full-flight texting and Wi-Fi with streaming where available, phone upgrade eligibility every two years, and a 5 year price guarantee. You also get unlimited text and 15GB of high-speed data in Canada and Mexico and unlimited text and 5GB of high-speed data in other countries.
For more info, check the math at T-Mobile.com/Switch.
Apple iPhone 17 Phones Released on September 19
Apple recently released three iPhone models: the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17 Pro/Pro Max. The Apple iPhone 17 starts at $799.99 and is available in both 256GB and 512GB capacities. Major upgrades include a slightly larger 6.3" OLED display with 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate, a more powerful A19 processor, higher resolution ultra-wide and selfie cameras, and longer battery life with faster charging.
The Apple iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max start at $1,099.99 ($1,199.99 for the Pro Max) and are available in 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities. They carry over the same 6.3" and 6.9" screens of their predecessors but the screens are 50% brighter with up to 3,000nit rating. Other upgrades include an A19 Pro processor with more RAM, higher resolution ultra-wide and selfie-cameras, and longer battery life and faster charging.
The iPhone 16 Plus has been replaced by the new iPhone 17 Air. It starts at $999.99 and is available in 256GB, 512G, and 1TB capacities. The iPhone 17 Air measures only 0.22" thin and weighs less than 6 ounces. It features a 6.5" 120Hz ProMotion display with up to 2,000nits of brightness and the new A19 Pro processor (although with fewer GPU cores than the iPhone 17 Pro model). The thin form factor limits this phone to a single 48MP ultra-wide rear camera, although you do also get the new 18MP Center Stage selfie cam.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
All it took for Samson to pique my curiosity was a very brief teaser on social media, and then a follow-up post by the game director that described it “more like Mad Max…Payne” meant it had my attention. And then, once it was officially announced earlier this month, my interest immediately skyrocketed.
It’s a gritty crime drama being developed by Liquid Swords, a team made up of a number of former Just Cause developers. It’s due out early in 2026 on PC for $25, with console versions planned for later release. In it, you play Samson McCray, who finds himself in the city of Tyndalston after a job he was the getaway driver for went bad in St. Louis. His sister, Oonagh, had warned him not to take the job, and sure enough she was right. But she managed to cut a deal with the St. Louis crew: Samson has to pay back what was lost, with interest. And that’s where this game begins: with our titular anti-hero staring down a debt that’s accruing interest every day, needing to take whatever jobs he can in order to whittle the debt down.
Combat is hand-to-hand. Health pickups are bottles of painkillers (hello, Max Payne!), you’ll do plenty of driving (hello, Mad Max!). And the world, says studio founder and game director Christofer Sundberg, will “push back” on your action. “We've had this motto from the beginning that the city is a character in itself,” he explained. “So the more you poke around, the more the world will react. Interacting with people on the street, objects, doing stuff that is unexpected to the world – it's quite a depressing town. The world will react. We have a special narrative around law enforcement and why guns are exclusive to law enforcement and really hardened criminals. And the world remembers what you've done. You won't get away with everything. There will be a reaction to your actions.”
The more you poke around, the more the world will react.
Oh, and about that “more like Mad Max…Payne” comment? When asked to elaborate on that, Sundberg told me, “[Some of] the team that worked on the Mad Max is working on Samson, and we're taking that [experience] ten years in the future. The tone is equally dark as Mad Max. It's not a post-apocalyptic world. [And] one of the greatest urban game stories ever told is Max Payne. [So] I guess it's the tone that I'm after.”
Samson originally had a much larger scope with a much larger team. But in early 2025, Sundberg and studio leadership made the difficult decision to lay off approximately half of the team.”We made a very tough decision to scale down the team due to market conditions and how much trouble the industry is in right now. It stung a lot to have to let them go and it also meant that we had to change our focus. We shelved more of the heavier RPG stuff we worked on – our version of base-building – because we didn't have the bandwidth anymore.”
And so, the team that remains, it meant trying to deliver a narrower-but-still-deep experience. “It was originally a 100-hour experience. Now it's more of a quick-and-dirty session-based experience. Completionists will get to spend at least 25 hours. But we are very respectful of people's time.” And that reduced scope is reflected in the $25 price point, too. “We see this as the first book in a series of books to be told about the city and character.
“It's tiny compared to Just Cause 2, but it's dense,” he continued. “The size of the world isn't the issue, it's more about how we fill it with meaningful content. We always say that it's ‘big enough’ and it's very scalable.”
Getting back to gameplay, Sundberg says Samson is inspired tonally by films like Heat, Ronin, French Connection – stories, in his words, “where violence is fast and decisive.” And that influence is pretty clear on the screen. Samson looked to my eye like it was set in the 1970s, but Sundberg says it is in fact the ‘90s, chosen specifically for the layer of grit the decade still had caked on it. “We played around with the identity era crisis that the '90s was. Cell phones didn't really exist but they were still around. Cash was still king and people were still smoking.”
I saw a mission played where Samson wandered outside into a seedy neighborhood. He jumped into a muscle car and drove to a mission waypoint that offered $1000 to be a getaway driver. After switching cars and meeting at the pickup point – in an industrial area that was still very seedy – the planned burglary happens, the building’s alarm goes off, your crewmates get in, and you have to escape the pursuing police. The extra wrinkle is that the cops have a helicopter looking for you too, so it means you’ll need to work extra hard to shake them. After plenty of driving around – Tyndalston seems fairly large, but again, don’t expect it to be jammed full of open-world activities to do – you eventually duck off a road in an alley, under an overpass, turn off your headlights, and lose the pursuing police.
This beatdown earned us $1000 to knock off of Samson’s debt.
The next mission I saw was a hit that tasked me with going into a club called Chubb’s, finding the manager, and having to fight my way through – sometimes bare-knuckled, and sometimes with a crowbar in hand. Eventually you can build up your adrenaline meter and trigger an adrenaline rush, allowing you to hit harder for a short period of time. This beatdown earned us $1000 to knock off of Samson’s debt.
Though my demo was brief – maybe 15 minutes or so – I saw enough to really like how Samson is shaping up. The Liquid Swords team is seemingly aiming to deliver a AAA experience at a AA scope and price (there’s more info in an FAQ on the Steam page if you’re interested). If they can pull it off, then Samson has a chance to be well worth its low asking price.
If you’ve been itching to switch your wireless service provider but don’t want to deal with the hassle, T-Mobile makes changing your carrier super simple. You won’t have to jump through hoops, wasting half a day figuring things out online or worse, in a store. Instead, you should have a new line with T-Mobile in 15 minutes or less. And T-Mobile is the carrier to switch to, as it offers great value while delivering the best mobile network in the US, according to Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence® data.
When you use T-Mobile’s “Easy Switch” tools to get connected online in under 15 minutes, you’ll probably be wondering about getting a new phone. Well, for a limited time, you can enjoy an incredible deal on a new smartphone without the hassle of trading in your old device. Same-day delivery may even be available.
Editorial Note: This article is brought to you by T-Mobile.
Get Up to Four Free iPhone 17 When You Switch to T-Mobile
Unlike other carriers, T-Mobile places a heavy focus on the customer experience, and that starts the moment you begin to make the switch. The easy-to-navigate T-Life app delivers personalized recommendations for plans, so you don’t need to spend hours figuring out what you need. After that, it guides you through the entire setup process. It’s so simple that you can do it between meetings at work or while chilling at a coffee shop. If you don’t have the app, it’s just as easy to change providers on the T-Mobile website, or you can always head into one of T-Mobile’s thousands of store locations.
You can score the iPhone 17 for free when you switch your number from a competing service (Verizon, AT&T, Spectrum, etc.) and opt for T-Mobile’s Essentials Plan, and no trade-in is required. With each line you add to the plan (up to three additional lines total), you can get a new iPhone 17 for free. That’s a pretty awesome deal for four iPhones, especially given the top-tier smartphone has a starting price of $799.
You can turn switching to T-Mobile into an awesome gift for the whole family. Just note that a one-time $35 connection charge per phone applies, and the phone discount will be paid via a bill credit over a 24-month period.
T-Mobile's Unlimited Plans
The Essentials Plan required for the iPhone 17 deal is $60 per month for one line and $25 for each additional line; it’s one of T-Mobile’s most affordable plans. With it, you receive unlimited talk and text plus 50GB of premium data. And if you don’t want an iPhone 17, you can score up to an $830 phone credit instead when switching carriers.
If you’re looking for a little bit more, T-Mobile’s Experience More Plan offers unlimited talk, text, and premium data at $85 per month for one line. There are even a few bonus perks, including Netflix and Apple TV+ subscriptions, a 60GB hotspot, a 5-year price guarantee, and more. The top-of-the-line plan, Experience Beyond, which is how you get that iPhone 17 Pro free with trade-in, offers even more for $100 per month.
Danielle is a Tech freelance writer based in Los Angeles who spends her free time creating videos and geeking out over music history.
Nintendo has signaled the end of production of the eye-catching Switch 2 Mario Kart World bundle, six months after the console launched.
In April, when Nintendo confirmed that the Switch 2 would cost $449.99 and Mario Kart World would cost $80, it announced a bundle that combined the two for $499.99, effectively making the launch title $30 cheaper than its standalone price.
As you’d expect, this bundle proved a popular option among early adopters, and helped fuel not only very strong sales of Mario Kart World, but the Switch 2 itself.
Production of that bundle has now come to an end, however. Over the weekend, U.S. retailer giant Game Stop announced that the Mario Kart World Switch 2 bundle “will no longer be produced” in a social media post that followed the leak of an internal GameStop memo to staff signalling the change.
"This bundle SKU has now reached end of lifecycle, and additional units will no longer be produced,” the memo reads. “Future replenishment of Nintendo Switch 2 will be the base console."
Today, December 22, Nintendo confirmed as much in a social media post of its own, saying: “Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World Bundle is available in limited quantities at participating retailers, while supplies last.”
While the bundle was always described as being available for a limited time, it’s interesting that Nintendo has decided now is the right time to cease production. However, given how many bundle units are available at retailers, it seems likely they will be available for some time to come, should you fancy dropping by the Switch 2 party.
Indeed, as IGN reported over the weekend, Best Buy has the Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World bundle on sale for $449.99, which means you’re getting Mario Kart World for free.
Nintendo has so-far resisted increasing the price of the Switch 2, at a time when its console rivals Microsoft and Sony have done so. Nintendo did raise original Switch prices in August 2025 and warned future price adjustments for Switch 2 accessories and games might occur.
Despite launching at $450, Nintendo Switch 2 sold an astonishing 10.36 million units between June 5 and September 30, a record-breaking amount that saw the platform continue its run as the biggest console launch ever. Nintendo even raised its hardware forecast for the year in response to the Switch 2's spectacular performance, and now expects to shift 19 million units of its new console before the end of March 2026.
Mario Kart World, the Switch 2's flagship launch game, has now sold 9.57 million copies, with 8.1 million units of that total from the console's bundle. (So yes, more than a million people paid $80 to buy it separately.)
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Don't panic, but it's Christmas Day on Thursday. Zero pressure, but if your loved ones really love you, they won't mind a late Christmas gift. If they do mind, they need to stop being silly sausages (who do all these kids think they are?). Joking aside, I'm still manning the Daily Deals desk, finding some bangers, and it's literally the best excuse to avoid doing IRL shopping. If you need to distract your family from late Christmas presents, buy a Fire TV or Fire Stick at a massive discount and stick on some Christmas films. Amazon has some cracking discounts on their range right now, which also includes a code for one month of Xbox Game Pass. Happy days!
TL;DR: Deals for Today
Purly because I love Pokémon so much, I've taken the liberty of seeing what's available now on Amazon, then telling you where you can buy it from cheaper elsewhere (because I'm a Pokémon Master, as no one has enough badges to train me).
Need an ear buds upgrade? Apple AirPods Pro 3 are currently down to $199 from $249, shaving off a good chunk of brand tax. Side note: If you're not bothered about turning your Apple setup into some kind of Wizarding World mudblood setup, the best earbuds I've tried this year are:
Status Pro X: Down to $269.10 with an on-site coupon from $299
Sony INZONE: Down to $198 from $239.99 (Includes a USB-C 2.4Ghz dongle for PC and PS5 gaming too)
Speaking of Sony INZONE, their big beefy H9 headset is also on offer right now for $169.29, a massive 49% off $329. And if you're sick of eye strain or dry eyes whilst gaming or watching Fallout Season 2, Gunnar have saved the day with their limited edition Vault 33-themed gaming glasses. They're also 30% off at the moment, down to $69.33 from $99. Let's get into today's deals:
Save 20% on Roamless eSIM Plans
Pokémon TCG Price Check
To be fair to Amazon, some of their pricing isn't far off market price, but then again they're being undercut by independent businesses and sellers that will likely have worse rates from distribution than Amazon. Read between the lines there.
So Phantasmal Flames ETB is $79.94 at Amazon, just shy of $4 more than TCGPlayers $76. Mega Evolutions Three Booster Blister is in a similar spot on Amazon right now too, $29.54 compared to $28.93 on TCGPlayer. But if you're after Mega Evolutions Boosters, i'd suggest going on TCGPlayer and buying single sleeved ones for $8.70 each instead.
1 Month Free Xbox GamePass for New Fire TV/Fire Stick Discounted Tech
This deal stretches across the whole 4K line of Fire TV Sticks, the Fire TV Cube, Amazon Fire TV 43-inch, and Amazon Fire TV 55-inch. The link above will take you to the offer page with all the products available, with the cheapest Fire Stick coming in at $19.99 for the 4K Select.
Apple AirPods Pro 3
So AirPods 3 have loads of bells and whistles on, including:
Active Noise Cancellation
Live Translation
Heart Rate Sensing
Hearing Aid Functionality
Spatial Audio
USB-C Charging
Apple have also overhauled the acoustic architecture inside the earbud to make sure you're getting some cracking definition. Not a bad bundle of features when taking the discount into consideration.
Gunnar Fallout Vault 33 Gaming Glasses
I've been using Gunnar glasses for years, mostly for getting deals in front of all of your stunning eyes. I've noticed fewer strain headaches from looking at a screen all day and vastly reduced dry-eye symptoms (like having dry eyes). They can also do prescription lenses should you need them, but the main three styles they offer are yellow tint (best blue-light reduction), clear, and sunglasses.
Sony INZONE H9 Gaming Headset
If the INZONE earbuds are anything to go off, the H9 gaming headset should be a banger. The mic features a 360 spatial sound feature alongside solid noise cancelling backed up by a dual sensor and full customization via the INZONE Hub software. At nearly half off and with a 2.4GHz adaptor included, this is a great deal.
Save up to 50% on Webroot Cybersecurity Plan - Includes VPN, Antivirus, Identity Theft Protection & More
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
Since first releasing in 2022, open-world racing game CarX Street has gotten countless updates and pieces of new content, but the update it just dropped is one of its biggest yet. Titled Showdown, it adds a brand-new PvP team mode that pits street racers against pursuing law enforcement.
The mode can be played by up to 16 people at a time, eight on each team. On one side, street racers need to reach a designated area to earn points and then deliver them to a garage. On the other side, police officers are rewarded for neutralizing racers in several different ways, which we’ll cover in detail in a bit.
Each match is played in two rounds, with everyone randomly assigned to either the racers or police, then switching sides between rounds. So you’ll always play as a racer once and a police officer once. The racers have HP, and if their HP is brought down to zero, they lose all their undelivered points and respawn at the garage to try again.
Racers lose HP when they run into environmental objects or other cars, so you can’t drive recklessly. But speed is still very important. If a racer drives too slowly while police cars are nearby, their HP will gradually be drained. So you need to make use of your nitro boosts and consistently drive as fast as possible while still keeping your car under control.
While racers earn points for safely reaching certain parts of the map, police officers earn points for actions that prevent it. They can score points for ramming racers’ cars, arresting racers, or using their unique ability to deploy spike strips that puncture racers’ tires. Plus, they can get points for assisting their teammates, so if you ram a racer that’s later arrested by someone else, you’ll still get points. Police cars can also teleport between police stations scattered across the city, meaning they can strategize and cut off escape routes.
But the police aren’t the only ones with a trick up their sleeves: Racers are equipped with an EMP that can temporarily disable any police cars caught in its radius. Both the police’s spike strip and the racers’ EMP are on cooldown timers, so be careful not to waste them. And for the sake of a fair match, cars in this mode are restricted by class, and tire wear and fuel are both ignored. So it’s all about driving skill and strategy, not raw vehicle stats and durability. Each round lasts for about 10 minutes, and whichever team manages to score the most points after two rounds wins.
Developer CarX Technologies has said that the dev team dreamed of creating a cops-and-racers mode since before the game originally launched in 2022, but it was too labor-intensive and complex to develop in tandem with the open-world experience the rest of the game offers. And the inclusion of unique features and visual effects makes it clear how much work went into this mode. Police cars have flashing lights and sirens, arrests are accompanied by voice lines from a police radio channel, and collisions and EMP activations feature unique glitch-like effects.
The gameplay experience of this mode is in stark contrast to the rest of the game, which sees you travel around the fictional Sunset City and its outskirts, facing off against local racing clubs that each have their own unique identity and narrative. You fine-tune your car, from the body kit and brake discs to the engine and suspension, gradually upgrading so you can qualify to take on more difficult opponents.
A lot went into the development of that core gameplay loop, which then needed to be polished for each platform CarX Street released on. It came to mobile first in 2022, then PC in August 2024, then finally PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S earlier this year. Its multiplatform approach resulted in success, reaching more than 1 million sales across Steam and consoles. Once they had it successfully running on all platforms, the dev team was able to focus on development of the new mode, which started about six months ago with the first concepts and prototypes.
It was meant to feel unlike anything else in the game, and police chases were always the primary focus. However, after extensive internal testing, the dev team realized police chases alone weren't enough. That’s how the unique abilities arose, resulting in the addition of spike strips and EMPs.
It’s safe to say that the result accomplishes the goal of introducing a mode with completely different gameplay, but this is far from the end of the game’s evolution. CarX Technologies has stayed engaged with its community and gets regular feedback that helps guide their updates and new content, and that won’t stop anytime soon. Based on that feedback, they’ve previously mentioned that their future plans include additional competitive multiplayer modes, a dedicated highway network added to the open-world map, and a full story campaign with quests.
On top of the new mode and other planned updates, CarX Street is also currently on sale on Steam and Xbox, and it just launched a special promotion on PlayStation as well. So there’s never been a better time to get behind the wheel. If you’d like to join the community, you can follow CarX Technologies on Instagram, X/Twitter, or Facebook. Or you can check out the official website to keep up with the latest info on all their games.
2025 has given us plenty of entertainment worth celebrating, but it’s also gone and brought us consoles that cost more now than when they were first released, a Tron movie featuring Jared Leto, and an even bigger hole in our lives where Grand Theft Auto 6 was supposed to be.
From price hikes to lowlights, and missed expectations to cruel cancellations, these are the biggest disappointments of 2025.
Box Office Blunders
Marvel may have kicked off 2025 by sending a brand new Cap into a Brave New World, but audiences clearly had more than a few gripes with Anthony Mackie’s turn in the Stars and Stripes. Despite what pre-release trailers had suggested, Captain America: Brave New World held back Harrison Ford’s transformation from President Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross into a scarlet shade of Hulk until the final few minutes of the film, which certainly had fans seeing red – just not in the way the filmmakers had intended. All told, Captain America: Brave New World suffered a 68% drop-off at the box office in its second weekend and is yet to break even on its estimated $425 million budget, making it closer to a Hulk shrug than a Hulk smash.
Meanwhile Tron: Ares turned out to be yet another lacklustre system reboot for a franchise that should have probably been shut down, boxed up, and sent to an e-waste disposal center by now. The latest instalment in Disney’s videogame-inspired sci-fi series may have featured a certifiably banging soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails, but audiences weren’t exactly burning doing the new Tron dance. Not since Jared Leto’s Morbius had a Jared Leto-led movie performed so poorly at the box office, with Tron: Ares’ mustering up just $60.5 million worldwide in its opening weekend. Despite its disastrous reception, Tron: Ares features a mid-credits scene that seemingly sets up a potential fourth film. Just don’t expect it for at least another 15 or so years, which appears to be the typical Tron cycle. (Not to be confused with one of those bitchin’ motorbikes.)
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off live-action Disney remakes that audiences seem to have gone, or at least that’s how it appeared after the middling performance of 2025’s Snow White. To be fair, a tick over $200 million in global box office revenue is nothing for Sneezy to, well, sneeze at. However, there was clearly only one live-action adaptation about short people carrying pickaxes and singing catchy songs that most families wanted to see this year, and that was A Minecraft Movie, which hit theaters just two weeks after Snow White and completely dwarfed its performance at the box office. Disney would live to live-action again, though, since its Lilo & Stitch reboot would crack a billion dollars just a couple of months later, possibly due to the fact it was actually a good film. So who’s the fairest of them all? Moviegoers, it would seem.
The bombs weren’t confined to the big screen, though, and there was certainly no shortage of disappointment conveniently streamed directly to our televisions, tablets, and toilet televisions (that’s what we call our phones). Anyone who made the mistake of watching Star Trek: Section 31 must have been begging Scotty to beam that stream back up to Paramount+’s servers, because this intergalactic block of generic sci-fi schlock was so surprisingly awful it left audience faces set to stunned. IGN handed it a rare 2/10, stating that “Section 31 will infuriate Star Trek fans and bore everyone else.” Star Michelle Yeoh, coming off an Oscar win in 2023 for Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, was forced to concede that “it’s very hard to please all of your audience all of the time.” We’d argue that Section 31 didn’t even manage to please some of its audience any of the time, and that this particular Star Trek would have been better off lost in space.
Unfortunately, Star Trek wasn’t the only legendary sci-fi property to be completely mishandled in 2025. In July, Prime Video went back to the well – or specifically, H.G. Wells – to produce a modern-day adaptation of The War of the Worlds. The century-old classic novel has previously inspired radio plays, feature films, comic books, and video games, but in the hands of director Rich Lee, The War of the Worlds was reimagined as… a 90-minute-long Ice Cube reaction GIF. To be fair, we can’t say that this braindead disaster didn’t deliver on its promise – at least if you took the “It’s much worse than you think” tagline from its trailer as an honest appraisal of the movie’s quality rather than a reference to the alien invasion in its plot. War of the Worlds debuted with a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although has since skyrocketed to a whopping 4%. Meanwhile its producer insisted that there wasn’t any product placement in the film, despite the fact that it’s a movie on Amazon’s streaming service that makes a hero out of an Amazon delivery driver and hinges its climax upon the daring piloting of an Amazon drone. You couldn’t get product placement more intentional than that if it was a package left on your doorstep.
Dropping a US president into Die Hard-style scenarios is nothing new, see Harrison Ford in Air Force One or Morgan Freeman in the Has Fallen films, but despite its lack of originality, Amazon’s G20 still had a couple of big positives going for it – namely Viola Davis as the arse-kicking commander-in-chief, and The Boys’ Antony Starr as Homelander turned hammy Hans Gruber. Sadly neither had an approval rating high enough to elevate the dopey dialogue and choppy action sequences of this formulaic action flick. IGN awarded the film a 3/10, stating that “G20 isn’t just another streaming movie that feels designed to be half-watched; at times, it only feels half-made, too.”
The Electric State could also be accused of being half-made, at least by human hands, given that it was seemingly a co-production between the Russo Brothers and Netflix’s machine-learning algorithm along with help from some AI-based post-production tweaks. The controversial practice of using AI in film is widely assumed to be a way to keep production costs down, yet despite that the budget for this thoroughly disposable hodgepodge of superior sci-fi stories still spiralled to a reported $320 million, making it the most expensive film Netflix has ever made. IGN handed it a 4/10, stating that The Electric State “feels calculated to remind you of something you’ve already enjoyed.” For all that money and in spite of the star power of Chris Pratt and Millie Bobbie Brown, The Electric State failed to really spark.
Game and Shame
Any year in video games is invariably going to be a bit like a Guns N' Roses album. That is, chock full of absolute bangers but, shortly after you’ve worn out your neck headbanging to You Could Be Mine, My World arrives and promptly ruins the good times. Like the infamously terrible final track on Use Your Illusion II, 2025 has had us leaping for the eject button faster than a flaming fighter jet pilot on more than one occasion.
With a pile of performance issues and a complete lack of freedom, substance, and… an ending, MindsEye was far and away one of 2025’s most disappointing games. Unfortunately, its June launch went so badly that more than 90 staff at its developer Build a Rocket Boy later referred to it as “one of the worst video game launches this decade” in an open letter to company management. The letter called for change at the studio, apologies for not listening to staff concerns about the game, and “proper compensation for laid-off employees.”
Of course, just because a game is free, doesn’t mean it’s good. For evidence of that, look no further than EA’s reboot of the much-loved Skate series. 2025’s early access, free-to-play Skate is just like the old Skate games, only without the style, the atmosphere, the pros, the customisation, the campaign, the music, the varied maps, the humour, or the intro movies. It did, however, have a cardboard costume inspired by the Isaac Clarke’s Dead Space exosuit that cost around $35 to secure.
Call of Duty went back-to-back Black Ops in 2024 and 2025, but the only thing to come out of the decision is backlash. Containing what’s quickly becoming regarded as the worst Call of Duty campaign in the long history of the series, Black Ops 7 has been widely shredded to pieces following its November release for its unwelcome reinvention of campaign mode. Now always-online and co-op focused, Black Ops 7’s campaign mode has none of the rollercoaster-like pacing of a cinematic Call of Duty story, and opts instead for multiplayer-inspired maps and progression, with no checkpoints, and no ability to pause (even when you’re playing alone). The result is quite baffling, which is some result considering the fact Black Ops 7 is intended to be a direct sequel to Black Ops 2 despite releasing immediately after Black Ops 6 is already confusing enough. In the weeks that have followed, the Call of Duty team has promised no more back-to-back releases of sub-series like Modern Warfare or Black Ops, but this guarantee feels unlikely to help Black Ops 7 at this stage. Sales figures or player counts are still yet to be discussed, which strongly suggests Black Ops 7 is deep in the red.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the games that disappointed in 2025, and we haven’t even touched on FBC Firebreak, Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, Football Manager 26, Project Motor Racing, or the grammatically abhorrent Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game. Have we missed any? Let us know in the comments.
Meanwhile, Microsoft made the call to hold back its Fable reboot for another year. The fantasy RPG series that hasn’t been seen since the Xbox 360 era is currently being reimagined by the talented team at Playground Games, best known for its Forza Horizon open-world racing series. We’re keen to find out how the developer makes the adjustment from speed racers to chicken chasers, but for now Fable is a tale that won’t be told until sometime in 2026.
At least Fable was only delayed just once, though, unlike Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra. In May, the planned release of the narrative-driven adventure featuring Captain America, Azzuri, and the Black Panther of the 1940s, was pushed out of 2025 and into early 2026. Then in November, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra was delayed again, this time to the somewhat vague sounding window of “beyond early 2026.” Considering we haven’t seen anything new from the single-player superhero story since an Unreal Engine 5.4 tech demo way back in early 2024, we’re inclined to assume that this one is still a ways off. Will it be worth the wait? Well, the fact that it’s being directed by the creator of the Uncharted series fills us with more optimism than a pep talk from Steve Rogers.
Of course, the most devastating delay – and arguably the most predictable – was that of Grand Theft Auto 6. Rockstar Games proved with Red Dead Redemption 2 that it was prepared to take its time in order to produce the best game possible, and that steadfast approach clearly paid off. Still, given that we’ve been waiting for a new GTA game since Ben Affleck was Batman, Game of Thrones didn’t yet suck, and everyone was still doing the Harlem Shake, it certainly left a lot of fans crying in their Pißwassers when the series’ long awaited return to Vice City was pushed back from Fall 2025 to May 26, 2026.
While game delays are frustrating, they’re typically a considerably more tolerable option to the alternative: cancellation. That is, being postponed is better than never arriving at all. One is steaming into New York a day or two late, the other is hitting an iceberg and becoming James Cameron’s favourite holiday destination, two-and-a-half miles below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean.
Legendary UK studio Rare’s Everwild was also cancelled by Microsoft during this same period. Everwild was announced way back in November 2019 during Xbox’s X019 presentation, but little concrete information about how the end product was going to play was ultimately revealed over the nearly six years that followed. These cancellations were associated with mass layoffs at Rare and elsewhere around Microsoft as the company grappled with… record financial performance levels in 2025 and a 15% increase in revenue, at $281.7 billion. These layoffs also hit Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10, with some reports claiming that the Forza Motorsport team was essentially “no more.” It’s since been clarified that Forza Motorsport will apparently continue to see support in spite of the staff cuts, but whether the racing series will have any future after 2025 remains to be seen.
Sadly, one racing game with no future is EA Sports WRC, with Codemasters confirming in May that there will be no follow-up to its official WRC game and that the team has “reached the end of the road” working on the series after just one game. Unfortunately, alongside this news came the additional confirmation that the EA-owned studio is also “pausing development plans on future rally titles,” which is a big dose of dirt to cop in the face from a team that’s been at the forefront of rallying video games for almost three decades, dating back to 1998’s iconic Colin McRae Rally.
WRC wasn’t the only victim at EA, either; the company was swinging the axe quite liberally in 2025. In March it was reported that EA had quietly cancelled an unannounced, multiplayer first-person shooter from Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment, although the game in question was apparently only in extremely early development. It’s not at all uncommon for things like this to happen, however, and if you poured one out for every unannounced, unnamed project that didn’t make it out of incubation you’d die of thirst. That said, a month later it came to light that EA had also reportedly cancelled an unannounced Titanfall game, which does hurt slightly more than usual considering Titanfall 2 contains what’s widely considered to be one of the very best FPS campaigns in the history of the genre. We’re officially living in a world where Bubsy 3D can have a sequel announced in 2025, while Titanfall 2 has one cancelled. Nothing makes sense anymore. This unknown Titanfall game appears to have been a victim of EA layoffs that hit 300 workers, around 100 of which came from Respawn Entertainment. No other details regarding what this Titanfall project was are known.
But wait, because EA wasn’t done: in May it cancelled its Black Panther game and shuttered Cliffhanger Games, which was producing Black Panther as its debut project. Black Panther, which was announced back in July 2023, was set to be a single-player open-world game. EA claimed at the time that the decision to ditch the project was made in order to “sharpen” the company’s focus and put its “creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities.” We’re guessing EA’s spreadsheet squad were unenthused by this single-player game’s lack of a Wakanda Ultimate Team mode.
Black Panther isn’t the only superhero to have the rug pulled out from beneath them in 2025, either. In February 2025 it was confirmed that Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman game was cancelled and developer Monolith would be shut down. In a horrible twist, Wonder Woman would have been Monolith’s follow-up to its much-loved Middle-earth series and was expected to feature Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War’s excellent and patented Nemesis system.
First announced at the 2021 Game Awards, Wonder Woman was a victim of a Warner Bros. decision to restructure its operations around “building the best games possible” with its “key franchises.” Of course, despite an overt focus on more Warner Bros. franchises than you could poke a carrot at, this restructure also didn’t involve the survival of WB brawler MultiVersus, either. The free-to-play fighting game was taken offline permanently and delisted in May.
A Price To Play
Rising prices are impacting plenty more than just video games. Hell, if supermarkets get any more expensive, groceries better start coming gold-plated. In the context of video games, however, 2025 has been like Quentin Tarantino sitting down and watching back-to-back Paul Dano movies: it’s just one massive disappointment after another.
Not to be outtrumped, Nintendo also announced a range of price increases in August – for the eight-year-old original Switch and its proceeding Lite and OLED models. Pricing for the Switch 2 was left alone, but Nintendo’s move did come with a warning that price adjustments to things like the Switch 2, physical and digital Switch and Switch 2 games, and Nintendo Switch Online memberships “may be necessary in the future.” Nintendo is likely trying to prepare us for the worst here, but there’s no escaping the fact it sounds like the kind of ultimatum you typically get from two heavyset guys carrying baseball bats, driving a 1979 Cadillac Coupe DeVille.
That said, Nintendo president Shuntaru Furukawa recently indicated Switch 2 pricing should stay put for now, saying Nintendo believes it can “maintain the current level of profitability for hardware for the time being unless there are significant changes in external factors, such as a shift in tariff assumptions, or other unexpected events.”
It’s already been widely discussed how US tariffs have resulted in significant adjustments to how companies balance the books, with increased costs unsurprisingly being passed onto consumers. Inflation pressure is also a contributing factor; after a long period of stability since the global financial crisis in 2008, global inflation surged dramatically in the wake of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The frustrating part, however, is that this remains all quite unprecedented. That is, this generation Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft have completely flipped the script on console pricing trends that date all the way back to the ’70s and ’80s. Over many decades, consoles have reliably and traditionally dropped in price over their lifespans – first via slow but natural erosion in value caused by the effects of standard inflation, and then by overt price cuts that bring the price of entry right down. This current crop of consoles, however, is not dropping in price – in fact, they’re going the complete opposite way.
Unfortunately, if people keep buying them at these prices, console price drops may go the way of old-timey bicycles and the funniest two-digit number between 60 and 70 being 69: a thing of the past.
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN's Sydney office. Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team.
Battlefield 6 fans have accused EA of selling an AI-generated image after spotting a sticker of what looks like an M4A1 with two barrels in the in-game store.
Following a similar generative AI controversy for rival shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Battlefield 6 has come under fire for selling what some fans have called “low quality AI generated garbage.”
The sticker in question comes as part of the Windchill cosmetic pack for Battlefield 6, which costs 900 Battlefield Coins. It includes six items, one of which is a player card sticker called Winter Warning. The red flag here are two barrels on the M4A1, but the hand position of the soldier as well as the scope do not look properly aligned.
“Remove this AI s**t from the store,” said redditor Willcario in a thread upvoted 4,600 times. “Two barrels on the M4A1, sure. I would literally prefer to have no sticker than some low quality AI generated garbage. You can look at BO7 and see how many favors AI generated rewards won with them.”
While EA has yet to issue a statement on the Battlefield 6 allegations, fans are digging up past comments from Rebecka Coutaz, general manager of original series developer DICE in Sweden, and Criterion, the UK studio now also a part of what’s collectively called Battlefield Studios, who in October said players wouldn’t see anything made by generative AI in Battlefield 6.
Coutaz said that while generative AI “is very seducing,” currently there is no way to work it into the developers’ daily work. However, Coutaz clarified that generative AI is used in preparatory stages "to allow more time and more space to be creative.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
The 27” ASUS ROG Swift OLED may not arrive early enough to be a gift under the tree on Christmas morning, but our top 1440p gaming monitor is back down to its lowest price ever. Every competitive gamer will want to snag this wicked fast display that hits speeds up to 480Hz, all while delivering an absolutely gorgeous picture. This monitor was already priced below competitors at the full price of $999.99, and with 25% knocked off the price tag for a limited time, it’s an even better deal.
Save $250 on the 27” ASUS ROG Swift OLED Gaming Monitor
The 27” ASUS ROG Swift OLED (PG27AQDP) is one of our top gaming monitors for a reason. It’s just a great all-around option, even for those who don’t necessarily need a ridiculously high refresh rate for esports. The 1440p picture is stunning, with near-infinite contrast and high peak brightness, which allows HDR to shine on this WOLED panel.
IGN expert Chris Coke had the opportunity to review the ASUS ROG Swift OLED (PG27AQDP), and he was particularly impressed with the out-of-the-box color accuracy and the built-in cooling system to prevent burn-in. Even going so far as to claim, “It’s one of the very best OLED gaming monitors you can buy,” and giving it a review score of 9/10.
Of course, the ASUS ROG Swift OLED (PG27AQDP) has gaming chops that are hard to compete with. With an almost instantaneous response time of 0.03ms, motion blur will be a thing of the past. However, the most notable feature is its 480Hz refresh rate, which is up there with some of the fastest gaming monitors. It's a responsiveness you can feel, especially when jumping from a 240Hz monitor. Those speeds are challenging to achieve in anything other than lighter esports games, but this monitor is still exceptional, even when playing at half that refresh rate or lower.
Danielle is a Tech freelance writer based in Los Angeles who spends her free time creating videos and geeking out over music history.
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