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

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

Open Box - Excellent Condition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does Crunchyroll Have a Free Trial?

What Crunchyroll Premium Tiers Are There?

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

Fan Subscription - $7.99 per month

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

Mega Fan - $11.99 per month

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

Ultimate Fan - $15.99 per month

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

What's New on Crunchyroll - Winter Anime Season

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

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

How to Watch Crunchyroll - Available Platforms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can You Get Disney+ for Free in Other Ways?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lorcana Release Schedule 2026 - At a Glance

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

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

Winterspell - February 20

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

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

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

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

Scrooge McDuck Gift Box - March 13

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

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

Wilds Unknown - May 15

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

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

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

Attack of the Vine - Q3

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

Coco and More - Q4

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 Free Months of Audible Premium Plus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Save on Peanuts: 75th Anniversary Ultimate TV Specials Collection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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