This article contains spoilers for The Running Man (2025).

There are a number of burning questions lingering at the end of Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Stephen King/Richard Bachman’s The Running Man. How effective is the revolution fomented by Ben Richards (Glen Powell)? What happened to Amelia Williams (Emilia Jones) after she jumped out of a plane? But the one question that burns brighter than a boarding house lit up by accidentally ignited adult magazines is: Why isn’t Pennywise the Dancing Clown in The Running Man?

Okay, this probably requires some explanation, so let’s take a step back. This newest iteration of The Running Man takes place in the near-distant future as we follow Richards on the run as part of the titular game show. He needs to stay alive for 30 days while the world reports on him and elite Hunters, including the masked McCone (Lee Pace), track him down. Over the course of the two-hour-plus movie, Richards stays on the move throughout the East Coast, traveling from what is likely New York City (though not specified) to Boston to – and this is where Pennywise comes into play – Derry, Maine.

That last town is a classic fictional location from multiple King stories and novels, with the first reference appearing in his 1981 short story, “The Bird and the Album.” Following further references in The Running Man – published under the Bachman pen name on May 4, 1982 – and Different Seasons’ “The Body” (later the basis for Stand by Me) that same year, it then turned up in Pet Sematary in 1983, and two other short stories. “Uncle Otto’s Truck” (also 1983) and 1984’s “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” were later collected in the 1985 anthology, Skeleton Crew.

While King set more stories in the town of Castle Rock, and only three books were set mostly in Derry proper (including 11/22/63 and Insomnia), there is of course one novel that is most associated with the town: 1986’s It. You’re probably familiar with the bones of that one thanks to the resurgent popularity of the novel tied to the HBO prequel series, It: Welcome to Derry, but the short version is that there’s an evil clown named Pennywise who lives in the sewers and eats children. He’s also a supernatural alien/avatar of chaos who is nearly immortal until a bunch of kids known as the Losers Club yell at him until he dies.

Midway through the new 2025 film adaptation of The Running Man, Richards is sent to what’s supposed to be a safehouse thanks to Bradley Throckmorton (Daniel Ezra), a rebel against the Games Network that controls every aspect of American life and produces The Running Man game show. Richards flips over a card handed to him by Throckmorton to show the address he’s headed to, and if you’ve seen the movie, you likely heard a laugh of recognition from the audience when it’s revealed that he’s heading to Derry.

Welcome to… Well, You Know

Once Richards gets there, he does not encounter Pennywise at any point, nor does he head into a sewer or visit the house on Neibolt Street that offers access to Pennywise’s domain. There are no red balloons or other noticeable references to It; nobody floats down here in The Running Man, because they’re too busy running. Instead, Richards heads to the house of Elton Parrakis (Michael Cera), an inventor who publishes zines trying to take down the system, and who has a very complicated relationship with hot dogs.

Even though there is no real connection to the events of It in the movie’s Derry sequence, it’s difficult to get It out of your mind. Parrakis lives with his insane mother, Victoria (Sandra Dickinson), who has been damaged by past events in Derry thanks to her husband – Elton’s dad – being beaten up and killed thanks to his rebel hot dog cart (there’s more to it, but that’s the broad strokes). She’s very reminiscent of the also-damaged Pennywise-infected adults from It, in particular the sweaty, creepy Mrs. Kersh (Joan Gregson) from It Chapter Two.

To be clear, Victoria is definitely not Pennywise; she’s just a crazy old lady. But when Richards and Parrakis are attacked by the police, the sequence ends with them sliding down a firepole to an area below Parrakis’s house. It’s hard at that point not to think, “Underground in Derry? That’s where Pennywise lives!” Sure, it’s a secret tunnel and not a sewer, but wouldn’t it have been great if Pennywise popped his terrifying head into the action? And you know who loves secret tunnels? Pennywise the Dancing Clown!

Not Clowning Around

There are several good reasons Pennywise is not in The Running Man. The simplest, most straightforward, and easily the most boring reason is that the two movies, despite both being based on Stephen King novels, are from two different companies; It, its sequel, and the currently running prequel miniseries are all produced by Warner Bros. Discovery, and The Running Man is produced by Paramount. While that wouldn’t necessarily preclude including a reference to It in The Running Man, having actor Bill Skårsgard show up in full clown gear would likely be a no-go. Sure, these kinds of character trades have happened between companies before – see the complicated rights between Sony and Disney re: Spider-Man for more on that – but figuring out contracts so a clown can briefly appear in an otherwise unrelated movie just doesn’t make a lot of business sense.

Okay, that was no fun, so let’s pivot to some less dry explanations. One of them? The Running Man takes place in the future. While the new movie doesn’t specify the time period, the original Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, which strays vastly from the book, is set in 2017. More to the point, the King/Bachman book is set in the unimaginable future year of 2025. Regardless of how the Wright/Powell movie squares with this, The Running Man is set beyond any known timeline for It, either in the movies or the book; that book is set in 1957-1958 and later in 1984-1985, while the recent movies are set in 1988-1989 and 2016.

Why specify this? Well – spoilers for the end of It – the Losers Club (aka the kids who were plagued by Pennywise) destroy the clown for good as adults. Even if for some insane reason the new Running Man is set in 2017 and links up with the timeline of the new movies, Pennywise was still defeated a year earlier. But given the more likely possibility that The Running Man is set sometime in “our” future, it’s been years if not decades since the Losers Club purged Derry of Pennywise’s influence. He can’t show up… because he’s dead.

Another very good reason Pennywise isn’t there is because while many of King’s books contain references to each other, canonically they’re all part of a King multiverse but not the same direct continuity. It’s likely that King was planting some fun easter eggs for fans throughout his writing, but didn’t start to tie them all together until his landmark fantasy series, The Dark Tower. The simple version presented there is that at the center of the multiverse is the titular Tower, and everything grows out of it like spokes of a wheel. So, for example, the events of It may have canonically happened in both Dreamcatcher and The Mist, but the events of Dreamcatcher did not happen in the world of The Mist and vice versa. There’s even a spoke of the King multiverse where King exists as a writer, which raises a whole host of other questions. Then there are King novels and stories that just exist as is, unconnected from anything else.

Different Spokes for Different Folks

Confusing, right? You really don’t need to worry about it unless you’re a hardcore King head, and even then, it’s not really important to the enjoyment of his novels. Given that King wrote The Running Man under his Bachman pen name years before he released It, there’s no reason to think the version of Derry that Richards visits and the version where Pennywise eats a little kid named Georgie are on the same spokes of the wheel anyway. It certainly could be that they are, but King has never specified whether the Bachman books – which also include Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), Thinner (1984), The Regulators (1996), and Blaze (2007) – are connected to his other work in any way other than that Derry mention and him existing as a writer in Thinner (remember, he wrote that as Bachman, so it sort of makes sense in that case).

But the real reason Pennywise isn’t in The Running Man? It’s because that would have been too hilarious, too awesome – perhaps the funniest thing ever committed to screen. Edgar Wright didn’t put Pennywise the Dancing Clown in The Running Man because, to not mince words, he’s a coward. A braver man would have had Pennywise pop up in that tunnel below Parrakis’ house and chase Glen Powell for the rest of the movie or at least to the Derry border before he gave up and went looking for some kids to snack on.

Or how about this? Have Pennywise as one of the contestants on The Running Man! The whole purpose of the game show is ostensibly to punish criminals, and Pennywise is a millennia-old child murderer. He’s a perfect contestant for Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), the show’s producer, to recruit. If you subbed Pennywise in for Ben Richards, though, the former would win The Running Man easily. While the movie tries to tell us that Richards is a master of disguise thanks to (poorly) gluing on a mustache, or pretending to be a blind priest, Pennywise can look like anyone or anything at any time. Unlike Powell, who just can’t hide his chiseled, pleasantly stubbled chin, Pennywise can look like a small child, or one of the Hunters, or even a giant clown-spider; the latter would probably draw too much attention, but he could do that if he wanted to. Heck, he could make himself into a mailbox so he could mail the daily video tapes that cause Richards so many problems throughout the movie.

Even beyond the whole disguise thing, nobody knows the sewers of Derry better than Pennywise. While McCone and his Hunters stumble around in the dark, Pennywise would always be two steps ahead of them, easily evading capture and winning the billion dollar prize at the end of 30 days. What would Pennywise, an ancient entity from a race known as Deadlights, do with that much money? That’s unclear, but it sure would be fun to watch.

You hear us, Paramount? Make that deal with WBD. The people want – nay, they demand – Pennywise to appear in a sequel, and I’ll see you in the theater in a few years when The Running Man 2: The Floating Man, Part 1 – Welcome (Back) To Derry comes out!

We’ve seen stories built around redemption arcs plenty of times before, and if I’m being honest, I’m a total sucker for them. A sarcastic baddie who, despite their disdain for the law, gains enough empathy to save the day – what’s not to like? After eight episodes full of cliffhangers, surprising plot twists, and patience-testing puzzles, Dispatch has finished its own rumination on the topic, allowing me to take a more active role in determining who amongst its strong cast of charming superheroes deserves a second chance. It’s fitting, then, that developer AdHoc Studio has similarly revived a style of video game I worried was fading into the background, confidently injecting the interactive narrative genre with exciting new life.

Dispatch takes place in a captivating bizarro Los Angeles where superpowered beings, aliens, demons, and all manner of extraordinary humanoids coexist with regular people. As you can imagine, not every gifted being is benevolent, and many choose (or are forced into) a life of villainy. To help manage the onslaught of supers roaming the streets, an organisation called the SDC has stepped in, launching an insurance-type racket that allows citizens to pay for the privilege of a powerful watchdog. One of the aforementioned good guys is our discerning protagonist, Robert Robertson — otherwise known as Mecha Man — whose heroic aspirations are dashed when a rogue explosive renders his suit useless, leaving him to take on the role of a call centre worker at a small branch of the SDC.

That’s not all, though, as due to his lack of tenure, Robert is tasked with managing a group of barely reformed villains, lovingly called the Z-team, whose snarky attitudes and violent tendencies leave a lot to be desired. Across Dispatch’s approximately eight-hour runtime, it’s compelling to watch Robert grow in the wake of this sudden downgrade, experiencing the peaks and valleys of shift work. I found myself invested from start to finish thanks to Dispatch’s grounded, witty writing and the heartfelt performances delivered by its sizable cast.

Your time with Dispatch is split into two distinct parts: most of the time, you’ll be chatting through beautifully animated cutscenes, picking between amusing dialogue options and completing quick-time events like those seen in The Wolf Among Us or the Life is Strange series. Certain decisions trigger a heart-pounding ‘X Person remembered that’ notification at the top of the screen, which feels like a refreshing jolt of nostalgia in 2025. Not every decision is as impactful as you might expect, and more often than not, my choices led to unique jokes or funny animations rather than game-shifting consequences. Crucially, though, when the credits finally rolled — avoiding any spoilers — the ending I received still felt true to my version of Robert. It says something that I’m keen to jump in again, to see how the other narrative branches pan out.

The rest of your time is spent working at the SDC as a Dispatcher, assigning superheroes to a variety of jobs. Using your mouse and your wits, you’ll monitor a city map where hazard notifications periodically pop up with a timer, alerting you to various jobs the SDC needs to handle efficiently. Each hero under your command has a stat matrix, similar to that seen in Pokémon. You’ll receive a verbal description as a job appears, with your own task being to match your best hero, or in some cases heroes, based on their stats and personalities. You'll be told very soon after whether you’ve passed or failed, with success earning you experience points that lead to a permanent stat boost for each hero. Failure, on the other hand, can lead to your heroes getting hurt or, worse, being taken out of commission for the shift. Managing their individual skill sets as multiple clocks tick down in front of you is a surprisingly stressful task that compelled me to lock in.

On top of stat boosts, the Z-team can also earn special skills that impact how efficiently you operate. The superstar-turned-superhero Prism can use her powers of duplication to extend the timer on jobs, carving out precious moments to find a resolution. Elsewhere, Invisigal can utilize her lone wolf status to increase her speed if sent solo. All these moving parts compound over time and meld together well, creating a satisfying feedback loop that complements the complexity of the surrounding story without overwhelming you.

Aspects like team morale, along with how you impact poignant story beats, shape how effectively the Z-Team will perform, too. During one shift early in the series, the heroes are fighting against one another, hoping to avoid being cut from the team. This argumentative overtone bled into the dispatching minigame, with each member acting on their own accord rather than on my explicit orders. While I was frustrated by this at first, hoping to overcome the challenge with my wits, these moments of disobedience did well to integrate the interactive segments into the overarching story, with AdHoc effectively conveying Robert's irritability by ensuring you feel it firsthand. It’s one thing to write an emotive character for me to play as, it’s another to actually make me want to quit a job I don’t really have in the exact way they do.

A secondary hacking minigame is also part of your day-to-day activities, as Robert flexes the only superpower he has left: his mind. Here, you’ll roll a 3D object through a cybernetic maze as the clock ticks down, using directional inputs to forge a path towards the end goal. On top of the clock, you’ll also need to evade undulating anti-virus orbs and transfer power sources between light blocks to unlock new paths. It can be overwhelming at times as the difficulty scales over the course of Dispatch’s eight episodes, and muscling through these puzzles sticks out as some of the least compelling moments in a game that is otherwise full of them, which is a shame.

Still, despite all the roadblocks I faced at the hands of the Z-Team, I found myself defending them at every point, like a parent going to bat for their misbehaving children. The concept of ethically murky superhumans has been explored across film and TV before, but Dispatch often subverts expectations through a steady mix of dark humor and sincere interactions that kept me on my toes.

For example, while celebrating a win at one point, Robert and his team visit a villain bar, but the Thing-like Golem is forced to sit outside due to their humongous size. At this point, I’d taken quite a dislike to them and their attitude, and yet watching them slumped on the gutter with their earbuds in made them appear more human than rock monster. Just like that, a switch had flipped inside my head, and I was putty in the palm of AdHoc’s hands.

What makes Dispatch’s redemption story so effective is how it portrays its villains as emotionally complicated souls who may have lost their way rather than one-dimensional brutes. This empathetic lens makes it enticing to peel back the layers of the group, no matter how horrible they’re being or how petulant they seem. That’s not to say every character is worth forgiving, but instead, if you’re willing to make a risky dialogue choice, you may be rewarded with precious lore that could sway how you react in future situations, or what kind of ending you will receive.

All this drama is delivered through incredible vocal performances that bring Dispatch’s most profound moments to life with finesse, from the main cast of heroes to the background characters as well. Laura Bailey’s Invisigal masterfully dances between bratty and sincere, often encouraging me to break the rules with her flirty, if not threatening, style. Erin Yvette, on the other hand, subtly switches between Blonde Blazers' heroic prose and dorky banter with sharp precision. Notably, Aaron Paul’s Robert is more than just Hollywood stunt casting – he’s a standout here, delivering a nuanced performance as a man struggling to hold onto his optimism while reconciling with who he is outside of his giant mech suit.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but with the holidays comes tons of travel. Whether you’re joining family on a beachy vacation for the festivities, checking out the iconic European Christmas markets, or planning an epic New Year's ski trip with friends, you’ll want to stay connected. The easiest way to do that is with an eSIM, and Roamless is one of the most user-friendly options available.

With the Roamless eSIM, you can enjoy access to cellphone data in over 200 countries without the hassle of swapping SIM cards, complicated setup, and hidden fees. An app allows you to select plans, be it pay-as-you-go data and/or 30-day prepaid plans tailored to a specific country or region, for ultimate flexibility.

Starting at just $1.25/GB, pricing is shockingly affordable and considerably less expensive than international roaming charges with traditional plans. You even receive a $1.25 credit when you sign up, and IGN has a special code to use at checkout, IGNSAVE20, which gives you 20% off plans sitewide

20% Off Travel eSIM Plans

Once the Roamless eSIM is activated, you can use your own cellphone like normal, sans traditional texts and calls. From maps to navigate a foreign city to social media apps to share your travels, Roamless makes that possible across the globe. Additionally, rather than relying on apps like WhatsApp, FaceTime, and Facebook Messenger, Roamless is one of the few eSIM providers to offer in-app calling, allowing users to dial an actual phone number.

Even if you don’t have any big travel plans this holiday season, you can buy data now to use on a 2026 sojourn. Out of gift ideas for someone on your list? A Roamless eSIM is a great budget-friendly present for someone who loves to travel and wants to stay connected. IGN’s 20% off code will expire at midnight as we ring in the New Year, so grab this offer before it’s gone.

What is an eSIM?

Rather than relying on a physical card being placed into your smartphone, an eSIM, or embedded SIM, is a digital alternative used for a cellphone plan that can be programmed from anywhere. That means swapping carriers and plans can be done remotely. When using a global eSIM for travel, such as Roamless, simply install it on your phone and purchase a plan or data. Then, when you reach your destination, you turn it on in your phone settings. I used an global eSIM plan during a trip to Scotland this year and can attest to how seamless they are to use. Just note that most global eSIMs will not allow you to use your home plan's number.

Danielle is a Tech freelance writer based in Los Angeles who spends her free time creating videos and geeking out over music history.

Sometimes it’s impossible to beat those sugar cravings. The problem is, most sweets aren’t good for you — loaded with sugar, artificial flavors, and unnecessary ingredients. Beyond temporary joy, there are virtually no benefits from these treats, and the cycle continues, leading to more cravings and overeating.

Maybe you opt to go for that “healthy candy?” But the fake, alternative sugar almost always leaves an awful aftertaste and just can’t compete with the real McCoy. Enter Tandy Protein Nom Noms. These new bite-sized chocolate candies will satisfy your sweet tooth while using ingredients you know and adding a boost of protein for more health benefits.

OLED TVs are considered the best TVs for gaming, but they can also be very expensive. Fortunately, LG has a B-series OLED lineup that's hundreds of dollars cheaper than its other OLED TVs while still offering incredible image quality. As part of its early Black Friday Doorbuster Sale, Best Buy currently has the 48" LG B5 4K OLED Smart TV for a low price of $549.99 with free delivery. At this size, the TV could also be used as a big-screen gaming monitor for your PC.

48" LG B5 4K OLED Smart TV for $549.99

The LG B5 is equipped with a W-OLED panel that boasts superior image quality compared to non-OLED TVs thanks to its near-infinite contrast ratio, near-instantaneous response times, and ability to produce true blacks. Compared to the LG C-series TVs, it lacks the Evo technology which means it isn't as bright as an more expensive C5 model, however, it's very similar to the previous generation's C4 because the generational performance improvement closes the gap.

The LG B5 is an excellent gaming TV for the PlayStation 5 console because it has a native 120Hz panel and four HDMI 2.1 ports. That means it will properly display games running in 4K resolution at up to 120fps. The LG B5 also supports variable refresh rate (VRR) and auto low latency mode (ALLM).

The 48" size makes it a solid option as a PC gaming monitor.

At this deal price, the LG TV is by far the least expensive OLED "monitor" with a screen size of 40" or bigger. Some of you might think that 48" is much too large on a desktop, but there are quite a few dedicated gaming monitors that are 48" or bigger. I myself use a 48" LG TV as my primary monitor and I love it. The LG B5 connects to your PC via HDMI 2.1 and newer GPUs like Nvidia's RTX 50 and 40 series and AMD's RX 7000 and 9000 series support 4K at 120Hz over HDMI 2.1. The LG B5 also supports 4:4:4 chroma sampling for clear, sharp text.

Is the LG B5 OLED TV a good TV for the Nintendo Switch 2?

Despite being a current generation console, the Nintendo Switch 2 has lax TV requirements compared to the PS5 or Xbox Series X. When the Switch is connected to its dock and a television, it is only capable of outputting a 4K resolution signal at up to 60 frames per second. It can go up to 120fps if the resolution drops to 1080p, but the data rate required for both these options is pretty much the same, and you would much rather play any game in 4K. That said, the Switch 2 will still benefit greatly from the OLED panel's stellar image quality (much like how the Switch OLED was a substantial visual upgrade from the original Switch).

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.

Note: This review specifically covers the Zombies mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. For our thoughts on the other modes, see our campaign review or our multiplayer review.

Despite playing a new one every year, I never know what to make of modern Call of Duty – a first-person shooter so big, so successful that it is no longer a standalone game but a platform with file sizes so large it asks you to choose the other two things you’d like to have installed on your PC or console. This year’s PC release comes with a frustrating new anti-cheat that seemingly caused my CPU fan to choose death instead, so while I would normally base my playtime on that version, as God intended, I am initially slumming it on PlayStation 5 to bring you some early impressions of this year’s Zombies mode. I still have tons left to see as the community collectively hunts for Easter eggs and solves mysteries, but so far I’m interested in digging into what’s here, even if it may take a bit to get to the vital organs underneath these bones.

Zombies is my favorite part of Call of Duty, simultaneously the stupidest, silliest side thing the series has ever done and probably big enough to be a small video game in its own right. I remarked on a similar feeling in last year's review, but remember when this was a serious game series about war, and you were storming the beaches of Normandy, machine gun fire spraying sand in your face? When you died, you used to get quotes about how terrible war was from men who had lived it. Now, I play roulette on a big mystery box covered with skulls for weapons, the best of which is a ray gun, so I can shoot zombies in the face while a disembodied voice who calls himself the Warden taunts me from afar; my character quips about how said voice reminds him of his high school gym teacher. Zombies has been doing this for a while now, but I still don’t know whether to laugh or weep.

There is allegedly a story here – Raul Menendez, who apparently has been alive and drinking beer on his porch for the last decade, is back and threatening to cause chaos the world over, there’s a shady security company somehow involved, and massive, violent zombie death, of course. All of it is very well-produced and so goofy that the only thing I could do was watch the introductory cutscene while emulating the face that I imagine a cow would make if you gave it cocaine, chuckle a little, and get on with it. I suppose I answered my own question there, huh?

This year’s Zombies is hard to get a handle on so far because so much of what Zombies does will come down to the community working out the new maps in the coming days and perhaps weeks. Right now, we’re all kind of bumbling about, figuring out what’s what, which is simultaneously fun and frustrating. Many of the pain points from last year remain early on – for instance, you can’t make your loadout until you hit level four, which means if Zombies is all you want to do (and for me, it is), you’re stuck with a pistol and whatever you can earn by buying stuff on the walls after you’ve dispatched enough undead. Remember when games just let you have fun from the outset instead of unlocking it?

Otherwise, the underpinnings of Zombies feel much the same. You’re on a map, you open up new doors and paths with currency you earn, and you’ve got Pack-a-Punch machines to upgrade your guns. There’s additional armor you can apply plastered to the walls, an Arsenal to really crank up specific aspects of your weapons, Gobblegums for a little flavor if your mouth is lonely and you want a mid-battle pick-me-up, and so on. And of course, while you’re managing all of this, the undead rise and hunger for flesh. Ghouls, man.

The gameplay here is similar to last year’s – I still love sliding at a group of zombies and firing off a shotgun until they’re just paste and all that. No, what’s new are the maps. I’ve played both maps in their round-based modes, Ashes of the Damned and Vandorn Farm (the latter seems to be a part of the former, but I haven’t reached it in the standard mode yet), and so far I prefer the farm. Ashes of the Damned seems to be home to what will be the more traditional “find the secrets to finish the map” fare, while Vandorn Farm is more of a “you’re locked in here with the undead, kid, so try not to die too much” deal.

Our run on the former ended when one of my teammates, who didn’t communicate with the rest of us, grabbed a truck and started driving it to the next objective… before he decided it might be more fun to smash into the zombies until it exploded. The rest of us spent most of the map either trying to catch up to the truck or waiting in vain to be revived after we all died. It went about as well as you’d think. I’m interested in seeing what Ashes of the Damned has to offer with a more talkative crew; right now, if you’d told me I’d hallucinated the whole thing, I’d believe you.

The farm is more old-school. Zombies hang from the rafters in the big barn, the smaller one houses the Mystery Box where each of my teammates made offerings in the fleeting hope of a Ray Gun, and there was a house with a skeleton family sitting at the dinner table and a roof in desperate need of, well, more roof. It was a much more interesting map than Ashes of the Damned, and I enjoyed navigating its twists and turns, learning where everything was, and spending the in-between time killing the misbegotten horrors that were formerly people.

The problem, once again, was that we couldn’t figure out what to do yet. There was some mysterious infection growing on one of the machines that seemed to power the farm, but after we destroyed it, our objective told us to wait for it to come back. So we did, killing zombies and upping the round count. The issue is the infection never did reappear. Normally, this is a good thing. The antibiotics worked and the patient is recovering well, thank you. In this case, it meant we got to round eight, nothing happened, the four of us spent several minutes looking for any zombies we somehow missed or a way to progress, and then all three of my teammates left the game after we couldn’t figure out what came next. Hard to blame them. The farm’s cool, but I'd prefer something with some warmer colors and fewer rotting corpses, you know?

Like I said, I’m never sure what to make of Call of Duty, and that extends to this year’s Zombies. It certainly plays well and you can see the absurd amount of money spent to develop it on-screen – but the ooey, gooey, juicy parts of the mode haven’t revealed themselves to me quite yet. As is usually the case, its success will largely depend on how the maps shake out. I’ll need a bonesaw and a ribspreader to get to the still-beating heart of this thing, but that’s fine. I can’t say I’m not interested in seeing what’s in there. I just hope I don’t get anything on me in the process.

There are a lot of different versions of the Harry Potter books. There's the original hardcovers, paperbacks with stencilled edges, and even a full-on Hogwarts trunk filled with the books you can buy. If you're looking for a gift to buy the Potter fan in your life, it can be a little overwhelming to decide exactly what set of books is worth purchasing for their collection. If you're buying for someone who has already read the entire series multiple times over, however, I'd suggest going with the illustrated editions that Amazon currently has in its buy 2, get 1 free book sale.

Surprise, surprise, though, there are actually two different illustrated editions to choose from! There's the larger hardcovers (illustrated by Jim Kay) and the interactive illustrated editions (from MinaLima). Of the two, only the interactive illustrated editions are all included in Amazon's promotion.

Harry Potter Interactive Illustrated Edition Sale

Amazon's buy 2, get 1 free sale is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is add three items to your cart and the least expensive of the three will be discounted from the final price at checkout. Since there are currently four of the illustrated interactive editions available, you'll need to choose which three to add to your cart to get the discount. Whatever you choose, you'll be looking at an additional $21 off by purchasing three at once. Since each of these books is already reduced in price, that comes out to $89.90 for the full collection of four if you buy them all at once.

As you may have noticed, only the first four books in the series have gotten the interactive illustrated treatment so far. The first three books feature illustrations and papercraft from MinaLima while the Goblet of Fire was taken over by Karl James Mountford (Illustrator) and Jess Tice Gilbert (Designer). This discrepancy between artists is due to MinaLima announcing that she wasn't going to continue with the project. The most recent edition, The Goblet of Fire, was the first new book in this line of special editions since 2023 and was released a only a month ago in October 2025. The change in artists means that there are still plans to finish giving the rest of the series the same treatment in the coming years.

What is the "Interactive" element of these illustrated editions?

I actually own all of the MinaLima editions and have had the chance to read through them myself. The interactive element here refers to papercraft hidden within the pages. These are essentially illustrations that spin, open up, or can be played with in some way. It actually makes for a really fun experience as you make your way through the story. The only issue I've had with it is that it's not really meant to be used too heavily. The paper elements are obviously quite fragile and this isn't a book that you're supposed to be reading over and over again. As a collector's item and an occasional read, however, they are pretty cool. For an idea of what to expect you can check out some of the interactive elements featured in my copy of The Sorcerer's Stone.

Should You Wait for Black Friday to Buy?

There are a lot of early Black Friday deals available right now, but it's worth noting that Amazon's official Black Friday sale actually kicks off as early as next week. In Amazon's press release about the sale, it stated that there will be discounts up to 65% on physical books starting on November 20. While we don't yet know if these Harry Potter books will be part of those price cuts, it does seem likely that at least one or two of them will be discounted more than what we're currently seeing here. So if you're only looking to buy one or two of these editions, it's definitely worth waiting for the actual Black Friday sale to start before you make a purchase.

That being said, Amazon's "3 for 2" sale offers a unique opportunity to save on the entire collection. Even if Amazon further discounts the individual titles, you'll most likely end up saving the same amount as you would purchasing now. This type is especially great for buying full collections at once, which we've seen with the Lord of the Rings Deluxe Illustrated Editions and the Fourth Wing books as well.

Full spoilers follow for Pluribus Episode 3, “Grenade,” which is available now on Apple TV.

Last week in my season premiere review of Pluribus, I wondered if we’d get some flashbacks to the before times as the show progressed, and what do you know? This week’s episode starts off with that very thing!

It’s about seven years ago and Rhea Seehorn’s Carol and Miriam Shor’s Helen are vacationing in a Norwegian ice hotel. The place looks sick, but as we’ve learned about Carol already, she has a hard time just enjoying herself and living in the moment. And so while Helen (so good to have her back, and alive!) is basking in the freezing temperatures and beautiful weirdness of the “Koi Suite,” Carol is… not. As Helen tells her, “You love feeling bad.”

It’s a tough job, feeling bad, but somebody’s got to do it.

Back in the present, where Carol is really feeling bad, we see that Zosia (Karolina Wydra), the “Pirate Lady,” is back in Carol’s company for the ride home from Spain (after narrowly avoiding jetting off with Samba Schutte’s Koumba). Also, the Joined are starting to figure out how to act around Carol, like by having actual pilots fly her jet instead of the “gal from TGI Fridays.” And yet it’s still all too weird for Carol, who as that opening flashback reminds us, was never too comfortable in her own skin even when the world hadn’t been taken over by an ever-cheerful hive mind bonded by “psychic glue.”

I was surprised that in Episode 2 we had already been introduced to almost half of the Others who haven’t been infected, thinking the show might drag that out over the course of the season(s). And now in “Grenade” we get a description of the rest, and what a group: a candy vendor who loves cats, a contortionist and dancer, a retired fisherman, an eight-year-old who “hasn’t decided on a profession,” a muezzin who also loves cats (I mean, who doesn’t?), an udon noodle maker, and a self-storage facility manager from Paraguay named Manousos Oviedo, who Carol winds up having an exchange with on the phone that results in them both shouting at each other in Spanish before Carol hangs up on him. It’s fun!

Of course, you can be sure that Manousos is going to become an ally to Carol eventually, because he’s clearly one of the only Others, like her, who is unmoved by the charms of the Joined. He seemingly wants nothing to do with them, and really, can you blame him?

I mean, what are the Joined really up to anyway? They haven’t hidden the fact that they’re working on a way to get Carol and the rest of the uninfected all Joined up, if you will. And sure, they’re willing to give the Others anything and everything they want – even an atomic bomb, as we learn this week in a hilarious/terrifying scene – but how much is that just a balm, a numbing agent to tide over the 13 Others until they can psychic-glue them all to hell?

There are already a lot of theories floating around out there about what Pluribus is really about. Do the Joined represent the coming threat of AI? Is the show’s virus an analogy for COVID? Or is the hive mind meant to be a commentary on the politics of America in the year 2025, where folks on both sides of the aisle simply can’t fathom how the other side can all be thinking the same thing and not see how clearly wrong they are. #Carol2028

Well, I dunno what the show’s really about, not yet anyway. Probably it’s about all of the above and more, even if creator Vince Gilligan didn’t intend it to be. That’s just how these things work sometimes. But however you want to read into the thematics of Pluribus, it’s just compelling and fascinating TV. I’m very interested in the drips and drabs of world-building info that we’re given each episode, like the sequence in “Grenade” where we learn that Carol’s favorite supermarket (Sprouts!) is now a hollowed-out shell of its former self because the Joined are, and I quote, “consolidating resources to centralize useful items for distribution.” (And by the way, that includes items from what we’re told used to be private homes. Because there is no such thing as privacy anymore, so why should there be private homes?)

Then there’s the fact that the power is being cut at night for now on for conservation reasons, which hey, is pretty great for the planet! And why not, since there’s, as Zosia points out, no crime to prevent anymore and most people don’t work at night. I guess they also don’t watch TV anymore, or go online, or check their Instagrams, or, I don’t know, read? Maybe not so great, actually.

We eventually come back around to the topic of the ice hotel after an increasingly isolated Carol invites Zosia in for a drink. It’s a weird back and forth that they have, but sometimes that’s better than nothing when you’re lonely. The thing is, the Joined can’t help but keep shoving all their knowledge about Carol and Helen’s relationship in Carol’s face, and when Zosia references sleeping under the furs of the ice hotel seven years ago, Carol has finally had it. And so she pulls the pin on a hand grenade, which she thought was fake, and Zosia almost dies as a result.

See, Carol asked for a hand grenade in a sarcastic aside, and they gave her one. A real one. This later leads to the funny/scary conversation (with a guy in a DHL uniform) about how if she really wants one, the Joined will give Carol the previously mentioned atomic bomb too. So who really has the upper hand here…?

The AliExpress Black Friday Sale has already started, and this is the perfect opportunity to pick up a 3D printer at the lowest possible price. I'm not talking about obscure, unvetted models. Some of the most popular 3D printer brands, including Creality, Anycubic, and Flashforge, have official storefronts on AliExpress.

Below, I've picked out the best deals on popular and well-reviewed 3D printers; the entry-level models are a great choice for anyone just starting out and not ready to invest a ton of money, and the higher-end models have all the features a seasoned professional could ask for, but without the exorbitant price tag. With coupons applied, you can pick up a fully-assembled 3D printer for as low as $160. All of the printers I've recommended below are sold by the manufacturer and ship locally for free from the United States. Plus, most orders will arrive within one to two weeks.

For a limited time, Retailmenot is offering 15% cash back on all AliExpress purchases ($50 max rewards).

Black Friday 3D Printer Deals at AliExpress

Flashforge Adventurer 5M CoreXY 3D Printer

Just when you thought The Asylum had its fill of shark tornadoes, the B-movie production company reportedly has plans for Sharknado 7 with the title Sharknado Origins.

Details on a surprise new entry in the infamous disaster film series come from Variety, which reports The Asylum has already begun laying the groundwork for a summer 2026 premiere. Production on Sharknado Origins is set to start, with Anthony Ferrante back in the director’s chair, before the year is out.

You can see the first Sharknado Origins poster below.

Activision has issued a statement in response to player outcry regarding the seeming use of generative AI art assets in a number of areas of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.

Players have been taking to social media today to complain about images they believe to be AI-generated across the game, primarily focusing on calling card images that they claim appear to use Studio Ghibli styling, following a trend of AI-Ghibli images from earlier this year.

I havent really looked at the Multiplayer and Zombie calling cards as closely and im willing to bet they're using ai on those too but its only the Campaign and endgame calling cards that are this type of blatant Sora/Grok artstyle pic.twitter.com/5qmEXhoQkJ

— Kume (@Kumesicles) November 14, 2025

In response to this outcry, Activision has issued a statement to a number of outlets, including PC Gamer, that acknowledges the issue...sort of: "Like so many around the world, we use a variety of digital tools, including AI tools, to empower and support our teams to create the best gaming experiences possible for our players. Our creative process continues to be led by the talented individuals in our studios."

It's worth pointing out that the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Steam page also includes the following disclaimer: "Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets." Not exactly descriptive!

This isn't the first time Call of Duty has come under fire for this, either. This exact scenario played out back in February, when Activision admitted that it had used generative AI in the development of Black Ops 6, including in a zombie Santa loading screen that angry fans referred to as "AI slop."

Then, just this past August, Black Ops 7 associate creative director Miles Leslie clarified the team's stance on the technology further:

“We live in a world now, where there are AI tools. I think our official statement we said last year, around Black Ops 6, is that everything that goes into the game is touched by the team a hundred percent. We have generative AI tools to help us, but none of that goes in-game.

"And then you're going to say, ‘Yeah, but it has.' I'll say it has by accident. And that was never the intention. We've come out and been very clear that we use these as tools to help the team, but they do not replace any of the fantastic team members we have that are doing the final touches and building that content to put it in the game.

“So everything you play: human-created and touched. AI tools in the world we live in: it's how do we streamline it? That's really the goal. Not replace, but streamline.”

In response, IGN asked why the zombie Santa and other generative AI images hadn't been removed from the game yet, to which Leslie said that was not his department, and that "the team is actively looking at that stuff." It is unclear if, why, or how Activision's stance on this has changed over time.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is out now. We've given the campaign a try and aren't totally crazy about it, with our reviewer saying it's " a wild one thanks to the scope of its ambition, but the big swings it takes don't always land, leaving it an uneven step down from last year."

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.