Possibly for the first time ever, Dell Outlet is now offering an assortment of Clearance, Like New (Refurbished) and Scratch & Dent Alienware Area-51 gaming PCs equipped with both GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 graphics cards. You'd be saving up to $1,000 less compared to buying an identical system brand new and includes the same warranty. Dell's certified refurbished systems are submitted to a rigorous refurbishing process. These previously owned products could have observable minor blemishes that do not affect performance, or could look as good as new.

Alienware Area-51 RTX 5090 Gaming PC Deals

The RTX 5090 is the most powerful graphics card ever

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 has emerged as the most powerful consumer GPU on the market. Although Nvidia has prioritized software updates, AI features, and DLSS 4 technology to improve gameplay performance, the 5090 still boasts an impressive 25%-30% uplift over the RTX 4090 in terms of pure hardware-based raster performance. The 5090 also has a whopping 32GB of VRAM (33% more than the 4090), making it the ideal candidate for a hybrid rig looking to do both gaming and AI work on the same machine. Check out our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 FE review.

The RTX 5080 GPU will run any game in 4K

Performance-wise, the RTX 5080 is no slouch. It's one of the fastest cards on the market, bested only by the $2,000 RTX 5090 and the discontinued $1,600 RTX 4090. This is a phenomenal card for playing the latest, most demanding games in 4K resolution at high settings and ray tracing enabled. Check out our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 FE review.

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.

If there’s one show in the modern era that has endured, it’s The Walking Dead. The series has had many seasons and multiple spinoffs over the years — and it appears writer and executive producer Scott Gimple feels there’s a lot more life left in the greater Walking Dead Universe.

“It’s quite possible we could see this group up here 15 years from now,” he said of the foundation of the Daryl Dixon spinoff series, which follows Norman Reedus’ iconic character to France, during a recent anniversary panel at Mipcom in Cannes reported on by Variety.

“There are many more continents to visit. It’s about how [the characters] evolve over time. It’s really exciting to see how far we can take this,” he explained, noting that changing up the locale opens up a treasure trove of possibilities for the writers to explore. “In a lot of ways, [the locations] give the story to us.”

Gimple even went as far as to compare the vast storytelling prospects the setting offers to the series to the lore and worldbuilding necessary for comic book adaptations like our favorite Marvel and DC films. “It was all one story. It went in all sorts of different directions,” he explained during the panel. “Even with characters who have done so many things, we can put them in different worlds where they have different challenges and evolve them through these challenges.”

Needless to say, it would be cool to see the story expand to more countries and cultures. Interestingly enough, because containment is such a prevalent theme in zombie media, most stories end up practicing it within their narrative in this way without even realizing it. In fact, that’s one of the most interesting elements of 2002’s zombie classic 28 Days Later: the idea that the entire United Kingdom is cut off from the greater world because of the outbreak. So this notion turns that classic framework on its ear, and it would be fun to see the team behind The Walking Dead make good on the concept.

The Walking Dead premiered in 2010 and ran for 11 seasons before concluding its run in 2022 after 177 episodes. It spawned six spinoff series, including The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, which kicked off in 2023 and was renewed for a fourth and final season to premiere sometime next year.

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

Ever wondered what happened to Jar Jar following the Star Wars prequel movies? Well, a new canon comic is set to reveal the much-maligned character's fate, with a "pivotal role" in the forming of the Rebel Alliance teased.

The upcoming Star Wars: Jar Jar Binks will be a one-shot comic co-written by the character's actor Ahmed Best, alongside graphic novel veteran Marc Guggenheim. Intriguingly, one variant of its cover reveals Jar Jar will team up with Kelleran Beq, the cool Jedi that Best portrayed in an episode of The Mandalorian.

It's time for my weekly Pokémon TCG sealed product price watch. Suprise suprise, the secondary market in TCGPlayer is giving big box retailers like Amazon a run for their money. Let's just keep in mind that TCGPlayer is a marketplace, so this is small to medium sellers undercutting billion and trillion dollar companies here.

TL;DR: Deals for Today

I'll give it to Amazon, some in-demand products are cheaper on there today too, we're talking Mega Evolution sealed product, Black Bolt and even a premium collection ex box. Don't forget that Pokémon Legends: Z-A drops on Thursday too, and I've got all the preorder links you'll need above and below. There's a song in that somewhere? Let's get into it:

Cheapest at Amazon: Pokémon TCG

Kicking off with the Mega Evolution Elite Trainer Box, we know $92.65 isn't MSRP and Amazon should be selling it as such, but this is how it is in Pokémania 2025 for now. It's 7% below the current market value and a good deal if you're struggling to get stock. Meanwhile the Mega Evolution three pack blister is only a dollar cheaper, but that dollar is better in your pocket. The other savings range between $1 to $5, so fill your boots!

Cheapest at TCGPlayer: Pokémon TCG

TCGPlayer is really showing up big box retailers. The secondary market is saving trainers a fortune right now, and will continue doing so until the Pokémon Company floods the marketplace with sealed product, which will happen eventually. A good example here is the Surging Sparks ETB, which is currently $92.94 on Amazon. If you check over on TCGPlayer right now, you'll pay $74.95. That's nearly $20 over market value, and there's plenty more where that came from in the carosel above.

MTG: TMNT Preorders are Live

New game mode aside, MTGs latest Universes Beyond addition is another huge IP with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Play Boosters are available, so getting a box is a great idea before preorders sell out and it becomes harder to build a deck. The Commander Deck is ideal if you want a solid foundation for a game of Commander but want to modify it with single cards down the line. Of course, the TMNT bundle comes with a few goodies including 9 play boosters, foil alt art promo card, 30 land cards and some tidy accessories.

Pokémon Legends: L-A Preorders

It's nearly time trainers! Thursday see's the release of the most radiacally different mainline Pokémon game, Legends: Z-A. Set as a continuation of Pokémon X and Y and continuing the game mechanic changes seen in Legends: Arceus, Legends: Z-A is going full real-time combat over it's tried and tested turn-based battle style. It's going to be a landmark moment for the worlds most popular entertainment franchise, so make sure you have your preorder in.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (3 Months)

Final Fantasy IX (Nintendo Switch)

What next for Sucker Punch now Ghost of Yotei is out the door? The Sony-owned studio has yet to say, but based on comments from the boss of the company, it will remain a single-project studio.

In an interview with VGC, Sucker Punch co-founder and studio head, Brian Fleming, said the studio will decide its next project once the multiplayer add-on Ghost of Yotei: Legends comes out in 2026. But, he suggested, don’t expect a flurry of games from the relatively lean developer — it’s one project at a time.

“The truth is that whatever we do next, whether it’s continuing Ghost or going back to Sly, the decision is really more limited by, again, our cherishing of focus and time to iterate, which means that we really can only do one thing at a time,” he said.

“If we were good at juggling four projects, yeah, we’d have a remaster, and let’s go do one of those, and one of those, and do some fan request, that would be really popular… But we only get to do one thing.

“So it kind of has to be your best idea, right? And that’s really clarifying. It’s not like there aren’t 15 good ideas. But you only get to do one. And by the way, you only get to do one about every five years. So that choice is really important. I mean, that is choosing your college and your major every five years.”

Sucker Punch has plenty to draw from in its back catalog. As Fleming mentioned, one of its classic franchises is Sly Cooper, which fans have called to return in some form. And what about the inFamous series? Would a remaster then a sequel prove successful? And then there’s the prospect of another Ghost game, following Tsushima and Yotei. Everyone loves a trilogy, after all.

While we wait to find out, check out IGN’s Ghost of Yotei review. We’ve also got a cool story about Atsu's sword-drawing technique, which Japanese martial arts experts have said is kind of doable in real life.

Ready to master Ghost of Yotei? Check out our comprehensive guides, which cover everything from things to do first, best skills to unlock, advanced combat tips, getting the best early-game armor set, and uncovering every Altar of Reflection location. Our Walkthrough also provides essential tips and strategies for defeating every boss, and our secrets and easter eggs guide ensures you never miss another hidden reference again.

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.

Remember those rumors about the Stranger Things Season 5 episode runtimes? Of course you do, they’ve been all over the internet for months — but now, co-creator Ross Duffer is setting the record straight on exactly how long each of the episodes of the final season will run.

Duffer took to Instagram on Monday, October 13 to share a video that seemingly showed the episodes on a version of the Netflix streaming platform that labeled them works-in-progress, clearly so they are not made public yet in the post-production stage. The screen showed the runtimes for each episode: the premiere episode, “The Crawl,” will run one hour and eight minutes. Episode 2, whose title has yet to be announced, will run 54 minutes. The third episode, titled “The Turnbow Trap,” will run one hour and six minutes, while episode four, “Sorcerer,” comes in at one hour and 23 minutes.

Duffer made sure to throw a little healthy sass in the caption of his video as well. “ACTUAL runtimes,” he wrote on his post, adding a peace sign emoji for emphasis.

Clearly, this dispels all the rumors about runtimes thus far, particularly the whisper that each episode would be over 90 minutes long. That said, we only have the runtimes for the first section of Season 5 at this point, so anything could happen in the latter two parts as far as length.

Netflix has decided to break up Stranger Things’ fifth season into three parts. The first set of episodes will air over the Thanksgiving holiday beginning on November 26 — with the next three episodes premiering on Christmas, and then a fourth and final episode premiering on New Year’s Eve. So far, we don’t have any info on the Christmas and New Year’s batch of episodes, but it seems as though we might find out more in the next month or so.

Interestingly enough, the show kept its episodes at or under an hour for much of its run — until Season 4. Last season, several episodes ended up clocking in at 70 minutes, and the last four had feature-length runtimes. The Season 4 finale specifically ran a whopping two hours and 22 minutes.

Stranger Things Season 5 will premiere on November 26, with the first four episodes of the season available at the time of release.

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

Halloween is coming up fast, and if you still need to pick up candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters on the night, Amazon's got a nice little treat to help shoppers. For a limited time, a selection of Halloween candy bags are discounted up to 20% off right now at the retailer. There's a wide range of sizes available to choose from as well, whether you're looking for a 40 count bag or a massive 160 count bag that sets you up for success when the doorbell rings. Check out just a few of our favorite candy bags that are currently on sale below.

Halloween Candy on Sale at Amazon

Each of these has a fun variety of sweets as well, whether you're looking to have a bowl of just chocolates to hand out or if you want some other candies, like Nerds or SweetTarts, thrown in. Amazon also has notices just above the 'Add to Cart' button that states when these candy bags will arrive, so you can make sure you have them before Halloween night. As for the bags above, they all seem to arrive before Halloween, which is great news.

With candy checked off the Halloween to-do list, if you're looking for activities to keep you busy on the night this year, why not check out our roundup of upcoming 4Ks and Blu-rays to see what's released this month? There's already quite a few horror offerings to choose from this month - including the new I Know What You Did Last Summer and Weapons - so you can settle in for a spooky movie night. Or, there's even some new LEGO Wednesday sets that dropped this month if you'd like a project to work on during Halloween night.

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

Assassin's Creed franchise boss Marc-Alexis Côté has departed Ubisoft after a career spanning more than 20 years, IGN understands.

The news comes just two weeks after Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft's biggest brand, became operated by Vantage Studios, the separate business entity formed by Ubisoft with a 25% stake from Chinese giant Tencent that will also now oversee all future Far Cry and Rainbow Six games.

Ubisoft staff were informed of the news this afternoon via an internal email which discussed the need for Vantage Studios' leadership team to be "aligned" with its core goals. IGN understands that Côté was offered a role as part of Vantage Studios' leadership, but declined.

In an internal note to Ubisoft staff obtained by IGN, Vantage Studios co-CEO Christophe Derennes said he was "disappointed" by Côté's decision, and that the former leader "had his own expectations and priorities related to Vantage Studios’ creation and future."

"Following the organizational restructuring announced in March 2025, Marc-Alexis Côté has chosen to pursue a new path elsewhere outside of Ubisoft," a Ubisoft spokesperson told IGN today. "While we are saddened to see him go, we’re confident that our talented teams will carry forward the strong foundation he helped build.

"We are deeply grateful for the impact Marc-Alexis has had over the years, particularly in shaping the Assassin’s Creed brand into what it is today. His leadership, creativity, and dedication have left a lasting mark on our teams and our players. We thank him sincerely for his many contributions and wish him continued success in all his future endeavors."

Côté, known to colleagues by his initials as "Mac", joined Ubisoft in 2005 as a software engineer, before working as a lead engine programmer on Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. From there, he joined the Assassin's Creed series in time for Brotherhood, working as a lead level designer, before serving as a game director on Assassin's Creed 3.

As creative director, Côté led development on a string of projects built at Ubisoft Quebec, the talented team which made Assassin's Creed: Black Flag DLC Freedom Cry, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and then Assassin's Creed Odyssey, for which he served as senior producer.

In March 2022, as Quebec worked on Assassin's Creed Shadows and Ubisoft sought to relaunch the series with a more consistent story focus via the Animus Hub (a project then envisioned under the title of Assassin's Creed Infinity), it was Côté that took the reigns on the entire franchise, laying out a Marvel-style slate of upcoming projects that included the forthcoming Assassin's Creed Hexe, which still lacks a release date.

And then last December, amid a firestorm of discourse surrounding Assassin's Creed Shadows' Black samurai protagonist Yasuke, it was Côté who defended the role of the series' storytelling during an impassioned BAFTA speech. Côté said the online backlash to the game had been "devastating" to his colleagues, and defended the game's high-profile delay as necessary to deliver on the high quality that fans' expected.

"Assassin's Creed has always been about exploring the full spectrum of human history, and by its very nature, that history is diverse. Staying true to history means embracing the richness of human perspectives - without compromise," Côté said last year.

Today's news comes just days after a report revealed that Ubisoft canceled an Assassin's Creed game set in the post-Civil War period that featured a former Black slave as its protagonist, who would have been shown fighting the Ku Klux Klan. The project had been in its initial stages when it was ditched in the summer of 2024 due to concerns surrounding the US political climate, though some early work had been undertaken at Ubisoft Quebec.

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

It took less than one week for Battlefield 6 players to start making Portal lobbies for XP farming – and some believe EA has already caught on.

Fans were quick to call out the progression system in last week’s new FPS entry as a bit of a slog. Although most are walking away from each multiplayer match happy with the package Battlefield Studios has crafted, even some of the most enthusiastic fans believe leveling up takes too long, with an unrewarding weapon unlock system and arduous challenges dampening the experience even further.

The general unlock process in Battlefield 6 is too slow.

I understand wanting to make it challenging for players to get the best stuff, but I'm dreading how long it's going to take to bring just a few guns up to a decent level for attachments etc, and I'm an engaged player.…

— Westie (@MrProWestie) October 13, 2025

“Do they really think players have that much time and energy to grind endlessly just to get the rewards we’re supposed to earn naturally?” one player asked in a Reddit post. “It’s exhausting.”

Just days removed from launch, plenty of players already feel the grind is too much to put up with – especially for casual fans – but that’s where Portal comes in. The do-it-yourself mode, which was first introduced in 2021’s Battlefield 2042, allows players to create nearly any match or mode they can dream of. The right build can even allow Portal users to earn experience as if they are playing a standard multiplayer match, so, naturally, it took just days for XP farm servers to crop up.

Content creators like Arekkz Gaming, TheCadWoman, and WhosImmortal, who are just a few of the many spreading the word, recommend specific Portal lobbies to level up fast. Most relevant lobbies are populated with bots but stick close enough to standard Battlefield 6 modes so as not to alter the rate of gained XP. Players are often then instructed to use double XP tokens (if they have any) and kill AI/bot enemies near objectives to efficiently farm XP.

A desire to boost through demanding progression systems has existed long before Battlefield 6, so XP farm servers in Portal were quickly populated full of impatient fans. Some suspect that EA, though, is just as quick.

As more XP farm lobbies fill the Portal community browser, players are finding themselves met with a “Global Game Quota Exceeded” message with little explanation. It’s led fans to believe EA and BF Studios have begun cracking down on suspicious lobbies in order to keep boosters from exploiting Battlefield 6 and its Portal toolkit.

The error is certainly keeping some XP farmers from continuing to reap the rewards they desire, but it’s unclear if these messages are the result of direct action to pour cold water on farming. Portal players have reported receiving the message regardless of their lobby hosting intentions. Some haven’t even been able to start hosting servers at all, suggesting Battlefield 6 Portal servers may simply be struggling in the wake of massive player numbers from last week’s launch. There’s also been no word from EA or BF Studios regarding any moves to stamp out XP farming.

It’s unclear why exactly the Global Game Quote Exceeded message is popping up around the user-generated community tab, but that doesn’t mean the popularity of XP farming isn’t playing a role. The widespread criticism of Battlefield 6’s progression system has led to an overflow of servers for players looking to unlock content as quickly as possible. Some dedicated Portal creators suspect this large number of individual lobbies isn’t exactly helping unclog the Battlefield 6 online experience.

Battlefield 6 launched October 10 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, then promptly rocketed its way to become the most successful Steam launch for the long-running EA franchise ever, reaching a peak of more than 740,000 concurrent users.

While we wait to see how EA and BF Studios might address XP farming and progression in Battlefield 6, be sure to check out how some Portal players used their power to recreate Call of Duty’s Shipment. You can also read about how Support players are struggling to keep their teammates happy.

For more on Battlefield 6, visit IGN's Battlefield 6 guide for a complete list and video of all campaign collectible locations, tips for getting an edge in multiplayer, and more.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

James Gunn has acknowledged criticism of the Peacemaker Season 2 finale, and addressed one point in particular that has left some fans disappointed.

Warning! Spoilers for Peacemaker Season 2 finale follow:

Peacemaker Season 2 just ended its eight-episode run on HBO Max with a major turning point in the life of John Cena’s aspiring do-gooder Christopher Smith. DC Studios co-CEO Gunn had teased that the finale would lay the groundwork for his Superman follow-up, 2027’s Man of Tomorrow. The result was an episode that strongly hinted at which character will serve as the common enemy uniting Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor and David Corenswet’s Superman.

The episode also contained the debut of Checkmate and the planet Salvation (more on both in our Peacemaker Season 2 ending explained). But that didn’t stop some from saying the finale was a letdown, or an unsatisfying conclusion to the events the series had set up so well. It leaves Peacemaker himself dangling with a cliffhanger, and given Gunn has ruled out a Season 3 — at least for now — some are worried we won’t get a proper payoff.

Gunn spent the start of this week in a typically chatty mood on Threads, answering fan questions about Peacemaker and the wider DCU. Among the questions, one person asked him if he’d seen the criticism of the show and its final episode.

“Definitely!” Gunn replied. “Not everyone can love everything. I love the episode but I understand not everyone does which is completely fair.”

That was a perhaps vague response, but Gunn got more specific when he responded to another fan who said they were hoping for a big reveal in the finale, and asked whether Langston Fleury, the former A.R.G.U.S. agent who eventually joins the Checkmate agency with the 11th Street Kids, is the DCU’s Martian Manhunter.

“He's not but I don’t get that people don't think there aren't big reveals here, including Checkmate and Salvation,” Gunn responded.

In this response he’s using the Checkmate and Salvation reveals to defend the season finale from the specific complaint about its lack of big surprises. The episode shows Chris and co form their own peacekeeping agency called Checkmate, which marks the organization’s debut in the DCU.

Salvation, meanwhile, is perhaps the more significant reveal. The distant planet was introduced in 2007’s Salvation Run, which is based on a story pitch from none other than Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. In the comics, Salvation is at the heart of a plan to rid Earth of metahumans, and it looks like Peacemaker is setting Salvation up for a similar role in the DCU.

The response to Gunn's comments is mixed. "I think the problem is that only Gunn knows where this is going," said redditor Eugene_Dav. "It's probably something cool, but right now it's just like, 'Oh, sure, a government prison' and 'Okay, the 11th Street Kids get another show.' Even for comic book fans who know about these premises, it's completely unclear what this means for the DCU. Because we don't have enough information, and Checkmate could be a meaningless sitcom or an important force influencing the plot. Although I like Gunn's idea of a clash between the government, corporations, and metahumans. However, there doesn't seem to be a grand story yet. We need to wait."

There are some fans, however, who believe Salvation should be considered a big reveal, and that the prison planet's appearance in the show hints at the direction of the overarching DCU.

"I think it's basically telling us what comic run the whole phase is based on, and in turn we finally have an idea of what this first phase of the DCU as a whole is really going," TrueBlue2088 said. "I think its big stuff..."

When Pokémon Legends: Z-A was first revealed, we all immediately got to work speculating on when it would take place in the Pokémon timeline. Not where, we knew that: it takes place entirely in Lumiose City from Pokémon X and Y's Kalos region. But given that Legends: Arceus was a time-traveling narrative going back hundreds of years into Sinnoh's past, we had every expectation based on trailers that Z-A would be many, many years in Lumiose City's future.

We were incorrect! We now know exactly when it takes place, and it's not nearly as big a leap as you'd think.

We've been playing Pokémon Legends: Z-A for review and the embargo has now lifted. So we can confirm, from first-hand experience talking to multiple characters (most of which we unfortunately can't directly cite or show due to the ongoing embargo restrictions), that Z-A takes place just five years after the events of X and Y. It's not a time traveling narrative, it's a direct sequel that offers a follow-up to many of the characters and situations introduced in X and Y.

For instance, we already know that you get to hang out with AZ, a 3,000-year-old man who plays a pivotal role in X and Y. We also know that Mable, a former member of Team Flare, takes on the role of Pokémon professor in this game and sends you out to catch Pokémon with various challenges. Other characters you'll remember from X and Y show up as well, some of them dramatically changed, but we can't and won't spoil them just yet.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A being a direct sequel is actually a pretty big deal. The Pokémon universe has been real hand-wavey with how the different games and regions relate to one another over the years. While there have been some direct sequels before (Gold and Silver after Red and Blue, Black and White 2 after Black and White, etc), later games have introduced time travel (Legends: Arceus), alternative universes (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire), and basically every game has implied that all the other games' locations and monsters exist in the same world, but events taking place in those games may or may not be canon depending on which one you're playing. The Pokémon timeline, if drawn out, probably looks far more ridiculous than the Zelda one at this point.

But if you were wondering what happened to most of the main cast of X and Y five years after the events of the game, here you go: this is just a straightforward sequel! In hindsight, we should have seen this coming when they named it "Z-A" after X and Y.

My review-in-progress of Pokémon Legends: Z-A is now live, if you want to check out my impressions of the first 24 hours, with a full review coming next week. I've also been writing about how the Nurse Joy job is now open to people who don't look exactly identical to the original Nurse Joy after 27 years in Z-A.

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.