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.

Review codes for Pokémon Legends: Z-A were only sent out less than a week ago, but I’ve already put in around 24 hours or so in the last five days. Across that time I’ve been catching every new species of Pokémon I find, doing every side quest that pops up, and stopping every so often to completely change my outfit. I’ve currently got a full team all in the level 50s, and I can’t wait to stop writing this review-in-progress to go play more. It’s real good so far!

Ah, feels nice to say that after, uh… this.

There are a few reasons why I don’t feel comfortable scoring Z-A right now. Apart from simply not having beaten it yet, the embargo we’re publishing this under is pretty strict about what we can and can’t say or show. We always try to avoid spoilers (and recent leaks mean plenty are already in the wild), but here we can’t even talk about basic plot details that happen literally in the first 10 minutes. We can’t mention loads of the specific Pokémon in Z-A, despite the fact that any number of them might casually roam across our footage at any time. We can’t even show you the map of Lumiose City, where everything in Z-A takes place. It’s difficult to say exactly how close to the credits 24 hours puts me, but I’ll likely be back with my final, scored review shortly after launch.

We also haven’t had the chance to test it on Nintendo Switch 1 ahead of time, although I am at least so happy to report that Pokémon Legends: Z-A runs great on Nintendo Switch 2. It glides along at a smooth framerate with very, very few hitches or hiccups. There is occasionally still some sudden pop-in of NPCs, including ones positioned very close to the player, and here and there I’ve seen a character do that creepy thing where their head and neck suddenly snap into place as I get closer. But critically, unlike Scarlet and Violet, none of this is horribly distracting, nor does it really detract from the overall experience. Because of Scarlet and Violet, I spent the first 20 minutes or so paying close attention to whether or not Z-A ran well. But then, after that, I barely thought about it again, a state of mind which I consider ideal. Here’s hoping that’s still the case with the Switch 1 version, which I will take into consideration as part of my final review either way.

Running well doesn’t equate to a game being pretty, of course, and Z-A isn’t going to win any beauty contests. Lumiose City looks fine. Its buildings are covered with mostly flat images of the same couple of window and terrace patterns over and over again. Up close, the effect is pretty weird – like someone painted a Looney Tunes door on a wall so Roadrunner would crash into it. The samey buildings are broken up with occasional trees, battle courts, parks, and the same bench copy-pasted about 100 times. There’s a greyish sewer system with greyish water running through it, and rooftops occasionally interrupted by same-looking cafe set-ups.

That said, I do think that the reduced scale of the world has worked in Game Freak’s favor with Z-A when compared to, say, Arceus or Scarlet and Violet. The city is smaller, so it’s more densely packed with trainers, Pokémon, items, shops, and other actually interesting things to see and do. I’m not running for minutes on end through massive fields of flat, GameCube-style textures, with nary a point of interest in sight. As a result, similar to Z-A’s performance, it was easy to stop thinking about the low-quality building design fairly early on.

That’s also helped by the fact that building interiors and the character and Pokémon models themselves look pretty good, and the human characters in particular are more varied than ever before. While almost every NPC you meet in the city is categorized by trainer type and given an appearance to match, Game Freak is now experimenting not just with diverse facial features and skin tones, but also clothing items. We saw some of this in Scarlet and Violet, but almost everyone was wearing school uniforms, so it wasn’t nearly as noticeable. Now, you might see two athletic trainers wearing differently colored versions of the same athletic gear, or two artists with different colored aprons.

Small a touch as this sounds, combining that with facial differences does a lot to make Lumiose City feel inhabited by many different, diverse people instead of the same 10 trainer types repeated ad nauseum. That customizability extends to the protagonist, too. There are tons of hair, facial, and fashion choices to choose from, including new options to mix and match certain types of outfits (different undershirts with different jackets, for instance). It’s a massively refreshing improvement after spending most of Pokémon Violet expressing myself via the same four ugly purple uniforms and a variety of mismatched hats.

Another element that I think elevates Lumiose City far above the much larger overworld of Scarlet and Violet is that it’s dense with interesting landmarks, items, obstacle courses, stores, Wild Zones, shops, and people. Lumiose is round, with different streets running out from the center like wheel spokes, and the entirety of it is open to you within just a few hours of starting your journey. You can, if you want, scour the whole map very early on, though it won’t be especially interesting at first blush. But over time, you’ll gradually unlock new ways to get around and new things to see when you get there: a new travel method that lets you scale scaffolding to collect rare items at the top, new ways to get onto buildings and Assassin’s Creed your way to little nooks of the city you couldn’t quite reach before, and new Wild Areas teeming with new Pokémon to catch. That steady unlocking of a city you always had free reign of adds to the feeling of getting to know a new place you’ve just moved to.

Exploration is often rewarded, too. While I criticized Scarlet and Violet for just sort of slapping large quantities of Pokémon haphazardly over a big map, especially in later areas, every single spawn location in Lumiose City feels deliberate and well-considered. A line of trash bins might not have anything interesting to see when you pass by on one visit, but there could be a Trubbish on top the next. Flocks of Pidgey and Fletchling scatter as you dash into a courtyard. Spinarak regard you calmly while hanging from tree branches. If you really explore, you might encounter a rare dragon-type on a rooftop (the embargo forbids me from saying which one despite the fact that its evolutions have been confirmed for the game already); a Spritzee floating idly in a hidden cafe; once, I turned just in time to see an Eevee sprint past me into an alleyway, and I barely threw a PokeBall quickly enough to catch it.

I won’t (and can’t) spoil too much of the story, but what I can talk about is the interesting rhythm it establishes that feels, in practice, quite different from any other Pokémon game so far. Like Arceus, Z-A foregoes the traditional “gather eight badges” structure, though here you’ll divide their time between day and night – during the day, you’ll be catching Pokémon in Wild Zones, battling rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon, performing goofy side quest errands for individuals around the city, shopping, and exploring. At night, you have the option to visit Battle Zones where you take on trainers and complete challenges to raise your score and eventually collect a Challenger’s Ticket, which unlocks your promotion match for the next level of the “Z-A Royale.” There are 26 ranks total, one for each letter of the alphabet. I am currently at rank D, though I wish this was slightly more fleshed out as a proper competitive mode rather than just a story vehicle – for instance, you don’t exactly spend a meaningful amount of time at every single one of the 26 letter ranks.

I’ll have more to say on this in the final review, free from my embargo shackles, but I am really enjoying the story so far. Ditching the eight badge trainer journey like Arceus before it allows Game Freak to flesh out a deeper, more interesting cast of characters, both the heroes and the villains. There’s simply more reason for them to be where you are, doing things alongside you and participating in the world-changing events you’re experiencing. I’m also fascinated by how much Z-A appears to be inspired by the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. The enclosed city setting, the absurd and silly tone of the side quests, the story’s concerns with community and civic issues, and the protagonist bopping around a metro area solving problems by being absurdly stronger than everyone else all lend Lumiose City big Kamurocho energy.

Which leads me to the meat and potatoes of any Pokémon game: the battling. With Z-A, Pokémon has gone full action game. Not a turn-based battle in sight. While I don’t think I want Pokémon to fully depart from doing turn-based combat forever, this works pretty well as a detour. Game Freak did an admirable job translating its traditional battle system into one that works in an active-time environment, especially with moves seemingly so specific to the turn-based format. Protect and Detect now stop damage for a set period of time instead of one “turn.” Spikes dumps, well, spikes all over the floor in an area, forcing you to steer your Pokémon out of it. Long-range moves keep Pokémon out of harm’s way, but take longer to execute and recharge than more risky, short-range ones.

There are a lot of new tactics and strategies to mess around with, such as how movement and dodging works. You control your trainer directly, and can either hold ZL to open the move select menu to send your active Pokémon into the fray, or release it to have them follow you around, allowing you to guide them while dodging. This makes for an interesting combat flow as I strategize around calling my Pokémon back to me to dodge an attack, then positioning them ideally to set up their next move before the opponent can swing again. The system is a bit awkward at times, especially in enclosed areas, but I’m interested to see what a competitive meta looks like with this format.

These tactics grow even more critical and chaotic in boss battles with Rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon, of which Z-A has many. These battles all take place in uniform, wide, circular arenas, but the Pokémon themselves are far from ordinary. Rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon are essentially Z-A’s answer to Arceus’ Frenzied Noble Pokémon. In addition to their regular movesets, they each have additional unique abilities you’ll have to avoid, such as turning the arena into a bullet hell you have to dodge around, or suddenly appearing right in front of you for an attack. Like in Arceus, your trainer can get hit and even die (sorry, I mean “black out”) if they’re attacked too many times by an enemy Pokémon, and that becomes a legit concern as Rogue Megas will enrage partway through and try to attack you directly.

The best way to counter this is to Mega Evolve your own Pokémon or use “Plus” moves, which are superpowered versions of regular moves that also consume the energy you need to Mega Evolve. Unlike in Pokémon X and Y, where you could get away with fighting Mega Evolved Pokémon with regular monsters, you really do need to engage with the Mega mechanics in Z-A. Though it starts off pretty tame, Z-A quickly ramps up the difficulty – even doing every side quest, I’m still finding its boss battles will make me sweat a little.

Man, I was going to try and hold back a bit on this review-in-progress since I still have plenty to see before my final review, but I’m just so genuinely excited about what Game Freak has done here. I liked Arceus a fair amount and thought it showed promise, but have been broadly disappointed with the slow backslide I saw from the studio in its move to console game development, and worried the quality dip was a new trend for 3D Pokémon games that we’d never escape. Pokémon Legends: Z-A, at least across the first two-dozen hours, is putting a lot of my fears to rest. It’s not revolutionary by any stretch, but it’s really good! I’m having fun, I’m excited to keep playing, I feel rewarded for exploring every corner, the story’s got my attention, and I’m not distracted by my Pokémon falling through the floor while they battle or everything crashing when I try to climb a ladder. If the rest of my adventure holds up (and the Switch 1 performance isn’t a disaster), we could finally have a 3D game worthy of the Pokémon franchise on our hands. It’d be about dang time.

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has revealed it's putting a temporary pause on content updates while it works on improving performance.

In an interview on the official Helldivers YouTube channel, director Mikael Eriksson admitted the game's most recent big update, Into the Unjust, had "more issues than [the team] were comfortable with," which is why the studio has now decided "to push some of our content and feature updates a little bit into the future."

Recent reviews for Helldivers 2 on Steam are 'mixed,' with most of the complaints revolving around performance trouble. The 'most helpful review' penned over the last 30 days is a negative one from a player with over 500 hours in-game. They called Helldivers 2's performance "inexcusable," pointing to stuttering and freezing during gameplay and crashes.

"Arrowhead, Sony, PLEASE put less focus on new content and live service updates," they pleased. "PLEASE stop nerfing loadouts that are already underpowered or underused with the guise of 'realism' or 'balance.' It's a PvE game; no one cares if people are cheesing hulks with a flag. The game needs to be fun and PLAYABLE before you can rake in the cash with a new warbond.

"FIX THE GAME <3"

Now, Arrowhead has addressed those complaints. "After the last big update, Into the Unjust, we experienced more issues than what we were comfortable with," Eriksson said, as spotted by Eurogamer. "Players felt it, we felt it, and I would say the feedback that we've got has been very justified.

"We're taking this very seriously and we are focusing way more now on addressing these issues to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again," he added. "We have made the decision to push some of our content and feature updates a little bit into the future while we're addressing these things to make sure that we can get to a much more stable state that we can believe in.

"We are already making really big improvements and I'm confident that we will get there and we will be able to talk in more detail about this hopefully quite soon."

Last week, developer Arrowhead Studios said it still didn't have a solution for the shooter's groaning installation size on PC, but did confirm it was working on it. In an update posted to Steam, Arrowhead's deputy technical director, Brendan Armstrong, penned the first in a series of posts in which the engineering team talks about the "technical health" of the game, as well as the "technical challenges we're working through." Admitting that the installation size "seems to be a hot topic right now" — at 150GB, Helldivers 2 takes up three times the space on PC than it does on console — the developer revealed that one of the reasons the PC size is so much bigger is because of data duplication and mechanical hard drives.

Check out IGN's review of Helldivers 2 on Xbox Series X and S to see what we think of the game as it is today. Arrowhead has also revealed it has no plans for Helldivers 3 right now. Instead, it wants Helldivers 2 to keep going for years and years, like veteran MMO RuneScape.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

The Japanese government has made a formal request asking OpenAI to refrain from copyright infringement (as reported by ITMedia). This comes as a response to Sora 2’s ability to generate videos featuring the likenesses of copyrighted characters from anime and video games.

Sora 2, which OpenAI launched on October 1, is capable of generating 20-second long videos at 1080p resolution, complete with sound. Soon after its release, social media was flooded with videos generated by the app, many of which contained depictions of copyrighted characters including those from popular anime and game franchises such as One Piece, Demon Slayer, Pokémon, and Mario.

Speaking at the Japanese government’s Cabinet Office press conference on Friday, Minoru Kiuchi (the minister of state for IP and AI strategy) informed attendees about the government’s request, which called on the American organization to refrain from infringing on Japanese IPs. The request was reportedly made online by the Cabinet Office’s Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters. Kiuchi went on to describe manga and anime as “irreplaceable treasures” that Japan boasts to the world.

Fallout creator Tim Cain has continued his insightful video series on the development of the original Fallout game, this time focusing on lore with a number of fun reveals that have got fans talking.

Cain, the creator, producer, lead programmer and one of the main designers of Interplay’s 1997 post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout, released a video in which he talked about lore in the original Fallout that the team assumed was true but was never directly stated.

This “non-expository Fallout lore,” as Cain calls it, is lore from the first game only, lore the original team discussed among themselves and decided was true, and then made the game based on that. “None of this was written down” by any one of the 15 core people who developed Fallout, Cain said.

As a result, it is “not canon.”

“This is stuff that was true in the first game, but because it doesn’t exist in a design document anywhere, Bethesda is free to invent different reasons that the things that are in the game exist,” he prefaced. “I’m not canon, not anymore. You’re not canon just because you played the game or like it a lot. Bethesda’s canon. You don't have to like that. You don’t have to like that water’s wet. I don't like that white chocolate exists, but it does. So there we go.”

Why China nuked first

Top of the list is the explanation for why China nuked first. This is in reference to Fallout’s Great War, which took place on October 23, 2077 (Bethesda now hosts showcases on October 23 each year, aka Fallout Day). Cain had already said China nuked first in a previous video, putting to bed decades of fan speculation. But in this latest video he explained why China nuked first.

“This is not canon, but let me explain what I mean and why we thought that,” he began. “In the original game we had established FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) and that the U.S. was doing bio-weapons research. We weren’t supposed to. In fact, we had signed a UN treaty saying we wouldn’t do that, and I think you can find that out in the game. China discovered that we were doing it. How did they discover it? Espionage. But they found out we were doing it, and we went, ‘Oops our bad, we won’t do that anymore.’ But we kept right on doing it, we just moved the research to another base. It was the hidden base that’s in The Glow, where you eventually discover ZAX the supercomputer.

“When China found out we were still doing it and we had just moved, well they had already tried diplomacy and espionage and none of that was working, so they just nuked us. They nuked us. We nuked back. Other countries nuked because all we saw, all anyone saw, were missiles flying.

“China technically started it by firing the first nuke. But you could argue that the U.S. technically started it by doing illegal bioweapons research and then lying about it multiple times.”

And what of Russia’s involvement? Cain went on to explain that the development team assumed Russia in the ‘90s (and therefore in the ‘50s projected future in the Fallout alternate history timeline), had broken up to become “a bunch of little bickering states.” The EU had unified, and the U.S. had annexed Canada (a prediction not lost on Cain given current events). “But anyway, we were kind of on friendly relations with Russia in the Fallout universe,” he added.

This is why one of Fallout’s pre-made characters is Natalia, the granddaughter of a Russian diplomat. “Obviously, we were friendly enough with the Russian embassy that they got some of their diplomats into one of the vaults, the vault you're in,” Cain explained. “So, obviously, this wasn't a country we were at odds with.”

The Vault 13 lottery

So, that explains the unspoken lore behind why China nuked first. But Cain had a lot more lore to reveal. It turns out that the three pre-made characters the player could choose from were in fact selected via a lottery by the inhabitants of Vault 13 — a lottery that was rigged.

“We had three pre-made characters in Fallout,” he went on. “There was Max, who was the big dumb idiot combat guy. There was Natalia, who was the dextrous thief kind of character. And then there was Albert, who was the smooth talking manipulator talkie guy.

“If you look at those three characters, you may go, that's the best the vault had to offer? No, the vault did a lottery. They basically drew straws. They knew they had to send someone out. So they had people draw straws and whoever drew the short straw had to go out into what was presumed to be a radioactive wilderness that would kill them. But hopefully they would get back before the radiation killed them with a water chip replacement.

“This was just assumed. The pre-made characters support it. I believe there's some dialogue here and here that kind of supports that no-one chose, especially if you play Max, no-one chose for that character to go. That wasn't their first choice. That wasn't even their best choice. That wouldn't even been anywhere near the choice.

“Except one thing we also talked about and laughed about as also possibly being true was that the entire lottery for who leaves the vault was rigged. And that would explain those three characters. You have this guy who's an idiot. Why would you send him out? Well, gets him out of the genepool. Then you have Natalia who's stealing everything. Probably had pissed people off because she had stolen other people's stuff. She's gone. Albert was always trying to manipulate everybody because he's such a smooth talker. He's gone. So getting rid of these characters was probably high on someone's list.”

The lead designer of Skyrim is "eternally shocked" at not just the RPG's success, but its enduring appeal, suggesting it's the game's open world and "quirkiness" that keeps players coming back 14 years after its debut.

Skyrim released way back in 2011. An open-world RPG, it puts players on the precipice of determining the future of Skyrim as the Empire waits for the prophesied Dragonborn to come, a hero born with the power of The Voice, and the only one who can stand among the dragons. IGN's Skyrim review returned a 9.5/10. We called it "a rare kind of intensely personal, deeply rewarding experience, and one of the best role-playing games yet produced."

Now, speaking on the FRVR Podcast, lead designer Bruce Nesmith offered his thoughts on why so many people continue to play and enjoy Skyrim so many years later. "I think Skyrim did the open world in a way that nobody had ever done before and very few people have really tried to do since," he said, adding: "By all rights, a year later, some other game should have eclipsed it. And then two years later, three years later, five, 10. It’s like ‘what the hell is going on here?’

"Todd [Howard, Bethesda boss] would even go to these meetings and show us information, which I can’t give you the details of, about how many people are playing it. It’s like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’ Seriously, still, 10 years later."

Exploring the game's legacy and lasting community, he added: "I think Skyrim did the open world in a way that nobody had ever done before and very few people have really tried to do since. And one of those things that we accepted, which a lot of developers struggle to accept, is that this means you’re going to have quirkiness. You’re going to have weird stuff happen. And if you say that’s okay, you can get this diamond."

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Nesmith believes that if a developer tries to "smooth everything out" to prevent that aforementioned "weird stuff," "you’re going to lose some of that magic" that makes some games so special.

"And we didn’t make that as a conscious decision," he added. "It just sort of happened. You know, we kind of prioritize functionally and 'well, okay, that bug’s acceptable. This behaviour is less than ideal, but we can live with it because look what we’re getting over here.'

“We didn’t put anything off limits. We didn’t try to manage the experience. We let it be your experience, it was a player-driven experience. And very, very few games have mastered that because open world is now almost a cliché statement... ‘Oh yeah, we have open world.’"

Bethesda is of course working on its hotly anticipated Skyrim follow-up, The Elder Scrolls 6. Bethesda has said next to nothing about it, but we do know it will include a character designed in memory of a much-missed fan, after a remarkable charity campaign that raised more than $85,000 for Make-A-Wish.

Meanwhile, one of Skyrim's best-known players, Shirley Curry — known to fans as Skyrim Grandma — recently announced her retirement from uploading The Elder Scrolls videos ahead of her 90th birthday.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Battlefield boss Vince Zampella has said that Activision's best-selling Call of Duty franchise only exists "because EA were dicks."

It's an eye-opening but typically frank statement from Zampella, who is of course now an EA employee himself once again.

Over his career, Zampella has ping-ponged between rival publishers EA and Activision, working first on EA's Medal of Honor series, then founding Infinity Ward and helping create Call of Duty — specifically so it could be Activision's Medal of Honor "killer" — before returning back to EA after helping create Titanfall and Apex Legends at Respawn.

"The only reason that Call of Duty exists is because EA were dicks," Zampella told GQ, reflecting on his career.

Zampella initially worked on EA's Medal of Honor franchise from 1999 to 2002, and served as lead designer on the celebrated Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. After this, Zampella co-founded his own studio, Infinity Ward, with initial plans to continue working on Medal of Honor left up in the air when EA decided to take development of its franchise in-house.

"For legal reasons I will say things didn't go as planned with it," former Infinity Ward artist Justin Thomas previously revealed of the situation in an MCV interview, back in 2013. "We were left in a situation of unpaid milestones that were delivered and no finances to operate on."

It was at this point that Activision answered a last-ditch call by Infinity Ward, intrigued by the potential of working with the team behind Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and driven by the idea of creating a new franchise that could topple EA's own.

The rest, as they say, is history. Call of Duty became a behemoth, though Activision and Zampella parted ways following the launch of 2009's Modern Warfare 2, prompting a bitter legal feud over unpaid bonuses and royalties that dragged on for years (until Zampella ultimately earned a sizable payout).

That situation then led to Zampella co-founding Titanfall and Apex Legends developer Respawn, which EA partnered with then ultimately acquired. Zampella was then repeatedly promoted to look after more of EA's gaming portfolio, ultimately becoming boss of the embattled Battlefield franchise, turning its fortunes around to deliver this month's successful release of Battlefield 6.

GQ's interview also includes a snippet on the now-distant plans for Alien director Ridley Scott to direct a Call of Duty movie, something which ultimately never came to pass.

"Ridley Scott came in one time – who's a hero of mine – but he's not connected to games, so he'd ask these questions like, ‘How do you script what happens?’" Zampella recalled. "There was a bit of a talk around him doing a Call of Duty film, but we never really took it seriously. Video game movies at that point were never really that good."

Battlefield 6 launched last week and earned EA its best-ever game launch on Steam, beating that of Apex Legends. For more, check out IGN's Battlefield 6 multiplayer review in progress, our Battlefield 6 campaign review, and what to expect from Battlefield Season 1.

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for EA Entertainment.

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

Pokémon Go's new level cap requirements have leaked, and some fans say the fresh XP total required, as well as the some of the extra tasks involved, are too easy.

This week, Pokémon Go will raise its current level 50 cap for the first time in five years, and allow players to reach level 80 for the first time. But this change will come alongside an overall rebalancing of XP — meaning many players will find themselves transported to a much higher level, and potentially far beyond the XP needed to instantly hit level 80.

Of course, players won't simply log on and find themselves at the finish line. As is the case currently, a fresh set of additional tasks will need to be completed to progress through the game's final tier of levels (from 70 to 80, replacing similar tasks required to move from 40 to 50). But even these — which have been datamined by fans — have been dubbed as rather straightforward.

Last night, a post on the official Pokémon Go blog listed out the new XP requirements needed after the game's level cap increases tomorrow, October 15.

Pokémon Go rebalanced XP requirements:

• Level 10: 48,000 total XP
• Level 20: 258,000 total XP
• Level 30: 1,083,000 total XP
• Level 40: 3,953,000 total XP
• Level 50: 12,753,000 total XP
• Level 60: 34,353,000 total XP
• Level 70: 85,853,000 total XP
• Level 80: 203,353,000 total XP

It's interesting to compare these fresh totals with the amounts of XP needed to hit the game's level 50 cap now. Currently, hitting level 50 requires a lifetime total of 176 million XP. (This week, following the game's rebalance, level 50 will require just 12.75 million XP.) This means the new level 80 cap requires just 27 million more XP than the current level 50.

While it's been clear for a while that Pokémon Go's new level cap will come alongside an overall smoothing of the game's overall XP requirements, hardcore fans have still been surprised to discover that many of them will once again be in Pokémon Go's new endgame, with little to no actual XP grinding required.

Moving on to those level up tasks, fans examining a datamined list of what will be needed have judged the requirements as rather straightforward. Each level requires players hold an increasing number of platinum in-game medals, though these can be earned in a way that reflects your playstyle. Some will take time — Purifying 100 Shadow Pokémon — but with planning there's nothing here which should hold up hardcore players for too long.

Indeed, there is also palpable relief among fans at the lack of any artificial timegating here — such as requiring a Pokémon be caught on 30 days, holding progress back a month — something which has been found in other challenges previously.

Pokémon Go Level 71-80 level up tasks

• Level 71
  Earn 15 platinum medals
  Power up Legendary or Mythical Pokémon 20 times
  Make 999 Nice Throws
  Catch 100 Pokémon in a single day
• Level 72
  Earn 20 platinum medals
  Complete a Route 7 days in a row
  Use 200 supereffective Charged Attacks
  Earn 1,000,000 Stardust
• Level 73
  Earn 25 platinum medals
  Purify 100 Shadow Pokémon
  Power up 3 Pokémon to their max CP
  Win 30 Raids
• Level 74
  Earn 30 platinum medals
  Level up a Max Move 20 times
  Explore 200 km
  Complete 250 Field Research tasks

• Level 75
  Earn 34 platinum medals
  Make 999 Great Throws
  Hatch 75 Eggs
  Send 500 Gifts to friends
• Level 76
  Earn 38 platinum medals
  Defeat 100 Team GO Rocket Grunts
  Explore 300 km
  Catch 200 Pokémon in a single day
• Level 77
  Earn 41 platinum medals
  Win 100 Max Battles
  Power up 7 Pokémon to their max CP
  Make 10 trades with Pokémon caught at least 300 km apart
• Level 78
  Earn 44 platinum medals
  Earn 400 hearts with your buddy
  Explore 400 km
  Complete 500 Field Research tasks
• Level 79
  Earn 47 platinum medals
  Defeat a Team GO Rocket Leader 30 times
  Obtain 50 Lucky Pokémon in trades
  Hatch 100 Eggs
• Level 80
  Earn 50 platinum medals
  Win 80 Trainer Battles in the GO Battle League
  Make 999 Excellent Throws
  Win 80 Raids

With these tasks, and with Pokémon Go's new XP rebalance, it feels clear that the game is adjusting itself for newer players, and leveling the playing field somewhat so there's a chance for newcomers to catch up with those who have been playing for almost a decade. As the game approaches its 10-year anniversary next year, its developers will likely want to ensure Pokémon Go continues to welcome fresh blood to its userbase, without giving them too steep an XP mountain to climb. But some veterans are less impressed.

"These are all so easy," wrote Old_Indication_4379 on top Pokémon Go fan reddit TheSilphRoad.

"I'm disappointed beyond disappointment," added another fan, avaible17. "I'm sitting at 352M xp and I doubt that it is very impressive number for most of the old players. I hoped for a challenge and motivation to play, I've got easy and repetitive tasks, that most of them can be done in a day (except walking ofc).

"I was hoping for introduction of new type of medals, that would make my grind beyond capabilities of human flesh," they continued. "Now I'm writing this and thinking, that they just make it easier for beginners, not more challenging for old dogs."

Batman & Robin is considered the worst Batman movie ever released, but Alicia Silverstone and Chris O'Donnell, who played Batgirl and Robin respectively, are philosophical about it now, nearly 30 years later.

1997’s Batman & Robin, directed by the late Joel Schumacher, saw George Clooney’s Batman go up against Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze, with Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy thrown into the mix. It was panned by critics for the performances of its actors and ultra camp tone, and underperformed at the box office.

Now, 28 years after the movie came out, Alicia Silverstone and Chris O'Donnell have recounted their experience working on the movie and having to promote it knowing it was being savaged by critics. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the pair described the difficulty they had filming scenes without knowing how special effects would factor in, then having to go on a press tour with journalists who were out for blood.

"All of a sudden, you were starting to get the feedback, and you realize it was just going sideways," O'Donnell said. "There was so much hatred of the film when it came out. It was like, 'Oh my God.' And you want to do your job and promote the movie... I remember at one point Joel Schumacher just threw up the flag. He's like, 'I'm out. I can't do it anymore.' He was so heartbroken and kind of bummed out about it."

O'Donnell went on to say "it was a tough one for us to all to digest," but now feels "we were lucky to be in the movie, and it was fun to be a part of it. It is what it is. Some work out and some don't."

Silverstone won a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress following her performance at Batgirl, but now says sentiment has shifted.

Rapper Skrilla says his viral hit Doot Doot (6 7) is in Grand Theft Auto 6.

The soundtrack and radio listings in GTA games have long been something of a cultural phenomenon, boosting plenty of musical careers. In this instance, however, the song in question is already a mega hit that has inspired a global meme.

Skrilla's 6 7 blew up earlier this year on TikTok and Instagram. It's a slang term referring to gun violence but became popular when it began appearing in clips about basketball players like LaMelo Ball, who is 6ft 7 inches tall. It then went viral when a boy known as the 67 Kid used it in a meme, and now kids the world over are saying it.

A swathe of upcoming Pokémon game projects have seemingly been detailed online, via the latest release of material originating from the so-called "Teraleak" of data hacked from the servers of series developer Game Freak.

The cache of information, which includes development plans, concept art and early screenshots, was revealed overnight following the disclosure yesterday of data obtained in the hack that pertained to Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which launches this week.

As IGN reported yesterday, the suggestion is that the hacker behind last year's Game Freak breach has sat on this latest cache of data for almost a year, until Pokémon Legends: Z-A's launch. But now, it seems, the floodgates are open for everything else obtained from Game Freak detailing the franchise's future — and its product roadmap for the rest of the decade.

The largest cache of information relates to the franchise's highly-anticipated "Gen 10" games that are expected to launch next year, in time for Pokémon's 30th anniversary. Details now being shared online include the titles' planned name, early animation tests, in-engine footage and word of several planned gameplay ideas.

Beyond this, there's information relating to a separate, ambitious-sounding Pokémon MMO project, as well as concept art for a third Pokémon Legends spin-off title. And beyond that, there's the suggestion that Pokémon's Gen 11 will follow at the start of the next decade.

It's a frankly astonishing leak of information, seemingly from the same source which yesterday revealed details derived from beta builds of Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and last year leaked a vast treasure trove of development data on pretty much every previous Pokémon project launched to date.

Pokémon fans are already poring over the purported plans and discussing several eye-opening gameplay mechanics. There's even early fan art for a new Pokémon species spotted in one of the new pieces of conceprt art. But it's worth pointing out that some or indeed much of what has been shared may not ultimately come to pass.

As yesterday's Pokémon Legends: Z-A beta build leak showed, gameplay features get cut in development. And nothing in the Teraleak can be relied upon as reflecting Game Freak's current plans — as the hack itself took place back in August 2024.

Nintendo previously attempted to track down the culprit behind the Teraleak, and launched a legal bid to subpoena Discord to divulge the hackers' identity back in April this year. IGN has contacted Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for comment.

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

Post-launch support for Hollow Knight: Silksong continues, this time with patch version 1.0.28891 out now.

The update makes a number of improvements and fixes, and some light balance changes. The game now pauses when the controller disconnects, which is an important safety net for such an intense game. Indeed, there are controller support improvements across the board.

On the balance side of things, there’s a slight increase to Sharp Dart and Cross Stitch damage, updated damage scaling on Rune Rage to match other Silk Skills, and a slight decrease to Thread Storm damage at higher needle levels. It’s also worth noting that the patch changes Fine Pins wish drops from 50% chance to 100%, but raises the required quantity.

Developer Team Cherry had signalled its first priority remains to improve Silksong’s Simplified Chinese translation. This was in response to high-profile criticism of the translation, which had led to Chinese players leaving negative Steam reviews. These improvements are expected in the coming weeks.

Silksong remains one of the most-played games on Steam following its huge September 4 release. Here are some essential guides for your journey upwards: the Silksong Interactive Map, how to grind for Rosary Beads, our ever-expanding Walkthrough with boss videos and guides, how to get your first life bar upgrade (first four mask shards), and a great guide to the Simple Keys and the doors they open.

The patch notes, courtesy of Steam, are below.

Hollow Knight: Silksong update 1.0.28891 patch notes:

• Added support for Dualsense Edge controllers.
• Improved support for various controllers on Mac.
• Game now pauses when the controller disconnects.
• Fixed various smaller controller issues (more fixes to come in future).
• Fixed remaining instance of certain players getting stuck cursed while in the late game.
• Fixed Curveclaw not reacting to Hunter down-stab.
• Fixed rare instances of being able to air dash and double jump when not intended.
• Fixed several out of bounds situations.
• Fixed Pharlid Divers sometimes sliding on roofs after ambushing in certain scenes.
• Fixed Eva Hunter Crest upgrades unintentionally clearing tool equips.
• Fixed rare instances of Harpoon sometimes granting 2 Silk instead of 1.
• Fixed Cogflies sometimes appearing from odd locations after scene transition and, in rare cases, having their active quantity reduced by 1.
• Fixed Crafting Kits not increasing the damage of offensive blue tools (eg Sawtooth Circlet).
• Slight increase to Sharp Dart and Cross Stitch damage.
• Updated damage scaling on Rune Rage to match other Silk Skills.
• Slight decrease to Thread Storm damage at higher needle levels.
• Fixed Surgeon enemies sometimes pulling the hero out of bounds.
• Fixed instances of some Spool Fragments being permanently missable if a player immediately quit after collecting the item.
• Fixed Crust King Khann sometimes falling out of bounds during entry, when fought on low-end systems.
• Fixed rare instance of Second Sentinel becoming rotated when defeated.
• Fixed additional case of Seth sometimes getting out of bounds and not returning.
• Fixed Seth sometimes remaining invincible for a moment at the start of a refight.
• Fixed Vaults slide blocks incorrectly responding to damage sources other than the needle.
• Changed Fine Pins wish drops from 50% chance to 100%, but raised required quantity.
• Fixed issues when consuming a Silkeater while in water.
• Fixed Scuttlebrace sometimes allowing a wall jump when not intended.
• Fixed a soft-lock during the Grand Gate opening sequence, if the Citadel had been visited and some bellshrines remained inactive.
• Various smaller fixes and tweaks.

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.

For people who decide to give Splinter Cell: Deathwatch a try on Netflix that are unfamiliar with Sam Fisher’s long and incredible run in the 2000’s as the stealth video game genre’s Pepsi to Metal Gear Solid’s Coke, they’re going to find a violent, slightly over the top, yet pretty captivating eight-episode spy show. But for those of us who have loved Splinter Cell for over 20 years and waited more than half of that time for a new game, Deathwatch will be all of those things but also a bit bittersweet.

First, the sweet part of ‘bittersweet’ is that the show is quite good! The characters are all fun and have important roles to play in moving the story forward, Liev Schreiber is an outstanding understudy to Michael Ironside from the games as the voice of Fisher, and the show is paced well enough that I kept eagerly pressing “Next Episode” until I finished all eight parts – both times I watched it. The “bitter” comes from the realization that not only are we still no closer to a new Splinter Cell game, but this show is so far along in the timeline that we might not have much more time with my favorite sardonic super spy.

Yes, Deathwatch picks up decades after Splinter Cell Blacklist, the most recent game. Anna “Grim” Grímsdóttir is running shadow-ops US government agency Fourth Echelon, and Sam Fisher is living a quiet, night-vision-goggle-free life on a farm in Poland. In fact, Sam has all of two lines of dialogue in the entire first episode. That’s because Deathwatch begins by tracking young agent Zinnia McKenna (voiced by Kirby Howell-Baptiste) in the middle of an op gone bad; the fellow agent she’s been sent to Lithuania to extract is quite dead – the victim of torture, in fact. Her youthful rage leads her to make a mistake Fisher wouldn’t, and before long all hell has broken loose, with Fisher being very unwillingly roped into the whole mess and back to the life he thought he’d left behind.

By the end of the first episode, I was intrigued and ready for the rest of the series – not to mention relieved that Sam was clearly going to be a central part of Deathwatch, and that showrunner Derek Kolstad (whose action resume includes creating John Wick) wasn’t simply resurrecting Fisher to try and hand off the Splinter Cell brand to McKenna and a new generation of Fourth Echelon agents. No, no; by the end of the second episode, Sam is very much the star of the show, and season one is better for it.

As someone to whom Splinter Cell means a lot – I’ve completed every single game in the series (even Splinter Cell Essentials on PSP!) – the great Michael Ironside will always be my Sam Fisher. And it would’ve been particularly fitting for Ironside to get the role here, since Deathwatch’s Fisher is advanced in age, and Ironside himself is 75. But whatever the reason, Schreiber got the call, and he does a phenomenal job bringing Sam’s dry humor, wry toughness, and human compassion to life in his exchanges with his teammates, his enemies, and his dog, Kaiju. He lends Sam a toughness and gruffness that’s critical for Fisher’s character. I love him in the role and I look forward to more of his Sam Fisher if we’re lucky enough to get a Season 2.

It’s also worth noting how violent this show is – far more so than the games. Sure, you could kill everyone when playing, but Deathwatch is not shy about showing the grisly details. You’ll see scalpels (and fingers) driven into eyeballs, knives jammed into the sides of skulls, bullets fired into heads, knives rammed into guts, and worse. This isn’t a complaint, though; I liked what the violence= brought to Deathwatch, because it helped illustrate how life-or-death each encounter is for these lone-wolf spies slinking around the shadows.

And speaking of the shadows, yes, there is plenty of spywork done in this incarnation of Splinter Cell. Though if this was Blacklist, McKenna would be doing a Ghost playthrough and Sam would be playing Panther-style. He racks up quite the body count across the eight episodes – which I could only chuckle at because it’s the exact opposite of the way I typically play the games. But anyway, yes, these agents do cool ninja stuff in darkness, they do choke people out, and they do use gadgets here and there – though sadly there are no sightings of Splinter Cell classics like the Sticky Shocker or the Sticky Camera (or the SC-20k gun, for that matter).

Getting back to Sam’s supporting cast, I enjoyed what each of them brought to the team: Grim has neither patience nor F’s to give, Jo brings the steadiness Grim can’t while holding down the fort at Fourth Echelon HQ in Copenhagen, Thunder is a recruited Canadian hacker who quickly ingratiates himself to the team, and McKenna is a skilled agent for whom the mission gets personal. And on the bad guy side, Deathwatch resurrects a name familiar to Splinter Cell fans: Douglas Shetland. Though featured in flashbacks, Shetland is long dead, but the show’s story revolves around his daughter Diana Shetl nd’s dedication to turning Doug’s company Displace International from a private military contractor into a cleantech company whose imminent Xanadu project could power the world with renewable energy.

Does the plot get a bit nonsensical towards the end? Sure, but then again, so did the games. On a related note, I did appreciate that, whether it was intentional or not (and I’d lean towards it being on purpose), Deathwatch does allude to a couple of missions from the best of all the games, Chaos Theory, without outright retreading them. In fact, the final two episodes are titled “Chaos Theory: Part 1” and “Part 2.” Other Easter eggs from the past include not one but two very familiar sound effects: there’s the classic tri-lens night vision goggles turning on, of course, but I particularly appreciated the radio/comms activation noise being ripped straight from the original Xbox days of the franchise.

Circling back to the bittersweetness of this series, while there’s certainly nothing stopping Ubisoft (who produced this show) and Netflix from keeping animated Splinter Cell alive for many years to come by simply doing flashback seasons that take us back to Sam Fisher’s prime super-spy days, the more likely reality is that this Old Man Sam isn’t going to be around for the long haul by nature of where this show starts us in Fisher’s life. If that proves to be the case, it either means this show itself will be with us all too briefly, or Schreiber’s Fisher will hand the reins to Howell-Baptiste’s McKenna, which audiences might resist, as it’d be like killing off Batman and turning it into a Robin show. I find the former to be more likely – after all, Netflix only gave The Legend of Lara Croft (which, in fairness, was not a good show) two seasons, and even the stellar Castlevania only got four seasons. Plus, historically speaking, Sam Fisher is Splinter Cell.

But for the time being, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that we’ve got Splinter Cell back in our lives, the show is a great (if all-too-brief) ultraviolent romp for just over three total hours across eight 22-27 minute episodes, and maybe, just maybe, it might convince Ubisoft to get its ass in gear on that Splinter Cell remake that got announced four years ago and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

Alienware's new mainstream gaming laptop for 2025 is dubbed the "Alienware Aurora" and it replaces the previous generation's x16 and m16 series of laptops. It comes in two models: the 16 and 16X. Of the two, the 16X Aurora is the model I would unequivocally recommend. It features a fully aluminum body, a higher quality display, and more powerful CPU and GPU. It's also more expensive, however right now there's an excellent deal that actually drops the price to just $50 more than an equivalently configured 16 (non-X) Aurora.

Alienware 16X Aurora RTX 5070 Gaming Laptop for $1,599.99