I have spent more hours than I care to admit bouncing between wishlists, review builds, and half finished save files, so when a sale lineup actually stops me mid scroll, I pay attention. This batch does exactly that, mixing genuine classics with a few pleasant surprises that feel underpriced on purpose. I have played most of these on release or close to it, and several of them still live rent free in my head.

Contents

• Retro
• Nintendo
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC
• PC Gear
• LEGO

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro news I'm using a Bob-omb to light a 26-candle cake baked for Super Smash Bros., the N64 brawler that stole all my heart containers at launch. I have vivid memories of introducing this multi-fest to my rotating crew of a dozen or so buddies who were already well addicted to the 4P chaos of Mario Kart, GoldenEye, and the WCW vs. nWo series. Needless to say, this hooked us quicker than a point blank chainshot grab from Link.

How could you not? It had the simple concept of making iconic Ninty characters beat the absolute snot out of one another via an easy-to-pick-up yet deceptively deep fighting system. This OG laid strong franchise foundations with percentage damage, directional attacks, shields, grabs, and table-turning support weapons. Hell, I still think thwacking idiots into orbit with a Homerun Bat remains one of the most satisfying sensations in all of video gaming.

Aussie birthdays for notable games.

- X-Men: Children of the Atom (ARC) 1995. Redux

- Super Smash Bros. (N64) 2000. eBay

Table of Contents

Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch

• Sonic Frontiers (-40%) A$59.90 Sonic finally figured out what to do with all that speed, wide open spaces, crunchy combat, and a soundtrack that goes weirdly hard at 2am.
• Persona 5 Royal (-70%) A$29.90 Turn based combat, high school drama, and jazz menus so stylish they should be illegal. Say goodbye to your free time and most of your sleep.
• The Talos Principle Del. (-87%) A$5.90 A puzzle game that traps you in a robot garden and starts asking uncomfortable questions about consciousness between laser puzzles.
• Doom Eternal (-75%) A$13.70 Doom as a cardio workout. You shoot, dash, juggle ammo, and panic constantly, all while heavy metal screams encouragement.
• Burnout Paradise Rem. (-83%) A$6.70 Still the best game about driving very fast and immediately ruining it with a spectacular crash.

Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.

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Exciting Bargains for Xbox

• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (-63%) A$40.30 Bigger, tougher, and more confident than Fallen Order, with lightsaber combat that finally makes you feel mildly unstoppable.
• Seagate 1TB Expansion (-28%) A$223.70 Not a game, but absolutely required unless you enjoy deleting things every second week like a digital minimalist.
• Middle Earth: Shadow Of War (-71%) A$15.80 Orcs remember you, hate you, and come back stronger just to ruin your day. Still one of the coolest systems in modern games.
• Darksiders III (-67%) A$18.10 Less hack and slash, more careful footwork, with boss fights that absolutely will not let you button mash your way through.
• Immortals Of Aveum (-71%) A$31.50 A magic shooter where spells replace guns and subtlety is politely shown the door.

Xbox One

• Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (-53%) A$27.00 Pixel perfect platforming with more charm, polish, and post launch support than most modern releases.
• Wild Hearts (-77%) A$25.20 Monster hunting that lets you build nonsense mid fight. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes messy, always interesting.
• Like A Dragon: Ishin! (-58%) A$41.90 Samurai drama one minute, deeply silly side quests the next. Somehow it all works, as usual.

Or just invest in an Xbox Card.

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Pure Scores for PlayStation

• The Last Of Us Part I (-36%) A$79 Still devastating, still brilliant, now prettier and smoother, just do not play it if you need cheering up.
• Elden Ring (-49%) A$43 A game that explains almost nothing, kills you constantly, and somehow becomes impossible to stop playing. Essential.
• SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7P Headset (-48%) A$205 Comfortable, clean sounding, and wireless enough that you will forget you are still wearing it hours later.
• NFS Unbound Ult. Col. (-85%) A$19.40 Loud colours, louder music, and arcade racing that finally remembers how fun this series can be.
• Final Fantasy XVI (-47%) A$45 Big swords, bigger emotions, and boss fights that feel like playable anime finales.
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (-57%) A$49 Medieval life sim energy where reading matters, armour is heavy, and every fight feels personal.

PS4

• Metro Saga Bndl (-90%) A$9 Grim, tense shooters that make every bullet feel precious and every tunnel deeply unpleasant.
• Mafia: Trilogy (-40%) A$59.90 Three crime stories, plenty of sharp suits, and a reminder that being a gangster rarely ends well.
• Untitled Goose Game (-50%) A$14.90 You are a goose. Your job is to ruin lives. Honk accordingly.

Or purchase a PS Store Card.

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Purchase Cheap for PC

• Indiana Jones And The Great Circle (-38%) A$74.30 Proper globe trotting adventure energy, complete with puzzles, on brand archaeological chaos, and punching fascists right in their stupid faces.
• Cleared Hot (-10%) A$19.70 Straightforward air combat that skips the homework and gets right to the Desert Strike vibes.
• Crysis Rem. Trilogy (-59%) A$29.90 Still a flex, still melts hardware a bit, and still lets you solve problems however you want.
• Pavlov (-40%) A$21.50 VR chaos powered by mods, memes, and people taking things far less seriously than they should.
• It Takes Two (-80%) A$9.90 Co-op perfection that constantly changes the rules and never lets a good idea overstay its welcome. Probably could save your relationship. Or doom it.

Or just get a Steam Wallet Card

Legit LEGO Deals

• Super Mario Yoshis Egg-cellent Forest (-63%) A$29.80 Bright, playful, and pure serotonin, this one looks great on a shelf without demanding your sanity.
• Mario Kart - Bowsers Castle (-47%) A$79 Lava, curves, and Bowser energy everywhere. Big build, big presence, big nostalgia hit.
• Star Wars AT-ST Walker (-34%) A$199 Awkward, menacing, and unmistakably Star Wars. Somehow still looks like it might fall over.
• Harry Potter Chomping Monster Book (-29%) A$77 Equal parts creepy and clever, this one absolutely looks like it might bite you if left unattended.

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We've rounded up the best deals for Sunday, January 4, below. Don't miss your chance to save on these deals!

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II for $29.99

Avatar: Fire and Ash has become the third film in the franchise to surpass $1 billion at the global box office, but questions remain on whether it will end up matching Avatar 1 or 2 by the end of its theatrical run — or convince Disney to green light Avatar 4 and 5.

On weekend three, James Cameron’s Fire and Ash made another $40 million domestically, marking a 37% drop week on week. It’s now up to $306 million domestically. Fire and Ash is proving a bigger hit internationally — particularly in China — with $777.1 million so far from theaters. That makes for a grand total of $1.083 billion. Disney said Fire and Ash pushes the Avatar franchise total past $6.35 billion globally.

The special effects-heavy Avatar films cost a huge amount of money to produce, but they have historically made billions of dollars at the box office. Avatar 1 remains the highest-grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation), and has earned a staggering $2.9 billion across several theatrical runs. Avatar: The Way of Water has earned $2.3 billion, meanwhile, cementing it as the third-highest grossing film of all time — just ahead of Cameron's own Titanic.

Will Fire and Ash end up matching the box office hauls of its predecessors? Fire and Ash is slower to $1 billion than both Avatar 1 and 2, but not by much. The Way of Water, released in 2022, hit $1 billion 14 days after launch, and Avatar, released in 2009, reached $1 billion after 17 days. Fire and Ash managed $1 billion 18 days after release.

The Avatar films typically show impressive staying power at the global box office, particularly internationally, so the coming weeks will be crucial. Adding a helping hand, Disney is drip-feeding Avengers: Doomsday teaser trailers ahead of Fire and Ash in theaters in a bid to encourage repeat viewings (the X-Men trailer is set to be replaced by a fourth next week).

Perhaps the pertinent question is, will Avatar 3 end up making enough money theatrically to convince Disney to greenlight Avatar 4 and 5? Disney has given both sequels release dates already: Avatar 4 currently has a December 21, 2029 release date, with Avatar 5 due out December 19, 2031. Cameron, now 71, would be close to 80 years old by the time it all wraps up.

But will he get the chance? In the run up to Fire and Ash’s release, Cameron admitted he was feeling nervous about the film’s box office performance and expressed concern about the “forces” working against theatrical releases in 2025.

Speaking on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, Cameron said there was potential for “sequelitis.” He added: "people tend to dismiss sequels unless it’s the third Lord of the Rings film and you want to see what happens to everybody, which in my mind this is — this is the culmination of a story arc, but that may not be how the public sees it.” And there’s the “one-two punch” of streaming and Covid, which means fewer people are going to the movies — 75% of the number in 2019, Cameron suggested.

When pressed on how much Avatar: Fire and Ash cost to make, Cameron wouldn’t be drawn into divulging a figure, only suggesting it was a lot of money, and so the movie will have to make a lot of money to turn a profit.

“It is one metric f**k ton of money, which means we have to make two metric f**k tons of money to make a profit,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money. The question is, does it make enough money to justify doing it again?”

2025 finally saw the long-awaited arrival of Nintendo’s next console: the Switch 2. But now, it’s time to turn the page to 2026 and talk about what’s in store for Switch 2’s sophomore year. Nintendo already has a pretty fleshed out release calendar for both Switches, a blockbuster movie set to hit theaters, with plenty of surprises surely in store as well. Here’s what to expect from Nintendo in 2026.

Nintendo in 2026: What’s Already On the Books

Before we get into wild speculation, here’s a recap of what we already know is coming to Switch and Switch 2 in 2026. There’s already a lot to look forward to, as Nintendo remains very consistent in pushing something out pretty much every single month.

That pattern begins this month, as we’ll all return to our weed-infested islands and face the wrath of our neglected villagers when Animal Crossing: New Horizons gets a free update on the original Switch and a Nintendo Switch 2 edition on January 15. New Horizons 3.0 is available to players on both Switches, and it comes with a new hotel to customize, a bunch of Nintendo items, and tons of little quality of life updates like upgraded item storage. Meanwhile, if you buy the Switch 2 Edition or the $5 upgrade pack, you can access improved resolution, mouse controls, 12-player multiplayer, and more.

Just a few weeks later we’ll see the first brand new Switch 2 exclusive of the year with Mario Tennis Fever’s launch on February 12. The big hook this time is the Fever Rackets that grant special abilities like freezing the court or duplicating yourself. Fever will also feature 38 playable characters, including Donkey Kong’s refreshed design and – for the first time ever – Baby Waluigi.

If you love collecting ridiculous Nintendo products like I do, you might be looking forward to Virtual Boy joining the Nintendo Switch Online library on February 17. You need one of two headsets to access this forgotten library from Nintendo’s biggest failure – either a plastic replica or a cheaper cardboard option. That’ll be available on both Switches.

Pokémon meets Minecraft (or more accurately, Dragon Quest Builders, but that’s not as catchy) in Pokémon Pokopia on March 5. This Switch 2 exclusive will task you with using Pokémon moves and materials to design your very own town. I expect Pokopia to be an enormous hit this year: Pokémon and Minecraft are two of the biggest things on the planet, and after everyone’s done poking around the new Animal Crossing update, this looks like the perfect game for that audience to shift to next. Amiibo are trudging on in 2026 as well, and March 5 will also see the launch of the Meta Knight and Shadow Star figure from Kirby Air Riders.

Pokopia is the last firm release date we have, but Nintendo has a few games slated for Spring. Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park is an enhanced port of the 2023 platformer, and one part of Nintendo’s ongoing celebration of Super Mario’s 40th anniversary. It adds cooperative and competitive multiplayer minigames, and we’ve seen a small glimpse of what appears to be a new side story in more traditional levels. I predict this will arrive on April 2, the same day as the new pair of Super Mario Galaxy amiibo and just a day before The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters, putting a new Mario game on store shelves at the exact moment Mario Mania kicks in.

The other pair of Spring releases is Yoshi and the Mysterious Book on Switch 2 and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream on Switch 1. Yoshi’s illustrated art style looks really nice, and Tomodachi Life is an exciting return for a 3DS cult classic with a hilarious out-of-left-field personality that you really have to see for yourself.

There’s even more coming later in 2026: Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave will mark the strategy RPG’s first outing on Switch 2, Nintendo and FromSoftware are teaming up for The Duskbloods as a Switch 2 action-RPG exclusive, while Switch 1 players can look forward to Rhythm Heaven: Groove, the return of Nintendo’s quirky rhythm minigame series for the first time in a decade. Finally, Pokémon Champions is a competitive battle-focused game coming to Switch and Mobile this year. We know it will be used at the Pokémon World Championships in 2026, meaning it should be out before that event kicks off in late August.

On the third-party front, Switch 2 is getting a lot of major games on day one, including huge support from Capcom with Resident Evil Requiem on February 27 (along with Resident Evil 7 and 8 on the same day), Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection on March 13, and Pragmata on April 24. Plus, all three of those games are getting their own amiibo figures. There’s a lot beyond Capcom, too, like Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, 007 First Light, and more. Hopefully we’ll see cleaned up versions of games delayed out of 2025 as well, like Elden Ring Tarnished Edition and Borderlands 4.

Pokémon’s 30th Birthday Bash

A huge element of Nintendo’s 2026 will no doubt be Pokémon, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. You can safely expect a Pokémon Presents around February 27, and – as we move firmly into the speculation part of this yearly preview – I think it’s going to be a big one. I predict Pokémon’s 10th Generation will be 2026’s November release for Switch 2, and that we’ll get our first look at them here. I don’t think there’s any chance Pokémon misses out on its 30th anniversary without a new pair of mainline games.

But that’s not all: I think 2026 is finally the year that Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow come to Switch. I don’t think they’ll join the Nintendo Switch Online subscription library – it’ll make you buy them separately – but similar to how the Gen One games were dropped on 3DS to celebrate the franchise’s 20th anniversary in 2016, I think Nintendo will run the same play here and shadowdrop them the day of the presentation. The Pokémon Company is also planning to open PokéPark Kanto in Tokyo, Japan, on February 5, the first-ever Pokémon theme park.

What Else Could Nintendo Have In Store?

We’re in an interesting spot where Nintendo has already shown a lot of its cards for 2026, but I still think there are a few things we don’t know about. There is Splatoon Raiders, the single-player Switch 2 spinoff announced last year, but Nintendo hasn’t committed to that launching in 2026 at all, and it feels more fitting as an early 2027 release to me at this point.

With November likely taken up by Pokémon, that leaves October open for a Nintendo franchise fitting for spooky season: Luigi’s Mansion. Next Level Games has been quiet since 2022’s Mario Strikers: Battle League (except for a small assisting role on Metroid Prime 4: Beyond), and given its usual three-year turnaround time on Nintendo games, I think it’s time for Luigi’s Mansion 4. The last in the series was a huge sales success, so a sequel is a no-brainer. Just for fun, I’ll guess that the setting will be a haunted cruise ship Luigi has inherited for some strange reason.

2026 also marks the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda. With a movie on the way in 2027, and Nintendo’s general pattern of launching at least one Zelda game every year, it’s a safe bet to say something Zelda-related will come out this year. I don’t think a new 2D or 3D Zelda game is close to being ready, so it’s probably time for another remake or remaster. I’ll guess fans will finally get the Ocarina of Time HD remake they want, but it won’t be perfect: it’ll be a touched up HD remaster of the 3DS remake that comes to both the original Switch and Switch 2, rather than the gorgeous 4K reimagining we all dream about.

On the smaller side, I have to imagine Nintendo is prepping DLC for Mario Kart World, and all signs point to it centering around Donkey Kong. DK and Pauline strangely only have one costume apiece in World, there are no Jungle-themed DK tracks, and Nintendo’s wider push for DK would lend itself to a DLC pack themed around him. And, I’d like 2026 to be the year we finally get answers surrounding Nintendo’s mysterious Switch Online Playtest program that's been running since 2024.

I think that’s about all the room we have for 2026’s calendar, but Nintendo will announce a few games this year we won’t see until 2027. Xenoblade developer Monolith Soft hasn’t released a brand new game since 2022, and I have a feeling we might get a quick tease at what they’re working on in the September Nintendo Direct.

And, my boldest call of them all is that we’ll get a tease this year for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition to launch sometime in 2027. I believe Ultimate could get the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe treatment this generation, with an enhanced port that carries us through the next several years rather than an entirely new entry. Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai wrapped up Kirby Air Riders a few months ago, and it’s entirely possible he’s already hard at work bringing Ultimate over to Switch 2 with a few new characters. Ultimate noticeably hasn’t received a Switch 2 performance patch like Super Mario Odyssey, the open-world Zeldas, and plenty of other best-selling Switch 1 games, and combined with the fact that a new Smash game almost always hits within the first two years of a new Nintendo console, it feels like a prime candidate for a Switch 2 Edition.

Nintendo Will Continue Expanding Beyond Games

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will hit theaters on April 3, three years after the original made over a billion dollars at the global box office. I think Nintendo will waste no time in announcing its next animated partnership with Illumination, given they’re likely very confident this movie will perform extremely well like the first one did. I’m expecting a formal announcement of an animated Donkey Kong movie sometime before the end of 2026. You should also expect to see the first trailer for The Legend of Zelda movie before the year is over.

Finally, in a bit of a bummer prediction to end on, I’m expecting a Switch 2 price increase sometime after March. Nintendo has essentially committed to keeping the price where it is through the end of its fiscal year – which concludes March 31 – but there are no guarantees after that. We’ve already seen increases on the original Switch, as well as Switch 2 accessories, so it feels like it’s only a matter of time before Switch 2 follows suit.

And that’s everything we expect from Nintendo in 2026. What game are you most excited for? Have you picked up a Switch 2, or are you still happy with the original? Let us know in the comments.

Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN's Database Manager & Playlist Editor. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he is patiently awaiting the day Nintendo announces a brand new F-Zero. You can find him online @LoganJPlant.

One of the lingering questions Stranger Things fans having coming out of the Season 5 finale relates to the series’ famous monsters, the demogorgons. Or, perhaps put more accurately, the lack of them.

In the final battle (Season 5 Episode 8, The Rightside Up), which Stranger Things has built up to for nine years and five seasons, our heroes battle against Vecna and the Mind Flayer, but not the demogorgons, the demodogs, or the bats we’ve seen previously. Where were they? Surely Vecna and the Mind Flayer would have had a better time of things if they’d had their pals help them out against Eleven, Steve, and the others. Were they sleeping on the job? A revolt, perhaps?

In an interview with TheWrap, Stranger Things co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer offered a detailed explanation, which involves a few factors. One, Vecna was caught unawares. He did not expect a sneak attack in The Abyss, so was not prepared for what was coming. Related, he had the Mind Flayer helping him out, so why would he need any more help? (This was, obviously, a bad decision.)

Meanwhile, all those demo monsters aren’t just hanging around Vecna at any given moment, the Duffer brothers said. There are not a lot of them in The Abyss.

And then we get to what I think is probably the most important reason, which has to do with what Stranger Things had done earlier in the season. The Duffers were mindful of what they called “demo fatigue,” having had a dramatic fight against the demogorgons at the end of Season 5, Volume 1, when Will’s powers awaken and he kills a handful of the things with his mind.

“Mainly it’s just that Vecna was not expecting this sneak attack on his home turf,” Matt Duffer explained. “Never in a million years could he even imagine that. They’re there somewhere. We obviously discussed having a demo battle on top of the Mind Flayer battle, but it felt more right to us that why does he need the demos when the Mind Flayer is this giant thing and can attack them? He doesn’t need his little ant army to attack, he’s going to take care of this himself.

“It’s a giant, desolate planet. If you recall, you see Henry wandering the planet back in Season 4 and at some point in his journey, he does see a demo far in the distance, but it’s not like they’re hanging out in little huts. There’s not like a giant civilization of demos up there.”

Matt Duffer continued: “one of the other things we talked about was just demo fatigue. I felt like we did everything we wanted to do with them in Sorcerer, and wanting to keep the focus on Vecna and the Mind Flayer, who’s been absent this season.”

So there you have it. Vecna’s confidence was his undoing, it seems — and a touch of “demo fatigue.”

According to Matt Duffer, there was an idea to have the heroes encounter a giant field of demo eggs in The Abyss in a scene reminiscent of Aliens, “but you can’t get all your ideas in there.” Apparently the demos were going to come out of the eggs and everything.

Some fans have suggested the fight against the Mind Flayer would have been made all the more epic by the addition of demogorgons. Having Will control them and turn them against the Mind Flayer and Vecna is a popular fan suggestion, too. But there’s no going back now. With the Upside Down destroyed, the demogorgons are stranded in The Abyss — hopefully forever.

We've got plenty more on Stranger Things, including the Duffer brothers explaining what they were going for with the Season 5 finale and Eleven's ending, and first details on the live-action spinoff.

Image credit: Netflix.

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.

Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios has confirmed one of the community’s biggest questions since the game came out: it does indeed feature ‘aggression-based matchmaking.’

This means that if you’re big into PvP, you’ll be matched up with players who are like-minded. Similarly, if you prefer PvE, you’ll be matchmade with players who tend to avoid conflict with other players.

Arc Raiders’ player versus environment versus player gameplay has resulted in a number of viral clips showing how friendly encounters can quickly devolve into a fight to the last. Yes, you can play solo or in parties up to three, working as a team to progress through the game. However, other players are a constant threat. This has sparked a vociferous debate within the community about the etiquette that has formed in-game, with a retired pro gamer going viral for relentlessly killing casual Arc Raiders players.

It turns out that Arc Raiders will lean on your playstyle when it comes to matchmaking. This ‘aggression-based matchmaking,’ however, is not an exact science, Patrick Söderlund, CEO of Embark Studios told Games Beat in a recent interview / video playthrough of the game.

“Obviously first it's skill-based of course,” Söderlund said of Arc Raiders matchmaking. “Then you have solos, duos, and trios. And then we also, since a week ago or so, we introduced a system where we also matchmake based on how prone you are to PvP or PvE. So if your preference is to do PvE and you have less conflict with players… you'll get more matched up [with similar players]. Obviously it's not a full science.”

Söderlund said the term ‘aggression-based matchmaking’ is “exactly” the system Arc Raiders currently uses. That puts to bed high-level questions about how Arc Raiders matchmaking works for the community, which had wondered about it in recent months. “I can finally stop arguing on Reddit, thank you for the vindication,” said one player.

However, it’s worth noting that Söderlund confirmed Arc Raiders prioritizes "skill" when it comes to matchmaking, then groupings. Aggression-based matchmaking is a factor, but we don’t know how much influence it has on your lobbies compared to other factors. And even Söderlund admitted it doesn’t always works as you’d think.

And how, exactly, does Arc Raiders determine if you’re “prone” to PvE or PvP? If you’re a kill on sight player, sure, you’re probably prone to PvP. But what if you only shoot back at those who shoot at you first? Does that make your lobbies more aggressive? If so, is that fair?

So, one big question answered, but many more remain. As for Embark Studios, it always hoped Arc Raiders would have a tension between both playstyles. Arc Raiders is a multiplayer extraction adventure in which players scavenge the remnants of a devastated world, but the main threats are Arc’s machines and, as Embark Studios puts it, “the unpredictable choices of fellow survivors.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

The future of cinemagoing is top of mind as 2026 kicks off, with Netflix, which is buying Warner Bros. for $72 billion, reportedly interested in a 17-day window for theatrical releases before they hit the streaming platform. Meanwhile, box office revenue is struggling, with even Marvel movies — previously guaranteed hits — having trouble getting fans into theaters. The big question right now is, are we witnessing the beginning of the end of going to the cinema?

Hollywood legend Leonardo DiCaprio has expressed concern about the future of cinemagoing, wondering whether it will become a niche pursuit. In an interview with The Sunday Times, the Titanic, Inception, and The Wolf of Wall Street star wondered whether “people still have the appetite” for theaters, and, if not, whether they might “become silos — like jazz bars.”

“It’s changing at a lightning speed,” DiCaprio said. “We’re looking at a huge transition. First, documentaries disappeared from cinemas. Now, dramas only get finite time and people wait to see it on streamers. I don’t know.”

Then: "Do people still have the appetite? Or will cinemas become silos — like jazz bars?" While expressing this concern, DiCaprio said he hoped “real visionaries” continue to make unique movies that are seen in theaters, "But that remains to be seen.”

DiCaprio, who starred in 2025’s critically acclaimed One Battle After Another, isn’t alone in worrying for the future of cinemagoing. But some have gone even further. Last year, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the theatrical experience is “an outmoded idea for most people,” and claimed Netflix is “saving Hollywood.”

One Battle After Another ended its theatrical run making $205 million globally. According to Variety, Warner Bros. needed it to make roughly $300 million to break even on the film, which means it’s looking at a $100 million loss, give or take.

And while James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash has crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office, it’s not going to get anywhere near the money the previous two Avatar movies made in theaters. In the run up to Fire and Ash’s release, Cameron admitted he was feeling nervous about the film’s box office performance and expressed concern about the “forces” working against theatrical releases in 2025.

Speaking on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, Cameron said there was potential for “sequelitis.” He added: "people tend to dismiss sequels unless it’s the third Lord of the Rings film and you want to see what happens to everybody, which in my mind this is — this is the culmination of a story arc, but that may not be how the public sees it.” And there’s the “one-two punch” of streaming and Covid, which means fewer people are going to the movies — 75% of the number in 2019, Cameron suggested. In the same interview, Cameron said Netflix buying Warner Bros. would be a “disaster.”

One report has claimed Netflix is particularly keen to obtain Warner Bros.' vast content library as the streamer ramps up its potential to offer AI-generation tools and content in the future.

Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for Warner Bros.

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.

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Fantasian Neo Dimension for $26.70

Well, I can confidently say one thing about being “the Xbox guy” at IGN: it’s never boring. Granted, it is often frustrating, depressing, weird, and occasionally shocking. But there’s almost never a dull moment. So went Xbox’s 2025. As I looked back on last year’s version of this column, I found that I got plenty of my forecasting right, a few things wrong, and there was some stuff I could’ve never predicted. And so as I look ahead to Xbox’s 2026, I will once again expect the unexpected – but I’ll also dig into everything we can reasonably surmise about what could maybe, possibly be the last full calendar year of the Xbox Series generation before Microsoft seemingly gears up to release a console/PC hybrid.

The thing is, a month ago, this piece would’ve been a heck of a lot easier to write. It would’ve been all about Microsoft’s Big Four – Halo, Gears of War, Fable, and Forza – all returning in the same year for the first time in over a decade(!) to deliver Xbox’s biggest and possibly best lineup since the Xbox 360 days. But then Galactus, aka Grand Theft Auto 6, showed up to consume everything in its path, as it’s been delayed from May to November of 2026 and will now effectively have November onwards – a key holiday-shopping window of Q4 every year – all to itself. Any game company executive that willingly ships a game anywhere near GTA 6 should be fired and institutionalized. It’s not just a bad idea, it’s business suicide.

Clash of the Titans

And yes, nearly every major publisher will be affected by this to some degree; Sony has the long-anticipated Marvel’s Wolverine slated for the Fall, and Nintendo…well, maybe Nintendo is the exception to the Grand Theft Auto rule. But Microsoft is potentially the most screwed by Rockstar’s shifted timeline. Halo: Campaign Evolved is surely intended to ship right near Halo’s 25th anniversary on November 15. Uh-oh. Meanwhile, Gears of War: E-Day was almost certainly scheduled for the Fall (to wit: none of the five mainline Gears games has ever shipped outside of the Fall season), Fable’s hugely anticipated revival was probably penciled in for the holiday season after Playground Games delayed it, and Forza Horizon 6? OK, I’d bet on that one dropping sooner rather than later, because a Forza Horizon game doesn’t need a big public relations or marketing campaign. It’s such a powerhouse franchise with a sterling reputation that all fans need to know is where it’s set (Japan), what new cars are in it (TBD), and how soon they can play it. Once Forza Horizon 6 was announced at the Tokyo Game Show in late September, I figured it would probably be out within six months. And I still think that.

And what about Call of Duty for 2026, which the franchise’s alternating development timeline suggests is probably Modern Warfare 4 from Infinity Ward? Historically, Activision’s annual juggernaut always arrives within a two-week window between the last week of October and the first week of November. Considering how much overlap I’d guess there is between Call of Duty and GTA in the Venn Diagram of Casual-Leaning Gamers Who Only Buy a Couple Games a Year, which one do you think those people are going to choose if they can only afford to buy one of them (particularly given that they’re each likely to cost at least $80)? I know which one I’d pick…

Step Up or Back Off?

In fact, what happens to all of Microsoft’s big presumed Fall plans now that Rockstar has planted its flag in the ground for November 19? The short answer is that I’m not sure all five of Xbox’s biggest first-party games can ship in 2026 anymore. Not if Microsoft wants to make any money on them, anyway. The good news is that all of these games have a great chance to be fantastic titles that score big with critics and fans alike. Microsoft just has to make sure they don’t get squashed like bugs under Grand Theft Auto 6’s Godzilla-sized feet. It’s reasonable to expect one or both of Fable and Gears of War: E-Day to push into the first half of 2027, while I’d bet on Call of Duty being moved up as much as possible – mid-October might be as far forward as they can pull it without crunching all of its developers to death. And if Forza Horizon 6 isn’t already planned for the first half of 2026 (and again, I’m confident that it is), I’d guess that somewhere around August is the new plan.

And that’s not even everything. State of Decay 3, Clockwork Revolution, and Hideo Kojima’s OD feel like they’re a little further out than next year, but there’s one lesser-known game that might stand toe-to-toe with anything else Xbox has coming up: promising pixel-art potential masterpiece Replaced. The debut game from Sad Cat Studios will finally land as an Xbox exclusive in 2026. I’ve played it, and it sets off my Spidey Sense as something that could be truly special – a possible generation-defining indie game, like how Limbo and Braid were for the Xbox 360 and Inside was for the Xbox One.

The Cavalry Has Arrived

Regardless of exactly when each of Xbox’s blockbusters finally drop, though, the Xbox’s Big Four couldn’t be lining up to land at a better time, because the Xbox brand image is in tatters. Repeated mass layoffs. Game cancellations. Studio closures. Halo heading to PS5, which was the biggest, clearest white flag Microsoft waved to tell gamers, “It’s fine, you don’t need an Xbox; you can play any and all of our games on other platforms if you want to.” It was a Covenant energy sword through the heart for long-loyal Xbox fans.

All Xbox gamers have ever wanted is a Sony-like pipeline of awesome games on a consistent basis. It would seem we’ve finally got what we’ve wanted – over the past 12 or so months, Xbox has shipped Black Ops 6 and 7, STALKER 2, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed, South of Midnight, Flight Simulator 2024, Doom: The Dark Ages, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black and Ninja Gaiden 4, Gears of War Reloaded, The Outer Worlds 2, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered — but not without the monkey’s paw curling in the process.

Split Personality

And so as we look ahead to what to expect from Xbox in 2026, software shines brighter than ever. Hardware…well, rumors of the next-gen Xbox/PC hybrid are flying fast and furious, so could that mean an official announcement at the 2026 Xbox Showcase in June followed by a release in Fall 2027? And as for the platform? I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done to revive excitement in that.

So where does that leave Xbox heading into Year 6 of the Series X|S generation? Paradoxically, it is both better and worse off than it’s ever been, for all of the reasons I’ve already gone over. Exclusives are dead, but great games are plentiful. Hardware is more expensive than it was at launch, but there’s a pretty sweet handheld now. Life as an Xbox fan is both awesome and terrible, and I’m not sure I can sum it up any better than that.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

CES 2026 is nearly here, kicking off officially on January 6th and running through January 9th, 2026. Every year, this is the show where all the latest hardware and tech goodies for the coming year are shown off – whether they're new gaming laptops or some concept that'll never actually see the light of day. There will be a lot going on, but luckily I'll be on the ground in Las Vegas, sorting through everything.

Over the next week I'll keep this article updated with all the coolest gaming and entertainment technology at the show. This year, the show probably won't be as packed as it was in 2025 – which brought us new graphics cards and all the PC gaming hardware that comes with them. Still, I do expect plenty of gaming hardware to at least be teased, especially with the Steam Machine lurking around the corner.

What to Expect At CES 2026

CES is still a few days away, but that doesn't mean we can't take some educated guesses about what'll be at the giant tech show.

Mid Generation GPUs?

CES 2025 was so huge for gaming because both AMD and Nvidia released a whole new generation of graphics cards. That's probably not going to happen this year, but it is possible that one of these companies launches some kind of mid-generation refresh. Typically, for instance, Nvidia follows its graphics cards about a year into its generation with its 'Super' series of GPUs.

However, because RAM is seeing such high prices right now, there's a good chance that neither of these manufacturers is going to rush to launch new products that'd likely need to be significantly more expensive. We're even starting to see rumors that existing graphics cards are going to see price jumps in the coming months, according to Korean tech outlet Newsis. We'll just have to see!

AI Will Be Everywhere

Love it or hate it, AI is still a huge topic in the tech world, and I don't expect that to change at CES 2026. We're probably going to see hundreds of different gadgets that implement AI in some way, ranging from ridiculous gimmicks to actually useful features. Even in the face of companies like Microsoft backing off of AI investment a bit, according to The Information (Via ExtremeTech), it's still going to be a huge topic at CES this year.

Gaming Laptops Powered By Intel Panther Lake

While it's unlikely we're going to get a new GPU generation at CES 2026, Intel has already announced its new mobile CPU generation, code-named Panther Lake. While this architecture isn't going to power the most powerful gaming laptops, it's going to be behind many lightweight gaming laptops.

I did get a chance to see these new CPUs in action back in November, and was impressed by the technology on offer. These new laptop chips will have integrated GPUs powerful enough to play games at 1080p, and offers Intel's own take on Frame Generation – all without a discrete GPU. Pair it with a discrete GPU and who knows what they'll be capable of. Either way, I'm excited to get these new laptops in the lab – whatever they are. Intel has been needing a win for a while now, maybe this will be it? We'll find out next week!

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

If you're familiar with the world of components, it's no secret that GPU prices have been all over the place for a while now, and that likely will only increase in 2026. Rumors of NVIDIA cutting back production of GPUs by 40% continue to surface, and the demand for graphics cards has skyrocketed due to LLM/AI demand. It's a challenging time to put together the parts necessary for a PC build at a reasonable price.

Thankfully, a great deal has surfaced on Amazon for the Sparkle Intel Arc B570 Guardian OC graphics card. While this isn't a top-of-the-line model by any means, it's an excellent entry-level card that packs a punch, especially with the 10GB of VRAM available.

Sparkle Intel Arc B570 Guardian OC Graphics Card for $199.99

Spoilers follow for Stranger Things, up to and including the series finale.

Stranger Things burst into the pop culture zeitgeist 10 years ago to become an instant global phenomenon that captivated audiences for five seasons and 42 episodes. An original story from then newbies Matt and Ross Duffer, the Netflix series wore its ‘80s nostalgia on its sleeve, but it gave us indelible characters and performances that grabbed our collective hearts. As it wound down to its final two hours on December 31, the expectations for Stranger Things to stick its landing achieved the same fever pitch as Game of Thrones and Lost had in the lead-up to those shows’ endings. As we know, there’s no pleasing everyone, but the Duffers’ series finale focuses on its characters first and in doing so delivers emotional closure that makes up for some of its less satisfying choices.

While the two-hour and eight-minute runtime of "Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up” implies a movie-length conclusion, the finale is really the sum of two parts modeled much like Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Here, the first hour functions as a mega-budgeted, mashup homage to some of the great action classics of the ‘80s era — Red Dawn, Aliens, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and even TV miniseries IT. While the second hour serves as an extended epilogue that gives almost every significant character in the ensemble a goodbye moment of note. As a piece, the action resolution portion hits its high point early when Vecna’s the Abyss descends into Upside-Down Hawkins, dislodges beloved Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) from the WSQK radio tower and then goes to black. After a dastardly extended beat, Steve is revealed to be alive and snatched back from certain death by Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton), which goes down as the biggest rush of the whole episode.

After that, the scale of several battles culminating in the Abyss are tense and effective. What happens to Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) is particularly painful, especially in the wake of Hopper’s incredibly poignant speech to Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) about their suicide pact. But her need to give El a life beyond their shared pain adds resonance and purpose to her character. On the other hand, as expected the unrepentant ire and sadism of military figures Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) and Lt. Akers (Alex Breaux) never gets contextualized in the time allotted, which makes them the most throwaway characters of the series. Hamilton deserved better.

Otherwise, all of that leads into the Abyss where the melee between Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bowers) and Eleven is designed to be personal and intense. And the mega-Mind Flayer Boss Battle plays out like a D&D campaign moment on steroids. For all the bullets and Molotov cocktails, the most satisfying scenes come when Nancy (Natalia Dyer) frees her exhausted little sister Holly (Nell Fisher) from her Vecna cocoon, and then when Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) gets her moment, putting the death-rattles of the villain to an end by hacking him to pieces, intercut with a deeply moving montage of all the pain and death he rendered on the residents of Hawkins. The Duffers did very right by the whole cast of characters by not just reducing that moment to the cathartic act, but by reminding us of the tremendous cost levied on this town and its people.

In terms of bang for our buck, the finale season was a feast for the eyes and ears. In the last episode, the tower sequence, Max, Kali and El finally infiltrating Henry’s mind in the Creel house and the tension-filled standoff in the Upside Down Hawkins lab with Kali, El, Hopper and Murray (Brett Gelman) are excellent set piece sequences. And I’m not disappointed that a big piece of unanswered lore was dropped with that mystery Mind Flayer rock because it led to Bowers’ masterful performance as Henry watching his younger self embrace the evil within after murdering that mystery man in the cave. It wasn’t the circumstances that made Henry into 001 into Vecna; it was Henry connecting his darkest heart with the Mind Flayer’s intentions, and that’s way better than a redemption arc when this much damage has been wrought.

And let me add that the Duffers better be prepared for real-world music licensing realities post-show because the chances of getting a budget again to use the kind of quality needle drops they did in this series may never come again. The episode is bursting with great choices even outside of Prince’s “When Dove Cries” and “Purple Rain,” including sprinklings of Cowboy Junkies, Pixies, Fleetwood Mac and the final emotional blow of David Bowie’s “Heroes.”

Heading into the final hour, if you weren’t a fan of the multiple endings of Return of the King, you likely felt every minute of the successive chapter endings. If anything feels like it overstays its welcome, it’s Robin’s (Maya Hawke) radio narration and the graduation sequence. Yes, they function to give everyone in town a last moment in the sun, but by the end, it does start to feel like we’re all in those bleachers squirming under the hot sun. Much more successful are the intimate goodbyes — the older kids embracing their futures while still wistfully wanting to hold onto their bond, Hopper and Joyce getting engaged at Enzo’s, and the final campaign for the OG D&D gang.

I’m particularly happy that the Duffers didn’t buy into the series finale bloodbath methodology where swaths of characters have to go down to elicit audience feelings. Instead, they stayed true to what counted most in their show - their characters and the deep relationships they forged over five seasons. Life has already been intensely unkind to Hawkins and every one of its citizens. Giving our heroes and their extended circles some momentary peace and a sense of victory is what a D&D campaign is all about. You spend time building your character up and discover each other’s talents and put them into action when needed most. In the end — often hit points deficient and battered — you come out together victorious and ready for the next adventure. The Duffers never lost sight of that from beginning to end.

And that’s perfectly expressed in Mike’s (Finn Wolfhard) Stand By Me-style roundup of how he saw his friend’s futures. It was a sob-inducing, bittersweet way to tie up the profound importance of storytelling that remains the beating heart of this series… although the Duffers’ cake-and-eat-it-too closing on El is less satisfying the more you think about it. If you’re a realist, then Kali’s sacrifice didn’t give her sister a future and El’s choice means she really did live a terrible life of loss and didn’t get a happy ending for herself. If you’re an optimist like Mike, then you can imagine she lives, but what a bittersweet existence to live alone. However, Stranger Things has always been a modern-day fairy tale rooted in Gen X memories of unencumbered childhoods threatened by the realities of imagined evils. That the mythic heroines of the tale — El and Kali — were the means by which all of the Hawkins characters (except Ted) were able to grow into their best selves, that’s a story grounded by life’s truths and one that was well worth the journey.

We’re only two days into 2026 and Secretlab are already dealing out discounts on gaming chair and desk bundles that will have your battlestation or work-from-home setup ready for a fresh year of digital gains ahead. Saving up to $150 versus their standard pricing is all good in my book.

TL;DR: Deals for Today

Outside of the best gaming furniture around, Acer are knocking out refurbished RTX 5070 gaming PCs at over $400 off. If you’ve not been keeping up with the latest tech news, RAM, DRAM, and SSD storage prices are inflating up to four times their shelf price thanks to AI data centres snapping up that sweet silicon and copper wafers. So getting an RTX 5070 build with 32GB DDR5 RAM and a decent processor for just over $1,200 is ridiculously good.

On top of that banger deal, I’ve got 4K streaming device deals from Google and Amazon, topping that off with more than half off a set of Sennheiser Accentum Bluetooth headphones. I’m awesome, right? Let’s get into it:

Secretlab Bundle Sale

Having tested plenty of gaming desks and chairs from every brand worth their salt, I’d argue that Secretlab’s gear is worth it when there isn’t a good offer on. Thankfully, Secretlab are bringing in the New Year with their Titan Evo gaming chairs and Magnus gaming desk setups, with all their bells and whistles on for up to $150 off.

If we’re getting personal about it, I tend to feel so much better using quality gear when writing and gaming. So when deals come up like this for products that will last years and keep you comfortable whilst grinding out work and games, it’s well worth jumping on.

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max

Google TV Streamer 4K

Acer Nitro 60 Desktop i7-14700F RTX 5070 32GB 1TB SSD

Sennheiser ACCENTUM Wireless Bluetooth Headphones (Black/Copper)

WolfBox 3000A 12V 16000mAh Portable Car Jump Starter w/ 160PSI Compressor

4K + Blu-Ray Steelbook Sale

Studio Ghibli fans, this sale is for you. With everything from Howl's Moving Castle to Spirited Away. Transformers: The Movie is here too, and it's the best way to listen to the best movie theme song in the world from Lion (I'll die on that hill).

From newer releases such as Straight Outta Compton to cult classics like The Blues Brothers, there's something for everyone in this sale, with the highlights shown above.

Save 64% Off Rosetta Stone Lifetime Subscription

Peloton + Fitness Sale

It's hard sticking to the gym, especially when you have a family and a full-time job to hold down. Peloton is a popular option for its quality equipment and a membership that gives you smart class recommendations based on your stats. And we've all tried buying cheap exercise bikes at somepoint, and in my opinion they ruin the positive start you're looking for on your fitness journey. It's an investment in yourself at the end of the day.

Peloton bikes and treadmills are pretty much like having a personal trainer inside your workout equipment whenever it suits you. Plus, accessories such as cycling shoes and dumbbells are up to 70% off, so it's a good time to give yourself the healthy kickstart you need for 2026.

Manga Box Set Sale

If you're planning on freeing up space to store One Piece manga, box sets one to four are all on sale. That's volumes 1–90 for a combined $636.26, down from $959.96, saving a massive $323.70. That's a little over $7 per manga, which usual are usually priced at $11.99.
If you're a Dragon Ball fan like me, the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z box sets are locked in the sale too for $97.99 and $175.66 respectively. That's a total of $273.65, down from $449.98, for the filler-free best way to experience the series. The way Akira Toriyama presents his panels is ridiculously expressive and a masterclass in what Shonen Jump manga is and should be.

Magnetic Building Blocks (150PCS)

Hand Warmers

Cheapest at Amazon: MTG

Commander Masters is the best set to get into if you love playing Commander, getting you legacy card reprints that are ideal for the format. It's not cheap, but Amazon currently has the best pricing for Set and Draft booster boxes.
If you missed out on the Final Fantasy Universes Beyond set when it dropped earlier this year, the game edition of Cloud Strife's Commander Deck, Limit Breaker, is at market value on Amazon right now. That just means you're getting it for a fair price compared to the secondary market, whilst being able to take advantage of that sweet Prime shipping.

Cheapest at TCGPlayer - MTG

TCGPlayer is still holding the top spot for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Play Booster Box preorders. It's a full $20 cheaper from its merchants right now, a saving worth getting over Prime shipping. The same goes for the Lorwyn Eclipsed Play Booster Box, a full $30 cheaper over Amazon's price.
Amazon has its preorder price guarantee, but that only counts if they drop the price before release. You can't price match other retailers with this guarantee, so if you see a steep discount on a preorder elsewhere, take your chances.

Cheapest at Amazon: Pokémon TCG

It’s great to see popular sets like Surging Sparks and Phantasmal Flames Elite Trainer Boxes crop up for less on Amazon, with the former being below market value alongside the Destined Rivals triple booster.

Cheapest at TCGPlayer: Pokémon TCG

It’s strange to see Silver Tempest sealed product showing up on Amazon right now. Perhaps we’ll see more Sword & Shield-era reprints on store shelves? Regardless, TCGPlayer has the Silver Tempest Elite Trainer Box for far less than Amazon, and the same goes for the Prismatic Evolutions ETB.

TCGPlayer also has the best deal on Destined Rivals Booster Bundles, currently sitting at $52.50. That means you get double the booster packs compared to the three-pack booster deal in the last section for less than double the price. TCGPlayer really has the no-brainer deals right now.

Skytech Gaming PC Holiday Sale

Considering we’ve just entered a memory chip shortage across the board, with even DDR4 RAM going for silly money, getting an RTX 5060 build with 32GB DDR4 for $1,079 is a great deal. You’ll have solid 1080p gaming with either an Intel i5-14400F or AMD Ryzen 7 5700 processor to boot. Personally, I’d go for the Crystal build. It costs the same and gives you far more room for bigger GPU upgrades down the line.

If you’re looking to go all-in with 4K gaming out of the box for under $3,000, the $2,799.99 Aqua build comes with a gorgeous clear white and blue case, complete with CPU liquid cooling, an RTX 5080, 32GB DDR5, and the absolute beast that is the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait

Babylon 5 fans are hoping Netflix’s big-money acquisition of Warner Bros. means the chances of a continuation of the much-loved sci-fi series will improve. But creator J. Michael Straczynski has calmed excitement, insisting there’s a long road ahead for any positive developments.

Warner Bros. owns Babylon 5, which has remained largely dormant since the iconic space opera ended in 1998 after five seasons. Despite efforts to get a revival off the ground, nothing new appears to be in the works, but some fans have expressed hope that Netflix may be interested in Babylon 5 should its deal to buy Warner Bros. goes through.

However, Straczynski outlined the many hurdles Babylon 5 must overcome before Netflix — or any company for that matter — might greenlight its return. As for now, there is nothing in the works. “The studio is contractually required to notify me if anything is put forward on B5,” Straczynski tweeted. “No such call has come.”

Spoilers follow for Stranger Things, up to and including the series finale.

There will never be another show like Stranger Things. Sure, there will be spinoffs that are similar to Netflix’s series, which wrapped up its nearly decade-long, five-season run on New Year’s Eve with “The Rightside Up.” And throughout the past nine years, plenty of shows have aped the Stranger Things style, and will continue to do so. But charting the evolution of the show from its surprise hit premiere on July 15, 2016, through the finale right at the end of 2025 shows a decade of growth and change in the world of streaming that we likely won’t go back to ever again.

It might be hard to remember, but Stranger Things wasn’t always the all-encompassing cultural dominator it is now. In 2016, Netflix wasn’t even at exactly the same level, either. Sure the binge model had already begun to change the way we watch TV, and the streamer had plenty of hits ranging from House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black to its deal with Marvel for Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and the rest of the MCU street-level heroes. But when Stranger Things debuted, no real “Netflix formula” had codified, at least not the way we think about it today.

Stranger Things helped set the stage. An original property that many viewers thought of as “that Winona Ryder show” dropped without a ton of advance buzz or real understanding of what it was, other than some sort of homage to ’80s cinema. A large part of that lack of advance word was something that would become cornerstone to Netflix’s ambitions going forward: the Duffer Brothers, who created the show, were virtual unknowns. By the time they started pitching Stranger Things with the help of director/producer Shawn Levy, they had two credits to their name. The first was a movie titled Hidden, which they wrote and directed, and starred Alexander Skarsgard, Andrea Riseborough, and Emily Alyn Lind. That got a grand total of six critics reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and a worldwide gross of $310,273. The other credit was writing four episodes of Fox’s Wayward Pines, a show you likely forgot ever existed.

This is jumping ahead, but what Netflix (slowly) learned is you can take unseasoned showrunners with little to no practical experience, pair them with someone more experienced (in this case Levy) for new IP, and the risk is relatively low. If it fails, well, the showrunners weren’t experienced, no harm done. If it works? Bonanza!

Like many other Netflix hits that became cultural phenomena (see Squid Game and KPop Demon Hunters for later examples of this), the success of Stranger Things was organic, spurred on by word of mouth that worked despite the streamer’s vaunted algorithm, not because of it. The show was well reviewed for its pastiche of ’80s tropes and charming child cast that included stand-out performances including Millie Bobby Brown as the psychic Eleven, Gaten Matarazzo as the nerd genius Dustin, Caleb McLaughlin as the slingshot-carrying Lucas, and Finn Wolfhard as group leader Mike. Also lauded were the adult performances by Ryder as strung-out mom Joyce and David Harbour in a breakout role as the gruff-with-a-heart-of-gold chief of police Jim Hopper.

It’s hard to tell how much of a success Stranger Things was in its freshman season, as Netflix did not at the time release viewing stats, but one independent look showed that it grabbed 14.07 million adults in the 18-49 demo. That put it behind seasons of Fuller House and Orange Is the New Black, and is nowhere near the December 25, 2025, drop of Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 2 lifting Netflix to (according to its own reports) the best Christmas Day viewership ever. But the point is, people were watching, and more importantly telling other people to watch.

Like the best cultural modifiers, what Stranger Things was doing in Season 1 wasn’t new necessarily, but it was remixing previous ideas in the blender with a heavy grounding of fresh, engaging characters with real emotional journeys. The Duffer Brothers pulled on everything from Amblin movies to Stephen King and Dungeons & Dragons to create a TV series that paid respect to its forebears while never feeling like an Easter egg hunt. The kids in the show loved pop culture of the time. They were nerds. So of course they saw an adventure with a terrifying monster they called the Demogorgon and a little girl straight out of Firestarter through their own experience with movies and books. That’s how they processed the world, and so, as viewers, did we.

Season 2, meanwhile, for all its high points, showed a series grappling with its own success. Additional characters, a more complicated mythology, and a clear attempt to replicate the surprise hit of Season 1 moved the action from Amblin adventures of the early ’80s to action movies of the mid-’80s. That season also included what seemed to be a half-baked attempt to create a backdoor pilot for a spinoff with the much maligned “The Lost Sister” episode featuring Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), a punk psychic kid who, like Eleven, had escaped from experiments at Hawkins Lab.

And on the Netflix end, the monetizing of Stranger Things had begun. While Marvel had its own products, it’s hard to imagine fans going gaga for Orange Is the New Black jumpsuits, or Bloodline… Well, nothing from Bloodline. Stranger Things, on the other hand, with its younger audience obsessed with the mythology of the series, and relating hard to the charming young cast (including popular canon and non-canon ‘ships), was primed for a product bonanza. That aspect is technically external to the show, but it’s impossible to separate subsequent seasons' new costumes, new characters, and new settings – Scoops Ahoy ice cream? The Starcourt Mall? Even the final season’s WSQK inspiring its own finale-spoiling LEGO set – from a mountain of Funko POP!s. Theme park horror houses on Halloween, pop-up experiences, comic books and novels, shirts and jackets and hats at Hot Topic, a frickin’ Broadway show… Even the just-opened Netflix Houses would not have happened if the streamer hadn’t been able to use Stranger Things as a test case for how to create alternate monetary streams other than measly streaming subscriptions.

None of that is of concern to the viewer, but as noted it runs parallel to the spiraling scale of the TV series. Each subsequent season, by its very nature, needed to up the ante of the spectacle from the previous one. A singular Demogorgon led to Demodogs led to the massive goop pile of the Mind Flayer, and finally the reveal of Henry Creel/Vecna/One (Jamie Campbell Bower), the big bad behind the curtain the whole time (sort of). But at least up until the final season, the show never lost track of these being normal kids in impossible situations (even as the kids grew up, got married, and had kids of their own in the real world).

And that’s likely part of the problem fans have been having with these concluding episodes, other than the mere idea that a finale is nearly impossible to stick the landing for, and has only rarely been universally lauded. The issue is that Stranger Things began by lovingly homaging the media that came before it in a way that felt fresh and new, even when it was set decades in the past. Meanwhile, the final season of Stranger Things is paying tribute to… Stranger Things. Yes, there are still plenty of references throughout, from Return of the Jedi to Labyrinth and everything in between. But unlike the more spontaneous-feeling nods of previous seasons, Season 5’s references mostly feel Scary Movie-level, done out of due diligence and to provide fodder for TikTok sleuths, rather than because the characters in the show love these things.

Nowhere is this navel-gazing more prevalent than in the preponderance of flashback scenes in the finale, “The Rightside Up.” There’s an argument to be made that they are necessary, but they are also a reminder of better, more fondly remembered seasons. It’s hard to, for example, watch the depressed, deadly serious Hopper of the finale right next to a flashback of the funny, dancing Hopper of Season 2. Who wouldn’t want to watch the latter over the former?

Is this bad? Or wrong? As I’ve been saying, Stranger Things came from nothing, and became everything. So perhaps a victory lap for the show that helped transform Netflix is well deserved.

And since Stranger Things debuted, Netflix has been less successful at creating the next Stranger Things (see Locke & Key, Fate: The Winx Saga, Shadow & Bone and others) than continuing to cultivate the Stranger Things fandom and play catch-up when something unexpected breaks out. The one exception to this rule is likely Wednesday, which is based on a pre-existing property (The Addams Family), features a big star (Jenna Ortega) and comes from showrunners with a history of hits behind them. Since Netflix has been unable to recreate Stranger Things through magic or science, perhaps that’s the streamer’s way forward: ignore the “newbie” rule established by the Duffers, and instead go for something with more potential reward. Or perhaps the one cool trick Netflix will try is buying HBO and letting them handle this going forward, while the house that red envelopes built will focus on reality show spinoffs (The Wire: The Challenge, anyone?).

Regardless of what Netflix does next – part of that strategy includes the animated series Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, and at least one live-action spinoff, so they’re not letting go of the series quite yet – Stranger Things helped teach the streamer how to be a cultural behemoth, a giant spider monster that crawls through the desert of content to consume everything in its wake. And 10 years ago, when we first found a bunch of kids playing D&D in Mike Wheeler’s basement, who could have imagined that? After all, Stranger Things was just “that Winona Ryder show.”

For any LEGO newcomer – any adult who's looking for an entry point into this incredible hobby – you can't go wrong with one of the car replicas. The newest models incorporate a bit of everything – a little Technic for the car's frame; an interlocking web of rods, studs, and gears for the steering, and some traditional bricks for the body and finish. It's a crash course on all LEGO fundamentals – all the innovative building techniques that the company has mainstreamed and popularized over the past decade.

As an upside, you'll also end up with something that "works." The best thing about LEGO vehicles is that they're fairly durable and contain numerous practical features – steering, of course, but also things like gear shifts, suspension, retractable headlights, and moving peripheral elements. When you're ready to move beyond LEGO, many of these best LEGO alternatives boast working features too.

Whether you're into classic cars from the old days or the iconic vehicles from Hollywood blockbusters (like this recreation of the Batmobile from the 1966 Adam West-led show), IGN has you covered. Here are all the best LEGO car sets that you can buy in 2026.

Best LEGO Car Sets

Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport Hypercar

LEGO Technic BMW M 1000 RR

LEGO Lamborghini Countach 5000 Quattrovalvole

Optimus Prime

Bumblebee

Back to the Future Time Machine

Batman: The Classic TV Series Batmobile

Mercedes-Benz G 500 PROFESSIONAL Line

McLaren P1

LEGO Technic Ferrari Daytona SP3

2025 was somewhat of a quiet year for PlayStation. Yes, we got the Game of the Year-nominated Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, and Sucker Punch’s exciting sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yotei. But aside from that, there wasn’t really a lot of activity from Sony’s first-party studios. Instead, you had to look to developers outside of Sony’s stables, who thankfully kept the PS5 ticking over with an array of interesting games. Right at the back end of 2024, Infold launched the console-exclusive Infinity Nikki and has been delighting stylists around the globe over the past 12 months, and smaller projects such as Sword of the Sea, Dispatch, and Baby Steps have all been enjoyed on PlayStation 5.

Of course, the fact that there were not many console exclusives didn't mean there weren't a whole host of great games to play on our PS5s last year. Quite the opposite, in fact. Awards-sweeper Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong, and acclaimed RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 led the third-party offerings. Plus, 2025 really was the year of Xbox going fully multiplatform with its library, as Forza Horizon 5, Gears of War Reloaded, and The Outer Worlds 2, to name just a few, all made their way to PlayStation. And that’s showing no signs of slowing down in the coming year, either, with a certain Master Chief set to grace a Sony console for the first time.

The truth is, Sony has just been pretty quiet when it comes to exclusives of its own, with little new to shout about from a hardware perspective, either. And that’s before we even get into the problems Bungie (now a PlayStation Studio, remember) has faced with Marathon. So, are things looking more exciting in 2026? Well, Marathon will certainly be hoping so as it aims to combat PlayStation’s recent live-service travails. Let’s dig into it, as well as everything else to expect from Sony this year.

First-Party and Exclusives

Heading into 2026, all eyes are on Logan, as Insomniac aims to bolster its long winning streak of Ratchet and Clank and Spider-Man games by taking on another comic book hero. Marvel’s Wolverine is currently pencilled in for a “late 2026” launch, although we’ll see if those plans change at all due to a certain Rockstar game moving to a similar timeframe. Whenever it does release, though, we look to be in for a treat if our first look at gameplay during September’s State of Play is any indication.

While much is still yet to be revealed about its story, we’re eager to learn more and see just who else from the X-Men and the wider Marvel Universe will be popping into Logan’s world. Mystique and Omega Red have already been confirmed, but surely Sabretooth is a must, as well as a cameo at the very least from either of Insomniac’s Spideys, Peter Parker or Miles Morales. Which of the X-Men do you want to see most?

As for PS5 exclusives that actually have release dates confirmed, there’s only Saros, Nioh 3, and Phantom Blade Zero. The former is Housemarque’s follow-up to the acclaimed Returnal, and looks to be sitting in a similar mould of colourful, particle-filled, challenging shooter within an alien planet shell. Now arriving on April 30 after a slight delay, it will take players on an expedition to a lost colony as we step into the shoes of Rahul Kohli’s Arjun Devraj and kill and die our way to uncovering its mysteries through its repeating, roguelike structure.

Nioh 3 is a console exclusive for PlayStation, as it's also arriving on PC when it launches on February 6. A chronological sequel to the events of the series’ first game, Team Ninja is back with a fresh dose of its own brand of punishing soulslike action in feudal Japan. Things are being shaken up this time, though, thanks to the introduction of a “ninja playstyle” which promises to control completely differently from the traditional samurai option. Trust a studio called Team Ninja, which is also responsible for the Ninja Gaiden series, to want to add ninjas to Nioh. That's enough ninjas for one sentence, I think.

Phantom Blade Zero is a hotly anticipated wuxia action RPG coming from Chinese developer S-Game. The lead character is called Soul, so you can probably guess what genre this project also borrows heavily from, too. I can confirm this myself – after briefly going hands-on with it at gamescom 2025, I found that there is indeed a punishing combat system with a complex skillset to master. But there are other action game influences, too, so the combat tempo is much higher than in your typical Soulslike. Up for some punishment? Well, you’ll have to hold on a little longer yet, as Phantom Blade Zero will be released on September 9.

Now onto the stuff we’re led to believe will be coming in 2026, we just don’t know when yet. First up is Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, the new superhero fighting game from Guilty Gear developer Arc System Works. A uniquely stylised interpretation of the Marvel universe, it looks set to be a real contender in the fighting game community if its recent closed betas are anything to go by.

Freshly revealed at The Game Awards, 4:Loop is a new co-op shooter from Left 4 Dead creator Mike Booth and Bad Robot Games, the video game wing of film director J.J. Abrams' production company. A PS5 and PC exclusive, it seems to infuse some roguelike elements with a sprinkling of Helldivers and Left 4 Dead. No release date has been given yet, but playtesting will start soon.

Then we have Marathon, the new extraction shooter from Destiny developer Bungie, which was initially meant to arrive in 2025, but had a rough year to say the least. Delayed into this year and now coming out in March, the studio will be hoping for a big comeback story this year and buck the trend of recently failed Sony live-service shooter offerings such as Concord. Instead, it’ll be looking to the likes of the wildly successful Arc Raiders and PlayStation’s very own Helldivers 2 for a template to follow. Shooter pedigree doesn’t come much stronger than Bungie, so fingers crossed that it can turn around those initial impressions.

Speaking of live-service shooters, Fairgames is reportedly still in development at Haven Studios despite the departure of its founder, Jade Raymond, in May of 2025, and even more recently, the game’s creative director, Daniel Drapeau, leaving in September. With still no gameplay to be seen and no sign of a release date for this “competitive heist shooter”, serious questions now have to be raised about whether it will ever see the light of day.

Laser swords more your cup of tea? Well, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet might be the one for you. We’re very much dreaming if we think this is coming any earlier than 2027, but hopefully, we get a good look at gameplay for Naughty Dog’s new sci-fi game over the next 12 months. Expectations are high from one of Sony’s most beloved developers, though, with creator Neil Druckmann calling it the “most ambitious game” they’ve ever made.

But what about all of those other PlayStation studios cooking up exclusives? Well, Guerrilla may not be developing the recently revealed mobile MMORPG Horizon: Steel Frontiers itself, but has been recruiting for its own multiplayer entry into Aloy’s universe. Could we see that in 2026? What about Santa Monica’s next project? Is it finally time to see what Cory Barlog’s mystery game is, if a new God of War isn’t imminent? All good questions. None of which I have the answers for.

I could run through each of the remaining Sony studios here, but, truthfully, I did that back in August, and very little has changed since. So, you can read that here.

Third-Party and Multiplatform

Another look forward to the year ahead in games, and another opportunity for me to say how excited I am for GTA 6. Surely, after its most recent delay to November, 2026 is the year we finally get our hands on the latest Grand Theft Auto. Please, Rockstar, don’t do it to us again.

Our loss is a bunch of games’ gain, though, with Spring opening up wide for a fair few to fill that GTA-shaped void. These include Capcom’s latest entry into its legendary horror series, Resident Evil Requiem and IO Interactive’s first non-Hitman project in a long time, James Bond adventure, 007 First Light. Plus, Pearl Abyss’ expansive open-world action of Crimson Desert will be soaring onto consoles and PC in March as well. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is looking to pick up where Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy left off and infuse its satisfying melee combat with that indelible minifig charm when it launches on May 29.

But so much of 2026 remains uncertain — likely largely due to GTA shifting around more than James Brown did on stage in the ‘70s. Let’s start with some multiplatform games we are pretty confident are coming this year, before moving on to ones that will likely remain rooted in our dreams.

Yes, Master Chief will soon be controlled by a DualSense. Halo: Campaign Evolved is heading to the PS5 in 2026 as Microsoft continues to unleash its library onto other platforms. This Unreal Engine 5 remake of the 2001 Xbox classic could prove the spectre at the feast for Bungie, the original developers of Halo: Combat Evolved, if its own Marathon launch doesn’t go as planned. At least it won’t be competing in the multiplayer market, as this new edition of Halo only includes the story campaign.

Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra recently shifted out of its original window of early 2026 to “beyond early 2026”, so your guess is as good as mine as to when we’ll be playing Amy Hennig’s Captain America and Black Panther in World War 2 story. Legendary PlayStation hero Lara Croft will be returning in a “reimagining” of her original game, titled Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, and Finnish developer Remedy is back with another entry in its connected universe, Control: Resonant. Also announced at The Game Awards was the pleasantly surprising Star Wars: Galactic Racer from the makers of Burnout and Need For Speed that is scheduled to drop in 2026.

Capcom is also set for a big year outside of Resident Evil, with Onimusha: Way of the Sword and Pragmata both set to hit. As was the way in 2025, 2026 also looks set to keep you happy if you’re a fan of katanas and unnerving robots. As it will for vampire fans too, with The Blood of Dawnwalker looking really promising thanks to a non-linear narrative and sandbox-like structure, crafted by a team led by former Witcher 3 devs. Then there’s Mixtape, a game I’ve added to this list as one of my personally most anticipated of 2026. The sophomore project from The Artful Escape studio Beethoven & Dinosaur, this 80s-inspired coming-of-age adventure is definitely one to keep on your radar.

Is 2026 finally the year we get to play a new Ken Levine game? The Bioshock creator hasn’t given us one since 2013’s Infinite, and Judas has been in development for a long time now. Let’s hope this is the year, because it’s something I need in my life. As is The Witcher 4, but even I’m not foolish enough to believe that CD Projekt Red’s Ciri-led RPG is coming anytime soon. But feel free to surprise me. I’d love that.

Hardware and Tech

We’re not necessarily expecting any big hardware splashes this year, with the next console generations theoretically not due until late 2027 at the earliest. Sony tech wizard — and most importantly, creator of Knack — Mark Cerny did recently discuss new graphics capabilities in a conversation with AMD, which sparked PlayStation 6 speculation into overdrive, but it's still likely a couple of years away at least.

Rumours are also abound of a new PlayStation handheld, after suggestions were made over the past summer that Sony could even be following Nintendo’s blueprint for the Switch, and turning the PS6 into a hybrid home and portable console. Of course, this is all just wild speculation, but with powerful hardware only reducing in size and cloud capabilities ever-growing, it doesn’t feel like too much of a stretch to imagine. As I said, though, we’re still quite a way off hearing anything concrete in regards to the future of PlayStation hardware.

And that’s everything we know, along with a few guesses thrown in, about what to expect from PlayStation in 2026. What games are you most excited for this year? Let us know in the comments below.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

The Witcher 3 maker CD Projekt has a secret new expansion for its beloved role-playing game in the works, various reports have suggested.

Word that the studio was planning more content for its 2015 blockbuster originally dates back to a report published online last summer, in which Polish games industry insider Borys Nieśpielak first spilled details of the supposed project.

At the time, Nieśpielak claimed that development was being handled by Fool's Theory — the studio that CD Projekt has also tasked with remaking The Witcher 1. Today, in a report by Eurogamer, Nieśpielak doubled down on his initial claim and pointed to a recent hint by CD Projekt itself that the content was quietly in the works.

"Given our current progress, there is a chance that new content hinted upon in recent calls and reports may see release in the coming year," CD Projekt chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz said in the company's latest financial report, published in November 2025. Without naming the content, Nielubowicz went on to suggest that it could have "an impact" on the company's upcoming results — potentially suggesting it would arrive relatively soon, and be relatively meaninful in scope.

This isn't the only official mention of an unnamed project, either. In a follow-up investor call following the aforementioned results, joint studio CEO Michał Nowakowski also made mention of an "other project" that Fool's Theory was working on, in the same breath as mentioning its The Witcher 1 remake and support for the upcoming The Witcher 4.

Yet another whisper of the project came just before the end of last year from Polish analyst Mateusz Chrzanowski, who said he expected "the next paid add-on (DLC) for The Witcher 3 to be released in May 2026." All of this points to CD Projekt, via Fool's Theory, having something new for The Witcher 3 fans in just a few months' time — an exciting prospect, and one that would make some sense.

As "full production" on The Witcher 4 continues, CD Projekt has cautioned fans not to expect its launch in 2026, as the company plans an ambitious six-year roadmap in which it will also launch The Witcher 5 and The Witcher 6. Before all of that, there's a window this year for even more Witcher, and a fresh slice of content that could potentially help bridge the gap.

A new DLC feels like a smart idea to reawaken lapsed interest ahead of the series' next chapter, via extra content sold to The Witcher 3's existing audience of more than 60 million players. This content could be used as a reason to sell the game anew, to bring fresh fans to the decade-old role-player, and potentially set up plot points to be expanded upon in The Witcher 4.

Finally, of course, it could offer fans one last oppurtunity to play as Geralt — before the franchise's next trilogy focuses on Ciri. So, one last adventure?

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

Netflix reportedly wants to keep movies in theaters for just 17 days after it buys Warner Bros.

In a report from Deadline on the Stranger Thing Season 5 finale, which made $25 million in theaters after it released at the same time theatrically as it did on Netflix, Hollywood was said to be worried about what the streamer considers to be “industry-standard windows” before movies are made available on its platform.

And then the bombshell:

Sources have told Deadline that Netflix have been proponents of a 17-day window which would steamroll the theatrical business, while circuits such as AMC believe the line needs to be held around 45 days.

It’s worth noting this isn’t confirmation that Netflix will settle on a 17-day window for Warner Bros. movies if and when its deal is approved. The theater companies may end up negotiating a lengthy window, perhaps somewhere between 45 days and the 17 days Netflix reportedly is a fan of. But what’s clear is that there will be a great deal of tension within Hollywood as this is all worked out, with Netflix’s priority — as you’d expect — bolstering streaming.

If Netflix does force through a 17-day window, it could affect everything from James Gunn's DC Universe movie, Man of Tomorrow (July 9, 2027), to The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum (December 17, 2027). Then there's Matt Reeves' The Batman: Part 2, which is due out October 1, 2027, and Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, due out March 26, 2027. How would the likes of James Gunn, Andy Serkis, Matt Reeves and other directors of Warner Bros. movies react to their work having less than three weeks in theaters before hitting Netflix?

The $82.7 billion Netflix / Warner Bros. deal has sparked a tough response from some members of Congress, and it is expected to face significant scrutiny under antitrust laws. Meanwhile, at least one HBO Max subscriber has already sued Netflix, claiming the deal threatens to reduce competition in the U.S. subscription video-on-demand market. Warner Bros.-owned streaming platform HBO Max includes everything from Game of Thrones to Harry Potter, James Gunn's DC Universe to Barbie, and its content is expected to be added to Netflix if and when the deal goes through.

After its announcement, Netflix sent subscribers an email of reassurance amid concern over potential price rises. The email — reviewed by IGN — promised subscribers that nothing was changing “today,” and confirmed that HBO Max and Netflix would continue to operate separately until the deal closes. It did not rule out future price rises, but did promise that current membership plans would remain in place at least until the deal goes through. As for when that will be, Netflix said it expects to close the transaction in 12-18 months — so, at the earliest December 2026, but it could be as late as summer 2027.

In an investor call attended by IGN, Netflix chief Ted Sarandos struck a confident tone when asked about the deal’s chance of success. "We're highly confident in the regulatory process," he said. "This deal is pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker, it's pro-creator, it's pro-growth.”

As part of the same call, Sarandos said Netflix would continue to release Warner Bros. movies in theaters for now, though expected theatrical release windows to shorten over time to become "more user friendly."

"We've released about 30 films into theaters this year, so it's not like we have got this opposition to movies into theaters," Sarandos said. "My pushback has been mostly in the fact of the long, exclusive windows that we don't think are that user friendly."

"I wouldn't look at this as a change in approach for Netflix movies, or for Warner movies for that matter," Sarandos continued. "I think over time the windows will evolve to be much more consumer friendly, to be able to meet the audience where they are, quicker. All those things we'd like to do. But I'd say right now you should count on everything that is planned as going to the theaters through Warner Bros., will continue to go to the theaters through Warner Bros."

Last month, Rian Johnson expressed frustration at the limited theatrical release of his new Benoit Blanc Netflix film, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Netflix released Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery in theaters on November 26, in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, before releasing it on Netflix itself on December 12. But it only released in “select” theaters, as opposed to nationwide — something that left the Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer and director unimpressed.

Meanwhile, Avatar director James Cameron has said Netflix buying Warner Bros. would be a “disaster.”

“Sorry, Ted [Sarandos], but geez,” he said on The Town podcast. “Sarandos has gone on the record saying theatrical films are dead. ‘Theatrical is dead. Quote, unquote.’” Indeed, Cameron remains unconvinced that Netflix would truly commit to any meaningful theatrical distribution if it expanded. “It’s sucker bait," he said. "‘We’ll put the movie out for a week or 10 days. We’ll qualify for Oscar consideration.’ See, I think that’s fundamentally rotten to the core. A movie should be made as a movie for theatrical, and the Academy Awards mean nothing to me if they don’t mean theatrical. I think they’ve been co-opted, and I think it’s horrific.”

That said, Cameron isn't opposed to Netflix playing the game if it actually, well, plays the game. “They should be allowed to compete if they put the movie out for a meaningful release in 2,000 theaters for a month,” Cameron noted.

One report has claimed Netflix is particularly keen to obtain Warner Bros.' vast content library as the streamer ramps up its potential to offer AI-generation tools and content in the future.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

The Pokémon franchise has begun its 30th anniversary celebrations with the reveal of a special new logo, an animation featuring Fat Pikachu, and the promise of more to share in less than two months' time.

2026 is the 30th anniversary of Pokémon, which began its path to world domination with the Japanese launch of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green back on the Game Boy three decades ago. (The series then arrived in the USA two years' later, launching with Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue.)

As the clock ticked over to January 1, 2026 in Pokémon's home region of Japan, the brand began its celebrations with the reveal of a new 30th Anniversary Pokémon logo featuring Pikachu, introduced by none other than Fat Pikachu — the mascot's far plumper original design that's now rarely glimpsed in official Pokémon media. Here he is in action:

ポケモン30周年、はじまる！
『ポケットモンスター 赤・緑』の発売から30年。
2026年2月27日（金）にポケモンは30周年を迎えるよ。
今年は最高の1年になる予感！
お楽しみに！#ポケモン30周年 pic.twitter.com/iPXR83Ib66

— ポケモン公式 (@Pokemon_cojp) December 31, 2025

"Pokémon 30th Anniversary, Here We Go!" the brand wrote in a post on social media. "30 years since the release of Pokémon Red and Green. On February 27, 2026 (Friday), Pokémon turns 30. We have a feeling this year is going to be the best one yet! Look forward to it!"

Expectations for this year's celebrations are sky high, following last year's so-called Teraleak of Pokémon game development data that spilled various details of the franchise's highly-anticipated 10th generation of games. Alongside a fresh roster of new creatures, fans expect these titles to feature new gameplay mechanics and procedurally-generated areas for the first time.

2026 will also see the launch of promising-looking Pokémon life simulation spin-off Pokémon Pokopia, which arrives exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 on March 5. A blend of Pokémon characters with gameplay more similar to Animal Crossing, the game seems likely to find success.

More details on all of that are expected to arrive on the brand's big 30th anniversary, now less than two months' away on February 27. While not formally confirmed just yet, this date has now become the annual date fans expect to sit down and watch a new Pokémon Presents, the company's Nintendo Direct-style announcements showcase. There's not long to go now.

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

If you’re planning to do a bit of hibernating till spring (like me), you’ll want to stock up your gaming library with a few titles to get you through those long winter nights. While the holiday season may officially be over, that doesn’t mean there aren't some epic deals still to be found. In fact, some titles have dropped back down to their lowest prices ever, or in at least one case, are seeing their deepest discount yet.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the Standard Edition for either PS5 or Xbox Series X, is only $29.99 today at Best Buy. That’s 57% savings. Anyone who's been debating grabbing a copy of the latest Assassin’s Creed main title will want to jump at these awesome savings while you still can. Unfortunately, you won’t see these discounts for the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game, which just came out in December.

Save 57% on Assassin’s Creed Shadows for PS5 and Xbox Series X

The Stranger Things Season 5 finale epilogue and its end credits were inspired by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, creators the Duffer brothers have revealed.

Warning! Spoilers for Stranger Things Season 5 Episode 8, The Rightside Up, follow:

Stranger Things ends with Season 5 Episode 8, dubbed The Rightside Up, and an epilogue set 18 months after the events that showed the destruction of the Upside Down, the death of Vecna, the apparent death of Eleven, and the rescue of the kidnapped children.

We see relatively happy endings for pretty much all the main characters as they move on with their lives, kicking off with the core characters’ graduation from Hawkins High School. The show comes to a close with the end of the Dungeon and Dragons campaign that kicked off the Netflix series nine years ago, and the passing of the torch to a new generation of D&D fans made up of Holly Wheeler, Derek Turnbow, and more.

A decent chunk of the final episode’s 2-hour 8-minute runtime is devoted to this epilogue, which even finds room for a successful marriage proposal from David Harbour’s Jim Hopper to Winona Ryder’s Joyce Byers. Fans are then treated to end credits that show famous scenes as D&D illustrations, characters in the style of D&D character profiles, maps of locations from the show, and a final image showing Stranger Things as a D&D players manual.

the ending credits was so cool though #StrangerThings5 pic.twitter.com/63rHUdpFMD

— clueified 🤍 (@clueified) January 1, 2026

The epilogue and the end credits were inspired by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Matt and Ross Duffer told Deadline.

“We thought about [The Lord of the Rings] Return of the King a lot, just in terms of the length of the epilogue,” Matt Duffer said. “I always defend the Return of the King epilogue, but I’m one of those hardcore Lord of the Rings fans, to the point where I’ve watched all extended editions in a row on a single day. If you do that, the epilogue feels absolutely perfect and not long at all. In fact, if it felt shorter, it would feel absolutely distressing.

“I think, Stranger Things, if you watch Season 5 all the way through, it’s going to feel great. You just want to spend extra time with these characters. Anyway, that was sort of the reference for the epilogue. Then we love the credits at the end of Return of the King. So that was the initial idea, and they were these very simple illustrations.”

And on the end credits, Ross Duffer confirmed: “we wanted to be able to pay tribute to our cast and how much they’ve grown through the years. Obviously, it’s not to say the whole show was a D&D campaign. It was just a way to pay tribute to everyone and also let the audience, hopefully, take in this journey that they’ve been on for nine years.”

If you’ve watched The Return of the King you’ll know what the Duffers are talking about here. Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy ends with an epilogue set four years after the hobbits return to the Shire. Frodo leaves Middle-earth for the Undying Lands with Bilbo, Gandalf, and the remaining Elves. He gives Sam the Red Book of Westmarch, detailing their adventures, bids farewell to Sam, Merry, and Pippin, and departs. A saddened Sam returns home and is comforted by his family.

As for the end credits, The Return of the King shows the main characters in illustrative form, also as a goodbye following their extensive adventures.

We've got plenty more on Stranger Things, including the Duffer brothers explaining what they were going for with the Season 5 finale and Eleven's ending, and first details on the live-action spinoff.

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.

Physical copies of Star Wars Racer Revenge are suddenly selling for over $300, as word spreads that an exploit in the game can be used to jailbreak PlayStation 5 consoles.

Recently-completed eBay listings for the PS4 re-release of Star Wars Racer Revenge show multiple copies selling for $300 or more over the past 24 hours — with prices only increasing.

On December 31, more than a dozen copies of the game were sold through eBay priced between $80 to $166. On January 1st, a further 11 were shifted, with prices ranging between $180 and $364.50. And now, dozens more copies have been listed for sale — with prices currently around the $300-$400 mark or even higher.

Why the sudden rush to buy boxed copies of a Star Wars racing game for PlayStation 4 that launched back in 2019? Well, Racer Revenge's code is reportedly crucial to fire off a new method of jailbreaking PlayStation 5 — essentially unlocking the ability to play illegally pirated games — when the game's physical disc is present.

Of course, this isn't to say that every copy sold or up for sale on eBay will be bought by someone who's definitely going to do this. Indeed, retail site Resell Calendar has issued an alert to anyone with a copy (or who might know local pre-owned game shops that might have one) advising them that they're suddenly sitting on a game that's just shot up in perceived value.

Eight hours and more than 10,000 parries later, a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 superfan is being praised for beating one of the game's toughest bosses in frankly ridiculous conditions.

Underpowered but undeterred, Reddit user Recordbreaks has posted a screenshot showing that they beat the super strong Duollistes boss after managing 10,545 successful parries — which feels like more than I've completed in the entire game.

The encounter took eight hours, two minutes and 36 seconds, during which time Recordbreaks says they "took one break maybe for about 5-10 minutes" in order to go get snacks, then "went back to it."