“In short, yes,” Howard told BBC Newsbeat. “Fallout 5 will be existing in a world where the stories and events of the show happened or are happening. We are taking that into account.”
The Fallout TV show, which is set after all the existing Fallout video games, has sparked much debate within the fandom. Questions on how it fits into the overarching Fallout timeline and whether it makes particular video game endings canon have dominated discussion in the run up to each season’s release. Indeed, Fallout Season 2 had left fans wondering about the fate of New Vegas following the events of the video game, although the show’s creators have avoided making a clear call.
What Howard is confirming here is that TV show characters such as Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul and the events of the show must now be factored into Fallout 5, although we don’t know when or where the game will be set. Could either actually appear in Fallout 5? It sounds like it’s possible, but we’ll have to see what happens in the show itself.
It’s worth remembering that we’re guaranteed Fallout Season 3, and the hope is there will be more seasons after that. There’s a long way to go before the show wraps up, and there’s a long way to go before Fallout 5 comes out. In the meantime, could Bethesda follow The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered and release a remaster of Fallout 3 or New Vegas, or perhaps even a Fallout: New Vegas 2 as a stop gap? In a recent interview with IGN, Howard remained coy on the possibility.
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 ongoing RAM shortage (and subsequent and pricing explosion) is imposing a wider range of grim effects than even the Great GPU Famine of 2020. First came the death of one of gaming hardware’s most reliable memory and SSD makers, and now… uh… Larian’s new Divinity game is going to be more optimised for PC than it otherwise would have been?
That’s what Larian CEO Swen Vincke (clearly on a media tour – here’s him discussing Divinity with our Edwin) told TheGamer, anyway. Vincke notes that because the lack of affordable RAM options is making it harder to predict the horsepower of future PCs, “we already need to do a lot of optimization work in early access that we didn’t necessarily want to do at that point in time.” That doesn’t sound especially horrible to me – higher performance on lower-end rigs ultimately means more players can join in – though nowhere in the full interview does Vincke acknowledge that the shortage is being directly caused and sustained by demand from data centres that power generative AI, a technology that Larian are using in Divinity’s production, and that Vincke himself is defending the use of.
The holiday period is a great time to catch up on some of this year’s games that may have passed you by. If Ninja Gaiden 4 was on your list of games to play, Best Buy is offering a $15 discount on both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions right now as part of its Deal of the Day (see it here).
This offer brings its price down from $69.99 to $54.99, which is a nice little early holiday treat to jump on. Again, since it’s part of Best Buy’s Deal of the Day selection, the timer on its sale page has already started counting down until the end of today. Now is the time to take advantage of this limited-time deal and add it to your library for a little less.
Save $15 on Ninja Gaiden 4 (PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X)
Ninja Gaiden 4 was one of our favorite action games of 2025, earning a runner-up spot in our IGN Awards. Our 8/10 review from IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman said, “When it comes to combat, there are few games I’d consider to even be in the same ballpark as Ninja Gaiden 4. It is quite simply the most fun I’ve had with a 3D action game since Devil May Cry 5.” With praise like that, why not add it to your list of must-play games over the holidays?
If you’re grabbing this game as a gift for a Ninja Gaiden fan this year and are on the hunt for more gaming-related items to pick up before the holidays, we can help there, too. Our roundup of the 10 best gifts for gamers features even more recommendations we think are worth gifting this year, from hardware to apparel to the very cool LEGO Game Boy build. If something catches your eye, now is the time to buy to make sure you have it in time.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
Superhero workplace comedy game Dispatch has just popped up on the Nintendo eShop for Switch and Switch 2, and is already available to pre-order.
There’s been no formal word yet by developer AdHoc Studio, but the Nintendo eShop listing is now live in Australia, where Switch owners can pre-order the game. There’s even a release date, too: January 29, 2026.
For Nintendo Switch 2 owners, a free upgrade pack will be available to download separately, providing a version of the game with enhanced resolution and improved frame rates. As of yet, there’s no sign of the game arriving on Xbox — though we’ll update this article again when AdHoc makes any formal announcement.
Dispatch first launched back in October for PC and PlayStation 5, where it quickly won over a legion of fans for its quirky, episodic storytelling, and shifted 2 million copies over its first month on sale — something its team had projected the game would reach after two years.
The game features an ensemble cast of heroes voiced by some famous faces, including Aaron Paul, Laura Bailey, Jeffrey Wright, and Matthew Mercer, while its development team features key personel from Telltale Games’ heyday, who previously worked on The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands.
“Dispatch is a sharp-witted workplace comedy that charms with its smart dialogue choices, great writing, and lovably aggravating cast,” IGN wrote in our Dispatch review, scoring the game with a super 9/10.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Steam Replay, Valve’s yearly roundup of where all of the hours spent playing games in the Steamy place have gone, has emerged from its hidey-hole yet again. 2025’s edition is out now – you’ve likely already seen it if you’ve hopped into Steam since yesterday afternoon. Amid all the bits telling you that you’ve spent 1000 hours playing Umamusume: Pretty Derby thus far, the annual report’s dished out some fresh stats about how old the games everyone across the platform’s user base has been playing this year are.
We know what you’re thinking… You don’t need yet another reason to pick up Resident Evil Requiem, right? Well, you know us, we’re here to deliver the goods.
GameStop has announced that it will be issuing a free tote bag (gasp!) for in-store pre-orders for Requiem on all available platforms. It depicts the ruined landscape of Racoon City with the game’s title at the top. Form an orderly queue folks, come on now!
November 2025 was a shockingly terrible month for video game sales in the U.S. While we traditionally think of November as a huge sales month what with Black Friday and all, November 2025 was the worst November in video game hardware unit sales, and the worst in physical software dollar sales the U.S. has seen since 1995.
That’s according to Circana’s monthly report, which paints a pretty dismal picture of last month’s commercial performance. The industry in the U.S. saw declines across the board in hardware, accessories, and console spending for an overall drop of 4% year-over-year, at $5.9 billion in total spending.
Hardware
More specifically, hardware spending was down a whopping 27% year-over-year to $695 million, the lowest hardware spending total for November since 2005’s $455 million. Even worse, unit sales reached 1.6 million, which is the lowest November total since 1995’s 1.4 million.
And that’s representative of declines across the board. Xbox Series hardware sales were down 70% year-over-year. PS5 sales were down over 40%, and combined unit sales of Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 were down over 10% from Switch sales last year, despite this being a launch year for the Nintendo Switch 2.
What’s going on? As pointed out by Circana senior director Mat Piscatella, video game hardware has never been more expensive, reaching an all-time November high of $439 per unit, up 11% year-over-year. The Xbox specifically saw its average price per unit increase by over 30%, perhaps confirming one reason why folks aren’t so keen to buy Xboxes specifically.
With the Nintendo Switch 2, Piscatella says he’s watching its sales “very closely,” and offers this analysis of its current situation:
With six months in the market, it remains the fastest-selling video game hardware in U.S. history. However, part of what was driving that was its availability to be bought during its launch window. It’s been extremely rare to have such a successful new device not suffer supply constraints going into its first holiday sales period. Unit sales of Switch 2 were lower than those of Switch 1 during each console’s first November, but the price points are also quite different. The average price paid for a new Nintendo Switch in November 2017 was $309 (which, if adjusted for inflation, is approximately $405 in November 2025 dollars), compared to the $486 for Switch 2 in November 2025. Perhaps it is a case of demand having been pulled forward earlier in the year because people could find them. Or perhaps the mass market is not as quickly adopting Switch 2 as it did Switch. Or perhaps consumers are looking elsewhere for holiday gifting as the prices continue to rise in video game hardware. Tough to say at the moment.
There’s one piece of hardware that’s doing okay, and it’s not what you’d expect: the NEX Playground. It was the third best-selling piece of video game hardware of November by unit sales, surpassing the Xbox Series, while the more expensive Xbox Series beat it in dollar sales (the PS5 was first in both categories, the Switch 2 was second). Piscatella calls the NEX Playground a “remarkable story,” noting that while everyone else is having a bad time, it just had a superb November by comparison:
November 2025 tracked unit sales at U.S. retailers for NEX Playground were just 7% below its entire tracked lifetime sales at retail through October. With an average selling price of just over $200 in November, strong placement at retail, and some successful influencer and viral marketing efforts, the NEX Playground became one of the hottest video game products of the holiday season during the month. We’ll have to see how well the pace can keep up, as there are reports that the NEX Playground is now largely sold out, with secondary market prices on sites like eBay soaring accordingly.
There could be a lesson here that more affordable, family friendly gaming devices carry appeal during holiday gifting season.
Software
Things aren’t looking much better on the content side. While Circana reports that content spending was up 1% year-over-year to $4.8 billion, that’s with subscription spending rising 16% and 2% growth in mobile. Physical software sales, meanwhile, dropped 14% year-over-year to the worst November since 1995, the year Circana began tracking them.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 put the Call of Duty franchise back on top for another debut month in November as the month’s best-seller, marking the 18th year in a row a Call of Duty has launched to the top of the charts. That said, Circana reports that the franchise saw a double-digit percentage full game dollar sales decline when compared to November 2024.
It’s a little tricky to make precise comparisons between Black Ops 7 and its predecessor, Black Ops 6, given both games launched into Xbox Game Pass, and Black Ops 6 released in October last year, not November. Still, Piscatella tells me that Black Ops 7’s full game dollar sales finished below those of Black Ops 6’s last November. Additionally, Black Ops 7 is currently the seventh best-selling game of the year-to-date, and Piscatella anticipates that its rival, Battlefield 6, will end the year as the best-selling game of 2025. This isn’t the first time in recent memory it’s been beaten, with Hogwarts Legacy coming out on top in 2023. Notably, that year, Hogwarts Legacy beat Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, which did not launch into Game Pass, while Black Ops 7 this year did, almost certainly making its actual dollar sales total lower as a result.
It’s worth noting as well that accessories spending was down 13% year-over-year.
Red Flags
This is shaping up to be a pretty weird year. I asked Piscatella what he makes of all this, and what it means for the games industry. He pointed out that much of the story remains to be told in December, and that it’s possible consumers are waiting for better deals closer to the holidays. Alternatively, it’s possible that economic factors and price of consoles are pushing people to hold off on gaming purchases. Here’s what Piscatella had to say:
Retail spending had been holding up relatively well until now, despite the pressure from higher prices we’ve been seeing in the market. More affluent consumers have kept on spending so far, which has made up for some of the declines in spending from the less affluent portions of the market. Perhaps this is a sign that those higher prices are beginning to impact purchases of pricier items, like consoles. Perhaps not.
However, if the crunch on RAM pricing continues, if we see rising prices on consoles and gaming PCs over the coming months it could, theoretically, be potentially devastating to the dedicated gaming device market. Which would, of course, have potential carryover effects on the content side.
I certainly see some of the relationships between hardware unit sales and pricing we’re seeing in the November results as a red flag.
We won’t get the December and full-year results in until January, which will tell us a lot more about whether the games industry is about to enter a lean period, or if this November was just a goofy one-off.
November 2025 U.S. Top 20 Best-Selling Games:
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (NEW)
Battlefield 6
NBA 2K26
Madden NFL 26
EA Sports FC 26
Pokemon Legends: Z-A*
Ghost of Yotei
EA Sports College Football 26
Minecraft*
Kirby Air Riders (NEW)*
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (NEW)*
The Outer Worlds 2
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
Donkey Kong Bananza*
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Red Dead Redemption II
Grand Theft Auto V
Borderlands 4
Forza Horizon 5
Digimon Story: Time Stranger
* Indicates that some or all digital sales are not included in Circana’s data. Some publishers, including Nintendo, do not share certain digital data for this report.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Adhoc Studios still aren’t sure whether they’ll make a second season of Dispatch, their startlingly popular Telltale-style superhero comedy adventure, but they’re thinking about it very “seriously”. In brief, they’re not confident they can bottle the lightning twice, especially if they want to release another season before 2032.
Palworld has just pushed out a significant new patch, bringing a collab with Ultrakill and a ton of improvements as developer Pocketpair continues work to prepare for the launch of Palworld 1.0, the game’s eagerly-anticipated full release.
John “Bucky” Buckley, communications director and publishing manager, teased that this update, dubbed Home Sweet Home, “puts a lot of groundwork in as we work towards our MASSIVE 1.0 release in 2026, but we have lots of little surprises in this update so check it out!”
As part of the Ultrakill collaboration, you’ll find several “iconic weapons and armor,” as well as a V1’s infamous coin toss, while the Home Sweet Home update — as the name suggests — makes it a little more intuitive to put down roots and make your own cozy base.
Pocketpair said it had been “blown away by all the incredible builds that you guys have been sending us,” and knows we’ve “been eagerly waiting for more freedom in how you design your base.” That’s why this update brings a number of new building parts, including the ability to change the color of building pieces and the “much-requested triangular pieces.” The building menu UI has also been redesigned and reformatted into a list.
But that’s not all. Melee combat has been improved to make it “more viable and fun,” and now, when summoning a raid boss at the Summoning Altar, players can choose to either fight at their base as before, or take on the raid boss in a special Raid Area.
“These Raid Areas allow you to fight with all your might, without risking any damage to your base,” the team explained. “You can build temporary structures and take items into these special Raid Areas.” Which is just as well, as a new raid boss will also pop up after the update.
“2025 has been an incredible year for Palworld, and we’re excited to end the year with v0.7, Home Sweet Home!” Pocketpair exclaimed. “The purpose of this update is to begin improving existing features, and while this update may not be as content-rich as previous ones, we hope players understand that it’s necessary for us to begin laying the groundwork now as we work on the development of Palworld 1.0.”
Last but definitely not least, PvP! Though the studio admits PvP has been a topic of discussion in the Palworld community for a “long time,” and it’s “hard to fully integrate PvP into the game,” it is trying to make the dream a reality, albeit with some careful parameters.
“We are releasing all the necessary tools for players to set up their own PvP rules on their own terms,” Pocketpair said. “Show off your skills and compete with other Pal Tamers! Please note that PvP is experimental, and as such, there may be some balancing issues.”
Palworld v0.7 patch notes:
ULTRAKILL Collab!
Added V1 and V2 armor sets! Terrorize the Palpagos Islands as your favorite blood-fueled robot!
Added a pair of iconic weapons from ULTRAKILL!
Unique Mechanic – Coin Toss
Throw coins while using the Marksman Revolver to perform a Ricoshot! Bullets will ricochet off the thrown coin and deal devastating damage to nearby targets!
Base Building Improvements
Added 48 new building parts, including triangular pieces!
Added the ability to change the color of some buildings and foundations!
Changed the building UI to a list-based system.
Raid Boss Improvements
Added a new raid boss!
Added a new battlefield for raid bosses. Players can now choose to challenge raid bosses in their base or in a new separate battlefield.
Melee Combat Improvements
Improved the melee gameplay for swords, katanas and beam swords. Pressing left click (right trigger) will perform a new consecutive combo attack.
Special attacks have been added to the katana and beam sword. Holding either left or right click (left or right trigger) will activate these abilities.
New Features
Added PvP functionality (Experimental!).
[PC – Steam Only] Added Steam Workshop, allowing players to download and use mods.
Mechanic Adjustments
When placing a building, an arrow indicating the building’s orientation will now be displayed.
When placing a building, buildings with a set work location will now display a Cattiva icon indicating the work location.
Adjusted the Palbox so it can be aligned with foundations and roofs.
[Keyboard & Mouse Controls] Building controls have been made more intuitive, and continuous building has been changed to the default setting.
Balance Adjustments
Added new implants to the surgery table:
Implant: Mine Foreman
Implant: Logging Foreman
Implant: Fine Furs
Implant: Sleek Stroke
Implant: Work Slave
You can now get a Little Kinship Peach from a Pal when freeing them from an enemy camp.
The last hit done to an enemy while using mercy will now display “”MERCY HIT”” to indicate that no damage was done.
Changed specifications so that all Pals will no longer lose SAN when taking damage.
Reduced the impact of bad status effects:
Hungry… Attack, Defense, Work Speed -20% → -10%
Starving… Attack, Defense, Work Speed -50% → -20%
Cold… Work Speed -10% → -5%
Sprain… Movement Speed -10% → -5%
Overfull… Increased hunger loss rate by 100% → +50%
Ulcer… Work Speed -20%, Movement Speed -10% → Work Speed -10%, Movement Speed -5%
Fracture… Work Speed -10%, Movement Speed -20% → Work Speed -5%, Movement Speed -10%
Weakened… Work Speed -20%, Movement Speed -30% → Work Speed -10%, Movement Speed -20%
Depressed… -30% Work Speed, -20% Movement Speed → -20% Work Speed, -10% Movement Speed
Changed the attribute of the Broncherry’s unique skill “”Body Smash”” from neutral to the grass.
Changed the attribute of Rushoar’s unique skill “Heavy Charge” from neutral to earth.
Added “Item Decay Speed Multiplier” to the Options Settings.
・[Dedicated Servers] Police NPCs targeting players who have committed crimes will now only deal damage to the target player and their guild.
・The appearance of the work aptitude icon has been changed.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where Flopie would not collect dropped items in the field while her partner skill “Helper Bunny” was active.
Improved Pal pathfinding AI to make it easier to reach the target location within the base.
Fixed an issue where summoned Pals would attack visitors when set to “attack aggressively.”
Fixed an issue where attacking visitors in your base would not result in the correct attacking state.
Many other minor bug fixes.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Creative Assembly have taken us a little deeper into the biomechanical contours of Total War: Warhammer 40,000’s faction design, with a new development roundtable video featuring principal creative director Ian Roxburgh, lead designer Simon Mann and product owner for battles David Petry.
The short version: the starting faction balance is a question of both asymmetry and calculated familiarity. The Imperial Guard are for Total War traditionalists, with a straightforward emphasis on production and attrition. The Orks are comparably numerous, but they need to keep fighting or they’ll turn on each other, and have some unique capabilities based on repourposed tech. The Space Marines are all about precise usage of very small numbers of fanatical killing machines, with less capacity to build up an economy. And the Eldar are stealthy glass cannons operating out of remote Craftworld bases, who spend a lot of time trying to avert galactic calamities rather than just wrecking the other species.
