Author: Game Infliction

With Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 1 Reloaded just around the corner, we’re starting to get a better idea of what to expect when the new update goes live on January 8.

Although we don’t yet have all the details, we should expect four multiplayer maps for Black Ops 7 at launch, plus new POIs on Haven’s Hollow Resurgence and Verdansk maps in Warzone. There’s also some updates for Zombies, including the Astra Malorum Round-Based Zombies map and Exit 115 Survival map, plus “reward-filled weekly challenges,” new weapons, modes, camos, events, and more.

While pre-load is not live yet across all platforms, it is available for players on Battle.net, where it looks like it’s a 175GB download (redownloading the game), although that will depend on what game modes you have/want installed. On Xbox, the download looks to be around 170GB, so whatever you’re playing on, it may be worth double-checking how much space you have ahead of time.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 1 Reloaded start times:

Depending on where you are in the world, Season 1 Reloaded is set to go live on:

Thursday, January 8, 2026:

PST (San Francisco):

• 9am

CST (Mexico City):

• 11am

EST (New York):

• 12pm

GMT (London):

• 5pm

CET (Paris):

• 6pm

Friday, January 9, 2026

JST (Tokyo):

• 1am

CST (Beijing):

• 1am

AEST (Sydney):

• 4am

NZST (Wellington):

• 6am

Maps

Players will fight across a suite of new core Multiplayer maps with Season 1 Reloaded, including the high-rise, neon-soaked rooftops of Yakei alongside the return of two of the most iconic maps in Black Ops history: Meltdown and Fringe.

Zombies, on the other hand, will see the Zarya Cosmodrome location from Ashes of the Damned become a Survival map, and a Directed mode has been added to the Astra Malorum map, so buddies can now jump and help each other complete the main story quest.

Campaign

Two new world events have been confirmed, but we only have details of one: the Wraith Wing world event. This advanced Guild aircraft appears to have cloning capabilities with lethal consequences as this squadron seems hell bent on eliminating as many JSOC Operators as it can. Disable it, fire at the exposed aircraft, and down that bird.

Weapons

So far, we only know of two new weapons unlocking in Season 1 Reloaded:

• Hawker HX (Sniper rifle, FKA Ballista sniper)
• Sturmwolf 45 (submachine gun, FKA UMP45)

Fallout Collab

Okie dokie – stay focused, stay alive ☢️@FalloutonPrime is coming to Call of Duty in Season 01 Reloaded 💥 pic.twitter.com/uyFl3mRDkG

— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) December 17, 2025

Yes, it’s true — Microsoft is bringing two of its hottest gaming franchises together for a Fallout Season 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 crossover event. While details remain sparse, we’ve seen a brief video teaser which shows silhouettes of Fallout TV series characters The Ghoul, Lucy, and Maximus in the smoke of war, with bullets whizzing by in the background.

“Okie dokie — stay focused, stay alive,” the text on the post reads. “[Fallout TV show] is coming to Call of Duty in Season 01 Reloaded.”

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.

Looking for a fun game to jump into this January? Both Amazon and Walmart have dropped the wonderful Astro Bot for PS5 back to its lowest price yet of $39.97, which is the same price we saw during Black Friday sales. That’s an excellent little treat for PlayStation users to start 2026 off with, saving you 33% off its full price of $59.99.

Score Astro Bot for $40

Hot on the animated heels of The Simpsons, which enjoyed its own Fortnite mini-season throughout November last year, it’s been confirmed South Park has its own collaboration with the battle royale juggernaut set to arrive this week.

The only official information related to South Park’s upcoming Fortnite crossover is an image of Butters playing the game, which notes the date January 9, alongside a caption that reads, “Chaos, loading…”, shared via Fortnite’s official social media.

Chaos, loading…

1.9.26 pic.twitter.com/vN6mfWAHXS

— Fortnite (@Fortnite) January 6, 2026

There’s no further confirmed information regarding how extensive the South Park content will be, but clarity on this appears to be just a couple of days away.

Rumours of a South Park/Fortnite crossover have been in circulation since late last year.

The news never stops with Fortnite, following confirmation Epic’s shooter has remained the most-played game on PlayStation in the US in 2025, a clear shift in its nipple policy, and the arrival of… Kim Kardashian.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.

1047 Games has some thoughts regarding how Splitgate: Arena Reloaded is faring on Steam, and it’s got a message for fans: “Steam Charts don’t measure fun.”

The Halo and Portal-inspired FPS re-launched December 17 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S after the studio chose to U-turn with an overall rework for Splitgate 2 back in July 2025. It was a move made amid layoffs at 1047 that saw both the sequel and its popular predecessor pulled offline as the studio promised to return with “big, sweeping changes.”

Those changes seemingly failed to attract players, with just around 2,300 players logging in to play the free-to-play game on Steam at launch and a little more than 800 playing at the time of this piece’s publication (via SteamDB). The Splitgate community quickly drummed up debate about what another disappointing launch could mean for the future of the shooter, but 1047 has a different take.

1047 Games Responds to Recent Steam Charts Conversations pic.twitter.com/ir9W0BjFHo

— SPLITGATE: Arena Reloaded (@Splitgate) January 6, 2026

“Steam Charts don’t measure fun,” a message from the team says. “They show one number, on one platform, at one given moment. They don’t show the full picture or what it feels like to actually play, and they definitely don’t capture the community that’s actively helping shape what Arena Reloaded is becoming (including upcoming content like Arena Royale).”

It’s hard to separate Splitgate: Arena Reloaded’s launch player numbers from the nearly 26,000 users who showed up for Splitgate 2, but 1047’s targeted response does aim to remind players that the re-launch also came to consoles and the Epic Games Store. Metrics for those platforms aren’t as openly available as they are for Steam, so it’s unclear if interest is similarly quiet elsewhere.

Regardless, the studio wants both veteran and potential players to know it’s put work into getting Splitgate: Arena Reloaded ready for launch, and it doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon.

“To our amazing community: thank you,” 1047 continues. “Your feedback and passion have helped make Arena Reloaded better every day.

“And to everyone who hasn’t played yet: Arena Reloaded is free, the gameplay’s the best it’s ever been, and we’d love for you to jump in and form your own opinion. A lot of passionate people worked very hard on it.”

As 1047 takes to social media to combat the negative sentiment surrounding its re-launch effort, its Arena Royale component is expected to launch in the near future. Splitgate: Arena Reloaded came with a rebuilt progression system, new and reworked maps, and more. We gave Splitgate 2 a 7/10 review upon its launch last year.

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

Magic: The Gathering sealed product is making waves at big box retailers and TCGPlayer, but who has the best prices this week? Well, both Amazon and secondary marketplace TCGPlayer have their bargains, so I’ve noted the best deals down to save you looking, as well as the other best deals of the day.

TL;DR: Deals for Today

Alienware has just dropped a massive discount on their NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 build, coupled with one of the best gaming processors on the market right now in AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Looking for a cheap and cheerful deal instead? How about two 6.6ft braided USB-C cables that can handle up to 240W for the price of a coffee? Thought so. Coming in at the product you didn’t know you needed today is a cordless air duster for easy cleaning of desks, PCs, fans and more that’s currently half off from $39.98. Let’s get into it:

MTG: Cheapest at Amazon

Amazon is putting out some decent pricing, with my favorite pick here being the “Game Edition” of Cloud Strife-themed Limit Break Commander Deck. It’s around the same price as TCGPlayer, making it market value, with the artwork being based on in-game moments instead of the traditional MTG artwork.

The same can be said for the Marvel’s Spider-Man Play Booster Box containing 30 booster packs with the following:
• 14 Magic: The Gathering cards
• 1–4 cards of rarity Rare or higher
• 3–6 Uncommon cards
• 6–9 Common cards
• 1 Land card (Traditional Foil Land replaces a Land in 20% of boosters)
• 1 card of any rarity is Traditional Foil; Foil Showcase Mythic Rare in 1% of boosters

MTG: Cheapest at TCGPlayer

Meanwhile, TCGPlayer is the place to go for MTG preorders. It’s the cheapest for the Lorwyn Eclipsed Play Booster Box and Bundle, with the next Universes Beyond entry Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Play Booster Box, Turtle Power! Commander Deck and Bundle, the latter being over $15 cheaper than Amazon.

There’s some gorgeous Final Fantasy scene boxes coming in cheaper than Amazon too, not to mention the standard Limit Break Commander Deck being just under $5 cheaper on TCGPlayer. It pays to shop around for sure.

Alienware Area-51 RTX 5090

2 Lisen 6.6ft 240W USB Type-C Cables

JVSCAM Cordless Electric Air Duster

Pokémon TCG: Market Value at Amazon

Well, the good news is you can get the Phantasmal Flames Elite Trainer Box with Prime delivery without getting stung. It has nine booster packs, a gorgeous Charcadet Illustration Rare promo, Mega Charizard X–themed sleeves, card dividers, a tournament-legal coin, alongside some nice-looking dice.

Cynthia’s Garchomp ex Premium Collection has four Journey Together and two Destined Rivals booster packs, so if Trainer Pokémon cards are your thing, you’re good to go.

Pokémon TCG: Cheapest at TCGPlayer

If it were me making a choice from the TCGPlayer selection here, I’d go for the Destined Rivals Booster Bundle. It’s $13 cheaper than Amazon right now and works out at $4.66 per booster pack, which is one of the best prices I’ve seen for Destined Rivals booster packs recently.

If you want a decent Mega ex card for your Grass-type deck, I’d recommend the Mega Venusaur ex Premium Collection. If you run Meganium alongside it from Mega Evolution, you can double your Grass Energy value while being able to move a Grass Energy from one Pokémon to another thanks to their abilities. That means you can set up and use Mega Venusaur ex’s “Jungle Dump” attack for 240 damage in one turn (it costs four Grass Energy).

You’ll also get the following booster packs:

• 2 × Mega Evolution
• 2 × Destined Rivals
• 4 × Journey Together

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.

2025 was bursting with really cool new game releases: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yōtei, Blue Prince, Donkey Kong Bananza, I could go on. And yet, it seems like the vast majority of players (at least in the US) spent most of their time playing the old hits on repeat, because the five most popular games on PlayStation last year were exactly the same as the year before.

This comes from Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, who shared on Bluesky today the top five most-played games in the US on PlayStation for 2025:

1. Fortnite
2. Call of Duty
3. GTA V
4. Roblox
5. Minecraft

And for 2024:

1. Fortnite
2. Call of Duty
3. GTA V
4. Roblox
5. Minecraft

(They’re the same picture.)

The layout is different (I guess) on Xbox, with Minecraft and Roblox flipped for 2025, and a slightly more complicated order for 2024: Call of Duty at No. 1, then Fortnite, Minecraft, GTA V, Roblox. But uh, same five games.

It’s a pretty damning indictment of the current state of the industry. As Piscatella said himself almost a year ago on the Kinda Funny Gamescast, this is a fairly recent trend. As he explains, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a surge in the video game audience, with huge numbers of people playing games who never had before. As a result, many of the major gaming markets effectively reached a cap on how many new players they can obtain in future years, because everyone was already there.

On top of that, that capped audience is now playing a smaller number of games overall. Some of that is just because games are getting more expensive. More people are gravitating toward live service games they’re already familiar with where they can spend smaller amounts of money for a fun experience on a platform they already own, rather than spend larger amounts of money to try new things on new platforms.

But some of that is simply a natural consequence of the rise of live service. As Piscatella continues to explain, the way the market used to work is that players would buy one big new game, spend all their time on that, then move onto the next one. But people just aren’t buying new games anymore.

“If you take the top ten service games every month…on PlayStation and Xbox, seven out of every ten people that turn on their console will play at least one of those games every month, and in terms of total time they’re taking, those ten games alone every month take up 40% of total playtime on the consoles.”

Piscatella also shares that at the time, Circana expected 30% of people that play video games would not buy a video game in 2025 (the actual numbers for the full year haven’t been released just yet). A further 18% would purchase a new game every six months or less frequently. Only 12% buy a game once a month, and 4% buy new games more often than that.

“So when we’re talking about the developers and publishers who are being hurt the most, are the games that are really targeting this 16% of total players that are purchasing very frequently, while the vast majority of players are buying a game or two a year, and they’re playing Fornite, Minecraft, and Roblox.”

The result is that it’s harder than ever for brand new games to break through, which has been a major part of the recent wave of layoffs, studio closures, project cancelations, and just general industry devasation that we’ve been reporting on primarily in the US industry for the last couple of years.

Piscatella concluded that Kinda Funny presentation with a sentence he’s said to me many times, and continues to say: “The biggest competitor to any new video game is Fortnite.”

Circana is expected to release its full report on US video game sales in 2025 later this month.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.