Category: IGN

If you’re not familiar with the adorable Astro Bot yet, there’s someone we’d like you to meet. The star of a PlayStation VR minigame and the PS5 pack-in has finally got his own full-length, non-VR adventure (although Rescue Mission is well worth playing). It’s one of the best platformers on Sony’s newest console. If you’ve not picked it up yet, you can save 33% during Amazon’s Black Friday sale.

One of my favorite family holiday traditions is gathering around a good jigsaw puzzle. It’s one of the few activities that draws in people of all ages to work on the same activity. Every year we break out a new puzzle and just slowly work on it throughout the day together. It’s relaxing, fun, and you end up with a feeling of accomplishment when you finally place that last piece. It’s my turn to bring a puzzle to the family gathering this year, and luckily, Amazon is discounting a ton of puzzles from Ravensburger right now.

Ravensburger is one of the best jigsaw puzzle brands available and one of the few I always look to buy when there’s a sale. The collection of Christmas-themed puzzles I’ve highlighted below are especially good for the holidays, but you can check out the full sale for more options.

Ravensburger Jigsaw Puzzle Sale at Amazon Today

Almost all of the puzzles in this sale are considered Amazon Lightning deals. That means there is a limit to how much stock is available at the discount listed for each item. So the more popular a puzzle is, the more likely it is to have the discount fully claimed before time runs out on the sale. After covering these sales a few times, however, I’ve found that the “limit” on the discount is only ever reached on the most popular puzzles. And since these discounts are all part of Amazon’s official Black Friday sale, it’s likely that the deals will last beyond the limit if people are buying enough of them.

Tips for Buying Jigsaw Puzzles

Buying any size puzzle is a commitment. It’s one that you can easily just put on a shelf and forget about, but actually starting and finishing it takes time. Unless you are a world champion puzzler, it’s going to take you more than one day to put one together unless it’s less than 100 pieces or you have many people helping you out.

Make sure you have enough space

The first thing you should consider before buying a puzzle is whether or not you have a place to put it together. Given that many popular puzzles are 500-1,000 pieces, it can be hard to keep track of all of them at any given time. You’ll need ample space to both sort through and organize pieces and be able to leave or store it and come back to it later. If you don’t already have a table that is ideal for puzzling, there are quite a few puzzle boards and tables you can buy to remedy that. There are also jigsaw puzzle mats to roll up your puzzle and put it away without undoing all of your progress. All of these make for great puzzle gifts and I’d highly recommend them to any puzzle fanatic.

Make sure you actually like the puzzle’s image

Perhaps the more obvious tip for buying any sort of puzzle is to make sure you actually like the image you’re putting together before you make a purchase. A lot of puzzles feature a ton of tiny intricate details to keep you interested as you put it together, but some feature large swaths of single colors that could get tedious to put together. If you’re already investing a bunch of your time into a puzzle, pick something that you’ll be happy to see when finished, even for just a moment in time.

Invest in some puzzle glue

While most people put together puzzles just for the enjoyment of it all, it can also be fun to display the finished product once you’re done. This is especially true if the puzzle is depicting a work of art, rather than just a photograph. It is, after all, a cardboard poster that you’ve put together yourself. If you plan on displaying your puzzle after you finish, you’ll want to get yourself some puzzle glue to ensure the finished product actually stays together when you frame it.

We’ve rounded up the best deals for Saturday, November 22, below, so don’t miss out on these limited-time offers.

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach for $49.99

Looking to buy a loved one some Magic: The Gathering this Holiday, or picking some up for yourself over the Black Friday weekend? Then we’ve got deals for you. From Booster Boxes teeming with packs to preconstructed Commander Decks and more, we’ve been hunting for Magic products and have found some great deals.

Even better, the deals are only likely to improve as we enter the ‘real’ Black Friday period in the coming days. So, without further ado, here are our favorite Black Friday deals on Magic: The Gathering.

TCGPlayer’s 10% Cashback Event (Nov 28 – Dec 1)

Looking to buy single cards you need? This might just be the place to do it. TCGPlayer has long been one of our preferred ways to buy cards, and its 10% Cashback Event, which runs from November 28 to December 1, can net you a portion of your purchases back in your pocket.

The best part is that everything is eligible, so you can use it on sealed products, too.

Booster Boxes

Amazon’s discounts on Booster Boxes aren’t filed under its Black Friday deals, but there’s plenty to like about them. For one, Avatar: The Last Airbender, the game’s latest set, has seen its price drop from the ludicrous price of $209 to a more reasonable fee for a box of 30 packs. It’s now $173.98.

Sticking with Universes Beyond, the Marvel Spider-Man box has dropped from the same price down to $144.99, while you can pick up a box of the Final Fantasy set for $164.99.

This year’s Tarkir: Dragonstorm set’s Booster Box is down to $107.94, a third off of its MSRP, and if you don’t mind picking up an older, non-legal set, there’s 12% off the Phyrexia: All Will Be One booster box, now $117.94.

Commander Decks

Commander is Magic’s most popular format, and Wizards of the Coast helps keep it that way with a bunch of preconstructed decks for newer and established players to pick up and start playing with immediately.

Amazon has a ton of savings on them, too, particularly if you’re looking for Universes Beyond options.

Final Fantasy’s Counter Blitz deck (our pick of the bunch) is down to $44.99, as is Scions & Spellcraft. Limit Break, which used to be massively overpriced, is now down to $56.99, while Revival Trance is $38.60 (admittedly, it’s usually around that price).

Away from Final Fantasy, Bloomburrow is a great set, and you can snag two of its adorable Commander Decks for under MSRP. Animated Army is 20% off at $37.94, while the Mrs. Bumbleflower-helmed Peace Offering is $38.60.

The Fallout Commander Decks are also great, and the Scrappy Survivors one, starring Dogmeat, Ever Loyal, is down to $49.47.

Not only is the Sultai Arisen Commander Deck down to $44.95, but you can grab a bundle of every Commander Deck from the Tarkir: Dragonstorm set for $149.99. That makes each $30, including Temur Roar and Sultai Arisen, which were both very popular at launch.

If you’re shopping around, be sure to check out our list of the best Magic: The Gathering precon decks you can find right now.

Gift Sets

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to bulk up your gaming library, now’s your chance. While we’re still waiting on Nintendo’s deals, Xbox and Amazon launched Black Friday sales earlier this week. Now PlayStation has entered the fray with a spread of discounts on games, accessories, and even PS5 consoles.

While it’s worth checking your wishlist and doing some scrolling, as a starting point, we’re seeing great discounts for anyone looking to start or fill in the gaps on a Final Fantasy collection.

Final Fantasy Games on Sale for Black Friday

Overall, you’ve got options. The PlayStation Store offers the best discounts on the FF7 Remakes, but Amazon is actually offering physical copies. It really comes down to how much you care about having those games lined up on your shelf vs. sitting in your digital library. If you’re on the PC side, Steam is also running a PlayStation publisher sale that includes roughly the same discounts.

The Final Fantasy Pixel Collection is pretty unreal bang for your buck. It includes the pixel remasters of the first six Final Fantasy games for just $30 total with the current price drop, making it a great choice for something you can really dig into over the holidays. The discount also applies to the Nintendo Switch version.

While we wait for news on the third and final part of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy, you can pick up the first two games at a discount. Remake Intergrade (Intergrade just meaning the PS5 version) has dropped to $19.99 for physical and $14.99 for digital.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, released just last year, has dropped to $39.99 for the physical copy on Amazon and $34.99 through PlayStation. Michael Higham’s 9/10 review of Rebirth for IGN describes how it “impressively builds off of what Remake set in motion as both a best-in-class action-RPG full of exciting challenge and depth, and as an awe-inspiring recreation of a world that has meant so much to so many for so long.”

The most recent mainline release, Final Fantasy XVI, has dropped to its lowest ever price on Amazon, which happens to be $5 cheaper than you can find it on the PlayStation Store. While outside of Black Friday deals themselves, Amazon does have a teensy tiny 5% discount on the most recent spin-off release, Final Fantasy Tactics: Ivalice Chronicles.

More PlayStation Black Friday Deals

PlayStation has knocked $100 off both its PS5 and PS5 Pro consoles, the only real console deals we’ve so far this Black Friday. There’s also PlayStation Plus discounts and a spread of DualSense controllers on sale, including my personal favorite, the limited edition Ghost of Yotei version.

Blythe (she/her) is an SEO Coordinator at IGN who spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.

Note: This review specifically covers the Multiplayer modes in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. For our thoughts on the other modes, see our Zombies review or our campaign review.

It’s autumn, 2025, and I have played enough of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 multiplayer to settle into my annual camo grind. I have prestiged, both in character level and my assault rifle, and after about 20 hours I feel confident declaring that the multiplayer portion of Black Ops 7 is great. I’ve had an absolute blast thanks to solid maps, the awesome updated omnimove system, and the choice to play either skill-based or traditional matches. It’s not without flaws: mid-match leavers have been a real problem in the default matchmaking, and while all the guns feel really good, none of them are standout stars – but the things I like, and some parts I downright love, far outweigh the things I don’t this year.

Since skill-based matchmaking is the most contentious subject around this year’s Call of Duty, I’m going to address it right here at the start. I believe swapping out SBMM as the default setting is great… and also it sucks. It’s a real Schroedinger’s CoD situation here. The biggest win for everyone, however, is the fact that you have a choice. Treyarch could have only done it one way or the other, but it gave us both, and the freedom to switch between these modes whenever you want is fantastic – especially because I often found traditional, non-SBMM to be a very humbling, and sometimes even frustrating, experience as a CoD player of medium skill.

First, a little background for those unaware: SBMM has been the default matchmaking mode for a while now, and very vocal portion of the CoD faithful hate it. When you’d queue up in a lobby for a multiplayer match, some Activision supercomputer somewhere would run the numbers and match you up with people of roughly the same level of skill. The criticism of this system is that you don’t really know whether or not you are good or bad, because SBMM made it so players never had to face too great a challenge. If you dominated for a few matches, you just got moved up to another lobby to match your skill, and lobbies weren’t persistent. Same thing if you stunk up the joint, you’d drop down, but there was no real way to tell where in the power ladder you were at any given time.

So, this year, Treyarch made lobbies where “skill is minimally considered” be the default, but kept the option open to still play SBMM in the matchmaking menu (though it’s not really apparent unless you know what to look for). Again, I really like that they give you the option for either, but I do wish the distinction was made a little more obvious, because the difference in terms of play experience is substantial. My gut tells me the vast majority of CoD players don’t even know about this change, and there are surely a lot of non-competitive people wondering why in the hell they suck all of a sudden this year.

I’ve been playing both modes but using the default non-SBMM lobbies the majority of the time, and let me tell you: you don’t know what the hell you’re in for when you first enter a new match. You might find yourself in a lobby of complete boneheads who you can easily dominate for the win. I found this situation to be a frequent enough occurrence to be noticeable, but not a majority one. No, most of the time, I’d seem to load into a lobby with the god-tier Call of Duty players who this matchmaking change had in mind. And when that happens, it tends to not be very fun.

There is something to be said about playing against people above your skill level if you want to get better. Michael Jordan didn’t get so good at basketball by only practicing against a high school team. But on the flipside, I am the high school basketball player, and now I’m loading into a lobby with the 1996 Chicago Bulls.

It’s quite hard to learn what you’re doing wrong when you’re facing people with skill levels that completely dwarf your own. By the time my reflexes register an opponent, I’m already dead. Don’t get me wrong: I love being able to witness this level of play. It’s super human. Sometimes I’ll watch a replay of my own defeat just to be amazed by how good the other player is. In some instances, getting completely smoked has opened my eyes to what’s possible and given me something to aspire to. But all that promise of self-improvement is short lived, because after a match or two of coming in dead last, I’m ready to find a new lobby.

And I know I’m not the only one – I at least finish matches like that, but others aren’t usually so courteous. In one extreme case, my team had multiple players of exceptional skill, one of whom had the Nuke calling card. You can’t get that calling card without scoring 30 uninterrupted kills in a single match. You gotta be real good, and this person was truly incredible. So, rather than get shot down over and over again, the other team just quit. By the end of the match, it was six versus one, which turned an exciting win into a huge letdown, with the latter half of the match spent running around the map trying to find the one brave hanger-on.

Even when the imbalance isn’t quite that drastic, I see at least one or two people drop out frequently in the default lobbies. Some of those are going to be people who went AFK or lost their connection, sure. Maybe that’s the case more often than I am assuming, but it sure does feel like other players are getting frustrated faster and more consistently than when SBMM was the norm, especially when it happens to five out of the six members of the opposing team – something I’ve never seen occur in a CoD before this one.

Does this mean I think including non-SBMM is a mistake? No, but only because you can still go back to the old style. The best part of the change is we can finally see what it’s like after years of debate, but better still, there’s a choice between the two systems. I don’t think having non-SBMM as the default has proven to be the right move, and I hope Treyarch decides to flip it back at some point in a post-launch patch. But at least the option means everyone can be happy. (Just kidding! This is Call of Duty, there’s going to be unhappy people no matter what.)

One of the side benefits to this new system is that once you get your ass kicked a few dozen times and go back to the SBMM lobbies, you will feel like a god for the first few matches. The persistent lobbies carry through on both modes, so you can stick with the same group or back out to find a new lobby. It’s actually super easy to swap around, which is a real time saver if you’re burning a 2XP token.

Weapons and Loadouts

Black Ops 7 is the first CoD I can think of where I haven’t gravitated toward a single dominant weapon for my playstyle. Last year it was the XM4 assault rifle. It just felt good from level one on up, and by the time I had all the attachments, it cemented itself as my go-to option. In the years before that, I gravitated towards SMG and even marksman rifles (I’m weird but I love the Kar98 in Modern Warfare). This year, none of the guns are really jumping out at me, nor giving me that past feeling of “oh yeah, this is the one I’m going to grind first.” But that’s more a testament to how they generally feel really good across the board more than anything else..

One surprise for me, though, is the MK.78 LMG. I’ve always enjoyed the LMGs, but this one is ridiculous. I can score kills from halfway across a map like Retrieval with ease. The only real weakness is in those tight interior sections of a map, which is to be expected given its slow aim-down-sight speed, but even then I find myself getting the jump on people more often than not. It isn’t until they’re almost in melee range that it fails me. It’s my favorite gun at the moment, and I expect some manner of nerf in the future honestly, as it feels a little too easy to use right now.

I feel the same way about the M8A1 marksman rifle, a burst-fire gun that I also really like and sometimes seems a little too accurate. A well-aimed three-round burst can usually dispatch an opponent with ease no matter where you are on a map. The same holds true for the Shadow SK sniper rifle. If you’ve read any of my past reviews, you know I hate sniper rifles and the people who use them – but, for whatever reason, I’m actually pretty capable with the Shadow SK. Sniper is a class of weapon I’ve historically only really played to satisfy some daily challenge or on the camo grind, but this year I find it to be well within my capabilities as a CoD player. I dropped on iron sights as an attachment and ended up getting Play of the Game at one point. It’s fun and I’m good at it, which makes me naturally assume there’s something wrong with it.

While even the best weapons don’t really stand out to me like in years past, the notable exception are the SMGs, but they stand out because they feel bad. It’s usually one of my favorite weapon classes, but this time none of them have felt like anything I want to use long-term. Traditionally they’ve always excelled at close-to-medium range, but this year’s don’t seem to work at anything but super-close range. I’m going to have to revisit them, but of all the unlockable SMGs, I didn’t find a single one I’d consider for a daily driver. I’m hoping when I get deep into my camo grinds I’ll find some combination that feels right, but for now, they’re very uninspired.

Here’s the thing about Call of Duty: the guns are always good. They figured this formula out a long time ago, which makes it hard to significantly improve on them. This year is no exception. With the exception of the SMGs, this relative equality of quality across the board is one of the more impressive parts of this series, even if it means there are no true stars this year. It’s a ultimately good problem to have. “Oh no, I like almost all of these guns, boo hoo to me, they’re nearly all fun and good.”

Omnimovement Rules

Omnimovement is a relatively new addition to CoD, one that I liked last year but found generally favored controller players. The best thing about the addition of omnimovement, however, was the ability to functionally move and aim while prone. It’s a very legit strategy in multiplayer to fling yourself backwards into a corner and reduce your target footprint while maintaining full aim. Before omnimovement, you’d lay prone and were extremely limited in how and where you could aim. All the cool stuff from Black Ops 6 is still here, and I do think for the most part it helps controller players more than mouse and keyboard nerds like myself, but that doesn’t mean I’d trade it away.

What’s new for Black Ops 7 is the ability to wall run and wall jump, and that changes everything in the best possible way. When you come around a corner, you best be keeping an eye on the sky, because the move now is for people to try and get the jump on one another, literally. It’s a whole new axis you need to be aware of, and it seems like it should be overwhelming to try and keep track of, but it’s not. It’s actually awesome, especially when the situation is flipped and you fly out from behind a wall and dispatch an opponent before you even hit the ground.

You can bounce up to three times, and there are precious few places where this can be consistently maxed out, but in Cortex I got smoked by someone who made full use of that to bounce back and forth between the giant sci-fi holding tanks. I even watched him do it in awe, something that no doubt cost me the L – but hey man, respect where respect is due.

The maps are purposefully designed with this new system in mind, and Blackheart and Imprint in particular have spots where CoD is practically begging you to wall run and jump. It doesn’t feel tacked on or unnecessary, either. It feels as natural as any other movement on any other map in any other CoD. It’s just done so well, and in some ways legitimizes traditional bunny-hopping. Now, instead of spamming jump like an idiot, you can parkour off the walls to both avoid getting hit and nail that perfect trick shot of your own.

What I find technically impressive is I’ve yet to encounter any glitches or exploits to the improved omnimovement system. It seems like letting players bounce 30 feet in the air would expose some cracks in the geometry, but so far, so good. It does feel a little weird when you jump higher than the top of a structure but an invisible wall keeps you from landing on it. I would like it if there were more areas only accessible with smartly timed jumps. Right now, there’s a floating shipping container in Exposure that requires good timing to reach, but that’s about the only one that springs to mind. And getting to it is so fun: timing your jumps with the sway of the container. Give us more hard-to-reach places, please!

More Multiplayer Modes

Skirmish, the 20v20 mode, is new this year – but outside of the purposes of this review, I don’t think I’ll play it again. It’s just not fun. The maps are too small for Warzone-type play, but too big for the normal objective-based play. It’s pure chaos, but not in a way I enjoy.

Since you respawn from the air in a wingsuit, you’re a prime target to get shot out of the sky and go right back into a 10-second cooldown to spawn again. On the flip side, if a sniper has you pinned down, you can just respawn and fly toward wherever they are sitting to take them out. Either way, I can’t figure out a strategic approach to Skirmish that’s any fun, which is something I value greatly in my multiplayer modes. The quick turnover rate means you don’t get the opportunity to flank an entrenched player or team, or really make any strategic moves at all other than land, shoot, die, repeat.

Gunfight returns this year and it’s another mode I don’t really care for. They’re 2v2 matches where you get random guns at the start of each round, taking place on small maps, and it’s not for me. Playing with a random person isn’t very fun, unless you end up with someone REALLY good. It just doesn’t jibe with the way I want to play Call of Duty and, in my experience, whichever team gets the first win is going to be the one that wins the whole match more often than not. But I’ll never advocate for fewer modes, and I know some people really enjoy Gunfight, so I’m at least glad it’s available.

Most of the more traditional multiplayer modes from last year are back as well, including Kill Confirmed, Domination, Hardpoint, Control, and Team Deathmatch, and I don’t really dislike any of them. Search & Destroy is also back, but I have not once been dropped into a map for it in regular matchmaking. In fact, I found myself dropped into Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, and Overload way more than any of the other modes, and I’m not totally sure why that is.

Overload is new this year, and it’s basically capture the flag. There’s an EMP device that spawns on the map, and the goal is to pick it up and run it into the opposing team’s zone to get the win. I actually really like this mode, especially on maps like Flagship. Unlike Skirmish, the chaos is fun, and doing a diving leap into the enemy team’s zone when you have the EMP is an excellent feeling.

Overload is definitely my favorite objective-based mode, while Team Deathmatch and Free-for-All remain my favorite modes of all. When I’m on the grind, I’ll uncheck all modes except those two, and only select them all again when I’m teaming up with friends for some generalized multiplayer chaos. Both of these modes have always been my favorites because the objective is simple: get as many kills as possible during a match to win. I’m a simple man of simple tastes. When there’s only one thing to do, there’s less chance your team will screw it up – especially since my occasional frustration with objective-based modes in CoD arises when people treat them like Deathmatch anyway. For example, you might have a team in Hardpoint that completely dominates the field, scoring kill after kill, but also ignores holding the Hardpoint, and you end up with a sour-tasting loss.

That’s not the case in Team Deathmatch or Free-for-All. You just run around shooting people until the match is over. No pick-ups like Kill Confirmed, no holding an area like Hardpoint, no rushing the EMP device to the enemy’s base like in Overload. They’re my favorite modes because I can shut off my brain and focus on getting better with my weapons. And, best of all, any skill improvements made during Team Deathmatch and Free-for-All carry over to the objective-based modes.

Mapping it Out

Black Ops 7’s first batch of multiplayer maps are really good. They all do an excellent job showing off the new wall run and wall jump mechanics, with some areas on the maps specifically designed to let you run and jump over pits or around corners. I don’t think there’s a dud in the bunch. Even the ones I didn’t really care much for at first, like Scar or Homestead, I warmed up to quite a bit after a few matches.

I think my favorite maps are Retrieval and Hijacked. Retrieval is a medium-sized map with a melting glacier on one end, a frozen river on the other, and plenty of structures and different levels in between. It’s where I was able to get my first “moonshot,” an 86m shot with the MK.78 LMG. Apart from being a really fun map, it’s also visually one of my favorites. I love the winding tunnels of sparkling ice inside the base of the glacier.

Hijacked takes place on a yacht with two lanes down either side, a middle area where they all meet, and different levels of the boat both above and below deck. It’s a great map to rack up multikills, especially if you’re playing against a team of less experienced players. You can post up on one of those lanes and wait for people to come around the corner in a group and just go crazy. At the same time, it’s a snap to flank those positions, so you can’t stay for too long unless you want to get smoked.

All of the maps are built expertly. There’s no annoying sniper nest or hidey-holes in them, which means campers have a really hard time spending half the match in one little area. If you stop moving, someone’s going to get you, because there’s nowhere to hide that doesn’t have some angle of attack. You might find a place to back into a corner, sure, but we all know to check the corners in Call of Duty. It boggles my mind to think about the know-how involved in designing maps like the ones here, with a level of expertise that brings the quality of all the maps to a consistently high standard. None of them rise too high above the pack but, just like with the guns, that’s not a terrible problem to have when I’m having such a good time with all of them.

With the so many different reasons to celebrate Star Wars sprinkled throughout the year, there’s never a wrong time to shop for Star Wars merch. If you’re a fan of the franchise or know someone else that is, we’re here to make your Star Wars gift shopping a lot easier in 2025.

We’ve assembled a list of some of the best Star Wars gifts we’ve found online, from books and Blu-rays to video games, shirts, and LEGO gift sets. So, without further ado, here are some of the best ways to bring a galaxy far, far away into your home.

Top Star Wars Gift Ideas for 2025

Star Wars Gifts for Gamers

There’s an absolute ton of great Star Wars video games available right now on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC, whether that’s Star Wars Jedi Survivor or LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. But if you’re looking to get a friend or family member the most recent major Star Wars game on the market, you’ll want to look into Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws. Offering a sprawling open-world adventure with hours of content, It’s a gift that’s sure to give any Star Wars fan plenty to do over the holiday break. There are also quite a few great Star Wars games for the Nintendo Switch if you’re looking to play there.

Best Gifts for Fans of the Books

When it comes to Star Wars novels, there are plenty of great choices out there, both from the current canon continuity and the non-canon Star Wars Legends books timeline. If you’re buying for a current fan wanting to keep up with the latest Star Wars lore though, there’s no better place to look than the High Republic series, which has been a key focus for Disney as they establish the latest new notch on the franchise’s timeline. If you’re gifting for a reader who’s new to the High Republic era, check out the High Republic: Light of the Jedi trilogy boxed set, which contains all three novels from the first phase of the series. If you don’t mind placing a preorder, there’s also a Revenge of the Sith deluxe edition coming out in October that’s worth checking out as well as Star Wars: The Last Order which explores a post-Rise of the Skywalker universe.

For Comic Book Fans

Classic recommendations for Star Wars comics include the following (as found in our best Star Wars comics shopping list).

Gifts for Fans of the Movies and TV Shows

Want to grab the cinephiles in your life a shiny new Star Wars collection? There are a lot of good options out there, with the most premium of the bunch being the Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Complete Collection. This absolute unit of a boxset comes with all nine movies in Blu-ray format as well as 26 hours of bonus content and special features. In short, it’s the collection to end all collections, and a great pick-up for any diehard fans of the Star Wars movies.

You can also pick up more recent seasons of the live-action Star Wars TV shows in 4K and Blu-ray. With Andor season 2 now available on Disney+ right now, picking up the first season in 4K is an excellent option.

Gifts for Adult LEGO Fans

When it comes to buying a Star Wars LEGO set, you’re absolutely spoiled for choice, with this last year alone bringing us incredibly popular builds like Jabba’s Barge and the TIE Interceptor. However, if you’re looking for a fun set to pick up without breaking into the much pricier line of UCS builds that LEGO dropped last year a great option is the Imperial Star Destroyer play set. Retailing at $159.99, it offers a full star destroyer with a buildable interior, as well as the very first official Cal Kestis mini-figure, making it a great choice for young and veteran LEGO fans alike.

The brick-built Star Wars Logo set looks great on shelves and home office setups, while the Grogu and Hover Pram set has been constantly on sale during Amazon’s Black Friday sales.

Star Wars Gifts For Board Game Fans

For those on the hunt for a fun Star Wars board game, you can’t go wrong with Star Wars: Outer Rim. Casting you and three other players as intergalactic outlaws, your mission is to venture across the galaxy and strategically build your reputation by smuggling cargo, hunting bounties and meeting various iconic Star Wars characters. If you reckon your friends or family would jump at the chance to become a legendary scoundrel, Outer Rim is a safe bet. But it’s far from the only option on offer, with other great board games like Star Wars Rebellion and Star Wars Imperial Assault sure to bring hours of intergalactic entertainment.

Gifts for Puzzlers

If you or someone you know just so happens to be a chronic puzzler on top of being a Star Wars fan, there are quite a few options. Our overall top pick for the best Star Wars puzzle for adults is this 2,000-piece jigsaw we’ve featured above. It depicts numerous different characters from episodes 1-6 along with a variety of machines, ships, and the Death Star looming in the background. It is a pretty big puzzle, however, so you may want to be sure whoever you’re giving it to has a decent puzzle table or board that can hold it.

Alongside this puzzle, there are quite a few other options. There are even model kits that act as 3D puzzles you can check out,

Apparel and Accessory Gifts

If you’re looking for clothing-related gifts, Star Wars has a nigh-on endless range of wearable merch that make for great presents. Whether you’re searching for Star-Wars-inspired Hawaiian shirts, tees sporting iconic poster graphics or a funny festive jumper that will stand out from the crowd, here are some of our favorites.

Gifts For The Home

Much like with shirts, Star Wars has plenty of novelty homeware that make for great gifts. Whether you’re on the hunt for a Darth Vader Waffle Maker or an R2-D2 lava lamp, we’ve assembled some fun kitchenware, lights, mugs, and other homeware that are sure to put a smile on any Star Wars fan’s face.

Gifts for Toy Collectors

There are a lot of different Star Wars toys you can buy. There are lightsaber replicas, plushies, and even Nerf blasters. But if you’re a collector of Star Wars toys, then you’re probably most interested in Star Wars action figures. Our overall top pick is from the Black Series line of toys, but there are quite a few other great options from other brands to check out as well. There are even new Jedi: Survivor figures that were just recently announced for fans of the video game series.

Myles Obenza is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Bluesky @mylesobenza.bsky.social.

The Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution – Phantasmal Flames set was just released on Nov. 11, 2025, and with it, an elusive Pokémon TCG: Mega Charizard X ex Ultra-Premium Collection. As a huge Charizard fan, I had to have it, even with its pretty high $119.99 USD MSRP (or a lot higher on resale sites!)

Recently, IGN teamed up with Nintendo Life to rank the Top 100 Best Nintendo Games of All Time. But this celebration wasn’t just about what we think: we also wanted to know what your list would be, too. This was calculated through our Face Off tool, which pits two games against each other until you’ve run through all of the permutations, and then places the games in order of their win percentage. So, following a face-off in which thousands of you voted — with your number one pick being involved in 21,405 duels — we’ve got a Top 25 based on the IGN audience’s opinion.

The games that appear in this list actually aren’t too different from the ones that make up our own top positions, albeit with quite a different order. You favour Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda series over most others. So much, in fact, that the top 10 is dominated entirely by these two Miyamoto creations.

What follows is the Top 25 as voted by IGN readers, with a handy comparison below that shows your picks alongside the IGN and Nintendo Life’s list.

25. Mario Kart 64 – 59.0% Win Rate

24. Super Mario Bros. – 59.2% Win Rate

23. Pokemon Yellow (Red/Blue) – 59.4% Win Rate

22. Donkey Kong Bananza – 61.2% Win Rate

21. Chrono Trigger – 61.2% Win Rate

20. GoldenEye 007 – 61.9% Win Rate

19. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – 62.7% Win Rate

18. Super Metroid – 62.7% Win Rate

17. Super Smash Bros. Melee – 63.4% Win Rate

16. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess – 65.3% Win Rate

15. Metroid Prime (+ Remastered) – 65.6% Win Rate

14. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask – 66.1% Win Rate

13. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 66.1% Win Rate

12. Super Mario Galaxy 2 – 66.8% Win Rate

11. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 66.9% Win Rate

10. Super Mario. Bros 3 – 67.9% Win Rate

9. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker – 68.4% Win Rate

8. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past – 69.0% Win Rate

7. Super Mario Galaxy – 69.6% Win Rate

6. Super Mario World – 70.5% Win Rate

5. Super Mario 64 – 70.5% Win Rate

4. Super Mario Odyssey – 71.3% Win Rate

3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – 73.2% Win Rate

2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 77.1% Win Rate

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – 77.5% Win Rate

So, that’s what you voted as the 25 best Nintendo games ever, but how does it compare to IGN and Nintendo Life’s version? Well, there are a few notable differences. The IGN readers picked Mario Kart 64 as number 25 — a game that didn’t even make our Top 100 as one of our two Mario Kart entries. On the flip side, we had Tetris placed at 5, but it was all the way down at 33 in the public vote.

You can check out the table below to get a direct comparison between the top 25s. Which do you ultimately agree with more? 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 name “Disney” has been showing up in quite a lot of gaming-related headlines as of late. As part of its arms race with Netflix, the conglomerate announced plans to add AI-powered user-generated content and “game-like features” to Disney+. Last year, it acquired a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games, adding yet another cash cow to its portfolio. That deal paved the way for Disneyland Game Rush, a Fortnite island released earlier this month to celebrate the theme park’s 70th birthday that features well-received minigames based on Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, and other iconic rides.

These developments are more than a little surprising, not least because it’s been close to a decade since Disney pulled the plug on its own, in-house gaming initiatives. Disney Interactive Studios, lovingly remembered for its work with Square on Kingdom Hearts and that 1989 NES DuckTales platformer that inspired the bounce mechanic in Shovel Knight, closed down in 2016 following the cancellation of its flagship project, Disney Infinity. Asked why, Bob Iger – who was then nearing the end of his first stint as CEO – told shareholders that while the company was great at making movies and building theme parks, they weren’t nearly as skilled at designing games.

Others would beg to differ. While it’s true that Disney has never managed to compete with Nintendo, Ubisoft, or Electronic Arts, its influence on games as a medium might well be greater than all of these three companies combined. To understand how the company was able to leave a mark on the one part of the entertainment industry it couldn’t conquer, you need to go where Fortnite has gone: to Disneyland.