It’s happening — the brilliant Silent Hill 2 Remake is finally arriving on Xbox Series X/S, and it’s being released with a hefty 50% launch discount.
Fans have spotted that the game is already available to purchase via the Xbox Store in Australia, where it’s already Friday, November 21. Store pages for the game in other regions are also available, though the game cannot yet be purchased elsewhere.
When it does become available — likely when midnight passes tonight — the game looks to have launched at half price. The Australian version has a recommended retail price of AU $99, currently reduced to AU $50, which is something at least after the long wait.
As of yet, publisher Konami is yet to make the launch official, though we are just hours away from Microsoft’s impending Xbox Partner Preview showcase, where the console maker is set to detail a raft of new third-party announcements. You can tune into that later today, Thursday, November 20 from 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, or 6pm UK time.
Silent Hill 2 Remake has sold 2.5 million worldwide, something which has propelled sales of the overall franchise past the 10 million mark. IGN’s Silent Hill 2 Remake review returned an 8/10. We said: “Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
The time has come: Best Buy has kicked off its Black Friday sale, and it’s full of excellent deals to look through. This is especially true on the video game front, where we’ve spotted quite a few exciting deals already. One that’s jumped out to us is Silent Hill f, which has received a $20 discount that’s dropped its price from $69.99 to $49.99.
This applies to both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game (see the deal here at Best Buy), so no matter the platform you play on, you can still save if it’s been on your radar.
Silent Hill f Drops to $49.99 for Black Friday
For Silent Hill fans, or even those who are interested in the games but haven’t jumped into one yet, we found in our review that Silent Hill f “serves up a fresh new Japanese setting to explore, a fascinatingly dark story to unravel, and plenty of twisted freaks to torment you with.” We even consider it one of the best Silent Hill games, so you’re in for a treat when you play.
On top of that, it was also recently nominated for Best Narrative, Best Audio Design, and Best Performance fromKonatsu Kato for this year’s Game Awards. If you’ve been hoping to pick it up, now is as good a time as any.
Best Buy isn’t the only retailer that’s dropped its Black Friday deals today. Amazon’s big Black Friday sale has also kicked off, and if you’re looking for more video game deals, it has plenty up its sleeve for shoppers to scoop up. To stay on top of discounts as they pop up from other retailers, check out our breakdown of Black Friday 2025 for information on start times and what we expect to see this year.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
Games Workshop is once again expecting big profits despite an expected slowdown in licensing revenue from blockbuster video game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.
In a trading update, the Nottingham, UK-based tabletop wargame company said it now expects revenues of at least £310 million for the six months to the end of November 2025, which would amount to a 15% rise from the same period last year. Pre-tax profit is expected to be about £135 million for the half year, up from £126.8 million last year. Shares in Games Workshop were up 12.8% on the news this morning.
That’s despite expected licensing revenue of at least £16 million, which would be down from the £30.1 million reported during the same period last year.
Space Marine 2 may well be the most successful Warhammer 40,000 video game ever made. It sold over 7 million copies less than a year after going on sale, and, according to Saber Interactive exec Tim Willits, changed everything for the studio. Even Games Workshop itself has talked about the money it’s made from Space Marine 2, and protagonist Titus is now leading the charge on the next narrative expansion of the Warhammer 40,000 setting.
In January, Games Workshop said it was on the hunt for the next blockbuster Warhammer video game, but CEO Kevin Rountree also expressed a degree of caution on potential future video game success, admitting hits like Space Marine 2 are few and far between. “We recognise that successes like these for Warhammer are not a given in the world of video games,” Rountree said at the time. “Clearly we are looking for the next one. We remain cautious when forecasting royalty income.”
Meanwhile, Games Workshop had warned that Donald Trump’s tariff plans could damage its profits by up to £12 million, but it seems the impact has yet to significantly dull financial performance.
Games Workshop’s primary business is of course the sale of tabletop wargames and their miniatures, with an expansive bricks and mortar retail business providing a foundation for the hobby. In July, Games Workshop said that a “cute looking pipistrelle bat” was “delaying our work on our new temporary car park.” Yes, really.
Photo by Uli Deck/picture alliance via Getty Images.
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.
Major gameplay leaks have offered a glimpse at the next era of Fortnite, in which its ever-popular battle royale mode will transition to a fresh map based on the USA.
Previously, official hints from Epic Games have pointed to coordinates based in Hollywood, while another leak suggested the game would feature a Las Vegas-esque location (and a Quentin Tarantino crossover). And now, thanks to footage that has leaked from a preview event attended by media and influencers, Chapter 7’s USA-style setting has been confirmed.
Footage now widely circulating on social media shows an arid area with palm trees. In the distance, the game’s map references an area named Sandy Strip. Signage names Chapter 7’s first season as being titled “Pacific Break.”
LEAKED CHAPTER 7 INFO FROM CREATOR EVENT 💀
– Hot air balloons – Driveable Reboot Vans – Solo VS Bots mode – Rift A Palooza events that spawn rifts – Gameplay UI update – Battle Pass has Marty McFly and The Bride pic.twitter.com/l9lBrLZMIz
Other changes visible in the footage look to include driveable reboot vans, and the option for a new Solo vs Bots mode (although it’s unclear if this was provided just for the preview event).
Fortnite has followed up the leaks with its own, official look at Chapter 7, via a top-down view of the game’s new battle royale map that shows a more urban area, complete with wide city streets and homes with backyard pools. (The top-down view here is a bit GTA 1, isn’t it?)
Last night, Fortnite also publicly shared footage of Quentin Tarantino appearing at the aforementioned event, standing next to a Fortnite version of Kill Bill’s infamous Pussy Wagon car. Here, the word “pussy” has been replaced by a picture of Meowscles, the game’s fan-favorite swole cat. Leaked footage from the event, meanwhile, shows a new in-game skin for Uma Thurman’s Kill Bill character The Bride. Oh, and also Marty McFly from Back to the Future.
Fortnite typically works on its big annual map change around a year in advance, and it’s fun to consider the idea that, 12 months ago, Chapter 7’s USA-inspired setting was being planned with the expectation that a certain other big game with a USA-inspired setting would launch at the same time.
Of course, GTA 6 has now been delayed — twice. But up until May this year, Rockstar was still saying the game would arrive this week, around the time Epic Games has launched a fresh Chapter of Fortnite for the past few years.
This year, Fortnite will hold its big Chapter 6 finale event on Saturday, November 29. Chapter Seven will then launch imminently after, though some period of downtime is expected. A teaser trailer for that in-game event released officially last night and featured Fortnite going full Ready Player One and Avengers: Endgame with its plans, while tying up story threads from the past few years.
In recent weeks, the secret bunkers in Fortnite’s OG mode have been flashing messages in morse code, such as “Zero Hour”, which we now know is the name of the upcoming event, and “Titans”. After seeing that teaser trailer, fans think “Titans” refers to the game’s current main antagonist, The Dark Presence, a towering demonic entity that rules Chapter 6’s Spirit Realm, but also to the forces now squaring up against him.
In the coming battle, players look set to fight alongside a series of other looming figures: the returning Godzilla and King Kong, plus the newly giant-sized Homer Simpson. Is there a clue to a much longer story arc here too? Think back to Fortnite’s Chapter 5, which introduced the current era of storytelling focused on blue-haired hero Hope, and you could also link in the mysterious giant hand that erupted from the ground holding Pandora’s Box.
Are all of these Titans? And how will Fortnite wrap all of these things together (plus Star Wars’ X-Wings, Uma Thurman, and Marty McFly) as it moves to its new USA-based home? We’ve just over a week to go until we find out.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
18 years ago, NASA lost an asteroid. Officially designated 2007 FT3, the Empire State Building-sized rock was tracked for around 24 hours before it slipped back into the solar system’s darkness — and it hasn’t been spotted since. It remains the fourth-largest space object with a better than 1-in-2 million chance of smashing into Earth, but scientists remain unsure where it is now.
This year, the internet has taken great interest in 3I/ATLAS — only the third interstellar object ever detected, though also the third since 2017. (The overwhelming scientific consensus suggests 3I/ATLAS is a comet, though one rogue astrophysicist has sparked endless online speculation by suggesting it is an extraterrestrial spacecraft.)
Now, as NASA unveils fresh images of 3I/ATLAS this week and as the hunt for 2007 FT3 continues, one thing is certain: we are finding more things flying through space than we used to. That’s a good thing, YouTube scientist and author Hank Green tells IGN — as it shows we’re getting better at spotting them. But how prepared are we for something on an impact trajectory with Earth, and should we be getting worried that space is actually far busier than we thought?
“The first thing is we’re way better at spotting them than we’ve ever been,” Green begins, when IGN asks why new asteroid and comet discoveries seem more prevalent now than ever. “Literally, like as of two weeks ago, Vera Rubin went online [Chile’s new observatory which contains the biggest camera ever built]. We’ve got three different systems for detecting different threats now, to the point where if we were going to be hit by a really big rock, like a dinosaur-sized rock, we’d know. Which is amazing. We had all of this ignorance leading up to now, and now we have certainty.
“But once in a while there’s enough uncertainty about a particular rock, that’s big enough that if it hit in the wrong spot would be really bad,” he continues. “And there are way more of those than there are the big ones. So we have to continue to be vigilant and we have to figure what we would do if we actually spotted one that might cause a problem.”
“Once in a while there’s enough uncertainty about a particular rock…”
Earlier this year, Green was contacted by Supercell, the maker of hit smartphone game Clash of Clans, with a novel idea. The city-building strategy app was planning an in-game event where it threatened players’ hard-built bases with destruction by an asteroid. And not just any asteroid: it would be the long-lost 2007 FT3.
Months later, and the event is now live, fronted by a flashy trailer that sees the mystery of 2007 FT3 seemingly explained. In the world of Clash of Clans, the rock’s disappearance is revealed to be Green’s doing, as he zaps the asteroid away from Earth by digitizing it — sending it careening towards the Clash of Clans universe instead. Now, all these years later, the asteroid has finally loomed close enough to Clash’s world that it’s become your problem.
“There’s an element of just the cleverness of using this old science story that I thought was clever,” Green says of his involvement, sparked by the hunt for 2007 FT3. “But it was mostly like, ‘I’ve never done anything like this before, I’ve never gone out to LA to make a little movie.’ It was like, directors and third assistant directors and everybody was on it. It was wild. I feel like I learned so much just about how things get made and also what I’m capable of.
“Also,” he adds, referencing the prosthetics he wore to make himself briefly look over a decade younger, “that was my first experience with spirit gum.”
Sadly, however, aiming a giant laser at the sky and digitizing an asteroid isn’t an effective method of stopping doomsday rocks in the real world. Not yet, at least. So what could we do if do spot a dangerous-looking space object given enough warning?
“We’ve started to do that work,” Green says. “We’ve sent probes to smash into asteroids to change their trajectory very slightly, and the nice thing about that is if you get them when they’re very far away, a very slight change of trajectory is enough. We’ve done the first of those missions and we’ve shown that we can.”
All of this still relies on finding the rock first, but Green is pretty confident. “There’s a chance that something could come from a weird interaction somewhere out in the far reaches of the solar system, and a comet could get surprise flung in and we can track those less well, but as far as asteroids go, the big ones are easy to spot.”
“They’ve been flying through the solar system the whole time…”
Comets are trickier, as typically they have longer orbits and spend a lot of time lurking in the outer solar system (or beyond, as 3I/ATLAS appears to show). But Green isn’t overly worried here either. ATLAS was spotted by an asteroid detection system (on explaining this, he pulls up the comet’s acronym, which stands for the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System that found it). And the other thing Earth has going for it? Well, space is really, really big.
“When we turn on Vera Rubin for real, we’ll probably start detecting even more of these interstellar objects, and we’ll kind of understand they’ve been flying through the solar system the whole time,” Green says, estimating that a single-digit number of interstellar objects will be discovered passing through each year.
“But as far as them being a potential threat, the odds are just so tremendously… there are so many rocks already in the solar system that could get close enough to be a potential problem and none of them are, because Earth is very small in comparison to the size of the solar system,” Green affirms.
All that’s needed are a few fragments of location data and scientists can begin to model if any object may become a problem over the coming decades or centuries, Green explains, “because the solar system is pretty much Newtonian, it’s pretty much just doing physics.”
Or, back in Clash of Clans, all you need is to hit things with hammers — which seems a lot more convenent. Happily, the game’s ongoing event has progressed to the point where players have successfully completed a meteor catching device, though at least one meteor shard has landed, helpfully bringing with it a new Town Hall.
“It can be quite intimidating at first because you can see some of the things people have done and think ‘I will never get there’,” Green says of the game. “It’s like seeing someone do a backflip and think, ‘well that’s great for you but I am really far away from that.’ But the great thing about the structure of it is it does keep you engaged and pulls you from that early [gameplay] when your Town Hall looks like a villager’s house.”
Will the real 2007 FT3 ever be found? Green seems confident it will. NASA has lost asteroids before, and typically it catches sight of them again within a few decades — and none of those were on a collision course either. “As we’ve seen, we were able to detect 3I/ATLAS fairly early on in the process,” he concludes. “But I’m certainly in favor of having a system ready to go, just in case.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Omelet You Cook, a roguelike cooking game on Steam, has been having a great early access it seems. It recently passed 500 player reviews, and every last one of them was positive, making it one of a rare few games on Steam to have 100% positive reviews.
Until today.
As pointed out to us by developer Dan Schumacher of SchuBox Games, the game received its first negative review today. And sure, negative reviews are just part of the deal when releasing a game on Steam. But what really bothered Schumacher is that according to the text of the review, the reviewer didn’t actually dislike the game. They played for 0.8 hours total, 0.2 hours when they posted the review, and wrote the following:
“Game is amazing. I just like to be different.”
IGN reached out to the reviewer for further comment ahead of this piece but didn’t hear back.
The community appears to have sprung to Omelet You Cook’s defense, as the game has received almost 40 new positive reviews in the 14 hours since the negative review was posted, and a number of people have commented scolding the negative reviewer for ruining the positive streak just for kicks, though some of those comments are unfortunately far harsher than the negative review itself.
“Seeing this review was very draining for us,” said Schumacher to IGN. “We knew 100% wouldn’t last forever but it hurt to have the streak ended by someone who in their own words thinks the game is amazing. Emotionally I think I’d feel better if it was someone complaining about bugs, or design choices, or just feeling the game isn’t for them.”
A single negative review is hardly the end of the world for SchuBox Games, but it does make a difference. There are very, very, very few games on Steam with perfectly positive reviews, or at least in meaningful amounts like this. The more you get, the more likely it is someone will have something bad to say. There’s a game called Shooters, Ready! on Steam that’s only available in Japanese and similarly has over 500 positive reviews and 0 negative ones. But at least using the built in search by user reviews, there don’t seem to be any others.
According to Schumacher, having no negative reviews actually did afford him some benefits, too:
“Having 100% positive reviews was a huge benefit for us because it’s extremely abnormal for a game with hundreds of reviews,” he told IGN. “People see 100% and become curious enough to read through some of the reviews to understand why it’s so beloved or to check out the demo for themselves. We’ve had multiple people join our Discord or leave their own review and mention that they gave the game a chance because they couldn’t believe it was maintaining 100% for so long.
“…The biggest impact this will have on Omelet You Cook is losing that mystique of a perfect 100%. That led to some opportunities for Omelet You Cook to be mentioned because it was atypical. But honestly for players coming across the Steam page, I don’t think 99% vs 100% makes any difference at all. Some users like to filter by negative reviews to understand where the pain points are and I have to appreciate that this negative review frames Omelet You Cook in a very positive light.”
It’s long been known that engagement with games on Steam in the form of Wishlists and reviews can be a massive boon, especially for small developers. There are simply too many games, and getting attention on such a crowded storefront is impossible if you don’t already have a built-up audience or a lot of advertising money. Having lots of positive reviews and few negative ones gets games like Omelet You Cook visibility when searching under certain filters or ranking systems, including third-party ones. That’s certainly been the case for Omelet You Cook
“We’re very fortunate and grateful to have reached 507 positive reviews before our first negative,” Schumacher said. “We worked incredibly hard to achieve that with 15 content updates over 5 months. But we also got incredibly lucky and it’s nowhere near a flawless game. There’s plenty of valid reasons somebody might have a negative experience with the game and we’re grateful to all 507 chefs who took the time to write a positive review. Each one helps Omelet You Cook reach a wider audience.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Epic Games is teasing an explosive return to Fortnite story content with a Chapter 6 Zero Hour Finale Live Event teaser trailer that packs in heavy-hitter cameos ahead of the inevitable launch of Chapter Seven.
The description for the new Fortnite story video teases that some familiar faces will “assemble in the final endgame to save reality,” and the footage proves it. In just 30 seconds, we see Jonesy dodging giant tentacle monster attacks as Godzilla, King Kong, and Star Wars X-Wings battle overhead. Naturally, a giant, half-naked Homer Simpson then shows up before Uma Thurman’s Kill Bill character, The Bride, swoops in, with the trailer then finally telling players to expect the Fortnite Chapter 6 Zero Hour Finale event to take place November 29 at 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET.
It’s an unveiling that will also surely reinforce rumors that Tarantino himself is involved in some of Epic’s upcoming festivities, with some believing the filmmaker directed its new cinematic. There’s been no official word on what exactly the big finale has in store, but with some eagle-eyed fans already spotting a Fortnite-related premiere at Tarantino’s The Vista Theatre in Los Angeles, the evidence is only getting harder to deny.
As everyone from Godzilla to Homer stomps in for what is poised to be one of the biggest Fortnite events ever, fans can’t help but look forward to how Chapter Seven may shake up the long-running live-service experience’s formula. Some believe Epic is dropping hints that The Seven, a star-studded group that has largely been MIA from Fortnite story content for years, could somehow make a comeback for the Seven-themed Chapter, for example.
Should The Seven return to Epic’s grand video game multiverse, it would likely mean the stars who play them, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Brie Larson, would be back, too. We should find out more about the Fortnite Chapter 6 Zero Hour Finale and Chapter Seven in the coming weeks
In the meantime, players have spent November gallivanting around none other than The Simpsons’ Springfield, as the long-running animated series made its debut with themed skins, Easter Eggs, and more. It’s a crossover that’s been particularly successful for Epic, with players also enjoying the new Sidekicks feature and the return of the Omniverse.
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).
As a fighting game fan, I’ve grown to enjoy the process. Spending extended amounts of time in training mode learning the timing of memorized button presses in the hopes that, when it really counts, that practice will pay off. This might be why I found Forestrike, a 2D martial arts inspired roguelite that lets you plan out your approach to solving a gauntlet of combat encounters before executing upon them for real, so uniquely appealing. It successfully evokes the feeling of classic kung fu fight choreography by mixing straight up hand-to-hand combat with clever moments of using the environment to your advantage, or turning an enemy’s own weapon against them, or causing friendly fire simply with an effortless step to the side, all on a 2D plane with minimalist spite art. The precision and memorization needed to accomplish these impressive looking feats can be brutal, especially considering how easy it is for one mistake to cascade into many more, eventually cratering a run, but this clever concept still manages to pack a heck of a punch.
Forestrike puts you in control of Yu, a young martial artist who is part of the Order of the Foresight, a faction dutifully devoted to serving their Emperor, and one that becomes dedicated to the mission of saving said emperor from the manipulation of a being known as The Admiral. There’s a surprising amount of dialogue in Forestrike as we learn more about The Order and the various masters that guide Yu along his journey in between each run. In that way, it’s a lot like the intermissions between runs of Hades, but instead of always looking forward to the new things characters had to say, I generally found myself eager to get on with it so I could get back to fighting. A complete lack of voice acting certainly contributed to this, but the writing and characters themselves also just weren’t strong enough to keep my interest for very long.
Once you’re in an actual run, Forestrike flexes its muscles. It’s structured like a gauntlet of combat encounters against increasingly difficult foes, but before the actual fighting starts you’re able use your foresight technique to essentially do a practice run. That lets you find the right combination of attacks, dodges, and techniques to defeat all of the enemies in the most efficient way possible. Defensive resources like blocks and dodges are extremely limited, and it’s rare that you’ll go into an encounter with more than one of either. At first it felt rather frustrating as I just continuously found myself being forced to burn my dodge or block against the first tough enemy, which meant I wouldn’t be able to avoid the attacks of the last one. Eventually, though, a visual language started to develop as I learned how enemies would react to my actions and how I could use those predictable tendencies to my advantage.
If one enemy was charging me from the right, I could use my dodge resource to move an enemy on my left to the other side, putting him right in the way of that attack. If I was up against an enemy with spikes on the front of their body, I could look for a type of puppet enemy that drops its head when killed, which could then be picked up and thrown to kill the spiked foe from a distance. Figuring out this visual language organically was super satisfying, and I felt like I was getting further and further in my runs not because my character was becoming more powerful, but because I was simply getting better, which is always a great feeling in a roguelite.
I was getting further because I was simply getting better, which is always a great feeling in a roguelite.
What really makes the gameplay sing are the different martial masters that you take along with you in each run, which dictate what techniques you’re able to use. There’s Talgun, who is the master of the Leaf style, which focuses primarily on redirecting enemy attacks so that your foes take each other out; Nodai of the Cold Eye style, which focuses primarily on blocking, restoring health, and brute force; and my favorite, Monkey, who utilizes a wild fighting style that relies on surprising foes with dropkicks, bananas, and resting on the floor so that enemy attacks go right over and slam into the foe behind you.
Each style requires a completely different approach to solving the puzzles of combat, and I loved jumping between them and seeing the many different techniques that unlock the further you get in a run. Each time you beat the boss of one of the four regions, you unlock more techniques that get added to the pool of randomly selected rewards, which essentially acts as the permanent progression that helps give you the extra edge you’ll need to conquer each of the four regions of the campaign.
The one big issue with this formula is that the amount of precision required in some of the later stages can get pretty out of control, especially considering how quickly things can go off the rails with just one error. I’ve had multiple combat encounters where all of my practice runs went flawlessly, but on the actual attempt I was just a hair off on the timing of a single strike, which would essentially cause my whole plan to break down and force me to improvise the rest of the way, which usually leads to either death or near death. That’s just part of the design, but it doesn’t stop it from being extremely frustrating to lose an otherwise great run to what ultimately amounts to being off by just milliseconds one time.
The sprite based art style is intentionally minimalist – much like Skeleton Crew Studio’s previous game, Olija – and for the most part is very charming. The sprites themselves are surprisingly expressive despite their lack of detail, the 2D art is fantastic, and the actual combat animations are great – but for whatever reason the same attention was not given to the walk and run animations, which are some of the most awkward I’ve seen in 2D pixel art. It’s not a huge deal since Yu only really walks and runs in between runs at the monastery, but it’s still a very strange quirk in a game that otherwise looks great.
Fallout fans have a whole lot to be excited about these days. From Season 2 of the hit Amazon Prime Video series dropping next month to Fallout 4 coming to Nintendo Switch 2 and Fallout 76 getting a Burning Springs expansion, we’re spoiled for content. Fallout Day on October 23 brought even more announcements. With everything that’s coming, there are tons of fun new collectibles and memorabilia to buy or pre-order in anticipation.
IGN Store is stocked up on awesome Fallout exclusives; there’s even a functional, true to the TV series Pip-Boy Die-Cast replica and Lucy’s Vault 33 Backpack, both of which would be any cosplayer’s dream. Bethesda’s Gear Store already has the 15th Anniversary Fallout: New Vegas bundle up for preorder, along with mementos from the Mojave Wasteland. Or grab my personal favorite, a decorative, rocket-shaped Nuka Mix bottle to create your own Nuka Mix Station at home.
TL;DR: Top Fallout Gear Any Fan Will Love
Take a look at this curated list of top Fallout gear any fan would love, alongside a handy blurb about each. With the holidays quickly approaching, these items also make great gifts for all the Wastelanders in your life.
Fallout Desert Sandtrack Flea Die-Cast Replica
Chryslus Motors classic Fusion Flea got a wasteland makeover with a sick camouflage livery and a rear wheel swapped for tracks, ensuring it’s ready to take on the unforgiving dunes. The Desert Sandtrack Flea is a 1:18 scale replica from The Wand Company, and an IGN Store exclusive that has a limited run of just 1,500 units available for preorder right now. With a mix of die-cast metal, thermoplastic rubber, and engineered plastics, it’s built to last. The attention to detail, from the steerable front wheels and tinted windshield to the engine and its glowing nuclear core, makes this military-ready hot-rod a great addition for any collector.
Fallout: New Vegas 15th Anniversary Bundle
Bethesda has a brand new Fallout: New Vegas Bundle available for pre-order from its Gear Store for the 15th Anniversary. In addition to getting the Ultimate Edition of the game via a digital code, which includes all the officially released DCL expansion packs and two weapons packs, it comes with a bunch of cool memorabilia that every Courier will want.
An 8-inch PVC Victor Statue is ready to watch over Good Springs, while one pin and two patches let you represent the Mojave Wasteland anywhere. It even comes with Doc Mitchell’s evaluation cards, allowing you to do a psychological evaluation of friends in the real world. Everything then comes packaged in a retro display box created exclusively for this 15th Anniversary Edition. This bundle doesn’t drop till June 2026, but it’s perfect for any New Vegas fan.
Fallout Pip-Boy 3000 Replica
Fans of Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 3 will want to get their hands on, or rather arms into, this 1:1 replica of the Pip-Boy 3000. Each detail of this wrist-mounted computer remains faithful to the game. A fully functional IPS display delivers that vintage cathode ray tube look, complete with screen glitches and a huge gallery of media, including the Atomic Command minigame. The Wand Company spared no expense when creating this replica, from its die-cast metal front casing and memory foam cuff with a spacer to a rechargeable LiPo power cell and LED torch. It’s sure to elevate your cosplay to another level, but the included machined metal stand is ideal for displaying this exhibition-grade collectible — or using the Pip-Boy 3000 as an alarm clock; yes, it does that too.
Fallout New Vegas Ranger Statue
The detail is incredible on this 8.4-inch resin statue of a New Vegas Ranger. It’s clear he’s a veteran warrior with his battle-worn armour, instantly recognizable Desert Ranger trench coat, gas mask, and dark red eyes. He’s combat-ready with his finger on the trigger of a meticulously decorated revolver. Anyone looking to add an iconic figure of the Mojave Wasteland to their collection will love this statue.
Fallout Official Vault 33 Hoodie
Represent Lucy and the rest of the vault dwellers in Vault 33 from the Prime TV series with this official Vault 33 hoodie. Featuring the signature blue and yellow color scheme with an embroidered “33” on the front and a bold patch across the back, there’s no mistaking your commitment to a brighter tomorrow. The 60/40 cotton-poly blend on this heavyweight zippered hoodie is sure to keep you cozy, especially during the cooler months ahead.
Fallout Nuka Mix Glass Bottle & Caps
Take a piece of the dreamy post-apocalyptic soda fountain from Fallout home with your very own Nuka Mix glass. The 12-ounce bottle features that iconic rocket shape and comes with 10 brown tinplate bottle caps ready for your own Nuka blends. It’s for display purposes only, so you can’t actually drink (or enjoy the gameplay buffs and weird side effects) from this bottle. Nuka Mix isn’t the only Nuka-Cola flavor available; Bethesda’s Gear Store has a bunch of other kinds for an epic Nuka Mix Station at home.
Fallout Desert Ranger Battle Wearable Helmet
Before the New California Republic Rangers formed, there were the Desert Rangers, and you can grab a piece of their history with a durable plastic helmet modeled after one found in Fallout: New Vegas. It’s hand-painted with weathered detail to make each helmet unique. A green glow even comes from the eyes, thanks to the inclusion of LED lights. Best of all, this helmet is wearable for some epic cosplay, and it comes with a stand for displaying. An enamel pin of a completely geared-up Desert Ranger is also included. You can pre-order the Desert Ranger Battle Helmet now, with shipping expected to begin in December.
Fallout Lucy’s Vault 33 Backpack
While you might not be navigating the Wasteland like Lucy, you can accessorize similarly to her in the real world with this remarkably accurate replica rolltop backpack. While it’s brilliant for cosplay, this bag is well-built, durable, and surprisingly big, making it a great option for everyday use. You’ll find a 20L interior compartment, a laptop slot, pockets for various accessories, and, of course, the thick signature yellow blanket that rests on top. Given that this backpack is from the minds at The Wand Company, even the patterns and materials to create it are specially sourced to match what’s used in the show.
Fallout Bottlecap Series: Sunset Sarsaparilla with Collectible Tin
While you can’t use these bottle caps for currency in the real world, they do make for one fun keepsake. The Mojave Wasteland is known for its abundance of Sunset Sarsaparilla, and this pack of 20 tinplate caps and collectible tin with a cowboy on the lid will please any New Vegas fan. You might even luck out and find a few caps with a blue star underneath.
Fallout Vault Boy Resin Plaque
The most iconic figure in the Fallout franchise is Vault Boy, and you can preorder a plaque to display Vault-Tec’s cheerful mascot at home. This 200 x 198mm full-color, embossed resin sign comes with hardware to display it on a wall, or plop it on a shelf with the included stand. It’s perfect for game rooms, adding a touch of retro flair to your space.
Danielle is a Tech freelance writer based in Los Angeles who spends her free time creating videos and geeking out over music history.
Haha. Yeah, I know. “Half-Life 3”. The long-fabled, often-rumored, still non-existent third numbered entry in the Half-Life series that fans have craved but never heard a credible whisper of. It’s been a pervasive joke in the industry and among fans for years, a stand-in for a thing that doesn’t exist and never would.
And yet, for some reason, a lot of people seem to think it’s being announced soon. Possibly in the next few weeks. Maybe even today.
You might have seen it. The sudden flurry of mentions of Half-Life 3, some humorous, some quite serious. The surge of memes. A handful of people that seem to have lost their dang minds:
So what’s going on? Why do people think Half-Life 3 is imminent, seriously or unseriously? We investigated:
Half-Hope
Half-Life 3 rumors have existed pretty much since Half-Life 2 first released, so that’s nothing new. But the last couple of years have seen a steady trickle of interesting little threads that have lead many to believe that a third entry was actually in development, quietly, at Valve. There were vague nods, such as the Half-Life: Alyx team saying they wanted to make more Half-Life games and a Final Hours documentary that actually confirmed it was in development at one point between 2013 and 2014. We’ve also seen dataminers pulling crumbs from various Valve releases over the last few years of what seems to be an in-development game internally at Valve known only as “HLX”, using Source 2. Dataminers have worked out that it’s a full-fledged, non-VR, Half-Life game of some sort, that’s been in the works since at least 2021, probably earlier. That game is possibly the same one as was accidentally leaked by a voice actor in 2024, who referred to it as “Project White Sands”.
But this year there’s been a marked increase in little breadcrumbs. Right after the new year, G-Man’s voice actor issued a cryptic post teasing “unexpected surprises” in 2025 – it was his first tweet since he congratulated Valve on Half-Life: Alyx in December 2020. Fans proceeded to tear apart the post, delving deep into an album cover image and the number 197 for what they believed were even more hints that something was in the works.
But an already simmering pot of rumors turned into a full boil with the announcement last week of new Valve hardware: the Steam Machine, complete with a new Steam controller, and a VR headset known as the Steam Frame. Notably, there were no software announcements alongside these hardware reveals, which is a bit odd given that Valve tends to release new games alongside new hardware – recall Half-Life: Alyx and the Valve Index headset. Around the same time, a number of Valve and industry insiders began mentioning Half-Life 3, saying confidently that it was planned for a 2025 announcement still. One leaker, who has a good track record of getting Valve stuff right, said back in May that Half-Life 3 was officially “playable, end-to-end.” There’s a massive Miro board floating around that has catalogued every remotely credible recent mention of Half-Life 3, and is worth digging into if you want follow along.
Go, G-Man, Go
There are so many other weird little indicators floating around that are leading to wild speculation. For instance, Valve’s “Upcoming Releases” tab on its own Steam page only lists one game (Deadlock) despite the sidebar indicating that there are two upcoming game releases. A tweet/X post from the official The Game Awards account commemorating Half-Life’s 27th anniversary today has sent everyone into a frenzy, even though it tweets this anniversary every year. There was a weird amount of extra security at Valve during the recent Steam hardware preview events – something noticed by IGN’s own representatives and contrasted with my personal experience there for Half-Life: Alyx years ago, which featured a relatively normal and relaxed amount of security.
And there was an incredibly silly saga where Geoff Keighley posted a screenshot that showed he had one game in his Steam wishlist. When asked what the game was, he responded with an eyes emoji, and then showed the game Dadlympics. Of course, the Half-Life nerds pounced. Keighley then posted a screenshot of his wishlist showing only the game “Dadlympics,” but notably, this was added on 11/18, the same day he posted the screenshot, suggesting he’s hiding something. Is he hiding Half-Life 3? Probably not! It doesn’t have a viewable Steam page! That’s not how Steam works! But that hasn’t stopped Half-Life 3 fans from pouncing. Seriously, the replies are hilarious.
Whatever you believe is happening here, the reality is that this has resulted in the community going completely bonkers. The Half-Life subreddit is overflowing with Half-Life 3 summoning and hope posts. A quick search for Half-Life on Twitter/X reveals an overflow of discourse, prayers, and memes. It’s kind of nuts, and also really, really fun:
Okay, so let’s say everyone’s right, and we really are getting Half-Life 3 announced soon. When? Well, some think it’s as soon as today. November 19, as The Game Awards posted, is the anniversary of Half-Life – what better time to make an announcement? We’ve already passed the anniversary of Half-Life 2, and the anniversary of Half-Life: Alyx’s announcement, but that particular anniversary is the reason you’re likely seeing so much noise around this today. The other big possibility floated by some is an announcement at The Game Awards, which is coming up on December 11. That would be a little surprising, given that Valve doesn’t need an awards show to command attention with such an announcement. But Valve also has a long history of friendliness with host Geoff Keighley, so maybe it’s not so far-fetched after all.
Whatever the case, one thing is certain: either Half-Life 3 is getting announced before December 31, 2025, or an awful lot of folks are going to have egg on their faces come January 1, 2026. I’m personally hoping for the former, but the community has been hoodwinked before with Half-Life rumors, multiple times even. Keep injecting that Hopium, folks. Perhaps the return of G-man is right around the corner.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
