The Pokémon Trading Card Game singles market has taken a sharp dive, making it an ideal time to pick up high-value cards for less. With prices on many chase cards falling below recent norms, collectors can now complete sets or grab favorites without relying on luck from booster packs.

TL;DR: Deals For Today

Interested in sealed products? Amazon is discounting a selection of TCG boxes and bundles. From legacy boxes to recent releases, many of these products are coming in over MSRP, which is why I want to let readers know that retailers putting pricing up isn’t their only option during Pokémania 2025. TCG Player is a secondary marketplace that is widely used in the US for the gold standard on current Pokémon TCG values thanks to its value tracking across the secondary market. Let’s get into it, regardless of ripping open booster packs or finding that dream chase card:

Infernape V Box

Azure Legends Tin

Clair Obsur: Expedition 33 Merch

Surging Sparks Booster Box

Doom & Wolfenstein Mayhem Game Bundle

Terapagos ex Ultra-Premium

Prismatic Evolutions ETB

Shrouded Fable ETB

Paldean Fates Booster Bundle

Prismatic Evolutions Surprise Box

2004 Pokéball Bundle

2004 Pokéball Bundle

Surging Sparks Booster Bundle

151 Poster Collection

Grand Theft Auto fans, there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is finally, after all these years, we have an actual day-and-date release time for GTA 6. The bad news? It’s around six months later than the ‘Fall 2025’ we were originally told. To many in the video game industry, the new date of May 26, 2026 is a welcome sigh of relief – dozens of publishers and developers of all sizes were fearful of meticulously planning their release campaigns only to later discover they’d be releasing in the same month as this herculean title. However, there are many undated heavy-hitters due to land next year that will now be frantically searching for a new date.

What’s clear is that Grand Theft Auto 6 has found itself touted as the lynchpin to the video game industry’s near future – any news on the project’s development has a huge ripple effect. So how does a six-month delay reflect a significant change in Rockstar’s corporate culture, call into question this year’s console market revenue, and potentially affect the Switch 2?

Last year, the video game industry’s total revenue hit $184.3 billion, a 0.2% increase from 2023. Contradicting analyst predictions of a slight downturn, it prompted a sigh of relief for video game manufacturers and publishers. However, in the console space, revenue dropped by 1% – and we’re already seeing the consequences. A downturn of console hardware sales combined with a heightening technology tariff war has forced prices up for both Microsoft and Sony. This generation needs a definitive console-shifting title – it needs Grand Theft Auto 6.

Research groups estimate the crime sequel to make $1 billion off pre-orders alone and $3.2 billion in its first year of launch. It took Grand Theft Auto 5 three days to make $1 billion, could it take Grand Theft Auto 6 just 24 hours? Circana analyst Mat Piscatella believes that “there’s probably never been a more important thing to ever release in the industry,” because the game’s impact will help define our understanding of the video game industry’s potential growth over the next decade. There are rumors that it could be the first-ever $100 video game, making it a new watershed moment for the industry. That new benchmark could give the industry the shot-in-the-arm growth many analysts say it needs. However, it’s also possible Grand Theft Auto 6 is simply too much of a monolithic outlier to create progress outside of itself.

In 2018, Rockstar Games had a publicity crisis on its hands. Reports of 100 hour weeks alongside formerly mandatory overtime whilst developing Red Dead Redemption 2, plus former and current employees speaking on intense crunch periods stemming from Grand Theft Auto 4, painted a stark picture of one of gaming’s titans. Since then, the company has reportedly undergone an internal reinvention of sorts – according to a Bloomberg report, contractors being converted to full-time employees and a ‘flexitime’ policy enabling workers to take time off for every hour of overtime worked are just two of the many more compassionate policies enacted. Earlier this year, Rockstar’s old reputation threatened to rear its head as staff were made to return to the office five days a week to close out Grand Theft Auto 6’s development – a move which makes the reason behind the delay pretty clear. Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier confirmed as much on BlueSky, explaining that his own Rockstar sources said that there’s “Too much work, not enough time, and what appears to be a real desire from management to avoid brutal crunch.” Rockstar can’t properly deliver a game that will change the video gaming world if it slips back into old habits; while the delay is disappointing to those playing, it’s undeniably a huge relief to those developing.

If you’re a publisher, releasing your game at the same time as Grand Theft Auto 6 is akin to throwing a bucket of water into a tsunami. Discussing the formerly scheduled ‘Fall 2025’ release window, a report by The Game Business highlighted how such a nebulous date was affecting publishers worldwide. One studio boss called Rockstar’s game “a huge meteor and we’ll just have to stay clear of the blast zone,” while another questioned “if we move out of 2025, what if Rockstar do, too?” (An unsurprisingly predictive worry). We even have the likes of EA CEO Andrew Wilson implicitly commenting on the game’s looming shadow in the context of the new Battlefield, citing “some things happening in the year that may cause us to think differently about our launch timing.”

However, huge releases don’t always overshadow those around them. Despite launching at the same time as Bethesda’s Oblivion remake, Kepler Interactive’s original RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 still sold over one million copies in just three days, with senior portfolio manager Matt Handrahan even joking that it was the video game industry’s Barbenheimer moment. It’s hard to believe such a moment can exist for Grand Theft Auto 6, of course, and so it goes unsaid that such a quirky idea will not be part of any publisher’s campaign plans. Don’t expect a Grand Theft Fable moment in 2026.

Currently, it’s unclear to what extent the new May 26, 2026 release date will shake up the plans of other publishers and developers. There are still many heavy-hitter titles that are undated including the likes of Fable, Gears of War: E-Day, EA’s new Battlefield title, Mass Effect spiritual successor Exodus and more. There will certainly be some developers now scrambling to change their internal release date plans, but the wider public will be none the wiser. However, this flag planting by Rockstar no doubt means that developers and publishers will feel more confident in announcing their release plans to the world. But they might want to hold on a minute.

It seems very unlikely that this will be the final date for Grand Theft Auto 6 for two reasons. Both Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 were subject to two date delays, with the first delay being to the second quarter of the next year, followed by a second delay to the third quarter of that same year. Right now, Grand Theft Auto 6 is replicating that exact same timeline, delayed from Fall 2025 to May 2026, so one more delay to October/November 2026 seems a reasonably educated prediction.

That October/November window seems even more likely when you consider the potential for both Microsoft and Sony to create a new console bundle including the crime sequel, which will surely shoot up sales around the holiday period. Sony sold 6.4 million PlayStation 4s during October – December 2014, more than double the consoles they sold between April and September of that year. Of course there would have been the classic Christmas boost, but what else happened in that time frame? Grand Theft Auto 5 released on PS4.

What could be the bigger surprise, though , is that Nintendo may be one of the parties most affected by this delay. Recently, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick pledged full support for the Switch 2, leading fans to speculate about if Grand Theft Auto 6 may also be eyeing a Switch 2 launch. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy’s Definitive Edition saw a surprise launch onto the Nintendo Switch, so there’s precedent for an adult franchise on a typically family-friendly console. Many believed the Switch technology wasn’t powerful enough to run a game like Grand Theft Auto, however last year modders released a video showing off an in-progress port of GTA 5 running on Switch using the game’s leaked source code. While it does seem unlikely that Nintendo would have factored Grand Theft Auto 6 into the Switch’s first-year success, there’s a clear, strong relationship between publisher Take-Two and Nintendo that shouldn’t be ignored. When looking at the console market as part of the overall video game industry, Nintendo is still a huge part of that no matter how much of an island they may seem. The Nintendo Switch was still host to an array of generation-defining games including The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, Metal Gear Solid, Crysis and more. And with Cyberpunk 2077 arriving on Switch 2 at launch, complete with its current gen-only Phantom Liberty expansion, we shouldn’t ignore the potential for “miracle” ports.

What’s clear is that there is a hell of a lot riding on Grand Theft Auto 6. Many different head honchos of the video game industry, from studio heads to chief analysts, believe that this generation-defining game will be the one to break the industry’s growth stagnation. It’s hard to deny the global feverish demand and anticipation for a game that has effectively been in the works for over a decade. There are impossibly high expectations on the teams at Rockstar Games to deliver something that not only single-handedly restores the video game industry back to its pre-pandemic growth, but also presents an entirely new kind of video game experience that will become the new benchmark for developers and publishers moving forward. Rockstar only has one shot to get this right – what’s six more months after 13 years?

Sab Astley is a freelance writer who has written for IGN, Polygon, TotalFilm, Rolling Stone, Radio Times, and Metro UK.

The following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2, episode 4.

The Last of Us season 2 hits its midway point with its strongest episode so far. It adapts one of the most memorable sections of the game – Seattle Day One – and so that means we get Ellie and Dina checking out Downtown before moving onto the Channel 13 TV studio and escaping the WLF through the subway tunnels.

There are five key sequences from the original game that are adapted for this episode. Here we’ve compared them against the original source material, analysing what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. You can see both versions in the video above, or read on below for our written explanations.

Downtown

Ellie and Dina arrive in Downtown Seattle shortly after this episode begins. This section of the game was open by design, and so allowed you to look around several different buildings. We get just two of them in the show; Weston’s Pharmacy and Valiant Music Shop. The pharmacy gets only a couple of minutes of screentime but it does feature an adaptation of The Last of Us’ key gameplay mechanic: opening drawers and looking for junk.

Valiant Music Shop, meanwhile, gets more love. The show’s set has windows adorned with music-themed vinyl decorations, just as it does in the game. On the ground floor is the same red drumkit, and Dina plays around with them just as she does in the game. It’s upstairs where the main event happens, though, when Ellie discovers a guitar in an overgrown room. Bella Ramsey’s performance of A-ha’s Take On Me is very similar to that seen in the game, with a talk-y vocal style and slow melody.

The Forward Base

Episode 4 introduces us to the leader of the WLF, Isaac Dixon. This sequence is adapted from much later in the game’s sequence of events, when you play as Abby rather than Ellie, although due to the game’s overlapping dual timeline structure it seems likely that this sequence takes place at the “correct” time in the show.

During Abby’s half of the game, we see her visit the WLF’s forward operating base. There she meets Isaac, who is briefly seen conducting a torturous interrogation on a member of the Seraphites. In the show, we see a version of this scene play out in its entirety. Similar to the game, the WLF’s captured Seraphite has been stripped completely naked, but the show sees them tortured in a kitchen rather than a bathroom. Isaac’s brutal methods of torture were only implied in the game, but in the show we see him actively injuring his prisoner in an attempt to learn more about the Seraphites’ plans.

Channel 13

Ellie and Dina’s trip to the Channel 13 TV studio was naturally going to be the central event of this episode. In the game this is the sequence when the duo are first confronted with the murder cult-like methods of the Seraphites, as well as marking their first move towards finding where Abby is. The show recreates the key elements of the TV studio in grisy detail; WLF soldiers are strung up above the studio floor, and the Seraphites’ symbol is drawn on the wall in blood just as it is in the game. Ellie’s investigation of the area is interrupted by members of the WLF who, as in the game, are horrified to see what has become of their comrades.

The escape from the TV studio is shown to be a little more frantic than it is in the game, and the stormy weather adds even further drama to the scene, but in general the set design and pathway Ellie and Dina take feels authentic to the game, even if it’s not a one-to-one recreation.

The Tunnels

One of The Last of Us Part 2’s most exhilarating sequences is Ellie and Dina’s journey through the Seattle subway tunnels. Bathed in red light and infested by clickers, it’s a genuinely terrifying level. Unsurprisingly, HBO went to lengths to capture the striking visuals here, with the abandoned subway cars eerily lit by the WLF’s red flares and searching flashlights.

There are key differences between the game and the show’s version of events, though. This is very much a survival horror sequence in the game, with just a small but incredibly deadly collection of infected to avoid. The show, meanwhile, makes this more action packed – rather than have the infected lurk around the subway cars, they arrive as a charging, clawing horde. This makes the sequence much more action-oriented, with Ellie and Dina scrambling to get away rather than sneaking through the tunnels.

There are changes made to the sequence’s climax, too. In the game, Ellie gets trapped in the turnstile and Dina saves her by shooting an attacking clicker in the head. In the show, both Ellie and Dina get trapped in the turnstile, and Ellie allows herself to be bitten by the attacking clicker to protect Dina. It’s this bite that results in Ellie revealing her immunity to Dina. In the game, that reveal comes a few minutes prior, when Ellie’s gas mask is shattered by an attacking runner. Because spores are not a concern in the show (at least for now), the characters do not wear masks and thus this turn of events couldn’t be used.

I’m Pregnant

The last scene of this week’s episode recreates the culminating part of the game’s Seattle Day 1: Dina reveals to Ellie that she’s pregnant. In both versions, Dina shares the news at the Pinnacle Theater, which the duo has made their home base. In the game, it’s a subdued and anguished moment, with Dina looking notably stressed by the idea. The show’s take is quite different, as the reveal pretty much instantly turns into an impassioned kiss between Ellie and Dina.

For more from The Last of Us, check out our spoiler-free season two review and our spoiler-filled review of the fourth episode. You can also catch up with our comparison of the previous episode.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.

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