I’m not saying today’s deals are going to ruin your budget, but I wouldn’t open your banking app until tomorrow. Stellar Crown is back in stock (finally), and Amazon also has the Terapagos ex Ultra-Premium Collection if you're feeling like a true Tera master. Meanwhile, Lenovo quietly dropped Xbox Wireless Controllers to $39.99, and I’m just over here trying to convince myself I don’t need one in every color.Stellar Crown Boxes and $25 off Xbox Series X/S Controllers Pokémon TCG: Terapagos ex Ultra-Premium Collection$139.99 at AmazonPokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet Stellar Crown Elite Trainer Box$53.78 at AmazonNeon Lights Game BundleMicrosoft Xbox Wireless Controller - Astral PurpleFallout - Pip-Boy Die-Cast - Replica$199.99 at IGN StorePokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet Booster Display Box$166.44 at AmazonMonster Energy Zero Ultra, Sugar Free Energy Drink, 16 Ounce (Pack of 15)MainGear North RTX 5070$2,095.00 at MainGearPokemon TCG: Azure Legends Tin - 5 Packs$29.99 at AmazonHumble Bundle: Earth Defense Force CollectionSanDisk 256GB microSD Express microSD CardPokémon TCG: Shining Fates Collection Pikachu V Box$58.99 at AmazonThe Elder Scrolls Skyrim - Dragonborn Helmet - Replica$119.99 at IGN Store Pokémon TCG: Scarlet and Violet Shrouded Fable Elite Trainer Box$57.98 at AmazonASUS ROG Cetra True Wireless Gaming HeadphonesASUS ROG Harpe Gaming Wireless MouseVampire Hunter D Book BundleASUS ROG Spatha X Wireless Gaming MouseStreet Fighter Trading Cards$20.00 at IGN StoreASUS ROG Falchion NX 65% Wireless RGB Gaming Mechanical KeyboardASUS ROG Strix Scope RX TKL Wireless DeluxePokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet - Surging Sparks Booster BundleINIU 140W Power BankFallout - Lucys Vault 33 - Backpack$199.99 at IGN StoreINIU Power Bank, 20000mAh 65WHumble Heroines Game BundleINIU Portable Charger 22.5WINIU Power Bank 100WINIU Portable Charger, Slim 45WOn top of that, there’s a new Humble Bundle that looks like someone dumped every neon-drenched game into one lineup, and somehow Fallout fans are getting a $200 Pip-Boy replica that actually works as a clock. It's a chaotic mix of gaming greatness, and I'm into it. Pokémon TCG: Terapagos ex Ultra-Premium Collection Pokémon TCG: Terapagos ex Ultra-Premium Collection$139.99 at AmazonI want this box purely for the overkill. Eighteen booster packs, three promo cards, and enough accessories to make a Magic: The Gathering player cry. Terapagos ex, Lapras ex, and Cinderace ex look gorgeous, and the display-worthy gear (card protector, playmat, deck box) makes this feel like more than just another TCG drop. It’s overstuffed, overpriced, over the top and exactly what I want from a premium Pokémon box.Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet Stellar Crown Elite Trainer BoxPokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet Stellar Crown Elite Trainer Box$53.78 at AmazonI think the Stellar Crown ETB is one of the best recent Pokémon releases, and not just because it includes a full-art Noctowl. The sleeves featuring Stellar Form Terapagos are slick, and you get nine booster packs — nine! For under $55, that’s a solid entry point into Scarlet & Violet or just a fun rip session waiting to happen. If you missed the last drop, now’s your shot at redemption.Neon Lights Game BundleNeon Lights Game BundlePay less to get fewer items, or pay extra to give more to publishers, Humble, and charity Xperience StudiosThis bundle is like a cyberpunk fever dream. Ghostrunner, Neon Abyss, and The Red Strings Club all in one lineup? I don't even care that I’ve already played half of these. For $14, I’ll happily double-dip just to have them in one place. I want more game bundles that feel like a hacker curated them at 3 a.m. while jacked into a mainframe.Microsoft Xbox Wireless Controller - Various ColorsMicrosoft Xbox Wireless Controller - Astral PurpleUse Code "SPRINGBACK" More Colors AvailableIn my opinion, Xbox controllers never go on sale when you need one — only when your current one starts drifting mid-match and your rage googling leads you here. $39.99 is a no-brainer price, especially with options like Astral Purple and Deep Pink in stock. I already have two, but I want a third just because Microsoft had the audacity to make them this pretty.Fallout - Pip-Boy Die-Cast - ReplicaFallout - Pip-Boy Die-Cast - Replica$199.99 at IGN StoreLook, I don't need a $200 Pip-Boy replica with a functioning LCD screen, clock, and radio. But I absolutely want it. It’s absurdly detailed, looks screen-accurate, and would make a great desk flex or cosplay showpiece. I think if you’re the type to own a vault jumpsuit, this is your holy grail.Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet Booster Display BoxPokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet Booster Display Box$166.44 at AmazonI think of this as the “no regrets” box. Thirty-six booster packs is a full-on dopamine factory for collectors or anyone building out a Scarlet & Violet deck. You’re getting the Tera Pokémon ex mechanics, fan favorites like Koraidon and Miraidon, and honestly, more chances at pulls than I usually trust myself with. I want this in my cart and hidden from my partner. It’s a big upfront price, but when you break it down, it’s solid value for serious collectors.Monster Energy Zero Ultra, Sugar Free Energy Drink, 16 Ounce (Pack of 15)Monster Energy Zero Ultra, Sugar Free Energy Drink, 16 Ounce (Pack of 15)Unlock coupon by choosing Subscribe and Save. Applies to first sub only.I want to believe I drink Monster Zero Ultra for the energy, but deep down I know it’s just my gamer juice of choice. $26.11 for a 15-pack works out to about $1.74 per can, which is cheaper and less effort than running to a 7-Elevan. Bonus points for the Subscribe & Save option, which is where this deal kicks in.Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet - Surging Sparks Booster BundlePokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet - Surging Sparks Booster BundleI’ve been tracking the Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet – Surging Sparks Booster Bundle for weeks, and while this $45.02 price on Amazon is still above the original MSRP of $26.94, it’s the most reasonable listing I’ve seen that doesn’t involve a sketchy seller or a mystery warehouse. You get six booster packs from the latest set, which is hard enough to find in stores, and I appreciate not having to overpay a reseller just to get in on the new pulls. For anyone trying to keep up with the expansion, this is as straightforward as it gets.INIU 140W Power BankINIU 140W Power BankI think the INIU 140W 27,000mAh Power Bank is the backup battery I actually trust when I know I’ll be away from an outlet for more than a few hours. It’s currently $74.56, which isn’t exactly pocket change, but for something that can charge a MacBook Pro or a Steam Deck without breaking a sweat, I’d say it’s well-priced. The digital display is genuinely useful, and having three ports (two USB-C and one USB-A) makes it easy to keep everything charged without doing the cable shuffle.Fallout - Lucys Vault 33 - BackpackFallout - Lucys Vault 33 - Backpack$199.99 at IGN StoreI don’t usually get excited about merch, but the Fallout – Lucy’s Vault 33 Backpack from the IGN Store actually feels like something I’d use. It’s $199.99, which sounds steep until you realize it’s a legit replica built from the same patterns used on the show. This isn’t a cheap cosplay throw-in, it’s got a full 20L capacity, a 16-inch laptop pocket, and more compartments than I know what to do with. Plus, it comes with that massive yellow fleece blanket for the full Fallout-core vibe. I’m not planning on trekking across a wasteland anytime soon, but it’s good to know the bag is ready just in case.INIU Power Bank, 20000mAh 65WINIU Power Bank, 20000mAh 65WUse on-site coupon for full discountINIU 65W 20,000mAh Power Bank is the one I reach for when I need power without the bulk. It's $39.99 and still strong enough to fast-charge my laptop, but compact enough to throw in a backpack without thinking about it. The extra port flexibility is nice, and the built-in phone stand is one of those small features I didn’t think I’d care about until I started using it constantly. It just does its job well without getting in the way.Humble Heroines Game BundleHumble Heroines Game BundlePay less to get fewer items, or pay extra to give more to publishers, Humble, and charities Girls Who Code and Girl Make Game Scholarship Fund.Humble Heroines: Rebels, Curses, and Mystery bundle is exactly the kind of thing I buy and then spend the next six months working through. For $12, you get seven games including Control: Ultimate Edition, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Darksiders III, and a few smaller indie gems that deserve the attention. The lineup is solid, the value is obvious, and part of the money goes to Girls Who Code and Girls Make Games, so I don’t even have to justify it to myself. It’s a good excuse to grab some character-driven games that don’t all feel like the same recycled formula.INIU Power Bank 100WINIU Power Bank 100WI picked up the INIU 100W 25,000mAh Power Bank because I wanted one charger that could handle everything without fuss. For $53.98, I get enough power to charge two larger devices at once, thanks to dual USB-C outputs, and it still recharges fast when it’s drained. It’s well-balanced in size and performance, and I haven’t run into overheating or throttling issues even during heavy use. That’s more than I can say for a few others I’ve retired.INIU Portable Charger, Slim 45WINIU Portable Charger, Slim 45WThen there’s the INIU Slim 45W 10,000mAh Power Bank with Built-In USB-C Cable It's currently $22.49, but the real win here is the integrated cable. It charges both the power bank and my phone, which is ideal when I want to carry as little as possible. The compact build doesn’t compromise on speed, and I like that I can toss it in a jacket pocket without it feeling like dead weight. It’s simple, efficient, and takes up no mental space.ASUS ROG Cetra True Wireless Gaming HeadphonesASUS ROG Cetra True Wireless Gaming HeadphonesI’ve tried more wireless earbuds than I care to admit, but the Cetra lineup actually gets it right for gaming. I want latency low enough that my killshots sync with the sound of glory, not a second later. These deliver that, with the added bonus of active noise cancelation that’s good enough to block out my neighbor’s saxophone practice. The 27-hour battery life doesn’t hurt either, especially for marathon gaming sessions — or, let’s be honest, Netflix binges. Wireless charging is just the lazy cherry on top.ASUS ROG Harpe Gaming Wireless MouseASUS ROG Harpe Gaming Wireless MouseThis thing weighs 54 grams. Fifty-four. I’ve had granola bars that were heavier. I think it’s illegal to call something this light a “mouse” without an asterisk. The Harpe’s low-latency tri-mode connection and snappy AimPoint sensor make it feel like an extension of my brain. If you’re the type to tweak DPI mid-match just because you can, this one’s built for you. Also, shout out to ASUS for not naming it something ridiculous like “ShadowFang X69 Ultra.”Vampire Hunter D Book BundleVampire Hunter D Book BundlePay less to get fewer items, or pay extra to give more to publishers, Humble, and charity World Central KitchenHere’s the deal: for less than the price of a mediocre pizza, you get 29 volumes of vampire-fighting, post-apocalyptic drama illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano. I want this bundle just so I can say I finally read the source material instead of quoting the anime like a poser. And since it supports World Central Kitchen, I've checked off my good deed for the day whilst reading about bloodthirsty aristocrats. Win-win.ASUS ROG Spatha X Wireless Gaming MouseASUS ROG Spatha X Wireless Gaming MouseIf the Harpe is the Ferrari of gaming mice, the Spatha is a tank with RGB. I mean, 12 programmable buttons, a magnetic charging stand, and enough battery life to outlast the apocalypse? I think this one’s for the MMO players and spreadsheet warriors who want their macros locked and loaded. The hot-swappable switches are a nice bonus for anyone who treats mice like seasonal accessories.Street Fighter Trading CardsStreet Fighter Trading CardsFrom $20, with the Warriors Dreams Master Case retailing at $960$20.00 at IGN StoreI grew up spamming Hadoukens, and now I can channel that energy into shiny cardboard form. I want the Collector Box because ripping open packs and chasing rare inserts scratches an itch I didn’t know I had. But if you’re a “go big or go home” kind of collector, the Inner Case ($240) or Master Case ($960) options are basically loot crates for adults — minus the digital regret.ASUS ROG Falchion NX 65% Wireless RGB Gaming Mechanical KeyboardASUS ROG Falchion NX 65% Wireless RGB Gaming Mechanical KeyboardI don’t always want a full keyboard taking up half my desk. The Falchion understands that. It's compact, mechanical, and still manages to squeeze in arrow keys and a weirdly satisfying touch panel for volume and macros. I love that it’s wireless but still offers USB-C when I’m feeling traditional. Bonus points for the cover case—it makes me feel like I’m carrying a fancy typewriter to a LAN party.ASUS ROG Strix Scope RX TKL Wireless DeluxeASUS ROG Strix Scope RX TKL Wireless DeluxeThis one’s a mouthful in name and a handful in features. I think this keyboard is perfect for anyone who wants their setup to scream “I game and I have taste.” The wrist rest is plush, the switches are fast and precise, and the tri-mode connection lets me hop from work laptop to gaming rig like some sort of digital nomad. It’s absurdly overbuilt, and I kind of respect that.MainGear North RTX 5070MainGear North RTX 5070$2,095.00 at MainGearI think this is one of the smartest ways to get your hands on an RTX 5070 without building from scratch or skimping on quality. MAINGEAR’s setup skips all the common bottlenecks — no mismatched parts, no airflow nightmares, no “good enough” corners cut. For $2,095, you’re getting a clean combo of a Ryzen 5 7600X CPU, 16GB of DDR5 RGB RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD, all assembled by people who care about things like cable management. It’s future-ready, quiet, and fast enough to leave your current rig feeling like a potato in comparison.Pokemon TCG: Azure Legends Tin - 5 PacksPokemon TCG: Azure Legends Tin - 5 Packs$29.99 at AmazonThis tin is pure Pokémon chaos in the best way. You get one random promo card—Kyogre ex, Xerneas ex, or Dialga ex—and five booster packs; 2 x Surging Sparks, 1 x Stellar Crown, 1 x Temporal Forces and 1 x Obsidian Flames. It’s a fun, low-stakes gamble for collectors or casual players who want a shot at good pulls without needing to take out a second mortgage.Humble Bundle: Earth Defense Force CollectionHumble Bundle: Earth Defense Force CollectionPay less to get fewer items, or pay extra to give more to publishers, Humble, and charity Oceana.EDF is the kind of game where logic goes out the window and fun takes over, and this $25 Humble Bundle gives you the best of it — EDF 5, EDF 4, World Brothers 2, plus a ton of downloadable content. I think this is worth it just for the laugh-out-loud co-op mayhem alone, and it doesn’t hurt that part of the proceeds go to charity while you blast oversized bugs into space.SanDisk 256GB microSD Express microSD CardSanDisk 256GB microSD Express microSD CardIf your current microSD card loads like it's on a coffee break, or if you need to expand your Nintendo Switch 2 storage on launch day, this one’s a serious upgrade. I want this SanDisk Express card purely for the ridiculous transfer speeds — up to 880MB/s read and 650MB/s write. It’s built for 4K video, gaming, and surviving every possible disaster short of lava, and it’ll likely outlive every other accessory in your bag.Pokémon TCG: Shining Fates Collection Pikachu V BoxPokémon TCG: Shining Fates Collection Pikachu V Box$58.99 at AmazonThe Shining Fates Pikachu V Box is a great grab if you’re chasing shiny cards or just really into oversized electric rodents. You get a Pikachu V promo, a jumbo card version for display, and four Shining Fates booster packs. It's pricey, but Shining Fates is out of print.The Elder Scrolls Skyrim - Dragonborn Helmet - ReplicaThe Elder Scrolls Skyrim - Dragonborn Helmet - ReplicaPre-order for September release$119.99 at IGN StoreThis Skyrim Dragonborn helmet replica isn’t going to protect you in battle, but it will absolutely level up your desk setup. At just under six inches tall, it’s small enough to display but detailed enough to show off. I think it’s a solid collectible if you’re still emotionally tethered to Skyrim and have no shame in displaying that fact proudly. Pokémon TCG: Scarlet and Violet Shrouded Fable Elite Trainer Box Pokémon TCG: Scarlet and Violet Shrouded Fable Elite Trainer Box$57.98 at AmazonThis Shrouded Fable ETB is the kind of set that makes you feel like you’ve got your TCG life together. It comes with nine booster packs, a Pecharunt promo, energy cards, dice, and a nice little collector’s box to keep your chaos organized. Shrouded Fable is a slept on set, perfect for trainers who are sick of chasing Journey Together and Prismatic Evolutions stock.Why Should You Trust IGN's Deals Team?IGN's deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don't try to trick our readers into buying things they don't need at prices that aren't worth buying something at. Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN's Deals account on Twitter.Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.

Warning: contains spoilers for Black Mirror season 7 episode 4 “Plaything.” You have to admit, the man has a point. Peter Capaldi’s “Plaything” character may have spent the last four decades tripping balls in a funky-smelling attic while serving as a wide-eyed acolyte for a bunch of potentially murderous Tamagotchi, but he’s right about human violence; look at the tale we were just told. A sci-fi story that borrowed the form of a crime drama, “Plaything” unfurls over two time periods, the 2034 of ‘now’ and the 1994-set flashbacks that told the story of a murder. Games journalist Cameron Walker, played with the same barely holding-on mania by Somewhere Boy’s Lewis Gribben as a younger man and Capaldi as his older self, becomes a kind of shepherd for a flock of digital lifeforms called Thronglets. When a drug-dealing acquaintance (Josh Finan) discovers the beings, mistakes them for a game, and mindlessly tortures and kills them for fun, Cameron beats him to death.  40 years later, he’s being interrogated about the murder by a good cop (Michele Austin) and a bad cop (James Nelson-Joyce), which is precisely as he planned it. He staged the arrest to grant Cameron access to the police’s Central State Computer, which he and the Throng co-opt to send a signal into every human brain on the planet. He thinks humanity is going to merge with a collective intelligence and come out evolved. But was Cameron really just the Thronglets’ plaything? That’s the question we’re left with by the episode – a 46-minute story written by Charlie Brooker and directed by David Slade, also behind season four’s “Metalhead” and interactive episode “Bandersnatch”. Did the Throng’s “immediate singularity” successfully upgrade the human brain, or did it just use its flesh servant to carry out an extinction event? The cliffhanger ending of Cameron elatedly extending his hand to the unconscious DCI who, moments earlier, had been laying into him like police brutality was going out of style, leaves it up to us. The Throng: benevolent or vengeful? You decide.  Either way, those yellow chirping-budgerigar guys were cute, hatching out of their little eggs with their little Minion overalls. I say give them the world, it’s not as though humans are making such a great go of it.  According to the glimpse “Plaything” gave us, the London of the which was not aspirational. Cameron stepped over homeless people to get to the corner shop, which advertised its acceptance of food bank credits and offered to unlock Z-Eye neural implants “no questions asked”. Police powers had been expanded to handheld facial recognition and DNA scanning devices. They might have 7G and PlayStation 6 a decade on, but it didn’t look like somewhere you’d want to be.  Thanks to Slade’s grimy aesthetic, neither did the 1990s, despite or perhaps because of the authenticity of the period detail. From the plastic Computer Exchange bags to the cover of that genuine November 1994 edition of PC Zone (originally by the now-defunct Dennis Publishing, incidentally where Den of Geek also began), to the Street Fighter II and Road Rash to the Chatback ad playing on TV, you could smell the decade.  (Speaking of smell, if any of the many, many online rankings of Black Mirror instalments were organised by how terrible you’d imagine each one would honk, “Plaything” would surely beat the lot – even the pig-sex episode and the one where everybody’s on exercise bikes all the time.) It’s no wonder that Brooker got the period details right, it’s his own life he mined for them. The Black Mirror writer started out just like Cameron as a writer for PC Zone, and as a cartoonist, even designed the logo on those CeX bags. With that personal history as a background for “Plaything”, the opportunity to revive fictional games company Tuckersoft from 2018’s “Bandersnatch” was too good to pass up. Enter: Will Poulter’s Colin Ritman and Asim Chaudhry’s Mo Tucker, making a cameo appearance in this 90s gaming tale.  Ritman was the most memorable character from “Bandersnatch”, the choose-your-own interactive Black Mirror story in which, depending on what you chose to do, the genius coder either had a psychological breakdown, jumped to his death, or was fatally bludgeoned with an award statue. In this episode’s timeline, it was the former, and that reality is re-established in “Plaything” as 90s-Cameron hears that three weeks after they met, Thronglets-creator Colin has “gone nuts again.”  Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Ritman became a fan favourite thanks to his LSD-enhanced pronouncements on Pac-Man as a nightmare capitalist symbol, among other insights. He’s just as enjoyable here, delivering nasal verdicts on the world’s awfulness and humanity’s innate brutality. Did Colin’s basilisk ravings predict the Throng turning humanity into that Radiohead video, prompting him to wipe the source code, or was he simply, in the crass parlance of the era, off his rocker?  “Plaything” is a great way for anybody wanting a good roll-around in the dirt of the 1990s to spend three-quarters of an hour, but it’s not only that. It also asks a worthwhile question about whether humankind is doomed to stay in its current cycle of Neanderthalic violent competition, or if there’s a something… more. What do you reckon – are you optimistic, or is it time to give the Thronglets a chance? All six episodes of Black Mirror season seven are streaming now on Netflix.

[Note: All footage is from a work-in-progress alpha build.]Welcome to our latest IGN First – a month of exclusive coverage in April, and it's all about The Outer Worlds 2. This is the very first look at its gameplay in real time, and it takes us through a quest where you infiltrate the N-Ray Facility to show off several of the game’s new features and mechanics, as well as how it’s rethinking level design. And one of the biggest things that stood out to me is how much deeper it’s going to be as an RPG with developer Obsidian looking back at its past and even drawing inspiration from immersive sims like Deus Ex and Dishonored.While that DNA has always been a part of first-person RPGs, The Outer Worlds 2 has more sophisticated systems compared to the first game like a true stealth system and better tools to make the playstyle viable, including effective melee weapons and skills to make silent takedowns possible. Take, for example, the health bar above enemy heads – there’s a purple-colored readout that displays how damage a stealth attack will do, helping you judge whether or not you can get a one-hit kill or if it’s even worth pouncing on your target. Enemies will also detect dead bodies and alert guards, but you can quickly clean up if you have a skill to disintegrate bodies on the spot.The Outer Worlds 2 Gameplay - ScreenshotsLater in the quest, you pick up the N-Ray Scanner, which lets you see certain objects and NPCs/enemies through walls. While this is crucial for finding important parts of more involved environmental puzzles, it’s also an important tool for a stealth and combat. There are enemies throughout the N-Ray Facility who cloak themselves; invisible to the naked eye, but not able to escape the lens of the N-Ray Scanner. If you’re not dilligent about using it, cloaked enemies can easily run up on you. That's just one example of how the addition of gadgets add a new wrinkle to gameplay.There are several interlocking systems that factor into how you're able to play, leaning more into the RPG elements that make up specific character builds.“There are several interlocking systems that factor into how you're able to play, leaning more into the RPG elements that make up specific character builds. So, stealth and those immersive sim sensibilities aren’t the only way gameplay is expanding in The Outer Worlds 2. Improving gunplay was a major focus for Obsidian, citing Destiny as a touchstone for what good gunplay should feel like. Not that this game is going to turn into an all-out shooter, but it plays closer to how a first-person game with firearms should play.PlayYou see an example of this in the approach to the N-Ray Facility movement when we go in guns blazing. Movement has been tweaked to complement gunplay as well, letting you be more nimble and do things like sprint-slide while aiming down sights like an action hero – and with the return of Tactical Time Dilation (TTD), the bullet-time fantasy is again an effective part of your combat rotation. We were able to see throwables, which is by no means revolutionary for a game like this, but with their inclusion this time around, you have another tool that you can weave into your arsenal – and even do something sick like tossing a grenade, activating TTD, and shooting the grenade midair to have it blow up on unsuspecting enemies.There isn’t much to share on the story front as of yet, let alone the context around the quest in the N-Ray Facility, but we do see how conversations have been tweaked slightly in the sequel. In the gameplay video above, there's a moment we confront an NPC named Exemplar Foxworth who's survived the cultist takeover of the place. She's bleeding out and you can help patch her up based on your Medical stat, or respond depending on your Guns or Melee stats. Although we couldn't dig into companions in more detail, this part also highlights the new companion named Aza, a former cultist who's a bit frantic but joins you to seemingly help undo what they've done.PlayMany of these elements were part of the original Outer Worlds in some form, but where that game was more about laying a new foundation for Obsidian, The Outer Worlds 2 looks to be a fully realized version of what it was trying to build with the first one. In addition to checking it out early, I had conversations with the folks at Obsidian to get insight on a ton of its new features and the vision that drove this sequel. It seems keen on wielding the RPG roots of the studio’s past while considering what a modern first-person RPG can be in the vein of a Fallout – and to be clear, they often referred to Fallout: New Vegas as a touchstone when making The Outer Worlds 2, so my hopes are certainly high.That's just a taste of what's to come in The Outer Worlds 2 and what we're covering in this month's IGN First. I'll be breaking down character builds, the new flaws system, all the wild and wacky weapons, and how much bigger this sequel is through interviews with key people like original Fallout developer and creative director Leonard Boyarsky, game director Brandon Adler, and design director Matt Singh. Keep checking back at IGN all April long for more!Michael Higham is the tech reviews editor at IGN, but is one of the RPG sickos on staff who still talks about Fallout: New Vegas on a regular basis. You can find him at @brazyazn.bsky.social.

If you haven’t heard it before, let me be the first to tell you: Your grandmother has all the best furniture. Back in the day, handcrafted wood furniture was the norm, not the exception. That brown furniture you think looks dated? It’s not! It is the key to a timeless room you’ll love for the rest of your life. But, what about the stuff that *isn’t* furniture? Is that timeless too? Well, yes! It is, and it’s back in style and looking better than ever. Below, I share the five things that your grandmother probably had in her house and tell you why they are some of the top decorating must-haves of 2025. So, sit down, pour a cup of tea, and get ready to reminisce on all the decorating choices you thought you didn’t like. Related StoriesFloral Wallpaper ALUN CALLENDERA timeless rose motif adds cottage charm to this pattern-filled bedroom.Big, showy floral wallpaper might transport you right back to the 1980s, but hear us out: Classic floral motifs, especially when paired with traditional furniture and a bit of trendy decor, still feel on trend in 2025. The scale, color, and patterns on many of today’s wallcoverings are rooted in the past, but have been tweaked to better fit contemporary tastes, but if your fixer-upper comes complete with floral wallpaper still in good shape, I would think twice before pulling it down. For More on Wallpaper:Stained GlassSara Ligorria-TrampStained glass adds historic flair to this new-build barn home. Want to know classic motif getting a 2025 facelift? Stained glass. Now that we’ve comfortably moved beyond the era of beige-on-beige everything, homeowners are embracing color like they haven’t in decades. TikTok is currently obsessed with stained glass and some creators are even coming up with their own DIY ways to get the look for less, proving that colorful glass elements are finding a new—and hopefully lasting!—home with Gen Z-ers.For More on Stained Glass:Café CurtainsStacy Zarin GoldbergIn Molly Singer’s farmhouse kitchen, shades of blue and green ground the fresh and airy space. We’re calling it: 2025 is officially the year of the café curtain. Thanks to the popularity of direct-to-consumer window covering brands such as Everhem and Pepper Home, picking the happily patterned or delightfully neutral café curtains for your kitchen, bath, or dining nook has never been easier. Plus, they’re renter-friendly, making café curtains the ultimate low-budget, high-impact refresh that can transform your room in a matter of minutes. For More on Café Curtains:Pieced QuiltsJane BeilesWhether they’re hand-made by a family member or thrifted, pieced quilts add timeworn charm with ease. Now, here at Country Living, we never stopped loving pieced quilts. They’re timeless and full of quintessentially country charm. However, that hasn’t always been the case with the design industry at large. Over the last few years, a return to Americana and an emphasis on handcrafted, folksy charm has catapulted the pieced-quilt aesthetic back to the mainstream. If you’ve checked popular vintage resale sites such as Chairish or Etsy, then you know these handcrafted coverings fetch a high price on the secondhand market, meaning it’s high-time to pull your grandmother’s quilt out of storage and display it proudly.Shop for Quilts:Skirted SinksMatthew KisidayThis laundry and bloom room’s skirted sink proves more really is more when it comes to pattern.Whether they’re frilly and ruffled or simple and tailored, sink skirts have long had a place in country homes. Thanks to the recent increase in quintessential cottage style, they’re finally back in the mainstream. Much like café curtains, adding a sink skirt is a quick and easy—and budget-friendly!—way to upgrade your kitchen, half bath, or laundry room. Just don’t forget to choose a performance fabric for ultimate textile longevity! Anna LoganSenior Homes & Style EditorAnna Logan is the Senior Homes & Style Editor at Country Living, where she has been covering all things home design, including sharing exclusive looks at beautifully designed country kitchens, producing home features, writing everything from timely trend reports on the latest viral aesthetic to expert-driven explainers on must-read topics, and rounding up pretty much everything you’ve ever wanted to know about paint, since 2021. Anna has spent the last seven years covering every aspect of the design industry, previously having written for Traditional Home, One Kings Lane, House Beautiful, and Frederic. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of Georgia. When she’s not working, Anna can either be found digging around her flower garden or through the dusty shelves of an antique shop. Follow her adventures, or, more importantly, those of her three-year-old Maltese and official Country Living Pet Lab tester, Teddy, on Instagram.  

Please check the regions we cooperate with at the end of the job listing. Are you a talented Senior AI Engineer looking for a remote job that lets you show your skills and get decent compensation? Look no further than Lemon.io — the marketplace that connects you with hand-picked startups in the US and Europe.What we offer:The rate depends on your skills and experience. We've already paid out over $11M to our engineers.No more hunting for clients or negotiating rates — let us handle the business side of things so you can focus on what you do best.We'll manually find the best project for you according to your skills and preferences.Choose a schedule that works best for you. It’s possible to communicate async or minimally overlap within team working hours.We respect your seniority so you can expect no micromanagement or screen trackers.Communicate directly with the clients. Most of them have technical backgrounds. Sounds good, yeah?We will support you from the time you submit the application throughout all cooperation stages.Most of our projects involve working in a fast-paced startup environment. We hope you like it as much as we do.Through our community, we will connect you with the best developers from more than 50 countries.Requirements:Minimum of 3 years of commercial experience in applying AI to practical technology solution.A solid understanding of Python is a must, experience with other programming languages commonly used in AI would be a plus.Experience with AWS, GCP, or Azure is a must.Experience with large language models (LLM) is mandatory.At least 2 years of commercial experience with OpenAI technologies.Hands-on experience in machine learning, NLP, deep learning, or computer visionExperience working with large data sets and writing efficient code capable of processing large data streams at speed.Experience with PyTorch or similar frameworks (TensorFlow, Caffe, Keras, Scikit Learn, Theano) - would be a plus.Strong analytical skills for designing and implementing machine learning models, analyzing data sets, and identifying patterns and trendsStrong technical skills: as a Senior AI Engineer, you are expected to be able to create projects from scratch and have a deep understanding of application architecture.Clear and effective communication in English — advanced ability to discuss business tasks, justify decisions, and communicate issues. Good self-presentation is also essential for upcoming client calls.Strong self-organizational skills — ability to work full-time remotely with no supervision.Reliability — we want to trust you and expect that you won’t let us and the client down.Adaptability and Flexibility — the ability to onboard the project promptly after accepting it and start delivering results quickly.Sounds good for you? Apply now and join the Lemon.io community!NOT YOUR TECH STACK?We have different projects for Senior Full-Stack Developers, so if you have 4+ years of commercial experience in software development and you are fluent with React & Python, React & Node, .NET & Angular, DevOps, Ruby & React, we would be happy to communicate and provide you with a project that matches your experience. Just apply, and we will share more details with you.If your experience matches our requirements, be ready for the next steps:VideoAsk — watch a short video about our startup, up to 10 minutesComplete your profile on our website30-minute screening callTechnical interviewFeedbackMagic Box (we are looking for the best project for you).P.S. We work with developers from 50+ countries in different regions: Europe, LATAM, the U.S., Asia (Philippines, Indonesia), Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea), Canada, and the UK. However, we have some exceptions.At the moment, we don’t have a legal basis to accept applicants from the following countries:European: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Kosovo, Belarus, Russia, and Serbia.Latin America: Cuba and NicaraguaMost Asian countries and Africa.We expand and shorten the list of exemptions regularly.Do you represent a company with engineers who match the description and want to collaborate with us through staff augmentation? Then register here.Apply NowLet's start your dream job Apply now Automatically Apply to Remote All Other Remote JobsLet your copilot automatically search and apply to remote jobs from We Work Remotely

Sometimes Lizzie Wilson shows up to a rave with her AI sidekick.  One weeknight this past February, Wilson plugged her laptop into a projector that threw her screen onto the wall of a low-ceilinged loft space in East London. A small crowd shuffled in the glow of dim pink lights. Wilson sat down and started programming. Techno clicks and whirs thumped from the venue’s speakers. The audience watched, heads nodding, as Wilson tapped out code line by line on the projected screen—tweaking sounds, looping beats, pulling a face when she messed up.   Wilson is a live coder. Instead of using purpose-built software like most electronic music producers, live coders create music by writing the code to generate it on the fly. It’s an improvised performance art known as algorave. “It’s kind of boring when you go to watch a show and someone’s just sitting there on their laptop,” she says. “You can enjoy the music, but there’s a performative aspect that’s missing. With live coding, everyone can see what it is that I’m typing. And when I’ve had my laptop crash, people really like that. They start cheering.” Taking risks is part of the vibe. And so Wilson likes to dial up her performances one more notch by riffing off what she calls a live-coding agent, a generative AI model that comes up with its own beats and loops to add to the mix. Often the model suggests sound combinations that Wilson hadn’t thought of. “You get these elements of surprise,” she says. “You just have to go for it.” ADELA FESTIVAL Wilson, a researcher at the Creative Computing Institute at the University of the Arts London, is just one of many working on what’s known as co-­creativity or more-than-human creativity. The idea is that AI can be used to inspire or critique creative projects, helping people make things that they would not have made by themselves. She and her colleagues built the live-­coding agent to explore how artificial intelligence can be used to support human artistic endeavors—in Wilson’s case, musical improvisation. It’s a vision that goes beyond the promise of existing generative tools put out by companies like OpenAI and Google DeepMind. Those can automate a striking range of creative tasks and offer near-instant gratification—but at what cost? Some artists and researchers fear that such technology could turn us into passive consumers of yet more AI slop. And so they are looking for ways to inject human creativity back into the process. The aim is to develop AI tools that augment our creativity rather than strip it from us—pushing us to be better at composing music, developing games, designing toys, and much more—and lay the groundwork for a future in which humans and machines create things together. Ultimately, generative models could offer artists and designers a whole new medium, pushing them to make things that couldn’t have been made before, and give everyone creative superpowers.  Explosion of creativity There’s no one way to be creative, but we all do it. We make everything from memes to masterpieces, infant doodles to industrial designs. There’s a mistaken belief, typically among adults, that creativity is something you grow out of. But being creative—whether cooking, singing in the shower, or putting together super-weird TikToks—is still something that most of us do just for the fun of it. It doesn’t have to be high art or a world-changing idea (and yet it can be). Creativity is basic human behavior; it should be celebrated and encouraged.  When generative text-to-image models like Midjourney, OpenAI’s DALL-E, and the popular open-source Stable Diffusion arrived, they sparked an explosion of what looked a lot like creativity. Millions of people were now able to create remarkable images of pretty much anything, in any style, with the click of a button. Text-to-video models came next. Now startups like Udio are developing similar tools for music. Never before have the fruits of creation been within reach of so many. But for a number of researchers and artists, the hype around these tools has warped the idea of what creativity really is. “If I ask the AI to create something for me, that’s not me being creative,” says Jeba Rezwana, who works on co-creativity at Towson University in Maryland. “It’s a one-shot interaction: You click on it and it generates something and that’s it. You cannot say ‘I like this part, but maybe change something here.’ You cannot have a back-and-forth dialogue.” Rezwana is referring to the way most generative models are set up. You can give the tools feedback and ask them to have another go. But each new result is generated from scratch, which can make it hard to nail exactly what you want. As the filmmaker Walter Woodman put it last year after his art collective Shy Kids made a short film with OpenAI’s text-to-video model for the first time: “Sora is a slot machine as to what you get back.” What’s more, the latest versions of some of these generative tools do not even use your submitted prompt as is to produce an image or video (at least not on their default settings). Before a prompt is sent to the model, the software edits it—often by adding dozens of hidden words—to make it more likely that the generated image will appear polished. “Extra things get added to juice the output,” says Mike Cook, a computational creativity researcher at King’s College London. “Try asking Midjourney to give you a bad drawing of something—it can’t do it.” These tools do not give you what you want; they give you what their designers think you want. COURTESY OF MIKE COOK All of which is fine if you just need a quick image and don’t care too much about the details, says Nick Bryan-Kinns, also at the Creative Computing Institute: “Maybe you want to make a Christmas card for your family or a flyer for your community cake sale. These tools are great for that.” In short, existing generative models have made it easy to create, but they have not made it easy to be creative. And there’s a big difference between the two. For Cook, relying on such tools could in fact harm people’s creative development in the long run. “Although many of these creative AI systems are promoted as making creativity more accessible,” he wrote in a paper published last year, they might instead have “adverse effects on their users in terms of restricting their ability to innovate, ideate, and create.” Given how much generative models have been championed for putting creative abilities at everyone’s fingertips, the suggestion that they might in fact do the opposite is damning.   In the game Disc Room, players navigate a room of moving buzz saws.DEVOLVER DIGITAL Cook used AI to design a new level for the game. The result was a room where none of the discs actually moved.COURTESY OF MIKE COOK He’s far from the only researcher worrying about the cognitive impact of these technologies. In February a team at Microsoft Research Cambridge published a report concluding that generative AI tools “can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving.” The researchers found that with the use of generative tools, people’s effort “shifts from task execution to task stewardship.” Cook is concerned that generative tools don’t let you fail—a crucial part of learning new skills. We have a habit of saying that artists are gifted, says Cook. But the truth is that artists work at their art, developing skills over months and years. “If you actually talk to artists, they say, ‘Well, I got good by doing it over and over and over,’” he says. “But failure sucks. And we’re always looking at ways to get around that.” Generative models let us skip the frustration of doing a bad job.  “Unfortunately, we’re removing the one thing that you have to do to develop creative skills for yourself, which is fail,” says Cook. “But absolutely nobody wants to hear that.” Surprise me And yet it’s not all bad news. Artists and researchers are buzzing at the ways generative tools could empower creators, pointing them in surprising new directions and steering them away from dead ends. Cook thinks the real promise of AI will be to help us get better at what we want to do rather than doing it for us. For that, he says, we’ll need to create new tools, different from the ones we have now. “Using Midjourney does not do anything for me—it doesn’t change anything about me,” he says. “And I think that’s a wasted opportunity.” Ask a range of researchers studying creativity to name a key part of the creative process and many will say: reflection. It’s hard to define exactly, but reflection is a particular type of focused, deliberate thinking. It’s what happens when a new idea hits you. Or when an assumption you had turns out to be wrong and you need to rethink your approach. It’s the opposite of a one-shot interaction. Looking for ways that AI might support or encourage reflection—asking it to throw new ideas into the mix or challenge ideas you already hold—is a common thread across co-creativity research. If generative tools like DALL-E make creation frictionless, the aim here is to add friction back in. “How can we make art without friction?” asks Elisa Giaccardi, who studies design at the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy. “How can we engage in a truly creative process without material that pushes back?” Take Wilson’s live-coding agent. She claims that it pushes her musical improvisation in directions she might not have taken by herself. Trained on public code shared by the wider live-coding community, the model suggests snippets of code that are closer to other people’s styles than her own. This makes it more likely to produce something unexpected. “Not because you couldn’t produce it yourself,” she says. “But the way the human brain works, you tend to fall back on repeated ideas.” Last year, Wilson took part in a study run by Bryan-Kinns and his colleagues in which they surveyed six experienced musicians as they used a variety of generative models to help them compose a piece of music. The researchers wanted to get a sense of what kinds of interactions with the technology were useful and which were not. The participants all said they liked it when the models made surprising suggestions, even when those were the result of glitches or mistakes. Sometimes the results were simply better. Sometimes the process felt fresh and exciting. But a few people struggled with giving up control. It was hard to direct the models to produce specific results or to repeat results that the musicians had liked. “In some ways it’s the same as being in a band,” says Bryan-Kinns. “You need to have that sense of risk and a sense of surprise, but you don’t want it totally random.” Alternative designs Cook comes at surprise from a different angle: He coaxes unexpected insights out of AI tools that he has developed to co-create video games. One of his tools, Puck, which was first released in 2022, generates designs for simple shape-matching puzzle games like Candy Crush or Bejeweled. A lot of Puck’s designs are experimental and clunky—don’t expect it to come up with anything you are ever likely to play. But that’s not the point: Cook uses Puck—and a newer tool called Pixie—to explore what kinds of interactions people might want to have with a co-creative tool. Pixie can read computer code for a game and tweak certain lines to come up with alternative designs. Not long ago, Cook was working on a copy of a popular game called Disc Room, in which players have to cross a room full of moving buzz saws. He asked Pixie to help him come up with a design for a level that skilled and unskilled players would find equally hard. Pixie designed a room where none of the discs actually moved. Cook laughs: It’s not what he expected. “It basically turned the room into a minefield,” he says. “But I thought it was really interesting. I hadn’t thought of that before.” COURTESY OF ANNE ARZBERGER COURTESY OF ANNE ARZBERGER Researcher Anne Arzberger developed experimental AI tools to come up with gender-neutral toy designs. Pushing back on assumptions, or being challenged, is part of the creative process, says Anne Arzberger, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. “If I think of the people I’ve collaborated with best, they’re not the ones who just said ‘Yes, great’ to every idea I brought forth,” she says. “They were really critical and had opposing ideas.” She wants to build tech that provides a similar sounding board. As part of a project called Creating Monsters, Arzberger developed two experimental AI tools that help designers find hidden biases in their designs. “I was interested in ways in which I could use this technology to access information that would otherwise be difficult to access,” she says. For the project, she and her colleagues looked at the problem of designing toy figures that would be gender neutral. She and her colleagues (including Giaccardi) used Teachable Machine, a web app built by Google researchers in 2017 that makes it easy to train your own machine-learning model to classify different inputs, such as images. They trained this model with a few dozen images that Arzberger had labeled as being masculine, feminine, or gender neutral. Arzberger then asked the model to identify the genders of new candidate toy designs. She found that quite a few designs were judged to be feminine even when she had tried to make them gender neutral. She felt that her views of the world—her own hidden biases—were being exposed. But the tool was often right: It challenged her assumptions and helped the team improve the designs. The same approach could be used to assess all sorts of design characteristics, she says. Arzberger then used a second model, a version of a tool made by the generative image and video startup Runway, to come up with gender-neutral toy designs of its own. First the researchers trained the model to generate and classify designs for male- and female-looking toys. They could then ask the tool to find a design that was exactly midway between the male and female designs it had learned. Generative models can give feedback on designs that human designers might miss by themselves, she says: “We can really learn something.”  Taking control The history of technology is full of breakthroughs that changed the way art gets made, from recipes for vibrant new paint colors to photography to synthesizers. In the 1960s, the Stanford researcher John Chowning spent years working on an esoteric algorithm that could manipulate the frequencies of computer-generated sounds. Stanford licensed the tech to Yamaha, which built it into its synthesizers—including the DX7, the cool new sound behind 1980s hits such as Tina Turner’s “The Best,” A-ha’s “Take On Me,” and Prince’s “When Doves Cry.” Bryan-Kinns is fascinated by how artists and designers find ways to use new technologies. “If you talk to artists, most of them don’t actually talk about these AI generative models as a tool—they talk about them as a material, like an artistic material, like a paint or something,” he says. “It’s a different way of thinking about what the AI is doing.” He highlights the way some people are pushing the technology to do weird things it wasn’t designed to do. Artists often appropriate or misuse these kinds of tools, he says. Bryan-Kinns points to the work of Terence Broad, another colleague of his at the Creative Computing Institute, as a favorite example. Broad employs techniques like network bending, which involves inserting new layers into a neural network to produce glitchy visual effects in generated images, and generating images with a model trained on no data, which produces almost Rothko-like abstract swabs of color. But Broad is an extreme case. Bryan-Kinns sums it up like this: “The problem is that you’ve got this gulf between the very commercial generative tools that produce super-high-quality outputs but you’ve got very little control over what they do—and then you’ve got this other end where you’ve got total control over what they’re doing but the barriers to use are high because you need to be somebody who’s comfortable getting under the hood of your computer.” “That’s a small number of people,” he says. “It’s a very small number of artists.” Arzberger admits that working with her models was not straightforward. Running them took several hours, and she’s not sure the Runway tool she used is even available anymore. Bryan-Kinns, Arzberger, Cook, and others want to take the kinds of creative interactions they are discovering and build them into tools that can be used by people who aren’t hardcore coders.  COURTESY OF TERENCE BROAD COURTESY OF TERENCE BROAD Researcher Terence Broad creates dynamic images using a model trained on no data, which produces almost Rothko-like abstract color fields. Finding the right balance between surprise and control will be hard, though. Midjourney can surprise, but it gives few levers for controlling what it produces beyond your prompt. Some have claimed that writing prompts is itself a creative act. “But no one struggles with a paintbrush the way they struggle with a prompt,” says Cook. Faced with that struggle, Cook sometimes watches his students just go with the first results a generative tool gives them. “I’m really interested in this idea that we are priming ourselves to accept that whatever comes out of a model is what you asked for,” he says. He is designing an experiment that will vary single words and phrases in similar prompts to test how much of a mismatch people see between what they expect and what they get.  But it’s early days yet. In the meantime, companies developing generative models typically emphasize results over process. “There’s this impressive algorithmic progress, but a lot of the time interaction design is overlooked,” says Rezwana.   For Wilson, the crucial choice in any co-creative relationship is what you do with what you’re given. “You’re having this relationship with the computer that you’re trying to mediate,” she says. “Sometimes it goes wrong, and that’s just part of the creative process.”  When AI gives you lemons—make art. “Wouldn’t it be fun to have something that was completely antagonistic in a performance—like, something that is actively going against you—and you kind of have an argument?” she says. “That would be interesting to watch, at least.” 

The Viadux 2 scheme for developer Salboy and contractor Domis, is planned for a 1.49ha site between the Deansgate-Castlefield Metrolink station and Manchester Arena. Manchester City Council will decide on the scheme this afternoon (10 April) but planning officers have recommended it for approval. SimpsonHaugh’s proposals feature a 241m-tall residential skyscraper reaching 76 storeys and a shorter 23-storey block on the former Bauer Millet car showroom site off Albion Street.Advertisement Viadux 2 would be the third highest building in the country and the tallest outside the capital. It will dwarf the neighbouring 47-storey Beetham Tower (169m) and 65-storey Deansgate Square South Tower (201m) in Manchester’s emerging high-rise cluster. Together, the two blocks will house 585 homes, with 133 affordable, in two buildings as well as a 160-bedroom 5-star hotel. When the scheme was submitted in spring 2023, it included 900 new homes, with the hotel introduced in amended plans. SimpsonHaugh says the tower features inclined faces, designed to ‘catch light differently, creating a dynamic response to changes in light conditions’. It will be five storeys taller than the practice’s consented 71-storey skyscraper within Renaker’s growing Great Jackson Street cluster. SimpsonHaugh’s latest proposed skyscraper will link via a podium to phase one of the Viadux development, a 40-storey residential building currently under construction. Manchester planning officers said in their recommendation that the Viadux 2 scheme would add a ‘world-class building’ to the city’s skyline while contributing to ‘placemaking and regeneration in the area’. They also argue that it supports local housing needs.Advertisement The same planning report said concerns raised by Historic England during the consultation process over the scale of the scheme were ‘without merit’. It argued that ‘the buildings around it are the tallest buildings in the UK outside of London, and building more modern, tall buildings will showcase Manchester as a dynamic and growing city, that wants to attract people’.

It's Masters time! Here are the hints and answers for NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 199, for April 10. Fore!

Fortnite gives away free loading screen showing the stock market crashing, while the stock market is crashing Cost of doing business. Image credit: Epic Games News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief Published on April 10, 2025 Log into Fortnite at any point over the next week, and you'll unlock a free in-game loading screen showing the game's stock market crashing. The well-timed stunt comes as economies around the world react to the ever-changing impact of US tarrifs in real time - though the giveaway is primarily designed to highlight the current storyline in Epic Games' battle royale. Fortnite's giveaway of The Big Dillbits Crash loading screen is live now, and lasts until next Tuesday, 15th April. Maybe everything will be fine by then. The image shows Fletcher Kane, the villain of Fortnite's current season, reacting in shock as his BitCoin-esque virtual currency suddenly collapses, ruining his financial hold over the Fortnite Island. Log into Fortnite over the next week, and you'll unlock The Big Dillbits Crash loading screen. | Image credit: Epic Games Fortnite had raised some fan eyebrows by introducing the concept of a planet-burning virtual currency, DillBits, to its storyline. In-game, players can obtain DillBits by robbing vaults, and spend them in nearby Black Market stores for exotic weaponary. At first, DillBits were presented as the source of enormous wealth, and were being championed by fan-favourite character Midas - someone able to create unlimited gold simply by touching something with his bare hands. Why would he need more money, though, players wondered? Now, it turns out that DillBits was a deliberate hustle by Midas and company, designed to ruin Fletcher Kane and end his reign over the Island by suckering him into a BitCoin-like scam. Nice. Fortnite seasons are planned months in advance, and Epic Games likely had this loading screen ready to launch for some time. But the decision to release it to all players now, specifically, feels like a knowing nod about real-world events as well. Back in the real world, the impact of US tarrifs on the global economy is still being felt, particularly by Nintendo fans in both the US and Canada who are still waiting for news on when they will be able to pre-order a Switch 2 - and how much Nintendo will now charge.

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here PlayStation Plus subscribers have a fantastic time ahead of them. Blue Prince, the best reviewed game of 2025, is available to play on Extra at no added cost, and Sony has just announced all the other Extra and Premium games joining soon, and they include another day one addition. While the upcoming arrivals to the subscription service library are fantastic, in some bummer news, Sony has confirmed PS Plus prices are increasing yet again for 15 countries, with the publisher blaming “global market conditions”. PS Plus prices are increasing for 15 countries In the Latin America PlayStation Blog post reveal for the April 2025 Extra and Premium games, Sony announced that they are increasing PS Plus prices for all three tiers. Per Sony, the price increases are coming because “Like many businesses around the world, we [Sony] continue to be affected by global market conditions”. The new increased prices can be found below for each of the three tiers: PS Plus Essential: 1 month: $7.99 3 months: $20.9912 months: $64.99 PS Plus Extra: 1 month: $11.99 3 months: $33.9912 months: $107.99 PS Plus Premium: 1 month: $13.99 3 months: $39.9912 months: $124.99 The above price increases will come into effect starting April 16th for new subscribers. However, if you are already subscribed, the price change will not come into effect until your next billing on or after June 24th. Below are the 15 countries set to be impacted: Argentina Bolivia Chile Colombia Costa Rica Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Uruguay While the above countries will be affected soon, there is the possibility price increases eventually come to more countries in other regions. Nothing else is happening right now, but we wouldn’t be surprised if more price increases eventually arrive so Sony can “continue to offer high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription”. In other PS Plus news, Sony has confirmed a mega-day one release for summer from Max Payne developer, Remedy. Related Topics PS Plus Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share