IGN

Harrison Ford doesn’t care that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny flopped critically and commercially, noting that “s**t happens,” and said he joined Marvel because it seemed like a “good time.”

The legendary actor of Star Wars fame told The Wall Street Journal Magazine that, even though it was him who “felt there was another story to tell” in the Indiana Jones story, he doesn’t care the fifth film was critically panned and is estimated to have lost $100 million after a box office disaster.

“When [Indy] had suffered the consequences of the life that he had to live, I wanted one more chance to pick him up and shake the dust off his ass and stick him out there, bereft of some of his vigor, to see what happened,” Ford said. “I’m still happy I made that movie.”

It certainly hasn’t stopped him from moving to another iconic franchise, as Ford has joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World. He replaces the late William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross who, as of this new film, has a bigger role as Red Hulk.

Ford said he joined the MCU before knowing this transformation was in store for his character though, as he hadn’t even seen a script for Brave New World. He simply joined because it seemed fun.

“Why not? I saw enough Marvels to see actors that I admired having a good time,” Ford said. “I didn’t really know that at the end I would turn into the Red Hulk. Well, it’s like life. You only get so far in the kit until the last page of the instructions is missing.”

Brave New World arrives as one of the shortest MCU entries to date on February 14, and the first to star Anthony Mackie instead of Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers in the titular role. It’s also set to fold in some deep cut characters from Marvel lore, including the pay off for a tease included in the second ever MCU film, The Incredible Hulk, through the introduction of The Leader.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

To say I’m heavily invested in VR is quite the understatement. I began near the dawn of the medium—when a Sega VR-1 gave me joy (and neck) spasms in ’97. Today, I own six of its distant descendants, and, basically, whenever the next big VR model comes out, I’m right there selling another body part to own it.

Why do I own more headsets than hats? For a complete perspective, to authoritatively write and maintain lists like The Best Meta Quest 3 Games to Grab First, and A Heads On Guide to PS VR2 Launch Titles, and The Best PS VR2 Games to Play in 2024.

Once upon a time there was a hugely popular card-drafting game called 7 Wonders. But drafting, where you pick a card to keep and pass the rest on, is pretty boring with two players, seeing as you know exactly what you’re going to be given on each pass. So, eventually, the game got a spin-off for two players only called 7 Wonders Duel which cleverly mimicked a draft by giving players a mixture of face-up and face-down cards to choose from. That was also hugely popular: indeed popular enough that it’s now received a shiny new Tolkien reskin in the form of Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth (see it at Amazon).

What’s in the Box

Since this is essentially a card game, that’s the majority of the box contents. Fortunately they’re great cards, vibrant with evocative Middle-earth art. Some of the art actually joins together to make panoramas – although it’s unlikely you’ll manage to collect a set during play. Cards have a colored top bar to indicate what type they are, and most also have several symbols indicating both what that card can do for you, and the prerequisites for acquiring it.

Rules and How it Plays

7 Wonders: Duel simulated drafting for two by having each of its three rounds set out a pattern of cards in which a row of face-up cards overlapped a row of face-down cards. That same layout is replicated here exactly, except rather than competing civilizations, one of you is the dark lord Sauron and the other represents the free people of Middle-earth. You can’t pick a card – or flip it, if it’s face-down – until the cards beneath it in the pyramid have been cleared. This makes your choice of which card to take each turn difficult and tense, because you want to try and minimize the options available to your opponent while also maximising your own further down the line.

This card pyramid isn’t the only thing that Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth retains from its predecessor. Indeed, pretty much the entire game flow will be familiar to veterans of that game. Most early cards are free, so you can pick them up and add them to your growing tableau. But as the game progresses, more powerful cards will either require you to have particular skill icons or prerequisite symbols from cards you already own in order to take them. If you can’t afford anything, you can use gold to make up the shortfall of matching symbols or discard a card for gold instead.

You are thus quickly caught into a dilemma as to whether to specialize in certain sets of skills, which will make it easier to get similar cards, or play as more of a generalist. There’s no right answer to this: it depends on what cards you get and in what order, and learning when to break one way or the other is a key tactical skill that comes with experience. Either way, this makes flipping face-down cards surprisingly exciting because there can be a lot riding on it if it’s the next key part in the specialist chain that you’re building. There’s nothing worse than suddenly finding you’ve handed the opportunity to pick-up a critical card to your opponent because grabbing something else you wanted revealed it.

In addition to cards that grow your tableau economy, there are also cards that move you forward on victory conditions. These are where Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth makes clear water between itself and its predecessor. Ring symbols let you advance on the quest for the ring track. If either side reaches the end of its track, it’s an instant win, with identical bonuses to be had along the way. Green cards represent an alliance with another faction such as Elves or Ents: six different such symbols and you win, while duplicates get you a bonus token from a stack specific to each faction. Finally, red cards let you place armies on the map of Middle-Earth, kicking out rivals on a one-to-one basis. If you conquer all seven regions you win, otherwise the player with the most regions when the card stack runs out takes the victory.

Each victory condition is cleverly designed to close in on its apex during the third round of play. You are pretty much guaranteed to be within touching distance of one, if not two, by then and play becomes a matter not only of trying to inch yourself over the line but selecting cards that prevent your opponent from doing the same. This ensures that play builds towards a truly thrilling climax almost every time, lending the game an epic feel that belies its relative simplicity and snappy half-hour play time.

However, after a few plays it’s hard not to wonder how much of this comes down to skill, and how much of it is luck. As mentioned previously, revealing a card that either you, or your opponent, need, can be absolutely critical to which way the victory breaks and there’s very little you can do about it. The decisions you make along the way certainly matter, but the game is engineered to be close because whatever you don’t have the opportunity to get, your enemy will. You thus pay for that crescendo of excitement with the seeds of doubt about how much your efforts influenced the final outcome. In fairness, it is difficult to design really dramatic games that don’t involve a lot of random moments, and this one hides it fairly well.

One other secret weapon the game has in this regard is its other major new feature: fortresses. At any given time there are three fortress tiles available of the full seven, one for each space on the map. They all cost large amounts of skill symbols and gold, but come with benefits to match. Not only do these rewards tie in with the central game mechanics, such as free ring track spaces if you gain the tower of Minas Tirith in Gondor, but they allow you to place a fortress piece in the matching space, which acts as an undefeatable army there. Fortresses are thus huge pivots in winning over map spaces. At the same time, buying a tile is the only way you can delay taking a card and thus potentially force your opponent into taking one that flips those critical unrevealed cards instead.

For all the vibrant card art and name-checking of key places and people in Middle-earth, the game doesn’t end up feeling like an evocation of Tolkien’s trilogy. Grabbing ring cards is no substitute for the long, desperate chase depicted in the books and there’s no real matchup between allying factions and the rewards they offer. Worse, the game often feels counter-thematic. There’s nothing to stop Sauron allying with his most implacable foes, the Elves, and the armies of the free peoples often end up conquering the shadow realm of Mordor and buying its fortress of Barad-Dur. These outcomes would have been unthinkable in the carefully constructed legendarium, but they’re so common here it makes light of Tolkein’s vast imaginative effort.

Where to Buy

• Get it at Amazon
• Get it at Walmart
• Get it at Asmodee
• Get it at Miniature Market

See More Lord of the Rings Board Games:

2025’s summer movie season is officially going prehistoric, because the first trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth is here. The seventh film in the Jurassic Park franchise and the first of a “new era” after the Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard-led trilogy wrapped up with Jurassic World Dominion, this new entry comes from director Gareth Edwards and has an entirely new cast, including Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali. However, despite the talent involved, including the return of original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp, the film’s premise as shown in the trailer feels like a step backward for this series. Where is the world of dinosaurs that Fallen Kingdom promised, and Dominion once again seemed to tease?

Let’s take a look at what the trailer does and doesn’t show, and why the Jurassic World series seems to be missing out on its biggest opportunity.

Back to the Cretaceous

The Jurassic World trilogy may have had a mixed reception from critics, but the franchise stands as one of the most consistently lucrative blockbuster properties at the worldwide box office for the past decade and change. Global audiences love their dinosaurs, and even if Universal planned on retiring the cast from the first three World films, more dino blockbusters were all but guaranteed. The studio was quick to snap up a new cast and crew for further installments, with director Gareth Edwards of 2014’s Godzilla and Rogue One fame being the most interesting element. Edwards is perhaps unmatched among his contemporaries when it comes to conveying scale in VFX-heavy blockbusters, and his background in CGI gives him a leg up on four-quadrant films compared to the many Sundance babies or indie film darlings that the likes of Marvel commonly scoop up for their projects.

And it shows in the trailer: The dinosaurs look fantastic in motion, and Edwards’ eye behind the camera and keen attention to detail when it comes to proportions and lighting already make this new film look leagues ahead of many unsightly blockbusters we’ve seen in recent years. That he accomplished this on a truncated schedule (he was only hired in February 2024 and was already in production by June) is all the more remarkable. We don’t get enough time with the new cast of characters in the trailer to get the best sense of whether they’ll be worth investing in, but the action looks good and we’re clearly getting plenty of dino screentime, something that isn’t as guaranteed as we’d like to think. Remember the evil locusts from Jurassic World Dominion? Wait, you don’t? Well, we don’t blame you.

Yet although we have reasons to be cautiously optimistic about Rebirth, the fact that the film doesn’t seem to be using the “world of dinosaurs” concept that’s been teased since Fallen Kingdom’s ending hangs over the trailer like an exploding volcano.

An Island? Again?!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There’s another island full of dinosaurs. Seemingly neither Isla Nublar or Isla Sorna, but a secret third thing, Jurassic World Rebirth takes place on an island said to be “the research facility for the original Jurassic Park.” Setting aside that that doesn’t really square with previous canon, it’s retreating back to franchise tradition to set the film on a tropical island populated by dinosaurs removed from any kind of civilization. Why are we doing this same song and dance when the previous trilogy ended with dinosaurs all over the globe? Well, according to the official synopsis provided by Universal, “Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived.”

I mean, sure, I guess, but does this not strike anyone as an unnecessary course correction? Why spend so much of the previous trilogy trying to set up a literal Jurassic World if you weren’t going to use it? In the same way Dominion walked back Fallen Kingdom’s ending to contain most of the dinosaur action within a gated-off preserve in the Italian Alps, Rebirth is now tossing out the best new idea the series had in years with dinosaurs overrunning the world in the aftermath of Fallen Kingdom’s events. It’s a bizarre creative choice when you’re trying to establish Rebirth as a relaunch of the brand with new characters and ideas when they keep running back to the same well the franchise has always boxed itself in.

It also just doesn’t really seem to make sense with the established lore of the previous films. Dominion showed dinosaurs all over the world in its first half, from snowy areas to urban environments. If the outside world was so inhospitable to dinosaurs, why did they seem to have no trouble with it in the last movie? Especially when the Malta chase in Dominion, where we saw carnivores tearing their way through a city, was the best and most creative setpiece in that film? The Jurassic franchise is one of the safest bets in Hollywood; people are clearly always going to want to see dinosaurs. So why not take a chance and do something truly different with this series, and perhaps unlock new dimensions you haven’t explored before?

Of course, it’s possible Jurassic World Rebirth has more tricks up its sleeve than they’re showing in this first trailer. The movie’s original title was even rumored to be Jurassic City, hinting at a type of environment the trailer may intentionally be hiding. But whatever the case may be, it is way past time for the Jurassic franchise to move past the tropical island motif. We’re not saying they have to go full Planet of the Apes with dinosaurs (but maybe they should…), but surely there can be some middle ground to see the dinos in new environments. We’ll see how Jurassic World Rebirth shakes out, but for now, we hope the franchise will finally learn the value of exploring something new instead of repackaging something old.

Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Bluesky.

From its debut in 1993 until the release of Titanic in 1997, Jurassic Park was the must-see movie of the decade. That original film (arguably still the franchise’s best) dominated the box office, set a new standard for the effective use of CGI, and sparked a generation’s fascination with Earth’s distant past.

Now, 30 years later, Jurassic Park has spawned two film trilogies and a whole new generation of dino-loving moviegoers. With Jurassic World Rebirth releasing in July, we’ve compiled this guide on where you can watch all of the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies right now.

Where to Watch the Jurassic Park Movies Online

The good news: Almost all of the Jurassic Park movies can be streamed online. The bad news: The Jurassic saga is not available as part of a single streaming service. Most of the Jurassic Park movies are available to stream on Starz, including the latest release, Jurassic World Dominion. However, Jurassic World is available with a Prime Video subscription, while Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom can only be rented or purchased from digital marketplaces like Prime Video.

Here’s our full breakdown of how to watch the Jurassic Park and World movies online in 2025:

Jurassic Park Movies on Blu-ray

Prefer physical releases to new subscriptions? Every Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movie has been released in 4K UHD and Blu-ray, both as individual DVDs as well as collected box sets.

What’s the Best Order to Watch the Jurassic Park Movies?

The Jurassic Park chronology follows its release order, making for a straightforward binge. However, if you want to be sure about where to begin, our how to watch the Jurassic Park movies in order explainer can help.

Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.

When it comes to Pokémon plushies, Squishmallows are arguably the most popular brand around. That being said, not all Pokémon Squishmallows are equally popular. It’s hard to compete with the likes of Pikachu and Snorlax when other Pokémon in the lineup are from a later generation that not everyone is familiar with. This is, presumably, why Amazon is currently offering discounts on Pokémon such as Teddiursa, Fuecoco, and Belibolt.

If you’re looking to buy a Pokémon Squishmallow for yourself or a loved one, consider some of these less popular picks before you spend more on the same one everyone else has.

The Best Pokémon Squishmallow Deals at Amazon Today

All of the best Squishmallow discounts at Amazon today are currently on the 14-inch versions of each of these Pokémon. The two lowest-priced options here are the Teddiursa and Belibolt versions, so if you want the best possible deal, those are worth a look. Both Belibolt and Fuecoco were part of the new ninth generation of Pokémon, so they were featured in the most recent games on the Switch: Scarlet and Violet. Belibolt, as far as I know, is not one of the more popular choices in those games. However, Fuecoco was one of the starter choices in Scarlet and Violet.

The biggest outlier on this discount list is Clefairy, who has been around since the first generation of Pokémon. It’s currently the only Squishmallow from that generation with a discount. Snorlax, Gengar, Dragonite, and Pikachu are all still sitting at full price. So if you don’t mind spending a little bit more, here are some of the more popular Squishmallows you can buy in 2025.

Popular Squishmallows in stock

Where Else Can You Buy Pokémon Squishmallows Online?

While Amazon is certainly one of the more convenient places to shop, it isn’t the only place where you can buy these particular plushies. Two of the best alternatives to Amazon are Target and Walmart, which will often have inventory when Amazon runs out. They are also great places to look for the 20-inch versions of these plushies since Amazon is often low on those compared to the 14-inch. You can also find Squishmallows from Pokemoncenter.com, which sells pretty much all of the other Pokémon toys you’d ever want.

Monster Hunter Wilds is just a few weeks away, and Capcom has released a PC benchmark for players to see if their system is up to snuff. Alongside that, the PC system requirements have been officially lowered.

As announced during yesterday’s Capcom Spotlight, the PC benchmark for Monster Hunter Wilds is live on Steam right now. The tool will need to compile some shaders once it’s loaded up, but otherwise it’s fairly easy to run and see where your computer lands. It’s a good idea to check, especially if you’re curious about how the updated system requirements might affect your performance.

Previously, the system requirements for hitting 1080p and 60 frames per second (with Frame Generation enabled) called for an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, or AMD Radeon RX 6700XT graphics card; an Intel Core i5-11600K, Intel Core i5-12400, AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, or AMD Ryzen 5 5500 CPU; and 16 GB of RAM.

In an updated page alongside the benchmark, Capcom appears to have lowered the requirements. For Recommended, or 1080p (FHD) with 60 frames per second and Frame Generation enabled, here are the new requirements:

• OS: Windows 10 (64-bit required) / Windows 11 (64-bit required)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-10400 / Intel Core i3-12100 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• Memory: 16 GB
• Graphics Card (GPU): GeForce RTX 2060 Super / Radeon RX 6600 (8 GB VRAM)
• Storage: 75 GB (SS required)

This should, per Capcom’s site, have Monster Hunter Wilds running at 1080p and 60 frames per second with Frame Generation enabled. As you might have noticed, it’s a slight but still noticeable down-tick in requirements.

Users are already reporting some noticeable benefits to performance in the benchmark compared to the beta test, though that’s with Frame Generation enabled. Steam Deck still doesn’t seem likely; while the gaming rig I tested passed with flying colors, my personal attempt on the Deck didn’t elicit promising results.

What’s noticeable, alongside the processing changes, is the difference in storage size. Before, Monster Hunter Wilds called for 140 GB of available space on your SSD; now, it’s 75 GB. As file sizes seem to constantly grow year-over-year, it’s surprising to see such a change.

For more on what’s in store for Monster Hunter Wilds, be sure to read up on our recent IGN First coverage, showcasing bouts with fearsome beasts like the apex monster Nu Udra, and our final hands-on impressions of Capcom’s latest Monster Hunter before it arrives later this month. Monster Hunter Wilds is out for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC on February 28, 2025.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

A live action film adaptation of the beloved anime and toy franchise Mobile Suit Gundam finally appears to have entered full production, with Bandai Namco and Legendary signing an agreement to co-finance it.

While the film was announced in 2018 it’s barely been heard of since, but this word from Legendary and the newly formed Bandai Namco Filmworks America indicates fans can finally start looking forward to seeing the first ever live action Gundam film on the big screen.

The companies confirmed Mobile Suit Gundam, which currently lacks an official name, will be written and directed by Sweet Tooth’s Kim Mickle and released in theaters globally.

It will be the first live action punt for a franchise which has seen 25 anime series, 34 animated films, 27 original anime productions, and more, plus an incredibly popular toy line, that combined pull in more than $900 million a year.

“We plan to steadily announce details as they become finalized,” Legendary and Bandai Namco said. No release windows or plot details were shared, though a teaser poster was released.

“Mobile Suit Gundam, which began broadcasting in 1979, established the genre of ‘real robot anime’ that could not be described in terms of simple good and evil, which had been the trend of robot anime up to that point, with realistic depictions of war, detailed scientific examinations, and intricately interwoven human dramas that treated robots as ‘weapons’ called ‘mobile suits,’ and caused a huge boom,” they added.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Shuhei Yoshida, former president of Worldwide Studios for Sony Interactive Entertainment, has revealed that Nintendo and Xbox each orchestrated the two scariest moments of his long career at PlayStation.

Yoshida told MinnMax that the release of the Xbox 360 one year before the PlayStation 3 was “very, very scary,” as those who considered waiting for Sony’s console would be well behind in tasting the next generation of video games.

But Yoshida said “the biggest shock I had from an announcement from the competition” was when Nintendo announced that Monster Hunter 4 was going to be a 3DS exclusive. “That was the biggest shock,” he said.

Gene Ha is widely regarded as one of the finest artists working in the comic book industry today, and Mae is one of the defining works of his career. Now Oni Press is bringing Mae back to print in a newly remastered Definitive Edition collection.

IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of Mae: The Definitive Edition, featuring several interior pages by Ha and pinups from artists like Amanda Conner, Frank Cho, Janet Lee, and Katie Cook. There’s even a never-before-seen pinup from Kingdom Come artist Alex Ross. Check it all out in the slideshow gallery below:

Mae is written and illustrated by Ha, with lettering by Zander Cannon and additional story contributions from Daimon Hampton, Paulina Ganucheau, and Mark Waid. The Definitive Edition collection adds 12 new story pages along with 64 pages of supplemental material. Here’s Oni’s official description of the book:

Mae’s beloved older sister, Abbie, has been missing for years. Mae has her theories about where Abbie might be — but never in her wildest dreams did those theories encompass a fantasy world full of terrifying monsters, power-hungry nobles, and nefarious scientists. When Abby returns suddenly, she convinces Mae to return with her to the fantastical realm of Cimrterén to join in her quest to find their missing father, who has also disappeared without a trace. The sisters must fight their way to the heart of land to find their father, coming across old friends and dangerous new foes along their journey. Together they begin to uncover sinister secrets and piece together a much darker family history than they ever could have imagined.

“Getting to share the stories in my head with all of you has been the greatest joy of my long career,” said Ha in a statement. “Thank you to all the Mae readers! Every copy of the earlier editions is sold out, worldwide, so Oni Press and I have worked hard to make the new Definitive Edition special. I’ve expanded the story past the 22 page chapters of the serial comics, and finally placed the pages in the original planned order: Chapter 7 was supposed to be Chapter 6, and vice versa. Mae: The Definitive Edition is the story I wanted to tell.”

“Whether you’ve read the previous editions or if you’re new to Mae, we made this for you,” added Ha. “And if you can’t get your own copy, ask your local public librarian to order a copy and put a hold on it for you. We have so much fun we can’t wait to share with you!”

Mae: The Definitive Edition is priced at $29.99 and will be released on April 8, 2025. You can preorder a copy on Amazon.

For more on what’s coming up in the comic book world, check out what to expect from Marvel in 2025 and what to expect from DC in 2025.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.