The College Football bowl season is underway, and the first-ever Xbox Bowl took place on December 18--and what a sight it was.

Arkansas State defeated Missouri State 34-28 to claim the title. Arkansas State was up 31-7 going into the fourth, but Missouri State battled back, scoring 21 points in the fourth to make it close.

Naturally, the Xbox Bowl was full of Xbox-branded partnerships, including Master Chief doing the coin toss to start the game. Corey Rucker Jr. of Arkansas State won Offensive MVP of the Xbox Bowl, earning himself an "Achievement Unlocked" trophy, while Kyle Taylor of Arkansas State won Defensive MVP of the Xbox Bowl, taking home a similarly styled trophy.

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Joseph Cross, the art director on Bungie's upcoming extraction shooter Marathon, is leaving just months before the game's release. Cross's exit comes just after the game was finally announced for a March 2026 release, following an indefinite delay prompted by underwhelming player feedback on the shooter's alpha tests.

Cross's departure from Bungie was tipped by an update to his LinkedIn page and social accounts, and he confirmed to Kotaku that it was his choice to leave. "I’m super proud of the project and what the team accomplished over the last six years," he said, reflecting on his exit.

After years of work on Destiny as lead concept artist, Cross returned to Bungie in 2020 to help shape the visual style for Marathon. The extraction shooter is looking to be one of Bungie's most visually unique titles, with a bold aesthetic named by Cross as "graphic realism."

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James Ohlen, the Bioware veteran who led development on upcoming sci-fi RPG Exodus, has stepped down from his position as the head of Archetype Entertainment. Ohlen's exit comes just after the studio debuted a flashy new trailer at The Game Awards, as he says he feels his work on the game is done.

Ohlen has headed up the Wizards of the Coast-owned studio since its founding in 2019, working on the studio's debut title Exodus. "At this stage, James felt his work on the game was complete and that the polishing and tuning were in great hands with the team," Hasbro said in a statement given to Bloomberg.

Exodus is still fairly far from release, which is currently scheduled for early 2027. This is an unusually long window if the game is already up to the polishing and tuning stage. Just last week, Exodus received an epic new trailer at The Game Awards, focused on the journey of protagonist Jun Aslan.

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Riot Games has announced that League of Legends will be getting a major overhaul after 2026, possibly one of the biggest in the game's 16-year history. Riot has said the refresh will include a brand-new "around-game" client, entirely new visuals for Summoner's Rift, and a better experience for players new to the game--plus more updates yet to be announced.

Bloomberg initially reported on Riot's plans for a 2027 LoL refresh earlier this week, saying the update was internally known as "League Next." Shortly after that report was released, Riot Games confirmed the plans via a video posted to League of Legends' social media. League boss Andrei Van Roon added that the video was intended to be released in January, but had been pushed forward in response to the report.

A look at some of our plans for League after 2026. pic.twitter.com/vqsnBksg1Y

— League of Legends (@LeagueOfLegends) December 18, 2025

While Riot says work on the update is well underway, none of it is ready to reveal to the public just yet, though it has outlined some of the major changes on the way. First and foremost is a brand-new "around-game" client, which will be bundled in with the game as a single application. Summoner's Rift is also due for an overhaul, with the studio promising "entirely new visuals" for the classic map, as well as some new gameplay. Other gameplay updates will include changes to runes and the pre-game experience, as well as a full overhaul to the learning experience for players new to League of Legends.

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Lego Star Wars: R2-D2 - 25th Anniversary Edition (1,050 Pieces)

$80 (was $100)

See at Amazon See at Target Sold out at Target Sold out at Walmart Full price at Best Buy Backordered at Lego

One of the best-selling Lego Star Wars sets is proving to be difficult to find in stock this holiday season. The 1,050-piece R2-D2 figure is now sold out at Target and Walmart and is on backorder on the Lego Store. If you're interested in picking up the cool buildable droid figure, Amazon brought back its deal on this exceedingly popular set on December 18. Normally $100, the Star Wars R2-D2 Lego set is on sale for $80 at Amazon. This deal was previously available at Walmart and Target, but unless your local store has units available, both retailers are sold out.

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8BitDo Ultimate 3-Mode Wireless Controller: Rare 40th Anniversary Edition

$72 (was $90) | For Xbox, PC, Apple, Android

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Xbox and PC gamers can save big on 8BitDo's first wireless controller for Xbox Series X|S. The 8BitDo Ultimate 3-Mode Rare 40th Anniversary Edition is on sale for $72 (was $90) at Amazon. Officially licensed by Microsoft, this special version of the Ultimate 3-Mode also comes with a matching charging dock, a metal D-pad, Hall Effect sticks, and remappable back buttons. Released in August in celebration of Rare Limited, the controller has a striking blue-and-gold color scheme with symbols and artwork nodding to the Microsoft-owned studio's storied history. Though best known today as the studio behind Sea of Thieves, Rare has a back catalog of classics like Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, and Perfect Dark.

The only other time the controller has been discounted was during Black Friday, and that deal sold out before the sale expired. 8BitDo's Ultimate 3-Mode Rare 40th Anniversary Edition Controller is a great alternative to Microsoft's Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller, which is on sale for $135 (was $200). The controller works wirelessly on Xbox consoles, PC, Apple devices, Android, and Steam Deck.

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Diablo IV: The Lost Horadrim (Novel)

$30 | Releases April 21, 2026

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The world of Diablo IV will expand when the upcoming Lord of Hatred expansion launches on April 28. However, a week before the new content drops, fans will get a glimpse into the expansion's story with the prequel novel Diablo IV: The Lost Horadrim. This official novel launches on April and will provide context for the Lord of Hatred's main questline and introduce the Skovos Isles region where the expansion takes place. If that sparks your interest, you can preorder the paperback edition of Diablo IV: The Lost Horadrim for $30 at Amazon. The book will also be available as an eBook and Audible audiobook, priced at $15 and $17.52, respectively.

Diablo IV: The Lost Horadrim (Novel) $30 | Releases April 21, 2026

Diablo IV: The Lost Horadrim is set in the wake of the cataclysmic reaping by the Angel of Death, Malthael, which leaves humanity and the world of Sanctuary devastated. In an effort to fight against the rising tides of Hell's forces, the Horadric Order sends Lorath, Donan, and Tyrael to the Skovos Isles to uncover the fate of a long-lost expedition. The book's events will tie into the upcoming Diablo IV expansion, Lord of Hatred. It is written by Matthew J. Kirby, who previously wrote the Diablo character tomes for Lorath and Prava.

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Diablo has a long history in print, and if you're looking to grab a few books--possibly as a devilish stocking-stuffer--there's plenty to choose from. The Diablo art books and character tomes are fun dives into the game's bleak world, combining high-quality prints with rich illustrations to create eye-catching works of art. The character tomes are designed to be in-universe books written from the perspectives of several key Diablo characters, like Cain and Prava, and they use special paper to give each book a worn, weathered look. The first four of these books are also available as part of the Horadric Vault series for $98.39, but it's actually cheaper to purchase each one and the recently released Book of Prava individually.

You can also dive into various novels set within the timeline of the first Diablo game. The Sin War is a three-book series covering the conflict that would forever change the destiny of humanity, while Storm of Light is set during Diablo 3 and follows Tyrael as he enacts his boldest plan yet: rebuilding the Horadric Order and preparing them to steal the black Soulstone from the heart of Heaven. Diablo graphic novels are also available for purchase, with two of them chronicling the adventures of two legendary characters from the game series: the legendary Necromancer Rathma and the progenitor of the Barbarians, Bul-Kathos.

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Nintendo has been known to vigorously defend its interests and intellectual properties in court, and one of its longest-running legal battles may be nearing its conclusion. In 2010, the Japanese video game publisher filed a suit in Germany against BigBen Interactive--the previous incarnation of Nacon--over its third-party Wii Remote controllers. Now, the latest ruling has unequivocally gone in Nintendo's favor.

As reported by Games Fray, the Mannheim Regional Court has reaffirmed the ruling that Nintendo is owed damages of over €4 million plus interest. Because Nacon fought the ruling, that interest has increased the total fee to just under €7 million.

Nintendo's contention was that Nacon's Wii Remote infringed on its patents for the sensor technology and camera needed to track player movements, as well as an acceleration sensor, and "the ergonomic features characteristic of Nintendo's Wii Remote." The initial verdict came down in 2011, but Nacon has consistently appealed the judgment and come up empty each time.

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World Tech Toys Licensed Air Hockey Tables

$50

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If you're sick of having to go all the way to Dave & Buster's to play some air hockey with your little ones, you'll want to check out these officially licensed, portable air hockey tables from World Tech Toys. Each one is just $50, and features characters from popular franchises like Spider-Man, Transformers, Toy Story, and more.

World Tech Toys Licensed Air Hockey Tables $50

World Tech Toys' new air hockey tables feature a built-in fan that mimics an authentic air hockey experience, while remaining portable enough to bring with you on the go. The tables are constructed from durable wood, too, which should withstand the usual wear and tear that children's toys endure. There are multiple variations of air hockey tables, each featuring a beloved character (or characters) from big-name franchises like Marvel, Disney, and more. Check out each World Tech Toys Air Hockey Table theme you can get below:

• Marvel Avengers Air Hockey Table -- $50
• Marvel Spider-Man Air Hockey Table -- $50
• Marvel Spidey and His Amazing Friends Air Hockey Table -- $50
• Mickey Mouse Air Hockey Table -- $50
• Minnie Mouse Air Hockey Table -- $50
• Toy Story Air Hockey Table -- $50
• Transformers Air Hockey Table -- $50

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These air hockey tables could make great last-minute gifts for kids--just make sure to confirm Amazon's delivery date is before Christmas, if you need it to arrtive by December 25. If you're looking for some other gift ideas, check out World Tech Toys' lineup, which includes RC cars and helicopters, toy work benches, mini pinball and foosball tables, plus much more. And yes, those come in plenty of fun themes as well, including Frozen, Star Wars, and Subway.

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Backbone Pro Mobile Controller

$135 (was $170)

See at Amazon See at Backbone See at Best Buy

Backbone Pro Mobile Controller: Xbox Edition

$145 (was $180)

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Backbone Pro Mobile Controller (Pink): Target Exclusive

$140 (was $170)

See at Target

Just a month after its launch, the Backbone Pro Xbox Edition is on sale for a substantial discount at Amazon, Best Buy, and Backbone's online storefront. Normally $180, the officially licensed transparent green mobile controller is up for grabs for $145. Alternatively, you can get the standard edition black Backbone Pro for $135 (was $170) or the Target-exclusive pink edition for $140 (was $170).

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Prime Video's Tomb Raider TV series continues to add to its cast, with a new report saying Jason Isaacs will star in the show. Deadline reported that the Emmy-nominated actor will appear in the show, but his role is unknown at this point, as is the larger story for the series.

Isaacs is a veteran actor perhaps best known for his role as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movie series. He's also had roles in the movies The Patriot, Black Hawk Down, Peter Pan, and Fury. On TV, Isaacs recently had a starring role in the The White Lotus Season 3, a role that earned him his first Emmy nomination.

The Tomb Raider TV show stars Game of Thrones alum Sophie Turner as Lara Croft, with Avatar's Sigourney Weaver signed on to play a character named Wallace. British actor Martin Bobb-Semple will appear in the show, too, in an unspecified series regular role.

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Recently, it was announced that Alix Wilton-Regan will take over for Camila Luddington in the role of Lara Croft for the next two games in the series. In a new interview, she said she is afraid that it may all fall apart after the last game she was set to appear in, the Perfect Dark reboot, was canceled.

Wilton-Regan told TheGamer that she was filming her scenes as Joanna Dark for the Perfect Dark game at the same time she was shooting Lara for the new Tomb Raider games. It was "wonderful and genuinely one of the most creatively exciting times of my life."

However, she said she was and remains concerned that Tomb Raider could fall apart, given that Perfect Dark was canceled. "I just felt so relieved that I still had Lara, but I also felt really frightened about losing Lara. I'm still frightened of losing Lara," she said.

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A new report claims that Naughty Dog recently mandated that workers return to the office five days per week--up from three--and had been pushing staff to work "long hours" to get a demo of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet ready to show off to Sony higher-ups.

The Bloomberg report said that beginning in late October, Naughty Dog asked staff to work "a minimum of eight extra hours a week" and document their overtime in a spreadsheet. "This overtime period was an attempt to get the production back on track after several missed deadlines," the report said.

Workers were told to not work more than 60 hours per week, the report said. The return-to-office mandate was disruptive to some workers who reportedly had to find cover for childcare and their pets. The report added that the "mandated overtime" period wrapped up this week with the completion of the demo.

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Fortnite's latest Winterfest celebration kicked off with the usual array of map and gameplay changes in Battle Royale and piles of free stuff in the Winterfest cabin. But that's not all there is to care about in Fortnite's latest update--we've also got a pair of new sets of quests that reward XP, and an additional free cosmetic that must be earned by completing a specific one of those new quests. Let's take a look at what we've got here.

Table of Contents [hide]

• Winterfest 2025 quests
  • Drop 1
    • Collect a Perfect Gift from a chest
    Winterfest 2025 quests

    The first of these new quests sets, listed under Winterfest in your quest log, are for Battle Royale. There are four time-gated groups of this set of quests--the first group is available now, and the rest will be added every two days until they're all there. Completing a quest awards 12K XP each, and there may be a reward at the end of the questline--but we don't know for sure yet. These quests expire when Winterfest ends on January 5.

    Drop 1Collect a Perfect Gift from a chest

    Every chest you open during Winterfest has a change to drop an item called Perfect Gift, which triggers a quest to deliver it to any non-hostile NPC on the map within five minutes. But for this quest, you just have to collect the item. Fortunately, the Perfect Gift does not require one of your inventory slots.

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It's impossible to deny the success of Embark Studios' extraction shooter Arc Raiders. Now, as 2025 comes to a close, the studio is reflecting on the momentous launch, which was recently capped off by the title's win for Best Multiplayer Game at the 2025 Game Awards, and what's to come in 2026. If you're to believe Embark, which seems on top of the world right now, "the work is just beginning."

In a post to Arc Raiders website, the shooter's executive producer Aleksander Grondal writes, "We had a feeling that Arc Raiders was something special. Internally, we were having a blast playing it before release, and your reaction to the tech test in April gave us an inkling of what was to come. What we didn't count on was the sheer scale of love and passion you guys were going to show this game."

Arc Raiders, which was released in late October, became a smash hit right out of the gate, selling millions of copies within days and solidifying itself as one of the most-beloved multiplayer games of the year. Though many multiplayer games enjoy a surge of popularity that eventually relents, Arc Raiders has held on impressively long. As of this writing, its Steam numbers alone are still in the six-digit realm.

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The new weekly update for Grand Theft Auto Online adds festive content, free gifts, discounts, and popular holiday modes. Rockstar Games also confirms snow will arrive in Los Santos later in the month.

The holidays arrive in Los Santos with several returning modes players can participate in. These festive limited-time modes include GTA Online's Yeti Hunt, The Gooch, Weazel Plaza Shootout, and Snowball Fights. Additionally, players can expect snowy weather conditions to arrive later in the month.

Players who log in to GTA Online anytime between December 23 and January 7 will receive an assortment of holiday freebies. These gifts include new items like the Season's Greetings Sweater, as well as returning favorites, such as the Snowball Launcher, Candy Cane, and Firework Launcher.

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Dispatch feels like the kind of game that must have always been headed for success, having sold a million copies in just 10 days, and while it missed most of the awards season, it still landed on several best-of lists for the year. That impression hides a much rougher reality. Dispatch took years longer than expected, nearly collapsed more than once, and only made it out because the team managed to survive long enough to finish it.

"We're taking GTA 6 amounts of time on this shit," writer and co-founder Pierre Shorette says in an interview with Eurogamer, explaining why Dispatch Season 1 took so long to make. The episodic superhero workplace comedy spent close to seven years in development. The time spent wasn't about endlessly refining a hit, but about dealing with lost funding, shifting plans, and simple survival. The upside is that the groundwork is now done, meaning a potential Season 2 would not need anything close to the same amount of time.

Game director Nick Herman is blunt about how close Dispatch came to ending. "We had a publisher who dropped us halfway through because of … financial things," he says. Shorette places that moment in the context of the wider industry collapse.

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It has been a big week for Larian Studios, which just announced its upcoming RPG Divinity to tons of fervor. Unfortunately, a lot of the week since the announcement has consisted of members of the studio, including its CEO Swen Vincke, fighting online about the team's current attitude towards AI tools in games development following an interview with Bloomberg.

Now, after a week of backlash, Larian is hoping to clear some of the air around Divinity and its use of AI. In a statement shared on Twitter, Vincke writes, "It's been a week since we announced Divinity, our next RPG, and a lot has become lost in translation."

It’s been a week since we announced Divinity, our next RPG, and a lot has become lost in translation.
Larian’s DNA is agency. Everything we work towards is to the benefit of our teams, games, and players. A better work day, and a better game. Our successes come from empowering…

— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) December 18, 2025

Vincke continues, "Larian's DNA is agency. Everything we work towards is to the benefit of our teams, games, players. A better work day, and a better game. Our successes come from empowering people to work in their own way and bring the best out of their skill & craft, so that we can make the best RPGs we can possible make."

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There have been some mismatched crossovers before, but Sonic Rumble may be taking that to a new level as the King of the Monsters himself, Godzilla, invades Sonic the Hedgehog's new mobile game.

On December 22, Sega and Rovio will unleash Toho's iconic monster on Dr. Eggman's Toy World with a new stage: Godzilla Survival. The goal of that stage is simple. Players simply have to survive a Godzilla attack in the middle of the ocean while running from boat to boat. Trust us, you don't want to be stuck when Godzilla unleashes his atomic fire. Players will only get a single respawn on this stage, so run as if your virtual life depends upon it. Because it does.

Sonic Rumble's free pass will unlock Godzilla and his fellow monster, Fire Rodan, without charging players. However, the premium pass will unlock Mothra and King Ghidorah, and it gives Godzilla his nuclear pulse ability in addition to his heat ray. The RSR Shop will also allow players to purchase Mecha Godzilla and his Absolute Zero blast as well as Destroyah and his Variable Slicer ability.

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Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone has teased what's coming with the 1.7 update for Stardew Valley, such as a new farm type, more social stuff, and "lots more." In addition, the game's creator says we'll get an update about the Switch 2 Edition sooner than later.

On X, Barone responded to a fan asking about any hints for the Stardew Valley 1.7 update. "There will be some more character/social stuff; it's also traditional to add a new farm type," Barone replied. "Lots more, but I don't want to reveal much yet." The upcoming update for the farming/life sim was revealed in August, with Barone noting in September that it's going to take "a while."

there will be some more character/social stuff, it's also traditional to add a new farm type. Lots more but I don't want to reveal much yet

— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) December 17, 2025

Before then, Stardew Valley is planned to get a Switch 2 Edition that will include mouse controls and four-player local co-op. The update will bring GameShare functionality to the title, too, and was scheduled to roll out this fall. For those keeping track, there are only three days left in the fall season (in the Northern Hemisphere), but Barone said on X that he'll "announce something very soon" for the Switch 2 version.

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