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X-Men ’97 doesn’t have to limit itself just to nostalgia for X-Men: The Animated Series. That’s the lesson from this week’s episode, featuring a big tribute to Konami’s X-Men arcade game, a staple side-scroller of any great ’90s arcade.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Eidos-Montréal’s 2018 sequel to Rise of the Tomb Raider, headlines Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass lineup in April. It’s backed by a solid, well-rounded lineup including the likes of Botany Manor, Lil Gator Game, Superhot: Mind Control Delete, Lego 2K Drive, and EA Sports PGA Tour. There’s a little something for everyone!

TV has gotten off to a strong start in 2024. Shōgunis legitimately fantastic, and the kind of weekly watercooler show we’ve been missing as a culture in a post-Game of Thronesworld. Delicious in Dungeonhas stolen my heart and my stomach. TV adaptations of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Gentlemen,and The Three-Body Problemwere all considerably better than I expected. And in the world of cape fiction, Invinciblehas continued its strong run, and the X-Men are back! Even with all that, the year in television is just starting. There are tons of exciting shows around the corner, like Park Chan-wook’s The Sympathizer, Prime Video’s Falloutshow, and new seasons of Evil, Taskmaster,Interview with the Vampire, andDoctor Who.

As if in reward for players’ victorious effort to liberate Malevelon Creek from the Automatons on Monday, Arrowhead Game Studios dropped a fairly significant patch for Helldivers 2 on Tuesday morning with a greatly raised level cap, new planetary hazards, and some significant across-the-board balance changes.

When beat-’em-up action-thriller Boy Kills World comes to movie theaters later this month, it will arrive alongside something of a modern rarity: a day-and-date video game tie-in. In the case of Boy Kills World, which stars Bill Skarsgård as the titular Boy and The Raid’s Yayan Ruhian as his martial arts mentor, the licensed game is Super Dragon Force Punch 3, an original fighting game based on the film.

The early days of 3 Body Problem’s mystery are centered where so many of us find ourselves these days: a video game. This one is, as Jack (John Bradley) describes to Jin (Jess Hong) in the show, light-years ahead of what we know: a VR world where you can really taste, smell, and feel the world (and its many threats). As Hong describes it, those 3 Body game scenes felt “epic” to shoot, thanks to the production design of the world.

After a brutal defeat at Malevelon Creek in early March, the Helldivers have apparently gotten some much-needed redemption. On Monday, Helldivers 2players received a major order to liberate Malevelon Creek from the Automaton menace, and within hours, they won.

I was about 40 hours into my first playthrough of Dragon’s Dogma 2 when a sinking feeling started to settle in. “Wait, am I about to beat the game? Is this the final boss fight?” I thought. Turns out I was, and about 10 minutes into that final confrontation, I pulled the in-game equivalent of the ejection seat lever and quit.

We hope you’re hungry for more Bugsnax, because we’re headed back to Snaktooth Island with a new card game currently being funded through Kickstarter. Based on the adorable, poignant, and occasionally horrifying game from Young Horses, the card game will have players taking on the role of their favorite Grumpuses in an attempt to capture and eat the elusive anthropomorphic appetizers.

The universe of Warhammer 40,000 is filled with brutality, viciousness, and endless war. But while there are plenty of terrible tragedies to mull on, there are still bright points — fantastic spectacles and fraternal bonds. Some fans have started to explore an alternate universe that highlights the more fun and light-hearted dynamics of Warhammer 40,000, while combining them with high fashion. Welcome to the Warp Gala, a red carpet event that takes place in this alternate history.

If you’re looking for a solid 10/10 April Fools’ Day goof, might I suggest playing The New York Times Connectionspuzzle today?

To get free trials to Apple subscriptions like Apple TV Plus and Apple Arcade, you typically have to buy new Apple products. Some phone plans include them as perks, too. However, Best Buy is offering free trials to new and returning customers who have a free Best Buy account.

It’s April Fools’ Day, but this post is no joke: There is a lot of new TV to watch this week. In a lot of ways it’s a showdown of tense situations — “tense,” here, being used to cover things like Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott, in the new adaptation) trying to con his way into high society, American Horror Story: Delicate’s Anna (Emma Roberts) attempting to figure what’s a real haunting and what’s in her head, Mark (Steven Yeun) trying to live up to the title of Invincible while he protects his family, or Larry David (Larry David) just trying to make it through the end of Curb Your Enthusiasm alive.

I never planned to watch Sex and the City. Nothing I heard about the series drew me to it in particular. My main familiarity with it involved being loosely a part of conversations where friends assigned themselves characters, like being “a Miranda” or “a Carrie.” However, on one sleepy Friday evening, my partner had turned it on to watch as they cooked. Content to try something new, I plopped myself down on the couch with a chocolate martini in hand.

If there is one thing better than a monster becoming a friend of humanity in order to wrassle with other, less-domesticated kaiju, it’s two or more monsters becoming friends of humanity in order to… well, you get it. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the fifth film in the MonsterVerse franchise and the follow-up to a movie that saw Godzilla and Kong fight and then hesitantly team up at the end, is poised to take advantage of this fine tradition. One trailer even showed Kong riding on Godzilla’s back! That’s cinema, baby.

Even with Netflix’s recommendation algorithm serving you new movies, new TV shows, and original programming tailored to your viewing habits, the streaming service’s firehose of content makes what’s coming difficult to parse.

For a little while, it seemed like The Walking Dead was eager to use its popularity as a platform to create an entire universe of zombified television. First, there was the spinoff/prequel Fear the Walking Dead, followed by The Walking Dead: World Beyond and then the anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead. Each one intermingled with the original show, but for the most part, they were intent on telling their own stories. Fast-forward to 2024, and the former two series have ended, while Tales got an order for another season last year with no further news.

Sometimes, I do my nails. Sometimes, I paint my minis. And sometimes, I paint my minis while doing my nails. The disciplines of nail art and painting miniatures have a lot in common. They require patience and a steady hand, and they share many of the same tools and materials.

It’s no understatement to say puzzles form the backbone of video games as a medium of entertainment.

The Stardew Valley community might be alive and kicking thanks to the recent 1.6 update, but fans are still excited for the shiny new game coming from its maker, Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone. The next game from the developer, Haunted Chocolatier, is in the works, and it already looks like it will capture plenty of the charms of Stardew Valley.

Dragon Ball’s Goku and the giant radioactive lizard Godzilla have one thing in common: their irrepressible fighting spirit. Both of them have been around for decades, starring in sprawling franchises full of shifting adaptations and overhauls. But in every new incarnation, they’re willing to throw down at the slightest provocation. That means their resumes are filled with takedowns of countless superpowered foes who got a little too big for their britches. The latest Godzilla film, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, takes the comparison one step further, with a plot that feels like a kaiju-sized version of a Dragon Ball story.

Renegade Nell is a puzzle. Boasting the creative pedigree of screenwriter Sally Wainwright (Gentleman Jack) and the talents of a cast of British TV stalwarts, the story of a flame-haired, 18th-century English highwaywoman with the powers of a 20th-century superhero would seem to be a shoo-in for the renfaire bitches (it’s me, I’m renfaire bitches).

Let’s face it: The buzz of FX’s Shōgun on Hulu might have you thinking about reading the books that it’s based on. But, wading through over 2,000 pages in the series is a daunting prospect, to say the least. If you want a more accessible way to consume the source material for the hit TV show, you can pick up an $18 bundle of eight audiobooks that comprise Humble’s Asian Saga bundle.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the original Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.]

Sydney Sweeney is quickly becoming one of the brightest stars in Hollywood, and over the last few years, she’s mostly done it through offbeat, unconventional, extremely entertaining movies. Ahead of the release of her latest movie, the nun-horror film Immaculate, Polygon talked to Sweeney about how she picks her projects, and what it means to star in them versus produce them.

When Stardew Valley first came out in 2016, it was positioned as a Harvest Moon-like. The comparison was the only way at the time to describe a low-stakes farming simulator with a village of locals to meet and perhaps marry. It’s difficult to remember that now, in an era where “cozy gaming” has taken on a life of its own and “wholesome” games have their own showcases with hundreds of thousands of viewers, but Stardew was released into a different world. And then it made this one. Its latest major content release, the 1.6 update, is a testament to the game’s longevity in the genre that it shaped.

April is nearly here and spring has sprung, which means it’s time to comb through the best movies leaving streaming services at the end of this month and plan accordingly.

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

Rocksteady Studios’ Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League got a shot in the arm Thursday with the release of its first season, which notably brings the Joker back to the franchise’s Arkhamverse. Joker is a newly playable character, plucked from an alternate-reality Elseworld, who joins the Suicide Squad on their mission to kill a bunch of alternate-reality Braniacs.

Welcome to the one place your movies are safe: the land of physical media.

Good Smile’s Figma is taking pre-orders for its multitalented action figured based on Link from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch. This 5.9-inch “Link DX” figure costs $115.99 at the Good Smile U.S. shop and won’t be out until March 2025, but it should be worth the wait — and the money. Other retailers are accepting pre-orders, but at a higher cost, in case Good Smile sells through its pre-order supply.

Keychron’s keyboards may not be as flashy as most models from Corsair or Razer, but it can’t be argued that they absolutely nail the basics. If you need a reliable daily driver with some extensive customization options, you can currently pick up the Keychron K8 from Amazon for its lowest price to date. Originally $69.99, the Keychron K8 is available for $56, but only if you click the on-page coupon before checkout.

Amazon’s TV adaptation of the Fallout video game franchise is taking a fresh approach to its source material. Rather than rework an existing storyline from one of the games — or multiple games — it will tell an original story. That means longtime Fallout fans won’t already be spoiled on Fallout, the way that fans of another ambitious video-game-to-TV adaptation, The Last of Us, were.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthposes a ton of questions, and then it doesn’t leave players with very many answers.

In case you’ve been on the fence about buying Star Wars Jedi: Survivor at its usual $69.99 price, or even when it has been slightly discounted, it might be time to take the leap. Today only, Best Buy and Amazon have marked down Respawn Entertainment and EA’s very good sequel on PS5 and Xbox Series X to $29.99, its lowest price ever.

When Polygon asked Cody Ziglar for his favorite Deadpool story, he mentioned writer Fabian Nicieza’s foundational series Cable & Deadpool, naturally. But where he really waxed eloquent was when he talked about one single Deadpool scene in one single issue of Uncanny X-Force.

Technically, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the fifth film in Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse, which expanded into television in 2023 with Apple TV Plus’ Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. While that doesn’t make this franchise as sprawling as, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s still a sizable enough body of work to fill a long weekend of watching for anyone who’s curious about what led up to The New Empire.

Crusader Kings 3’s newest expansion, Legends of the Dead, adds two major elements to the game. The first is a sense of legacy, with individual monarchs forging out their own legends within your greater dynasty. The second is much less magnificent: the introduction of plagues. Surprising absolutely no one, they’re ruining everyone’s day in my medieval kingdom.

When you check into a hotel room, what do you do? You immediately poke around. You scope out the outlets, pull back the curtain, open the closet, see what’s in the minibar, make sure there’s nothing gross in the bathroom. Only when you have a full sense of what’s around you do you sit down and think about unpacking.

When you boot up Dragon’s Dogma 2, you get all the standard boilerplate warnings, a Capcom logo, and then the game’s title screen. Except it’s technically not the game’s name, because it’s missing a 2.

It’s tough to find a portable battery that’s got some speed in terms of wattage, but that isn’t too big. We found one at Amazon that matches this criteria, and thankfully, it doesn’t cost all that much. Zendure’s 10,000 mAh SuperMini X3 portable battery can keep your handheld topped off, be it a Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, or an iPad, without being anywhere near as bulky as any of those items. This battery is normally $49.99, but Amazon Prime members can currently pick one up in silver for just $34.99.

Comedy streaming service Dropout is back at it with a new series that’s set to capitalize on the PowerPoint party trend that flourished during the pandemic and on TikTok.

Baseball season has officially begun: It’s opening day for Major League Baseball. MLB The Show 24, which was released on March 15, celebrated the milestone with an update that went live Thursday morning. It’s, uh, not going well. People on social media and in forums are reporting major issues that make the game unplayable — like frequent crashing and freezing. And then there’s the bugs that are just downright silly, like one particularly funny one that’s causing some players to have big heads and little bodies.

Rooster Teeth may have been shuttered by Warner Bros. a few weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean that Red vs. Blue is going away. The Halo-based machinima web series that started 21 years ago is still getting its previously announced final season, despite its production company being shuttered. The trailer for the last season debuted on Thursday, revealing a release date of May 7.

I’m going to level with you: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire might be the stupidest movie I’ve ever seen. Not the worst movie (that would be Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2), but very possibly the most absurd. I’m ashamed to tell my mother I saw it, for fear of a lecture about how she did not raise a dummy, and did not break her back putting me through school so I could sit through the giant-monkey-and-lizard movie, for money. But unfortunately for her (love you, Mom) she did put me through school to watch the giant-monkey-and-lizard movie, for money. So I did watch the stupid thing. And you know what? I’d do it again.

A few hours into my time with Dragon’s Dogma 2, I was struck by a critical question that appeared simple, but was unusually difficult to answer. It was this: Does the combat suck?

The American Society of Magical Negroes is an uncomfortable film for many reasons — most of them deliberate. The title spells this intention out plain as day. The film’s protagonist, a biracial Black sculptor named Aren (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves co-star Justice Smith), tiptoes through an art gallery — and his own life — as though he were perpetually walking across eggshells, consciously and unconsciously agonizing under the weight and expectations of the white gaze. Incapable of asserting the value of his work as an artist or his worth as a person — or simply unwilling to — he radiates an aura of discomfort that immediately draws the attention of Roger (David Alan Grier), a kindly older Black man who just so happens to be, you guessed it, a “Magical Negro.”

Any adventuring party is only as good as its members, and the main party of Delicious in Dungeon, both the manga by Ryōko Kui and the Studio Trigger adaptation simulcasting on Netflix, is no exception. There’s the awkward leader, Laios, a human fighter; prickly lockpick Chilchuck, a half-foot rogue; the picky Marcille, an elven mage; and Senshi, a hermetic chef and a dwarven fighter.

Sega Europe announced Thursday that it’s selling off Company of Heroes 3 and Age of Empires 4 developer Relic Entertainment while cutting approximately 240 jobs across several other Sega Europe studios.

Brandon Sanderson is one of the most successful and prolific fantasy and science fiction authors of all time, with a devoted following that funded the most successful Kickstarter campaign to date and has pledged over $20 million on Backerkit for his latest crowdfunding effort. His expansive bibliography can make it difficult to figure out where to start if you want to jump into his many worlds and series, so we’ve put together a primer to help guide you through the Cosmere and beyond.

We love movie recommendations here at Polygon. Whether it’s horror, sci-fi, action, comedy, thrillers, or just the best of the year, we’re always trying to introduce readers to new and exciting movies they’ll love. But now we want to find the perfect movie for you. (That’s you.)

Video games get delisted often, mostly for banal reasons like an expired music licensing agreement or a publishing agreement running out. But the recent delisting of Adult Swim Games en masse feels a bit different.

Troubled gaming conglomerate Embracer announced Thursday that it has agreed to sell Gearbox Entertainment, the studio behind the Borderlands games, to Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two for $460 million.

The beloved survival game Don’t Starveis being adapted into a board game. Glass Cannon Unplugged, a studio known for creating tabletop renditions of other series like Frostpunk and Diablo, will lead creation of Don’t Starve: The Board Game in partnership with the original video game developer, Klei Entertainment. The game is set to launch via a Kickstarter campaign “near the end of the 3rd quarter in 2024,” a release said.

One of our favorite gaming monitors is the 27-inch LG UltraGear 27GL83A-B. The reason why we’re reminding you of that is because this monitor currently costs less than it did during one of 2023’s biggest sale events, Prime Day. Originally $299.99, this 1440p gaming monitor has been discounted to just $209.99, presumably for a limited time. While this flat panel IPS monitor has sold for a bit less in the past ($199.99), we’d still recommend giving this deal a look if you’ve been looking to upgrade your 1080p display.

Stardew Valleymight be primarily known as a farming sim where you can also romance the village locals, but there’s way more to do than just plant crops. In fact, there is so much to do that it can sometimes be overwhelming to plan out your days. Do you go fishing or to the mines? Do you stay at home or explore a new island? The best part is that there are a lot of ways to play the game, and none of them are wrong. Some just might be more preferable than others.

Adaptations aren’t easy, and few people in Hollywood know that better than David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. The writing and showrunning duo ran the gamut on HBO’s Game of Thrones, starting off with five seasons of a better and more faithful translation to the screen than anyone could have imagined, before the series slowly went off the rails when they ran out of material. The pair’s new show, 3 Body Problem, proves that they learned a lot from their failures on Game of Thrones — but its struggles also prove that no two adaptations are alike.

The shiny new adaptation of The Three-Body Problem, from the guys who did Game of Thrones, may be the biggest show on Netflix right now, but it’s not the only adaptation that’s worth watching. Sure, there’s also the longer, more thorough and faithful Chinese version of the series, but that’s not the one we mean, either. Nope, instead, the best adaptation of this story comes straight from the animated sitcom Bob’s Burgers.

The hot ticket for fans of cinematic thrills this April is Monkey Man, the first directorial effort from acclaimed actor Dev Patel. The marketing for the film promises exquisitely captured and well-crafted beatdowns in service of an emotionally relatable tale of avenging familial loss. Its other selling point has been the novelty of seeing Patel, an actor who has never been viewed as an “action star” by the public at large despite being an accomplished taekwondo practitioner, stepping into that role on screen for the first time.

A new team-based multiplayer hero shooter starring the superheroes and supervillains of the Marvel Universe is on the way from Marvel and NetEase Games. It’s called Marvel Rivals, and it will pit two teams of six heroes against each other on battlefields like Asgard and Tokyo 2099 that are built around destruction.

PlayStation Plus subscribers’ free Essential games for the month of April are Immortals of Aveum, Minecraft Legends, and Skul: The Hero Slayer, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced on Wednesday. Players can download the trio of games beginning Tuesday, April 2.

Humble is offering an amazing deal for anyone looking to own a pair of excellent tabletop RPGs. Right now, you can get a $25 bundle that combines the core rulebooks plus a generous stack of supplementary materials for both Rootand Avatar Legends, the TTRPG based on Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Fang came highly recommended.

Want to see one of the best comedies of 2024? We’re giving our readers a chance to see the future-cult favorite Hundreds of Beavers! The film already made our list of the best movies of 2024.

The next hero coming to Overwatch 2, Venture, will be playable this weekend for free as part of a limited-time trial that will run from March 28-31, Blizzard Entertainment announced Wednesday. Access to Venture will be free for all players, giving everyone a taste of their kit, which Blizzard also revealed in full.

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey remains one of the greatest space movies, even as we approach the 55th birthday of its theatrical debut. It’s awe-inspiring, full of clever practical effects. It’s also terrifying, both for its disturbing vision of the great unknown and for showcasing the perils of naughty AI that knows too much, decades before it was something anyone truly had to think about. Maybe you’ve seen this film countless times already, or you’re intrigued after seeing the cheeky, yet heavy-handed references to the film in the opening sequence of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that even among the greatest television shows in Star Trek history, most of them take two seasons to stop being kind of bad. Never has that been more true or more excruciating than in the case of Star Trek: Discovery.

Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos are quickly becoming one of Hollywood’s most exciting duos. The pair has already teamed up on two excellent movies, with Poor Things and The Favourite, and now it’s completing its collaborative trio with Kinds of Kindness. The movie’s first trailer was released on Wednesday, and it already looks like a fascinating change of pace from the duo’s previous work.

Workers at Sega of America voted Tuesday to ratify their first collectively-bargained contract with the U.S. arm of the video game company, granting new protections and raises for about 150 full-time and temporary employees.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empiredirector Gil Kenan knows his way around a family-friendly horror movie. Kenan’s first film was the cult-classic animated flick Monster House, a spoopy horror tale involving a haunted house that eats people, and the three young kids who venture into its depths. It’s up there with Henry Selick’s Neil Gaiman adaptation Coraline in terms of how scary it gets while still walking the line of what’s acceptable for a kids’ movie.

Keita Takahashi’s surreal gaming masterpiece Katamari Damacymarks its 20th anniversary this year, and publisher Bandai Namco has done something truly meaningful to celebrate: It’s resolved whatever rights issues were keeping the game’s classic soundtrack album off music streaming services, and republished it. Royal rainbow!

There’s still no word as to when we can expect Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the indefinitely delayed follow-up to 2023’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. There’s still good news for Spidey fans, though: A new short film set in the Spider-Verse starring Miles Morales hit the web on Wednesday.

One of the most iconic parts of Stardew Valley is the absolutely stellar soundtrack, composed by developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone himself. It’s so well known that there’s currently a live concert tour going on, with many performances selling out in mere minutes. If you’re a Stardew Valley fan, chances are you have a favorite track.

Maybe the most impressive thing about X-Men: The Animated Series is how it committed to directly adapting X-Men comics stories — or at least getting as close as the Saturday morning cartoon format would allow. And X-Men ’97, Disney Plus’ new continuation of the classic series, is not shirking that mandate.

Constellation mixes the horrors of space with quantum entanglements on Earth, which is all to say: It gets complicated. After surviving an International Space Station disaster, astronaut Jo Ericsson’s (Noomi Rapace) struggles to comprehend the “hallucinations” bleeding into the faux-normalcy of her domestic world. Which is also to say: It’s a wormhole of complications.

Like many people excited for the newest Stardew Valley update, I rebooted my old save file that I hadn’t touched in a couple of years to get ready for new content.

No one can quite agree on what makes a book unfilmable. Some books are thought to be too boring, plotless, or introspective; others are too interesting, exciting, imaginative, or complicated. The one thing people agree on, though, is that there are some books that should never, ever, be adapted into TV shows or movies. What makes the idea of unfilmable books fun, however, is that once in a while a project comes along that proves everyone wrong and adapts a difficult book into something new and good in its own right, with artistic value independent from the work it was based on.

The Marvel multiverse is going literary.

If you missed out on last week's pre-order deal for Princess Peach Showtime! from QVC, you’re in luck. For a limited time, you can save $10 on the new Nintendo Switch platformer at Woot, discounting its usual $60 price to $49.99.

Every morning when I turn on my computer, I do what everybody else surely does: my Neopets dailies. I spin the Fruit Machine; I visit Coltzan’s Shrine; and most importantly, I go to the Secret Laboratory Ray and zap my pet.