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Ahead of the launch of Marvel’s Avengers War for Wakanda expansion, I had the opportunity to chat with T’Challa himself, Christopher Judge, and narrative consultant Evan Narcisse to find out what it was like to bring a new Black Panther to our screens. With Judge’s previous powerhouse performance as Kratos in 2018’s God of War combining with Narcisse’s many connections to Marvel – including writing his own Rise of the Black Panther comic book run and working with Insomniac on PS5 launch hit Spider-Man: Miles Morales – it appears a match made in heaven.

It’s a project that both seem to have enjoyed greatly, despite feeling a certain amount of pressure to “get it right” due to the personal connection of the character to both. Here, we talk about what that process was like, get to know this new T’Challa, and what you can expect from War for Wakanda when it drops on August 17th:

IGN: What does the character of Black Panther mean to each of you?

Christopher Judge [CJ]: It’s the first character I ever identified with, the first “superhero” that I ever identified with. It’s kind of the first character that allowed me to dream of greatness, to be great, to dream of things that weren’t the status quo and that it was okay to do so. It was okay to be intellectually brilliant. It was okay to be all of these things that weren’t necessarily being portrayed in any form of media back then. So it really holds a very special place to me.

IGN: He’s a character that over the last few years has just got bigger and bigger in the public consciousness, obviously because of the MCU films. How exciting is it for you to bring your own spin to that character, now he’s as big as he’s ever been?

CJ: It’s incredibly terrifying. With everything that I portray, I’m fine once I’m done. I know I put my all into it and then it’s left to things I can’t control. It’s important to me that people like this character. It’s important to me that people love and are inspired by this character because that’s who he was and is for me. It was much more personal than anything else I’ve ever done.

Evan Narcisse [EN]: I mean, it’s like you said, this character has become a global phenomenon in the last couple of years. I’d even go before the movie, the fact that you can get someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates to write the comic book adventures of this character is a watershed moment. I’m biased, he’s my friend, but it still means something that you can think “oh, here’s somebody who’s made a name for himself writing about history and culture and politics and at a very high level.” You’ve got presidents reading his writing.

Then he says, “but you know what? I’m actually going to f**k around and write these comics too.” That’s meaningful because it says that superhero comics as a genre, as a form, can hold some of these same serious weighty existential questions about what it means to govern, what it means to hold power, what it means to hold onto your culture. He explored all of that through those comics and the movie did the same thing.

What happens as a character evolves – and I’d really start that evolution at the 1998 series written by Christopher Priest – is that you realize that he’s able to embody and Wakanda as a fictional construct is able to embody all these different ideas and questions and explorations about blackness, the black diaspora, colonialism and its legacies, all that stuff. Hopefully, the game touches on some of that too.

We did kind of lean on the same subtext of the character as kind of an anti colonialist superhero. What AIM and Klaw are trying to do with the campaign is a form of colonialism. It’s not all that different from coming in and stealing diamonds, coming in and stealing Vibranium is similar and what it means to face that kind of a threat is something we try to explore in the story.

IGN: Chris, similarly to how you did with Kratos, you’re stepping into a role here where people have this preconceived voice for this character. Chadwick is a voice everyone associates with Black Panther. How do you approach this sort of role? Do you take inspiration or you just try and go completely new with it?

CJ: I said from the outset that this had to be my interpretation of it, not only because of Chadwick’s towering sweeping portrayal, but also this is a different media. This is a different take on it and it’s not at the same stage in T’Challa’s life as the movie was. It had to be approached for me differently. He’s been ensconced as king for a long time, he’s secure in himself, secure in his position, revels in who he is and who and what his country and people are. It, for me, had to be my honest and kind of unfettered interpretation of it. So I just approached it from square one and it had to live as that and hopefully people enjoy it.

IGN: How did that differ from the way you approached Kratos? Was it a fresh start?

CJ: Absolutely. The first thing I did was lose weight because the previous character I played was a big hulking and so, I put on probably 25, 30 pounds of muscle probably. So I tried to strip all of that away in a very short time, not all of it, but I wanted him to be life and agile. And to me, for my instrument to also sound like that, I kind of had to physically be it, so that was along with learning the dialect.

Those two kind of went hand in hand and as I got more agile, so did the lyrical quality of my voice. It really explored different parts of my vocal instrument than I previously ever have. So it was a whole new experience for me.

IGN: We’re obviously living in strange times at the moment to say the least. Were you able to go into the studio and perform this role or was some of it recorded from home or remotely?

CJ: All from home.Well, no, that’s not true. We’d have a few sessions in the studio, but the bulk of it was from home. So it gave me an excuse to have a dedicated home office and studio, which I had been wanting to do for a decade. This gave me an irrefutable reason to actually happen.

IGN: Evan, Chris kind of touched on it there with the stage of life that we find T’Challa at the start of this story. Can you just give a brief introduction to this T’Challa?

EN: Yeah, so this isn’t a coming of age story. This isn’t an origin story. He’s been king, he’s been Black Panther for a while, and he’s confident in his abilities. Like Chris said, he’s been saying all that he’s self-assured and his sense of himself and his sense of Wakanda’s capabilities when it comes to protecting its own borders.

Initially when this threat presents itself, T’Challa thinks, yeah, we got this, we can handle it. It proves to be more persistent than he had planned for, but still, I think even when the Avengers come knocking on the doorstep, he’s like, “We got this, but let’s see what you guys can do. I mean, you came all this way. I’m not going to make you turn around and go back. So let’s see what happens if we let you help us and not, oh, come please save us!”

He’s more aloof, he’s more standoffish, he’s less open to collaboration as a ruler because he hasn’t needed to avail himself of those options up until this point. He’s very much, I think, more self-assured and maybe a little bit overconfident when this all starts.

IGN: So how much of this is an Avengers story, as well as being a Black Panther story?

EN: I think the Avengers have to think of themselves as a collective unit, right? As a team, what does it mean for us to approach this country in this way? Part of that subtext is in there, but also, it’s an ongoing struggle between the Avengers and AIM to control these advanced artifacts and technologies that Monica Rappaccini wants to use in her quest to kind of stave off this nightmarish future that she’s glimpsed.

That’s one of the reasons she wants Vibranium, she wants Vibranium to use it and weaponize it against this coming threat that she’s aware of. I’m trying to not spoil anything for anyone who hasn’t played the Avengers campaign, but there’s a big looming threat that she’s organizing again. The Avengers part of it is, yeah, they want to fight that threat too, but not by stealing Wakanda Vibranium, you’re not going to let that happen.

IGN: Is there a specific comic book run that served as an inspiration? I know you’ve obviously written your own Black Panther run.

EN: Yeah, the folks at the narrative team at Crystal Dynamics have cited Rise of the Black Panther as an inspiration, which is really flattering, but this is really a first contact story, right? So it’s what happens when other people come to Wakanda. There’s been so many of those in the Black Panther’s publishing history, Fantastic Four number 52, where he lures Fantastic Four to Wakanda and he kind of whoops their asses almost entirely by himself.

There’s Reginald Hudlin’s, that first story arc is very much, oh, this country has all these capabilities we never reckoned with. How does the rest of the world reckon with that? There’s a lot of that in Christopher Priest’s run where we have these notions about this small African nation and really, they explode once you come face to face with the reality of what it is.

All those storylines where people kind of come to Wakanda for the first time and get their minds blown were things that we talked about. But also, we also talked about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ run where the idea of Wakanda’s cultural history and national identity gets challenged when a real threat emerges, so that was part of the discussions we had with the narrative team.

IGN: Are you excited about the possibility of working on further Marvel’s Avengers projects? I know you helped with Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and I know Spider-Man is coming to Avengers. Is that something you’re interested in at all?

EN: Without spoiling anything that I may or may not be working on. It’s interesting, I’m kind of being approached a little bit as a superhero whisperer now, on some of the projects that I’m working on, which… I’ve written comics, I’ve written criticisms about comics, I’ve written in games and criticisms about games.

So, yeah, people I think are perceiving me as having certain skills and strengths that they want to add to their projects. It’s a great place to be as somebody who’s loved this stuff his entire life and thought about it critically and mechanically. It’s good to be on the other side of things and helping build the worlds that people get to play through.

IGN: Lastly, Chris, I just want to know how much you are looking forward to jumping back into the world of God of War?

CJ: What world?

IGN: The world of God of War.

CJ: Never heard of it (laughs).

IGN: That’s what I thought you might say. You can’t blame me for trying.

CJ: I can’t blame you (laughs more).

Simon Cardy can’t wait to level Black Panther all the way up to 150 and has all the polychoron in the world waiting. Find him over on Twitter at @CardySimon.

James Gunn has revealed that “there was a time” when he considered making Superman the main villain of The Suicide Squad.

On the latest episode of Script Apart, The Suicide Squad’s writer and director discussed the evolution of his script for the DCEU movie. He revealed that, at one point, he toyed with the idea of pitting Task Force X against The Man of Steel because he felt that it would make for “a very interesting story,” though he ultimately decided to make Starro the movie’s big bad.

“[Starro] is a character I love from the comics. I think he’s a perfect comic book character because he’s absolutely ludicrous but he’s also very scary in his own way,” Gunn said, explaining why he changed direction. “What he does is scary. He used to scare the crap out of me when I was a child, putting those face-huggers on Superman and Batman and stuff.”

Starro made his original debut in 1960s The Brave and the Bold #28, the issue that also introduced comic readers to the Justice League of America. The character’s creation is credited to writer Gardner Fox and artist Mike Sekowsky, though editor Julius Schwartz also contributed, and Gunn thought it was about time that he made his live-action debut.

“I thought he was one of the major, major DC villains that was probably never going to be put into another movie,” Gunn added, sharing his reasoning for putting Starro in the spotlight. “And if they did, they would do it like, the black cloud version of Starro. Not a giant walking starfish, a kaiju that is bright pink and cerulean blue, just ridiculously big, bright bad guy.”

This wasn’t the only reason Gunn crossed Kal-El off his list in favor of the intergalactic starfish. The director recognized some of the complications surrounding Superman’s place in the DCEU. “At the time, there were a lot of questions like, ‘Who is Superman in the DCEU? Is this movie outside the DCEU?'” Gunn said. “I just didn’t want to deal with it all that much.”

For those disappointed about missing out on The Suicide Squad’s Superman showdown, rest assured, Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and co. are set to square off with members of the Justice League, including the Metropolis Marvel, in Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which will be released in 2022 on Xbox Series X, PS5, and PC.

Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf will debut on Netflix on Aug. 23.

A prequel to The Witcher Season 1 that also sets up characters and events that will be important to Season 2 of the Netflix show, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is torn between the franchise’s future and its past. While it’s filled with lore and character building that might please dedicated fans, the split focus keeps the animated film from feeling like a story that can really stand on its own.

Nightmare of the Wolf follows Geralt of Rivia’s mentor and surrogate father Vesemir, who is voiced by Divergent’s Theo James (but will be played by Killing Eve’s Kim Bodnia in The Witcher Season 2). The young Vesemir couldn’t be more different than the White Wolf, a carefree rake who loves showing off, mixing witty banter with swordplay and then regaling ladies with tales of his adventures. James feels like he’s channeling Nathan Fillion’s swaggering Hal Jordan as he exudes a carefree charm, but there’s more than a little cruelty beneath it when he’s dealing with those he doubts have the strength or will to survive the harsh fantasy world of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books.

Vesemir’s path from a lowly servant to a professional monster slayer is told in flashbacks, and writer Beau DeMayo uses the same storytelling trick he helped employ as a writer on The Witcher Season 1, playing with expectations of how much time has passed between scenes based on how slowly Witchers age. The technique is cleverly used here, but DeMayo and director Kwang Il Han are a little too fond of misdirection in a story that tries to deliver plenty of twists but winds up being pretty predictable.

The plot sees Vesemir investigating monster attacks near Kaer Morhen, the mountain stronghold where the witchers of the School of the Wolf train. At the same time, the powerful sorceress Tetra (Sherlock’s Lara Pulver) is urging an attack on the fortress, pointing out that the witchers are magical mutants who don’t seem to be doing a particularly good job of protecting the populace.

Like many prequels, Nightmare of the Wolf suffers from a feeling of inevitability. The film is very similar to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, with two factions that feel threatened and desperate moving closer to direct confrontation. It’s in everyone’s best interest for cooler heads to prevail, but if you know much about the series, it’s clear early on that things aren’t going to work out so smoothly.

Like in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the movie tries to stuff in too many nods to characters and conflicts that will be important later. Some plots, like a scathing indictment of the genocidal war against the elves and other Elder Races, still at least add to the narrative of the film they’re in. The name dropping of major characters appearing in Season 2 of the Netflix show adds little beyond a shallow attempt at hype building.

Where Nightmare of the Wolf does shine is the animation, which allows for storytelling that would be impractical even with the live-action show’s impressive budget. There are some excellent fight sequences that really capture the sword and sorcery roots of The Witcher. Some are riffs on things previously done in the series, like a dizzying fight with portals, but others feel like genuinely novel ways to mix spells, alchemy, and weapons that seem like they come from a deep place of affection for and knowledge of the source material.

The film takes a more is more approach to its action, which doesn’t always work. It’s exciting seeing Vesemir or his own mentor Deglan (Graham McTavish) taking on one or two fierce and wily monsters, but having multiple armies and swarms of creatures in the climax turns the affair into a ludicrous chaotic spectacle that feels more akin to an Avengers film or Lord of the Rings than The Witcher’s grittier tone. For all the carnage, the film’s nature as a prequel takes away many of the stakes if this isn’t your first experience with the Witcher.

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an emotional impact. Kaer Morhan is gorgeous in its full glory, but it’s also a place of nightmares. The sequence showing Vesemir and his fellow recruits undergoing the Trial of the Grasses, the alchemical process that gives the witchers who survive their superhuman abilities, is the film’s most visceral. That’s saying something, since it also includes a spider-like monster crawling out of a woman and the gory dismemberment of multiple children. It provides new lore involving the fate of Kaer Morhan and the origins of monsters, which is sure to intrigue some fans, but is also a little heavy-handed in getting across the idea that man is the greatest monster of them all.

DeMayo plays with the series’ other dominant themes to varying effect. There’s a surprisingly sweet romance that peeks out from all the bloodshed that also subverts expectations for what happens to the people a hero leaves behind when he starts his epic journey. The concept of destiny is also played with here, as various characters question how much agency they’ve had in their lives. There’s even a funny jab at the concept of the Law of Surprise — gifting someone you owe a favor with something you don’t know you have — which is so key to the plot of The Witcher. But the jokes and charm are too often weighed down by the movie’s attempts to hammer home core messages, with characters repeating lines like “a witcher never hesitates” scene after scene.

Moving into a dorm room or college apartment is a big step, even if the actual room is, well, pretty small. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a semi-private bedroom that connects to a shared living room, but odds are you’ll have to squeeze into a single 200-square-foot space that might feel more like a jail cell than your first taste of adult liberation. So while you’re getting settled into your college flat and figuring out your class schedule, don’t forget to get some dorm room essential electronics.

We’re talking about the gadgets you need to preserve your sanity. Sure, you’ll need a laptop, desk lamp, phone charger and mini-fridge. But those tech essentials are table stakes, and not especially fun. Don’t forget the stuff you’ll need to unwind after class and give you a much-needed mental health break after midterms, or you’ll have a one-way ticket to Burnout City.

We’re talking about a TV for gaming, watching movies, and streaming The Boys. Likewise, you might need a streaming media player, gaming console and some headphones so you don’t interrupt your roomie who’s still working on a term project. A VR headset wouldn’t hurt, either. We’ve rounded up 11 of the best electronic accessories to upgrade your college dorm from just tolerable to an oasis from your studies.

1. Hisense 43-inch Roku TV

Best Budget TV

Nothing is quite as essential as a TV; it’s your base of operations for all sorts of entertainment options. Thankfully, you can get an excellent television these days for only a few hundred dollars. The Hisense 43-Inch H4 Series LED Roku Smart TV is a great example; it won’t break the bank but it has a superb picture and a slew of features. This model is not a 4K television, but the 43-inch frame is a great size for the 1080p display, and you won’t have room for anything larger anyway.

The TV has the same superb Roku interface that you’ll find in any Roku streaming media player, and it can run virtually any streaming app or channel, including Disney+, HBO Now and Apple TV. You also get Alexa and Google Assistant for voice control, and Bluetooth support lets you stream music from your phone through the TV’s speakers (which include DTS TruSurround for realistic virtual surround sound, even with just the built-in speakers). It’s also a good choice for gaming, since the set’s Game Mode minimizes lag from game controllers.

2. Roku Express 4K+

Best Streaming Media Player

You can spend more on a streaming media player, but you don’t need to. This Roku Express, new for 2021, does it all: HD and 4K video as well as HDR (high dynamic range) for content that supports it. You might not need all of that, especially if you’re connecting to a 1080p HD television, but the Roku Express 4K+ future-proofs your entertainment for about the cost of a dinner out. It delivers the usual thousands of streaming apps, more than 100 free live TV channels and Roku’s own free streaming channel.

In addition, you get Roku’s superb remote control (which can probably operate your TV as well) and support for all the popular voice assistants, including Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. Roku includes everything you need in the box, including an HDMI cable.

3. Sonos Roam

Best Portable Bluetooth Speaker

A portable Bluetooth speaker is a godsend; you can use it to play tunes around the dorm room or carry it outdoors or to a party to share your music with friends. And you don’t have to spend much to get a good Bluetooth speaker — they come in all shapes, sizes and price points. But the Sonos Roam may well be the best one you can buy. It’s pretty small — you can slip it into your jacket pocket — but has a large, powerful sound thanks to dual amplifiers and the separate tweeters and mid-woofer.

Moreover, it delivers a solid 10-hour battery life and recharges wirelessly with the included magnetic charging pad. It connects via Bluetooth to your phone, of course, and also becomes a part of a Sonos home speaker network, if you have one. Sonos’ Trueplay automatically tunes the speaker for the best sound wherever it’s playing, and the rugged IP67 design means it won’t get damaged if it gets dropped or accidentally dunked in water.

4. Google Stadia

Best Budget Gaming Console

You’re going to want to play games. That goes without saying. But odds are, you won’t have a PS5 or Xbox Series X with you — it’s still almost impossible to find one even if you have the money. And suppose your family isn’t going to let you cart the PS4 off to school with you? The affordable solution: Get a Google Stadia. This cloud-based gaming console essentially moves the GPU upstream, so you can play almost any game you like on your phone, tablet, PC or TV regardless of what kind of specs you have on the inside.

It helps to have really fast broadband, especially if you want to play in 4K. Google recommends as much as 100Mbps, but in practice you can get good results with a fraction of that internet speed. If you want to play on your TV, you’ll need to plug in Chromecast Ultra, and you might want to pick up a Stadia COntroller as well. But you can be all-in for $100, and a $10 per month subscription to Stadia Pro gets you access to free games and the ability to play games in 4K resolution.

5. Oculus Quest 2

Best VR headset

There’s almost no contest: The Oculus Quest 2 is hands-down the best VR headset money can buy right now. It’s wireless — you don’t have to tether it to a PC — and all the sensors and cameras are built into the headset, so there are no “beacons” to mount to your walls. That makes it effortless to set up and completely portable, so you can take it on the go and set up anywhere you can clear the furniture out of the way. Even better, you can use the now-wireless Oculus Link to play PC VR games, like those from Steam VR. It’s the best of every possible world.

The Quest isn’t just convenient, it’s also an excellent gaming platform. The 1832×1920-pixel resolution in each eye isn’t the best that money can buy, but it’s enough to almost obliterate any hint of the infamous “screen door” effect. The 90Hz refresh rate also helps make animation smooth and gameplay immersive. This is the future of gaming, and you can have one in your dorm right now.

6. Nintendo Switch

Best Portable Gaming Console

It’s right there in the name: The Nintendo Switch effortlessly “switches” from being a living room console to a handheld game and back again, and that’s what makes it such a beloved device. If you’ve been living under a rock since 2017, the Switch is built around a tablet-like device with a 6.2-inch, 720p display with detachable Joy-Con controllers on either side. You can play the Switch like a handheld console, or set it on a tabletop with the built-in kickstand and use the controllers in your hand. Or dock it and turn the whole contraption into a home console.

The Switch is a fan favorite — so much so that it spend most of 2020 sold out everywhere. Thankfully, you can buy it again, and take advantage of the 20-hour battery life for mobile gaming, excellent multiplayer and online gaming options, and enormous library of games.

7. Sony WH-1000XM4

Best Noise-Canceling Headphones

Even if you have great bookshelf speakers or a Bluetooth speaker, there are times when you need to take your listening private. After all, you’re going to be around other people on their own study schedule, so having your own headphones is simply the polite thing to do. You could probably get by with some decent earbuds, but nothing beats the massive drivers in full-size headphones. And the Sony WH-1000XM4 is about the best you can buy.

Thanks to generous padding and minimal clamping pressure, these headphones are comfortable to wear for hours at a time. They feature best-in-class noise cancelling and excellent audio quality, and can connect to two devices via Bluetooth at once. A sensor in the left earcup can automatically pause playback when you remove the headphones, or you can simply start talking and the headphones will take that as a cue to stop playing while you’re in conversation.

8. Anker Nebula Mars II Pro

Best Portable Projector

A portable projector gives you the freedom to take your entertainment anywhere — project it on the wall of your dorm room, cart it into the common area, or create an ad-hoc drive-in on the outside of the building. Anker’s Nebula Mars II Pro lets you do all that in a crazy-small form factor; it’s just 5.4×4.8×7 inches and weighs under 4 pounds. Even so, you get a 720p native resolution, a pair of fairly loud 10-watt speakers, 30,000 hours of lamp life and more than 3 hours of battery life between charges.

The Mars II Pro comes with a small remote, but you never need to use it — it’s easier to control the projector with the Anker Connect app on your phone. The Android OS gives you access to all the common streaming apps and you can also plug in a game console or other USB or HDMI devices.

9. Midea 3.1 Cu. Ft. Compact Refrigerator

Best Mini Fridge

Most portable refrigerators are pretty basic, giving you a single refrigerated compartment, sometimes with a tiny freezer section that can do little more than make a tray or two of ice cubes. You can do better for your dorm room: The Midea 3.1 Cu. Ft. Compact Refrigerator looks like a scale model of the one in your home kitchen. It has two separate compartments with independent doors: A fridge and freezer.

Each section has its own thermostat, so you can dial in 32-50 degrees fdoe the 2.2-cubic foot food section and minus 11 to 5 degrees for the 0.9-cubic foot freezer. There’s even a fruit and vegetable drawer plus in-door storage for beverages. It’s still a mini-fridge that stands 33 inches high, but it’s the civilized way to store meals, snacks and beverages.

10. Fluance Ai40

Best Bookshelf Speakers

No matter how good your headphones might be, you won’t want to wear them all the time. A good set of bookshelf speakers is a great solution for a small space like a dorm room or college apartment bedroom, and the Fluance Ai40 are superb speakers, able to fill the room with excellent sound.

They’re not large — each speaker is just 11 inches tall and 7.6 inches wide, but they feature 5-inch woofers and 1-inch tweeters with 70 watts of total power. The speakers sound even better than you’d think they should thanks to Fluance’s use of digital signal processing that plays with your perception of the bass and treble. And you can connect pretty much anything you own to them thanks to Bluetooth pairing and standard RCA inputs.

11. Nanoleaf Canvas

Best Hi-Tech Wallpaper

Have a little extra budget to decorate your walls? Forget about concert posters — it’s the 21st century. The Nanoleaf Canvas is a set of LED-driven, light-up tiles you can position in any arrangement on your wall. They’re fun, artistic, and make a pretty bold statement.

The coolest thing about Nanleaf’s Canvas is that they give you so many options for interacting with what is essentially high-tech wallpaper. Integrated microphones, for example, can listen for ambient sound and reinterpret it visually by changing colors rhythmically — great for playing music. They can also see what’s going on in the room and “mimic” motion with moving colors. When you set them up, you can use an AR app to preview how they’ll look in your room, and removable tape means they’re not mounted permanently — ideal for a dorm room.

Equipping your dorm room with the right tech accessories

You only go to college once — at least, that’s true for most of us — so you want to make the most of it. And if you’re far from home, it’s important to equip your place with enough comfort and convenience that you won’t be missing your bedroom that’s 1,000 miles away when you should be hunkering down for midterms week.

Of course, no one has unlimited funds, so you might need to prioritize your spending. Everyone’s needs are different, but we’d suggest starting with the TV, and building a “dorm entertainment center” around that — as budget allows, add a streaming media player (if you need it), headphones and gaming console. Bookshelf speakers can improve the sound and give you even more listening options as well.

It’;s also possible that you can make do with the streaming video options on your laptop. We think that’s a mistake. It’s hard for a group of people to crowd around a laptop to watch the game, and some streaming options may not be available on your computer. But if you opt for this route, the money you save on a TV can help you get other entertainment gear, like a VR headset or a better gaming console.

Can a portable projector like the Anker Nebula Mars II Pro take the place of a TV? Not really. Projectors work best in almost total darkness, which means you’re limited to waiting for nightfall to catch up on Rick & Morty. A projector is a good “also” accessory, not a primary gadget.