Be sure to visit IGN Tech for all the latest comprehensive hands-on reviews and best-of roundups. Note that if you click on one of these links to buy the product, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.
Best Mobile Game
IGN’s Best Mobile Game category is a celebration of mobile gaming’s greatest hits this year, from massively successful ports that took the world by storm to delightfully weird time-passers and even a heartwarming tale or two.
- See all IGN’s Best of 2018 Awards
Hugely anticipated video games, some of the most thrilling movies and TV shows in years, exciting strides for comics and anime, and tons of incredible new tech have defined a year full of surprise masterpieces and hidden gems.
Best Mobile Game of 2018
Scroll down for our nominees or head to our Best of 2018 Awards hub to see more of IGN’s top picks of the year.
Best Action Game
IGN’s Best Action Game category is a celebration of that sheer tactile energy that only video games can deliver – intense military shooters, high-stakes battle royale, or quick and calculated melee combat. Whether it’s 2D or 3D, our favorite action games are all about mastering skills and battling our way through exciting new worlds with whatever tools or moves are at our disposal.
- See all IGN’s Best of 2018 Awards
Hugely anticipated video games, some of the most thrilling movies and TV shows in years, exciting strides for comics and anime, and tons of incredible new tech have defined a year full of surprise masterpieces and hidden gems.
Marvel Movies Power Disney to Historic $7 Billion Mark at Global Box Office
Disney has topped $7 billion at the global box office in 2018, thanks in big part to its Marvel films.
As reported by Variety, this marks the second time in Disney’s storied history that it reached this milestone, with the first being in 2016 with $7.6 billion earned.
Avengers: Infinity War, which holds the number one spot on the worldwide-grosser list for 2018, brought in $2 billion, with Black Panther and Incredibles 2 earning $1.35 billion and $1.24 billion, respectively.
Avengers: Endgame — NASA Gives Marvel Advice To Save Tony Stark
Even NASA is getting in on the Avengers hype. The American space agency wants to help save Tony Stark from his tough situation in the new trailer for Avengers: Endgame.
Writing on Twitter, NASA offered some advice for how to save Stark. He directed the rest of the Avengers to listen for a signal from Stark saying “Avengers, we have a problem.” But if Stark’s comms are down, what then? In that situation, NASA said it recommends teams on the ground to “use all resources” to scour the skies to find Stark.
Hey @Marvel, we heard about Tony Stark. As we know, the first thing you should do is listen in mission control for “@Avengers, we have a problem.” But if he can’t communicate, then we recommend ground teams use all resources to scan the skies for your missing man pic.twitter.com/zavXrsPljq
— NASA (@NASA) December 9, 2018
Appreciate any help you can provide 🙏
— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) December 10, 2018
As you can see, Marvel Studios responded to NASA’s tweet, saying it appreciates the help. If you zoom in on one of the desks at the back of the picture, you’ll see one of the desk clumps is labeled “Thor,” with the hammer leaning against it. What’s that all about?
NASA explained in another tweet that THOR is an acronym that stands for “Thermal Operations and Resource.”
The THermal Operations and Resource (THOR) officer is truly one of Mission Control’s mightiest heroes. They ensure the operation of multiple @Space_Station subsystems which collect, distribute & reject heat from critical equipment and payloads for the success of the mission
— NASA (@NASA) December 9, 2018
Tony Stark is looking like he’s in a bad way in the new Endgame trailer. The trailer opens with Stark adrift in space with no food or water, with oxygen about to run out. He’s recording a message to Pepper Potts saying he no longer expects to get rescued.
The new Avengers trailer confirmed the movie’s name, Endgame, a title that makes a lot of sense given what is expected to happen after the dramatic, cliff-hanger ending of Infinity War. The massively popular Avengers: Endgame trailer also of course raises a lot of questions, like what happened to Captain America’s beard, how much time has passed since Infinity War, how Scott Lang seemingly got out of the Quantum Realm, and more. Check out GameSpot’s rundown of all the big questions here.
More: Avengers 4: Endgame Trailer Breakdown: Everything We Learned About The 2019 Marvel Movie
GTA Online Update Adding New Arena War Update, And It Sounds Intense
The next big update for Grand Theft Auto Online sounds like an exciting one. The “Arena War” update, as it’s called, will add a competitive mode that sounds very intense.
“Enter Arena War, where ruthless gladiatorial combat meets the bleeding-edge of vehicular modification technology in one spectacular–and highly combustible–competition,” reads a line from Rockstar’s official description.
The event will take place inside the Maze Bank Arena, apparently, and it will see players fighting until the grisly end, apparently. “Sign up and embark on an entirely new career under the stratospheric dome of the Maze Bank Arena, one that involves turning your opponent’s brains into pulp on the steering wheel in the name of entertainment, courtesy of Alan Jerome Productions,” reads another line from the description.
Arena War will add new vehicle types that were custom made for it (check out the teaser image above to get an idea for what to expect), along with seven “explosive” new modes. In the Arena, you’ll earn Arena Points, which you can use to move through the ranks and unlock more “toys,” according to Rockstar.
Arena War arrives in GTA Online for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on December 11. GTA Online is the multiplayer mode for Grand Theft Auto V.
As it always said it would, Rockstar Games continues to support GTA Online even though the studio’s newest game, Red Dead Redemption 2, is out. The western also has a multiplayer mode, Red Dead Online, but it is still in the early, beta stages of its lifecycle.
Elseworlds’ the Monitor Explained: Who Is the All-Powerful New Arrowverse Character?
This year’s Arrowverse crossover, “Elseworlds” (watch the trailer here), will introduce several key new characters to The CW’s shared superhero universe. One of these is the Monitor (played by LaMonica Garrett), an omniscient being who watches over the entire multiverse and whose presence foretells dire things to come for the Arrowverse.
To help get you up to speed on this character and his enemy, the Anti-Monitor, here’s everything you need to know about the Monitor and his role in the DCU.
Note: this article has been updated with a few spoilers for the first two episode of “Elseworlds.”
Snake Eyes: Here’s Why Ray Park Won’t Star in the G.I. Joe Spinoff
Ray Park, known for his martial-arts/action roles such as Darth Maul, Toad and more, won’t be reprising his role as Snake Eyes in the upcoming G.I. Joe prequel spinoff due to his age in relation to the character’s.
Per /Film, producer Lorenzo DiBonaventura was asked about the upcoming movie and if Park would return, saying “Probably not, because we are going to the origin story. As you know in the comic book, you saw his face. And it is, I’ll say, the formation of a hero. So you’ve got to see somebody and it can’t be Ray’s age, unfortunately.”
Park, a 47-year-old British actor, is still regularly featured in films performing martial arts feats. In the two G.I. Joe movies, Park is masked and silent, though a younger actor played the 10-year-old version of Snake Eyes in the 2009 original. The prequel reportedly “centers on the character’s origins where he tries to become a member of the Arashikage Clan,” part of which was shown during the first film.
Disney Movies Have Already Made $7 Billion This Year, Here’s How They Rank
Movie giant Disney had another massive year in 2018. With multiple weeks left to go in the year, Disney movies have collectively made more than $7 billion worldwide. Disney hit the milestone on December 9, according to Variety. This is just the second time ever that any movie studio has reached $7 billion in a year. The first studio to do it? You guessed it, Disney set the record with $7.6 billion in 2016.
The movie industry’s top movies of the year came from Disney. Avengers: Infinity War ($2 billion) was the No. 1 movie of 2018 based on box office performance, with Black Panther ($1.35 billion) following in second place. Universal’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($1.3 billion) was No. 3, with Disney’s The Incredibles 2 ($1.24 billion) at No. 4
Another 2018 Disney movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp, made $622 million worldwide to land at Number 6 for the year. The Star Wars spinoff, Solo: A Star Wars Story, currently sits at the No. 18 position with $392 million. Some of Disney’s other 2018 movies included Ralph Breaks the Internet (No. 31 / $258 million), Christopher Robin (No. 36 / $197.4 million), The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (No. 41 / $151 million), and A Wrinkle in Time (No. 44 / $132 million). These numbers come from Box Office Mojo.
Disney’s movies made the most from international markets, where they collectively pulled in $4.07 billion, with $2.95 billion coming from the domestic market.
Disney has one more very big movie coming up this year, Mary Poppins Returns starring Emily Blunt. The film is due out just before Christmas, and it is tracking to make $65 million in the US for its opening.
Disney looks set to have another big year in 2019. Some of the studio’s announced movies for next year include remakes/reboots of The Lion King, Dumbo, and Aladdin, as well as Toy Story 4 and Frozen 2, to name a few. Star Wars: Episode IX is due out in December 2019. Disney also owns Marvel, and some of the biggest releases from Marvel in 2019 include Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame. So yes, we expect Disney to again do very well in 2019 at the box office.
Destiny 2’s Dawning Cosmetics Are Already Available–Here’s What You Can Grab
Celebrate The Holidays With New Emotes
The Dawning is Destiny 2’s holiday-themed in-game event, bringing a winter wonderland to the Tower. It kicks off on December 11, adding a whole bunch of new cosmetic items to the Eververse store and a brand new kind of Bright Engram–the Winterdrift Engram–from which you can earn new cosmetics.
The coolest thing on offer in this year’s Dawning, though, are multiplayer emotes. These are emotes that go a step beyond the usual dances, waves, and other goofy expressions players can do, to allow you to team up with friends for your emotes. They include fist bumps, chest bumps, and high fives. There’s also a hockey themed emote, Protecting Teammates, that has you throwing down your stick and gloves to get ready to brawl somebody guilty of some unsportsmanlike conduct.
The Dawning hasn’t started just yet, but its engrams and items have come to Destiny 2 a bit early. Below, we’ve compiled all the armor, ships, emotes, and ghost shells you’ll be able to earn during the rest of December.