Cade Onder

Cade Onder covers breaking entertainment news for IGN with a focus on major gaming franchises and their crossover with film, television, and broader industry moves. He works as a freelance news writer with IGN’s news team, covering breaking entertainment and community stories across gaming and film. His recent work centers on how updates, delays, pricing shifts, and support plans for series like Call of Duty, Destiny and Halo shape what players actually experience, alongside coverage of newer releases such as Valor Mortis. He also brings a wider entertainment lens from years of writing about games and film for large outlets beyond IGN.

Big Franchises and Live-Service Games

Onder spends substantial time on blockbuster shooters and live-service titles, tracking how updates and balance changes affect long-running series such as Call of Duty and Destiny.

His coverage of Call of Duty ranges from ports of Black Ops 1 and 2 to modern platforms and their higher pricing to interviews with developers about the need for better balance in upcoming entries. On the live-service side, he reports on Destiny 2’s final surprises for players and the studio’s plans to scale back support, framing these decisions in terms of community expectations and the future of the game.

He follows the life cycle of new and ongoing games, including delays and expansions that alter crowded release calendars and player commitment. His reporting on Valor Mortis focuses on its short delay to avoid an intense September slate of game releases, emphasizing how scheduling decisions are made around industry traffic rather than purely creative factors. His piece on Crimson Desert’s first expansion highlights how new content is timed and marketed, showing an interest in how developers keep large-scale projects active and engaging after launch.

Onder also looks at how community-created content changes the intended experience of a game, as in his story on Dawnwalker’s most popular mod and how it “completely defeats the purpose of the game.”

That mode of coverage reflects an attention to the tension between design intent and player-driven adaptations, especially in systems-heavy or survival titles. Across these pieces, he treats game updates, mods and expansions as news that matters because they reshape how existing players will interact with franchises they already know.

Industry Moves, Pricing and Platform Decisions

A recurring thread in Onder’s work is how business decisions and platform moves ripple out to audiences, whether in games or streaming.

His Call of Duty Black Ops ports story foregrounds the “high cost” of bringing older titles to PlayStation hardware, framing pricing as a central news hook rather than a footnote. In coverage of Halo, he reports on the cancellation of a new multiplayer project, treating internal studio decisions as a key indicator of where a major franchise is headed.

He extends this lens beyond games to the streaming and corporate side of the entertainment industry. His piece on Peacock’s latest price rise - its fourth increase in four years ahead of inclusion in YouTube Premium - treats subscription changes as part of a broader pattern in streaming economics. In reporting on Square Enix’s response to rumors it might go private, he highlights the company’s explicit denial and lack of current consideration for such a move, making corporate statements themselves the core of the story.

Together, these articles show a consistent interest in how money, platforms and executive decisions affect what content people can access and at what cost.

Film, TV and Character-Driven Stories

Onder’s entertainment beat extends into film and television, often through stories anchored in familiar characters and iconic moments. His coverage of the Snoop Dogg biopic digs into casting choices, including the decision to cast Swayvo Twain, D’Angelo’s son, as the Notorious B.I.G., treating biographical films as part of the same franchise culture that dominates games.

In another piece, he reports on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet finishing its performance capture shoot, bringing game-adjacent production news into his broader entertainment reporting.

He also writes about the storytelling decisions behind major superhero films, as in his article on Avengers: Infinity War and how the directors reworked Spider-Man’s death scene to maximize emotional impact. That piece focuses on the creative process behind a single scene and how small changes alter audience reaction, showing comfort with craft-focused coverage as well as news. Across these film and TV stories, he connects casting, production milestones and creative choices back to the icons and emotional beats that resonate with gaming and comic-book audiences.

Cross-Outlet Entertainment Reporting

Onder’s author bio describes an extensive background covering video games and film at major entertainment sites, including work published by Rolling Stone and ComicBook.com. He has been writing about the entertainment industry since he was in middle school and has moved across some of the largest outlets in the space, building a portfolio that treats games and screen media as parts of the same cultural conversation. That history shows in his current work, where news about shooters, superhero movies, biopics and streaming platforms sits side by side and is approached with the same straightforward, news-first style.

Across IGN and other outlets, his coverage is distinguished by its focus on how news - whether a price change, a canceled project, a casting decision or a new expansion - alters the practical and emotional experience of fans invested in big franchises. Communications from studios, publishers and platforms are treated as central documents of record, and his reporting translates them quickly into clear stories for readers who follow mainstream games and entertainment closely.