Month: April 2020

The popular card game Magic: The Gathering is expanding, with a collective of charming designs now available on the IGN Store. Each design shows off and honours all the brilliant aspects of the famous card game, with highlights including the Magic Pentagram, the tier list, and the various crystal logos.

New Magic: The Gathering Shirts

If you’re a fan of magic, we’ve even got a collection of Harry Potter shirts available on the IGN Store, alongside many other notable movie designs. These include Back to the Future, Men in Black, Jaws, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and many more. Otherwise, you can even find video games designs such as Assassin’s Creed, Borderlands, Jedi: Fallen Order, and Animal Crossing. Keep an eye out for our weekly sales, and make sure to browse the full selection when you get the chance.

Predator: Hunting Grounds only released last week, but the game has already received a new hotfix patch that aims to improve the multiplayer experience and add more polish. The patch notes for the game’s update 1.05 focus heavily on user interface and improving AI.

The update splits fixes into four different categories, which you can see in full below. They include fixes for issues involving customization items permanently showing as new, objectives being made impossible, collision issues, and matchmaking issues. The titular Predator also got tweaks to its thermal vision and a “Target Isolation” prompt.

Predator: Hunting Grounds is an asymmetric multiplayer game from Illfonic, the developers behind Friday The 13^th: The Game. Though the latter game received fairly scathing reviews, it found an audience with fans of campy and over-the-top slasher movies.

Predator: Hunting Grounds is similar in that one player controls the Predator while the remaining players control a fireteam trying to survive as they complete a mission. With a plasma caster, camouflage, and a tactical bow, the Predator has a clear advantage.

Predator: Hunting Grounds 1.05 Patch Notes

General

• Fixed issue with customization items staying marked as new.
• Fixed issue where AI wouldn’t react to footsteps or gunfire in dedicated server matches.
• Fixed issue where certain objectives wouldn’t spawn as necessary for players to complete them.

Maps

• Fixed issue with collision and stuck spots in some areas.
• Fixed UI issues with navigating tutorial menus.

Predator

• Fixed issue with fireteam VOIP bubble showing at any distance.
• Fixed issue with Target Isolation prompt not appearing after cooldown ends.

Marchmaking/Parties

• Optimizations for matchmaking queue times.

A newly discovered species of green pit vipers has been given a very magical, and very apropos, name by team of researchers from India.

In the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution, the research team calls the species, which can be found throughout East and Southeast Asia, Trimeresurus Salazar – after Harry Potter-verse pure-blood wizard Salazar Slytherin.

One of the four founders of Hogwarts — along with Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Godric Gryffindor — Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth (he could speak snake) and a Legilimens (mind reader). He was the noble founder of House Slytherin.

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Trimeresurus Salazar, as one of the 48 species of this genus found in the region, is notable due to the orange-reddish stripe found on the side of the head in males. The researchers use “Salazar’s pit viper” as a nickname.

Speaking of the Potter-verse, Fantastic Beasts actor Dan Fogler said that the third installment of the prequel series will feature some “epic battle scenes.” The production on the third movie however, like every other movie and TV show shoot right now, has been delayed due to the pandemic.

This production halt is not Fantastic Beasts 3’s first schedule setback. Filming was postponed in 2019 after it was determined additional pre-production for the movie needed. That’s when the movie’s new release date of November 12, 2021, was announced.

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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.

April 26 is Alien Day, a fan holiday created to honor the legendary science-fiction horror franchise, and D3 Go’s mobile game Alien: Blackout is free to help you celebrate. Available for both iOS and Android, it’s a strategic and tense adventure that differs greatly from the series’ other games.

Rather than control a survivor directly, such as Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda, Alien: Blackout tasks you with guiding them through a damaged space station and away from the deadly, stalking Xenomorph. It also features permanent death for crew members if they’re killed, and you can sacrifice them in order to ensure Ripley survives.

Amanda Ripley previously appeared in Alien: Isolation, a first-person horror game from Creative Assembly. The game’s immersive-sim exploration was mixed with a deadly alien threat that could locate you almost anywhere. Murderous androids didn’t make things any easier. A true sequel has not been announced, though Alien: Blackout takes place after the game’s events.

The last Alien film was Alien: Covenant, released in 2017 as a sequel to Prometheus and retaining some of its cast. Games have released sporadically over the years, and Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski shared back in February that he had been in talks to create a new first-person shooter featuring Newt from Aliens as well as Ellen Ripley. His studio Boss Key would have produced it, though Disney’s acquisition of Fox ended talks.