Month: October 2020

Jurassic World: Dominion Shuts Down Due To Positive COVID Tests

Jurassic World: Dominion has had a production shutdown for at least two weeks after multiple people involved have tested positive for coronavirus. This setback comes after the recently reported setback that the movie has been bumped from a June 2021 release date to a June 2022 release date. Filmmaker Colin Trevorrow posted on Twitter about “a few positive coronavirus tests” on Jurassic World: Dominion on Wednesday.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Dominion has “about three weeks left on production,” which might not sound like a lot–but this is not the first time Dominion has seen delays, injuries, and other medical issues. Despite the film’s UK set spending over $5 million on making it safe during COVID-19, actors have proudly posted pictures of their bruises doing their own stunts on a controlled, careful set.

Still, no matter what precautions are taken, it doesn’t change the fact that production during the pandemic comes with obvious risks. The Batman also recently had its COVID cases and delays. The new Dune movie also got bumped from December to October 2021–although in that case, COVID was not explicitly named as a factor.

Dominion will be the third movie in the Jurassic World franchise, following 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Dominion is expected to close out the trilogy kicked off by 2015’s Jurassic World. In addition to Neill, the cast is a mix of earlier franchise stars Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum and series newcomers Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt.

Aaron Sorkin Wants To Make A Follow Up To The Social Network

When The Social Network came out 10 years ago, it’s safe to say that everything about the concept seemed ridiculous. A decade ago, Facebook was still considered just another trivial platform for sharing pictures of your pets and complaining about teachers with fellow students–even the name ‘Mark Zuckerberg’ felt mostly unfamiliar. So predictably, when the first trailers dropped–featuring a slowed down, children’s choir cover of the song “Creep” by Radiohead–there was no small amount of eye rolling going on.

But boy, were we all in for a surprise. The Social Network wound up dark-horsing its way to a handful of Academy Awards wins and nominations and a dedicated fanbase, thanks largely to both the writer/director team of Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher and the stellar performances by leads Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield who took on the roles of Zuckerberg and ex-best friend Eduardo Saverin respectively.

Now, the world is a much different place and the name Facebook carries with it an entirely different weight, something that Sorkin sees some value in exploring all over again. In an interview with MTV’s Happy.Sad.Confused podcast, Sorkin explained that he’d love to team-up with Fincher to make a follow-up to the movie.

“I do want to see it, and [producer Scott Rudin] wants to see it. People have been talking to me about it. What we’ve discovered is the dark side of Facebook,” Sorkin said, but went on to clarify that he’ll “only write it if David [Fincher] directs it.”

Like The Social Network before it, the follow-up would be loosely based on a novel. For The Social Network, it was The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich, which was published in 2009. For the hypothetical sequel, Sorkin would look to the 2019 book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee, who Sorkin has been in contact with.

Whether or not any of this will actually amount to a movie being made remains to be seen, of course. But if it does, we can be absolutely certain that, for better or worse, a Facebook movie would hit different post-2020 than it did back in 2010.

Now Playing: 13 TV Shows Netflix Has Canceled In 2020

Free Pikmin 3 Deluxe Demo Coming To Switch eShop Today, Lets You Transfer Progress To Full Game

Pikmin 3 Deluxe launches on Nintendo Switch later this month, but players will have a chance to sample it before then. During today’s Treehouse Live stream, Nintendo announced that a free Pikmin 3 Deluxe demo is coming to the eShop tonight, and you’ll unlock some things in the full game for playing it.

If you can defeat the final boss at the end of the demo, you’ll unlock the Ultra-Spicy difficulty in the full version of Pikmin 3 Deluxe right from the outset. Ultra-Spicy is a brand-new difficulty option for Pikmin veterans that caps your Pikmin field limit at 60, making the experience more challenging.

Additionally, Nintendo has confirmed that the Pikmin 3 Deluxe demo allows you to carry over your save data to the full game, so you’ll be able to pick up where you left off when it launches.

We learned a few other new details about Pikmin 3 Deluxe during the Treehouse Live stream. Nintendo confirmed that motion controls and pointer functionality will return as optional control methods. The company also showed off some new features being introduced in this Switch version, including the Piklopedia–which catalogues all the enemies you’ve defeated–and the new side story missions starring Olimar and Louie.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe launches on October 30. You can learn more about the game in our Pikmin 3 Deluxe preorder guide.

That wasn’t all that we saw during the Treehouse Live stream. As advertised, the company also showcased more of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the upcoming Dynasty Warriors-style prequel to Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The segment gave us a closer look at some of the playable characters in the game, including Urbosa, Zelda herself, and young Impa.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity Has Very Similar Map To Zelda: Breath Of The Wild’s

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity borrows several elements from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and the prequel game doesn’t stop at just its characters or art style. The Breath of the Wild map has made the jump to the new game, and some of the attacks at your disposal will look very familiar.

Showcased during a Nintendo Treehouse Live gameplay presentation on October 7, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity includes a rune system that uses multiple abilities directly lifted from Breath of the Wild. They include a stasis move for freezing targets in midair and the ability to summon blocks to redirect enemies or deal massive damage. Zelda herself makes heavy use of the runes for her combat style.

Other playable characters featured in the gameplay footage include Urbosa, who is playable for the first time ever, as well as Impa. While Urbosa makes heavy use of lightning attacks and can even recharge her weapons after a perfect combo, Impa uses ninja-like abilities and can summon a powerful frog.

You’ll select your stage from a map that is basically identical to the one in Breath of the Wild. It’s far different from what other Warriors games have used, but it should help Zelda fans feel right at home.

Resources remain a huge component in Age of Calamity, and they’re used for everything from accessing new areas to building weapons, and even cooking. Yes, you can learn new recipes for powerful buffs in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Would it really be a Breath of the Wild prequel without this? One resource you won’t have to worry about are breakable weapons, as they are invulnerable this time around.

Nintendo promised during the stream that we’ll also get to learn more about the backstories of certain characters, as well as their relationships that weren’t thoroughly examined in Breath of the Wild. This includes how Urbosa and Zelda’s late mother knew each other.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity releases exclusively for Nintendo Switch on November 20. If you preorder the game at GameStop, you’ll get a cute little Guardian keychain.

Now Playing: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity – 25 Minute Gameplay Demo With Nintendo Treehouse

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Universal Studios Japan’s Super Nintendo World Now Plans to Open Spring 2021

Super Nintendo World is reportedly now planning to open in Spring 2021 at Universal Studios Japan.

Pop culture website Kai-You reports that the Super Mario-themed theme park is planning to open early next year. Super Nintendo World’s was supposed to open in July 2020, but its launch was indefinitely delayed back in June 2020 in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Kotaku‘s Brian Ashcraft suggests that the opening date for Super Nintendo World may be April 2021, due to the fact that this is when the country is currently considering removing its entry ban for tourists.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2017/06/08/super-nintendo-world-japan-teaser-trailer”]

The Kai-You report also reveals the ‘Mario Cafe & Store,’ which will apparently open prior to the official launch of the theme park – in its Hollywood Boulevard area – offering Nintendo merchandise and themed food and drinks.

Some of the images shown offer a glimpse at the confectionary, including a pancake sandwich shaped like Mario and Luigi’s iconic caps, a Super Mushroom cup and a set of themed Mario Brothers drinks with cute straws that make it look like you’ve got the face furniture made famous by the moustached plumbers.

Check out these images to see some of the theme park’s areas, courtesy of a Japanese photographer who captured the shots during the theme park’s construction.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer. Follow him on Twitter.

The Witcher: First Look at Anya Chalotra as Yennefer in Season 2

Netflix has revealed the first official look for Anya Chalotra as Yennefer in The Witcher Season 2.

The two new photos were shared to The Witcher’s official Twitter account on Wednesday in a tweet that teases Yen’s return in the upcoming season. The verse accompanying the first-look images reads: “She used her full might, and the battlefield burned. Then she vanished from sight, but Yen will return.”

Yennefer First Look Season 2

Yennfer Season 2

The photos were also posted on the show’s official Instagram page, with a caption to assure fans that Yennefer is “out there somewhere.” The last time that we saw Yennefer, she had unleashed her fire and roasted most of the Nilfgaardian troops at The Battle of Sodden Hill. Now she appears to be paying the price for her actions, as her face is bloodied and her hands are bound in her Season 2 character photos.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/12/19/the-witcher-how-magic-works-for-geralt-and-yennefer-ign-first”]

Yennefer’s storyline in Season 1 spanned about 70 years, and even though she had her time at court and had many lovers, she ultimately found that her life was unfulfilled. Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich previously told IGN that she intended to deal with all of the “messy stuff” that the character experiences before her transformation.

The second season of The Witcher will finally see all of the characters exist on the “same timeline,” with the show’s “controversial” multi-timeline format being dropped in favour of a more streamlined narrative structure. With this news, a lot of fans are now looking forward to seeing how Yennefer’s storyline could potentially intersect with Geralt and Ciri’s stories.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=the-witcher-netflix-first-look-season-2-images-geralt-ciri-yennefer&captions=true”]

Netflix’s daily teasers of The Witcher Season 2 have already given us a little bit of insight into Geralt and Ciri’s adventures. In their individual character photos, we glimpsed Henry Cavill’s Geralt suited up in his new armour ahead of any training sessions that he might be having with Freya Allan’s Ciri, who looked ready for combat in her official character snaps.

We’ll catch up with all of the characters when The Witcher Season 2 premieres in 2021. Filming resumed on The Witcher’s highly anticipated second season in August following a five-month production shutdown as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Netflix is currently also working on The Witcher: Blood Origin and The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Phil Spencer Says xCloud on Console Is on the ‘Long List’ of Things to Do

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said that he and Microsoft want to bring xCloud to Xbox consoles and PC, but that it is “just a bit further down” a long list of “cool things the xCloud team is working on”.

Talking to a fan on Twitter, who quote-tweeted a post from Insider’s Ben Gilbert questioning why Xbox Game Pass doesn’t stream to consoles and PCs, Spencer clarified that the xCloud team does intend to bring the streaming service to console and PC.

“Yes, we want to do this,” said Spencer. “It’s in the long list of cool things the xCloud team is working on, just a bit further down the list. But we want console and PC players to be able to browse as easily as mobile players, it’s a good game pass feature.”

Currently, xCloud is only available on Android phones and tablets, although internal testing began for Windows 10 PCs earlier this year. It is unavailable on iOS devices due to Apple guidelines that restricts Microsoft from streaming the Game Pass library. But, despite being an Xbox product, xCloud is unavailable on actual Xbox consoles, and so games must be fully downloaded to play.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/05/xcloud-might-be-xboxs-secret-weapon-unlocked-455″]

If or when xCloud does make it to Xbox, it would allow players to sample games before they commit to the download, or play entire games through the cloud.

For more in xCloud, check out our hands-on preview of xCloud.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Netflix’s Godzilla Singular Point Anime Series Coming in 2021

Netflix has announced that Godzilla Singular Point, an all-new anime series centered on the titular famed Kaiju, will premiere on its streaming service in 2021.

Godzilla Singular Point will not be directly tied into any of the other Godzilla-related projects that have debuted on the streaming service in recent years. In fact, the upcoming anime series is set to feature a brand new cast and a completely original story, which will combine hand-drawn and CG animation styles. Check out an early sketch from the show’s character designer Kazue Kato below:

Image credit: Netflix
Image credit: Netflix

Atsushi Takahashi is directing the new anime series, with a creative team that comprises of Doraemon composer Kan Sawada, sci-fi novelist turned writer and editor Toh EnJoe, and Studio Ghibli animator Eiji Yamamori who is creating a brand new Godzilla design for the series. The project is being produced by Bones, the anime studio behind My Hero Academia, in partnership with Orange.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/02/new-to-netflix-for-october-2020″]

Godzilla Singular Point is the latest addition to a growing list of Godzilla titles in the Netflix library, following on from the success of the streamer’s slate of anime films based on the classic Japanese monster, including 2017’s Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, 2018’s Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle, and Godzilla: The Planet Eater.

IGN’s review of Godzilla: The Planet Eater praised the film for providing an “emotionally satisfying conclusion” to an “uneven” animated trilogy. In our write-up, we also gave credit to the final chapter for offering “an emotional payoff and makes the trilogy as a whole much better when viewed as the conclusion of a single, ambitious longform story.”

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=a-visual-history-of-godzilla&captions=true”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Intel Reveals 11th Generation Rocket Lake CPUs, Out In 2021

On the eve of AMD revealing its next-generation Zen 3 CPUs, Intel has officially announced its new desktop CPUs that will be coming to market in early 2021.

The 11th generation chips, dubbed Rocket Lake, aren’t being revealed in detail just yet, with Intel saying more specifications on the new CPUs will be coming soon. In the announcement the company does, however, point to its success with its current generation of CPUs, despite still being built on a 14nm process for desktop chips.

It’s unclear if Intel is finally moving to 10nm for desktop with Rocket Lake and what this might entail for the company’s single-core performance dominance, but the announcement does confirm that the new CPUs will finally add support for PCIe 4.0. This means you’ll be able to run new PCIe 4.0 expansion cards and SSDs on Intel boards soon, after AMD added support for it with its current generation Ryzen 3000 CPUs.

AMD is announcing its new Zen 3 CPUs during a livestream tomorrow, with desktop versions of the Ryzen 4000 series expected to be revealed. AMD has come back in the CPU market in a big way, with a focus on affordable multi-core processors that are exceptional for content creation and only slightly behind Intel on single-core performance for games.

Now Playing: Nvidia RTX 3080 Review

Joker and Hero Amiibo Are Now Available

It seems like a new wave of amiibo used to arrive every few months. Not so anymore. We’ve been waiting for the next set since Dark Samus and Richter arrived in January. Thankfully, the next wave of Nintendo amiibo is now available. It’s a pair of new figures from the Super Smash Bros. series: Persona 5’s Joker and Dragon Quest 11’s Hero.

Both figures are now shipping from a variety of retailers. Here’s where you can grab them.

Joker Amiibo Preorder

[poilib element=”commerceCta” json=”%7B%22image%22%3A%7B%22url%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fassets1.ignimgs.com%2F2020%2F07%2F17%2Fjoker-amiibo1595011159962.jpg%22%2C%22styleUrl%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fassets1.ignimgs.com%2F2020%2F07%2F17%2Fjoker-amiibo1595011159962_%7Bsize%7D.jpg%22%2C%22id%22%3A%225f11f05ce4b0cf6015a1bd0d%22%7D%2C%22url%22%3A%22http%3A%2F%2Fr.zdbb.net%2Fu%2Fbyk7%22%2C%22title%22%3A%22Joker%20Amiibo%22%2C%22store%22%3A%22Amazon%22%2C%22additionalInfo%22%3A%22%22%2C%22ourPick%22%3Afalse%7D”]

Hero Amiibo Preorder

[poilib element=”commerceCta” json=”%7B%22image%22%3A%7B%22url%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fassets1.ignimgs.com%2F2020%2F07%2F17%2Fhero-amiibo1595011176918.jpg%22%2C%22styleUrl%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fassets1.ignimgs.com%2F2020%2F07%2F17%2Fhero-amiibo1595011176918_%7Bsize%7D.jpg%22%2C%22id%22%3A%225f11f06de4b0d73708443823%22%7D%2C%22url%22%3A%22http%3A%2F%2Fr.zdbb.net%2Fu%2Fbyk6%22%2C%22title%22%3A%22Hero%20Amiibo%22%2C%22store%22%3A%22Amazon%22%2C%22additionalInfo%22%3A%22%22%2C%22ourPick%22%3Afalse%7D”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

[widget path=”ign/modules/recirc” parameters=”title=&type=articles%2Cvideos&tags=us-shopping&count=3&columnCount=3&theme=article”]