Author: Trafficblast

The Call of Duty League has announced that the league’s Stage V Major tournament–currently scheduled for Thursday, July 29 to Sunday, August 1–will take place in front of a live ticketed audience.

The Major V event will emanate from Esports Stadium Arlington in Texas, home of the defending Call of Duty League champion Dallas Empire. Fans will be allowed into the stadium for the final two days of the tournament, July 31 and August 1, with tickets on sale now. All 12 teams are scheduled to take part in the Major V weekend.

This marks the first time fans have been able to watch a live Call of Duty event since March 8, 2020 during the league’s inaugural season. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the league to play its matches online, where it has played since–including the first-ever CDL Championship last August. The league’s first LAN event post-pandemic, the Stage IV Major, took place June 17 in the same location with no fans in attendance.

The Call of Duty League’s second season kicked off in February 2021, adopting a new stage-based format with three qualifier weekends followed by a Major tournament. The Atlanta FaZe have won three of the four stages played so far, with the Toronto Ultra’s Stage 2 Major victory being the only exception. The Championship tournament will take place after the Stage V Major, with official dates and times yet to be determined.

Filming has officially begun on the upcoming Ryan Reynolds/Will Ferrell holiday movie, Spirited. Reynolds announced the start of production on Twitter, where he shared an image of himself and Ferrell in frame locked in an epic staredown.

Spirited is coming to Apple TV+. It’s a modern-day musical version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and it also has Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer in the cast. Sean Anders, who previously wrote and directed Daddy’s Home, its sequel, and Instantly Family, is the writer-director on Spirited.

Reynolds will play a Scrooge-like character, with Ferrell taking on the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present, according to Collider. Sunita Mani will play the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Filming is said to be taking place in the Boston suburb of Braintree, according to local media reports.

No release date has been announced for Spirit, nor do we know who else may be in the cast. Holiday-themed movies are enduringly popular, and The Rock is also set to star in one for Amazon called Red One.

A brand new member of the Nintendo Switch family has been revealed, and it’s the OLED Model, featuring a brand new shiny 7-inch screen to use. The new console model is set to release on October 8, 2021 and will cost £309.99. Preorders are currently live at GAME and Smyths, with Amazon expected to go live soon as well.

Amazon preorders will be the most sought after, as Prime members will be able to get free delivery, a contrast to GAME which is charging £9.99 for delivery, or Smyths £6.99.

Where to Preorder Nintendo Switch OLED Model in the UK

[poilib element=”commerceDeal” parameters=”slug=nintendo-switch-oled-model-preorders-hero-uk”]

[poilib element=”commerceDeal” parameters=”slug=nintendo-switch-oled-model-preorders-uk-list&type=list”]

Free Money: Claim £5 for Free at Amazon Right Now

[poilib element=”commerceDeal” parameters=”slug=amazon-hero-daily-deals-2-uk”]

Even post-Prime Day, the Amazon deals just keep coming. If you haven’t already checked this deal out, now is the time. You can currently get £5 in Amazon credit just for signing up for a free Amazon Music trial. It’s for select users only, so click here to see you can get a free £5 Amazon top-up.

If you’re eligible, just sign up for the 30-day Amazon Music trial, then within one week, Amazon will email your £5 reward. It can be redeemed within 30 days of receipt against an eligible purchase of £20 or more. This offer is only available until August 4, 2021, or until the first 10,000 eligible users sign up and claim their credit, so get in now to avoid any disappointment.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. Send him awesome gaming screenshots @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Marvel is notoriously secretive about its cinematic universe, going to great lengths to keep its major projects and plot twists from being spoiled. This apparently extended to the new TV show Loki as well, with multiple main members of the cast claiming they weren’t told what they were auditioning for until they were offered the role.

The same has been said about previous Marvel TV show WandaVision, while even more extreme measures have been taken on the main films, with Endgame stars explaining that they were never even given a full script while filming.

As reported by EW, Loki star Sophia Di Martino, who plays variant Sylvie, had no idea what she was auditioning for when she went for the role. “I didn’t know what the role was, I didn’t know what the show was, I didn’t know anything,” Di Martino explained in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “There was a short scene between two people, ‘Bob’ and ‘Sarah’ I think it was, on a train. It ended up being the train scene between Loki and Sylvie but I had no idea what I was auditioning for… It wasn’t until I was offered the job that I knew what it was.”

Tara Strong, who provides the voice for the TVA’s virtual assistant and mascot Miss Minutes, was also given very little detail for her audition. “Typically you’ll get a drawing of the character, a description, sometimes a portion of the script. I use all that information when I’m doing my audition,” Strong said in an interview with EW. “But when it came for Loki audition, I got an email minus all of that information. Like, I didn’t know what it was for, I didn’t know who this character really was, I didn’t know anything about her world. I remember calling my agent because it was sort of described as an ‘animated Siri-type voice.’ I was like, I’m trying to understand this character. Is she sentient? And they were like, ‘We don’t really know.'”

Wunmi Mosaku, who plays the TVA’s Hunter B-15, also related a similar story in an interview with Collider. “I got the call saying I had been offered a part in Loki, but I hadn’t known I was auditioning for Loki, so it was quite a shock,” she explained.

Loki is nearly at the end of its first 6-episode season, with the finale due to arrive on Disney+ next Wednesday.

While Minecraft is generally considered a great child-friendly game, a law in South Korea has resulted in the game being blocked off to all players under the age of 19. The ban isn’t anything to do with any of Minecraft’s content, but the fact that an Xbox Live account is needed to play the game.

As reported by gamesindustry.biz, Microsoft recently informed South Korean players that they would need an Xbox Live account to continue playing Minecraft, with accounts only able to be made for people over the age of 19.

The age restriction is due to a controversial South Korean “shutdown law,” which prohibits children from playing games between midnight and 6am. The law has been in place since 2011. While some game providers have implemented technical solutions to prevent minors from playing their games between these hours, Microsoft instead chose to restrict all Xbox Live accounts for people under the age of 19. Until now, users have been able to sidestep that restriction by logging into Minecraft with a Mojang account instead.

As explained by industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, the law was controversial even before the Minecraft news, and there are movements dedicated to having it removed or amended. Critics of the long-running curfew have questioned how effective the law actually is, with many workarounds available.

The Minecraft restrictions have caused South Korean users to start a petition against the law, reading: “Korea’s game market is at the risk of being the world’s only place where Minecraft is labeled as an adult game.” The petition reportedly had over 67,000 signatures as of July 6, according to Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.

Starting in 2022, all Universal movies, including franchises like The Fast and the Furious and Jurassic World, will head to Peacock after the theatrical window, thanks to a new deal between the streaming service and Universal Pictures, NBCUniversal announced.

“The deal includes an accelerated window that will bring Universal, Focus Features, Illumination, and DreamWorks Animation titles exclusively to Peacock no later than four months following their theatrical debuts,” the announcement says. The way the deal will work, these films will appear on Peacock for the first four months once that theatrical window ends, then head to other services like Netflix or Hulu, and then jump back to Peacock for the last four months.

Right now, the release slate from Universal includes Jurassic World: Dominion, The Bad Guys, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Minions: The Rise of Gru, as well as new movies from Get Out director Jordan Peele and Universal’s DreamWorks Animation studio.

Universal’s F9: The Fast Saga hit theaters last month and quickly became the biggest new movie since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Jurassic World: Dominion is almost a year out, but you can still watch a prologue trailer for it right now. Peacock, despite its 42 million subscribers and massive library of films, lost almost a billion dollars in 2020, and execs are likely hoping this deal will bring in some new subscribers.

Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead hit Netflix earlier this year, and it sounds like the director had a good experience with the streaming giant. His next film, Rebel Moon, will be exclusive to the streaming service, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The story features a tyrannical lord named Balisarius, who threatens a galactic colony, according to THR, requiring a young woman to recruit warriors from neighboring planets to fight off the invasion.

“This is me growing up as an Akira Kurosawa fan, a Star Wars fan,” Snyder told THR. “It’s my love of sci-fi and a giant adventure. My hope is that this also becomes a massive IP and a universe that can be built out.”

The story is reportedly based on a Star Wars pitch Snyder made around the time Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, which put an end to any ongoing conversations about it at that time. Now, Snyder is co-writing the script with Shay Hatten (Army of the Dead, John Wick: Chapter 4) and Kurt Johnstad (300, Atomic Blonde). The director is also producing the movie, once again with wife and producing partner Deborah Snyder, as well as previous Snyder collaborator Eric Newman.

Snyder plans to begin production in early 2022 after spending “the last two or three years building out this universe,” the director said. While Rebel Moon is a couple years out, Snyder’s Army of the Dead is among one of the most-watched movies on Netflix thanks to the 72 million households that tuned in for the film in the first week of release. Zack Snyder’s Justice League hit HBO Max this spring. While about half of its viewers didn’t roll credits on the four-hour epic, it still had some interesting things to say about its heroes.

Image credit: Getty Images/Hollywood Critics Association/Contributor

When it comes to Star Wars movies, we love them, but we kind of know what to expect. Disney’s The Mandalorian showed us that Star Wars still has tons of TV-sized stories to tell, and now our favorite space opera is getting a Japanese touch with the upcoming Star Wars: Visions anime anthology.

During Anime Expo Lite on Sunday, Disney announced a bevy of anime studios hard at work on a series of anime shorts for Star Wars: Visions, which will stream on Disney+ this September. Anime fans will recognize most of the studios in the line-up. Even if they don’t recognize the studio itself, they’ll likely recognize the studio’s work at the very least. These are some of the best known and most talented anime studios currently working in Japan.

There are nine shorts coming in total:

• The Village Bride by Kinema Citrus (Code: Breaker, Made in Abyss)
• Tatooine Rhapsody by Studio Colorido (Penguin Highway, Pokemon: Twilight Wings)
• Lop & Ocho by Geno Studio (Golden Kamuy)
• T0-B1 by Science SARU (Devilman Crybaby, Ride Your Wave)
• Akakiri by Science SARU
• The Elder by Studio Trigger (Kill la Kill, Promare)
• The Twins by Studio Trigger
• The Duel by Kamikaze Douga (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure)
• The Ninth Jedi by Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex)

This concept is nothing new–other Western studios have handed their favorite properties off to anime studios for exactly this purpose. The Animatrix put the world of The Matrix in the hands of people like Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe, while Gotham Knight put studios including Production I.G. and Madhouse in charge of Batman. Halo Legends did the same for Master Chief.

In each case, the studio lets the animators play fast and loose with the particulars of their fictional world in a way that a film never could, giving each of the shorts a unique visual style and tone. Star Wars: Visions looks like exactly that. The production stills shown in the trailer above feature everything from hyper-detailed black-and-white warriors to a bright, stylized Tatooine sunset and a young non-human with long, fuzzy ears.

Star Wars: Visions will release as a single batch of episodes, rather than weekly installments, on September 2, 2021. Also on the horizon for this year is the Mandalorian spin-off, The Book of Boba Fett. Further out, we can look forward to the Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series, a Lando Calrissian series, Mandalorian Season 3, and more.

In this episode of Unlocked, IGN’s Taylor Lyles makers her Unlocked debut to discuss Microsoft’s team up with All-4-One for a neat “I Swear” Xbox All Access remix, revisit the Phil Spencer interview from Unlocked 500, theorize what could be happening with a rumor about Kojima and Xbox Cloud Gaming, and plenty more.

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our new YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. For more on Xbox Cloud Gaming, be sure to check out IGN’s review of the service.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”slug=xbox-cloud-gaming&captions=true”]

You can be featured on Unlocked by tweeting us a video Loot Box question. Tweet your question and tag Ryan at @DMC_Ryan!

For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s developers have plenty of praise for The Last of Us Part 2. In a new interview with The Gamer, co-director Motomu Toriyama expressed his admiration for its commitment to diversity, especially when it comes to its depiction of LGBTQ+ characters.

“The Last of Us Part 2 really delivered on its consideration for diversity,” Toriyama said. “Right down to the UI, and I would imagine that the cost of debugging on that game was massive. However, having achieved that makes it a great game that sets a benchmark for the industry.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/19/the-last-of-us-part-ii-enhanced-performance-patch-trailer”]

Released a little over a year ago — two months after Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s April debut — The Last of Us Part 2 was notable for its complicated relationship between two of its main characters, Dina and Ellie. It also touched on transgender issues in the course of its harrowing journey through the ruins of Seattle.

The Last of Us Part 2 wound up being hailed as one of the best games of 2020, ultimately winning IGN’s People’s Choice Game of the Year for 2020. Its impact has even rippled to Square Enix, despite Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s earlier release date.

“I think that expressing diversity with LGBTQ+ inclusion is an important issue for everyone involved in making content, not just people making games,” Toriyama explained. “In Final Fantasy 7 Remake, we rebuilt the original game using the latest technology, but we felt that it should not stop at the technical side and we needed to update the story content being shown in line with modern sensibilities.”

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”slug=final-fantasy-7-remake-intergrade-screenshots-ramuh-fort-condor-mini-game-nero-and-more&captions=true”]

Square Enix released Final Fantasy 7 Intergrade last month, an upgraded version for the PlayStation 5. Its Honey Bee Inn sequence — which puts Cloud in a dress and features a huge dance number — has been the subject of much discussion among queer commentators. Some have hailed the sequence, while others have called it complicated.

We’ll see if it sets the stage for more to come in Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 (maybe in the Gold Saucer?) In the meantime, check out IGN’s own interview with Toriyama and co-director Naoki Hamaguchi, where we talked about the making of the Fort Condor mini-game, its connections to Part 2, and much more.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN.