Author: Trafficblast

Fall Guys developer Mediatonic have shared some new lore details regarding the popular battle royale game, and it’s truly a sight to behold.

Senior concept artist Tudor Morris has shared new art for Fall Guys, showing the anatomy of a fall guy. In this cursed image, we can see that a fall guy has a skull similar to a human, but the rest of their bone structure is more in line with a bird. Perhaps the most haunting part of this image is the oblong eyeballs that are disconnected from their eyesockets.

Behold:

Writing on Instagram, Morris assured people that fall guys are “very happy little beans,” even if their anatomy looks like something out of a horror movie.

“Sometimes I like to ruin nice things, and seeing as I’m working on Fall Guys, and I love me some speculative anatomy, I thought I’d post some artwork up for you all,” Morris said. “You have have options for how you interpret this, but I refuse to comment to elaborate:

1) This was a lunchtime sketch that has no meaning and was done as a joke

2) This is a canonical representation of what’s inside a fall guy, we knew from the start that they weren’t as marketable like this so we gave them nice little cuddly suits.”

Fall Guys might be Mediatonic’s biggest success so far–it broke PlayStation records–but it was far from the company’s first release. Before Fall Guys, Mediatonic had released more than 130 games.

For more on Fall Guys, check out GameSpot’s rundown of everything new in soon-to-release Season 2 update.

Sony recent held another big PlayStation 5 showcase, which offered a new look at Spider-Man: Miles Morales. After the event, Sony announced not only is the standalone adventure coming to PS4 and PS5, but that the original Spider-Man will be getting a PS5 remaster with a bunch on new graphical feature. The bad news? You’ll have to buy the game again.

In a situation similar to Control and its next-gen Ultimate edition, Sony is not offering a way for existing Spider-Man owners on PS4 to upgrade their version to the new PS5 remaster outside of buying the game again. In a statement from Sony, the company says the remaster won’t be sold as a standalone, meaning you’ll have to buy the $70 Miles Morales Ultimate Edition to get access to the remaster on PS5.

“There are no plans currently to offer Marvel’s-Spider-Man: Remastered as a standalone,” the statement reads. “Players with a copy of Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4 can purchase Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition to experience Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered on PS5. Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4 also will be backwards compatible on PS5.”

To be clear, you will be able to play your Spider-Man PS4 copy on PS5, it just won’t be the remastered version. That means you’ll miss out on new features like ray tracing, enhanced textures, and more. You’ll just be playing the same game on a console that is able to run it more stability, nothing more.

The situation gets a bit confusing when you take the original Spider-Man out of the equation. You can purchase Miles Morales separately on PS4, which will give you a free upgrade to the PS5 version–but only for the Miles Morales content. If you want the original remaster as part of your Miles Morales purchase, Sony is offering a $20 upgrade, which brings your total back up to the $70 of the Ultimate Edition.

In summary:

• Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PS4 grants you a free upgrade to Miles Morales on PS5 (no upgrade for physical to digital).
• The standard version of Spider-Man: Miles Morales can be upgraded for $20 to include Spider-Man: Remastered on PS5.
• The Ultimate edition of Spider-Man: Miles Morales includes Spider-Man: Remastered, retails for $70
• Spider-Man on PS4 can be played on PS5 via backwards compatibility with no visual enhancements. No way to upgrade this version to the remaster.

This flies against how Microsoft is handling cross-generation upgrades for its first-party titles, which will be free across the board. With Smart Delivery, Microsoft says that players will not have to worry about upgrading their games, with some third-party publishers also choosing not to charge for next-gen upgrades, such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Even The Witcher 3, from 2015, is getting a free next-gen upgrade next year.

That’s not the case for all publishers though. 505 Games announced a few weeks ago that fans of Control will be faced with a similar situation to Spider-Man, requiring the purchase of the new Ultimate edition to get access to next-gen upgrades. Other publishers will charge a fee, such as Activision with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales launches with the PlayStation 5 on November 12. If you’re still looking out for a way to preorder a PS5, check out our pre-order guide for updates.

Hell will soon be revealed for penny-pinchers like me. Doom Eternal is one of the most-acclaimed first-person shooters of the past few years. Now, it appears that the brutal sequel will soon make its way to Xbox Game Pass, based on a tweet from the service’s Twitter account.

As the above reply reveals, futzing with the image in Photoshop reveals an image below the attached email that reads “the slayer is coming.” The Doom reboot series has rechristened the Doomguy the “Doom Slayer” as part of its epic reimagining of the original games, thus suggesting that Eternal will soon come to the platform. Doom 2016 was previously available for Game Pass, but left the service back in May.

Considering that Microsoft just bought Bethesda, the publisher of these new Doom games, it makes sense that this high-profile sequel will come to Microsoft’s flagship games service. (The software giant claims the purchase isn’t about exclusivity, but we’ll have to see about that.) In GameSpot’s Doom Eternal review, our critic Phil Hornshaw called the game an intelligently-designed follow-up to one of the most intense shooters in years.

“Though it can take a bit to get the hang of it, the intricacies of Doom Eternal’s combat, combined with its enhanced mobility and option-heavy level design, create a ton of white-knuckle moments that elevate everything that made Doom 2016 work so well,” he wrote. “Its combat is just as quick and chaotic, but requires you to constantly analyze everything that’s happening in order to come out victorious. Once you get the hang of the rhythm of Doom Eternal, it’ll make you feel like a demon-slaying savant.”

Fall Guys developer Mediatonic is looking for help in naming a new obstacle. The studio posted images of the terrifying spiky beam on Twitter, asking for name suggestions from players.

Names like Thicc Bonkus, Yeetinator, and Sir Yeetalot have already been suggested. The request follows the release of a hammer named Big Yeetus in a recent update to Fall Guys. The hammer appears randomly throughout different levels to send the little bean avatars flying across the map.

This new obstacle looks like it’s a part of a new map. It could be part of the new Season 2 content coming to Fall Guys at the beginning of October. New medieval levels are coming to spice up the current rotation of levels, including knight, witch, and dragon cosmetics.

Fall Guys has been a huge success since it launched on August 4, but Mediatonic didn’t get there overnight. The studio has worked on over 100 other games before they graced us with the game show battle royale. Other games they’ve worked on include Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess, Foul Play, Hatoful Boyfriend, and Fable Fortune.

Developer Tripwire Interactive, the studio behind Killing Floor 2, announced that its shark-RPG Maneater will get a free PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/Series X upgrade when both consoles drop this November.

More specifically, the next-gen upgrade will be available on November 10 for Xbox Series S and Series X and November 12 for PlayStation 5. Things get complicated if you own a physical disc and decide to purchase either the PS5 Digital Edition or the discless Xbox Series S; you’ll have to repurchase the game.

The upgrade features ray-tracing support, native 4K HDR at 60 FPS, and new lighting effects to make shark attacks more gruesome. Tripwire went further to say that the Xbox Series S (and, likely, the Series X as well) will “benefit from increased graphical fidelity and frame rate.” According to an FAQ, this free upgrade is not a separate application or game; anyone who owns Maneater digitally or physically on either platform can upgrade to the next-gen version at no extra charge.

Furthermore, the upgrade supports cross-progression between versions. So, if you own Maneater digitally or physically on PlayStation 4 and upgrade to a PlayStation 5, all your stats, saves, and trophies carry over to the next-gen console. The same occurs between Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X. Tripwire said active subscriptions–PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live–may be required for the transfer to happen.

It’s worth noting that those who own physical copies of Maneater don’t need to worry about the disc being unplayable on the next-gen consoles so long as the consoles have disc drives. Tripwire confirmed in the FAQ that you simply need to “insert that disc into your next-gen console and download the updated game to play.” PC players will get next-gen updates in early 2021. Tripwire said it will share more details on those enhancements in the coming months.

While there’s no confirmation on a release date, Tripwire also confirmed that Maneater DLC is coming. The studio isn’t talking about this DLC or the still-unannounced Nintendo Switch port yet.

Maneater launched on May 22 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It took the internet by storm, becoming one of the most-talked-about games despite the middling reception it received. We scored the game a 7/10 in our Maneater review, saying, “With the sharply written, hilariously delivered narration and story beats to freshen up the experience as you go along, Maneater becomes a goofy, fish-flopping romp, with a good balance of limbs to sever, boats to wreck, and challenging creatures to render into bite-sized chunks.”

Larry Hryb’s latest episode of the Major Nelson podcast brought together Xbox boss Phil Spencer and Bethesda’s Todd Howard and Pete Hines in the first interview since Xbox announced it acquired Bethesda. And while the respective company heads still kept a lot of details close to the chest, there were some details about the upcoming Starfield and what the union means for the two companies.

While Hryb primarily asked his panel of guests about the blockbuster deal where Xbox acquired all of ZeniMax Media — which includes Bethesda and studios like Arkane — Hryb did have a surprise question about the upcoming Starfield for Todd Howard.

Hryb asked Howard if there is any new information the Bethesda game director could share about Starfield, the studio’s long-in-development space RPG. While Howard refrained from sharing too much, he did reveal that the project will be a “major engine rewrite” which will utilize the next-gen systems.

“The people all know me, I like to wait as long as possible to show stuff so uh, we’re closer to show stuff than we were at the beginning of the conversation,” Howard joked.

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Bethesda’s Creation Engine was the focus of some controversy back in 2018 when Howard revealed its next-gen games like Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 would be using the studio’s proprietary game development tool. Though engines aren’t static and are upgraded with new features and tools regularly.

Other topics that were discussed include how the deal between Xbox and ZeniMax even happened, but Xbox boss Phil Spencer reiterated that it was all based on the long relationship between the two companies.

“For us there’s this long-standing relationship of what does it mean for [Bethesda] to build what they’re trying to build on top of our platform that makes, in many instances, us feel like one team,” Spencer said.

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When asked if Spencer had any closing thoughts, he responded, “At a fundamental level our goal with every move that we make at Team Xbox is to enable you to play the games you want to play with the people you want to play with and where you want to play them.”

Spencer added, “I just want people to know that these kinds of partnerships, these kinds of steps whether it’s a technology move or a partnership move with a studio like Bethesda, are all just about furthering our vision there. Of allowing more people to play, giving creators the best place to build the most amazing things they can build, and find the largest audience they can.”

For more on the Xbox ZeniMax acquisition, check out IGN’s top takeaways from the deal, and our special Unlocked discussing the developments.

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Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN.

October is just around the corner now, and that means a new month of events for Pokemon Go. Developer Niantic has outlined some of the activities it has planned for the hit Pokemon mobile game next month, and they include the return of more Legendary Pokemon, a special Limited Research event, and more. Here’s a rundown of the events that are happening in Pokemon Go in October 2020.

October Special Research Breakthrough: Shedinja

Niantic is rolling out a new set of Field Research tasks and rewards starting October 1, and there will be a new Research Breakthrough encounter as well. Each time you achieve a Research Breakthrough next month, you’ll get a chance to catch the Bug/Ghost Pokemon Shedinja.

Legendary Raids

Niantic is bringing more Legendary Pokemon back to Raids in October. Throughout the month, you’ll have another chance to encounter the Legendary birds Zapdos and Moltres in five-star Raid Battles, as well as Origin Forme Giratina. Niantic also teases that a “special Raid boss” will appear during Pokemon Go’s Halloween 2020 event. You can see the full Raid schedule below:

• September 25 – October 2: Zapdos
• October 2 – 9: Moltres
• October 9 – 23: Origin Forme Giratina

Fashion Event

To celebrate The Pokemon Company’s collaboration with fashion brand Longchamp Paris, Pokemon Go is hosting a fashion event from October 2-8. Throughout the week, “fashionable” Pokemon–such as Smoochum wearing a bow and Kirlia and Shinx wearing top hats–will hatch from 7 km eggs and appear in Raids. You’ll also find the following Pokemon more frequently in the wild:

• Mareep
• Skitty
• Roselia
• Kricketot
• Croagunk (wearing a backwards cap)
• Blitzle
• Cottonee
• Minccino
• Gothita

On top of that, exclusive Field Research tasks will be available during the event as well, and you’ll have your first chance to find and catch Shiny Kricketot. The fashion event runs until 10 PM PT on October 8.

Pokemon Spotlight Hours

Every Tuesday evening in October, Niantic will spotlight one specific Pokemon and bonus for one hour. These spotlight events will all run from 6-7 PM local time. You can see the full schedule below:

Date	Spotlight Pokemon	Special Bonus
October 6	World Cap Pikachu	2x catch XP
October 13	Original Cap Pikachu	2x catch Candy
October 20	Shuppet	2x transfer Candy
October 27	Duskull	2x evolution XP

October Limited Research

Niantic is hosting a special Limited Research event on Saturday, October 10. From 8 AM to 10 PM local time, special Field Research tasks will be available, and completing them will lead to encounters with Meowth’s Kanto, Alolan, and Galarian forms. Timed Research tasks will also be available during the event, as will a special box that contains Incense, Pinap Berries, and Lucky Eggs.

October Community Day

October’s Community Day is set for Saturday, October 17. This month’s featured Pokemon will be Charmander, which was the runner-up in Niantic’s recent Community Day poll. If you can evolve the Fire-type starter all the way into its final form, Charizard, up to two hours after the event ends, it’ll learn the Dragon-type Fast attack Dragon Breath.

Halloween Event And More

Niantic has a few other events lined up for Pokemon Go in October, including the game’s annual Halloween event. No date or other details have been announced yet, but Niantic has previously teased that Mega Gengar may make its debut as part of the event. We’ll update this roundup with more details as they are revealed.

2019 was a huge year for the X-Men comic book line. Superstar writer Jonathan Hickman made his long-awaited return to Marvel to take the reins of the X-books and build a bold new status quo for mutantkind. That process began in the twin titles House of X and Powers of X, which established a new mutant nation on the island of Krakoa and revealed Moira MacTaggert to be the most important mutant in history. That paved the way for the Dawn of X status quo and a new wave of monthly comics exploring what happens when mutants finally have a land to call their own.

Now Marvel is gearing up for the next phase of Hickman’s overarching X-Men saga – X of Swords. This massive crossover will link together all of Marvel’s current X-Men comics and chronicle a major war between the X-Men and an army from another dimension. And to fight that war, the X-Men will need a whole bunch of swords.

If you’re hoping to follow along with X of Swords but don’t know where to start or what’s been happening in the X-Men’s corner of the Marvel Universe lately, we’re here to help. Read on for a primer for X of Swords and a breakdown of what books you need to buy over the next few months.

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What Is Dawn of X?

There’s no point in jumping into X of Swords before at least familiarizing yourself with the current status quo of the X-Men franchise, which is dubbed “Dawn of X.” Suffice it to say, a lot of things have changed in the year since Hickman took the reins. You can check out IGN’s full Dawn of X breakdown if you want all the juicy details, but we’ll try to recap recent events as succinctly as possible here.

Basically, everything Hickman is doing with the X-Men line builds out of one major plot twist. Moira MacTaggert, previously depicted as a human scientist aligned with Charles Xavier, was revealed in House of X #2 to be a mutant. And not just any mutant, but one with the power to die and reawaken in the womb with the memories of her previous lives intact. Moira is currently on her tenth life cycle, with most of her past lives spent in a seemingly futile quest to prevent mutantkind from being annihilated by Sentinels. Sooner or later, each timeline culminates with the creation of the unstoppable Sentinel Nimrod and the annihilation of the X-Men.

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Moira was told by the precognitive mutant Destiny that this cycle will end with either her tenth or eleventh life, depending on the choices Moira makes. So facing what could be her final chance to ensure her people’s survival, Moira has launched her most ambitious plan yet. She’s managed to rally both Professor X and Magneto to her cause and helped them establish a mutant nation on the living island of Krakoa (the same island that tried to eat the X-Men way back in Giant-Size X-Men #1). Between that and the discovery of a way to repeatedly resurrect dead X-Men, the mutant race is finally on the rebound. But even with most of the world recognizing the sovereignty of Krakoa, it remains to be seen whether mutantkind can defy fate and finally ensure its own survival.

Sidebar – if this ambitious revamp of X-Men lore has you confused and wondering whether all previous stories have been relegated to older timelines, you’re not alone. We still have many burning questions about Dawn of X and the far-reaching implications of this reveal.

Krakoa has already weathered its first great test with the assassination of Charles Xavier in X-Force #1 (he got better). Now it faces its second test, with Apocalypse rallying the X-Men to defeat an ancient enemy from his own past.

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The History of Apocalypse and Krakoa

Beginning in House of X and Powers of X and continuing in ongoing books like X-Men and Excalibur, Hickman and his collaborators have begun fleshing out the shared history between Apocalypse and Krakoa. While we already knew Krakoa itself is a mutant – a literal living island that can grow, change its shape and even communicate with others – it turns out there’s far more to the story.

Krakoa actually has a sister island named Arakko. Both islands used to exist as a single entity named Okkara, which was home to Apocalypse, his wife Genesis and other early mutants. Okkara was invaded by demonic hordes and split in two by a weapon called the Twilight Sword. Apocalypse and his First Horsemen (who are actually his children) waged a long and bloody battle against Annihilation, a god from a realm called Amenth. While Apocalypse managed to banish Annihilation and his hordes, Genesis, the First Horsemen and the land of Arakko were sealed away in another dimension.

Genesis has been continuing that war ever since, though it’s turned out to be an impossible challenge. It doesn’t help that Arakko’s greatest warrior, White Sword, betrayed his own people and joined with the armies of Amenth. That’s because White Sword’s mutant power makes him literally unable to lose a battle, forcing him to switch to the winning side. Genesis’ only hope now is to send her grandson Summoner to Earth to find his grandfather and bring reinforcements.

As you might expect, X of Swords is shaping up to be one of the most important Apocalypse stories in quite a while. Readers will continue to learn more about his history, his family and his true motivations for throwing his lot in with Xavier and Magneto. While Apocalypse ended his feud with the X-Men after recognizing they’ve become as strong and fit as he always hoped, it’s now clear he also has very personal reasons for returning to Krakoa.

X of Swords or Ten of Swords?

So why is the crossover called X of Swords? While Marvel is still keeping a great deal about this crossover under wraps, we do know swords play a key role in the conflict. The X-Men will need to arm themselves with various powerful swords before they can begin their newest mission. These enchanted weapons all have a connection to Otherworld, the realm from which every member of the Captain Britain Corps receives their magical powers and a key part of the Marvel multiverse. It appears that much of the crossover will actually take place within Otherworld, as the X-Men are drawn into a war between the invading armies of Amenth and Otherworld’s Queen Saturnyne.

Several X-Men already have a longstanding connection to various blades of power. Magik wields the Soulsword, a supernatural blade powered by her own soul. Wolverine, meanwhile, looks to be reclaiming the Muramasa blade, a katana tainted by his berserker rage and capable of killing even those with a healing factor. Rachel Grey is again carrying the Phoenix Blade, a Shi’ar weapon that used to contain a fragment of the Phoenix Force. Gorgon’s sword Godkiller may come in especially handy, as it’s drawn divine blood in the past. Godkiller also has a twin sword named Grasscutter.

Other X-Men have been acquiring swords in the lead-up to the main crossover. For example, Cable now wields the Light of Galador, a weapon treasured by the Spaceknights. As this teaser art shows, plenty of other X-Men will be picking up blades for the occasion, even Professor X himself:

We should point out the “X” in the title should be read as Ten, not the letter X. This story revolves around ten swords and ten pivotal X-Men, though there are more than ten of each in the image above. It may be that only ten of these swords have the magical power Apocalypse needs to save Arakko, and the rest are just fun little bonus swords for extra hacking and stabbing.

However, the title is also referencing the tarot card Ten of Swords, which traditionally represents betrayal, loss and heartache in its upright position and resistance and recovery in its inverted position. It’s not hard to see how those themes tie into the events of X of Swords. Plus, tarot card imagery previously played a key role in Powers of X, all of it connected to the futuristic X-Men from Moira’s ninth life.

The tarot cards seen above feature Rasputin and Cardinal, two genetically engineered “chimera” mutants from Moira’s ninth life. While both characters are now just relics of a dead timeline, X of Swords could somehow integrate them into this new timeline. There have already been signs Moira’s tenth life will take the same tragic turn as her ninth, with Mister Sinister paving the way for the mutant breeding pits and these futuristic chimera creations. We probably haven’t seen the last of Rasputin and Cardinal.

X of Swords: What Should You Read?

X of Swords isn’t structured like most of Marvel’s crossovers events. In the case of something like Civil War, Marvel published a core miniseries featuring the main story beats and further fleshed out that story with a number of ancillary tie-in books. But X of Swords is more in the vein of classic ’90s X-Men crossovers like X-Tinction Agenda and Apocalypse: The Twelve. There’s just one story to follow, and it plays out across all the ongoing X-Men comics in September, October and November 2020.

X of Swords spans no fewer than 22 comics. The story begins in the one-shot special X of Swords: Creation #1 (due out on September 23), before transitioning into ongoing titles like X-Men, Excalibur, Marauders, Wolverine and others. The event will finally conclude in late November with another one-shot special called X of Swords: Destruction #1. The recently released Excalibur #12 and X-Men #12 also serve as direct prologues to the crossover, as does Free Comic Book Day 2020: X-Men #1. You can see the full checklist and reading order below:

At 22 comics and assorted prologue tales, there’s definitely a steep price of entry into this X-Men crossover. If you’re wary of diving in or simply want to wait for reviews before making a commitment, you might be better off waiting for the X of Swords hardcover collection. That hardcover will be released immediately after the conclusion of the crossover on November 24 and will offer a somewhat cheaper alternative to buying the individual issues. Barring that, you can always wait six months for these comics to arrive on the Marvel Unlimited digital service.

But however you choose to read X of Swords, it’s clear this crossover will have a profound impact on the entire line and help shape the future of the X-Men in 2021. The X-Men won a huge victory when they established their mutant nation, and it’s probably all downhill for the mutant race from here.

For more on the world of the X-Men, see how the first WandaVision trailer references another seminal Marvel crossover:

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.