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Watch Dogs Legion Features UK Rapper Stormzy, Watch Dogs 1’s Aiden Pearce

Watch Dogs Legion is set to release next month, and during Ubisoft’s latest Ubisoft Forward event, it revealed some unexpected news: You’ll be able to play a unique mission starring the massively popular British rapper Stormzy in the game alongside the other characters.

The mission is called “Fall on My Enemies,” and sees you helping Stormzy secure a broadcast to play his music to the people of London. For those unfamiliar with the UK underground rap scene, Stormzy is an outspoken award-winning rapper and songwriter. If you’re not familiar with his work, be sure to check him out on Spotify, Apple Music, or whatever your choice of music streaming platform.

This was confirmed along with the new Play As Anyone trailer shown off during the event. Watch Dogs Legion doesn’t feature a main protagonist, as you are able to make up your roster of characters based on your personal preferences. That includes an army of hacker grandmothers, if you so choose.

The presentation also included information on post-launch content for the game. Watch Dogs 1 protagonist Aiden Pierce is coming back as a unique playable hero in his own story expansion. It’ll be available as part of the game’s season pass, which also contains extra DedSec missions, four unique heroes, and even a digital copy of the complete edition of Watch Dogs 1. The first part of the Aiden Pierce post-launch expansion will arrive sometime after the game’s launch.

Watch Dogs Legion releases on October 29 for Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Stadia, with free upgrades to Xbox Series X/S and PS5 coming once those consoles have launched.

Now Playing: Watch Dogs Legion Aiden Pearce Reveal Trailer | Ubisoft Forward 2020

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The 100 Showrunner Releases Statement on Major Character Death

The 100’s showrunner, Jason Rothenberg, has released a statement on Twitter in response to fan outrage over the decision to kill a major character in the CW show’s seventh and final season.

Warning: spoilers for The 100 follow.

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In the 13th episode of Season 7, aired on September 9, core character Clarke Griffin shoots and kills her best friend, Bellamy Blake, in order to prevent him from giving a vital book to the cult-like Disciples. In the resulting struggle, Clarke is unable to obtain the book before fleeing, meaning presumably Bellamy’s death will not prevent the Disciples learning the knowledge in the book, and so his death is all for nothing.

Fan reaction to the plot point has been negative, with many upset that the show did not fulfill the popular Clarke/Bellamy ‘ship’ that the fandom has popularised over the show’s seven-season run.

In response, Rothenberg issued the following statement on Twitter: “For 7 seasons, The 100 has been a show about the dark things that humanity will do to survive and the toll those deeds take on our heroes’ souls.

We knew Bellamy’s death had to go to the heart of what the show is all about: Survival. Who you’re willing to protect. And who you’re willing to sacrifice.

His loss is devastating, but his life and his endless love for his people will loom large and affect everything that comes after, to the very end of the series finale itself.”

Bellamy, played by Bob Morley, has been a season regular on the show since it began in 2014. The show adapts Bellamy’s character from the books, originally written by Kass Morgan, but his character has altered over the course of the series as the storylines of the show diverge from those seen in the book series. The finale of the final book, The 100: Rebellion, sees Bellamy ask Clarke to marry him, an outcome seemingly many of the show’s fans would have like to have seen.

The 100 season 7 is the final season of the CW’s young adult post-apocalypse show.

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

RoboCop Prequel Series in Development (and It Won’t Feature Robocop)

A RoboCop prequel TV series that will detail the rise of Omni Consumer Products and the company’s Vice President, Dick Jones, is in early stages of development.

Talking to Movieholen.net, Ed Neumeier, scriptwriter of the original 1987 movie, revealed that he is working at MGM on the series. “It has all the cool stuff about RoboCop except no RoboCop,” he said.

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“There’s the idea of doing things about business and law enforcement in the city of Detroit a minute-and-a-half in the future,” he explained. “It would be a way to do all sorts of stories about business and tech, Silicon Valley, corporations, snakes in suits, cops, all that. It’s a wonderful rich tapestry.”

Neumeier seems to suggest that the show doesn’t have a formal green light yet, stating that MGM still needs to find the right partners and produce a pilot episode. But, should everything go head, the show will follow “ the evolution of Richard Jones to Dick Jones, the story of OCP and how the world moves into the future, how the corporate world behaves.”

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He also notes that people don’t necessarily start out as bad guys, suggesting Jones may not be quite the scumbag he was in the 1987 movie when played by Ronny Cox.

The last time we saw the city of Detroit under the thumb of Omni Consumer Products was in the RoboCop remake back in 2014, which we gave a 6.9 in our review back in the day. Hopefully, should this project come to fruition, it’ll fare better than Joel Kinnaman’s Alex Murphy.

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

Xbox Series X Retail Box Revealed

The Xbox Series X retail box art has been revealed.

A listing for the Xbox Series X has been spotted on Canadian consumer electronics website The Source, which features an image of the console’s box alongside press shots of the device. The main image on the box focuses on the grating at the top of the device, and symbols in the corner tout features such as the Series X’s 4K 120 FPS capabilities, the Xbox Velocity Architecture system and the console’s 1 TB SSD.

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We recently learned that Xbox Series X will launch on November 10, 2020, retailing at $499 USD / £449 / $749 AUD. The Xbox Series S was also announced, a less-powerful, all-digital version which outputs at 1440p instead of 4K. The Xbox Series S will retail at $299 USD / £249, with preorders for both consoles kicking off on September 22.

If you’re not sure which console to pick up, check out our article comparing the specifications between the two consoles to help you make that decision. You can also check out the full Xbox Series X games list here, which runs through all rumored and confirmed titles coming to Microsoft’s slate of next-gen consoles.

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

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake Announcement Seems Likely at Ubisoft Forward

A number of leaks suggest that a Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake announcement is likely to be revealed during Ubisoft Forward later today.

A small clip has leaked from the Russian Uplay store, which appears to show remastered visuals from the game ahead of a potential reveal during Ubisoft’s September 10 showcase. Yesterday, fans spotted Prince of Persia motifs and symbols in a piece of promotional art for Ubisoft Forward, and an Amazon UK listing for a ‘Prince of Persia Remake’ has also been found.

All of this evidence suggests that Ubisoft is raring up to reveal a remake of 2008’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, most likely during Ubisoft Forward.

A video surfaced in May showing test footage of a cancelled Prince of Persia pitch from 2012. For more information, check out our writeup here.

If it is indeed real, a Sands of Time remake would likely go down well – back in 2003 we awarded the original a 9.6/10 review, saying it was “a must own — a soon-to-be-classic worthy of a permanent place in your collection.”

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

Separate From Xbox All Access, GameStop Will Offer Installment Plans For PS5, Xbox Series X

GameStop shoppers will have a variety of payment options to choose from while shopping for a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X this holiday season, including a layaway option, third-party installment plans, and a rent-to-own process, according to internal documents obtained by VentureBeat. The expanded payment options were confirmed in GameStop’s quarterly earnings report on September 9.

Here’s a quick overview of the three main payment options:

Layaway: You’ll be able to reserve a console at the store until you pay it off completely, allowing you to contribute smaller payments at a time.

Installment plans: GameStop will offer installment plans with third-party payment services, including Quadpay and Klarna, that allow shoppers to pay off their purchase in four installments over six weeks, with no additional fees.

Rent-to-own: In an internal memo, GameStop said it’s working with a “reputable third-party partner” to offer rent-to-own options for many items, allowing customers to take the product home with them with “minimum upfront money” and pay it off within one to 12 months. You’ll also retain the option to return the product at any point.

Shoppers will also be able to opt for Microsoft’s Xbox All Access plan through GameStop. Available for both the Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox All Access allows you to make payments over a 24-month period, costing $35 per month for the Series X and $25 per month for the Series S. Xbox All Access also includes Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and because of that perk, it’s actually cheaper to opt for the All Access plan rather than buy the console and subscription separately, saving you $59 on the Series S and $19 on the Series X. Xbox Series X and Series S pre-orders go live on September 22, so you’ll likely be able to sign up for Xbox All Access then as well.

Unfortunately, no such payment plan has been announced yet for the PlayStation 5; in fact, at this point, all we know about PS5 pre-orders is that the first round will be available on an invite-only basis exclusively from PlayStation’s own store. We don’t yet have a price and don’t even know when or which third-party retailers will have the PS5 in stock. But in a year where so many people have lost their jobs or had their salaries reduced due to COVID-19, having a wider number of payment options, including Xbox All Access, is certainly a positive thing.

Borderlands 3’s Latest Update Adds DLC Support And Raises The Level Cap

A new update for Borderlands 3 is scheduled to arrive today on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Stadia, and PC. Aside from adding support for the new campaign DLC Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck, the update also addresses general, character, and mayhem fixes.

As part of the new campaign add-on, the Borderlands 3 level cap has been raised by five levels to 65. In terms of general fixes, the update adds two more ammo SDU upgrades for pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, assault rifles, and grenades, plus two expansion SDU upgrades for the Lost Loot machine on Sanctuary III. It also addresses an issue where the “Refill Ammo” prompt would persist in multiplayer sessions, and made sure player class icons will now show profile pictures for Steam and Epic Games Store players using cross-platform on PC.

When it comes to Mayhem, players will now have a chance to redeem themselves in Fight For Your Life when Slayer is active and they’ve killed an enemy with a melee attack. Damage scaling support has also been added to shields with Nova or Reflect behaviors.

The update makes a number of character changes, too, particularly FL4K The Beastmaster. For instance, FL4K’s Headcount passive skill no longer prevents Rakk Attack from gaining the proper number of charges when scoring critical hits. The Beastmaster’s Friend-Bot class mod now increases pet damage as well, and the Dominance skill will continue to damage beast targets throughout its duration.

Full patch notes for September 10 update

New content

  • Added support for Borderlands 3’s forth campaign add-on: Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck
  • Increased the level cap by five levels to 65

General

  • Added two more ammo SDU upgrades for pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, assault rifles, and grenades and two expansion SDU upgrades for the Lost Loot machine on Sanctuary III
  • Addressed a reported concern where the “Refill Ammo” prompt would persist for clients in a multiplayer session
  • Player class icons will now show with profile pictures for Steam and Epic Games Store PC cross-platform players

Mayhem

  • Players will now have a chance to redeem themselves in Fight For Your Life when Slayer is active and they have killed an enemy with melee
  • Mayhem modifiers will no longer change when players join through matchmaking
  • Added Mayhem damage scaling support to shields with Nova or Reflect behaviors

Character

  • Amara’s Ties that Bind augment now only passes gun and melee damages to enemies

Certain types of damage were unintentionally being passed to other enemies caught in the Phasegrasp. This change prevents those interactions, but no other changes have been made to this skill.

  • The Beastmaster’s Headcount passive skill no longer prevents Rakk Attack from gaining the proper number of charges when scoring critical hits
  • The Beastmaster’s Dominance skill will continue to damage beast targets throughout the skill’s duration
  • The Beastmaster’s St4ckbot class mod will no longer reset its damage stack increase when an enemy takes damage from a splash source or elemental damage done over time
  • The Beastmaster’s Friend-Bot class mod now increases pet damage
  • The Gunner’s Drowning in Brass passive skill now applies bonus damage to both of Iron Bear’s weapons, rather than just the left

Hotfixes

To apply hotfixes, wait at the main menu until you see a sign that says “Hotfixes Applied!” If you are experiencing any issues or want to provide feedback, please submit a ticket to support.2k.com.

  • Addressed a reported concern that the Legendary Shotgun The Garcia would fire vertically when being used by the client in multiplayer

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Square Enix Announces Special Nier Events For Late September

Yoko Taro is known for doing things his own way, and the upcoming events in his Nier franchise that were just announced by Square Enix are no exception. The first event is titled “We Have a Decent Amount of New Info” special, and it will start September 24 at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET. Two days later, on September 26, the “Mostly No New Info” special will follow at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET as well. It will be available on YouTube and Twitch.

As the above tweet reveals, several staffers known for working with Yoko will attend the event, including Yosuke Saito and Keichi Okabe. Since the surprising success of Nier: Automata raised Yoko’s profile considerably in the West, the Nier series has diversified considerably, albeit in a rather confusing fashion. These events will likely offer new details on the upcoming Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139…, which is an upgraded version of the original Nier that will be playable on current platforms, like PC, Xbox One, and PS4. (Currently, the only way to play Nier 1 is to dig out your PS3 or Xbox 360, and a used copy of the game is comparatively expensive.)

The announcement also suggests that the event will offer updates on Nier: Automata, which was originally released in 2017, and Nier: Reincarnation, which is an upcoming mobile game with ties to the rest of the series. Over the past few months, Yoko has released a mobile game titled SinoAlice, as well as designing some guest content for Final Fantasy XIV. If you still haven’t played Automata, it came to Xbox Game Pass back in April.

Nier TGS 2020

  • “We Have a Decent Amount of New Info” special airs September 24 at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET
  • “Mostly No New Info” special airs September 26 at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET

Now Playing: Nier Automata 3C3C1D119440927 DLC Livestream

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56 Xbox Series X and Series S Comparison Shots (PS4, Switch, Xbox One X, Xbox 360)

What do you do when Microsoft loans you two for-display-only next-gen consoles? Photograph the heck out of them, of course! While the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S units we received don’t have any silicon inside them, the display units do nevertheless give us a great chance to see the Series X and Series S next to other game systems and finally see how they compare in size and shape to other consoles.

As you can see in the photo gallery below, Microsoft has packed a lot into two relatively small packages. And there are some neat touches you’ll see in the photos as well, such as the tiny “Hello from Seattle” message on the bottom of the Series X’s round base stand, as well as the unique nubs for each port on both consoles that will allow you to better find the correct port you’re trying to plug the cable into when you’re reaching behind the console in your entertainment center in the dark.

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We also finally got a confirmed price and release date for both of the new Xbox systems, along with details on the Series S and news that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will now include an EA Play (formerly known as EA Access) membership as well. Preorders for both the Xbox Series X and Series S begin on September 22.

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Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.