IGN’s Best Drama Movie is where we get a little more Serious, with a capital S, and focus in on the films from the past 12 months that are more traditional “awards bait.” Because, you know, as much as we love to watch giant robots beating the heck out of each other, we also are always down for a Joaquin Phoenix mind-warping drama. These are our faves from 2018.
Hugely anticipated video games, some of the most thrilling movies and TV shows in years, exciting strides for comics and anime, and tons of incredible new tech have defined a year full of surprise masterpieces and hidden gems.
IGN’s Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movie category celebrates our nerdy delight over the most out-there films that brought us to other worlds, strange new lands, and, in some cases, familiar if ever-more-weird terrain. Giant robots, flying nannies, and fantastic beasts make up just some of our picks for the best of 2018!
Hugely anticipated video games, some of the most thrilling movies and TV shows in years, exciting strides for comics and anime, and tons of incredible new tech have defined a year full of surprise masterpieces and hidden gems.
IGN’s Best Animated Movie category celebrates the artistry of making the unreal real. Yes, this is what all filmed entertainment does on some level, but animation truly allows filmmakers to unleash their imaginations in a way that “live action” films can’t quite realize. Once audiences accept that what they’re watching is “a cartoon,” the sky’s the limit, and these films all aimed for that limit — and beyond.
Hugely anticipated video games, some of the most thrilling movies and TV shows in years, exciting strides for comics and anime, and tons of incredible new tech have defined a year full of surprise masterpieces and hidden gems.
IGN’s Best Streaming Original Movie category represents the changing way we watch movies these days, as many filmmakers and studios wind up taking their movies to a streaming service like Netflix rather than give it a traditional theatrical release. As the landscape morphs in this way, more and more excellent films are winding up on streaming, which is why we figured it was time to create this category!
Hugely anticipated video games, some of the most thrilling movies and TV shows in years, exciting strides for comics and anime, and tons of incredible new tech have defined a year full of surprise masterpieces and hidden gems.
From the accounts of its creators, Atlas is an absolutely sprawling game. It’s a survival game. It’s an MMO. It’s a pirate fantasy with a ton of sailing. It’s a government simulator with real-time character aging. It has full support for drawing your own pirate flag and painting your boat, which you construct plank by plank.
Listening to Jeremy Stieglitz, Atlas’s director, talk about the game, the amount of stuff that you can do becomes overwhelming. Following the game’s reveal at The Game Awards 2018, Stieglitz told GameSpot about what players can expect in the game, which launches in early access on December 13. It might be quicker to talk about what the developers aren’t planning on putting in the MMO than what they are.
Developer Grapeshot Games is a spin-off team of Studio Wildcard, the developer of Ark: Survival Evolved, borrowing its co-creative directors Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak, and others who worked on Ark. So it’s no surprise that Atlas borrows a lot from Ark as well, refining and adding onto many of its systems and ideas. But as Stieglitz said, Atlas is more MMO with survival game elements than the other way around.
“One thing we like about Ark is the emergent gameplay aspects–what happens when you get a lot of players together and they start doing things that you don’t expect,” he continued. “So we figured, okay, if you get interesting scenarios with a hundred players, what will happen if you got thousand players, or 10,000, or when we ultimately did the math, 40,000, into the same world and have them all interact in ways we don’t predict? And we think that is frightening for us as developers, but also really exciting, and so with Atlas we’ve tried to construct systems that facilitate those kinds of emergent gameplay behaviors.”
A Fantasy Ocean World
You can play Atlas in both first- and third-person, and the MMO side means that there will be quests and objectives for you to complete, Stieglitz said. You play as a Pathfinder, a descendant of a magical realm that formerly existed in the world of Atlas.
“As a so-called Pathfinder, you are the heir to this legacy–it’s actually a fantasy world,” Stieglitz explained. “I would say it kind of takes a page from Game of Thrones, where it’s like similar aesthetics to real history, but its own fantasy background and magic, and history of the world. And so essentially [the players] are all descendants of the guardians of this magic power from the old world, and that world actually existed in the sky hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
“And then a war happened, and all the continents that were floating the sky, powered by magic, essentially exploded, and created all these islands in the water world that existed below. And hundreds of years after that catastrophe, people are starting to branch out again and explore the reformed world on the water.”
That magic power probably explains the Game Awards trailer, which showed a world not only filled with other people, but also fantasy creatures like dragons and krakens. There will be other animals you can find, tame, and breed around the world, too.
Surviving The Seas
So Atlas will have a more traditional MMO questing base, with an overarching story about special people searching after special power. But there’s also the survival side of things, inspired greatly by Ark, that pushes you to explore the world of Atlas and start to take it over. As Stieglitz explained, there are a whole lot of systems in Atlas that are aimed at encouraging players to interact, cooperate, and make each other miserable.
The biggest extension of yourself is your ship. Once you build your first vessel, most of your time will be spent exploring the world and becoming more powerful so you can create bigger, better ships. You can also steal ships from other players–after all, this is a game about being a pirate. You’ll also need a crew, whether one of other players, or AI-controlled sailors.
“You can actually have AI crew [members] that you can command around your ship,” Stieglitz explained. “One of the things we noticed in other games–well, other games being Sea of Thieves–is it wasn’t really easy to play by yourself because you had to do every single thing on the ship yourself. And so that kind of limited the scope of the game for small groups of players or a single player. So we made it possible to recruit AI crew who you have to pay in gold and you have to feed, or they’ll mutiny. They don’t always do exactly what you tell them to do for now, but you can basically put them on your boat at various stations, whether its sails or cannons. And then if you get into the captain’s wheel you can issue them orders or you can even like control them en masse.”
Banding Together
As you explore the world and lay claims to the lands you discover, you’ll be able to set up structures, and those will be things other players can steal as well, just like your ship–although Stieglitz said that since your ship and your territory essentially make up your in-game life, they’ll be difficult and time-consuming to capture. Don’t expect to be boarded and then marooned on deserted islands every few minutes as you play.
There might be a bigger incentive to work alongside others, in groups called companies, than to plunder other players, though. As your territory expands, you’ll be able to control it with NPCs to defend it, and you can even set up taxes and laws for other players who use your territory. Stieglitz said the biggest, most powerful territories and the companies who control them will be featured on a world map on the Atlas website, which may well incentivize other companies to band together to take them on. It’s all about creating chances for emergent, unpredictable gameplay interactions.
“We don’t just want the game it feel like it static, where everything is always the same all the time,” he said. “We want the world to start having its own internal history that the players build.”
There are lots of other systems at play in Atlas, so much so that it seems nearly impossible to balance it all.
“That’s what early access is for, hee hee hee,” Stieglitz laughed. “You get the best testing and balance feedback you could ever have when you have a hundreds of thousands of people tell you their opinion. You just have to find a way to kind of synthesize that into some actual outcome, but it is very useful–it’s the only way to do it.”
After several delays and a change in distribution company, Andy Serkis’s Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle is now out on Netflix. And it’s now clear why it didn’t get a theatrical release: As stunning and well directed as this adaptation of The Jungle Book is, there is no way parents would have allowed their kids to see this. Andy Serkis was crazy to make a gritty and bloody adaptation, and it is insane that it was rated PG-13, but that’s exactly what makes this version entertaining. Prepare for a whole new generation to be traumatized by what looks like a children’s movie.
From the opening scene, Mowgli wants us to know this will not be the sweet, funny, sing-along version of the tale you’re used to. We begin with the brutal murder of Mowgli’s parents at the claws of the man-eating tiger Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch, playing an even more evil version of Smaug the dragon). You thought Khan throwing that wolf over a cliff in Jon Favreau’s version was unexpectedly dark? Well how about a tiger jumping at a frightened family and then mauling the mother to death? Worst yet, the murder occurs just barely off-screen to maintain a PG-13 rating, but then when the black panther Bagheera (Christian Bale) finds Mowgli, he’s bathed in the blood of his dead mother. This culminates in a brutal battle that challenges Mowgli’s moral compass, as the film skips the use of fire and goes straight to a ferocious showdown between a tiger and a knife-wielding child. Nothing says kid-friendly like a knife fight!
From there, any similarity with the previous adaptations is just a bare necessity, as we still get to follow Mowgli’s struggle to fit in as a wolf, being bullied by his pack for being different and hanging out with the panther and the bear who talk. Oh, and the kidnapping monkeys are also here, but instead of a jazz number, they try to kill Bagheera and Baloo. Speaking of, this Baloo (voiced by Andy Serkis) has no intention of singing and relaxing by the river, as he is a horribly scarred and droopy-mouthed drill sergeant who mumbles every word like he’s drunk. Bale’s Bagheera also gets a new backstory that reflects Mowgli’s journey, but like everything else in the movie, it’s so grim that any children who witness it will likely never want to go to the zoo again.
Where Disney’s live-action version emphasized Mowgli’s humanity and how it made him special, Andy Serkis and first-time screenwriter Callie Kloves make it a point to show you that Mowgli (wonderfully played by Rohan Chand) doesn’t belong with either man or wolf. For the first half-hour, he only walks on all fours, which makes him slower than all the other wolves in his class (Baloo is also a teacher for the cubs) and puts him at risk of expulsion from jungle school.
Kloves not only shows the dark side of the characters, but most specifically the serial killer in everyone. In a disturbing scene, we see Bagheera training Mowgli to hunt, telling him to show respect to his victim by staring straight into its eyes as the soul departs the body. Oh, and the man-eating tiger? He’s not only obsessed with killing the man cub before he grows to be a fire-wielding man, but wants to straight up mutilate him. Shere Khan taunts Mowgli by repeatedly telling him how he wants to drink his blood–“The man cub’s blood will run down my chin!”–and how he loved the taste of his mother’s blood.
Andy Serkis proves he’s not only adept at doing motion-capture, but he’s also determined to push the limits of technology to tell a story. He moves the camera in impossible angles, down cliffs and through caves. One highlight of the film involves Mowgli hiding in a lake, before looking up at the surface to find a blood-soaked Khan, as the water he drinks turns crimson red. Unfortunately, Serkis pushes too far into showing the performances from his cast of A-list actors. Not only does the CGI often dive into “uncanny valley” territory of real-but-not-quite with the facial animation, but the landscapes look rough at times.
The weakest part of Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle is that it must follow the established plot points we already know by heart. While the tone and some of the characterizations are different enough to justify the retelling, it isn’t until the 1-hour mark (Mowgli going to the human village) that the film finally shines and proves that it has something new to say. After Mowgli gets to the village, he befriends a British hunter played by Matthew Rhys, who was hired to hunt down Shere Khan. While the rest of the village teaches him about local traditions, dance and food, the hunter teaches him how to throw a knife. While we have seen previous adaptations dealing with Mowgli being a bridge between two world, this film truly shows us both worlds colliding, and how exactly Mowgli connects and saves both. If only the script had dived into this earlier instead of waiting until the last 40 minutes.
It is baffling that this version of Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle ever got made. It is insane that the film got a PG-13 rating. It is mind-blowing that this is actually getting released. But here we are. This film takes too long to get going, and has some uncanny CGI. But it’s also a brutal retelling of a classic story that shows just how dangerous the world is, and how you have to be the same if you want to survive.
The Good
The Bad
Andy Serkis’s directing
Takes a while to truly shine
Strong performances by Rohan Chand and the A-list cast
Treyarch has been rolling out a regular stream of updates for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 since the game launched this past October, but its biggest one yet is set to arrive this week. On December 11, the developer is releasing Operation Absolute Zero, a free series of content updates that includes a new playable character, daily Zombies missions, a revamp of the Black Market, and more.
Operation Absolute Zero will arrive first on PS4, with a PC and Xbox One release set to follow a little later. Among other things, it’ll introduce a brand-new Specialist to the mix: Zero. She’ll be available to use in both multiplayer and Blackout mode once players unlock her by completing tier 1 in the new Black Market, and she can “disrupt and distract enemies with powerful hacking tools.”
Operation Absolute Zero will also bring a new location to the Blackout map: Hijacked. Treyarch says the area is inspired by the classic map from Black Ops II. The developer is also added a new armored vehicle to the battle royale mode called the ARAV. Zombies mode, meanwhile, will receive Daily Callings, new daily challenges that players can complete to earn XP and Nebulium Plasma.
On top of that, Operation Absolute Zero will revamp the Black Market. Treyarch says that progression will be “simpler and more rewarding” following the update, and it’ll introduce “new types of content that have been commonly requested from the community.” Moreover, the developer is adding a new Assault Rifle and a “fast-firing” SMG to the Contraband stream pool.
Shortly after the update, Treyarch is kicking off a holiday event in Black Ops 4, beginning first on PS4 on December 13. The developer is introducing seasonal Special Event tiers and decorations to Blackout mode as part of the event, while Zombies mode will get the limited-time Winter Calling event, which gives players a chance to earn new “seasonal personalization rewards.” You can read more details about Operation Absolute Zero on Treyarch’s official website.
South Korea’s National Assembly recently passed an amendment that can result in players caught boosting in online games getting charged with a two-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of up to $18,000.
As reported by Inven (via Dot Esports), the law is an amendment to South Korea’s Game Industry Promotion Act, which already applied these punishments to crimes related to hacking, the illegal distribution and licensing of games, and more. Boosting occurs when a highly-skilled player in games like Overwatch or League of Legends is paid to artificially boost another player’s ranking by logging onto their account and winning matches for them.
Doom creator John Romero and Romero Games announced Monday on the 25th anniversary of Doom, a free megawad they are releasing for the original Doom, called Sigil.
Sigil is comprised of a total of 18 levels, with nine for single-player and nine for deathmatch that will be released in mid-February 2019. Players must own the original 1993 registered version of Doom to be able to play the new levels.
According to Romero Games, Sigil is the, “spiritual successor to the fourth episode of Doom” and will pick up right where the previous left off.
Two limited edition fan boxes of Sigil created by Limited Run Games will also be available to preorder now up until Dec. 24.
Capcom has pulled back the curtain on a load of new content on the way to its hit action RPG, Monster Hunter World. Along with the “massive” Iceborne expansion, the publisher announced that a new collaboration featuring Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is coming to the game, and it’ll be available early next year.
The famed Witcher finds himself in the New World after being transported by a portal. According to Capcom, players will “get to utilize his signature fighting style” to take on an assortment of Witcher-inspired quests, which will “offer a unique gameplay experience blending RPG mechanics of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with Monster Hunter World’s game systems.”
No further details on the Witcher collaboration have been announced yet, but Capcom says it will share additional information “at a later date.” The crossover event is slated to arrive as a free update on PS4 and Xbox One in early 2019, with a PC release set to follow soon afterward. You can watch the first trailer for the Witcher 3 Monster Hunter World collaboration above.
The crossover event is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of new content on the way to Monster Hunter World. Next fall, Capcom will release the aforementioned Iceborne expansion, a “massive” update that will introduce new quest ranks, environments, monsters, and gear. Iceborne will also add a new storyline that picks up after the ending of the base game.
Before either of those arrive, Capcom will bring back the Kulve Taroth Siege beginning December 20. This time around, the quest will feature a more formidable Arch-Tempered version of the monster that offers a chance to get even more powerful rewards. The publisher also announced it is hosting an Appreciation Fest in January to celebrate the game’s first anniversary. This will encompass new anniversary quests that give players a chance to earn “special equipment.”
In the meantime, there is still time to take part in Monster Hunter World’s current seasonal event, the Winter Star Fest. The event is scheduled to run through December 17 and features “almost all” previous Event Quests, along with a handful of new ones, daily limited bounties, and new hunter and Palico gear to forge.
