Category: Games

Die Hard star Bruce Willis is apparently the star of a new series of commercials for Russian phone carrier and internet provider MegaFon. Well, except he isn’t… a Deepfake of him is.

As reported by Russia Beyond, MegaFon utilized this face-generating technology to digitally put Bruce Willis’ face over another actor, all while Willis was safe at home in the US. Russia Beyond notes that he did receive an “unannounced fee for the licensing of his facial features and the use of his Die Hard character in the marketing campaign.” Russian advertising market experts estimate this payment could be between $1 and $2 million.

“The image of [Bruce Willis’] ‘Die Hard’ character in the series will be created with the help of the face generation technology, which is based on neural network algorithms. To make this happen, the engineers of the Deepcake studio selected a large volume of photos and videos featuring the celebrity. They had 34,000 units of content which were used by the neural network to create the image of Bruce Willis’ character,” said Vasili Bolshakov, Director for Brand and Marketing Communications at MegaFon.

Bolshakov also notes that using Deepfakes of actors instead of bringing them overseas is a much safer way to do things in a time where the COVID-19 pandemic is still a huge problem.

“We realized that we can deliver high-quality content without becoming hostages of restrictions the pandemic put on movement around the world. The use of technology allows to shoot content faster and cheaper compared to when there is an involvement of celebrities on the set,” said Bolshakov.

You can see the commercial for yourself here, and Bolshakov says that he and his team aren’t trying to mislead anyone with this new project and that he believes seeing Bruce Willis “as we remember him” is a great thing for fans.

“We openly declare the technology we use and do not mislead anyone. On the contrary, we believe that seeing Bruce as [we remember him] from ‘Die Hard’ and ‘The Fifth Element’ in a new role is a great opportunity for all of us,” said Bolshakov.

This particular campaign is said to consist of 15 episodes, and the first one was directed by Russian musician and filmmaker Ilya Naishuller, who also directed the film Nobody.

Deepfakes are nothing new, but they do come with their fair share of controversy, especially when used with deceased people, without proper permission, or by thieves who use it to steal $240,000.

However, using Deepfakes the right way can be beneficial for some, as a popular Deepfake Youtuber called Shamook confirmed that he secured a job with Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic after creating a new take on one of the biggest cameos in The Mandalorian.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding director Hideo Kojima has taken to Twitter to share that he enjoyed 12 Minutes so much that it “kinda makes [him] want to create another adventure game.”

12 Minutes is a time-loop mystery adventure game starring Willem Dafoe, James McAvoy, and Daisy Ridley that had Kojima saying he hasn’t “been into a game this much since INSIDE.”

“Once you get used to the overhead view and the controls, you won’t mind. It’s a game using intelligence. It’s like the Amiga games I used to play,” Kojima wrote. “I still haven’t cleared it yet, but it’s fun. I’m afraid of Dafoe’s visit!”

Speaking of Dafoe, Kojima also says that, “even now, I feel like Dafoe is going to come in the front door in ten or so minutes… Normally I’d welcome him, as I’m a huge fan of him, but after playing TWELVE MINUTES, I’m afraid he’s going to punch me. Nice casting though.”

He then continued to say that 12 minutes is kind of inspiring him to create another adventure game. For those unaware, Kojima worked on a number of games in the graphic adventure genre during his time at Konami, including Policenauts and Snatcher.

If he were to go down that road, 12 Minutes’ creator Luis Antonio did offer that he does have some ideas he’d love to run by Kojima.

To finish off his thoughts, Kojima compared aspects of 12 Minutes to other films like The Shining.

“The carpet pattern in the hallway is totally ‘The Shining.’ And the closet’s perspective is also good. Dafoe’s high strung voice is very ‘The Lighthouse’-like,” Kojima wrote.

While it may be some time before we see a potential Kojima adventure game, fans will be able to jump into Death Stranding Director’s Cut on PS5 on September 24, 2021.

If you’d like to see if you’ll enjoy 12 Minutes as much as Kojima but still aren’t convinced you want to give it a try, be sure to check out our review, in which we said it “injects a compelling time-loop mystery into a traditional point-and-click adventure game to create original gameplay that complements its story’s curiosity factor.”

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

It’s a good day to be a Playstation owner! The 980 Pro 1TB NVMe drive is on sale at Newegg and is compatible with the current PS5 beta that allows for expandable storage. Along with that, you can grab some great PS5 games on sale, like Spider Man and Demon’s Souls. If you’re looking for something a bit different, we’ve also got deals on a Logitech Webcam, Ms Pacman Arcade Cabinet and more!

Daily Deals for August 21st 2021

A new limited-time event for Knockout City is about to begin. Called Heroes, the event kicks off August 24 and introduces a bunch of superpowered abilities into the dodgebrawl game. A new trailer details what’s in store for the event.

Heroes adds a limited-time playlist called Superpowers, in which you’ll randomly unlock one of seven superpowers every time you respawn during a match. The available powers are listed below, following the trailer.

All Knockout City Heroes Superpowers

• Tackle Strike – Tackle your opponents to deal damage
• Double Jump – Jump again in the air
• X-Ray Vision – See and target players through walls
• Charge-Up – Gain extra overcharge from catches and passes
• Healing Powers – Heal your hearts back over time
• Strength – Pick up other players by dodging into them
• Ballform Bounce – While in ball form, bounce pads will Ultimate Throw you

Alongside the new playlist, Heroes will add new contracts as well as event-themed items to the in-game shop.

In GameSpot’s Knockout City review, Alessandro Barbosa writes, “Knockout City’s greatest strengths lie in its simplicity, but also in the ways it remixes traditional multiplayer elements to create something distinct. Its easy-going nature and straightforward mechanics reduce the time it takes to feel invested in each match, but it’s really the subtle complexity underneath that keeps the action engaging and compelling over long play sessions. There’s certainly room for improvement with the game’s rotating match modes and some of its special ball types, but Knockout City nails the fundamentals to create multiplayer fun that will likely hook you for a long time to come.”

Ghost of Tsushima‘s Iki Island expansion has finally arrived, giving new and returning players an entirely new region to explore packed full of activities and collectibles to complete. Many of the base game’s activities and collectibles return on Iki Island, such as Hot Springs and Bamboo Strikes, but there are also quite a few new things to do. To help you navigate everything that Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island expansion throws at you, we’ve compiled all of our guides below for your reference.

For more about Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island expansion, be sure to read our full review. Otherwise, you can check out our guides roundup for the base game for even more help.

How To Access The Iki Island Expansion

Like most post-launch content, Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island expansion requires you to complete a few essential steps before you can access it. We’ve outlined the exact steps in our guide discussing the subject.

Bamboo Strike Location Guide

Iki Island expansion is a fair bit more difficult than the base game. We highly recommend seeking out the Bamboo Strikes to increase Jin’s Resolve in battle if you want to survive. The little bit extra you’ll get from these new ones will help make all the difference in the long run.

Hot Springs Location Guide

The addition of a few new Hot Springs was also likely put in to help you deal with the difficulty increase. Be sure to get to these Hot Springs on Iki Island to increase Jin’s maximum health.

Haiku Location Guide

It always helps to relax a bit after a tense encounter out in the field. Writing a Haiku is a good way to do just that, and the Iki Island expansion adds about three new ones you can do, which all earn you new headbands to wear. Here’s our guide detailing the location of every Haiku spot.

Shinto Shrine Location Guide

A lone Shinto Shrine stands on the outskirts of Iki Island, once again holding a powerful charm that can help you in more ways than one. Here’s our guide detailing how to find Iki Island’s Nakajima Shrine.

Archery Challenge Location Guide

On Iki Island, you can participate in Archery Challenges, which will test your ability to use a bow. These challenges are scattered throughout Iki Island and are well worth completing for the charm you get, which increases the window of Jin’s Concentration. In our guide, we detail where they all are and provide insight toward how to unlock one that isn’t as readily obvious as you think.

Deer Sanctuary Location Guide

One of the more pleasant activities you’ll get to do in Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island expansion is create animal sanctuaries for some of the local fauna, which in turn helps Jin recall memories of his mother. One of the animal populations you’ll help is the island’s deer! Here’s a guide detailing where to find all the Deer Sanctuaries.

Monkey Sanctuary Location Guide

Aside from deer, you’ll also help out Iki Island’s monkeys. Unfortunately, many of them have been taken hostage by the Mongols, so it’s your job to liberate them. Here’s a guide detailing where you can find all the Monkey Sanctuaries on Iki Island.

Memory Location Guide

While helping the animal population helps Jin reminisce about his mother, there’s another activity on Iki Island that’s focused entirely on his relationship with his father. These locations scattered across the island represent key memories Jin shared with his father during their time there, giving you more insight into his tragic past. To help you find them all, we’ve outlined their locations in our memories guide.

Wind Shrine Location Guide

Most of Iki Island’s activities are relatively simple to complete, but the Wind Shrines are entirely different. These special areas on Iki Island present you with cryptic hints, challenging you to solve them by wearing special outfit combinations to unlock the secret PlayStation game franchise-themed armor sets they offer. We’ve detailed how to solve all three Wind Shrines in our guides below.

Armor Guide

Speaking of armor sets, if you’re curious about how to get all the other sets found in the Iki Island expansion, then be sure to check out our full armor guide. It includes details on the sets you can get by completing the expansion’s Mythic Tales.

How To Unlock The Crimson Dye Merchant

The Iki Island expansion introduces a new dye merchant where you can buy crimson versions of your existing armor sets. However, it’s a bit of a process to unlock the merchant, as you can’t simply find him out in the world. Here’s our guide detailing all the steps.

Monkey See Hidden Trophy Guide

If you’re one for unlocking cryptic Hidden Trophies, you’ll be please to know that Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island has one that requires you to perform actions at a key location that you might not intuit to do during your first sweep of the area. The trophy is called Monkey See, and it’s quite involved. Here’s our guide detailing how to unlock this Hidden Trophy.

How To Find All The Easter Eggs

If the shot of the Infamous Easter egg above got your attention, then you’ll be happy to know that the Iki Island expansion has a ton of other Easter eggs to find. Here’s our guide detailing where they all are.

Ghost of Tsushima‘s Iki Island content brings a whole lot of new collectibles, gear, and armor to uncover. In the armor department, Iki Island lets you deck out Jin Sakai in some great new looks, some of which change up what you can do in combat, and some of which just make you look awesome while slashing through Mongols.

Here’s a full rundown of all the armor you can find on Iki Island and how to claim it, whether its from secret Wind Shrines or the more-involved Mythic Tales. For more help finding all the things Ghost of Tsushima’s new content has to offer, check out our full roundup of Iki Island guides.

Armor Of The Colossus

You can find the Shadow of the Colossus-themed Armor of the Colossus at the Shrine in Shadow, located near the southern coast of Iki, in the Buddha’s Footprints region. The location is a big Shadow of the Colossus Easter egg, and you’ll have to solve the riddle found within the shrine to unlock the armor.

Check out our Shrine in Shadow guide for more help unlocking the Armor of the Colossus.

Ghost Of Sparta Armor

The Ghost of Sparta Armor, which plays homage to God of War protagonist Kratos, is found in the Shrine of Ash near the east coast of Iki Island. The shrine is a callback to the 2018 God of War, and you’ll find that the riddle in the shrine is all about Kratos and his son Atreus.

Use our Shrine of Ash guide to help you unlock the Ghost of Sparta armor.

Yarnham Vestments Armor

Head to the Blood-Stained Shrine near the west coast of Iki Island to find the Yarnham Vestments Armor. Both the suit and the shrine are based on Bloodborne, and specifically call up Eileen the Crow, one of the Hunters you meet during the course of the game.

Head to our Blood-Stained Shrine guide for assistance in solving its riddle and unlocking the Yarnham Vestments Armor.

Sarugami Armor

You can unlock the Sarugami Armor by completing the Black Hand Riki Mythic Tale. To get access to it, continue through Iki Island’s main quest until Tenzo brings you to Fune’s Refuge for the first time. Once you’re there, listen to the storyteller in town to hear the legend of Black Hand Riki, a fearsome pirate. That’ll put you on the path to find the armor, which Black Hand Riki buried with his treasure after the mutiny that led to his death.

The quest will send you to find another survivor of Riki’s crew, who will direct you to find a hidden cave where the water glows. Wait at the camp where you find the survivor until it’s dark, then make your way to the northeast shore of Iki Island and look for glowing water. Eventually, make your way to the northern shore of Thunderhead Cliffs and look for a cave.

Venture through it and you’ll complete the tale, claiming the Sarugami Armor for yourself. The monkey-themed armor encourages you to take more risks, but rewards you for doing so. It disables your standard parry ability, but gives you two counter-attacks for every Perfect Parry you land, while your Perfect Dodge damages any enemy nearby.

Sakai Horse Armor

In Zasho Bay on the east coast of Iki Island, you’ll find a group of refugees camping in a large shipwreck. One tells the story of Kazumasa Sakai–Jin’s father–and his fearsome, legendary horse. As you start to listen to the tale, Jin will reveal his true identity and get himself kicked out of the camp, forcing you to sneak back in to hear the rest of the storyteller’s yarn. That’ll kick off the Mythic Tale called The Kazumasa Sakai, which sends you to find Kazumasa’s horse armor on a nearby shipwreck.

This is a fairly easy Mythic Tale to complete. Head south and climb out onto the shipwrecks in the cove nearby. Make your way out to the furthest ship, being careful to avoid the waves crashing on the rocks and wrecks–if they hit you, they’ll sweep you into the ocean, forcing you to find a place to climb back up onto the wrecks again.

When you reach the final ship, you can claim the Kazai Horse Armor for your steed. The armor makes your horse charge move more powerful, while making it a lot tougher for enemies to knock you off your horse.

Claiming the Sakai Horse Armor and the Sarugami Armor will get you the Treasures of the Past Trophy as well.

Nintendo has released a new trailer for Metroid Dread. The trailer released alongside Metroid Dread Report Vol. 5, which details what abilities Samus will have at her disposal in the upcoming game, while also teasing that another report and trailer are on the way.

“[The next report will shed] light on new mysteries revealed in an upcoming game trailer,” Nintendo writes in the video’s description on YouTube. “Please look forward to it on August 27.”

In the latest trailer, we see Samus flying towards her next mission, learning that she’s being sent as the backup solution to dealing with the last of the X parasites, the villains of Metroid Fusion. Surprisingly, we also get a bit of voice acting here–outside of the Metroid Prime trilogy and Metroid: Other M, the Metroid series relies on written text to deliver dialogue.

The second half of the trailer seems to take place sometime much later. Samus has replaced her standard Varia suit for the light blue one that she’ll seemingly wear for most of Metroid Dread.

In July, Nintendo revealed that this new suit is, in fact, the blue suit that Samus wears in Metroid Fusion. “In Metroid Dread, Samus’s suit appears to have changed quite a bit from her previous missions,” Nintendo writes. “This is the result of the organic suit from Metroid Fusion–which was greatly transformed following the attack by the X parasitic lifeform and the injection of the Metroid vaccine–gradually returning to its original, mechanical Power Suit form.”

Metroid Dread is scheduled to launch for Switch on October 8.

While Netflix is still developing a CG-animated series based on Magic: The Gathering, the project is moving forward without the involvement of Joe and Anthony Russo. Transformers: Prime co-creator Jeff Kline has joined the project as executive producer, taking over for the Avengers: Endgame directors, as reported by Deadline.

While the project was originally announced with the Russo brothers attached, reports indicate that the duo exited the project early on in the process over disagreements with Netflix on the creative vision for the series. Henry Gilroy (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Jose Molina (Agent Carter), who were originally tapped to serve as head writers and co-showrunners, also left the project alongside the Russos.

Following the Russo brothers’ departure, Netflix tapped Kline to assemble a team to create a new storyline based on the tabletop trading card game. The Russos met with Kline during the creative transition.

“I’m grateful to the Russos for bringing me into the world of Magic: The Gathering — specifically, over dinner at one of their go-to Cleveland restaurants,” Kline said. “Magic is one of those rare intellectual properties with such a wellspring of mythology that ‘picking and choosing’ is half the battle. Every single person working on the series understands how beloved this universe is – and feels both the exhilaration and tremendous pressure that comes with translating Magic across mediums.”

Although Joe and Anthony Russo are no longer attached to the project, check out our argument for the importance of Magic: The Gathering finally getting a television adaptation. Also, read our rundown of the biggest anime and animation announcements from Netflix’s Geeked Week last month.

J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.