Category: Games

A highly detailed series of fake additions to the Left 4 Dead wiki has inspired fan-art and even a mod that puts the nonexistent content into the game. The vandalism focuses on a bizarre character called “Purple Francis,” a poorly recolored version of one of the game’s four Survivors. The vandal cooked up a surprisingly thorough backstory for Purple Francis, including his untimely death in a comic book, described by the article as a “national tragedy.”

According to the articles, Purple Francis’s purple hue was caused by an iron-rich diet. Prior to Left 4 Dead, he owned a root beer factory and sired two sons, Cungulus and Skibbity. Though the wiki’s moderators sadly deleted Purple Francis’s page, a mod on Left 4 Dead 2’s Steam Workshop page will add Purple Francis to the game, which the mod’s author labels as “cut L4D content.” There’s also a Discord page to join if you’re a true Purple Francis enthusiast.

While there’s no word on the state of the Left 4 Dead franchise, the game recently got its first official patch in nearly a decade. Though the patch came from Valve, it was primarily built by more than 30 members of the game’s community. A spiritual successor called Back 4 Blood is currently being made by many of the game’s original developers.

Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 were supposed to be shot back-to-back, but due to scheduling conflicts with Tom Cruise, that can’t happen now.

When the two Mission: impossible sequels were announced back in 2019, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation and Fallout writer and director Christopher McQuarrie was on board to direct both back-to-back.

While McQuarrie will still be directing both, the as-of-yet untitled Mission: Impossible 8 film will no longer be shot immediately after Mission: Impossible 7 due to a scheduling conflict with Cruise.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/16/tom-cruise-berates-mission-impossible-7-crew-for-breaking-covid-safety-rules-ign-news”]

Deadline reported that Cruise will now be needed on promotional duties for Paramount Pictures’ Top Gun: Maverick, which apparently cuts into the planned shooting times for MI:8. Maverick, which stars Cruise, is set to release in theaters on July 2 after coronavirus-related delays. So, instead of rolling right into the production of MI:8 following the end of MI:7’s production, Cruise will instead be busy marketing the sequel to 1986’s Top Gun.

Following that run of promotional needs, Cruise, McQuarrie, and the rest of the crew will begin production of MI:8. It’s also important to note that while UK tabloids reported over the weekend that MI:7’s production has been disrupted by pandemic-related travel issues, Deadline has confirmed this was not true.

McQuarrie actually posted on Instagram yesterday and said that the team finished its shoot in the Middle East and would now be heading to London to apply a few “finishing touches” to MI:7. MI:8 still remains set to release on November 4, 2022.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/07/13/mission-impossible-in-7-minutes-2018-update”]

For more Mission: Impossible, read our thoughts on the latest entry in the series in IGN’s Mission: Impossible Fallout review and then read about how Esai Morales was tapped to replace Nicholas Hoult as the villain in the forthcoming sequels.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

Riot has revealed some of the social changes that will soon come to the multiplayer shooter Valorant, and they’re the sort of changes that fans have been asking for for a while now. These upcoming tweaks will target patches 2.04 and 2.05, and will focus on punishing AFKers and other undesirable player behavior.

The meat of the changes will target AFK players and “AFK-type behavior.” As a 5-on-5 shooter, losing a single teammate can make or break a Valorant match, and it’s clear that Riot is trying to do something about it. Patch 2.04 will implement a new system that will improve detection of AFKers, and the penalty structure for that behavior has been completely overhauled.

Essentially, the new system will track your behavior holistically, meaning that players who drop due to intermittent internet issues won’t get much of a penalty at all. However, those players who go AFK in the middle of games will be hit with increasingly stringent punishments, including queue restrictions, ranked rating reductions, or even an outright ban.

Chat-based offenses are getting a similar overhaul in patch 2.04, with a revamped penalty structure detailed in the blog post. However, the post also notes that players who threaten violence or harass other players will be banned on a zero tolerance basis. Additionally, a feedback system for player reports is planned for patch 2.05.

A recent Valorant patch made substantial changes to rifle movement accuracy, meaning that running and gunning with a rifle is a lot less effective than before. In other Riot news, the company’s CEO was recently accused of creating a hostile work environment in a lawsuit.

Google has announced that a slew of new games will be coming to Stadia in the near future, and that over 100 games are to be added to the service by the end of 2021.

Google recently announced that it would be shutting down its internal studios for Stadia, despite not releasing a single game from them. In the same breath, it also stated that more games would hit the service. Google is making good on that promise as the company announced that not only will nine games be coming to Stadia shortly, over 100 games will join the Stadia lineup in 2021.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/11/22/google-stadia-review”]

Those nine games are Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition (February 23), Shantae: Risky’s Revenge – Director’s Cut (February 23), It Came From Space and Ate Our Brains (March 2), FIFA 21 (March 17), Kaze and the Wild Masks (March 26), Judgement (April 23), Killer Queen Black, Street Power Football, and Hellpoint. The latter three do not have release dates for Stadia.

“We’re thrilled to continue bringing games from some of the best developers for our players to experience within the Stadia store,” a blog post from Google reads. “Over the next few weeks and months, players can expect to see everything from action-filled RPGs to competitive co-op titles and nimble platformers. These games represent just a sampling of the more than 100 games that will be added to the Stadia store for our players in 2021 to share, experience, and play with friends.”

This news comes weeks after word broke that Google was giving up on developing its own games. According to one source familiar with Stadia’s first-party work that spoke to Kotaku, “Google was a terrible place to make games. Imagine Amazon, but under-resourced.” Read about this decision by Google and then read our thoughts on Google’s game streaming service in IGN’s Stadia review.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/08/the-unexpected-reason-terraria-on-stadia-is-canceled-ign-now”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

A writer at WB Games Montreal, the team working on Gotham Knights, said that the open-world action-RPG will have a “very fresh, unique take” on the familiar Batman game structure.

In a brief interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal, narrative designer and writer Mitch Dyer said that Gotham Knights’ focus on characters other than Batman makes the game more approachable. In turn, this should give the game an engaging feel that’s “fresh” and “unique.”

“Shifting the focus to be about these characters in the aftermath of this pivotal death that is important to all of them, the framework of this story is unique,” Dyer said. “Having this very fresh, unique take on the DC Universe makes it approachable and engaging in a way that is instantly gratifying to me.”

Dyer, who previously worked at EA Motive Studio writing the narrative for its dogfighting simulator Star Wars: Squadrons, also briefly touched on what attracted him to Gotham Knights. It all boils down to the opportunity to play four other prominent Batman characters.

“I was attracted to the project because I was a fan of it [when it was announced at DC FanDome in August 2020],” Dyer said. “The idea of playing four different characters in an open world in a setting where Bruce Wayne has died, that is extremely compelling to me.”

While Gotham Knights doesn’t have a definitive release date yet, the game is scheduled to drop this year for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

In other WB Games news, a note on a job listing at publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment suggests it plans to focus its upcoming games on live services in some capacity.

Game developer Josef Fares, who is known for boldly and passionately sharing his opinions, has now spoken up about how people don’t finish games. In short, he doesn’t like that the data generally shows that people start games but don’t finish them.

In an interview with Game Informer, Fares said he was told that about 51% of people who played his previous game, A Way Out, actually finished it. He was informed that this was a very good percentage, but it’s not good enough for Fares.

“It actually it saddens me,” he said. “That means that 49 percent of people didn’t finish it. It’s not something I should be happy about. We need to fix the problem that people are not even finishing our games. People are not even finishing the games.”

Fares said he understands that developers might choose to focus their efforts on the initial stages of a game because people might not go further.

“It’s so sick that the developers and publishers are literally focusing on the first piece of the game, because they know that’s what people will play. This is a mass psychosis going on!” he said.

The next game from Fares and his Hazelight studio is It Takes Two, which launches in March. Fares, hyping his game, said he’s confident people will remain engaged and interested in the title until its completion. He’s so confident that if anyone can honestly say they grow tired of the game, they can reach out to Fares and he’ll give them $1000.

“It’s impossible, and quote me on this, to get tired of this game,” he said. “I can literally give 1000 bucks to anyone who says, ‘Oh, I’m tired of this game now because it doesn’t surprise me.’ One thousand bucks! I guarantee. I’ll give it to everyone who gets tired. But they have to be honest about it.”

It Takes Two launches March 26 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, as well as PS4 and Xbox One. Like Hazelight’s last games, it can only be played in co-op but it comes with a free “friend’s pass” allowing you to play with someone even if they haven’t bought the game.