Extras from HBO Max’s upcoming show, Generation, reportedly quit after actual cat corpses were used in dissection scenes.
Generation, otherwise known as Genera+ion, is a show that touts itself as an ultra-realistic look at high school created by 19-year-old Zelda Barnz and her father, Daniel Barnz. Lena Dunham is an executive producer on the show and before it has even been released on the HBO streaming service, it’s already facing trouble in the form of extras quitting the show, according to Variety.
“Got word from a friend in the industry, HBO has a new show called Generation coming out,” Twitter user Lilith Rose wrote in a tweet posted February 5. “It’s produced by Lena Dunham and earlier this week they brought in real dead kittens for background to ‘dissect’ on set. No warning, people had trauma responses.”
Rose goes on to say in additional tweets that the extras were apparently told they’d be dissecting frogs, but they showed up to “real dead kittens” on set and were expected to stay and shoot through the scheduled scenes. Variety received a statement from HBO Max on the situation and the company denies that the actors weren’t warned in advance.
“Genera+ion depicts the unfiltered experiences of high school students and is drawn from many formative moments in the lives of the show’s writers,” the statement reads. “The production recently filmed scenes depicting a biology classroom assignment involving dissection of animal specimens. These were ethically sourced in consultation with American Humane via a biological supply company that works with schools.”
“Everyone involved was informed in advance that this would be a sensitive scene involving a real dissection; the assistant directors checked in regularly with all participants on set, and two background actors who expressed discomfort were released with full pay,” the statement continues. “However, after subsequent discussion with the creative team, the scene is being reconceived and will not appear in the series. We deeply regret that this occurred.”
Rose also wrote on Twitter that at the wrap of day two of shooting, the crew was informed that a camera man on set had tested positive for COVID-19, “as a cherry on top of their traumatic experience.” Rose wrote that the positive case “should have been disclosed earlier, but (HBO Max) clearly wanted their shots of these kittens.”
Sources close to Variety confirmed to the publication that a member of the crew had, in fact, tested positive for COVID-19, and that this person is currently in isolation. The sources told Variety that the crew had learned of the positive test result after the day filming had wrapped, which contradicts Rose’s tweet. The show will resume filming when it’s safe to do so per safety guidelines, according to Variety.
Dunham, who is a creative and executive producer on the show, didn’t hear about this incident until February 6, according to one of Variety’s sources.
“I am committed in my life and work to the principled, humane and ethical treatment of animals,” a statement from Dunham reads. “I don’t use animal cadavers in any of my work, ever, and I was not on set or aware that they were used in a recently shot scene depicting a biology classroom assignment. I fully support the scene being edited out of the show.”
Genera+ion is expected to premiere this Spring on HBO Max.
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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.
The Purge series is one of the most successful horror franchises of the past decade. So far, the movies have grossed more than $450 million worldwide, and a spin-off TV series ran for two seasons on the USA Network. The fifth–and potentially final–film, titled The Forever Purge, is scheduled for release later this year.
The series kicked off in 2013 with The Purge. The movie was set in the near future, where American cities have become overrun with crime. In an attempt to reduce the crime rate, the nation’s totalitarian government–the New Founding Fathers of America–introduce the Purge. This is an annual 24-hour event where all crime is legalised, leading to violent gangs roaming the streets while normal, peaceful citizens shelter in their homes. The film itself was a gripping home invasion movie that mixed social commentary with scary thrills.
The success of the film led to two sequels that expanded the scope of the concept. The Purge Anarchy (2014) was an exciting urban action movie set on the streets of LA, while The Purge: Election Year (2016) plunged further into the franchise’s complex politics. The last movie to date was 2018’s prequel The First Purge, which, as the title suggests, focused on the creation of the annual night of mayhem.
The Forever Purge was announced in 2019, and it completed production in early 2020 ahead of a release that summer. But of course, the COVID-19 pandemic led the movie to be delayed, and it will finally arrive–hopefully–later in 2021. So here’s everything we know so far about The Forever Purge.
When will it be released?
The Forever Purge is currently scheduled to hit theaters on July 9, 2021. It was delayed from its initial July 2020 release date.
Who’s in the cast?
As with most of the other movies in the series, The Forever Purge will feature a new cast. Mexican star Ana de la Reguera takes the lead role–this will be the first of two high profile horror films she appears in this year, with Zack Snyder’s zombie movie Army of the Dead arriving later in 2021. In The Forever Purge, de la Reguera is joined by Josh Lucas (Ford vs Ferrari), Tenoch Huerta (Narcos: Mexico), Will Patton (Halloween 2018), Leven Rambin (The Hunger Games), and Cassidy Freeman (NCIS: New Orleans).
Who’s the director?
The Forever Purge is directed by Everardo Gout. This will be Gout’s debut movie, but he has previously directed episodes of several high-profile TV shows, including Snowpiercer, Luke Cage, The Terror, and Banshee.
Who’s the writer?
The Forever Purge is written by James DeMonaco, who created the Purge series. DeMonaco has written every movie so far, as well as directing the first three films. He also produced the spin-off TV show and wrote the first episode.
Is there a trailer?
We’re yet to see a trailer or any footage from The Forever Purge. However, the first image was revealed by Total Film in January–it’s a very Purge-like image of a bat-wielding masked man running with a variety of mayhem happening behind him.
What’s the story?
Although a trailer has not been released, we do know some story details. Since the last film, The First Purge, was a prequel, The Forever Purge will pick up the story after Election Year. This movie shifts the focus from the urban setting of previous entries to rural Texas. It focuses on the characters of Adela and Juan (de la Reguera and Huerta), who have fled a Mexican cartel and are now living on a Texan ranch. Unfortunately a group of bad guys want to keep the Purge going beyond the set 24-hour period and target the unlucky couple. Gout told Total Film that the movie will be “an amazing story of Latinos and Americans coming together to overcome despair and evil.”
Being set after Election Year, it certainly calls into question the ending of that film. In Election Year, Senator Charlie Roan was elected president of the United States thanks, in large part, to her plan to end the Purge. Hopefully, the movie will address why the annual night of mayhem is still happening.
Is this the last Purge?
DeMonaco previously stated that this will be the final Purge movie. “I think it’s a great way to end it all,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “We want to end it all, I think, in this one, and I’m very excited. When I came up with the idea and pitched it to everybody, they seemed psyched, and I think it will be a really cool ending, how we take this one home.”
Of course, this is the horror genre, where successful franchises very rarely end. In October last year, producer Jason Blum admitted to RadioTimes.com that he hoped more films will follow. “I would never say its end is set in stone,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll talk James into making a couple more.”
With its bright energy, colorful characters, and wacky-powered cars, Destruction AllStars takes many of the aesthetic and mechanical trends from the last five years of multiplayer-focused live games and applies them to the long-dormant car combat genre. Speeding around beautifully detailed and cartoonishly articulated demolition derby courses, looking for your chance to rev your engine and hit another player so hard their ride explodes. When your own car inevitably gets busted up beyond recognition, you can hop out of your car and climb into another: A novel idea, but one that keeps you out of the action. Despite its striking visuals and solid driving fundamentals, Destruction AllStars’ demolition derby-style car smashing is inconsistent and unpredictable. Every multiplayer game has highs and lows, but Destruction AllStars’ best bits are few and fleeting.
You have one job to do in Destruction AllStars: Get into a car and crash it into other players. At the start of each match, 16 players start out on foot and race to grab one of a handful of empty cars, which come in many recognizable shapes like slick sports cars, burly SUVs, and tough trucks. Unlike in most car games, though, you are not tied to your car forever. You can eject from a vehicle at any time to trade for a new model or because the car’s health is low and you don’t want to wipe out.
Whether you crash or get crashed into, at least you’re going to look good doing it. Destruction AllStars’ large arenas are incredibly well-detailed and drenched in bright, colorful lights are a visual feast. The characters, from Fuego the masked-metal head to Ratu, a teal-haired boxer in an orange jumpsuit, are all drawn in a familiar Overwatch-esque style but have very specific looks that pop and draw you to them all the same. Even the little flourishes, like how a character jumps into an empty white car which instantaneously takes on their color scheme, look cool every time.
There are four multiplayer modes, but they all boil down to doing one thing. In Mayhem, the 16-player free-for-all and de facto standard, you earn points depending on how much damage you can do to another player’s car and/or character. In Carnado, an eight-on-eight team-based game, hitting them earns you gears, which only turn to points when you drive your car into a swirling purple vortex that tears it to shreds. There’s also a King of the Hill-style “last car standing” game and a second team-based game called Stockpile, where you have to get out of your car to stash points at three bank locations.
No matter how you keep score, though, you have to crash more cars than everyone else. Despite the attempts to add some variety, Mayhem is the simplest mode and the one that best complements the chaotic nature of the game. A fast and loose free-for-all with lots of ways to score, Mayhem is a casual, do-what-you-feel kind of mode that feels natural and reflects Destruction AllStars’ zany, madcap vibe.
Carnado, the best alternative, adds interesting tactical considerations to the game, but they’re difficult to act on. Since players need to lock in their gears before they become points, you can target weakened cars to prevent your opponents from cashing in, but defending a fixed position feels like wasted effort; you have to be in the right place at the right time to stop a car from scoring, and the time you spend playing defense is time you could have spent wrecking enemies and earning gears of your own.
In addition to the multiplayer, you have the ability to practice against AI bots or play the single-player “Challenge Series,” a character-specific set of minigames with a small, inconsequential bit of character development attached. While it’s interesting to see some cutscenes with the characters and some extra modes that wouldn’t work in a multiplayer context, the mode feels tacked-on. It’s a momentary detour at best. There’s a single Challenge Series mission pack that’s available for free at launch. The rest will be released over time as paid DLC, which seems like a death sentence for the already anemic single-player side of the game. Relegating the single-player content to a drip-feed of DLC undercuts the single-player mode’s potential to grow into something more substantial.
Destruction AllStars’ arcade-style driving feels smooth and highly maneuverable. Turning is wide, but precise enough that you can take a pursuit angle and catch up to another player, assuming they don’t see you and take evasive action. Using a brake and a very aggressive e-brake that basically works like a quick 180-degree turn, you have all the tools you’ll need to chase opponents up the walls, around bottom pits, and through giant buzzsaws. These hazards and superhuman tricks make the chases more eventful, but they aren’t exciting as you might hope. Often, a tight turn is a more effective trap than something that looks wild and deadly, even for skilled players.
Chasing is fine, but you need to cause crashes to win. You can obviously just steer toward another player and put the pedal to the metal, but there’s an art to winning crashes. You have the ability to boost forward or to the side at ramming speed by flicking the right analog stick, which both increases damage to their car and protects yours. Ramming ups your speed but decreases maneuverability, and it’s on a small cooldown, so your timing is crucial. While it makes sense that you can’t simply ram all the time, even the small limitations on your ability to blow things up can feel stifling, especially when you’re first starting out.
The rules of ramming and who “wins” a collision can also feel somewhat nebulous. The different cars you can drive, which range from sports cars to trucks to SUVs, have a different balance of weight, top speed, and maneuverability. When two cars crash head-on, the heavier, faster car pushes the lighter, slower one. Ramming can give you an edge, but it isn’t a guarantee. In less clear-cut scenarios with more than two cars bouncing against each other at less-than-ideal angles, it’s nearly impossible to predict how much damage a smash will do, or if you should even try.
On the plus side, though, success really is its own reward. In the heat of the moment, ramming your car into another player’s can be exhilarating. Everyone’s swerving and jockeying for position, so it’s often a game of bumps and fishtail-inducing partial hits, but eventually you will find an opportunity to fully smash your bumper and send them flying. Like when you get “good contact” swinging a baseball bat, you can feel the force and effect of landing a solid blow, and it is quite satisfying.
Opportunities for those kinds of hits aren’t as always abundant, though. Even with 16 players, you will spend a fair amount of time driving around an arena, jockeying for position. You’ll find yourself chasing a car, swerving to avoid enemy takedowns, and getting into minor fender benders, but killer blows can’t be forced. While I’m sure better players than I will tell you there are ways to increase your chances of putting yourself in good situations, it seems that there’s a fair amount of luck involved for even the most lethal drivers.
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And unlike the heart-pumping thrill of a quickdraw in a first-person shooter or the adrenaline surge that builds as you fail plays on first and second down in Madden, there’s little residual satisfaction in the Destruction AllStars’ in-between moments. A chase that ends in a partial hit feels like a disappointment, rather than a minor success. The more time and energy you invest in a crash, the more you want the points and, more importantly, the satisfying sensation of crushing your opponent to bits. Even if you score and they don’t, it doesn’t feel like a win unless the car’s been smashed to smithereens.
You occasionally have the ability to make an opportunity for yourself using your characters’ unique car and abilities, called “breakers.” Charged by crashing or finding power-ups on foot, the hero cars and their skills add some much-needed depth and variety to your quest for car crashes. Each of the breakers, which include powerful speakers that hit nearby enemies, a giant blade on your hood that instantly slices through any car you ram, and good ol’ invisibility, give you an advantage to build a strategy around and, in some cases, an extra way to hit cars. The downside to the hero cars is that they’re fleeting; they crash just like any other and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get to use your car’s ability once you jump in. Each character also has an on-foot breaker, but… well, they aren’t as entertaining or effective as the ones you use in your hero car.
Very few things are as interesting when you’re on foot. Jumping in and out of cars is Destruction AllStars’ most novel idea, but that only serves to impede the car combat gameplay. Aside from bailing to avoid death (and minimizing the number of points your opponent can get for wrecking your car), you can jump on an opponent’s car and try to steal it by pressing a series of prompts before you get shaken off. Each level has a series of platforms only accessible on foot, which have power-ups that charge your special abilities.
Here’s the problem: Every second that you’re on foot is a second you aren’t crashing a car, which is the one thing you really want to do in this game. Stealing cars requires extremely precise timing and isn’t as useful as the tutorial makes it out to be. The platforming relies on some very finicky parkour mechanics that make all but the most straightforward platforming trickier than it needs to be. In the first week since launch, some players seem to have figured out strategies for earning points by tricking players into crashing into traps, but for the most part, you do not want to spend any more time outside of a car than you need to. Moreover, forcing players out of their cars becomes a huge hurdle for new players (or slower-learning players, since everyone’s new at launch), who spend less time in cars because they crash more often, which makes it harder for them to learn strategies and improve.
The on-foot gameplay plays a large role in Destruction AllStars’ true problem: It feels like there’s a lot of downtime. Even though there’s always a new car to find or an enemy to chase, there’s only one thing that’s really worth doing–crashing–which takes a lot of setup for a short-lived reward. Even with great looks and solid controls, you spend too much time spinning your wheels.
Marvel’s WandaVision series on Disney+ has given MCU fans plenty to theorize about with its unusual sitcom premise and the reality-warping shenanigans inside the little town of Westview. There are numerous theories that attempt to explain everything going on with Wanda Maximoff and her husband Vision, but we’ve devised a theory that explains almost every big question with the same answer. It revolves around something literally staring us in the face every episode from atop Vision’s synthetic head: the Mind Stone.
Let’s run through the big questions and demonstrate how the Mind Stone can help solve the puzzle that is WandaVision.
Warning: full spoilers up to Episode 5 of WandaVision ahead!
Looking for a weekly fix of WandaVision theories, Easter eggs and analysis? Check out IGN’s post-episode digest show, Canon Fodder!
In order to explain the Mind Stone Theory, we need to determine what actions Wanda most likely took after the last time we saw her at the conclusion of Avengers: Endgame.
Alone and grief-stricken, it’s not hard to imagine Wanda began searching for a way to restore her one true love, Vision, back to life.
Wanda discovered Vision’s body was being held at SWORD headquarters and broke in to recover it, as Acting Director Hayward showed via security camera footage in Episode 5.
Now, despite having Vision’s body accounted for, Wanda would still be missing the one key ingredient to give him the spark of life, the Mind Stone. Picture this: Wanda reassembling Vision’s body and powering him up, only to grimly realize he’s a shadow of his former self because he’s without the miraculous essence of life granted by the Mind Stone.
This puts Wanda in an impossible situation. Thanos destroyed the Mind Stone along with the rest of the Infinity Stones at the start of Endgame, and Captain America returned Loki’s stolen staff to its proper place in the past at the end of that same movie. Assuming time-travel is off the table, that leaves Wanda with only one feasible option to obtain the Mind Stone.
This brings us to the crux of our entire theory: Wanda took the Mind Stone from another universe.
Hear us out on this one. If Wanda has a new Mind Stone from another reality, then it easily answers numerous questions.
Wanda gave him the Mind Stone from another universe.
We see Vision walking around Westview with a gleaming, intact Mind Stone right there on his forehead. You’d think a bigger deal would be made of the fact that he somehow has an Infinity Stone in his noggin, despite the fact that all of those rainbow rocks are supposed to be reduced to atoms.
Granted, there was that scary flash of zombie-Vision, which made us wonder if that is Vision’s true state, and the normal Vision we’re seeing is a mere illusion and he doesn’t actually have the Mind Stone. But in Episode 5 Captain Monica Rambeau, Agent Jimmy Woo and Dr. Darcy Lewis discover everything inside the Hex is real, not an illusion, so that would seemingly mean the Mind Stone is the real deal, too. Perhaps undead Vision only appeared in Wanda’s mind as a nightmarish flash of what would happen to him if he didn’t have the Mind Stone anymore. You could argue Vision’s Mind Stone could be some other matter transmuted into a gem that looks like the Mind Stone but doesn’t have its power, just like Monica’s kevlar vest becoming ‘70s chic, but for the sake of our theory we’re assuming that’s not the case.
Now, even if Vision is sporting a genuine Mind Stone from another universe, there’s still a big catch. The comic book version of the Infinity Stones only work properly in their home universe. If the MCU follows this rule, then Vision can only be alive in the world where the Mind Stone was taken from. That could be why Wanda created the Hex. It’s a bubble containing a breach into the other universe–a safe space for the Wanda-Vision family to live an idyllic life.
According to our theory, if Vision were to leave the Hex, he would die all over again. That may be why Wanda so fiercely and aggressively defended the Hex when she exited the bubble to confront SWORD. She finally got back her husband and started a family, and they can literally only exist in the Hex, so she’s going to fight to keep them.
How Did Evan Peters’ Quicksilver Appear?
He’s from the same alternate universe as the new Mind Stone.
We never saw the Infinity Stones in Fox’s X-Men movies, but according to Marvel Comics lore there’s a set in every universe across the multiverse, so it could be that Wanda took the Mind Stone from the world of the X-Men.
Much like how Wanda took another universe’s Mind Stone because the one in hers was destroyed, she summoned the Quicksilver from another world because her actual brother was dead.
Why Did Wanda Create a Quarantine Around Westview?
Taking the Mind Stone from another reality caused a nasty rupture between universes.
As the Ancient One explained to Bruce Banner in Avengers: Endgame, removing an Infinity Stone from its proper place in space and time can have catastrophic consequences. Dr. Lewis has already determined the radiation emitted from the Hex may reach dangerous levels, but that’s just the start of it.
In the Avengers comic book saga by writer Jonathan Hickman (the same comic scribe responsible for the Black Order, the Battle of Wakanda, and other ideas utilized by the MCU), it’s established that when two universes intersect in a phenomenon called an “incursion,” they will eventually crash together and both will be destroyed. The only way to prevent this mutual destruction is for one universe to destroy the other. This goes to show there may be far greater consequences for Wanda’s actions than even she realizes–forget the town of Westview, the whole universe could be at stake! This could sow seeds for a Secret Wars multiversal crossover event movie, which is where Hickman’s story eventually led.
When the incursion storyline resolved in Secret Wars, parts of the destroyed universes were absorbed into the prime Marvel universe. For example, Spider-Man Miles Morales from the Ultimate Universe was seamlessly incorporated into the world along with his friends and family as if they had always been there from the start. This may be how Marvel merges the X-Men universe with the MCU and brings mutants into the world.
Merging the two universes would also allow Vision to exist outside of the Hex because the Mind Stone came from the X-Men universe and that universe would be one with the MCU.
Why Can’t Vision Remember His Life Before Westview?
He’s using a new Mind Stone.
If Vision’s original mind was tied to the first Mind Stone, then it would stand to reason that he can’t remember anything about his life before Westview because he has a brand new “mind.” It may be that the old Vision is truly gone forever and the Vision from WandaVision is essentially a fresh, rebooted Vision with the same personality but no memories. There’s a precedent for this in the comics where Vision has been “reset” and no longer held feelings for Wanda.
Why Hexagonal Shape?
The Mind Stone is hexagonal.
The Mind Stone decorates Vision’s magic cabinet, showing its six-sided shape. (Image Credit: Marvel)
At first it seemed like Dr. Lewis using the term “hex” was purely there as a call-out to Wanda’s “hex magic” powers in the comics, but perhaps there’s more to it than that. There are numerous hexagons throughout WandaVision–the opening/closing credits, the shape of the Hex barrier, Geraldine’s earrings, etc.–so this could be a visual side effect of the Mind Stone exerting its influence on Westview.
Also, the MCU’s version of hyperspace travel is done via a system called Universal Neural Teleportation Network, which is depicted as a hexagonal grid that opens up wormholes for spaceships to travel from one end of the universe to the other. It wouldn’t be a stretch for a doorway into another universe to also have that hexagonal shape. That would make the Hex one big portal to another universe, strengthening our idea that Wanda went to another reality for a new Mind Stone. This might also mean the MCU version of Wanda’s hex power is the power to travel through the multiverse.
How Are the People of Westview Being Mind-Controlled?
Someone is using the Mind Stone.
Wanda can mind control individual people, or even a dozen SWORD troops, but it takes quite a bit of concentration and red glowy effects, so, as she exasperatedly explained to Vision in Episode 5, there’s no way she could be controlling an entire town. Perhaps Wanda is secretly using the Mind Stone to greatly enhance her telepathy, giving her enough power to control thousands of people at once in the background of her mind.
Alternatively, it might be that a nefarious villain is using the Mind Stone to control the townsfolk–and possibly Wanda herself.
We’re not going to dive into speculation about the villain–you can check out our latest villain theory about Mephitso here!–but it is notable how Wanda sometimes seems as blissfully unaware as everyone else in Westview and other times she seems like she’s the one in control. Perhaps someone is remotely harnessing the power of the Mind Stone to activate Wanda’s powers to “fix” anything that threatens their plan (as seen when Wanda “edits” scenes). Wanda is an incredibly powerful telepath, so it would take something as incredibly powerful as the Mind Stone to exert control over her.
The Mind Stone generates the same kind of radiation that gets picked up on old TVs.
This part gets a bit complicated, so put on your science hats!
You’ll remember in Episode 4 Dr. Lewis discovered the WandaVision broadcast because the signal was embedded in unusually high levels of CMBR, or cosmic microwave background radiation, which Hayward explains is relic radiation dating back to the Big Bang. Want to know what else came from the Big Bang? Well, literally everything in the universe, but as the Collector illustrated in Guardians of the Galaxy, the Infinity Stones were created and cast out into the universe by the Big Bang. It may be that the Infinity Stones and CMBR share the same kind of radiation because they come from the same source.
As you may recall from high school science class, CMBR fills the empty space of the universe and gets picked up on ordinary TVs when they aren’t tuned to a channel. When a TV displays a screen full of static, that “noise” is the TV picking up CMBR. If the Mind Stone does indeed generate the same kind of radiation as CMBR, then it could be that it is responsible for generating the WandaVision TV broadcast.
One of the most popular fan theories attempting to explain the show’s sitcom element posits that Wanda used to enjoy watching sitcoms with her family as a child, and because she’s trying to create a safe space for her new family in Westview, her fabricated reality is taking the form of classic sitcoms. It’s notable that she has sat down to watch TV with Vision multiple times so far, perhaps to recreate that sense of safety from her childhood. And it’s the Mind Stone that’s giving her the ability to do that.
How Did Wanda’s Powers Get Enhanced?
By re-exposing herself to the Mind Stone.
It was Hydra’s Baron von Strucker who first gave Wanda her powers by experimenting on her with the Mind Stone, so it would stand to reason that Wanda could tap into it again to give herself additional powers. Remember, she used to only have powers of telepathy and telekinesis, yet now she can manipulate reality itself, which not only makes her considerably more powerful but better aligns with her comic book counterpart.
How Would Wanda Even Get the Mind Stone?
This is the biggest question surrounding our theory. While Wanda is one of the most powerful MCU characters, she doesn’t have the ability to open a breach between universes, so how would she be able to obtain the Mind Stone from another reality? That’s where our mystery villain comes in.
It would be hard to blame a desperate Wanda for accepting help from a shady figure if they offered her a way to bring Vision back to life, so perhaps the villain has the power to access the multiverse so Wanda could obtain a new Mind Stone. If the villain does have that kind of power, they would make for a fitting overarching villain for Phase 4, as Loki, Spider-Man 3, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness also appear to deal with the multiverse. The villain Molecule Man comes to mind as a possible candidate–he was a key player in Hickman’s incursion storyline because he’s a multiversal singularity, or someone who is the same person across all realities.
But what price would Wanda have to pay in exchange for this multiverse-hopping villain’s help? All signs point to that being her children.
From the beginning of WandaVision, Wanda has been manipulated into having children. The effort has been spearheaded by Agnes (who creepily started off their relationship by immediately offering seduction techniques) and helped along by the rest of the town (“fOr ThE cHiLdReN”). And as we’ve seen in the short time since their birth, the twins Billy and Tommy are not only resistant to Wanda’s abilities but they have some impressive powers of their own. Perhaps the villain reunited Wanda with Vision by way of the Mind Stone so they could produce powerful offspring (mutants?!) that they could then use for their own evil ends.
It’s probably safe to assume that WandaVision ends with the Westview conflict being resolved and the Hex barrier coming down, so what would that mean for Wanda’s kids? By the logic of our theory, if they were given life in the alternate universe and are bound by the same rules as their father, then they can’t exist outside of the Hex, either. They would be swallowed into the multiverse along with Vision and the Mind Stone.
We know that Elizabeth Olsen will be reprising her role as Wanda in the Doctor Strange sequel alongside Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen Strange, so this would explain why she seeks him out. She needs his help to save her family from the multiverse of madness.
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Joshua is a Senior Editor and Producer of Features at IGN. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Star Wars are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.
Respawn has released a new hotfix patch for Apex Legends. The patch fixes one of the more unfortunate bugs that popped into Apex Legends at the start of Season 8; it prevented players from hearing all of the awesome interactions between the playable characters during a match.
Alongside re-enabling some dialogue “that was wrongly disabled,” the patch also addresses the bug that prevented players from being scanned a second time if they had just been scanned by a Bloodhound. A small fix, but a welcome one.
Bloodhound mains have noticed that, since the start of Season 8, if you scanned a group of enemies that a Bloodhound from a different squad had just scanned, it would somehow not pick up all the targets. Though not a game-breaking bug, this issue has been annoying, especially since Bloodhound’s primary purpose is to track targets and inform their squadmates of where enemies are located. So we’re glad to see it fixed.
The full patch notes for the hotfix are listed below. It’s a small patch, so there aren’t any game-changing balance adjustments this time around.
Apex Legends February 10 Hotfix Patch Notes
Players not being scanned by Bloodhound’s tactical if already scanned by a different Bloodhound’s tactical
Errors related to explosive holds on Kings Canyon
Various stability fixes
Re-enabled some dialogue that was wrongly disabled
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Capcom will hold a livestream on Thursday, February 11 starting at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET to talk all things Street Fighter 5, focusing on a “winter update” that will include information about new fighters, esports content, a new gameplay mechanic, and Season 5 updates.
The studio also said that the livestream will feature the reveal of Rose, Street Fighter 4’s mystic fighter. Alongside Rose, Capcom will unveil the goofy Saikyo fighter Dan Hibiki, as well as disclose a new game mechanic from battle director Ryuichi “Woshige” Shigeno. Other guests include director Takayuki Nakayama, producer Shuhei Matsumoto, and DJ Steve Aoki.
How To Watch Street Fighter 5 Winter Update Stream
Fans can stream the Street Fighter 5 Winter Update broadcast right here once it goes live, as well as on Capcom’s official Twitch and YouTube channels.
In other Street Fighter 5 news, Capcom has canceled its annual fighting game series, the Capcom Cup, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Despite the cancelation, the event has been transitioned to a sort of online format slated to go live later this month.
Xbox and PlayStation players can now sign-up for a chance to participate in a Tech Test for MLB The Show 21, which will take place later this month.
If you want to check out the game a bit early, you can sign up for a chance to participate in a Tech Test that will be held from February 23 at 10 AM PT to March 1 at 10 AM PT. If you are selected, you will receive a notification on whichever console you signed up for. Players will be able to download the Tech Test before the servers go live, so you can prepare in advance if need be. To do so, you simply have to consent to the Tech Test Agreement and connect either your PSN or Xbox account.
The Test itself will feature four game modes you can experiment with: (Diamond Dynasty) vs CPU, (Diamond Dynasty) Events, (Diamond Dynasty) Casual, (Diamond Dynasty) Play with Friends; Battle Royale. But don’t get too used to what you find while playing these modes. None of your items, stats, or progress will transfer over if you get the game at launch. The player attributes you encounter while playing in the Tech Test will also not be the final versions we’ll see in the release version.
Those who are selected for the Tech Test are going to have to keep the experience relatively under wraps. Discussion and feedback about the Test will be kept in a private forum for selected participants only, which will open slightly before the test servers go live on February 22. Additionally, testers will not be allowed to stream or share photos/videos from the Tech Test. Doing so could result in your account being suspended from this and possibly future tests or releases of the game.
Adol Christin, the protagonist of Falcom’s long-lived Ys series, is a real adventurer’s adventurer. He’s been drifting from place to place since his journey began on Japanese PCs in 1987, collecting tales, meeting new people, and getting caught up in towns’ supernatural business. In Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, Adol blows into the town of Balduq and discovers a particularly dark secret seething in its depths. His trouble is our gain: Ys IX is yet another deeply satisfying action RPG starring the red-haired sword-swinger. It has a lot in common with 2016’s Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, but avoids feeling like “just more of the same” thanks to new abilities that make exploration fast, frantic, and fun.
Unlike more serialized RPGs such as Trails of Cold Steel, it’s easy to jump into Ys games because the story’s mostly self-contained. Granted, there are a few jokes and references in Ys IX that are clearly for long-time fans, but the premise is simple: The story opens with Adol being arrested for his many, many crimes against the far-reaching Romun Empire, and his lack of surprise at the arrest is honestly funny. His interrogation, where he’s grilled about certain Ys series’ tropes (“Why do ships seem to sink when you’re on them? How do you keep losing priceless historical relics?”) is also great. I laughed out loud when Adol acquired one of Ys IX’s legendary swords, and one of the dialogue options was, “I’m going to lose this, aren’t I?”
During his escape, Adol ends up afflicted with a “curse” – and an honestly badass wardrobe to go along with it. He’s a “Monstrum” now, and is henceforth known as “The Crimson King.” (Is that a prog rock reference or a callout to Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series? You make the call!) If he wishes to know the reason behind it, he must uncover the secret seething in the heart of Balduq’s enormous prison. Thus begins a heck of a lot of sword-swinging.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Ys%20XI’s%20familiarity%20isn’t%20boring.”]In that respect, Ys IX is an action RPG that – to reiterate a previous point – looks and plays similarly to the excellent Ys VIII. While Ys VIII added a whole new literal dimension to the series by bringing it into the 3D realm, IX doesn’t have the same level of novelty, but its familiarity isn’t boring. Hacking up foes across sprawling plains, ancient ruins, and lava-filled caverns to name a few is a good deal of satisfying fun, even if the environments outside of town are a bit visually bland.
It’s a while before you’re allowed to see those locations, though, because a hefty chunk of Ys IX’s roughly 30 hours of story takes place within the city of Balduq. I was initially a little bored, but my outlook changed when Adol gained his earliest Monstrum “Gifts” – and these new movement powers are where Ys IX begins to feel different from its predecessor. Crimson Line lets him grapple from rooftop to rooftop, Hunter’s Descent lets him glide, and Heaven’s Run lets him run straight up walls. (“Hardcore Parkour!”) These early gifts alone let Adol Batman the hell out of Balduq – yes, I’m using “Batman” as a verb – and it became much easier to appreciate my time in the sprawling city. Gifts are employed in battle, too: Crimson Line zips you directly into an enemy’s face, for example. (All the better to stab your eyes out, my dear.)
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=For%20more%20of%20a%20challenge%20%E2%80%93%20and%20a%20deeper%20game%20%E2%80%93%20I%20recommend%20cranking%20the%20difficulty%20up.”]Fans of musou games like Dynasty Warriors will probably find themselves right at home in the moment-to-moment hacking and slashing your way through hordes of enemies. But like Dynasty Warriors, the combat in Ys IX isn’t particularly deep or challenging, and Ys IX is a pretty quick game by JRPG standards as a consequence. For more of a challenge – and a deeper game – I recommend cranking the difficulty up. You still aren’t going to get Souls-like battles or anything, but the harder monsters encourage you to learn patterns and use the cool and satisfying Flash Guard parry that slows down time after a perfect dodge.
I personally took a little bit of extra time to wrap up quests and procure knick-knacks that can be used to upgrade weapons and create gifts for my comrades, and combined with exploration of the corners of the map that added a few more hours to my playtime.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=I%20was%20inspired%20to%20solve%20Balduq’s%20problems%20and%20help%20out%20Adol’s%20new%20pals.”]Ys games usually come with their fair share of fun characters and a compelling story, but I was surprised at how invested I was in Ys events and characters. Mind, one of the characters, the Monstrum code-named Feral Hawk, is a bog-standard edgelord who just wants to swear and fight, but I enjoyed my time with the rest of the cast. I particularly have soft spots for the sweet and shy White Cat and the sickly but determined Renegade. Adol’s new friends play key roles in many of Ys IX’s subquests, which are refreshingly meaty despite being short, and are often tied into Ys IX’s overarching plot. While the main story challenges you to uncover Balduq’s strange secrets, the subquests focus more on a budding revolution within the nation against its Romun occupiers. However, the revolution’s old guard isn’t happy with the way the hot-headed young revolutionaries are conducting themselves. (The revolution’s former leader, a cigar-smoking octogenarian named Margot, is awesome.) Ys IX’s story isn’t as deep as what you’ll find in a Trails of Cold Steel game, but I was inspired to solve Balduq’s problems and help out Adol’s new pals.
The friends Adol makes in Ys IX become important during the Grimwald Nox, a tower defense minigame that pops up at key story moments. The name is new but the concept isn’t: these missions are very similar to the base defense minigame in Ys VIII, right down to your rescued friends cheering you on and offering stat buffs and heals. You also use monster loot to craft defenses like canons and towers that inflict invaders with status ailments like sleep and poison to soften them up before you jump into combat. It still doesn’t feel fully fleshed out as a tower defense game, since you can’t freely decide where these defensive tools should be placed, which means there’s not a lot of strategy to be had in the Grimwald Nox. But there is a lot of intense swordplay as waves of demons bear down on you, hell-bent on destroying the Sphene crystal that must be protected. Once I learned that you shouldn’t skimp on beefing up the Grimwald Nox’s defenses (seriously, don’t), I started having a lot of fun in these twisted, monster-infested dimensions. You can just turn off your brain and put yourself on “auto” while you cut into monsters and collect their loot drops. It feels good, and hey, it’s cheaper than therapy.
Unfortunately, the busy Nox battles make it easy to spot one of Ys IX’s drawbacks: frame rate drops in busy areas, especially in the Coliseum region of Balduq, some of which persisted even after the launch patches. I also noticed texture pop-in, and a full-on game crash during one Grimwald Nox battle. I didn’t lose too much progress thanks to Ys IX’s robust auto-save system, but it’s always a bummer when PlayStation 4’s Blue Screen of Death puts a sudden end to your fun.
The untitled Jean Smart series coming to HBO Max does not have an official title, and it’s just months away from debuting on the streaming service. The series follows a young stand-up comedian who lands a job writing jokes for an older comedian who works nightly in Las Vegas.
During the TCA winter press tour, the cast discussed the upcoming show where they delved into why the series doesn’t have a name yet. “I think part of what the challenge has been for a title is [that] the show really is trying to say so much at once,” explained executive producer and series creator Lucia Aniello. “And I think to try to summarize so many different things with just one or two or three words is an interesting exercise, and I think we’re in the middle of that exercise right now.
“But the show is obviously about a larger-than-life person, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), and it also has a two handedness to it, but it also has an ensembleness to it as well. There’s just so much that we want to say and so to kind of boil it down into just a quickie kind of a title is an interesting process, and I think we really are just trying to find something that feels like it represents what the show is.”
The content of the series is obviously more important than the title–but a catchy title sure can grab viewers. The series follows legendary comedian Deborah Vance who forms a dark mentorship with Ava (Hannah Einbinder), a 25-year-old writer who ends up writing for Vance.
“Deborah’s sort of on automatic pilot a bit, when we first meet her, which is why Paul (W. Downs)–who plays my manager–has insisted that I meet with this young person to punch up my act a little bit, which of course I resent because Deborah’s always done her own writing,” said Smart.
And neither of these characters–Deborah and Ava–can agree on what’s funny because comedy is subjective, and it’s all about the point of view of these characters. “Ava’s point-of-view is that if the masses thinks something is funny, then it’s not cool,” Smart continued. “And if the masses like it, you know, if the people from Florida who eat at Panera like it, it’s not funny.”
Einbinder is exceptionally familiar with the world of stand-up, as a comedian herself. “I take a swing at it up there,” Einbinder said. “I try my best, and I bomb, and I do well sometimes. It is an unmasterable craft. You can never be a perfect stand-up comedian.”
While the show has the backbone of stand-up comedy, it is much more about Deborah and Ava’s life off the stage and the relationship between these two characters from two very different generations. The show also features Carl Clemons-Hopkins (Candyman), Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia), Christopher McDonald (Happy Gilmore), Paul W. Downs (Rough Night), Mark Indelicato (Ugly Betty), Poppy Liu (Better Call Saul), and more. The series is created by Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky, with Downs and Aniello serving as executive producers alongside Michael Schur, David Miner, and Morgan Sackett.
Actress Gina Carano is facing a backlash on social media over recent posts, including one that compared modern-day political disagreements to Nazi Germany.
Variety reports that the star stirred controversy on social media by sharing an Instagram post, suggesting that hating someone for their political views is akin to Germans hating Jewish citizens in 1930s Germany. The post had originally appeared on another account, but Carano’s sharing of it sparked controversy.
“Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children,” the post read. “Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”
Another recent post seemed to make light of masking in light of coronavirus regulations. Both of those were removed. Others that share controversial or conspiratorial views have remained, including one that simply says, “Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself.”
This latest round of controversy has renewed calls to drop her from The Mandalorian, inspiring a #FireGinaCarano hashtag.
Carano has inspired backlash before, having altered her Twitter bio in a way that was seen as making light of using a person’s gender-affirming pronouns. She later removed that from her Twitter bio, saying that her Mandalorian co-star Pedro Pascal helped her understand the purpose of them.
Carano’s character on The Mandalorian, Cara Dune, has appeared semi-regularly across both seasons. She was a bigger part of the second season, appearing in multiple episodes and factoring into the season finale conflict. There has also been speculation that Cara Dune will be a major part of the spin-off show Rangers of the New Republic, given that the character became a New Republic Ranger in the course of the show.
