Category: Games

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A visually stunning theatrical continuation of one of anime’s biggest recent hits, Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train only slightly misses the mark. The point of this film is to show us how the characters have grown from training after their last life-and-death battle—and to have them learn the hard way just how far they still have to go.

Picking up moments after the end of the TV series, the film — a blockbuster success in international release — follows our team of heroes as they board a train where both normal people and demon hunters have gone missing en masse—likely due to demons. Of course, this means that whatever’s going on is a bit too much for mid-level hunters like Tanjiro and his friends, so they are assigned to work with Rengoku, one of the nine strongest hunters in their organization. Yet as they begin to explore the mystery of the train, it quickly becomes clear that raw power alone will not be enough to save all those on board.

Each side character gets their time in the spotlight to do something meaningful — especially Inosuke — with the film providing a convincing rationale as to why the far more powerful Rengoku doesn’t just solve everything himself. Much of the plot here deals with dreams. This, in turn, allows for an insightful view of what our heroes’ deepest desires are. While some dreams, like Inosuke and Zenitsu’s, are used mainly for comedic purposes, others, namely Tanjiro and Rengoku’s, show us what exactly they lost due to the demons — the everyday life and familial connections that were so precious to them.

We also get a more metaphorical look at several characters’ subconscious. For Rengoku, it is an ever-burning hardpan desert symbolizing his undying personal drive. For Tanjiro, it is an endless serene lake under a stunning summer sky symbolizing the peace and warmth at his very core. All this helps us better understand our heroes and empathize with what they are going through.

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While the film does have some good character development, Enmu, the main villain of the film, gets almost none at all. Up to this point, the villains we have encountered have often had layers to them—something deep inside that both Tanjiro and the viewer can empathize with even as he cuts them down. For the mansion-twisting Kyogai, it was his need to be recognized, either as a demon or as a writer. For the spider-demon Rui, it was his need for a family to replace his human one even though he could no longer understand the concept.

Enmu, on the other hand, is spectacularly one-note. He is a sadist, plain and simple. He lets his victims experience their greatest dreams only so he can watch the horror on their faces as they awaken to him killing them. He shows no remorse for his actions and only regrets not killing more people. If it weren’t for his excellent character design, he’d probably be the most forgettable villain of the franchise.

And yet Enmu isn’t the weakest aspect of the film; the climax is. While the majority of the film is spent following Tanjiro, he is not the emotional core of the film but rather Rengoku. In fact, this film lives or dies on how well you connect with Rengoku, which is the problem.

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It’s hard to connect with Rengoku because we don’t know Rengoku. Moreover, none of our heroes know him either. While he did appear briefly in the series proper, he was equal parts antagonist and comic relief during Nezuko’s trial. In fact, before the film, Rengoku and Tanjiro never even had a single conversation. In this film, beyond talking in battle, they have only two brief conversations, one at the start of the film and one at the end and neither are particularly deep. While Rengoku’s dreams and an almost-too-late flashback do let us know a bit about him it’s no way near enough to successfully pull off the emotional gut-punch the film is aiming for. No matter how much the score swells and voice actors give their all, the climax just falls flat.

On a visual level, there are few anime out there that look better than Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train. It expertly combines 3D and traditional animation in a way that makes both look amazing. Vivid colors, dynamic camera movements — this film has all the things we’ve come to expect from Ufotable’s animation in recent years.

But where it truly stands apart from other Ufotable works is in its effects. While the Demon Slayer TV series focused mainly on the water effects — making them look as if they came straight out of a Hokusai painting — this film aims to do something comparable with fire. It feels powerful, otherworldly, and perfect for something that’s supposed to be able to destroy even the most powerful of demons. It’s hands down the visual highlight of the film.

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It doesn’t appear we’ll be getting a sequel to Sony Bend’s Days Gone, and some of the game’s creative leadership is no longer at the studio. This includes director and writer John Garvin, who appeared to put the blame for games not getting sequels–at least in part–on players not willing to pay full price at launch.

Speaking to fellow former Sony developer David Jaffe, Garvin said (via VGC) that “If you love a game, buy it at full ****ing price,” and said he has heard players talk about getting games on sale or through PlayStation Plus, instead.

Jaffe asked the obvious rebuttal to this, which is how can you know you love a game you haven’t played? Garvin doubled down but didn’t have much of an answer. He pointed to the PS4-exclusive God of War getting more support out of the gate.

NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella, who previously worked for both Activision and Warner Bros. in the business and sales planning departments, disagreed with putting the blame on players.

“If a game didn’t sell well at launch it’s most likely because the game, its marketing, or its price failed to incentivize consumers to purchase. Blaming the consumer for a game not selling well at launch is a bit off the rails,” Piscatella said.

Days Gone was polarizing at launch, with reviews all over the place. According to GameSpot’s sister site Metacritic, they ranged from as low as 3/10 to as high as 10/10, with plenty of very low and very high scores among the 109 cataloged. By contrast, God of War’s very lowest score on Metacritic was a 7.5/10 and it had more than 40 perfect scores. Seeing such praise for a game before it’s out can certainly influence a buying decision.

Days Gone is free on PlayStation Plus right now and is also included in the PS5’s PlayStation Plus Collection. The game releases for PC on May 18.

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Welcome back, folks, to Slackin’ Off, where we share some of our most recent interoffice speculations, conjectures, postulations. and theories about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Yup, these theories, based on this week’s penultimate episode, “Truth,” come straight to you from our MCU Slack channel where we ramble and rave over new characters, shocking twists, and offer up general giddy “guessery” about where the series might head next.

With next week being the finale, and this week’s episode bringing in a fresh face (played by a famous face), we’re expecting everything to come to a head in a major way as Sam and Bucky are set to, once again, collide with Karli and John Walker. Is Walker out to kill Karli or does he have his sights set on Sam and Bucky? Either way, he’s a hazardous wild card of the highest order who still sees himself as Captain America (even crafting his own shield in the series’ first mid-credits scene) despite being unceremoniously stripped of that honor due to his (very public) murderous actions.

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And then there’s the lingering issue of the Power Broker. The “man” with the plan in Madripoor. Will that get resolved by the end of this series or is it meant to extend out into the MCU, much like Zemo seemed to do in “Truth” when he was hauled off to the Raft by the Dora Milaje? Technically Zemo’s still out there, free to return someday, though his actions with Bucky in this episode seemed to suggest that he still longs for death on some level.

Meanwhile, Sam appeared to arrive at a very important decision this week – the choice to stand tall and proud and trust in Steve that he could be Captain America. The idea is that you can only change things if you keep fighting, and that it doesn’t mean you also have to ignore all the evils of America, or try to bury them the way Isaiah Bradley had his life take away from him for doing, basically, what Steve Rogers did back in World War II when he rescued Bucky.

So read on for some fun behind-the-scenes theorizing that we’ve been volleying back and forth here at IGN in the wake of Episode 5. To be clear: We do not know what is going to happen. These are just guesses. Oh, and be sure to drop your own take on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in the comments — and don’t forget to vote in our poll at the bottom of the page!

Theory: Sam’s Wakandan Suit Is a Falcon/Cap Hybrid

Sam may not have been sure about Steve’s choice for him to inherit the mantle of Captain America, but Bucky’s been right on target. Sure, at first it was because Bucky wanted to believe in Steve the way he always had but now, after this adventure with Sam, Bucky truly knows the character of the man and is confident that Sam is the only man worthy of the shield.

But was Bucky so confident that Sam would figure it out for himself that he had the Wakandans literally make Sam a new… Captain America suit? Like, the Cap suit with Falcon wings that Sam used in the comics? There has to be a reason we didn’t see the full get-up in the case at the end of the episode, and a reason why Sam was so taken aback by it.

It’s a safe bet that the case contains a Cap suit of some sort, but if somehow it doesn’t, we’re still pretty sure we’ll see Sam in a Cap suit by episode’s end. Also, if the Wakandans did make a Cap suit, it’d be sweet if it was vibranium through and through, like Black Panther’s garb. And extra points if it also absorbs and expels energy.

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Theory: Sharon Is Now Too Obvious to Be the Power Broker

Ok, we go back and forth on this. In the end, it could be that Sharon Carter is the Power Broker. Done and done. It just wouldn’t be much of a twist at this point. In fact, seeing her contact Batroc this week, in order to aid Karli, almost felt too obvious. Like, now the series blatantly wants us to think she’s the Power Broker. So much so that she just can’t be now. Though, we were correct about her being the one who was helping Karli (and probably being the one to give Karli all the information about Sam’s sister).

Power Broker or not, Sharon’s actions this week were definitely a dark turn. She’s shifted from a shady player in Madripoor dealing in stolen art to someone literally giving Karli a mercenary who wants to kill Sam. That’s more than just self-preservation or survival in exile; she’s disturbingly fine with Sam being dead. We guess if she was willing to give up Sam’s family history to Karli, she’s capable of most anything.

Theory: Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Val) Is the Power Broker

In a hugely entertaining bit of casting, Julia Louis-Dreyfus made her way into the MCU this week as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, an enigmatic woman running a shadow recruiting scheme like a bizarro Nick Fury. So is Val the Power Broker? She seems to go after fallen heroes so perhaps she already roped Sharon into her web down in Madripoor and that’s why Sharon’s sort of doing the Power Broker’s bidding. Is she the woman behind the woman?

We mentioned a few weeks ago that the Power Broker was most likely someone we’d met already. With one exception. That exception was if the character was new to the MCU they would have to be played by a famous actor. Well, there you go. Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Val could be the one who was out there trying to make Super Soldiers. Heck, the serum is the main reason she’s interested in Walker.

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Theory: John Walker Will Debut as US Agent in the Finale

As much as John Walker tries to be Captain America, or even unintentionally emulate Tony Stark’s metal shop hammer banging, he’s a broken and disturbed man now. But with Zemo getting a slight redemption this season and Walker finding himself getting the cold shoulder from his own government, there’s been a lot of Thunderbolts talk throughout these past five episodes of Falcon and Winter Soldier.Thunderbolts, very quickly, are a Marvel comics hero team (with various rotating members and incarnations) comprised of reformed villains. Not only was one iteration of the team led by Zemo in the comics, but Val popping up on the scene this week, handing out business cards (well, kinda) and looking to recruit someone hero-adjacent, also felt like a possible Thunderbolts tease.

Regardless, Walker’s path seems to be that of US Agent, whose costume is very much meant to evoke Captain America. So with the crude construction of the shield mid-credits and Val basically offering Walker a Super Soldier-type job, we’ll probably see Walker as US Agent in some form in the final episode – whether it happens during his showdown with Sam and Bucky or it’s saved from another mid-credit scene.

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Did you have any lingering questions or theories? Share them below, and vote in this week’s poll too!

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Path of Exile 2 is on the way, but the first game’s latest expansion, Ultimatum, launched this week. It was a bit of a mess, to put it mildly, with players stuck waiting in server queues and unable to play. However, the problems were amplified because of Grinding Gear Games’ decision to let paid streamers skip the lines and start playing right away.

As spotted by Eurogamer, Path of Exile producer Chris Wilson explained on a Reddit thread that the Ultimatum Challenge League, which is a risk/reward trial players are essentially competing against each other in, was letting players in far too slowly. “Human error” resulted in the normal trickle migration process not being run, and players continued being dumped out of the realm until an eventual fix was made several hours later.

But why was this Path of Exile situation different than the server issues that plagued a game like Outriders, for instance? Well, because not everyone was affected. Paid streamers who Grinding Gear Games has brought on board for the launch were allowed in immediately, as they were supposed to stream for two hours. Not being allowed to play was, the team thought at the time, out of the question.

“This was about as close as you could get to literally setting a big pile of money on fire,” Wilson said. “So we made the hasty decision to allow those streamers to bypass the queue.”

As you can imagine, hyping players up for new content via influencers isn’t too effective when you’re also essentially mocking their lack of ability to play. The studio won’t be doing these sorts of preferential-treatment workarounds in the future and stressed that “most” streamers did not actually ask for them to do this.

Giving some players a chance to get ahead of everyone else certainly doesn’t seem like the right move, regardless of whether you had paid them. However, based on Wilson’s comments, it seems the studio has learned a very valuable lesson in public goodwill and likely won’t make the same mistake again.