Some details have been revealed about the new project coming from the creators of Limbo and Inside.
Playdead’s currently untitled project will be a “3rd-person science fiction adventure set in a remote corner of the universe,” according to the job listings page on the studio’s website. Within the Technical Director listing the ‘Who We Are’ section is slightly altered, adding that the game is being “built for multiple platforms on Unreal Engine.”
The openings also mention Playdead’s company culture, noting that the studio’s approach to development “does not include crunching towards arbitrary deadlines.” Some new art from the game has also been found in the listings, which you can see in the gallery below.
The game was first teased back in March 2018, via postcards given out at the Game Developer’s Conference. We still don’t have a name or a release window for the game, but as the studio gears up for development, we’ll be sure to let you know if we hear anything more.
Nintendo is the subject of yet another class-action lawsuit over its Switch console’s ongoing Joy-Con drift issues, this time in Canada. It means Nintendo is now facing down potential legal trouble in Canada, the US, and across Europe.
Québec-based law firm Lambert Avocat filed an application to bring a class action suit against Nintendo on January 15, seeking to “obtain a compensation for all Québec consumers who bought the Nintendo Switch™ and Nintendo Switch™ Lite gaming systems, as well as Joy-Con™ and Nintendo Switch Pro controllers.”
The firm says that drift – which sees Joy-Cons registering analog stick movement, even if they’re not being touched – represents “an important, serious and hidden defect” that was not properly revealed by Nintendo. Lambert Avocat is now asking Québec residents to register as part of the suit on its website.
This latest class action suit is just one of a slew of potential issues for the company surrounding the defect. Nintendo is facing down at least four drift cases in the US, with class action suits in Illinois, California, and two in Washington. Two of those suits are now in arbitration, with a judge in the earlier Washington case refusing Nintendo’s request to dismiss it.
Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser recently said that Nintendo is ‘focusing’ on existing Switch models, rather than the much-rumoured Switch Pro model. Bowser addressed Joy-Con drift in that discussion, but made no promises about a more permanent solution to the ongoing issue, saying, “We’re always looking at what is being sent in and for what reasons, and understanding that better. And without going into any details, it always gives us an opportunity to make improvements as we go forward.”
Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
WandaVision keeps getting weirder and creepier with HYDRA nods, SWORD shout-outs, and possibly demonic babies.
Things are getting weirder by the day in sunny Westview as WandaVision enters its third episode with ’70s style and flare. Come for the Brady Bunch and Mary Tyler Moore vibes, stay for the magically accelerated pregnancy and all the wacky (and incredibly ominous) hijinks that come with.
Episode 3 sees us in full color for the first time as Wanda and Vision try and figure out exactly what’s going on with the baby they have on the way–they’ve even called in a doctor, who is a remarkably good sport, all things considered. But things very rapidly take a turn for the weird as the story progresses–including some of the eeriest interactions with neighbors yet, another HYDRA nod in the “commercial break,” and a reveal for Geraldine you may or may not have seen coming.
We may still have far more questions than answers about this show, but one thing is certain: Wherever it’s going, the MCU is unlikely to ever be the same in its wake.
We’ve picked out 19 possible clues, Easter Eggs, comic book references, and off-the-wall moments you don’t want to miss in WandaVision Episode 3. Let us know your theories–and anything we may have missed–in the comments below.
Something is very, very wrong in Westview. Thankfully, this means that WandaVision is so very, very on the right path. While episode 3 remains in set-up mode like the chapters before it, this 1970s-set entry finally cracks the sitcom illusion just enough to make WandaVision’s two elements of TV comedy homage and MCU puzzle box feel cohesive rather than disparate. We may be only inches closer to learning more about the show’s mystery, but it’s a mile ahead in terms of making WandaVision feel like a genuine MCU installment.
Much like the two-part premiere, episode 3 delays most of its revelations until the credits are almost ready to roll. But this time they claim more than a fleeting minute of screen time, providing us with something really substantial to chew on until next week. Teyonah Parris’ “Geraldine” (whose real name can be found in previously released casting news, if you’d like to spoil upcoming reveals) being catapulted out of the sitcom reality and into the real world suggests there’s an almost Truman Show element to it all; that Westview is a physical place rather than an imaginary reality, albeit one that may not even be on our plane of existence. Perhaps, considering the confirmed link to Doctor Strange 2, it is a realm within the Multiverse of Madness?
Within Westview itself, we discover that Geraldine is new in town and distrusted by Agnes and Herb. This raises more fun questions to debate; Geraldine is clearly a SWORD agent infiltrating this reality, but who are the neighbours? If not SWORD themselves, are they effectively Wanda’s jailors? Manifestations of her own subconsciousness? Or perhaps innocent bystanders in a sinister world? Additionally, Vision himself appears to have a moment of understanding, but reality seems to glitch out before he can complete the thought: is that Wanda’s doing, or an external force? The questions are certainly piling up rather than being cleared up, but episode 3 makes the right move of revealing just enough that it focuses those questions and elevates the mystery beyond just a general sense of unease.
One thing that is clear is that the weirdness of the meta storyline is bleeding into the sitcom. Unlike the premiere, which presented two pretty straight-laced comedy plots that could have been pulled from Bewitched or The Dick Van Dyke Show, episode 3 is really quite strange throughout. Rather than coming via punctuating moments of darkness, the reminders that this reality is wrong are constant, and – smartly – mostly played for laughs. From Herb happily carving through a brick wall with his hedge cutters, through the practical effects of the house decor spinning as Wanda goes into labour, to a genuine stork arriving to metaphorically deliver a baby, there is a surreal nature to episode 3 that’s undeniably joyful.
This surreal fun is the driving force of the episode, too. At its heart this is the classic “mom gives birth” episode of any family sitcom you can mention, complete with a flustered dad trying to cope. But Wanda’s hyper-speed pregnancy breaks reality at every stage, ensuring the sitcom feels less like an homage and more like a part of the MCU. A Marvel character having a baby would be big no matter what form it took, but the fact that twins Billy and Tommy are part of arguably Vision and Scarlet Witch’s most recognisable storyline in the comics makes this a landmark moment for the MCU. As such, I’ve found myself genuinely caring about this new family that Wanda and Vision have created. The sitcom itself now feels like a truly integral part of the story, rather than the wrapping paper around its darker heart.
This is the episode that’s likely to convince skeptical fans of its “serious” MCU credentials, then. But for anyone who’s on this ride for the actual comedy, episode 3 still delivers, if not with the same gusto as its predecessor. The ever-changing house is now near enough a shrine to The Brady Bunch, complete with the staircase, while the bright title sequence is a pastiche of the thoroughly “modern” lifestyles of the era. Elizabeth Olsen channels the look of Susan Dey for this incarnation of Wanda, although there’s no sign of a Partridge Family-style musical number beyond the catchy theme tune. In fact, straight-up sitcom references and jokes without a strange edge are rare this time around. But Vision attempting to change a doll’s diaper is a great visual gag that helps maintain some balance of the show’s dual identities.
But while there is a balance, it’s undeniable that this episode is less interested in homage. It makes for a few minor drawbacks; a Brady Bunch-like stage feels underserved by a couple who are not yet surrounded by a classroom’s worth of children. This is obviously due to the linear exploration of US sitcom history, and so we can only hope that the relevant decades and shows will more neatly line up with episode concepts in the future. Already, though, it seems that the importance of the homage can take a backseat when the story demands it, which can only be a good thing for ensuring WandaVision’s continued narrative depth.
This week’s episode of WandaVision took us into the stunning technicolor of the 1970s for a very Brady Bunch-flavored turn of events: Wanda’s pregnancy, as revealed last week, was progressing along at a breakneck pace (just in case there was any doubt at all left in your head that there’s something seriously messed up with Westville and, you know, reality as a whole in this show).
Not only is Wanda’s pregnancy lasting a matter of days, she’s also having twins–which, if you’re familiar with Wanda and Vision’s comic book history, ought to come as no surprise. But the real story of these bouncing baby boys is a complicated one that may (or may not) be layered with clues about the rest of the show. Let’s take a closer look.
Both Wanda and Vision have what we’ll generously call “complicated” histories in the comics, full of inexplicable memory loss, death and resurrection, origin story “retcons” (though most were done in such a way as to re-examine or handwave old versions of events away, rather than ignoring them entirely) and updates to powers and abilities. For a considerable amount of time in her early years, Wanda’s “witch” moniker was completely literal–her abilities were magic based and, as such, needed to be honed with practice and mentoring by another, more experienced magic user. Enter Agatha Harkness, another witch who helped Wanda learn better magic and who also did some other things like mentor Franklin Richards, the erstwhile son of Sue Storm and Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. She’s a whole can of worms, don’t worry too much about that just yet.
During her dealings with Wanda, however, Agatha decided it would be worthwhile for her to grant one of Wanda’s most unlikely wishes–you see, Wanda and Vision were in love, and while Vision was a synthezoid robot and therefore, not able to organically have kids, the two of them wanted nothing more than to start a family. Agatha “magically” helped it happen, Wanda got pregnant and had twins, and for a brief moment, everyone was very happy.
Then, naturally the other shoe dropped. It was revealed that the “magic” Agatha had used to allow Wanda her pregnancy had actually been two shards of the soul of a demon named Master Pandemonium who had originally just been a guy who made a deal with Mephisto, one of Marvel’s literal incarnations of the devil. Part of Master Pandemonium’s story involved limb amputation (don’t ask) and by removing “shards” of his soul, he lost some of his limbs, which sent him on a quest to come collect.
Unfortunately for Wanda and Vision, this meant finding them and reabsorbing their children which became–you guessed it: literal baby arms.
Of course, the tragic baby-arming of Wanda and Vision’s children was eventually undone (sort of). The twins were later reborn (in the sense that the soul shards that had originally created them were “dispersed” and reformed in the universe as actual souls–which doesn’t make a ton of sense so don’t think too much about it) in a slightly less magical way to human parents.
It’s here that we get the versions of the children–Billy and Tommy–that most fans know as Wiccan and Speed today. These two went on to become members of the Young Avengers for several years where they–Billy especially–gained break-out popularity and have become staples of the larger Marvel universe.
So what does this mean for the babies in the show and for the future of the MCU?
Well, it’s obviously hard to say. If the babies in WandaVision are following the comics’ trajectory at all, we might be about to get some serious demonic reveals in future episodes. It would be a quick and (relatively) easy way to introduce that level of metaphysical conceit to the MCU–and, in terms of trying to one-up a big bad like Thanos, the actual devil Mephisto seems like a decent option. In addition, another inter-dimensional, time traveling entity named Immortus played a conspiratorial role in Wanda’s original pregnancy (another thing to not think too hard about, as it involves trying to steal the “temporal nexus energy” that powered Wanda for some time). Immortus is another name for a villain named Kang the Conqueror, who will definitely be joining the MCU in the upcoming Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.
All of which is to say, the idea that Billy and Tommy might not actually exist (formally) when WandaVision is over is a pretty solid theory. Also, if the kids are a method of summoning the likes of Mephisto or Immortus into the MCU spotlight, it would certainly be a decent motivation for the whole Westview ruse–the answer to the “who’s doing this to you, Wanda?” question would be, of course, “anyone who really would like their demonic and/or temporal monarch to enter the fray.”
On the other hand, however, if the show goes another route with the babies and skips over the demonic/soul shard/manipulation layer of the twins’ origins and simplifies things into something a little closer to “Wanda and Vision had children via magic and now those children have powers of their own,” we could be looking at a direct route to a Young Avengers show or movie. It’s perhaps a bit too easy, but it’s an option that shouldn’t be ignored either way. After all, Billy and Tommy’s teammate Cassie Lang already exists in the MCU, and we’re getting even more new and next-gen heroes added to the mix in the future on Disney+. Riri Williams and Kamala Khan may not have been part of the founding Young Avengers roster that Billy and Tommy were a part of, but they would be easy and welcome additions to the MCU’s take on the team.
The Spider-man spin-off movie Morbius has been delayed until January 21, 2022. The film, which stars Jared Leto, was set to arrive on October 8 this year, having already been pushed twice, from releases in July 2020 and March 2021.
Morbius is one of several movies that Sony has delayed. The video game adaptation Uncharted will now arrive in February 2022, with Ghostbusters: Afterlife shifting to November 2021. The studio also pushed Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway and Cinderella to June and July 2021 respectively.
The movie is based on the Marvel comic book Morbius: The Living Vampire, and stars Leto as a biologist with a rare blood disease, who gains the powers of a vampire when he performs an experiment involving vampire bat DNA. It also stars Matt Smith (Doctor Who), Adria Arjona (Good Omens), Jared Harris (The Terror), and Tyrese Gibson (the Fast & Furious series). The film is directed by Daniel Espinosa (Life, Safe House).
Morbius is one of several movies based on Spider-Man characters that Sony is planning. The Venom sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, is currently scheduled for a June release, although, of course, that could be delayed as well. In May last year, it was reported that Jessica Jones director S.J. Clarkson had been hired to work on a female-focused project–possibly Madame Webb–while Supergirl and Arrow writer Marc Guggenheim is writing a Jackpot movie. In addition, films focusing on Black Cat, Silver Sable, Silk, and Kraven the Hunter have all been rumored over the past couple of years.
Ahead of the launch of The Medium, Bloober Team has released a brand-new trailer for the upcoming cinematic horror game. The trailer details nine uncanny facts about the game, including that The Medium may be set in the same universe as Bloober Team’s Observer: System Redux.
“[Protagonist] Marianne’s home, where the game starts, is located in a real apartment building in Krakow, Poland,” Bloober Team community team member Michal Napora says in the video. “Curiously, the same building–or rather, what it will look like in 2084–can also be found in Bloober Team’s previous release, Observer: System Redux.”
Admittedly, it’s not an actual confirmation that the two games exist in the same universe, especially since Napora goes on to say several facts later that The Medium hides secret Easter eggs and references to its previous games. That said, how the location looks in The Medium is eerily similar to how it appears in Observer–it certainly looks like the two games are simply separated by decades of time.
There are quite a few other interesting facts in the video. For instance, Napora explains that the pulsing white energy on protagonist Marianna’s arm actually measures how much spirit energy she has left. By using physical indicators on her character, Bloober Team is able to remove any user interface from the game. For all nine facts, you’ll have to watch the trailer.
The Medium is scheduled to launch for Xbox Series X|S and PC on January 28–the game will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one. In the video above, Napora describes the game as an 8-10 hour experience, which is a bit longer than the three- to six-hour horror games that Bloober Team typically makes.
A whole host of information about Resident Evil Village dropped during a recent livestream–a May release date, the reveal of a PS5 demo, and more details about the very tall, very hot vampire lady. But beyond that, one thing about the livestream that really stuck out to me was the description of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game as “next gen” and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions as “current gen.”
It got me thinking about when we should stop referring to the PS5 and the Xbox Series X|S as “next gen.” Both consoles have been out for over two months now. They aren’t something that’s on the way anymore, they’re actually here in quite a few peoples’ homes. But folks–even me, sometimes–seemingly still think that the console generation hasn’t actually switched yet.
To be honest, I’m not sure when I’m going to start naturally referring to Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 as the “current gen,” despite the fact that I have both a Series X and PS5 and have been using them since November. At the very least, I’ve come to start referring to them as “new gen” instead of “next gen” whenever I’ve had to write about them, but my brain hasn’t made the subconscious switch to refer to Xbox One and PS4 as the old hardware. I still need to stop and remind myself of that.
So will the new consoles be considered “current gen” once they’re readily available to buy and you can just waltz into a store and pick either one up instead of needing to excuse yourself in the middle of the work day to hover over your phone in the bathroom and hit refresh on a link in hopes a console lands in your cart before a bot scoops it up? Or are the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S only “current gen” once the PS4 and Xbox One become obsolete hardware and new games are no longer being regularly made for those two systems? Is this new generation only “current gen” once Microsoft and Sony stop producing Xbox One and PS4 units, removing the option of being able to even buy them? Or is society using some other baseline to measure the transition? Because whatever the deciding factor is, y’all didn’t tell me and I would like to know.
Admittedly, it doesn’t really matter, but I still think it’s weird. I don’t recall it taking this long after their respective releases for folks to start referring to PS4 and Xbox One as “current” and the PS3 and Xbox 360 as “last gen.” So why hasn’t the same happened for Xbox Series X|S and PS5 yet?
Anyway, how are you referring to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S? Do you think they’re current gen, next gen, or new gen, or do you think that we need a new label for this specific console generation? And what marks the transition in console generations for you?
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More changes to loot and rewards are coming to Destiny 2 with the start of its next content season on February 9. Bungie just announced that in addition to changes to certain activities and refreshed rewards on the Moon and in the Dreaming City, Season 13 will see the return of Umbral Engrams to the game, along with the ability to choose what kind of weapons and armors you can claim from them.
Bungie ran down the changes in its This Week at Bungie blog post, outlining some changes happening with the start of Destiny 2’s next content season. We last saw Umbral Engrams in the Season of Arrivals, where they were a major part of seasonal activities. Using a new item in the Tower called the Prismatic Recaster, players were able to determine which weapons and armor would drop from Umbral Engrams. The system also allowed you to choose which stats your loot would favor–essentially allowing you to more easily get guns and armor with the stats and perks you prefer for your loadout, rather than relying on random drops.
In Season 13, Umbral Engrams will return, as will the Prismatic Recaster. You’ll get Umbral Engrams most often from seasonal activities, Bungie writes, but they’ll also drop from random enemy kills and from other game activities. Here’s the complete list:
Patrols
Strikes
Crucible
Gambit
The Ordeal
Public Events
Blind Well
Nightmare Hunts
Exo Challenges
Empire Hunts
New Seasonal Activity
Though Umbral Engrams come from a number of sources, they won’t be as plentiful as in the Season of Arrivals, however. Drop rates are being reduced, and you’ll need to complete a short story mission in order to access the Prismatic Recaster in order to make use of the engrams. On the plus side, it sounds like Umbral Engrams will be here to stay beyond Season 13.
Bungie also reiterated a change it had mentioned before the release of the Beyond Light expansion–seasonal activities will persist throughout the rest of the year. That means that, while the Season of the Hunt is set to wrap up in a couple of weeks, you won’t lose access to the Wrathborn Hunts, Harbinger mission, and other activities that have been a part of it. That means seasonal loot will also persist throughout Destiny 2’s Year 4.
The Season of the Hunt was originally designed on Destiny 2’s old system, in which content expired with the end of each season, so Bungie warned there might be some weirdness with the Crow going forward (the character will appear in two places in the solar system, for example). But Season 13 has been designed with this persistent state in mind. The idea is to combat players’ FOMO–fear of missing out–with expiring content. With the new approach, you’ll be free to keep playing everything that drops this year until the release of the next Destiny 2 expansion in November.
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