Category: Games

Sony has unveiled February’s lineup of PlayStation Plus freebies for PS5 and PS4 users. We’ve known about one of the upcoming free games since the PS5’s launch. Destruction AllStars, which was originally slated to release alongside the console, will be available to PS Plus subscribers in February. The vehicular combat game is a PS5 exclusive and joins Concrete Genie and Control: Ultimate edition, which is getting a free PS5 upgrade on February 2. All three games will be available to claim starting February 2.

Destruction AllStars is an online multiplayer title developed by Lucid Games. Players take control of one of 16 playable characters, each of whom has their own vehicle with unique weapons and moves. As the title suggests, the goal is to zip around the arena and destroy your opponents’ vehicles. If your vehicle gets destroyed, you can compete on foot, which understandably will make it tougher to emerge victorious. Destruction AllStars will be free for subscribers until April 5.

Control: Ultimate edition‘s PS5 version releases on February 2, the same day it becomes free for PS Plus subscribers. It will be available for both PS4 and PS5 users. The Ultimate edition comes with both DLC packs, and PS5 owners will get a free upgrade that lets you play in two different modes: Performance and Graphics. Performance will run the game in 60 frames-per-second, and Graphics mode features ray tracing. The stellar action-adventure from Remedy Entertainment earned an 8/10 in our Control review.

Concrete Genie is an action-adventure game starring Ash, a young boy who happens upon a paintbrush that turns his doodles into reality. It earned a 7/10 in GameSpot’s Concrete Genie review for its colorful art style and charming story.

February 2021 PS Plus Free Games

Available February 2 to March 1

• Control: Ultimate edition
• Concrete Genie

Available February 2 to April 5

• Destruction AllStars

Warner Bros. has released a sizzle reel of its upcoming movie releases, which includes new snippets of Mortal Kombat and The Suicide Squad, among others.

The reel, showing off the movies that will arrive in theaters and on HBO Max on the same day, includes several shots of Mortal Kombat, including new looks at an unmasked Scorpion sword fighting with masked attackers, and Sonya Blade pointing to the words “Motal Kombat” on a picture and saying, “It’s an invitation to Mortal Kombat” (just in case you didn’t understand what the movie was called, I guess).

This year every @WBPictures movie will be in theaters and streaming exclusively on HBO Max.

The biggest premieres every single month. pic.twitter.com/5ipY3x4mBi

— HBO Max (@hbomax) January 27, 2021

As for The Suicide Squad, we see a familiar rainy long shot of the titular squad, set to the words, “So this is the famous Suicide Squad” (also just in case you didn’t guess), as well as Idris Elba’s Bloodsport saying, “no one likes a show-off”, to which John Cena’s Peacemaker replies, “Unless what they’re showing off is dope as f-“, before being cut off. We also see a split-second of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn escaping a collapsing building.

The reel comprises a huge list of movies coming from Warner Bros. and HBO Max: The Little Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry the Movie, Godzilla vs. Kong, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In the Heights, The Suicide Squad, Reminiscence, Cry Macho, King Richard, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Malignant, The Many Saints of Newark, Dune, and the untitled Matrix 4 (no footage of that one, I’m afraid).

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Mortal Kombat will arrive on April 16, and we recently got new images and details, including a mention of the fatalities. The reboot includes Mehcad Brooks as Jackson “Jax” Briggs, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero, Tadanobu Asano as Raiden, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Sisi Stringer as Mileena, Josh Lawson as Kano, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Max Huang as Lung Lao Max, and Lewis Tan as an all-new character.

The Suicide Squad, from director James Gunn, is described as a gritty war movie, and has a truly bonkers cast, from Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, to John Cena as Peacemaker, to Idris Elba as Bloodsport, to Sylvester Stallone and Taika Waititi. It will arrive on August 6.

Warner Bros.’ decision to release its movies in theaters and streaming has been highly controversial, with director Christopher Nolan saying “they don’t understand what they’re losing”.

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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].

Today marks the 10th anniversary of The Last Story‘s original release in Japan, and game director Hironobu Sakaguchi is commemorating the occasion by sharing a ton of concept art of the acclaimed Wii RPG on Twitter.

The concept art was drawn by artist Kimihiko Fujisaka and ranges from various character sketches to battle system mock ups. You can see a selection of the concept art below, while more can be found on Sakaguchi’s Twitter page:

The Last Story was developed by Mistwalker, the studio Sakaguchi founded after leaving Square Enix back in 2004. Sakaguchi himself is most famous for creating the Final Fantasy series, and his studio similarly specialized in RPGs, releasing notable titles like Blue Dragon and, more recently, the mobile game Terra Battle (which recently ended services after six years on the market).

The Last Story released exclusively for Wii in Japan in 2011, and in the US and Europe the following year. It was one of the titles championed by Operation Rainfall, a fan movement at the time geared at convincing Nintendo to localize three late-gen Wii RPGs (the other two being Xenoblade Chronicles and Pandora’s Tower). The game was greeted with critical acclaim from various outlets, including GameSpot. We scored it a 9/10 in our original Last Story review and wrote:

“The Last Story is a fantastic game; one that pushes the JRPG genre forward in ways that are innovative yet still complementary to the tradition of the genre. Its rich narrative straddles the line between emotionally affecting and breathtakingly action packed; its thrilling battle system is a unique, modern take on everything that has come before. And its visuals are some of the best ever seen on the Wii, pushing the system to its limits with its beautifully detailed environments and dazzling special effects (even if there’s a little frame rate stutter during more complex scenes).”

Mistwalker’s next project is Fantasian, a mobile RPG releasing for iOS as part of the Apple Arcade subscription service. Little has been revealed about the game so far, but its world is constructed out of real-life dioramas, which are being photographed and imported into the game. Fantasian does not yet have a release date.

The most iconic heroine in video games is jumping to animation! Tomb Raider is a new anime series from @Legendary following Lara Croft after the events of the video-game reboot trilogy.

— NX (@NXOnNetflix) January 27, 2021

Welcome to the world of Shadow and Bone where there are dangerous forces and powerful magic at play – summoners, sharpshooters and thieves.
Enter the world of the Grishaverse on April 23 pic.twitter.com/jw3XnumlK1

— Netflix (@netflix) January 27, 2021

Netflix has announced Skull Island, a new anime series set in the Legendary MonsterVerse. It will be produced by Powerhouse Animation, the studio behind Castlevania.

A shipwrecked crew, an island of monsters, and one king to rule them all. Skull Island is a new anime series set in @Legendary’s Monsterverse from @PowerhouseAnim.

— NX (@NXOnNetflix) January 27, 2021

As detailed by the tweet, the series will involve a shipwrecked crew landing on an island full of monsters, where one king rules them all. That ‘king’ is likely to be King Kong himself, considering Skull Island is the giant gorilla’s home.

Skull Island has been featured in numerous films, starting in the 1933 movie King Kong. Most recently, it was the setting of Kong: Skull Island, and modern film fans will also recall it being a large part of Peter Jackson’s King Kong. The Kong: Skull Island version of the setting is officially part of the Legendary MonsterVerse, and so may well be the starting point for this show, which is also an official part of the universe.

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No images or artwork has yet been shown, but Powerhouse Animation has produced a variety of well-liked shows, including Netflix’s Castlevania adaptation and Blood of Zeus. The studio is based in Austin, Texas, but has produced animation in a similar style to Japanese anime studios.

For more, check out our look at every monster in the MonsterVerse, why Kong is so big in the upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong movie, and vote in our survey on who you think will win the epic monster battle. 

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

EA has announced the newest studio in its stable, Full Circle, and the Vancouver-based, but also globally focused, studio will be the team behind the recently announced new Skate game.

While it remains unclear whether the newest entry in the Skate franchise will be Skate 4, or reboot of the franchise, or something else, EA confirmed the Full Circle team will be led by Daniel McCulloch, the former Head of Box Live at Microsoft. Returning Skate producers Deran Chung and Cuz Parry remain on board, having appeared in the Skate sequel’s announcement video at EA Play 2020.

“The fans wished Skate back into existence and we want them to feel involved in the process from development to game launch and beyond. We want them to feel like they are a part of Full Circle,” McCulloch said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “We’re all about having fun and making great games that people want to play with their friends. And, we’re looking for more developers to help us build compelling worlds for players to explore.”

The new studio is currently hiring for various positions including artists, designers, and engineers, and while it’s based in Vancouver, is “embracing a geo-diverse team” with members involved in development “around the globe.”

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Full Circle joins EA Sports and Respawn Entertainment as the third EA Studio in the Canadian city.

Unfortunately, there’s no new word on development on the next Skate thus far, or any additional details about the vision for the upcoming game, but late last year we learned the new Skate may have a focus on user-generated content. At the time, EA’s Andrew Wilson discussed how the new Skate was in “very early development” but that trends within the skateboarding world could fit into the scope of the new game.

“You take a game like Skate, and while skateboarding in and of itself has tremendous appeal to a huge, global audience, there’s another secular trend that’s happening inside our industry around user-generated content, open-world, and interaction,” Wilson said last June. “So for many people, you think about skating as a starting point that has appeal, but you start to build in user-generated content, exploration, and community on top of that and that expands the opportunity exponentially.”

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Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior News Editor, host of Podcast Beyond!, and PlayStation lead. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

The Skate franchise has a new studio that will lead development on the upcoming game, publisher EA confirmed. Called Full Circle, the “geo-diverse” team will be in charge of bringing the iconic skateboarding simulator back to life with a brand-new entry the publisher announced back in June 2020.

Leading Full Circle is studio general manager Daniel McCulloch, the former head of Xbox Live. McCulloch will be joined by Cuz Parry and Deran Chung, who served as the creative forces behind the Skate franchise and integral parts of the development of the three original games. Though based in Vancouver, the team is staffed by employees from around the world to “embrace a geo-diverse team and culture” focused on the next evolution of the Skate series.

In a press release announcing the new studio, McCulloch said Full Circle is looking for more developers to help out with “making great games that people want to play with the friends.”

“The fans wished Skate back into existence and we want them to feel involved in the process from development to game launch and beyond,” McCulloch said. “We want them to feel like they are a part of Full Circle. We’re all about having fun and making great games that people want to play with their friends. And, we’re looking for more developers to help us build compelling worlds for players to explore.”

Chung and Perry echoed McCulloch’s sentiment, saying they’re “stoked” to be working on the Skate franchise again after being dormant for so many years despite the clamoring from fans.

“We’re so stoked to be back working on Skate,” Chung and Perry said in the press release. “Some would say things have come full circle.”

In June 2020, EA confirmed Skate would make a return. The announcement was met with excitement online, though EA and now new-developer Full Circle have not revealed a release date or any real details. Despite the skateboarding genre seeing a resurgence in Crea-ture Studios’ Session, Easy Day Studios’ Skater XL, and Vicarious Visions’ Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, the last entry in EA’s series was Skate 3, which come out in May 2010 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.