Category: Games

BioWare has spent 25 years building a reputation for crafting high-quality video games with immersive, lore-heavy worlds. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work behind the scenes and bring those epic games to life, Dark Horse Comics has just the book for you.

Dark Horse is releasing a new hardcover artbook called BioWare: Stories and Secrets From 25 Years of Game Development. As the name suggests, this book gives fans a closer look at the company’s inner workings and the fascinating behind-the-scenes stories that arose out of modern classics like Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic. Plus, you can expect a copious amount of sketches and concept art and even glimpses of BioWare games that never saw the light of day.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive preview of this sprawling BioWare retrospective:

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Here’s Dark Horse’s official description for the book:

BioWare – Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development puts you in the room during key moments in BioWare’s history, with never-before-seen art and photos anchored by candid stories from developers past and present. See what it took to make games in those wild early days. Pore over details of secret, cancelled projects. Discover the genesis of beloved characters and games. Presented and designed by Dark Horse Books, this tribute to BioWare’s legacy is a must-have for any fan of the best stories you can play.

BioWare: Stories and Secrets From 25 Years of Game Development is priced at $49.99 and is scheduled for release on November 11, 2020.

Currently, BioWare is crafting some major changes to its live-service shooter Anthem, with the update dubbed “Anthem Next.” We also know the developer is one of many EA-owned studios working on next-gen projects for the PS5 and Xbox Series X. One of those projects could even be the rumored Knights of the Old Republic remake, which will reportedly overhaul the game’s story to fit within the context of Disney’s Star Wars timeline.

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For more on BioWare’s long, notable history, check every BioWare game review on IGN.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Against all odds, the long-delayed New Mutants movie finally made it to theaters in 2020. If you aren’t lucky enough to live in an area where going to the movies is a safe option, there’s good news. 20th Century Studios’ final X-Men movie is headed to Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD, DVD and Digital HD on November 17.

To celebrate the news, IGN can exclusively debut a new clip from this upcoming release. Check out the video player above or the embed below to see several members of the crew reflect on the iconic work of comic book artist Bill Sienkiewicz and how it helped shape the look and tone of the movie:

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The clip shows director Josh Boone, other crew members and even Sienkiewicz himself reflecting on the influence classic New Mutants stories like “The Demon Bear Saga” had on the movie. That landmark 1984 story established a very different and much darker tone for the comic. Sienkiewicz’s surreal, even psychedelic approach was wholly unlike anything X-Men readers at the time had ever seen. And this featurette shows us how much Boone and his team worked to capture that feeling in both the look of the monstrous villain and the way the New Mutants themselves are portrayed on screen.

Sienkiewicz previously illustrated the cover for the Best Buy-exclusive steelbook version of the Dark Phoenix Blu-ray. We were able to interview Sienkiewicz last year to learn more about how that collaboration came about. He also had plenty of great things to say about his experience on the New Mutants set, even revealing his belief that the series could continue on at Marvel Studios.

Unfortunately, there’s no sign Marvel will be greenlighting a New Mutants sequel or working this particular incarnation of the team into the MCU. Still, with WandaVision dropping a very intriguing X-Men cameo and the next Doctor Strange movie delving headlong into the multiverse concept, anything is possible.

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IGN’s Jim Vejvoda gave The New Mutants a 7 out of 10 in his review, saying, “The New Mutants had already earned its place as a curious footnote in Fox’s now-defunct X-Men franchise, but it’s a stronger, better movie than such diminished expectations from its long-delayed release would suggest.”

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Today’s official PlayStation 5 teardown told us a lot about the console, but perhaps the most interesting element was learning just how afraid Sony seems to have been about heat buildup in the new generation, and the lengths it’s gone to correct that. It even explains why PS5 is quite so massive.

Clearly as sick of “my PS4 sounds like a jet engine” tweets as the rest of us, Sony appears to have thrown everything it can at the wall to help PS5 run cool and, thus, quietly. In the course of the teardown, we see multiple means of keeping the console cool:

• The entire rear side of the console is an exhaust port.
• A huge, 120mm x 45mm cooling fan, capable of drawing in air from both sides.
• Dust catching ports that have been built to withstand vacuuming.
• A liquid metal thermal conductor to keep the CPU and GPU cool.
• A large heatsink, using a heat pipe that achieves the same performance as a vapor chamber.

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It’s a multi-pronged approach to reduce dust build-up and increase expelled heat, which should reduce noise overall (and that’s not confined to heat reduction either – even the Blu-Ray drive has been insulated to reduce vibration noise). Those elements make up the bulk of Sony engineer Yasuhiro Ootori’s explanations during the teardown video – it’s abundantly clear that Sony thought this was a major problem in PS4, and has sought to correct it for PS5.

There’s a case to be made, in fact, that the primary reason for PS5 being the skyscraper-sized object it is down to keeping it cool. Ootori makes clear that the size enables for a “dramatic improvement in performance in terms of processing power and quietness.” The only system element the width of the console is that fan, and the heatsink takes up a huge portion of the rest of the internal space.

It might not fit quite as nicely in your TV stand as previous boxes, but PS5 should at the very least be quiet once it’s in there.

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PS5 will cost US$499 / £449 / AU$750 for the full edition, and US$399 / £359 / AU$600 for the digital edition. It will arrive on November 12 in the US, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea and November 19 in all other territories.

PS5 preorders are currently sold out at all major retailers, but make sure to follow the IGN Deals Twitter page to be alerted the moment they go live again.

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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].

Genshin Impact developer MiHoYo is working on more characters, locations, and next-gen versions of the game – but has no plans for an Xbox version.

Speaking to IGN Japan, a MiHoYo spokesperson explained that it considers Genshin Impact a live service game, “and the current version is only a portion of the content […] We will continue developing even more content and gameplay while also releasing updates and optimizations. So, the product that goes online isn’t the ‘final version’, but rather the ‘first step’.”

While MiHoYo doesn’t have immediate plans to add new mechanics to the mix, its aim is to build Genshin Impact’s world out from its current state. The game launched with 20 characters and two major city locations (Mondstadt and Liyue), and the developer makes clear that more charcaters, character-specific missions, and a third city are currently in development. New side quests will also be added.

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Many of the ongoing decisions will be made based on player feedback, and MiHoYo’s inviting players to tell them what they’d like to see. “One could say that the real work has only just begun”, said the spokesperson.

The game was released on PC, PS4 and mobile, with a Switch version already confirmed. However, MiHoYo is already working on  other platforms: “We already have plans in regards to Genshin Impact on next-gen consoles, and we will update everyone accordingly at a future date.” Those won’t necessarily be straight ports either, with the spokesperson making clear that, “We are also in discussion over future visual improvements as well.”

However, the one area that Genshin Impact won’t seem to be expanding into is Microsoft consoles, with MiHoYo saying, “We currently don’t have any plans for an Xbox version of the game.” It’s not clear if that’s down to an exclusivity deal, Xbox’s lower presence in Asian markets, or other factors.

Genshin Impact’s had a very strong start to its life, seeing over 17 million downloads on mobile alone, and making an estimated $50 million. The free-to-play action-RPG can be a little confusing as it begins, so we’ve got a beginner’s guide to characters, combat and currencies, as well as a primer on how to use its cross saves, and how to play co-op.

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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].

 

Sky: Children of the Light is moving into its seventh season, introducing a set of trials and a new narrative that will delve into the villagers’ origin story. The season is available now, bringing with it a bunch of new cosmetics, expressions, and other items.

The Season of Prophecy is Sky’s latest seasonal event, which Thatgamecompany promises will be its biggest season yet. The new season looks to expand the scope of its seasonal content yet again, after the Season of Enchantment and vacation-themed Season of Sanctuary both introduced huge new areas to the game.

The biggest thing the Season of Prophecy brings to the game are trials–a set of four different trials based around water, earth, air, and fire. The new season will take place within the Isle of Dawn’s Cave of Prophecies, promising to “unravel its original purpose,” with a narrative designed to reveal more of the game’s mysterious backstory.

The season will include just four new expressions, as well as cosmetics including five masks, four hairstyles, three capes, a new instrument, and more. Some of these seasonal cosmetics and rewards require the $9.99 season pass to redeem.

Thatgamecompany also announced that Sky’s Halloween-themed event Days of Mischief would be returning between October 22 and November 4, with new themed cosmetics and a chance to pick up last year’s Halloween cosmetics in a “catch up pack”.

Sky recently celebrated a milestone of 50 million downloads across both iOS and Android, less than three months after it reached 20 million. While the plan is for Sky to eventually release on other platforms, its intended 2020 Switch release was delayed to 2021 due to COVID-19, and other platforms haven’t yet been announced.

Pokemon Go players can currently claim several free items to celebrate an important anniversary. October 2020 marks the fifth anniversary of Niantic going independent, after forming in 2010 as a start-up lab within Google–but it’s players of their most popular game that are receiving a present.

In order to claim this present, you’ll have to go to the Pokemon Go offer redemption page and enter the code DJTLEKBK2G5EK. This will give you some in-game bonuses right away, but you need to make sure you enter the code before October 13.

According to Serebii, these are the bonus items you’ll earn for entering this code:

• 20 Ultra Balls
• 1 Star Piece
• 10 Pinap Berries
• 10 Niantic Stickers

Pokemon Go was released in July 2016, so the game itself is not five years old yet. The game’s next Community Day is coming up on October 17, alongside numerous other October events.

Niantic is currently working on new experiences, including Catan World Explorers, based on the popular board game.

Super sad to hear about the passing of Eddie Van Halen. He was a big influence on Chris & me as we were writing Bill & Ted. In fact, when director Stephen Herek was reading the script he got 3 pages in, stopped, put on 1984 & resumed. We wanted the movie to be a cinematic “Jump.” pic.twitter.com/B2oTnDMWdH

— Ed Solomon (@ed_solomon) October 6, 2020