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The Titanfall 2 community is once again being roiled by issues with hacking, with rumors on Twitter and other social channels of a major security vulnerability.

The rumors appear to stem from this screenshot of a Discord announcement, which has been making the rounds for most of the day.

Several members of the Titanfall 2 community incl. @DirectXeon are reporting that Titanfall 2 is currently massively compromised.

If you own Titanfall 2 on PC, *DO NOT* launch the game. Uninstall it for now until a fix is released. pic.twitter.com/lNZGbufOL1

— Wicked Good Gaming (@WickedGoodGames) September 8, 2021

The bug reportedly allows local code execution from Respawns’ servers, potentially affecting both PCs and consoles with Titanfall 2 installed. While there are still plenty of unknowns, several community members have raised the alarm and encouraged players to uninstall the game until the vulnerability is fixed.

Respawn responded on Twitter, “We are aware of reports of a security vulnerability affecting Titanfall 2 and are investigating. We have no other information to share at the moment but will update once we do.”

We are aware of reports of a security vulnerability affecting Titanfall 2 and are investigating. We have no other information to share at the moment but will update once we do.

— Respawn (@Respawn) September 8, 2021

The rumors of Titanfall 2’s vulnerability follow months of server issues, denial of server attacks, and other problems. In early July, Apex Legends was hacked by a group ostensibly trying to raise awareness of Titanfall’s woes, but who were then accused of having their own ulterior motives by other community members. Needless to say, it’s been a strange time for the Titanfall community.

The constant barrage of wild rumors has seemingly led some members of the Titanfall 2 community to treat the rumors with ambivalence. “You are all panicking over a tweet of a screenshot of a discord post claiming the existence of a zero-day multi-platform RCE in a moderately popular game,” one Reddit poster wrote.

Amid all this, Titanfall 2 has enjoyed renewed attention of late thanks to critical praise, the ongoing popularity of Apex Legends, and an extended run on Xbox Game Pass. But as a five year old game, it reportedly only has “one or two” people working on its various hacks.

IGN has reached out separately to Respawn and EA. We will continue to monitor the situation and update with additional information.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN.

While Benedict Cumberbatch will be donning the cape once again for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, some players from the original film will not be returning for the follow-up — namely director Scott Derrickson. In January 2020, the filmmaker announced that he had departed the Marvel sequel due to “creative differences.”

Now, Cumberbatch has offered his own thoughts on marching forward without Derrickson in a profile in The Hollywood Reporter. The actor also recounted his experience collaborating with Sam Raimi, who took over as director on the Marvel sequel.

“I was sad to hear about it, but that was not my decision,” Cumberbatch says. “I completely respected the studio’s decision, and it was done very amicably. The grown-ups called and just talked me through it. And that was that.”

Cumberbatch dug into Raimi’s approach on the project, saying that the Spider-Man trilogy director encouraged him to improvise while filming. While the freedom intimidated the actor at first, Cumberbatch explained that he had gained experience improvising banter while filming his Avengers: Infinity War scenes with Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland.

“I remember on the [Infinity War] set when I called [Robert Downey Jr.] a douchebag, there was this sort of ripple effect. ‘Oh my God. Did you just call Iron Man a douchebag?’” Cumberbatch said. “They kept it, good for them. And then, it got the same kind of response at the cinema.”

“I got bored of being compared to Liberace or whatever other retorts the guy with the same camp goatee had opposite me, so I tried to knock him down,” he continued. “It’s great fun to play with that stuff. You find your feet. The more times you do it, the more familiar it becomes.”

Cumberbatch also explained how a Doctor Strange sequel left more room for improvisation, as the production had fewer worries about establishing its characters and world.

“With the first film, you’re always locked into a script, because it’s the origin story,” he said. “But there was a lot more freedom this time around… Marvel has this amazing ability to come into production: ‘We really just have to start shooting now. It doesn’t matter that the third act is not quite where you want it to be.’ You really do things on a wing and a prayer sometimes.”

Derrickson praised the selection of Raimi when Marvel announced the director would be taking over the Doctor Strange sequel, calling Raimi “a true living legend.”

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is set to hit theaters on March 24, 2022, but Marvel viewers will be reacquainted with Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme a bit sooner. The character will appear in Spider-Man: No Way Home this December. For more about the Doctor Strange sequel, catch up on the rumors that the sea monster Gargantos will play a role in the film.

J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

After being spoken about for years, a live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop is almost here, premiering on Netflix on November 19, 2021. And despite showing off the cast of heroes led by John Cho’s Spike Spiegel, fans have wondered where the fourth member, Ed, might be.

In a new interview showrunner and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol screenwriter André Nemec tells Polygon that fans looking forward to Ed shouldn’t worry.

“Ed — everybody wants to know about Ed!” Nemec says. “People will be… very delighted when they watch the season.”

The people behind Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop have said previously that the hacker known as Ed (full name Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV) will be in the series. But with the main cast revealed there’s still no Ed anywhere to be seen, nor any news about casting.

Still, Nemec seems pretty confident that fans looking forward to Ed will be pleased with the live-action Netflix series, which is as strong a confirmation as we’ll likely get before the series premieres in November.

The full interview is worth a read for anyone curious about the direction of the live-action series. According to Nemec, the live-action series is not going to “ape the anime” but “live in the spirit” of the series. “There are obviously things that we cannot achieve with real people that an anime can,” Nemec says. Instead, the series will “build out the continuing stories of Spike Spiegel and Jet Black and Faye Valentine.”

One area from the anime that was vital for the team to bring back was the music of anime composer Yoko Kanno, who will be composing the original soundtrack for Netflix’s show. According to Nemec, Kanno has “completely reimagined” the music for the series, and old favorites from the anime will return in the Netflix show but in new ways.

Cowboy Bebop is shaping up to be a different kind of anime adaptation than the ones we have seen from Netflix so far. John Cho also recently spoke about taking on the role of Spike, including acknowledging the questions some might have about his age.

We’ll have to wait until November to see if Nemec and his team — which includes writers from Thor: Ragnarok, Sons of Anarchy, and Lost — will stick the landing.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Clid the Snail, a bizarre twin-stick shooter by the appropriately named developer Weird Beluga, makes a promising first impression with its odd setting and anthropomorphic character design. But it doesn’t take long for it to fall woefully short of its potential. Repetitive level design, muddy graphics, and arduously boring enemy encounters make the choice of a snail as the main character a little bit on the nose when it comes to the pace of the action.

The eponymous Clid is an ornery, cynical snail who loves to drink and tinker with weapons. The latter gets him kicked out of his settlement and sent into a blasted, post-apocalyptic world full of mutants and monsters who’ve used the discarded scraps of the old human world to create a newer, smaller one. Conceptually, this micro post-human world is an interesting place. Villages and outposts use discarded computer parts as building materials and CD’s as furniture. Every so often you’ll pass a human skull in the wild and someone will remark about the old Giants that used to roam this world.

The visuals often hamper themselves, though. Lighting is dark, each of the handful of locations all look like they’re in the same range of colors regardless if it’s a snowy mountain or an arid desert. A bloom-like effect lingers over everything, too, further muddying all of the environments. The little details of the slapdash constructs in the world get lost in this unfortunate effect. It’s hard to appreciate any small ornamentation when your point of view looks like a snail crawled over your camera lens.

The story of this wandering rogue, the group of outcasts he meets, and their shared interest in saving their tiny world and making money doing so is predictable, but enjoyable. The writing is solid, with some clever quips here and there, but the Simlish-style gibberish voice acting doesn’t do the story justice. There is also a lot of expository monologuing to fill us in on past events that feel inessential to what’s happening in the present. Meanwhile, the characters in your ragtag group are all tropey yet enjoyable, well-written creatures that make all the other NPCs you meet feel shallow by comparison.

Besides sightseeing, you’ll spend a lot of time shooting your way through each stage in order to push back a plague that turned the local slug population into violent, berserk monsters. Clid’s arsenal is varied, with weapons like a flamethrower, lighting gun, and a shotgun at your disposal… but the problem is that aside from the shotgun and a few others, many of these weapons don’t feel very powerful. I almost never used anything but the main blaster’s charged shot because it often felt like the most efficient tool for nearly every job.

Enemies are very dumb, often just sprinting at you in a straight line, ripe for the shooting. Occasionally, an enemy arrives that forces you to think outside of the box, like big slug gladiators with tower shields that can’t be destroyed simply shooting at them, but that only pushed me as far as Clid’s secondary arsenal of grenades and mines. Outside of the more elaborate boss fights, the majority of the enemies in Clid the Snail are just various forms of melee goon that could never overcome the simple technique of being kited across the map and blasted one by one.

Level design and enemy encounters are largely repetitive over the five-hour journey. Most stages have a linear path to travel with the occasional branch to find weapon upgrades and the like, but they always culminate with Clid exterminating the slug menace in the local “lair,” a hive where waves of enemies spawn to stop you from destroying the core. These sections go on far too long, and there are no checkpoints during them, so if you die you have to start from the beginning. This horde-wave scenario finds its way into other non-lair portions as well, and it never feels fun or welcome.

The developer of PS5 launch title Bugsnax is permanently transitioning to a four-day work week in an attempt to give its employees a healthier work-life balance.

Axios reports that back in July, Young Horses said it tested out a four-day work week model as a trial run. Now, that change will become the norm for the eight-person studio. Young Horses President Phil Tibitoski says they know this shift was easier for them due to the studio’s small size.

“It was easier for us to implement because to measure our small team’s output is simple relative to those bigger studios, so our trial period and decision-making is faster than a studio who has to get buy-in from so many departments and investors,” Tibitoski said. He added that he thinks a four-day work week is possible at larger studios, but that expectations would have to change in order for it to work.

Crunch remains a heavily-discussed topic within the video game industry. Earlier this month, the co-presidents of Naughty Dog shared their thoughts on potential remedies to crunch, including unionization, mandatory hours, and more.

In our Bugsnax review, we called the game, ‘great,’ saying, “the laughs outnumbered the groans significantly as I found myself surprisingly invested in the events of the island and its inhabitants.” Now the game is set to come to Steam sometime next year.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

After a supporting turn as Mobius in Marvel’s Loki, Disney is back in the Owen Wilson business. The actor is set to star in the studio’s Haunted Mansion, a new movie based off of the company’s popular theme park ride. The news was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Wilson joins a cast that already includes LaKeith Stanfield and Tiffany Haddish. Reports describe it as an ensemble production.

Director Justin Simien is helming the production, which will begin shooting in Atlanta in October. The filmmaker is coming off of his directorial debut Dear White People and the 2020 horror movie Bad Hair. Ghostbusters and The Heat writer Katie Dippold is penning the adaptation.

Haunted Mansion will be the latest Disney film based off of one of the company’s theme park rides. This summer, the studio’s Jungle Cruise grossed $193.7 million at the global box office, along with additional profits from its release on Disney Plus’ Premier Access program. A sequel has already been confirmed.

A movie based on Haunted Mansion was first released in 2003. The Eddie Murphy-starring comedy was a modest box office success, grossing $182.3 million worldwide against a reported production budget of $90 million.

In our review of the series premiere of Loki, IGN gave the episode a 7, saying that “Wilson and [Tom] Hiddleston have stellar comedic chemistry.” The actor can next be seen in Wes Anderson’s next film The French Dispatch in October.

For more on Disney’s upcoming slate, read our complete rundown of the studio’s line-up of live-action remakes.

J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

Full spoilers follow for Marvel’s What If…? Episode 5.

The MCU-based What If…? animated series is finally here, and it features many of the actual MCU actors from the movies voicing their iconic characters. At the same time, some actors aren’t back to reprise their roles as part of the What If…? cast…

In the fifth episode, What If…? gave fans a look at what some of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (and villains) may look like if a zombie apocalypse overtook the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While Tom Holland and Chris Evans didn’t reprise their roles as Spider-Man and Captain America, we did see the return of Paul Bettany’s Vision, Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man, Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther, and more. This week was another dark and gory look at an alternate universe, and it featured a ton of returning characters.

Each episode will feature new and returning characters from the MCU, and we are here to gather each one so you can keep track of which voice actors are returning to their roles, which aren’t, and what these new versions of our favorite heroes look like. We will also be updating this article throughout the season so be sure to check back each week!

What If…? Episode 5 Cast: What If… Zombies!

Bruce Banner / Hulk – Mark Ruffalo

Mark Ruffalo once again lends his voice to Bruce Banner and the Hulk, who has arrived on an alternate Earth to warn the Avengers of Thanos. However, the heroes he came to warn have turned into an even bigger threat than he could have ever imagined.

T’Challa / Black Panther – Chadwick Boseman

Chadwick Boseman makes his second appearance in Marvel’s What If…?, and this time he is playing the Black Panther we know and love… well, except for the fact that he was kidnapped by Vision and partially fed to a zombified Wanda Maximoff.

Vision – Paul Bettany

Paul Bettany’s Vision has had a rough go of it in not only in our Marvel Cinematic Universe, but in this one as well. While the zombie apocalypse may have prevented Thanos from killing him, his fate here is just as grim. He is powerless to help cure a zombie version of Wanda, and he has resorted to kidnapping his friends to keep her alive. Furthermore, he still is killed when the Mind Stone is removed from his head, yet this time it is by his own hand.

Bucky Barnes – Sebastian Stan

Sebastian Stan also makes a return to Marvel’s What If…?, this time with his long-flowing hair and Vibranium arm. In Peter Parker’s “So You Want to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse” video, he is not only known as Bucky “Silent But Deadly” Barnes, but his skills are listed as “murder, killer arm, and heavy sleeper.”

Hope van Dyne / Wasp – Evangeline Lilly

Evangeline Lilly takes on the role of Hope van Dyne once more, and is one of the people unintentionally involved in starting the MCU zombie apocalypse after Hank Pym found her mother Janet van Dyne who, in this universe, “contracted a quantum virus that corrupted her brain.”

Scott Lang / Ant-Man – Paul Rudd

Paul Rudd and his jokes find their way to Marvel’s What If…? this week, and while he returns as Ant-Man, most of his screen time is spent as a talking head that has been cured of the quantum virus that has turned this world into zombies. Does that make him Ant-Head now?

Happy Hogan / Zombie Happy – Jon Favreau

Happy Hogan is once again played by Jon Favreau, and although he gets a few moments to enjoy some Stark tech for himself, he soon thereafter becomes a victim of zombie Hawkeye.

In Peter Parker’s “So You Want to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse” video, he is not only known as Happy “Never Actually Happy” Hogan, but he’s also wearing a shirt that says, “I’m not single, I’m saving myself for Thor.” Also, his skills are listed as “driving, coffee, and boxing.”

Okoye – Danai Gurira

Danai Gurira lends her voice to Okoye once more this week after making an appearance in the second episode of What If…?

Sharon Carter – Emily Vancamp

Emily Vancamp is once again Sharon Carter in this week’s episode, and while she has a good run helping out the team, she, unfortunately, is attacked by zombie Captain America before being blown up from the inside by Hope.

In Peter Parker’s “So You Want to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse” video, she is known as Sharon “The Blond Bond” Carter and her skills are listed as “spycraft, first aid, and eulogies.”

Kurt – David Dastmalchian

David Dastmalchian is back as the “Resident Weirdo” Kurt and is one of the stars of Peter Parker’s “So You Wanna Survive The Zombie Apocalypse” video. His skills are listed as “languages, Slavic folklore, and crime.”

Peter Parker / Spider-Man – Hudson Thames

While Peter Parker is one of the main characters of this week’s episode, Tom Holland does not reprise his role as Spider-Man. Instead, Hudson Thames takes on the legendary role. Thames was previously seen in Mad Men, I think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, and more.

Metroid Prime is nearly 20 years old, but a new interview is shedding light on the development of the groundbreaking series.

Former Retro Studios developer Mike Wikan went on an episode of the Kiwi Talkz podcast to discuss crunch within Retro during the development of Metroid Prime, as well as the effort from Nintendo to change the Metroid Prime Trilogy’s writing to fit within the Metroid Prime universe.

The ‘Nine Month Death March’ at the End of Metroid Prime’s Development

Discussions surrounding crunch are at the forefront of video game discourse in 2021. From Naughty Dog to Rockstar, to CD Projekt Red, more employees, writers, and fans are speaking out about a problem in the video game industry that dates back to long before the wider public noticed it.

In this case, it dates back to 2002, when the Austin, Texas-based Retro Studios was developing the first-ever 3D Metroid game in partnership with Nintendo. Wikan, who worked on the game, said that crunch was a big problem during the development of Metroid Prime.

“I had two times where I was there for 48 hours straight with one hour of sleep, and then a couple of 36 hour days,” Wikan said. “The last nine months we were pretty much there 24/7, working on the game.”

After Metroid Prime shipped, Wikan says morale was low within Retro’s ranks. In fact, according to Wikan, many team members were ready to quit, and Wikan himself even had multiple job offers on the table. Then, things changed for the studio when Nintendo stepped in.

“To their credit, Nintendo realized what was going on, and they came in and took over the company, [they] bought it out,” Wikan said. After Nintendo bought Retro, Nintendo of America’s Michael Kelbaugh was put in charge. Wikan says he asked Retro employees to give him a few weeks to turn it around, and he eventually, “restored faith in leadership.”

The turbulent past of Retro Studios pre-Nintendo is well-documented. The studio has a history of layoffs, crunch, and unrealized ambition prior to Nintendo’s decision to step in and put Kelbaugh in charge, who is still President of Retro Studios today.

According to Wikan, the change in ownership and leadership worked, and the studio began following healthier work practices. However, it still wasn’t perfect. “In fact, after Metroid Prime 1, we rarely crunched,” Wikan said. “We had some crunch but it wasn’t like the nine-month death march at the end of Metroid Prime 1. That was the worst.”

Nintendo’s Involvement in Reworking Metroid Prime Trilogy’s Script

Also in the interview, Wikan revealed he was part of a four-person team tasked with reworking the three mainline Metroid Prime games into a collection. The package was released in 2009 on Wii as Metroid Prime: Trilogy.

Besides changing some boss fight balance issues, and some small technical problems, Wikan and his team left the three games largely unchanged. At least, until Nintendo came in and started reworking the script. Wikan says Nintendo combed through the scans from all three Prime games and created a spreadsheet analysis of how it fits within the Metroid Prime universe.

“They sent us hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of edits and changes for all the text to make sure everything harmonized and worked in the Metroid universe. That’s the level of detail that they put into it,” Wikan said. “Probably 50 to 60% of the work we did on the Trilogy was changing those dang scan files.”

Wikan is no longer with Retro, but the studio is now working on the delayed Metroid Prime 4. At E3 this year, Nintendo said they’re “working hard” on Metroid Prime 4, which lead to the announcement of Metroid Dread; a new entry in the mainline 2D Metroid series. Dread is wrapping up the story of Samus and the Metroids, a story that is largely unrelated to her adventures in the Prime games.

Check out the full episode of the Kiwi Talkz Podcast for more insight from Wikan on his time at Retro Studios making Metroid Prime.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Star Trek Day 2021 has not only revealed that Star Trek: Discovery’s fourth season will premiere on November 18, but it has also given us a new trailer and a February 2022 release window for Star Trek: Picard’s second season.

That’s not all, however, as a new look and an October 28 premiere date was given for Star Trek: Prodigy – the upcoming animated kids’ series that will see the return of Kate Mulgrew as a hologram of Captain Kathryn Janeway – and a mid-season trailer for Star Trek: Lower Decks’ second season was also unveiled.

Star Trek: Picard

Star Trek: Picard’s panel was the final one for the Star Trek Day celebration and it revealed a new trailer for the show’s second season and the first look at Annie Wersching as the Borg Queen.

The trial is never over. ✨ #StarTrekPicard #StarTrek https://t.co/c1Yma43NE3 pic.twitter.com/Xb98chCN3E

— Star Trek (@StarTrek) September 9, 2021

Although Patrick Stewart couldn’t make the Star Trek Day celebrations, it was also announced that Jean-Luc Picard and the rest of the cast will be returning for a third season.

Joining Stewart on Picard’s second season will be Allison Pill’s Dr. Agnes Jurati, Isa Briones’ Soja, Evan Evagora’s Elnor, Michelle Hurd’s Raffi Musiker, Santiago Cabrera’s Cristobal Rios, Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine, Orla Brady’s Laris, John de Lancie’s Q, Annie Wersching’s Borg Queen, and Brent Spiner’s Data.

We’ve already seen a bit of footage and a poster of this new season, and it appears to be dealing with time travel, Seven of Nine missing her Borg implants, and what appears to be a modern-day Los Angeles.

As previously mentioned, Star Trek: Picard will debut exclusively on Paramount+ in February 2022.

Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery’s fourth season will premiere exclusively on Paramount+ on November 18, 2021, and the panel shared a bit more about the show’s upcoming adventures.

“Season four of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY finds Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery facing a threat unlike any they’ve ever encountered,” The official description reads. “With Federation and non-Federation worlds alike feeling the impact, they must confront the unknown and work together to ensure a hopeful future for all.