Key advertisers say they are re-evaluating their relationship with the Overwatch League in the wake of California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing lawsuit against Activision Blizzard.

According to new statements acquired by The Washington Post, both Coca-Cola and State Farm, who are two of Overwatch League’s seven sponsors, say they are re-assessing how to move forward with Activision Blizzard’s popular esports league.

In a statement, State Farm says it is “reevaluating our limited marketing relationship with the Overwatch League” and has asked that none of its ads run during the matches this weekend.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola says it is “aware of the allegations surrounding Activision Blizzard” and that is “working with our partners at Blizzard as we take a step back for a moment to revisit future plans and programs,” according to the beverage giant.

Earlier this week it’s been reported that another sponsor, T-Mobile, has pulled its branding from the Overwatch League. But neither the mobile carrier nor Activision Blizzard commented on the matter.

The hesitancy from advertisers comes amid after details of rampant discrimination and harassment against female employees emerged in the CDFEH’s lawsuit. IGN has our own report about the hostile work environment women at Activision Blizzard encountered.

After Activision Blizzard employees staged a walkout in protest, a series of events have occurred. Blizzard president J. Allen Brack stepped down from his position, replaced by new studio co-leads Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also sent a letter to staff apologizing for the initial “tone-deaf” response to the lawsuit and hired law firm WilmerHale to audit the company’s policies.

But this became a point of contention as well and a coalition of Activision Blizzard employees sent Kotick and company leadership a letter rejecting WilmerHale’s appointment as a neutral third-party given the firm’s anti-labor history.

The events around Activision Blizzard are ongoing. Check IGN for all the latest updates on the story.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor.

Welcoooome to Nintendo Voice Chat! This week, Metroid turns 35 years old in Japan, and Casey DeFreitas, Peer Schneider, Kat Bailey, and Logan Plant are here to discuss their favorite games in the franchise. Plus, The Nintendo Switch just keeps on selling, and the crew breaks down the latest financial numbers. Stick around to hear Peer and Logan’s thoughts on The Great Ace Attorney, and much more.

NVC is available on your preferred platforms!

• Spotify
• Apple iTunes
• Stitcher
• Podbay
• PlayerFM
• Podbean

You can also Download NVC 572 Directly Here

And when you’re done and want to jump back to the old Skyward Sword NVC episode Peer mentioned in the show, you can download the entire audio podcast here.

You can listen to NVC on your preferred platform every Thursday at 3pm PT/6pm ET. Have a question for Question Block? Write to us at [email protected] and we may pick your question! Also, make sure to join the Nintendo Voice Chat Podcast Forums on Facebook. We’re all pretty active there and often pull Question Block questions and comments straight from the community.

Logan Plant is the Production Assistant for NVC, and he sincerely hopes you enjoyed his one line on NVC today. You can find him on Twitter at @LoganJPlant.

Crunchyroll has revealed the opening for its upcoming anime Blade Runner: Black Lotus during today’s Crunchyroll Expo.

Blade Runner: Black Lotus is an upcoming animated series set in the cyberpunk world of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. A joint production between Crunchyroll and Adult Swim, Black Lotus is set in the year 2032, which is after the original film and before Blade Runner 2049.

While plot details are being kept under wraps, series directors Shinji Aramaki and Kenji Kamiyama shared the opening to the upcoming Blade Runner series with an original song from Alessia Cara.

Check out the intro and key art below.

When Leikir Studio CEO Aurélien Loos first pitched the concept of Metal Slug Tactics to Dotemu, he wasn’t entirely certain whether the studio could actually pull it off. A relatively obscure outfit based in the Paris suburbs, Leikir’s most recent game is Rogue Lords — a party-based roguelite featuring famous monsters such as Dracula and Bloody Mary. There’s little in the studio’s portfolio to suggest that it has the chops to recreate the look and feel of one of the most beautiful 2D action games ever made.

“The first thing we needed to do was to check that we were good enough for Metal Slug because the series is huge. The pixel art is beautiful,” Loos says.

As it turned out, Leikir was more than capable of recreating Metal Slug’s famous pixel art, even without the benefit of being able to use pre-existing assets. When Metal Slug Tactics’ trailer debuted during E3 2021, retro fans were immediately excited by the possibilities afforded by the shift to the tactics genre, as well as the apparent fidelity to the source material. It helped that it was being developed in partnership with Dotemu, the publisher behind Streets of Rage 4 recently acquired by Focus Home Interactive (SNK isn’t directly involved with development).

Up until this point, the reveal trailer has been allowed to largely stand on its own. But in a new interview with IGN, Loos revealed several new details, saying that fans can expect an experience similar to Into the Breach — the highly-regarded 2018 tactics game that was among the first to combine turn-based tactics with the roguelite genre. He also says that it will be a tribute to all things Metal Slug, with plenty of bosses, characters, and concepts being pulled directly from the series.

The notion of turning Metal Slug into a tactics game first came up over drinks, says Dotemu CEO Cyrille Imbert. It was the solution to a problem that Imbert had been wrestling with for a while: how could he adapt a retro series that he already considered to be close to perfect? SNK had originally extended an invitation to pitch a game based around one of its properties after being impressed by Dotemu’s work on Wonder Boy and Streets of Rage 4, which Imbert found daunting.

“Most [SNK games] are fighting games, and the fighting game market is a very hard one. Fighting games are really hard to make, and they’re high risk. And on the other side, there was Metal Slug, but all the Metal Slugs for the Neo-Geo are very good games — very beautiful, top-notch pixel art games. […] I think it’s still one of the most beautiful pixel art games ever made, along with Street Fighter 3rd Strike, for example,” Imbert says. “So there was no reason to do a remake of that — it’s already great. So what can you do? And doing a sequel would have meant bringing something new to the table […] and they were already perfect, so what can you do?”

Dotemu was intimately familiar with the challenges posed by the series, having worked with SNK to port various Metal Slug games to Steam. An arcade stalwart, Metal Slug was famous for crowding the screen with hordes of lavishly-animated enemies, each more elaborate than the last. Even on Dotemu’s admittedly clunky arcade emulator, it remains a sight to behold, especially when one of its enormous bosses appears on the screen. Its stunning artwork has helped the series retain a dedicated following over the years, even as the sequels have largely dried up.

Metal Slug Tactics and Into the Breach

A straightforward revival probably would have won Dotemu and Leikir plenty of plaudits, but shifting it to the tactics genre provided them with a unique opportunity to put their own stamp on the series. And sure enough, Metal Slug appears to be a perfect fit for the genre made famous by Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and XCOM.

“Into the Breach was of course a big inspiration,” Imbert says. “It’s smaller scale. It’s a bit quicker. There’s this arcade feel that goes along very nicely with the Metal Slug license.”

Mindful of Metal Slug’s action-based roots, Leikir is crafting a turn-based experience built around speed — one in which abilities are powered up by moving constantly around the map and completing attack combos, and missions rarely take more than nine turns to complete. Teams will comprise three selectable characters battling across a series of handmade maps, with the missions being randomized. Being a roguelite, it will naturally be structured around a series of discrete runs that will earn characters experience and money, which can in turn be used to acquire new weapons and abilities via individual skill trees.

Characters will be “really different to play,” Loos says. Aside from having their own skill tree, they will have their own combo abilities and weapon loadouts, which will in turn have a large impact on how each run is approached. It’s unclear whether it will be possible to be, say, turned into a zombie — Leikir is picking and choosing which mechanics feel right for the game’s more tactical approach.

As for the eponymous Slugs — the tanks and other vehicles featured in the main series — some will be discoverable on the map, while others will be able to be summoned by individual characters. True to the series, they will be very powerful. “They are a really, really powerful weapon obviously, and they can break some rules of the game,” Loos says. “But at the same time they can be tricky to use. So it’s pretty fun to use the Slugs in Metal Slug Tactics.”

It’s a well-worn formula at this point, but not yet a wholly stale one. Its main strength is that it’s flexible enough to be applied to a variety of gameplay styles, as Into the Breach so richly demonstrated. And a system built around dying repeatedly only makes sense for a series like Metal Slug, which is famous for its gruesome and yet oddly charming habit of melting, decapitating, and dismembering its heroes.

The main challenge, Imbert says, is balancing between the different types of fans that he expects to be drawn to the game. “What we’re trying to do is to get the interest from the hardcore players as well as some more mid-core players, because Metals Slug Tactics will attract people from the run-and-gun and Neo-Geo community, and they don’t necessarily know tactical games really well. So for them, it must not be too complicated and a headache. But on the other side, some people don’t know Metal Slug and they will come for the tactical aspect of it, so they need to be satisfied as well. And so the difficulty must not be too easy, otherwise they will get bored pretty quick. So it’s a hard balance, but I think with different difficulty settings… we’ll have that for sure.”

Dotemu and Leikir also plan to delve into Metal Slug’s lore, which is purportedly quite dense. Choosing different characters will unlock different branches of the story, Loos says, and will develop familiar characters like Marco and Eri.

“It was one of the things that was really important for us,” Loos says. “One thing is really cool about the [tactics genre] is we have much more space to tell stories, and Metal Slug has a huge background universe with a really cool story. Each character has a lot of stories about their past. But most of the fans don’t know this story because they don’t have the space to talk about this in the run-and-gun series.”

A charming revival of an SNK classic

It all adds up to a charming revival for the series, which has not seen the release of a mainline entry in more than a decade. Metal Slug Tactics may not be a true sequel, but it does seem like it will retain much of the personality (and violence) that made the original arcade games so appealing.

The biggest question right now is when it will be available on console. While it would seem to be a natural fit for the Nintendo Switch — most of Dotemu’s games are available on the platform — Metal Slug Tactics has only been announced for PC. On that front, Imbert only says that a console release would be “super awesome,” and that Dotemu needs to “what would make sense for the game.”

Metal Slug Tactics’ release date is similarly murky. “It’s a bit early to tell,” Imbert says. “I always try to protect the studios from that because then we’re trapped. So yeah, it’s a bit early for us to tell, but it’s going well. So the wait should not be too long.”

Waiting is certainly nothing new for Metal Slug fans, what with it having been more than a decade since the last full entry in the series. Dotemu’s spinoff may not be quite what they hoped for, but at the very least it seems to be faithful to the spirit of the original games. And at this point, that’s all Metal Slug fans can really ask.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN.

Since its inception, Fortnite has been in constant flux. This rang true early on with the free-to-play Fortnite: Battle Royale mode which quickly became the center of attention back in 2017. That popular mode would go on to evolve with themed seasons, changes to the map, world-ending events, and new game modes – most of which were probably missed by players who decided that Fortnite’s cartoonish visuals and unique building system weren’t for them earlier on.

To be fair, even long-term fans have a tough time keeping up with all of Fortnite’s updates and changes. With every major event comes a flood of new reasons for players to return to the island. Whether it’s a new narrative thread depicting the inner workings of The Agency or a giant Travis Scott stomping about the island, these events are usually captivating regardless of a person’s stance on the game as a whole. Because of this, we decided to get everyone up to speed by sharing some of Fortnite’s most memorable moments.

The Blast Off Event – Chapter 1, Season 4 (June 30th, 2018)

Fornite’s Blast Off Event was the first major in-game occurrence. Foreshadowed for weeks, the event was a culmination of lore surrounding a mysterious character called The Visitor. What really made the event memorable though was seeing a rocket ship create a massive crack in the sky above Loot Lake on the island. This crack stayed present in Fortnite for a month or so, resulting in multiple environmental changes and odd occurrences.

The Butterfly Event – Chapter 1, Season 6 (Nov. 4th, 2018)

Set off by the crack from The Blast Off Event, The Butterfly Event kicked off with the appearance of Kevin The Cube. This extra-dimensional object roamed about the map, imprinting strange runes until it finally submerged itself into Loot Lake. When Kevin returned, it was alongside a floating island to collect the power from those runes, eventually returning to the lake and opening a massive rift that sent players to a place that connects all realities in Fortnite called The In-Between. There, players were greeted with a butterfly that would return them to a changed island featuring a new version of Leaky Lake. It was a trippy experience, to say the least.

The Ice Storm – Chapter 1, Season 7 (January 19th, 2019)

Fortnite’s Ice Storm event started after a mysterious Ice Sphere appeared on top of Polar Peak. Every TV on the island broadcasted a countdown but no one knew what it meant. Threats of an impending storm were all they had to go on. Once the countdown hit zero, an Ice King escaped from the ice sphere, using the fragments of Kevin The Cube to transform into a giant. It was at this point that the Ice King used his newfound power to cover the entire Fortnite map in snow and ice.

The Showtime Event – Chapter 1, Season 7 (February 2nd, 2019)

Fortnite’s Showtime Event was the first time a video game held a live, virtual concert. Headlined by EDM artist Marshmello, the 10-minute show was viewed in-game by over 10 million players around the world. There was no looting, shooting, winning, or losing. Just players rocking out with each other in Pleasant Park. Epic made sure to spice things up with some visual effects and low gravity.

The Unvaulting – Chapter 1, Season 8 (May 5th, 2019)

The Unvaulting was exciting because it gave Fortnite players a bit of agency. It started when a giant vault opened up at Loot Lake. Players that entered were taken to the In-Between where they could vote on a weapon for Epic Games to add back into the game. Players hit pillars that contained the vaulted items until one of them broke and an item was freed. The notorious Drum Gun ultimately won the vote, balancing be damned.

The unvaulting didn’t come without consequence, however. The event was shortly followed by the eruption of a volcano that destroyed parts of the island.

The Final Showdown – Chapter 1, Season 9 (July 20th, 2019)

The Final Showdown was easily one of the best Fortnite Chapter 1 events. Players got to witness a fight between a Voltron-styled robot from Pressure Plant called Mecha and a Kaiju-like monster. Laser blasts, rockets, and body slams from the battling mammoths tore up the island while players watched in-game via jetpack.

At first, the fight seemed evenly matched. That was until the monster ripped off one of Mecha’s arms. Mecha ultimately won, however, ending the skirmish by using the statue from Neo Tilted as a giant sword and stabbing the monster directly in the eye. Mecha then did the Floss and took off into space.

The End – Chapter 1, Season X (October 13th, 2019)

The End was Fortnite’s last Chapter 1 event. So, it would make sense for Epic Games to go all out. The event started with the rocket from Dusty Depot taking off and entering a rift high above the map. Before long there were several more rifts and seven rockets flying through the sky. The rockets would end up circling a frozen meteor over Factory, causing it and the rockets to enter another rift before crashing into the center of reality in Fortnite’s universe, the Zero Point. The Zero Point eventually turned into a giant, black hole that sucked in the entire game and left behind a dark void.

It seemed like the end of Fortnite, but The End was only the beginning. It was a fun way for the developers to take the downtime needed to patch in Chapter 2. That said, it was also one of the most memorable events in Fortnite’s history.

Live at Risky – Chapter 2, Season 1 (December 14th, 2019)

Live at Risky was a promotion for the then-upcoming movie, Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. It featured an in-game space battle between the Millenium Falcon and a star destroyer, an exclusive clip of the film, and a brief press conference hosted by Geoff Keighley and J.J. Abrams.

The most notable moment from Live at Risky was towards the end. Emperor Palpatine’s voice boomed across the island as he delivered a monologue about the Sith’s return to power. When he finished, players were given lightsabers and, you guessed it, a battle royale ensued.

Astronomical – Chapter 2, Season 2 (April 23rd, 2020)

Marshmello might have ushered in the first in-game virtual concert but Travis Scott’s Astronomical event was something else entirely. What made it so memorable was its surreal nature. A giant Travis Scott marched around as Sicko Mode boomed in the background. Players were transported to wondrous places as an amusement park floated nearby, meteors soared past, neon lights lit up the sky, and the entire island flooded with water. Astronomical was truly a treat for the senses.

Diplo Concert/Party Royale Premiere – Chapter 2, Season 2 (May 21st, 2020)

The Diplo concert and Party Royale Premiere were the first major events to take place in Fortnite’s Party Royale mode. Both concerts took place at the Main Stage, a space resembling a theater where players congregated to watch the sets on a big screen. The Party Royale Premiere itself featured a multi-part concert performed by deadmau5, Dillon Francis, and Steve Aoki, and like most EDM shows, was filled with plenty of flashing lights and neon. These events marked the official launch of the evolving social space now known as the Party Royale game mode in Fortnite.

The Device – Chapter 2, Season 2 (June 15th, 2020)

The Device was another one of Fortnite’s more story-driven events. A spy base called The Agency was blown up, revealing a storm-altering superweapon called the Doomsday Device. This device was built to control the storm in hopes of stopping the mysterious force that prevents Fortnite’s islanders from escaping the endless battle royale nightmare, also known as the Loop.

The device worked at first, pushing the storm back and clearing the skies over the island. At that time, players were sent to an office seemingly located outside the Loop. That’s where they met Agent Jones, an important character that would return in future Fortnite events. Unfortunately, the plan to escape the island failed and players were sent back to the island where a wall of water had replaced the storm. This tsunami would go on to destroy several parts of the map.

We The People – Chapter 2, Season 3 (July 4th & July 28th, 2020)

We The People was the first time Epic Games used Fortnite as a platform for positive change. Presented by ØPUS UNITED in support of Black Lives Matter, We The People was a series of conversations featuring prominent voices from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. Guest speakers included Elaine Welteroth, Jemele Hill, Bun B, and Jalen Rose, to name a few.

The first event addressed the systemic racism that can be found in various forms of entertainment. The second event dove into Black voter suppression. Viewers were educated on the issues and encouraged to take action.

While Fortnite’s We The People events may have not been as entertaining as previous events, they proved to be a couple of the most important.

Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite Short – Chapter 2, Season 4 (August 13, 2020)

The Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite short is a parody of a famous 1984 Apple Super Bowl commercial. It’s significant because Epic Games released the short after initiating its lawsuit with Apple and Google. Leading up to the parody’s release, Epic called out both companies for their exorbitant mobile payment fees. It then lowered the price of Fortnite’s in-game currency and added a direct payment option for mobile devices. Both Apple and Google removed Fortnite from their app stores as this was a violation of their rules. That said, the parody, the Tart Tycoon Outfit, the real-life #FreeFortnite dad cap, and the Free Fortnite FAQ that followed suggest Epic Games’ major beef was with Apple. Either way, the parody represents a moment when it seemed the entire internet was invested in the conflict between these two tech goliaths.

The Devourer of Worlds – Chapter 2, Season 4 (December 1st, 2020)

The Devourer of Worlds event was all about stopping one of Marvel’s big bads, Galactus. The Agency nor any of Fortnite’s other factions could take him down. That’s when Iron Man took charge, devising a plan to use an army of modified Battle Buses to fight off the giant villain. Players took command of the busses, shooting down Galactus’ drones as heroes like Thor and Wolverine supported them. Galactus tried to consume the busses in an effort to stop the rebellion but that was all part of Iron Man’s plan. Players ejected from the busses right before they exploded inside of Galactus’ mouth. Weakened by the explosion and unable to defend himself, the heroes were able to send Galactus through a rift and back to the Marvel Universe.

Zero Crisis Finale – Chapter 2, Season 6 (March 16th, 2021)

The Zero Crisis Finale was Fortnite’s first solo experience event. This time, instead of battling an enemy as a team, players would join forces with Agent Jones in hopes of fixing the unstable Zero Point.

Players were tasked with closing portals to stabilize the Zero Point but things didn’t go as planned. Reality continued to break down as portals started to appear in various places across the island. Agent Jones and the player end up using a special rift device to close each portal. As they go about their task, multiple reality-altering waves hit, transforming and warping the environment around them. Enemies turned into chickens. Agent Jones turned into a butterfly. Chaos ensued.

The event ends with an NPC called The Foundation sacrificing themselves to contain the Zero Point. This resulted in a massive shockwave that erased all advanced technology from the island, ushering in a new season of Fortnite.

A mysterious island, time travel, alternate dimensions, pop culture events, and concerts by beloved musicians… It can be hard to keep up with Fortnite’s every twist and turn. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that Fortnite can be counted on to provide fans, even the ones who only stop by on occasion, with plenty of unforgettable moments.

Kenneth Seward Jr. is a freelance writer, editor, and illustrator who covers games, movies, and more. Follow him @kennyufg and on Twitch.

In these crazy, covid times you might just find that you and a pal are apart. Maybe you’re in lockdown and they’re not. Maybe you’re in the same lockdown, but are frustratingly *just* outside of each other’s Bluetooth controller range. This is where today’s online co-op-centric bargains come in. There’s never been a cheaper time to buy (either for yourself or to gift) these friendship affirming experiences.

Purchase Cheaply for PC

Notable Sales for Nintendo Switch

Exciting Offers for XO/XS

Product Savings for PS4/PS5

Sign up to get the best Aussie gaming deals sent straight to your inbox!

Adam’s an Aussie deals wrangler who spends too much of his income on the bargains he finds. You can occasionally find him @Grizwords.