Nicolas Cage Talks About Giving Up Hollywood And Pursuing Independent Films Instead

Nicolas Cage plays a celebrity chef who abandons his career to live in the woods with a pig in the new movie Pig, and the actor himself has gone on a journey into his own version of wilderness.

Speaking to Variety, Cage said that like his Pig character Rob, he’s unsure if he’ll ever return to his past life. For Cage, this would be making the types of big blockbuster movies he made earlier in his career.

“I do feel that I’ve gone into my own wilderness and that I’ve left the small town that is Hollywood,” he said. “I don’t know exactly why Rob left his stardom. It’s never fully explained, and I like that about the movie. But as for me, I don’t know if I’d want to go back. I don’t know if I’d want to go and make another Disney movie. It would be terrifying. It’s a whole different climate. There’s a lot of fear there.”

That’s too bad for people hoping to see Cage return to the National Treasure series, which is set to return as a TV show. Cage remarked that it was a “high pressure game” to make The Rock and Con Air with Jerry Bruckheimer back-to-back in the ’90s. Nowadays, he’s more excited by the independent film projects he’s involved with, like Mandy, Joe, and now Pig.

“When I was making Jerry Bruckheimer movies back-to-back, that was just a high pressure game. There were a lot of fun moments, but at the same time, there was also, ‘We wrote this line. It has to be said this way,'” Cage said. “They’d put a camera on you and photograph you, and order you: ‘Now say the roller skate training wheels line.’ I’d say, ‘I’ll do that but I’d also like to try it this way.’ On independent movies, you have more freedom to experiment and be fluid. There’s less pressure and there’s more oxygen in the room.”

Pig is playing now in theaters. Cage’s next movie will be The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, in which he plays a fictional version of himself in a wild-sounding story. Cage will never watch the movie.

IGN UK Podcast #601: Whales are Scarier than Sharks

It’s time to welcome Emma. She joins Cardy and Al for a chat all about the new Valve Steam Deck handheld console. They also talk about how they felt about Loki now it’s finished and Black Widow. Emma then shares her experiences playing the Metroid series for the first while Cardy tells everyone why they should be watching The Sopranos.

Of course there’s also an Endless Search as well as your feedback including an onsen story from heaven this time.

Remember, if you want to get in touch with the podcast, please do: [email protected].

IGN UK Podcast #601: Whales are Scarier than Sharks

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Hackers Begin Leaking Stolen EA Data, EA Says It’s Not Concerned

In June this year, hackers stole 780GB of data from EA including the source code of FIFA 21 and the Frostbite engine, EA’s proprietary development engine used across most of its titles. Now, the hackers are leaking the information they obtained on the internet in an attempt to force EA to pay a ransom.

Vice reported on this development, after the hackers left a message on a forum about their plans. Apparently, the hackers had originally tried to sell the data, but have now decided to try and extort EA for ransom money instead.

The statement reads: “Few week ago we send email for ransome [sic] to EA but we dont get any response so we will posting the [source code]”. This is followed by a clear threat to keep sharing the data if EA do not respond: “If they dont contact us or dont pay us we will keep posting it,”

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The hackers also left a file on the forum, containing 1.3GB (in a compressed file) of information on internal EA files relating to development tools and EA’s Origin store. This could prove to be a major headache for EA, as the Frostbite engine is used in everything from their big sports titles like FIFA, to their flagship FPS franchise Battlefield, which is launching a new entry, Battlefield 2042, in October this year. Despite this, the company seems to think that the hack will have minimal impact on products and services. EA has released the following statement:

“We’re aware of the recent posts by the alleged hackers and we are analyzing the files released. At this time, we continue to believe that it does not contain data that poses any concern to player privacy, and we have no reason to believe that there is any material risk to our games, our business or our players. We continue to work with federal law enforcement officials as part of this ongoing criminal investigation.”

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This follows similar wording to the original statement EA released after the hack occurred in June: “We are investigating a recent incident of intrusion into our network where a limited amount of game source code and related tools were stolen. No player data was accessed, and we have no reason to believe there is any risk to player privacy. Following the incident, we’ve already made security improvements and do not expect an impact on our games or our business. We are actively working with law enforcement officials and other experts as part of this ongoing criminal investigation.”

Vice reports that, whilst the hackers have sent ransom requests to EA, the company had initially refused to acknowledge or reply to these demands. However, the company has now admitted that it has received an extortion threat. Hacks have become increasingly common across the gaming industry, with both CD Projekt Red and Capcom becoming victims of significant hacking attacks in the past year.

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Liam Wiseman is a Freelance News Writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @liamthewiseman

Xbox Series X|S Tops PS5 In US June Sales, Best-Selling Games Revealed

The NPD Group has released its monthly sales report for June, revealing which games, consoles, and accessories sold the best in the US, while also providing an overall snapshot of the health of the business in America.

Total spending on video games–across games, hardware, and accessories–was up by 5% for June 2021 compared to June 2020, reaching $4.9 billion. For the first six months of 2021, total spending was $28.9 billion, up 15% compared to the first six months of 2020.

Once again, the Nintendo Switch was the top-selling home console in the US during June 2021 for unit sales. However, the Xbox Series family of consoles performed the best in terms of dollar sales. In fact, dollar sales of Xbox hardware in June was the highest ever for a June month, eclipsing the previous record set in June 2011.

For the first half of 2021, the Nintendo Switch remains the best-selling console in the US in terms of both unit and dollar sales. The PlayStation 5, meanwhile, continues to be the fastest-selling console in US history based on unit sales through its first eight months.

All major consoles are currently supply-constrained. The big numbers for Xbox in June came during the same month as the company’s big Xbox E3 2021 briefing. Sony did not hold one of its own.

Total spending on hardware for June 2021 in the US rose by a massive 112% compared to June 2020, adding up to $401 million. This represented the highest hardware figures for a June month since June 2008 ($617 million). Through June, total spending on hardware in the US reached $2.3 billion, which is up 45% compared to the first half of 2020, driven in part by the launch of new consoles.

Moving to game sales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was June 2021’s best-selling game in the US. It also hit the highest launch-month dollar sales for any title in the series, more than doubling the previous record-setter, which was 2016’s Ratchet & Clank for PS4.

Nintendo’s Mario Golf: Super Rush was the No. 3 overall best-seller in the US for June 2021, and this doesn’t even include digital sales. Super Rush had the highest launch-month dollar sales for any game in franchise history, passing Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour back in July 2003.

Another mover during June 2021 was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, which climbed from 51st in May to 17th in June thanks in part to the launch of the Switch edition. Additionally, Sea of Thieves climbed from 36th in May to inside the top 20 in June due to the A Pirate’s Life update.

In total, spending on games reached $4.319 billion for June 2021, representing a 1% increase year-over-year.

In terms of accessories, total spending dropped by 1% to $207 million. For the first half of 2021, total spending on accessories amounted to $1.2 billion, which was up 14% year-over-year.

The black DualSense controller for the PS5 was the best-selling accessory overall in June 2021, while the white version is the top seller for the first half of 2021.

June 2021 Game Sales All Platforms

  1. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
  2. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
  3. Mario Golf: Super Rush*
  4. MLB The Show 21^
  5. Scarlet Nexus
  6. Resident Evil Village
  7. Mario Kart 8*
  8. Minecraft
  9. Spider-Man: Miles Morales
  10. Mortal Kombat 11
  11. Animal Crossing: New Horizons*
  12. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
  13. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
  14. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
  15. Super Mario 3D World*
  16. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
  17. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2
  18. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
  19. Pokemon: Sword/Shield*
  20. Sea of Thieves

*Digital sales not included

^Xbox digital sales not included

Year-To-Date Ending June 2021

  1. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
  2. Resident Evil Village
  3. MLB The Show 21^
  4. Super Mario 3D World*
  5. Spider-Man: Miles Morales
  6. Monster Hunter: Rise
  7. Mario Kart 8*
  8. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
  9. Outriders
  10. Minecraft

*Digital sales not included

^Xbox digital sales not included

12 Months Ending June 2021

  1. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
  2. Madden NFL 21
  3. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
  4. Spider-Man: Miles Morales
  5. Ghost of Tsushima
  6. Super Mario 3D All-Stars*
  7. Animal Crossing: New Horizons*
  8. NBA 2K21*
  9. Marvel’s Avengers
  10. Mario Kart 8*

*Digital sales not included

June 2021 Nintendo Sales

Mario Golf Super Rush*

Mario Kart 8*

Animal Crossing: New Horizons*

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*

Super Mario 3D World*

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*

Pokemon Sword/Shield*

New Pokemon Snap*

Super Mario Party*

Minecraft*

*Digital sales not included

June 2021 PlayStation Sales

  1. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
  2. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
  3. MLB The Show 21
  4. Spider-Man: Miles Morales
  5. Resident Evil Village
  6. Scarlet Nexus
  7. Minecraft
  8. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
  9. Ghost of Tsushima
  10. Final Fantasy VII: Remake

June 2021 Xbox Sales

  1. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
  2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
  3. Resident Evil Village
  4. Mass Effect Legendary Edition
  5. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
  6. Scarlet Nexus
  7. Forza Horizon 4
  8. It Takes Two
  9. Mortal Kombat 11
  10. MLB The Show 21*

*Digital sales not included

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

New DnD Book Has Everything You Need To Know About Dragons

Kicking off D&D Live is a newly-announced Dungeons & Dragons book called Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons. Of course, the narrator of the book is none other than Fizban himself, who is a dragon walking around in human form.

Hitting stores on October 19, Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons expands on the legendary beasts, giving players new dragon-themed options. The book will introduce gem dragons to 5e for the first time, adding new player character options. There are new race options for dragonborns, focusing on promatic, metallic, or gem heritages. Additionally, the book will be a big help to DMs who are looking to craft a campaign which is steeped in dragon lore.

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There will be a main cover, featuring art by Chris Rahn, and alternative cover, featuring art by Anato Finnstark. Additionally, you can see some art from the book above which includes gem dragonborns by Zoltan Boros, a metallic great wyrm by Crystal Sully, and a turtle great wyrm by David Auden Nash.

“There’s a definite focus in this book on stuff that you can use at the table right away,” explained D&D TRPG Studio executive producer Ray Winninger during a press conference. “Everything from dragon lair maps to, tons of new dragon stat blocks and non-dragon stat blocks, and various dragon-related monsters show up. We tried to take a ‘show, don’t tell’ approach to talking about dragons, so rather than talking to you for a while about the personalities of brass dragons, we give you a table of personality traits you can randomly roll on or choose from as you’re creating a brass dragon in a way that gives each dragon, a flavor quirk. There’s also a lot of player facing content, but really that focus of giving you stuff, you can use right away, is what I would stress.”

Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons features a large bestiary which features 20 different kinds of dragons, along with dragon-related creatures. This will be about a third of the book.

New subclasses include The Way of the Ascendant Dragon for the monk and the Drake Warden for the ranger. Further details about these subclasses were not revealed during the conference.

Stay tuned for more D&D news throughout the weekend and D&D Live reveals more info about upcoming books and events.

D&D Announces Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons Sourcebook

The Dungeons & Dragons team has revealed Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, a new sourcebook for D&D 5th Edition focused solely on the famous monsters that serve as the game’s namesake.

Fans of older versions of D&D will likely recognize the titular character, Fizban the Fabulous – who also provides point-of-view commentary throughout the book, similar to the in-fiction author Volothamp Geddarm’s notes in Volo’s Guide to Monsters – from Dragonlance, the AD&D campaign setting and series of novels.

Standard and Alternate covers for Fizban's Treasury of Dragons

It’s important to note, however, that Fizban’s Treasury isn’t a Dragonlance sourcebook, despite recent releases and announcements for other realms like Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft on this fall’s Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos moving outside the game’s default setting of The Forgotten Realms. “We’re happy to be reintroducing at least some elements of that,” say Ray Winniger, Executive Producer of D&D for Wizard’s of the Coast. “It’s not [a Dragonlance book], it’s really a book about dragons across the whole of the D&D multiverse; it’s not specific to any given D&D world.”

“There’s an idea running through this book that every dragon has echos of itself on other worlds of the Material Plane,” adds James Wyatt, a veteran writer and game designer working on both Fizban’s Treasury and the upcoming D&D x MTG crossover deck. “They don’t come from outside it, they were there when it was made … Dragons are an essential part of the world, which is why we named the game after them.”

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Wyatt says the book consists of three main sections – a bestiary, full of new stat blocks and descriptions for draconic creatures ranging from tiny drakes and wyverns to the massive, godlike Great Wyrms, which dwarf even the ancient dragons that have long sat atop the D&D Monster Manual food chain. “It’s almost like fighting two monsters back to back, both of which are at challenge ratings above 20,” Wyatt says with a laugh. “They’re tremendous forces of magic and nature that bend the world around them and wreak havoc wherever they go.”

The other two sections will consist of some new character options for players and a plethora of DM tools and info. It introduces two new subclasses for the Monk and Ranger – The Way of the Ascendent Dragon and the Drake Warden, respectively – as well as new options for Dragonborn characters who wish to be descended from Gem dragons rather than the classic Chromatic or Metallic.

For Dungeon Masters, Fizban’s Treasury contains a horde of info on not only these Gem dragons – who are notably different from their traditional siblings thanks to their powerful psyonic power and unusual damage types (for example, their breath weapons might deal Radiant or Necrotic damage as opposed to Fire or Acid damage) – but also plenty of options for lore and the character of D&D most famous monsters. “We tried to take a ‘show, don’t tell’ approach when talking about dragons,” Wyatt says. “Rather than talking to you for a while about the personalities of brass dragons, we give you a table of personality traits that you can randomly roll on or you can choose from as you’re creating a brass dragon.”

While the book does contain a considerable amount of Official Lore™, Wyatt says that it’s all about giving players and DMs alike more tools and toys to play with in their own game worlds. “Even as we’re in the final stages of getting it ready to go to the printer, I’m marking up printouts on one side and writing notes for my next campaign on the other.”

Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons will release on October 19, 2021 and features a standard cover available at all online retailers and bookstores, as well as an alternate cover available at your friendly neighborhood game+hobby store.

Steam Deck Currently Can’t Run Apex Legends, PUBG, And Several Other Big Games By Default

Valve’s Steam Deck handheld is built around the idea of your personal library of PC games being playable on the go, but there is a caveat to the system: Some of the most popular games on Steam won’t be playable on it.

According to ProtonDB via PC Gamer, games such as Destiny 2, Apex Legends, PUBG, and Rainbow Six Siege won’t be compatible with the preinstalled SteamOS due to the anti-cheat software not activating on the Linux-based operating software and thus leaving players locked out of the multiplayer servers.

Now Playing: Valve’s Steam Deck: Are We Excited For It?

Valve did mention that it is currently “improving Proton’s game compatibility and support for anti-cheat solutions by working directly with the vendors,” although the more drastic solution would be to tinker with the device, delete SteamOS, and do a fresh install of Windows–something which the Steam Deck is completely capable of, and Valve says is entirely up to the user.

If that list of currently incompatible games doesn’t bother you too much, the good news is that Steam Deck preorders will open from July 16 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET on Steam’s website. The device has already earned plenty of attention, as it already has an unusual fan–Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Valve’s rival Epic Games.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Final Season Poster Includes Cheddar The Corgi And One More Sex Tape Joke

Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s eighth and final season is coming up soon, and now NBC has released a promotional poster for it. The poster shows all of the main cast (and Cheddar!) standing in front of the Brooklyn Bridge in hero poses.

The poster also features what might be one of the last “title of your sex tape” jokes, which is an ongoing gag for the comedy. Here’s the poster:

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 8 premieres Thursday, August 12 on NBC. A trailer for Season 8 teases that the show will go out “in a blaze of glory.”

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which follows the story of a police unit in Brooklyn, originally aired on Fox for five seasons before the shoe was canceled. NBC picked it up for season six, and then extended it for two more. Season 8 premieres August 12 on NBC.

The show stars Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz, Melissa Fumero, Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio, Andre Braugher, Dirk Blocker, Joel McKinnon Miller, and formerly Chelsea Peretti, who has since left the show.

In addition to being a comedy with some very silly jokes, the show is known for touching on serious issues, and this is expected to continue with the final season. The writers apparently had four episodes written for the final season and then threw them all out amid the political unrest in the US specifically focused around police.

In other news, Samberg was recently announced as one of the voices for the Borderlands spin-off Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, along with Wanda Sykes, Will Arnett, and Ashly Burch.

Epic’s Tim Sweeney Calls Steam Deck ‘Amazing Move By Valve’

Valve’s announcement of its handheld gaming PC, the Steam Deck, has certainly caught the attention of a vast range of gaming and tech companies – even Valve’s rivals. Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney, has chipped in with some positive comments about the platform.

Sweeney seems incredibly supportive of the new hardware, calling it an “amazing move”. The comments come from Sweeney’s Twitter account, where he made the following statement: “Amazing move by Valve! A handheld PC/console hybrid running the SteamOS fork of Arch Linux, and it’s an open platform where users are free to install software of their choosing—including Windows and other stores.”

These positive comments are likely to have something to do with the fact that the Steam Deck can run and utilise the Epic Games Store, which means Epic’s Steam competitor will have a new platform to grow on. Not only can users bring over their entire Steam libraries, but they can also access their content from the Epic Games Store, GOG and other PC gaming storefronts.

The Steam Deck also comes at a time when the ongoing lawsuit between Epic and Apple rages on in the background. Apple has historically not allowed companies to install their own apps and services on Apple products externally from the App store, which means that organisations cannot use their own payment processing systems either. This has led to Epic attempting to sue Apple in order to allow for more versatility over how payments are made, so that not every payment has to go through Apple.

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The open nature of the Steam Deck effectively eradicates that issue for Epic, as Valve is very comfortable with allowing other users, developers and companies to use their OS however they want. It’s an approach completely at odds to how Apple wants to control what goes through their devices, and could well be used to attempt to bolster Epic’s case in future trials.

The Steam Deck will be available this holiday season, with reservations starting soon. In the meantime, be sure to check out our exclusive hands-on, and our rapid-fire FAQ with the Steam Deck development team.

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Liam Wiseman is a Freelance Writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @liamthewiseman

Actress’ Twitter Account Hacked By PS5 Scammers

With PS5 stock shortages still ongoing, restock scams continue to proliferate on social media. A recent case of PS5 scamming happened on actress Tatum O’Neal’s verified Twitter account, Variety reports, with the scam appearing to have gone unaddressed for some time.

Recent screenshots show O’Neal’s verified account with a bio reading “PlayStation & Xbox Enthusiast. Verified Salesman Page on PS5 & Xbox One.” The account now seems to have been restored to O’Neal or her management, but the Variety report claims the hack may have dated back as early as the start of June. Screenshots of now-deleted tweets show O’Neal’s account posting regularly about Sony’s PlayStation 5.

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Some Twitter users report being scammed by the account, while others have been blocked after calling it out as a scam or a hack. One user said that the they were blocked after sending $600 for a PS5.

After the Variety report was published, Twitter finally appeared to take action on the situation. O’Neal’s account now only contains three tweets–a political retweet, a reply to another tweet, and a pinned tweet saying that “Management” has now recovered the account.

If you’re still looking for a PS5 yourself, it bears repeating that most people supposedly selling the consoles on Twitter are operating scams. Instead, keep an eye on our restock tracker for a chance to buy a console from a reliable stockist.