Ghost of Tsushima’s Foxes Have Been Updated To Be Even More Adorable

From its scenic landscapes to sharp action, Ghost of Tsushima has plenty of strong selling points. One of its best and most distinctive features, though, is the game’s collection of foxes, wild canines that lead players to Inari shrines and definitely deserve a pat on the head afterward for their hard work.

They’re also even better now, as a new update for Ghost of Tsushima and its Ikki Island expansion has added a lethal amount of charm to foxes inside of the game. As spotted by Twitter’s most important account, Can You Pet The Dog, foxes will now happily tap their feet on the ground in anticipation of a belly rub.

There are of course other animals that you can pet on Iki Island, but nothing beats the enthusiasm of a fox doing a quick tap dance. In the base game, foxes would lead players to well-hidden shrines that contained various charms which could be collected.

For more on Ghost of Tsushima’s expansion and Director’s Cut enhancements, be sure to read our Ghost of Tsushima: Iki Island expansion review. You can also check out our other Iki Island guides and our Ghost of Tsushima guides roundup for the base game.

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Denis Villeneuve Wants To Make More Dune Movies “As Soon As Possible”

Denis Villeneuve is trying not to think too much about the future. After a gargantuan production process followed by pandemic delays, Dune: Part One is hitting theaters next month (and premiering at Venice Film Festival this week). Its visionary director and co-writer is trying to live in the here and now. But he’s not doing a great job of it, because he’s already thinking about what’s next.

“I think that we were able to bring it to life because we all, me and the team, just did that for three and a half years, full time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we were dreaming about Dune: Part One,” Villeneuve told GameSpot and other journalists during a recent virtual Q&A. “That’s the way I make cinema…I need to be there now and not think too much about the future.”

Yet the director hasn’t been shy about his plans for more Dune. This film covers roughly the first half of Frank Herbert’s first novel, which was released in 1965. Over the course of Herbert’s original six books, the series goes pretty wild, with time jumps thousands of years in the future and an immortal “god-emperor” who’s half human and half sandworm. In contrast, Villeneuve dreams of adapting the first book and its direct sequel, published in 1969, which are concerned mainly with the same set of main characters and take place within a reasonable span of time.

“I envision the adaptation of two books, Dune and Dune: Messiah. I said, ‘OK, as a filmmaker, as a screenwriter, I know how to do this,'” Villeneuve said. “So we decided to split the first novel in two, so now we are at three movies. Those movies are very long to make. So for my mental sanity, I decided to just dream about three movies. After that, because I’m a big fan of all the novels, after that I’ll see where I am, but I will say that I want to focus on the aspect of these three movies right now.”

He added that for now, he’s “focusing on launching Dune: Part One, hoping there will be a Part Two, and that’s enough.”

“Doing the first one was by far the most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” the director explained.

Adaptation can be a messy process. Villeneuve says he’s had a copy of Dune on his nightstand for more than three decades. His career has been building toward this; with Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, he proved he can make big budget sci-fi like no one else right now.

“When you adapt, necessarily, you transform. The idea was to be as close to the spirit of the book as possible–as close to the poetry,” he said. “The goal was to make a movie that would please the hardcore fans, the people who know Dune by heart, and also my mother, who never read Dune. To find that equilibrium was not easy.”

General audiences will judge for themselves whether he succeeded in making a movie that’s equally accessible for fans and the uninitiated. In our review, we noted that it “throws in-universe terms and proper nouns around with abandon, allowing context clues and visual storytelling to do most of the expository heavy lifting.”

“The tough task here was to introduce the audience to this world, to the cultures, to the different families, the different planets,” Villeneuve said. “Once this is done, it becomes an insane playground…For me, Dune: Part One is like an appetizer. Dune: Part Two is the main meal. As much as Dune: Part One was by far my most exciting project ever, Dune: Part Two is already getting me even more excited.”

So when will we get to see it? Granted, Warner Bros. has not actually greenlit the sequel yet, so it depends at least partially on the success of this movie. But the director is ready to go.

“When you make a movie a movie in two parts, necessarily, when you do the first part, you have to know what you’re going to do in the second part,” he hinted. “I will be fairly ready to go quite quickly…to go quickly on a movie of that size, you still need to make sets, costumes–so we are talking about months. But if there’s enthusiasm and the movie is greenlit sooner than later, I will say that I will be ready to shoot in 2022 for sure. I am ready to go and I will say that I would love to bring it to the screen as soon as possible.”

Dune: Part One hits theaters October 22.

Rick and Morty: Adult Swim Casts Christopher Lloyd As Rick For a 15 Second Twitter Video

Adult Swim has finally cast Back to the Future’s Christopher Lloyd as a live-action Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty, bringing the series full circle in a way.

Don’t get too excited, though, because Lloyd only dons Rick’s trademark lab coat for a 15 second Twitter video posted by the official Adult Swim Twitter earlier today.

Nonetheless, it’s still quite satisfying to see Lloyd as Rick, especially considering the character of Rick is based on Lloyd’s Emmett “Doc” Brown in Back to the Future. In fact, the concept of Rick and Morty is based on Doc and Marty McFly from that movie.

Adult Swim went a step further, though, and cast Jaeden Martell (It, Knives Out) as Morty — an excellent choice.

As you can see in the video above, the 15 second Twitter video isn’t anything too wild. It’s actually exactly what you’d expect: Rick and Morty come through a portal, Rick burps and says they’re home, and then Morty says his trademark “aww geez.” For fans of Rick and Morty, though, the video is probably quite satisfying.

Essentially since the show’s start, when it was quite obvious that Rick and Morty were based on Doc and Marty, fans have wanted to see Lloyd in the role of Rick. Now, that’s finally happened.

Sadly, if the video is anything to go off of, there’s not much more to this. There aren’t any further details to go with it, there’s no accompanying release date, or really anything else— it seems to be simply a promotion for Rick and Morty.

For more about Rick and Morty, read about how the Season 5 finale will be an hour-long episode and then read our thoughts on the Season 5 premiere in IGN’s Mort Dinner Rick Andre review. Check out this video about seven things you probably didn’t know about Rick and Morty after that.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

The Chip Shortage Affecting Gaming ‘Will Remain Very Tight’ Until at Least Next September

The chip shortage currently affecting all parts of gaming is not likely to let up until the end of next year, according to Toshiba.

In a new report from Bloomberg, the publication writes that Toshiba Corp., one of the major companies that creates power-regulating chips found in graphics cards, gaming consoles, and more, says the chip shortage will likely continue through the end of 2022.

IGN previously reported on this chip shortage, citing that Intel believes it could drag on into 2023, and this new Bloomberg report seems to reaffirm this timeline. Toshiba director, Takeshi Kamebuchi, told Bloomberg that “the supply of chips will remain very tight until at least September next year.” Kamebuchi also said that some of Toshiba’s customers won’t be fully served all of the chips they need until 2023.

However, Toshiba doesn’t mention which customers, so perhaps Sony and Microsoft won’t find themselves waiting until 2023 to get the chips they need for their PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

Kamebuchi cites material shortages and a demand that’s constantly outpacing chip output as reasons for Toshiba’s inability to fulfill orders. With this chip shortage possibly lasting until 2023, Toshiba is planning to invest $545 million in its production between now and 2024 to boost the output of its power semiconductors, according to Bloomberg.

“We consider which customer faces the most severe situation, such as the risk of the whole production line halting or the business getting obliterated without the supply of chips,” Kamebuchi told Bloomberg. “Game console makers are among the customers making the strongest demands and I’m sincerely sorry for their frustration as none of them have a 100% satisfaction.”

And so the struggle to easily purchase a PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, or new PC graphics card continues.

Check out this story about how Intel thinks the chip shortage affecting every part of gaming could drag into 2023 in the meantime. Read about how the Biden administration signed an executive order pledging to review the supply chain issues that have caused these consoles to remain scarce after that.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

Dune Review

When Denis Villeneuve signed on to direct a 21st century version of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel Dune, he was no doubt aware of the book’s long and often tortured history in Hollywood. Once thought unfilmable – just ask Jodorowsky – it was finally adapted by David Lynch into a famously off-kilter film in 1984, and then a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries version also got some traction in 2000. But those takes didn’t quite manage to translate the more epic and spiritual qualities of Herbert’s work. Could Villeneuve, who had pulled off the seemingly impossible with his fantastic sequel to Blade Runner, finally do justice to the tale of Paul Atreides? Unfortunately, the answer is… not quite. For all its amazing imagery and A-list stars and very cool interpretations of the nerdier aspects of Herbert’s book, this version of Dune doesn’t fully coalesce.

The director, his co-writers Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth, and producer Legendary Pictures made the seemingly sound decision to divide the sprawling novel into two separate films, so in fact the onscreen title to this installment is actually Dune, Part One. The result of this split is not just a license to let many of the book’s smaller moments or supporting characters breathe more, but also to perhaps be too devoted to Herbert’s work. Heresy, yells the Frank Herbert fan! But we all know that what works in a novel might not work in movie form, and vice versa, and Villeneuve’s biggest misstep with Dune, Part One is how misshapen and plodding it feels in its second half, as if the movie doesn’t quite know how or where to end… before it just suddenly does.

Timothée Chalamet stars as Paul Atreides, scion of the powerful House Atreides in a far-off future where a substance known as the Spice is the most valuable commodity in the known universe. Paul’s father, Duke Leto Atreides (a heavy-with-responsibility Oscar Isaac), is sent by the Emperor to the desert planet Arrakis to take over production of the Spice. And so the whole family packs up and moves house, including the Duke’s military advisors (and Paul’s tutors) Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa), Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), and what appears to be every soldier and house servant who works for the Atreides. What awaits them on the planet also known as Dune? An uncertain future to be sure, but the Duke has a plan: Harness “desert power.”

Meanwhile, Chalamet’s Paul – as dreamy, misunderstood, and tortured as you could want the heartthrob to be here, and I mean that as a compliment – is having prophetic dreams of a mysterious girl, one of Arrakis’s native people known as the Fremen. This is Zendaya’s character Chani, who some viewers may be distressed to learn is barely in this movie beyond said dreams. Again, it says Part One in the title, so be patient.

The film opens with Zendaya’s voiceover explaining how beautiful her home planet is, and succinctly summing up the violent history of Arrakis, caught as it is in the middle of bigger galactic concerns due to its natural abundance of the Spice. This sequence is a triumph over the exposition that continuously threatens to bring any adaptation of Dune down, but unfortunately, the filmmakers don’t always succeed on this same front moving forward. Perhaps the tutorial that comes later about stillsuits – the life-saving, water-conserving garb of the Fremen – will be fascinating to the uninitiated, but those who are familiar with the source material may find that these moments gum up the works of Dune, like the sand of Arrakis that plays havoc with the Spice machinery.

And yet, Villeneuve frequently impresses with his ability to take tried and true sci-fi concepts and put some new spin on them. Take the Bene Gesserit – sort of space witches with extra-human mental powers, if you will. Paul’s mother, Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Jessica, is a member of this order, and early on we see her tutoring Paul in the strange ability to mentally coerce others via a modulation of one’s voice. Here, Villeneuve relies on sound design to highlight the weird and offsetting manipulation of Chalamet’s words, but he also shoots the moment as a series of flashing images where time seems to be displaced. It’s off-putting and effective, placing us in the same mindset as the person who the vocal attack is being used upon.

The script also benefits from injecting occasional bits of humor into the universe-shaping events of the film, and the casting of charismatic actors like Momoa and Brolin help to drive those humanizing elements home. Both actors’ characters essentially serve as big brother/uncle figures to Paul, teaching him to fight and helping him ease into the notion that he is the heir apparent to this great family. Ferguson’s Jessica, meanwhile, knows that perhaps something even more heady awaits her son on Arrakis. Indeed, this eventually leads to a painful moment of accusation that Paul directs at his mother, and the look on Ferguson’s face tells us… he may not be wrong?

In fact, the cast is solid across the board, and full of familiar faces, from Javier Bardem as the leader of the Fremen to Charlotte Rampling as the scary Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother to David Dastmalchian, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and more. And then there are the villains. Stellan Skarsgård is effectively grotesque and sinister as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the bane of House Atreides, while his nephew, Dave Bautista’s “Beast” Rabban, is vicious enough that any memory of Drax will be long gone while watching this film.

And Dune is certainly capable of transporting us to its alien landscapes via its many technical achievements in production design, costumes, photography, sound, visual effects, and more. From the breathtaking vistas and strange space- and aircraft, to the enormous, frightening sandworms that will devour a ship as easily as they will a clutch of bad guys (and sometimes good guys), and right on down to the sparkly glimmer of the very Spice itself as it glitters across the surface of Arrakis, there is no detail spared in immersing us in this fantastical world.

Which is to say, there’s so much to love in Dune, but I didn’t come away in love with the movie itself. Villeneuve has proven himself to be a master of the kind of smart and stylish sci-fi that a modern Dune adaptation demands, and the film is a triumph when it comes to its visuals and sound. But there’s a shapelessness to the latter part of the movie that drags it down and distracts from its beauty; it’s a story that ends at Act 2, and it shows. Just as Duke Leto himself would find out, harnessing the power of Dune is no easy task.

New Destiny 2 Update Adds Cross-Play Voice Chat

A new Destiny 2 update went live yesterday and it enabled cross-play voice chat, a little over a week after cross-platform play was added to the game.

Bungie posted the patch notes for yesterday’s 3.3.0.1 Hotfix coming to Destiny 2 and in them, the company lists cross-play voice chat as now enabled in-game, as reported by GameSpot. This voice chat feature comes just after the launch of Season 15, which is called the Season of the Lost, on August 24.

At the bottom of the patch notes, in the “General” section, you’ll find “Cross Play voice chat enabled” as a bullet point. However, Bungie lists some communication privacy issues that aren’t working as intended for Xbox players. Here’s what those issues are:

  • Xbox players will still hear voice and receive invites from anyone even if privacy settings are set to “friends” or “in-game friends.”

  • Xbox players will still hear voice from non-Xbox players even if “You can communicate outside of Xbox with voice and text” is set to “blocked.”

  • Xbox players will still be able to hear other Xbox players in Fireteam Chat or Team Chat, even if that player is on their mute list.

Bungie announced that cross-play was officially coming with the launch of Season 15 in Destiny 2 last month. However, the company announced that “when cross play releases, voice chat between platforms will not be enabled.” Bungie cited some “late-breaking issues with development” as the reason for why cross-play voice chat wouldn’t be enabled when cross-play launched.

Now, a little over a week later, the feature is live and cross-platform Guardians can brag to each other about the exotic they popped.

For more about Destiny 2, read about how Bungie accidentally enabled Destiny 2 cross-play months ahead of time, just a few weeks before announcing that a cross-play beta was on the way. Then, watch IGN’s interview with Bungie about how the company plans to address Destiny 2 PVP, Inventory, and more.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings Ending Explained: What Does It Mean For Phase 4?

While Black Widow may have been the first official entry into the MCU’s Phase 4, its flashback status (and the ultimate fate of Black Widow herself) made it a foregone conclusion. This isn’t the case with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which adds a laundry list of new characters and concepts to the Marvel multiverse at large, and teases some massive developments for the future of Phase 4 and beyond. Here’s what happens at the end, and in both of the post-credits scenes.

Naturally, we’re getting into spoilers here so this is your chance to duck out if you haven’t seen the movie.

The final battle between The Dweller in Darkness and The Great Protector (aided by Shang-Chi, Katy, and Xialing) takes place in the mystical realm of Ta Lo, where Wenwu (AKA The Mandarin) believed his wife was being held captive. In reality, however, the Dweller In Darkness had been manipulating Wenwu into setting it free, sort of like an eldritch monster in a Lovecraft story. Wenwu realizes his mistake a bit too late, and is killed after he makes a last ditch effort to right his wrongs and pass the ten rings to Shang-Chi.

Armed with them, and with the help of both Xialing and Katy, as well as the remainder of the Ten Rings army and the residents of Ta Lo, Shang-Chi is able to subdue The Dweller in Darkness and save Ta Lo. With that issue out of the way, Shang-Chi and Katy are able to return back to San Francisco where they’re left floundering to explain exactly what happened to them (and that they’re both basically superheroes now) to their civilian friends, who don’t really buy it.

That is, until Wong–yes, that Wong, from Doctor Strange–shows up in one of his trademark portals in the middle of the bar, asking both Shang-Chi and Katy to come with him. He takes them back to Kamar-Taj, where he explains (with help from Bruce Banner and Carol Danvers) that their lives will never be the same, now that they’re on this path, and they’re desperately needed.

The biggest and most important implication here is that it won’t just be Shang-Chi moving forward in the MCU, it will be Katy as well–and what that means is difficult to predict, given that she was invented as an original character for this movie and has no comic book history to look back on. Katy, unlike Shang-Chi, does not have any magical powers or lifelong training and instead, will likely be honing her abilities with her recently acquired bow and arrow–which might make her an asset (or a rival) to someone like Kate Bishop in the future, depending on how the Hawkeye Disney+ show pans out.

Also notably, Shang-Chi is armed with the ten rings, which are a mysterious element in and of themselves. They made Wenwu immortal while he had them, and could very well extend the same powers to Shang-Chi himself–but the limits of that immortality (aside from the basics of never aging or falling ill) aren’t really explained. It’s difficult to guess if they also mean complete invulnerability or healing as well. There’s also some loose implications in the film that the rings exert a sort of Lord Of The Rings-style thrall over the person wearing them, or at least make them more susceptible to manipulation, but again this is never really explicitly detailed. We know that Wenwu started to backslide into villainy after the death of his wife, which led him to never again remove the rings, and that there seemed to be a relationship between his reliance on the rings and the whispers of the Dweller In Darkness, but this could also be a function of grief and not a direct correlation.

The question of what exactly the rings themselves mean is likely going to be a major factor in Shang-Chi’s story moving forward, based on the first post-credits scene. In it, we see Wong, Captain Marvel, and Banner examining the rings in private. Wong explains they’re unlike anything they have in the Kamar-Taj archives, and they seem to be emitting some sort of signal–though to who or what, they can’t be sure.

In The Comics

Now, in the comics, the ten rings are much, much different than they are in the MCU. They function more like a set of mini-Infinity Stones with each being assigned a specific type of power that The Mandarin can control, rather than a set of bracelets that can zoom around and conduct energy. Still, it’s worth noting that in the comics, the rings’ origin is an alien world called Maklu-IV where they were created as a sort of interstellar power source before they accidentally crash landed on Earth.

It does look like Wong’s map is pointing to somewhere out in space for the “beacon” being sent by the MCU rings, but it’s really impossible to narrow it down much more as of right now–and, given what we know about the multiverse situation thanks to the end of Loki, we could be looking at any number of metaphysical things happening here, like an alternate Earth’s version of Wenwu or Shang-Chi for example. Our best bet for clarity is likely going to come in the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where, even if Shang-Chi doesn’t appear, Wong most certainly will.

This brings us to the second post-credits scene which teases the future of Xialing, who has filled the power vacuum at the top of the Ten Rings organization and begun training women foot soldiers alongside the surviving men from the battle of Ta Lo. It’s not clear what exactly Xialing intends to do with the Ten Rings now that Wenwu is no longer in power–we know the Ten Rings has existed for a very, very long time and has an extremely far reach, which makes the possibilities almost endless. This means the return of the Ten Rings organization could be heroic, villainous, or something in between.

It’s also difficult to tell exactly when they’ll be showing back up and what the context might be, as there are no real clues to be found in the sequence and no outside MCU characters making any references to them. For all we know, the rest of the characters in the MCU don’t even know the Ten Rings actually exist. It’ll certainly be interesting to find out more as Phase 4 continues.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is in theaters now.

Overwatch League’s 2022 Season Will Use an Early Build of Overwatch 2

Activision Blizzard is currently facing serious ongoing allegations of harassment and mistreatment of marginalized workers. To learn more, please visit our timeline as well as our in-depth report on the subject.

The 2022 season of Overwatch League will use an early build of Overwatch 2.

This news comes by way of DotEsports, which also reports the fifth season of Overwatch League is expected to begin on time next April, as announced by the league’s vice president, Jon Spector.

After rumors of a year-long hiatus for the league began to ramp up, Blizzard recently confirmed them to be false. The company said that while a release date for the 2022 season start had not yet been announced, a fifth season of Overwatch League would be happening nonetheless.

As you can see in the tweet above, Spector reaffirmed this news earlier today. However, a league spokesperson told DotEsports that this season would begin on an early build of Overwatch 2.

“The plan right now is for the Overwatch League’s 2022 season to begin on an early build of Overwatch 2,” a league spokesperson told the publication. “We’ll have more details to share about our 2022 season as we get closer to the planned start date in April of next year.”

As DotEsports notes, players are probably anxious to learn what those additional details surrounding the 2022 season consist of, especially now that we know Overwatch 2 will feature five-player teams, as opposed to the six-player teams seen in the first Overwatch.

On top of that, each team will only be allowed one Tank hero. Add into the mix the fact that Overwatch 2 is a new game on top of the team composition changes and this competitive season is sure to be a shakeup for players.

While waiting for the 2022 season of Overwatch League to begin, check out these new skins for Baptiste and Sombra in Overwatch 2 and then read about how Overwatch 2 will have “some compromises” on Nintendo Switch. Check out how Overwatch 2’s 5v5 change has left the game’s community divided after that.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings: 20 Easter Eggs And References You May Have Missed

Shang-Chi is finally here and it's packed full of references to Marvel comics, the MCU, and pop culture. How many did yo

Shang-Chi is finally here and it’s packed full of references to Marvel comics, the MCU, and pop culture. How many did yo

The latest Phase 4 movie in the MCU has finally arrived and while you won’t be able to stream it on Disney+ any time soon, fans and critics alike are raving about this exciting new chapter, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The movie introduces us to the titular Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and his friend Katy (Awkwafina) as they face off against Shang-Chi’s mysterious past–or, more specifically, his dangerous father, Wenwu (Tony Leung) who has apparently been operating as an immortal villain in the MCU for hundreds upon hundreds of years.

Wenwu’s powers stem from the Ten Rings, a mystical weapon that has granted him immortality but, unfortunately, may have also driven him out of his mind–or, worse, may have made him susceptible to the manipulation of even bigger threats.

Now, perhaps you’re living in an area where you can go see Shang-Chi in theaters and you’re looking to make sure you caught everything. Or, you’re eager to get as much information as possible while you wait for its streaming arrival to watch it at home, and you don’t particularly care about spoilers. Whatever the case, that’s what we’ll be getting into here.

Here are 20 Easter Eggs, references, and Marvel comics nods to be found in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Which were your favorites? Did you catch any that we missed? Let us know in the comments below.