Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch Gets Revolutionary First Clip

The first clip from The French Dispatch has been released. The cast of the new film from Wes Anderson includes Timothée Chalamet, Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton, and it releases on October 16.

The title of the film refers to an American magazine operating out of a French city during the mid-20th century. In this clip, Chalamet’s student revolutionary Zeffirelli is working on his manifesto in the bath, while trading quips with McDormand’s journalist Lucinda Krementz, who is profiling him. Anderson fans will love the deadpan dialogue and stylish black-and-white photography, and this looks set to be his highest profile movie to date. Check the trailer out below:

As with many Anderson movies, The French Dispatch has an amazing ensemble cast. As well as the actors mentioned above, there are roles for Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Benicio del Toro, Owen Wilson, Léa Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Elisabeth Moss, Henry Winkler, Saoirse Ronan, Liev Schreiber, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, and Anjelica Huston.

The French Dispatch was originally set for release in July 2020, but like most films last year, it was delayed. The first trailer was released back in February 2020–check it out here.

In a 2019 interview, Anderson provided a few details about the movie’s themes. “The story is not easy to explain,” he said, via The Playlist. “[It’s about an] American journalist based in France [who] creates his magazine. It is more a portrait of this man, of this journalist who fights to write what he wants to write. It’s not a movie about freedom of the press, but when you talk about reporters you also talk about what’s going on in the real world.”

Xbox Studios Boss: There Is No Mandate That Every Game Needs To Be Live Service

Many games today are embracing the live service approach where new content is regularly added to keep things fresh, but Xbox isn’t making it a mandate for its developers to do this. Speaking to The Guardian, Xbox Studios boss Matt Booty said not every Xbox game needs to have a live service component, though many will.

“We don’t have any direction or mandate that says every game has to be an ongoing, sustained game,” he said.

Booty pointed to Double Fine’s Psychonauts series as an example. It’s not exactly the type of franchise one would associate with live service, and Booty expects that would continue if the series grows beyond Psychonauts 2. In fact, Booty said there is no expectation that Double Fine makes another game in that series at all.

“There might be a Psychonauts 3, but I’m not going to tell [designer] Tim Schafer to go make it. Knowing the history of games that he makes, I don’t think he’s going to be making a game that has seasons and goes on for five years,” Booty said.

One of the benefits of buying so many studios and franchises is that Microsoft can have its fingers in multiple pieces at the same time. While not every franchise from Xbox will be live service, some will, including Sea of Thieves and Halo Infinite.

“Sea of Thieves has longevity and we’re going to have Halo multiplayer start to be based around seasons, but [We Happy Few studio] Compulsion Games, our studio in Montreal, weren’t told to go build something that’s going to have seasons or six pieces of DLC or something. Tell Me Why was an important story for us to get out there, but there is no mandate that they’ve got to go figure out how to do seasons for that game,” Booty said.

Another trend that is increasingly popular in games today is scripting and user-generated content, and Booty said this is something that Xbox may lean into further in the future.

“With Forza Horizon 5, we added the ability to design challenges and obstacle courses. We’ve had Halo Forge, which lets you design your own multiplayer levels. In Flight Simulator, that activity is a lot more sophisticated,” he said. “So I think we’ll see that going forward, where people just have an expectation that they can do more through scripting and mods. And certainly, with the addition of Bethesda to the Xbox family, they’ve got a long history of understanding how mods work–we’ve seen that with Skyrim.”

Also in the interview, Xbox boss Phil Spencer discussed Xbox’s plans to extend its game development efforts to new markets, potentially including India, Africa, and South America.

Today Only, Snag Apple TV 4K For $99

The Amazon-owned deals site Woot is currently throwing a big birthday bash for itself and celebrating with a massive slate of discounts on all sorts of tech. Today, one of the best deals we’re seeing drops the Apple TV 4K (32GB) to $120–but if you buy in the Woot app, you’ll save an extra 17%, slashing your final price to $99.60 (with free standard shipping for Prime members). That’s an awesome price for this powerful streaming box that normally sells for nearly $180. The app-exclusive price is available only today, July 13, and there’s a chance it could sell out sooner. You can download the Woot app on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. The discount appears automatically in checkout, in the “Review Your Order” step.

Apple TV 4K (32GB, previous model)
Apple TV 4K (32GB, previous model)

The Apple TV 4K is one of the best streaming devices to buy, especially for Apple users, with support for 4K and HDR (Dolby Vision and HDR10) and Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound. It can stream content from all the top services, like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and, of course, Apple TV+. And its Siri Remote includes voice search to help you quickly find what you’re looking for–definitely a major help when you’re trying to find a specific show or movie and don’t know where it’s streaming. Though this is the previous-gen Apple TV 4K model, the main difference between this and the 2021 model is a faster processor and a revamped Siri remote–that upgraded model sells for $169 at Amazon.

Woot’s birthday sale continues all month long. Right now, you can also save big on a refurbished Apple Watch (Series 3, Series 4, and Series 5 included) and a ton of MSI PC equipment, including monitors and desktops.

Persona Developer Atlus Teases 7 Upcoming Announcements For The Series

Developer Atlus is marking the 25th anniversary of the Persona franchise with some big news, as the studio teased not one but seven new announcements for the series. These reveals won’t be made all at once though, as Atlus tweeted that it’ll spread the silver anniversary announcements out over the course of a year, the first of which will be made in September and the final one coming in Autumn 2022.

“Stay tuned for a year of Persona news, events, and more,” Atlus tweeted with an image that looked vaguely like Grand Theft Persona.

What those announcements could be are up for speculation as they could range from new games through to merchandise drops, but what is interesting is that the tweet came from both Atlus and its western marketing division, Atlus West.

Atlus parent Sega recently confirmed that it would increase efforts to bring games from the developer to western audiences much more quickly than compared to previous efforts which resulted in year-long waits for some titles. Sega’s also looking to bring more of the Atlus library to PC, especially with games like Persona 4 Golden finding great success on the platform.

As for the rest of the franchise, it continues to be a prime intellectual property for Atlus. Last year’s Persona 5 Royal earned positive reviews and sales, while this year saw the series venture into the Muso genre with the spin-off Persona 5 Strikers.

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Ghostwire: Tokyo Delayed to Early 2022

Ghostwire: Tokyo has been delayed into early 2022 in order to ‘protect the health’ of those working on the game.

Announced on Twitter, developer Tango Gameworks thanked fans for their patience, and promised to show more of the supernatural action game in the coming months. “Our new release window will give us the time to bring the world of Ghostwire to life as we’ve always envisioned it,” read the statement:

While no specific reasoning was given for the delay, protecting the health of employees could come down to COVID-19 related production problems (particularly amid a recent spike in cases in Japan), or avoiding crunch culture at the studio. It may well refer to both.

Ghostwire: Tokyo was previously set to launch for PS5 and PC this year. It’s the newest game from legendary director Shinji Mikami and his Tango Gameworks studio (The Evil Within) and, while it includes horror motifs, it’s more of an action-adventure game.

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Despite Xbox buying Tango Gameworks’ parent company, ZeniMax Media, PS5 exclusivity deals will be honoured for both Ghostwire: Tokyo and Deathloop. However, Deathloop’s exclusivity will eventually time out, and you can expect Ghostwire: Tokyo to see a similar deal. Microsoft has not yet commented on when Xbox versions of the games could arrive.

It’s far from the only game delayed this year, and it’s a trend that’s set to continue. Ghostwire isn’t even the first game delayed today, with Just Cause Mobile also seeing an unexpected push into 2022.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Ghostwire: Tokyo Delayed To 2022 For PS5 And PC

Ghostwire: Tokyo, the next game from The Evil Within studio Tango Gameworks, has been delayed. It’s now scheduled to release in early 2022.

“We’ve made the decision to delay the launch of Ghostwire: Tokyo to early 2022. We want to get the game in your hands as soon as possible so you can experience the unforgettable version of a haunted Tokyo that we’ve been hard at work building. At the same time, we’re also focused on protecting the health of everyone at Tango,” reads a line from the developer’s statement. “Our new release window will give us time to bring the world of Ghostwire to life as we’ve always envisioned it.”

“Thank you for being patient as we work to bring you an experience unlike anything else we’ve ever made. We can’t wait to show you more in the coming months.”

In Ghostwire: Tokyo, the city is overtaken by “deadly supernatural forces.” Players use an arsenal of “spectral abilities” to defeat the monsters and learn what truly happened.

Tango Gameworks is now owned by Microsoft as part of the company’s acquisition of ZeniMax/Bethesda. Despite that, Ghostwire: Tokyo will still release as a timed-exclusive on PS5 (and PC) before it comes to Xbox a year after its release.

Ikumi Nakamura was Ghostwire: Tokyo’s creative director until she left in 2019. Leaving Tango was difficult, Nakamura said, but her health came first. She described feelings of burnout.

“You can’t make games if you’re not healthy,” Nakamura said. “I started wondering whether there wasn’t a way for me to make games while feeling better. I took the decision to quit before it was too late. I was running away in a way.”

In other news, yes, you can pet the dog in Ghostwire: Tokyo.

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Zelda: Skyward Sword Will Finally Have Camera Controls on Switch

Ten years after its original release, the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is finally getting camera controls as part of the upgraded HD version launching this week on Nintendo Switch.

Dropping this information somewhat out of the blue, Nintendo has announced, via the Japanese Legend of Zelda Twitter account, that the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD will include camera controls as part of the game for the first time. This was one of the major points of contention for the original release – due to the limited button configuration of the Wii remote and Nunchuk controller and lack of a second stick, it was often tricky to get the game’s camera to sit where you wanted it to be.

It was particularly annoying in some of the more enclosed spaces in the game’s dungeons for example, which sometimes required Link to be in a very particular position in order to actually view an item or object that would help to solve a puzzle or progress.

This feature wasn’t included in the HD remaster’s Quality of Life Improvements trailer released a couple of weeks ago, which detailed additions such as autosave, skippable cutscenes, and running at 60fps. Nevertheless, it’s a welcome extra, even if it is controlled a little weirdly when playing without motion controls. Due to the right Joycon stick controlling Link’s sword, you’ll have to hold down the L button before moving the stick in order to control the camera.

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The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword launches this week on 16 July. Are you looking forward to the HD version of Skyward Sword? Will you be playing the game for the first time, or are you jumping back in after a decade? With Breath of the Wild 2 launching next year, and fans speculating that the game will have some links to Skyward Sword, now seems like the perfect time to jump in.

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

Upgrade Your TV’s Audio With The Yamaha ATS-2090 Soundbar

So many people spend tons of money and research time into securing a TV with the most eye-popping resolution and other visual bells and whistles, but then settle for the attached factory speakers. It’s easy to forget that high-quality audio is just as important a facet of the entertainment experience.

The Yamaha ATS-2090 36-inch Soundbar with Wireless Subwoofer and Alexa Built-In is the perfect complement to your TV’s impressive video capabilities. For a limited time, this device that usually retails at $350 can be yours for just $300. That’s a 14% discount!

These days, TVs aren’t just for channel surfing; they’re full-on entertainment hubs, and the ATS-2090 was designed with just this in mind. So, whether you’re streaming a heart-pounding movie or playing an intense death-match round of your favorite multiplayer game, this 36-inch soundbar will immerse you in the moment with crisp, theater-quality audio. We’re talking DTS Virtual X virtual 3D surround sound. Included with the main bar is a subwoofer that delivers thundering bass notes. The woofer connects wirelessly, which means it can be placed anywhere in the room.

Just because you place the Yamaha SoundBar in front of the TV doesn’t mean it’s only for when the screen is on. The ATS-2090 works great as a standalone speaker too when the TV’s off. Play music, podcasts, voice memos, and more via Spotify Connect, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.

Don’t worry: You’re not going to need an audio engineering degree to operate this thing. The ATS-2090 can be controlled with the included physical remote, the equally intuitive free app remote, or with built-in Alexa voice control. Choose which method works for you.

With all these features and modes of operation, it’s no wonder the Yamaha ATS-2090 was a CNET Editor’s Choice in December 2020. Better take their advice and snag an ATS-2090 today before the sale ends. Your ears will thank you. Typically retailing for $350, it’s currently on sale for just $300.

Price subject to change

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Just Cause Mobile Delayed Until 2022

Square Enix has announced a delay to Just Cause: Mobile, a mobile spin-off game set in the Just Cause universe. Just Cause: Mobile was originally scheduled to launch this year on iOS and Android devices.

Announced in a tweet from the Just Cause: Mobile Twitter account, the game has now been delayed into next year. Like a lot of developers this year, the statement cites the shift to home working due to the COVID-19 pandemic having an impact on the development pipeline.

On the plus side, the team also said that it will be continuing to provide updates on the game via social media, so hopefully we’ll see more of the game soon. Just Cause: Mobile isn’t the first game to have been delayed by the pandemic and changing ways of working, and it likely won’t be the last.

Just Cause: Mobile was originally announced at the Game Awards last year, and unlike the main single-player Just Cause games, the game is a free-to-play action shooter with co-op and PVP game modes. For the first time in the series, players will not be playing as series mainstay Rico Rodriguez, and will be able to create their own characters from scratch.

The focus of the series has clearly been shifted from single player to multiplayer for this instalment, as the game features 30 player competitive multiplayer alongside a story campaign. But the game will still feature series staples like grappling hooks and wingsuits as well as the series trademark destruction and explosions.

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Just Cause: Mobile is being developed by a new team within Square Enix that doesn’t yet have a name. Avalanche Studios, developers of the mainline Just Cause series seem to have moved on from the franchise, partnering with Microsoft on a new co-op action game called Contraband. If you want to know more about what Avalanche are up to now, check out this story which reveals why they partnered with Xbox – and it’s in part down to Game Pass.

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

Nier: Automata’s Infamously Bad Steam Version Is Getting Some Fixes

The long-awaited update for Nier: Automata’s controversial Steam version will finally arrive on July 15 and will include borderless video settings, a Fidelity FX CAS feature, 4K UI textures, and much more.

Shared on Steam, the update notes also reveal that Nier: Automata on Steam will detect if your system has HDR and will boot the game in HDR mode if it does. It will also adjust anti-aliasing functionality, improve the bit rate on cutscenes so they will play in 60 FPS and display in the correct aspect ratio, add a Global Illumination feature, and add ambient occlusions/bloom settings.

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There will also be various bug fixes, including switching between display modes for screenshots, the mouse cursor no longer being displayed when using a controller, stabilizing the frame rate at 60 FPS under defaults settings, and more stability related fixes.

These fixes address many of the complaints levied at this port, although some may still be hoping for an official way to play the game at higher than 60 FPS.

When the Steam version of Nier: Automata was released, it received notably poor reception due to many of the features that will be added in this patch not being present. Square Enix offered no immediate solution, and many fans took it upon themselves to fix many of these issues.

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The problem was made even more bizarre when Nier: Automata was added to Xbox Game Pass on PC, and it was quickly discovered that it was the updated Become As Gods edition rather than the ‘vanilla’ Steam release.

This update will be free to all owners of Nier: Automata on Steam, and you can see the full patch notes below;

Nier: Automata Steam Version Patch Notes

Changes Made

  • Borderless Video Settings
    • Borderless video settings have been implemented.
  • Fidelity FX
    • A Fidelity FX CAS feature has been added.
  • HDR
    • The system will now detect whether HDR has been activated in the Windows display settings, and automatically boot the game in HDR mode if it has.
  • Anti-aliasing
    • Adjustments to the anti-aliasing functionality
  • UI textures (4K)
    • Approximately 270 UI textures for icons, backdrops and UI elements etc. now support 4K resolutions.
  • Cut scenes
    • The bit rate has been improved and all pre-rendered cut scenes adjusted, so they will now play in 60FPS and display in the correct aspect ratio without stretching the picture.
  • Global illumination
    • A new “Global illumination” feature has been implemented. This can be set to three different levels; High, Medium or Low.
  • Ambient occlusion/ bloom
    • The rendering targets for ambient occlusion and bloom effects have been changed to dynamic resolution based on the game’s resolution.

Bug Fixes

  • It is now possible to switch between recently selected display modes for screenshots, such as between full screen and windowed mode or between borderless and windowed mode, by pushing the Alt + Enter keys together.
  • The mouse cursor is no longer displayed when using a game pad controller.
  • The frame rate has been stabilized at 60FPS under default settings.
  • Other stability related fixes have also been implemented.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.