The Medium Is Making Use Of The PS5’s DualSense For A More Immersive Experience

Atmospheric horror game The Medium is set to launch on PlayStation 5 on September 3, after initially debuting on Xbox Series X|S and PC earlier this year. Ahead of the release, developer Bloober Team has detailed how the PS5’s DualSense controller is allowing it to add more immersion to The Medium’s tense atmosphere.

Playing as Marianne, you gain access to her supernatural abilities fairly early in the game. Some, like the Spirit Blast, can be used for puzzle solving and offensive attacks, both of which might feel better with the DualSense’s adaptive triggers. The triggers will offer some resistance as the ability charges up, slowing easing as it approaches time for you to fire it off with a full press of the trigger.

The controller’s accurate haptic feedback is also used for other abilities. The Spirit Shield will now rumble the controller according to all the moths that die when colliding with it, for example. Additionally, when traversing an area in the spirit realm, the controller will pulsate according to how much time you have left to explore, increasing as you edge closer to having to return to your physical body.

Bloober Team says these are just some examples of how it’s making use of the DualSense, teasing that certain set-pieces will have special interactions that it doesn’t want to spoil. The horror adventure impressed with its tragic tale and captivating atmosphere earlier this year, with GameSpot’s 9/10 The Medium review reading, “The Medium’s conclusion sticks with you; it’s one last horrifying reminder that trauma may not define a person, but it can have consequences we can’t even begin to foresee if it’s not adequately dealt with and simply left to fester over time.”

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JJ Abrams On The Pressure Of Working On Star Wars And Star Trek

Writer and director JJ Abrams has worked on some of the biggest entertainment franchises of all time, including Mission Impossible, Star Wars, and Star Trek. Recently, he was asked about getting involved in such major franchises and how he feels about the pressure that comes along with it.

Appearing on the SmartLess podcast, Abrams was asked what made him say yes to working on big projects like Star Trek and Star Wars when he knew it would come with a lot of scrutiny and criticism from some corners of the community. It is “hubris and stupidity” that fueled him to jump into these projects, Abrams said.

“When you get involved in something that pre-exists you, you’re immediately on your heels. Because no matter what you do, someone is taking it personally,” he explained. “There is no quiet. No internal thoughts any more. And so, that is a f**king nightmare. That aspect is awful. But the truth it, and I am not joking when I say hubris. Because to say yes to something that is not just enormous and a religion for people but also that has a release date and not a script.”

Another element of working on major franchises in the internet age is that Abrams’ words can get twisted, he observed. “I’m not complaining about this, but I know it’s common. When you’re involved in things that matter to people, no matter what you say–no matter what you say–it is somehow taken out of context and spun,” he said. “There are so many reporters that I love and admire, especially in this moment when journalists are getting their asses kicked. It’s more important than ever to celebrate them. And yet there are some that are just kind of clickbait whores, let’s be honest.”

Abrams brought up an example of a reporter who asked him something along the lines of, “‘What do you say to people who hated The Last Jedi because they think it’s feminist propaganda or something?'” Abrams, who produced that movie, was left dumbfounded.

“I was like, ‘What?’ I think if you hate a Star Wars movie because … you probably have bigger problems. The headline was like, ‘JJ Abrams: If You Didn’t Like The Last Jedi, You’re Anti-Feminist’ or something. I was like, ‘Holy mother of God,” he said.

Abrams directed 2009’s Star Trek reboot for Paramount and its 2013 sequel Into Darkness, and was then hired by Disney to re-launch the Star Wars film series with The Force Awakens in 2015. Rian Johnson directed the second of the new trilogy, The Last Jedi, before Abrams finished things off with The Rise of Skywalker as its director.

Abrams, his partner Katie McGrath, and their Bad Robot company recently signed a lucrative deal with Warner Bros. to produce new content for HBO Max and other places. One of Bad Robot’s shows, a spin-off of The Shining called Overlook, is potentially moving to Netflix after HBO Max passed. Abrams, who also co-created Lost and Alias, is currently producing a sci-fi TV show called Demimonde for HBO.

Bad Robot also runs a game studio, and earlier this year, the company announced that it had raised $40 million to help fund the development of a new AAA IP.

Back 4 Blood Is Big On Steam And Twitch Right Now

Back 4 Blood’s first beta launched this week on multiple platforms, and even with it being limited, the player count on PC managed to crack Steam’s top 10 list of the most actively played games. According to SteamDB, Back 4 Blood peaked at 88,403 players, an impressive number considering the more limited rollout of codes for the game on its first day.

Over on Twitch Back 4 Blood also dominated the video platform–and at the time of writing–it has over 171,000 people watching it. Part of that success comes from Twitch streamers being able to gift early access Back 4 Blood codes to fans, as watching an hour of gameplay will result in a Twitch drop containing the code and three invites for friends.

Now Playing: 22 Minutes of NEW Back 4 Blood Gameplay

Back 4 Blood’s current beta will end on August 9 and will be open to everyone when it resumes from August 12-16. Both versions of the beta include a fairly substantial amount of content, such as every weapon in the game, two of the lengthy PvE missions, the very snackable PvP mode Swarm, and access to five of the eight playable survivors.

The game’s deck-building system is also on full display and can be experimented with to form an interesting selection of mutators to help players survive the endless Ridden hordes. For more on how to get into Back 4 Blood’s current beta this weekend, you can check out our guide on it.

Back 4 Blood officially launches on October 12 for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and PS5, and Xbox Game Pass subscribers can access the game on launch day as part of the service on console, PC, and cloud. For more info on the game and its various editions, you can check out our Black 4 Blood preorder hub.

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South Park: Kristen Schaal Talks About Getting Fired After Just One Month

Actress and writer Kristen Schaal has shared a story about getting fired from South Park after just one month on the job. Speaking to The Daily Beast, the Flight of the Conchords star discussed her journey with the show, which was just renewed for six more seasons as part of a $900 million deal for series creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone.

Parker and Stone reached out to Schaal to write for South Park Season 11 after they watched her Penelope Princess of Pets internet series with Kurt Braunohler. As a fan of the show, and someone who grew up in Colorado, Schaal jumped at the shot of writing for South Park.

“So I was in awe. And I didn’t last long. I was there for like a month and I was told–I got a warning that I was talking too much,” she said.

Schaal, who had never been in a writer’s room before South Park, said she was pitching too many ideas. “I was pitching too much. I’d never been in a writers’ room before. So I was just like, let me earn my keep. I was like, ‘How about this? How about this? How about this?’ And that’s not how it works.”

Schaal’s ideas for South Park were out of sync with where the rest of the room wanted to take the show. At the time, South Park was crafting a lot of storylines that parodied movies, and Schaal admitted “my movie knowledge is not good.”

“I couldn’t go there, so I just kept pitching another thing. So looking back, yeah, they let me go. I could do a writers’ room now, just for everybody listening, but I was too nervous and too excited to be in there,” she said.

Schaal said she thinks “a couple” of her ideas made it onto South Park, but “can’t remember specifically.” She said there is no bad blood between herself and Stone and Parker, though she admits it was “devastating” when she got the call that she was let go from the show.

At the time, Schaal was living in comedian Tig Notaro’s garage that was converted into a guest house. On the day she got fired, Schaal caught up with Flight of the Conchords co-creator James Bobin for drinks, and he gave her good advice about how to see the situation.

“He said, ‘You’re going to get fired, you’re going to get hired, it’s fine,'” she said.

Indeed, Schaal would go on to meet her husband, The Daily Show writer Rich Blomquist, while working on the Adult Swim show Snake N Bacon. Schaal herself then started working at The Daily Show, and later went on to voice roles on Bob’s Burgers and BoJack Horseman. In 2019, she voiced Sayrna in BioWare’s Anthem.

As for South Park, Stone and Parker’s new deal covers 14 new movies for Paramount+ and six more seasons of the main show. A new South Park video game is also said to be included in the deal.

Dead Space Remake Reportedly Aiming for Fall 2022 Release

The Dead Space remake being developed by EA Motive is reportedly aiming for a fall 2022 release date.

According to a report by GamesBeat, sources familiar with the development of the game have said that Dead Space could launch as early as fall 2022. This may be sooner than many fans expected given that very little has been shared about the game, which was only officially announced last month.

The report by GamesBeat claims that, internally, EA is anticipating a Dead Space launch during its 2023 fiscal year. However, when approached for a statement surrounding the supposed release of the game, EA said, “We haven’t shared a release date for the game, and we don’t have any comment based on the current rumor and speculation. But we’re glad people are excited for the game!”

IGN recently spoke to Senior Producer Philippe Ducharme and Creative Director Roman Campos-Oriola about how the game will use next-gen technology to bring the world of Dead Space into the current console era. The pair confirmed that the newest title is not just a touched-up version of the original, but instead, being completely rebuilt in EA’s powerful Frostbite engine. Faster console SSDs also mean that the developers have recreated the game to run without loading screens. In a similar vein to 2018’s God of War, the Dead Space remake will allow you to play the game from “start screen to end credits seamlessly”.

EA has confirmed that the upcoming Dead Space remake will launch on the PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. If you haven’t yet seen the teaser trailer for the game, you can check it out below:

If you’d like to discover more about the game, then check out this piece detailing EA Motive’s stance on including microtransactions within the game – spoiler warning, there won’t be any.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN who enjoys playing horror games alongside his trusty companion, the pause button. You can tell him how dissapointing that is over on Twitter.

Val Review

Val is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

It’s hard to sum up the high highs and low lows of Val Kilmer’s career since the early ‘90s, but that’s just what Val, Amazon Prime’s engrossing and insightful new documentary, takes on. Directors Leo Scott and Ting Poo skillfully situate Kilmer’s career choices and trajectory within a larger examination of the very nature of stardom itself, juxtaposing decades of archival footage (amassed by the man himself) against his current situation as he recovers from throat cancer, with a double tracheotomy making it difficult for him to speak in anything past a hoarse croak.

With Kilmer mostly unable to talk for himself, he turned to his son, Jack, to read his narration, and the younger Kilmer’s voice sounds so hauntingly similar to his father’s younger years it’s easy to lose ourselves in the illusion that it’s Val himself speaking to us from across the chasm of time. Walking us through his life and career in linear fashion, the documentary has ample discussion (and footage) of his early years and family life (including the trauma of losing his brother at an early age) before he made the leap to stage and screen.

In hindsight, it’s rather remarkable just how much of his life Kilmer managed to capture on home video, with young stars like Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Tom Cruise flitting in at various moments. Long before the ubiquity of cell phones made it practically second nature for many, Kilmer did all this when it actually took effort. And while one could be tempted to say that’s the narcissism of an actor at work, the truth is Kilmer did a tremendous service both for himself and us in capturing small behind-the-scenes moments that would otherwise be lost to the ages.

Things like shooting the breeze with Rick Rossovich between takes of Top Gun, watching Kurt Russell don his Wyatt Earp getup on Tombstone, and rocking Marlon Brando in a hammock on the set of The Island of Dr. Moreau are all testament to a remarkable life, something Kilmer himself is acutely aware of, especially given the distance of time. The omnipresent video camera also ended up capturing moments such as Kilmer and actor David Thewlis arguing with the late John Frankenheimer on the famously fraught Dr. Moreau set, with the director finally losing his cool over being constantly recorded.

Given just how big of a star Kilmer was at one time and how many big movies he got to be a part of, these snippets of interaction are obviously exciting for any film buff to witness, but they also offer a useful framework of how he views himself –– then and now.

One of the most poignant found footage moments for me wasn’t from a set at all, though; it was a simple scene of Kilmer putting his son in a coin-operated Batmobile from Batman Forever, the kind you see outside a grocery store, allowing the child to experience the innocent joy of being Batman in a way Kilmer himself never really felt while playing the role. We also get a peek into his romance with ex-wife Joanne Whalley, from their whirlwind wedding to their eventual separation and arguments over child visitation. It can feel uncomfortably voyeuristic at times, but it’s nonetheless necessary if the goal is to take in the totality of the man.

In that sense, it’s unquestionably bittersweet to see the archival Kilmer in the ‘80s and ‘90s, speaking so confidently of himself and his craft, and then cutting to him in present day, mostly making do by attending conventions and special events where he interacts with fans and signs autographs. While it’s no doubt rewarding to know your work has touched audiences and continues to entertain them, Kilmer himself seems, if not saddened, then resigned to the reality of his “top of the marquee” days likely being behind him. Of course, that realization also allows him to speak with a candor and clarity about his career that’s refreshing and never catty, guided wonderfully by the directors’ steady hands.

The Witcher Season 2 Starts With A Grain of Truth, New Story Details Revealed

Netflix has shared a new featurette for The Witcher Season 2, revealing some story details for the first episode.

In the video, posted to the Netflix Geeked Twitter account, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich confirms that the first episode of Season 2 is an adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s A Grain of Truth. Hissrich describes the news as “the worst-kept secret,” presumably because of all of the references to the story so far, including it being one of the episode titles.

Hissrich described A Grain of Truth as the “perfect kick-off for season two” as it’s a story that explores family dynamics and relationships. In the original tale, Geralt stumbles upon a rundown manor, inhabited by a monstrous, cursed nobleman known as Nivellen — who is being portrayed by Kristofer Hivju in the series.

“It’s a story of a father and daughter coming together in a place that doesn’t quite feel safe for them. We really get into Nivellen, who is played by the incomparable Kristofer Hivju. We get to explore his character and his backstory with Geralt as well,” she explained. “It’s about the secrets that we keep from each other, and the monsters that we are inside sometimes.”

Season 2 of The Witcher will pick up with Geralt taking Princess Cirilla to his childhood home of Kaer Morhen, where he will task himself with protecting Ciri from the mysterious power she possesses within while the Continent’s kings, elves, humans, and demons strive for supremacy outside the walls of the castle, located within the Kingdom of Kaedwen.

Filming for season 2 wrapped up in April after production for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ahead of the second season, the show announced new cast additions for the upcoming season, including Chris Fulton (Bridgerton) in the role of Rience, who is a major antagonist in the Witcher books, which the show is based on.

The Witcher Season 2 is set to premiere on Netflix on December 17. Netflix is also working on The Witcher: Blood Origin, a six-part spin-off prequel series set 1,200 years before Geralt walked the lands of the Northern Kingdoms, and The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, an anime feature film hitting the streaming service on August 23.

Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

This LG 1440p, 144Hz Monitor Is A Steal At $300 Today

LG makes some of the best gaming monitors around, and its LG 27GN800-B balances great performance and resolution, featuring a 27-inch 1440p IPS display, 144Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time, and HDR10 support. Normally $400, you can pick up the 27GN800-B for $300 today only, as Best Buy is slashing $100 off as part of its Friday Deals of the Day. Even better: Amazon is price-matching this deal as well, but likely only for today.

$300 (was $400)

Key specs:

  • QHD (2560 x 1440) IPS Display
  • 144Hz refresh rate
  • 1ms response time
  • Nvidia G-Sync Compatible with AMD FreeSync Premium
  • HDR10 support
  • Thin bezel for virtually borderless screen
  • Two HDMI inputs, one DisplayPort Ver. 1.4

With a 144Hz refresh rate and fast response time, the LG 27GN800-B can handle fast-paced games and competitive multiplayer titles where responsiveness can mean the difference between success and defeat. But its 27-inch IPS display with HDR means you’ll also reap the benefits of detailed, high-contrast graphics, great for those who like to enjoy immersive single-player titles as well. And with AMD FreeSync Premium and G-Sync compatibility, this monitor keeps gameplay smooth and free of screen tearing.

If you’re in the market for a new gaming monitor, you can check out our guide to the best 144Hz monitors for more options, including LG’s 4K and 144Hz display, the 27GN950-B. You can also brush up on the latest monitor technologies and see the best 240Hz monitors if you’re considering higher refresh rates.

Epic Pulls Suggestive Fortnite Emote Ahead Of Ariana Grande Rift Tour Event

Epic Games has been forced to disable a new emote in Fortnite after a bug was allowing players to share some suggestive clips of it in action. The emote was added to the battle royale game in anticipation of the Ariana Grande Rift Tour taking place in-game today and throughout the weekend.

The emote, called the Bear Hug, is one of the few synced emotes that allows players to interact with each other in-game. An issue with the emote seems to break the sync placement of the two players, however, leading to some seriously awkward hugs that certainly weren’t part of Epic’s original plans. Epic has removed the emote from the store and disabled it for players who already purchased it for 200 V-Bucks, although it didn’t specifically state why in the announcement.

Epic can’t, of course, prevent videos of the bugged emote from being circulated, like the one example below.

It’s lucky that Epic picked up the issue with the emote before the big Ariana Grande event taking place today, which could have been overshadowed by thousands of players performing the lewd motion. An in-game skin of Ariana Grande went up for sale earlier this week for 2,000 V-bucks, which allows you to pair a gun with the popstar’s dulcet tones.

The Ariana Grande Fortnite Rift Tour concert debuts at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET today, with a handful of replays throughout the weekend.

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Two New Pokemon EPs Released For Franchise’s 25th Anniversary

To celebrate the franchise’s 25th anniversary, the Pokemon Company is releasing two EPs based on the original two Pokemon games to come out. Titled The Red EP and The Blue EP, the former is available now, while the latter will release later this month.

While they’re being released as part of Pokemon’s 25th anniversary, the songs on The Red EP and The Blue EP aren’t actually from the franchise. The three tracks on The Red EP are Take It Home by Mabel, Wonderful by Cyn, and Got ‘Em by Vince Staples, who said “I’ve always been a fan of Pokemon, so it was particularly special to be asked to take part in this 25th-anniversary celebration.”

While you won’t hear the tracks in The Red EP in any Pokemon games or shows, they’re not totally removed from the franchise. Each is peppered with themes, motifs, and references to Pokemon.

The Blue EP on the other hand will include remixes of the tracks on The Red EP by ZHU, a Grammy-nominated techno musician and producer. Later this year, a P25 compilation album will combine both EPs, along with some other tracks from Katy Perry, Post Malone, and J Balvin.

Elsewhere in the Pokemon world, Niantic is finally rolling back some changes made to Pokemon Go to accommodate players during the COVID-19 pandemic for New Zealand and U.S players. Players of the mobile title have met the changes with fierce criticism and a full-on boycott. However, it’s not clear if the developer will end up putting its changes back in place, even as COVID cases rise across the U.S.