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With Emmy Award season right around the corner, WandaVision’s pilot script has been released for fans to read in full online.

Deadline shared a link to the teleplay as it is one of several scripts that has been submitted for Emmy Awards consideration this year. The script for the pilot episode of WandaVision titled “Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience” gives fans access to the original screenplay, including action lines, shot transitions, dialogue, and revisions.

The first episode of Marvel’s WandaVision was written by series creator Jac Schaeffer, and filmed in classic black and white in front of a live studio audience, as a “love letter to the golden age of television.” The episode’s intro reunited Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany’s Vision as they moved into their picture-perfect house in Westview.

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The team’s commitment to creating something that felt like a midcentury sitcom extended through many aspects of production, with each department playing its own unique part in the traditional setup, right down to the crew members wearing 50s-style clothing on-set and the SFX team performing practical effects to amplify the charm of the era.

WandaVision director Matt Shakman and President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige even had lunch with TV legend Dick Van Dyke, who served as a consultant on the Disney+ series, to gain insight into the best way to approach the series and set the tone for the throwback sitcom. He explained they should be guided by what could and could not happen in real life.

“We learned from Dick Van Dyke that their number one rule for how they approached anything was that if it couldn’t happen in real life, it can’t happen on the show,” Shakman said in a later interview. “You need to ground what you’re doing in real-life stories, but then that gives you the permission to be incredibly silly and to fall over the ottoman and do pratfalls.”

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IGN’s review of WandaVision’s two-part premiere praised the show for providing “a solid introduction into the MCU’s most high-concept idea so far,” with “several surprising and delightful ideas” being presented through the series’ two lead actors who we felt “couldn’t be better suited to the project.”

By the time that we reached the series finale, many of the plot’s puzzle pieces had been unpacked. The final episode pitted Wanda Maximoff against Agatha Harkness, and not every character was left standing when the dust cleared and the Hex was dissolved, but it did create a picture for how WandaVision might have set up Doctor Strange 2.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is scheduled for release on March 25, 2022. Ahead of that, Black Widow is set to premiere as the first MCU movie of Phase 4. It will be followed by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in September, Eternals in November, and Spider-Man: No Way Home in December.

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

CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński has said that Cyberpunk 2077 has reached a “satisfactory” level of stability and performance, and should now see more fixes to specific in-game systems.

Speaking at WSE Innovation Day (via TVN24, and translated by IGN Poland), Kiciński addressed Cyberpunk 2077’s recent patches, and assessed the development team’s work:

“We have already reached a satisfactory level [of stability]. We have also worked on the overall performance, and we are quite satisfied with that. Of course, we have also fixed bugs and glitches, and we will continue to do so. Over time, we will be introducing fixes to the general systems that players [have pointed out as needing improvement].”

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Kiciński didn’t go into detail on what player-requested systems could receive fixes, but that could include things like in-game police responses, NPC AI, or or improved charcater customisation (or, at the very least, letting me change the awful hairstyle I picked as a joke at the start of the game).

Recently Sony has specifically told players that performance issues remain on base PS4 consoles after the game returned to sale on the PlayStation Store – although it did promise that “fixes and updates” for the last-gen version would continue throughout the year.

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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].

The breakout success of team dodgeball title Knockout City means it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. EA and Velan Studios revealed the game’s roadmap today, along with the launch date of the game’s second season and everything players can expect to come with it.

Season 2 of Knockout City will start July 27, and it will introduce more cosmetics to the game, along with events and an entirely new map. Knockout City’s second season will also include five new playlists to try out and a new suite of season contracts. A new league play season will also be starting on July 27 along with Season 2.

Players will have another reason to log in to Knockout City with the start of Season 2: daily login bonuses. Every day that players log in to play the game, they will receive a random reward. It’s not clear if there is a pool of items that will be doled out or if players will receive different rewards for playing the game on consecutive days.

Since seasons in Knockout City last nine weeks, it’s pretty easy to say when we can expect the game’s third and fourth seasons, scheduled for the fall and winter respectively, will start. Season 3 of Knockout City will likely launch around September 28, while Season 4 should begin near November 30.

Knockout City’s current event, Heatwave, will run until July 5. For the time being, players in the game can earn new items and play through timed contracts and playlists. Knockout City is also completely free-to-play up until you hit level 25 if you want to give the game a try before buying. Knockout City is also available as part of Xbox Game Pass.

The annual Steam Summer Sale is live between now and July 8. That means you can save money on a huge array of PC games from pretty much any genre under the sun. You can find the full sale here, but we’ve pulled some of the highlights below.

If you could use a new gaming PC, we have some deals for you to check out. You can find the best Alienware RTX 30 series gaming PC deals. We also have a rundown of where to find gaming laptops with RTX 30 series cards for those who prefer a more portable option.

Steam Summer Sale Highlights

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Along with the sale, Steam is doing a “Forge Your Fate” promotion. This involves 14 brief choose-your-own-adventure style stories that help you discover “what sort of hero you are.” Finishing each story gets you an animated sticker. If you go through all of the stories, you’ll get one of five badges based on the decisions you made in the stories.

Each story is based on a game genre, and clicking on any of them lets you browse an assortment of games of that genre that are discounted for the Summer Sale. If you don’t care about digital trinkets like stickers and badges, feel free to ignore the whole thing.

Seriously, tons of games are on sale, so grab whatever ones catch your eye. Make sure you do it before 10a.m. PT on July 8, though, because that’s when the sale ends.

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Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

Netflix and CD Projekt Red have announced the schedule for their upcoming virtual fan event WitcherCon.

According to the official show schedule, WitcherCon will feature several interactive panels, cast conversations, game developer discussions, quiz-style trivia games, and so much more. The event, hosted by Julia Hardy, will run across two separate streams on July 9 and July 10, with each one offering unique, exclusive content.

The lineup promises never-before-seen insights into the production and creative processes behind the Witcher universe, including CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher video games and The Witcher Netflix series, with surprises from the live-action series and forthcoming anime film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, which is being produced by Studio Mir.

Fans tuning in for the event shouldn’t expect a new installment of The Witcher video game series to be announced, as the official WitcherCon website explicitly states that no new game will be unveiled during the two-day celebration. Instead, the show will present expert explorations into The Witcher franchise across a star-studded selection of panels.

The panel schedule, per Netflix, will run as follows:

The Witcher Season 2: Deck of Destiny

Guests: Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, Mimî M Khayisa, Paul Bullion 

Destinies collide when the cast and showrunner of Netflix’s The Witcher draw cards from an enigmatic deck of fan questions that will determine the path of the panel and the immediate fate of the guests. But these are no ordinary cards – prepare for surprise reveals, backstage insights, and a dash of chaos as our panelists take us through their journey of filming S2.

CD PROJEKT RED’s Memories from the Path: Stories Behind The Witcher Games 

For over 13 years, the Witcher series of games has captured the imagination of gamers worldwide. Now, the developers behind the games discuss how they brought their immersive stories to life — before revisiting old memories, uncovering forgotten artifacts, and reminiscing about their favorite moments from the franchise

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Geralt of T-Rivia

Guests: Błażej Augustynek, Philipp Weber, Declan De Barra, Lauren Schmidt Hissrich

It’s a meeting of the Witcher masterminds as key creators of the Witcher games and The Witcher Netflix series team up to test their knowledge of the wider Witcher universe. In this pub quiz-style game, behind-the-scenes tidbits and spoilery sneak peeks are prized just as much as the correct answers.

CD PROJEKT RED’s The Witcher: Beyond Video Games 

Guests: Rafał Jaki, Bartosz Sztybor, Łukasz Woźniak

From detective noir to dark horror — all the way to the Old World and beyond, prepare to experience The Witcher’s expanded universe with the latest details on the upcoming comic books and board game inspired by the franchise!

Tales from the White Wolf: A Spotlight Conversation with Henry Cavill, hosted by Josh Horowitz

To close out WitcherCon, fans will hear from Geralt of Rivia himself, Henry Cavill, who will sit down with moderator Josh Horowitz (MTV & Comedy Central host) for an in-depth conversation about fantasy, destiny, and the wider Witcher Universe. The White Wolf may even have a surprise or two in store…

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In addition to the above, CD Projekt Red will present Monster Slayer: Live the Life of a Witcher with the team at Spokko, who will guide gamers and prepare them to become professional monster slayers before stepping into their new location-based AR RPG. There’s also a whole host of other featurettes and special short-form content in the WitcherCon schedule lineup.

The digital convention will be available to stream on both Netflix and CD Projekt Red’s YouTube and Twitch channels. WitcherCon will first air on July 9 at 7:00 PM (CEST), with the second stream beginning at 03:00 AM (CEST) on July 10. Before streaming that, you might want to check out the latest teaser for the second season of Netflix’s The Witcher.

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

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has cast Ron Perlman (Hellboy) as Optimus Primal, the leader of the Maximals.

Announced by Collider, Perlman takes the place of original voice actor Garry Chalk – although he has played the character previously, in Transformers: Power of the Primes. Optimus Primal is leader of the Maximals and captain of the Axalon spaceship – and his beast mode form is a gorilla.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was announced last week, and will introduce the Transformers: Beast Wars mythology to the Transformers movie series. Until now, the series has focused exclusively on Autobots and Decepticons, but the new movie will add Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons to the mix. It will be directed by Steven Caple Jr. (Creed 2), and arrives on June 24, 2022.

Set in the ’90s and taking place across Brooklyn, New York and Peru, the movie will see Maximals and Predacons, who are time travelling, robotic prehistoric animals, take their fight to Earth. Noah, an ex-military electronics whiz played by In the Heights’ Anthony Ramos, and Elena, an artifacts researcher played by Dominique Fishback (Judas and the Black Messiah) become embroiled in the battle.

“One of the most important things we were trying to do, with this movie, is give the audience a lot of ‘new,'” said producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura at a press event last week. “Our hope was ‘how do we find a new set of villains?’ and ‘how do we find a new set of priorities for these villains?’ If you’ve seen and been a fan of the other movies, you’re going to see villains you’ve never seen before, you’re going to see Autobots you’ve never seen before. It’s one of the driving decisions we’re making. Fortunately for us, Transformers has a lot of tribes so there’s a really large base of characters. This movie is bringing a lot of those tribes together.”

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Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman, has reportedly been cast as the voice of Optimus Primal in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, according to Collider. Optimus Primal, the leader of the Maximals, was originally voiced by Perlman in the animated series Transformers: Power of the Primes.

Rise of the Beasts will introduce Transformers: Beast Wars lore into the live-action films for the first time–meaning there will be robots that transform into animals and vehicles. For those that don’t closely follow the various animated incarnations of the property, that shouldn’t seem like too much of a logical leap. After all, we’ve already seen Dinobots in the films.

As of this writing, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is slated for a June 24, 2022 release. In the meantime, you can read everything we know so far and get up to speed yourself. You can also read our related overview of all the robots we know, so far, will have a role in the movie.

The Transformers are coming back in full force. In addition to this upcoming film, there’s also a new animated Transformers series coming to Nickelodeon, which is expected to run for 26 half-hour episodes. Casting and plot information hasn’t yet been announced for this show, but based on initial reports its creative concept is “about family” and broadly is expected to “tell a reimagined story featuring both original characters and fan-favorites for a whole new generation of kids and families.” Additionally, there’s also a Netflix series coming that released a trailer earlier this year.

It’s been almost 35 years since the release of Among the Living, the album that put Anthrax on the pop culture map. Now the band is revisiting that seminal work in a brand new form as an original graphic novel. And none other than living comic book legend Grant Morrison is one of the creators involved.

IGN can exclusively debut a preview of Morrison and artist Freddie E. Williams II’s story, which is based on the track “Indians.” Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

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Each chapter of Among the Living is inspired by a different album track. Morrison and Williams are just two of the major creators involved with this comic book re-imagining of the classic heavy metal album. Among the Living also features work from Anthrax members Scott Ian, Joey Belladonna, Frank Bello and Charlie Benante, as well as Rob Zombie, Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and My Chemical Romance’s Gerard and Mikey Way. The creative lineup also includes writers Brian Posehn, Jimmy Palmiotti, Brian Azzarello, Rick Remender and Joe Trohman and artists J.G. Jones, Eric Powell, Darick Robertson, Scott Koblish, Erik Rodriguez, Maan House, Roland Boschi, Steve Chanks and Dave Johnson.

As if that weren’t enough, the book also features a new zombie-fied take on Anthrax’s iconic mascot, the Not Man, designed by The Walking Dead’s Greg Nicotero.

If a graphic novel adaptation of a heavy metal album seems like an odd twist, it’s worth remembering that Anthrax have often taken inspiration from other pieces of pop culture for their songs. Several tracks are directly inspired by Stephen King stories like The Stand and Apt Pupil, and the band has also homaged everything from Judge Dredd to Lost.

Anthrax: Among the Living is published by Z2 Comics and is scheduled for release on Tuesday, July 6. You can preorder the graphic novel on Amazon.

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This will actually be the second album-inspired graphic novel Mikey Way has worked on in 2021. Way recently debuted Electric Century, a graphic novel based on the album of the same name.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

The first of at least two planned Knives Out sequels has begun filming in a completely different location than the first movie. Writer-director Rian Johnson shared a photo from the set in Greece, which looks very beautiful and sunny.

“Day one of filming on the next Benoit Blanc mystery,” Johnson said of Daniel Craig’s Knives Out character. “Thanks to all the lovely, patient people here in Greece for letting us do all this murdering on their peaceful shores.”

Not only is the setting new for Knives Out 2, but the cast has been changed as well. The sequel will feature an ensemble cast that includes big names like Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Janelle Monae, Leslie Odom Jr., and Edward Norton.

There is no word yet on the story, apart from how Blanc travels to Greece to presumably investigate a suspicious death. 2019’s Knives Out was a whodunnit that followed the investigation into the death of Christopher Plummer’s character.

The movie featured a long list of big names in the lead roles, including Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherin Langford, and Jaeden Martell.

Johnson is producing Knives Out 2 as well, alongside Ram Bergman, who also worked on the original. According to a report, Johnson, Bergman, and Craig will be paid $100 million each for the sequels after Netflix bought the rights for hundreds of millions of dollars.

In addition to the untitled Knives Out sequels, Johnson is still lined up to direct a trilogy of Star Wars films following his Star Wars debut with The Last Jedi.

As part of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Nintendo Direct today, Nintendo announced that Tekken’s Kazuya will release as the latest paid DLC on June 29, while the company also revealed a new Amiibo set to release in 2022.

Kazuya, who was announced for Smash during Nintendo’s E3 showcase, will release June 29 for $6 USD. Alternatively, you can buy the latest Fighter Pass ($30 USD), which includes Min Min, Steve & Alex, Sephiroth, Pyra/Mythra, and one more character later on.

Kazuya is the 81st playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. A new stage, Mishima Dojo, is coming to Smash as well alongside the new character. “The dojo is closed off in all directions, but its walls and ceiling can be broken with strong attacks, turning the stage into dangerous terrain. With no floating platforms, the Mishima Dojo stage is more grounded than many other stages in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, requiring new strategies when battling on it,” reads a line from its description.

39 new music tracks from the Tekken series are coming to the game as well in the DLC.

Also during the broadcast, Nintendo’s Masahiro Sakurai said the final character in the Vol. 2 DLC pack will be announced and released later in 2021. What’s more, Nintendo announced that a new Min Min Amiibo figure will be released in 2022.

New Mii fighter costumes are coming to Smash Bros. Ultimate, too, including Dante from the Devil May Cry series and Dragonborn from The Elder Scrolls. Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia is also on the way, alongside Shantae. These new Mii fighter costumes will release on June 29 for 75 cents each. Here’s a trailer:

If you missed out on the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate broadcast dedicated to Kazuya, you can watch a replay here to see Sakurai speak at length about the new character and show off his moves.