While Marvel’s What If…? will continue the legacy of many MCU characters, the series also represents a farewell, as it will feature Chadwick Boseman’s final performance as T’Challa. The late Black Panther star reprises his role in the animated series, voicing a version of T’Challa removed from Wakanda. What If…? will explore a reality that hypothesizes if Yondu adopted T’Challa instead of Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill, and the character became Star-Lord instead of the Black Panther.

During a junket for the Disney Plus series, IGN sat down with What If…? creator A.C. Bradley and director Bryan Andrews to discuss the show. During the conversation, Andrews recounted Boseman’s involvement with the series and the actor’s excitement to play a lighter version of T’Challa removed from the heavy weight of the crown.

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“[Boseman] may have been one of the earliest of [the] voice actors that got back to us and was just like, ‘Yeah, man.’ And then we were like, ‘Really?’ We were so excited. It’s like, Chadwick’s into this?” Andrews told IGN. “He loved the fact that he can play… a version of T’Challa that didn’t have the mantle of the king, where he could be a little bit lighter, a little bit funny, crack jokes, flirt a little bit with the on-again, off-again love interest… [to] play that kind of guy, that roguish kind of captain with a heart of gold.”

“He was into it and it was a great process working with him. And he brought so much to the table. Of course, I mean, it’s Chadwick right?” Andrews continued. “He had a blast. It was really important to him. And we also loved the fact that he got what we were trying to do, the notion of here’s this universe out there, but he is who he is and he doesn’t change. It’s the universe changes around him… It was great. I wish we had him around still.”

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Marvel’s What If…? will begin its ten-episode run on August 11 when the series premieres on Disney Plus. A second season is already in development. For more about the show, read how a proposed storyline for the series was rejected because it was already part of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

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J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

(Photo by Marvel Studios/Disney Platform Distribution/IMDb)

Saturday Night Live writer Colin Jost has been tapped to write a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie with his brother Casey Jost.

According to Deadline Jost will pen an upcoming untitled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie for Paramount Pictures. Michael Bay will again be one of the producers on the film, just like on 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the 2016 sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.

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The report makes it sound like this upcoming film will be related to the previous live-action film franchise, though it’s not confirmed explicitly.

The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is just one of several TMNT projects Paramount is developing. Earlier this year the studio announced that Seth Rogen will produce a CG animated reboot slated to be released in 2023.

The reboot series will “hone in” on the teenage elements of the four ninja turtle brothers as a “jumping-off point.” Rogen also tweeted a page of notes he jotted down in preparation for the series.

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With so many different Turtles projects in the works, Paramount seems to be seeing the value in its popular story about four turtles who turn into mutants after being splashed by ooze. They then learn ninjutsu from a rat-turned-teacher.

There’s even a new video game coming out called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. So all-in-all a pretty good couple of years for fans of mutant turtles.

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Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor.

Today you can preorder Samsung’s best 49″ gaming monitor and get a free pair of $300 JBL headphones. There’s also a slight discount today on the most popular SSD storage upgrade option for the PS5. The LEGO Marvel Infinity Gauntlet was released over the weekend and Amazon currently has it in stock. Find more deals on the recently released Scarlet Nexus game, the excellent Logitech G502 Hero wired gaming mouse, a Netgear Nighthawk AX5 WiFi 6 router, preowned games at Gamestop, and more below.

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 49-Inch Mini LED Gaming Monitor – The Best Gaming Monitor Around

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Preorder the Samsung Neo G9 gaming monitor (out on August 23), and get the JBL Quantum One Gaming Headset for free. That’s a $300 headset. This is the first Mini LED gaming monitor we’ve seen and easily the best monitor in Samsung’s “Odyssey” series. Mini LED technology is only just being introduced to the consumer market. You’ll see them in the highest end Samsung and TCL TVs as well as the newest Apple iPad Pro 12.9″ XDR display. The cost keeps 99% of us gamers at bay, but for those who can afford it, you currently won’t find a better monitor.

WD Black SN850 M.2 SSD with Heatsink

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This is currently the most popular (and probably the best) SSD to get for your PS5 storage upgrade. This is a blazing fast drive with transfer speeds rated at up to 7,000 MB/s and a PCIe Gen4 interface and it comes preinstalled with a heatsink. It’s also confirmed by Western Digital themselves to be compatible with the PS5.

LEGO Marvel Infinity Gauntlet 76191 590-Piece Kit

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This newly released set is a sure winner. The 590-piece Marvel Infinity Gauntlet is comprised of mostly gold pieces (which are pretty hard to find standalone), includes a stand for you to display your finished work, and features articulating fingers. At $69.99, it’s priced at a reasonable 12 cents per brick.

Scarlet Nexus

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Scarlet Nexus is definitely one of the most surprisingly good games of the year. This is an action RPG by Bandai Namco Studios, developer of the acclaimed “Tales” series. It has great fluid battle mechanics similar to something like Devil May Cry 3, but it also has a fleshed out 40-hour storyline and some very impressive character development. Check out our review.

Logitech G502 HERO Wired Gaming Mouse

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The Logitech G502 HERO is still one of the most popular wired gaming mice out there thanks to its huge range of features, especially for this outstanding price. It boasts a 25K sensor with 1:1 tracking, 400+ ips, and 25,600 max dpi sensitivity plus zero smoothing, filtering, or acceleration. There are 11 programmable buttons, onboard memory for multiple profiles, mechanical switch button tensioning, RGB lighting, and even an adjustable weight system.

NETGEAR Nighthawk 5-Stream AX5 WiFi 6 Router

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Most people could probably do without a WiFi 6 router, but prices have come down far enough that WiFi 6 routers now compete with standard WiFi 5 routers. For example, for today only, you can get the Netgear Nighthawk AX5 WiFi 6 router for 28% off. WiFi 6 introduces technology that offers faster and more stable bandwidth when multiple devices are connected to the same network. It also has a higher theoretical bandwidth, which can come into play if you have multiple computers, media devices, cameras, phones, and other devices transferring data over your network simultaneously.

Buy 5 Games $19.99 or Less for $50 at Gamestop

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Add five preowned games worth $19.99 or less to your cart and your price will drop to $50 when you check out. That’s only $10 per game. This should work on all preowned games, including games for the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox, and Switch consoles. You should also get free shipping on your order.

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Roborock S6 Robot Vacuum and Mop

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Both professional and user reviews say this is a Roomba killer right here. The top-end Roborock S6 normally sells for $600 but it’s 37% off today with a code and a clippable coupon. The Roborock S6 features WiFi with Alex voice control, powerful lidar navigation, multi-floor mapping, power suction, and a built-in water reservoir for mopping too.

The Lord of the Rings Illustrated Edition Hardcover

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This LotR Illustrated Hardcover Edition hasn’t been released yet (it’s out October 19), but it just saw it’s second massive price drop today. Last week this book was discounted for the first time ever from $75 down to $59.99 (20% off). Today, there’s yet another discount for a total of 40% off the original price. If you’ve already preordered this book, don’t fret; Amazon will automatically guarantee you the lowest price. This massive 1,200+ page tome includes illustrations from author JRR Tolkien, for the first time in any edition of the series since 1954.

More Daily Deals for August 2

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All things must come to an end, sadly. That said, today’s silver lining is being able to cheaply score the Ultimate version of one of the best racing games in recent memory. Don’t own an Xbox? Well, we’ve also got a bit of a self-improvement theme with our other bargains. Scroll now for an opportunity to learn a new language, get fitter, dance slicker or just train your thinkin’ machine to be more gooder-er.

Purchase Cheaply for PC

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Notable Sales for Nintendo Switch

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Exciting Offers for XO/XS

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Product Savings for PS4/PS5

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Even though it’s been 11 years since I first played Sonic Colors on Wii, playing Sonic Colors: Ultimate was like seeing an old friend and feeling like no time had passed at all. Once the start screen showed me Sonic and the Wisps running in ultra-high definition on PC, I knew I was in for a treat.

As far as gameplay goes, it’s exactly the same as the original, which is great! One of the biggest features added to Sonic Colors: Ultimate is a new Wisp that lets you transform into the Jade Ghost. The Jade Ghost made its first appearance in 2019’s Team Sonic Racing, but now Sega’s bringing the Jade Wisp back to Sonic Colors, where Wisps were first introduced. In this form you can fly through walls to access new areas with extra rings and attack enemies. I love all the Wisps because they’re what makes Sonic Colors’ gameplay so varied and fun to begin with.

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When you’re viewing the world map of Doctor Eggman’s Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park you’ll see the new Options Satellite floating around the southwest corner. Here is where you’ll be greeted with new menus to customize Sonic, view the list of in-game achievements, track Super Sonic progress, stats, and more. You can collect Park Tokens just like rings, and they can be exchanged for new gloves, shoes, and even custom boost trails for Sonic. In my 30 minutes of playtime, I was able to collect the seven Park Tokens I needed to unlock green shoes for Sonic. They have all the basic colors you’d want, as well as fancier options like tie-dye and chrome-colored gloves. I was pleasantly surprised how natural it felt to have a slightly customized Sonic during speedy sections, however the color variations unfortunately do not show up in cutscenes.

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The biggest update with Sonic Colors: Ultimate is a major visual upgrade. We’re getting a 4K resolution, 60 frames per second, and improved graphics all around. I’m happy to say that the gameplay looked great on the PC version I played on, but it was so crisp that it made the cutscenes look a little outdated by comparison. Don’t get me wrong – the cutscenes definitely look more polished, and I love all the screen time with Tails, but I found myself wanting to skip them and get back to the shiny new gameplay.

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I was less impressed with the music. One of my absolute favorite things about Sonic games is the music – I still listen to the soundtrack to Sonic Adventure 2: Battle on repeat – so when I learned that Sonic Colors: Ultimate would have remixed versions of the original tracks I was a little nervous. Why fix something that isn’t broken? And yes, it was a bit of a letdown when I started playing my favorite planet from the original Sonic Colors, Sweet Mountain, and instead of its loud, hypnotic brass melody I heard a very muted, softer synth keyboard version. Of course, remixes will always be a personal taste, and maybe this new version will be someone’s favorite track the way the original was for me in the 2010 game.

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I greatly enjoyed my opportunity to revisit an old favorite, and I’m really excited for Sonic Colors: Ultimate because I know it will be the first Sonic game for a lot of people. Sega must know this too, because while Sonic Colors has always been an excellent blend of 3D and 2D gameplay, it had a few quirks that could frustrate newcomers; in Sonic Colors: Ultimate, a few little things have been added to help people have a better time learning to play. For instance, there’s now a horizontal red light at the bottom of the screen with a “Game Over Sonic” warning sign to make sure you know you won’t survive falling off areas that are simply an abyss rather than a lower area of the level. It’s subtle, but it works, and it keeps me on my toes for the more slowed-down and precise platforming sections. Another fun change is that Sonic’s lives have been replaced with “Tail Saves,” which is exactly what it sounds like: if you lose all your rings or fall off an edge, Tails will come pick you up and get you right back on track.

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I wasn’t able to try the new “Rival Rush” mode where you go head-to-head with Metal Sonic, but I’m excited for it! Being able to leave Metal Sonic in the dust is the quintessential Sonic storyline that I felt was missing from the original game. Grab your Doctor Eggman park tickets and I’ll see you on Sweet Mountain!

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Jeffrey Vega is a Social Producer at IGN who will probably do a TikTok version of this article. You can follow him on Twitter @jeffreyvega and Instagram.

Rockstar’s open-world game Grand Theft Auto V continues to soar. Take-Two, the parent company of Rockstar Games, announced during an earnings call that the game has now shipped 150 million copies.

This is up by 5 million from the 145 million figure reported three months ago. Not only is the game selling well, but its GTA Online mode is cruising. Management reiterated that its new Los Santos Tuners update helped propel the game to new player and spending records.

The entire GTA series has now passed 350 million units sold, which compares to 400 million for Call of Duty.

Rockstar’s latest game, Red Dead Redemption II, continues to succeed too, with its own sales rising to 38 million. Combining the first game and the sequel, Red Dead Redemption franchise sales have now climbed to nearly 60 million.

GTA V will continue to grow, as Rockstar is releasing the open-world game on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in November. A standalone version of GTA Online will also release in November, and it will be free on PS5 at launch.

In other news, Take-Two announced that two of its “core immersive” games have been delayed to later in fiscal 2022, though the company did not say what these games are.

For the quarter ended June 30, Take-Two pulled in $813.3 million in revenue, which was down 2% compared to $831.3 million during the same period last year. Total net income, however, rose by 72% to $152.3 million. Recurrent consumer spending, which is money from microtransactions like virtual currency, DLC, and in-game purchases, increased by 15%.

New Pokemon Snap is receiving a free content update on August 3. The update introduces three brand-new areas to explore as well as 20 additional Pokemon to photograph, and The Pokemon Company has now given us another look at the new areas ahead of their arrival.

The company shared brief videos of each of the three new areas on Twitter. The first area, Mightywide River, takes you down a jungle river, where newly added Pokemon like Swampert and Feraligatr can be seen swimming in the water around you.

The second area, Barren Badlands, is an arid desert punctuated with poisonous swamps and large canyon walls. The area is home to a handful of new Pokemon, including Tepig, Swalot, Rockruff, and Onix.

The final new area is called Secret Side Path, and it’s a new variation of the Nature Park level. This time, your Neo-One shrinks to a microscopic size, letting you view the area and the Pokemon that inhabit it from an insect’s perspective. You can watch a clip of the area below.

Like the other levels in the game, all three of the aforementioned areas will feature day and night versions. The free New Pokemon Snap update is schedule to go live at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET on August 3, according to the official Pokemon website.

New Pokemon Snap launched on Nintendo Switch back in April. We gave the photography spin-off an 8/10 in our New Pokemon Snap review, with critic Jenae Sitzes writing, “20 years later, taking photos of Pokemon in the wild remains as fun and exhilarating as it always was, and though it’s been a long time coming, New Pokemon Snap was worth the wait.”

As a Halo fan from the beginning, I’ve approached every post-Bungie entry with some degree of trepidation. With Halo Infinite, that feels especially natural after our first look at the game left many feeling underwhelmed–at least concerning its visuals–but I’m pleased to say my time spent with Infinite so far has me enthusiastic about playing more. Or at least, as enthusiastic as one can be after spending several hours doing nothing but killing bots.

The first of Halo Infinite’s betas (or technical tests/multiplayer previews, as 343 Industries calls them) is now over, and I played a bunch of what was generally available: 4v4 Slayer matches against a team of AI. Without the chance to try other modes or PvP matches (which were only playable for a brief period of time), there’s only so much to glean from the test, but I walked away feeling quite positive about the experience.

The bots, for their part, were generally competent. Their difficulty setting ramped up throughout the test, and while they were pushovers in every match–it was Steaktacular after Steaktacular–they at least served as decent fodder to let me get a feel for the game. They wouldn’t be my preferred means of playing Infinite unless they could pose a more meaningful threat, but it looks as if fighting bots will serve as a good training ground for newcomers or a fun diversion for those interested in a low-stakes, relaxing multiplayer experience.

Bots occasionally exhibited some unnatural behavior; the way they’d sometimes group up (making themselves an easy target for grenades) or perform the same actions almost in unison screamed, “I’m a bot,” as did moments where an enemy would seem to almost be stuck in place, as if paralyzed by decision. We know this is a months-old build of Halo Infinite’s multiplayer, so I didn’t find this too troubling, especially since there were other moments where I wondered if a 343 developer had snuck themselves onto the opposing team.

The ability to aim down sights in a Halo game will always feel wrong to me at first blush, but I quickly grew accustomed to it here, even when using the Sidekick, your default pistol and the closest thing here to the classic M6D. Another potentially contentious aspect, the return of sprinting, also felt like a natural inclusion, perhaps due in part to the fact that you just don’t run that much faster while sprinting. The modest increase in speed is useful for rushing to a power weapon or equipment when there are no enemies around, but given the size of the three maps that have been made available so far, it felt just handy enough to warrant its inclusion.

Matches during the beta, and the accompanying Academy mode, offered a chance to try out some new additions to the Halo arsenal, including the Commando, a sort of assault rifle/battle rifle hybrid, and Skewer, a sniper-style weapon that fires a single metal spike which annihilates anything it hits, but can only fire once before being reloaded. It’ll take time to come to grips with all of the new weapons available, but these newcomers all felt like worthwhile additions, with the Skewer being a favorite of mine thanks to its punchy sound effects and the accompanying satisfaction of taking out an enemy in such devastating fashion.

But easily my favorite addition is one of the new pieces of equipment: the grappleshot. As shown off in previous looks at the game, the grappleshot is a grappling hook that you can use to either pull yourself around the environment or, by attaching it to an enemy, pull yourself directly to a foe. The latter scenario puts you at risk of being killed, though a well-orchestrated use can send you flying into your opponent’s back, making for an easy melee kill.

The ability to navigate levels with the grappleshot is what’s most thrilling about the item, though, and my limited time doing so suggests that 343 hasn’t made a big enough deal about just how major an addition it is. Swinging around a map, launching yourself down corridors or up into the air, can leave you exposed, but it also allows you to catch an enemy off-guard or move around far quicker than the modest sprint permits. Beyond that, it’s just fun as hell to use, as any Titanfall 2 player can attest.

With a grappleshot in hand, the on-foot movement in Halo Infinite feels the best it ever has in a Halo game, and it feels like it could have a much more meaningful impact on a fight than the dashes in Halo 5. The major difference between this and Halo 5’s dash is that the grappleshot is a limited-use piece of equipment that you’ll need to find after spawning, and it’s only available on certain maps. That’s for the best, as widespread, constant use of the grappleshot might quickly turn Halo into something more closely resembling Tribes (without levels sufficiently large to accommodate that sort of thing). I nonetheless look forward to some special game modes or custom games where they’re available by default to everyone.

It’s early days yet, but this promising look has eased virtually all of my concerns about Infinite (including whether its soundtrack would rise to the bar set by Bungie; so far, so good). If this test is indicative of the wider experience, it’s easy to imagine Halo recapturing its former glory and, combined with the decision to make the multiplayer free-to-play, becoming more popular than ever.