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Denis Villeneuve has spoken about his journey translating Dune from page to screen and has revealed that there is one particular reference he wishes he could have included in his movie.

IGN’s Jim Vejvoda recently attended a roundtable interview with Villeneuve, in which the director discussed the challenge of making his film adaptation accessible to both hardcore fans and Dune newcomers. He explained that he focused on “some specific elements” from Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi saga, which unfortunately meant others had to be omitted.

“From the start, I knew that I would like to focus on some specific elements,” Villeneuve said of his approach. “Because when you adapt, necessarily you transform. The idea was to be as close to the spirit of the book as possible, to be as close to the poetry. I am a massive fan of Dune. It’s a book that stayed with me for over 35 years, and it’s a book that I deeply know.”

Villeneuve admitted it was difficult to find the equilibrium in order to satisfy fans of the book as well as mainstream audiences. Ultimately, he had to decide what to include and exclude from the book for his movie and as a result of that process Gurney Halleck’s nine-stringed musical instrument, better known as the baliset, ended up on the cutting room floor.

“I will say something to you guys… there’s one thing that it’s painful for me,” Villeneuve confessed at the recent roundtable interview. “It’s Gurney Halleck’s baliset. It’s something that I shot. It’s something that exists. Josh [Brolin] was awesome, but for several reasons, I wasn’t able to put it in Part One.”

Josh Brolin portrays Duke Leto’s gruff chief officer in the upcoming movie. As a warrior and poet-musician, Gurney instructs Paul Atreides in the military arts, including the use of energy shields and daggers to combat their mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, but we now know that the multi-talented master-of-arms will be saving his baliset-playing for another day.

The lute-like instrument did, however, make an appearance in the extended release of David Lynch’s 1984 movie, which starred Sir Patrick Stewart as Halleck. In this version, Halleck, much like the character from the book, toted around the musical zither so that he could occasionally swap swords for strings and break out into a freestyle jam session.

While Villeneuve’s Dune will be baliset-free, there is a chance it could appear in Dune Part 2 if Warner Bros. greenlights the project. Villeneuve has already stated that he would love to bring the follow-up to the screen “as soon as possible” and is planning to shoot Part 2 in 2022, should the movie get the approval it needs to move out of the starting blocks.

As it currently stands, however, Dune Part 1 is set to simultaneously release in theaters and on HBO Max on October 22. The movie had its world premiere at the 78th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, and the first impressions of the star-studded sci-fi epic have started to emerge. Read IGN’s review of Dune by clicking here.

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

George Mawle, a former gameplay engineer at Sony Santa Monica described as one of the “fathers” of God of War’s much-loved Leviathan Axe, sadly died on September 2.

Mawle worked at Sony Santa Monica as a programmer during the studio’s work on the 2018 PS4 exclusive, God of War. His work on the game’s signature Leviathan Axe, as well as a number of other gameplay features, will be remembered by fans and co-workers for years to come. Sony Santa Monica creative director Cory Barlog described Mawle as “an amazingly funny, smart and warm human being. He was one of the fathers of the Leviathan feel. Without his curiosity and intellect those moments of pure joy recalling the axe would never have existed. “

Studio lead combat designer Mihir Sheth worked with Mawle during his time at Sony Santa Monica and was just one of many who paid tribute to the late engineer on social media.

In a thread on Twitter, Sheth explained, “If you’ve ever enjoyed throwing & recalling the Leviathan Axe, or twirling the chains of the Blades of Chaos in GOW’18, please take a moment to recognize that it was possible in large part to the engineering and energy of George Mawle.”

Like many others throughout his 20+ year career in game development, I sat next to or near George everyday for over five years, have worked with him through thick and thin, and have been hit hard by the shocking news.

— Mihir Sheth (@youtheremehere) September 4, 2021

Sheth continued elsewhere in the thread, “At SMS, he worked on Kratos’ weaponry, navigation, RPG systems, a myriad of combat behaviours, improvements to the scripting system to empower designers, and SO much more. He was a veteran on the team who played a huge role in closing out the game and squashing bugs.”

Whilst God of War was the last published title that Mawle left his mark on, his career spanned a number of other games including but not limited to Prototype 2, Crash of the Titans, and Scarface: The World is Yours. According to Sheth, the programmer enjoyed taking up a number of side projects in his time away from the studio too. The lead combat designer went on to say that Mawle would proudly show others his own homemade cookbooks, carpentry projects, and homemade films.

I had a chance to visit him and his wife Lisa at his home in Acton (named “The Snugglebug Ranch”) and experience the legendary fully branded home theater he had built. He was extremely proud of it and pictures don’t do it justice. pic.twitter.com/d6TZqmRHtS

— Mihir Sheth (@youtheremehere) September 4, 2021

In addition to Sheth, a number of other former co-workers and fans of Mawle’s work across social media also took to social media to pay tribute to the late programmer. You can read a collection of some of their comments about him below:

If you loved God of War’s gameplay George had a huge hand in it: he was the man who made the axe happen, driving nearly all the programming on it start to finish.

But his career was decades long. Across all sorts of projects he would excitedly tell you about in loving detail.

— Sam Handrick (@MDSVeritas) September 4, 2021

George was such an amazingly funny, smart and warm human being. He was one of the fathers of the Leviathan feel. Without his curiosity and intellect those moments of pure joy recalling the axe would never have existed.

Absolutely breaks my heart that he is gone.

RIP brother💔 https://t.co/ILpeSQUsk0

— cory barlog 🖖 (@corybarlog) September 6, 2021

The only good part about him leaving SMS a few months back was that it gave us the opportunity to say goodbye and say how much we’d miss being around each other.

I’ll aim to work more like Furious George and try to impact younger devs the way he impacted me. RIP, bruv.

— Anthony DiMento (@DiMentoXP) September 4, 2021

All of us at IGN offer our condolences to Mawle’s family and friends.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN.

This year’s main Dungeons & Dragons adventure path, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, is (according to its designers) a wicked and whimsical adventure through the fantastical plane known as the Feywild. It seems fitting, then, that the adventure would open with a carnival, which – depending on how you feel about clowns and fried dough – is about as whimsical an event as we can conjure in the mortal plane.

What’s a faire without carnival games, though? Witchlight introduces a series of midway activities that Dungeon Masters can present to their players before their adventure begins in earnest. “The carnival games help familiarize new players with the rules of D&D and how dice rolls can affect outcomes,” said Chris Perkins, D&D’s Game Design Architect, in a recent interview with IGN. “The games also spur fun roleplaying opportunities, allowing players to settle into their new roles before having to face the adventure’s more serious challenges.”

Players who choose to play can win prizes such as Witchlight wine, a stuffed pixie plush or a wizard hand puppet, a replica unicorn horn filled with candy, and even a packet of pixie dust that temporarily grants them the ability to fly. We recently got a look at the rules for two of these carnival games, which are classic fair(e) fare, along with some additional info from Perkins about how the players actions can affect the carnival at large.

“The actions and antics of the characters can affect the overall mood of the carnival,” he says, “which the DM tracks with the help of the Mood Tracker on the Witchlight Carnival poster map. As the carnival’s mood improves, the characters have an easier time of getting what they need. If the mood sours too much, the staff becomes a little harder to deal with, and the characters will miss out on the chance to be crowned as the evening’s Witchlight Monarch.”

Almiraj Ring Toss is a magical take on the grandfather of all carnival games. Instead of having to get rings around stationary posts, the players’ target is now this statue of what might be D&D’s cutest beast, the Almiraj, as it teleports around a table. It’s one of six carnival games that are included in the adventure, each one aimed at challenging a specific character ability. Ring Toss is geared towards Dexterity, while others are focused on things like Strength, Intelligence, etc. Perkins assures us they’re not designed to be particularly dangerous to players (at least not as-written), saying that the Pie-Eating Contest – which I assume requires a series of Constitution saves – deals “Custard Damage”.

While real-life carnivals may feature pig races (if you’re lucky), the Witchlight offers a slimier alternative – Giant Snails. They appear to be a new monster stat block included with the adventure and are described as “unusually fast.” Unlike pig races, however, the Witchlight’s snail races aren’t simply a specatator sport – players can opt to spend ride tickets (because even in a whimsical fantasy realm all carnival rides still need tickets) to become snail jockeys.

Of course, parties aren’t limited to just the games and challenges included in the book. “We tried to keep most of the carnival games simple so that DMs could emulate them and create their own,” Perkins says. “Most of the games can be resolved with a single die roll.”

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight will be available starting on September 21, 2021. The standard version can be purchased in-store or at online retailers like Amazon, or you can order the limited edition alternate cover from your friendly neighborhood game store! For more on this year’s D&D releases, check out the new sourcebook adapting another MTG setting, or the new bestiary deep-dive Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons.

JR is a Senior Producer at IGN who is desperately looking forward to getting back to in-person D&D. In the meantime, he’ll have to settle for playing online and talking about it on Twitter.

Following the launch of Frontiers, the recent No Man’s Sky expansion that added settlements, expanded base-building options and more to the game, the title has finally surmounted a huge milestone in its redemption arc with a change in its Steam review status – having progressed from ‘Overwhelmingly Negative’ at launch to ‘Mostly Positive’ today.

The turning point serves as a momentous occasion in No Man’s Sky’s five-year history and sparked a deservedly emotional response from Hello Games founder Sean Murray on Twitter:

you guys 😭 pic.twitter.com/eviUu0s4Og

— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) September 6, 2021

Tim Woodley, Head of Publishing at Hello Games spoke about the feat and what it has meant to the team working on No Man’s Sky. “Over the last five years we’ve moved from ‘Overwhelmingly Negative’ to ‘Mostly Positive’, it’s an incredible achievement for the team. Moving to ‘Mixed’, which may seem funny to celebrate, took two years of hard work. Moving from Mixed to Mostly Positive has taken the last three years (knowing that any small mistake along the way may result in backlash and negative reviews).” said Woodley.

“In some ways, it’s easy to dismiss Steam reviews, it’s a bit of meme to share the silly ones, but as a developer, they are undeniably meaningful. For five years now if someone bought No Man’s Sky they had to do it in spite of a red or yellow warning symbol beside our name (and affecting the likelihood algorithm in charge of displaying the name in the first place). The team is really chuffed today at hitting this milestone but we also owe a huge thank you to the community, the players, but also folks like yourself who continue to support us to do this work we enjoy.”

A shift in the title’s Steam review status hasn’t been the only milestone hit by the team following the launch of Frontiers. According to Woodley, the expansion has been one of the team’s more popular to date, with the game featuring its highest player numbers in recent years and the No Man’s Sky subreddit now comprising over 600,000 members.

Shifting a product’s review status in the vein that No Man’s Sky has done is no easy task, Woodley says. “Each percentage point becomes exponentially harder to earn as you move up the ratings. Moving from 20% positive to 21% positive may only require a few hundred positive reviews whereas moving from 69% to 70% needed 10,000 positive reviews. This is why it’s so rare for games to change their All-Time rating and why we’d assumed that we might never be able to.”

News of the game’s new Steam status comes alongside the launch of the game’s third expedition, Cartographers. As the name suggests, this latest quest for budding spacefarers within the No Man’s Sky community focuses on planetary mapping and exploration. Unlike previous expansions for the game, Cartographers focuses on exploring a single planet, Gisto Major, where travellers are tasked with prepping a unique Starship for flight in order to escape a toxic atmosphere. As with No Man’s Sky’s previous seasons, players will be able to earn a range of new rewards during their expedition.

With so many players flocking back towards No Man’s Sky, now might be the perfect time for beginners to don their astronaut gear and head out for the first time into the vast expanse of No Man’s Sky’s procedural universe. To find out more about what has been added to the game during its latest update, make sure to check out our full rundown of the expansion. Alternatively, you can check out the official trailer for Frontiers below:

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN who can’t help but smile for all those involved with No Man’s Sky. You can follow him on Twitter.