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Voice actress Erin Fitzgerald has revealed that she stepped down from a role in Guilty Gear Strive – voicing Black character Ramlethal – so that the character could be more appropriately voiced by a Black actress.

In a tweet, Fitzgerald states that she “happily stepped away so [the developers] could cast more appropriately”. She expanded upon this in responses to commenters on her initial post, stating succinctly, “The character is black I am not black. I support more work for black actresses behind the mic”. It’s clear that Fitzgerald stepped down in order to improve opportunities and representation for Black voice actors and actresses.

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The gesture seems to have been a success, as voice actress Laura Stahl has now been cast in the role. Stahl responded to Fitzgerald in another tweet, thanking her for stepping aside, “Before I accepted the role of Ramlethal, l asked for clarification on the situation, and not only do I deeply respect Erin as an actor, but as an amazing person as well. Thank you for your grace. You are phenomenal”. The character of Ramlethal has been played by Fitzgerald since her introduction in 2014’s Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-.

Whitewashing has long been an issue within voice acting for animation and video games, as it means that minority voice actors who are already at a disadvantage when it comes to auditions and applying for roles, have even fewer opportunities.

In 2019, Wargroove developers Chucklefish received backlash for whitewashing Black characters with white voice actors, and Naughty Dog was also previously criticised for casting Laura Bailey as Black South African character Nadine Ross in Uncharted 4. In the world of TV, both Family Guy and The Simpsons also recast voice actors for Black characters in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests last year.

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Earlier this year, Guilty Gear Strive was delayed from April until June, and recently had its second open beta test. The game launches on June 11 for PS5, PS4, and PC.

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

An update for Mass Effect Legendary Edition has added even more visual improvements to the remastered collection of games.

Revealed on the EA blog, the 17 May update for Mass Effect Legendary Edition will affect all platforms and also fix several known bugs, including hard crashes in the Xbox Series X verison when using a wireless headset.

However, the major headline is that the games in the remaster collection will seemingly look even better after the update. Across all games, iris shaders have been updated to interact more naturally with light.

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In Mass Effect, specific terrain textures have been improved, and across Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, some pre-rendered cutscenes have been tweaked to remove visual artefacts.

Specifically in Mass Effect 2, players will be able to enjoy ”improved lighting and shadows” in cinematics and “minor visual, rendering and VFX improvements”. Across the board, issues with achievements have also been fixed, including one in Mass Effect 3 which wasn’t tracking kills.

On the Mass Effect subreddit, players are reporting that the update can be quite sizeable depending on which of the games you have installed, with some reporting it being close to 10GB and beyond in some cases.

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The update hasn’t addressed all player concerns, though. Another popular comment in the thread comes from ASF_Bendakk, who is hoping for a fix to the game’s surround sound implementation, and is keen to see a fix for C Sec / Normandy vendor glitches that reportedly lock off certain bits of gear.

The base version of Legendary Edition already makes a lot of changes to the originals, and even fixes one of Mass Effect 3’s bigger controversies. One removal, however, was Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer mode – although all might not be lost on that front. We don’t have a review out just yet, but it’s coming soon.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Kiyan Prince, a 15 year-old footballer who was murdered in 2006, is being added to FIFA 21 as a player for the club he played for.

Prince was a part of the Queens Park Rangers F.C. under-16s team in 2006, but was tragically killed when stepping in to protect a friend from being picked on outside of his school. 15 years on, he is being added to FIFA’s Kick Off and Career modes as a 30 year-old striker for Queens Park Rangers, designed to honour the player he would have become.

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EA Sports has created an aged-up likeness of Prince by combining images of him and photographs of his father at 30, and working with Framestore (the studio behind visual effects for multiple Marvel movies, among many other projects). “Advanced AI technology and photo-real illustration” was used to achieve the effect, per a press release.

As for his in-game stats, the press release says: “Kiyan’s stats were built out in collaboration with his dad, his coaches, teammates and friends to help build out his style of play – working off of personal accounts from former teammates and rivals to get precise about Kiyan’s unique balance of speed, skill and pure striker’s instinct to integrate him into the game as faithfully as possible”.

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Prince will be available to use in FIFA 21 on PC from today, and from tomorrow, May 19, on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Stadia. No Nintendo Switch release has been announced.

FIFA 21 Ultimate Team will also add Kiyan Prince items, including a Kiyan Prince Foundation Kit, and a Tifo (a visual display in a stadium’s stands) of Prince himself.

All proceeds raised, and all licensing payments from EA and other brands involved, will go directly to the Kiyan Prince Foundation, which aims to support families, and prevent tragedies similar to Prince’s.

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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].

Microsoft has officially closed a loophole that was allowing current Xbox Game Pass Ultimate users to extend their membership at a discounted rate by subscribing to EA Play. The original loophole involved buying an EA Play one year membership, which would auto-convert to four months of Game Pass Ultimate if you were currently an Ultimate member.

We’ve highlighted this trick plenty of times as it was an objectively great deal, and 50% off a whole year of Game Pass Ultimate if you stacked your purchase of EA Play passes. You can still convert EA Play to Game Pass Ultimate, but now it will only equate to an extra two months rather than four, effectively bringing EA Play conversion into the same price bracket as Ultimate ($14.99 per month).

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The news came via the official Xbox website’s Xbox Game Pass support FAQ, now stating: “Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members can redeem EA Play codes for the Xbox console, but they will automatically convert and extend their Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. One month of EA Play will extend an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription by 10 days, and a one-year EA Play code will extend an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription by 2 months.”

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Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. Send him awesome gaming screenshots @robertliam21 on Twitter.

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Scientists have uncovered a relatively recent history of volcanic activity on Mars, which could suggest that the Red Planet is still volcanically active.

CNN shared the findings of the study, published in the journal Icarus, pointing to evidence that eruptions could have taken place on Mars within the last 50,000 years. Up until now, scientists believed that the planet was volcanically active between 3 and 4 billion years ago, with some isolated eruptions likely continuing about 3 million years ago, so this new time span is much more recent than records indicate.

The research team at the Planetary Science Institute found evidence of recent volcanic activity on Mars after studying imagery and data obtained from orbiters circling the planet. They discovered what appears to be a recent explosive volcanic deposit around a fissure in the Cerberus Fossae system — which extends across a broad plain in the region of Elysium Planitia, located near the equator of Mars.

The image shows a dark area extending eight miles around both sides of the crack and scientists believe that this shadowed stretch matches that of a pyroclastic flow, produced as a result of certain explosive eruptions that occur when rapidly expanding gases bubble over with magma. If correct, then scientists may have just discovered the youngest volcanic deposit yet documented on Mars.

“This feature overlies the surrounding lava flows and appears to be a relatively fresh and thin deposit of ash and rock, representing a different style of eruption than previously identified pyroclastic features,” said Dr. David Horvath. “This eruption could have spewed ash as high as 6 miles into Mars’ atmosphere. It is possible that these sorts of deposits were more common but have been eroded or buried.”

“When we first noticed this deposit, we knew it was something special,” added study coauthor Jeff Andrews-Hanna, an associate professor at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. “The deposit was unlike anything else found in the region, or indeed on all of Mars, and more closely resembled features created by older volcanic eruptions on the Moon and Mercury.”

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Scientists also believe that volcanic deposits such as the one recently documented could raise the possibility of recent habitable conditions below the surface of Mars, with Horvath suggesting that, “the interaction of ascending magma and the icy substrate of this region could have provided favorable conditions for microbial life fairly recently and raises the possibility of extant life in this region.”

The site of the volcanic deposit is located approx. 1,000 miles from NASA’s InSight lander, which has been exploring the deep interior of our terrestrial neighbor since 2018. It isn’t the only vehicle traversing the Red Planet either, having most recently been joined by NASA’s Perseverance rover. The rover successfully landed on Mars’ Jezero Crater in February of this year to begin its own mission.

Perseverance is not only equipped with a microphone to let NASA and the world know what it sounds like on Mars, it’s also equipped with a special drill that will collect core samples of rocks and soil to eventually come back to Earth. The Ingenuity helicopter also hitched a ride with the robotic explorer to attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.

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The Ingenuity helicopter successfully executed its flight on Mars on April 19, with data showing that it had taken off, ascended to around 10ft (three meters) above the surface of Mars, and landed again. NASA says the aircraft has now transitioned to the operations demonstration phase of its mission to explore how future rovers and aerial explorers can work together.

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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

The massive RPG Divinity: Original Sin 2: Definitive Edition is now available on iPad and iPad Pro. The mobile version costs $25, and includes all of the Gift Bag DLC without any microtransactions.

Larian Studios says that the port was developed in cooperation with Elverils over a span of two years, aiming to make a version of Divinity Original Sin 2 that doesn’t make compromises compared to the console experience. The result is a version of the game built on Apple’s Metal architecture, which allows for new touch controls, along with gamepad or mouse and keyboard support.

On iPad Pro (2018) and above, the graphics settings equivalent to DOS2’s “highest” will run, while on the new M1 iPad Pro it will run at 60fps. The announcement didn’t note how far back the compatibility goes. Larian also promises local co-op with split-screen support, and you can cross-play with others on PC, Mac, and iPad. Cross-save will let you continue playing on your home Mac. And it integrates with Apple’s Game Center for achievements and matchmaking.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is one of the most critically acclaimed RPGs in recent years, earning a rare 10/10 from GameSpot and currently standing at a 93% on GameSpot sister site Metacritic. It was originally released on Windows PCs in 2017, but has since been ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Mac, and Nintendo Switch.

While it never quite recaptures what made the first film work so frighteningly well, A Quiet Place Part II nevertheless succeeds in delivering plenty of thrills and chills, keeping the viewer invested thanks to its focus on character and the moving performances from its returning cast and solid new addition Cillian Murphy.

Director John Krasinski plays in a bigger sandbox this time around, enlarging this ravaged world even as he deftly treads the expectations and formulae established by so many other post-apocalyptic movies and shows.

The mission of survival the Abbots are on here sees them cross paths with another survivor, Emmett, and whether this man can really be trusted is the source of much of the film’s suspense. Cillian Murphy is utterly compelling as Emmett, his scenes with Millicent Simmonds’ Regan being among the most gripping in the film. Emmet could have used a bit more development, but Murphy nevertheless imbues this deeply damaged man with pathos, intensity, and mystery.

Simmonds once again delivers an engrossing performance as we see Regan struggling to fill the void left by her father’s death. She is the main protagonist here rather than Emily Blunt’s Evelyn, who has two particularly standout scenes — one with Murphy and the other with Noah Jupe’s Marcus — that showcase what a powerful and understated actress she can be, but this is definitely Simmonds’ film and she carries it well.

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The spine of this movie is similar to the first film’s — run, hide and stay quiet if you know what’s good for you — but Part II employs a multi-storyline approach that occasionally tries one’s patience. While the respective emotional journeys of Regan and Marcus allow the film to conclude on the right note for those characters, the ending itself still feels abrupt and doesn’t allow for the full catharsis some may have been hoping for, given all the story’s cross-cutting. (To elaborate further would be to risk spoilers.)

The sequel also reveals the world before the invading creatures wiped out most of humanity, flashbacks that feature some of the movie’s biggest action and visual effects moments that call to mind 2005’s War of the Worlds. As skilled as Krasinski is at crafting these suspense set-pieces and Spielbergian moments of awe and terror, it’s his understanding of character and performance that makes both the original film and this sequel emotionally authentic and relatable. These characters feel real and thus so too does the otherworldly peril they face.

By opening up the story to a larger world, A Quiet Place Part II delves into the myriad dangerous scenarios of post-apocalyptic life that anyone who has ever seen any film or show set in such an environment will recognize as all too familiar. The movie deftly navigates this well-trod ground without letting the inherent tropes undermine it. There are only so many ways to zig when the audience expects you to zag in the post-apocalypse sub-genre, but A Quiet Place Part II largely maintains its footing despite occasionally dipping into been there, done that territory.

On a technical level, A Quiet Place Part II is as much a testament to sound design as the original film. The strategic use of noise and silence is just as remarkably employed here as we follow the hearing-impaired Regan through completely silent moments or where Evelyn strategically utilizes noise to misdirect a lurking monster.

While it definitely has its share of jump scares, the film is more interested in ratcheting up tension and unease in service of action set-pieces rather than for outright horror. A Quiet Place Part II then is to the more action-packed Aliens what the first film is to the more claustrophobic and horrifying Alien. In that sense, some may not find Part II as scary as its predecessor but still thoroughly enjoyable.

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