Lord Of The Rings Artist Ted Nasmith Confirms He Is Not Involved In Amazon’s New Show

It was recently speculated that Lord of the Rings visual artist Ted Nasmith was involved in the production of Amazon’s big-budget fantasy show. However, this is not true.

Nasmith himself confirmed on Facebook that rumors about his involvement were “100% invented out of thin air.” He said he was “deeply touched” to hear his name in reports about the new Amazon show, but he confirmed, “No one from Amazon has approached me, full stop.”

TheOneRing.net originally reported the news, and has since apologized to Nasmith. However, the site did stand by its assertion that Nasmith’s artwork has been spotted in the production offices for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show.

Nasmith’s Middle-earth artwork is stunning and richly detailed; it’s so good that it’s not hard to see why Amazon might want to reference his work. But Nasmith has laid the record straight that he is not involved in the show.

Amazon is working with legendary Lord of the Rings artist John Howe, who also worked on Peter Jackson’s trilogy.

At least the first two episodes of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show were filmed by Jurassic World’s J.A. Bayona, who has seemingly wrapped up his commitments on the show. Production continues, with recent reports suggesting that filming is now taking place in Manapouri, New Zealand.

Fall Guys Season 4 Takes Players Into The Future

Fall Guys developer Mediatonic has shared the first details on the upcoming Season 4, and the theme for this newest season is … the future.

Players will travel to the year 4041, apparently, according to a teaser video. Mediatonic has only revealed the theme for Season 4, so we’ll have to wait a while longer to learn about all the specifics about any new content, updates, or new features.

While we wait, Mediatonic has kicked off a giveaway to celebrate the announcement of Season 4’s theme. Players can complete the sentence, “Fall Guys Season 4 is … ” and submit their replies on Twitter. Mediatonic will select 20 winners who will receive 20 crowns each.

Fall Guys Season 3.5 is currently going on now, but it is likely soon to end given that Mediatonic has begun to discuss Season 4.

In other news, Cuphead skins are coming to Fall Guys this week, while the game itself is launching on new platforms–Nintendo Switch and Xbox–sometime this summer.

Dave Bailey, the co-founder and CEO of Mediatonic, said the team has only “just scratched the surface” of what’s possible for the battle royale title. The original pitch for the game was to create the “greatest game show on Earth,” and Mediatonic plans to deliver on that ambition.

“When you think about it in that way, there’s a million different ways we can take this and I hope people will see that come through in future,” Bailey said.

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PlayStation Boss Says One In Four PS5 Owners Didn’t Own A PS4

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has said that a quarter of PlayStation 5 owners never owned a PlayStation 4.

Ryan made the statement in interviews with GQ and The Washington Post to promote the announcement of PlayStation VR 2 and talk about the state of the PlayStation 5 in 2021.

“One in four of those who have bought a PlayStation 5 do not have a PS4 […] So it’s really nice that we’re able to bring in people from outside,” Ryan told GQ. This suggests that PlayStation has managed to bring a lot of new players into its ecosystem with its next-gen launch, or at least take in a lot of players who may have chosen other consoles or stuck with PC in previous generations.

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For some context, the PlayStation 5 shipped 4.5 million units in 2020, matching the launch run of the PlayStation 4 back in 2013. Demand is still outstripping supply for the console, and Ryan told GQ that Sony is “working as hard as we possibly can” to remedy the situation, noting the semiconductor shortage and entirely-online distribution as considerations that are holding back production.

This is all part of a major news blast from Sony, as the company revealed PlayStation VR 2 earlier today, and announced in Ryan’s GQ interview that more PlayStation exclusives will be coming to PC, reportedly starting with Days Gone in the Spring. Elsewhere in the same interview, we learned that Gran Turismo 7 is being pushed back to 2022.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN who, like Jim Ryan, is also part of the games industry Geordie massive.  Follow him on Twitter.

Ratchet & Clank Goes Free Next Week As Sony Rolls Out More Play At Home Freebies

Starting March 1, PlayStation users will be able to download one of the PS4’s best exclusives free of charge. Ratchet & Clank will be free as part of PlayStation’s Play at Home initiative, a program that Sony debuted last year as a way of giving back during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once you claim Ratchet & Clank, it’ll be in your library forever. The giveaway runs until the end of March, but more freebies will be available in the coming months.

A reimagining of the first game in the action-platformer series, Ratchet & Clank landed on PS4 in 2016 with significantly overhauled visuals and quality-of-life gameplay improvements. It earned an 8/10 in GameSpot’s Ratchet & Clank review. While the freebie will be available to both PS5 and PS4 users, Ratchet & Clank is part of the PlayStation Plus Collection, so many PS5 owners already have access to it.

If you haven’t played Ratchet & Clank on PS4, now’s a great time to check it out. The next entry in the series, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, arrives on PS5 on June 11. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart preorders are live now and come with multiple neat bonuses.

Best PS Plus deal

You can snag a 12-month PS Plus code for $30.50 via Ebay.

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The giveaway is just the first in this year’s iteration of Play at Home. Sony says the initiative will run through June with a series of free games and entertainment promotions. The first entertainment promotion kicks off March 25 and will give new subscribers to Funimation a whopping 90 additional days on their free trial (normally lasts 14 days).

Sony hasn’t revealed any of the other freebies that will unlock over the next few months. Last year’s Play at Home giveaways included Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection and Journey.

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More PlayStation First-Party Games to Come to PC, Including Days Gone This Spring

PlayStation will bring more of its first-party exclusive lineup to PC, reportedly beginning with PS4 exclusive Days Gone in spring 2021.

In an interview with GQ, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said it was a “straightforward decision” to release more first-party PC ports. GQ’s write-up includes the detail that Days Gone will be the first of those PC ports this spring, but Ryan isn’t directly quoted as saying so. We’ve contacted Sony for confirmation on that point.

Update: Sony has now confirmed to IGN that Days Gone will arrive for PC in Spring.

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“I think a few things changed,” Ryan replied when asked why the company had changed its tack on releasing exclusives for PC. “We find ourselves now in early 2021 with our development studios and the games that they make in better shape than they’ve ever been before. Particularly from the latter half of the PS4 cycle our studios made some wonderful, great games.

“There’s an opportunity to expose those great games to a wider audience and recognise the economics of game development, which are not always straightforward. The cost of making games goes up with each cycle, as the calibre of the IP has improved. Also, our ease of making it available to non-console owners has grown. So it’s a fairly straightforward decision for us to make.”

This announcement follows in the footsteps of Horizon Zero Dawn, which Sony announced for and released for PC in 2020. Ryan explains that SIE assessed the reaction to that port in making the decision to release more ports, explaining that PC players “liked it and they bought it”, and that there was “no massive adverse reaction” from PlayStation players to the game heading off of consoles. “We will continue to take mission steps in this direction,” Ryan added.

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There was, of course, more evidence that Sony wanted to bring more of its first-party lineup to PC, as in Sony’s 2020 corporate report, it mentioned it will “explore expanding our 1st party titles to the PC platform, in order to promote further growth in our profitability.”

For more on the PC version of Horizon, be sure to check out our initial PC port analysis of Horizon Zero Dawn.

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Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior News Editor, host of Podcast Beyond!, and PlayStation lead. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy Gets First Teaser And May 7 Release Date

The first teaser for the upcoming Netflix superhero show Jupiter’s Legacy has been released. It is based on Mark Millar’s comic book series of the same title and hits Netflix on May 7.

Jupiter’s Legacy focuses on elderly superheroes who first gained their powers in the 1930s, and their children. Unfortunately this teaser doesn’t actually feature any footage from the show–it’s just a reveal of the logo and a voiceover that states, “One day you’re gonna be stronger than anyone else in the world. Every evil you can imagine is gonna rise up against mankind.” Hopefully we’ll get to see a proper trailer soon, but in the meantime check out the first promo:

Netflix has released a synopsis for the show, which reads, “after nearly a century of keeping mankind safe, the world’s first generation of superheroes must look to their children to continue the legacy. But tensions rise as the young superheroes, hungry to prove their worth, struggle to live up to their parents’ legendary public reputations–and exacting personal standards.”

The main cast of Jupiter’s Legacy has also been announced. The show will star Josh Duhamel as Sheldon Sampson/The Utopian, the leader of the superhero team known as The Union, Leslie Bibb as Sheldon’s wife Grace/Lady Liberty, and Ben Daniels as Sheldon’s brother Walter/Brainwave. The cast also includes Elena Kampouris as Sheldon and Grace’s daughter Chloe, Andrew Horton as their son Brandon, Mike Wade as Fitz Small/The Flare, Kara Royster as Janna Croft/Ghostbeam, and Matt Lanter as George Hutchence/Skyfox, the show’s main villain.

The showrunner on Jupiter’s Legacy is Sang Kim, who previously worked as a producer on Altered Carbon, The Walking Dead, and Designated Survivor. Millar is also on board as executive producer.

Jupiter’s Legacy is part of Millar’s connected comic universe Millarworld. In 2017, Netflix bought the entire brand, and Jupiter’s Legacy is the first show to emerge from the deal. The company subsequently announced a range of other upcoming Millarworld adaptations, including American Jesus, Empress, Huck, and Sharkey the Bounty Hunter.

PlayStation-Exclusive Days Gone Is Coming To PC, “Whole Slate” Of Other Games Too

Sony is bringing the PlayStation-exclusive zombies game Days Gone to PC. GQ reported that the Sony Bend-developed game is headed to PC this spring as part of a wider strategy on Sony’s part to launch a “whole slate” of its PlayStation games on PC.

It won’t be the first modern PlayStation game to come to PC, as Sony already released Horizon: Zero Dawn on PC last August. PlayStation boss Jim Ryan told GQ that bringing that game to PC was a “straightforward success” because “people liked it and they bought it.” However, Ryan is never quoted in the GQ piece confirming that Days Gone is coming to PC or that Sony has a plan to release additional games on PC. The Days Gone Twitter account confirmed the news and said more details are coming soon.

Sony never shared a sales number for Horizon on PC, but the reaction was strong enough for the company to apparently consider launching more of its console games on PC down the road.

“We also looked at it through the lens of what the PlayStation community thought about it. There was no massive adverse reaction to it,” Ryan said of bringing Horizon to PC. “So we will continue to take mission steps in this direction.”

None of this is a surprise, as Sony management has been saying for a long time that it will consider launching first-party console games on PC.

“We will explore expanding our first-party titles to the PC platform, in order to promote further growth in our profitability,” Sony management said in August 2020.

Sony has said that players should not expect all PlayStation exclusives to also release on PC, and instead those decisions will be made on a title-by-title basis. Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, which released as a console-exclusive on PS4, also came to PC, though the PC edition was handled by 505 Games and not Sony.

Sony’s strategy is not unique in the console space, either, as Microsoft has been releasing its first-party console exclusives on PC for years.

Now Playing: Days Gone Video Review – Farewell, Oregon

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Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection Review

Capcom’s Ghost ‘n Goblins franchise has a very specific reputation. Whether you played the Arcade or NES version of Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts on the Genesis, or Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts on the SNES, working through these games felt like pushing a boulder up a mountain or pulling teeth. A little over 35 years later, Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection remixes and revives those games into a platformer that looks new but, perhaps unsurprisingly, embodies that same boulder-pushing, teeth-pulling gameplay. Its modern flourishes soften the blow a bit from time to time, but Resurrection is still defined by punishing, borderline cruel tactics that game designers have long-since outgrown.

Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection is a new game, but it functionally retells the Ghosts ‘n Goblins story. The basic mechanical structure of the series remains intact, too: You run and jump from left to right, throwing javelins, knives, flaming potions, and other weapons at a seemingly endless onslaught of zombies, scythe-wielding skeletons, and winged demons. Famously, you begin the level clad in armor but lose some of it every time you take a hit until you’re inevitably hopping around in heart-adorned boxers.

Resurrection derives large chunks–level themes, sequences, and bosses–from previous games, most notably Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. Some of the series’ distinctive bosses and sequences are reimagined in Resurrection’s pencil-style art, which smartly breathes a lot more color and whimsy into a series that’s always felt more cheeky than spooky. Not every reference to the old games is pulled literally from an older game; some, like the now-towering gray cyclops from Ghosts ‘n Goblins, are more liberal reinterpretations. Even the enemies and sequences you can trace back to a specific point in a previous game are not identical to their predecessors, and it doesn’t feel like replaying a portion of another game, but it’s a potent dose of nostalgia.

Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection on Nintendo Switch
Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection on Nintendo Switch

Since Resurrection so closely resembles the 8-bit- and 16-bit-era games to which it pays homage, it retains all of the controls and design characteristics that cultivated the series’ original, frustrating reputation. In a modern context, the series’ building blocks do not stand the test of time. Combining sluggish controls and unpredictable, sometimes unknowable, enemy attack patterns, the controls and level design feel as if they were designed to frustrate rather than challenge.

Your running movement is slow–you can’t outrun enemies–so your jump is your primary movement. Jumping always feels risky in GnG: You have no air control, and it follows an uncanny arc that’s never exactly the distance you want to go. Meanwhile, the levels take advantage of that limited range of motion. Platforms are spaced apart in such a way that you’re likely to jump over them or land right on the edge, teeing you up for an enemy to hit you and knock you into a pit. The waves of zombies and monsters, already plentiful, get to take some cheap shots at you, appearing underneath your feet with little warning and attacking from off-screen. And again, even with plenty of notice, you’re not nimble. You will be caught off-guard. It’s a perfect storm of unpleasant platforming feel and ruthless level design. Set up for failure, the fun falls away and only rage remains.

Resurrection adds a few new features that make some aspects easier and more approachable, though they do not go nearly far enough. There are four difficulty levels, including a quasi-no-fail mode. If you die repeatedly, you can also temporarily lower the difficulty for the duration of a level or turn on a setting called the “magic metronome,” which slows the entire game down. The curve is ultimately too shallow, though. Even on Squire, the lowest of the standard difficulties, you still need to memorize enemy movement patterns for long sequences and land pixel-perfect jumps by the end. Plus, the inherent difficulty created by the sluggish controls is not so easily scaled back.

There’s also a new magic system, which adds screen-clearing attacks like turning enemies into frogs and shooting bolts of lightning out above, below, left, and right. While helpful and abundant–it’s only limited by a short cooldown–the magic system never gives you the breather you need when you’re overwhelmed. Enemies are so abundant that even a well-timed spell only grants a few seconds of relief and certainly won’t allow you to advance much. Plus, mistimed spells will get you killed. Magic needs to be charged, and that few seconds of not throwing your weapon gives enemies more than enough time to pummel you.

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Occasionally, Resurrection does find a good balance between staying faithful to its infuriating heritage and drawing you in. The original Ghosts ‘n Goblins games are infamous for their bait-and-switch ending: When you reach the final boss, you’re told to replay the beginning and play the game again before fighting them. Resurrection softens that blow; you’re given the satisfaction of an ending before getting thrown back to the level-select screen, and when you replay the game, there are more difficult “shadow” levels to make the second leg of the journey feel fresh. That said, the difficulty is already staggering the first time around, that the prospect of an even harder version may simply stop you in your tracks.

Of course, every moment of Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection feels like it could be someone’s breaking point. That’s the series’ legacy: the feeling it champions. If you have a strong nostalgia for these games and whatever feelings they inspired in you, it is a faithful homage. And Capcom deserves credit, to a point, for recreating a game that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Ghosts ‘n Goblins, and Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, as peers in excruciating gameplay. As entertainment, though, it is an artifact of a time long-past that I’m happy to remember, rather than return to.

Tekken 7’s Next DLC Character Is Apparently The Prime Minister Of Poland

During the Japanese Fighting Game Roundtable that was held last week, Bandai Namco announced a new DLC character for Tekken 7 in an extremely short teaser.

While her face, name, and fighting style weren’t revealed in the six seconds of footage that she appeared in, the short clip did at least confirm that Tekken 7’s latest character hails from Poland.

Not just another random fighter from the streets, this character is also addressed as the Polish Prime Minister and she’s ready to serve her people in the King of the Iron Fist tournament. That’ll earn her a few extra votes when it’s election time. Poland’s current prime minister is Mateusz Morawieck, who was elected in 2017 on a platform that had no mention of him being involved in any fights with an American wrestler, a panda bear, or a Mexican Luchador wearing a leopard mask.

Tekken producer Katsuya Harada said that the current release window is early Spring 2021 and that he had worked with the Polish embassy in Japan on creating the character.

Season 4 of Tekken 7 began last fall and introduced Kunimitsu, the daughter of the original ninja of the same name from the very first Tekken. Alongside other free gameplay updates, stages, and user interface enhancements, Bandai Namco also confirmed that more updates will roll out across Spring 2021.

Now Playing: Tekken 7 – New Polish Fighter DLC Teaser Trailer

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