Morbius Movie Delayed To Late January 2022

Sony Pictures has announced that the upcoming Spider-Man spinoff Morbius has once again been delayed. Thankfully, this time it’s only been pushed a week from January 21, 2022 to January 28, 2022. News of the release calendar update issued by Sony also clarifies that Morbius will screen in both IMAX and premium large formats.

The movie is based on the Marvel comic book Morbius: The Living Vampire, and stars Jared Leto as a biologist with a rare blood disease, who gains the powers of a vampire when he performs an experiment involving vampire bat DNA. The official synopsis continues: “Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder, and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. What at first appears to be a radical success, a darkness inside him is unleashed and transforms this healer into a hunter.”

Morbius also stars Matt Smith (Doctor Who), Adria Arjona (Good Omens), Jared Harris (The Terror), and Tyrese Gibson (the Fast & Furious series). The film is directed by Daniel Espinosa (Life, Safe House).

Morbius is one of several movies based on Spider-Man characters that Sony is planning. The Venom sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, is currently scheduled for a June release, although, of course, that could be delayed as well–Morbius was previously delayed a few times. Last year, it was reported that Jessica Jones director S.J. Clarkson had been hired to work on a female-focused project–possibly Madame Webb–while Supergirl and Arrow writer Marc Guggenheim is writing a Jackpot movie. In addition, films focusing on Black Cat, Silver Sable, Silk, and Kraven the Hunter have all been rumored over the past couple of years.

Witness the Bizarre Creativity of Miitopia’s Community

With the heyday of Nintendo’s goofy avatar creation system long past, Miis have been enjoying a quiet retirement, the Miis have recently been enjoying a quiet retirement as a buried, unused feature on the Nintendo Switch. Until recently, when their goofy creative antics to light again by a demo of a port of a four-year-old 3DS game: Miitopia.

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In its prior incarnation, Miitopia was an RPG where all the characters were Miis, and not just any Miis. In the 3DS version players were able to assign their friend’s Miis as party members or critical NPCs, while smaller roles were cast automatically from a pool of random Miis, meaning you got weird combinations like a romance between Princess Birdo and Nigel Thornberry, or Dr. Mario guarding the royal King Dr. Zoidberg. These assignments were played out to hilarious effect as the characters had both scripted and random interactions throughout your journey.

Now, it’s being ported to the Nintendo Switch, but without the same robust Mii sharing features that the 3DS had, it’s taking a different approach by introducing more robust Mii creation tools. This has inspired the Nintendo community, who are using the surprisingly detailed wig and makeup tools in the demo to get real wild with their creations.

The make-up tool in particular is allowing creators to get real, real silly with the Miis they make, as when used correctly it’s essentially a palette for anyone to make, well, almost anything, and stick it on the face of a Mii. Members of the community are sharing everything from weirdly detailed Mario characters to Five Nights at Freddy’s animatronics to Tingle. Someone made a $19 Fortnite V-Bucks card and slapped that on a face, for some reason. And some are going a step further and inserting these characters into Miitopia, using their goofy juxtapositions to create some very, very strange stories.

We’ve collected a handful of our favorite Miis from the community below for your perusal. My personal favorite is Hot Squidward, who I desperately want to add to my Miitopia game despite not actually liking the game very much when I played it years ago on the 3DS.

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Miitopia has a free demo out now on the Nintendo Switch if you want to make your own silly Mii characters and you can share them with your friends to put in their games via in-game access codes. You can transfer your demo save data to the full game once it launches on May 21.

[Header Image Credit: @awesome_kirby]

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Rebekah Valentine is a Reporter at IGN.

Kat Bailey is Senior News Editor.

Returnal Director Says Difficulty is ‘Integral Part’ of Housemarque’s Philosophy

Housemarque’s ambitious PS5-exclusive roguelike shooter Returnal is out today, and while it’s received plenty of praise (including from us) for its haunting atmosphere, clever story, and shooter action, it’s also sparking discussion about its considerable difficulty. And now, the game’s director has weighed in too.

On Next-Gen Console Watch, game director Harry Krueger and marketing and business development director Mikael Haveri both affirmed that Returnal’s challenge stems from Housemarque’s “arcade roots.” Housemarque has historically incorporated arcade systems and styles in its games since its origins in the 90s, and while it declared years ago after Nex Machina that “arcade is dead,” Housemarque clearly isn’t abandoning that spirit in its newer titles.

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“We started development four years ago, and I don’t think the vision has changed that much. Housemarque games are known for their, let’s say… challenge… there’s usually a difficulty to them,” Haveri said. “Nex Machina for example, you can go through the game on Easy, but you’ll never get to the last level, and then there’s other unlockables, and so on. So there’s an ‘easy to learn, but hard to master’ mentality at work there.”

Krueger agreed. “Without a challenge we don’t feel like you can have that strong sense of accomplishment, you know? The closer to the verge of frustration you get, the bigger the feeling of triumph when you do eventually prevail.”

He added that while Returnal does have more traditional difficulty options, Housemarque wanted players to feel that every new run was completely unique. Hence the roguelike formula, which allowed for “a lot of unpredictable swings” in how a session might play out even with difficulty options in place.

“So as we were saying before […] if you take one too many gambles, you get a little bit overconfident, you might end up digging your own grave, so to speak,” Krueger concluded. “But if you play a little bit more conservatively, try to play it safe, you can kind of “tune” the difficulty of that particular session to your desired skill level. So we’re hoping that can act as a bit of a pressure valve for the times that you hit an impassable obstacle. Next time you try them, there will always be something a little bit different, something that gives you a little bit more of an edge so you can overcome that next time.”

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Returnal follows the story of space explorer Selene Vassos, who crash lands on an alien planet and begins searching for the source of a strange signal. However, when she inevitably dies on her first expedition, she’s returned to her ship as if nothing had ever happened. As she continues to explore the planet, Selene discovers that each failed expedition results in her being looped back to the beginning as the world shifts around her.

Difficulty aside, Returnal has come under some criticism due to the length of its runs (at times 2-3 hours) and the inability to save, turn off the game, and resume play from where you leave off in the middle of a run, making it doubly challenging for those who cannot commit to play for that long a session. Housemarque has responded to this concern saying there was “nothing to announce now” but that the studio was listening to the community.

We also found the length of each run to be a barrier in our review, but aside from that, we found Returnal’s challenging gunplay and intriguing story compelling, calling it one of Housemarque’s best games to date. If you’re playing too and struggling to figure out where to start, check out our guide to the 20 Things to Do First in Returnal, as well as our tips guide on all the things Returnal doesn’t tell you.

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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Netflix’s Lucifer Season 5 Part 2 Trailer Features God, Angels, And Fancy Suits

Netflix has released a trailer heralding the beginning of the end for its fantasy series Lucifer. The second half of Season 5 is expected to, as recently announced, hit the streaming service on May 28.

Season 5 Part 2 is only described in a release as an arc of eight episodes in which “God himself comes to Earth. Secrets will be revealed, heroic sacrifices will be made, and the world will never be the same.” Despite all that heaviness that might imply, the trailer hints a tongue-in-cheek wind-down with stakes being ever-heightened. Check it out below.

Showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Modovich also teased at DC FanDome last year that one of the episodes ahead this season will be a highly anticipated musical episode, which will be very “funny, but there’s also a lot of emotion… there’s a great range of feelings that are expressed.”

Henderson recently discussed Season 6 of the show, which will be the final one for the series. That season will be the final one, for real, and will be “sweet and personal.”

Lucifer stars Ellis, Lauren German, Kevin Alejandro, D.B. Woodside, and many more. It was developed for TV by Tom Kapinos, perhaps best known for his Showtime series Californication.

In the meantime, you can also check out what else Netflix has in store for new releases in May and plan accordingly. And if you’re really feeling ambitious with your plans, you can also take a look at all the new movies Netflix will be releasing all summer.

Look, Even Terry Crews Wants Mother 3 Localized

Earthbound fans have been clamoring for Mother 3, the final entry in the series, to officially make its way stateside since its initial launch in 2006. Hopes for a localized version of the game are still alive a decade and a half later, and the conversation has sparked again, thanks in part to actor and professional muscle man Terry Crews.

Crews took to Twitter to request one thing to his 1.6 million followers: “LOCALIZE MOTHER 3!” The tweet has blown up, receiving some 50 thousands likes and 18 thousand retweets at the time of writing.

Since launch, Mother 3 has been exclusive to Japan. The game also landed on the WII U Virtual Console in 2016 as a Japan-only re-release. Despite all the praise Mother 3 received at the time from both critics and fans alike, the only English translated version came from the Starmen.net online community in 2008. It can still be downloaded, but there may be some hiccups since it’s an unofficial translation.

Crews’ Mother 3 callout comes a few weeks after former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé tweeted about the game. In response to Twitch asking what games its followers own that are still unplayed, Fils-Aimé said he’s sitting on a “Mother 3 English version” but can’t play it because he gets “trolled and decides to put it off” every time he thinks to play it. This is a common tactic of Fils-Aimé’s, calling out Mother 3 in some tweet that ultimately ends in nothing happening.

Crews’ tweet seems unlikely to lead to Mother 3 getting an official localized release and may just be another cry in the infinite Mother 3 void. In any event, it’s the latest Earthbound happening for fans to rally around.

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Mortal Kombat Star On Movie Sequel And Prequel Possibilities

Like superhero comics, fighting game franchise Mortal Kombat is packed full of complicated continuity involving resurrections, reincarnations, and revivals of characters, and Sub-Zero actor Joe Taslim doesn’t see why this practice can’t make its way into the new live-action movies. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Taslim detailed the ways he thinks Sub-Zero can live on should Mortal Kombat see a sequel or prequel.

For those of you who haven’t sat down and watched the new Mortal Kombat movie just yet–spoilers alert–the villainous Sub-Zero does not survive the film. The ice-based fighter meets his end after a climactic confrontation with the resurrected Scorpion, who returns to settle an old score. This particular plotline is adapted based on stories from the video games, but in the games, Sub-Zero’s death results in his transformation into Noob Saibot.

“That’s the next transformation for the character,” Taslim explained. “If the fans want this franchise to continue, then there’s a strong chance that the next step for Bi-Han is to play Noob Saibot. Fingers crossed, but I hope it happens because I definitely want to play that character.”

This would also open the door for a new Sub-Zero to enter the fray, seeing as Bi-Han becoming Noob Saibot would make room for his brother, Kuai Liang, to become the new Sub-Zero, which Taslim likes. “Yeah, I like that idea. If they do a sequel, then we are probably going to see Noob Saibot. If they do a prequel, then we would get to see two future Sub-Zeros in one movie, and that would be intriguing.”

However, for as enthusiastic as Taslim is about taking Sub-Zero on the journey to Noob, he’s just as invested in a potential prequel which could explore more of his pre-Sub-Zero existence as the ninja Bi-Han. “The most interesting path, in my opinion, is to do a prequel,” Taslim said. “It would be a story about Bi-Han and his training in the Lin Kuei. When he got abducted by the Lin Kuei, his parents were killed. So it would be the process of him and his brother becoming assassins.”

Of course, either outcome would likely be fulfilling for Taslim’s 10-year-old son, who Taslim said is a huge fan of both Mortal Kombat and Sub-Zero. When Taslim asked which character he ought to play in the film, his son’s immediate answer was Sub-Zero, which made Taslim believe his casting was “meant to be.”

Mortal Kombat is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Against All Odds, PS5 Is Outselling PS4

Welcome back to IGN Game Scoop!, the ONLY video game podcast! This week your Omega Cops — Daemon Hatfield, Tina Amini, Sam Claiborn, and Mark Medina — are discussing topics like the PS5 outselling the PS4, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, the 9.9s of IGN, how we chose games before reviews, and more. And, of course, they play Video Game 20 Questions.

Watch the video above or hit the link below to your favorite podcast service.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts

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Find previous episodes here!

New D&D Icons Of The Realms Minis Will Finally Let You Be Or Fight A Shark

WizKids has two new sets of miniatures that give Druids and polymorphing characters a bit more representation–or for players who want to fight a shark. D&D Icons of the Realms: Wild Shape and Polymorph Sets feature miniatures modeled after various animals from the fantasy realm, and like most of WizKids’ miniatures, they are highly-detailed with some excellent paint jobs.

Released this month, the two Wild Shape and Polymorph Sets feature animals and beasts from the world of Dungeons & Dragons that you can battle, shapeshift into, or have as your familiar, depending on the situation. Check out some of the minis from Set 1 below.

Wild Shape and Polymorph Set 1
Wild Shape and Polymorph Set 1

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Set 1 features seven minis including a cat, giant boar, giant octopus, giant shark, giant toad, rat, and tiger. As you can see in the image above, they vary in size, and have stunning paint jobs on each one. And look at that giant toad, ready to eat your player and digest it very slowly. Delicious! And who doesn’t want to encounter a shark and fight it–or polymorph into it? Your players can recreate your favorite scene from Sharknado in your campaign with the addition of this mini to your collection.

The giant octopus looks exceptionally cool, and while coming across this creature in your D&D game may be a bit of a rarity, maybe your DM will make an exception. It features an extremely impressive sculpt with subtle nuances to to the paint, helping create some really cool looking textures on the tentacles.

This set of minifigures is available now for $45 on Amazon. They are also available to check out on the WizKids store, where you can find out where to buy this set at your local gaming store.

Wild Shape and Polymorph Set 2
Wild Shape and Polymorph Set 2

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There is also D&D Icons of the Realms: Wild Shape and Polymorph Set 2, which features a different batch of animals. This set of minis includes a brown bear, dire wolf, giant ape, giant eagle, giant wolf spider, owl, and polar bear. Once again, there is a tremendous amount of detail between all these minis, all of which sit on a clear base so they don’t obstruct the battlefield.

With this new set, you could take your wizard character Henry Potter and have him accompanied by his owl Hedwin. Or your resilient fighter character Jon Smow could have his trusty dire wolf Toast right by his side. Heck, you could even have your lovable hobbit Fro-yo Baggins ride to victory on the back of a giant eagle–who doesn’t have a name. It’s just a giant eagle.

Currently, Wild Shape and Polymorph Set 2 is not available for preorder on Amazon, but it is listed on the WizKids Store. It will also retail for $45 when it arrives in stores and online.

WizKids has been pumping out a lot of very cool products in recent months in order to improve your D&D games. Check out some of the Warlock tile sets and accessories, new Boneyard minis, and a life-size severed hand in a jar–it’s not real, so don’t worry.

Young Rock Season 2 Being Cooked Up At NBC

NBC has renewed Young Rock for a second season. The announcement came via Variety, which also revealed the renewal for the the sitcom Kenan.

Young Rock is, of course, the NBC series about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, portraying the wrestler and actor at various points throughout his life, from his childhood to his college days and beyond. Johnson himself executive produces and serves as the show’s narrator.

“From my perspective, this was truly a love letter to professional wrestling, which is a business that I grew up in and a business that I’ve loved all my life and learned some of my most valuable, while very unorthodox, lessons coming out of the world of pro wrestling,” Johnson said of the show during the TCA winter press tour. “So to highlight and showcase these men who were, in essence, my superheroes–they didn’t wear capes when I was a little boy.”

This isn’t the only Young Rock news this week, as just yesterday we learned that Johnson’s Young Rock co-star Uli Latukefu, who plays a younger Rock on the series, will join Johnson in his upcoming Black Adam movie. His role is currently unknown.

Kenan, meanwhile, stars the titular comedian Kenan Thompson as a widowed dad raising two girls while hosting a morning show.

Neither show has a return date yet; however, since Kenan’s first season ended this week and Young Rock still has its finale to air, don’t expect to see either series back on the air soon.

Now Playing: The Rock’s Dirty Secret! Jumanji Stars Share Their Weirdest Secrets

Get New Pokemon Snap For $10 Off On Release Day

New Pokemon Snap released today on Nintendo Switch, and if you’re looking to get your hands on the brand-new Switch exclusive, there’s a slight discount available right now at eBay. Nationwide Distributors, a reputable seller, is offering brand-new, unopened copies of New Pokemon Snap for $50 each (down from the usual $60 list price), and they come with free standard shipping. Release-day deals on Switch games are rare, so if you’re willing to wait a bit longer to play the game, this New Pokemon Snap deal is worth hopping on to save yourself 10 bucks. This is one of eBay’s featured deals today, and it comes with the site’s money-back guarantee.

Delivery times will vary based on where you live, of course. For me, it shows an estimated delivery between May 11-14 with free ground shipping. So you’ll be waiting a little over a week for your copy, but if you’re digging into another new game release right now, like Nier Replicant or Returnal, you may not mind the delay to save yourself some cash. Of course, if you want to begin your New Pokemon Snap adventure sooner, you can always snag the game at Amazon with free one-day delivery.

A sequel to the 1999’s Nintendo 64 photography game Pokemon Snap, New Pokemon Snap takes you to the Lental region, where a researcher named Professor Mirror is investigating a strange “Illumina” phenomenon that’s making some Pokemon glow. You’re soon enlisted to help Professor Mirror by taking photos of Pokemon out in the wild and researching the Illumina phenomenon further. As in the old game, you’ll visit each vibrant course on a set track in rail shooter-style gameplay, snapping photos of Pokemon in their natural habitats and using items to trigger special behaviors. Photographing a Pokemon performing some special action will result in photos that receive a higher score from the professor.

The game received an 8/10 in GameSpot’s New Pokemon Snap review. “Fans clamored for a Pokemon Snap remake for years, and with New Pokemon Snap, we’ve gotten even more than we bargained for: a great sequel that pulls from all eight generations of Pokemon released so far, dynamic courses that can be explored during both daytime and nighttime, and the ability to create an album of edited, personalized Pokemon photos,” we wrote.

Be sure to check out our breakdown of the biggest differences between New Pokemon Snap and the original as well as how to print New Pokemon Snap photos from your Nintendo Switch.

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