A new patent has been published for an official touch pen attachment that would work with the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons.
The US Patent office revealed the patent, filed by Nintendo on June 4, 2019 and published on January 16, 2020, with a bunch of images and plenty of information on how exactly the touch pen attachment would work.
The stylus-like device is designed to work when the Switch is in handheld mode and the Joy-Cons are not attached to the touchscreen. You slide the attachment on to either Joy-Con – accommodating both left and right handed use – and then use it to draw onto the touchscreen.
The patent showcases that when drawing with the touch pen you are able to use the buttons on the Joy-Con too. In one example, the player draws a line with the touch pen, and then presses one of the Joy-Con buttons to change the thickness of that line.
The Joy-Con’s HD rumble function is also shown working in another illustration. The player touches one of three boxes displayed on the touchscreen and the Joy-Con vibrates in response to the interaction.
It’s worth noting that there is already a Nintendo Switch stylus available that allows for easy drawing on the touchscreen. However, it doesn’t work in tandem with the Joy-Cons and their features. Nintendo has also previously sold touch pens for its handheld consoles, such as the DS, 3DS, and Wii U.
This new touch pen adds more functionality due to being an attachment for the Joy-Cons, which could open up more gameplay possibilities for compatible games, including Super Mario Maker 2, Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
With reports of a Nintendo Switch Pro on the way this year, it’s possible that a Pro model be designed to make the most of ideas like this touch pen attachment. Is this our first look at how Nintendo will be responding to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X?
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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
This review contains spoilers for My Hero Academia Season 4, episode 14 (episode 77 overall), titled “Bright Future.” See where we left off with our review of MHA Season 4, episode 13.
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The first episode after an explosive showdown – especially one as satisfying and flawlessly executed as that of Episode 13 – is always in danger of seeming a little deflated by comparison. Rather than feeling cathartic, the lack of momentum leads to an emotional disconnect. “Bright Future” avoids this pitfall entirely, largely thanks to two things: the relationships and shared dialogue between our heroes, and the uplifting, inspiring musical score that accompanies many of the episode’s scenes, especially in the first half.
My Hero Academia lives and dies by the strength of its characters and their relationships to one another; that includes heroes and villains, mentors and students, and the shifting dynamics at play between friends and colleagues in this universe. That last dichotomy is what makes “Bright Future” such a touching and enjoyable episode. While it begins with a quick flashback to the final moments of Deku’s jaw-dropping aerial showdown with Overhaul, the rest of the episode’s first half concerns the fallout. We see the rescue of Aizawa, we’re relieved to find that Sir Nighteye is still holding on, and we watch the clean-up of devastated Shie Hassaikai members. And it’s the interactions and dialogue between heroes who are concerned for one another, propping each other up, and sharing looks of relief and accomplishment that reminds us how strong and engaging the relationships are in My Hero Academia.
All of this clean-up is accompanied by expertly timed music that lends emotional encouragement to each short scene. String-led orchestral pieces, ethereal choirs, and somber acoustic guitars are all used to astonishing effect here to keep the emotional engagement between the viewer and even the less eventful scenes. What is, at first, a simple shot of a minor hero clambering out of the wreckage becomes a truly heart-warming moment of survival and victory thanks to the wisely chosen musical beats.
While the episode’s first half is all about the clean-up, and the second half is a long tear-jerker of a scene that should absolutely not be spoiled, these two halves are separated by a middle act surrounding Shigaraki which provides the episode’s one moment of action. (And what a moment it is.) With Season 4 so far placing an almost undivided focus on Overhaul, Shigaraki has taken a backseat, resulting in him feeling limp and powerless. But in a single scene we see a complete return to form for his character.
The action, which takes place on a highway, is fluid and aggressive, adding some real dynamism to an otherwise understated episode. The cherry on top of this scene is a moment that reinfuses Shigaraki with all of the sinister bile that we have come to expect and enjoy from him. It is as though he retrieves from Overhaul all of his twistedness; his unhinged charisma. For a moment, Shigaraki takes center stage in this episode and it is truly chilling.
We won’t go into detail concerning how this episode wraps up, but it’s worth mentioning how well executed it is. We’re provided with shots of several heroes – both professional and student – in various states of injury and recovery. But the focus is on one particular scene that certainly carries enough emotional weight to reduce viewers to tears. It’s a scene that lasts exactly as long as it needs to, and is accompanied by music and visuals that sharpen the tone – everything works here to deliver a scene with the right amount of weight and intensity to emphasise the lasting and irreversible change that comes with a battle of such magnitude.
The Destiny 2 community has spent the last week figuring out a massive puzzle as part of a new secret quest that sent everyone back to the strange Corridors of Time. With that out of the way, a new Exotic quest has been unlocked–one that leads to a new Fusion Rifle called Bastion. Solving the puzzle allows you to advance the quest, and you can unlock the gun now with a little grinding, ahead of its scheduled release on January 28.
To get the gun, you’ll need to head to the Tangled Shore and complete a number of steps. None of them is particularly difficult. First, though, you’ll need to deal with the Corridors of Time. Here’s everything you need to do to get Bastion right now.
Solve The Corridors Of Time
First and foremost, you’ll need to finish the quest “Explore the Corridors of Time.” Visit Osiris to get the quest, then use the panel beside him at the Sundial to access the Corridors. There are a lot of things you can get in there, including lore and a special secret emblem. Check out our complete Corridors of Time guide to see how.
When you enter the Corridors, head through the first door to enter a room with five different exits. Each one has a signpost beside it with a symbol. To finish “Explore the Corridors of Time,” you’ll need to go through the doors in a specific order to reach the Timelost Vault. This is the puzzle the Destiny 2 community has been working on for the last week, and all that effort has revealed a 30-symbol code that will lead you through the maze.
Go through the doors in this order to finish the quest:
Clover
Diamond with three plants
Snake
Clover
Plus sign
Plus sign
Interlocking hexagon
Interlocking hexagon
Interlocking hexagon
Plus
Diamond
Plus
Snake
Diamond
Clover
Snake
Plus
Plus
Snake
Snake
Hexagon
Diamond
Clover
Plus
Diamond
Hexagon
Hexagon
Diamond
Plus
Diamond
Once you reach the Vault, access it and listen to Saint-14’s dialog to receive an item called a Chronometric Core. Return to Saint-14 to turn in the core and receive the next step of the quest, “A False Refraction.”
Note that you’ll want to complete the “Explore the Corridors of Time” quest on whatever character you previously completed the other Osiris quests on to save Saint-14. If you complete the Corridors on another character, try switching to the one that completed the previous quests, which should bring up “A False Refraction” in Saint-14’s vendor inventory.
A False Refraction
Next, head to the Tangled Shore. You’ll need to start by killing five Fallen Servitors and Captains to gain Fallen Intel. You should be able to find all five pretty quickly in the Thieves’ Landing area. After that, head to Spider for the next step.
Backroom Brawl
Speak to Spiderer5trtrt5ttr and he’ll send you after a Fallen Captain called Aksiniks. You’ll find him in the Thieves’ Landing Lost Sector called The Empty Tank, which is right next to the Spider’s area. Head inside and clear the Lost Sector like usual; you’ll find Aksiniks in the arena near where you’d usually fight the Lost Sector boss.
With Aksiniks down, return to the Spider for the next step in the quest.
A Strong Arm
Now you’re on to the grinding portion of the quest. You’ll need to clear 10 of Spider’s bounties, while also killing 30 Challenging enemies and finishing eight Public Events on the Tangled Shore. Those should go pretty quickly. Both daily Spider bounties and his Wanted bounties work for this step, including those Wanted bounties that take you to other planets.
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An 18-metre mobile robot is being built in Japan and opened to the public this year to celebrate over 40 years of the Mobile Suit Gundam anime series.
Japan Times reports that the robot has 24 fully functional joints but how exactly it will be able to move hasn’t been disclosed yet.
What is known is that the robot will be 18-metres tall and supported by a 25-metre Gundam Dock that will act as its maintenance site. It will be built in Gundam Factory, Yokohama on a 9,000 square meter facility.
It’s set to open at Yamashita Pier and opened for public view on October 1, 2020, with tickets to see the robot going on sale in July.
The robot will be situated next to a two-story building with shops and event spaces. That building will be opening before the robot across the weekends of July and August.
The Gundam Global Challenge project started back in 2014 as part of the celebrations leading up to the Mobile Suit Gundam anime’s 40th anniversary in 2019. The Challenge was to build a mobile Gundam robot. Director of the Gundam anime, Yoshiyuki Tomino, has been working on the project alongside a team of engineers and researchers.
Last year, it was reported that a live-action Gundam movie was in the works with Brian K. Vaughn writing the screenplay. With the anime’s production studio also involved, we’re hoping there are plenty of reasons that it won’t suck.
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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
Guilty Gear Strive has been confirmed for PlayStation 4, but if you’re in Japan, you’ll also have the option of playing it in an arcade. The arcade release of the game was reported on Arc System Works’ website, and was picked up on and translated by Gematsu.
While it’s possible that the cabinets will make their way outside of the country, they’re bound to be rare–arcades are still fairly common in Tokyo and other areas of Japan. For most players, the PlayStation 4 version will remain the most accessible.
A new trailer for Faust, a returning character first seen in the game’s name announcement trailer, has also been revealed. You can watch it below.
A demo of the arcade version will be playable at Japan Amusement Expo 2020 in February; otherwise, a closed beta of the game is coming later this year, although details have not been announced yet.
The new Guilty Gear has been described by the game’s general director as “a full-frontal confrontation with the essence of the fighting game genre.”
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As January rolls on, it brings us new adventures, more content for some big titles, and the chance to revisit some previous releases. The Pokemon-inspired MMO Temtem is full of creatures to collect, while The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is full of zombies to gun down. You can also jump back into Kingdom Hearts 3 with the Re:Mind expansion. Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD is getting an updated Nintendo Switch port, while the dystopia adventure game Mosaic makes its console debut.
Temtem — January 21
Available on: PC
At first glance, you might think Temtem is related to Pokemon Sword & Shield. Well, the Pokemon series is developer Crema’s chief inspiration. But there are some key differences: chiefly, Temtem is an MMO. That means you can explore the archipelago, catch creatures, and throw down in 2v2 battles with friends. Those battles involve a elemental strengths and weaknesses, yes, but Temtems can also synergize for deeper strategies.
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Kingdom Hearts III – Re:Mind — January 23
Available on: PS4
Re:Mind brings more of what you love about Kingdom Hearts to the latest game, with more boss fights, story content, and two new Keyblades for Sora to wield: Oblivion and Oathkeeper. It focuses on his search for Kairi in the Keyblade Graveyard, but Kairi herself is also playable. Re:Mind also brings back Final Fantasy favorites like Aerith, Yuffie, and Leon.
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Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD — January 23
Available on: Switch
The Oddworld series is, well, odd. The titular stranger wields a crossbow that fires tiny creatures as ammo, letting you take down enemies with unique effects. This Nintendo Switch port lets you do that with new gyro controls. The Stranger himself is a bounty hunter who can leap and climb around the environment, and there’s plenty of platforming to be had here too.
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Mosaic — January 23
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Mosaic is set in a dreadful world: a sprawling, depressing city with lifeless people just going through their daily routines. The game tasks you with breaking out of this dystopia, going on a journey to overcome your urban isolationism. That sounds abstract, I know, but at least there’s a fun saxophone player in the trailer.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners — January 23
Available on: PC
What’s an episode of New Releases without a virtual reality game? Saints and Sinners is set in a flooded New Orleans, where you’ll have to scavenge for supplies, make tough decisions, and meet with various factions if you want to survive. There’s also a secret hidden in the city that just might put a stop to this whole zombie plague thing too.
There’s still another batch of hot January games in the oven. Next week, New Releases will bite into Journey to the Savage Planet and the long-awaited final episode of Kentucky Route Zero.
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The latest box office numbers are in, and Bad Boys for Life started strong to win the weekend. The action movie starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence pulled in an estimated $59.2 million for the January 17-19 weekend in the US and Canada to top all other movies, while its international results have the movie closing in on $100 million worldwide.
Bad Boys for Life is the first new entry in the action series since 2003’s Bad Boys II. The $59.2 million opening-weekend figure for Bad Boys for Life is the best domestic start for the series, surpassing Bad Boys II ($47 million), and Bad Boys ($15.6 million).
The new movie also stars Kate del Castillo, Paola Nunez, Alexander Ludwig, Joe Pantoliano, and Vanessa Hudgens. Bad Boys for Life is directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. Action movie giant Michael Bay directed the first two Bad Boys movies; he has a cameo in Bad Boys for Life.
Bad Boys For Life made $38.6 million over the weekend from international markets, pushing the total haul to close to $100 million. The film is expected to surpass $100 million once the final weekend numbers come in, according to Variety. The movie reportedly had a $90 million budget before marketing.
Last week’s No. 1 movie, 1917, pulled in another $22 million to finish this weekend in the No. 3 position. The Robert Downey Jr. movie Dolittle finished second, with $23 million. That is a very low result, given the movie reportedly had a $175 million budget. It was Robert Downey Jr.’s first post-Marvel movie. The film could end up losing $100 million, according to The Wrap.
Rounding out the top five were Jumanji: The Next Level ($10 million) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ($8.4 million). This is the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in the US, so box office numbers will eventually include Monday figures once they come in.
Xbox Achievements remain a core part of the Xbox ecosystem, and having a high gamerscore in a game–or finally snagging a difficult Achievement–can feel pretty good. Xbox achievement tracking site True Achievements has created a tool, called #MyDecadeOnXbox, to give you some insight into your own play habits.
Log into your Xbox account and the site’s tracker will tell you how many games you played over that decade on Xbox, how many achievements and gamerscore you unlocked, how many of those achievements were rare, and much more. It tracks your best month and day for achievements, gives you a platform breakdown, and lists your rarest achievements.
It’s worth noting that this is not an official Microsoft initiative–you will need a True Achievements account, and you’ll need to give them access to your Xbox account information to get these figures.
It’s an interesting list of statistics, and a good way to chart how your play habits on Xbox systems have or have not changed. Xbox Achievements have changed a lot over the decade, as the distinction between retail and “arcade” games has been dropped, and Microsoft has been less rigid over how many Achievements a game can or can’t have. You can even earn them on Switch, but only in a tiny handful of games.
Achievements will likely remain a big part of the Xbox Series X when it launches in late 2020. There are still plenty of Xbox One games on the horizon as well, though, so Achievement hunters will be able to keep busy this year.
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has been in theatres for over a month now, but we’re still learning more about the billion-dollar blockbuster. The secret cameo role that singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran had in the movie has now been seemingly confirmed, and it comes as a big surprise.
Images shared before Rise of Skywalker’s release showed Sheeran in a Stormtrooper outfit, but it appears he played a different role. Oh My Disney reports that the “Shape of You” singer played an alien member of the resistance–the iguana-looking creature, to be more specific. You can see an image of the character at Oh My Disney.
It’s possible Sheeran has two cameos in Rise of Skywalker, or that he was on set in a Stormtrooper outfit as a gag or to throw people off.
Star Wars is not the first gigantic franchise featuring Sheeran in a cameo. He also played a character in Game of Thrones. After a mixed reaction from fans, this character ultimately died in a horrific manner.
The Rise of Skywalker received mixed reviews, and it was also the only one of the new Star Wars movies to not get an “A” Cinemascore rating. The movie was directed by JJ Abrams, who also made 2015’s The Force Awakens.
The Rise of Skywalker was Disney’s seventh 2019 movie to make $1 billion, following Avengers: Endgame ($2.79 billion), The Lion King ($1.65 billion), Frozen II ($1.37 billion), Captain Marvel ($1.12 billion), Toy Story 4 ($1.04 billion), and Aladdin ($1.05 billion).