Ibb & Obb, a co-op puzzle platformer that was first released for PC and PS3 in 2013, is the sort of game that looks and feels like a perfect fit for Switch. Now, years after its initial, well-received release, it’s coming to Nintendo’s portable machine. It will release on March 5.
The two-player game will be playable with detached Joy-Cons, and while you can play the game alone, it’s designed to be played with someone else, as shown in the trailer below. The two characters need to stick together, and many of the puzzles involve dealing with changes in gravity.
The game is available for pre-purchase now at a 15% discount, meaning that you can get it for $12.69. It will sell for $15 after launch.
The game received a 7/10 in our original review, and reviewer Tom Mc Shea wrote that “Beneath the whimsical exterior lies a devious and clever puzzle game that makes you curse gravity for being so strict.”
The Switch has a huge range of games heading its way in 2020, of course–here are some of the highlights.
The sequel to 2018’s hugely successful Spider-Man spin-off Venom is currently in production, ahead of its October release. The movie stars Tom Hardy as reporter Eddie Brock, who is host to the titular alien symbiote, Venom. Woody Harrelson will play the character of Cletus Kasady, who has been possessed by the equally dangerous Carnage. The first image of Harrelson from the Venom 2 set has been posted by Hardy.
Fans of Venom will remember that Harrelson actually appeared as Kasady in that movie’s post-credit sequence, where he was sitting behind bars. Based on the new image, it seems that he’s out of jail in Venom 2 and has undergone a makeover.
More specifically, the terrible wig that Harrelson was wearing has thankfully gone, and he’s now wearing a very colourful shirt. Check Hardy’s Instagram post out below:
Venom 2 is directed by Andy Serkis, who takes over from the first movie’s Ruben Fleischer, and also stars Michelle Williams, Stephen Graham, and Reid Scott. In October, it was reported that Bond star Naomie Harris was in talks to join the cast as the villainous Shriek, but this is yet to be confirmed. The film hits theaters on October 2.
Venom is one of several characters from Marvel’s Spider-Man comic books that Sony is basing new movies on. The next release will be Morbius, which hits theaters in July and stars Jared Leto as the “living vampire” of the title. The first Morbius trailer was released in January. For more, check out GameSpot’s guide to everything we know about Morbius.
Update: A third teaser (below) has now appeared, showing the first half of a previously redacted line. It says “Origin,” suggesting that we’ll see the other half of that line sometime soon. Original story follows.
Fortnite‘s new season, Chapter 2 – Season 2, is launching on February 20, and Epic has started to tease the big seasonal changeover with a continent-spanning alternate reality game that seems to be hinting at spycraft plot elements.
The teasers began on Sunday, February 16 with posters and digital ads across the globe, in countries including the US, Brazil, Russia, France, and Italy. Those give a phone number to call, which deliver various messages about agent recruitment and missions. One data miner compiled the messages from various locations. Then, the official Fortnite Discord saw some activity, with a bot called “The Agency” recruiting members.
That has led to today, February 17, when the official Fortnite account began tweeting teasers with redacted data and some espionage imagery. The first teaser simply said “Transmission intercepted,” while the second references “FN.CH02.S02”–or Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 2. There are still three more redacted blocks to be uncovered.
What all this means for the new season isn’t clear yet, but with only a few days until launch it’s bound to be announced pretty soon. In the meantime, you only have a few days left to finish some challenges.
Multiple events related to the James Bond movie No Time To Die have been canceled in China amid the Coronavirus outbreak. Deadline reports that promotional events for the movie, including premieres in Beijing and other cities, have been canceled in the wake of the virus that has already killed more than 1,600 people in China alone.
Star Daniel Craig and other members of the No Time To Die cast were reportedly set to appear at the Beijing screening and other promotional events in China, but those plans have been scrapped “because of uncertainty surrounding the evolution of the epidemic.”
China is the world’s second-largest movie market, following the United States, and the Coronavirus has already impacted the country’s movie scene. Numerous theatres have closed indefinitely, and there is no word on when operations will resume.
The last James Bond movie, Spectre, made $84 million in China alone, which represented about 9.5 percent of its $881 million worldwide box office.
No Time To Die is directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (True Detective). The film stars Daniel Craig as Bond, Ralph Fiennes as M, Ben Whishaw as Q, and Naomie Harris as Miss Moneypenny. Joining them for the first time will be Rami Malek, Billy Magnussen, and Ana de Armas.
Like many other beacons of ’80s nostalgia, such as Ghostbusters, fans have clamored for a reboot or sequel to the 1985 adventure film The Goonies for decades now. While Fox has finally ordered a pilot for a Goonies-related TV series, according to Variety, it’s probably not exactly what fans had in mind. The untitled project will follow a substitute teacher named Stella Cooper who helps three students make a shot-for-shot remake of their favorite movie, The Goonies.
Writer Sarah Watson–best-known as the creator of the acclaimed feminist TV drama The Bold Type–will helm the production. Goonies director Richard Donner will serve as executive producer. The plot of this new effort shares certain similarities with that of ambitious real-life fan-films, such as a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark created by three Mississippi teenagers in 1989.
Over the decades, there have been many, many rumors about a potential Goonies 2, including a shelved animated series for Cartoon Network, and several scripts in varying levels of completion. Several cast members have previously indicated their lack of interest in reprising their roles, but it’s unclear if any of them will appear in this new TV series. Regardless of how that shakes out, as far as we’re concerned, there’s only one true Goonies 2: the 1987 NES game from Konami.
VGC reports that the mode is targeting an early March release, which would most likely mean either March 3 or March 10 since Modern Warfare updates hit on Tuesdays. The release will replace the currently gray-redacted area that was added to the main menu upon the Season 2 launch.
At the same time, the battle royale mode will reportedly be released as a free standalone game, which will give players the option to upgrade to the full Modern Warfare. The report also claims it will use the same battle pass as the main game, letting you progress through and earn cosmetics in any of the game’s modes.
In-game, Warzone is said to support up to 200 players in a game, broken into squads. Similar to Apex Legends, it will use a ping mechanic. Existing Modern Warfare players will recognize some areas of the map from its large Ground War mode.
It will also reportedly include a new “Plunder” currency that can be spent for gear, but you’ll also drop your own plunder if you’re holding when you’re taken down. You can bank Plunder to save the loot for future matches, but starting the process will alert other players that you’re a rich target. Death doesn’t count you out of a match entirely and instead puts you into a “Gulag” where you’ll fight 1v1 against another player to return to the match.
GameSpot has contacted Activision Blizzard for clarification.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare recently kicked off its Season 2, with a huge patch that prompted an apology from the developer. The new season brought back the popular character Ghost, but the bigger surprise was a story trailer that showed Ghost calling for backup in a crowded battlefield. That was the first clue of a battle royale mode, though players appearing to glitch into the menu and map have added much more fuel to the fire since then.
Amazing Stories was an anthology show produced by Steven Spielberg that ran for 45 episodes between 1985 and 1987, and it’s set for a TV reboot. Spielberg is involved once more, and the new series arrives on Apple TV Plus next month. The first trailer has now been released.
The Amazing Stories revival features five new stories and, like the original series, blends fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. The trailer doesn’t really reveal what the different stories are about, but it’s all very intriguing. There’s a woman who is investigating something mysterious, a pilot taking a dangerous-looking cosmic flight, and best of all, the late Robert Forster in his final role as an elderly man who develops superpowers. Check the trailer out below:
The cast also includes Dylan O’Brien (Maze Runner), Victoria Pedretti (The Haunting of Hill House), Josh Holloway (Lost), Edward Burns (Saving Private Ryan), and Kerry Lynne Bishé (Halt and Catch Fire). Only one episode title has been revealed so far, and that’s Forster’s superhero story, which is named “Dynoman and the Volt.” Amazing Stories premieres on Apple TV Plus on March 6.
Amazing Stories isn’t the only upcoming Apple TV Plus show that Spielberg is involved with. In October, it was reported that he is teaming up with Tom Hanks to produce Masters of the Air, which will follow the story of World War II bomber pilots.
If you’re looking for a realistic free-to-play shooter to take on the go on your Switch, your search might soon be over: the multiplayer FPS Warface is coming to Nintendo’s console very soon. First released in 2013 by Crytek Kiev, Warface first made its way to the PS4 and Xbox One in late 2018, where it amassed 13 million players over the course of a year.
With its mix of PvP deathmatches and PvE raids, Warface is structured similarly to shooters like Destiny, but its “boots-on-the-ground” gunplay invites frequent comparisons to Call of Duty. In 2019, the team behind the game left Crytek Kiev to form their own studio, Blackwood Games, which works in tandem with publisher My.Games to maintain the free-to-play shooter.
Despite its popularity, Warface has garnered a muted reception from its playerbase over the years–it currently sits at a “Mixed” reception on Steam, with over 50,000 reviews counted. Many of them accuse the game of being “pay-to-win.” In our 2013 review, Nathan Meunier called Warface a slick shooter ultimately crippled by its unoriginality.
“Considering Warface is a sharp-looking game that you can play for free in your Web browser, you might be inclined to overlook some of its minor faults,” he wrote. “The collaborative dynamic of co-op missions is the real draw, but the generic presentation and uninspired competitive combat don’t take enough risks to push beyond what you’ve see done before.”
He was invited onto a panel to talk about the major changes that will be introduced to Siege over Year 5 and Year 6 – across 2020 and 2021, essentially. In particular, he addressed why Ubisoft will only be releasing one new operator per season instead of the usual two from Year 5 Season 3 and beyond.
“When we look at the amount of stuff that the team can work on today there’s no doubt that this is the right choice to go into the future with full confidence for Rainbow Six Siege,” Del Valle said.
“This is allowing us to do a lot of things. It’s allowing us to have a core gameplay focused philosophy, to dive deeper into those aspects. It’s allowing us to polish a little bit more our operators, the operators that we’re going to be bringing into the roster of 50+ operators that we have today.”
“And this is a bit of a soft announcement,” he continued, “but it’s allowing us to work for next-gen, so we are on next-gen in the coming years.”
No date as to when Rainbow Six Siege will launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X has been given yet but Ubisoft is aiming for the launch of those consoles. The developer also wants to avoid fragmenting the community and told Windows Central that the next-gen versions of the game will have cross-generation multiplayer with the PS4 and Xbox One.
Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X are due out in holiday 2020 so, obviously, the next-gen versions of Rainbow Six Siege won’t be available before that.
There’s also the question of what the differences will be, if any, in the next-gen versions of Siege, especially as both the PS5 and Xbox Series X are backwards compatible anyway.
Regardless, Ubisoft will be looking to do what’s best for all of its Siege players, especially after the hard fight it has had to grow the game over the past five years. Ubisoft stated during the same panel that it’s committed to work on Siege for the next five, 10, or 15 years if it has to – however long people continue to play it. It was also revealed that Tachanka is getting a rework this year.
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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
This May, Valiant comics is giving a fresh start to one of its darkest characters. A brand-new ongoing series for Shadowman is coming soon, and instead of being the traditional superhero comic, it’s going to lean heavily into horror.
While it’s still a few months away, Valiant has given GameSpot an exclusive early look at the series, written by Cullen Bunn, art by Jon Davis-Hunt, colors by Jordie Bellaire, and letters by Clayton Cowles. While the preview pages don’t have lettering yet, you can check out the first five of the issue #1 below.
Unlettered pages for Shadowman #1
“Shadowman is effectively a superhero, operating in a horror movie,” explained David-Hunt in a press release. “He travels the world, hunting monsters, and when he finds them, he punches them into oblivion or slices them up with his seriously lethal shadow-scythe. He protects our reality from the horrors of The Deadside, and though that burden hangs heavy upon him, he still manages to keep a calm, cool attitude, even when he’s faced with unspeakable evil.”
If you’re new to Valiant comics or Shadowman, don’t fret, as the new series will be a perfect jumping-on point for new readers. “You don’t need to know anything about Shadowman, about comics, about horror–hell, Jon’s visual storytelling is so strong you don’t even need to know how to read English to enjoy this book,” explained editor Heather Antos. “Every single issue takes Jack to a brand-new location, battling a brand-new blight, making each chapter a standalone adventure by itself, but also builds towards something much bigger and sinister.”
Aside from working on series like Magneto at Marvel or Sinestro at DC, writer Bunn is known for his work in horror, like his work on the horrific Horrow Country at Dark Horse Comics or Regression from Image. Artist Davis-Hunt may have plenty of his work rooted in 2000 AD and Judge Dredd, but in 2015, he delivered some incredible horror art for the Vertigo series Clean Room. Working alongside one of comics’ most versatile and best colorists, Jordie Bellaire, Shadowman plans on delivering a brand-new tone for a Valiant comic.
“There’s action and horror–oh, so much horror!–and a big, crazy mythology that we’re putting together,” explained Bunn. “We’re taking Shadowman in some directions he’s never been taken before. He’s often depicted as New Orleans bound, but he’s going on a world tour, so to speak, confronting a growing supernatural threat that is popping up all over the place. We are introducing the concept of the Blight, which is sort of a weakening of the veil between our world and the Deadside. And these Blights occur in places of great sorrow and misery and evil. We’re also introducing a new ‘big bad’ villain who will be changing the face of the supernatural in the Valiant Universe.”
We’ll learn more about Shadowman’s world tour when the new comic series arrives on May 20.
