Enter for a Chance to Win VA-11 HALL-A

Welcome to Daily Win, our way of giving back to the IGN community. To thank our awesome audience, we’re giving away a new game each day to one lucky winner. Be sure to check IGN.com every day to enter in each new giveaway.

Today we’re giving away a digital copy of VA-11 HALL-A for Nintendo Switch. To enter into this sweepstake, fill out the form below. You must be at least 18 years old and a legal U.S. resident to enter. Today’s sweepstake will end at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Entries entered after this time will not be considered.

Daily Doodle: The frog and opossum continue on, with the key still in their inventory, and a sword and shield equipped.

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Did Avengers: Endgame Actually Introduce A Young Avenger To The MCU?

Though it turned out that Clint Barton’s “protege” in those Avengers: Endgame trailers was actually his daughter, Lila, and not Kate Bishop, there’s still room for Kate to make her debut–especially considering we’re going to be getting a Hawkeye-focused Disney+ series here at some point in the future. But for all Endgame lacked in teenaged archery heroes, it did pave the way for another new hero to take the spotlight in a giant way.

Yes, pun intended, because we’re talking about Cassie Lang, otherwise known over in Marvel Comics as Stature–Ant-Man’s daughter and a member of the Young Avengers.

Cassie is by no means a new character for the MCU. She made her debut in Ant-Man 1 as Scott Lang’s very young daughter–her age is never directly confirmed but Abby Ryder Fortson, who played her, was around six or seven during filming. Later, during Ant-Man & The Wasp, Fortston reprised her role at age ten. Though both movies showed her taking particular interest in her dad’s line of work, both as a superhero and as a thief, she was way too young to be seriously considered for any sort of codename or mantle.

However, after Endgame’s five year time jump, Cassie is now around fifteen or sixteen years old, right smack dab in the middle of the Young Avengers demographic and a suddenly limitless potential for the future of the MCU both in theaters and in streaming TV.

So, who is Stature?

Over in the comics, Cassie’s story is actually pretty close to what we see onscreen, except she also has a heart condition, which helped motivate Scott to steal Hank Pym’s tech in the first place so he could help wrangle a doctor to save her. The heart condition thing will come up again in a second, just bear with us.

Much like her live action counterpart, Cassie loved and admired her dad–both as a hero and as a thief, which inspired her to start experimenting with stolen Pym Particles on herself. This went on for a few years, though Cassie never quite got the hang of just how they worked and never saw the effects. A few major things happen–namely Scott dying during the Avengers Disassembled event–that inspired Cassie to try and sever ties with her mother and go on the run, first playing with the idea of joining the Runaways and then later seeing news about the formation of a new kid superhero team, the Young Avengers, which captures her interest.

The Young Avengers initially reject her application, but the stress of the moment triggers the Pym Particles within her (apparently) and allows her to manipulate her size just like her dear departed dad. Impressed, the Young Avengers leader and financer, Kate Bishop, welcomes her aboard. Rather than take on the name Ant-Girl or Giant-Girl, Cassie lands on Stature for her new alter ego.

For the most part–supervillains and life threatening peril notwithstanding–things go pretty well for Cassie for a while, until her mom discovers her secret (though it really couldn’t have been that hard–the list of suspects when it comes to size-manipulating teenagers in the Marvel Universe is pretty short). She doesn’t outright make Cassie retire, but she does fear that the heart condition Scott had effectively become Ant-Man to cure all those years ago would return thanks to all the continuous size-changing.

A few years down the line, she went on to join the Avengers: Initiative after the Young Avengers disbanded, but was tragically (temporarily) killed by Dr. Doom. Upon her eventually resurrection, her heart was stolen (like, literally, as in a forced heart transplant) which effectively depowered her.

Will all of that happen in the MCU? Probably not–but there’s definitely the groundwork laid. Cassie’s been interacting with Pym Particles for two entire movies and most of the moving parts of her backstory have been dealt with in one way or another. Also, now she’s got five whole years of off screen time where anything could have happened–for all we know Stature is already an active hero in the MCU and has been for the last year or so.

Either way, the five year time jump solved the issue of Cassie’s youth just in time for the next phase of movies to start rolling in. And while the original six Avengers may be done, at least for now, no one said their kids can’t get in on the action at some point. And Scott Lang isn’t counted among the dead or the retired–both he and Hope are still active in the MCU, meaning Cassie could start her superhero career with the Stature codename under their supervision. Now all we have to do is keep an eye out for teases of other Young Avengers staple characters–anyone have any theories about how Wiccan, Hulkling, and Patriot could make their debuts?

Path Of Exile Dev Takes Hard Stance Against Crunch

Crunch is currently one of the hottest conversations in the games industry, with big-budget titles like Epic’s Fortnite, NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat 11, and Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 reportedly pushing developers to extremely long work weeks. In light of this information, Path of Exile developer Grinding Gear Games has vowed to avoid allowing such a thing happen to its staff.

“A big topic in the gaming industry recently is development crunch. Some studios make their teams work 14 hour days to pack every patch full of the most fixes and improvements possible,” writes Grinding Gear Games’ CEO Chris Wilson. “I will not run this company that way.”

The news comes via Reddit where Wilson chose to answer growing concerns over the state of the game. “However, one thing that the Q&A doesn’t address is how we got here,” Wilson leads the post, referencing a Q&A scheduled for later this week. “I wanted to personally post an explanation of what has been going on behind the scenes at Grinding Gear Games that led to this state.”

In the post, Wilson lays out the studios plans for addressing the issues Path of Exile currently faces in the Synthesis update. “Synthesis was more work than we expected,” Wilson writes. “While our improvements after its launch have helped a lot and many players are enjoying it, we fully acknowledge that it is not our best league and is not up to the quality standards that Path of Exile players should expect from us.”

According to the post, there are “a large number of critical projects” happening simultaneously. “[From] 3.7.0 through to the eventual release of 4.0.0, [we] are going to make massive and lasting fundamental improvements to Path of Exile.” While it’s a huge undertaking, the New Zealand-based company will not overwork its employees, according to Wilson.

“Sometimes when we read our own Patch Notes threads and community feedback, we feel that we are being asked to do the same,” Wilson says. “While there’s inevitably a bit of optional paid overtime near league releases, the vast majority of a Path of Exile development cycle has great work/life balance. This is necessary to keep our developers happy and healthy for the long-term, but it does mean that some game improvements will take a while to be made.”

With the action RPG finally out on consoles, Wilson confirms that, while there are “promises that we haven’t yet fulfilled,” the studio will “make headway on console features.”

But first, update 3.7.0 will be detailed soon. “When we reveal 3.7.0 in three weeks, you’ll see that its league has a focus on repeatable fun, and the combat revamp has a lot of focus on improving the fundamentals of Path of Exile’s gameplay,” Wilson says.

Days Gone Keeps Getting Updates; Here Are All The Patch Notes

Days Gone has suffered from a variety of nagging since launch, with multiple reports of audio and bug issues affecting the game. Developer SIE Bend Studio has released a slew of patches that operate as quick-fixes to some of these issues.

The Oregon-based developer took to Reddit to announce three separate patches that have recently hit for its zombie-infested, open-world action game. The three patches–patch 1.05, 1.06, and 1.07–are short and sweet, and handle auto-save functionality, dropped audio, streaming complications, and more. You can read the full patch notes below to see what’s been changed and fixed over the past few days. These are all available now.

Patch 1.05

General Fixes

  • A fix for a streaming issue in a certain locations

Crash Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where some players experienced a crash when booting up the game

Known Issue

Patch 1.06

General Fixes

  • Auto-save function will now save the correct number of saves to your save cloud account
  • Audio should no longer be cut out/dropped when it involves equipping certain engines and certain exhausts to your bike
  • Difficulty settings are retained through patches

Known Issues

  • The crash on startup and other issues in this scope are being investigated. As of now, if you haven’t downloaded Patch 1.06 and start-up Days Gone, you will remain with Patch 1.05 active. Updates to come

Patch 1.07

General Fixes

  • Audio should no longer be cut out/dropped when it involves equipping certain engines and certain exhausts to your bike

Despite facing performance issues, Days Gone still managed to pull the UK’s top sales spot, according to sales monitor Chart-Track. Additionally, Days Gone will receive free DLC this June, including a new survival mode and challenges centered around the bike, horde, and combat.

In our Days Gone review, we said, “Riding a souped-up motorcycle through the world and taking out zombie nests and hordes is satisfying in the way that completing open-world checklists often is, but by the end, you’re left to wonder what the point of it all was.”

Complete Guide to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s Preorder Bonuses

If you buy something through this post, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is set to release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on June 18, with the Nintendo Switch version following a week later on June 25. The game is essentially Castlevania in all but name, something the developers have been clear about from the start. It’s a gothic horror-themed side-scrolling game of exploration and action that’s being spearheaded by Koji Igarashi, the director of many of the best games in the Castlevania series.

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Apex Legends Bans Up To 770,000 As Respawn Continues Fighting Cheaters

Last week, Respawn Entertainment announced continued plans to deal with Apex Legends cheaters but didn’t specify what those plans were. While the California-based studio still isn’t sharing any specifics, so as to avoid helping cheaters cheat, Respawn is finally prepared to talk a little about what’s happening behind the scenes. That includes bans being handed out to a quarter of a million players.

Respawn’s executive producer, Drew McCoy, penned another blog post about what’s happening to cheaters in EA’s battle royale. “We can’t share details on what we’re doing so as to not give a head’s up to the cheat makers,” McCoy writes. “But what we can say is that we’re attacking this from every angle: from improvements in detecting cheaters, to bolstering resources and tools, to improving processes and other sneaky things to combat sellers and cheaters.”

According to McCoy, Respawn has shared “some high-level stats” on the progress thus far. You can read the full statistics below.

  • The recently added in-game reporting tool has had a big impact on discovering new cheats, including previously undetectable cheats that are now being found automatically via EAC
  • Total bans are now at 770K players
  • We have blocked over 300K account creations
  • We have banned over 4,000 cheat seller accounts (spammers) in the last 20 days
  • Total matches on PC impacted by cheaters or spammers has been reduced by over half in the last month due to recent efforts.

“It is a constant war with the cheat makers that we will continue to fight,” McCoy says. “We take cheating in Apex Legends incredibly seriously and have a large amount of resources tackling it from a variety of angles.” McCoy hasn’t specified when Respawn will outline plans to deal with cheaters, but he did confirm that he’ll “be back next week with an update on another one of the issues called out in last week’s post.”

In other news, Respawn confirmed that all Titanfall projects have been tabled so that the company can focus on Apex Legends and Star Wars – Jedi: Fallen Order. In focusing on Apex Legends, Respawn has stated that the game’s Season 2 plans will be outlined at this year’s EA Play event just before E3 in June. Some of the suggested changes coming to Season 2 of Apex Legends are new characters, items, weapons, and alterations to the map.

Sonic The Hedgehog: 10 Classic Sonics We’d Love to See in The Movie’s Redesign

On the back of the news that director Jeff Fowler will be redesigning Sonic The Hedgehog in the upcoming Paramount movie, we decided it was time to take a look back at some classic Sonic designs that could be a could replacement for the movie’s, uh, somewhat controversial original.

Drawing from over 25 years of the blue blur – you can check out the complete visual history of Sonic in the slideshow below – here are our picks for how Sonicould be a little more palatable.

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Here’s Why the Voice of Claptrap in Borderlands 3 Is Different

Borderlands 3’s Claptrap, as many fans noticed from this week’s gameplay reveal, has a new voice, and both Gearbox and the original voice actor have weighed in on why that is.

The original voice actor for Claptrap, David Eddings, revealed on Twitter that he wasn’t reprising his role in Borderlands 3 as he allegedly “… insisted on getting paid for my performance and all of a sudden they couldn’t afford me.”

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Get a 4K TV for Up to 50% Off Right Now

If you buy something through this post, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the world is barreling toward a 4K future. Already you can play games in 4K on Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, watch 4K UHD Blu-rays, and stream 4K video from services like YouTube and Netflix. Bottom line: if you don’t have a 4K TV yet, you’re missing out. Thankfully, prices have been dropping steeply on 4K TVs in recent years. And right now, Walmart is selling a number of sets for up to 50% off. Let’s take a look at what’s available.

50-Inch Samsung 4K Smart HDTV is 53% Off

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Game Of Thrones Showrunners Tease Remaining Season 8 Episodes

Game of Thrones Season 8 finally reached its much-anticipated third episode “The Long Night” last weekend, and gave us the epic Battle of Winterfell. While the episode caused a mixed response amongst fans and critics, it delivered a number of dramatic moments as the forces of the living took on the Night King and the White Walkers. Now showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have made an intriguing comment about the remaining episodes. Warning, major spoilers ahead!

Fans will know that in the episode, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) killed the Night King, ending the war against the White Walkers. There was no suggestion in the show that he wasn’t dead–he shattered into glass and his army was destroyed. However, when Benioff and Weiss were asked on Jimmy Kimmel Live if that was the last we are to see of White Walkers, they gave a particularly cryptic answer.

“Yeah, we’re not going to answer that,” Benioff told Kimmel. Which certainly isn’t the conclusive reply you might expect. Of course, they could just be playing it safe and simply refusing to say anything about the episodes that are left. However, bearing in mind the Night King’s supernatural powers and his own ability to raise the dead, perhaps we will actually see the White Walkers again. Remember, there are still three very long episodes of the show to go.

“The Long Night” smashed previous Game of Thrones viewing figures, delivering 17.8 million viewers. This figure includes replays and streaming; in terms of on-air viewing, the episode drew an audience of 12 million across two airings on Sunday night. The previous record was held by Episode 1 of Season 8, which was watched by a total of 17.4 million viewers earlier this month.

For more on the latest episode of Game of Thrones, check out our look at the Night King’s true goal, what happened to Rhaegal and Ghost, and all the Easter Eggs and references you probably missed.