Audible has revealed the full voice cast for its upcoming audio drama adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, and it's pretty darned impressive. The cast includes major Hollywood stars like James McAvoy (Split), Taron Egerton (Rocketman), Riz Ahmed (Rogue One) and Kat Dennings (Thor). Gaiman himself tweeted out the full cast for the Audible Originals series, along with revealing a July 15 premiere date. The main cast includes:

• Riz Ahmed as The Corinthian
• Kat Dennings as Death
• Taron Egerton as John Constantine
• Neil Gaiman as The Narrator
• James McAvoy as Morpheus
• Samantha Morton as Urania Blackwell
• Bebe Neuwirth as The Siamese Cat
• Andy Serkis as Matthew the Raven
• Michael Sheen as Lucifer
• Justin Vivian Bond as Desire
• Arthur Darville as William Shakespeare
• William Hope as Doctor Destiny
• Matthew Horne as Hob Gadling
• Reginald D. Hunter as J'onn J'onzz
• Sue Johnston as Unity Kinkaid
• Paterson Joseph as The Demon Choronzon
• Josie Lawrence as Mad Hettie
• Anton Lesser as Doctor John Hathaway
• Joanna Lumley as Lady Johanna Constantine
• Miriam Margoyles as Despair

The Sandman is an Audible-exclusive audio series based on the first three graphic novels in the original comic book series, with Gaiman both writing the scripts and narrating the series. There's no word yet on whether the full Sandman saga (which comprises ten main volumes and numerous spinoffs) will eventually be adapted. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=14-comics-that-defined-dcs-vertigo-imprint&captions=true"] For those not familiar with The Sandman, the original series is widely regarded as one of the best DC books ever published. The series revolves around Morpheus, a powerful but aloof being who both controls and draws power from the dreams of mortals. After Morpheus escapes his decades-long imprisonment early in the series, he begins a long journey to restore order to his realm and deal with even darker challenges to come. Gaiman himself has aptly summed up the series in one sentence, "The Lord of Dreams learns one must change or die, and makes his decision." Interestingly, the presence of characters like Egerton's John Constantine and Reginald D. Hunter's Martian Manhunter seems to confirm Audible will have no trouble tapping into the larger DC Universe. Even DC icons like Batman have small roles in the comic. That could wind up being one major advantage the Audible series has over Netflix's upcoming TV adaptation of The Sandman. Currently, no cast members for the Netflix adaptation have been revealed, and at this point the series may be hard-pressed to top Audible's star-studded lineup. Whether or not Netflix has access to characters like Constantine, the fact that there are currently two ambitious adaptations of The Sandman in the works is definitely a great thing for fans of the series. For more on what to expect from the Netflix series, find out the current status of The Sandman during the COVID-19 shutdown and read IGN's The Sandman Explained feature. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/12/dc-universes-stargirl-series-premiere-review"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

According to the Microsoft Store, Mafia: Definitive Edition and Mafia 2: Definitive Edition will be released on August 28 and May 19, respectively. These dates follow the vague tease of Mafia: Trilogy by 2K. If Mafia 2's release date is true, it will be released on the same day as the full reveal of the Mafia: Trilogy that is taking place on Tuesday, May 19 at 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm BST. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/13/mafia-trilogy-teaser-trailer"] The Microsoft Store listings for both Mafia: Definitive Edition and Mafia 2: Definitive Edition also include brand new screenshots that show the updated versions in action, which you can see in the galleries below. The store page for the original Mafia also promises this game will be "faithfully recreated, with expanded story, gameplay and original score. This is the Mafia you remembered and much more." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=mafia-definitive-edition-screenshots&captions=true"] It also mentions that players who own Mafia: Definitive Edition will be able to unlock Tommy's Suit and Cab in both Mafia 2 and Mafia 3 definitive editions, hinting that these may be separate releases instead of one compilation. Those who purchase Mafia II will unlock Vito's Leather Jacket and Car in both Mafia and Mafia 3 definitive editions. In our review of Mafia, we called it amazing and said "Mafia is dripping with style and class and has certainly shoved itself into the ranks of the best games of this year, which as you know has already had some incredible titles." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=mafia-2-definitive-edition-screenshots&captions=true"] In our review of Mafia 2, we said "Mafia II is an interesting mobster tale with some great voice acting and cool cutscenes; if you have a “made man” itch, feel free to scratch it here, but be prepared for a pretty standard third-person shooter in the gameplay department." In our review of Mafia 3, we said "Mafia 3’s strong characters and confident storytelling kept me engaged, even if the gameplay rarely delivered anything but bog-standard and repetitive open-world action." [poilib element="accentDivider"] Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com. Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who can't wait and is so excited he just can't hide it. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

The co-creator of Halo has advice for his younger self, people looking to get into game development, or enter any creative field; develop patience, and be calm and level headed. In this month's IGN Unfiltered, Ryan McCaffrey sat down with Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto to discuss his advice for up-and-coming game designers, the origins of Master Chief, his new real-time tactical game, Disintegration, and much more. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/06/disintegration-hands-on-preview-ign-first"] When considering what advice he would give his younger self upon entering the games industry, Lehto said, "If I were to look back, every 5... 10 or so years... look back at what I used to do and how I used to behave, and how I had tackled things at that time... I think just having a [more level] head, being [more calm] about how to go about dealing with problems that are difficult to solve, and having a little bit more patience... was one of those things I wish I would have been able to tell my younger self." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=53-disintegration-in-game-screenshots-pvp&captions=true"] "At that time we were all so young, and we were all so inexperienced and incapable of understanding how to tackle the challenges in front of us. We were all figuring it out together." "It led to issues that could have easily been solved had we just had a little bit more patience, and stepping away from the problem for a little bit, absorbing what's there, and then just calmly going back to tackling that challenge. That's how I do it now, and that's how I feel like we can maintain a steady course without too much disruption as a result." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/08/disintegration-32-minutes-of-story-mission-gameplay-ign-first"] For more on the best, brightest, most interesting minds in the games industry, be sure to check out every episode of Unfiltered, which includes interviews with 343's Bonnie Ross, Valve's Robin Walker and Chris Remo, Respawn's Stig Asmussen, and many, many more.

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Brian Barnett writes features, wiki guides, & more for IGN. Check out his Final Fantasy VII Remake walkthrough, and get your fix of Brian's antics on Twitter and Instagram (@Ribnax).

PlayStation has announced a new The Last of Us Part 2 video series, and the first episode is available now. With a little less than a month to go until The Last of Us Part 2 is out in the wild, PlayStation announced this new series in a blog post today, on May 13, with plans for a new episode to be released every Wednesday for the next three weeks. This series will cover different aspects of the game including its story, gameplay and more. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/13/the-last-of-us-part-ii-inside-the-story-video"] "The Last of Us Part II is by far the largest and most ambitious game we've ever made and there will be so much for you to dig into when it arrives on June 19th," Naughty Dog Senior Communications Manager Scott Lowe said in the blog post. "Leading up to the launch, we're releasing a brand new series of videos breaking down key aspects of the game." Lowe said each video will feature interviews with members of the Naughty Dog team to discuss design, technology, and many of the ideas that helped shape the game over its six-year long period of development. The first episode, which is available now, is titled "Inside the Story" and dives into the core themes being explored in the story including a look at Ellie and Joel's life in Jackson County, Wyoming. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-last-of-us-part-2-new-screenshots&captions=true"] Each episode will be spoiler-free (although the video's comments and replies on social media are sure to be filled with spoilers so be cautious wading into those), according to Lowe. The first episode dropped dropped today, May 13, and the next episode, "Inside the Gameplay", will drop on May 20. The third episode, "Inside the Details", will be released on May 27 and the final episode of the series, "Inside the World", will be released on June 3. The Last of Us Part 2 will release 16 days later on Friday, June 19. Read about how the game went gold last week and then read about how hackers exploited an older Naughty Dog game to leak The Last of Us Part 2 details. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

Today, Epic Games revealed its next-gen game engine, Unreal Engine 5. To showcase the power of its new engine, Epic revealed a brand new, fully playable tech demo that’s running on the PlayStation 5 in real-time. IGN asked what advancements are in the PS5 that allows for Unreal Engine 5 to function at this high of a level on the console. Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney explained that it was the system storage advancements Sony hardware architect Mark Cerny revealed earlier this year that makes the next-gen Sony console a powerhouse. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/13/ps5-unreal-engine-5-tech-demo"] “I think, first of all, Sony has a massive, massive increase in graphics performance compared to previous generations. But you know, I guess we get that every generation?” Sweeney joked. “But Sony’s made another breakthrough that in many ways is more fundamental, which is a multi-order magnitude increase in storage bandwidth and reduction in storage latency.” As revealed back in March – in a digital deep dive on the PS5 hosted by Sony architect Mark Cerny – Sony revealed its custom solid-state drive that targets at least 5GB per second in terms of bandwidth. That’s compared to the 50-100 MB/s capable on the current PS4 hard drives. “[The PS5] puts a vast amount of flash memory very, very close to the processor,” says Sweeney. “So much that it really fundamentally changes the trade-offs that games can make and stream in. And that’s absolutely critical to this kind of demo,” Sweeney explained. “This is not just a whole lot of polygons and memory. It’s also a lot of polygons being loaded every frame as you walk around through the environment and this sort of detail you don’t see in the world would absolutely not be possible at any scale without these breakthroughs that Sony’s made.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=unreal-engine-5-playstation-5-tech-demo&captions=true"] Sweeney says that Sony’s storage architecture is far ahead of “the best SSD solution you can buy on PC today. And so it’s really exciting to be seeing the console market push forward the high-end PC market in this way.” While Epic wouldn’t comment on any potential performance differences between the PS5 and Xbox Series X, Sweeney confirmed that the features shown today, like real-time global illumination and virtualized geometry, are “going to work on all the next-generation consoles.” For more, check out IGN’s comparison of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN.

Epic Games unveiled the Unreal Engine 5 today and showcased it with a real-time PlayStation 5 tech demo called Lumen in the Land of Nanite. While the tech demo is not a real game in development, it is fully playable, Epic confirmed. IGN asked Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney if the Lumen demo, which is running in real-time on a PlayStation 5 development kit, was real. Libreri said that it is not a real game, but Sweeney interjected with a surprising twist. “It is playing 100% in real-time on the [PlayStation 5] and you do have full control over the character,” Sweeney says after Libreri said the demo was not a real game. It turns out that just means the demo is not a real game in development with plans for release. The demo itself does function. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/13/ps5-unreal-engine-5-tech-demo"] “It’s totally playable,” Libreri confirmed. “In fact, if GDC happened we would have let people play through the thing.” So there you have it, while Epic did not create a whole new game for the PlayStation 5, they did build a working, playable demo running off a PlayStation 5 dev kit. Earlier in the interview, Libreri even told IGN, “I think a lot of people [will ask], ‘Oh is [the demo] real?’ But you know that demo was grabbed from the back of a PlayStation 5 development kit. An HDMI cable went into a disc recorder and played out real-time — no editing, no tricks, that’s what comes off the box.” So while you won’t be able to play Lumens in the Land of Nanite when the PS5 is released, you have a handle of what games look like as they run and play on the next-gen PS5 console. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=unreal-engine-5-playstation-5-tech-demo&captions=true"] Tim Sweeney isn't just interested in the visual fidelity the engine offers either, pointing to how Unreal Engine 5 – in conjunction with next-gen hardware – should allow for brand new kinds of games to emerge. Pointing to how Battle Royale games could only have emerged with current-gen processing and networking power, he explains how this could lead to another step into the unknown: "The technologies that we’re showing today [are] going to enable entirely new types of games that we can’t even envision yet. And that’s the exciting part. We can’t even imagine yet what this is going to enable the industry to do." Check out IGN’s full coverage of the Unreal Engine 5 reveal and Tim Sweeney’s comments on the breakthroughs of the PS5. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN.

Today, Epic Games revealed the first look at Unreal Engine 5, its next-generation game engine designed with features meant to make game worlds more detailed and dynamic. To show off the power of its new game engine, Epic released a real-time tech demo called, “Lumen in the Land of Nanite” which runs live on the PlayStation 5. Lumen in the Land of Nanite is a fully playable title made up of Unreal Engine 5’s two new tools: Lumens, a dynamic global illumination tool, and Nanite, a virtualized geometry that lets artists import film-quality art and assets into Unreal Engine. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/13/ps5-unreal-engine-5-tech-demo"] The demo shows a woman venturing into a rocky cavern and discovering a hidden temple. The demo makes a particular point to highlight how light and objects react dynamically, and the demo ends with a thrilling flight through a crumbling canyon. All of the assets and visuals in the demo are reacting in real-time, meaning the PlayStation 5 is processing the demo as it happens. “I think a lot of people [will ask], ‘Oh is [the demo] real?’ But you know that demo was grabbed from the back of a PlayStation 5 development kit,” says Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri in an interview with IGN. “An HDMI cable went into a disc recorder and played out real-time — no editing, no tricks, that’s what comes off the box.” Incidentally, Sweeney made clear that the SSD in that devkit is "far ahead" of current high-end PCs. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=unreal-engine-5-playstation-5-tech-demo&captions=true"] Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney explained Unreal Engine 5 is meant “to do things that are absolutely not possible today.” This means offering new levels of photorealism and visuality but also offer these tools in a way that increases the productivity and efficiency of game developers. “Lumen [and Nanite]... are not just order-of-magnitude leaps in visual quality but they’re also greatly simplifying technologies for the artists who build content,” says Sweeney. The goal, according to Kim Libreri, is to make game worlds as immersive and realistic as modern movies, but where that goal differs from previous game generations is how interactive that realism is. While games this generation and older are detailed and realistic, they’re also static. The Lumens and Nanite demo showcase multiple instances where changes in the environment happen in real-time, and Unreal Engine 5 is capable of rendering these changes immediately. When rocks crumble, it’s not a pre-rendered cutscene but a high-resolution rock asset moving in real-time based on the player’s actions. When a light source changes, it’s not multiple tricks to simulate a flashing light, but real-time processing power at work. “If you notice, most video games today are pretty static environments. You know, things don’t change, there’s not a lot of cause and effect. You’re lucky if you can change the state of a game and come back and it’s actually changed. [Unreal Engine 5] allows everything to be dynamic.” [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%E2%80%9CAn%20HDMI%20cable%20went%20into%20a%20disc%20recorder%20and%20played%20out%20real-time%20%E2%80%94%20no%20editing%2C%20no%20tricks%2C%20that%E2%80%99s%20what%20comes%20off%20the%20box.%E2%80%9D"]Epic is quick to point out the quality of the assets used for the demo, which they say are film-quality assets as opposed to the ones typically used for video games. While movie-level visuals are often higher-quality, video game assets are lower-resolution and are buoyed by development tricks to make them seem more realistic. “The interesting thing is a lot of times artists are having to make those super high-poly models anyways, they just have to take an extra step and build the low-poly model, put a lot of time and care into that and then bake all the high-quality details into a normal map,” says Epic Games VP of engineering Nick Penwarden. “ Now they don’t have to do the extra work of building that optimized low-poly asset and they get higher quality visuals.” What’s more, Epic says that the level of quality seen in the demo is going to be easier to replicate, especially from smaller developers who previously didn’t have the scale or time to render games at this level. Assets at this kind of level and quality will be available on the Unreal store for other developers to easily use.

"It's really easy. You go to the Quixel asset store, download the rocks and the mountains, and the assets you want, and you just place them in there," says Libreri. "It's actually massively lowering the barrier of entry of how complex it is to make a game level."

Epic Games also announced that it’s waiving royalties on the first $1 million in game revenue starting today, meaning developers using Unreal Engine will keep more of their profits. Epic Online Services is also available to make cross-platform play easier. Fortnite will be released on next-gen consoles at launch and will be migrated to Unreal Engine 5 in mid-2021. Sweeney says Fortnite will likely be the first game running on Unreal Engine 5, but there are plenty of next-gen games currently in development using Unreal Engine 4 and even some first-party games will use Unreal Engine, though Sweeney did not specify whether it’s Unreal Engine 4 or 5. Unreal Engine 5 will be available in preview early 2021, with a full release scheduled for later that year, and will support current- and next-gen consoles, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN.

2K has announced Mafia: Trilogy via a new teaser trailer suggesting a return to the beloved series. Watch the first tease below for Mafia: Trilogy, which offers brief teases over dialogue focused on the clear running theme of the franchise — family. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/13/mafia-trilogy-teaser-trailer"] 2K hasn't offered much detail about Mafia: Trilogy beyond the teaser, which includes both the logos for publisher 2K and Hangar 13 (the studio that previously developed Mafia III). There will be a proper announcement on May 19. Recently, we did learn Mafia II and Mafia III definitive editions have been listed by international games ratings boards. Of course, given its name, this new release will likely offer some compilation of the three main Mafia games, the first of which debuted in 2002. Developed by Illusion Softworks, Mafia received a 9.2 from IGN, which called it a "great game with some minor problems that are easily forgotten once you get into the meat of the game." Mafia 2 came several years later in 2010, and IGN's Mafia 2 review called it "an interesting mobster tale with some great voice acting and cool cutscenes; if you have a 'made man' itch, feel free to scratch it here, but be prepared for a pretty standard third-person shooter in the gameplay department." Mafia III came after a similar gap, debuting in 2016. IGN's Mafia III review said the sequel's "strong characters and confident storytelling kept me engaged, even if the gameplay rarely delivered anything but bog-standard and repetitive open-world action. That’s a bummer, because Lincoln is an incredible protagonist and New Bordeaux is a fantastic setting thematically, and it would’ve been great to see them put to better use." Mafia II and Mafia III both saw several DLC packs released after their respective launches. [poilib element="poll" parameters="id=0cffccfc-8d24-4788-8d89-ca10786c5634"] Since the third game in the series' launch, Hangar 13 saw its number of offices expand, but the studio has remained relatively quiet after its Mafia III development. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior News Editor and Host of Podcast Beyond! Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.