Monthly Archives: June 2020

New Footage of Cancelled Avengers Game Emerges

Ten minutes of new footage from the cancelled first-person Avengers game has been uploaded to the internet, captured from an early build that was secured by a video game preservation community. This version of the Avengers game was discovered on a hard drive by Obscure Gamers, and the footage uploaded by Andrew Borman, the digital games curator at the Museum of Play. In the tweet above you can see Captain America in action, hurling his shield at enemy Skrulls, and the full video on YouTube also demonstrates Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk in action, too. The footage is clearly taken from an early build of the game, which features sparse, undetailed levels, placeholder collectables, and untextured enemy models. But despite the early nature of the assets, you can easily see the kind of first-person co-op brawling gameplay that the project was working towards. This Avengers project was set to be a co-op game that would coincide with the release of the first Avengers movie, and was inspired by the Secret Invasion comic book story arc in which the Skrulls invade earth by shapeshifting into members of society and taking their place. In the menus we can spot several key Marvel locations as levels, including SHIELD’s headquarters, the Triskelion. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2015/04/14/what-would-be-your-dream-avengers-game"] The game, which was in development in 2011 at THQ Studio Australia and Blue Tongue Entertainment, was eventually cancelled after THQ suffered financial troubles and was eventually forced to close. While this Avengers co-op game sadly never saw completion and release, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix are currently working on a new, third-person Marvel’s Avengers co-op game, due to release this September. You’ll be able to see more from the game as part of IGN’s Summer of Gaming event, where more will be shown of the War Table feature. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter

Batwoman: Kate Kane Won’t Be Recast, New Character to Lead Series

The CW is reportedly looking to replace Kate Kane with an entirely new character for Batwoman Season 2 after Ruby Rose's shock departure from the lead role. The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that the show has opted to find a new identity for Batwoman rather than recast Rose's role of Kate Kane, a cousin of Bruce Wayne, following the circulation of a leaked casting call in a Batwoman Reddit forum. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/08/08/why-arrowverses-batwoman-casting-is-perfect"] Decider picked up on the since-deleted callout searching for an actor to portray the new character, identified in the listing as "Ryan Wilder" (though it is not clear whether this is a placeholder name), a woman in her mid-20s who "is about to become Batwoman." "She's likeable, messy, a little goofy and untamed. She's also nothing like Kate Kane, the woman who wore the batsuit before her," the notice reads, per the outlet. "With no one in her life to keep her on track, Ryan spent years as a drug-runner, dodging the GCPD and masking her pain with bad habits," it continues. "A girl who would steal milk for an alley cat could also kill you with her bare hands, Ryan is the most dangerous type of fighter: highly skilled and wildly undisciplined. An out lesbian. Athletic. Raw. Passionate. Fallible. And very much not your stereotypical All-American hero." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=batwoman-season-1-photos&captions=true"] Warner Bros. and The CW previously confirmed that they would recast the role of Batwoman with another LGBTQ actor for the already commissioned second season, which is moving forward without Rose after she announced she would be hanging up the cape and cowl. Rose has not confirmed the exact reason for her sudden exit from the series, though some reports have suggested that friction arose on set after Rose became unhappy with the long hours required for the lead role on the 20-episode season. Our review of Batwoman's first season finale was full of praise, so hopefully, the right person will be found in order to propel the show into a great second season. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Pokemon Sword and Shield: Isle of Armor Expansion Gets Release Date, New Details

New details have been revealed about Pokemon Sword and Shield's Expansion Pass, including the release date of the first content pack, the Isle of Armor, which will launch on June 17. The Pokemon Company has revealed a new trailer for the entire Expansion Pass, giving us a better look at the new features coming to the game with the two DLC packs, The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/06/03/pokemon-sword-and-shield-isle-of-armor-and-crown-tundra-expansion-pass-trailer"] Aside from the release date, we were also introduced to two new Pokemon from the Regi family - Regieleki (electric-type) and Regidrago (dragon-type). We were also introduced to Galarian Slowbro, a poison/psychic type with a new move, Shell Side Arm, which is unique to this form. We also learned more about the Galarian forms of the original legendary birds that we were introduced to earlier this year: Galarian Articuno is psychic/flying, Galarian Zapdos is fighting/flying, and Galrian Moltres is dark/flying. The Isle of Armor will bring Gigantimax forms of all three final evolution starter Pokemon - Rillaboom, Cinderace and Inteleon, adding powerful new G-Max moves to their skillset. You can check out the new Gigantamax Forms in our Pokemon Sword and Shield Wiki. The Isle of Armor will also add in Pokemon that did not appear in the main game, such as Azurill and Chansey. A series of new Pokemon will also be brought to the game across the Expansion Pass, including new legendaries such as Kubfu, Urshifu and Calyrex. You can check out a huge set of new screenshots from the Expansion Pass in the gallery below: [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=pokemon-sword-and-shield-isle-of-armor-screenshots&captions=true"] We're still yet to learn about the release date for The Crown Tundra, the frosty second expansion pack which was revealed back in January. The expansion pass marks a new step for the Pokemon franchise - which has previously preferred to release new versions of the same game, or semi-sequels. We think this is a very good next step. We awarded Pokemon Sword and Shield a 9.3 review, and since named it one of the best Nintendo Switch games. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Mission: Impossible 7: Simon Pegg Explains How & When Production Will Restart

Simon Pegg has shared an update on how the Mission: Impossible 7 team is aiming to get back into production by September, several months after filming was halted due to coronavirus (COVID-19). Speaking to Variety, Pegg, who plays tech expert Benji Dunn in the franchise, confirmed that a September restart is currently "the plan" for the Christopher McQuarrie-directed movie. "That will begin with the outdoor stuff," he revealed. "That feels fairly doable, and obviously there will be precautions put in place." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/07/13/mission-impossible-in-7-minutes-2018-update"] Pegg noted that the large-scale shoot would likely present some challenges along the way, as he suggested that logistics would need to be figured out for shooting certain scenes, especially when the action moves indoors. He jokingly remarked that fight scenes would need to be shot "five feet apart." "People that are involved in any close proximity stuff, it will have to be determined that they're safe to do that," he explained to the outlet. "I don't know what the testing situation is, how that works, or whether they'll be able to be tested regularly." First assistant director Tommy Gormley further addressed the complexities of shooting the film's "stunt scenes" and "crowd scenes" in a separate interview with BBC Radio 4's Today show, though he also displayed confidence in the production picking up in September and running right the way through to April/May next year. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/07/30/christopher-mcquarrie-breaks-down-mission-impossible-fallouts-bathroom-scene"] "This is our challenge," he said. "We are not a chamber piece movie. We do spectacle, and that is what people expect of us. If we have the protocols in place and we break down all the procedures very carefully... we will get it going again. "We hope to visit all the countries we planned to and look to do a big chunk of it back in the UK on the backlot and in the studio," he added. "So September through to end April/May is our targets. We are convinced we can do this." The cast and crew of Mission: Impossible 7 were apparently poised to shoot a major sequence in Italy when that country went into lockdown and production on the Tom Cruise-led film shut down indefinitely. This setback in the shooting schedule reportedly forced Nicholas Hoult to drop out of the production altogether. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-delayed-movie-due-to-coronavirus-so-far&captions=true"] Amid these shifts and delays in production, Paramount Pictures pushed back the release of Mission: Impossible 7 from July 23, 2021, to November 19, 2021. Mission: Impossible 8, previously scheduled for wide release on August 5, 2022, has also now been pushed to November 4, 2022. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Sega Announces Palm-Sized Game Gear Micro Console

A set of palm-sized Game Gear Micro consoles have been revealed as part of SEGA's 60th anniversary celebrations. The Game Gear Micro is currently only available to preorder in Japan and will launch on October 6th. At time of writing, there has been no news of a Western release for the device. The console has a one-inch screen, and will arrive in four colour schemes, each with a different set of four games preloaded (full list below). The fun-sized device will offer a headphone jack, charge via USB and use two AAA batteries for power. Sega is currently offering a promotion where, if you buy all four variants of the Game Gear Micro, you will receive a special Big Window accessory that magnifies the screen while you play. The console will retail in Japan for 4,980 yen, which roughly equates to £40 or $50. You can check out the games preloaded on each colour of micro console below:

Black

  • Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Puyo Puyo 2
  • Out Run
  • Royal Stone

Blue

  • Sonic & Tails
  • Gunstar Heroes
  • Sylvan Tale
  • Baku Baku Animal

Yellow

  • Shining Force 1
  • Shining Force 2
  • Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict
  •  Nazo Puyo: Arle no Roux

Red

  • Revelations: The Demon Slayer
  • Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible Special
  • The G.G. Shinobi
  • Columns
As for the rest of Sega's 60th-anniversary celebrations, the company has launched an anniversary website which offers a timeline of its history in games. We reviewed the SEGA Genesis Mini last year, calling it "as close to perfect as any retro all-in-one mini console has come so far." [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Cyberpunk News Showcase Delayed to June 25

The Cyberpunk 2077 news broadcast, Night City Wire has been delayed to June 25. Originally scheduled for June 11, developer CD Projekt Red explained that the move was due to the current protests and outcry following the death of George Floyd. "More important discussions are happening right now", reads the statement, "and we want them to be heard. We wholeheartedly stand against racism, intolerance and violence. Black Lives Matter." CD Projekt Red joins Sony's PS5 event and IGN Expo in delaying events due to current circumstances. Night City Wire is part of IGN's Summer of Gaming. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Warzone, and Mobile Seasons Delayed

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Warzone, and Call of Duty: Mobile's upcoming seasons have been delayed in response to the ongoing worldwide protests following the death of George Floyd. Call of Duty's Twitter account tweeted that it is "not the time" and that it would be "moving the launches of Modern Warfare Season 4 and Call of Duty: Mobile Season 7 to later dates. Right now it's time for those speaking up for equality, justice, and change to be seen and heard. We stand alongside you." Call of Duty There is no indication as to the new dates for these new seasons, but Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's fourth season was set to launch on June 3, while Call of Duty: Mobile's was also set for this week. This news follows the announcement that Sony would also be delaying its PlayStation 5 reveal event from June 4 to a later date. As for what Season 4 will hold for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, a recent tease may have hinted that Captain Price could potentially become a new operator in multiplayer. [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 not say this loudly enough - #BlackLivesMatter. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

The Last of Us Part 2 Director Details New Enemy Factions

The Last of Us Part 2 is Naughty Dog’s biggest game yet, and while that doesn’t mean the sequel is going open world, it does mean Naughty Dog is aiming to create an expansive, varied new series of environments for players to explore and survive. Speaking to IGN ahead of The Last of Us Part 2’s final preview embargo, Director Neil Druckmann explained both the development team’s approach to creating Seattle, and how the introduction of new enemy factions added more variety to both story and gameplay. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/06/01/the-last-of-part-2-the-final-preview"] “One of the reasons we picked Seattle is because of how many diverse locations it has. We knew we're going to spend a lot of time in the city and, like a good Naughty Dog game, we need to switch things up as far as art styles and locations go,” Druckmann said, noting the variety of city, residential, and environmental areas in the Pacific Northwest. “So the team studied a lot of the architecture of the city, the foliage that grows in that part of the country. They scanned different materials so we can make them authentic.” These decisions of course, are in concert with ensuring the level designers can create interesting exploration and combat spaces for players — as Druckmann said, they do a bit of “location scouting.” “And then the level designers what they would do is also study that architecture as well,” he said. “What are interesting locations for exploration or for our new physics system to get different kinds of puzzles. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/the-last-of-us-part-2-state-of-play-impressions-beyond-episode-647"] “For combat, this has been an ongoing principle, [we want] to combine the familiar with the unfamiliar,” Druckmann continued, noting that residential areas, now overgrown with vegetation in this post-pandemic world, can offer something unexpected. Druckmann also pointed to how the use of Seattle’s sewers and other similarly “creepy, dank areas” allowed the team to play up the sequel’s horror elements. “We have Stalkers that are grown into the wall and sometimes they're dead and nothing will happen, and sometimes they’ll rip off the wall and charge at you,” he teased. Seattle is also home to the Washington Liberation Front and the Seraphites, two groups Ellie will contend with that offer new combat challenges playing to the strengths of the environmental design. “You have the WLF, this secular militaristic faction and then the Seraphites, this religious group that has rejected technology of the old world and they built everything from the ground up,” Druckmann said. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-last-of-us-part-2-new-screenshots&captions=true"] “Those two groups and their conflicts speaks to the cycle of violence, but mechanically how we wanted to separate them, the WLF has accrued all this military equipment. So they use more machine guns and they have vehicles in certain setups,” he continued. “But the Searphites, what makes them creepy and scary to go up against is they’re very stealthy and quiet ... and they'll sneak up on you and use the vegetation the way that Ellie does and the WLF doesn't.” For more, read up on what Druckmann recently had to say about how the infected enemies in The Last of Us Part 2 have changed, as well as what he told us last year about how enemy dogs lead to tough choices in The Last of Us Part 2. Learn about some of the incredible tiny details Naughty Dog is filling the sequel with, and find out when you can read IGN's The Last of Us Part 2 review. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior News Editor, host of Podcast Beyond!, IGN's weekly PlayStation podcast. Find him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

The Artist Behind Batman Costumes Made the SpaceX Astronaut Suits

The NASA astronauts aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon ventured into space in suits custom-made by the same artist who helped suit up and armor many big screen superheroes, from Batman and Wonder Woman to Captain America and Wolverine. Ironhead Studio's Jose Fernandez created the very cool and elegant flight suits worn by the SpaceX astronauts, which you can check out below: Fernandez applied what he learned creating form-fitting but flexible garb on superhero movies to the Daft Punk-esque SpaceX suits. (The Daft Punk resemblance is no accident, as Forbes points out, since Fernandez has made some of the musicians' signature helmets.) Fernandez credits SpaceX founder Elon Musk with the visual formality of the flight suits. "He (Musk) kept saying, 'Anyone looks better in a tux, no matter what size or shape they are,' and when people put this space suit on, he wants them to look better than they did without it, like a tux. You look heroic in it," Fernandez explained to Forbes. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=batman-ranking-the-movie-batsuits&captions=true"] But the SpaceX flight suits weren't just designed for style but for function and safety. As an expert in joinery, Fernandez was able to build suits made of different materials which have to meet up perfectly and also be air proof. Fernandez was also able to address an issue that's dogged NASA since the era of the Apollo missions: astronauts not being able to move their heads thanks to their bolted-on helmets and thus having an obstructed field of vision. As the artist who sculpted the cowl that allowed Ben Affleck's Caped Crusader to turn his head in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Fernandez's helmets have an articulated neck piece among other features that make these flight suits lighter and allow better vision for the astronauts. In the tweet seen below, NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley praise the suits for their comfortability and ease in getting in and out of in a zero gravity environment: In addition to Batfleck's cowl, Fernandez's Ironhead Studio also created that film's Bat-mech suit. He previously worked on Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin. Fernandez also worked on Wonder Woman's armor in BvS. Fernandez has also lent his skills to plenty of Marvel movies, sculpting the helmets for Captain America, Thor, Loki, and Magneto. Ironhead also built the Black Panther helmet from Captain America: Civil War. Fernandez also designed and sculpted the makeup, helmet, and armor for Thanos in Marvel's The Avengers, and worked on The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Abe Sapien in Hellboy, and The Thing in the original Fantastic Four movies. He also designed and constructed the specialty costumes in X2: X-Men United, including Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. You can view Fernandez and Ironhead's many comic book movie designs on Instagram. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/designing-the-perfect-batsuit"]

Sony Delays PS5 June Reveal Event

Sony has announced that it has decided to delay the PlayStation 5 reveal event, originally set for June 4. "We have decided to postpone the PlayStation 5 event scheduled for June 4. While we understand gamers worldwide are excited to see PS5 games, we do not feel that right now is a time for celebration and for now, we want to stand back and allow more important voices to be heard," the statement reads. Sony originally had announced last week a PS5 reveal event for this Thursday, June 4, which would have debuted games set for Sony's next-gen console, the PlayStation 5. Since that announcement, in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic the world is facing, protests around the United States and the world have been ongoing, centering on police brutality following the death of George Floyd. Sony has not announced any rescheduling plans for the event or its included announcements. It remains unclear at this time whether planned games will be showcased in the weeks and months to come or if Sony will put together a replacement event down the line. The PS5 is still set for a holiday 2020 launch, and Sony CEO Jim Ryan recently said the COVID-19 pandemic has not changed the company's plans for the PS5 price. The only aspect of the physical console Sony has shown is the DualSense, the PS5's new controller.