For a while now, the PlayStation brand has been evolving. No longer simply meaning the console that sits under your television, the word "PlayStation" now applies to movies, television shows, or even the brand's console exclusive games appearing on PC.

Now, speaking to a handful of media outlets, Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst has outlined a bit more of what's in store for PlayStation's expanding future.

One clear pillar of PlayStation's business strategy moving forward is live service games, as previously proven by Sony's $3.7 billion acquisition of Bungie. According to Hulst, Bungie's role in the PlayStation family will partially be to serve as an example of how to handle the live service model.

“I've been a long-time admirer of Bungie,” the executive told GQ. “They speak our language and so they've been doing this for a decade since the original release of Destiny. So the battle scars that they have earned, coupled with their absolute transparency means I can’t think of a better partner to have in that space.”

Meanwhile, Hulst told Axios that PlayStation has greenlit 12 total projects in the live ops space. This lines up with the number Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said back in February when we learned PlayStation plans to launch more than ten live service games by March 2026. At the time, Totoki also credited the Bungie acquisition as a key reason why developing, releasing, and sustaining so many live service games should be possible in that window.

You can likely expect PlayStation's live service offerings to be a mix of new IP and recognizable franchises. Hulst told GQ that PlayStation has "about 25 titles in development", and that roughly half of the projects in development are new IP. He also said that PlayStation is "not excluding bringing some of our beloved existing franchises into live games.”

Sony's recent AAA offerings have largely forgone multiplayer altogether, with games like The Last of Us Part II, Horizon Forbidden West, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and the upcoming God of War Ragnarok serving as solo experiences. There are exceptions to that, though, with Ghost of Tsushima Legends and Returnal's multiplayer support both arriving after launch.

As we know, some Sony studios are instead developing standalone multiplayer projects, rather than grouping them in with single player experiences. We know The Last of Us is getting a standalone multiplayer title, and recent rumors suggest a multiplayer Horizon game could be in the works.

Even though Sony will begin to spend more resources on multiplayer live service offerings, Hulst appears to remain committed to Sony's flagship single-player titles, telling Axios that the narrative-driven single-player games aren't going anywhere. They are seemingly taking longer to get here, however, with a history of delays for Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok, while Spider-Man 2 is currently the only major Sony-published exclusive on the books for 2023, outside of the company's PSVR 2 plans.

While the wait continues for new exclusives on PS5, PC players are finally starting to experience some of the best games the PlayStation 4 has to offer. Recently, franchises like God of War, Spider-Man, and Uncharted have started appearing on PC, which will seemingly continue in the future.

Hulst told Reuters that "further investments in areas that will strengthen the expansion on to PC" are a definite possibility.

It's not just a PS5 and PC party from now on, though. In the interview with Axios, Hulst also mentioned bringing more games to PS4 on a "case-by-case basis,” and discussed building up Sony's "internal capability" to make mobile games. Earlier this year, Sony formed its PlayStation Studios Mobile Division to start working on mobile games based on new and existing IPs.

Finally, when Hulst was speaking to Reuters about Sony's recent investment in Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, Hulst said it's "not unthinkable" that PlayStation Productions could work on an entertainment adaptation of a FromSoftware property. FromSoftware is the developer of Elden Ring, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and the Dark Souls series.

For even more on PlayStation, check out how Sony is apparently planning to make 2 million PSVR 2 units for launch. Or read about how the PS5 has seemingly been jailbroken, with people already installing Hideo Kojima's PT.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Frasier has entered the building – that’s right, Frasier is back in a new sequel for Paramount Plus.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the long-gestating Frasier revival has finally been officially confirmed, with Kelsey Grammer returning to the iconic role of Dr. Frasier Crane.

Paramount Plus has picked up the show for a full series order, a whole 19 months after the show was originally green-lit.

“Having spent over 20 years of my creative life on the Paramount lot, both producing shows and performing in several, I'd like to congratulate Paramount+ on its entry into the streaming world,” said Grammer back when it was announced in 2021. “I gleefully anticipate sharing the next chapter in the continuing journey of Dr. Frasier Crane.”

The show has been in the works for some time, with early reports that Grammer was eyeing a Frasier revival back in 2018.

This version of the show was said to be set somewhere other than Seattle, and it looks as though the confirmed sequel will stick to this premise. The new Frasier sequel is said to follow Dr. Crane starting the next phase of his life in a new city… and it looks as though he’s getting a clean break. Niles (David Hyde Pierce), Daphne (Jane Leeves), and Roz (Peri Gilpin) won’t be season regulars.

Although, it’s also said that they could make guest appearances.

Unfortunately, with the death of John Maloney in 2018, the new series will be forced to write out his character, Frasier’s Dad, Martin Crane.

Instead, the upcoming show will feature a new cast of characters – people who are a big part of Frasier’s new life.

Chris Harris and Joe Cristalli will write the new series and are on board as executive producers along with Grammer, Tom Russo, and Jordan McMahon. CBS Studios is producing with Grammer’s own production company, Grammnet NH.

The last time we saw Frasier, he had boarded a plane to jet off to a new life, landing in Chicago to be with his girlfriend, Charlotte (Laura Linney) despite previously taking a job in San Francisco.

It’s currently unknown whether Linney is involved in the new series… or whether Frasier has even remained in Chicago. So for now, we’ll have to wait and see.

Want to read more about Frasier? Check out the canceled TV shows that deserve a revival as well as the 16 shared universes before there were shared universes.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

The upcoming Spider-Man spin-off El Muerto has found its director – Jonás Cuaron.

According to The Wrap, the director, who’s known for directing the 2015 thriller Desierto, has joined the project, bringing the obscure Spider-Man character to the big screen.

Additionally, Blue Beetle writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer is currently penning the script, which is reportedly in early development.

El Muerto will star the Puerto Rican musician, Bad Bunny (aka Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio) as the super-powered Mexican masked wrestler. Bad Bunny was Spotify's most-streamed artist in 2020 with 8.3 billion streams, and again in 2021 with 9.1 billion streams. Primarily known as a rapper, Bad Bunny recently made his film debut in Bullet Train.

In the comic books, El Muerto (real name Juan Carlos Estrada Sanchez) is the son of a luchador who finds that he’s set to inherit a mystical wrestling mask that will imbue him with superhuman strength and endurance.

The character first appeared in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #6 in 2006 which sees Spider-Man face off against the wrestler at a charity event organized by J. Jonah Jameson… a fight which would see the loser unmasked and his identity revealed.

Whether or not this fight makes it into the movie remains to be seen, but it would certainly be an interesting way to expand the Spider-Verse, which has seen Venom and Morbius bring some of its major characters to the big screen.

Of course, the Spider-Verse is about to get even bigger, with Kraven the Hunter on its way in 2023 with Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the leading role. Then, there’s Madame Webb in 2024 starring Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney.

Adding Jonás Cuaron as director certainly lends the film a certain pedigree… and with El Muerto more on the fringe of the Spider-Verse than in the center of it, I get the feeling the film is going to need it.

Want to read more about the Spider-Verse? Check out every Spider-Man movie in development as well as what’s next for Sony’s Spider-Man universe.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

If you're struggling to find a match in Overwatch 2, Blizzard shared that it is currently under a mass distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, preventing successful matchmaking.

Blizzard president Mike Ybarra shared that the Overwatch 2 servers are under a mass DDoS attack and that the teams are working to mitigate the damage.

Unfortunately we are experiencing a mass DDoS attack on our servers. Teams are working hard to mitigate/manage. This is causing a lot of drop/connection issues. https://t.co/4GwrfHEiBE

— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) October 4, 2022

It's unclear how long it will take for the servers to be fully functioning, but it is marring the launch of Overwatch 2 which Blizzard has been planning for months.

Social media is full of players sharing their failed matchmaking attempts and extended queues, which are partially related to the DDoS attack.

According to the Overwatch 2 official issues page, players on both PC and consoles are encountering "Unexpected Server Errors," along with issues like certain cosmetics and items not showing up in their collection.

Players are also being disconnected from servers.

The official Overwatch Twitter page will likely be the best source for updated information. In the meantime, you can check out IGN's full review of Overwatch 2 to find out our thoughts on Blizzard's long-awaited sequel.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Dune: The Sisterhood has found its lead Harkonnens – Emily Watson and Shirley Henderson.

According to Variety, the pair have been added to the upcoming Dune prequel series in the show’s leading roles – two Harkonnen sisters fighting for humankind.

The show is set 10,000 years before Dune: Part One and “follows the Harkonnen Sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect known as the Bene Gesserit”.

Based on the novel, Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, the upcoming show is thought to follow Valya and Tula Harkonnen – both characters present in the novels. The character descriptions reveal that the two sisters “have risen to power in the Sisterhood, a secret organization of women who will go on to become the Bene Gesserit.”

Dune: The Sisterhood promises to establish the foundation of the Bene Gesserit – the mysterious sisterhood that Paul’s mother (Rebecca Fergusson) belongs to in Dune.

Emily Watson will play Valya Harkonnen – a member of the Bene Gesserit who eventually becomes the second Reverend Mother Superior in the novels. Watson is best known for Breaking the Waves as well as Hilary and Jackie which both earned her Oscar nominations. She also appeared in the HBO series, Chernobyl.

Shirley Henderson will play Tula Harkonnen – Valya’s sister and fellow member of the Bene Gesserit. Henderson is best known for the role of Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She also voiced fan-favourite Star Wars character, Babu Frik, in The Rise of Skywalker as well as starring in Trainspotting and its sequel.

IGN’s Dune review gave it 7/10 and said: “Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is beautiful to behold, a faithful adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel. Or of its first half, that is. And therein lies the problem that the film faces, for in cutting this story into two parts, Villeneuve has front-loaded Dune with a lot of set-up and no obvious way to end things… and so it lingers, and eventually overstays its welcome. This is a technically brilliant, visually amazing movie with a top-notch cast and deep sci-fi concepts. A shame, then, that it feels like a drag in its back half.”

Want to read more about Dune? Check out who’s playing Feyd-Rautha in the upcoming sequel and find out about director Dennis Villeneuve’s original epic Dune opening.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Sega and Relic Games have announced that Company of Heroes 3 is being delayed to February 23, 2023.

“As we approach the November 17th launch for Company of Heroes 3, our team has decided the game is not quite up to our players’ or our own high standards. There are still bugs to squash, pixels to polish, gameplay to adjust, and feedback to address,” the development team explained on Twitter.

Important Company of Heroes 3 Update pic.twitter.com/z0Pg7PsE10

— Company Of Heroes (@CompanyOfHeroes) October 4, 2022

They continued, “As a result, we’ve decided to move the launch date to February 23, 2023. While we know many of you are itching to get your hands on the game, we believe this to be the best decision for CoH3, our players, and our studio. This provides our hard-working team and partners with the necessary time to deliver CoH3 in a better overall state.”

Company of Heroes 3 has joined the list of many games being delayed to the next year, which includes titles such as Forspoken, Starfield, and Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals.

Company of Heroes 3 will sport features such as modding tools. In IGN’s Company of Heroes 3 North Africa campaign mission hands-on preview, we said, “It also proves Company of Heroes 3 is really not messing around with stretching your skills as a commander to the breaking point, if you're up to the challenge.”

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey

PlayStation’s live service games could be seeing a day and date release on PC along with the usual PlayStation launch, but other kinds of games will take at least a year.

In an interview with YouTuber Julien Chieze, PlayStation CEO Hermen Hulst says, “I think going forward, we’ll see at least a year between our own platform, PlayStation, and on the PC platform…possibly with the exception of live service games.”

He continues, “Live service games are a little bit different in nature because you want to have a really strong community and really strong engagement right away when you go live. We might, in the case of our live service offerings, go day and date with PC and the PlayStation platform.”

PlayStation has continued to push further into the PC market, releasing games onto the platform like Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Days Gone, and Marvel’s Spider-Man. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection and Sackboy: A Big Adventure are making their way onto PC this month too, along with Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and The Last of Us Part I sometime later.

PlayStation is also trying to expand its live service and multiplayer games, as studios such as Haven are working on a live-service title right now and Naughty Dog is developing a multiplayer game set in The Last of Us universe. Sony is also reportedly making a multiplayer game set in the Horizon universe.

While PlayStation is venturing into more live-service games, it also said that gamers won’t have to worry about single-player narrative falling by the wayside.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey

The Moon may have formed almost immediately following a devastating impact between Earth and a Mars-sized world in the ancient past, according to the results of a new supercomputer study.

Earth’s moon is a silent witness to the history of our entire species. Its gravitational influence is responsible for the tides, and its simple presence in the night sky has profoundly influenced humanity’s cultural development.

Yet despite its ever present nature, the scientific community have yet to come to a consensus on how exactly Earth’s largest natural satellite came to form.

It is widely agreed that the Moon was created when a roughly Mars-sized solar system body — which has been dubbed Theia — collided with Earth roughly 4.5 billion years ago. This impact devastated both our planet, and primordial Theia, and sent vast amounts of material from both worlds hurtling into Earth’s orbit.

Many of the previous theories surrounding the Moon’s formation suggest that it slowly coalesced from this soup of orbital debris, until finally the remainder of the material not accumulated by the satellite fell back in towards Earth.

In this scenario, the orbital debris would have been largely comprised of the remains of Theia. However, rock samples recovered from the Moon’s surface by Apollo-era astronauts showed a surprising structural and isotopic similarity to those found on Earth.

Whilst it is possible, the authors of a new study found it unlikely that the material from Theia would have such a close match with that of the Earth.

In the new study, a team of researchers from Durham University in the UK used the powerful DiRAC supercomputing facility to run a range of simulations that could account for the creation of Earth’s moon.

The supercomputer used a significantly larger number of particles to simulate the ancient collision compared to previous studies. According to the team, lower resolution simulations can omit important aspects of the collision process.

Over the course of the study, the scientists ran hundreds of these high-resolution simulations while varying a range of key parameters, including the masses, spins, angles, and speeds of the two unfortunate worlds.

The simulations revealed that a large body with a Moon-like mass and iron content could have coalesced almost immediately in orbit following the Earth-Theia collision. The detailed simulation showed that the newly born hypothetical satellite would have been created beyond the Roche limit - which is the orbital distance at which a satellite can orbit a planet without being shredded by its gravity.

Furthermore, the outer layers of such a world would be rich in material ejected from Earth, thus explaining the similarities between the Apollo-era rocks and those from our planet.

“This formation route could help explain the similarity in isotopic composition between the lunar rocks returned by the Apollo astronauts and Earth’s mantlle," explains study co-author Vincent Eke, an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Exeter. “There may also be observable consequences for the thickness of the lunar crust, which would allow us to pin down further the type of collision that took place.”

If the Moon did form quickly following the impact, then its internal structure would likely be different than if it had grown gradually from a circumplanetary disk of debris. Astronauts returning to the Moon in the coming decades under NASA’s Artemis Program will collect fresh samples from the lunar surface that can be used to test the quick formation theory.

The research could help update scientist’s understanding as to how moons form in the orbits of distant worlds spread throughout the universe.

Anthony Wood is a freelance science writer for IGN

Image Credit: Dr Jacob Kegerreis

Elon Musk has agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion, averting a trial that had been set for later this month. AP reporter Seung Min Kim broke the news of the agreement.

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk averts trial, agrees to $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 4, 2022

This follows a report by Bloomberg, in which Musk reportedly offered to buy the social media app for $54.20 a share — the original offer Musk proposed back in April. In July, however, Musk withdrew his offer to buy the company; in response, Twitter announced it would file a lawsuit to try and get Musk to complete the deal.

"We received the letter from the Musk parties which they have filed with the SEC. The intention of the Company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share," a Twitter spokesperson told IGN via email.

The trial date was set for October 17th. Ahead of the trial, Twitter's shareholders announced last month that they approved Musk's original proposal to buy Twitter. During a pretrial hearing last week, Musk argued that Twitter has been withholding the truth about how many bots are on the platform.

As Intelligencer notes, Musk hired five companies to analyze Twitter's bot numbers. One company confirmed Twitter's bot user numbers. However, the outlet notes that the other company says "with only weak confidence that the number of bots in Twitter's mDAU metric was as high as 11 percent."

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Thumbnail image credit: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

The U.S. government's National Labor Relations Board has found that Call of Duty and Overwatch publisher Activision Blizzard withheld pay raises from some Raven Software employees as a result of their unionization. Activision Blizzard has disputed this, however, saying it wasn't possible to offer raises due to "legal obligations".

As reported by The Washington Post, the NLRB's findings will likely fall in favor of the Raven employees in their ongoing negotiations with Activision Blizzard. The group of quality assurance workers became the first union at a major North American video game company in May 2022 and filed the NLRB complaint in September.

"It’s a very preliminary win for the union at this point. It gives them a little bit of leverage," said former chairman of the NLRB Wilma Liebman. "It’s part of their tactics, you know, hit them wherever they can, to put pressure on the company in order to reach an agreement with them and to stop violating the law."

Activision Blizzard — who announced that the unionized employees would not be receiving a pay rise given to 1,100 other QA workers in July — has maintained that it's not an active decision made by itself but is instead a legal issue.

"Due to legal obligations under the [National Labor Relations Act] requiring employers not to grant wage increases while an election was pending, we could not institute new pay initiatives at Raven," a spokesperson told The Washington Post.

Essentially, Activision Blizzard claims it legally wasn't able to offer the employees a pay rise because they were in the midst of voting to unionize, as per Labor Board v. Exchange Parts Co., 375 U.S. 405 (1964). The company was found to be actively discouraging the union efforts, however, as it sent emails to employees that read: "Please vote no".

It's unclear how long the negotiations between the union and Activision Blizzard will go on, or how successful they will be for either side, but the move has already sparked others to follow suit. What is certain, however, is that Xbox boss Phil Spencer will recognize the union if Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.