Sony is seemingly looking at developing its back button attachment for the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller, according to a new patent.
A new 'controller add-on device with customizable presets' document was published on the World Intellectual Property Organization
database on February 4, which suggests that Sony wants to develop the accessory to function with the PS5's gamepad. According to the patent, Sony filed the required paperwork on June 29, 2020, and the document's publication would seemingly enable Sony to begin production on a DualSense back button attachment.
Images (below) seem to show a near-identical peripheral to the
PS4 back button attachment released last year. We called that attachment "easy to recommend", despite being "a little on the weird side"
in a 7/10 review. At the time, we even wondered if it meant the DualSense would have in-built back buttons,
but that wasn't to be – it seems Sony is now offering an option for that.
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Source: World Intellectual Property Organization[/caption]
Like the PlayStation 4's DualShock controller peripheral, the DualSense gamepad accessory would couple onto the input slots at the base of the PS5's controller. The buttons on the accessory would also be fully customizable, which would allow users to map command pre-sets based on each button press. The patent indicates that the back button add-on would allow more buttons to be "within the reach of the user while using certain functions" as some button prompts "may be out of reach for the average hand while using certain functions".
It's unclear if Sony will press ahead with production on its DualSense back button add-on, or if this is the company merely covering themselves against third-party accessories. Sony has previously pressured Customize My Plates, a third-party PS5 plate maker, into
canceling its custom-created orders, and the PS5 back button patent may be a way to prevent other companies from creating their own back button accessories.
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News of this PS5 back button add-on patent comes after Sony revealed that the DualSense controller
would not come automatically fitted with such a device. In September 2020, Sony confirmed that the gamepad would not have back button or trigger functionality, but this patent document suggests that it may not be long before the peripheral is official.
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Tom Power is a UK-based freelance writer. Follow him on Twitter.
There are over a million words in Disco Elysium. That’s not hyperbole. For a benchmark, picture the entirety of The Lord of the Rings - all three books, plus The Hobbit for good measure - twice. And all of those million words, most of which previously sat in silence on the screen, are going to be read aloud in the upcoming Final Cut edition of the game. Full voice acting is coming to Disco Elysium, and - as you can probably guess - it’s been no small undertaking.
Wanting to know more about how this feat has been achieved, I sent a few questions to developer ZA/UM. In response, Disco Elysium’s lead writer, Helen Hindpere, sent me 1,549 words worth of answers, written in such a manner that I felt our interview had become an extension of the game itself. Words, it would seem, are as essential as breathing to the studio.
“I just watched an interview with a Soviet poet from the fifties,” Hindpere tells me. “Arvi Siig, a hero of mine. He said: poetry must belong to the masses.
“I was like: f**k yeah, Arvi! With all my heart I agree. Disco Elysium is a wild and singular adventure, but it’s also meant for the widest possible audience.”
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Currently, Disco Elysium’s mostly speechless original form is only available on PC and Mac. But with The Final Cut, it will arrive on PlayStation in March, and on Xbox and Switch later in 2021. And with those extra platforms comes the potential of a much wider audience. “Games are just so much more accessible with full VO [voiceover], especially RPGs,” says Hindpere. “And it’s crucial for the console experience too… TV screens just aren’t made for reading like monitors are. You need VO.”
Adding voice acting isn’t just about making Disco Elysium accessible to more people, though. ZA/UM wrote the game with VO in mind, and so the Final Cut’s script remains “99% the same” as the original release. As such, the addition of acting brings Disco Elysium closer to its intended vision.
“Our intent was always to simulate how real life conversations work,” says Hindpere. “Not film conversations, or even book conversations, but real conversations. Ours are probably the most sprawling dialogue trees ever written. That’s because Disco Elysium is a conversation simulator. The VO brings us even closer to that.”
Of course, making those conversations come alive requires the right talent. The original version of Disco Elysium has a small amount of voice acting that’s notable for its authentic, scrappy feeling, in part generated by a “ragtag band of miscreants, friends, and friends of friends,” that ZA/UM remains thankful for. These recordings work as the blueprint for The Final Cut’s approach.
“We had to voice the entire character this time, not just the beginnings of the dialogues,” notes Hindpere. “Your conversations take you to some rather extreme places psychologically. So we did re-casting with professional actors. Many we kept too – from the original. Favourites like Kim Kitsuragi and Evrart Claire (Jullian Champenois and Tariq Khan). It’s a mix. Hopefully we kept that colourful vibe, only now with added acting chops.”
Finding the right cast has been a sprawling task. “You need people from all over the world to pull this kind of project off,” says Hindpere. “One day – a Moroccan rapper from the Canaries. The other – a Taiwanese rapper from Taiwan. Then a Liverpudlian scouse comes in and absolutely tears it up as Cuno. The casting process has been very planetary. That’s how we’ve found the right voices, I think.”
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Finding the ideal actors for the likes of The Deserter and Paledriver has been one thing, but the biggest challenge ZA/UM faced was finding a voice to bring the whole experience together. “The narrator is the voice of Disco Elysium,” Hindpere emphasises. “He reads all non-direct speech. This means every object, every parenthesis, and so on. Only when we miraculously stumbled upon Lenval Brown did we know: ok, we have the voice of Disco Elysium now. We can really attempt to do this.”
Brown, who's voice can be heard in the above trailer, is a jazz musician when he’s not bringing video game dialogue to life. He voices around half of Disco Elysium’s script. As a reminder, that’s half a million words, the same as Tolstoy’s War and Peace. “No Lenval – no Disco Elysium VO,” says Hindpere. “It’s that central.”
The role of the narrator in Disco Elysium is much more than a voice to guide the player between conversations. As well as a storyteller, Brown is also the voice of the 24 different skills, which manifest as individual ‘characters’ within the protagonist's mind.
“It seems like a natural choice to have each skill voiced by a different actor, but believe me, it would be awful,” says Hindpere, answering the most obvious question. “Grating, cartoonish, hyperactive. There’s something about Disco Elysium that not a lot of people realize – it’s actually a very calm and cosy game.... It’s cosy, like watching a series of dark detective fiction – while curled up on the couch with your SO. Or reading a book. It has that vibe to it. Taking the skills as narration, rather than a band of harpies tearing at you, was essential to keeping the experience level.”
“As a final note – I’ll get pretty in-depth now, but hey! you’re reading an interview with a Disco Elysium dev so you get what you pay for – in our psychological system the 24 skills all reside in the same part of your character’s brain: the Posterior Neocortex, where modern science says consciousness lies,” adds Hindpere. “The casting sheet literally says: POSTERIOR NEOCORTEX. So the skills all share the voice of the Posterior Neocortex. There are different brain-voices in the game too: the Ancient Reptilian Brain, the Limbic System and the Spinal Cord (all narrate your dreams). Those have different voices, because they are truly different parts of your character’s brain.”
Finding the right actors, inviting back beloved voices, and recording over a million words has taken ZA/UM around 14 months to do. The small studio has done almost all of this while the world has been suffering from the impact of what Hindpere refers to as “the microorganism”, which has meant recording sessions over Zoom and a lot of rescheduling.
“It’s been a whole-studio challenge, too,” Hindpere makes clear. “Everyone is on VO one way or another. We have our own in-house trio of directors working with the actors. Plus every single writer on call and doing QA. We all share the responsibility to get it right. The Final Cut really needs to be the ultimate edition of Disco Elysium.”
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As well as being the ultimate edition, I also think The Final Cut will help deliver the truest version of ZA/UM’s world. I am guilty of waxing lyrical about the world of Revachol and its loftiness, but Hindpere reminds me that Disco Elysium is also weird and wild and wacky.
“Disco Elysium has as much in common with the Eurodance band Scooter and the 2006 comedy “Dude, Where’s My Car?” as it has with… what have we been accused of lately? Hauntology? Existentialism?,” Hindpere says. “We’re about that, but we’re also about Scooter. Faster, Harder, Scooter!”
And… well, yes. It’s all in the title. Disco Elysium. Of course it’s wild. This is a game where you can have debates with your own necktie, afterall. The Apocalypse Cop route, in which you act as a prophet of the end of all things, is delivered with playful absurdity. Full voice work will bring these aspects to life in a way that will balance out the dark, haunting sound of British Sea Power’s score, hopefully making for a version that conveys Disco Elysium’s full personality spectrum for the ears as well as the eyes.
“It feels quite luxurious,” Hindpere says, summing up VO’s impact on the game. “High production values usually do. But then it also feels more direct and personal.”
Disco Elysium already feels like it speaks directly to the player. But currently, the relationship is akin to an author talking to a reader. That in itself has a particular kind of intimacy, and is certainly part of why I find its story so impactful. But the promise of experiencing it all again, where that relationship is replaced with more authentic conversation, is something that has me excited for The Final Cut. And for those on console who have never played this convention-shattering RPG, Disco Elysium’s upcoming incarnation will hopefully be the best possible way to first experience it.
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Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.
The Xbox Series X and S were the UK's best selling consoles in January 2021, beating out both PlayStation 5 and the Nintendo Switch for the first time since launch.
As reported by
GamesIndustry.Biz (based on GfK's charts), Microsoft's next-gen consoles outsold all competitors in January. The Nintendo Switch took second place despite sales being up by 21% and console sales, in general, being up by 148% compared to the previous year. Microsoft posted record profits in January, with its
gaming hardware segment growing 86% due to the launch of the Series X and S. GI's report notes that the PlayStation 5 took third place in GfK's charts.
Given the
Switch's enormous success, particularly in the last year, and PlayStation's recent dominance in the tug-of-war between Sony and Microsoft, this is a positive sign for Xbox. However, that is likely influenced as much by market shortages as sheer demand –
IGN UK Deals' Robert Anderson indicated that Xbox Series consoles saw three or four UK stock drops in January, with PS5 only seeing one.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/11/05/xbox-series-x-review"]
It was recently revealed that the PlayStation 5 had
shipped 4.5 million units worldwide as of December 2020, matching the launch of the PS4. AMD recently anticipated its
chip shortage to last through the first half of 2021, which may affect the production of the Xbox Series and PlayStation 5 consoles.
Those supply constraints have seen a
notable rise in console reselling, leading to a potential
console scalping ban gaining momentum in the UK parliament, which that may prevent the high levels of inflated reselling we've seen with the next-gen consoles.
Elsewhere, Animal Crossing New Horizons held strong as the top boxed game in the UK for January 2021, with Hitman 3 entering the chart at 12th position, making it the month's best-selling launch. Here's our
review of Hitman 3, which we scored a 9, calling it "highly replayable."
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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
Dan Harmon, the Emmy-winning co-creator of Rick and Morty, is continuing to develop a new animated comedy series at Fox, set in mythical ancient Greece.
According to
IndieWire, Fox just announced details of the upcoming series, revealing that the story is set to unfold in ancient Greece, and will be centered on "a flawed family of humans, gods, and monsters that tries to run one of the world's first cities without killing each other." The outlet also noted that voice casting for the series is underway, with more announcements expected to follow at a later date.
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"Leave it to Dan Harmon to turn the mythos of early Greek civilization into remarkably sharp commentary on today's politics, celebrity, and pop culture," said Fox Entertainment president Michael Thorn. "This project is an incredibly irreverent family comedy as told by one of the town's most inventive storytellers. We are proud to be partnered with Dan on this series, which strengthens our hold on the animation space and, as we continue to build Fox Entertainment, marks an important first step for us with our first fully owned scripted property."
The new project stems from
Fox's 2020 animation deal with Harmon, which included a series commitment for an animated comedy show intended to premiere on the network in the spring of 2022. Fox Entertainment is producing the series, and Fox-owned Bento Box Entertainment, the studio behind Bob's Burgers, is serving as the animation house on the project.
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Fox has quite a packed slate of adult animation these days, having in the past couple of years added to its roster of The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Bob's Burgers, along with Bless the Harts, Duncanville, The Great North, and the still-to-come Housebroken. However, this new Harmon project will be Fox Entertainment's first fully-owned animated series.
Outside of this new series, Rick & Morty fans have plenty to look forward to with the future of Adult Swim's hit animated sci-fi sitcom. During an Adult Swim Con Rick & Morty panel last year, Harmon shared a
sneak peek of Season 5 featuring Rick's nemesis, Mr. Nimbus, and also gave updates on Season 5 production and
the status of Season 6.
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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.
CD Projekt Red has been the victim of a targeted cyberattack, in which hackers claim to have stolen internal documents and the source code for Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, and more.
The company announced the attack on
Twitter, noting its "internal systems have been compromised" and that the hackers had left a ransom note. The ransom note was released to the public alongside the announcement, and it claims that the hackers have "dumped full copies of the source codes" for Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Gwent and "the unreleased version of Witcher 3," presumably the
next-gen edition coming later this year.
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The hackers also claim to have access to "all" of the company's documents related to "accounting, administration, legal, HR, investor relations and more." The ransom note ends by noting that CD Projekt Red has 48 hours to contact the hackers, or "your source codes will be sold or leaked online and your documents will be sent to our contacts in gaming journalism. Your public image will go down the shitter even more and people will see how you [sic] shitty your company functions. Investors will lose trust in your company and the stock will dive even lower," the note continues.
According to CD Projekt, devices on its network have been encrypted, but they have begun restoring their IT infrastructure and data through backups. "We will not give in to the demands nor negotiate with the actor, being aware that this may eventually lead to the release of the compromised data," the company's Twitter statement reads. CD Projekt Red says that to the best of its knowledge, "the compromised systems did not contain any personal data of our players or users of our services."
The company has contacted the relevant authorities, including the President of the Personal Data Protection Office and IT forensic specialists, who will be investigating the cyber attack. This ransomware attack echoes a similar event for Capcom, in which
hackers stole huge amounts of data, eventually
leaking multiple games and leaving former employees
fearing for the saftey of their personal data. Recently, Capcom said
the attack had no significant impact on the games it planned to release.
In other CD Projekt Red news, the company recently issued a
hotfix for Cyberpunk 2077 that squashed a vulnerability that could make PC modders vulnerable to malicious hackers. Tesla recently revealed that its
new cars can run The Witcher 3 via embedded 10-Teraflop gaming rigs.
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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
Black Myth: Wukong – the Chinese indie action-RPG that gained huge attention upon announcement last year – has gotten a new gameplay trailer, showing off a number of fresh elements.
Released to celebrate Chinese New Year, ushering in the Year of the Ox, developer Game Science makes clear that the trailer doesn't show a section of planned story from the game. However, it does show off never-before-seen gameplay, including a new area, filled with enemy types, bosses, and spells we haven't seen before. Check out the new gameplay below
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Set in a desert-like area covered in dead plants and dotted with temple-like buildings, we see fast-paced battles against acrobatic, wolf-like humanoids, a spear-and-shield wielding rat, what seems to be a lightning-firing mage, and a swarm of miniature, red-eyed attackers. We also see a number of more boss-like enemies, from a giant, fleshy mouse-like creature, to a two-headed, fire-breathing rat-like being, to a towering humanoid ox.
We also see the player-character (who
may or may not be the real Wukong of Chinese folktales) use a set of new spells to fight them: transforming into a skull-filled walking boulder to deflect ranged attacks, freezing a charging enemy in place and knocking them away (a little reminiscent of Breath of the Wild's Stasis ability), parrying against multiple enemies, and transforming into three lightning-wielding creatures for an aerial attack.
A caption makes clear that "This video is specially produced for celebrating the Year of the Ox, it does not represent actual plot." However, it seem unlikely that any of the elements above were designed simply for the trailer, meaning they'll likely be implemented in the final game in different ways.
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This marks the first new Black Myth gameplay since the
13-minute announcement video, which
saw incredible popularity across the Internet last year. In September, Game Science told IGN that it
planned to go quiet "for a long time" to work on the game – this release appears to be solely to celebrate Chinese New Year with fans, rather than to signal that we'll be learning much more about the game.
For more on Black Myth: Wukong, check out
everything we know about it, and
read our exclusive story on the studio making it.
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Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
In a move I can only assume is meant to bring life to a very particular Simpsons joke, Disney’s California Adventure theme park is temporarily re-opening for a “limited-time ticket experience" starting some time in mid-March.
In a memo sent out to Disney employees, Disneyland president Ken Potrock announced that 1,000 Disneyland employees will return to work sometime in mid-March for the event, Good Morning America reports. It's unclear how many park attendees Disney is planning for.
Don’t expect to visit the Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean, though. Disneyland rides and attractions will not be open during the event.
Instead, the event will focus on “world-famous food and beverage offerings from around the resort, the latest merchandise and unique, carefully crafted entertainment experiences." And Disneyland will still be closed due to California’s restrictions on theme parks and other large events during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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"While that is clearly not all we want to accomplish, it’s a start," Potrock said. "Teams are working as we speak to start recalling identified Cast in the coming weeks."
Potrock also stated that Disney California Adventure will operate with “limited capacity and enhanced safety measures” and be “offered multiple days a week.” Potrock has previously had harsh words for California governor Gavin Newsom, who has kept theme parks in the state largely closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, while Florida has allowed Disney World to remain open.
Disney recently shuttered its annual pass program due to the impact of the pandemic, promising to refund customers and return with new membership options once parks can resume regular business. Even with about 1,000 employees returning to Disney California Adventure, Disney is still laying off an estimated 32,000 employees by mid-2021.
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ANAHEIM, CA - NOVEMBER 19: Ramona Rodriguez and Jacqueline Montanez walk along the Grizzly Peak Airfield inside Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim, CA, on Thursday, November 19, 2020. The Disneyland Resort opened some retail and dining in the park as an extension of the Downtown Disney District. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)[/caption]
After Newsom lifted California’s stay-at-home order in January, outdoor dining was allowed to resume in Downtown Disney.
It’s been almost a full year since Disneyland and California Adventure closed. The park shut its doors on March 14, 2020, and Anaheim has proven to be one of California’s hotbeds of COVID-19 cases.
According to Anaheim.net, Anaheim currently has seen almost 40,000 cases of COVID-19, with five deaths reported on February 8. A total of 621 Anaheim residents have died due to complications arising from COVID-19. California as a state has seen more than 3 million COVID-19 cases, with more than 44,000 reported deaths.
Disney is also expected to announce its quarterly earnings report later this week, in what will be the most up-to-date snapshot of the park’s financial situation.
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Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN.
The developers of Terraria, Re-Logic, have confirmed that alongside Terraria for Stadia, any future games from the company will also skip Google platforms. However, existing Android and Google Play versions of Terraria will not be affected. Re-Logic has also given IGN deeper insight into its frustrations with Google as a company.
Earlier today,
Terraria co-creator Andrew Spinks shared their ordeal of losing all access to their Google accounts, including Gmail, Google Play, Google Drive, and more. Attempts to reinstate these accounts were apparently unsuccessful, and Spinks publicly announced Re-Logic’s relationship with Google is severed and an unannounced version of
Terrarria for Stadia is canceled.
In a follow-up email to IGN, Re-Logic clarified that this means only future versions of Terraria, such as the one on Stadia, “as well as any other games that our studio will develop in the future,” will not be on Google platforms. As for Android and Google Play versions of Terraria, the developers say that these versions will not be affected.
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“Punishing existing customers who paid for our game on these platforms is not what we are about,” Re-Logic says. “To be clear: there should be no impact whatsoever to Terraria on Google platforms, both existing/purchased games as well as ongoing store availability.”
Spinks’ disabled Google account included legacy connections to Re-Logic, such as access to the developer's YouTube account, important documents on Google Drive, and more. All of which have been severed as a result of the account loss.
Re-Logic tells IGN that the problems actually began mid-to-late January after Spinks’ account received a notice from YouTube that claimed their channel violated the terms of service. Re-Logic says it had not updated its YouTube channel in three months at the time of the notice and nobody on the team could find anything strange. They claim that follow-ups from Google about this matter didn’t indicate this was a serious problem.
“[T]he initial correspondence from YouTube on this matter [was] clear that this was not a major issue,” according to Re-logic. And Re-Logic claims that they were later told by YouTube that their channel “is clean and has no issues.”
However, Re-Logic says Spinks lost access to their entire account three days later, and attempts at appeal through public and private channels have not yielded any results.
“Many avenues were attempted with Google in private to resolve this matter — well beyond what people may have observed on Twitter a few weeks ago. Information has been sparse and difficult to obtain even with us being a long-standing partner,” Re-Logic says in an email.
IGN has reached out to Google with Re-Logic’s claims but has not heard back in time for the publication of this story.
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Meanwhile, Re-Logic says the decision to pull away from Google was not taken lightly and hopes to shine a spotlight on the issues of what happens when Google bans users. But the developers also thanked “those within Google that did their best to assist to no avail.”
“Perhaps some meaningful change on the customer service front will take place within Google as a result,” says Re-Logic. “It is sorely needed.”
Google losing a popular title like Terraria on Stadia could be troublesome after the company
shut down its internal developer studio to focus on bringing third-party games to the platform.
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Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN.
Warning: this article contains full spoilers for WandaVision: Episode 5!
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As far as MCU cameos go, they don't get much bigger or more wild than
Evan Peters crossing cinematic universes to play Quicksilver in WandaVision. And as head writer Jac Schaeffer revealed to
Marvel.com, the real challenge wasn't convincing Peters to reprise his role in the MCU, but making that plot twist work within the context of WandaVision.
“We loved the idea of [bringing him back],” Schaeffer told Marvel.com. “And then we were like, how in the world are we going to make this make logical sense? Like, how do we justify this? Because that's the thing, you can hatch a million great ideas, but to make them land, to make them be grounded, to make them feel organic to the larger story.”
It does appear there were plenty of logistical hurdles to cross before Peters was cleared to appear in WandaVision.
“We were rooting for it for so long, and didn't know if it would be possible,” Schaeffer continued. “It was complicated to make happen. Evan was always up for it — like, always, always, always. He is a comic book fan, and a Marvel fan. He is always up for the absolute weirdest option. And he's a pleasure — truly a pleasure to work with.”
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While Schaeffer obviously isn't revealing the true nature of this cameo and whether this actually is the Pietro Maximoff of Fox's X-Men movies or some sort of impostor, she did hint fans will see the full consequences of this unexpected family reunion play out in Episode 6.
Schaeffer said, “We thought like, how do we give him this entrance, and then enjoy that, and then make it crazy? And we had long had the idea of the trope of the brother, or the relative, or whoever comes to town and like, stirs things up with the family — that sitcom trope.”
We have our own thoughts on whether Quicksilver's return is real or a big fake-out. Check out the newest installment of Canon Fodder below for more on that mystery:
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For more on WandaVision, check out our breakdown of
all the Marvel Easter eggs and TV sitcom references, and then see why we think
a major Marvel villain may be pulling the strings in this series.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Almost a full year after
announcing it planned to release 93 games in the following five years, Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive has once again said it will release 93 games in the next five years.
This number comes from Take-Two Interactive's earnings call today, in which the company gave the very specific number without acknowledging that a year had gone by since it first gave that number, or outlining how its releases over the last year fit into that planned roster of exactly 93 titles.
When asked by an investor on the call to elaborate on how the last year had impacted the number, Take-Two president Karl Slatoff seemed to indicate that "93 titles in five years" as a benchmark had begun in 2020, and was not simply being moved up as a new goal to start in 2021.
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"The '93 titles' that we put out there was a snapshot, it was a moment in time," he said. "And we really haven't given any updates on that since then. Of course, things move in and out all the time, it hasn't really been that long since then, so you can't really expect that there's going to be a significant amount of movement, but I can tell you for sure there are some things that have fallen out and some things that are back in. But generally speaking, these are still pretty good numbers. We do expect that this pipeline will be fluid as we get things through various milestones, so it will be changing over time, but we haven't provided any additional updates other than the initial announcement that we made."
He also broke down some stats on the company's expectations for those 93 titles, which are incidentally again the same stats he gave in May of last year: 63 titles are "core gaming experiences," 17 are "mid-core" and 13 are "casual." He expects 47 of the releases will be existing IP, while the rest are new IP. 72 are planned for console, PC, and streaming services, with seven of those 72 crossing over to mobile; 23 of the 93 will be on mobile only. And 67 of the games will be premium releases, while 26 are free-to-play.
This is not to say Take-Two hasn't made progress toward that goal of 93 releases in the last year. In 2020, its subsidiaries released a number of games, including Disintegration from Private Division, and numerous games from 2K Games including Carnival Games, NBA 2K21, XCOM: Chimera Squad, WWE 2K Battlegrounds, and Mafia: Definition Edition. It also released various DLC packs (which Slatoff had previously slated did not count toward the 93 game releases) as well as older games re-releasing on new platforms, such as Borderlands 3 and NBA 2K21 coming to next-gen platforms, and BioShock: The Collection coming to Nintendo Switch -- it is unclear if these would be included in the 93.
It is also likely that this figure is indicative of a milestone set in the current fiscal year, which Take-Two is still in the middle of and which ends on March 31, 2020. It's possible that the company gives a more full update on its progress toward the 93 game releases in its next quarter financials, which will include its full-year earnings and goals for the new fiscal year.
Upcoming games that could potentially be among this number include the
not-yet-announced GTA 6, a
new BioShock game, Kerbal Space Program 2 (
which has been delayed to at least 2022), and the usual annual slate of 2K Sports titles including NBA 2K.
Take-Two reported another strong quarter of earnings,
including new record milestones for GTA Online and Red Dead Online, with the former seeing engagement numbers rise
following the release of the Cayo Perico Heist late last year.
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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.