Team Reptile has announced that it has delayed the release of its Jet Set Radio-inspired game, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, to next year.

“About the release: We are convinced that releasing the game this year will not take it to a level where we would be personally satisfied with,” Team Reptile says in a statement on Twitter. “To create a fulfilling and unique game we are extending the development time of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk to summer 2023.”

However, the studio followed up by saying that it will release more visuals of the game this week to show people how development is going.

About the release: We are convinced that releasing the game this year will not take it to a level where we would be personally satisfied with. To create a fulfilling and unique game we are extending the development time of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk to summer 2023.

— Team Reptile (@ReptileGames) August 31, 2022

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was first revealed in 2020 as a successor to Jet set Radio. It will also have music composed by Jet Set Radio's Hideki Naganuma.

In this game, players can ride around with boostpacks and sketch graffiti at high heights.

So far, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk has been confirmed for a Nintendo Switch and PC release on Steam. It’ll also come to consoles shortly after. Players will have to wait just a little bit longer to play this as this is the latest game to join the long list of titles being delayed to 2023, including ones like Starfield and Sons of the Forest.

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

House of the Dragon is proving to be a big hit for HBO, but co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik is already looking ahead to future projects. THR reports that Sapochnik is stepping down from his role with House of the Dragon, leaving Alan Taylor as the show's sole showrunner.

Sapochnik won't be going far. In addition to continuing to have an executive producer role on House of the Dragon, he will be getting a first-look deal with HBO to develop new projects. Sapochnik will depart his role after the first season, with Taylor taking over as a producer and director of multiple episodes.

Sapochnik's decision to step down will mark the end of three years spent developing House of the Dragon. HBO praised his work in a statement.

"Miguel Sapochnik has done amazing work on the first season of House of the Dragon, establishing its signature look and feel," HBO said. "This series simply could not have come together the way it did without him. While we would have loved to have Miguel continue in the same role, we are thrilled to have his ongoing collaboration in this new creative capacity. Looking forward, we've had a decades-long relationship with Alan Taylor, and we are delighted to have him join Ryan and rest the talented team."

Both Taylor and Sapochnik called it an "honor" to work on the series, which grabbed 10 million viewers with its first episode and has only gotten more popular since.

Taylor, for his part, has a long history with Game of Thrones, having been instrumental in defining the look and feel of the show in its first season. His episode credits include "The Night Lands" and "Beyond the Wall." Outside of Game of Thrones, Taylor has worked on shows including Mad Men and The Sopranos prequel, The Many Saints of Newark.

In the meantime, the second episode continued House of the Dragons' momentum, which we described in our review as having the "palpable sense of pieces being moved into place." We also got a look at the opening credits and lots of dragons. The next episodes airs this Sunday.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Ubisoft has delayed the shutdown date of several multiplayer servers for some of its games. The shutdowns were supposed to go into effect on September 1, but now they will stay up for an additional month, shutting down on October 1 instead.

"Decommissioning online services for older games is something we do not take lightly, but it is also a necessity as the technology that drove those services becomes obsolete," Ubisoft says in an update to the original post. "Over the last month, our teams have been hard at work exploring what is possible to reduce disruption."

The games which will continue seeing online services include:

• Assassin’s Creed II
• Assassin’s Creed III
• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
• Assassin’s Creed Revelations
• Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD
• Driver San Francisco
• Far Cry 3
• Ghost Recon Future Soldier
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Rayman Legends
• Silent Hunter 5
• Splinter Cell: Blacklist
• ZombiU

The only exception to the new shutdown date is Space Junkies, which will have its servers turned off on September 1 as planned.

Furthermore, the team over at Ubisoft Mainz will push out an update to Anno 2070 that will upgrade and replace its old servers so players can enjoy the online components.

For PC players, Ubisoft notes to activate any single-player DLC for the affected games before the servers close on October 1 so that they can continue playing it after the date. Console players will see no impact on access to single-player DLC.

Note that the server shutdowns are only for the original PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 versions of the games. Any newer ones such as Far Cry 3 Classic Edition for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One or Assassin’s Creed III Remastered will not be affected.

2022 has seen quite a few multiplayer server shutdowns, including Killzone Shadowfall earlier this month.

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

When the Embracer Group acquired Middle-earth Enterprises – in the process gaining the rights to the Lord of the Rings – it raised all sorts of questions about the impact on Amazon's Rings of Power. But Amazon itself isn't thinking too much about the ramifications of the deal.

Speaking with IGN, Rings of Power producer Lindsey Weber says that no one has had much time to process the ramifications of the far-reaching deal. With 50 hours of television to make, she says that the team will be busy for "quite some time."

And either way, it's a big world.

"[T]here's no shortage of stories in Tolkien," Weber says. "You could do another 50 hours and another 50 hours and you'd still have more and not scratch the surface. We are telling a Second Age story and obviously hope to be the definitive version of that Second Age story. But Galadriel, for example, is an immortal character and there's no shortage of stories to go around."

The Embracer Group's acquisition further complicates the already complex rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's stories, which is licensed out to various stakeholders including Amazon and Warner Bros. In purchasing Middle-earth Enterprises, The Embracer Group now owns the rights to movies, games, board games, theme parks, and stage productions based on Tolkien's works.

So what happens if Embracer just decides to make a Galadriel movie at the same time that Amazon is making Rings of Power?

Responding to this hypothetical scenario, Weber says, "Look, Tolkien I think, belongs to everyone and there will be many more adaptations of his work, I'm quite sure, beyond our own. And there have been before us and will be after us. And it's just a sea of imagination that I think will spawn many, many adaptations."

In any event, Amazon's $715 million venture into the world of Lord of the Rings will finally be arriving later this week, and our review of the premiere is live now. While you wait, check out our Who's Who of the new show's characters, as well as the best order to watch the Lord of the Rings movies.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Upcoming survival horror Sons of the Forest has been delayed until next year.

According to developer Endnight Games, the upcoming sequel to The Forest has been pushed back to allow the team to polish the game.

“Due to the scope of our new game Sons Of The Forest, it has been hard to pinpoint an exact release date, and today we have to delay one last time” they stated via Twitter. “Giving us time to complete the polish we feel is needed, we will release Feb 23, 2023, priced at $29.99USD.”

Hey Everyone,

Due to the scope of our new game Sons Of The Forest, it has been hard to pinpoint an exact release date, and today we have to delay one last time.

Giving us time to complete the polish we feel is needed, we will release Feb 23, 2023, priced at $29.99USD. pic.twitter.com/9SmeLelmj6

— Endnight Games (@EndNightGame) August 31, 2022

Sons of the Forest promises more unnerving gameplay as a direct sequel to The Forest – the 2014 survival horror that follows the story of Eric LeBlanc – a plane crash survivor who’s forced to fight off cannibalistic monsters while searching for his son, Timmy.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time the sequel has been delayed.

Sons of the Forest was already pushed back three months from its initial release date – a shame since the recent trailer paints such an impressively horrific picture. Clearly inspired by the likes of The Descent and Cannibal Holocaust, it’s a sure pick for horror fans everywhere.

But you’ll have to wait a little while longer before you get to check it out.

IGN’s review of The Forest gave it 8.4/10 and said: “I’ve never been terrorized, stalked, or fascinated by enemy AI quite like I was in The Forest. It’s a harrowing survival ordeal that knows how to play with tension and create the sense of a real world with complex inner workings and mysteries I was eager to discover. It’s I Am Legend told in the depths of the hinterlands, with a meaningful story progression that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Disregard the warnings on the walls and hidden between the trees at your own peril – and if you want a unique and memorable survival horror experience, then you should absolutely dare to do so.”

Want to read more snout Sons of the Forest? Get up to speed with The Forest explained in 5 minutes, and take a look at the upcoming sequel’s gameplay trailer.

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

It’s official – Harley Quinn has been renewed for a fourth season.

The popular animated DC show stars Kaley Cuoco as the voice of Harley Quinn and is currently finishing up its third season on HBO Max.

However, the next season brings a new showrunner in the form of Sarah Peters.

“We are ecstatic that HBO Max wants the story of Harley and Ivy to continue,” said creators Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker. “And we are equally thrilled that this next season will be in great hands with Sarah Peters as our showrunner and Ceci Aranovich overseeing animation production, as they have both greatly influenced the show with their brilliance since the beginning.”

Season 4. Coming sooner than you think. #HarleyQuinnS4 #HarleyQuinn #PoisonIvy #HARLIVY pic.twitter.com/ST128TEUUc

— Patrick Schumacker (@PMSchumacker) August 31, 2022

Peters is already familiar with the show, having written on Harley Quinn since Season 1.

Obviously, Harley Quinn’s renewal is great news for fans, who’ve been wondering what would happen to the show since Batgirl’s cancelation began spelling trouble for DC properties. Thankfully, it looks as though Harley Quinn and her band of miscreants have avoided the recent Warner Bros. Discovery troubles, and Season 4 is now on its way.

“Three seasons down and I can’t even begin to think about the new levels of chaos and trouble that Harley, Ivy, and the gang can get into with a fourth season,” said Warner Bros Animation EVP, Peter Girardi. “But I’m grateful to our partners at HBO Max for continuing this insane ride with us so we can all find out.”

Season 3 is currently playing out with Harley and Poison ivy (Lake Bell) wrapping up their so-called “Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour” and returning to Gotham City. They’re joined by the likes of King Shark (Ron Funches), Clayface (Alan Tudyk), and Frank the Plant (JB Smoove) with additional voices from Matt Oberg, Christopher Meloni, Andy Daly, Diedrich Bader, James Adomian, Sanaa Lathan, Briana Cuoco, and Harvey Guillen.

IGN’s Harley Quinn Season 3 review said: “Love is in the air, but that doesn’t mean Harley Quinn isn’t as insane, blood-soaked, and hilarious as it’s always been. Season 3’s take on Harley and Ivy’s newly romantic relationship is still unsurprisingly the highlight, tackling all their highs and lows in ways that are incredibly true to each character. It also manages to pack in a few surprises regarding the Bat-family, especially Batman himself, although other subplots, like Joker and James Gordon’s, don’t have the same staying power. Still, if you’re here Harlivy, and all the raunch and violence you’ve come to expect from this delightfully biting little corner of superhero streaming, you won’t be disappointed.”

Want to read more about Harley Quinn? Find out why Harley will never get back with the Joker on the show, and read more about the upcoming Kite Man spin-off.

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

Sony has announced the PlayStation Plus games for September 2022 are Need for Speed Heat, Granblue Fantasy: Versus, and Toem. Revealed on the PlayStation Blog, all three games will be made available at no extra cost to all PlayStation Plus subscribers on September 6.

Need for Speed Heat is the third game in the reimagined series that kicked off in 2015, taking players to the roads of the fictional Floridian metropolis of Palm City. Heat centres around a day and night cycle that brings out different style of racing, with the player required to master both clean street races and gritty battles with rogue police.

We much preferred this one to Need for Speed 2015 and its sequel, Payback, as in our 8/10 review, IGN said: "Need for Speed Heat is a mosaic of existing ideas but it is easily the most impressive Need for Speed game in years."

Granblue Fantasy: Versus is a different vibe entirely. This four-button Japanese fighting game is made up of light, medium, and heavy attacks — alongside a character-specific finisher similar to Street Fighter 5's V-Skills — and it's automatically implemented combos make it one of the best entry points to the fighting genre out there.

IGN said it was great, as "it smartly balances considerations for more casual fighting game players without ever stepping on the toes of its hardcore audience."

Finally, the most niche of the three new games is Toem: A Photo Adventure, a hand-drawn adventure game centred around the delights of photography. Intended to be a relaxed and charming puzzler, it certainly appeared to accomplish that goal as IGN also gave it an 8/10 in our review.

"Toem is a short, satisfying little photography adventure packed with witty writing, goofy yet grounded characters, and a wealth of interesting, picturesque moments to capture," we said. "Though simple to complete, its diorama-like maps, cartoon style, and pleasing music and sounds make it an inviting world to stay in long enough to uncover all its secrets."

These three new games will be available for free until October 3, while last month's games — which include Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 & 2, and Little Nightmares — will be available until September 6.

Sony also unveiled the new games coming to its PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium Games Catalogue on September 20, headlined this month by Deathloop, which IGN called a masterpiece. The full list of games also includes:

• Assassin’s Creed Origins
• Watch Dogs 2
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
• Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition
• Chicory: A Colorful Tale
• Monster Energy Supercross 5
• Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX
• Rabbids Invasion: The Interactive TV Show
• Rayman Legends
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

A handful of games are also coming to the Classic Games Catalogue for PlayStation Plus Premium members. The full list of games, which will also be available on September 20, can be seen below:

• Syphon Filter 2 | PS1
• The Sly Collection | PS3
• Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time | PS3
• Bentley’s Hackpack | PS3
• Toy Story 3 | PSP
• Kingdom of Paradise | PSP

Check out our updated lists of all PS Plus Premium Catalogue Games and PlayStation Plus Classic Games Catalog on IGN Playlist. You can use these lists to plan what to play next, create custom ranked lists of your favourites, and track your backlog.

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

Konami is about to unveil an unknown game in a "world-loved" franchise at this year's Tokyo Game Show, which takes place from September 15 to 18.

As reported by Gematsu, Konami's schedule for the show doesn't say much about the game itself, only adding that voice actor Yuki Kaji will take to the stage to announce it.

Kaji is a pretty big name in video game voice acting, having appeared in Grand Theft Auto 5, Final Fantasy 13, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and many, many more. He's only appeared in three Konami games, however, two of which are part of the long-dormant Suikoden franchise and the other a Japanese-only game called Terror of the Stratus on PSP.

TGS speculation: Konami will announce a new title at TGS and it's a "world-loved title". According to @gematsu article, Yuki Kaji will be presenting it. Checked his wiki entry and the only game that checks out the boxes "world-loved" and "Yuki Kaji" are 2 Suikoden games.

hmmmmmm pic.twitter.com/iac0Rlv7qs

— ryeyoona | WATCH ISEKAI OJISAN! (@SicaSquarepants) August 31, 2022

Fans of the franchise have already noticed the connection on Twitter, with @SicaSquarepants (above) pointing out that Kaji's only Konami games of world renown are 2008's Suikoden Tierkreis and 2012's Gensō Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki - the last two games to be released in the classic RPG series.

Originally released on PlayStation, Suikoden is an RPG series most famous for including over 100 playable characters in its mainline games, as well as stylized 2D art and animations and fortress building aspects. In our review of the original game, we called it "undeniably one of the best RPGs ever made."

Key members of the Suikoden team have since revealed a spiritual successor, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, which became a huge hit on Kickstarter and is due to arrive next year.

Nothing is confirmed, of course, and Konami reportedly has several other franchises in development that, given his voice acting prestige, could easily involve Kaji.

Silent Hill is another Konami franchise that is heavily rumoured to be making a comeback at some point, with the last of a long line of leaks taking place in May. Four images of an alleged new Silent Hill game appeared on Twitter before the "copyright holder" took them down, leading many to believe they were legitimate.

A Silent Hill reboot has been rumoured since last October and further reports emerged in February, before flaring up once more in March when Konami renewed the series' trademark.

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

In a new talk about the headset, Sony's revealed that PlayStation VR2 has been designed to make it easier for developers to create VR versions of PS5 games, as well as port games to PSVR 2 from other VR platforms.

Speaking during a CEDEC 2022 event, Sony Interactive Entertainment's Yasuo Takahashi and Kenjo Akiyama talked about the hardware's features, from its base specs to its new controllers, to its new user experience, including a "see through" mode. Much of this covered already-announced information, but the talk also included new details about developing for the headset ahead of its early 2023 release.

The broad strokes are that it should be easier for developers to port their games on PSVR, whether that's from existing PS5 development, or other VR systems. PSVR 2 game development uses the same SDK used to develop PS5 games. Through this close linkage to the PS5 SDK, it should be easy to create titles that support the PSVR 2.

The PSVR2's production environment also supports games created with Unity and Unreal Engine. With a standardized controller interface and button placement similar to other VR platforms, it should be far simpler than before for developed games to support the PSVR 2.

The talk also covered a number of other features designed to make developers' lives easier when working with the headset. One feature that developers will appreciate is its GPU's Flexible Scale Rasterization (FSR), which combines PSVR 2's tracking cameras and foveated rendering to freely alter pixel density based on where the player is looking, further optimizing rendering.

A number of sample programs are provided in the development environment for the headset's force feedback that vibrates according to what's seen or heard, allowing developers to test out sample vibrations based on gunshots, footsteps, jumps, and more.

Development environment tools were also introduced during the session. VR Trace allows developers to diagnose issues with their applications through capture and replay. Not only can it automatically detect and highlight problems, it can replace eye and tracking results with dummy data so that VR game development is possible without needing a connected VR headset.

Another tool, PlayStation VR2 Comfort Sample, lets developers learn about the various problems in implementation that can occur when developing VR games. For example, it allows developers to experience for themselves issues that can occur with an in-game horizon not matching the real world's, or comfort issues created by an incorrect FOV. It even contains quizzes that allow developers to learn about these bugs in a fun way. From a quiz where you need to identify issues occurring on a screen to a quiz where you need to identify what bugs are causing a problem, the tool is seemingly full of ways to teach developers about the unique issues that can occur in VR in an easily understood way.

The overall message appears to be that, while the tech has become more advanced in this second-generation headset, developing for it has become simpler. If that's true, we'd hope to see more games - both original and ported - on PSVR this time around.

We don't know a huge number of games coming for PSVR 2 just yet, but we know there will be a Horizon spin-off called Call of the Mountain, as well as VR versions of Resident Evil Village, No Man's Sky, and Ghostbusters VR.

This article is based on an IGN Japan report by Ryohei Ueda. Translation by Ko Ransom, editing by Joe Skrebels.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos was very interested in the production of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, with his son pleading for him to make sure the Prime Video series wasn't a disappointment.

As reported by Deadline, Bezos commented at The Rings of Power premiere that - as a huge Tolkien fan - he gave notes on early versions of the script, though also joked that he appreciated when showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne ignored him altogether. His son's advice was more straightforward, Bezos said – he simply told his dad: "Don't f**k this up."

"Every showrunners’ dream is to get notes on early scripts and cuts from the executive chairman," Bezos said. "They just love that. I want to thank [McKay and Payne] for listening whenever it helped, but mostly I need to thank [them] for ignoring me at exactly the right times."

Bezos heaped more praise on the showrunners, saying that “one of the best decisions we made was to bet on this relatively unknown team because we saw something special.”

He continued: "My kid is a huge Tolkien fan and after Amazon got involved he came up to me, looked me in the eye and said ‘Dad, please don’t f**k this up'."

Thankfully for Master Bezos, his wish seems to be coming true. The Rings of Power will debut on September 1, with the first two episodes appearing simultaneously on Amazon Prime Video and subsequently being released week after week. We awarded those two episodes an 8/10 review, saying the two-episode premiere "may take it a little while to hit its stride, but once it does, it immerses us in a gorgeous fantasy world with a great ensemble and several intriguing subplots."

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

Thumbnail credit: Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty