For four years, Polish developer People Can Fly has been putting together its first new IP since Bulletstorm, released almost a decade ago. Outriders is a huge new venture for the company; a new world, a new genre, and a new publisher. But it also builds on the strengths the studio established in its very first game, Painkiller, back in 2004: it’s a fast, bloody shooter that’s as gleefully entertaining as it is gory. More than anything, though, the story of Outriders is powered by one thing: freedom. The freedom to choose your weapons, your abilities, and armour. The freedom to fine-tune a character at the most granular level. And, for the developers, the freedom to go their own way after years of working on another company’s projects. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/13/outriders-four-years-in-the-making-ign-first"] For almost a decade, People Can Fly worked with Epic Games. Their partnership was so close that Epic even acquired the studio in 2012, rebranding it Epic Games Poland. Together, the teams worked on the Gears of War series during Epic’s tenure, as well as Bulletstorm and Fortnite. But after operating for three years under the Epic banner, the Polish team began to feel the need to forge their own path again. “We wanted to do our game, not work on others’ IP, no matter how good those IPs are,” explains Bartosz Kmita, game director on Outriders. And so, in 2015, the team bought themselves out from Epic and rebranded back to People Can Fly. Newly independent, the idea for Outriders began to form in the team’s minds. From the start, one thing was clear: they were going to stick to their (digital) guns. “There were some pillars that we knew that we didn't want to change,” says Kmita. “One of them was, of course, that we would make a shooter. As we often say, that's our DNA.” But their new freedom meant there was also opportunity for change. They decided to depart from the more comedic, tongue-in-cheek tone of games like Bulletstorm and Fortnite. “We decided to make a game for ourselves that we would want to play,” Kmita notes. “So we wanted to go a little bit more grim and gritty.” [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%E2%80%9CWe%20wanted%20to%20do%20our%20game%2C%20not%20work%20on%20others%E2%80%99%20IP%2C%20no%20matter%20how%20good%20those%20IPs%20are.%E2%80%9D"]The tone and design of Outriders’ world and story was quickly forged thanks to the team all having similar ambitions. “All of us were reading similar books,” says Kzrysztof Dolas, Outriders’ technical director. “A sci-fi world was something that came to all of us.” “I remember how Heart of Darkness [influenced] one of our ideas about how we’d progress through the world,” he adds. “In this book, the character was going deeper and deeper into Africa, and here we go deeper and deeper into our world.” Going deeper eventually became something that characterised the whole project, not just its story. Kmita says that the team wanted to make something that was more than “a game about killing and shooting”, which resulted in a change in genre. Instead of a straight shooter like the team’s previous games, Outriders expanded into an RPG exploring the human colonization of an alien world. As the idea for Outriders grew in scope, it became clear that the studio was not yet large enough to achieve those ambitions. “When we split from Epic we were a group of 30 or 40 people,” says Kmita. “We lacked a lot of people needed to deliver this kind of game. So we started to build the world and the game, but in the same moment we were building the team and the company. From 30 people, in four years, we grew to almost 200.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=outriders-ign-first&captions=true"] Spread across offices in Poland, the US, and the UK, those 200 staff worked towards creating a game that was all about freedom and options. “We absolutely know that there will be some players who will basically want to just shoot, fight, get loot, and that's it,” Kmita says. “We don't have a problem with that. But for all the people who would like to know this world better, know the characters better, who would like to do some side quests for them, then there is some additional conversation to dig more into the history of this world.” For those players who wish to be focused on shooting over conversation, Outriders does have a solution: “We added some sophisticated systems, like ‘skip cutscene’,” laughs Kmita. When designing the way players interact with the story, People Can Fly discovered that the co-operative nature of Outriders meant they had to re-think one traditional RPG element. There are no narrative choices akin to those seen in games like Mass Effect and The Witcher, because each person in the party may want to choose a different path. “When we tried [branching narrative] in the multiplayer, it basically was not working because the voting system stuff was not pleasant for us,” Kmita explains. It didn’t feel right to make a big story beat a democratic vote. As well as a change in story presentation, Outriders presented People Can Fly with the chance to change the way it approached shooting. To ensure player freedom, the team looked to an interesting new touchstone. “We were more inspired by Diablo than other looter shooters,” Kmita says. That inspiration can clearly be seen in the way characters are built, with experimental skill trees, incredibly powerful and adaptable active abilities, and a plethora of modifications. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/04/outriders-11-minutes-of-monster-hunt-co-op-gameplay-ign-first"] “We wanted to have this feeling that you can build your character,” Dolas says. “You can adjust them to the playstyle you want to have. If you want to be this guy that goes into the battle and fights close quarters, you can, but if you want to be a sniper and also use some skills to stay behind and help others from your team, you can do it.” The first choice a player makes when building an Outriders character is their class. But earlier in development, you didn’t even have to choose that. “We started designing this game without classes at all,” Kmita recalls. “We wanted to give the freedom for all the choices we have, but we realised that people are too lost if there's too many options from the beginning.” To further help early-game decision making, each class has a skill tree split into three branches. “This helps channel [players] into one direction, but that doesn't mean it’s the best, most optimal way,“ says Kmita. “When you’re experienced, I think you will not be looking at the three divisions in the skill tree, but rather finding your own way for how to build your best character.” [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%22People%20maybe%20don't%20have%20any%20more%20time%20to%20spend%20300%20hours%20to%20grind%20one%20item.%E2%80%9D"]While many of these design decisions are hallmarks of the action-RPG genre, the looter-shooter elements may give the false impression that Outriders is actually a service game, akin to Destiny or The Division. But Kmita is clear that this is not the case. “When we started our game and realised that the story is so important, we realised if we did a game-as-a-service, we would probably start chopping everything into sub-content,” he says. “We didn't want to do this because the story was so important for us.” “We think that there are a lot of cool games on the market, and people maybe don't have any more time to spend 300 hours to basically grind one item,” he adds. While the story of Outriders still has many more chapters to go - it won’t release until later this year, there’s a next-gen version to come, and work is still to be done - the parts that have already been written have been evolutionary for People Can Fly. The company’s ambition has taken them from a small Polish studio to an international developer, all in less than half a decade. Regardless of if Outriders is a cult favourite or global phenomenon, it’s a game that’s facilitated change and freedom, both for its eventual players, and the people that made it. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

For four years, Polish developer People Can Fly has been putting together its first new IP since Bulletstorm, released almost a decade ago. Outriders is a huge new venture for the company; a new world, a new genre, and a new publisher. But it also builds on the strengths the studio established in its very first game, Painkiller, back in 2004: it’s a fast, bloody shooter that’s as gleefully entertaining as it is gory. More than anything, though, the story of Outriders is powered by one thing: freedom. The freedom to choose your weapons, your abilities, and armour. The freedom to fine-tune a character at the most granular level. And, for the developers, the freedom to go their own way after years of working on another company’s projects. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/13/outriders-four-years-in-the-making-ign-first"] For almost a decade, People Can Fly worked with Epic Games. Their partnership was so close that Epic even acquired the studio in 2012, rebranding it Epic Games Poland. Together, the teams worked on the Gears of War series during Epic’s tenure, as well as Bulletstorm and Fortnite. But after operating for three years under the Epic banner, the Polish team began to feel the need to forge their own path again. “We wanted to do our game, not work on others’ IP, no matter how good those IPs are,” explains Bartosz Kmita, game director on Outriders. And so, in 2015, the team bought themselves out from Epic and rebranded back to People Can Fly. Newly independent, the idea for Outriders began to form in the team’s minds. From the start, one thing was clear: they were going to stick to their (digital) guns. “There were some pillars that we knew that we didn't want to change,” says Kmita. “One of them was, of course, that we would make a shooter. As we often say, that's our DNA.” But their new freedom meant there was also opportunity for change. They decided to depart from the more comedic, tongue-in-cheek tone of games like Bulletstorm and Fortnite. “We decided to make a game for ourselves that we would want to play,” Kmita notes. “So we wanted to go a little bit more grim and gritty.” [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%E2%80%9CWe%20wanted%20to%20do%20our%20game%2C%20not%20work%20on%20others%E2%80%99%20IP%2C%20no%20matter%20how%20good%20those%20IPs%20are.%E2%80%9D"]The tone and design of Outriders’ world and story was quickly forged thanks to the team all having similar ambitions. “All of us were reading similar books,” says Kzrysztof Dolas, Outriders’ technical director. “A sci-fi world was something that came to all of us.” “I remember how Heart of Darkness [influenced] one of our ideas about how we’d progress through the world,” he adds. “In this book, the character was going deeper and deeper into Africa, and here we go deeper and deeper into our world.” Going deeper eventually became something that characterised the whole project, not just its story. Kmita says that the team wanted to make something that was more than “a game about killing and shooting”, which resulted in a change in genre. Instead of a straight shooter like the team’s previous games, Outriders expanded into an RPG exploring the human colonization of an alien world. As the idea for Outriders grew in scope, it became clear that the studio was not yet large enough to achieve those ambitions. “When we split from Epic we were a group of 30 or 40 people,” says Kmita. “We lacked a lot of people needed to deliver this kind of game. So we started to build the world and the game, but in the same moment we were building the team and the company. From 30 people, in four years, we grew to almost 200.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=outriders-ign-first&captions=true"] Spread across offices in Poland, the US, and the UK, those 200 staff worked towards creating a game that was all about freedom and options. “We absolutely know that there will be some players who will basically want to just shoot, fight, get loot, and that's it,” Kmita says. “We don't have a problem with that. But for all the people who would like to know this world better, know the characters better, who would like to do some side quests for them, then there is some additional conversation to dig more into the history of this world.” For those players who wish to be focused on shooting over conversation, Outriders does have a solution: “We added some sophisticated systems, like ‘skip cutscene’,” laughs Kmita. When designing the way players interact with the story, People Can Fly discovered that the co-operative nature of Outriders meant they had to re-think one traditional RPG element. There are no narrative choices akin to those seen in games like Mass Effect and The Witcher, because each person in the party may want to choose a different path. “When we tried [branching narrative] in the multiplayer, it basically was not working because the voting system stuff was not pleasant for us,” Kmita explains. It didn’t feel right to make a big story beat a democratic vote. As well as a change in story presentation, Outriders presented People Can Fly with the chance to change the way it approached shooting. To ensure player freedom, the team looked to an interesting new touchstone. “We were more inspired by Diablo than other looter shooters,” Kmita says. That inspiration can clearly be seen in the way characters are built, with experimental skill trees, incredibly powerful and adaptable active abilities, and a plethora of modifications. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/04/outriders-11-minutes-of-monster-hunt-co-op-gameplay-ign-first"] “We wanted to have this feeling that you can build your character,” Dolas says. “You can adjust them to the playstyle you want to have. If you want to be this guy that goes into the battle and fights close quarters, you can, but if you want to be a sniper and also use some skills to stay behind and help others from your team, you can do it.” The first choice a player makes when building an Outriders character is their class. But earlier in development, you didn’t even have to choose that. “We started designing this game without classes at all,” Kmita recalls. “We wanted to give the freedom for all the choices we have, but we realised that people are too lost if there's too many options from the beginning.” To further help early-game decision making, each class has a skill tree split into three branches. “This helps channel [players] into one direction, but that doesn't mean it’s the best, most optimal way,“ says Kmita. “When you’re experienced, I think you will not be looking at the three divisions in the skill tree, but rather finding your own way for how to build your best character.” [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%22People%20maybe%20don't%20have%20any%20more%20time%20to%20spend%20300%20hours%20to%20grind%20one%20item.%E2%80%9D"]While many of these design decisions are hallmarks of the action-RPG genre, the looter-shooter elements may give the false impression that Outriders is actually a service game, akin to Destiny or The Division. But Kmita is clear that this is not the case. “When we started our game and realised that the story is so important, we realised if we did a game-as-a-service, we would probably start chopping everything into sub-content,” he says. “We didn't want to do this because the story was so important for us.” “We think that there are a lot of cool games on the market, and people maybe don't have any more time to spend 300 hours to basically grind one item,” he adds. While the story of Outriders still has many more chapters to go - it won’t release until later this year, there’s a next-gen version to come, and work is still to be done - the parts that have already been written have been evolutionary for People Can Fly. The company’s ambition has taken them from a small Polish studio to an international developer, all in less than half a decade. Regardless of if Outriders is a cult favourite or global phenomenon, it’s a game that’s facilitated change and freedom, both for its eventual players, and the people that made it. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PS5 will complete the coming of age arc for the fledgling hero that began in Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4. Slight spoilers for Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4 follow. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/06/18/spider-man-miles-morales-plot-details-revealed"] Marvel's Spider-Man introduced Miles Morales as an (occasionally playable) side character who's taken under Peter Parker's wing. The core game ends with Morales being bitten by a new radioactive spider, while DLC packs featured him taking his first steps as a superhero. Speaking to EW, game director Brian Horton explained that the upcoming spin-off game is designed to finish the story that the first game started:  "This is a full arc for Miles Morales that started in Spider-Man [on PS4]. We really are completing this hero's coming of age in our game. It is a complete story." Insomniac has already hinted at a fully-fledged Spider-Man 2, and said "we still have much of Peter [Parker]’s story left to tell", but it feels as though Miles will be a trained superhero in his own right by the end of his starring role. EW also posted a brand new PS5 shot from the game: Elsewhere in the interview, Insomniac reiterates that the Miles Morales game isn't a formal sequel to the first game, and that it's a "shorter spin-off, likened in scope to the Lost Legacy game in the Uncharted series." Horton adds that the decison to have the character star in a shorter game was a way of telling his story in an "impactful" way: "When we started crafting it, we realized that, with a little bit more of a compact storytelling style, we could tell a very emotionally impactful story that would fit really well as an experience that would take Spider-Man 1 and [Miles Morales] and do justice to this character." Spider-Man: Miles Morales is due to arrive in Holiday 2020 for PS5. So far, we know a few plot details, we've seen the game's box art, and learned that the game will feature an optional 4K/60FPS mode. We've also speculated about 6 comic book stories that could inspire his next journey. [poilib element="accentDivider"] 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.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PS5 will complete the coming of age arc for the fledgling hero that began in Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4. Slight spoilers for Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4 follow. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/06/18/spider-man-miles-morales-plot-details-revealed"] Marvel's Spider-Man introduced Miles Morales as an (occasionally playable) side character who's taken under Peter Parker's wing. The core game ends with Morales being bitten by a new radioactive spider, while DLC packs featured him taking his first steps as a superhero. Speaking to EW, game director Brian Horton explained that the upcoming spin-off game is designed to finish the story that the first game started:  "This is a full arc for Miles Morales that started in Spider-Man [on PS4]. We really are completing this hero's coming of age in our game. It is a complete story." Insomniac has already hinted at a fully-fledged Spider-Man 2, and said "we still have much of Peter [Parker]’s story left to tell", but it feels as though Miles will be a trained superhero in his own right by the end of his starring role. EW also posted a brand new PS5 shot from the game: Elsewhere in the interview, Insomniac reiterates that the Miles Morales game isn't a formal sequel to the first game, and that it's a "shorter spin-off, likened in scope to the Lost Legacy game in the Uncharted series." Horton adds that the decison to have the character star in a shorter game was a way of telling his story in an "impactful" way: "When we started crafting it, we realized that, with a little bit more of a compact storytelling style, we could tell a very emotionally impactful story that would fit really well as an experience that would take Spider-Man 1 and [Miles Morales] and do justice to this character." Spider-Man: Miles Morales is due to arrive in Holiday 2020 for PS5. So far, we know a few plot details, we've seen the game's box art, and learned that the game will feature an optional 4K/60FPS mode. We've also speculated about 6 comic book stories that could inspire his next journey. [poilib element="accentDivider"] 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.

Civilization 6 has been released for Android devices, nearly 3 years after it arrived on iOS. The fantastic strategy game will be free-to-start on Android devices from today (available on the Google Play Store), offering you 60 turns of play, before offering a $19.99 USD purchase for the core game. Add-ons will be additional in-app purchases after that initial purchase:

• Rise and Fall expansion - $29.99
• Gathering Storm expansion - $39.99
• Civilization and Scenario packs - $4.99-$8.99

  [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/02/11/civilization-vi-gathering-storm-review"] It's not clear if this new version will include the New Frontier DLC pass, which delivers new content every two months. When it arrived on iPad in 2017, we awarded Civilization 6 a 9.1 review, saying it was "about as good of a PC-to-iPad conversion as we could have hoped for. It brings nearly every feature of the single-player version of the outstanding PC game to a much more comfortable tablet, courtesy of intuitive touch controls." [poilib element="accentDivider"] 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.

Civilization 6 has been released for Android devices, nearly 3 years after it arrived on iOS. The fantastic strategy game will be free-to-start on Android devices from today (available on the Google Play Store), offering you 60 turns of play, before offering a $19.99 USD purchase for the core game. Add-ons will be additional in-app purchases after that initial purchase:

• Rise and Fall expansion - $29.99
• Gathering Storm expansion - $39.99
• Civilization and Scenario packs - $4.99-$8.99

  [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/02/11/civilization-vi-gathering-storm-review"] It's not clear if this new version will include the New Frontier DLC pass, which delivers new content every two months. When it arrived on iPad in 2017, we awarded Civilization 6 a 9.1 review, saying it was "about as good of a PC-to-iPad conversion as we could have hoped for. It brings nearly every feature of the single-player version of the outstanding PC game to a much more comfortable tablet, courtesy of intuitive touch controls." [poilib element="accentDivider"] 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.

AMC will reopen theaters at more than 100 locations in the U.S. on August 20, with admission prices set at just 15 cents per ticket, for one day only, in a promotion that commemorates the chain's centennial celebration. Variety reports that AMC Theaters will be rolling back ticket prices to roughly match the same rate that moviegoers would have paid in 1920, "the year that the company's founders, the Dubinsky Brothers, began operations with a single movie screen in Kansas City, Missouri."

Celebrate a century of movies at AMC with 15¢ tickets to any movie on Thursday, August 20! Hurry – get your tickets online now before they sell out! https://t.co/FyQXj4G9qb pic.twitter.com/1TQcT2iU35

— AMC Theatres (@AMCTheatres) August 13, 2020

The throwback ticket prices will apply to the chain's slate of legacy movies, which includes the likes of Black Panther and The Empire Strikes Back. Tickets for these catalog titles will increase to $5 apiece after opening day while new movies will cost approximately $10 per ticket, depending on the market. The theatrical release calendar for new films comprises of Russell Crowe's revenge-thriller Unhinged and Disney's long-awaited New Mutants, which is expected to debut on August 28, while Christopher Nolan's highly-anticipated Tenet is set for September 3, one week after its international release. Warner Bros. demonstrated flexibility by releasing Tenet in other territories first while the U.S. theater release date suffered several delays due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. AMC now aims to have approximately "two-thirds of its more than 600 locations operational" in time for the film's release. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-delayed-movie-due-to-coronavirus-so-far&captions=true"] AMC is just one of many companies that has been hit hard by the pandemic. After closing more than 600 locations in March, AMC furloughed its CEO and other corporate employees, as the company faced financial uncertainty after its credit rating was downgraded amid fears that the entertainment chain could run out of cash during its extended theater closures. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

AMC will reopen theaters at more than 100 locations in the U.S. on August 20, with admission prices set at just 15 cents per ticket, for one day only, in a promotion that commemorates the chain's centennial celebration. Variety reports that AMC Theaters will be rolling back ticket prices to roughly match the same rate that moviegoers would have paid in 1920, "the year that the company's founders, the Dubinsky Brothers, began operations with a single movie screen in Kansas City, Missouri."

Celebrate a century of movies at AMC with 15¢ tickets to any movie on Thursday, August 20! Hurry – get your tickets online now before they sell out! https://t.co/FyQXj4G9qb pic.twitter.com/1TQcT2iU35

— AMC Theatres (@AMCTheatres) August 13, 2020

The throwback ticket prices will apply to the chain's slate of legacy movies, which includes the likes of Black Panther and The Empire Strikes Back. Tickets for these catalog titles will increase to $5 apiece after opening day while new movies will cost approximately $10 per ticket, depending on the market. The theatrical release calendar for new films comprises of Russell Crowe's revenge-thriller Unhinged and Disney's long-awaited New Mutants, which is expected to debut on August 28, while Christopher Nolan's highly-anticipated Tenet is set for September 3, one week after its international release. Warner Bros. demonstrated flexibility by releasing Tenet in other territories first while the U.S. theater release date suffered several delays due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. AMC now aims to have approximately "two-thirds of its more than 600 locations operational" in time for the film's release. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-delayed-movie-due-to-coronavirus-so-far&captions=true"] AMC is just one of many companies that has been hit hard by the pandemic. After closing more than 600 locations in March, AMC furloughed its CEO and other corporate employees, as the company faced financial uncertainty after its credit rating was downgraded amid fears that the entertainment chain would run out of cash during its extended theater closures. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Update: Epic has also confirmed that, if you've spent real money within Fortnite in the last 30 days (July 14, 2020 - August 13, 2020), you'll be given 20% of the purchase total in bonus V-Bucks. All active players will also be given the Shooting Star Pickaxe (pictured below) for free: [poilib element="accentDivider"] Epic Games has permanently lowered the cost of Fortnite V-Bucks by 20% across all platforms, including adding a new "direct payment" option on mobile, calling out Apple and Google's "exorbitant" payment fees in the process. The 'Fortnite Mega Drop' is explained in further detail in this FAQ from Epic. On PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Mac, and PC, V-Bucks and real-money offers are automatically discounted by 20% - meaning 1,000 V-Bucks now cost $7.99, down from $9.99. Mobile is a little different, where players can still buy using Apple or Google accounts at the higher price, but will now offer 'Epic direct payment' when purchasing V-Bucks on mobile devices to save the 20%. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/23/fortnite-slurp-legends-trailer"] Epic explains that this allows the company to "pass along the savings to players," noting the "exorbitant 30% fee" Apple and Google collect on every V-Buck payment as a reason for the alternate, discounted payment method on mobile. In the future, Epic is open to altering the deal "if Apple and Google lower their fees on payments." Epic also made it clear that this direct payment method is just as safe as other alternatives. "In operating Fortnite on open platforms and operating the Epic Games Store, Epic has processed over $1,600,000,000 of direct payments successfully, and uses industry trusted encryption and security measures to protect customer transactions." In other Fortnite news, it looks like the game has initiated an event related to the Christopher Nolan movie Tenet. Last week, Fortnite received the Joy Ride update that brought drivable cars to the game. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Epic Games has permanently lowered the cost of Fortnite V-Bucks by 20% across all platforms, including adding a new "direct payment" option on mobile, calling out Apple and Google's "exorbitant" payment fees in the process. The 'Fortnite Mega Drop' is explained in further detail in this FAQ from Epic. On PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Mac, and PC, V-Bucks and real-money offers are automatically discounted by 20% - meaning 1,000 V-Bucks now cost $7.99, down from $9.99. Mobile is a little different, where players can still buy using Apple or Google accounts at the higher price, but will now offer 'Epic direct payment' when purchasing V-Bucks on mobile devices to save the 20%. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/23/fortnite-slurp-legends-trailer"] Epic explains that this allows the company to "pass along the savings to players," noting the "exorbitant 30% fee" Apple and Google collect on every V-Buck payment as a reason for the alternate, discounted payment method on mobile. In the future, Epic is open to altering the deal "if Apple and Google lower their fees on payments." Epic also made it clear that this direct payment method is just as safe as other alternatives. "In operating Fortnite on open platforms and operating the Epic Games Store, Epic has processed over $1,600,000,000 of direct payments successfully, and uses industry trusted encryption and security measures to protect customer transactions." In other Fortnite news, it looks like the game has initiated an event related to the Christopher Nolan movie Tenet. Last week, Fortnite received the Joy Ride update that brought drivable cars to the game. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.