We’ve already seen quite a lot of High on Life, the expectedly bizarre, exceptionally gross new single-player shooter. The big pitch is that Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland and his team at Squanch Games have built a first-person shooter that sees you bounty hunting for aliens, and taking them down with talking guns. But it was the little details that impressed when I got to try out the game for myself.

Opening Night Live included a boss fight from High on Life’s early sections, but my 25 minute hands-on (which you can watch below) included the full mission that leads up to that battle. The demo begins in your player-character’s house (populated by their exceptionally confused big sister and their new alien bounty hunter handler, Gene), then has you heading out into the technicolor alien city of Blim, and finally down into its sewer slums for a series of battles. In terms of regular gameplay, it’s a relatively short section - but I managed to fill that 25 minutes simply because of how much incidental detail there was to see.

That attention to detail begins right away - your character’s house is a literal home base, equipped with a Bounty 5,000 computer, which will assign missions and (when it’s repaired by Gene) allow you to take portals to different locations. But more immediately fixating was the house’s TV, which airs animated shorts (some made by Roiland himself) and even four licensed feature length movies. It’s an early sign not just of the game’s relentless approach to telling jokes, but the amount of effort that’s gone into adding fun detail for those who stop to look around.

Blim itself is something like Blade Runner’s Los Angeles if it had been designed by the cast of Sesame Street, a vomit of primary color, indecipherable signs for bizarre businesses, and scattered aliens going about their daily lives.

When you get to talk to those citizens, you’re given RPG-esque dialogue choices, but you’ll quickly realize that the emphasis is very much on hitting punchlines rather than making tough decisions. Two, well, tubes with faces guard the gates to the slums, and will only let you through if you answer a question: which one of them is hotter? I repeatedly said the blue guy was sexier than his red friend. The benefit was that the blue guy’s gate opened and let me continue, the cost was that I made the red guy very sad and self-conscious.

That focus on taking familiar gaming tropes and milking them for jokes is all over the game. Later, I was faced with a very irritating little guy who repeatedly mocked the unnamed player-character. Naturally, the response was to try to shoot him… which resulted in my talking gun rebuking me for even trying. So I tried again. Another telling off. Once more? Oh, it suddenly let me do it after all. “Normally, killing children in games isn’t allowed but he’s dead. We killed this kid,” whined my gun. “There goes our E for Everybody rating!”

Yes, High on Life is very aware that it’s a game, and revels in that fact. What surprised me more was that the game itself is seemingly looking beyond its single player shooter peers for ideas. When I did get into some fights (against a series of giant ants, who increasingly lose confidence as I wipe out their ranks), I was surprised to realize that combat has as much to do with platformers or even bullet hells as it does FPS games.

Enemy projectiles are many, but travel slowly, meaning you’ll spend just as much time dodging and positioning yourself in a fight as you do trying to squeeze off headshots. Cover isn’t a huge consideration, leading you to move constantly to avoid the scatterings of blaster shots around you. Later, we picked up the frankly disgusting Knifey, who adds a melee attack and a grappling hook - it seems pretty clear that Squanch wants you to be moving vertically as well as laterally in these fights as the game goes on.

While I only got to use the one gun - a goop-firing pistol called Kenny - its alternate fire revealed another wrinkle to combat. The Glob Shot fires an arcing, explosive… glob, which offers slowdown as you aim it, and knocks enemies into the air. What I didn’t expect was for it to then offer the ability to juggle enemies, Devil May Cry-style, once they were up there. While I didn’t get to experiment further, it feels as though the game is pushing you to finish your fights stylishly rather than efficiently, and I’d expect other guns to offer combos with these alternate abilities.

That feeling, that I expect the game to offer more ideas as time goes on, is what’s exciting me most about High on Life after playing it. If these 25 minutes included enough jokes, neat touches, references, and combat ideas for me to write this much about, how will it feel once I’m hours into the game? If it keeps up that pace, High on Life will be far from a shooter with a jokey veneer - it could be something truly new.

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.

Despite Gamescom 2022 still being well underway, the 2023 event has already had its schedule revealed.

Gamescom's Opening Night Live host Geoff Keighley posted a photo to his Twitter (below) that shows advertisements at this year's event, with one sign confirming an August 23 to August 27 schedule for 2023.

August 22 will also mark Gamescom 2023's Opening Night Live event, the usually two hour show in which dozens of new game announcements, trailers, gameplay clips, and so on are shown.

Give me a minute but Gamescom 2023 dates have been announced - including Opening Night Live. pic.twitter.com/bnmJRVfirK

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) August 24, 2022

This year's Opening Night Live featured all that and more, including the re-reveal of Dead Island 2, the announcement of Sony's Elite Controller competitor the DualSense Edge, a new release date for Gotham Knights, and a reveal for creepy, Bloodborne-looking Pinocchio game called Lies of P.

Gamescom otherwise brings the opportunity for fans to get their hands on unreleased games for the first time, and so far we've seen new gameplay from the Rick and Morty co-creator's shooter High on Life, Dead Space spiritual successor The Callisto Protocol, and Square Enix's upcoming RPG Forspoken.

IGN is also hosting a live show throughout the entirety of Gamescom, bringing fans in-depth coverage, analysis, and gameplay from a ton of new games plus our own exclusive reveals and announcements too.

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

The PlayStation 5 is about to get more expensive in most major markets, and Sony says you can blame continued inflation and other global economic troubles.

Today on the PlayStation blog, Sony announced that it will be raising the price of both editions of the PS5 in Europe, the UK, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Canada. The United States seems to be the only major market not getting a price increase.

"The global economic environment is a challenge that many of you around the world are no doubt experiencing," the blog post states. "We’re seeing high global inflation rates, as well as adverse currency trends, impacting consumers and creating pressure on many industries."

The price increases are as follows:

Europe:

PS5 with Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive – €549.99, up from €499.99

PS5 Digital Edition – €449.99, up from €399.99

UK:

PS5 with Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive – £479.99, up from £449.99

PS5 Digital Edition – £389.99, up from £359.99

Japan:

PS5 with Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive – ¥54,980 yen, up from ¥49,980

PS5 Digital Edition – ¥44,980 yen, up from ¥39,980

China:

PS5 with Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive – ¥4,299 yuan, up from ¥3,899 yuan

PS5 Digital Edition – ¥3,499 yuan, up from ¥3,099 yuan

Australia:

PS5 with Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive – AUD $799.95, up from AUD $749.95

PS5 Digital Edition – AUD $649.95, up from AUD $599.95

Mexico:

PS5 with Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive – MXN $14,999, up from MXN $13,999

PS5 Digital Edition – MXN $12,499, up from MXN $11,499

Canada:

PS5 with Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive – CAD $649.99, up from $629 CAD

PS5 Digital Edition – CAD $519.99, up from $499 CAD

It is unfortunately not clear from the blog post whether or not this price increase will eventually be brought back down again, or if so, when. Sony concludes its blog post by stating that its top priority is to improve the PS5 supply situation, which has struggled since the console's launch due to ongoing chip shortages.

Sony's move follows a very similar one from Meta, which bumped the price of Meta Quest 2 $100 late last month for the same reasons. Ampere Analysis' Piers Harding-Rolls suggests in his own blog post that Sony's move was a necessary one to pass on continued cost increases hitting the component supply chain. Harding-Rolls predicts that the price increase will have "minimal impact" on sales due to continued high demand, and adds that for now, there's no indication that Microsoft will make the same move. However, it may take advantage of Sony's price increase to push the value of its own hardware.

Ampere Analysis estimates that Sony has sold 21 million PS5s as of June 2022, while Xbox Series consoles have sold 13.8 million.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Batgirl will likely not see the light of day despite having mostly completed filming. While the movie will forever be known as a victim of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, reports say Batgirl will be shown on the WB lot for cast and crew as a "funeral screening."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the "funeral screenings" will be held in secret for people who have worked on the movie, cast, crew, and executives as a way to send off the movie before it likely gets locked away in a vault.

Following cost-cutting measures by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, it was announced that the studio will shelve Batgirl, a movie that cost $90 million and mostly finished filming, in order to receive a tax write-down.

The film starred Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon and also featured Michael Keaton as Batman, JK Simmons as Jim Gordon, and Brendan Fraser as the film's villain, Firefly.

Any attempts to revive Batgirl similar to the way Zack Snyder revived Justice League have been shut down as attempts to do so could negate the tax write-down WB Discovery is trying to get by scrapping the movie. Furthermore, neither directors Adil El Arbi nor Bilall Fallah even has access to the movie anymore.

Instead, Batgirl will likely be locked away for good in the vaults, a fate shared by other Warner Bros. properties like the disastrous original pilot for Game of Thrones, and the pilot for the canceled spinoff Bloodmoon.

WB Discovery's cost-cutting measures have extended beyond Batgirl and several other films have either been shelved or removed from HBO Max.

You can read IGN's full rundown of the Batgirl saga, as well as the social campaign to release the film.

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

Batgirl will likely not see the light of day despite having mostly completed filming. While the movie will forever be known as a victim of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, reports say Batgirl will be shown on the WB lot for cast and crew as a "funeral screening."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the "funeral screenings" will be held in secret for people who have worked on the movie, cast, crew, and executives as a way to send off the movie before it likely gets locked away in a vault.

Following cost-cutting measures by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, it was announced that the studio will shelve Batgirl, a movie that cost $90 million and mostly finished filming, in order to receive a tax write-down.

The film starred Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon and also featured Michael Keaton as Batman, JK Simmons as Jim Gordon, and Brendan Fraser as the film's villain, Firefly.

Any attempts to revive Batgirl similar to the way Zack Snyder revived Justice League have been shut down as attempts to do so could negate the tax write-down WB Discovery is trying to get by scrapping the movie. Furthermore, neither directors Adil El Arbi nor Bilall Fallah even has access to the movie anymore.

Instead, Batgirl will likely be locked away for good in the vaults, a fate shared by other Warner Bros. properties like the disastrous original pilot for Game of Thrones, and the pilot for the canceled spinoff Bloodmoon.

WB Discovery's cost-cutting measures have extended beyond Batgirl and several other films have either been shelved or removed from HBO Max.

You can read IGN's full rundown of the Batgirl saga, as well as the social campaign to release the film.

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

Batgirl directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have spoken out about its cancellation.

During an interview with SKRIPT, the Batgirl filmmakers explained that they were kept from accessing their own footage when the film was unceremoniously canceled… and they also revealed the real reason it was canned.

“The guys from Warners told us it was not a talent problem from our part or the actress, or even the quality of the movie,” said El Arbi. “They told us it was a strategic change. There was new management, and they wanted to save some money.”

“First, when I heard the news, I was shocked, I didn’t know how to react,” said Fallah. “I wanted to break stuff, cry, even laugh. I was like, ‘This is not happening.’”

Despite reports of a poor test screening, both filmmakers were clearly shocked by the news that their highly anticipated comic book movie had been axed.

But despite a rising social media movement calling for the studio to #ReleaseBatgirl, it looks as though that’s not on the cards… and the filmmakers themselves can no longer access their own footage to complete the project.

“[Batgirl] cannot be released in its current state,” said El Arbi. “Before it’s released one day, there would be a lot of work still to do. Just like the Snyder Cut. There’s no VFX, we still had to shoot some scenes. So, if [Warner Bros. Discovery] wanted us to release the Batgirl movie they would need to give us the means to do it, to finish it properly with our vision.”

Although, the filmmakers didn’t take the news sitting down. After news of Batgirl’s cancellation broke, the filmmakers realized they had limited time to try and save what remained of the project… but while Fallah attempted to access their earlier footage, it was no longer available to them.

“We have nothing,” said Fallah. “Adil called me and said, ‘Shoot everything on your phone.’ I went on the server, and everything was blocked.”

“We were like, ‘F****** sh**! All the scenes with Batman in them! Sh**!’” said El Arbi.

Although the footage was no longer there, it's unlikely that it was simply deleted. After all, Warner Bros. Discovery spent millions putting the film into production, and it would seem like a pretty vindictive move to simply delete it all.

But then, this whole debacle isn’t exactly another day at the office.

Instead, it’s likely that access to the footage was removed from El Arbi and Fallah… so it’s entirely possible that their original footage still exists somewhere. The fact that it remains out of their reach means this is of little comfort.

And it’s unlikely this footage will ever see the light of day. “We’re not going to launch a movie until it’s ready,” said Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav during a recent earnings call. So, for now, it looks as though Batgirl is forced to hang up her cape.

Want to read more about Batgirl? Check out why Batgirl was canceled in the first place as well as which upcoming DC projects could be affected by the Warner Bros. Discovery merger.

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

On January 15th, 2022, a submerged volcano erupted off the coast of Tonga, creating a terrifying tsunami wave roughly the height of the Statue of Liberty, according to the results of a new study published in the journal, Ocean Engineering.

Every now and again Earth’s oceans do something absolutely nightmare-inducing. This can be as simple as reminding humanity that enormous predators once roamed their depths, or, for example, by throwing out a monstrous wave capable of decimating everything in its path.

IGN covered megalodons recently, so for now we’ll focus on the destructive potential of the latter.

As part of a new study, a team of researchers has modeled the size of an enormous tsunami that rolled across the South Pacific Ocean earlier this year. The wave was created when an underwater volcano — called Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai — erupted with cataclysmic force.

The sheer violence of the eruption, which took place roughly 70 km northwest of Nuku’alofa — the capital city of the Kingdom of Tonga — was enough to trigger the creation of a truly gargantuan wave, which proceeded to travel outward towards the coast before striking the shore.

When conducting their study, the scientists used data collected by sea-level coastal tide gauges, and air pressure recordings.

According to the team, the eruption created powerful atmospheric pressure waves that swept around the Earth multiple times. A combination of the water displacement from the eruption and these pressure waves both fed into the January event, creating a two-stage tsunami.

Coastal regions were first hit by fast moving waves triggered by the atmospheric pressure, which were followed roughly an hour afterwards by the large wave triggered by the eruption-induced water displacement.

“We are under-prepared for volcanic tsunamis”

The computer simulations run by the team revealed that the volcano could have displaced a staggering 6,600 million cubic meters of water, creating a 12 km (~39370 ft.)-wide wave that had a maximum height of 90 meters (~295000 ft.) above sea level.

If the maximum height were true, the displacement wave would have been nearly nine times the height of the wave that struck the Japanese coast in 2011, causing widespread damage and loss of life.

Thankfully, in the case of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption, the distance between the volcano and the Tongan coast seriously reduced the destructive potential of the wave.

Tragically, however, there were still five fatalities, and according to the World Bank, the devastation wrought by this wave and the ashfall that blanketed the kingdom soon after caused an estimated 90.4 million U.S. dollars in damages.

The authors of the study believe that the Hunga Tonga Ha’apai eruption should serve as a warning for world governments on the danger of future volcanic tsunami events.

“This was a gigantic, unique event and one that highlights that internationally we must invest in improving systems to detect volcanic tsunamis as these are currently around 30 years behind the systems we used to monitor for earthquakes,” comments Dr Mohammad Heidarzadeh, one of the authors of the study from the University of Bath, and Secretary-General of the International Tsunami Commission, "We are under-prepared for volcanic tsunamis."

Anthony Wood is a freelance science writer for IGN.

Article Image Credit: Shutterstock, Ian Mitchinson

Super Smash Bros director Masahiro Sakurai has launched his own YouTube channel called “Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games.”

Sakurai explains in an introductory video on the channel that he won’t be streaming any games, but rather will be talking about topics like game development and what makes video games fun.

“I’m often asked to give lectures at game development schools, and while I think it’s a great idea, such presentations can only reach so many people.” He continues, “I’ve also realized that developer conferences like GDC or CEDEC, while good for technical concepts aren’t always the best forums for discussing design theory.”

Sakurai also mentions that he’ll keep his videos relatively short between 2-5 minutes and that the channel is his personal project, so he won’t be profiting off of it. Additionally, he’ll have both English and Japanese versions of his videos on the channel.

As for Nintendo content, Sakurai explains that he will share things like Smash Bros development builds and design documents he’s written. Of course, he has to run this idea by Nintendo, and he has gotten approval to do so.

Sakurai reiterates his intentions for the channel, hoping to educate viewers on how game development works as well as inspire others. Furthermore, the channel is open to everyone, regardless of whether you’re in the games industry or not.

I've decided to start a new YouTube channel called "Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games."
It launches...right now!

Subscribe today and you can brag (?) about being one of the very first to join me on this new endeavor. I'll share more details soon!

[EN]https://t.co/NC0yM3U9sd pic.twitter.com/oXDajaS8ld

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) August 24, 2022

He says, “I hope this can someday lead to more creators down the line. That, in turn, will lead to more fun games for all of us to play.”

According to Sakurai, there are no plans for a sequel to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. However, if Nintendo ever wanted to greenlight one and offers him the job, he’ll start thinking about it.

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

Well Go USA Entertainment has released a clip for the genre-bending Korean film, Alienoid, which will make its US theatrical debut on Friday, August 26, 2022.

Here's how the studio describes Alienoid: "In the year 2022, Guard and Thunder live on Earth, managing alien prisoners who have been locked up in humans’ brains. One day, a spacecraft appears in the sky over Seoul, and the police detective Moon witnesses a strange sight…Meanwhile 630 years earlier during the Goryeo Dynasty, the hapless dosa (Korean tao magician) Muruk, the so-called 'The Girl Who Shoots Thunder,' each scramble to outwit each other in pursuit of the mystical Divine Blade, for which a huge reward is being offered. Two sorcerers in search of the Divine Blade’s secrets, Madam Black and Mr. Blue, as well as the masked Jajang, also set out on a desperate scramble to obtain the Blade. Meanwhile, a spacecraft emerges from a deep river, emitting light."

IGN can exclusively debut the action-packed clip from Alienoid in the video below or at the top of the page:

Directed and written by Choi Dong-hoon, Alienoid features a large ensemble, including Ryu Jun-yeol (as Muruk), Kim Woo-bin (as Guard), Kim Tae-ri (as Ean), So Ji-sub (as Moon Do-seok), Yum Jung-ah (as Madam Black), Jo Woo-jin (as Mr. Blue), Kim Eui-sung (as Jajang), Lee Ha-nee (as Min Galien), Shin Jung-geun (as Right Paw), Lee Si-hoon (as Left Paw).

What did you think of the trailer? Let us know in the comments.

And for more on the world of entertainment, be sure to check out when Halloween Ends will stream on Peacock, the final trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and which Batman title got canceled by Warner Bros. Discovery.

David Griffin is the Senior Editor, Features and Content Partnerships for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.

Netflix has shared an inside look at the creepy and kooky (and altogether ooky) character Wednesday Addams from its upcoming Addams Family spinoff, premiering later this year.

The new featurette from Netflix shines a spotlight on the beloved Addams Family daughter, portrayed by Latina actress Jenna Ortega in the series. Ortega explains in the video that she set out to deliver a different take on the classic character and that she even attended fencing lessons and cello sessions twice a week to prepare for the role.

"Wednesday is technically a Latina character and that's never been represented. So for me, any time that I have an opportunity to represent my community, I want that to be seen." — @jennaortega pic.twitter.com/LYdHIJLpTQ

— Netflix (@netflix) August 24, 2022

"Wednesday's the classic outsider, obviously. She sees things very black and white… mainly black, but in the past incarnations she's been very cartoony, so in this longer form, you're just trying to give it a reality," director Tim Burton added about her character. "She's like a silent movie actress in a sense, where she's able to convey things without words. To see the inner life and the subtleties was very exciting."

Showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough emphasized that Netflix's Wednesday isn't a remake or a reboot but rather "a new chapter" that will explore the titular character's "journey into adulthood" and her various antics along the way, including her expulsion from a normal, everyday school and eventual enrolment at Nevermore, an academy for outcasts.

The series is described as "a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams' years as a student at Nevermore Academy, where she attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the murder mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago."

Alongside Ortega in the lead role, Wednesday also features Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Addams, Luis Guzmán as Gomez Addams, and Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley Addams together with Hunter Doohan, Georgie Farmer, and many more. Their stories will unfold across eight episodes, four of which will be directed by Tim Burton, who is making his TV directorial debut on the series.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.