Every Half-Life game is going free-to-play for a limited time in anticipation of the release of Half-Life: Alyx. Users can go to Steam right now and install Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode One and Two to catch up on the series so far. Steam users received a notification earlier announcing the Half-Life promotion, but the notification appeared to have gone out too early because it soon disappeared. But Valve made the announcement official today in a new blog post. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="legacyId=20102960&captions=true"] “Half-Life: Alyx is coming in March, and we are celebrating early by making all games in the Half-Life Collection FREE to play for Steam users, from now until the day it launches.” Valve’s blog post indicates that the Half-Life Collection will only be free-to-play for a limited time — until Half-Life: Alyx is released. But that’s still nearly three months to catch up on one of the most critically-acclaimed FPS series in gaming. Half-Life: Alyx is set before the events of Half-Life 2 and stars Alyx Vance, a main character in Half-Life 2 and its episodes. Unlike the other Half-Life games, Valve’s upcoming title is played entirely in VR. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=2020-platform-exclusives&captions=true"] Valve says Half-Life: Alyx is comparable in length to Half-Life 2 and that it’s a full-length, single-player adventure. It’s also the first Half-Life game in over a decade. Although Alyx will be playable on several VR headsets, the game’s announcement appears to have driven sales for Valve’s Index VR kit. Valve's decision to revisit the Half-Life franchise fueled speculation that the company might revisit other dormant properties like Left 4 Dead, but Valve shot down Left 4 Dead 3 rumors last week. If you're also thinking of revisiting the Half-Life franchise before the release of the upcoming VR game, be sure to check out our complete Half-Life 2 Wiki Guide, including both an Episode 1 Walkthrough and Episode 2 Walkthrough. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him on Twitter.

X-Men star Patrick Stewart has confirmed that he is unlikely to reprise his role as Professor X in the MCU. Stewart, who has portrayed Charles Xavier in six movies, recently revealed that he had met with Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige about the possibility of his beloved X-men character returning to the big screen, though it was ultimately decided that his role would not be reprised. "I met with Kevin Feige a couple of months ago and we had long, long conversations," Stewart revealed in a conversation with Digital Spy. "And there have been moves and suggestions, which include Charles Xavier." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2016/10/06/logan-director-shows-off-old-man-professor-x"] The actor explained how his outlook towards the X-Men franchise shifted after Logan was released, as he suggested that the tenth film in the superhero series marked the end of an era for him and Hugh Jackman, who were both highly emotional about letting go of their respective characters. "Here's the problem... If we had not made Logan, then yes, I would probably be ready to get into that wheelchair one more time and be Charles Xavier. But Logan changed all that," Stewart said. "We were moved by the story. We were moved by one another. We were moved by the movie. But we also both made the decision that we were saying goodbye to our characters as well. "In that sense, it was not just the deaths of those two men in the franchise, but it was also goodbye to our part in them as well." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-x-men-movie-rotten-tomatoes-score&captions=true"] In our review of Logan, we commended Stewart's return as the wheelchair-bound telepath, saying the revered thespian managed to bring "true depth to the character" in a distinctly new way, making his reprisal "one of the hugely satisfying aspects" of the film. For more on the future of the X-Men franchise, find out which X-Men projects were paused as a result of the Disney/Fox merger, read about all of the X-Men movies that probably won't happen now, and discover how a new mutant power could be used to introduce the X-Men in the MCU. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Dust off a fresh Sleeve and get ready to binge because Netflix has finally revealed the release date for Season 2 of Altered Carbon, its mind-bending sci-fi series. All 8 episodes of Altered Carbon's second season will be released on Netflix on Thursday, February 27, 2020. Avengers star Anthony Mackie takes over for Joel Kinnaman as Takeshi Kovacs in Season 2, and Chris Conner returns as the highly-evolved A.I. Poe, along with an impressive ensemble of new cast members that you can learn more about in the gallery below: [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=everyone-confirmed-for-altered-carbon-season-2&captions=true"] Here's how the streamer describes Season 2: "Season 2 of the sophisticated and compelling sci-fi drama finds Takeshi Kovacs (Anthony Mackie), the lone surviving soldier of a group of elite interstellar warriors, continuing his centuries-old quest to find his lost love Quellcrist Falconer (Renée Elise Goldsberry). After decades of planet-hopping and searching the galaxy, Kovacs finds himself recruited back to his home planet of Harlan’s World with the promise of finding Quell. Haunted by his past and responsible for investigating a series of brutal murders, Kovacs is stunned to discover his new mission to solve the crime and his pursuit to find Quell are one and the same. With the help of his loyal A.I. Poe (Chris Conner), Kovacs must now partner with new allies to outwit his enemies and find the truth: Who is Quellcrist Falconer?" Netflix's adaptation of Altered Carbon is based on the science fiction novels written by Richard K. Morgan. For Season 2, Alison Schapker will serve as showrunner for all 8 episodes. You can check out Season 2's episode title below:

• Ep 201 “Phantom Lady” - written by Laeta Kalogridis, directed by Ciaran Donnelly
• Ep 202 “Payment Deferred” - written by Sarah Nicole James, directed by Ciaran Donnelly
• Ep 203 “Nightmare Alley” - written by Michael R. Perry, directed by MJ Bassett
• Ep 204 “Shadow of a Doubt” - written by Sang Kyu Kim, directed by MJ Bassett
• Ep 205 “I Wake up Screaming” - written by Cortney Norris, directed by Jeremy Webb
• Ep 206 “Bury Me Dead” - written by Adam Lash & Cori Uchida, directed by Jeremy Webb
• Ep 207 “Experiment Perilous” - written by Nevin Densham, directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield
• Ep 208 “Broken Angels” - written by Alison Schapker & Elizabeth Padden, directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield

For more on the world of cyberpunk, check out our list of seven games to play while you wait for Cyberpunk 2077 in the video below: [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/05/24/7-cyberpunk-games-to-play-before-cyberpunk-2077"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] David Griffin still watches DuckTales in his pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. He's also the TV Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.

Doom is the franchise that introduced the term “deathmatch” into the gaming lexicon, but, as id Software had previously announced, Doom Eternal won’t have a traditional deathmatch mode, instead opting for the more unique Battlemode multiplayer. “The issue with Doom 2016’s multiplayer was that it was a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and it was all very familiar and it was all packaged together and it was a very comfortable experience that’s easily digested by the consumer,” creative director Hugo Martin told IGN. “And that’s not what they want. They expect an id game to lead and not follow. We definitely followed with that experience. We played it safe; it was somewhat formulaic. And the audience can see through to your design story; they know if that’s what you’re doing, and that’s not what they wanted. We have to always innovate.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=doom-eternal-january-2019-screenshots&captions=true"] Enter Battlemode, the new 2v1 mode in which a single Doom Slayer battles two player-controlled demons and their deployed AI minions. “We tried to give players something new to master [with Battlemode],” Martin said. “It’s not just two players running at each other and the player with the best twitch skills wins.” [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/06/10/doom-eternal-official-mulitplayer-battlemode-trailer-e3-2019"] While we haven’t played Battlemode yet, we did just play the first three hours of the single-player campaign. Don’t miss our hands-on impressions of that, and stay tuned in February for much more on Doom Eternal, which will be released on March 20 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Google Stadia, with a Nintendo Switch version releasing sometime after that. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.

Doom has a reputation of being the ‘turn off your brain’ shooter; when the metal tunes kick in, you hold down the trigger until the walls are coated in viscera and the door at the end of the corridor unlocks. Fire and forget, that’s the name of the game. That image isn’t entirely true of the series - there’s more logic to those shootouts than the surface would suggest - but even producer Marty Stratton explained that “Doom is junk food” at a recent hands-on event. Doom Eternal is ripping apart that reputation. The fundamentals are all there - gore, chainsaws, shotguns that split hellspawn in two - but this sequel is much smarter than its 2016 predecessor. Stratton describes the new game as “junk food with nutritional content”. And boy, do I feel full of nutrients. Tasty, blood-soaked nutrients. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/21/doom-eternal-10-minutes-of-intense-gameplay"] There is a lot to unpack in Eternal’s combat loop, but it all comes back to one thing: beautifully grim demon destruction. Foes don’t just burst with the killing blow; they are gradually torn apart with each bullet and bomb. Flappy bits of cheek dangle from the side of bruised Cacodemons, chunks of brain fall away to expose the skeletons of Arachnotrons, and and the skin of a Hell Knight is gradually flayed to reveal its ripped muscles over the course of an extended encounter. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Gore%20acts%20as%20a%20diegetic%20health%20bar%20for%20each%20foe."] This, naturally, provides some incredibly gross feedback that makes every weapon in the Doom Slayer’s arsenal a delight to play with. But the gore system is more intelligent than that: it acts as a diegetic health bar for each foe. Each of Doom Eternal’s combat encounters pits you against dozens of demons, and requires you to be perpetually mobile. This means that you may fire a few rounds into a foe but be unable to score the killing blow before having to leap across the arena to a safer spot. When your lap of the area brings you face-to-face with that enemy again, it’s immediately obvious which one has already taken damage and which ones are fresh due to the bullet-riddled flesh and liberal blood-spatter. Against Doom Eternal’s largest enemies, this gore feedback is a godsend. As battles heat up, Hell starts to throw multiple big boys at you, such as the grotesquely obese Mancubus and the lanky Revenants. Being able to take a look at two Mancubi and immediately work out which is the bigger threat is fantastic. The one with broken guns and seven torso wounds can be easily finished with a shotgun blast or two, but if they’re already weak and without guns it may be worth focusing on the healthier threat. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=doom-eternal-january-2019-screenshots&captions=true"] This all ties into Doom Eternal’s approach to tension, which ebbs and flows with every passing second. The number of demons crowding your screen is a factor here, but developer id Software mostly ratchets tension through the use of…. resource management. Yeah, I never expected to say that in an article about Doom. The Doom Slayer is kept alive through three resources, as he has since time immemorial (AKA 1993): health, armour, and ammunition. Doom Eternal makes sure you barely have any of it. But, unlike a survival horror in which you’ll only find half a packet of bullets each mission, Doom Eternal is constantly giving you health and ammo. It just so rapidly forces you to spend it that you’re always on the knife edge between life and death, and full and empty magazines. This balance is achieved by Doom Eternal’s elegant combat loop, which refines and builds upon foundations laid by Doom 2016. Glory kills - in which you deal a killing blow by literally tearing demons apart with your bare fists - reward you with health. The bigger the demon, the better the drop. Setting foes on fire with your shoulder-mounted Flame Belch cannon provides you with a scattering of armour fragments to collect. And chainsawing enemies into tiny pieces results in an explosion of ammunition drops that can immediately get you back in the fight. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/08/10/doom-eternal-phobos-gameplay"] These three actions combine and flow to give Doom Eternal a more distinct rhythm to its combat than any previous game in the series. With one eye on all your resource meters, you’ll be finishing off enemies with the very specific kind of kill required to keep you battle ready. The game is even smart enough to automatically pull out the chainsaw the moment you fire your last bullet, which allows you to quickly eviscerate the closest enemy and refill your pockets with buckshot. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=You%E2%80%99re%20always%20on%20the%20knife%20edge%20between%20life%20and%20death%2C%20and%20full%20and%20empty%20magazines."] There is a lot going on in Doom Eternal’s wider systems. Runes allow you to augment your combat style, providing small enhancements like slow-motion air dives or a longer range on your Glory Kills. Substantially improved traversal mechanics mean that platforming becomes integral to combat; you’ll quickly find yourself chaining together monkey bar swings and rocket salvos. But while all these elements bring well thought-out additions, they only work because the very fundamentals of Doom Eternal’s combat is so excellent. Marty Stratton says that Doom Eternal is junk food with nutritional value, but I think he’s underselling it. Doom Eternal is a delicately balanced gastronomic experience, but it tastes like the best, greasiest burger you ever ate. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, the Apple Original series from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia creators Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day, has been renewed for a second season before its first episodes have released. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/07/mythic-quest-ravens-banquet-official-trailer"] The video game studio-set comedy, which is in part produced by Ubisoft’s Film & Television department, will launch its first season in full on February 7. But Apple has already renewed the live-action comedy for a second season, which was announced during the show’s TCA panel (via Deadline). The announcement did not reveal an episode count for the second season, nor a release date, but it will presumably continue to be an exclusive to Apple TV+. Co-created by McElhenney, Day, and Megan Ganz, the first season consists of nine episodes following the development team behind the fictional Mythic Quest. McElhenney stars as the game’s creative director Ian Grimm, who works alongside an ensemble cast including F. Murray Abraham, Community’s Danny Pudi, and ever-popular video game voice actor Ashly Burch. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=midseason-tv-2020-34-shows-we-cant-wait-to-watch&captions=true"] Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet was first announced at Ubisoft’s E3 2019 conference. Since then only a few details have emerged, including McElhenney assuring fans that he will make It’s Always Sunny “forever” despite his involvement in a new project. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

The first set of Cyberpunk 2077 Funko Pops have been revealed and they’ve been given a very familiar release date.

Yes, announced at London Toy Fair, the Cyberpunk 2077 Funko Pops will be available on April 16, 2020. That’s Cyberpunk 2077’s original release date before it got another delay recently, if you didn’t know.

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So while you won’t be able to play the game itself in April you could at least bring a little bit of its futuristic world into your life via Funko Pops.

Similar to McFarlane’s Cyberpunk 2077 action figures, the Funko Pops will include both V and Johnny Silverhand, who is the digital ghost that accompanies main character V throughout the game and is played by Keanu Reeves.

Unlike McFarlane’s figures, however, the Funko Pops include both the male and female versions of V, as well as two different Johnny Silverhands. One of them sports sunglasses and dual-wields pistols, while the other is calmly resting on one knee.

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If you’re after more Keanu Reeves then check out our history of his appearances in games. Or if you need something else to tide you over until Cyberpunk 2077 comes out then we have seven cyberpunk games you should start playing.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Disney+ is set to launch in the UK and several other territories across Western Europe on March 24, which is a whole week earlier than the original release date that was announced. The House of Mouse recently updated its rollout plans for Europe, confirming that the release date for the streaming service has been brought forward for the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and Switzerland, while much of the rest of Europe will gain access to the platform by summer. Pricing has also been confirmed as £5.99/€6.99 per month or £59.99/€69.99 for an annual subscription, per Deadline. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/11/08/disney-is-disneys-streaming-service"] The streaming service is expected to launch with a library of content from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic, including plenty of original content such as Star Wars' live-action series The Mandalorian, the Toy Story short series Forky Asks A Question, the live-action Lady and the Tramp, and The World According to Jeff Goldblum, though certain titles may vary by territory due to regional differences. In its first year and beyond, Disney+ is slated to add Frozen 2 and a documentary on the making of the film, a Toy Story Bo Peep short, WandaVision starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier starring Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, a Loki series starring Tom Hiddleston, a series based on Rogue One's Cassian Andor starring Diego Luna and Alan Tudyk, and much more. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/11/11/disney-plus-how-to-watch-on-tvs-game-consoles-and-more-ign-now"] Despite suffering a few technical glitches, Disney+ signed up more than 10 million subscribers on its first day of operation in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, where the direct-to-viewer service launched on November 12. Further statistics indicate that, with an immense catalogue of titles available at launch, Disney+ users collectively spent 1.3 million hours streaming and watching the films and shows available to them on the first day of release. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=disney-app-screenshots&captions=true"] For more on Disney+, check out our reviews of The World According to Jeff Goldblum, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, The Imagineering Story, Forky Asks a Question and Marvel's Hero Project. Alternatively, read our detailed write-up and final verdict of Disney's new streaming service. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

The creative director of the latest two Splinter Cell games has returned to Ubisoft after leaving the company in 2019.

VGC reports that Maxime Beland is one of the people who will make up Ubisoft’s newly expanded and restructured editorial team that oversees creative decisions on all its games.

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Beland started as a game tester for Ubisoft back in 1998. He worked there for the next 20 years, serving as creative director on Rainbow Six: Vegas, game design director on Assassin’s Creed, and creative director for Splinter Cell: Conviction and Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

Before he left Ubisoft in February 2019 to become a creative director at Epic Games, Beland provided creative direction on Far Cry 4, Far Cry Primal, and Far Cry 5.

Beland left Epic Games in October 2019 and has now reportedly rejoined Ubisoft. Whether that will lead to a resurrection of Splinter Cell is unknown. But there were signs that Ubisoft was gearing up for a new Splinter Cell game in 2018.

In 2019, the creative director tweeted that he was working on the next Splinter Cell game, but then told IGN that he was just joking. No mention of a Splinter Cell game in development has come since.

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Ubisoft's newly restructured editorial team is reportedly an effort to encourage more diversity in Ubisoft’s game lineup after the disappointing sales of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and The Division 2. It was this disappointment that allegedly led to the delay of Watch Dogs Legion, Gods and Monsters, and Rainbow Six Quarantine. An unannounced project that had been in the works for three years at Ubisoft was also cancelled around the same time for the same reason.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Crisis on Infinite Earths has just ended (read our full crossover review here), but Arrowverse fans have another big event to look forward to in January. Arrow is set to wrap up its eighth and final season on January 28. And somehow, the series will have to do so without its lead hero: Oliver Queen sacrificed his life to end the Crisis, leaving his friends and family to mourn the hero who saved Star City and the entire multiverse. We recently chatted with executive producer Marc Guggenheim about the epic conclusion to Crisis and how it will change the Arrowverse. During that chat, we also touched on Arrow's series finale and the challenge of wrapping up the show in the wake of Crisis. We were curious how Guggenheim and showrunner Beth Schwartz tackled the challenge of following up Crisis and wrapping up Oliver Queen's journey after the character has already died (twice) in Crisis. Does Arrow even necessarily need a separate finale at this point? Even Guggenheim admitted that the final episode was a difficult nut to crack. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/15/crisis-on-infinite-earths-links-dc-tv-and-movie-universes-ign-now"] "We always had a plan in that we knew that [during] Crisis, Oliver would die," he said. "We knew that the series finale would be essentially like a coda... a sort of an epilogue. We knew a variety of different elements to the finale, but one thing we didn't have was what I called a central theme. We didn't have this principle that would tie together all the elements that we had already planned upon." Guggenheim continued, "I was in the editing room one day; I'm watching the latest cut, and of course, it begins as almost all the Arrow episodes do, and for the umpteenth bajillionth the time, I hear Stephen [Amell] say, 'I returned home with only one goal, to save my city,' and it just all clicked for me in that moment. I realized, oh, that's the central principle of the finale: Oliver achieves his mission. He saved the city. He actually saved the universe. Once Beth and I had that, that was the central rubric to organize the whole finale around. It's an unconventional finale because we kill off our protagonist two episodes before the actual finale, but at the end of the day, it felt just really appropriate." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=crisis-on-infinite-earths-every-cameo-in-the-crossover&captions=true"] Guggenheim even revealed a new detail about "Fadeout," telling us the episode will bring back the flashback scenes one last time and explore a previously untold story set during the early days of Season 1. While it's unclear how or even if Oliver will appear in the present, at least the flashbacks will give Amell one final opportunity to explore his character's journey in the Arrowverse. "We're going to honor the flashback convention of the show by flashing back to events in very early in Season 1, and what's nice about that is it brings everything full circle," said Guggenheim. "I'm really proud of it. It was a really enjoyable script to write, for Beth and I to write. James Bamford just killed it, and all the actors brought their A-game. I'm looking forward to everyone checking it out." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/07/20/arrow-cast-toasts-to-final-season-looking-back-at-the-series-best-moments-comic-con-2019"] For more on the epic Crisis finale, check out our review for the final two episodes, learn more about the new Earth-Prime and see what Amell thought of the ending. Arrow's series finale, "Fadeout," airs January 28 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.