The legendary Pokémon in Scarlet and Violet are living vehicles that can transform into bikes, boats, and planes.

As revealed in today's Pokémon Presents video, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will feature two new legendary Pokémon: Koraidon and Miraidon. All legendary Pokémon typically have interesting abilities, but the next game in the series is taking it one step further by making them mounts that can adapt to the many different terrains across the new Paldea region.

Across the ground, Koraidon and Miraidon can act as a living bike for speedy cross-country travel. Hitting water will see them transform into a boat-like vehicle, while taking to the skies will see wings deploy. It seems like almost any kind of terrain won't be an issue for Koraidon and Miraidon, since the gameplay footage showed them climbing straight up sheer cliff faces as well as more normal grass fields and gentle waves.

The official Pokémon website notes the three different travel modes, and they have different names for each Pokémon. Koraidon has three builds; Sprinting, Swimming, and Gliding builds. Miraidon has three pretty much identical modes; Drive, Aquatic, and Glide modes. The main difference seems to be that Koraidon uses its legs to sprint/paddle and wings to fly, while Miraidon is more mechanical in style, using its tail and throat as wheels.

The Pokémon Company describes Scarlet and Violet as an open world RPG, suggesting wide open spaces will be an important aspect of the game, as it was with the recent Pokémon Legends: Arceus. This may explain the need for a legendary Pokémon with such vehicle-like abilities.

It's currently unclear if you obtain your legendary Pokémon early in the game, so it may be that Koraidon and Miraidon are mid or late-game Pokémon, and that you have to explore Paldea with more traditional forms of transportation first. The Pokémon website does note that the three forms have to be learned, and so it may be that you access ground, sea, and air traversal over a period of time rather than right away.

We speculated that Scarlet and Violet's legendaries could be ridable vehicles back in June, where we also wondered if the gyms will have a motorsport theme. For more, check out the news that it will be 4-player co-op and the Scarlet and Violet memes that have already started happening.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

Nintendo Switch shortages should get better by the end of the year, after supply constraints hurt Nintendo's hardware sales in the last quarter.

The latest earnings report from Nintendo confirms that the ongoing chip shortage has been having an impact on sales, but the company reassured investors that it should be easier for fans to get their hands on a Switch by the holidays.

“Due to delays in the procurement of components such as semiconductors this year, we have not been able to conduct production as planned,” confirmed Nintendo. “However, we expect procurement to gradually improve from late summer towards autumn, giving us a clearer outlook regarding production for the remaining calendar year.”

According to the report, Nintendo's Q1 (April-June) Switch sales fell by 22.9% year-on-year, selling 3.43 million units. “Production was impacted by factors such as the global shortage of semiconductor components, resulting in a decrease in hardware shipments and subsequent decline in overall sales,” the company said.

Thankfully, Nintendo promises it’s getting on top of things to sort out supply issues by the holidays. “In preparation for the holiday season, we will leverage appropriate means of shipment, and work to deliver as many Nintendo Switch systems as possible to consumers in every region.”

As a result, Nintendo has made no changes to its financial forecast for this fiscal year.

It’s not just supply that’s causing the issue here – it’s also demand. Nintendo had a great year, with the Switch becoming the fourth-biggest console in US history, outselling the PS4. Throw in the fact that it’s also had a record-breaking year in software sales and it looks as though the Nintendo Switch is very much still in demand.

The good news for Nintendo this quarter is that sales of first-party games and software titles have increased year-on-year to the second-highest for a Q1 since the Switch was launched. There’s no slowing down on the games front, and with Splatoon 3, and Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet still to come, it’s looking like a big year for the Switch.

Nintendo isn’t the only company affected by these shortages, of course – Sony is also working to combat PS5 shortages before the holidays.

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

House of the Dragon co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik has confirmed that nine dragons will be unleashed in the first season of the HBO series and that each one will have "its own personality."

Sapochnik told Empire Magazine that nine of the 17 dragons in HBO's House of the Dragon will glide, swoop, and soar across our screens during the first season of the Game of Thrones prequel series, which is set to premiere on August 21, and that they will be an eclectic group as each mythical monster will have its own defining characteristics to set them apart from the rest.

"Each new dragon has its own personality. That's what's going on now in our last part of the animation – we're applying personal character traits to each of the dragons," Sapochnik explained. "One of them's got a [bad] leg. Another one's much more like an eagle, because she's kind of neurotic. And another one's like a curmudgeonly old granny."

Sapochnik also touched on the challenges the team faced in bringing the beasts to life. He said one of the biggest hurdles was trying to pull away from the iconic Drogon model to establish an array of different designs for the titular dragons in the Game of Thrones spin-off series, as he admitted that they kept returning to the outer appearance of the very familiar firebreather.

"I've got a book which has hundreds of [concept] designs," he said. "The first thing you want is not to do Drogon. So I came up with a whole theory about how there were three different kinds of dragons, based on their different skulls. We came up with all kinds of stuff. But in the end, we ended up back at Drogon. There's something about Drogon. It's like the Millennium Falcon. It hit something."

Based on George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood, the 10-episode first season will flesh out the tales behind the Targaryen family, who ruled Westeros before the events of Game of Thrones. Set 200 years before the show, it will show the beginning of the end of the Targaryen reign, leading up to a civil war waged between family members – and the seeming death of dragons in the fantasy world.

The highly anticipated series officially wrapped filming in February. Since then, we have learned that the first season will incorporate multiple time skips, that it may serve as a foundation for other Westeros stories, and that its redesigned Iron Throne includes 2,500 swords. We'll find out how all of that comes together when House of the Dragon premieres on HBO and HBO Max on August 21.

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

It looks as though EA is still trying to make amends for that joke about single-player games, with CEO Andrew Wilson calling them "really, really important."

During a recent earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson reassured investors that single-player games are still a major part of the company's output… despite what it may say on Twitter.

“As we think about single-player games, we think it's a really, really important part of the overall portfolio that we deliver in fulfillment of those core motivations.”

Roast well deserved. We’ll take this L cause playing single player games actually makes them an 11. https://t.co/PNg4FKOgfB

— Electronic Arts (@EA) July 1, 2022

EA recently came under fire after making a controversial tweet that mocked single-player games. The tweet itself was a poorly-executed response to a recent meme, but soon had gamers and industry figureheads alike wondering why EA had posted it. After all, the company has published plenty of critically-acclaimed single player games including Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and The Sims 4.

Now, the company is clearly trying to play it down:

“The way we think about this is really less about which game, and more about which motivations these games fulfill,” said Wilson. “So, we know that our players, they have these core motivations; inspiration, escape, social connection, competition, self-improvement, creation; these things that bring us together as players of games and the creation of worlds and the building of characters. And the telling of stories is really important in the fulfillment of some of those motivations.”

Even worse than being torn apart on social media, EA also came under fire from its own employees about the joke. According to USA Today, EA employees disliked the tweet, largely because the company’s social media is managed by a team that sits outside of the games industry.

“They’re all new and most of them, to my knowledge, aren’t really game industry people,” explained one of USA Today's sources. “The person who posted that tweet didn’t know and wasn’t supported properly to ensure something like this didn’t happen.”

However, EA still made clear that live service games are the dominant force when it comes to business:

“As we think about the model impact and the financial impact of that, the first thing to always keep in mind is that live services still encompass ... over 70% of our business, and that has been a proven, very reliable, highly recurring revenue stream and that will still be the predominant driver in our P&L (profit and loss) long-term," sad EA CFO Chris Suh.

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

Star Wars star John Boyega isn’t joining the MCU, despite rumors to the contrary.

During an interview with Men’s Health, the 30-year-old British actor denied rumors that he’s already secretly been cast in one of Marvel’s upcoming projects.

“That’s not in the vision for me now,” he says. “I want to do nuanced things. I want to donate my services to original indie films that come with new, fresh ideas, because I know it’s real hard to top Iron Man in that universe.”

It’s not the first time Boyega has been linked to the MCU. Back in 2016, he was rumored to have joined the then-upcoming Black Panther movie.

However, his concerns about Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy might make it difficult for the actor to board a Disney property. Especially after he was critical of their “diverse” representation.

“It's so difficult to manoeuvre,” he explained. “You get yourself involved in projects and you're not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It's not good. I'll say it straight up.”

He’s certainly in no hurry to pick up a lightsaber again, and it sounds as though Boyega would rather concentrate on other, independent films. Boyega will next star in Breaking by director Abi Damaris Corbin and is expected to reteam with Joe Cornish on the upcoming Attack the Block sequel.

Additionally, Boyega is set to star in the Netflix sci-fi comedy, They Cloned Tyrone.

He describes the film as a “unique and strange story that blew me away.” It features Boyega alongside Jamie Foxx as a variety of different-aged clones of the same person. “Pimp. Prostitute. Try to uncover a mystery in the ’hood. That’s all I’m giving you,” he said of the movie.

Want to find out more about the MCU? Check out our full list of everything Marvel announced at San Diego Comic Con and our rundown of every loose end in the MCU.

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

Alongside a brand-new trailer, FX has announced that the fourth and final season of Atlanta will premiere on September 15, 2022.

The premiere date for the last season of Donald Glover's award-winning series was announced during FX's presentation at the 2022 virtual TCA Press Tour, per Variety. The first two episodes of Atlanta's 10-episode final season will debut on Thursday, September 15 at 10 pm ET/PT before being made available to stream on Hulu the very next day.

We be in the city. OFFICIAL TRAILER for #AtlantaFX: The Final Season. September 15 on FX. Stream on @Hulu. pic.twitter.com/LdxidH63oI

— AtlantaFX (@AtlantaFX) August 2, 2022

To coincide with the release date announcement, FX also debuted a trailer for the final season that sees Glover's Earn, Brian Tyree Henry's Paper Boi, LaKeith Stanfield's Darius, and Zazie Beetz's Van return for more critically acclaimed adventures in their hometown where they will be stepping out for, what executive producer Hiro Murai calls, "the greatest hits season."

"Season four, we're back in Atlanta again and it was kind of a homecoming season and it was really lovely," Murai previously teased. "We got to say goodbye properly to the city and the show, I think it'll feel a little nostalgic too because I don't think you've seen Atlanta during the summer since season one. It's kind of like the greatest hits season."

The release of Atlanta's fourth and final season comes around four months after the finale of the third season, which premiered earlier this year, nearly four years after Atlanta's second season aired in 2018. Both seasons three and four were originally scheduled to air in 2021, but production was reportedly postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Atlanta was renewed for a fourth season in August 2019, ahead of Season 3. At the time, each season was expected to consist of eight episodes. However, at Glover's request, the third season's episode count was increased to 10 episodes "because things went so well in the writers room," according to FX President John Landgraf. Consequently, the final season was also extended to 10 episodes.

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

More than two years after the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the video game industry is still adapting to the impact of the deadly virus on work culture. Speaking during today's earning's call, though, EA Chief Operating Officer Laura Miele said the company has found its "new ryhthm" in the COVID era.

"Yes, we did see initially some disruption in how our teams make games...But I am just blown away by the ingenuity and creativity of our teams and how they have adapted," Miele said during the call.

According to Miele, "more people are coming back" to the office on a regular basis, and EA has "seen a lot of progress in working out the rhythm and process in how our teams make games." CEO Andrew Wilson was among those recently in the UK visiting the company's racing teams, which includes the recently-acquired F1 22 developer Codemasters.

But even if more employees are returning to the office, EA says it is still supporting work from home.

"Sometimes it's more meaningful for them to be in the office together, sometimes it's better for them to be at home," Miele said, explaining that more intensive parts of the development cycle may have different staffing requirements.

In a separate interview with IGN that went up earlier today, Madden 23 senior producer Clint Oldenburg talked about how the team has adapted since the pandemic.

"I think the biggest change for our team is a result of the pandemic, like everywhere else. We don't have a central team, per se, all in the studio all at one time together anymore, but the working world has changed," Oldenburg said.

"We're now in a hybrid working environment, just like everyone else, so we have workers that are fully remote. We have workers that are hybrid. We have workers that are always in the studio. And from a team standpoint, that's probably the most significant change, but I wouldn't say that that's had neither a negative nor positive impact on what we do day to day. It's just different. We have to work differently, and we have to work smarter, and we have to work more collaboratively than we ever had before."

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a unique challenge for game development, forcing studios to rethink everything from motion capture studios to testing. Even now, the pandemic is still causing delays throughout the games industry.

In the meantime, EA has managed to continue to rolling along thanks to the success of its sports titles even as it has contended with a dry spell in releases. Responding to acquisition rumors, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said that the publisher "couldn't be in a stronger position as a standalone company."

Its next release is Madden 23, which is due out in early access on May 16.

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.

Today, the Games and Online Harassment Hotline has unveiled a new tool to help the games community combat toxicity and harassment: a resource for vicitims of hate raids.

Hate raids are an issue that arose most notably last year, where streamers would use the Raid feature on Twitch — normally used to send followers to another stream as a sign of support — to flood stream chats of primarily marginalized streamers with profanity, abusive messages, and harassment. At one point, hate raids become so pervasive that a number of Twitch streamers organized a Twitch boycott in protest, hoping to force Twitch to make changes. While it did add a number of features to reduce the sheer volume of these raids, they appear to still be impacting a number of streamers over a year later.

We made the ultimate hate raid mitigation guide! Please share!

✅How to prepare for a Hate Raid

✅How to Stop a Hate Raid

✅What to do After

✅Mental Health Support & Community Tools

➡️Check out the comprehensive guide here: https://t.co/6w5pZ2kleZ pic.twitter.com/mVYfsjTiNN

— Games and Online Harassment Hotline (@GamesHotline) August 2, 2022

Hence, the resource. The Hotline's guide includes detailed advice on how to prepare in advance of a stream to minimize the impact of a hate raid, what to do if one happens both during and after, and tips for mental health and community support following a hate raid. Alongside advice, the guide also includes a number of tools that can help streamers identify and ban bots or other malicious users in advance, as well as links to resources at Twitch and other organizations.

"There is no one right way to respond to harassment," the guide's introduction reads. "Keeping a sense of self and agency can be one of the most important things to center in the face of ongoing harassment. So remember that you’re allowed to react to hate raids in any way that feels right to you. It’s OK to stop streaming, to keep streaming, to talk about it, to not talk about it, to feel angry, to feel numb, to feel scared, to feel anything at all. Remember: online harassment is not your fault."

The Games and Online Harassment Hotline was established in 2020 as a response to the 2019 wave of allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment sweeping the games industry. The hotline is a free, text-messaged based, confidential support hotline that anyone involved in games can text at any time for support and resources when faced with harassment.

Aside from its hate raid resource, its website includes a number of other mental health and safety resources to help the games community mitigate online harassment and receive support when it happens.

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

Since the 1960s, scientists have used atomic clocks to precisely monitor time. However, on June 29, scientists watching these clocks noticed an anomaly: it was Earth's shortest day in recorded history.

According to a report by timeanddate, on June 29, Earth completed a rotation in 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours, highlighting a recent trend that has seen the planet's rotation speed up. In 2020, the Earth achieved its 28 shortest days since daily measurements began.

It's unclear why this is happening, though scientists have a few guesses. Many have suggested this could be attributed to things like tides, climate, or other earth processes.

As pointed out by timeanddate, at next week's Asia Oceania Geosciences Society meeting, Leonid Zotov, Christian Bizouard and Nikolay Sidorenkov are slated to explain another potential reason for this change: a variation in the Chandler wobble, which is the small movement of Earth's poles across the globe.

"The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about three to four meters at Earth’s surface," Dr. Zotov said, "but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared."

If this trend continues, it could lead to what is known as the "negative leap second" in which clocks would skip a second in order for civil time to keep pace with solar time. As timeanddate points out, this could potentially have repercussions for IT systems that rely on exact time measurements.

In other space and science news, NASA recently revealed the first images from the James Webb Telescope, which captured "the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date." For those eager to get closer to the gorgeous galaxies that this telescope captured, we're also now in an era where space tourism is possible, though it has quite an expensive price tag.

Blogroll image credit: Bernt Ove Moss / Getty Images

Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they've contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.

With the finalization of Activision-Blizzard's acquisition by Microsoft imminent, EA is on the cusp of taking its place as the largest major standalone developer and publisher in the industry. Which of course has sparked plenty of questions about whether or not EA itself might one day be acquired.

One of those rumors cropped up last May in a Puck report that revealed EA had been approached by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts about a potential acquisition — but it fell apart due to disagreements over price and structure.

Though EA has repeatedly declined to comment on "rumors and speculation," CEO Andrew Wilson did answer a question on the subject of acquisitions during today's Q1 earnings call, reiterating that he didn't think the publisher could "be in a stronger position as a standalone company."

"Our...objective is always to take care of our people, our players, and our shareholders," he continued. "Should there ever be a way for us to do that differently than the way we're doing it today, I of course have to be open to that, but I would tell you today we feel very very confident and excited for our future."

It was indeed a successful quarter for EA, with F1 22 sales up double-digits compared to F1 last year, and overall net revenue of $1.78 billion (up from $1.55 billion year-over-year) largely driven by live service games — which now represent over 70% of its business for the last 12 months. And unlike a number of its fellows, it doesn't seem to have been overly impacted by delays (or at least not a pile of public-facing ones). In fact, its next three quarters are looking fairly promising between the Dead Space remake, all the usual sports games, Super Mega Baseball, and two other unannounced games coming in early 2023.

It's worth noting, however, that this is the sort of boilerplate statement that pretty much every CEO has made regarding acquisitions of late. Ubisoft has said as much, and so has Take-Two. Statements like this when confronted with acquisition questions are pretty standard, as they both keep the CEO from actually lying if an acquisition is being discussed, but also don't invite too much speculation given the numerous legal and business reasons why executives can't confirm or deny until the deal is almost sealed.

What's more, companies like EA are constantly discussing acquisitions, both in terms of what they might want to acquire, and whether or not they could be acquired. Conversations happen multiple times a year; they just usually fall through because the two sides more often than not can't fully agree on a deal that works for them both.

Will EA one day be acquired? Maybe, maybe not. What's certain is that it will likely continue to be approached with offers while also making offers of its own, and with Activision-Blizzard snapped up, EA is in one of the best positions in the industry to either refuse deals, or cut an extremely lucrative one.

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