Aliens: Fireteam Elite is up for Best Soundtrack at this year’s Grammys along with scores for games like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed.

The full list of 2023 Grammy nominations was announced earlier today, with Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media including some surprising names, including:

• Aliens: Fireteam Elite (Austin Wintory)
• Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Dawn Of Ragnarok (Stephanie Economou)
• Call Of Duty: Vanguard (Bear McCreary)
• Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy (Richard Jacques)
• Old World (Christopher Tin)

Of course, 2023 marks the first-ever Grammy for Video Game music, meaning one of these games will head home with a historic award.

Best Soundtrack for #VideoGame Soundtracks is WAY overdue.

That's certainly a change I am very glad to see added this year. #GRAMMYs

— Kira Grunenberg (@shadowmelody1) November 15, 2022

Music from video games has been eligible for Grammy nominations since 1999, with Civilization theme Baba Yetu winning the award for Best Instrumental Arrangement in 2011 and the Journey soundtrack earning a nomination in 2012.

“Overlooked and underappreciated” explained EA president of music, Steve Schnur in an interview with Variety. “Not just for the level of quality, but also the magnitude of success, how relevant it is to the next generation of music lovers. We needed to convince the powers-that-be that this music stands on its own and deserves to be judged against each other.”

Now, after years of lobbying from game studios, the Grammys gets its own video game category, with Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy looking like a strong favorite.

Although judging from some of the other nominations, it’s not exactly been a bumper year.

IGN’s review of Aliens: Fireteam Elite gave it 7/10 and said: “Aliens: Fireteam Elite does enough right to be plenty worthwhile for a trio of co-op shooter fans who’d rather battle hordes of xenomorphs than the usual zombies. Between the excellent weapons, classes, and enemy types and some wonderful nostalgic hat-tips toward what came before, it's a must-play if you hold any fondness for this series. The caveats, of course, are having to put up with repetitive scenarios and some excruciatingly drawn-out missions. Aliens: Fireteam Elite may not be a triumphant win, but it's far from a game over, man.”

Which of these will take home the first-ever Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media? For now, we’ll have to wait and see… but it feels like this category is off to a very strange start.

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

The original Fable could have been entirely different before co-creator Dene Carter turned to an unlikely source of inspiration – Devil May Cry.

“When you're feeling lost: steal it,” he said via Twitter. “100% rip it off from another game.”

Of course, Fable doesn’t do that – at least, not in the way you’re thinking. The themes, ideas, and story of the 2004 RPG are entirely different from Devil May Cry… but the game’s creator revealed that it almost spiraled out of control until he turned to DMC for an idea about the game’s scope.

I'm sure everyone knows this hack already, but I'm going to talk about it anyway, on the off-chance that it saves someone from going completely off-the-rails during their dev. It's a hint about scope, when you're feeling lost: steal it. 100% rip it off from another game.

— Dene Carter (@Fluttermind) November 14, 2022

“How did the world of Fable become that size? Because I'd played [Devil May Cry] and noticed that the world was something like 82 zones,” he explained. “It didn't seem excessive. It re-used and re-contextualised areas. It worked for a relatively short, but high-quality game.”

Carter goes on to explain how that helped. Essentially, he copied the way DMC used these zones in order to map out the world of Albion.

“I literally counted the number of zones, the size of those zones, and the average time spent in those zones, and used that to block out the entire world of Albion,” he said. “At the time we were spiraling out of control, convinced we had to make something 'big' (whatever that meant).”

Yes, it looks as though Fable developers had quite a grand vision. Instead, Carter refocused the game’s development with the scope of DMC in mind… and there were a few other inspirations, too.

“Literally copying the scope of DMC, the interaction density of Silent Hill, and the encounter style of the first Way of the Samurai changed Fable from a floppy, undefined, never-ending death march to something we could actually complete *without* ever having worked on a 3D game.”

IGN’s review of Fable gave it 9.3/10 and said: “Fable opens a door for you, lets you see this wondrous treasure that the idea of an open world, competing heroes, and NPC interactions can offer -- but it doesn't let you through. There are a lot of great notions in the game that aren't fully realized. As I played, I kept thinking, ‘Why didn't they do this or that,’ but in the end, I still had a blast playing Fable, and to me that makes all the difference.”

Want to read more about Fable? Check out what Fable creator Peter Molyneux wants from a new Fable as well as our top 10 best original Xbox games.

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

MultiVersus Season 2 begins today, and Warner Bros. Games has shared some of the content headed to the crossover fighting game. Season 2 will bring a handful of new challengers, and the first confirmed new fighter is Looney Tunes' Marvin the Martian. The character hails from Mars and is sent to destroy Earth, but he never quite succeeds. WB Games says more details about Marvin's kit are coming soon.

A new stage based on Game of Thrones is also here for Season 2. The iconic Iron Throne rests in the background of the stage, and the music is an all-new remix of the Game of Thrones theme music.

Season 2's Battle Pass is full of new badges, icons, banners, and taunts to unlock. There are also new Character Variants along both the Free and Premium Battle Pass tracks, like Baker Street Tom & Jerry and Astronaut Velma.

WB Games also released the patch notes for Season 2, and you can check out some of the highlights below:

• There are no Battle Pass tiers without rewards
• You can equip up to three badges at once
• The 'Silly Queue' includes for-fun game modes and items
• New game type: Big Head Mode
• Three new items added: Bounce Pad, Proximity Mine, and Drumstick
• New cosmetics include Uncle Shagworthy and Samurai Batman
• The Space Jam map now keeps score of baskets made
• The intro tutorial has been simplified
• Character balance updates and network/latency improvements also added

MultiVersus' first season featured a ton of crazy crossovers, including Gremlins star Gizmo, Black Adam, and more. The game got off to a hot start, debuting as the best-selling game in the U.S. in July, crossing 10 million players along the way. There could be more exciting characters on the way, with a recent leak of Mark Hamill's Joker potentially coming to the game.

We called WB's take on the platform fighting game great in our MultiVersus review, saying "MultiVersus may need time to grow its currently limited selection of stages and characters to meet its bright potential, but its foundations are already rock solid."

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Sony has published a patent suggesting the company is looking into blockchain and NFT technology for tracking in-game assets in video games.

The patent, reported by Eurogamer, is called Tracking Unique In-Game Digital Assets Using Tokens on a Distributed Ledger, and the included diagram lays out mechanics for tracking changes in ownership, visual appearance, or metadata of digital assets. The patent says the digital assets could range from moments of gameplay to in-game items or characters.

Sony's patent describes technology that could track the history of an in-game item as it's passed from player to player, which is one of the core ideas behind NFTs. In the patent, Sony said "there is no way to differentiate a specific instance of an in-game item that a famous player of the video game used to win a famous tournament from any other instance of the in-game item."

The patent description also says people find it "meaningful" to own or use unique items related to respected celebrities or activities.

It's worth pointing out that PlayStation filed this patent in July of 2021, before greater controversy surrounding NFTs came to the forefront.

PlayStation previously dipped its toe into the world of NFTs at EVO 2022. In a player survey, PlayStation asked fans what kinds of NFTs they would be interested in buying. The possible answers listed included NFTs based on Evo, music artists, esports, PlayStation items, and favorite game characters.

Sony's new PlayStation Stars rewards program features a form of digital collectibles, but the company said the rewards are "definitely not NFTs" because "you can't trade them or sell them."

NFT speculation has been a big part of the video game news cycle in 2022 beyond just PlayStation. GameStop introduced a crypto/NFT wallet and EA continues to evaluate the technology. Multiple studios have spoken out against NFTs, with many developers signing an anti-NFT pledge and Minecraft avoiding implementing NFTs or blockchain technology.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

DC Studios' James Gunn has teased another superhero's potential arrival in the DC universe.

On Twitter, Gunn simply posted a photo of Mister Terrific/Michael Holt with no text included. This has fans in the replies certain that the character will make his way to the new DC universe in some way.

pic.twitter.com/FnevhW1bha

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) November 15, 2022

Mister Terrific is a DC superhero who made his first comic appearance in 1942. Two different men have taken up the Mister Terrific mantle: Terry Sloane originally, followed by Michael Holt. The photo Gunn posted is specifically of Holt, who has appeared in DC's Arrowverse with a role in Arrow from Season 4 to Season 8.

Holt has the ability to easily learn and perfect skills that others spend a lifetime working on. He has 14 PhDs, a high-tech firm he eventually sells to Waynetech, and is a gold medal-winning Olympian. After the accidental death of his family, he takes the name Mister Terrific and joins the Justice Society of America, which was recently seen in DC's Black Adam.

It's unclear exactly what role Mister Terrific will have in James Gunn and Peter Safran's plan for DC. The two co-CEOs have started work on an eight-to-ten year plan for DC films, TV shows, animation projects, and more.

We know Gunn is focusing on building the "new DCU" rather than spending time on canceled projects. The new DC universe will feature the return of Henry Cavill's Superman, and Aquaman star Jason Momoa has teased that Gunn made one of his dreams come true.

For more, check out why we think James Gunn is the best news the DCEU could have asked for.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

CD Projekt Red has confirmed that its major Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, Phantom Liberty, will be paid DLC when it's released in 2023.

Speaking to Games Radar, CD Projekt Red's global PR director Radek Grabowski said that, while he couldn't yet confirm a price, the expansion wouldn't be more free DLC akin to the recent Edgerunners update.

Though players familiar with CD Projekt Red may have expected as much, this is the first time the developer has explicitly confirmed that Phantom Liberty will cost money.

Some confusion is warranted, of course, since CD Projekt Red does typically release a lot of free content for its games (including the next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt coming this December). Phantom Liberty is a much heftier addition with new story content and missions, however, as opposed to just containing new cosmetics, weapons, and so on.

Only a short teaser trailer has been released so far, confirming that Keanu Reeves will return as Johnny Silverhand in the expansion. He's heard warning V about an oath they just took, swearing allegiance to the New United States of America.

Game director Gabriel Amatengelo promised when it was announced that Phantom Liberty is a new style of plot, a new cast of characters, and an exciting expansion of Night City.

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

Rockstar Games apparently slammed the breaks on the idea of turning Grand Theft Auto into a movie starring Eminem.

Games industry veteran Kirk Ewing, a friend of Rockstar co-founders Sam and Dan Houser, told Bugzy Malone's Grandest Game podcast, per Eurogamer, that an LA producer once approached him with a $5 million offer to buy the rights to a Grand Theft Auto movie starring Eminem, with Top Gun helmer Tony Scott in the director's chair.

Ewing and Sam had allegedly discussed the possibility of a movie adaptation or tie-in following the launch of GTA 3 in 2001, but when the offer for a Grand Theft Auto movie was eventually put on the table, the brothers declined the deal, telling Ewing that they were "not interested" in going down that route — and that's where the conversations ended.

"At that point," Ewing explained, "they withdrew from any conversation about making a film when they realised the media franchise they had was bigger than any movie that was going on at the time."

The last entry in the open-world action-adventure games franchise was Grand Theft Auto V, which was initially released in 2013. GTA 5 was the fastest entertainment release across all mediums to reach $1 billion — and it's since earned Rockstar and Take-Two billions more, making it the most-profitable entertainment release ever, at least as of 2018.

While there's no sign of a big-screen adaptation on the horizon, fans have a new GTA game to get excited about. A release date is not currently known, but people were given a first – extremely unintended – look at Rockstar's next AAA title after an unprecedented leak spilt dozens of video files of what purported to be in-development footage.

The leak caused a massive fallout, kickstarting a discussion about leaks within the video game industry and how they affect game development.

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

Guerrilla Games has confirmed that upcoming virtual reality game Horizon: Call of the Mountain will be released on February 22 as a PlayStation VR2 launch title.

Announced in a blog post on its website, Guerrilla finally revealed the release date for what was expected to be but never officially confirmed as one of the new headset's 20-something launch games.

Sony announced that a Call of the Mountain bundle would be available for the PS VR2 when it revealed the hardware's release date and $549.99 price point, but didn't clarify if this would be available at launch. It certainly appears to be the case now, however, meaning those looking to buy the headset immediately can pay an extra $50 to have the game included.

It's the only official PS VR2 bundle confirmed so far, though Sony has also announced a $49.99 controller charging station as an optional accessory.

Details on the software available at launch are still a little hazy, as while Sony has announced several games coming to the PS VR2 including Ghostbusters VR and Resident Evil Village, release windows for most remain at a vague 2023.

Other games announced for the platform include Crossfire: Sierra Squad, The Light Brigade, Cities VR - Enhanced Edition, Cosmonious High, Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection, Pistol Whip VR, Zenith: The Last City, After the Fall, Tentacular, and more.

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

David Harbour has learned more about Thunderbolts and its narrative arc, warning fans that "a bomb" will be dropped on the MCU when the movie hits theaters in 2024.

Speaking to io9, Harbour revealed that Thunderbolts writer Eric Pearson has a "really cool" idea for "the arc of the movie and how it functions." He hinted there are some big things to come for the MCU coinciding with the release of the Phase 5 movie, promising: "It'll be funny, it'll be weird, it'll be action. And then we're also going to drop a bomb."

When Thunderbolts cropped up at D23 this past September, Harbour's Red Guardian was confirmed to be part of the "ragtag" group leading the movie, along with Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova, Wyatt Russell's US Agent, and a bunch of other MCU antiheroes. Harbour assured that the "very random" nature of the roster is a deliberate choice.

"I've loved Wyatt [Russell], and Sebastian [Stan] and Julia [Louis-Dreyfus'] characters throughout the universe," he told io9. "What [director Jake Schreier] wants to do with Florence's character is very interesting and how I factor into how we develop our relationship is very interesting. And then when you see what Jake and Eric Pearson is trying to fashion, it's really clever... So you have this movie that's, you know, kind of ragtag."

There have been dozens of Thunderbolts members throughout the comic's history, including notable Marvel heroes like Black Widow, Ant-Man, Venom, and Deadpool. However, the MCU is forging a new antihero team led by Julia Louis Dreyfus' Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and it sounds like the eclectic group could close out Phase 5 with a bang.

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

The Season 5 premiere of Yellowstone has set a new ratings record for the series with an impressive 12.1 million viewers.

As reported by Variety, the 12.1 million viewers who tuned into the premiere of Yellowstone Season 5 is up from the previous record of 11.2 million set by the first episode of Season 4.

The 12.1 million number was reached by the first episode airing across Paramount Network, CMT, TV Land, and Pop. On Paramount Network, it brought in 8.8 million viewers and was up from 8 million from last year. Across all four networks, viewership equaled 10.3 million, an improvement from the 9.5 million last year.

The premiere was then rebroadcast on all four networks twice on Sunday, November 13, and that helped the number reach 12.1 million and surpass the previous record of 11.2 million set last year. It is important to note, however, that the Season 4 premiere was only rebroadcasted on Paramount Plus.

According to THR and Samba TV, Yellowstone also now holds the record for the top scripted series premiere of 2022.

“After four seasons, the show’s massive audience base continues to impress with its latest season premiere becoming the most watched scripted television premiere of 2022,” said Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO, Samba TV. “Yellowstone continues to tap into the passions of a broad swath of viewers throughout the American Midwest hungry for Western-themed genres that have been largely underrepresented on television in recent years.

"Viewership significantly over-indexed for the season premiere within cities such as St. Louis, Cleveland and Pittsburgh and not surprisingly under-indexed in the largely coastal urban centers of San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.”

For more on Yellowstone, be sure to check out how you can watch Season 5, the first trailer for the Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren-led prequel series, and other shows like Yellowstone if you just can't get enough of a good western.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.