Crunchyroll caused a stir over the weekend when it announced that it will no longer be offering simulcast episodes on a free, ad-supported basis. Some users took that to mean that Crunchyroll, which was acquired by Funimation in August 2021, would become an entirely premium service. However, that’s not the case, Crunchyroll says.

Crunchyroll does plan to offer “seasonal samplers” for select simulcast shows debuting in the Spring 2022 season. The samplers will feature free, ad-supported releases of the first three episodes of each show, which will be available a week after their subscription-only premiere until May 31.

Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs (April 3)

Tomodachi Game (April 6)

The Greatest Demon Lord is Reborn as a Typical Nobody (April 6)

The Dawn of the Witch (April 8)

Spy x Family (April 9)

Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie (April 10)

A Couple of Cuckoos (April 24)

“Crunchyroll makes more than 1,000 hours available for viewers to sample free of charge through our ad-supported tier, and will continue to offer free content going forward,” Crunchyroll said in its blog post.

Earlier this month, Funimation was folded into Crunchyroll to create a new “anime super-service” with popular shows including My Hero Academia, Tokyo Ghoul, and Cowboy Bebop. Crunchyroll will be the main platform going forward, and will be the home to new anime debuting in Spring 2022.

For a guide on what to expect, check out IGN’s top 10 most anticipated new anime for 2022.

The Gotham City Police Department has seized The Riddler’s secret website.

If you’ve been following along with The Batman's promotional tour, you’ll know the team launched an ARG website www.rataalada.com to give various updates on The Batman. This site was used to announce a new Riddler comic book written by Paul Dano, and more explosively, reveal a deleted scene from the movie with the Joker.

Now, however, GCPD has seized the domain meaning the Riddler’s posts might be slowing for now. But with a Gotham City spinoff show in the works at HBO Max, this might not be the last we see from the URL.

The official Batman Twitter account announced rataalada’s latest update in a tweet writing, “Must all games come to an end <?>” which could mean the end of Riddler’s updates. But the question mark at the end leaves this space potentially open for new announcements later on, possibly related to the upcoming Gotham City spinoff.

HBO appears to have full confidence in Matt Reeves’ version of Gotham City and has already announced two spinoff series. One will star Colin Farrell’s Penguin, the other was announced as a Gotham City PD show, but will now focus on Arkham Asylum.

Reeves is focusing on these two spinoffs, especially the Arkham Asylum series which could potentially include Barry Keoghan’s Joker. The series was originally announced as a GCPD show, following the police who serve Gotham City. But director Matt Reeves later said the show "evolved" into a series focused on Arkham Asylum. Rather than a police procedural, this series is now more like "a horror movie or a haunted house that is Arkham."

Check out IGN’s review of The Batman here.

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

In the wake of the initial announcement of Ratchet & Clank: A Rift Apart, one question was on everyone's minds: who was that very cool new lombax?

After months of internet theories and embarrassing people referring to her as just "Girl Ratchet" or similar, we finally learned her name was Rivet — an absolutely perfect name for an equal fighter to Ratchet from another dimension. But as it turns out, it wasn't an easy road for developer Insomniac to arrive at Rivet's incredible design, her place in Rift Apart, or even her excellent name itself.

In his GDC talk: "Lombax Lessons: A 'Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart' Design Postmortem," Insomniac lead designer Mark Stuart walked attendees through the story of Rivet's naming and design. Rivet was born from one of Rift Apart's design pillars, he said, which is that “Everyone's a Hero,” meaning the team had an opportunity to create a "strong, playable, female lead" alongside Ratchet.

They began work on Rivet early on under the code name "Ratchette," but quickly nixed it for being "too diminutive" and "reducing her existence to a gender-swapped Ratchet," he said.

And then, Stuart continued, things got even sillier.

"For a while we switched to her just being named Ratchet. After all, she and Ratchet are technically dimensional counterparts. Ratchet is a non-gendered name. This stuck for a while, but ultimately made every draft of the story very confusing. For example: 'Ratchet needs to rescue Clank from Ratchet, who doesn't trust Ratchet and has a long history battling Nefarious.' At a time where story treatments were being rapidly iterated on, it was hard to tell what dimension you were in, but also which Ratchet you were talking about."

Next, Stuart said, they switched to the codename Gadget. That was better, but it ultimately didn't sit right with team members who were kids in the 80s due to multiple other similar characters named Gadget from around that era (Inspector Gadget and Gadget from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers were given as examples in his slideshow).

Then in a weekly meeting where name ideas were being thrown around, someone pitched Rivet off the cuff and people immediately loved it. It fit perfectly as another tool like Ratchet, and it also called to mind an image of Rosie the Riveter. And so Rivet became canon.

Stuart then went on to share details about the early visual designs of Rivet. He took us through a number of interesting pieces of concept art (which artist Dave Guertin has also shared on his personal page), showing off how the Insomniac team explored different themes for the character. Early on, one they honed in on was the concept of the "survivalist beastmaster."

This version of Rivet would have leaned into her grudge against Nefarious, extending it to all machines to the point of a total rejection of machinery. Instead, Rivet would embrace nature, and would have the ability to tame three different mounts: a beetle, a flyer, and an Agorian beast.

Rivet's beast taming ability was ultimately rejected, though, in part because in this version of the game Ratchet was turning out to be much more fun to play. His regular toolkit let him do everything Rivet could do without the assistance of other creatures. But there's another reason they nixed the idea.

"We realized the nature-loving woman was a trope," Stuart said. "Think FernGully, Pocahontas, or Krystal from Star Fox. Moreover, constraining the theme of her weaponry stifled the creativity the franchise was known for. Ratchet's weapons can shift, cut, bomb, and transmute. Making her set exclusively nature-based put unnecessary constraints on us."

Ultimately the nature design did inspire a few of Rivet's final weapons, like Mr. Fungi, and some of the beast ideas were later recycled into Rift Apart's Speedle and Trudi, though Speedle lost an earlier concept ability where it had a large, glowing butt that would explode whenever it collided with something. Apparently, murdering your mounts didn't jive with the idea that "everyone's a hero".

Insomniac still struggled to find a good way to make Rivet distinct, though. They tried giving Rivet and Ratchet completely different ability sets, but that made it frustrating for playtesters, who would forget which lombax they were in control of at a given time and realize mid-jump they didn't have the abilities they thought they did. So Insomniac added the ability to swap between the two on the fly, but that was also confusing in action, and they were hard-pressed to create a lore explanation for where the other lombax went when they swapped out, or who was where during the cinematics.

"Faced with the knowledge that strongly differentiated playstyles were actively hurting the holistic experience, we were forced to reexamine how long we were going to play as each lombax," Stuart said. "Or to put it another way: is Rivet cake, or frosting? Is she what makes up the core of the game, like Ratchet, or is she a unique and enjoyable diversion in small doses throughout? After all, Clank has drastically different mechanics than Ratchet in most games, but we only play as him for [a small portion] of the game. Clank is generally considered to be delightful frosting. A lot of these problems go away if Rivet is only playable for small, focused sections of the game."

But to find an answer, Insomniac had only to look back to its design pillars, including "Everyone's a Hero." Insomniac had wanted from the beginning to include a strong, playable, female protagonist, and they wanted to make the best distinctively Ratchet & Clank game they could from start to finish. Put together, that meant no shortcuts with Rivet.

"Rivet needed to be pure cake like Ratchet," Stuart continued. "We wanted Rivet to be core gameplay. Her inclusion was meant to be inspirational representation and not a bonus mechanic. In fact, in the final product, she makes up about 50% of the playtime."

Which is how we got the Rivet we know today. Insomniac unified the two under the same pool of weapons and abilities, then differentiated them in other ways, such as personality, appearance, animations, and obviously the story. And we're glad they landed on the Rivet we know and love, as you can tell from our launch review of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and its place as one of our favorite games of 2021.

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

Blizzard has clarified that the launch date listed for Diablo Immortal on iOS and iPadOS is only a placeholder and that an official date will be announced in the future.

The company opened iOS and iPadOS pre-orders for Diablo Immortal today, as well as pre-registration for Android users, with a listed release date of June 30. Placeholder dates are common for upcoming games, but they can often provide a bit of confusion, thus Blizzard has sought to clear things up.

"As a point of clarification for anyone who pre-registers on iOS and iPadOS, players will notice that the game is listed with a launch date of June 30," Blizzard told IGN in a statement. "We want to make it clear that June 30 is not the official launch date of Diablo Immortal, and this is just a placeholder for the time being as we lock in our final plans. We will update the community with our official launch timing at a later date."

In addition to opening pre-orders, Blizzard also shared that Diablo Immortal will feature an option for users to change their class without having to start new characters. By visiting Westmarch, players can select a new class and fresh visuals for their character without losing any of the progress made with previous classes.

The ability to change classes with relative ease appears to function similarly to Final Fantasy 14's job system, which allows players to move effortlessly between different styles of play without any notable downsides. This type of functionality effectively removes the need for alt characters, granting users the freedom to remain invested in a single character regardless of what role they wish to play.

We went hands-on with Diablo Immortal's closed beta, as well as its closed alpha last year and had mixed feelings. Though it's a fun romp with the series' iconic setting and slick gameplay, we found that some of its convoluted free-to-play mobile elements brought the experience down.

Hopefully, some of these issues will be ironed out in the final release, which is planned for sometime in 2022.

Billy Givens is a freelance writer at IGN.

The Batman director Matt Reeves has considered whether Barry Keoghan's Joker might return in the future, noting that a project in the "Arkham space" has already been discussed.

Fans have been keen to see more of Keoghan's Joker ever since Warner Bros. released The Batman deleted scene featuring the Clown Prince of Crime – officially credited as "Unnamed Arkham Prisoner" – though many wondered whether they would actually get to see the villain on-screen again after Reeves confirmed that it wasn't an easter egg for the next movie.

However, in a new interview with Variety, Reeves sounded a lot more hopeful about the prospect- of Keoghan's Joker returning for another project. He suggested that it is "very possible" they could find places for the character to re-emerge in the future and that he has already talked about exploring certain areas further, "potentially for HBO Max."

"There might be places," Reeves said, regarding the return of Keoghan's iteration of the Crown Prince. "There's stuff I'm very interested in doing in an Arkham space, potentially for HBO Max. There are things we've talked about there. So it's very possible. It also isn't impossible that there is some story that comes back where Joker comes into our world."

The Batverse is already expanding with multiple spinoffs, as Colin Farrell has signed on to star in a Penguin series for HBO Max, and the Gotham City PD series that was originally announced in 2020 has now "evolved" into a series focused on Arkham Asylum. The full cast for these two projects has yet to be announced as they're both in very early development.

It remains an open question as to whether or not Keoghan will keep playing the Joker, but the character is certainly looking rougher in Reeves' version of Gotham. The director elaborated on Mike Marino's makeup design for Joker, telling IGN that he wanted to "create an iteration of him that felt distinctive and new, but went right back to the roots."

Despite giving the character much consideration and including a tease to the Joker at the end of The Batman, it's clear that Reeves hasn't fully committed to him being a villain in the sequel. Reeves has, however, teased other potential sequel villains including Mr. Freeze and Two-Face while Pattinson has said he'd like to see Batman take on the Court of Owls.

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

One Piece Odyssey is a new JRPG coming in 2022 to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

The official One Piece YouTube channel revealed the game in a live stream with Bandai Namco confirmed to be publishing the game in the west.

One Piece Odyssey's producer Katsuaki Tsuzuki has promised "an epic drama adventure which both One Piece fans and JRPG fans can experience and enjoy."

He added: "One Piece RPG experiences are scattered throughout the game such as the story woven by Straw Hats, the dungeon experience, and various quests."

Eiichiro Oda, author of the One Piece manga, designed the characters and monsters in Odyssey, and Bandai Namco has confirmed several playable characters including Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Frankie, and Brook.

A blog post on the publisher's website also offers a story synopsis: "During their voyage, the Straw Hats, led by Monkey D. Luffy are swallowed by a huge storm at sea. They end up on a mysterious island full of nature amidst the storm and become separated from each other.

"The crew set outs on a new adventurous journey filled with wonders of a raging nature, powerful enemies, and strange encounters with island locals."

Motoi Sakuraba, a composer who worked on both the Dark Souls and Tales series, is also confirmed to have written the music for Odyssey.

The news came as part of a One Piece news update, which also spoke more about Netflix's live-action adaptation of One Piece.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Call of Duty Warzone can't have multiple main maps available at the same time because the install sizes are too big.

In an interview with streamer TeeP, as spotted by PC Gamer, Call of Duty live operations lead Josh Bridge said he and the team want to include more maps but the install sizes are "f**king crazy".

Warzone's original map, Verdansk, was replaced by Caldera in December 2021, and TeeP asked if a map rotation option similar to the one in Apex Legends would ever come to the game.

Bridge said: "We want that. We all want that, [but] there's a technical problem: the install and reinstall sizes are f**king crazy."

Warzone currently requires more than 120 gigabytes of storage on PlayStation 5 and a similar amount on other consoles, while the PC install requires around 80 GB.

The huge install size puts players off, Bridge said, adding that each new update (that requires more storage space) loses the game players.

This is because Warzone was built within Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, meaning its assets were intended for the usual six versus six player matches on small maps. "Verdansk was never authored with the idea that 180 weapons were going to be added to it," Bridge said.

Major changes came to the battle royale last week in the Season Two Reloaded update, which gave Warzone's Rebirth Island its biggest update since launch.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land marked the franchise's first foray into 3D but fans shouldn't assume its the new normal.

Developer HAL Laboratory's general director, Shinya Kumazaki. told The Washington Post that 3D Kirby games won't necessarily "be the standard going forward".

He added: "Nintendo is on the same page as us, and this is something we talk about often. We hope to go beyond what is currently imaginable and challenge ourselves to create new and innovative Kirby games.

"This game was one of those challenges coming to fruition. We will continue to explore via trial and error and not just limit ourselves to 3D."

The leaps taken in Kirby and the Forgotten Land should not be understated though, Kumazaki said, and it can certainly be considered an "important milestone" in the franchise.

As the Switch exclusive only released a few days ago on March 28, it's unlikely that HAL Laboratory will release information on what these future games might be anytime soon. That being said, Nintendo has promised that a variety of Kirby announcements are coming in 2022 as the franchise celebrates its 30th anniversary.

In our 8/10 review, IGN said: "Kirby and the Forgotten Land successfully warps the series’ classic mix of ability-based combat, platforming, and secret hunting into the third dimension."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Viral hit Vampire Survivors is getting a lot more content ahead of its official launch on Steam.

Developer Poncle has released a roadmap for the game after its Early Access launch on December 17 became a huge success.

Five more levels, nine more characters, 16 more weapons, and two more power ups are being added to Vampire Survivors, and it's also being ported to an industry-standard game engine.

Poncle is also adding new achievements and Relics alongside a brand new item called Arcanas, but no further information on what these do was given.

A "new major gameplay mechanic" will also be implemented, the developer said, and while it's currently undecided which one, "some kind of endless mode" is the frontrunner.

This will come at the expense of the story mode, however, but "this doesn't necessarily mean that story mode is gone forever," Poncle said in the post, indicating that Vampire Survivors' lore may be best told through environmental storytelling.

The post added: "Thanks to the overwhelming success and support from the players, new content has started to come out at a much faster pace than anticipated and the roadmap has also been expanded significantly.

"The amount of playable characters planned for version 1.0 of the game has been doubled and so has the number of stages with the introduction of bonus/challenge ones."

The port to an industry-standard engine is being worked on alongside these outlined updates with the help of a newly recruited team. Poncle said the port is "going smoothly" and is showing "a tenfold increase in performance". Poncle aims for work on this to be completed in the summer, and save games will transfer from the old version to the new engine.

No timeframe was shared in the post but it said the game is currently 70% complete, compared to 60% when the game was first released in Early Access.

In our 7/10 review, IGN said: "It may look extremely basic, but if you give Vampire Survivors' clever one-stick shooter idea a chance to sink its teeth into you it might not let go for a while."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

NASA is gearing up to launch its first-ever space tourism mission to the International Space Station, with liftoff currently scheduled for April 3.

As Digital Trends reports, the space agency is just days away from launching its very first privately crewed mission that will see three amateur astronauts travel to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which will lift off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on April 3, with the company's Falcon 9 rocket powering its trip to orbit.

Former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría will serve as commander on the Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) alongside a trio of space tourists who reportedly paid around $55 million to travel to the space station and spend eight days at the off-Earth outpost where they will conduct "scientific research, outreach, and commercial activities," per a recent NASA press release.

López-Alegría, who is now a vice president at Axiom Space, will be joined on the mission by Canadian investor and philanthropist Mark Pathy, American entrepreneur Larry Connor, and former Israeli Air Force pilot Eytan Stibbe, who have participated in hundreds of hours of training ahead of the upcoming launch, including test driving the Dragon spacecraft.

After months of training, the #Ax1 Crew is getting ready to head into quarantine for the final phase of preparation for this historic mission.

Check out the new crew photo: https://t.co/UhX4uACuAN pic.twitter.com/gaPhcYfTAK

— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) March 16, 2022

The International Space Station has been orbiting Earth for 23 years, but NASA has plans to retire the outpost in 2030. It could possibly be succeeded by Axiom Space's commercial space station or the Orbital Reef station, which is being built in low Earth orbit by Blue Origin in partnership with several other space companies, including Boeing, Sierra Space, and more.

The space tourism race is certainly intensifying, with more and more companies gearing up to offer commercial flights to space via various alternative modes of transport. World View announced last year that it had designed a 14-million-cubic-foot, helium-filled balloon capsule to send curious travellers to "the edge of space" for $50,000 per ticket.

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

Thumbnail image credit: NASA.