The world of Dragon Age is home to many colorful characters, and Dark Horse Direct is working to bring some of them to three dimensional life. IGN can exclusively reveal the newest addition to Dark Horse's Dragon Age Statuette line, the Iron Bull.

Based on the character's appearance in Dragon Age: Inquisition, this Iron Bull features a detailed recreation of the commander of the Bull's Chargers, with all his mighty swagger intact.

The Iron Bull Statuette is made of polyresin and was sculpted by Bigshot Toyworks, with J.W. Productions handling prototyping and painting. The piece measures roughly 8 inches tall, with a base diameter of 4 inches by 4.25 inches.

Like the other characters in this line, Iron Bull is limited to 1000 pieces worldwide. He's priced at $159.99 and is currently available to preorder on the Dark Horse Direct website. The statuette is expected to ship between September and December 2022.

The Iron Bull is the third character announced for Dark Horse's Dragon Age Statuette line. The Varric statuette is also currently available for preorder, while preorder details for the Morrigan Statuette will be announced later.

The original Dragon Age: Origins made IGN's list of the best RPGs of the last 15 years. Bioware is currently hard at work on Dragon Age 4, though the sequel hit a setback in 2021 when the game's creative director left the company. Fortunately, fans also have Netflix's Dragon Age series to look forward to.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Brian Augustyn, the comic book writer and editor who wrote Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, has died at the age of 67.

Best known for his work on The Flash in the 1990s, Augustyn died on February 1, 2022, after suffering from a stroke. Fellow writer Mark Waid announced his death via Facebook, at the wishes of Augustyn’s family.

“This one hurts unimaginably,” he said. “Brian Augustyn, rest in peace.”

“The Augustyn family has asked me to let Brian’s friends and fans know that Brian left us today after suffering a sudden, severe stroke over the weekend. I have spent a lot of time these last few hours writing a great deal about Brian, and I’ll share those thoughts soon, but for now I simply wanted to let everyone know. Comics has lost a very kind, very talented man who has been my big brother and one of my very best friends for nearly 35 years.”

After becoming editor of The Flash comic book series in 1989, Augustyn hired wired as a writer, which led to a highly acclaimed eight-year run for the duo.

Augustyn himself co-wrote the story in The Flash #142 in which Wally West married television reporter, Linda Park.

He also wrote the acclaimed DC one-shot, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, which reimagined Bruce Wayne as a 19th-century crime-fighter, emerging at the same time as Jack the Ripper arrived in Gotham.

The success of the graphic novel led to a sequel, Batman: Master of the Future, and it’s widely thought to be the first Elseworlds story, in which DC Comics characters appear in stories that take place in alternate time periods or realities.

IGN also ranked Gotham by Gaslight as #11 in our rundown of the 25 best Batman comics and graphic novels.

Already, fans and fellow comic book creators have begun paying tribute to Augustyn.

“We mourn the passing of Brian Augustyn,” said the official DC Twitter. “From his shepherding of talent to his editing on THE FLASH and masterful writing on essentially the first ELSEWORLDS title: BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT, his contributions to DC and the comic industry are immense, influential, and lasting.”

We mourn the passing of Brian Augustyn. From his shepherding of talent to his editing on THE FLASH and masterful writing on essentially the first ELSEWORLDS title: BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT, his contributions to DC and the comic industry are immense, influential, and lasting. pic.twitter.com/oLcfY6Ukkm

— DC (@DCComics) February 3, 2022

“Still processing the news that Brian Augustyn passed away,” said President of Archie Comics, Mike Pellerito. “Wonderfully talented, skilled editor and writer and honestly an even better person. We worked together, along with his co-writer and best friend Mark Waid, on Archie: 1941 and Archie: 1955, both fantastic experiences.”

Still processing the news that Brian Augustyn passed away. Wonderfully talented, skilled editor and writer and honestly an even better person. We worked together, along with his co-writer and best friend Mark Waid, on Archie: 1941 and Archie: 1955, both fantastic experiences. 1/ pic.twitter.com/ezk41Na42l

— Mike Pellerito (@pellertweeto) February 1, 2022

All of us at IGN offer our condolences to Augustyn’s family and friends.

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

Facebook has experienced its first quarterly decline of daily users in 18 years.

The company revealed in its latest financial results that it lost one million daily users, dropping to 1.929 billion in the three months leading to December, from 1.93 billion at the end of its previous quarter.

Facebook rebranded as Meta in October to be seen as more than "just a social media company", instead focusing on the "Metaverse", a virtual online world where companies and users can connect and interact.

In its first financial report since the rebrand, Meta also revealed its advertising growth was lower than expected.

Stock plummeted by about 20% as a result, removing around $175 billion of the company's value if the drop holds when trading resumes.

Meta said earlier this week that there's now more brands, such as TikTok, competing for users' attention despite popular apps like Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp all falling under the Meta umbrella.

The company also owns Oculus, but announced the name would also be retired as a result of the Meta rebrand.

Oculus, a pioneer of virtual reality gaming and technology, will have its products changed to the "Meta Quest" instead of the "Oculus Quest", and so on.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.

Tales of the Walking Dead has just added Terry Crews to its cast alongside several others.

The upcoming spin-off from The Walking Dead has also added Parker Posey, Jillian Bell, Anthony Edwards, and Poppy Liu in its first major casting announcement since the show was announced last year.

“Anthony, Jillian, Terry, Parker and Poppy are the first wave of singular talents who will further expand the Walking Dead Universe into harrowing, hilarious, heartfelt and horrifying new realms,” said former The Walking Dead showrunner, Scott M. Gimple.

“We couldn’t be happier to welcome them to the family, along with these terrific directors.”

Channing Powell, a writer from both The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead is set as showrunner. Michael Satrazemis will direct three episodes of its six-episode run, with Haifaa al-Mansour, Deborah Kampmeier, and Tara Nicole Weyr each directing one of the remaining three.

Tales of the Walking Dead is an anthology series based on the popular zombie survival-horror series, The Walking Dead.

Although little is known about the plot, the stand-alone series is expected to tell the stories of both new and established characters within the Walking Dead universe.

“We see so much potential for a wide range of rich and compelling storytelling in this world, and the episodic anthology format of Tales of the Walking Dead will give us the flexibility to entertain existing fans and also offer an entry point for new viewers, especially on streaming platforms,” said AMC president of original programming, Dan McDermott.

Tales of the Walking Dead will debut just as The Walking Dead’s 11th (and final) season comes to a close. But The Walking Dead fans don’t need to worry – although the main show is coming to end, the zombie-filled world of The Walking Dead is continuing to expand.

There’s already a Rick Grimes movie in the works, along with a spin-off about fan-favorites Darryl Dixon and Carol Peletier, not to mention another possible spin-off series that revolves around Neegan.

Tales of the Walking Dead will premiere sometime in Summer 2022.

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

The Nintendo Switch has become the fastest home console to sell 100 million units, and has now outsold the Nintendo Wii.

Announced in Nintendo’s financial report for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2022, the company revealed that the lifetime sales of the Nintendo Switch is 103.54 million units as of December 31, 2021.

This pushes the Switch past the Wii, making it Nintendo’s best-selling console that you can plug into a TV. It has some way to go before eclipsing the Nintendo DS, though, which sold 153 million consoles across its numerous iterations.

Adding to the Switch’s accolades is that it is the fastest home console to hit 100 million sales, surpassing both the Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 4. A graph from Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki shows the continued uptake in Switch sales during the console’s fifth year of sale, while both PS4 and Wii experienced a slow down in sales at the same time during their respective lifetimes.

Switch has surpassed 100 million sales at fastest pace as home console. Nintendo's Furukawa said Switch is still at middle of its lifecycle and momentum for further growth this year is good. pic.twitter.com/e95rlQxare

— Takashi Mochizuki (@6d6f636869) February 3, 2022

During the first nine months of the 2022 fiscal year, Nintendo sold 18.95 million Switch consoles. This is down by 21.4% compared to the previous year, but is the best quarter for console sales the company has had since the previous year. Nintendo expects to sell another 23 million consoles before the end of the financial year in March.

Of the almost 19 million consoles sold, the majority were the standard Switch model, at 11.79 million sales. The Switch Lite accounts for 3.99 million sales, and the new OLED sold 2.17 million units.

If you’ve yet to join Nintendo’s 98 million annual Switch players and fancy joining in, be sure to check out our best Switch deals page. And for more, see what you can expect from Nintendo in 2022.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

Nintendo still isn't ruling out game company acquisitions, but it doesn't seem particularly interested in them, with the company president putting more priority on building its existing game development DNA.

With Xbox set to buy Activision Blizzard and Sony finalising a purchase of Bungie, it's no surprise that Nintendo's latest investor Q&A saw president Shuntaro Furukawa asked if he was also looking to buy video game companies.

Per Bloomberg, Furukawa seemed more keen on investing in the developers Nintendo already owns than buying brand new ones, citing the need for 'Nintendo DNA' in the company's creators:

“Our brand was built upon products crafted with dedication by our employees, and having a large number of people who don’t posses Nintendo DNA in our group would not be a plus to the company."

Last year, Nintendo announced plans to invest up to 100 billion yen in its development studios, and that remains the plan. At that time, Furukawa made clear that it wouldn't rule out acquisitions in future, but Bloomberg reports that Furukawa added in the latest meeting that Nintendo would only do that if it were 'necessary'.

While we didn't get detail on what would make an acquisition necessary, it feels likely that an acquisition would only be made if a developer or company had experience or technology that Nintendo itself would find difficult or overly costly to replicate. Given that Nintendo tends to plough its own furrow in the games industry, that doesn't feel hugely likely at this point.

The last developer Nintendo purchased was Next Level Games in January 2021. Next Level had been working with Nintendo for many years before that purchase, meaning it was very likely seen as having the correct Nintendo DNA to become a first-party studio.

The feeling that Nintendo can successfully do its own thing is only likely to have been bolstered by its latest financials. The company revealed that the Switch has now outsold the Wii, and become the fastest home console to pass 100 million units sold. Pokemon Legends: Arceus has also become the second-fastest selling Switch game in Japan.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Despite previously working on a Costume Quest cartoon, Double Fine and legendary game designer Tim Schafer has shared that he doesn't really see a future where any of his games are turned into TV or movies.

Speaking to IGN's Ryan McCaffrey after winning the New York Videogame Critics Circle's Andrew Yoon Legend Award, Schafer discussed that while he is often approached by Hollywood about turning one of his games into a film or series, it usually ends up being "just a distraction."

"We often get approached by people saying, 'Hey, can we turn this into a movie?' but, you know It’s usually just a distraction," Schafer said. "I think games are what I really care about and what I like to make and what I think are interesting. It comes up every once and a while, but it’s never turned into anything. I’ve had a lot of free lunches out of Hollywood."

When Psychonauts was brought up as an IP that would seem like a great candidate for a life outside of games, Schafer said that, while he agrees you could "do tons of stuff with Pscyhonauts," he thinks that "games are cooler than movies and tv, so it's already peaked."

Full Throttle is another game that Schafer has been approached about, and Warcraft movie director Duncan Jones even wrote a full script to show him how it could be done. Schafer read the script and thought it was good and that, "you could tell he really played the game and knows what it's all about." However, even this intriguing Full Throttle experience doesn't give Schafer much hope.

"That was exciting," Schafer said. "It would be fun to work with Duncan but, you know, L.A. and Hollywood, they are just a big whirlpool of lunches."

For more, check out why Schafer wants Double Fine's next game to be an original property, read our review of Psychonauts 2, and learn more about the studio that has confirmed it is already working on multiple projects.

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.

Double Fine founder and legendary game designer Tim Schafer has confirmed that, now that Psychonauts 2 is out in the wild, he wants his next game to be an original property and not an existing IP.

Speaking to IGN's Ryan McCaffrey after winning the New York Videogame Critics Circle's Andrew Yoon Legend Award, Schafer said that he really wants this next phase of Double Fine post-Psychonauts 2 to be filled with "new, original stuff."

"There's been some technical other games that I’ve worked on that have been sequels, but the first real big follow-up to a big story was Pscyhnonauts 2," Schafer said. "I think it leads me to want to do new, original stuff for the next phase. Coming up with new ideas is really where my head is at right now."

Since Double Fine is now part of Microsoft, Schafer was then asked if any of Xbox's available IP or franchises have piqued his interest. After joking about taking on King's Quest to finally get his revenge, he shared that ex-Double Fine programmer and designer Brad Muir had suggested they take on Warcraft Adventures. However, Schafer reiterated that the studio's future is all about original IP.

"Brad Muir was suggesting that we take on Warcraft Adventures, you know the Full Throttle-era adventure game that [Blizzard] made, but no, we like to make up our own stuff at Double Fine, so they will not be handing us any IPs," Schafer said.

For more, check out why Schafer doesn't want Psychonauts or any other Double Fine game turned into a movie, read our review of Psychonauts 2, and learn more about the studio that has confirmed it is already working on multiple projects.

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.

If you're wondering why you suddenly have a huge number of Car Mastery points to reassign in Forza Horizon 5, it's likely because Playground Games just released a large patch that fixes a multitude of issues, from persistent online issues to bugs that block progress in Horizon's story mode.

This update new addresses many of Forza Horizon 5's most irritating bugs, such as blocked progress in the game's story campaign and crashes that can occur when taking certain actions.

Here are some of the biggest fixes:

• A crash could occur when the game was installed at a path that was too long (Steam only). An error message will now appear instead.
• Fixed a bug that could block progress on Horizon Stories, with later chapters not unlocking despite meeting their requirements
• Fixed a crash that can occur when deleting a Rival Notification in the Message Center
• Various fixes for server stability and bandwidth optimization to improve the reliability of all online game modes
• Players will no longer lose their Skill Chain when they disconnect from Horizon Life

In addition to squashing bugs, there is also a bevy of improvements to multiplayer functions, including fixing persisting screens and notifications and adding cues in certain game modes, like an on-screen message when matchmaking in Horizon Open and audio cues to the Mini Mission HUD in Horizon Arcade.

Car Mastery tables, a perk system that allows players to unlock permanent and temporary upgrades, have been additionally been rebalanced in order to remove certain exploits. This is the second time that the Car Mastery tables in Forza Horizon 5 have been rebalanced because of exploits, with Playground Games closing the loopholes that allowed players to earn points even not playing while also fixing exploits involving Wheelspins.

Forza Horizon was IGN's Game of the Year for 2021, not the least because it's one of the most beautiful next-gen games to date. Playground Games is also participating in Black History Month, where Forza Horizon 5 will be hosting an in-game livery contest.

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

The Batman has been compared to Zodiac, Batman: Year One, and Nirvana. Now add another inspiration to the list: The Godfather.

In a new interview with MovieMaker magazine, actor Colin Farrell drew comparisons between The Penguin, who he will portray in The Batman, and Fredo Corleone — the classic example of a failed older brother. Farrell called Fredo "a bit of a reference" in his depiction of the famous Batman villain.

"There’s a certain amount of brokenness in Oz that, I think, as a reference, not for me performance-wise, but just emotionally, as a reference for Matt — I think Fredo from The Godfather was a bit of a reference," Farrell explained.

In the Godfather films, Fredo is the embittered older brother who is ultimately surpassed by Michael Corleone. Fredo winds up betraying Michael, leading to one of the most famous death scenes in cinematic history.

"[Director Matt Reeves] was just talking about somebody who had very real and very lofty ambitions, but never really had the opportunity or the chance to explore them, and was maybe looked upon as someone who was handicapped, whether it was psychologically, intellectually — Fredo was frowned upon as less than the other brothers, and maybe Oz as well, in his life, was looked upon as somebody who wasn't capable," Farrell said. "And so that’s one of the things that fuels Oz."

It's certainly a different take on Oswald Cobblepot, who has gone through a number of iterations through the years. Danny DeVito's Penguin from Batman Returns, for example, is literally raised by penguins. In other iterations he is an elegant, frequently foppish, crime boss.

Colin Farrell's Penguin isn't the only character getting a rethink in The Batman. The Riddler is said to be modeled after the Zodiac Killer, while Robert Pattinson's Batman is is full of anger. It's certainly a unique take on DC's iconic hero.

The Batman will be out March 4. While you wait, find out why Robert Pattinson's agent was surprised he wanted to play Batman, and check out the three-minute scene posted earlier this week.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN