Squid Game writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk has confirmed that the show will be returning for a second season, though it's too early to say when it will be back on our screens.

Hwang told the Associated Press that Squid Game Season 2 is in the works, following the soaring success of the South Korean survival drama's first season, which arrived on Netflix in September. The first season saw hundreds of cash-strapped players accept a strange invitation to compete in various children's games — with deadly high stakes.

COMEBACK SQUID: Hwang Dong-hyuk, the director, creator, writer of #SquidGame says the show will be back with more Gi-hun adventures. pic.twitter.com/uqC1DIdZqy

— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) November 9, 2021

"There's been so much pressure, so much demand and so much love for a second season. So I almost feel like you leave us no choice!" Hwang exclaimed. "But I will say there will indeed be a second season. It's in my head right now. I'm in the planning process currently. But I do think it's too early to say when and how that's going to happen."

Although he wouldn't divulge any details or even share a timeframe for the follow-up season, Hwang did reveal that Squid Game's main protagonist Seong Gi-hun, played by Lee Jung-jae, would return for some more adventures. "I will promise you this, Gi-hun will come back," Hwang told the Associated Press. "He will do something for the world."

The director previously pondered how the story could evolve beyond the nine episodes of the first season, which was left open-ended with plenty of loose threads waiting to be tied up. Hwang suggested that the next season might not be strictly about the contestants, though, as he's actually interested in further exploring the role of the Korean police.

Squid Game scored the biggest series launch ever on Netflix and is expected to generate almost $900 million in impact value for the company, yet the show was stuck in development for 10 years. And when Netflix finally went ahead and produced the show, Hwang revealed the intensity of the shoot caused him to lose six teeth to stress.

IGN awarded Squid Game a 9 out of 10, calling it "one of the most exciting series to hit Netflix in some time." We praised the way it unravels the story to deliver "a white-knuckle thriller, drama, and episodic psychological breakdown with a sickly pastel veneer," which is "equal parts gut-wrenching and squirm-inducing" for both the players and the audience.

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

Sega recently filed new trademarks for a number of its franchises including one for a game called Sonic Frontiers, which may well be the name for Sonic's mysterious 2022 entry.

As reported by Gematsu, the video games publisher filed a number of new trademarks last month, including a move to secure a trademark in both Japanese and English for a new game called Sonic Frontiers - a move that has prompted speculation around its still-unnamed upcoming Sonic project.

While the publisher hasn't stated the purpose of the trademark, it is possible that it could be the name of the new Sonic Team game currently in development by the studio. The game was initially teased back in May during a short trailer that showed Sonic running through a forest-like setting and confirmed a 2022 release date.

Despite announcing the project a number of months ago, the game is still yet to receive an official title. At the time of the teaser's release, a range of trailer files and a hastily altered press release seemed to suggest that the game might take the name Sonic Rangers, though this was never confirmed by Sega or the Sonic Team at the time.

Rumours have centred around the idea that the new Sonic game could take an open world approach, something that the name Frontiers would tally with, although it must be stressed that this amounts to speculation at this point.

Aside from the game's initial teaser, little else has been shown off by the developer that could point fans in the direction of a potential title for the game. Whether Sonic 2022 takes the name Sonic Rangers, Sonic Frontiers, or something completely different, it seems that Sega and the Sonic Team have big plans for the game.

Speaking in an interview with Sonic Stadium earlier this year, Sonic Team's Takashi Iizuka said, "Sonic Adventure laid the foundation for 20 years of Sonic titles after its release, so in the same way, I really hope that this new title releasing in 2022 lays the foundation for the following future Sonic titles — that is the idea behind the challenge for the team."

For more from the world of Sonic and friends, make sure to check out this piece discussing how Idris Elba's says that he won't make Knuckles the Echidna 'sexy' following his confirmation of the role in the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie sequel.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Images that purport to show spoilers from the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home have appeared online – if you're trying to avoid details about the upcoming movie, you may want to tread carefully on social media.

Two images – which we won't be reposting or describing – are being shared across social media. While it's unclear whether they're legitimate at time of writing, they appear to show major spoilers from the third Tom Holland solo Spider-Man film.

If you hate spoilers, you'll want to exercise caution online today as new purportedly leaked images from Spider-Man: No Way Home are circulating. Maybe mute "Spider-Man" where possible? pic.twitter.com/bvUUDjBLf9

— IGN (@IGN) November 9, 2021

We've got a little over a month until No Way Home is released, and it's clear from the official trailer and posters that the movie will include some major changes to the MCU, including some unexpected villains. Spoilers for a movie with these ambitions are perhaps even more damaging than other fan-favourite fare.

It may even be our last outing with Tom Holland's Peter Parker, with the actor saying that the movie was being treated as the "end of a franchise", and reports of Marvel battling to keep the rights to the character among others.

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.

King of the Hill co-creator Mike Judge has jokingly invited his fans to dig deep into their pockets to buy a set of four NFTs (non-fungible tokens) of his own creation.

Judge shared his digital asset on Twitter as he posted a picture of his own artwork featuring pixel images of King of the Hill's Hank Hill, Dale Gribble, Bill Dauterive, and Jeff Boomhauer. "This NFT will be available soon for six trillion dollars. Each," he joked in the accompanying tweet. "Or you can buy all four for twenty trillion. They're worth every penny."

This NFT will be available soon for six trillion dollars. Each. Or you can buy all four for twenty trillion. They’re worth every penny. pic.twitter.com/AgVPL72OG9

— Mike Judge (@MikeJudge) November 8, 2021

King of the Hill aired for 13 seasons on Fox between 1997 and 2009, making it one of the most successful animated sitcoms to debut in the wake of The Simpsons. The series follows the mundane day-to-day struggles of Hank Hill, his family and the many other eccentric personalities in the fictional town of Arlen, Texas, the heartland of America.

More than a decade later, King of the Hill proves it still has a large and dedicated fanbase, with Judge's tweet racking up 65.5K likes and counting, so we can only imagine the hype if the sharp cartoon comedy was ever to return to the air — as writer Brent Forrester had suggested during an eyebrow-raising Reddit AMA session earlier this year.

Forrester teased the possible revival in March when he revealed that King of the Hill creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels were both in "hot negotiations" to revive the popular Fox series, which would see Hank Hill and his family drawn back to life 15 years after the events of the series finale. However, no further update has been given in the months since then.

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

Star Trek: Prodigy, the animated Star Trek series featuring Voyager's Captain Janeway, has been renewed for a second season.

Paramount+ announced that Star Trek: Prodigy will return with a ten-episode second season, which will premiere sometime next year.

“More adventures await the motley crew of the U.S.S. Protostar,” the streaming service revealed in an official statement. “Paramount+, the streaming service from ViacomCBS, today announced that its new animated kids series Star Trek: Prodigy has been renewed for a second season.”

Producer Alex Kurtzman had previously revealed to Star Trek fan site Trek Core that Star Trek: Prodigy would be getting two seasons – the same as Star Trek’s other animated series, Lower Decks. This marks the official announcement of that fact.

Following the adventures of the abandoned USS Protostar and its new motley crew, Star Trek: Prodigy sees the return of Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway – this time appearing as an Emergency Training Holographic Advisor – similar to The Doctor (or Emergency Medical Hologram) in Star Trek: Voyager.

Star Trek: Prodigy is billed as a more child-friendly Star Trek animated series and began streaming on Paramount+ on October 28. The renewal announcement comes off the back of a strong debut – with Star Trek: Prodigy obtaining the top-performing premiere for a kids animated show on Paramount+.

Our own review said: “The premiere sets the stage for a credible course for adventure that has the potential to grow into something special.”

A strong premise and impressive voice cast puts Star Trek: Prodigy in a very strong position. And with the return of fan favourite Chakotay as the Captain of his own starship, there’s even something for die-hard Trek fans.

Star Trek: Prodigy will take a mid-season break on November 18, with the remaining five episodes of Season 1 to begin airing on January 6. Season 2 will debut sometime in 2022 with no premiere date set just yet.

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

Ljubomir Peklar, the creative director for Scorn, has publicly apologized following a "hostile" update sent out about the game's delay.

In an update to Kickstarter backers, the creative director and EbbSoftware CEO apologized to fans and took full responsibility for the update being posted. "I quickly and haphazardly read through the draft of the update and in all my wisdom approved it," said Peklar.

"Reading through again it was clear that the hostile tone it was written in should not be how we should express ideas or plans to people that help us out. We may be tired, confused, and frustrated at our own ineptitude, but there is no reason to lash out at you. For that, I personally apologise. I will do my best for this kind of outburst not to happen again."

Having read through the original post, it's not difficult to gauge why fans were upset. When asked what the team had been doing since the game's last trailer was released in October last year, the update reads, "There is no big revelation here. We were just developing a game and that is nothing more to it than that."

Despite trying to explain a number of factors that have affected decisions taken by the team in terms of the game's delay and its lack of communication with fans, the initial update bears a similar hostile tone at several points throughout.

Referencing the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, the update attempts to justify the lack of updates sent out to backers while simultaneously seeming to take aim at shareholders generally. "Cyberpunk 2077 should've been delayed for a year, but the hype and the pressure from shareholders were more important. Maybe if they didn't push their developers to create marketing content they could've put more time into fixing the game."

The post then goes on to discuss further issues that the game has experienced delving into problems with hype and its inexperienced development team. While it does take ownership for a number of those mistakes, the statement includes various statements and rhetorical questions throughout these sections that could be interpreted as patronising.

At the end of the statement, the team explains that a release date for the game has been pushed back into 2022. "And for the end, a bit of friendly advice," reads a concluding statement from the team. "If lack of communication is so bothersome just ask for a refund and be done with it. It's just a game. You can play it when it's out if you are still interested."

The reaction to the original post has been largely negative, with a number of fans having asked for refunds since its publication. While Peklar's apology is a step in the right direction for the studio, it remains to be whether it will be enough to keep those upset by the post invested.

Scorn – a grim, surreal FPS – has been in the works for a very long time. A first part was originally meant to arrive in 2017, before a re-reveal as an Xbox console exclusive saw it target Fall 2021. The most recent delay has pushed the game back to an unspecified date in 2022.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Marvel’s Eternals star Salma Hayek, who plays Eternals leader Ajak, has revealed she has signed a deal to star in multiple Marvel movies.

During an interview with Smallzy’s Celebrity Talk Podcast (via /Film), the 55-year-old Eternals actress revealed that she’s already signed up for multiple Marvel movies.

“I did sign multiple movie deals!” she said. “It was kind of fun being part of this... secret society that you have to protect so fearlessly!”

This story contains major spoilers for the plot of Marvel’s Eternals – if you haven’t seen it yet, turn back now.

Although the number of movies she’s signed up for remains a mystery, there’s an even bigger question – how is Salma Hayek’s Ajak going to return to the MCU? If you’ve seen Marvel’s Eternals, you’ll know that it’s revealed rather early that Ajak is dead – her scenes that follow are flashbacks from before she was betrayed by Ikaris and ultimately killed by Kro, the leader of the Deviants.

That’s a pretty finite end for Salma Hayek’s character, so Marvel is going to have to get creative if we’re going to see the former Eternals leader once more.

It’s entirely possible that Marvel has factored in potential sequels to Hayek’s contract – meaning an Eternals 2 could be on the cards. If that’s the case, we might expect yet more Ajak flashbacks throughout her thousands of years on Earth.

However, it’s also possible that Ajak could show up in other Marvel properties. After all, with the likes of Captain Marvel and Captain America: The First Avenger taking place during different time periods, it’s not implausible to think of Hayek’s ancient Eternal showing up in the midst of a fight.

However it pans out, Marvel’s Eternals is already doing pretty well at the box office, with an opening weekend of $71 million – just shy of Marvel’s high-end expectations for the film. It’s a shame that Eternals is currently the lowest-rated MCU movie with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of just 47% – a score that’s sure to give Marvel something to think about when considering a sequel.

Still, with the introduction of Marvel’s Black Knight, Eternals has opened up a number of possibilities for the future of the MCU. And it looks as though Salma Hayek will be a part of that – in one way or another.

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

Foo Fighters have made a secret comedy-horror movie titled Studio 666, which is slated for release next year.

Deadline first reported the news, revealing that Dave Grohl and his Foo Fighters bandmates Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, and Rami Jaffee are starring in the movie that was filmed in secret. The cast also includes Whitney Cummings, Leslie Grossman, Will Forte, Jenna Ortega, and Jeff Garlin, with BJ McDonnell serving as director.

Studio 666 will see "what happens when the legendary rock band rents an Encino mansion steeped in grisly rock and roll history, to record their 10th album." After moving in, though, frontman Grohl finds that he is creatively blocked, and "when evil forces in the house sink into his consciousness, the creative juices begin flowing but so does the blood."

Open Road Films has acquired worldwide rights to the movie, which is based on a story by Grohl that was turned into a screenplay, written by Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes. It will be released in theaters in the US on February 25, 2022, with an international release set to be confirmed at a later date.

"After decades of ridiculous music videos and numerous music documentaries under our collective belts, it was finally time to take it to the next level… A full-length feature horror comedy film," Grohl said when the project was finally announced. "Like most things Foo, Studio 666 began with a far fetched idea that blossomed into something bigger than we ever imagined possible.

"We wanted to recapture the classic magic that all of our favorite rock and roll movies had, but with a twist: hilarious gore that f***ing rocks," he added. "With the help of Tom Ortenberg and the team at Open Road Films we can finally let this cat out of the bag after keeping it our best-kept secret for two years. Be ready to laugh, scream, and headbang in your popcorn. Studio 666 will f*** you up."

The movie was filmed inside the same house that Foo Fighters recorded their tenth studio album, Medicine at Midnight, which was released earlier this year, several months prior to the band being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was their first year of eligibility as their debut album officially hit shelves 25 years ago.

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

Five years after its October 2016 release as a free-to-play game on PS4 and subsequent shutdown 13 months later, The Tomorrow Children is set to return. Q-Games, the Kyoto-based indie developer behind the game, has acquired the rights from publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment, returning the Tomorrow Children IP to creator Dylan Cuthbert and his team.

During a rare private server gameplay video in September 2021, Q-Games CEO and founder Cuthbert told IGN Japan that he hoped to acquire the rights and re-release The Tomorrow Children if Sony would allow it. A small-but-vocal audience has called for its return since public servers were closed in November 2017, rendering the game unplayable, and Cuthbert says it was this dedication from fans that convinced him to pursue negotiations with Sony over the rights.

“I’d like to thank first and foremost the fans of The Tomorrow Children, without whom I would never have had the confidence to keep pursuing this deal,” Cuthbert said in an announcement today. “Our fans are some of the most amazing gamers out there, and every day for the past four years they have kept the dream alive. I think the happiest thing about this decision is imagining the enjoyment those fans will feel as they re-enter the crazy post-apocalyptic neo-soviet world of The Tomorrow Children.

“Secondly I’d like to thank Sony Interactive Entertainment for also working with me to have the IP returned to Q-Games. It has taken a concerted effort by all of us to get to this ultimate step, and I’m full of gratitude to everyone involved in the process.”

The Tomorrow Children was an online-only multiplayer experience in which players collaborated to build towns, farm resources, and protect the world from attackers – all set in a surreal, Soviet-inflected post-apocalypse. The game received a mixed reception upon launch and its servers were closed just over a year later, but it built up a cult following.

Although no release date or platforms were announced, it appears The Tomorrow Children will return in an evolved form, as Cuthbert promised that he is “now tweaking and re-working parts of the game every week”. The Tomorrow Children was already a pioneering title, having been developed in partnership with Sony from early in the PS4’s life cycle. Its advanced Voxel Cone Tracing graphics engine resulted in a Pixar-like visual presentation that still looks impressive today, while elements of its loose online co-op system would later be reflected in games such as Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding. Together with planned updates, we can hope the new version of The Tomorrow Children will look at home alongside modern games when it is finally released.

In the meantime, Q-Games will be publishing a newsletter with behind-the-scenes updates so that fans can see how development is progressing. Registration for the newsletter is available here.

“I hope everyone follows along and gets involved in this process,” commented Cuthbert. “We plan to make quite a few changes for the better, and give The Tomorrow Children the re-launch it deserves! Come watch the fun!”

Cuthbert has a close relationship with Sony, having worked there for a spell around the turn of the millennium, and he has had a hand in backend aspects of several PlayStation consoles since the PS2, most famously including the PS2’s rubber duck tech demo and the PS3’s XrossMediaBar interface. Q-Games’ flagship PixelJunk series was closely associated with PlayStation platforms for many years and helped to raise player interest in indie games on Sony consoles. The Tomorrow Children was developed by Q-Games and published by SIE, with production support from Sony’s Japan Studio.

The specific details of the deal between Q-Games and SIE were not announced.

Sony has occasionally collaborated with the creators of its classic IP on reissues, such as working with Parappa The Rapper creator Masaya Matsuura on a PS4 remaster, but in general it has held on to the rights to the vast majority of its second-party franchises. This makes Q-Games’ achievement in acquiring the rights to The Tomorrow Children all the more impressive. It’s exciting to see what this development will mean not only for The Tomorrow Children, but for other dormant Sony titles as well.

Daniel Robson is Chief Editor at IGN Japan. For full disclosure, he worked at SIE Japan Studio while The Tomorrow Children was under development, but didn't work directly on creating the project. He is also a fan of the game. Follow him on Twitter here.

A pop-up store selling exclusive merchandise themed around the Konami Code has opened at the Akihabara Container in Tokyo’s Akihabara district.

The Konami Code – a combination of button presses that unlocked special goodies in various Konami games from the 1980s onwards – was first used in Gradius in 1986. By entering up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, players could unlock a more powerful ship to play with. The hidden command went on to be used in Gradius II and other Konami titles.

The pop-up shop sells various exclusive items based on classic Konami titles such as Gradius, Goemon, Snatcher and Tokimeki Memorial. The full lineup can be seen in the gallery below or on the official website.

In addition, the store features a photo spot with a massive wall panel of Chichibinta Rika from the Parodius series, where visitors are invited to pose for selfies.

Konami has even released a theme song based on the Konami Code, produced by Japanese artist TOMOSUKE, sung by meiyo, and illustrated by Kaneko Shake. The video for the song, which features lyrics in Japanese extolling the virtues of the button command in detail, is available on Konami’s Japanese YouTube account.

Konami has come under fire in recent years for moving away from game development following the departure of Hideo Kojima, but that hasn't stopped the publisher from cashing in on its various classic properties. In September, Konami released the Castlevania Advance Collection, which contains several Game Boy Advance games as well as Dracula X for the Super NES.

The Konami Code 35th anniversary celebration began on October 28 and will continue to November 16. If you're able to make it to Japan in that time and you have even a little love for classic games, it's worth a visit for the nostalgia hit alone.

Ryuichi Kataoka is a writer for IGN Japan