Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Version 2.0 update is now live, two days before it was set to become available on November 5, 2021.

IGN can confirm the update is now live, as our very own Miranda Sanchez has already begun exploring all the new additions to the game, including the Island Ordinances, expanded home storage, Kapp'n's boat tours, and so much more. It's also important to note that no time traveling is needed to make these new features appear.

As of this writing, the paid Happy Home Paradise DLC is still not available and does not appear to be accessible.

I guess it's November 5 now!? The ACNH 2.0 update is live!!! pic.twitter.com/h6wOJPz9Dz

— Miranda Sanchez (@HavokRose) November 4, 2021

If the update isn't automatically prompting, remember to press "+" on the Animal Crossing software in the Switch main menu and choose "Software Update Via the Internet." If you need further help, feel free to check out our guide on how to download this exciting new update!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Version 2.0 Update will be the last major free update for this latest entry in the long-running series that has already sold over 33 million units. Alongside the previously mentioned items, this update will also see the long-awaited arrival of Brewster and his coffee shop The Roost, Katrina, Tortimer, Harriet, Wardell, and many more.

Harv's Island is also getting an upgrade, as it will be the home to a new plaza that will feature all sorts of shops just waiting to be built. There will be Group Stretching at the main plaza, the option to change the exterior of your home, a way to add ABDs (Animal Crossing's ATMs), storage sheds, and permanent ladders to your island, and so much more.

Cooking is another new addition and will let players grow and harvest such ingredients as tomatoes, wheat, sugarcane, potatoes, and carrots to use in such meals as Minestrone or Pizza. Gyriods are making a return as well, and many come with a unique look, sound, and animation.

Oh, and did we mention that Froggy Chair has finally been added to the game? Well, now we did!

Happy Home Paradise, on the other hand, is Animal Crossing: New Horizons' first and only paid DLC that can be purchased for $24.99. It can also be accessed by those who are subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. This adds a whole new archipelago that is home to Paradise Planning, a company that has a mission to build the dream vacation homes of villagers around the world.

You will be able to help design these homes and learn new skills to make something truly special. There will also be various facilities on the main island that you can design, including a school, hospital, restaurant, and more.

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.

Matt Smith has shed some light on his Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker character, which was ultimately cut from the movie before the actor got to film any scenes.

In an interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Smith said his character was kicked out of the script and he wasn't needed for the movie.

"We were close to me being in it but then it just never quite happened," Smith said. "I think the thing they were thinking of me for eventually, the part became obsolete and they didn't need it and so I never got to be in Star Wars."

Remember those reports that Matt Smith was going to be in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER? He told me his role was a big deal, representing “a big shift in the history of the [STAR WARS] franchise.”

WHO WAS HE GOING TO PLAY?!

Full video chat at https://t.co/e84WokCDhq pic.twitter.com/JGKiwPSba9

— Josh Horowitz (@joshuahorowitz) November 3, 2021

When asked by the interviewer if the rumors that Smith was playing Palpatine's son are any true, Smith couldn't say but, with a smile, promised that the role would've been big.

"I could not possibly say [if it was Palpatine's son] but it was a pretty groovy thing," Smith said. "It was a pretty groovy part and concept like a big story detail like a transformative Star Wars story detail but it never quite got over the line."

Smith said he had some discussions with the filmmakers regarding what his character would wear, but it sounds like his character never got much farther than that. The actor said he never even got to wear a costume.

When Smith started to conjecture if he would be able to show up in a later Star Wars project, the video stuttered and Smith's answer was lost.

"Well, maybe I can come back," Smith said. "You never know, I mean..."

The interviewer joked that it was a horrible time for the audio to drop and Smith blamed his poor internet connection. He never finished his answer and began talking about his role in the upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff.

An upcoming Star Wars novel that takes place between Episode VI and Episode VII will shed light on Exogol, which is the planet that Palpatine was hiding away on as was revealed in Episode IX.

J.J. Abrams, who directed Episode IX, recently talked about the importance of having a plan when embarking on a project.

Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN.

After another Halloween has come and gone with no official Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption II, it's up to the modding community to save the day.

A Red Dead II mod was uploaded to Nexus Mods on Monday titled Undead Nightmare II that features zombies rampaging through the game's towns and forests.

Town residents have boarded up their doors and are shooting at every zombie they see. New weather and music effects have also been added to create the perfect zombie-hunting ambiance.

Undead Nightmare was a DLC that was released for the first Red Dead Redemption. The horror-themed paid DLC added zombies and other supernatural horrors to Rockstar's fictional wild west. Fans hoped that the sequel would receive a similar DLC pack but there hasn't been any luck so far.

PCGamesN linked to a YouTube video from Quarantine Gamer that shows off the mod in detail. The video shows the player breaking down barricades that townspeople have put up and different effects in the sky for each area of land.

Take-Two released an updated sales number for Red Dead Redemption II on Wednesday. Red Dead II has exceeded 39 million units sold since its release in 2018 whereas the original game from 2010 has sold 23 million copies.

Modders have played their part in keeping Red Dead II alive with a VR mod and a "Hot Coffee" mod.

IGN's Red Dead Redemption II mod wiki details everything you need to know about installing mods like God Mode, Photorealism and more.

PC players looking for horror should check out IGN's list of the best horror games on PC.

Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN who hopes that GTA Trilogy remaster is a success so Rockstar gets to work on a remaster of the original Red Dead.

It's been over a year since Nvidia released its RTX 30 series line of graphics cards. But if you have been keeping up with the news, you'll probably know it is pretty difficult to buy one of these GPUs right now. With the demand high and supply short, one individual has taken to committing a crime just to obtain these desirable graphics cards.

In a new thread on the EVGA forums, Product Manager Jacob Freeman announced that on October 29, a shipment of EVGA GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs was stolen from a truck on its way to the company's Southern California distribution center.

"These graphics cards are in high demand," Freeman notes in the forum post." "[A]nd each has an estimated retail value starting at $329.99 up to $1959.99 MSRP." EVGA tells IGN that it can't comment on the matter as it is an ongoing investigation.

Although Freeman did not mention exactly how many graphics cards were stolen, the post did warn the perpetrator(s) what Federal and state laws they were violating, noting it will not honor any warranty or upgrade claims on anyone who tries to register one of the stolen GPUs. Presumably, because EVGA expects these cards to enter the black market soon.

As graphics cards become more and more desirable for their power and second utility in crypto-mining, GPU makers have had to work extra hard to combat shortages. Unfortunately, desperate times may have driven one individual to desperate measures.

EVGA is also encouraging anyone that may have any information related to the stolen products to email them at stopRTX30theft@evga.com.

lor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

An audition for the 2002 live-action Scooby-Doo movie, which James Gunn wrote, led to a role in a high-profile superhero project 20 years later. That's the story of Lochlyn Munro, who will play a detective in Gunn's upcoming Peacemaker TV series.

Munro auditioned to play Shaggy in the first Scooby-Doo movie, a role that ultimately went to Matthew Lillard. But 20 years later Gunn recognized Munro again when he saw the actor's audition tape for a role in Peacemaker.

"I ended up in [Peacemaker] because when [Gunn] saw my tape, he remembered that I was one of his choices for Shaggy," Munro said on The Dave and Creech Show, according to Slash Film. "So, I went in – Obviously, [Matthew] Lillard was the perfect choice for that character. But that's kind of how he went, 'Oh, yeah, I want Lochlyn in this, because I remember he was one of my choices for Scooby-Doo.' Twenty years later, isn't that weird?"

Munro will play a detective named Larry Fitzgibbon in Peacemaker. As Slash Film points out, this is an original character created by Gunn. The character's last name, Fitzgibbon, is a reference to Gunn's "oldest friend" as explained in this Instagram post from Gunn in 2016.

Peacemaker is a spinoff of James Gunn's The Suicide Squad following the psychopathic, patriotic mercenary of the same name played by John Cena. Peacemaker will debut on January 13, 2022, on HBO Max and the first season will consist of eight episodes starring Cena.

Peacemaker will also include another hero named Vigilante. You can read up on Vigilante's abilities and backstory to see how the DC Comics character fits into the DCEU.

Here is everything new on HBO Max in November 2021 including the season 3 finale of Doom Patrol and the Will Smith movie King Richard.

Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN.

The future of Super Smash Bros. hangs in the balance as Masahiro Sakurai contemplates what's next.

In an interview with Japanese publication Famitsu which IGN has independently translated, Sakurai spoke about the development of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and how it could or couldn't continue without him.

"I’m not thinking about a sequel,” Sakurai told Famitsu following the release of Sora, the final Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC character. And while Sakurai says he was never thinking about a sequel during development, he also "can't say this is definitely the last Smash Bros."

But even if a team decides to develop a new Smash Bros. game, Sakurai admits that he "can't see any way right now to produce Smash Bros. without me."

Super Smash Bros. is Nintendo's ambitious fighting game series that pits iconic Nintendo characters against each other. In recent entries, Super Smash Bros. has brought in famous guest characters like Ryu, Cloud, and most recently Sora.

Nintendo traditionally has had a Super Smash Bros. entry for every one of its major consoles since the Nintendo 64. However, what direction will the series go after the Nintendo Switch's lifecycle? Will there continue to be new entries and characters, or will Ultimate simply be ported over and over again?

For now, though, Sakurai is taking a much-deserved rest.

Just because Sakurai announced the end of his involvement with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. doesn't mean he will stop making other games in the future. He was the designer for Kid Icarus: Uprising on Nintendo 3DS, after all.

For more on the end of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate read about how the final DLC fighter, Sora, eventually made his way into the game.

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

Netflix's live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series has found its Fire Lord. Daniel Dae Kim, who's known for appearing in Lost and Hawaii Five-O, will play Ozai, the ruler of the Fire Nation and father to Zuko and Azula, in the live-action adaptation.

Kim has previous experience in the world of Avatar, voicing General Fond in one episode of the original show and a video game adaptation.

“I do have the power. I have all the power in the world!”

Netflix’s live action Avatar: The Last Airbender has found its Fire Lord Ozai: Daniel Dae Kim (Lost, Hawaii Five-0) pic.twitter.com/9zYxVuiSLo

— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) November 3, 2021

Netflix says Kim is joining the series as a regular, and says his character, "demands everyone live up to his impossible standards, especially his teenaged son, Prince Zuko. Ozai’s drive to conquer and unite the world under firebender rule is a family burden—he believes that it’s his destiny to finish a war started by his ancestors."

We learned the main cast for Netflix's Avatar earlier this year, which includes Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, and Dallas Liu as Zuko.

Netflix first announced the live-action adaptation in 2018, when Avatar creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino were on board to helm the series. However, the original creators left last year due to creative differences with Netflix. Now, Albert Kim is serving as the project's showrunner, alongside The Lego Movie's Dan Lin, Walker's Lindsey Liberatore, and Swamp Thing's Michael Goi.

This live-action project is far from the only Avatar project in the works. Nickelodeon has revealed plans to create an Avatar Airbender universe with multiple series and shows with the original creators. The first project is set to be an animated theatrical film. We also recently learned that a new Square Enix studio is working on an Avatar mobile game.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

(Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)

Marvel's Avengers hasn't had the warmest reputation since it launched last year, but now we've got some words from Square Enix's president about its own internal reception.

In Square Enix's annual report for 2021, president Yosuke Matsuda says that Marvel's Avengers was an ambitious GaaS (Games as a Service) release. However, Avengers was not as successful as the company would have liked.

"We overcame a variety of unexpected difficulties in the final phase of the game’s development, including needing to transition to work-from-home due to the pandemic. We were able to surmount these challenges and release the game, but it has unfortunately not proven as successful as we would have liked," Matsuda says.
Matsuda said Square Enix would learn from its experience with Avengers and work to produce games that "mesh with the unique attributes and tastes of our studios and development teams."

"Nonetheless, taking on the GaaS model highlighted issues that we are likely to face in future game development efforts such as the need to select game designs that mesh with the unique attributes and tastes of our studios and development teams," said Matsuda. "While the new challenge that we tackled with this title produced a disappointing outcome, we are certain that the GaaS approach will grow in importance as gaming becomes more service oriented."

While Matsuda doesn't outright say it, it looks like he thinks that Crystal Dynamics's pedigree and particular skillset just didn't mesh well with the GaaS service model of Marvel's Avengers. After all, the studio is best known for single-player games like its Tomb Raider reboot. The developer is also working with The Initiative on the Perfect Dark reboot, another presumably single-player game.

As if this revelation wasn't bad enough, yesterday Crystal Dynamics removed paid XP boosters from the game's in-game marketplace after fan backlash, apologizing that it didn't listen sooner.

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

Update: According to a Bloomberg report, the unannounced game in question was being developed by Mafia 3 studio Hangar 13 and was code-named Volt.

The report goes on to say that the game had been in development since 2017, and had troubles with reboots, technological hiccups, and COVID-19. The studio's employees will meet to discuss next steps on Thursday.

Update 4:03pm PT: A Kotaku report has provided a few more details about the canceled title, saying it was a third-person action title similar to Destiny, and was canceled because Take-Two determined the costs of development were too high compared to the game's commercial viability.

“We are confident that there are many opportunities for H13 employees to work on other games in development, both at H13 and across the label," wrote studio head Haden Blackman in an email to staff today. “2K has also assured me that the company believes H13 can deliver a critical and commercial success, and we will begin developing future projects soon.”

Approximately 200 people are impacted by the game's cancellation, Kotaku reports.

Original story:

Games get canceled all the time, and while we occasionally hear about them via official announcements or reporting, more often they are canceled before they ever reach the news. We got a rare glimpse into the process during Take-Two's earnings today, which revealed that an unannounced game cancellation cost the company $53 million.

The company cites the cancellation in its earnings as part of an "impairment charge," which in releases like these means that the company had assets that it now finds are unexpectedly worth a whole lot less than they previously valued them at. For example, say GameStop buys a lot of amiibo, expecting to sell them for a certain amount of money. Then, sudddenly, Nintendo cancels amiibo support for its games and no one wants to buy those amiibo anymore. GameStop might report an impairment charge on its amiibo for the amount of money it expects to lose by putting them on heavy discount just to get them out of its warehouse.

In Take-Two's case, this effectively means that it spent about $53 million on a game it was making, but no longer expects to be able to do anything sellable with the things it spent that money on.

When reached for comment, Take-Two declined to give further detail as to what the canceled game was. Though the earnings indicated the title was unannounced, one possibility is that it could have been the long-hoped-for Bully 2, though there's no evidence to confirm this. Another possibility is Agent, a Cold War espionage thriller that did get originally announced at E3 2009. Its website was shut down just last month without any explanation. It also appears to have been deleted from Rockstar's games section on its website, and its trademark was abandoned in 2018.

Whatever the case, $53 million is a hefty amount to lose on a game, even if it is just a fraction of what the company makes in a quarter (in this case, $985 million in net bookings). It's also a not-insignificant chunk of what it takes to make some of Take-Two's biggest titles. Borderlands 3, for instance, is said to have cost around $95 million to make, plus $140 million for its DLC — though it was reportedly massively over budget.

Whatever it was, Take-Two still has plenty more games on deck for the next few years, and has repeatedly given guidance that it's ramping up game production, including on "immersive core" releases similar to 2K sports titles and GTA 5. So even if we've lost one game we never knew we had, there are many, many more games queued up to take its place.

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

Take-Two, the parent company behind Rockstar, 2K, and Private Division, appears to be cooking up something big.

For the last year and change, they've been telling shareholders to expect a significant, hefty release slate down the pipeline, promising last fiscal year a total of 93 games in the coming five years, and more recently outlining its plans for a slate of "immersive core releases" over the next three years.

During today's earnings call, Take-Two continued to lay out expectations in a similar manner. Between April of 2022 and March of 2024, it's preparing over 60 new releases: 23 "immersive core" titles, similar to its 2K sports games, GTA, and Red Dead Redemption; six games from its independent game publishing label, Private Division; 20 mobile games, four "mid-core" games that are either arcade titles like WWE Battlegrounds or just generally smaller in scope than, say, GTA; and nine games that are either ports or remasters.

That's a significant uptick from what Take-Two has produced in the past, specifically in the immersive core department. In recent years, Take-Two has largely produced a few big games per year, mostly annual 2K releases and then, sporadically, a GTA or Red Dead. On average, to get to 23 in that time frame, it would need to produce seven to eight big blockbuster games each year of that period. That's a lot of GTAs.

We can see the very beginnings of this in Take-Two's current upcoming slate, which had NBA 2K22 out in September, WWE 2K22 set for March, and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands also in March. Looking into next year, we know about Midnight Suns (which just got delayed into the second half of 2022) and Kerbal Space Program 2 planned for fiscal 2023 (which Take-Two is counting as immersive core despite being under the Private Division label). It's also a fairly safe bet to expect the company to keep bringing out NBA 2K and WWE 2K games on a fairly regular basis, and there's an NFL game in the works that's been delayed past March of 2022 (though that may fall under the "arcade" banner).

A look at Take-Two's investor slide presentation shows how they're preparing for this cascade. On a slide showing new hire numbers by fiscal year, Take-Two shows that from 2012 to 2017, it was only hiring a few hundred people per year. But in 2017, it jumped to hiring around 700 folks, and in 2019 and 2020 it hired a similar amount. Today's earnings report included the detail that Take-Two brought in 350 new developers in this quarter alone, not including more senior hires, and in a conversation with IGN, CEO Strauss Zelnick said Take-Two was now somewhere around 7,200 employees strong worldwide. As of it's 2020 annual report, the company was at about 5,800 — that's a 1,400 person jump since March of last year, and during a global pandemic too.

Take-Two certainly has the resources for this surge. It's experienced consistent growth in its net bookings year after year, and expects to do so again in the current fiscal year. Just this last quarter, it brought in $985 million in net bookings. That's only up 3% year-over-year. But when you consider that it's been able to sustain net bookings growth since the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, that's fairly significant.

Meanwhile, GTA V continues to sell absurd quantities — another five million in the last quarter, bringing it to 155 million units sold total over its lifetime — alongside Red Dead Redemption 2 (39 million total) and NBA 2K22 (five million total). Even smaller titles like The Outer Worlds (four million total) are doing very well for it. It's enough that the company raised its earnings projections for the full year today, despite delaying a massive Marvel game into next fiscal year — a move that would normally see projections take a hit.

All this put together makes it apparent that we're about to see a big ramp-up of game announcements from Take-Two, most likely beginning sometime next year if everything is to be marketed in time to make these projections come true. While plenty of those big releases are likely to be 2K Sports titles and possibly more adventurous new ideas like Midnight Suns and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, rumors continue to swirl about GTA 6 — a game that would certainly fit in with the "immersive core" description.

Fortunately for fans, the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition is coming up later this month, keeping the hope alive for now.

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