It's official: after months of rumors and speculation, Konami is remaking Silent Hill 2.

During today's Silent Hill Transmission event, Konami showcased a three-minute trailer that provided a look at the famously foggy town in 4K. In addition to providing glimpses of Pyramid Head and other notable elements from the original game, the trailer confirmed that Bloober Team will handling development and that it will utilize the Unreal Engine. It will be a PS5 console exclusive while also releasing on Steam.

Masahiro Ito will provide the creature design while Akira Yamaoka returns as the game's composer.

Fully remade to terrify audiences, the intense psychological horror masterpiece SILENT HILL 2 is coming to PlayStation®5 and STEAM® #SILENTHILLhttps://t.co/erxCqMr3qp pic.twitter.com/xZH79a2kP1

— Konami (@Konami) October 19, 2022

The trailer begins with a close-up shot of a cockroach — a properly repulsive glamour shot designed to show off the game's graphics — followed by hero James Sunderland looking into a mirror amid a voiceover about his deceased wife. It's followed by familar shots of Sunderland walking through the fog, glimpses of some familiar moments, and of course, Pyramid Head, who is seen hulking in the rain.

Ito appeared in a short conversation afterward, where he seemingly referred the leaks when talking about dodging questions from fans on Twitter. In a separate conversation, Yamaoka recalled the challenges of developing the original game's soundtrack and how he wanted to create a "new kind of music." He also expressed gratitude that the series remains popular after 20 years.

"The remake also has a new musical style, new challenges, and sound design and music that will be able to please the existing fans," Yamaoka said.

Bloober Team, meanwhile, expressed their intentions to remake the game while also modernizing it. That includes adding an over-the-shoulder camera among other enhancements.

"To put it simply, our goal is to make everything that made the game a timeless classic, but delve even deeper into the foggy streets of Silent Hill," said director Mateusz Lenart, who previously served as creative director of The Medium.

The Silent Hill 2 remake has been rumored to be in development for months, but has remained tightly under wraps until now. It marks Konami's first foray into the series since Silent Hill: Book of Memories, which was released almost exactly a decade ago on PlayStation Vita.

Originally released on PlayStation 2 in 2001, Silent Hill 2 is consistently lauded as one of the finest horror games ever made. Its contributions to the genre include the aforementioned Pyramid Head, who is counted among the scariest characters in video game history.

Rumors of a return to Silent Hill have swirled since the release of P.T. back in 2014, which was billed as a demo of sorts of a Hideo Kojima-led project titled Silent Hills. In the years that followed, Konami seemingly gave up on games entirely, but rumors persisted that the franchise was being farmed out to other studios. Some of the rumors were even connected to Kojima, who departed Konami under acrimonious circumstances.

The rumor mill went into high gear earlier this year when leaked images appeared online before being swiftly deleted. They were further driven by Konami renewing its trademark and director Christopher Gan claiming multiple games are under development.

Now, at last, we know these rumors are true.

Silent Hill 2 is under development for PS5 and Steam, and does not yet have a release date.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

The UK government's investigation of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition has revealed the company is currently developing its own Xbox mobile storefront to rival Apple and Google.

As reported by The Verge, Microsoft presented documents to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority that claim its purchasing of Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard is, in part, to expand its mobile game presence.

"The transaction will improve Microsoft’s ability to create a next generation game store which operates across a range of devices, including mobile as a result of the addition of Activision Blizzard’s content," the filing reads. "Building on Activision Blizzard’s existing communities of gamers, Xbox will seek to scale the Xbox Store to mobile, attracting gamers to a new Xbox Mobile Platform.

"Shifting consumers away from the Google Play Store and App Store on mobile devices will, however, require a major shift in consumer behaviour. Microsoft hopes that by offering well-known and popular content, gamers will be more inclined to try something new."

It's unclear exactly what Xbox's mobile store would look like, but it would seemingly be a more dedicated way for users to purchase and play games through Xbox Cloud Gaming directly from a mobile phone.

While this isn't unlike services it offers already, it would also allow Microsoft to give developers more freedom and sell add-ons directly, an initiative that Microsoft has spoken about pursuing previously. This could make Xbox's platform more desirable to developers who, unlike on Apple's App Store, wouldn't lose a portion of the profit on every microtransaction.

Acquiring Activision Blizzard would certainly help Microsoft carve out a space in mobile gaming. The company noted later in the filing that three quarters of Activision Blizzard's monthly active users are mobile customers, a colossal amount considering it also owns one of the most consistently popular online games of all time in World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2 (which hit 25 million players in its first week), and the aforementioned Call of Duty franchise.

The filing also noted that Activision Blizzard's mobile titles - including Candy Crush Saga, Call of Duty Mobile, and Diablo: Immortal - accounted for more than half of its overall revenue in the first half of this year.

It's a market the industry as a whole is pursuing, as in August 2022 Sony also announced a dedicated PlayStation Studios mobile division. It's unclear if Xbox's mobile plans will change if its acquisition of Activision Blizzard fails to go through. though given the value it sees in mobile gaming, it will likely pursue it with or without the likes of Call of Duty and Candy Crush.

Microsoft's $68.7 billion deal has been scrutinised by various U.S. senators, the city of New York, and the U.S. Justice Department alongside the UK government, though Xbox boss Phil Spencer said he feels good about its progress.

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

Warner Bros. has released the PC specs for Gotham Knights, revealing some pretty demanding system requirements for the upcoming DC action game.

Gotham Knights' Steam page now shows that users will need at least a GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card to play on high settings at 60fps, but only at 1080p resolution. For that graphical set up you'll also need a CPU equivalent to or better than an Intel i7-10700K or Ryzen 5 5600X alongside 16GB of RAM. That's a resonably steep demand for 1080p.

Gotham Knights minimum requirements were also shared, with users needing a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 590 to run the game on low settings (but still at 60fps and 1080p). An Intel Core i5-9600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 equivalant CPU is also required alongside 8GB of RAM.

Warner Bros. didn't reveal any system requirements for players who want to go above 1080p or 60fps, but the wait to find out won't be long as Gotham Knights launches on October 21. However, based on the specs being demanded for 1080p, it would seem that players are going to need an Nvida RTX 30-series card or AMD equivilent for 1440p and above, and probably not the lower-end cards, either.

The announcement comes after Warner Bros. announced that the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series versions of Gotham Knights will be capped at 30fps with no performance mode available.

"Due to the types of features we have in our game, like providing a fully untethered co-op experience in our highly detailed open-world, it's not as straightforward as lowering the resolution and getting a higher FPS," said Gotham Knights executive producer Fleur "Flaoua" Marty at the time. "For this reason, our game does not have a performance/quality toggle option and will run at 30fps on consoles."

It appears, then, that Gotham Knights technical make up simply demands quite a lot of power, hence its 30fps cap on console and reasonably high-end spec requirements on PC.

In our final preview of the game, IGN said: "Gotham Knights is not an easy game to demo, and while [we] walked away from my hands-on time less than impressed with many aspects of combat, [we] still found [ourselves] interested in playing more."

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

An Overwatch 2 Tracer skin is being given away at McDonalds, and seemingly only in Australia.

As reported by Dot Esports, developer Blizzard and McDonalds have united for the promotion that rewards the Overwatch 2 "Tracer Lightning" skin to anyone who orders a Big Mac, McChicken, or 10-piece Chicken McNuggets combo through the MyMacca's App.

The skin is available at every McDonalds across Australia until the end of October, and there's currently no word as to whether the promotion will spread to the U.S. or other regions.

If you're an Overwatch veteran, you may recognise the skin from Overwatch's 2018 anniversary event. These days, the skin is sometimes available in the Overwatch shop, but since the shop cycles its inventory there is no way of knowing exactly when you can buy it. As such, the McDonalds promotion is the only current sure-fire way to get the skin, at least for Australian players.

Other publishers have made similar deals in the past, often resulting in codes for the digital product being sold online for huge amounts of money. Fortnite's Merry Mint Pickaxe was available in the holiday period of 2019 to those who bought Fortnite merchandise at certain retailers, for example, and those codes are now selling for upwards of $100.

Overwatch 2 launched on October 4 and, as is often the case with online games, it had a rocky launch that left several fans completely unable to play the game.

Blizzard's servers were plagued with DDoS attacks that caused lengthy queue times for those trying to play early on, and further issues emerged as a result of new Blizzard policies that required players to connect a phone number to their account before playing.

Though the requirement was implemented as a security feature, Blizzard quickly backtracked and removed the feature for most of its players, only requiring those with new accounts to attach a phone number. Further controversy emerged, however, as fans using pre-paid phone packages found they were not considered viable for the service and as a result they couldn't play Overwatch 2.

The game is relatively settled now, however, and outside of a targeted fix for Zarya in Total Mayhem on October 25 and (presumably) the return of Bastion and Torbjörn, who were removed from Overwatch 2 just days after it launched due to serious glitches, Blizzard said it won't implement any balance updates until Season 2 begins in December.

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

Editor's note: this story previously stated that the Tracer skin was exclusive to McDonalds. It has now been updated to reflect the skin's origin as a 2018 anniversary cosmetic.

Atreus may have matured by God of War Ragnarok, but so did his voice actor. During a new behind-the-scenes video, supervising dialogue designer Jodie Kupsco explained how puberty caused trouble for the God of War sequel.

“Our actor for Atreus, Sunny [Suljic], is a teenage boy, and his voice changed dramatically throughout several years on this title,” she explained. “We had to go in and even-out that performance so it sounds like it took place over a short period of time. That was a unique challenge on this one.”

An extended production period due to the pandemic meant that the God of War Ragnarok team not only had to think creatively to get around Suljic’s rapidly changing voice, but also how to film cinematics on a motion capture soundstage that was limited by pandemic rules.

“We avoided compromising the story we were trying to tell as a result of the pandemic and these limitations we had to deal with,” said senior producer, Ariel Angelotti. “There were no cinematics that we changed; we still have the same characters in them in the final game. We just had to get a bit creative with how we shot the content.”

The developers needed to avoid having too many voice actors on set at any one time, so they resorted to voice actors doubling up to play additional background characters.

This allowed them “to be able to avoid a situation where too many people were on-set on any given day.” They also had some actors “stand in” for others on the day. However, even with his rapidly deepening voice, I can’t help thinking it’s unlikely that Atreus’ voice actor took over as Kratos at any point.

Want to read more about God of War Ragnarok? Check out all the latest God of War Ragnarok reveals as well as the Norse mythology behind its latest trailer.

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

Morpheus actor Laurence Fishburne doesn't think he missed out by not being a part of Matrix: Resurrections alongside stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss.

Alongside many critics, Fishburne wasn't particularly impressed by Resurrections, which brought the Matrix back after almost 20 years for a fourth instalment.

Speaking to Variety, Fishburne was asked plainly if he thought he'd missed out by not being involved. "No, not really", he replied.

"It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be," Fishburne said. "And it wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. But I thought Carrie-Anne and Keanu really did their thing. Yeah, that’s what I thought."

Fishburne was a notable absence from Resurrections, which brought back Reeves as Neo, Moss as Trinity, Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe, and Lambert Wilson as The Merovingian. An AI version of the Morpheus character is played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in Resurrections, but there isn't a definitive answer as to why Fishburne wasn't invited back. Fishburne himself even said in 2021 that he didn't know why he wasn't asked to reprise the role.

Though the logic for Morpheus's absence was somewhat explained in Resurrections, many speculated that it was actually because he died in the canonical 2005 video game The Matrix Online.

In our 4/10 review of the film, IGN said: "The Matrix Resurrections is a bunch of really good ideas stacked together to make a bad — and sometimes ugly — film."

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

Update 10/10/2022: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has approved Blizzard Albany's 21 quality assurance workers' request to vote to unionise.

As reported by The Washington Post, The NLRB found that the QA workers can earn up to $41,995 a year if they work full time with no weeks off - while other Blizzard Albany employees earn between $56,250 and $175,050 - and therefore dismissed Activision Blizzard's claim that the QA workers fell into the same general category as the rest of its employees.

"While we respect the NLRB process, we strongly disagree that a decision that could significantly impact the future of the entire Albany-based Diablo team should be made by just a handful of employees," said Activision Blizzard spokesman Rich George.

"Given our tightly integrated operations in Albany, all of our eligible non-supervisory employees there should have a voice and be allowed to vote, not just the approximately 20 quality assurance testers picked by the union."

We are thrilled to announce that the NLRB ruled in our favor to have an election of Albany QA testers at Blizzard. With 94% committed to winning the union, we look forward to counting ballots a month from today!#1u #UnionYes

— GWA Albany (@WeAreGWAAlbany) October 19, 2022

Original Story 07/20/2022: A group of quality assurance workers at Blizzard Albany, the Activision Blizzard developer previously named Vicarious Visions (known for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 and Skylanders), are working to unionise.

As reported by The Washington Post, the group of around 20 employees has filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and asked Activision Blizzard management to voluntarily recognise the union.

Today, we announce a new union at Activision Blizzard.

QA is currently an undervalued discipline in the games and software industries. We strive to
foster work environments where we are respected and compensated for our essential role in the
development process. 1/5

— GWA Albany (@WeAreGWAAlbany) July 19, 2022

Activision Blizzard has not confirmed whether it will or not, however, but said a decision will be announced formally and publicly to the NLRB. A spokesperson told The Washington Post that "we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union."

The efforts of quality assurance workers at Raven Software - who formed Activision Blizzard's first union in January - encouraged the employees of Blizzard Albany to unionise themselves, as associate test analyst Amanda Laven said "it's been very, very helpful and inspiring" to see other employees show it's possible.

"Seeing their process, it’s been demystifying to see them do it first and have an idea of how things go and how the company might respond," she added. "We’ve already gotten to see some someone do it in our own company, and they’ve been very forthcoming with us talking to us about what things are like and what problems they encountered."

The unionisation effort has been growing through the games industry, seemingly slowly but surely. Quality assurance testers working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf for external support company Keywords Studio also officially voted to unionise in June.

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

Don’t panic – The Callisto Protocol isn’t delayed. And it will be getting a 60fps mode, too.

Developers announced via Twitter that the upcoming game from Dead Space creator Glen Schofield is still on its way on December 2, 2022, despite a post from the Epic Games Store listing a release date of February 12, 2023 (as reported by TheGamer).

“We would love to inform you all that we will be shipping globally on December 2nd,” they confirmed. “And yes, we'll have a 60 FPS performance mode.”

We would love to inform you all that we will be shipping globally on December 2nd. And yes, we'll have a 60 FPS performance mode.

— The Callisto Protocol (@CallistoTheGame) October 18, 2022

Following confirmation that The Callisto Protocol is still launching in December, it’s likely that the Epic Games release date change was down to a simple error.

Still, it’s great to see the game’s developer put minds at ease so quickly, as well as confirming that the game will be getting a 60fps performance mode following recent backlash to Gotham Knights.

Just a couple of days ago, Gotham Knights announced it would only appear in 30fps on consoles.

“Due to the types of features we have in our game, like providing a fully untethered co-op experience in our highly detailed open-world, it's not as straightforward as lowering the resolution and getting a higher FPS,” said Gotham Knights executive producer Fleur Marty. “For this reason, our game does not have a performance/quality toggle option and will run at 30FPS on consoles.”

Fortunately, it looks as though The Callisto Protocol won’t be following suit.

It’s certainly good news for fans, who eagerly await what’s aiming to be the scariest next-gen survival horror game.

“I’m looking forward to really trying to make the scariest game on next-gen platforms [and PC],” said Schofield. “From what I hear — it’s hard to be the creative and talk nicely about it — but from what I hear… [Dead Space] was one of the scarier games of [its generation] and I want to do the same on next-gen, or what’s considered now the current-gen.”

Watching it all unfold in glorious silky-smooth 60fps will be even better.

Want to read more about The Callisto Protocol? Check out why The Callisto Protocol isn’t just Dead Space 4 as well as the achievement you can only get by dying a lot.

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

Don’t panic – The Callisto Protocol isn’t delayed. And it will be getting a 60fps mode, too.

Developers announced via Twitter that the upcoming game from Dead Space creator Glen Schofield is still on its way on December 2, 2022, despite a post from the Epic Games Store listing a release date of February 12, 2023 (as reported by TheGamer).

“We would love to inform you all that we will be shipping globally on December 2nd,” they confirmed. “And yes, we'll have a 60 FPS performance mode.”

We would love to inform you all that we will be shipping globally on December 2nd. And yes, we'll have a 60 FPS performance mode.

— The Callisto Protocol (@CallistoTheGame) October 18, 2022

Following confirmation that The Callisto Protocol is still launching in December, it’s likely that the Epic Games release date change was down to a simple error.

Still, it’s great to see the game’s developer put minds at ease so quickly, as well as confirming that the game will be getting a 60fps performance mode following recent backlash to Gotham Knights.

Just a couple of days ago, Gotham Knights announced it would only appear in 30fps on consoles.

“Due to the types of features we have in our game, like providing a fully untethered co-op experience in our highly detailed open-world, it's not as straightforward as lowering the resolution and getting a higher FPS,” said Gotham Knights executive producer Fleur Marty. “For this reason, our game does not have a performance/quality toggle option and will run at 30FPS on consoles.”

Fortunately, it looks as though The Callisto Protocol won’t be following suit.

It’s certainly good news for fans, who eagerly await what’s aiming to be the scariest next-gen survival horror game.

“I’m looking forward to really trying to make the scariest game on next-gen platforms [and PC],” said Schofield. “From what I hear — it’s hard to be the creative and talk nicely about it — but from what I hear… [Dead Space] was one of the scarier games of [its generation] and I want to do the same on next-gen, or what’s considered now the current-gen.”

Watching it all unfold in glorious silky-smooth 60fps will be even better.

Want to read more about The Callisto Protocol? Check out why The Callisto Protocol isn’t just Dead Space 4 as well as the achievement you can only get by dying a lot.

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

Netflix is continuing its expansion into gaming by opening a new development studio in Southern California.

According to TechCrunch, Netflix’s VP of gaming, Mike Verdu, said this new studio will include former Blizzard vice president and Overwatch boss Chako Sonny at the helm.

“He could have done anything, but he chose to come here,” said Verdu. “You don’t get people like that coming to your organization to build the next big thing in gaming unless there’s a sense that we’re really in it for the long haul and in it for the right reasons.”

The online streaming giant is looking to increase its foothold in gaming, and might even look to create its own cloud gaming service.

“It’s a value add,” said Verdu. “We’re not asking you to subscribe as a console replacement. It’s a completely different business model. The hope is over time that it just becomes this very natural way to play games wherever you are.”

Of course, Netflix wouldn’t be the first to try streaming video games. Google Stadia attempted just that, allowing users access to a library of video games without a PC or games console, using just the Stadia device and service. Unfortunately, it struggled to survive, and with dwindling numbers, Google announced it will shutter Google Stadia by January 2023.

But Netflix doesn’t believe Stadia itself failed, just its business model. “Stadia was a technical success,” said Verdu. “It was fun to play games on Stadia. It had some issues with the business model, sure.” Although Google Stadia used a dedicated controller, Verdu wouldn’t confirm whether or not this would be the case for Netflix’s own cloud gaming service.

While Netflix has been experimenting with gaming for some time, it seems that less than one percent of Netflix subscribers actually play their games.

There are currently 35 games available to download via Netflix, with another 55 currently on their way, including those based on original IPs such as Stranger Things, as well as licensed games, such as Spongebob Squarepants. What game Netflix’s new studio will produce first remains to be seen.

Want to read more about Netflix? Check out how Netflix aims to create the best gaming service in the industry and find out more about Netflix’s other new games studio in Finland.

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