The team behind upcoming open world RPG Forspoken has discussed a number of details about the game, including its spells, antagonists, and 'magic parkour'.

During an extended special showcase as part of Tokyo Game Show 2021, co-director Takefumi Terada and creative producer Raio Mitsuno shed a little more light on the game. Forspoken centers around the main character Frey, a young woman who falls through a portal and ends up in the strange land of Athia, and the adventures she embarks on in order to get home.

As already seen in trailers for the game, Frey can wield magic, and Terada mentioned that her learning to use magical abilities is a big part of the story. As you'd expect after seeing the trailers, magic will also be central to Forspoken’s combat system. Frey can use various spells to attack enemies or set traps, among other things. In the game's trailer, she's seen setting off an explosive spell on the floor in one scene and encasing an enemy in a ball of water in another.

There will be a vast array of spells to learn and many ways to make them stronger. "Our goal was to allow players to learn a wide variety of spells," Terada said. He went on to say the game was designed to encourage players to experiment with various types of magic.

Athia is a vast open world that Frey will traverse via what Terada called 'Magic Parkour'. "I really feel like it captures what makes our style of development at Luminous Productions so special," Terada said. Frey is seen quickly zipping from place to place, covering great distances through the air and performing moves similar to the bullet jumping mechanic in the early 2010s action game Warframe.

Terada also mentioned the game’s controls are simple and that magic or parkour skills can each be used with one button.

Forspoken was first introduced to the world as Project Athia in June 2020. Even in the early stages, the team wanted to show what next-generation hardware could do. They once again said their goal is to make a game with the best graphics in the world.

“We’ve been working on polishing the graphics every day,” Mitsuno said. The team hopes to convey this through the game's varied environments, from ruins to forests and other areas. The game is being developed using the Luminous Engine, which was developed by Square Enix and Luminous Productions.

Speaking of the world of Forspoken, the developers talked a little bit about the setting, but without revealing too much. When we meet Frey she's having a tough time in New York and promises her cat they'll end up somewhere better soon. She’s half right, as she gets her wish to be free of the Big Apple, but tumbles through a portal to the strange land of Athia.

Frey, isn't alone, however, she's joined by Cuff, a sentient, talking golden bracelet that somehow wrapped around her right arm between the trip from New York to Athia. The developers said they could not yet fully elaborate on the exact role Cuff will play, only that it's vital to the story and will help players get to their next targets. They did say, however, there will be plenty of banter between the two. "They both say whatever they think," Mitsuno said. "This means they are fighting all the time."

Athia, where Frey now finds herself, was once a beautiful and peaceful land ruled by the Tantas. After an event the developers did not reveal, the land has become a harsh and cruel place. The aforementioned Tantas also seem to have taken a turn for the worse, as Frey is seen fighting a type named Tanta Sila in the trailer for the game. The Tantas have each been designed with a specific characteristic in mind. Tanta Sila's, for example, is strength, which can be seen in her muscular arms.

Terada said the team is at peak production right now as they push toward the release of the game on the PS5 and PC in Spring 2022.

Jason Coskrey is a writer based in Tokyo. Find him on Twitter at @JCoskrey

Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum has explained why he wanted to simultaneously release Halloween Kills in theaters and on Peacock.

Speaking with Collider for Amazon Prime Video's Welcome to the Blumhouse film series, Blum revealed that he was the instigator behind Halloween Kills' day-and-date release plan. He also admitted that the decision was ultimately determined by a poor distribution experience he had encountered with another slasher film he produced and released last year.

"It was my idea to do it. [Peacock] didn't approach me. I approached them," Blum affirmed. "I, like everyone else, am a big believer in the theatrical experience. I think eventually I think there should be windows. I think Universal's strategy of the three-week window is a great strategy, but I had a bad distribution experience with Freaky. That movie is a great movie, and it didn't get seen because the distribution of it got all twisted up. My fault."

Freaky is a slasher comedy starring Kathryn Newton as a high schooler who unintentionally swaps bodies with a middle-aged serial killer, portrayed by Vince Vaughn. The film received generally favorable reviews from critics following its release in theaters in November last year, yet it only managed to pull in $16.2 million at the worldwide box office.

"I didn't want to go through that experience again," Blumhouse said, explaining his decision further and reflecting back on Freaky's box office performance. "I didn't want to have a movie that I'm really proud of that I think is great and have there be an excuse why people didn't see it. So I'm the one who pitched Universal. And then I pitched Jamie and David, and it was my idea. I stand behind it. I'm glad that we're doing it."

Halloween Kills takes place right after 2018's Halloween and sees Michael Myers escape his fate to once again go after Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode, Judy Greer's Karen, Andi Matichak's Allyson, and more. In this story, however, the Strode family joins other survivors of Myers' first attack to band together to end his reign of terror once and for all.

The latest entry in the Halloween franchise will be released in theaters on October 15 and will arrive on Peacock the same day. It will be available to all Peacock Premium and Premium Plus subscribers at no extra cost and is taking a similar strategy to Universal's The Boss Baby: Family Business, which also changed to a day-and-date release plan.

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

Since its launch on Tuesday, Amazon's MMORPG New World has seen quite literally overwhelming popularity. Despite having doubled server numbers since release, the publisher is now asking for new fans logging into the game for the first time to find and join low-capacity servers in the game while it looks to cut down on huge queue times.

As shared in an update on Twitter (below), the development team spoke further about how players could avoid New World's existing queue times – primarily, that's done by choosing to become part of less popular server, rather than jumping into an already-packed world and waiting to get in.

A message from the New World Team regarding launch, world queues, and character transfers. pic.twitter.com/wDSrlT8w93

— New World (@playnewworld) October 1, 2021

"Our team has been working around the clock to add as many servers as we can and will continue to do so until we stabilize wait times," says Amazon. "While we do that work, there are options to get into the game quickly. If you are a player logging in for the first time, forty percent of our live servers have low or no wait times. We encourage you to seek those servers out and get playing."

For existing players, that's a little harder. While Amazon says that is currently working on a feature that will allow you to transfer your character to a different server in order to more easily play with friends, this currently isn't possible in the game. The company has stated that it is aiming to bring this feature to fans next week but, in the meantime, players already registered in oversubscribed servers have few options but to wait for Amazon to increase capacity and hope that newer players don't add to their already existing wait times.

The wait times for New World speak volumes about the game's staggering popularity since launch. The new MMO has already become the most played game of 2021 with an all-time player count peak more than 200,000 players higher than Valheim’s, which previously held the record. On launch day itself, Amazon says that over a million players entered the game while the most recent statistics published on SteamDB show that despite issues with servers, the game has garnered an impressive new high of 758,543 concurrent players.

This might not come as a surprise to fans who had been following the game prior to launch. The game's open beta featured its own successful stint on Steam when it ran back in July. For Amazon, New World offers a heartening yet stark contrast to the company's previously published works in the gaming sphere. Prior to New World, the studio's last efforts came in the form of Crucible, a free-to-play multiplayer third-person shooter that's servers were shut down in November following a reasonably poor run on Steam.

If you're currently thinking about diving into New World, make sure to check out our review in progress for the game. Alternatively, if you're currently sat waiting in one of New Worlds server queues, then why not pass the time by checking our dedicated New World wiki, which includes a range of information useful for getting started on the shores of Aeternum.

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

Square Enix has revealed a new "dungeon exploration RPG" called Dungeon Encounters, and announced it will be released in just two weeks on October 14, for PlayStation 4, Steam, and Nintendo Switch.

During a special video presentation at Tokyo Game Show 2021, Square Enix producer Hiroaki Kato and director Hiroyuki Ito revealed a game that does not resemble the JRPG format which Square Enix helped make famous worldwide. Players march along a narrow grid, as if they are exploring a dungeon map rather than the dungeon itself. On-screen counters indicate players' coordinates in the dungeon, as well as how many squares they have uncovered. Exploring a complete floor unlocks the next one and grants the character additional "ability points."

We've already gone hands-on with Dungeon Encounters, saying that some will be turned off by the low frills looks, but "if you are the type of player drawn to battling it out in simple yet deep ways, you should definitely give this one a try."

Movement through the dungeon is not necessarily linear, as characters can use abilities to jump off the path. The trailer showed one character leap two squares to the left across a gap, while another could move like a knight does on a chessboard, ignoring walls and jumping in an "L" shape.

Naturally, the dungeons are not bereft of hazards. Pitfalls can drop characters to lower floors, select spaces can drain heroes' pockets of gold, and of course monsters lie in wait to do battle. Combat looks to be turn-based but with limited animations: both hero and enemy alike were shown as simple portraits, and attacks took the shape of colored arrows and overlays on screen. There seem to be a large variety of characters in the game both good and evil, with quite a few less-than-humanoid figures shown amongst the "allies" lineup in the trailer.

Kato described Ito, a Square Enix veteran whose career dates back to the 16-bit era, as a "game system design expert" and the trailer emphasized strategy above all else. As the on-screen titles put it: "Don't feel. Think."

Diamond Feit is a writer/podcaster in Osaka, Japan who uses Twitter and Twitch as feitclub.

The first extended gameplay footage of Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising – an action RPG spin-off of the upcoming Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes – has been revealed.

During a special video presentation from publisher 505 Games at Tokyo Game Show 2021, Yoshitaka Murayama and Junko Kawano introduced a trio of playable heroes: JB, Isha, and Garoo.

JB is an athletic young girl, Isha is a magic-wielder, and Garoo is, well, an anthropomorphic kangaroo (complete with a pouch on his shirt). In the story, these three meet in a village called "New Never" and they go underground exploring ancient ruins recently uncovered by an earthquake. The heroes seek both treasure and anyone who might be trapped underground.

Gameplay is 2.5D and fast-paced, and players can swap between the characters at will. The trailer shows one hero seamlessly fade out as another fades in, and their attacks chain together to deal large-scale damage to the monsters roaming the environments. For example, Isha can fire magic bolts at enemies out of her reach, then swap out for Garoo who leaps into the air with his giant sword to smash them into pieces.

The trailer features a pair of boss battles: first a giant, ferocious tree, then a large rock figure. The tree attacks with roots from beneath the ground as well as insects descending from its branches, requiring the heroes to move fast to dodge all the hazards on-screen. Eventually a worm emerges from the trunk, which proves vulnerable to direct attacks. When the three leads team up and actually go on the offensive, the battle ends quickly thanks to all the damage they're able to dish out.

The trailer focuses on the action aspects of Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, but the developers did outline the connections between this title and the main game, Hundred Heroes. At least seven characters from that game will make appearances in Rising, and all three heroes from Rising will show up in Hundred Heroes. References to a "conspiracy under the surface" came up more than once during this conversation, so the stories of the two games are definitely intertwined.

The developers hope that Rising will appeal to both action game fans and RPG fans, with Murayama adding that he hopes this spinoff of Hundred Heroes will "fill the gap" between now and that highly anticipated game's 2023 release. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is scheduled for a simultaneous Spring 2022 release on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox X|S and One, Steam, Epic Games Store, and the Nintendo Switch.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will also be multi-platform, though Murayama said that the team is "investigating" a Switch release. At the time of the original Kickstarter, the campaign text said the game might come to a "next-gen Nintendo console". Both versions of Eiyuden Chronicles have been confirmed as day one releases on Xbox Game Pass.

Diamond Feit is a writer/podcaster in Osaka, Japan, who uses Twitter and Twitch as feitclub.

Netflix's Squid Game featured a real-life phone number belonging to a Korean man, who is now reportedly receiving thousands of calls per day.

The South China Morning Post claims the man on the end of the line is being bombarded with endless calls, both day and night, after his phone number was allegedly exposed in the first episode of the hit Netflix series. The owner of the number, who's in his 40s and lives in Gyeonggi Province, told MBC news that he's currently getting around 4,000 calls a day.

The man's phone number apparently made an appearance in Squid Game's debut episode, where it was found printed on multiple business cards. A mysterious man handed out the cards, which contained the eight-digit number, to multiple characters, offering them the chance to compete in a deadly survival game and potentially win a big cash prize.

It seems some viewers called the number out of curiosity, with many of them registering their interest to "be in the game." According to local newspaper Hankook Ilbo, Netflix is "in negotiations with the phone number owner to resolve the issue," though another outside party has stepped forward and offered to take the situation into their own hands.

South Korea's National Revolutionary Party's honorary chief, Huh Kyung-young, has reportedly offered to buy the phone number for 100 million won ($85,000 USD). "I heard that the owner of the phone number showed on a business card in Squid Game is suffering serious damage from prank calls," he said on Facebook. "I would like to buy the number for 100 million won."

The owner of the number is said to be reluctant to give it up as he has been using it for 10 years and it is linked with his business. However, he may have a change of heart as Squid Game's popularity continues to grow. In fact, at the time of writing, the dystopian thriller is on track to become Netflix's biggest show ever — if the early viewership figures hold.

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.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin – the action-focused Final Fantasy 1 spin-off – will be released on March 18, 2022.

Announced during Tokyo Game Show 2021, the new release date was released as part of a new story trailer (below) that seemingly confirmed that the game's main character, Jack is related in some way to Final Fantasy 1's anatagonist, Garland.

The game will also get a second demo that will include multiplayer features. Available only on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, the demo is arriving today. It will add a new stage not seen in the last demo, and includes updates made based on player feedback from the first. This demo will also include a survey, which Square Enix wants to make further changes based on.

Announced earlier this year, Final Fantasy Origin is being developed alongside Nioh studio Team Ninja for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and PC. The game is a spin-off from FF1, but isn't a direct sequel.

“The game was inspired by FF1," producer Tetsuya Nomura explained previously. "The setting is based on FF1 as well. Where did the Warriors of Light come from and who are they? This is something you find out in the ending of FF1.

“Jack and his friends are strangers in the same way. Who are Jack and his friends? Are they the Warriors of Light? These function as the main themes of the story, so in the story they are depicted as [the eponymous] strangers.”

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.

It's a movie and TV edition this week as Cardy, Matt, and Dale frankly just haven't had the time to play any new games. No Time to Die is finally in cinemas so Cardy and Matt tell you all about what they thought of Daniel Craig's final outing as Bond. Cardy's also watched everything else under the sun recently so gives his impressions of Soprano's prequel The Many Saints of Newark, Netflix horror series Midnight Mass, medieval fantasy The Green Knight, and why everyone should be excited for Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza. There's also a tightly contested Endless Search, and of course your feedback.

Want to submit your own Endless Search, food opinion, or a bit of other nonsense? Feel free to get in touch with the podcast at: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast #612: Finally, Time to Die

• IGN UK Podcast #611: New Spicy Arrakis Flavour
• IGN UK Podcast #610: Deathloops and Toffee Hoops
• IGN UK Podcast #609: Too Much Happened This Week
• IIGN UK Podcast #608: A Far Cry from The Forgotten City
• IGN UK Podcast #607: DokeV's Llama Would Batter a Xenomorph

It's pretty clear that Spider-Man 3 was a scarring experience for all involved. It's considered a textbook case of executive meddling that brought Sam Raimi's trailblazing run with Spider-Man to a screeching halt.

Things are better now. The Spider-verse is alive and well at both Sony and Marvel, and Sam Raimi is currently directing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Still, it's pretty clear that Raimi's Spider-Man 3 experience had a big impact on him.

In a interview with Collider, Raimi talked about how hard it was to return to directing superhero films after Spider-Man 3. It was bad enough, he said, that he wasn't sure he could face it again.

"I didn't know that I could face it again because it was so awful, having been the director of Spider-Man 3. The Internet was getting revved up and people disliked that movie and they sure let me know about it. So, it was difficult to take back on," Raimi said.

When his agent called him about the opportunity to direct Doctor Strange 2, Raimi found himself wondering if he could do it. "They're really demanding, those types of pictures. And I felt, 'Well, that's reason enough,'" he said.

Raimi went on to praise the character of Doctor Strange, saying he's "right up there with the favorites." He also had kind words for the first movie, saying director Scott Derrickson "did a wonderful job, an incredible job."

"I didn't think I would be doing another superhero movie. it just happened," Raimi said.

First released back in 2007, Spider-Man 3 notoriously crammed in Venom at the last minute, to the movie's detriment. The result was a fairly messy movie, though we liked it at the time, calling it a "great ending for both a standard three-film arc and the best comic book trilogy in film history."

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness releases on March 25 in 2022. Go here to see read about every upcoming MCU movie and TV show for the rest of 2021.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN.

Scarlett Johansson and Disney have settled the acrimonious lawsuit that has turned Hollywood upside down since first being filed in July, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Terms were not disclosed.

The suit was part of a breach of contract lawsuit over the decision to release Black Widow simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+. Johansson alleged that the decision hurt her salary, which was said to be based in large part on the earnings from the film. The lawsuit asked for more than $50 million in damages, arguing that Disney pressured Marvel to release it on the streaming service in order to appease investors.

The lawsuit touched off a major public relations war that grew to engulf much of Hollywood. The fallout reportedly affected negotiations with Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, directors of some of the most popular MCU properties, who worried about how future movies would be released and how they would make money. Marvel boss Kevin Feige was said to be "angry and embarrassed" over the lawsuit.

Black Widow was a comparative success by pandemic box office standards, earning some $379 million worldwide. According to Disney, it also earned another $60 million in purchases through Disney+ Premiere. It was the Disney's boast about streaming earnings that reportedly angered Johansson, encouraging her to move forward with the lawsuit that she had been mulling for "several months," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Disney has since returned to a 45-day theatrical window with films like Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, but it has been blunt about its intentions to release its films however it pleases. While this lawsuit is over, the battle over simultaneous releases on streaming services has undoubtedly just begun.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN.