Ubisoft has released some surprise DLC for Assassin's Creed Valhalla that features a character from the next game, Assassin's Creed Mirage.

As reported by Polygon, Ubisoft announced on Twitter (below) that a new quest called Shared History can now be downloaded for free, introducing Roshan from the upcoming Mirage to Valhalla protagonist Eivor.

Roshan is the mentor of Basim, another character from Valhalla and protagonist of the next game. Given his status as a master assassin, it's only natural that Roshan is too, and her quest kicks off with some foreshadowing of what's to come in Mirage.

Surprise! Roshan from Assassin's Creed Mirage makes an appearance in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla with our latest update. Eivor and Roshan team up in "Shared History" - a new free quest available now! #AssassinsCreed pic.twitter.com/s7QOcjaavS

— Assassin's Creed (@assassinscreed) November 29, 2022

This DLC (alongside the previously announced Last Chapter) marks the end of Valhalla's post launch content and arrives more than two years after the game launched in November 2020. Already confirmed to tie up the story of Eivor, it makes sense that Ubisoft also wants to tease the next game in its final piece of DLC for the Viking adventure.

Mirage leaked earlier this year but was officially revealed in September as the next mainline Assassin's Creed game launching sometime in 2023. Set in Baghdad around 20 years before the events of Valhalla, Mirage promises a tonal return to the franchise's roots.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Ubisoft has released some surprise DLC for Assassin's Creed Valhalla that features a character from the next game, Assassin's Creed Mirage.

As reported by Polygon, Ubisoft announced on Twitter (below) that a new quest called Shared History can now be downloaded for free, introducing Roshan from the upcoming Mirage to Valhalla protagonist Eivor.

Roshan is the mentor of Basim, another character from Valhalla and protagonist of the next game. Given his status as a master assassin, it's only natural that Roshan is too, and her quest kicks off with some foreshadowing of what's to come in Mirage.

Surprise! Roshan from Assassin's Creed Mirage makes an appearance in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla with our latest update. Eivor and Roshan team up in "Shared History" - a new free quest available now! #AssassinsCreed pic.twitter.com/s7QOcjaavS

— Assassin's Creed (@assassinscreed) November 29, 2022

This DLC (alongside the previously announced Last Chapter) marks the end of Valhalla's post launch content and arrives more than two years after the game launched in November 2020. Already confirmed to tie up the story of Eivor, it makes sense that Ubisoft also wants to tease the next game in its final piece of DLC for the Viking adventure.

Mirage leaked earlier this year but was officially revealed in September as the next mainline Assassin's Creed game launching sometime in 2023. Set in Baghdad around 20 years before the events of Valhalla, Mirage promises a tonal return to the franchise's roots.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's first post launch patch has arrived alongside a promise from Nintendo to take the games' tech problems seriously.

Patch notes released on Nintendo's website for version 1.1.0 of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet say that the broken music during the Elite Four and Top Champion battles has now been fixed, alongside a vague confirmation that "other select bug fixes have been made". The patch, available now, also kicks of Season 1 of Ranked Battles.

Nintendo also committed to improving the performance of the first open world Pokémon games and apologised for the various issues that are present in the launch versions.

"We are aware that players may encounter issues that affect the games' performance," Nintendo said. "Our goal is always to give players a positive experience with our games, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We take the feedback from players seriously and are working on improvements to the games."

It didn't say when these updates would arrive, however, but this first patch was released just under two weeks after the game launched and exactly three weeks after it released its "day one patch" to those with early copies. If Nintendo sticks to a similar trend, it could be mid to late December before we see another update to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Issues found so far include a broken PvE experience in the endgame, a rigged Battle Stadium, duplication glitches, a bizarre method of running at double speed, and more.

The poor performance was also a major factor in our 6/10 review, as IGN said: "The open-world gameplay of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is a brilliant direction for the future of the franchise, but this promising shift is sabotaged by the numerous ways in which Scarlet and Violet feel deeply unfinished."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

James Gunn keeps teasing his future plans for the DC Universe, and his latest hint appears to be a wink and a nod to a comic book miniseries, Kingdom Come.

Gunn posted his latest hint on Twitter, with a short and sweet "Making Plans" caption. The origins of the DC image go all the way back to the 90s with the release of Kingdom Come, and that same artwork was also featured as a cover in the four-part series.

Making plans. pic.twitter.com/cubPgga066

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) November 30, 2022

While Gunn's tweet isn't enough to say there's a strict adaption on the way, it may indicate the next DCU projects will borrow a few ideas from the material. In the original, Superman sits at the center of an older and younger generation of superheroes. As the eras clash, the turmoil between superheroes becomes as big a problem as handling some of the world's villains.

As for the specifics circulating around this image, that's anyone's guess, Gunn hasn't responded to much confirming just what his tweet will mean for future DC projects. However, his most recent replies do include a quick back-and-forth with Guardians of the Galaxy actress Pom Klementieff.

After a fan tweeted their hope Klementieff was part of the plan, Gunn simply responded, "Pom's always a part of our plans!"

Gunn has taken to Twitter to tease a few other ideas around the DCU and where it's headed. Earlier this month, Gunn shared a photo of Mister Terrific with no text; leading fans to speculate Michael Holt will show up at some point. The DC Studios co-CEO also noted new DCU films and video games will share the same canon.

And while DC fans have plenty of high hopes about trending topics like #SaveLegendsofTomorrow and #ReleaseTheAyerCut—Gunn sounds focused on what lies ahead for new entries. Once again, he opened up on Twitter to explain DC's current position, writing: "our initial focus is on the story going forward, hammering out the new DCU, & telling the Biggest Story Ever Told across multiple films, television shows, & animated projects."

Andrea Shearon is a freelance contributor for IGN covering games and entertainment. She's worn several hats over her seven-year career in the games industry, with bylines over at Fanbyte, USA Today's FTW, TheGamer, VG247, and RPG Site. Find her on Twitter (@Maajora) or the Materia Possessions podcast chatting about FFXIV, RPGs, and any series involving giant robots.

Quantic Dream is hard at work on Star Wars Eclipse, a new adventure game set in the High Republic era of Star Wars – a golden age of Jedi hundreds of years before the birth of Anakin Skywalker. While a lavish teaser trailer paints a thrilling picture of the game’s setting, details are still scarce.

During a recent interview at G-Star in South Korea, director, writer and Quantic Dream founder David Cage told IGN Japan that Star Wars Eclipse is "the most ambitious project of our studio." While he did not go into detail about the game, he gave us some new insights to what we can expect.

Among other things, Cage reiterates that Star Wars Eclipse will be markedly different from Detroit: Become Human, which released on PlayStation 4 back in 2018 and PC the year after. In particular, Detroit: Become Human was more about "anticipation" than sci-fi, imagining a near future in which androids become sentient.

"We spent a lot of time trying to imagine our world 10, 15, 20 years from now – what would the technology be like? Do we believe that androids would be part of our societies?" Cage explains. "I think Star Wars is a very different setting – it's far, far away, as you know. So it's something different."

Cage says that Quantic Dream learned a lot from Detroit: Become Human, calling it the studio's "most accomplished game overall" and the "best implementation we could make of the vision we had 25 years ago about how to tell a story where the player is the hero." But that doesn't mean that Quantic Dream will run it all back for Star Wars Eclipse.

"Star Wars is not going to be a skin of Detroit. The two games will be very different, very different, although we will also of course use what we learned. But it's not going to be a copycat by any means; it's going to be a very different experience," Cage says.

First announced back in 2021, Star Wars: Eclipse has remained largely a mystery since its striking first reveal. Earlier this year, Quantic Dream quashed rumors that it had been delayed and was suffering development trouble, noting that it had yet to announce a release date. In a subsequent interview, Quantic Dream CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere said that Eclipse would retain Quantic Dream's fundamentals despite being an action-adventure game at heart.

'A mutual respect'

Quantic Dream, for its part, has been in the news quite a bit since 2018 due to toxic workplace allegations — allegations that Cage has strongly denied. In August, NetEase announced that it was acquiring Quantic Dream, and the studio has since revealed Parallel Studio's Under The Waves in a bid to expand its publishing label.

Cage says that NetEase alleviates the "struggle for resources" faced by many studios, and that the publisher provides access to "tons of technologies" that are of interest to Quantic Dream, including machine learning and advanced AI.

Quantic Dream joins a number of Japanese studios under the NetEase umbrella, including Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi's new studio. Talking about what it's like to work with these new students, Cage describes feelings of "mutual respect" and cultural connections between France and Japan.

"I think in Japan, also, there's this very strong interest for storytelling in games. And Detroit has been a big success in Japan, with a lot of support from the fans and very high sales figures for a non-Japanese game. So we're really, really proud of this," Cage says.

Talking about the ongoing work on Star Wars: Eclipse, Cage says that the original opporunity came together "very, very quickly," and that the studio didn't have a specific story in mind ahead of time. Cage himself is a fan of the franchise, being about 10-years-old when the original movie was released.

"They became part of our culture, and part of our consciousness somehow, and the creative ideas that we had were also inspired by this film, along with some others," Cage says. "And when we had the opportunity to potentially contribute to such a monument of pop culture, it's like a dream come true. So we didn't hesitate for a second, and we just jumped in. It's just a very exciting project. And it is the most ambitious project of our studio, for sure."

In the meantime, Quantic Dream continues to keep specific details about the project under wraps, saying "there is a schedule" and that the studio is waiting for the right moment to announce something new.

"It's the first time we've worked on a franchise, but we are approaching it with the same passion as if it was our own franchise – there is no difference for us. Same passion, same creative ambition, same everything," Cage says.

Star Wars: Eclipse has not revealed a release date or platforms and is not expected to release until 2024 at the earliest. While you wait, check out every other upcoming Star Wars game currently in development.

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.

Interview by Daniel Robson of IGN Japan.

If you’re expecting any of Quantic Dream’s cinematic games to jump to the big screen, don’t. Company president David Cage says the studio isn’t actively pursuing selling the rights to its games for movie adaptations.

But that doesn’t mean Quantic Dream is ignoring movies and TV altogether. Cage says he’s actively following the rise of interactive TV, similar to what Netflix did with Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch.

“[I]f it’s about selling the rights to one of our games to a movie company so they make a movie, it’s not necessarily something we’re actively pursuing,” says Cage in an interview with IGN Japan.

However, Cage says whether Quantic Dream is interested in the TV medium is a separate question entirely. “It’s also interesting to see what Netflix is doing and what other people are doing, experimenting with interactive TV shows. Because it’s really mainstream, it’s about talking to non-gamers, to anyone, and giving them access to the possibility to change the course of the story based on their choices.”

Cage calls this a “simplified version” of the games Quantic Dream already makes but the appeal lies in the chance of reaching a new audience on a new platform with a different interface. But while the interest is there, Cage says “there’s no concrete plan right now with all these things, it’s more like things we keep looking at.”

Still, Cage says Netflix’s attempts at interactive TV are exciting and that “there is a future for interactive storytelling in television.”

Quantic Dream is likely not focusing on movies and TV given it is currently developing the Star Wars game, Star Wars Eclipse, a branching action-adventure game set in the High Republic era. Focusing on multiple protagonists, players will make meaningful choices that affect the storyline.

Star Wars Eclipse was announced at the 2021 Game Awards but has yet to receive an official release date.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Interview by Daniel Robson of IGN Japan.

Hollywood's favorite martial arts legend Bruce Lee is getting the big screen treatment at Sony. Ang Lee, renowned for his work on movies like Life of Pi and Brokeback Mountain, is directing the biopic, and his son, Mason Lee, is attached to star in the film as the Chinese American star.

According to Deadline, the film is currently in development at Sony's 3000 Pictures with Dan Futterman adapting the script from Jean Castelli, Alex Law and Mabel Cheung and Wells Tower's earlier screenplays. Futterman's previous writing credits include hits like Capote and Foxcatcher.

“Accepted as neither fully American nor Fully Chinese, Bruce Lee was a bridge between East and West who introduced Chinese Gung Fu to the world, a scientist of combat and an iconic performing artist who revolutionized both the martial arts and action cinema,” Ang Lee said in a statement. “I feel compelled to tell the story of this brilliant, unique human being who yearned for belonging, possessed tremendous power in a 135-pound-frame, and who, through tireless hard work, made impossible dreams into reality.”

Bruce Lee made a name for himself in Hollywood during the 1960's and early 70's before his untimely death in 1973. The star popularized martial arts across the globe with hits like Fists of Fury, Enter the Dragon and The Way of the Dragon. Now, the story behind the legend is coming to the silver screen under the tutilage of an Oscar-winning director.

Ang Lee, whose film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of the greatest martial arts film ever made, is a life-long fan of Bruce Lee. According to Elizabeth Gabler, who is overseeing the project for Sony, the upcoming biopic is a "passion project" for Ang.

“’Bruce Lee’ is a longtime passion project for Ang and a deeply emotional story depicting the triumphs and conflicts of one of the foremost real life action heroes of our time,” Gabler said. “All of us at Sony and 3000 Pictures are proud to help Ang and his filmmaking team create what we believe will be an extraordinary theatrical event.”

Mason Lee has appeared in a few film roles including The Hangover Part II and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Most recently, he starred in the Taiwanese romantic comedy “Stand By Me,” Hong Kong drama “Limbo” and “Who Killed Cock Robin.”

Carson Burton is a freelance news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter at @carsonsburton.

Organizers of the Smash World Tour have announced its 2022 championship tournament and its 2023 series of events have been canceled following a notice from Nintendo telling them they could no longer operate their tournament.

"It is with an unbelievably heavy heart that we must announce that both the upcoming Smash World Tour Championships, as well as the 2023 Smash World Tour must be canceled,” organizers wrote in a Medium post.

“Without any warning, we received notice the night before Thanksgiving from Nintendo that we could no longer operate. This was especially shocking given our discourse with Nintendo the past twelve months. Since then, we have been working around the clock to take the proper steps logistically, as well as to prepare this statement with proper legal guidance.”

The upcoming Smash World Tour Championships and the entirety of the 2023 Smash World Tour must be cancelled.

Full Story: https://t.co/3ro3q7rr4h pic.twitter.com/Gcgcgakdvp

— Smash World Tour 2022 (@SmashWorldTour) November 29, 2022

The Smash World Tour boasted over 6,400 live events worldwide according to organizers with an attendance of over 325,000. This year’s championship was also set to have the largest prize pool in competitive Smash Bros. history at $250,000.

Nintendo has a known history of butting heads with third-party Super Smash Bros. events and tournaments. Nintendo shut down a Super Smash Bros. tournament in 2020 for using online mods, and famously, Nintendo tried to shut down Super Smash Bros. Melee from taking place at Evo 2013. This was following a community-driven donation drive where the winner could pick a game to enter in Evo which was Super Smash Bros. After online outcry, the tournament was allowed to proceed.

Last year, Nintendo seemed to be making inroads into the competitive Smash Bros. competitive scene by announcing an officially-licensed tournament with Panda Global called the Panda Cup. However, the organizers of the Smash World Tour allege this very relationship may have impacted the tournament’s closure.

The statement accuses Panda CEO Alan Bunney of sabotaging Smash World Tour’s organization efforts despite an ongoing discussion between Smash World Tour and Nintendo about a potential license for themselves and where the company “made it clear that Panda’s partnership was not exclusive[.]”

“However, we quickly found that many organizers were concerned about joining up [with Smash World Tour] in 2022. They told us that they had been told by Alan, the CEO, and co-founder of Panda, that we were going to get shut down and were not coming back in 2022.”

In a statement to IGN, Nintendo says, “Unfortunately after continuous conversations with Smash World Tour, and after giving the same deep consideration we apply to any potential partner, we were unable to come to an agreement with SWT for a full circuit in 2023. Nintendo did not request any changes to or cancellation of remaining events in 2022, including the 2022 Championship event, considering the negative impact on the players who were already planning to participate.”

The organizers dispute this in their blog saying, “Our Nintendo rep opened by letting us know that they are being asked to deliver the news that going forward, Nintendo expects us to only operate with a commercial license, and that we would not be granted one for the upcoming Championships or any activity in 2023.” The organizers say they received this notice in writing as well.

In an interview with IGN earlier this year about the Panda Cup, the company says the decision to officially license a tournament “was really an important kind of step for us.” However, the company also hinted at the internal decision-making processes which have frustrated the grassroots community for so long.

“We love the grassroots community, we want to see it thrive, we want to see it be strong, but there’s also — we as Nintendo have our own internal challenges,” Nintendo’s Bill Trinnen said at the time.

Regardless, organizers of the Smash World. Tour says they'll lose "hundreds of thousands of dollars due to Nintendo's actions," but is promising full refunds for all attendees.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

With less than two months to go until the premiere of HBO's The Last of Us adaptation, we're getting a closer look at most of the show's prominent characters.

HBO released posters for 11 of the show's characters, including Joel, Ellie, Marlene, Tommy, Tess, Bill, Sam, Frank, Henry, Riley, and Sarah. You can take a look at all of the new posters in the slideshow below.

The handful of characters featured in the posters are all from the 2013 video game to some extent, although characters like Bill's partner Frank never actually appear onscreen. We also know the show will include two brand new characters named Marlon and Florence.

The Last of Us will premiere on HBO on January 15, 2023. Season One consists of 10 episodes and will cover the events of Joel and Ellie's cross-country journey from the first game. However, the show will "deviate greatly" from the original game's story in some episodes.

Another clue that tells us the show will feel different from the game is the fact that both Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey both stayed away from finishing The Last of Us game to avoid copying Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson's performances of Joel and Ellie.

The first trailer for The Last of Us gave us a look at live-action Clickers, the post-apocalyptic United States Joel and Ellie will trek across, and the opening scene from the game. For more, you can check out our side-by-side comparison of the first teaser trailer and the game.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

For the first time in nearly three decades, video game composer and designer Yuzo Koshiro is working on a new game for the Sega Genesis.

Koshiro is best known for contributing music to classic game series like Streets of Rage, The Revenge of Shinobi, Actraiser, Ys, and more. Now, the developer is working on a brand new shoot 'em up game designed for the original Genesis/Mega Drive hardware.

As revealed on Twitter, Koshiro posted a couple of images of the game that depict a spaceship flying through what appears to be an alien planet.

It looks like an old shoot 'em up but is a new game we're developing, harkening back to famous franchises in the 80s. We will release it for MD/Genesis. I'm making the soundtrack and have been back also as a game designer since Beyond Oasis. pic.twitter.com/nFPEDoYj1B

— Yuzo Koshiro (@yuzokoshiro) November 30, 2022

Koshiro wrote, "It looks like an old shoot 'em up but is a new game we're developing, harkening back to famous franchises in the 80s. We will release it for MD/Genesis. I'm making the soundtrack and have been back also as a game designer since Beyond Oasis."

The composer added that the soundtrack and sound effects will run off the authentic hardware, as well.

The game is under development at Ancient, which has been Koshiro's studio since the 1990s. This new title will be the first Genesis game from Koshiro since 1994's Beyond Oasis.

In various replies on Twitter, Koshiro said the studio is considering multiple ways to release the game, including physical carts. The developer also wrote that progress on the game just started and that the release date, price, and platforms are all up in the air right now.

Koshiro has remained active in the video game scene over the last number of years. The composer is credited on several recent games, including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Streets of Rage 4, the upcoming Mina the Hollower, and more.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.