Square Enix has announced that Outriders has surpassed 3.5 million unique players worldwide in its first month alongside revealing what fixes are coming in its next patch. While there was no further data as to how the players were split between those who purchased the game vs those who played via Xbox Game Pass, the Outriders team did share a few more fun facts from the game's first month. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/04/16/outriders-review"] As of May 1, Outriders has been played for over 120 million hours, with the average playtime reaching 31 hours. The Trickster is the most popular class with 27.9% of players choosing that path, followed by The Pyromancer, Technomancer, and Devastator. The most used ability is the Trickster's Slow Trap, there has been 1.6 quadrillion points of total damage, 9.2 billion Perforo kills, 20 billion total kills, 1.9 trillion Scrap collected, and 457 billion Titanium pieces collected. The most popular legendary weapons are Deathshield and Funeral Pyre, and the player with the most amount of playtime is 797 hours. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="legacyId=20097714&captions=true"] As previously mentioned, Square Enix shared that the upcoming patch, which is "designed primarily to address the damage mitigation issue," is in final testing and is planned to be released on May 20, but "that will only be confirmed once it successfully passes through testing." The patch will also include crash fixes and added telemetry to help diagnose the outstanding sign-in issues. The team is also still working working on the player appreciation package. For more, check out our Outriders review, our best tips and tricks, and the latest details on Outriders' inventory wipe fix. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/27/outriders-10-tips-tricks"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] 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.

Adult Swim has announced that shortform spin-offs of Rick and Morty, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, and Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell are in development. As reported by THR, these four new series are based on characters from or inspired by the previously mentioned shows. Each mini-spinoff will run for 8-10 episodes and will be available across global digital platforms. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/30/rick-and-morty-season-5-official-trailer"] The Vindicators is the Rick and Morty spin-off and it stars Supernova, Vance Maxiumus, Alan Rails, Crocubot, and Noob Noob. The series will follow them as they "fight crime, avert genocides and yuk it up without Rick and Morty." The Vindicators is being executive produced by Erica Rosbe, Sarah Carbiener, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland. Alabama Jackson is the Robot Chicken spin-off and it stars Donald Faison as the titular Alabama Jackson, a "smooth-talking time traveler who lands in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, every time." If he is able to survive the long enough to get back to the present, he "just might find something he wasn't looking for - himself." Alabama Jackson is a "hilarious, action-packed stop-motion animated series" that is created by Faison and produced by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/04/06/the-25-best-adult-cartoon-tv-series"] AquaDonk Side Pieces is the continuation of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and fans "will be bestowed with the gift of learning what happens in the later lives of various side characters and villains such as The Mooninites, The Plutonians, MC Pee Pants, The Frat Aliens, Happy Time Harry, Handbanana and The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past." This series will premiere later this year and was created by Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis. Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell: The Animated Series is returning for its fifth season, this time in animated internet shorts. The official description teases that "Cruel boss Satan (Matt Servitto), bumbling demon Gary (Henry Zebrowski), and all your other favorites return in America’s beloved workplace comedy set in hell." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2015/04/27/aqua-teen-hunger-force-forever-final-season-trailer"] Fans will be able to expect "more laughs, more gore and maybe a talking animal. Seems like if it’s a cartoon they should add a talking animal. Maybe a fish?" The show is a Williams Street production and it is created by Casper Kelly and Dave Willis. [poilib element="accentDivider"] 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.

Developer Round8 Studio and publisher NeoWiz have announced Lies of P, a Souls-like action-RPG that's inspired by the story of Pinocchio. It doesn't have a release date or window just yet, but it'll be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC when it's done. The developers describe the gameplay as having "a unique 'lie' system where what you do and say as the main character dynamically affects gameplay." NeoWiz offered a bit of insight on the announcement trailer (which you can watch at the top of this page), saying that it's narrated by someone other than the protagonist (that's all they'd hint at for now) and the events in the trailer serve as a prologue to the game's story. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=lies-of-p-first-screenshots&captions=true"] The development team is over 60 people so far and still hiring, with the intent of making a Souls-like that competes with any of the best games in the genre. You can see a bit more of Lies of P in the screenshots above. We'll have much more on it as development progresses! [poilib element="accentDivider"] Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.

A cheaper, ad-supported version of HBO Max will launch in the first week of June for $10 a month, the company announced today.

"We plan to supercharge HBO Max's growth this year with the launch of the ad-supported HBO Max," WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar said during today's Upfront.

The only major difference between the ad-supported tier and the regular tier ($15 a month) is access to day-of releases like Godzilla vs Kong. Those on the cheaper, ad-supported tier will not be able to watch Same-Day Premieres, as WarnerMedia refers to the simultaneous release. A WarnerMedia representative told IGN that customers will not be able to make a one-time purchase for a film that hits HBO Max's premium account on the same day it's in theaters. It's only available via the no ads plan.

WarnerMedia executives have touted the cheaper tier for months. After launching at $15 a month (on par with HBO’s cable subscription and earlier streaming services like HBO Now), executives acknowledged that it might be too expensive for many Americans. As HBO Max starts its global expansion, having a cheaper tier that is more inline price wise with Netflix or Disney+ plays to HBO Max’s advantage. At this time, WarnerMedia is only planning to launch HBO Max without ads outside of the US, however pricing internationally could end up being more flexible ,IGN has learned.

“The team feels really good about their momentum,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said during an earnings call in March. “We haven’t seen our best days.”

Up until today, details about what an ad-supported version of HBO Max looked like remained pretty unknown. We knew ads wouldn’t play before or during HBO originals, like The Nevers, Sex and the City, or The Sopranos, according to WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar. We also knew that ads would feel light, as Kilar also noted during an analyst day earlier this year.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/30/hbo-max-streaming-service-review"]

But that’s it. We didn’t know what those ads would look like on television sets, mobile, or desktop. We didn’t know how often they’d play, or if they would be the same ad over and over again (a la Hulu).

Now, there’s a new world of uncertainty for HBO Max and WarnerMedia. Today’s news, alongside a flurry of other announcements made during WarnerMedia’s annual Upfront presentation to advertisers, comes just two days after AT&T announced it was spinning off WarnerMedia. The entertainment company is merging with Discovery (home of Guy Fieri and the Property Brothers) in a deal valued at $43 billion. The goal is to create a super entertainment company.

How this deal affects HBO Max overall is still unknown. It’s likely that we won’t know what HBO Max becomes for a little while longer. For now, however, people who wanted HBO Max but didn’t want to spend $15 a month can now get it for slightly cheaper — as long as they don’t mind dealing with ads.

We already knew that Oculus Air Link – a feature that allows you to wirelessly play PC VR Games on your Quest 2 headset – would support a 120Hz refresh rate at some point. What we didn't know is that it would be getting a surprise release today. The feature was first pointed out by a Reddit user, and then confirmed by UploadVR, who demonstrated that the feature was available following the Quest and Quest 2 v29 update. Previously, if you wanted to play these games at this refresh rate, you needed to connect your VR headset through an Oculus Link cable or a third-party USB-C cable, but a wireless alternative was available through third-party virtual desktop software. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-best-vr-games-of-2020&captions=true"] UploadVR tested out the feature, noting that the experience was "very smooth" while playing PC VR games, but adding that performance will vary depending on the strength of your internal network connection. After the previous v28 update, Oculus' newer Quest 2 VR headset could already run several native Quest games at 120Hz via Air Link, but the latest v29 update allows users with the gadget (who also happen to have a good gaming PC) to run all VR games that support 120hz to do so wirelessly. The v29 software update also introduced additional features and functionality to the Quest line of VR headsets, including the new Live Overlay casting feature, allowing you to superimpose yourself over the content display from within your headset while also providing the ability to concurrently record gameplay and yourself. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Marvel Studios has released a new TV spot for Loki that invites viewers to meet Miss Minutes, the talking cartoon clock. The minute-long teaser is packed with plenty of footage for the six-part series, debuting June 9 on Disney+, and also introduces one of the MCU's newest characters: an animated anthropomorphic clock known as Miss Minutes. She welcomes Loki to the Time Variance Authority and promises to catch him up on his crimes before he stands trial in front of a judge. Watch the latest teaser below: [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/19/marvel-studios-loki-miss-minutes-trailer"] Miss Minutes is the mascot of the Time Variance Authority, an organization charged with protecting the timeline of the Marvel Universe. They govern a significant number of realities in the multiverse and arrest anyone who attempts to use time travel to alter either the past or the future — which is exactly how Loki winds up in trouble with them, as he put the timeline in chaos after touching the Tesseract. Loki follows the God of Mischief as he steps out of his brother's shadow and into a new series that takes place after the events of 2019's Avengers: Endgame. As you can see, Tom Hiddleston is returning as the title character, joined by Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku, and Richard E. Grant. Kate Herron is the series' director, and Michael Waldron is the head writer. Herron previously revealed that Loki would be going to "an entirely new part of the MCU," which will "explore the questions we all have: where did Loki go after he picked up the Tesseract? Could Loki ever make a friend? And will the sun ever shine on him again?" The series is said to tie into the events of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, which is scheduled for release on March 25, 2022. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=marvels-loki-trailer-frame-by-frame-breakdown&captions=true"] Loki will premiere on Wednesday, June 9 on Disney+. After that, one new installment will arrive on the streaming platform each Wednesday throughout the rest of its six-episode run. While the first season is yet to air, Marvel Studios VP of Production & Development Nate Moore previously indicated that Loki could see multiples seasons, with reports suggesting Loki Season 2 is already in development. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

The Last of Us Part 2 is getting a PS5 exclusive performance update, pushing the already-stunning game to 60 frames per second. The update is available for free, right now. Announced on the PS Blog, the update offers options for 30 FPS or 60 FPS framerate targets. A new 1.08 patch for the game will offer PS5 players a framerate toggle in the Display options menu. Other enhancements, such as resolution and load time improvements, were already available to players on PS5 through backward compatibility. Digital Foundry, which has extensively tested the patch, reports that "PS5 is capable not just of doubling PS4 Pro performance but in many cases exceeding it," after the patch. Even in areas that PS4 Pro could struggle with at 30FPS, such as scenes featuring a lot of water, the PS5 version reportedly runs at a locked 60 frames. In 8 hours of footage captured, Digital Foundry found that one scene dropped below 60 FPS for unknown reasons, and even then it was to 57 FPS – well beyond the capability of last-gen consoles. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/19/the-last-of-us-part-ii-enhanced-performance-patch-trailer"] It's worth making clear that this isn't a full new-gen remaster in the same manner as The Last of Us Remastered. However, Naughty Dog director of communications Arne Meyer adds, "The team has been digging into the PS5 hardware and the possibilities it unlocks since launch last year and we’re excited about what the future holds. This patch is just the first step of working on the PS5. We’ll let you know when we’ve got more news to share!" While co-creator Neil Druckmann has previously said there are no plans for TLOU2 DLC, the game has received a small content update before, adding permadeath mode and Grounded difficulty. If recent reports are correct, we could actually be seeing a PS5 version of the original Last of Us at some point. We're also expecting to see a standalone Last of Us 2 multiplayer game in the future. One project is less certain, however – The Last of Us Part 3 has a written outline, but Naughty Dog hasn't begun any kind of work on it. [poilib element="accentDivider"] 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.

My Hero Academia: The Strongest Hero – a new open-world mobile RPG – launches today, and we can exclusively reveal its brand new trailer. The action-packed new trailer offers fans a better look at the open-world action-RPG, which is available to download today on iTunes and Google Play. The game is available in English and accessible to fans in North America, Latin America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia. New content will be released every month, with more characters expected to be added at a later date. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/19/my-hero-academia-the-strongest-hero-official-launch-trailer"] The mobile game is set in the My Hero Academia universe and features a full story campaign that allows players to build their own teams and take on classic villains like Shigaraki and Nomu. The Strongest Hero also offers different game modes, giving players the flexibility to choose whether they want to challenge each other in PVP or take on the Allied Assault together in co-op mode. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=my-hero-academia-the-strongest-hero-screenshots&captions=true"] Fans of My Hero Academia will recognize stories from the original anime as part of the campaign. The Strongest Hero will continuously add new characters but has initially launched with fan-favorite characters such as Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki, pro heroes like All Might and Endeavor, and even villains like Stain. My Hero Academia: The Strongest Hero's global launch follows the premiere of the series' fifth season, which kicked off with "the Joint Training Arc, which saw Class 1-A and Class 1-B's students pitted against each other in a series of team battles that demonstrate just how much each respective class has grown." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=new-anime-to-watch-spring-season-2021&captions=true"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

HBO Max and Cartoon Network are teaming up on a new Superman animated series starring The Boys' Jack Quaid as a young Clark Kent. The new series is called My Adventures with Superman and it stars Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen as twenty-something young members of an investigative reporting team at the Daily Planet. Together, the would-be Man of Steel will work alongside Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen as they navigate through this kooky thing called life while fighting bad guys. Throughout the series, Clark will build up his Superman identity while also working with Lois and Jimmy as they navigate their professional careers. While Clark and Lois will of course fall in love, there will be a lot of growing up and crime-fighting done in between that. Lane will be voiced by Alice Lee (Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist). [caption id="attachment_2515207" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Source: Warner Media[/caption] Quaid is best known for his role as Hugie on Amazon Prime's The Boys, an ultra-violent, post-modern take on the superhero genre. Hugie plays a normal human who teams up with a group of big-hearted mercenaries as they fight a superhero group known as The Seven and the evil mega-corporation backing them. "This is the first animated Superman series in many years and we want to tell our Superman story through the trio of Clark, Lois, and Jimmy - whose relationship dynamic will allow for rich,s serialized and engaging stories," Says Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios president Sam Register. Although Superman has appeared in a variety of DC Animated Films, he hasn't headlined an animated series since Superman: The Animated Series. But the Man of Steel is still flying around live-action shows including on The CW's Superman & Lois. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=history-of-the-justice-league-on-tv&captions=true"] HBO Max and Cartoon Network have already ordered two seasons of the show. Warner Bros. Animation will produce My Adventures with Superman, and the production team is led by veterans from series like Teen Titans Go!, Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, Voltron: Legendary Defender, and She-Ra and the Princess of Power. My Adventures With Superman is the second animated series HBO Max announced alongside Cartoon Network. The company also announced Batman: Caped Crusader, a new Batman animated series produced by Bruce Timm, J.J. Abrams, and The Batman director Matt Reeves. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor.

Deathloop may be most anticipated for its immersive sim take on a time loop, but developer Arkane is also using it as a place to experiment with new player versus player ideas – even allowing a game-invading player to become a co-op partner of sorts. PvP in Deathloop revisits some of the ideas created for The Crossing, Arkane's cancelled multiplayer game, so much so that the game could have taken on the same name. In Deathloop, PvP works akin to the Invasion mechanic of Dark Souls. A player controlling Julianna, the rival of main protagonist Colt, will spawn into another player’s campaign and attempt to kill them. Quite how they do that will be entirely up to them. “The multiplayer element is quite freeform,” explained Deathloop’s Game Director, Dinga Bakaba, as part of a recent press Q&A. “We don't incentivise 'winning' as Julianna that much. We see her more as an 'entertainer', so what we reward is playing with style, playing creatively, or playing cautiously, things like that.” That freeform approach means an invading player can simply headshot their rival the moment they see them, or stalk them through the map, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Particularly cruel Julianna players may want to wait right up until the moment that the person playing Colt is about to kill their target, and then attack and ruin their plans at the final moment. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/16/deathloop-two-birds-one-stone-gameplay-trailer"] All the way on the other end of the spectrum, some players may want to have their Julianna “be friendly” with Colt, essentially acting as a co-op partner – “Because why the f**k not?” said Bakaba. Julianna has been written as an ambiguous character with a connection to Colt, meaning both aggressive and allied playstyles will still make sense in the wider narrative. What's not clear right now is whether you'll be able purposely join a friend's game to help them out as Julianna – it may be that you can help other players, but that whose game you join is out of your hands. Regardless of your approach, Deathloop will score Julianna players based on their activities within a PvP session. Those points will unlock new tools for Julianna to use; she starts with next to nothing, but will soon earn new weapons, powers, upgrades, and trinkets. “Those rewards are randomised,” Bakaba revealed. “For instance, after playing three hours of Julianna, [you] will have a different character than mine. That's something that we do to ensure diversity in encounters.” PvP is also the only way to unlock cosmetic skins for both Julianna and Colt. “We figure that if you care about how you look in a first-person game, that's probably because you want to play with others, so that's why we reward you with them,” explained Bakaba. The concept for Julianna was born out of a wish for there to be an enemy called The Nemesis, which would never be in a predictable place on Deathloop’s Blackreef island. Over time, this idea evolved into a multiplayer component. “It's something that just came out of a weird brainstorm about this one NPC,” recounted Bakaba. “Someone said ‘What if you could play them?’, and then someone said ‘Like The Crossing?’. We went all in almost immediately.” The Crossing was an Arkane project from 2009, in which a single-player campaign was infused with multiplayer elements. It was ultimately cancelled, but this idea presented the perfect opportunity to bring back some of the project’s ideas. In fact, those elements almost dictated Deathloop’s identity. “At some point, [we] discussed calling this game The Crossing,” Bakaba revealed in a separate interview with IGN. “In the end marketing didn't go for it because Deathloop was so cool [as a title], but we tried The Crossing because you cross [Julianna] a lot. It was not the same Crossing, but it was still a crossing.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=deathloop-screenshots&captions=true"] Importantly, where The Crossing was all about the mesh of single and multiplayer, for Deathloop PvP is entirely optional. “Overall we really wanted this mode to be something we don't force the players to engage in,” said Bakaba. As such, you’ll be able to play Deathloop entirely offline should you choose, with Julianna played by an AI. “It’s something we really see more as an anecdote generator,” Bakaba said, further detailing its position as optional extra flavour to Deathloop’s main campaign. “That's why it's so freeform, and we're not about competition here. Of course some people will be competitive, but that's the charm of it. I don't know what kind of encounter it will be.”

For more from Arkane, check out our Deathloop preview, our discussion with Bakaba about Arkane's freedom to make games without the pressure of blockbuster sales, our Fan Fest interview with the developers, and why time loops are the new zombies.

[poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.