Naughty Dog has discussed The Last of Us Part 2's ambitious scope for sometime now, but a new look at the game has teased that the adventure is so big, players may not experience some story and gameplay elements on a single playthrough. In the latest episode of PlayStation's multi-part look at The Last of Us Part II, which you can watch below, members of the development team discuss how Naughty Dog's biggest game ever has scripted sequences players may miss. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/20/the-last-of-us-part-ii-inside-the-gameplay-video"] "In this game we've gone so far in making the level design open that there are actually entire story moments, entire combat encounters, full scripted sequences that you may completely miss," The Last of Us part 2 Co-Director Anthony Newman said in the latest look at the sequel. "And there are things that we feel like, even though a portion of our player base may never see these things, the fact that when you do encounter them, you feel like you discovered them, it lends them this charm and this magic I think is unique to games that this happened to me, because of what I did and the place I explored to." Director Neil Druckmann previously spoke to IGN about the scope of The Last of Us Part II's world, saying "Depending where you are with the story, we might open things up significantly and say, ‘Here are some optional things you can go explore, some side stories, or you can go directly next to where you’re meant to go,’" but that a big goal for the team was not to simply pad out the experience. "It’s not padded, it has that pacing of the first game," he told us at the time. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-last-of-us-part-2-new-screenshots&captions=true"] The latest look at the sequel also offered some more details about the upgrade system. Returning to The Last of Us Part 2 is the ability to modify weapons and upgrade the character's skills. But Newman explained that, to exemplify the idea that the characters, and players, have to live with their choices, you won't be able to upgrade everything in one go. "We put a much stronger emphasis on the importance of the choices you make in the longterm for your character," Newman said. "Through the weapon upgrade system, through the player upgrade system, there aren't enough resources in a single playthrough to fully upgrade your character. The choices that you make, you're going to have to live with. And we wanted to make sure that all the choices that you made had a really noticeable and tangible impact on the way that you play." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/09/28/the-last-of-us-part-2-how-the-world-and-gameplay-have-evolved"] Whether this means any sort of New Game+ mode will be included from the jump or introduced later is not stated, but it sounds like players will have to play through The Last of Us Part 2's journey multiple times to experience the full skill trees. We do at least know plenty about how the sequel will play thanks to our The Last of Us Part 2 hands-on last year, at which time we also learned about how dogs will impact The Last of Us 2's gameplay, how Joel and Ellie's relationship has changed in the sequel, and more. After The Last of Us Part 2's delay earlier this year, Sony announced a new June release date for the Naughty Dog sequel, and shortly after Naughty Dog confirmed The Last of Us 2 had gone gold. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior News Editor and host of IGN's PlayStation show, Podcast Beyond!

Disney+ has given a release date for the option to watch The Simpsons in the original 4:3 aspect ratio. Starting on May 28, episodes will be watchable in the original 4:3 aspect ratio so that visual jokes no longer get cut off by the widescreen format. When Disney+ launched in 2019, all 30 seasons of The Simpsons were available to stream. However, they were only available in the 16:9 widescreen ratio. This presented problems as the original seasons were aired in a 4:3 format and visual jokes, in particular, were created specifically for that size. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=all-the-must-watch-disney-plus-titles-on-launch-day&captions=true"] Comedian Tristan Cooper tweeted a viral example of how the widescreen aspect ratio cuts off visual gags in The Simpsons that only make sense in its original ratio. Now, Disney+ subscribers will have the option to watch these older episodes with the jokes untouched by the widescreen cut off.

All the classic Simpsons episodes on Disney+ are in cropped widescreen format -- this means you miss out on tons of great visual jokes, like how Duff, Duff Lite and Duff Dry all come from the same tube. pic.twitter.com/cTy9adulFl

— Tristan Cooper (@TristanACooper) November 12, 2019

Disney+ later announced it would make the 4:3 option available in May but did not announce a release date at the time. Not every episode of The Simpsons will be available in 4:3 but that’s because the series did eventually move to a widescreen format partway through season 20. Disney says the users will have a choice when it comes to changing aspect ratios, so if you prefer watching the older seasons in widescreen you’ll still be able to. For more, check out IGN’s full list of shows and movies on Disney+. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. He was also saying 'Boo-urns.' You can follow him on Twitter.

This article is part of a new initiative on IGN where we spend a whole month exploring topics we find interesting in the world of video games (and hope you will, too!). May is Development Month, where we'll tell untold stories from behind the scenes of our favorite games. [poilib element="accentDivider"] In the last few weeks, I’ve begun playing Call of Duty: Warzone almost daily. Social distancing and a committed squad of friends have absolutely contributed to that, but there’s something about its blend of ideas that really works for me. I love how it atomises long rounds into small bursts of action with its Contracts system; how tension and silliness seem to pop up in equal measure; and how it’s slightly upped the time-to-kill for a CoD game, turning many firefights into longer, more tactical affairs while keeping the terrifying gunmetal fanfare of its weaponry intact. But there’s one thing I love more than any of this; it is the tracksuit jacket worn by an Operator called Yegor. Specifically, the pink one.Every time a round of Warzone begins, you’re treated to a short clip of your squad lining up at the back of a paratrooper plane’s hatch and, if the right version of Yegor’s there (i.e. one where he bothered putting on a shirt), you’ll see something magical. His seemingly humdrum tracksuit top is positively alive with wind-caused ripples, sunlight bouncing off of its slick surface, as his knock-off Vladimir Putin face stares down with steely determination at the battlefield below. I mention the pink tracksuit in particular because I think you see more of the effect in action than on any other bit of clobber in his wardrobe. It looks really good, to the point where I began pointing it out every time my squad started a new round, and became quietly obsessed with not just how realistic it was, but how needless an addition it seemed to be. For a single miniature cutscene in a Battle Royale game – where you often barely have time to register an enemy’s presence, never mind their choice of athleticwear – it wasn’t just good; it was too good. I started to wonder who had made the decision to make Yegor’s jacket look so good, and then whose job it was to make Yegor’s jacket a reality. I wondered why they wanted to make Yegor’s jacket at all. I began to turn it into a proper noun in my head. This wasn’t Yegor’s jacket, this was Yegor’s Jacket, some kind of hidden message from its developers about the sheer amount of unseen work going into AAA-scale game design in 2020. I started talking about it so much that a friend asked a question I should really have asked to myself: “Why don’t you just email Activision and see if they can get someone to tell you why Yegor’s Jacket is so good?” So I did. “Yegor’s tracksuit,” says Infinity Ward studio art director, Joel Emslie, ignoring my chosen nomenclature, “is a love letter to a character that I created 13 years ago for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It was for Zakeav’s son, one of the guys that you ride in a car with in the beginning of the game. For some reason tracksuits were big that year.” Charmingly unruffled by how stupid an interview request this is, Emslie finishes his reminiscence with a phrase that sounds almost philosophical – and that I, as the world’s biggest Yegor’s Jacket fan, very much appreciate: “That was then, Yegor is now.” Yegor is now, in as much as he’s emblematic of how much game developers are wringing out of current-gen console hardware in the tail end of its life. Can you imagine a virtual jacket that looked like this in 2014? I absolutely cannot. I can’t outright prove this, but I swear that the moment Yegor’s Jacket appears on my screen in all its polyester splendour, it’s always the exact moment that my otherwise unworried PS4 Pro decides to start screaming. There might be a reason for that: “When it comes to this tracksuit,” explains Emslie, “it uses cutting edge in-game physically based materials to render the fabrics to the highest quality we can deliver.” When I ask him if Warzone features the most realistic clothing yet seen in a game, he gives a more diplomatic response: “It is by far the most realistic clothing in a game that I have ever been a part of.” [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=The%20work%20is%20totally%20fulfilling%20%E2%80%93%20even%20if%20it%E2%80%99s%20creating%20the%20perfect%20dirty%20boot."] Yegor’s Jacket is, by itself, a collaboration between artists, lighting designers, animators and more – and that’s a single part of a wider whole. Once I noticed how good that looked, I began to realise how good clothing looked across the board in Warzone (and the wider Call of Duty: Modern Warfare package): Ghillie suits flap in the rush of an open-topped ATV, heavy weaponry jingles against buckles on the backs of crouching operators, Zane’s improbable cape billows as he leaps off a building in search of another kill. Which begs the question – why is any of this in there at all? It seems a monumental amount of work for something relatively few players will actively notice, and even fewer will become obsessed by to the point of watching videos for glimpses of a single jacket that they can put in an article about said jacket. The answer, for Emslie, is to create an experience that feels more whole. “Early in development for Modern Warfare & Warzone, we challenged ourselves with what could be referred to as a gold diorama. This was a very small sample section of the game to stress test our techniques and some of our early development infrastructure. It included an exterior scene in overcast daylight, a couple of vehicles, and few characters. The scene was set on a hilltop in the Isle of Skye, Scotland and so it made perfect sense that there should be some wind to add visual stimulation to everything in the scene. “This opened the door for some creative solutions to create windblown clothing and props worn by our characters. When we saw how effective the look of all these things together could be, we decided to get as much of that into the game as possible. There are so many moments where our characters are riding shotgun on a helicopter or tac-rover. It really adds a sense of reality to the characters and what they wear.” Essentially, it lends an almost invisible verisimillitude, something your brain registers as feeling real, without it necessarily having to notice it directly. The more work put into making the stuff that grounds you in the game world, the more you’re likely to feel immersed by it all. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/23/call-of-duty-warzone-review"] The process for getting to that point is pretty fascinating. Like many AAA games, Infinity Ward’s artists have begun 3D scanning real-life objects – after all, if you’re trying to build realistic looking clothing, why not use the real thing? It lifts my heart to know that, somewhere in Los Angeles, there’s a real Yegor’s Jacket sitting in a big cupboard (Activision, I will pay for that, get in touch). “It required us to build out a physical wardrobe collection right next to the model shop,” says Emslie. “It has it all. From full body jumpsuits down to the smallest props like a piece of glint tape on a helmet. This isn’t completely unique, but we not only built out a collection, we processed the clothing and props like a Hollywood prop house would do for a feature film. The entirety of our collection is processed by our artists to make it all look used and lived in.” Those scans come in ‘clean’, with artists asked to dirty them up once they’re in the system, and make them look like they’ve actually been worn. But even that wasn’t quite realistic enough for Emslie and his team, with something about that invented grime giving away its virtual creation. “I can think of a few moments early on where I stopped an artist from painting dirt onto a character and encouraged them to take the boots out for a hike or drag them through a dirt patch outside. If there is a way to get dirt into a pair of gloves or get the perfect patina onto a tactical helmet, we find a way. The result is a very natural look that seats the characters into the environments very convincingly.” It’s fascinating to me to think of quite how much work is being put into these less-noticed elements, and the sheer level of expertise artists are bringing to elements of games that are designed to be somewhat invisible to the player. I ask Emslie how people get into this kind of work – in a way, the business of not being noticed: “I think the people that are most successful at getting into various jobs usually have a healthy curiosity and fascination with the work itself. All of this takes a massive amount of time and effort. The work really needs to hold your interest to a point where you could lose track of time and almost sink into a trance. Anyone can get into a line of work. Staying in the line of work and being successful with something like this means you probably love it.” Seemingly sensing that I’m going to ask if it’s satisfying to know that a piece of work may never be consciously noticed, Emslie adds: “The work is totally fulfilling – even if it’s creating the perfect dirty boot.”But what about when people do notice the work? What about when someone becomes obsessed with a fictional Ukranian just because of his choice of top? “We are creating what I can consider the largest catalog of unique characters I’ve ever been a part of. The most rewarding moments for me are when someone relates to a character in the narrative or makes a connection to an Operator that they feel represents how they want to look in our game.” That’s mission accomplished, I guess – it might not be for reasons other than that his jacket is really fluttery and shiny, but I’m yet to play as any Operator other than Yegor, simply because of his look. I have one more question for Emslie – well, a question and a compliment. Who, specifically, made Yegor’s Jacket, and can I congratulate them? “We are in the middle of our stay at home instructions and it’s been a while since we were all together in the art pit. I can’t remember who exactly crafted that particular jacket, but I will be certain to ask now that you’ve mentioned it and deliver the compliment.” I’ll try too: in case you’re reading this, anonymous Yegor's Jacket Designer, good work. I noticed. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News, and he just remembered he wrote a whole article about a game character's sandals once, too. Follow him on Twitter.

The first images from the CBS All Access adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand have started to appear, with new photos from the set offering a first look at the main cast of characters, including Alexander Skarsgård as Randall Flagg. Vanity Fair shared the exclusive reel of photos showcasing "the good, the bad, and the otherworldly" in the upcoming series, created by Josh Boone and Benjamin Cavell, who is also serving as showrunner alongside Taylor Elmore. Whoopi Goldberg is among those pictured; she is starring in the series as 108-year old Mother Abigail, a blind prophet who is essential to humanity's fight for survival after a devastating plague sweeps the globe. "She is very, very righteous and very good. But really flawed I feel," Goldberg said of Mother Abigail. "She doesn't listen when God is talking to her. And she tends to go her own way because she's been like this her whole life. It takes her a little while to figure out that there's something bigger than her." Alexander Skarsgård also makes his debut as the iconic villain Randall Flagg, a charismatic rockabilly demon who is "galvanizing as a leader." His true power is said to be his ability to bring out the worst in his followers. "He's so charming and he's so handsome, and so powerful—I mean genuinely powerful, able to perform these sort of miracles where he could levitate himself and he has these actual powers," Elmore said of Skarsgård's character. "And yet he needs this adulation and this kind of worship from these people whom he's summoned to him." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-stephen-king-remake-so-far&captions=true"] Elsewhere, Heather Graham's Rita Blakemoor is pictured alongside Jovan Adepo's Larry Underwood, a struggling, drug-addicted musician who finds his true calling after civilization collapses. Owen Teague's Harold Lauder, Odessa Young's Frannie Goldsmith and Nat Wolff's Lloyd Henreid also make appearances. These ragtag bunch of characters are placed in a post-apocalyptic world after a pandemic of a weaponized strain of influenza almost wiped out the entire world population, though the show, just like the novel, will focus on a variety of themes borne outside of the virus. "It's about the fundamental questions of what society owes the individual and what we owe to each other," said Cavell. "Over the last however-many years, we have sort of taken for granted the structure of democracy. Now, so much of that is being ripped down to the studs. It's interesting to see a story about people who are rebuilding it from the ground up." The Stand is expected to air on CBS All Access later this year. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Nintendo has revealed a new set of Power-Up Pack costumes for LEGO Mario, which introduce a variety of new game mechanics to the physical toy set. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/lego-mario-new-lego-super-mario-power-up-packs-trailer"] The Power-Up Packs each include a hat and a set of dungarees for the LEGO Mario figure to slot into, and each new costume allows him to do new things. The Fire Mario suit grants him the power to throw fireballs at enemies, activated by tilting the figure forward. The Propeller Mario suit allows Mario to fly and collect coins from mid-air. Cat Mario, meanwhile, lets the plumber climb walls while making vaguely adorable/somewhat creepy cat noises. Finally the Builder Mario suit lets you perform a damaging jump which awards coins as Mario smashes back down onto the ground. The Power-Up packs will be available starting August 1. As they are just suits, they all require the Starter Course pack to work. That pack includes 231 pieces used to build a physical Mario level, as well as the interactive LEGO Mario figure itself. That starter course can then be combined with Expansion sets such as the Piranha Plant Power Slide and Bowser’s Castle. Mario’s adventures through them can then be augmented with the use of the new Power-Up packs. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=lego-super-mario-first-look&captions=true"] LEGO Super Mario is designed as a bridge between video games and toys. Playing with the sets combines physical blocks, the use of the ‘mechanics’ provided by the interactive figure, and a player’s imagination. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

Henry Cavill has been turned into an Easter Egg character in Total War: Warhammer 2, one of his favourite games. The star of The Witcher on Netflix has previously made clear how much he likes Creative Assembly's game, telling GQ he'd completed the game with six different races. He even made clear in that interview how much he looks forward to new DLC for the game arriving. Well the latest DLC, The Warden and The Paunch arrives tomorrow, May 21, and Cavill should be more excited than ever, as the expansion adds a character based on the actor and his recent work. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2017/09/25/total-war-warhammer-2-review"] As pointed out by PCGamesN, the new DLC includes a High Elf Loremaster simply named Cavill, who comes with a trait called White Wolf that gives him a bonus when fighting against large enemies (like monsters, perhaps), and even includes the flavour text "Wind's howling" (based on an oft-quoted line from The Witcher 3). If that wasn't evidence enough, PCGamesN talked to the game's director, Richard Aldridge, who confirmed the homage: "So when when I saw a certain Mr. Cavill mention that he enjoys nothing more than firing up Total War: Warhammer or painting a few models in his spare time, I thought it would be fun to somehow inject him into the game [...] With the Warden and the Paunch coming up, it felt like a good time to include Henry, and what better way than having a mighty Loremaster of Hoeth by your side with a few personal special traits to play with when starting a campaign as Eltharion?” [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/09/04/henry-cavill-was-the-first-choice-for-the-witcher"] Cavill (the real one, not the elf one) is a major gaming fan, who said he "lived and breathed" the Witcher games to prepare for his onscreen role as Geralt of Rivia, and has been painting Warhammer models to pass the time in quarantine. We here at IGN are also fans of Total War: Warhammer 2, awarding it a 9.1 review, calling it "a league above anything we’ve seen in the entire Total War series before in both design and presentation." [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News and he aspires to one day be an Easter Egg in Dynasty Warriors. Follow him on Twitter.

Epic Games created a PlayStation 3 port of Gears of War 3 as part of its internal Unreal Engine testing process, but never had any intention of releasing the Xbox 360-exclusive game on the platform. The discovery of the PS3 port comes from new footage released by a former hacker known online as PixelButts. The footage, which shows a rough, buggy version of the game playing on PS3 hardware, was posted to YouTube. While the footage shows Xbox button prompts, a report from Kotaku reveals that the build is indeed running on a PlayStation 3, demonstrated by a further video sent to Kotaku by PixelButts that shows the game booting up from the PS3’s cross media bar. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2011/08/22/gears-of-war-3-intro-cinematic"] Epic Games revealed to Kotaku that the build is real. “This footage is a byproduct of Epic’s internal Unreal Engine 3 testing process, which utilized both Gears and Unreal Tournament, and was never part of any actual product work for PlayStation 3,” said a representative from the developer. The build was acquired via a data breach of Epic back in 2011.While there have previously been videos of Gears of War 3 running on a PS3, those were apparently created by hackers developing their own port using the files from the hack. PixelButt’s video differs as this is actually a PS3 build created by Epic itself for the Unreal Engine 3 testing process. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-ign-gears-of-war-review-ever&captions=true"] Allegedly, this version does not run on standard retail PS3 consoles and requires the extra RAM that can be found in the PS3 devkit. However, PixelButts adjusted the way Unreal Engine 3 loads data and managed to make the build work, albeit with performance issues. If you’d like to get a little more up to date with Gears of War, then check out our review of the latest game in the series, Gears Tactics. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

Jamie Lee Curtis is set to co-write and direct an eco-horror film, titled Mother Nature, as part of a new first-look deal with Blumhouse. Deadline reports that Curtis, who is widely regarded as one of the ultimate scream queens for playing Laurie Strode in the Halloween franchise, recently signed a three-year first-look deal with Jason Blum's Blumhouse via her production company Comet Pictures. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/10/26/jamie-lee-curtis-on-the-evolution-of-halloweens-laurie-strode"] The first project under the deal, which is for both film and television, is the just-announced Mother Nature feature film, which is said to be a horror story "centred around climate change." Curtis will be directing the film based on a script that she is co-writing with Russell Goldman, the new Head of Film and TV Development at Comet Pictures. "I'm 61 and my motto now is: 'If not now, when, if not me, who?' I'm excited to have a creative home to explore my own ideas and others. Jason and his team have made me feel welcome. Comet is ready to bring these stories to screen life," Curtis said in a statement accompanying the announcement. "Jamie is a force of nature and was a real partner on Halloween. So it's both an honor and incredibly apt that she's making her first feature film as a director with Mother Nature," Blum added in a separate statement about the new project, which is being kept largely under wraps for now. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=horror-movie-franchises-that-never-stopped-being-entertaining&captions=true"] Jamie Lee Curtis and Blumhouse had a hugely successful collaboration on the 2018 revamp of Halloween, which starred Curtis and was directed by David Gordon Green. The film had the biggest box office debut ever, for any movie in any genre, to feature a female lead character over 55 years of age. It also went on to become the highest-grossing instalment in the horror franchise, earning more than $255 million worldwide. Curtis and the Blumhouse team are bringing two more sequels to our screens over the coming years. Halloween Kills is currently scheduled for release on October 16, 2020, while Halloween Ends is set for October 15, 2021, just under one year later. Curtis is also serving as an executive producer on both of those fearsome flicks. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Embracer Group - which owns the likes of Volition (Saint's Row, Red Faction), Tarsier (Little Nightmares) and Experiment 101 (Biomutant) - has 118 games in development, 69 of which are currently unannounced. The Swedish holding company (which was formerly known as THQ Nordic) revealed the news in its financial earnings report, which you can check out on the Embracer Group website. "I genuinely believe that we have one of the industry’s most exciting pipelines of upcoming games, engaging over 3,000 game developers across the world," the report reads. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/19/snowrunner-accolades-trailer"] The report mentions that, with the recent acquisition of Snowrunner developer Saber Interactive, the holding company now has 118 games in development, with 69 of those games unannounced. The holding company expects "substantial growth" in the current fiscal year, supported by upcoming releases such as Biomutant, Destroy All Humans!, Wasteland 3 and more. For more on Destroy All Humans!, check out our interview with Black Forest Games from Gamescom 2019. The report also mentions "a host of other titles that have not yet started their marketing campaigns" and refers to the beloved franchises within in its wheelhouse that the company expects will bolster their upcoming performance, such as Saints Row, Metro and Dead Island. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/06/21/destroy-all-humans-remake-preview"] Embracer Group also dwelled on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on its wokflow. "Rapid transformations to online and social distancing workflows has in general gone smoothly and have mostly only caused minor operational interruptions," the report reads. Closing out the report, Embracer Group revealed that it has raised 1.6 Billion Swedish Krona (approximately $166 million USD) for further acquisitions, and mentioned "several ongoing discussions" with studios, franchises and publishers in the games industry, suggesting there might be some more big names joining Embracer Group in the near future. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

New reports suggest this year's Call of Duty game will be titled Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and will return to the Black Ops sub-series' historical setting. The title was posted by Call of Duty leaker Okami on Twitter, and backed up by sources of Eurogamer. Eurogamer added that it will return to the series' roots, but didn't specify any specific events or locations – the real-life Cold War is regarded as having lasted from 1947-1991. Whether this is a reboot of the sub-series, or a prequel to the Black Ops story - which has since headed into the future - is still unknown. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/10/20/call-of-duty-black-ops-4-review"] Activision had already formally announced the expected 2020 instalment of Call of Duty, but didn't confirm which of its studios would act as the lead developer. Rumours at the time suggested Treyarch would be the lead, which feels ever-more likely, given it created the Black Ops sub-series. Sledgehammer and Raven are rumoured to be support studios on the project. Those same rumours claimed this was a Black Ops game set in the Cold War, and that it would restore a single-player campaign after Black Ops 4 dropped the feature. The reports coincide with the recent opening of Call of Duty: Warzone's bunkers, which have also seen dataminers discovering what seems to be a model for a Cold War-era spyplane, the U-2. We'd already heard that Warzone will evolve to accommodate multiple games in the series, with Infinity Ward's Taylor Kurosaki saying the battle royale mode "will be the through-line that connects all of the different various sub-franchises of Call of Duty." [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News, and he was only this morning listening to excellent new Cold War-themed podcast Wind of Change, and is now hoping this game will feature Scorpions on the soundtrack. Follow him on Twitter.