A new dinosaur has been discovered in Patagonia and its scientific name translates to "the one who causes fear." The first word of its name, "Llukalkan," translates to "the one who causes fear" in Mapuche, which is the language spoken by the indigenous inhabitants found near the discovery site of this new dinosaur, according to this report from HuffPost. The second word in its name, "aliocranianus," translates to "unusual skull" in Latin, although if you looked at its skull, you'd find that it resembles that of a T-Rex, or maybe even the Indominus Rex found in Jurassic World. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-best-deaths-in-the-jurassic-park-movies&captions=true"] That's because much like the T-Rex, the Llukalkan aliocranianus was a big-headed dinosaur with small arms and large legs. However, a deeper, more scientific look at the skull reveals that it actually seems to indicate the Llukalkan aliocranianus had better hearing than most other dinosaurs of this type. "A peculiarity of this dinosaur is that it has cavities in the ear area that other abelisaurids did not have, which could have given this species different auditory capacities, possibly a greater hearing range," the National University of San Luis, Argentina, paleontologist, Federico Gianechini, said in their research paper published about this discovery. "This, together with its keen sense of smell, would have given great capabilities as a predator to this species." Many fossilized pieces of this dinosaur, which include teeth, parts of its jaws, the bones around its eye sockets, and more, were discovered in the Bajo de la Carpa Formation in Argentina. This new species of dinosaurs is estimated to have walked the Earth some 80 million years ago, as noted by HuffPost. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/12/new-tyrannosaur-species-discovered-dubbed-reaper-of-death"] According to HuffPost, a press release from Gianechini and their study co-author, Ariel Méndez, reveals that abelisaurids were still alive and well right before all dinosaurs went extinct. It states that as the Tyrannosaurus rex was busy ruling over the Northern Hemisphere, the Llukalkan aliocranianus, which was "one of the 10 currently known species of abelisaurids," was busy "flourishing in the Southern Hemisphere." The press release says  the Llukalkan aliocranianus was "likely among the top predators" in Patagonia "due to its formidable size (up to five meters long), extremely powerful bite, very sharp teeth, huge claws in their feet, and their keen sense of smell." For more dinosaur reading, check out this story about bat-winged dinosaurs that took 150 million years to evolve into expert fliers and then read this story about a T-Rex and Triceratops locked in the same fossil. Check out this story about scientists who say they have "no intention of raising dinosaurs" after extracting DNA from insects preserved in resin. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Wesley LeBlanc is a news writer, guide writer, and science guru for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

A new dinosaur has been discovered in Patagonia and its scientific name translates to "the one who causes fear." The first word of its name, "Llukalkan," translates to "the one who causes fear" in Mapuche, which is the language spoken by the indigenous inhabitants found near the discovery site of this new dinosaur, according to this report from HuffPost. The second word in its name, "aliocranianus," translates to "unusual skull" in Latin, although if you looked at its skull, you'd find that it resembles that of a T-Rex, or maybe even the Indominus Rex found in Jurassic World. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-best-deaths-in-the-jurassic-park-movies&captions=true"] That's because much like the T-Rex, the Llukalkan aliocranianus was a big-headed dinosaur with small arms and large legs. However, a deeper, more scientific look at the skull reveals that it actually seems to indicate the Llukalkan aliocranianus had better hearing than most other dinosaurs of this type. "A peculiarity of this dinosaur is that it has cavities in the ear area that other abelisaurids did not have, which could have given this species different auditory capacities, possibly a greater hearing range," the National University of San Luis, Argentina, paleontologist, Federico Gianechini, said in their research paper published about this discovery. "This, together with its keen sense of smell, would have given great capabilities as a predator to this species." Many fossilized pieces of this dinosaur, which include teeth, parts of its jaws, the bones around its eye sockets, and more, were discovered in the Bajo de la Carpa Formation in Argentina. This new species of dinosaurs is estimated to have walked the Earth some 80 million years ago, as noted by HuffPost. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/12/new-tyrannosaur-species-discovered-dubbed-reaper-of-death"] According to HuffPost, a press release from Gianechini and their study co-author, Ariel Méndez, reveals that abelisaurids were still alive and well right before all dinosaurs went extinct. It states that as the Tyrannosaurus rex was busy ruling over the Northern Hemisphere, the Llukalkan aliocranianus, which was "one of the 10 currently known species of abelisaurids," was busy "flourishing in the Southern Hemisphere." The press release says  the Llukalkan aliocranianus was "likely among the top predators" in Patagonia "due to its formidable size (up to five meters long), extremely powerful bite, very sharp teeth, huge claws in their feet, and their keen sense of smell." For more dinosaur reading, check out this story about bat-winged dinosaurs that took 150 million years to evolve into expert fliers and then read this story about a T-Rex and Triceratops locked in the same fossil. Check out this story about scientists who say they have "no intention of raising dinosaurs" after extracting DNA from insects preserved in resin. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Wesley LeBlanc is a news writer, guide writer, and science guru for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

Several popular Star Wars Legends canon novels are being republished with new cover art as part of an “Essential Legends Collection” for the franchise's 50th anniversary, publisher Del Rey announced Friday.

Heir to the Empire, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction and the Mace Windu-focused Shatterpoint will be the first books to be republished and made available for purchase on June 15. Shatterpoint will also receive a brand new unabridged audio edition.

Additional Legends canon novels will be republished this fall, Del Rey says. For what it’s worth when a Twitter user jokingly requested that the X-Wing series of novels be republished, Del Rey responded “stay tuned.”

[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=star-wars-legends-republished-books-for-50th-anniversary&captions=true"]

The books will be published as trade paperbacks, about an inch-and-a-half taller than their mass-market paperback versions.

Heir to the Empire, published in 1991, is the first book of the Thrawn trilogy, which follows the blue-skinned Chiss officer who became a key rival of the Rebel Alliance thanks to his masterful military strategizing. Thrawn recently reentered the current Star Wars canon thanks to both Rebels and The Mandalorian’s second season, being the target of Ahsoka Tano.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/12/the-history-of-star-wars-on-tv-from-the-holiday-special-to-disney-plus"]

Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, published in 2006, follows the Sith lord responsible for creating the Rule of Two that came to define the power structure of the franchise’s antagonists.

Shatterpoint follows Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu as he attempts to rescue his former padawan.

The Legends canon, previously known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe, was retconned in 2014 after Lucasfilm announced plans for the sequel trilogy. The old canon encompasses countless novels, games, comic books, and even radio plays. If you're curious about new Star Wars literature, read the first chapter of the High Republic - Light of the Jedi.

[poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/poodoo for IGN.

Several popular Star Wars Legends canon novels are being republished with new cover art as part of an “Essential Legends Collection” for the franchise's 50th anniversary, publisher Del Rey announced Friday.

Heir to the Empire, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction and the Mace Windu-focused Shatterpoint will be the first books to be republished and made available for purchase on June 15. Shatterpoint will also receive a brand new unabridged audio edition.

Additional Legends canon novels will be republished this fall, Del Rey says. For what it’s worth when a Twitter user jokingly requested that the X-Wing series of novels be republished, Del Rey responded “stay tuned.”

[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=star-wars-legends-republished-books-for-50th-anniversary&captions=true"]

The books will be published as trade paperbacks, about an inch-and-a-half taller than their mass-market paperback versions.

Heir to the Empire, published in 1991, is the first book of the Thrawn trilogy, which follows the blue-skinned Chiss officer who became a key rival of the Rebel Alliance thanks to his masterful military strategizing. Thrawn recently reentered the current Star Wars canon thanks to both Rebels and The Mandalorian’s second season, being the target of Ahsoka Tano.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/12/the-history-of-star-wars-on-tv-from-the-holiday-special-to-disney-plus"]

Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, published in 2006, follows the Sith lord responsible for creating the Rule of Two that came to define the power structure of the franchise’s antagonists.

Shatterpoint follows Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu as he attempts to rescue his former padawan.

The Legends canon, previously known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe, was retconned in 2014 after Lucasfilm announced plans for the sequel trilogy. The old canon encompasses countless novels, games, comic books, and even radio plays. If you're curious about new Star Wars literature, read the first chapter of the High Republic - Light of the Jedi.

[poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/poodoo for IGN.

The PlayStation Store for PlayStation 3, PSP, and PS Vita is coming to a close, and while not a lot of folks are still making games for the PS3 or PSP these days, there are still games for the Vita very much in development. And according to their developers, they found out about the PSN closures right around the same time as everyone else. On March 29, the same day IGN reported on the PlayStation Store closure, Lillymo Games announced that it canceled the Vita version of its next game because the store will be closed before the game will be ready for release. In a DM to IGN, Barry Johnson from Lillymo Games says that the studio was “not warned about the closing of the Vita store in any way.” In fact, Johnson says they purchased a second Vita devkit just last month. “When word came out that it was happening through that story at TheGamer we reached out to Sony for clarification and were given no response. We found out at the same time as the public did that we would have to cancel our Vita version of our next game.” [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2013/08/19/ps-vita-summer-select-trailer"] TheGamer, which initially reported on the PlayStation store for legacy Sony consoles closing, also spoke with multiple developers who were working on PS Vita games for future release. One of those developers is Miguel Sternberg, game designer at Spooky Squid. Sternberg is currently working on a port of their game Russian Subway Dogs and is trying to get the Vita version out before the store closes in August. “I’ve been working on porting the game to PS4, Xbox One, and Vita, switching back and forth every few weeks,” Sternberg said in a message to IGN. “It was some serious emotional whiplash going from being happy about new improvements I’d implemented [to the Vita port] over the weekend, to learning it might be too late to release the game, and now knowing it’s possible but only if I can hit that deadline. I miss it for whatever reason and all that work is for nothing!” IGN has learned separately what these deadlines look like for Vita developers thanks to an email PlayStation sent to developers that IGN acquired and independently verified. According to this email, the final date to submit games to the PS Vita store is on July 12, and the final day to release content on the PS Vita is on July 20. The final date to submit a game to Sony’s global quality assurance is July 6, though Sony says it can’t guarantee slots for review. The short window for the developers has been incredibly frustrating. Johnson says there were already issues such as their games not appearing in the latest release section on the PS Vita store, but the lack of warning was an even greater surprise. “Having to find out through a news story that the store was closing was not something I expected. I would have hoped to receive something like a year’s warning to finish up all projects,” Johnson laments. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=confirmed-playstation-5-games&captions=true"] Sternberg says that he’s in a luckier position, being close enough to be able to release the game if he hits the deadline. But the lack of warning has “added a lot of stress and unpredictability to what was a fun passion project I was working on while getting ports for the big consoles finished,” he says. “Now I either throw that work away and cancel the Vita version, or I make it my priority for the next couple months and hope nothing unexpected gets in the way.” [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor.

The PlayStation Store for PlayStation 3, PSP, and PS Vita is coming to a close, and while not a lot of folks are still making games for the PS3 or PSP these days, there are still games for the Vita very much in development. And according to their developers, they found out about the PSN closures right around the same time as everyone else. On March 29, the same day IGN reported on the PlayStation Store closure, Lillymo Games announced that it canceled the Vita version of its next game because the store will be closed before the game will be ready for release. In a DM to IGN, Barry Johnson from Lillymo Games says that the studio was “not warned about the closing of the Vita store in any way.” In fact, Johnson says they purchased a second Vita devkit just last month. “When word came out that it was happening through that story at TheGamer we reached out to Sony for clarification and were given no response. We found out at the same time as the public did that we would have to cancel our Vita version of our next game.” [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2013/08/19/ps-vita-summer-select-trailer"] TheGamer, which initially reported on the PlayStation store for legacy Sony consoles closing, also spoke with multiple developers who were working on PS Vita games for future release. One of those developers is Miguel Sternberg, game designer at Spooky Squid. Sternberg is currently working on a port of their game Russian Subway Dogs and is trying to get the Vita version out before the store closes in August. “I’ve been working on porting the game to PS4, Xbox One, and Vita, switching back and forth every few weeks,” Sternberg said in a message to IGN. “It was some serious emotional whiplash going from being happy about new improvements I’d implemented [to the Vita port] over the weekend, to learning it might be too late to release the game, and now knowing it’s possible but only if I can hit that deadline. I miss it for whatever reason and all that work is for nothing!” IGN has learned separately what these deadlines look like for Vita developers thanks to an email PlayStation sent to developers that IGN acquired and independently verified. According to this email, the final date to submit games to the PS Vita store is on July 12, and the final day to release content on the PS Vita is on July 20. The final date to submit a game to Sony’s global quality assurance is July 6, though Sony says it can’t guarantee slots for review. The short window for the developers has been incredibly frustrating. Johnson says there were already issues such as their games not appearing in the latest release section on the PS Vita store, but the lack of warning was an even greater surprise. “Having to find out through a news story that the store was closing was not something I expected. I would have hoped to receive something like a year’s warning to finish up all projects,” Johnson laments. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=confirmed-playstation-5-games&captions=true"] Sternberg says that he’s in a luckier position, being close enough to be able to release the game if he hits the deadline. But the lack of warning has “added a lot of stress and unpredictability to what was a fun passion project I was working on while getting ports for the big consoles finished,” he says. “Now I either throw that work away and cancel the Vita version, or I make it my priority for the next couple months and hope nothing unexpected gets in the way.” [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor.

Welcome back to Game Scoop!, IGN's weekly video game podcast. This week your Omega Cops -- Daemon Hatfield, Tina Amini, Sam Claiborn, and Michael Swaim -- are discussing the latest Cyberpunk and Witcher news, new PlayStation Plus April 2021 and Games with Gold, Narita Boy, No Man's Sky, Godzilla vs. Kong, and so much more. And, of course, they play Video Game 20 Questions. Watch the video above or hit the link below to your favorite podcast service. Listen on: Apple Podcasts YouTube Spotify Stitcher   Find previous episodes here!

Welcome back to Game Scoop!, IGN's weekly video game podcast. This week your Omega Cops -- Daemon Hatfield, Tina Amini, Sam Claiborn, and Michael Swaim -- are discussing the latest Cyberpunk and Witcher news, new PlayStation Plus April 2021 and Games with Gold, Narita Boy, No Man's Sky, Godzilla vs. Kong, and so much more. And, of course, they play Video Game 20 Questions. Watch the video above or hit the link below to your favorite podcast service. Listen on: Apple Podcasts YouTube Spotify Stitcher   Find previous episodes here!

Rhianna Pratchett, whose narrative mind has shaped stories in games like Mirror's Edge, Tomb Raider, and many others, first met the creator of Lost Words: Beyond the Page at a game jam. At the time, Lost Words was about divorce. But that changed quickly once Pratchett signed on as the narrative lead. "Of course, being a Pratchett, I said, 'Well, what about death?'" Pratchett is referring to her late father, Discworld author, Terry Pratchett -- whose books frequently explore death and grief through their fantasy setting. Speaking to IGN, she says this shift was born out of her own personal experience with the death of loved ones, which ultimately heavily shaped Lost Words as well. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/09/lost-words-beyond-the-page-release-date-trailer"] Lost Words is a narrative-focused platformer game that's been out for over a year already, but one that many may have missed the first time around, as it was a Google Stadia-exclusive until recently, and it's finally coming to Xbox One, PS4, Steam, and Nintendo Switch on April 6. Its story follows a young girl, Izzy, who aspires to be a writer. When she loses someone close to her, she works through her grief by writing a fantasy story in her journal. Play switches between journal segments with glimpses into Izzy's personal life, and the fantasy story she's writing, where she explores the feelings and ideas she's struggling with in reality through her fantasy protagonist. Pratchett, both through her family and in her own extensive work, is a firm proponent of exactly that -- exploring difficult topics through fantasy stories. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=It's%20a%20very%20unique%20time%20in%20your%20life%20when%20you%20experience%20loss%20for%20the%20first%20time%2C%20and%20you%20suddenly%20realize%20that%20the%20world%20is%20not%20perfect."] "A lot of people think that fantasy is hugely removed escapism; it's not really," she says. "It's how we deal with our own world, how we come to understand our world, and how we come to understand other people. "...I thought that it's a very unique time in your life when you experience loss for the first time, and you suddenly realize that the world is not perfect, and bad things happen. And sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. "I have a very tiny family now because I have no relatives left apart from a mother and uncle and a cousin that I've grown up with, but I've lost several sets of grandparents and step-grandparents, and my dad. So I felt I had a lot to say about loss and grief and the intersection of loss of memory, grief, and memory and how we keep people alive by our memories and how we keep a part of them inside us." Pratchett is excited about Lost Words' focus on storytelling, not just as a narrative device, but as part of the development process. Having written for games for nearly two decades, and as a journalist before that, Pratchett has been able to watch the trajectory of games writing and narrative change from something many studios tended to brush off or throw in messily at the end of a game's development, to something developers and audiences care deeply about. And she's proud to have been a part of that. But she still feels that games have a long, long way to go to respect what good writing can do for a game, and refine what good games writing really means. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Writers%20don't%20get%20very%20much%20power%2C%20especially%20in%20the%20big%20games%2C%20and%20you%20don't%20always%20get%20much%20space%20to%20necessarily%20get%20your%20voice%20or%20vision%20across."] "Writers don't get very much power, especially in the big games, and you don't always get much space to necessarily get your voice or vision across," she says. "And everyone thinks they can write because most people can write words, and they think writing words is the same as writing a story. And because they've usually never tried, in their heads, they're sort of unproven geniuses. "In the past, narrative wasn't necessarily done by a writer. People didn't particularly value it enough to push professionals in that field. It created the impression that anyone could write because anyone had been writing. So now, it feels like you have to deal with a lot of feedback, a lot of opinions all the time, usually from people that aren't particularly story-literate...But they often have more power than writers. So if you're trying to balance, you become very flexible, you have to learn to work with other people's ideas...As people start to understand how stories work in games, it is getting better, but I did deal with a lot of people who thought they knew how to write telling me how to write." Which brings her back to Lost Words, where she was not just the game's writer, but was closely involved in most aspects of Lost Words' development. That's the advantage, she says, of working on a smaller, independent team as opposed to being hired on as a narrative writer for a huge AAA project. You lose the bigger budget and the resources that may bring, sure, but you have a direct line to everyone on the team and can more closely marry gameplay and writing. "I like being in a team where I can get my voice across; otherwise, what's the point?" she says. "I'm not a story robot. I'm not there to just generate words. I'm there to bring my views and my vision and my thoughts as well. "If you're engaged in a game early on, there's a lot that writers can bring to it. It often used to be this way and it still is to a certain extent now that the industry [thought that] writers did the word bits. They'd leave some space for the writer to do the word bits because they just do the word bits and the word bits come as late in the game as possible. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=A%20lot%20of%20what%20writers%20do%20is%20invisible%20work.%20It's%20a%20lot%20of%20behind-the-scenes%20stuff."] "Whereas actually a lot of what writers do is invisible work. It's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, coming up with the lore of the world and tone and working out how things go in this world, how the character relationships go, a whole load of background stuff that the player won't necessarily see. I call it building the body of the iceberg. We all know that the body of the iceberg is much bigger under the surface...So that the tip that the players actually see in the game is much more truthful and much more thought-out, much more well-realized, because you spent all this time building up the body of it. And if you're lucky, you get time to be able to do that." Pratchett is delighted to see Lost Words get another chance to catch audiences' eyes now that it's releasing on platforms other than Stadia, and she hopes people considering picking it up will not be put off by the fact that it's a story about grief. In fact, she says, it's actually quite positive. "It is sad," she says. "But it's also joyful, as well. It's about love. And it's about grief being the price for love. It's about losing someone but keeping hold of them at the same time. And it's taken from the perspective of someone that's going through it for the first time. So it's all kind of fresh and new, and difficult and painful as you just try to get your head around it. But in the end it is hopeful, it is positive, it is full of love. And so I hope people get that out of it." [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Rhianna Pratchett, whose narrative mind has shaped stories in games like Mirror's Edge, Tomb Raider, and many others, first met the creator of Lost Words: Beyond the Page at a game jam. At the time, Lost Words was about divorce. But that changed quickly once Pratchett signed on as the narrative lead. "Of course, being a Pratchett, I said, 'Well, what about death?'" Pratchett is referring to her late father, Discworld author, Terry Pratchett -- whose books frequently explore death and grief through their fantasy setting. Speaking to IGN, she says this shift was born out of her own personal experience with the death of loved ones, which ultimately heavily shaped Lost Words as well. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/09/lost-words-beyond-the-page-release-date-trailer"] Lost Words is a narrative-focused platformer game that's been out for over a year already, but one that many may have missed the first time around, as it was a Google Stadia-exclusive until recently, and it's finally coming to Xbox One, PS4, Steam, and Nintendo Switch on April 6. Its story follows a young girl, Izzy, who aspires to be a writer. When she loses someone close to her, she works through her grief by writing a fantasy story in her journal. Play switches between journal segments with glimpses into Izzy's personal life, and the fantasy story she's writing, where she explores the feelings and ideas she's struggling with in reality through her fantasy protagonist. Pratchett, both through her family and in her own extensive work, is a firm proponent of exactly that -- exploring difficult topics through fantasy stories. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=It's%20a%20very%20unique%20time%20in%20your%20life%20when%20you%20experience%20loss%20for%20the%20first%20time%2C%20and%20you%20suddenly%20realize%20that%20the%20world%20is%20not%20perfect."] "A lot of people think that fantasy is hugely removed escapism; it's not really," she says. "It's how we deal with our own world, how we come to understand our world, and how we come to understand other people. "...I thought that it's a very unique time in your life when you experience loss for the first time, and you suddenly realize that the world is not perfect, and bad things happen. And sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. "I have a very tiny family now because I have no relatives left apart from a mother and uncle and a cousin that I've grown up with, but I've lost several sets of grandparents and step-grandparents, and my dad. So I felt I had a lot to say about loss and grief and the intersection of loss of memory, grief, and memory and how we keep people alive by our memories and how we keep a part of them inside us." Pratchett is excited about Lost Words' focus on storytelling, not just as a narrative device, but as part of the development process. Having written for games for nearly two decades, and as a journalist before that, Pratchett has been able to watch the trajectory of games writing and narrative change from something many studios tended to brush off or throw in messily at the end of a game's development, to something developers and audiences care deeply about. And she's proud to have been a part of that. But she still feels that games have a long, long way to go to respect what good writing can do for a game, and refine what good games writing really means. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Writers%20don't%20get%20very%20much%20power%2C%20especially%20in%20the%20big%20games%2C%20and%20you%20don't%20always%20get%20much%20space%20to%20necessarily%20get%20your%20voice%20or%20vision%20across."] "Writers don't get very much power, especially in the big games, and you don't always get much space to necessarily get your voice or vision across," she says. "And everyone thinks they can write because most people can write words, and they think writing words is the same as writing a story. And because they've usually never tried, in their heads, they're sort of unproven geniuses. "In the past, narrative wasn't necessarily done by a writer. People didn't particularly value it enough to push professionals in that field. It created the impression that anyone could write because anyone had been writing. So now, it feels like you have to deal with a lot of feedback, a lot of opinions all the time, usually from people that aren't particularly story-literate...But they often have more power than writers. So if you're trying to balance, you become very flexible, you have to learn to work with other people's ideas...As people start to understand how stories work in games, it is getting better, but I did deal with a lot of people who thought they knew how to write telling me how to write." Which brings her back to Lost Words, where she was not just the game's writer, but was closely involved in most aspects of Lost Words' development. That's the advantage, she says, of working on a smaller, independent team as opposed to being hired on as a narrative writer for a huge AAA project. You lose the bigger budget and the resources that may bring, sure, but you have a direct line to everyone on the team and can more closely marry gameplay and writing. "I like being in a team where I can get my voice across; otherwise, what's the point?" she says. "I'm not a story robot. I'm not there to just generate words. I'm there to bring my views and my vision and my thoughts as well. "If you're engaged in a game early on, there's a lot that writers can bring to it. It often used to be this way and it still is to a certain extent now that the industry [thought that] writers did the word bits. They'd leave some space for the writer to do the word bits because they just do the word bits and the word bits come as late in the game as possible. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=A%20lot%20of%20what%20writers%20do%20is%20invisible%20work.%20It's%20a%20lot%20of%20behind-the-scenes%20stuff."] "Whereas actually a lot of what writers do is invisible work. It's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, coming up with the lore of the world and tone and working out how things go in this world, how the character relationships go, a whole load of background stuff that the player won't necessarily see. I call it building the body of the iceberg. We all know that the body of the iceberg is much bigger under the surface...So that the tip that the players actually see in the game is much more truthful and much more thought-out, much more well-realized, because you spent all this time building up the body of it. And if you're lucky, you get time to be able to do that." Pratchett is delighted to see Lost Words get another chance to catch audiences' eyes now that it's releasing on platforms other than Stadia, and she hopes people considering picking it up will not be put off by the fact that it's a story about grief. In fact, she says, it's actually quite positive. "It is sad," she says. "But it's also joyful, as well. It's about love. And it's about grief being the price for love. It's about losing someone but keeping hold of them at the same time. And it's taken from the perspective of someone that's going through it for the first time. So it's all kind of fresh and new, and difficult and painful as you just try to get your head around it. But in the end it is hopeful, it is positive, it is full of love. And so I hope people get that out of it." [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.