Month: January 2018

Microsoft has pulled an advertisement for the Xbox One version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds after a fan claimed the company copied their artwork. Reddit user Macsterr says a tweet from @Xbox used an image similar to their own ad concept posted to Reddit in November.

Microsoft has now deleted the tweet in question and says the matter is under investigation. Longtime Xbox spokesperson Major Nelson commented: “I wanted to let you know that this is being investigated. In the meantime, our official channels have pulled down the asset in question. I’ll follow up with the OP /u/macsterr/ once I get more details.” No further update has since been posted.

PUBG launched for Xbox One on December 12. The port remains in early access, though some fans have complained that the console version doesn’t perform as well as the game’s native PC edition. More recently, PUBG developer PUBG Corp. has said it hopes the battle royale game will eventually come to “every platform,” while the PC version has now passed 3 million concurrent users.

If you decide to jump into the game soon, be sure to check out our beginner’s guide for getting started in PUBG. Alternatively, now the shooter has officially launched on PC, check out our PUBG review.

New Netflix show Dark features sci-fi action-RPG The Surge being played in a split-screen mode – a mode that doesn’t (and likely never will) exist.

The German series includes a scene where two people are playing via split-screen co-op. A representative for developer Deck13 explained on Reddit the series’ producers contacted Deck13 months before production started about possibly including the mode on the show for story purposes.

The producers were looking to include a game in the scene and went with The Surge principally because both the game and Dark were developed in Germany. “We agreed and allowed them to even fake a splitscreen if it fitted better for their idea,” the representative said. “Some kind of creative rework one could say.”

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Platinum Games has two designs in mind for brand new IP, and wants to change its approach and self-publish this game.

Atsushi Inaba, head of development and producer at Platinum revealed the independent studio’s new focus in an interview with Game Informer.

“Up until now, obviously we’ve worked on original IPs for a wide variety of publishers,” Inaba said. “We’ve also worked on other Hollywood IPs for other publishers as well. But we’re becoming more and more interested in the idea of self-publishing and doing our own title.”

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Microsoft has pulled down a PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds advert from its social media channels, after the creator of a fan concept complained about striking similarities to their work.

Reddit user Macsterr had created a concept advert for the Xbox One version of PUBG that garnered tens of thousands of views – then noticed that Microsoft’s social channels had posted an advert with near-identical ideas. You can see both in the gallery below:

Seeing no credit offered, Macsterr pointed out the similarities on Reddit, which caught the attention of Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb a day later.

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Following the box office disappointment of last year’s Alien: Covenant, the future of the long-running sci-fi franchise is in doubt. Director Ridley Scott initially suggested that he was finished with the series. But in a subsequent interview last month, Scott spoke about a possible new direction, arguing that the franchise should “drift away from the Alien stuff” and focus more on artificial intelligence.

In a new interview with the Toronto Sun, Scott again sounded more optimistic about the future of the series. “There’s no reason why Alien should now not be on the same level for fans as Star Trek and Star Wars,” he said. “I think the next [question] as to where we go is, do we sustain the Alien [franchise] with the evolution of the beast or do we reinvent something else? I think you need to have an evolution on this famous beast, because he’s the best monster ever, really.”

The decision to continue the series now lies with Disney, following the recent deal for the studio to acquire Fox’s entertainment assets. Scott stated that the studio would be “crazy if they don’t” make more Alien movies. He also praised Michael Fassbender’s character, sinister android David. “David is a fantastic villain,” he said. “I love what Fassbender did in Covenant. But it’s f***ing hard, dude. We lifted Alien out of a ditch and made Prometheus.”

Covenant made $240 million worldwide, much less than Prometheus‘s $403 million take. Prior to the movie’s release, Scott had been talking enthusiastically about the future of the series. In March last year, he suggested that the next movie would be called Alien: Awakening, and that the series would continue for several more films beyond that.

In related news, Scott has also expressed his dissatisfaction with the running time of Blade Runner 2049. He produced the recent sequel to his 1982 sci-fi classic, and was recently asked what he thought of the movie. “I have to be careful what I say,” he says. “It was f***ing way too long. F*** me! And most of that script’s mine.”

There are plenty of great games to look forward to in 2018, but with all the big-name titles to anticipate, it can be easy to let some of the smaller gems slip under your radar.

Here are 39 awesome looking indie games you shouldn’t overlook in 2018.

An emergent soundtrack made of rhythmic drum beats and cymbal crashes accompanies every swift punch and throw in this hyper-violent top-down action game about an escaped gorilla. Learn more on its website.

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Nintendo has already sold 10 million Switches, and should hit its target of 14 million units sold within the console’s first year on the market – but it expects to sell far more in the next Japanese fiscal year, aiming for 20 million more.

In an interview with Kyoto Shimbun (spotted by WCCF Tech), Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima explained that sales continue to exceed expectations, leading to this larger forecast.

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All month long, IGN First is spotlighting the Films to Watch in 2018. Today, we take a look at the Chris Hemsworth-starring 12 Strong, a dramatic retelling of the true story of CIA paramilitary officers and U.S. Special Forces sent to Afghanistan right after the September 11 attacks in New York.

You may know Chris Hemsworth best as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But the 34-year-old Aussie is hanging up the God of Thunder’s cape to to take a spin playing a real-life hero in the upcoming Warner Bros. drama 12 Strong.

Helmed by Danish director Nicolai Fuglsig and adapted from Doug Stanton’s non-fiction book Horse Soldiers, 12 Strong tells the story of the immediate responders in Afghanistan following the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. Hemsworth plays Captain Mitch Nelson, a character inspired by Mark Nutsch, a commander of a 12-man Green Beret team who went after the Taliban.

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