Month: January 2020

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker debuted one of the most visually distinctive Stormtrooper designs ever in the form of the Sith Trooper, and now you can bring the might of the Final Order home to your collection. We have an exclusive first look at Diamond Select Toys’ upcoming Sith Trooper mini-bust.

The Sith Trooper mini-bust is a 1:6 scale piece measuring six inches tall. It’s designed by Joe Allard and sculpted by Gentle Giant Studios. Gentle Giant has a long history of immortalizing the heroes and villains of the Star Wars universe in mini-bust form, but this will be their first Rise of Skywalker release in this format.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for a closer look at the Sith Trooper mini-bust:

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The Sith Trooper mini-bust carries an MSRP of $120 and will be released at some point in Fall 2020. Let us know in the comments below if you plan on adding this to your collection.

In other Star Wars toy news, the long wait continues for licensed Baby Yoda merchandise. We’ve seen what Funko has in store for 2020, and Hasbro has its own line of adorable Baby Yoda toys in the works. Unfortunately, Disney has begun cracking down on Etsy users selling unlicensed Baby Yoda products.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

NetherRealm hasn’t announced its followup project to Mortal Kombat 11, but one piece of dialogue certainly seems to be a cheeky hint at Injustice 3. And fittingly enough, it’s delivered by the Joker, a DLC addition to MK11 who’s a mainstay in the DC Comics fighting series.

In a tweet, Mortal Kombat producer Ed Boon showed a snippet of dialogue from a Joker vs Joker mirror match. One of the Jokers scoffs, “Only two of us? That’s an injustice!” To which the other replies, “What we could do with a third!”

Boon’s tweet explicitly says this isn’t hinting at Injustice and the reference is a coincidence, but paired with the video that reads like a sly wink. Boon is known for having a history of teases and Easter eggs. As some comics fans have pointed out, this could also be a reference to a comics storyline affectionately called the Three Jokers arc. At the very least, though, the MK writers seemed to be having a little fun toying with fan expectations.

Joker is the second-to-last character included in the DLC Kombat Pack and will release on January 28. The last remaining character will be another dark comics character, Spawn. After that, the time will be about right for NetherRealm to announce whatever is coming next–Injustice or otherwise.

Horizon Zero Dawn developer Guerrilla is looking for a game programmer to work on an “epic open world game”, who would ideally have multiplayer experience.

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At current, Guerrilla has yet to announce what its current project is, but the open world descriptor in this new senior game programmer job listing (via GamesRadar) points towards a potential Horizon Zero Dawn sequel. The listing also notes that the game features “ranged and melee weapons, combat and traversal mechanics”, which are all characteristics applicable to Horizon, or at least a game with similar traits.

This all makes the ‘plus point’ of experience in multiplayer interesting, as the original Horizon was a purely single-player game. While it’s impossible to draw concrete conclusions from this posting, it does point to Guerrilla at least considering a multiplayer component for its next open world game. In short: if this is Horizon 2, then it may feature multiplayer.

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Plenty of other Guerrilla job listings have pointed towards a Horizon sequel in development, while other recent reports have pointed to the original Horizon Zero Dawn coming to PC. For a closer look at Sony’s development slate, take a look at every first-party PlayStation developer and what they’re working on.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

A movie based on DC’s supernatural superhero team Justice League Dark has been in development at the studio for many years, with a variety of filmmakers attached at various stages. It’s been a long time since there was any news about it, but it’s been reported that JJ Abrams’ production company Bad Robot is now involved.

According to Deadline, the company is developing both film and TV ideas for the property, as part of its new deal with DC parent company WarnerMedia. The site states that Bad Robot’s movie boss Hannah Minghella and its TV head Ben Stephenson will soon be meeting with writers to start working on ideas for Justice League Dark projects.

Other filmmakers who have been involved with a Justice League Dark movie over the years include Guillermo Del Toro, Doug Liman, and music video director Joseph Kahn. In December 2017, Kahn tweeted concept art that was created for the film when he was working on it back in 2015.

Justice League Dark comprises more supernatural members of the DC Universe, such as John Constantine, Madame Xanadu, Swamp Thing, and Deadman. Some of these characters have made it to the screen in standalone titles, including last year’s Swamp Thing TV show, while an animated Justice League Dark film was released in 2017.

DC’s latest movie is Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), which hits theaters on February 7. Check out the latest trailer, as well as GameSpot’s guide to everything we know about Birds of Prey. Just don’t compare it to Suicide Squad.

Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company.

For February 2020, Netflix is releasing plenty of content you’ll want to check out, from ’80s comedies about an academy for police officers to original series, like one about aliens abducting a horse enthusiast. The streaming service–which has an interesting way to calculate views–is offering its subscribers more movies, TV shows, and original programming than they can handle for the month of February. Check out the full list of the month’s releases and a few of our recommendations.

Locke & Key is the latest comic book adaptation to hit Netflix, arriving on February 7. Based on the Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez comic of the same name, Locke & Key follows a widow and her children as they move into their ancestral home after the mysterious murder of the patriarch of the family. Inside this house are mysterious keys with mystical powers that have some connection to the murdered father. You can watch the first trailer here.

Season 2 of Altered Carbon arrives on February 27. The sci-fi series returns, and a teaser was recently revealed for the show. Anthony Mackie stars in the new episodes as main character Takeshi Kovacs. In a show about transferring consciousnesses into new bodies, recasting the star of the show isn’t a big deal. Netflix’s official synopsis of the series has arrived as well: “Altered Carbon Season 2 finds Takeshi Kovacs, the lone surviving soldier of a group of elite interstellar warriors, continuing his centuries-old quest to find his lost love Quellcrist Falconer. After decades of planet-hopping and searching the galaxy, Kovacs finds himself recruited back to his home planet of Harlan’s World with the promise of finding Quell. Haunted by his past and responsible for investigating a series of brutal murders, Kovacs is stunned to discover his new mission to solve the crime and his pursuit to find Quell are one and the same. With the help of his loyal A.I. Poe, Kovacs must now partner with new allies to outwit his enemies and find the truth: Who is Quellcrist Falconer?”

If you’re looking for a bunch of ’80s comedies that probably haven’t aged well at all–because they weren’t that great to begin with–seven Police Academy movies hit Netflix on February 1. You can relive all the wacky adventures of your favorite characters you barely remember like Mahoney, Hightower, Tackleberry, and more. Personally, I recommend the fourth film in the franchise, Citizens on Patrol (its acronym is C.O.P., get it?), as the movie features David Spade as an ’80s skateboarder.

Below, you’ll find all of this month’s releases for Netflix. If you’re looking for more streaming news, check out everything coming to Hulu in February.

What’s new to Netflix in February 2020?

February 1

• A Bad Moms Christmas
• A Little Princess
• Back to the Future Part III
• Blade Runner: The Final Cut
• Center Stage
• Cookie’s Fortune
• Dear John
• The Dirty Dozen
• Dirty Harry
• Driving Miss Daisy
• Elizabeth
• Elizabeth: The Golden Age
• Fools Rush In
• Hancock
• Love Jacked
• The Notebook
• The Other Guys
• The Pianist
• Police Academy
• Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment
• Police Academy 3: Back in Training
• Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol
• Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach
• Police Academy 6: City Under Siege
• Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow
• Purple Rain
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
• Scary Movie 2
• Sex and the City 2

February 3

• Sordo
• Team Kaylie: Part 3

February 4

• Faith, Hope & Love
• She Did That
• Tom Papa: You’re Doing Great!

February 5

• Black Hollywood: ‘They’ve Gotta Have Us’
• #cats_the_mewvie
• The Pharmacist
• Uppity: The Willy T. Ribbs Story

February 6

• Cagaster of an Insect Cage

February 7

• The Ballad of Lefty Brown
• Dragons: Rescue Riders: Season 2
• Horse Girl
• Locke & Key
• My Holo Love
• Who Killed Malcolm X?

February 8

The Coldest Game

February 9

• Better Call Saul: Season 4
• Captain Underpants Epic Choice-o-Rama
• Polaroid

February 11

• Good Time
• CAMINO A ROMA
• Q Ball

February 12

• Anna Karenina
• To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You

February 13

• Dragon Quest Your Story
• Love is Blind
• Narcos: Mexico: Season 2

February 14

• Cable Girls: Final Season
• Isi & Ossi
• A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

February 15

• Starship Troopers

February 17

• The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia

February 19

• Chef Show: Volume 3

February 20

• Spectros

February 21

• A Haunted House
• Babies
• Gentefied
• Glitch Tech
• Puerta 7
• System Crasher

February 22

• Girl On The Third Floor

February 23

• Full Count

February 25

• Every Time I Die

February 26

• I Am Not Okay With This

February 27

• Altered Carbon: Season 2
• The Angry Birds Movie 2
• Followers
• Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back—Evolution

February 28

• All The Bright Places
• Babylon Berlin: Season 3
• Formula 1: Drive to Survive: Season 2
• Jeopardy!: Celebrate Alex Collection
• Jeopardy!: Cindy Stowell Collection
• Jeopardy!: Seth Wilson Collection
• La trinchera infinita
• Queen Sono
• Restaurants on the Edge
• Unstoppable

February 29

• Jerry Maguire

Leaving Netflix in February

February 11

• Clouds of Sils Maria

February 14

• District 9

February 15

• Milk
• Operator
• Peter Rabbit

February 18

• The 2000s: Season 1

February 19

• Charlotte’s Web
• Gangs of New York
• The Eighties: Season 1
• The Nineties: Season 1
• The Seventies: Season 1

February 20

• Lincoln

February 21

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

February 26

• Our Idiot Brother

February 27

• Jeopardy!: Buzzy Cohen Collection
• Jeopardy!: College Championship II
• Jeopardy!: Teachers’ Tournament II
• Jeopardy!: Teen Tournament III
• Jeopardy!: Tournament of Champions III

February 28

• My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks
• Primal Fear
• Trainspotting

February 29

• 50/50
• American Beauty
• Anger Management
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Free Willy
• Hustle & Flow
• Igor
• Layer Cake
• Rachel Getting Married
• Stripes
• The Matrix
• The Matrix Reloaded
• The Matrix Revolutions
• The Mind of a Chef: Season 1-5
• The Taking of Pelham 123
• Up in the Air

Come March 20, Animal Crossing: New Horizons will probably consume my life. While I’ll likely play mostly in handheld mode due to convenience, a pair of freshly announced Nintendo Switch controllers look to offer the cutest way to play in console mode. Listings for two Animal Crossing-themed wireless controllers popped up at Amazon, and both of them are calling my name.

Designed by third-party manufacturer Power A, the controllers release March 10 for $50 each. The first design is green with a New Leaf logo pattern and a Timmy and Tommy Nook graphic on the right handle.

The second design has a more varied pattern–fish, butterflies, fruit, etc.–and everyone’s favorite musician K.K. Slider on the right handle. Both controllers have the Animal Crossing logo emblazoned above the start and home buttons.

We’ve tested out multiple PowerA Switch controllers in the past and found them to be a great third-party option; they even made our list of the best Nintendo Switch accessories.

The controllers mimic the layout of the Pro controller, but they aren’t exactly the same when it comes to features. Power A controllers require AA batteries and last roughly 30 hours before you need to pop new ones in. They also lack the Pro controller’s rumble feature and NFC functionality for Amiibo. If you can get past those concessions, Power A controllers have an awesome bonus feature: two additional triggers on the back that can be mapped to your liking with a programmable button.

These controllers aren’t the first themed offerings from Power A. The accessory manufacturer has made designs based on a number of popular franchises, including Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Spyro, and Pokemon. A Doom Eternal design is also up for pre-order and releases alongside the Animal Crossing controllers on March 10.

Disney has dropped a new trailer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which returns for one final season exclusively on Disney+ this February.

The trailer comes accompanied by a new key art poster, featuring Annakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka Tano, and Darth Maul, as well as a collection of Clone Troopers. The logo predominantly declares that this is the final season, and is accompanied by the February 21 release date.

Like The Mandalorian, the episodes are streaming “beginning Friday, February 21”, indicating a week-by-week rollout rather than a Netflix-style full season drop. The Clone Wars will be made up of twelve new episodes, exploring the events leading up to Revenge of the Sith.

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If you’re looking to catch up on The Clone Wars, check out our correct episode order guide, as well as our look at the connection between the show and The Mandalorian. And if you’re worried about fan-favourite character Ahsoka’s fate, don’t worry: Gandalf has a few words for you.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

One of the best things about Netflix moving into producing and distributing its own movies is not having to wait very long to see them. This is especially true in the case of smaller, stranger films that might previously take months–or years–to be released following their festival debuts. The mind-bending mystery Horse Girl is a case in point–the movie is set to premiere at the Sundance festival next week and will hit Netflix less than two weeks later. The first trailer has now been released.

Horse Girl stars Alison Brie (GLOW, Community) as a socially awkward young woman called Sarah, who enjoys zumba, horses, and dining out with her new boyfriend. But it seems she has a dark family history, with her grandmother having undergone some very strange, possibly alien-related experiences when she was a similar age. Sure enough, Sarah also starts experiencing weird visions and impromptu nosebleeds, as fantasy and reality start blending into each other. To be honest, it’s hard to work out exactly what’s going on, but it looks like an intriguing Lynchian mystery. Check the trailer out below.

Horse Girl also stars Molly Shannon (the Hotel Transylvania movies), John Ortiz (Kong: Skull Island), Robin Tunney (The Mentalist), and Jay Duplass (Togetherness). It’s helmed by Jeff Baena, who previously directed Brie and Shannon in the comedy The Little Hours. It hits Netflix on February 7. For more, erm, horse cinema coverage, check out GameSpot’s look at all the heartwarming horsie movies to enjoy on Disney+.

In related news, it was reported this week that Netflix has changed the way it counts its viewers. While watching 70% of any title previously counted as a view, two minutes is now all viewers have to watch for it to count. This followed the company’s announcement that 83 million people check out its recent action movie 6 Underground–but how many got past the two minute mark is unknown.