Month: February 2020

Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren by writer Charles Soule and artist Will Sliney is a comic mini-series showing how once-promising Jedi Ben Solo fell to the Dark Side and became Kylo Ren. The third issue reveals a pivotal step in that journey: the first time Ben killed a Jedi. However, it doesn’t happen like you’d think.

Warning: full spoilers ahead!

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The first two issues of the series reveal that certain events only hinted at in the movies actually unfolded in quite a different manner. For one, Ben didn’t destroy the Jedi temple after his confrontation with Luke Skywalker. A strange, booming voice bellowed from the sky and Force-lightning struck the school and made it explode. Could it have been the Emperor? After that, Ben fled to his mentor Snoke, who greeted him with an uncharacteristically warm and fatherly hug. Snoke instructed Ben to seek out and join the Knights of Ren, but in order for him to join, the leader, named Ren, told Ben that he must kill someone and that it needed to be a good death.

In an attempt to prove himself worthy, Ben tells Ren of his first kill. He explains how three Jedi students who were off-planet at the time of the explosion — Voe, Hennix, and Tai — tracked him down and confronted him. They were his classmates in Luke’s Jedi school since they were kids. The story shows how there may have been certain tensions between Ben and the other three, but ultimately they were friends with one another. When the three Jedi catch up to Ben, they try to capture him and engage him in a three-on-one lightsaber battle.

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Ben is able to use his Force-jumping skills to create some distance, knowing that only Voe has the strength to follow him. Landing atop a precipice, Ben waits for Voe to reach him and then Force-pushes her off the cliff. He immediately regrets his decision and tries to save her with the Force, but Hennix had climbed up the cliffside to surprise him from behind. Hennix throws his lightsaber at Ben, and Ben reacts by blocking the saber and sending it right back at Hennix, but Hennix isn’t ready for the counter and is killed by his own lightsaber. Voe continues to fall but is caught at the last second by Vai. Ben ends the conflict by Force-tossing Voe and Vai into the nearby ancient temple and using the Force to cause a cave-in, sealing them inside.

After recalling this story, Ren tells Ben that the way he killed Vennis wasn’t a good death because he didn’t want it to happen. Regardless, Ren lets Ben join in hopes that he will get the chance to truly prove himself. Ben even gets a new all-black outfit resembling something his father Han Solo might wear, complete with a blaster strapped to the side of his leg.

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While the small bits of information we learn in the movies make it sound like Ben personally burnt down the temple and murdered Luke’s other students, the real story is quite different. Ben is incredibly conflicted about having to fight his fellow classmates. He tried to save one of them during their battle, and the one he did kill was on accident. The story shows how Ben was never good at handling his famous lineage and that he never learned to share his feelings, preferring to hide them away in an unhealthy manner.

Ben didn’t feel like he fit in at Luke’s Jedi academy, but that doesn’t automatically make him an evil murderer. It more feels like Ben was never cut out to be a Jedi, despite how gifted he was in the Force, but instead of dealing with his inner turmoil, he let it fester, and that made him an easy target for Snoke/Palpatine. This story shows how they took a misunderstood Jedi strong in the Force and manipulated him into falling to the Dark Side by framing him for murder and making it seem like his only option was to join a gang of Dark Side worshipers.

But despite the conflict raging within Ben, the two surviving Jedi have made up their minds about what to do with him. When Voe and Vai escape the ruins and see that Ben killed Vennix, they take that as a clear sign that he is truly lost. They ignite their sabers, implying that their plan is no longer to capture Ben but kill him for falling to the Dark Side and taking the life of their friend.

For more on Kylo Ren, check out the video below where the Force Awakens fight choreographer breaks down how he constructed the epic battle between Rey and Kylo Ren:

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Joshua is Senior Features Editor at IGN. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.

Cuphead is invading Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s Spirit Board on Friday, February 14 for a five-day event with four themed battles, developer Studio MDHR announced.

The Cuphead Spirit event–called “Ready? Wallop!”–will run from February 14-19 and gives you the chance to collect four spirits based on the run-and-gun game’s characters. It will feature four themed battles resembling Cuphead scenarios, where you can pick up Cuphead, Mugman, King Dice, and The Devil as spirits to use in Adventure or Custom Smash mode.

This isn’t Cuphead’s only inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Players who create a Mii Gunner can purchase a Cuphead skin that replaces the entire model with a Smash Ultimate rendition of the titular character. This coincided with the launch of the game’s eighth Fire Emblem character, Fire Emblem: Three Houses‘ Byleth. The inclusion of Byleth garnered some backlash, with some fans voicing disapproval at the number of Fire Emblem characters in the game. Smash Ultimate’s director Masahiro Sakurai agrees there are too many Fire Emblem fighters.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Two new Masterminds and two new maps have been announced for Resident Evil: Resistance, the multiplayer component of the upcoming Resident Evil 3 remake.

Alex Wesker and Ozwell E. Spencer will each be playable Mastermind characters, with an abandoned horror-themed park and a casino available to torment Survivors in.

According to Capcom, Alex Wesker will have more traps compared to other Masterminds. She can set up barriers for Survivors like her plant-based bioweapon Yateveo. Yateveo doesn’t move but can be placed in front of objectives to cause some trouble for Survivors. Resident Evil 3 and Resistance producer Peter Fabiano told PlayStation Blog that he’s looking forward to seeing how players use Alex’s bioweapon.

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“You’ve got a few plant-based enemies in the Resident Evil series. Plant 42, Ivy, and the Huge Plant from the Outbreak games, for example. Yateveo doesn’t take direct influence from any of them – or maybe it indirectly does from all of them – but we thought it would be interesting to have a Mastermind use a creature that’s fixed in one spot,” Fabiano said. “This could add a layer of strategy to how Masterminds could play.”

Ozwell doesn’t even have a bioweapon. Instead, the character can place down a Disintegration Field that causes massive damage to Survivors. But, don’t worry, Fabiano said the Disintegration Field won’t affect creatures and will have an advantage on cooldown rate compared to the bioweapons.

“The cooldown is much shorter than other bioweapons, and only does damage to the Survivors – the creatures he places are unaffected. He’s able to constantly redirect Survivor movement to his advantage by changing the stage’s layout, and it also changes the pacing of gameplay with Spencer compared to other Masterminds,” Fabiano said. “Instead of one big game changing moment, he slowly but steadily wears out the Survivors.”

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Resistance is a non-canon multiplayer game that comes with the remake of Resident Evil 3, which is due out on April 3 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Resistance has four players as Survivors fighting their way through a map while a fifth player acts as a Mastermind. The Mastermind places traps and creatures all over the map in an effort to take out the four Survivors. Fabiano previously talked about how it’s “impossible” for Resistance to be canon and here’s everything else we know about the Resident Evil 3 remake.

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Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN who will gladly pay $60 for Resident Evil 3, but really really wants Resident Evil 8.

“I knew from the moment I saw you where you were going,” a creepy rideshare driver says as he pulls up to a mansion in Los Angeles and drops Cherie (Ella Balinska) off. We don’t know what’s happened at the mansion, or why he seems almost happy to be dropping a woman off there, but we know it must not be good. Cherie is here for a date with Ethan (Pilou Asbæk), a wealthy bachelor her boss set her up with. After a few pleasantries and a drink in the giant house filled with what looks like ancient Egyptian imagery, Ethan breaks the fourth wall, looks into the camera, and signals with a smirk for it to wait outside. We remain outside for almost a minute, hearing only the screams from inside. After the door opens again, all hell breaks loose.

Shana Feste‘s Run Sweetheart Run gives the survive-the-night horror film a new twist, but there’s also a thinly-veiled metaphor at the center of a shallow plot. Before being forced to run through the streets of LA alone at night, Cherie is looking forward to her first date in a while. Being a single working mother still trying to distance herself from her volatile ex, she needed some time off for herself, especially since her boss set her up with a wealthy bachelor she hopes will be a nice guy. Oh, and to make matters worse, Cherie is on her period, and her toddler flushed her last tampon down the toilet right before she headed out on her date.

By the time she leaves Ethan’s mansion, she’s bloodied, tired, and scared, but she’ll find little comfort on the streets, as the moment she calls the cops, they arrest her for public intoxication. Somehow, Ethan convinces the cops to release her, but not before intimidating her one last time with a threatening proposition: If she can survive until dawn, she’s free to go.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the organization behind E3, has released a list of major publishers that will be attending this year’s expo.

That list includes Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Take-Two, Square Enix, Capcom, Bandai Namco, Warner Bros., and SEGA, according to the ESA.

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The news comes shortly after E3 Coliseum producer-host Geoff Keighley announced he won’t be attending this year’s show. In response to a question on Twitter, Keighley elaborated on his decision, saying he doesn’t “really feel comfortable participating given what I know about the show as of today.”

Sony previously announced it’s skipping E3 for the second consecutive year, as the company doesn’t “feel the vision of E3 2020 is the right venue for what we are focused on this year” — a year that includes a console launch in PlayStation 5 this holiday season.

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The ESA also announced public registration for E3 2020 will open on February 15. The company said E3 2020 will feature new experiences for attendees and livestream viewers, including an “all-new floor experience that will be streamed to bring exclusive conversations with leading industry innovators and creators.”

A report published in September stated the ESA is looking to make E3 2020 a “fan, media, and influencer festival.”

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Jordan is a freelance writer for IGN.

Pokemon Home is now live on Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android devices. The new service lets you store Pokemon you’ve caught in various games in the cloud and bring them into the series’ latest installments, Sword and Shield. (You can even nab free Pokemon just for using the service.)

Through Pokemon Home, you can bring over Pokemon you have stored in Pokemon Bank on 3DS to the Switch, meaning it’s now possible to get a handful of non-Galar Pokemon in Sword and Shield, including other regional forms. However, the transfer process can be a little confusing, so we’ve put together this guide explaining how to move Pokemon from Bank and other games to Home.

Before we get into how to transfer your pocket monsters, it is recommended you first download Pokemon Home on your mobile device and link that to your Nintendo Account before doing the same on Switch. If you want to bring over monsters from Bank, you’ll also need to have a paid Pokemon Home subscription, as that is one of the features reserved exclusively for the premium plan. You can learn more in our Pokemon Home pricing guide.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Epic Games has a new president. Adam Sussman, who most recently worked at the sneaker and athletics company Nike, will be heading up the publisher. Sussman announced the news with a note on LinkedIn. An Epic Games spokesperson confirmed the move to GameSpot.

“While it’s bittersweet, I am so excited to join Epic and honored to be part of the remarkable team that has built one of the biggest games in the world,” he said. “2020 will be a big year… A Return to gaming, a move to North Carolina and an opportunity to help change the future of gaming.”

Sussman served as Chief Digital Officer at Nike. Prior to that, he was a senior VP at Zynga, a senior VP at Disney, and Vice President of Worldwide Publishing at EA.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

After Parasite cleaned up at the Oscars, winning four Academy Awards including Best Picture, people appear to be pretty hyped to see the movie in the theaters. According to Deadline, advance ticket sales for the film jumped 443% on Fandango by the end of the day on Monday after the Oscars. The film distributor Neon has also decided to show the film in over 2000 locations across America, despite being out on DVD already.

The film was already doing exceptionally well at the box office, making $35.5 million in North America before the Academy Awards, but after the Oscar win, analysts project it could make as much as $50 million, which would make it the fourth highest grossing non-English film of all time.

Parasite, a thriller about people from different classes colliding in Seoul, South Korea, is the first non-English-language film in Oscar history to win best picture. The film also won Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature. It was a pretty good night for all of Parasite’s cast and crew, including director Bong Joon-ho who upon his Oscar win, said he was ready to drink “until next morning”.

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The live-action remake of the manga and anime classic Akira has been in various stages of development over the past decade, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any closer to happening. Most recently, Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi has been attached to write and direct the movie. But in a new interview, Waititi suggests that the movie is likely to be made without him.

Speaking to Variety, Waititi explained that delays to Akira meant that it ended up potentially clashing with work on his upcoming Marvel sequel, Thor: Love and Thunder. “The whole thing went on hold,” he said. “We had to keep pushing the dates, and it encroached on the Thor dates, which were immovable. So Akira ended up shifting two years down the track.”

Waititi went on to say that Akira was now so far off that he no longer knew if he would be still be involved. “So I’m not sure if even in two years I’d be–I don’t know what I’m doing in f***ing two days,” he said. “I think eventually it will happen. I’m just not sure if I’ll be doing it.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

With Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite making history at the 2020 Oscars, what better excuse to look back at some of the best foreign-language thrillers from the last few years.