Month: March 2020

Anyone can get married at a beach, church, or winery, but how many of your friends have tied the knot on an alien planet? (Okay, fine, at a recreation of an alien planet, but a very lifelike one.)

Disney has offered custom weddings and honeymoons at its various theme parks and resorts for years, and thanks to its unscripted docuseries, Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings (currently streaming on Disney+), viewers can now peek behind the curtain to find out what it takes to have a wedding in the Valley of Mo’ara on Pandora, the alien planet introduced in James Cameron’s Avatar, which has been brought to life at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida.

For an exclusive look at Patrice and Dontrell’s wedding in Pandora from this week’s episode of Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings, premiering on Disney+ on March 6, watch the video below or at the top of the page:

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While the gorgeous venue at Pandora does look like a nice spot to get hitched, we really wanted to know if Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge is up for grabs. In order to learn about all things related to Disney weddings, IGN spoke to  Korri McFann, Marketing Director of Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings, to see what dreams can come true.

“We do offer ways to celebrate Star Wars theming throughout your wedding however, at this time, Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge is not an available venue, McFann told IGN. “But who knows what the future may hold.”

Some iconic locations that are currently available include the Tower of Terror courtyard at Disney World’s Hollywood Studios, the Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom, locations in many of the countries around Epcot, the iconic railroad train station at Magic Kingdom, and the courtyards in front of the castles at Disneyland and Magic Kindgom.

McFann told us that the Disney weddings team has you covered every step of the way “from your engagement ring, to the first phone call with your wedding planner, picking out your wedding dress, to your wedding day, your honeymoon, and your return visits to Disney destinations.”

IGN can also exclusively reveal some first-look photos of the Pandoran wedding in the gallery below:

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“This wedding was truly a special way to celebrate in a beautiful land inspired by the power and the majesty of nature,” McFann said. “For this wedding, we incorporated exotic floral down the aisle and simple wooden benches to complement the beautiful surroundings at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.”

One of the important things to consider if a Disney wedding sounds like your cup of tea (in addition to the price tag, of course – event minimum costs can range from $5,000 up to $50,000) is that your ceremony will either take place early in the morning before the parks officially open or late at night after the parks close, which are the only times the venues are free of tourists who might stumble in and ruin your photo op. “But, as you can see from the Pandora setting, having your guests rise a little earlier for a sunrise wedding is worth the effort,” McFann noted, saying couples can follow @DisneyWeddings on social media to keep up with the latest news and announcements.

“A Pandoran Wedding” featuring Patrice and Dontrell premieres on Disney+ on Friday, March 6, 2020.

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David Griffin still watches DuckTales in his pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. He’s also the TV Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.

Ubisoft announced that The Division 2 will go down for “unscheduled maintenance” tomorrow, March 6 at 12:30 AM PST in order to implement a patch that addresses bugs and Dark Zone problems.

The studio tweeted that The Division 2’s maintenance will start at 12:30 AM PST / 3:30 AM EST / 8:30 AM GMT and is expected to last for approximately three hours. Ubisoft provided some patch notes for the upcoming update, which you can see below, but said it’s still “verifying all the fixes that will be deployed.” More information on the update should arrive sometime during the maintenance window, Ubisoft said.

The patch makes a number of adjustments to The Division 2, including fixing issues around odd NPC behaviors, significantly reducing the damage of the IWI Negev light machine gun, rewarding missing Specialization Points when leveling between 31-40, stabilizing the server, and more.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

HBO’s hit series Westworld will be returning for Season 3 on March 15. The futuristic sci-fi series has seen its characters go through some unique changes, mainly robots realizing they are robots and revolting in one way or another. If you need a quick refresher before Season 3 airs, check out our breakdown of what happened to every character at the end of Season 2.

The network behind the series has released the schedule for the first four episodes, revealing the release dates along with the episode titles, leading into April. Check them out below.

Westworld Season 3 release schedule and episode titles:

• Episode 1: “Parce Domine” – Sunday, March 15
• Episode 2: “The Winter Line” – Sunday, March 22
• Episode 3: “The Absence of Field” – Sunday, March 27
• Episode 4: “The Mother of Exiles” – Sunday, April 5

Additionally, the episode description for Episode 1 was revealed: “If you’re stuck in a loop, try walking in a straight line.” Because this series is filled with mystery, surely all the Westworld fans will pick this a part. The kickoff to the new season will be written by executive producers Lisa Joy & Jonathan Nolan, with Nolan directing.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

We speedrun our way through the city of Midgar, trying to complete the Final Fantasy VII demo’s mission to destroy the Sector 1 reactor as Cloud, Barret, and the rest of the Avalanche crew.

Disney’s Mulan is projected to have a domestic debut of $85 million, according to early tracking.

If The Hollywood Reporter‘s tracking is correct, Mulan will beat every other opening in 2020 so far with Bad Boys for Life, the biggest 2020 opening as of now, poised to drop to second place at $68.4 million. To put into perspective what an $85 million opening for Mulan looks like, Disney’s last remake of one of their animated classics, 2019’s The Lion King, brought in $185 million during its opening weekend.

The Lion King soared above last year’s live-action Aladdin, which opened to $91 million, and tracking shows Mulan to be just under Aladdin. $85 million is nothing to scoff at though. Aladdin eventually surpassed $1 billion at the box office. $85 million would still place Mulan into the upper echelons of domestic openings for Disney’s live-action remakes.

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It’s important to note, though, that Mulan is doing a lot more than simply recreating the original 1998 animated film, which is why audiences won’t see Mulan’s dragon sidekick Mushu or her famous haircut in the new movie. Moviegoers also shouldn’t expect this Mulan to randomly break into song, although the score will callback to those classic tunes from the original film.

It’s also a PG-13 film, unlike its G-rated animated counterpart. It’s easy to see why with the stunts and action exhibited in recent trailers and featurettes.

Mulan is set to open March 27 and is directed by Niko Caro (Whale Rider, The Zookeeper’s Wife). The titular hero is played by Chinese actress Liu Yifei, also known as Crystal Liu. Last year, the actress found herself at the center of a controversy after making a statement of support for Hong Kong’s police amidst protests.

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You can catch up on all things Mulan by checking out a sneak peek trailer from this year’s Super Bowl and by looking at some recent character posters. We’ve also got some official photos from the movie to tide you over until you see it in theaters later this month.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

Looking to upgrade your laptop? Amazon has some pocketbook-friendly discounts on all the latest models of Apple’s MacBook lineup. That includes the MacBook Air as well as both the 13- and 16-inch versions of the powerful MacBook Pro. If you want to save up to $300 on an Apple laptop, now’s your chance. Read on for the details.

MacBook Air Deals (Latest Model)

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• 128GB – $949 (was $1099)
• 256GB – $1129 (was $1299)

The standard MacBook Air is a great computer for anyone who doesn’t do heavy-duty tasks regularly. And you rarely see it drop below $1000, where the baseline model resides today. These machines come with dual-core eighth-generation Intel Core i5 processors, 8GB RAM, and Intel UHD Graphics 617. You have a choice between a speedy 128GB SSD or a 256GB one.

13″ MacBook Pro Deals (Latest Model)

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• 256GB – $1499 (was $1799)
• 512GB – $1699 (was $1999)

If you need a little more power than the Air can provide, you’ll want to step up to a MacBook Pro. These machines come with eighth-generation 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 processors and Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655. They sport 8GB RAM and super-speedy SSDs. They also have four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, the handy Touch Bar, and TouchID scanners to use in place of clunky passwords. The only choice you have to make is how much storage you want the SSD to have.

16″ MacBook Pro Deals (Latest Model)

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• Core i7, 512GB – $2149 (was $2399)
• Core i9, 1TB – $2499 (was $2799)

The newest addition to the MacBook Pro family is the 16-inch model. These beastly machines feature ninth-generation Intel Core processors with up to eight cores, 16GB RAM, and AMD Radeon Pro 5000M series graphics. The other big selling point here is that the 16-inch Pro’s keyboard runs on an updated scissor mechanism that offers more travel and (probably) better reliability. I use “probably” there just because they haven’t been on the market as long as the previous butterfly mechanism keyboards.

Any way you slice it, the 16-inch MBP is a beast, and it’s price reflects that. But you’ll save up to $300 by buying from Amazon right now instead of Apple. Might as well, yeah?

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Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

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Developer Remedy Entertainment has confirmed that its surreal action-adventure game Control will get some new content and improvement sometime this month on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

The studio’s communications director Thomas Puha tweeted that Remedy will drop The Foundation DLC at some point this March. With that expansion’s launch, which is part of the game’s $25 Season Pass, Remedy will also implement some quality-of-life improvements to enhance Control’s gameplay. These improvements include more tweaks to the maligned map and “some other requested” changes. Puha provided no concrete date for when to expect these adjustments, but he did say Remedy will “show and talk about it soon.”

The Foundation will be Control’s first major expansion and follows December 2019’s Expeditions DLC. Revealed as part of Control’s roadmap, The Foundation will see Jesse Faden descend beneath the Bureau to restore order the Oldest House. The Foundation originally had a vague “early 2020” date attached to it and will be followed-up by Control’s second expansion, AWE, in mid-2020. It seems the AWE DLC may connect Control to one of Remedy’s most popular games, 2010’s Alan Wake.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Alex Garland’s new tech-thriller mini-series questions the fabric of the universe, the existence of free will, and the n

Alex Garland’s Devs is finally here, and following its two-part series premiere on Hulu, we’re guessing that you’ve got some questions swirling around your head. Don’t worry, we did too. We’ll just cut right to the chase here and admit that we don’t know anything about quantum computing, so this show is a learning experience all around–but, hopefully, it’s one that will continue to both delight and terrify us for six more episodes.

If you’re a fan of Annihilation or Ex Machina, chances are you’re pretty familiar with Garland’s dense visual style. Symbolism? Check. Ominous foreshadowing? Check. Layers upon layers of double, sometimes even triples? Check, check, and check. And Devs is bringing all of that to the forefront in a major way. Following Lily, an encryption programer at a massive Silicon Valley tech company named Amaya, as she struggles to unravel the truth of her boyfriend Sergei’s mysterious disappearance, Devs is one part tech-thriller, one part existential nightmare set in the fantastic (but not too fantastic) present day. It makes use of tech that doesn’t exit, but definitely could, and examines exactly what our responsibility is should that fantasy become reality.

We’ve broken down every little detail, subtle nod, or potential mystery trailhead you’ll want to follow or note for the reason of the season. Did you catch anything we missed? Let us know in the comments below.

Sergei’s phone

Did you notice that the first thing Sergei does during his introductory shot is to first unplug then check his phone, before even saying good morning to Lily? This probably didn’t seem all that strange at first, but given the major reveal about Sergei’s other job as a Russian spy, it’s safe to assume he was checking on instructions or communication from his handlers.

Pete the homeless guy

Pete, the homeless man who lives on Sergei and Lily’s stoop, got a really surprising amount of screen time in episodes 1 and 2. We’re guessing that there’s going to be something more going on with him. He’s probably someone you’ll want to pay attention to

Amaya

It doesn’t take much to put two and two together about the origin of Amaya’s name. Our first shot of the company campus features her giant statue looming over the forest. It’s later, in the second episode, that Forest confirms Amaya was the name of his late daughter.

Qubits

Forest explains that competitors are pissed that Amaya’s “qubits” work and theirs don’t–this isn’t sci-fi technobabble invented for the show. A qubit is a real unit of information used in quantum computing.

The Nematode

Another real thing that wasn’t invented for the show–Sergei’s team’s AI system can predict and sync up with the movements of a nematode, a real-life microscopic organism.

Fibonacci Numbers

Lily’s teammate challenges her to list off numbers–the whole thing starts seemingly out of nowhere, but it feels like something they’ve definitely done before. They’re going through a Fibonacci sequence, where each number is the sum of the previous two numbers–so 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 and so on.

Alchemy

One of Sergei’s guesses as to the Devs mission is cold fusion, which Forest dismisses as “alchemy.” In other words, he considers it impossible.

Faraday cage

One of the Devs unit’s layers of protection is a Faraday shield, also known as a Faraday cage, which shields the insides from electromagnetic waves–or, it seems, in this case, keeps those waves in.

“The Machine”/The Central Unit

If you’re unfamiliar with real-world quantum computing, you might assume (like we did) that the machine in the Devs unit is some sort of steampunk-flavored art piece designed for the show. It’s not. That’s actually what real life quantum computers look like.

Sergei’s Watch

Sergei may be genuinely clutching his face in awe at the sight of the quantum computer, but it also conveniently places his “James Bond wrist watch” in position to snap a picture.

Sergei’s freakout

At the time, it seemed like Sergei’s freak-out was related to his nerves about stealing Amaya’s code–it’s a scary thing to do, obviously, for more than one reason. But knowing what we know now, it seems equally likely that Sergei could have realized what the Devs code was doing and, in that moment, understood that Forest already knew he had come to Amaya as a spy. After all, if the code calculates cause and effect, it could have traced the causes that led Sergei to where he was.

Forrest, Savior

Did you catch how the light halos around the trees give Forest a halo of his own? It’s pretty hard to miss.

Forrest and Kenton’s bit

Kenton and Forest’s conversation with poor, panicking Lily seems too well-oiled to be unpracticed. It’s either something they rehearsed beforehand, or it’s a bit they’ve done before because Sergei is not the first person they’ve made disappear. Either way, the implications are pretty ominous.

Colossus by DF Jones

Lily’s reading a classic sci-fi novel about super computers taking over the Earth.

“That was clumsy.”

Before we learn about Amaya’s tragic fate, we get a tease from Katie, who relates a child falling ill to something that will make even the most rational people start praying. She immediately realizes her mistake and says “that was clumsy.” Forest, for his part, seems unbothered.

Sergei “Pavlov”

Knowing what we know about Sergei, we can assume his name is an alias given to him by his handlers as cover. They just so happened to pick a last name that he’d share with Pavlov, the psychologist most famous for studying conditioned reflexes–in other words, manipulating cause and effect.

Forest’s car

Forest’s entire life is frozen in time, apparently at the moment his daughter died. You can approximate this by noticing the car he’s still driving–an early ’00s Subaru Outback.

Dark Souls 3

Jamie’s definitely a gamer. We meet him in his apartment playing Dark Souls 3.

Bach and Coltrane

Stewart namechecks classic composer Bach and jazz legend Coltrane to try and one up Lyndon. OK, boomer.

2000 year backward projection

The Devs unit makes an unprecedented 2000 year backward projection, showing us none other than Jesus Chris on the day of his crucifixion. The implications here–along with the added layer of Judeo-Christian symbolism–are pretty wild.

Alienware

Jamie, being a True Gamer, uses an Alienware branded laptop in his efforts to crack Sergei’s Sudoku messaging app.

Battery Godfrey

Lily meets with Anton at Battery Godfrey, a real historical site at the Golden Gate Bridge.

Note: this is a mostly spoiler-free review of Castlevania Season 3, which is available to stream now on Netflix. The main section of the review only covers basic plot and character details, with more specific twists discussed in a spoiler-marked section at the end. If you need a refresher on the series, check out our Castlevania: Season 1 review and Castlevania: Season 2 review.

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Netflix’s Castlevania series is undoubtedly the finest video game adaptation ever made. Even so, it’s hard not to approach Season 3 with some degree of trepidation. Can a series that did so much to paint Dracula as a tragic, nuanced villain in its first two seasons maintain that level of quality now that Dracula has gone from undead to just plain dead? Castlevania fans needn’t worry. The series not only survives the loss of this critical character, it somehow manages to get even better in the process.

Dracula’s absence casts a wide shadow over the third season. Picking up a couple of months after the dramatic final battle at Castle Dracula, Season 3 sees all the surviving characters scattered to the wind and seeking new purpose. Alucard (James Callis) is now the lonely steward of his father’s abandoned castle. Trevor (Richard Armitage) and Sypha (Alejandra Reynoso Agueda) are enjoying the honeymoon phase of their budding romance as they become travelling monster hunters. The treacherous vampire queen Carmilla (Jaime Murray) returns home to Styria with her captive prize Hector (Theo James) in tow. And not to be outdone, Isaac (Adetokumboh M’Cormack) begins his single-minded crusade to punish humanity for destroying his master.

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Dracula may be gone, but Season 3 introduces a number of new characters to fill the void and take advantage of the longer 10-episode structure. Carmilla is joined by her three sisters – Lenore (Jessica Brown Findlay), Morana (Yasmine Al Massri) and Striga (Ivana Milicevic). Trevor and Sypha’s travels put them in the path of several key players like the worldly Saint Germain (Bill Nighy), a town official known only as The Judge (Jason Isaacs), and a creepy monk named Sala (Navid Negahban). Finally, Alucard’s solitude is interrupted by the appearance of two aspiring vampire hunters named Taka (Toru Uchikado) and Sumi (Rila Fukushima).

With the main cast divided along many fronts and so many new faces being introduced, Season 3 has a much looser and more organic feel than the past two seasons. Before, the end point was pretty clear, with all roads leading to that final battle with Dracula. Now the series faces a more uncertain future, and one ripe with potential. If these disparate threads are meant to eventually intertwine, that’s not really apparent in Season 3. Executive producer Adi Shankar, writer/co-showrunner Warren Ellis and co-showrunner Kevin Kolde are taking a very slow, steady approach to charting the series’ future. Season 3 plays like a transitional story bridging the Dracula conflict with another cataclysmic battle still in its early stages.

That might not sound like a terribly exciting pitch, but the fact is that Castlevania is often at its best when it moves slowly and allows its characters to breathe, converse and search for meaning. Having Ellis as the series’ sole writer continues to work in its favor. Ellis has a very distinctive voice marked by equal parts sarcastic, self-aware humor and burning tragedy. Ellis is able to paint the Castlevania universe as a nihilistic wonderland where magic and misery go hand-in-hand. In Castlevania’s vision of the 15th Century, Hell is a real and tangible place, while traces of the divine and holy are few and far between. Vanquishing the most powerful vampire the world has ever seen doesn’t necessarily bring peace to the land. Nor does it give our heroes happiness or fulfillment.

As in Season 2, the series devotes an incredible amount of attention to ensuring all characters – good or evil, major or minor – are fully realized people with clear desires and motivations. Perhaps no chapter better illustrates this than episode 6, which shifts focus away from the main trio of protagonists and onto Saint Germain and Isaac. Up to that point, the former is depicted as a debonair man of science, but here his soul is laid bare and the full scope of the Castlevania universe begins to reveal itself. As for Isaac, he may well be the most compelling player in the Season 3 mix, given his commitment to what he sees as a righteous crusade and his moral code, despite plotting the mass extinction of humanity. In episode 6, the series reveals that even the undead Night Creatures under his thrall have wants and desires, exploring how these unholy monsters retain shreds of the lives they once lived.

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Again, these various story threads never really converge over the course of Season 3. There are hints of the larger war to come on the Carmilla front, but that can is kicked down the road to Season 4. Season 3 still manages to be cohesive and tonally consistent, however. Loneliness and the desire for connection are the central themes of the season. We see it in Trevor and Sypha’s fumbling efforts to find happiness together. We see it in Alucard’s rush to become a mentor to Sumi and Taka. We see it in the growing bond between Hector and Lenore, the one woman in Styria who shows compassion for Carmilla’s captive pet. Even with Isaac, his travels are less about building an army than exploring how he can’t seem to avoid connecting with his fellow humans despite his intense disdain for them. Season 3 may not always be heavy on plot, but it’s never boring.

The new season does share one key structural similarity with Season 2. Just as Season 2 paid off a long, slow buildup with a dramatic, action-packed battle with Dracula, Season 3 culminates in two final episodes that up the bloodshed and spectacle considerably. Even though the series remains divided along several fronts at that point, episode 9 creates unity through a montage of violent action and sexual release (sometimes both at once). This is where the show’s striking animation stands out the most. While it does become obvious when scenes switch between traditional 2D characters and the more fluid but less detailed CG models, the sheer scope of the action and the ingenuity in the monster designs and fight scenes are more than enough to make up for those weird transitions.

The series also continues to benefit from a talented cast of voice actors. Several returning faces are given the opportunity to push their characters in new directions. Callis succeeds in exploring a more vulnerable, lonely side of Alucard, while M’Cormack shines even more now that Isaac is a free agent in charge of his own destiny. The new additions in Season 3 further add to that appeal. Nighy is predictably excellent as the outwardly carefree but inwardly haunted Saint Germain. Isaacs is very entertaining as the tightly wound Judge. Findlay brings a welcome sense of ambiguity to the role of Lenore, a character whose true intentions remain shrouded in mystery until the very end of the season. Only Uchikado and Fukushima fall a little short of the mark. Their heavy accents leave little room for subtlety and make it difficult to parse their characters’ true motives and thoughts toward Alucard. Maybe that was the point, but it works against the Alucard storyline for much of the season.

Warning: the remainder of this review contains spoilers for Castlevania: Season 3!

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Ultimately, even with the season remaining divided along several fronts and serving more as a preamble to Season 4 than a self-contained story, the final two episodes manage to wrap things up on a very satisfying note. The weird dynamic between Alucard and his pupils is justified in the ultimate payoff, as Sumi and Taka attempt to seduce and betray him to steal the secrets of Castle Dracula for themselves. These two characters aren’t as important as what they mean for Alucard himself. Seeing Alucard impale his two would-be murderers and openly acknowledge how much he’s become like his father is a haunting way of ending Season 3. It also suggests the series may diverge from the source material by angling Alucard to truly become Dracula’s successor rather than actually resurrecting Dracula.

Trevor and Sypha’s storyline also ends on a fittingly bleak note. While it could be argued that the two don’t grow or evolve much over the course of Season 3 (they’re still on the road and hunting monsters), the point is clearly to show how Sypha’s innate hope and optimism are strained by seeing the world through a Belmont’s eyes. They did their best to save a city besieged by unholy monks, and all they got, in the end, was scores of dead civilians and a Judge who turned out to be just as wicked as Sala and his men. All three main heroes are united by a growing sense of disillusionment with the world around them.

Finally, it’s worth touching a bit more on Saint Germain. Between Nighy’s performance and the humorous dynamic Germain shares with Trevor and Sypha, he’s probably the best addition to the mix in Season 3. His arc is also one of the strongest, as he evolves from self-interested book hunter to the key to stopping Dracula’s return in the finale. Germain also serves a valuable role as a foothold into a larger universe, helping move Castlevania beyond the realm of supernatural horror and into a more sci-fi-oriented direction. It’s impossible to watch Germain’s psychedelic odyssey in episode 6 and not wonder if this is the first step toward the Devil May Cry series and the “Bootleg Multiverse” Shankar has been teasing.

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A new set of Fortnite Season 2 challenges is now live. This week’s batch is themed around TNTina, another character skin you can unlock through the Season 2 Battle Pass. In keeping with the character, most of the challenges involve explosives, but there’s one that asks you to visit 15 different landmarks. If you need help tracking those down, we’ve put together a map and guide showing you where to go.

Where Are The Landmark Locations?

There are a ton of landmarks scattered around the island, but the problem is they aren’t explicitly marked on the map, which may make them tricky to find. To help you along, we’ve marked the locations of 27 landmarks on the map below. This map isn’t comprehensive; there are more landmarks around the island beyond the ones we’ve listed, but these should be more than enough to help you complete the challenge.

Continue Reading at GameSpot