Month: June 2020

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New If Found Patch Update Tweaks Script, Adds Bug Fixes

Developer Dreamfeel has released a new patch for If Found. The update is currently only out for Windows–it will be released for MacOS in “the next few days,” according to a Steam blog post.

“This [update] fixes a number of issues, polishes the graphics in a couple of sections, updates the localisation, and tweaks some parts of the script, particularly around Mac & Cassiopeia,” Dreamfeel writes in the blog post.

The most notable issue addressed has to do with If Found’s Steam achievements, as some of them (like “Trans Rights!”) have been glitched since the game launched, preventing players from unlocking them. The update also addresses a problem that was causing players to become stuck if they exited the game from the Bog Road Heist or Anomaly chapter and then tried to resume playing. The full patch notes are outlined below.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

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The Last of Us Part 2 Director Details New Enemy Factions

The Last of Us Part 2 is Naughty Dog’s biggest game yet, and while that doesn’t mean the sequel is going open world, it does mean Naughty Dog is aiming to create an expansive, varied new series of environments for players to explore and survive.

Speaking to IGN ahead of The Last of Us Part 2’s final preview embargo, Director Neil Druckmann explained both the development team’s approach to creating Seattle, and how the introduction of new enemy factions added more variety to both story and gameplay.

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“One of the reasons we picked Seattle is because of how many diverse locations it has. We knew we’re going to spend a lot of time in the city and, like a good Naughty Dog game, we need to switch things up as far as art styles and locations go,” Druckmann said, noting the variety of city, residential, and environmental areas in the Pacific Northwest.

“So the team studied a lot of the architecture of the city, the foliage that grows in that part of the country. They scanned different materials so we can make them authentic.”

These decisions of course, are in concert with ensuring the level designers can create interesting exploration and combat spaces for players — as Druckmann said, they do a bit of “location scouting.”

“And then the level designers what they would do is also study that architecture as well,” he said. “What are interesting locations for exploration or for our new physics system to get different kinds of puzzles.

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“For combat, this has been an ongoing principle, [we want] to combine the familiar with the unfamiliar,” Druckmann continued, noting that residential areas, now overgrown with vegetation in this post-pandemic world, can offer something unexpected.

Druckmann also pointed to how the use of Seattle’s sewers and other similarly “creepy, dank areas” allowed the team to play up the sequel’s horror elements.

“We have Stalkers that are grown into the wall and sometimes they’re dead and nothing will happen, and sometimes they’ll rip off the wall and charge at you,” he teased.

Seattle is also home to the Washington Liberation Front and the Seraphites, two groups Ellie will contend with that offer new combat challenges playing to the strengths of the environmental design.

“You have the WLF, this secular militaristic faction and then the Seraphites, this religious group that has rejected technology of the old world and they built everything from the ground up,” Druckmann said.

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“Those two groups and their conflicts speaks to the cycle of violence, but mechanically how we wanted to separate them, the WLF has accrued all this military equipment. So they use more machine guns and they have vehicles in certain setups,” he continued.

“But the Searphites, what makes them creepy and scary to go up against is they’re very stealthy and quiet … and they’ll sneak up on you and use the vegetation the way that Ellie does and the WLF doesn’t.”

For more, read up on what Druckmann recently had to say about how the infected enemies in The Last of Us Part 2 have changed, as well as what he told us last year about how enemy dogs lead to tough choices in The Last of Us Part 2. Learn about some of the incredible tiny details Naughty Dog is filling the sequel with, and find out when you can read IGN’s The Last of Us Part 2 review.

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Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior News Editor, host of Podcast Beyond!, IGN’s weekly PlayStation podcast. Find him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

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The Artist Behind Batman Costumes Made the SpaceX Astronaut Suits

The NASA astronauts aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon ventured into space in suits custom-made by the same artist who helped suit up and armor many big screen superheroes, from Batman and Wonder Woman to Captain America and Wolverine.

Ironhead Studio’s Jose Fernandez created the very cool and elegant flight suits worn by the SpaceX astronauts, which you can check out below:

Fernandez applied what he learned creating form-fitting but flexible garb on superhero movies to the Daft Punk-esque SpaceX suits. (The Daft Punk resemblance is no accident, as Forbes points out, since Fernandez has made some of the musicians’ signature helmets.)

Fernandez credits SpaceX founder Elon Musk with the visual formality of the flight suits. “He (Musk) kept saying, ‘Anyone looks better in a tux, no matter what size or shape they are,’ and when people put this space suit on, he wants them to look better than they did without it, like a tux. You look heroic in it,” Fernandez explained to Forbes.

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But the SpaceX flight suits weren’t just designed for style but for function and safety. As an expert in joinery, Fernandez was able to build suits made of different materials which have to meet up perfectly and also be air proof. Fernandez was also able to address an issue that’s dogged NASA since the era of the Apollo missions: astronauts not being able to move their heads thanks to their bolted-on helmets and thus having an obstructed field of vision.

As the artist who sculpted the cowl that allowed Ben Affleck’s Caped Crusader to turn his head in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Fernandez’s helmets have an articulated neck piece among other features that make these flight suits lighter and allow better vision for the astronauts.

In the tweet seen below, NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley praise the suits for their comfortability and ease in getting in and out of in a zero gravity environment:

In addition to Batfleck’s cowl, Fernandez’s Ironhead Studio also created that film’s Bat-mech suit. He previously worked on Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin. Fernandez also worked on Wonder Woman’s armor in BvS. Fernandez has also lent his skills to plenty of Marvel movies, sculpting the helmets for Captain America, Thor, Loki, and Magneto. Ironhead also built the Black Panther helmet from Captain America: Civil War.

Fernandez also designed and sculpted the makeup, helmet, and armor for Thanos in Marvel’s The Avengers, and worked on The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Abe Sapien in Hellboy, and The Thing in the original Fantastic Four movies. He also designed and constructed the specialty costumes in X2: X-Men United, including Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.

You can view Fernandez and Ironhead’s many comic book movie designs on Instagram.

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