Developer Crystal Dynamics has detailed the latest weekly updates for Marvel’s Avengers. The weekly reset has opened up two new Priority Missions, during which players have to uncover a SHIELD vault and fend off AIM forces in the process of unlocking it. The rewards for completing these missions will be unique gear that isn’t available anywhere else in the game. Modifiers are also active and include increased cryo damage from players, enemy health regeneration, and toxic hazards:
Desert Vault (Low Power Level)
Modifiers:
Famine: Enemies do not drop Regen Packs when defeated.
Outbreak: Toxic hazards are added to the environment. Gamma damage from enemies and the environment are increased.
Collider: Particle damage from players is increased.
Guaranteed Reward: Polychoron and Hero-Specific Gear
Michael Ancel, creator of Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil, has said he’s leaving the world of video games to open a wildlife sanctuary – but assured fans that work on Wild and Beyond Good & Evil 2 will continue without him.
Posting on Instagram, the director wrote: “Today is very special for me. After more than 30 years, I’ve decided to stop working on video games and fully focus on my second passion : Wild Life ! My new project takes place in the real world and consists in a wild life open sanctuary dedicated to education , nature lovers and … wild animals.”
Addressing his currently ongoing projects, Ancel reassured fans: “Many of you might want to know what will happen to Wild and BGE2. No worries, since many months now the teams are autonomous and the projects are going super well. Beautiful things to be seen soon.”
In an update on Beyond Good & Evil 2, senior producer Guillaume Brunier wrote: “For years, Michel imparted his creative vision and helped us remain faithful to BG&E’s incredible universe. His uncompromising passion pushed us to redefine what was possible in crafting an expansive, multicultural, and futuristic science-fiction world. As we move forward, we are all committed to remaining true to this vision.”
An Ubisoft press release also pays tribute to the director:
“Today Ubisoft announces that Michel Ancel has chosen to leave the video game industry after an exceptional career spanning more than 30 years. A nature-lover, Michel has been working on a personal project dedicated to the protection of wildlife for a long time. This project, a wildlife sanctuary in the region of Montpellier, France, is now growing in scope, and he wishes to put his full effort into this longstanding passion.
Michel is at the origin of some of Ubisoft and the video game industry’s most beloved franchises, including Rayman, the Raving Rabbids and Beyond Good and Evil, whose second opus, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is currently in development. The teams at Ubisoft Montpellier are currently focusing on the main stages of production, aligned with the vision set out by Michel. They will have more to share with their community of fans in the months to come.
We would like to thank Michel for the incredible creative vision he has brought to Ubisoft over the course of his career, and wish him all the best for this new venture.”
Ancel rose to fame as the creator of Rayman, and has helped create every mainline game in the series, going on to helm Beyond Good & Evil and the video game adaptation of Peter Jackson’s King Kong.
We’ve contacted Wild Sheep Studio for comment.
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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
Sony has said that the company doesn’t plan to bring its new first-party games to a Game Pass-like subscription service because it wouldn’t be “sustainable.”
Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan broke the news in an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz. The interview noted the surprising reveal of the PlayStation Plus Collection during the PS5 conference, which will bring a library of the PS4’s best games to the console, available to PlayStation Plus subscribers for free.
In light of this news, Ryan was asked whether PlayStation might follow Microsoft’s lead in bringing all of its future first-party games to a subscription service upon the day of release.
“For us, having a catalogue of games is not something that defines a platform,” Ryan told GamesIndustry.Biz. “Our pitch, as you’ve heard, is ‘new games, great games.’ We have had this conversation before — we are not going to go down the road of putting new releases titles into a subscription model. These games cost many millions of dollars, well over $100 million, to develop. We just don’t see that as sustainable.”
Ryan added that Sony’s ambition is to make games “bigger and better, and hopefully at some stage more persistent.” A day-one first-party subscription model like Game Pass wouldn’t suit that ambition for PlayStation. “We want to expand and grow our existing ecosystem, and putting new games into a subscription model just doesn’t sit with that.”
Yesterday was bittersweet. The PS5 console and RTX 3080 video card both went up for order, and both sold out nearly instantly. As of now, it’s pretty much impossible to find a PS5 from an authorized reseller. For those lucky souls who did score, the PS5 accessories including the DualSense controller are still available on Amazon. For those looking for the RTX 3080 video card, we’ve only seen a single vendor that has anything in stock (and unfortunately you’ll have to pay over MSRP). However, there are gaming PC rigs featuring the RTX 3080 video card that are still available.
______________________________ Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out his latest Daily Deals Article and subscribe to his IGN Deals Newsletter.
A new Max Raid event has begun in Pokemon Sword and Shield. To commemorate the seasonal equinox, Pokemon that evolve via Sun or Moon Stones are appearing more frequently in Max Raid dens across the Wild Area and Isle of Armor, and you’ll have a chance to encounter Shiny Clefable in the Raids. You’ll need to act fast, however, as the event only runs through this weekend.
Until September 20, 4:59 PM PT / 7:59 PM ET, the following Pokemon will be featured in Max Raid battles across both Sword and Shield:
Clefable
Wigglytuff
Musharna
Bellossom
Whimsicott
Lilligant
As previously mentioned, you’ll also have a chance to encounter a Shiny Clefable in five-star Raids. In order for the event Pokemon to begin appearing in your game, you’ll first need to refresh your Raid dens. You can do this either by connecting the Y-Comm online or going into Mystery Gift from the menu screen and selecting Get the Wild Area News.
Wrestling feels cyclical sometimes, whether it’s one wrestler pays homage to another’s throwback gear or somebody makes a nod in a promo to a famous promo, but then there are blatant references of other wrestlers that might be not be such a great idea.
Earlier this week, the popular wrestling Twitter account Tiger Driver, revealed that it looks like there’s a part of the Royal Rumble tutorial in the recently-released WWE 2K Battlegrounds uses former controversial Impact World Champion Tessa Blanchard as a reference model. Check out the similarities in the Tweet below.
As someone in the comments even pointed out, it matches all the way down to her finger placement. Tessa has never been part of WWE, but her father is a WWE Hall of Famer and current AEW manger of Shawn Spears.
The return of Young Justice was one of DC Universe’s most resounding successes. Subtitled Outsiders, the revival of the fan-favorite animated series for a third season meant DC’s most famous sidekicks and legacy characters were finally back in action after an almost seven-year gap. And now news of the show’s fourth season emerged during DC FanDome Part 2, specifically that it will be subtitled Phantoms.
Although there wasn’t much new information revealed about the upcoming season beyond that title, thanks to the new moniker we can have some fun playing around with just what Phantoms could mean… especially as the subtitle Outsiders had a huge role in the third season. There’s no word yet on Young Justice: Phantom’s release date, but we’re going to dive into some of our favorite theories here, from the most likely to the most ridiculous! But be warned: Spoilers for Young Justice Seasons 1-3 follow!
Rogue Operatives
Let’s start with the least outrageous of the options. Though Phantoms could be a direct reference to the comics–we’ll get into those potential routes a little later–it seems more likely that the title will be referencing a new status quo. The establishment of the Outsiders already touched on the need for different teams for different purposes, and the world of Young Justice is filled with some of DC’s biggest teams from the Justice League to the Doom Patrol all the way to the Suicide Squad. And speaking of that black ops team, they could be a framework for what comes next, especially when we look at who would need Young Justice to work in secret (as the word Phantoms would seem to imply).
After taking down a Meta-Human trafficking ring, the Young Justice team has built up an impressive army of enemies. And now, with Brion, a.k.a. Geo-Force, under the control of supervillain team The Light, it would be easy for Young Justice to be compromised. Being framed for a crime you didn’t commit is an age-old comic book trope, and it would set the team up for a conflict as they clear their own names and work as ghosts in the system.
There’s also another option, which is that Amanda Waller needs their help and pushes them underground in order to gain it. Tonally, either plot works in favor of Young Justice’s grounded and complex approach to superhero storytelling.
Ghosts From the Past
Young Justice has long been lauded for its complex narrative arcs and emotional heart, so the other most obvious choice for what Phantoms could mean would be a threat from the past. The roster of heroes is so huge in Young Justice that there are plenty of backstories to draw from to find enemies hiding in the shadows. And with Artemis (Stephanie Lemelin) inviting Arsenal to rejoin the team during the virtual table read that took place at FanDome (of a new “episode”), there’s at least one other person from the past whose shadow looms large over Dick Grayson and co. that jumps straight to mind.
During the second season of Young Justice it was revealed that Jason Todd had died under unknown circumstances at some point in the past. As any DC fan knows, that is never truly the case when it comes to Jason. During the first half of Outsiders when the team was infiltrating Infinity Island, they came across a red-hooded ninja who moaned, “Grayson.” The implication was, of course, that the ninja was actually Jason Todd, his garments a nod to his post-Robin mantle (in the comics) of Red Hood. Though we didn’t discover his fate last season, it would make sense he might come into play in Phantoms.
Jason’s death has always weighed heavily on Dick. Seeing as the ex-Robin was thought to be dead, he would be a very literal representation of the new subtitle. And if Red Hood does become a threat, it seems like it won’t be as a new criminal mastermind but as some kind of Ra’s al Ghul reanimated version of himself. Could that mean the Phantoms in question might be an army of the heroes’ late loved ones revived to hunt them down and terrorize them? It would be a dark route to take but would play into one of DC Comics’ favorite plotlines and recurring characters.
The final moments of Young Justice: Outsiders saw one of the most interesting and fun DC Easter eggs an old school fan could hope for. As the crew relaxes in a diner eating, laughing, and recuperating, they’re served by a blonde waitress wearing a Legion Flight Ring. The gold emblem is worn by the iconic DC team from the future known as the Legion of Superheroes. While that’s very exciting going into Season 4, no matter how it ultimately plays out, it’s of particular significance for our purposes here because one of the Legion team members is a Silver Age hero who goes by the moniker of… Phantom Girl!
Her first appearance in a 1961 issue of Action Comics leaned into the youthful team adventures that are usually connected with Young Justice. She headed to Earth along with other young cosmic heroines Triplicate Girl and Saturn Girl to befriend Supergirl. That’s not to say we’ll see that scenario exactly–though it would be fun–but more to highlight that she’s already got a history of hanging out with other young heroes. Seeing as the Legion is almost certainly going to play into Phantoms based on that ring reveal, it seems unlikely that Phantom Girl won’t be a part of that in some way. This could also possibly connect to the next entry as some say her home planet is a part of…
The Legion Flight Ring seen at the end of Young Justice Season 3.
The Phantom Zone
In Outsiders, the subtitle represented a new team which was well established in the wider DC Universe. There’s no team called Phantoms in DC, but there is of course the famed Phantom Zone, and the criminals who’ve lived within it who are known as the Phantom Zoners. Canonically, the intergalactic prison does exist within the world of Young Justice as it was part of how some Kryptonians survived after the destruction of Krypton, so it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to imagine it could come into play here.
From that online table read, which was set between Seasons 3 and 4, we know that Conner/Superboy (Nolan North) and M’gann/Miss Martian (Danica McKellar) are heading out on their own. Perhaps the partially-Kryptonian clone will come up against some inhabitants of the Phantom Zone? Both those alien characters have a history of dealing with the cosmic, so it would be an easy connection to make, especially as Conner has such a complex past. Maybe the Phantom Zoners are out for Superman’s blood and don’t realize his clone is just that, a clone? Or could M’gann and Conner end up in the Phantom Zone themselves? It would be a really interesting and exciting twist to see the Young Justice team have to head into the notoriously strange dimension to save their former teammates.
There’s precedent for this potential angle in the comics too. In the Injustice: Year Three series, a corrupted Superman tricks Conner and the Titans into the Phantom Zone in order to keep them from stopping his nefarious plans. Although we’re not likely to see a full exploration of the alternate Injustice timeline, DC Comics is really invested in that successful alt-universe franchise. This arc also featured some other core Young Justice characters like Bart and Gar, though both met a gnarly fate as they were killed by a nuclear blast that Conner couldn’t save them from.
This particular entry would make a lot of Young Justice fans happy as it’s connected to a character that many viewers want to see join the show. During DC’s line-wide New 52 relaunch, the Phantom Stranger debuted in an ongoing series with a story connected to one of the publisher’s most powerful and brilliant young heroes: Rachel Roth, a.k.a. Raven.
In classic Phantom Stranger fashion, the enigmatic turncoat secures Raven’s trust before betraying her to her father Trigon. DC loves to explore that demonic daddy, and neither he nor his daughter have appeared in Young Justice yet. We know that the series isn’t afraid of getting supernatural and strange, which opens the door to the Stranger. His stories often center around changing time, space, or fate, and with the Fourth World and Darkseid back in play there’s plenty at stake as we head into Season 4. Maybe Phantoms references this pulpy entry into DC canon and it could be a way of introducing one of the company’s most popular young heroes too.
The Phantom Stranger and Raven.
What would you like to see in Young Justice’s fourth season? What do you think Phantoms means? Let’s discuss in the comments!
Mike and Dave give their theories about Compound V and Sage Grove, and break down the plot points and references from “We Gotta Go Now”.
