Month: January 2021

Returnal, the PlayStation 5 exclusive from Housemarque, has been delayed from March 19, 2021 to April 30, 2021.

Announced by PlayStation, SIE and Housemarque have chosen to move the release date “in order to give the team extra time to continue to polish the game to the level of quality players expect from Housemarque.”

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Returnal was announced at the PS5 reveal event and is the next title from the developer of such games as Resogun and Super Stardust HD.

This new game is a roguelike third-person shooter that sees you play as Astra space scout Selene as she is stuck in a constant loop of resurrection.

Housemarque has also noted that Returnal will offer fast load times, and haptic feedback that will let players “feel the natural ambience of this alien planet as the controller mimics its environmental effects.”

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Returnal also follows Housemarques comments that it was moving away from developing arcade-style games – like Resogun and Nex Machina – after poor sales. It looks like Returnal will still have the feel of many of Housemarque’s previous games, but this marks a new direction for the studio.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

With production well underway on the first season of The Sandman, Netflix has finally revealed the main cast of the DC adaptation. Tom Sturridge (Velvet Buzzsaw) stars in the series as Dream (aka Morpheus), ruler of the ethereal realm known as The Dreaming.

The cast also includes two Game of Thrones veterans, with Gwendoline Christie playing Lucifer Morningstar and Charles Dance playing occultist Roderick Burgess. Narcos star Boyd Holbrook will play The Corinthian, a rogue nightmare-turned-serial killer created by Morpheus.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for a look at all the cast members revealed so far and how they compare to their comic book counterparts:

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We assume more casting announcements will follow in the coming weeks, as Netflix has yet to reveal other major roles like Dream’s sister Death. The streamer also has yet to reveal a release date for the 10-episode first season.

The Sandman is an adaptation of the DC horror/fantasy comic created by Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg and Sam Keith. Gaiman is executive producing the series along with Allan Heinberg and David Goyer. Heinberg is also serving as showrunner. Prior to Netflix greenlighting the series, The Sandman spent years in development hell, including a phase where Joseph Gordon-Levitt was attached to produce and star in a movie adaptation.

“For the last thirty-three years, the Sandman characters have breathed and walked around and talked in my head,” said Gaiman in a statement. “I’m unbelievably happy that now, finally, they get to step out of my head and into reality. I can’t wait until the people out there get to see what we’ve been seeing as Dream and the rest of them take flesh, and the flesh belongs to some of the finest actors out there. This is astonishing, and I’m so grateful to the actors and to all of The Sandman collaborators — Netflix, Warner Bros., DC, to Allan Heinberg and David Goyer, and the legions of crafters and geniuses on the show — for making the wildest of all my dreams into reality.”

According to Gaiman, the Netflix series will make significant changes to the source material, including updating the present-day setting for the 21st Century rather than 1989, when the comic originally debuted.

Interestingly, The Sandman will mark the first time the DC Comics incarnation of Lucifer Morningstar has been played by a woman. That character was previously played by Peter Stormare in 2005’s Constantine, Tom Ellis in the Lucifer TV series and Michael Sheen in Audible’s audio drama adaptation of The Sandman. Though generally portrayed as male in the comics, The Sandman’s Lucifer is an androgynous figure whom Gaiman confirmed was modeled closely on a young David Bowie. Unfortunately, despite the Lucifer series moving from Fox to Netflix, Christie’s casting would seem to eliminate any possibility of the two shows coexisting in the same universe.

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Are you happy with these casting choices? Let us know in the comments below.

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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.

2021 marks the 25th anniversary of Lara Croft’s video game debut, and current Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics plans to celebrate with a year’s worth of events.

“25 years is such a major milestone so we really want to celebrate with the community as we look back on Tomb Raider’s legacy,” Crystal Dynamics community and social media manager Neha Nair said in a video that the official Tomb Raider account tweeted.

Starting in February, each month of 2021 will be themed around a different Tomb Raider game and will feature developer interviews, cosplay livestreams, and fan art. The original 1996 Tomb Raider game developed by Core Design will kick off the celebrations, with Crystal Dynamics hinting at a reveal of what lies in store for the franchise and its future.

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The sci-fi game Journey to the Savage Planet from former Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry boss Alex Hutchinson and Typhoon Studios is now available to buy on Steam. The game originally launched a year ago this week as an exclusive for the Epic Games Store, but now it’s out on Valve’s platform following the end of the exclusivity deal with Epic.

Additionally, the game is marked down by 40% through February 15, while you can save even more if you buy the base game and the Hot Garbage DLC bundle. The game has a landing page on Steam but it doesn’t appear to have gone live just yet for sale–that should happen soon.

A first-person adventure game with a comedic bent, Journey to the Savage Planet takes players to an alien world where they must explore and learn about the flora and fauna. The game is playable solo or with two-player online co-op.

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In the midst of a stock surge that has taken the financial world by storm, the popular stock-trading site Robinhood has restricted trades of the key stocks at the center of the story. Following the restrictions, the stock value of both GameStop and AMC have plummeted by roughly the same amount, suggesting Robinhood’s move could have had an impact.

GameStop stock has dropped more than 50% in just a few hours since the restrictions began. AMC is similarly down by roughly 50%, though it had a much lower starting price at market open this morning. At different points today GameStop was as high as $470 and reached a low of $131. As of the time of writing it has recovered slightly, to $196.

This comes as the Robinhood app itself is surging in popularity, along with Reddit where the trades are being organized. Robinhood has issued a statement on its policy, chalking it up to monitoring for market volatility.

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A New God, the first DLC for Ubisoft’s open-world adventure Immortals Fenyx Rising, is available now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Stadia. In addition to the launch of A New God, Ubisoft has also released a free demo for Immortals Fenyx Rising on all platforms.

The Trials of the Olympians is the focus of A New God, tasking Fenyx with overcoming the trials in order to earn their place in the inner circle of the Greek pantheon. On top of completing the challenging trials built by the gods, players will also be able to explore Olympos Palace and unlock a new gear set with perks that let you perform additional jumps, among other advantages.

A New God also introduces four new ability upgrades for Fenyx. Immortal Field Barrier, an Athena’s Dash upgrade, allows players to pass through the Immortal Fields and deal more damage when dashing. Colossal Strength, a Herakles’ Strength upgrade, lets player manipulate colossal objects and deal more damage when throwing objects. Windgust, an Ares’s Wrath upgrade, creates an airstream for a few seconds after charging Fenyx’s uppercut, so players can rise higher when delivering the final blow. Finally, Phosphoros’ Swap gives players the ability to swap positions with a decoy for one chunk of stamina.

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Actress Jeanette Maus, who plays several characters in the upcoming Resident Evil Village, has passed away. Maus had been battling colon cancer. She was 39.

Capcom paid its respects on Twitter, writing, “We here at Capcom R&D 1 are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Jeanette Maus, the talented actress who helped bring several several different characters, including our witches, to the world in Resident Evil Village.”

“Our hearts go out to her family and loved ones.”

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Like all great short stories, Olija manages to do more with less. Its characters are roughly drawn and very pixelated, but they build strong bonds that resonate and create real stakes. The caves, ruins, and dark corners of the world exude an ominous, foreboding mood that permeates every turn. And the action, a mix of quick-moving combat and light puzzle-platforming, steadily and consistently finds new ways to keep you on your toes. Olija takes exactly as much time as it needs to tell its story and show you everything in its bag of tricks.

Olija follows Faraday, a shipwrecked lord trapped on a hostile chain of islands called Terraphage. Facing all sorts of magic, dark oozing blobs, and people who want him dead, the lost lord seems doomed, but he quickly finds a weapon to turn his fortune: a legendary magic harpoon that he can throw and either teleport to its location or summon back to him. To get home and, optionally, save his crew, Faraday explores the islands of Terraphage, defeats a hidden evil, saves a queen–you know, hero stuff.

Though it boils down to a clichéd hero’s quest at the most essential level, Olija teases a lot of narrative out of a small amount of exposition. Faraday has a small retinue of recurring companions and acquaintances he meets on his journey, including a ferryman who brings him from island to island and shipwrecked sailors of Oaktide, a floating shantytown. While Faraday is silent, his companions speak to him, and you can sense the bond that forms between them. Their spoken tone softens and they grow more familiar as Faraday integrates into their lives. Those connections anchor Faraday’s journey with a human connection that resonates beyond the plot, and gives you a reason to see things through.

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One of 2020’s best-selling video games, Madden NFL 21 is headed to yet another platform this week with its launch on Google Stadia on January 28.

This is the first EA Sports game on Stadia, but FIFA 21 is also coming to the platform at some point in 2021. It’s not the first EA game on Stadia, however, as Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order came to the streaming service at the end of 2020.

To mark the launch of Madden NFL 21 on Stadia, Google is letting all Stadia Pro subscribers play the game for free from January 28-February 1.

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