This year’s Super Bowl broadcast will look a little different, as a handful of major sponsors–including Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola–have announced plans to forgo their traditional advertisements.
In its own statement, Anheuser-Busch said, “After a year that looked like no other, Budweiser has decided to do things differently.”
For the first time since 1983, Anheuser-Busch will not buy an ad for its famous Budweiser brand during the Super Bowl. Instead, the company is donating the money it would have used on an ad to COVID-19 relief and vaccination awareness campaigns.
A GTA Online cheatmaker has been forced to close and donate its proceeds to charity following legal action from Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two Interactive.
As spotted by Rockstar Intel, Luna Mod Menu distributors Luna Cheats has replaced its website with a short statement, alluding to the legal action. “After discussions with Take-Two Interactive, we are immediately ceasing all maintenance, development, and distribution of our cheat menu services. We will also be donating our proceeds to a charity designated by Take-Two. We apologize for any and all problems our software has caused to the Grand Theft Auto Online community.”
The Luna Mod Menu allowed players to cheat in GTA Online, letting users drop money, spawn vehicles, buff damage and protect themselves from hazards. You can see the menu in action in this YouTube video. This has clearly been done to help halt griefing and stop cheaters, but Luna Cheats is by no means the only cheat distributor for GTA Online. It remains to be seen whether Take-Two will summon similar measures across the board.
The Witcher: Blood Origin, Netflix’s upcoming prequel series to The Witcher, has officially announced its first cast member: Jodie Turner-Smith will play the role of Éile, “an elite warrior blessed with the voice of a goddess”.
A Netflix press release describes Éile as, “an elite warrior blessed with the voice of a goddess, [who] has left her clan and position as Queen’s guardian to follow her heart as a nomadic musician. A grand reckoning on the continent forces her to return to the way of the blade in her quest for vengeance and redemption.”
The show’s logline reads: “Set in an elven world 1200 years before the world of The Witcher, Blood Origin will tell a story lost to time – the creation of the first prototype Witcher, and the events that lead to the pivotal “conjunction of the spheres,” when the worlds of monsters, men, and elves merged to become one.”
Blood Origin is being developed by the original series’ showrunner, Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, and Declan de Barra, who wrote the season 1 episode ‘Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials’, and will comprise 6 episodes.
Blood Origin doesn’t yet have a release date, but it’s not the only ongoing Witcher TV production – there’s also an anime adaptation, and Season 2 of the core show is on the way, due for release this year. It previously had to halt production due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic. We’re also expecting Season 3 to come along too.
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.
Apple is rolling out a new Apple Watch feature for its premium subscription service where celebrities and athletes talk to you as you walk.
The feature is called “Time to Walk,” and Apple says it’s an “inspiring new audio walking experience” that Fitness+ subscribers can use to motivate themselves during exercise.
A rating on an Australian classifications board suggests id Software may be at work on a new VR Game. And based on the rating, at least, this VR game will be a pretty grisly one.
The rating for “Project 2021A” was filed on January 22, 2021, with Bethesda Softworks, ZeniMax, and id Software listed by name. The name doesn’t give any clues as to the content, but the ratings for specific types of objectionable material may shed more light. According to the board, it has a very high impact under the Violence category, strong Themes, and some mild language.
All that sounds like it would be right at home in one of id’s existing franchises, like the recently revitalized Doom series. Id Software has already dabbled in VR with Doom VFR in 2017, but the listing suggests this is a new project altogether.
Netflix’s Witcher series is the streaming company’s most popular original TV show ever, so it was no surprise when a spin-off prequel series was announced. This show is still some time off, but we’ve now learned about another actor who may join the cast for Blood Origin.
Deadline reports that Jodie Turner-Smith (The Last Ship, Queen & Slim) is in talks to join Blood Origin, though a deal hasn’t been made yet, it seems.
The site reported that Turner-Smith is signing on to play Eile, who is described as an “elite warrior blessed with the voice of a goddess, who has left her clan and position as Queen’s guardian to follow her heart as a nomadic musician.”
