The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has changed how conventions operate–or don’t–and this certainly applies to CES 2021. The event won’t be held in-person this year, but there will still be plenty of virtual presentations and announcements beginning Monday, January 11. The biggest names in technology will share news on upcoming products and services, including gaming brands. Here is everything you need to know about CES 2021, including the dates, key presentations, and expected announcements.
When is CES 2021?
CES 2021 will take place online from January 11 through January 14, and events are scheduled throughout each of these days. It kicks off with a keynote presentation from Verizon CEO and chairman Hans Vestberg on January 11 at 3:30 PM PT / 6:30 PM ET.
You can see a full list of when each event kicks off on the official CES website. Keep in mind that some of the scheduled events during these CES 2021 dates are actually replays of previously-streamed presentations. This is the case for every single event on January 14.
Developer and publisher SNK has announced that the reveal of King of Fighters XV and Samurai Shodown‘s Season Pass 3 has been postponed, though a reason hasn’t been confirmed.
SNK had planned to officially unveil King of Fighter XV this week. The reveal of the latest entry in the King of Fighters series was to be followed by an announcement of the new characters coming to Samurai Shodown as part of the game’s Season Pass 3 bundle. However, the company said it will “inform our fans as soon as the new date and time has been confirmed.”
King of Fighters XV was teased in December, with SNK calling it the “most ambitious KOF yet.” The studio shared no gameplay at the time. King of Fighters creative director Eisuke Ogura revealed King of Fighters XIV newcomer Shun’ei is the franchise’s latest protagonist. As such, Shun’ei has a new outfit (shown off in some concept art), as well as an overhauled moveset.
Ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show next week, Samsung has revealed its new line of 4K and 8K TVs set to launch later in 2021.
All the models announced today make use of brand new QLED technology that Samsung is branding “Neo QLED.” The biggest benefit is that Samsung has managed to reduce the size of the LEDs that act as the backlight in its display, allowing for drastically more dimming zones and the reduction of blooming. Traditional LED displays require backlighting for brightness, but the size of the LEDs has often led to distracting light bleed in scenes where only small portions of the image are overly bright or dark. This is one of the biggest benefits of OLEDs, which are self-emissive.
According to The Verge, Samsung is promising up to “up to almost 30,000 tiny LEDs” and “up to 2,500 dimming zones,” which will make backlighting in this year’s models noticeably better than those from 2020. Samsung announced to 8K models (the QN900A and QN800A) as well as numerous 4K models (QN95A, QN90A, and the QN85A). The number of dimming zones does decrease with less expensive models, but Samsung hasn’t detailed each individually yet.
2020 was a rough year for many of us, but there was another crisis going on that you probably weren’t even aware of: a time crisis. Unfortunately, no light guns will save us here. According to TimeAndDate.com, the Earth spun faster than in 2020 than in any other time in the past 50 years, with the 28 shortest days since 1960.
As reported in the Telegraph, experts and astronomers warn that timekeepers may need to introduce a negative leap second in order to stay accurate. Leap seconds–which are used to accommodate differences between atomic time and less-precise solar time–have previously been used to solve such issues. However, a leap second in 2012 wreaked havoc across the Internet, with Reddit, Yelp, Mozilla, and others reporting Y2K-esque crashes due to the shift.
Some experts have called for an end to leap seconds entirely, opining that they are a relic of a past age, since much of the world relies on atomic time today. The World Radiocommuncation Conference may end up abolishing the practice in 2023, though it’s unclear how likely this is to happen. Earth’s rotational speed varies considerably due to the motion of tides, the atmosphere, and the planet’s core, as well as other factors, such as snowfall on mountains.
Season 2 of Solar Opposites, Hulu’s show co-created by Rick & Morty’s Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan, will be hitting the streaming service with eight new episodes on March 26. This is obviously great news for Solar Opposite fans, but also exciting news for Rick & Morty fans–a show notorious for long delays between seasons, made all the more kinda frustrating knowing there are dozens on their way in the coming years. Check out the expletive-laden trailer for Solar Opposites’ second season below.
Based on the trailer, Season 2 is a bit of a reset on Season 1–centered around a team of four aliens who escape their exploding home world only to crash land into suburban America, and their efforts to leave Earth have been thwarted, or at least temporarily delayed. The small squad are evenly split on whether Earth is great–“Korvo (Justin Roiland) and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) only see the pollution, crass consumerism, and human frailty while Terry (Thomas Middleditch) and Jesse (Mary Mack) love humans and all their TV, junk food, and fun stuff.”
Zack Snyder has shared a historical photo of Wonder Woman that depicts a “war-weary Diana” holding three decapitated heads.
The image was prominently placed in the backdrop of Snyder’s office during a virtual interview that he participated in with ComicBook Debate, where he discussed his version of Justice League and the movement that led to the release of the Snyder Cut on HBO Max. However, the sepia snap quickly became the main topic of interest amongst fans who were eager to take a closer look at the photo.
Snyder later posted a hi-res version of the Wonder Woman 1854 image along with details of his initial ideas for Diana Prince’s origin story. In the Twitter caption, he wrote: “This amazing image shot by Stephen Berkman of an else-world, war weary Diana, who had chased [Ares] across the battlefields of the world and had yet to meet Steve, who would help her restore her faith in mankind and love itself.”
Image credit: Stephen Berkman via Zack Snyder.
The gruesome photo shows Gal Gadot’s Diana standing stoically alongside several other warriors during the early years of the Crimean War, setting her backstory even further in the past than Patty Jenkins’ World War I setting in 2017’s Wonder Woman. The battle-worn hero is featured at the forefront of the photo, clenching the severed heads of her enemies in one hand and her weapon in the other.
This is just one of a few alternative versions of the photo that Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne could have uncovered of Diana and her team in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. If this photo had of been used, it would have set up a very different path for Diana as it would have negated her decision to leave Themiscyra for Steve Trevor and the entire mission portrayed in the Wonder Woman movie.
The slightly less-brutal version of Diana recently returned to our screens for Wonder Woman 1984, the Cold War-set sequel that IGN praised for presenting “a nostalgic look back to a beloved time,” which we felt ultimately provided “escapism from an exceptionally difficult year” and offered the “kind of bright and hopeful movie the character’s legacy deserves.”
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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.
After two generations at the centre of Nintendo’s consoles, Miis seemingly took a back seat for Switch. You can still design a Nintendo-themed avatar on the handheld hybrid system, but Nintendo games support them far less frequently, with token appearances in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate their most notable appearances. It led many to believe the age of the Mii was over, but a new discovery seems to show that Miis are secretly at the heart of one of Nintendo’s most beloved Switch games – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. You just wouldn’t necessarily know that at first glance.
On January 4, Mii modder HEYimHeroic posted a discovery that seemed to confirm that Mii-like parameters had been used to create NPCs in Breath of the Wild, by using modding to inject custom Miis’ details into the game and seeing their familiar cartoon faces rendered as Hylians in Breath of the Wild’s art style. Those results seem to prove that Breath of the Wild’s NPCs are a form of advanced Mii – a point the game’s code helps support by referring to them as ‘UMiis’.
Hi, Mii expert here. Turns out, the NPCs in TLoZ:BotW use an advanced version of the Mii format. This means that with modding, you can inject Miis into the game. 🙂
Thinking about opening commissions for Mii injects, both screenshot/images of your Mii and mod downloads! pic.twitter.com/8NfVr4zyqA
HEYimHeroic has been researching Miis for around a year, starting the in-depth Wii Facts Plus Twitter account and a library of all Nintendo-created Miis along the way. Speaking to me over Twitter, they explain that the Breath of the Wild modding community had theorised that Miis could be related to Breath of the Wild’s NPCs since shortly after the game launched, even finding the term UMii related to NPCs when combing the game’s files. However, that search seemed to have died down in the intervening years: “The modders I’ve spoken to assumed that it was only just a name, after a while, and that was pretty much where the similarities ended,” explains HEYimHeroic. “No one had ever actually attempted to port Miis into the game… and I did that out of sheer curiosity!”
The breakthrough was in realising that UMiis share ID values for parts of their construction with traditional Miis: “Every type of mouth, eyes, hair, etc. all have a certain ID value attached to them with Miis. The big thing here is that UMiis also share the exact same ID values, so this part’s probably the easiest – just copy and paste the ID value from the Mii into the UMii!” HEYimHeroic then discovered that Mii colour values are drawn from altered Wii U versions of the avatars, rather than the original Mii Studio and (with an anonymous friend’s help) discovered how to convert and assign those properly. Mii sizing is one of the more confusing elements, with existing values not always corresponding with how they turn out within Breath of the Wild. “More testing is needed,” explains the modder, “but we know enough about them to port Miis in most of the time!”
The upshot was that, on December 30, HEYimHeroic managed to inject their own Mii design into the game and – with the help of a Breath of the Wild modding server – managed to create a UMii version of an existing Mii. “Looking back, now that I know more about the format,” they explain, “I definitely could’ve improved more, but at the time, it was more than enough to convince people that Miis and UMiis aren’t that different after all.”
What HEYimHeroic had discovered was that – aside from key characters like Link and Zelda – Nintendo had seemingly used the UMii system to create every NPC in the game. While non-humanlike races such as Gorons use a very limited set of variable, human-like races Hylians and Sheikah use many of the same kinds of backend values as Miis in their creation. Every NPC appears to be custom-built, rather than generated, which HEYimHeroic thinks means Nintendo used, “a manual creation tool, like Mii Maker. Or, maybe… UMii Maker?”
also, here are the full screenshots of the four Miis i posted in that main tweet. pic.twitter.com/lAYScS43eF
If a formal UMii Maker does exist, its differences from the classic Mii Maker are as interesting as its similarities. For example, the option to add moles to Miis aren’t supported for UMiis, and not all Mii hairstyles are replicated (although the game will automatically convert an unsupported hairstyle into a similar one). “Glasses size, position, and mustache position are also all removed,” adds HEYimHeroic. “These values are no longer manually set, but the game automatically determines them based on the rest of the face. For example, if you move the mouth lower on the face, then the mustache will be automatically moved lower on the face, too.”
Despite those changes, there appears to be far more nuance to how a UMii can be created when compared to a Mii. “This is easily the most intricate usage of Miis yet,” explains HEYimHeroic when I ask if this is the most advanced version of Mii they’ve discovered. “In fact, it’s so complex, it’s hard to still call them ‘Miis’ anymore. Depending on how strict your definition of what a ‘Mii’ is, you could say these aren’t even Miis at all! Previously, I thought the most interesting use of Miis was actually in Super Mario 3D Land, of all games, where some levels you get are based on your Mii’s favorite color. But this takes the cake!”
At time of writing, many of the new features for creating NPCs remain unknown, but HEYimHeroic is on a quest to document them. “For example,” the modder explains, “there’s about 4 more values that only exist to control the NPC’s pupils. [And] there’s only 12 favorite colors Miis support, but I’ve seen UMiis go up to 14, possibly higher! […] There are a lot more color options than the game’s currently letting on, so I’d really like to dig into those. Also figuring out some of the unknown values (like the 4 pupil values) would really allow for editing the subtle details, that would really add to the magic of the UMiis.”
There’s a long way to go, but there appears to be no doubt that UMiis are indeed a step beyond the Miis we know. Which begs the question – is it possible we could see UMiis used in other Nintendo games, or even get to create them ourselves in a non-modding context? HEYimHeroic has bad news on that front:
“Most likely, no. Well, we might see UMiis return in Breath of the Wild’s sequel… but as far as completely different games go? No. There’s way too [much] BotW-specific stuff here, it’s difficult to imagine that UMiis were made for a ‘general use’ sort of deal. In fact, we believe the name ‘UMii’ stems from [Breath of the Wild’s] internal name found in the files: UKing. So, the name ‘UMiis’ might literally mean ‘Breath of the Wild Miis’, but there’s not a way to know for sure on that one!”
If that’s the case, what about Miis in general? What does the world’s now most notable Mii modder see as the future of Nintendo’s increasingly invisible mascots?
“Before finding all of this, I wouldn’t have given you a very optimistic answer. But that was because I didn’t even know Nintendo was willing to transform Miis like this! I have a good feeling Miis will at least make an appearance on the next platform, but I can tell Nintendo’s running out of reasons for them to stay, which is very unfortunate. However, as long as they’re willing to make things like UMiis that have plenty of Mii DNA in their files, I’ll be able to find workarounds eventually, and get Miis into games that shouldn’t even have them. At least then, we still have Miis in some form.”
Even if we are looking at the final piece of Mii evolution, this feels like something of a fitting tribute. Miis represent so much of Nintendo’s recent past, becoming the friendly face of Nintendo gaming for well over a decade, and becoming icons in the process. They’re as much a part of the company’s visible history as Mario or Link themselves. It seems only fair, then, that they make up an integral (if almost invisible) piece of perhaps Nintendo’s greatest game of that same period.
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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.
