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Less than a week after its release, Hitman 3 has already been profitable for developer and publisher IO Interactive. It’s the first game in the series to be self-published after a long relationship with Eidos and Square Enix, followed by Warner Bros. publishing Hitman 2.

“As the developer and publisher, we are immensely proud that we can say Hitman 3 is already profitable,” IO Interactive told GamesIndustry.biz in a statement. “We have recouped the total project costs in less than a week. That puts us in a really good place and allows us to confidently move forward with our ambitious plans for future projects.

Those projects include a 007 James Bond game, which will be an origin story not based on any of the existing actors’ portrayals of the character. In the past, IO Interactive also developed the cult-hit third-person tactical shooter Freedom Fighters, which saw the United States invaded by Russia and a plumber leading an underground guerrilla movement to take back New York City.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

When Monster Hunter Rise arrives on the Nintendo Switch, fans of Capcom’s beast-slaying adventure who want to take the experience with them will have the option to grab a special edition of Nintendo’s successful console. Nintendo will release a Monster Hunter Rise-themed Switch on March 26 in Europe and Japan, which features intricate designs from the game on the Switch, dock, and Joy-Cons.

The system hasn’t been confirmed for a North American release yet, but the design is stunning and also features Monster Hunter Rise’s flagship monster Magnamalo etched across the Switch dock.

The game itself will be included through a download code, alongside deluxe DLC such as “Kamurai” Hunter layered armor set, “Shuriken Collar” Palamute layered armor piece, “Fish Collar” Palico layered armor piece, Gestures (4 Jumps), Samurai pose set, Kabuki face paint, and “Izuchi Tail” hairstyle.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

All 11 seasons of the comedy Modern Family are coming to multiple streaming services. Deadline reports that every episode of the famous ABC show will be available to watch not only on NBC’s own Peacock service, but also on the Disney-owned Hulu platform.

All 250 episodes of the show will be available on each platform beginning on February 3. The site reported that the deal covers multiple years and is said to be in the nine-figure range ($100 million+) that puts it close to the price for streaming rights to Friends, The Office, and Seinfeld.

According to Deadline, the first 12 episodes of Modern Family Season 1 will be available to stream on Peacock for free, but you’ll need to pay for Peacock Premium ($5/month) for the rest. The situation on Hulu is not exactly clear.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has responded to the conspiracy theories about him involving COVID-19, saying in a new interview that such theories are “crazy” and “evil.”

Speaking to Reuters, Gates said the wild conspiracies about himself and US infectious disease leader Anthony Fauci have been driven in part by social media. He wondered if people actually believe the wild accusations or if they’re just trying to have fun and get a rise.

“Nobody would have predicted that I and Dr. Fauci would be so prominent in these really evil theories,” he said. “I’m very surprised by that. I hope it goes away.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Remothered developers Stormind Games have announced Batora: Lost Haven, a new action-RPG in development for current-gen consoles (including Nintendo Switch) and next-gen consoles as well as PC.

Batora puts you in control of Avril, a regular teenage girl who finds herself traveling to many planets to try and save a dying Earth from being destroyed. As the Stormind team describes it, “Batora is based on the duality between mind and body, introducing a new game mechanic that challenges players to find the perfect balance between the two – losing sight of one could mean that their journey is over. Batora doesn’t present the hero’s journey in black or white, good or evil: there are decisions and there are their consequences. Every single decision Avril makes will turn out to be important, often even life-changing, for the characters she meets or the places she visits.” In gameplay terms, this means mastering when to alternate between physical-based and mental-based attacks within the same battles, which you can get a hint of in the announcement trailer above.

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The art direction is described as a 1950’s sci-fi aesthetic inspired by the work of Paul Lehr. “Bridging the gap between the physical and mental calls for a particular visual representation and we’ve really tried to distinguish between the two with a hand-painted approach inspired by Sci-Fi art of the 1950s versus the photo-realistic approach of many of today’s AAA titles,” said art director Gaetano Caltabiano. “We’ve really drawn a lot of inspiration from the likes of Alphonse Mucha and the intense sci-fi environments of Paul Lehr.” Batora will also have help from talent that’s helped create games like the Batman: Arkham series and Assassin’s Creed, as well as award-winning writer Anne Toole (The Witcher, Horizon: Zero Dawn).

We’ll have more on Batora: Lost Haven as development progresses. In the meantime check out IGN’s review of Remothered: Broken Porcelain.

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Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.

There are always two sides to every story, but rarely does the audience get to experience them both at the same time. Such is the novel gameplay hook central to The Medium, an enthralling psychological horror adventure that splits your focus between a gloomy real-world setting and a haunting parallel spirit world, with actions performed in one having a measurable impact on the other. It’s a stylish and clever technique that’s used to consistently engaging effect, allowing for some stimulating puzzle design and exhilarating moments of reality-hopping cat and mouse with a truly memorable monster.

I quickly warmed to the self-deprecating charm of The Medium’s split-screen scream queen, Marianne. She’s a spirit guide who is lured to an abandoned resort in the Polish hinterland hoping to uncover the origin of her clairvoyant abilities, and her consistently wry observations – delivered by actress Kelly Burke – kept the mood from becoming too dire in what is an otherwise intensely disturbing detective tale. Determining the extent of the evil atrocities that went down within the hotel’s walls and identifying the perpetrators soon becomes the main focus, one that I took great morbid delight in as I pieced together each and every sinister scrap of evidence along its bloodsoaked breadcrumb trail.

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Much of the clue gathering is admittedly fairly straightforward in a mechanical sense, using Marianne’s insight ability on discarded objects found in the world to reveal information about the fate of their owners, for example, or to highlight the ghostly footsteps that point the way forward. But elsewhere there are some satisfyingly hands-on methods you need to employ, and I particularly enjoyed the simple pleasure of arranging trays of photography chemicals and dunking the paper in the right sequence of solutions in order to develop a photo correctly in a dark room. (Remember developing photos? … No? Okay.)

Dual Shocks

Of course, almost every room in The Medium is a dark room, and they only get darker. At predetermined points along the main story path the screen will split to reveal the spirit world side by side with the material world, and you’ll suddenly be controlling two versions of Marianne at the same time. It’s an incredibly striking contrast; on one side of the screen the flesh and bone Marianne will be moving along a dimly lit hotel corridor, on the other, her silver-haired spiritual form will be stalking through a hollowed-out hallway to Hell. On both sides of the divide the environments are exceptionally well realised, but it’s the spirit world that is particularly eerie to explore, with unearthly tendrils sprouting from the floors, outstretched hands clawing at you like stalactites from the ceiling, and your general surroundings resembling a nightmarish landscape the likes of which isn’t normally seen anywhere outside of a heavy metal album cover. On that note, in this otherworld you frequently reveal new areas by slashing through sheets of human skin with a blade made of bones, which also sounds like the opening lyric to the most metal song ever made.

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That said, it’s not just the haunted souls of the hotel you’ll have to contend with, but also the ghosts of horror games past. There are plenty of odd-shaped keys to find, valves to turn, and broken lever handles to repair, which on paper may sound like dated throwbacks to the likes of Alone in the Dark. However, it’s the use of Marianne’s reality-phasing abilities to uncover and obtain these items that makes The Medium feel distinct, and that kept me engaged in clearing a path through its increasingly ominous obstacles.

Always Leave Them Wanting Maw

The other force propelling me forward was The Medium’s principal villain, The Maw. While I certainly enjoyed the strong performances from Marianne and the small supporting cast (both human and spiritual) it’s Troy Baker’s uncharacteristic and entirely unsettling turn as The Medium’s chief antagonist that really steals the show.

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I say that metaphorically, since you can’t actually look over your shoulder in The Medium. Well, not on purpose at least. While each of developer Bloober Team’s horror games to date have been in first-person, from Layers of Fear 2 to Observer to Blair Witch, The Medium is a strictly third-person affair, appropriating the multiple fixed camera angles of the early Resident Evil and Silent Hill games that change up from room to room. Apparently this decision was partially born out of necessity, since giving free control over the camera was reportedly causing nausea during the dual-reality sections.

Yet while the many claustrophobic close-ups and cinematic angles certainly contribute to an ongoing sense of trepidation, The Medium doesn’t have the power to manipulate or disorient you as deviously as Bloober’s previous first-person games. It isn’t able to unsettle you by diverting your attention one way in order to rearrange the environment behind you, for example. It’s a hair-raising ride regardless, but the most disoriented I ever felt during the eight hours it took to complete the story was anytime the camera suddenly switched angles and I had to course-correct with an awkward stutter step like someone who’d just narrowly avoided walking into the wrong bathroom by accident.

First thing’s first: you might need to reconfigure what you think this upcoming package of Mario gaming on Switch is. When it was first announced, it felt like the archetypal re-release – a shiny port of an underplayed Wii U game to entice those who missed it first time round, with an extra expansion to tempt back those who did play 3D World. It isn’t that, really.

Yes, Super Mario 3D World is a mostly unchanged game, but Bowser’s Fury isn’t an expansion – it’s a fundamentally separate game, picked from a title screen and booted into without ever having to touch 3D World. It’s built from the same foundations, yes, but into a very different shape. With that in mind, this isn’t so much a ‘preview’ as ‘previews’, plural – so let’s start with the more familiar of the two halves.

Super Mario 3D World

Like a lot of Wii U re-releases for Switch, Super Mario 3D World feels less like a triumphant encore than a necessary reintroduction. After its last console’s failure, Nintendo knows how comparatively few people will have played this installment of its most famous franchise. As such, we seem to be getting a version built more to offer a smoother on-ramp for new players than to offer new ideas amid the original formula.

For those who know nothing about it, 3D World is a classic, course-based Mario game, extruded from 2D into 3D, and offering the flexibility to play with up to 4 people at once. It’s a riot of colour, mechanical ideas and, especially with others, gentle chaos, as characters, enemies, obstacles, and physics objects collide. We loved it back in 2013, and time hasn’t dimmed its charms – Nintendo’s mastery of art design means even its visuals haven’t suffered too much in the intervening years.

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For the Switch port, Nintendo explains that movement is slightly faster, and that each of its four playable characters’ abilities have been ever-so-slightly tweaked, but the effects are barely noticeable without direct comparison. Online multiplayer is a nice addition, and smoothly integrated, with players simply choosing to create or join a room from the World Map (although, it needs to be pointed out that unfortunately only the host will make game progress in a multiplayer session). And Captain Toad levels – which were invented for this game before becoming their own excellent spin-off – now accommodate multiplayer parties, rather than forcing three people to watch the host have fun for a bit.

But, in my time with the first four worlds of the game, those have been the only key changes – and with little new to focus on, it’s more interesting to realise what 3D World did that other Mario games haven’t.

After playing so much of Super Mario Odyssey, it’s fascinating to re-experience quite how different a game 3D World is by comparison. 3D World is a more machine-tooled experience, with its mostly one-way courses forcing players down gauntlets of increasing challenge, rather than Odyssey’s more freeform improvisation. Its fixed camera means it can more regularly play with perspective, point of view, and good old secrets hidden just off of screen, with only an unusually placed block to point the way.

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Where Odyssey was a riff on Mario 64’s freedom, 3D World is a modern take on the original Mario Bros. games’ thoughtful design, gently elevating you from nervous Goomba-stomper into a careening blur of jumps, ground pounds, and sprints over the course of its ever-changing levels.

If you haven’t played 3D World before, this new version is a marginally better version of an already fantastic game – but even if you have, my short time with it suggests that a fresh playthrough could feel just as impactful as it did the first time around, simply because we’ve had nothing like it since. And even if that’s not of interest, there’s always the brand new part of the package to try.

Bowser’s Fury

Nintendo only offered up a sliver of Bowser’s Fury to play for preview – which, if I’m being cynical, might point to how small a game it could represent (even Nintendo has publicly called it ‘short’, after all). But even with the worry that it might be over all too soon, Bowser’s Fury already feels like a fascinating new experiment from the restlessly inventive Mario team.

It’s seemingly built in the same engine as 3D World, and uses its version of Mario (including his abilities and power-ups), but the structure is very different, drawing on multiple games for reference. Rather than individual courses, the standalone adventure’s location, Lake Lapkat, is built like one of Super Mario Odyssey’s kingdoms. It’s a picturesque place, although it has to be said that Bowser’s Fury’s more ‘open world’ approach does show the limitations of the older engine – at a distance, areas become smudged and jaggy (it turns out 3D World’s extreme depth of field effects were hiding some flaws). Lapkat is split into distinct sections, which can be explored from multiple angles, each offering 5 collectible Cat Shines – earned by completing platforming challenges, beating enemies, or discovering secrets.

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If ‘Cat Shines’ sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a reference to the collectibles in the GameCube’s Super Mario Sunshine – and that’s not the only Sunshine touchpoint. Quite apart from its twinkling seaside aesthetic, you’ll also meet and work alongside Bowser Jr., who clutches his magical paintbrush from Sunshine. Bowser Jr. can be controlled by a second player, or work as an AI companion that unlocks secrets painted onto walls, picks up items and battles enemies (and comes with an options menu that lets you choose how much he helps). Together you’re tasked with cleaning an infestation of Sunshine-esque black ooze from Lapkat’s shores and waters – although this time solely with the power of lighthouses – no FLUDD, I’m afraid. And why you’re doing all that reveals Bowser’s Fury’s strangest reference point of all.

Periodically, Lapkat’s weather will change for the worse, signalling the appearance of Fury Bowser, a new version of Mario’s old foe stretched to kaiju proportions by the effect of the ooze. He either needs to be avoided until he goes away, or turned away by force. He is, essentially, a take on Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s Blood Moon – and marks Bowser’s Fury’s freshest idea.

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When Fury Bowser appears, certain friendly NPCs turn evil, new platforms drop from the sky, and your giant enemy will send attacks at you from multiple angles. Those attacks can be beneficial, however; a new type of block can only be destroyed by Fury Bowser’s attacks, turning his appearance into a moment of risk and reward. Collecting a Cat Shine during an attack will turn him back – and collecting enough Shines will unlock the Giga Bell, a giant Cat Mario power-up that lets you battle Fury Bowser.

My preview didn’t extend as far as the battle itself, so time will tell how many more new ideas Lapkat holds beneath its waters, but my limited impressions have been very positive. This is a far more singular game than anticipated – I simply wasn’t expecting to be this surprised by what promised to be a simple add-on to a much bigger existing game.

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But then maybe that’s my own short-sightedness. After all, Super Mario 3D World is a game based so much on that classic Mario ideal of germinating a new idea, letting it bloom, then moving on to a new one in short order – it’s a game built on the pleasure of constant new things to do. Bowser’s Fury feels like it could be an extension of that philosophy, a game-sized offshoot from 3D World, pointing its older ideas in an entirely new direction. It’s early days, but this oddly feels somehow even more natural a move for the Mario team than an expansion to the game it’s attached to – it’s a new idea.

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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.

Whether you’ve been lucky enough to snag an Xbox Series X|S or not, you may want to check out this deal. The Microsoft Store has the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller on sale for $20 off. The controller works great on on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Series S.

Granted, a $20 discount doesn’t soften the financial blow of such a pricy piece of hardware all that much, but it’s better than nothing. And by nearly all accounts, the Elite Series 2 controller is worth the price even without a discount.

Save $20 on Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller

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What makes it so good? For starters, it has a wrap-around rubberized grip that makes it easier and more comfortable to hold than pretty much any other controller on the market. The battery lasts for up to 40 hours of gameplay on a single charge, and it comes with a carrying case, a charging dock, and a USB-C cable.

It’s also highly customizable, much more so than a standard Xbox One or Series X controller. You can adjust the tension of the analog sticks to your preference, which can help improve your aiming in shooters. Also helpful for shooters are the controller’s hair-trigger locks. When enabled, these can give you an edge in a firefight, because your shot will register faster.

You can also actually swap out a number of the controller’s components. It comes with a set of six thumbsticks that let you choose between classic, tall, and wide-dome designs, each of which offers unique benefits for certain types of players. You can choose between a standard D-pad or the faceted one Microsoft is using on Series X|S controllers. Finally, you get four paddles that go on the back of the controller and can be mapped to any button for easy access.

The Xbox Elite Series 2 controller isn’t for everyone. But if you’re trying to maximize your competitive edge, it gives you lots of customizable ways to do so.

Other Xbox Series X and Series S Accessories

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Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

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Psyonix is adding new visual options for the Rocket League arena Neon Fields following reports from players of potential seizures.

In early January, The Loadout reported on the neon-soaked new arena, noting that it was potentially causing seizures in some players. User psyonixistrynakillme made a post on the official Rocket League subreddit, which started “I am epileptic and the new map is giving me seizures. I’ve tried complaining on psyonix support and tweeting at them. Got no real answers than pretty much “Oops! Sorry!” So I made a reddit and hopefully my voice is heard here.”

Other members of the subreddit rallied around the post, bringing it to the attention of Psyonix, who replied to the thread in an attempt to speak to the poster.

Players’ voices haver clearly have been heard as the latest update announcement on the Rocket League blog talks about the new effects settings that will be added to the game on February 1. “Based on recent player feedback, we’ve become aware that the effects and lighting in Neon Fields can negatively impact the game experience for some players,” the blog post reads. “Following the update, players will be able to change this setting to ‘Default or ‘Low.'”

If players switch to the Low setting, pulsing effects, flashing lights, background light intensity and moving FX will be reduced or removed entirely when playing on Neon Fields. This will hopefully allow players who have been reporting the seizure-inducing effects to play the game once more.

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In other Rocket League news, the game recently made our list of the best games of the PS4/Xbox One generation.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.