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26. June 2020

Coronavirus: Sweden says WHO made ‘total mistake’ by including it in warning

Sweden’s state epidemiologist says the agency misinterpreted data underpinning alarm over infections.

26. June 2020

Microsoft to Permanently Close All But 4 Physical Stores

Microsoft has announced that it will be permanently closing all of its retail stores, while four physical locations in London, NYC, Sydney, and Redmond will be re-imagined as Microsoft Experience Centers.

Microsoft announced the news and said that “the company’s retail team members will continue to serve customers from Microsoft corporate facilities and remotely providing sales, training, and support.”

Microsoft has told The Verge that no layoffs will result from today’s decision. Microsoft closed its retail stores in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and had yet to re-open them.

Since then, there focus has obviously shifted to its digital storefronts on Microsoft.com and the stores on both Xbox and Windows PC, which “reach more than 1.2 billion people every month in 190 markets.”

“We deliberately built teams with unique backgrounds and skills that could serve customers from anywhere. The evolution of our workforce ensured we could continue to serve customers of all sizes when they needed us most, working remotely these last months,” Microsoft Corporate Vice Pesident David Porter said in a statement. “Speaking over 120 languages, their diversity reflects the many communities we serve. Our commitment to growing and developing careers from this talent pool is stronger than ever.”

In April, Microsoft explained its plan to take care of its employees in this changed world we are living in, saying how many employees had already shifted to remote work and had how it had continued to “provide regular pay for team members through the pandemic.”

This news arrives in the same year as the launch of Microsoft’s newest console, the Xbox Series X, which is expected to be released in Holiday 2020.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

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

26. June 2020

Cuphead Netflix Series Gets a First Teaser

Netflix has shared an inside peek at The Cuphead Show in a new video that offers fans a closer look at the show’s animation style.

The streaming giant invited fans to take a behind-the-scenes look at the “intricate, nostalgic design” of the animated series in a new teaser shared on Twitter. The short video showcases character concept art for Cuphead (Tru Valentino) and his brother Mugman (Frank Todaro), together with Fleischer-style scenes that have been created to tell the tale of Cuphead, who is described as a “lovable scamp.”

Take an inside peek at the intricate, nostalgic design of The Cuphead Show! pic.twitter.com/EF0kpAi973

— NX (@NXOnNetflix) June 26, 2020

The show’s “ragtag tribe of enthusiastic artists and animators” provide an insightful commentary over the footage, with the team sharing details of everything involved in the creative process, from character creation and storyboarding to the role of the voice actors. The video concludes with another look at the official poster for the series, followed by a “coming soon” title card.

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“Reimagining the Fleischer style with these incredibly relatable siblings is gonna be pretty fresh and new,” executive producer CJ Kettler promised in one clip, while art director Andrea Fernandez suggested that the show would “bring you back to the wonder of childhood.”

Similarly to its video game counterpart, The Cuphead Show will follow the unique misadventures of the world’s colourful characters through 1930s-style animation, however, it will not be a retelling of the game. The character-driven comedy will be hand-drawn, though not entirely to paper this time, and not by Studio MDHR themselves, but rather Netflix’s own in-house animation studio.

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Netflix’s The Cuphead Show does not have a release date yet, so, for now, you’ll have to stick to playing the game.

In our review of the Cuphead game, we praised both its incredible hand-drawn graphics and its meticulous co-op challenge. Though it originally released as an Xbox One game and a PC game, it has since been ported to Nintendo Switch and, as IGN exclusively reported, it’s also on the way to Tesla vehicles as well. It has sold over 4 million copies so far.

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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

26. June 2020

IGN UK Podcast #545: Cyberpunk! Avengers! Ice Creams!

It’s ludicrously hot (read: a bit hot) in the UK right now, and it isn’t helping our general state of “melted” that all these exciting games are being shown off at the moment. This week, Jesse, Matt and Joe discuss the finer points of Cyberpunk 2077 after Night City Wire and a swather of previews. We also touch base on Marvel’s Avengers, which impressed us in its possibilities.

Alongside that, we’ve got thoughts on The Sinner, Snowpiercer and the Harley Quinn TV show, not to mention a new Endless Search favourite, and your excellent emails. Remember, if you want to get in touch with the podcast, please do: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast #545: Cyberpunk! Avengers! Ice Creams!

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26. June 2020

Read a Free Excerpt of Dwarf Story, by W. W. Marplot

From the backyards of the American suburbs to a fantasy world where dwarves, fairies, and dragons are real, the new book Dwarf Story promises to take readers on a journey where homework and cell phones collide with a mystical turf war. Yeah, it must be Wednesday!

Written by Professor W.W. Marplot, Dwarf Story tells the tale of middle-school student Arty, who stumbles upon “an ax-swinging, bearded, sweaty warrior Dwarf.” Soon he and his friends realize that all manner of magical creatures has converged on their everyday lives, which of course leads to an adventure as the kids follow the clues in an attempt to figure out the mystery behind these critters. “And also,” the book’s logline reminds us, “whether you can give aspirin to Pixies.”

According to Waxing Gibbous Books, Professor Welkin Westicotter Marplot, of Coillemuir, Scotland, “is a collector of esoteric tales of global wisdom and curator of ancient manuscripts. He is a recluse and, as he claims, has been collecting and collating adventure and fantasy stories for over a century.”

Today we’ve got a free sample of Dwarf Story for you to check out. The book, which is available for pre-order now, will be released on June 30. Read on for the excerpt, and check out the cover below as well!

Arty Seeks Emma During Battle

Introduction

Arty, young teen science geek, is increasingly over his head as he and his friends—especially best friend Emma—try to navigate the many mysteries about them. Dwarves and elves and pixies and spriggans have appeared, and so has the evil Gwyllion. Her war against the fairy creatures has begun, and during an especially busy school week.

Now Emma has disappeared, but Arty’s Dwarf helped him find the tunnels and the magic needed to find her.

The Scene (Arty Narrates)

The way went upward, as before, but at intersecting tunnels I checked the mapmodelgram, and each time my path was laid out before me: The Dwarf-stone shone its light outward to the glowing cube, touching it with a slender beacon, marking where I—and it—were; its white light split into red, green, and gold where it struck the map.

“Coming, Emma!” I said to the tunnel walls.

At the last turn, the stone and map showed that the purple rainbow of the casket was near to my own emblem of colors: green and gold and red and purest white.

I smelled fresher air and saw a vague glow escaping from what must be the end of the tunnel. The air sought me, and sounds came, as if calling me.

I ran the rest of the way with no concern or weariness. What a mistake.

I was trapped.

I ran up the final paces of the tunnel; it was not steep but painfully bright with glare, and my last steps leveled me into an open, white world. The ground was hard, it was of flat stone, the air was cool and fresh, the smell of a May meadow. But I could not see yet, my eyes glazed, blinded in a negative white that I tried to blink away.

Then iron bars slid, metal clasped, doors slammed, gates shut, and as my eyes blinked, I found myself in a cage, like those I’d seen here before—near to the fairy dream mountain in the sky, which is where I was, at its foot.

The sky was white—plain, empty, clear, it hovered as a staggering, unreal, inexplicable well of white. Looking there was a frightening version of being blind. I did not look there.

Raised near to me, in a flawless pyramid, was the last height of the last of the rows of higher and higher, jagged, curved hilltops. This triangle—straight, perfect angles as if drawn by schoolchildren—sat atop a few others that descended below me on the opposite side, all of straight, smooth grey stone. The connected hills below were covered in rich green, and here and there were speckled with bright flowers, despite their ugly shapes.

Although this was a mountain, and the distances were great, I could see everything clearly, as if my eyes had special lenses, or this world itself was shaped and rounded to fit all its features, magically, into a smaller space. Clouds floated all around, above and below, but when they parted the horizon itself seemed close, and small, as if it were a ring that I could put on my finger.

But I had certainly landed right in it: into a jail in fairy world. I was trapped by black iron bars as thick as Cry’s arms, and the tunnel entrance was closed. It had a door of stone made of the very rock of the mountainside and clasped with a silver steel lock.

I looked at the map. My red-green-gold was near to the purple rainbow—the box that I thought Emma had. It never occurred to me that someone else had it—like the Old Woman of the—this—Mountain, and I was leading myself directly to our great enemy.

Suddenly, I was struck and fell to the hard ground. The sounds and colors on the air that had called me from the tunnel were now all around—they were the words and spells of the Gwyllion, and they grew louder as I cowered, my face to the stone.

I heard words, and thoughts came to my mind that confused me because, unlike anything else in my world, they made sense. I looked up but was snowblinded by the pure light and fairy airs.

Just as suddenly as I had been knocked to the ground, the spell stopped, and I saw clearly my surroundings. Dirty, ugly creatures fenced my cage, but the larger force was gone, and the words with it. All around—the mountainsides, the hills, the sky, the distant waters—were in motion: thousands of living things were flying, or marching, or crawling, all toward a large flat plain beneath me, jutting from the mountain. It looked familiar: I had seen it in Thryst’s eyes, all those years ago, on Wednesday, my first eyeventure.

The battle would be there. But I didn’t see any Dwarves. I was as alone as is possible. There was a crack like lightning, and I was stung with a sharp pain in my right leg. I cried out, and my thigh bled through a rip in my jeans. Tears came to my eyes, and anger rose up into my throat, choking me. There was another crack—above my head. It was a whip. Its many black tails fell to the ground and retreated to the ugly, Orc-like monster who held it.

The other creatures outside my cell were taunting me. I backed away, thinking that I had a lot of data but no weapons. Through all my adventures it never occurred to me to be armed.

I thought of Cry and Ted and their fantasy and video games as I moved into a far corner to avoid my attackers.

I tried to be brave; I thought of Emma and why I was here. The largest of the creatures—I did not want to look at them but saw that this fairy was about three feet tall, had a large, reddish head, ugly grey thick hair, and otherwise was gangly and rotten like an unwanted vegetable lying in a field—was spitting words at me. I tried to understand them, to picture them in English letters, to search for them in my memory of counter-spells to perhaps fight back. I cowered in the corner as bravely as I could—not crying and calling for my mom was as far as I got. My hands trembled, and a thrown stone knocked the phone out of my hand, another hit my lower lip, and I screamed back at them.

My scream was not heard—a larger, more potent voice had shrieked at the same time and it still echoed beneath and throughout the world. More armies of folkie bad guys moved then, coming out of holes in the mountains, and rising from the depths below. And my taunting captors also left me.

Then I saw Emma.

And I heard Mary. Not heard, felt. No, not felt, sensed. I knew she was near, or coming, or had her own spells that were doing battle in this valley—her will, and other spirits that were clean and clear like melting snow in rays of the sun—were opposing the will of the specters of the mountain. I sensed Sprugly the Spriggan; it felt familiar and good. The air was thick with the strength of Dwarf armies, the mystical motions of elves, the magic of wizards and witches, and others who were part of legends and lands and had friends to rescue, and a future to save.

Just as I was here to save Emma. Would she let me? Was there a spell for best friends turned bad?

She was with other children our age, coming up one of the green hills, almost directly below, a hundred yards away. I vaguely recognized some of the kids from school. Ahead and behind them walked and flew more of the type of nasty things that had stood outside my cage.

Was Emma now a leader, promoted by the Old Woman? Were these other kids her troops, or captives? This was worse than the two Teds, since those weren’t all that different.

I yelled to her. The wind picked up my voice and carried it to her. She looked up but did not respond.

I yelled to her to stop. To go back home. To be careful. To beware. To escape. She marched on. To help me? She marched on.

To capture me?

I read spells from my phone and started reciting—screaming—every word of everything I had, until my voice rasped with weariness and was weakened with tears.

Sore, my lower lip blubbered; my leg throbbed from the whip’s slash, it bled cold into my jeans. I grabbed the iron bars and, on tiptoes, watched as Emma’s troupe traveled along a ridge directly below me; their path headed directly to the battle plain.

Dwarf Story is available for pre-order now and will be released on June 30 as both an e-book and in paperback.

26. June 2020

The Newest iPads Are on Sale for Black Friday Prices

Every time the iPad line goes on sale, I recommend getting one. Earlier this year I bought the 32GB WiFi iPad and it is my favorite piece of tech now. I thought I’d look like a huge dork carting it around, but that’s true regardless of the tech I’m carrying. At some point I realized I spend most of my non-gaming tech time either reading or surfing the web, and rather than drop $500+ for a laptop, the $249 iPad does all that and so much more.

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The newest iPads also work with Apple Pencil, so you don’t need to drop a grand to get a Pro Model if you’re interested in creating digital art. I recommend getting an Apple Pencil and the $10 Procreate app if you have any interest at all in drawing digitally.

Beyond art and web surfing, I use my iPad for reading comics. It’s awesome. The Marvel Unlimited and ComiXology Unlimited apps are great. In fact, you can still sign up for a 60-day ComiXology unlimited trial at no cost to you. If you have an iPad, or any device really, I recommend it.

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Seth Macy is Executive Editor, IGN Commerce, and just wants to be your friend. Find him on Twitter @sethmacy.

26. June 2020

The Last of Us Part 2 Is the Fastest-Selling PS4 Exclusive Ever

The Last of Us Part II has officially sold through over 4 million copies as of June 21, 2020, making it the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive ever.

Senior Vice President of PlayStation Worldwide Marketing at SIE Eric Lempel took to PlayStation.Blog to reveal the milestone, all but confirming that The Last of Us Part 2 has surpassed Marvel’s Spider-Man as Sony’s fastest-selling exclusive for the PlayStation 4 in its first three days.

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Neil Druckmann, Vice President of Naughty Dog and Director of The Last of Us Part II, also shared a message with fans of the post-apocalyptic game we called a “Masterpiece.”

“We are so immensely grateful to the millions of fans around the world that have played The Last of Us Part II and shared their experiences with us over the last week,” Druckmann said. “We set out to tell a new kind of story, one that deals with difficult themes and would challenge you in unexpected ways. Hearing how the experience has resonated with so many of you and witnessing the type of thoughtful discussions it has sparked has been so incredible. We’ve also been so inspired by your creativity — whether it’s your gorgeous Photo Mode shots, jaw-dropping gameplay GIFs, or the songs you’ve recorded using Ellie’s guitar. ”

“The Last of Us Part II was made possible thanks to the efforts of the hundreds of talented and passionate developers here at Naughty Dog. We can imagine no greater honor than seeing that same passion mirrored by the people playing it. Thank you for helping us reach this amazing milestone.”

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For more on The Last of Us Part 2, which was also the fastest-selling boxed PS4 game in the UK, read Druckmann’s comments on how there are “no plans” for DLC for The Last of Us Part 2 and check out 14 brilliant details in the sequel to the 2013 classic.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

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

26. June 2020

Posts

Coronavirus: Sweden says WHO made ‘total mistake’ by including it in warning

Microsoft to Permanently Close All But 4 Physical Stores

Cuphead Netflix Series Gets a First Teaser

IGN UK Podcast #545: Cyberpunk! Avengers! Ice Creams!

Read a Free Excerpt of Dwarf Story, by W. W. Marplot

The Newest iPads Are on Sale for Black Friday Prices

The Last of Us Part 2 Is the Fastest-Selling PS4 Exclusive Ever

Shaoquett Moselmane: Australian lawmaker’s office raided ‘amid China probe’

Coronavirus: Singapore bans Britons for lockdown ‘bar crawl’

Virgin Australia to fly again with new US owner Bain Capital