Monthly Archives: December 2018
12 News Stories That Shook the World in 2018
2018 was a memorable year in the world of entertainment. The box office thrived behind blockbusters Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, Incredibles 2, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, as well as surprise hits like Crazy Rich Asians and A Quiet Place. The gaming community celebrated an equally successful year behind AAA masterpieces Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War, with help from high-quality indies such as Celeste, Dead Cells, and Return of the Obra Dinn.
While there was a lot to celebrate, this year featured an equal amount of surprising and controversial stories that will leave a lasting impact on the gaming, film, television, and comics communities. From celebrity deaths to studio closures, these are the twelve news stories that shook the world of entertainment in 2018, listed chronologically.
Check Out Six Photos From John Wick: Chapter 3
New photos from John Wick: Chapter 3 have been revealed.
The film, starring Keanu Reeves as the titular protagonist, sees Wick return with a $14 million price tag on his head and “an army of bounty-hunting killers on his trail.”
The film also reunites Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane and Lance Reddick and introduces new characters played by Halle Berry, Anjelica Huston, Asia Kate Dillon, Mark Dacascos and Jason Mantzoukas. Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman join the cast as "formidable professional killers that Wick has to face off against," and martial arts star Tiger Hu Chen.
The Games and Game Services With the Most Downtime in 2018
Whenever PSN, Xbox Live or any other major online game or service goes down, these become some of the most heavily searched topics on IGN. So, we wanted to see how various services, platforms and individual games fared throughout 2018 when it came to staying online. To do so, we asked Downdetector, a website that collects data on online service outages, who experienced the most downtime in 2018.
To determine which games and services go down and for how long, Downdetector "collects status reports from a series of sources. Through a realtime analysis of this data, our system is able to automatically determine outages and service interruptions at a very early stage.” Downtime analyzes reports from sources like Twitter, and detects outages when the number of reports jumps above a relative baseline level.
Fans React Positively to The Division 2 Alpha
Ubisoft’s The Division 2 held a technical alpha test for the PC over the last week, and many of those who had the chance to play it came away with positive impressions.
The alpha, which was announced last week, took place between December 15-18, and those who had the chance to play it signed a non-disclosure agreement, strictly limiting what they could or could not publicly say about the game. While many leaks arose during this time, Ubisoft has removed much of this as quickly as possible. However, some details and impressions have remained, and they’re largely positive on this post-apocalyptic sequel.
Infinity War Artists on “Those” Thanos and Gamora Scenes
Some of the most enigmatic and visually striking scenes in Avengers: Infinity War are those set in the ethereal realm where Thanos is confronted by the spirit of Gamora.
They also left us with a handful of questions: Is this Soul World? Is it all a figment of Thanos' power-addled imagination? We can't say for sure, but those moments leave a strong impression. IGN had a chance to interview Industrial Light & Magic visual effects artists Kelly Port and Dan DeLeeuw about the process of creating and depicting this mysterious realm -- and to help us set the record straight on what it actually is.
"We just explore quite a few different things and play around with the idea that it was a sort of vault, or as if we were in the Soul Stone, for example," said DeLeeuw. "But I think it ended up taking me playing around with the spread water as if... we had a lot of blood involved."
Telltale’s The Walking Dead’s Final Episodes Coming to the Epic Games Store
Skybound Games has announced it is partnering with Epic Games to release future episodes of Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season on the Epic Games Store.
Though the season will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store for all future purchases, fans who already bought the season on PC through a different platform will still be able to receive the final two episodes through their original point of purchase.
“The team at Epic owns a major chapter in the history of the game industry,” said Skybound Games CEO Ian Howe and Dan Murray in a joint-statement. "We’re excited to work together on their latest transformative event with the launch of the Epic Games Store. Epic stepped up to the plate immediately to work with us in order to bring the original team back together and ensure fans will receive the completed season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season."
Halo Infinite Confirms 4-Player Split Screens, Halo Reach Customization and More
343 Industries announced new features coming to Halo Infinite during a Mixer stream, including the long-awaited 4-player split screen mode.
Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President and Head of 343 Industries, Bonnie Ross, said at DICE 2017 that all future FPS Halo games will have split screen modes, but it was not officially confirmed for Halo Infinite until now.
Halo 5: Guardians not having the classic split screen multiplayer was upsetting to fans, and 343 said the decision to not include the mode, "was one of the most difficult ones we’ve ever had to make as a studio."
For Honor’s Assassin’s Creed Crossover Event is Available Now
For Honor, for three weeks, will be taken over by Assassin's Creed thanks to the For The Creed crossover event, featuring characters, themes, music, and more from the long-running franchise.
Revealed during the For Honor Warrior's Den livestream, the For The Creed crossover event will run from today, December 20, through January 10, 2019.
This limited-time event will feature characters such as Ezio Auditore and Cesare Borgia as Commanders, the soldiers will be dressed as either Templars (Knights), Assassins (Samurai), or Pirates (Vikings), music from the franchise will appear throughout the game, themed menus and maps will replace standard ones, and much more.
January 2019’s Xbox Games With Gold Features Celeste, Far Cry 2
Microsoft has revealed January 2019’s Games with Gold lineup, and it packs a couple of heavy hitters.
Announced by Major Nelson, the lineup features indie darling Celeste and the rally racer WRC 6 FIA World Rally Championship for the Xbox One, and the famous open world shooter Far Cry 2 as well as the isometric action-adventure Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light for the Xbox 360 - both of which are playable on the Xbox One via backward compatibility.
Here’s when you can download each game starting next month:
- Celeste: January 1-31 (Xbox One)
Hellboy Trailer Breakdown with David Harbour
The first trailer for Hellboy has officially dropped, and there are plenty of amazing Easter eggs hidden inside.
That's why IGN teamed up with star David Harbour to exclusively break down all the secrets and Easter eggs tucked away.
Watch our full trailer breakdown with Harbour above!
We also took our own pass at finding every detail you might have missed in the Hellboy trailer, which you can find in our sldieshow breakdown below:
The synopsis for Hellboy reads: "Based on the graphic novels by Mike Mignola, Hellboy, caught between the worlds of the supernatural and human, battles an ancient sorceress bent on revenge."
Watch the full trailer below: