Monthly Archives: July 2019

Google Stadia Will Offer ‘Roughly’ One Free Game Per Month

Google Stadia’s director of product, Andrey Doronichev tried to clear away some lingering confusion over Stadia by describing Stadia Pro as being more like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold than Netflix. Pro subscribers will even get one free game a month “give or take.”

Doronichev hosted a Reddit AMA about the company’s upcoming video game streaming platform yesterday to answer Stadia questions from the community ahead of the platform's November launch. Since Google announced its cloud streaming Stadia platform, there’s been some questions about how the service will work. There’s a monthly $9.99 subscription fee for Stadia Pro, but this fee doesn’t actually come with a library of games.

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Opinion: Overwatch’s Role Queue Benefits No-one

Role Queue is Blizzard’s latest change to Overwatch that has, like so many Overwatch changes, caused both outage and glee among the community.

The system, planned to be introduced after a short testing period, will force players to adopt a 2-2-2 team formation; two damage heroes, two tanks, and two support characters. The intention is to bring a little extra balance to Overwatch, but I’m not so sure this is a solution that is going to work.

Announced by Blizzard yesterday, Role Queue is planned to be applied to both of Overwatch’s core game modes: Quick Play and Competitive. Before finding you a match, the game will ask you which role you intend to play: damage, tank, or support? With your answer provided, the system will then place you into a game that requires the role you have selected. During play, while you will be able to swap characters, you will only be permitted to select a hero from the role that you queued for. This means that teams will always maintain a strict balance of two DPS heroes, two tanks, and two supports.

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Control: Every Weapon Form Explained – IGN First

Control is a shooter with a single gun. That would be worrying if that gun wasn’t a paranatural object able to transform at the user’s will. So that’s lucky. Meet the Service Weapon, the hand cannon that marks a Director of the Federal Bureau of Control, and lead character Jesse Faden’s best friend for her journey through The Oldest House.

The Service Weapon resembles a regular (if enormous) pistol, but look closer and you’ll see pieces of it trembling and reconfiguring. That’s because it can transform into five different forms, two of which can be swapped freely between at any one time. Its ammo is infinite, but every form comes with a limit of bullets you can fire before it needs to be recharged, not unlike a plasma weapon overheating in Halo.

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IGN UK Podcast #496: Look at the State of Those Cats

This week we saw a trailer that truly haunted us to the core, and it wasn't IT Chapter Two's...

After we recover, we also talk about all the other trailers from SDCC, Minecraft Earth and the new controversial update coming to Overwatch. We also go deep into another hot debate after all your crisp correspondences, and The Endless Starch makes its triumphant return as well. Enjoy!

IGN UK Podcast #496: Look at the State of Those Cats

And remember, if you want to get in touch with the podcast, please do: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com

His Dark Materials Is ‘Not an Attack on Religion’

His Dark Materials executive producer Jane Tranter has insisted that Sir Philip Pullman's original fantasy novels are not an attack on the church.

The cast of HBO's newest drama presented a panel at San Diego Comic Con on Thursday afternoon, wherein Tranter addressed the controversy surrounding the religious commentary related to the trilogy, saying that critics had made "assumptions" about the books without reading the content.

"Phillip Pullman in these books is not attacking belief, is not attacking faith. He's not attacking religion or the church, per se," she argued, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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The Familiar Voices of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3’s Voice Cast

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is now available on Nintendo Switch, and with it comes a whole host of famous Marvel heroes and villains from all across the Marvel universe. While Ultimate Alliance 3 is in a continuity separate from other recent Marvel Games, some of its heroes might sound a bit familiar.

IGN has a full list of the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 voice cast in our comprehensive Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 wiki guide. But for a few of the voices that most piqued our interest, read on for why they might sound so familiar.

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Marvel’s Spider-Man Is the United State’s Best Selling Superhero Game

Marvel's Spider-Man now holds the record for the best-selling superhero game of all time in the United States, according to NPD.

This bumps Batman: Arkham City off the top spot, which is impressive since that means Insomniac's Spider-Man game outstripped a 2011 multiplatform release in less than a year.

The stats were released in a tweet by Mat Piscatella, an analyst at NPD who tracks video games.

Star Trek: Picard Showrunner Teases Next Generation Cast Cameos

Star Trek: Picard executive producer, Alex Kurtzman, and showrunner, Michael Chabon, have revealed that Star Trek: The Next Generation cast cameos are not being ruled out of the new CBS All-Access series.

In a candid interview with Entertainment Weekly, the pair opened up about the mysterious project and teased the possibility of some actors reprising their Next Generation roles. However, they also said that these appearances would have to make sense to the larger storyline in order to be included.

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Netflix’s The Witcher is Bringing Politics, Sex, and Monsters

The showrunner for Netflix's take on The Witcher, Lauren Hissrich, has revealed new details about the upcoming "very adult" show.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she explained "We’re not adapting the video games, it’s a straight adaptation of the books. Which is great as the video games are also an adaptation of the books. They went one direction, we actually get to go another."

Instead, the series seems to mirror Game of Thrones' formula, mixing politics, sex, and drama into a first season that focuses on world building. Plus, in an interesting twist, there's no main baddie.

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