Rob McElhenney has explained why the animated Minecraft movie he was going to direct ended up not going ahead.

McElhenney, known for playing Mac in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, was lined up to direct Minecraft: The Movie based on a script he co-wrote. It was going to star Steve Carrell and was due to be released in May 2019, but he dropped out in August 2018 with no proper explanation given as to why.

Now McElhenney has revealed his side of the story on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "I'm comfortable talking about it, because f**k them, at this point," McElhenney began.

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At first, he explains that he loved playing Minecraft with his kids, and got the idea to turn it into a movie after The Lego Movie came out in 2014. "I thought one of the greatest assets of Minecraft is that it didn't have a fixed narrative, that it was an open-world experience," McElhenney said. "And that all you were essentially given were the building blocks to do what you want."

After spending some time at Pixar to refine his pitch, McElhenney went to Warner Bros and met with Greg Silverman, who ended up giving him a budget of $150 million to make Minecraft: The Movie. McElhenney said the theme of his movie pitch was, "people taking agency over their own experience in this digital landscape."

Unfortunately, Silverman left Warner Bros. in 2016 and was replaced by Toby Emmerich, just one month before production was due to begin. McElhenney said that's when his Minecraft movie fell apart. "Toby [Emmerich] who runs the studio there - I dunno if he still runs the studio there - he was actually really gracious. He never actually said 'I don't believe in you' or 'you can't do this', it just slowly died on the vine."

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McElhenney said he doesn't "harbour any resentment," as he wasn't Emmerich's choice, and he had a different vision for Warner Bros. But he adds that "the thing that bummed me out was that it was two-and-a-half-years of my life, and I was a month away from moving to Vancouver to start prep. Steve [Carrell] was already locked in, his deal was done, we were making the movie."

McElhenney said he learned a valuable and important lesson, which is that these projects can fall apart at any time, which means "you just have to live in that mystery" when it does. "So you better really, really love the process, and I did enjoy the process, but I didn't love it enough to do it again," he said.

McElhenney has been able to work on and finish a project based on video games since then. Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet is a show about the game industry made for Apple TV that McElhenney and his fellow Always Sunny star Charlie Day wrote together. It's already been renewed for a second season.

As to Minecraft: The Movie, it now has a new director in Peter Sollett, who previously worked on Raising Victor Vargas and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, and who has written a whole new script for the adaptation. Minecraft: The Movie has a new release date of 2022.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

If you buy Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox One, you'll receive its eventual Xbox Series X version for free, thanks to Microsoft's new Smart Delivery feature. As part of a massive drop of new Xbox Series X details today, Microsoft announced Smart Delivery, which will give players both current and next-gen versions of cross-generation games for the price of a single purchase. This will be available on all Xbox Game Studios games, but Microsoft said any third-party developer could opt in - the Cyberpunk Twitter account duly obliged:

Gamers should never be forced to purchase the same game twice or pay for upgrades. Owners of #Cyberpunk2077 for Xbox One will receive the Xbox Series X upgrade for free when available. https://t.co/nfkfFLj85w

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) February 24, 2020

Cyberpunk 2077 will be released on September 17 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, but no release date has been given for next-gen versions of the game. Last time we heard about it, we were being told to assume that it wouldn't be around the launch timeframes of the new consoles (likely to be around November), so you might be playing your Xbox One version for several months before you get that upgrade. It's a fairly monumental move from developer CD Projekt Red - imagine if Rockstar had promised GTA V buyers that their 360 version of the game would get them the Xbox One edition for free later on. It'll be very interesting to see if Sony adopts (or has already adopted) a similar policy. We asked CD Projekt Red if it would theoretically make the same move between PS4 and PS5, should it be available, but got a no-comment. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=100-new-cyberpunk-2077-screenshots-gangs-characters-and-playstyles-revealed&captions=true"] The Cyberpunk 2077 collector's edition is still available for preorder at Walmart in the US, so this is a great opportunity to pick it up and upgrade later for free. Cyperpunk 2077 now joins the growing list of Xbox Series X games, and you can see the full list of confirmed Xbox Series X games here. Of course, even those current-gen versions of the game feel far away after Cyberpunk was delayed, but we've got 7 similarly themed games to tide you over in the meantime. [poilib element="accentDivider"]

If you buy Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox One, you'll receive its eventual Xbox Series X version for free, thanks to Microsoft's new Smart Delivery feature. As part of a massive drop of new Xbox Series X details today, Microsoft announced Smart Delivery, which will give players both versions of cross-gen games for the price of a single purchase. This will be available on all Xbox Game Studios games, but Microsoft said any third-party developer could opt in - the Cyberpunk Twitter account duly obliged:

Gamers should never be forced to purchase the same game twice or pay for upgrades. Owners of #Cyberpunk2077 for Xbox One will receive the Xbox Series X upgrade for free when available. https://t.co/nfkfFLj85w

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) February 24, 2020

Cyberpunk 2077 will be released on 17 September for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, but no release date has been given for next-gen versions of the game. Last time we heard about it, we were being told to assume that it wouldn't be around the launch timeframes of the new consoles (likely to be around November), however, so you might be playing your Xbox One version for several months before you get that upgrade. It's a fairly monumental move from developer CD Projekt Red - imagine if Rockstar had promised GTA V buyers that their 360 version of the game would get them the Xbox One edition for free later on. It'll be very interesting to hear if Sony adopts a similar policy. We asked CD Projekt Red if it would theoretically make the same move between PS4 and PS5, should it be available, but got a no-comment. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=100-new-cyberpunk-2077-screenshots-gangs-characters-and-playstyles-revealed&captions=true"] The Cyberpunk 2077 collector's edition is still available for preorder at Walmart in the US, so this is a great opportunity to pick it up and upgrade later for free. Developing...

Xbox Series X will have 12 teraflops of GPU power, support backwards compatibility back to original Xbox games, include hardware accelerated raytracing, supports up to 120 frames per second, and supports quick resume for multiple games simultaneously. Those are just some of the technical specs of the new console listed by Head of Xbox Phil Spencer in an Xbox Newswire blogpost today. The post goes into detail on several key themes for Series X: power & speed, instant immersion and game compatibility. Much of what's being discussed has been touched on previously, but this is a more definitive, technical rundown of the console than in previous statements from Microsoft. On power and speed, Spencer points out the Series X's custom AMD processor, capable of 12 teraflops of GPU performance, which he says will result in higher framerates and larger worlds. Alongside that, variable rate shading support will allow developers to prioritise how effects are applied to their games, resulting in "more stable frame rates and higher resolution, with no impact on the final image quality." Spencer also says that hardware-accelerated DirectX raytracing will be a first for consoles. On instant immersion, Spencer points to the console's solid state drive (replacing the hard disc drives of previous Xbox consoles), which should improve load times. The console will also have a Quick Resume feature that allows you to re-enter suspended games with almost no wait times. Latency is seemingly being improved for both controllers and HDMI, and the console will support up to 120 frames per second. On game compatibility, Spencer promises that all Xbox One games – as well as 360 and original Xbox games already supported by Xbox One – will work on Series X, and will benefit from the better hardware, with no developer work required. Spencer also announced Smart Delivery, which will allow games to be bought once and work across all compatible consoles, despite being technically different versions of the same game - this will apply to all Xbox Game Studios titles, and developers can even apply it to games they release on Series X later than Xbox One. Xbox Game Pass will continue to feature first party games at launch, and that includes Halo Infinite. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=xbox-console-power-levels-compared&captions=true"] This news seemingly confirms a past leak that said Series X would have 12 teraflops. That leak also said that the PS5 would reach 9.2 teraflops (although that latter point remains unconfirmed). It's a jump from existing platforms: PS4 Pro has 4.2 teraflops, Xbox One X has 6, and Google Stadia is capable of up to 10.7 (but that's tempered by your internet speed). Teraflops are a measure of trillions of Floating Pointing Operations Per Second (FLOPS). Essentially, this is a measure of how many complex calculations your machine can handle every second, allowing for more high-quality graphical output - in theory. This is just one measure of console power, however, and doesn't take into account storage speed, CPU power or RAM - essentially, teraflops are a useful way of indicating an element of console power, but not the be-all and end-all. If you want a more complex rundown on just what a teraflop is and how, er, floppy(?) previous console generations have been, IGN Executive tech Editor Bo Moore went into more detail in a recent episode of Next-Gen Console Watch: We still don't know how many terfalops the PlayStation 5 is packing, but you can see a full Xbox Series X vs. PlayStation 5 comparison chart that's continually updated with everything we know so far. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/07/next-gen-console-watch-how-powerful-ps5-xbox-series-x-may-be"] [poilib element="accentDivider"]

Xbox Series X will have 12 teraflops of GPU power, support backwards compatibility back to original Xbox games, include hardware accelerated raytracing, supports up to 120 frames per second, and supports quick resume for multiple games simultaneously. Those are just some of the technical details of the new console listed by Head of Xbox Phil Spencer in an Xbox Newswire blogpost today. The post goes into detail on several key themes for Series X: power & speed, instant immersion and game compatibility. Much of what's being discussed has been touched on previously, but this is a more definitive, technical rundown of the console than in previous statements from Microsoft. On power and speed, Spencer points out the Series X's custom AMD processor, capable of 12 teraflops of GPU performance, which he says will result in higher framerates and larger worlds. Alongside that, variable rate shading support will allow developers to prioritise how effects are applied to their games, resulting in "more stable frame rates and higher resolution, with no impact on the final image quality." Spencer also says that hardware-accelerated DirectX raytracing will be a first for consoles. On instant immersion, Spencer points to the console's solid state drive (replacing the hard disc drives of previous Xbox consoles), which should improve load times. The console will also have a Quick Resume feature that allows you to re-enter suspended games with almost no wait times. Latency is seemingly being improved for both controllers and HDMI, and the console will support up to 120 frames per second. On game compatibility, Spencer promises that all Xbox One games – as well as 360 and original Xbox games already supported by Xbox One – will work on Series X, and will benefit from the better hardware, with no developer work required. Spencer also announced Smart Delivery, which will allow games to be bought once and work across all compatible consoles, despite being technically different versions of the same game - this will apply to all Xbox Game Studios titles, and developers can even apply it to games they release on Series X later than Xbox One. Xbox Game Pass will continue to feature first party games at launch, and that includes Halo Infinite. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=xbox-console-power-levels-compared&captions=true"] This news seemingly confirms a past leak that said Series X would have 12 teraflops. That leak also said that the PS5 would reach 9.2 teraflops (although that latter point remains unconfirmed). It's a jump from existing platforms: PS4 Pro has 4.2 teraflops, Xbox One X has 6, and Google Stadia is capable of up to 10.7 (but that's tempered by your internet speed). Teraflops are a measure of trillions of Floating Pointing Operations Per Second (FLOPS). Essentially, this is a measure of how many complex calculations your machine can handle every second, allowing for more high-quality graphical output - in theory. This is just one measure of console power, however, and doesn't take into account storage speed, CPU power or RAM - essentially, teraflops are a useful way of indicating an element of console power, but not the be-all and end-all. If you want a more complex rundown on just what a teraflop is and how, er, floppy(?) previous console generations have been, IGN Executive tech Edtor Bo Moore went into more detail in a recent episode of Next-Gen Console Watch: [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/07/next-gen-console-watch-how-powerful-ps5-xbox-series-x-may-be"] [poilib element="accentDivider"]

CD Projekt Red is now the second most valuable game developer in the whole of Europe. This has been confirmed recently after the studio's market valuation surpassed $8 billion (via Reddit).

Can you guess which is the number one studio in Europe in terms of market valuation? It's Ubisoft, which is currently sitting pretty at $9.52 billion. CD Projekt Red isn't all that far behind now, though.

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It's tricky to be sure exactly why the value of any company goes up or down, but you can have a good guess, especially when it comes to CD Projekt Red. For starters, the number of people playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt soared after the Netflix series launched.

This would suggest that sales of the game also got a boost, and that seems to be the case, given that CD Projekt Red recently announced that the game has made $50 million in revenue through Steam alone since October 2018.  That number is significant as it's the threshold at which Valve's cut from a Steam game's revenue goes from 30% to 20%, meaning that CD Projekt Red make a bit more dosh from every sale of The Witcher 3 on Steam than before.

The Witcher 3 also released on Nintendo Switch recently and has probably been selling well on that platform, too. It's been made more appealing recently due to getting an update that improves the graphics as well as support for cross-saves with the PC version of the game.

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CD Projekt also has Cyberpunk 2077 on the way this year after being pushed back to September. Anticipation for the Polish studio's take on yet another popular franchise is likely also helping with the studio's current market valuation.

If that months-long wait is proving difficult for you, it's worth checking out these cyberpunk games in the meantime, as they provide plenty of future-tech dystopia between them.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

CD Projekt Red is now the second most valuable game developer in the whole of Europe. This has been confirmed recently after the studio's market valuation surpassed $8 billion (via Reddit).

Can you guess which is the number one studio in Europe in terms of market valuation? It's Ubisoft, which is currently sitting pretty at $9.52 billion. CD Projekt Red isn't all that far behind now, though.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/08/19/how-does-the-witcher-3-run-on-switch"]

It's tricky to be sure exactly why the value of any company goes up or down, but you can have a good guess, especially when it comes to CD Projekt Red. For starters, the number of people playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt soared after the Netflix series launched.

This would suggest that sales of the game also got a boost, and that seems to be the case, given that CD Projekt Red recently announced that the game has made $50 million in revenue through Steam alone since October 2018.  That number is significant as it's the threshold at which Valve's cut from a Steam game's revenue goes from 30% to 20%, meaning that CD Projekt Red make a bit more dosh from every sale of The Witcher 3 on Steam than before.

The Witcher 3 also released on Nintendo Switch recently and has probably been selling well on that platform, too. It's been made more appealing recently due to getting an update that improves the graphics as well as support for cross-saves with the PC version of the game.

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CD Projekt also has Cyberpunk 2077 on the way this year after being pushed back to September. Anticipation for the Polish studio's take on yet another popular franchise is likely also helping with the studio's current market valuation.

If that months-long wait is proving difficult for you, it's worth checking out these cyberpunk games in the meantime, as they provide plenty of future-tech dystopia between them.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Mark Ruffalo has revealed that Marvel boss Kevin Feige almost quit while making The Avengers due to the lack of diversity and representation within the superhero franchise. In an interview with The Independent, Ruffalo, who has played Bruce Banner and his Hulk alter-ego since 2012, recalled an early conversation that he had with Feige, in which the MCU helmer admitted he "might not be" around for much longer, as he planned to talk to Disney about the issue of why there were no female-led superhero movies. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/08/02/10-best-moments-in-avengers-endgame"] "When we did the first Avengers, Kevin Feige told me, 'Listen, I might not be here tomorrow'," he said. "And he's like, 'Ike [Perlmutter, Disney's largest shareholder at the time] does not believe that anyone will go to a female-starring superhero movie. So if I am still here tomorrow, you will know that I won that battle.'" With the battle clearly won by Feige, Ruffalo cites this pivotal moment as a "turning point" for Marvel as it triggered the studio's push towards greater inclusion and broader representation on screen, forever changing the MCU landscape. "Kevin wanted black superheroes, women superheroes, LGBT superheroes," Ruffalo added. "He changed the whole Marvel universe. We now have a gay superhero on the way, we have black superheroes, we have female superheroes – Scarlett Johansson has her movie coming out, we have Captain Marvel, they are doing She-Hulk next. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-25-best-superhero-movies&captions=true"] "No other studio is being that inclusive on that level," Ruffalo concluded. "They have to, though. This is the f***ing world." Feige has since confirmed that LGBTQ+ representation is coming to the MCU's Phase 4, which is expected to officially kick off with the release of Black Widow on May 1, 2020, followed by The Eternals on November 6, 2020. The second of these two films will feature the MCU's first openly gay character in a large role. "He's married. He's got a family. And that is just part of who he is," Feige told Good Morning America in August of last year. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=marvel-phase-4-official-lineup&captions=true"] For more on the movies that are set to launch Phase 4, check out our breakdown of the first official Black Widow trailer and take a look at the poster for the film, then read through our detailed Marvel's Eternals Explained and The Deviants Explained features before checking out our breakdown of The Eternals' first trailer footage. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Mark Ruffalo has revealed that Marvel boss Kevin Feige almost quit while making The Avengers due to the lack of diversity and representation within the superhero franchise. In an interview with The Independent, Ruffalo, who has played Bruce Banner and his Hulk alter-ego since 2012, recalled an early conversation that he had with Feige, in which the MCU helmer admitted he "might not be" around for much longer, as he planned to talk to Disney about the issue of why there were no female-led superhero movies. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/08/02/10-best-moments-in-avengers-endgame"] "When we did the first Avengers, Kevin Feige told me, 'Listen, I might not be here tomorrow'," he said. "And he's like, 'Ike [Perlmutter, Disney's largest shareholder at the time] does not believe that anyone will go to a female-starring superhero movie. So if I am still here tomorrow, you will know that I won that battle.'" With the battle clearly won by Feige, Ruffalo cites this pivotal moment as a "turning point" for Marvel as it triggered the studio's push towards greater inclusion and broader representation on screen, forever changing the MCU landscape. "Kevin wanted black superheroes, women superheroes, LGBT superheroes," Ruffalo added. "He changed the whole Marvel universe. We now have a gay superhero on the way, we have black superheroes, we have female superheroes – Scarlett Johansson has her movie coming out, we have Captain Marvel, they are doing She-Hulk next. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-25-best-superhero-movies&captions=true"] "No other studio is being that inclusive on that level," Ruffalo concluded. "They have to, though. This is the f***ing world." Feige has since confirmed that LGBTQ+ representation is coming to the MCU's Phase 4, which is expected to officially kick off with the release of Black Widow on May 1, 2020, followed by The Eternals on November 6, 2020. The second of these two films will feature the MCU's first openly gay character in a large role. "He's married. He's got a family. And that is just part of who he is," Feige told Good Morning America in August of last year. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=marvel-phase-4-official-lineup&captions=true"] For more on the movies that are set to launch Phase 4, check out our breakdown of the first official Black Widow trailer and take a look at the poster for the film, then read through our detailed Marvel's Eternals Explained and The Deviants Explained features before checking out our breakdown of The Eternals' first trailer footage. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Kojima Productions, and Hideo Kojinma himself, have become the latest Game Developers Conference dropouts because of concerns around COVID-19 (a.k.a. Coronavirus). In a short post on its English-language website, a spokesperson for the Death Stranding developer wrote: "Kojima Productions has made the difficult decision to cancel our participation at the 2020 Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to novel coronavirus. Although much-anticipated, unfortunately this cancellation also includes Hideo Kojima’s session on the 19th and Eric Johnson’s session on the 16th." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/07/the-outer-worlds-switch-version-delayed-due-to-coronavirus"] Kojima was due to present a talk about his design philosophy for Death Stranding at the show, in which the legendary director would "unravel this process through an analysis of the game's concept, theme, storytelling, game mechanics, and development, utilizing the overarching keyword of 'connection' as a framework." It's the latest in a number of developer cancellations for upcoming public shows. PlayStation and Oculus have also pulled out of GDC, while PAX East has also been hit, with PlayStation and Square Enix among those who have changed plans around the event. The mayor of Boston has since publicly called for PlayStation to reconsider its PAX East decision, saying it contributes to harmful stereotypes. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter.