Monthly Archives: June 2020
Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone Season 2 Gets Creepy Episode-Specific Posters
Jordan Peele's revival of The Twilight Zone enters its second season today -- that's the signpost up ahead! -- and we've got some creepy posters and a clip from the new batch of episodes.
The CBS All Access series features 10 new episodes in Season 2, with Peele once again hosting and executive-producing the latest take on Rod Serling's classic show. The new episodes will star the likes of Morena Baccarin, Kylie Bunbury, Jenna Elfman, Sky Ferreira, Tavi Gevinson, Topher Grace, Tony Hale, Gillian Jacobs, David Krumholtz, Thomas Lennon, Sophia Macy, Natalie Martinez, Joel McHale, Chris Meloni, Gretchen Mol, Paula Newsome, Jurnee Smollett, Billy Porter, Jimmi Simpson, Daniel Sunjata, Damon Wayans Jr., and more.
First up, check out this clip from the episode "Meet in the Middle," where Westworld's Jimmi Simpson is having a rough time during a dinner date when a third party enters the scene... in his head.
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Definitely not how you'd want a first date to go.
Next up, we have 10 episode-specific posters based on the new season. Check them all out in this slideshow:
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The episode "A Human Face," starring Christopher Meloni and Jenna Elfman, also got a special motion poster. You can take a look a that below, featuring the very human faces of, yes, Meloni and Elfman, and also a third human-ish face too...
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The Twilight Zone Season 2’s episodes are:
From CBS: "Executive producers Jordan Peele and Simon Kinberg’s modern re-imagining of the classic brings the original series’ legacy of socially conscious storytelling to new audiences, exploring the human condition and holding a lens up to the culture of our times. The series’ second season will use introspection and the exploration of self to usher viewers into a familiar dimension." For more on the CBS All Access series, check out our ranking of The Twilight Zone Season 1's episodes or get a first look at photos from the new season. [ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/04/01/jordan-peeles-the-twilight-zone-series-premiere-review]
- "Among the Untrodden," starring Sophia Macy
- "The Who of You," starring Billy Porter
- "A Human Face," starring Christopher Meloni and Jenna Elfman
- "Downtime," starring Morena Baccarin
- "8," starring Joel McHale
- "Meet in the Middle," starring Jimmi Simpson
- "Try, Try," starring Topher Grace and Kylie Bunbury
- "A Small Town," starring Damon Wayans, Jr.
- "You Might Also Like," starring Gretchen Mol
- "Ovation," starring Thomas Lennon and Jurnee Smollett
From CBS: "Executive producers Jordan Peele and Simon Kinberg’s modern re-imagining of the classic brings the original series’ legacy of socially conscious storytelling to new audiences, exploring the human condition and holding a lens up to the culture of our times. The series’ second season will use introspection and the exploration of self to usher viewers into a familiar dimension." For more on the CBS All Access series, check out our ranking of The Twilight Zone Season 1's episodes or get a first look at photos from the new season. [ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/04/01/jordan-peeles-the-twilight-zone-series-premiere-review]
Tales of Arise Delayed, No New Release Date Announced
Tales of Arise, the next entry in the beloved "Tales of" series, has been delayed from its 2020 release window due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tales of Arise producer Yusuke Tomizawa wrote a letter explaining the tough decision, saying that "while COVID-19 has affected some aspects of development, we’ve done our best to adapt to the situation and have implemented remote development capabilities for our team."
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"However," Tomizawa continued. "We will need more time to achieve the quality and provide the gorgeous experience we envision for our players, and therefore we decided to delay the launch timing for Tales of Arise."
No new launch window was given, but Tomizawa promises that it will be "provided once we have more details to share."
To make up for the delay, the team has shared a brand-new illustrated image for Tales of Arise, reminding us "it is always darkest before the dawn."
Tales of Arise was announced during Microsoft's Xbox E3 2019 press conference and will be the next entry following Tales of Beseria in 2017. In our review of Tales of Beseria, we said it "is a surprisingly strong showing for this long-running series. Its tragic story of broken people fighting on the wrong side of history makes it utterly compelling, and its well-tuned combat more than makes up for its lack of interesting environments."
When Tales of Arise is released, it will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. There is no word on any next-gen versions as of this writing.
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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.
New Scream Movie Officially Set to Be Released by Paramount in 2021
Spyglass Media Group has reportedly teamed up with Paramount Pictures to co-produce the upcoming relaunch of Scream, the fifth title in the horror-comedy film franchise, which is said to be targeting a 2021 release date.
Variety reports that principal photography on Scream 5 is expected to commence later this summer in Wilmington, North Carolina, ahead of the slasher sequel's planned release next year. No exact release date has been confirmed as of yet.
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David Arquette is the only cast member to be announced for the frightful fifth installment so far. He will reprise his role as Sheriff Dewey Riley, the dedicated lawman with an unmatched friendliness and kindness. However, many more casting announcements are expected to be unmasked once the cameras officially start rolling.
The rest of the team on the project includes Ready or Not's Matthew Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who will both direct the film from an original story co-written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick. Vanderbilt will also collaborate with Paul Neinstein and William Sherak on producing duties while creator Kevin Williamson executive produces alongside Chad Villella, the third member of the Radio Silence trio.
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The plot synopsis for the Scream relaunch is not currently known. It is also unclear whether this project will serve as a soft reboot by retaining a continuation of the previous story or a hard reboot with no connection to previous Scream films.
The previous four Scream films were directed by iconic horror director Wes Craven, who passed away in 2015. Arquette previously spoke about "honouring Wes Craven's legacy" in the upcoming Scream reboot, though no further details have been shared at this time.
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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.
Lost In Random Is a ‘Light RPG’ With Action-Tactical Combat and a Board Game Twist
Lost In Random got its first reveal at EA Play Live last week - but that reveal didn’t tell us too much about what it actually is. Thankfully, I got to speak to its directors, Klaus Lyngeled and Olov Redmalm from developer Zoink!, and discovered that the stop-motion inspired, dark-cartoon game coming next year will be a “light RPG” with action-based and tactical combat, and an intriguing (and still somewhat unexplained) board game twist.
While last week’s reveal was designed to be a mere tease of what the game has to offer, it perhaps led a few people off-track. “People have been saying, ‘So, it’s a puzzle-platformer!’”, says Lyngeled.
"It’s not a puzzle-platformer.”
Instead, it’s what the studio’s calling a ‘Light RPG’.
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Written by Dinosaur Comics creator (and long-time Zoink! collaborator) Ryan North, Lost In Random is set in a world where every 12 year-old must roll a magical die, and is then assigned a region to live in and a life to live based on their results of their throw. A role for a roll, if you will. After the heroine, Even sees her sister Odd placed in a new region, she breaks the rules by setting off to look for her, and discovers her own personal magical die, Dicey, that allows her to fight back against the regime set by the (as yet unspecified) dark forces in charge.
That adventure takes her through the world’s six kingdoms, each themed after their side of a die. “For instance,” explains Redmalm, “in Two Town, everyone has two personalities, and they swap every day when this evil force rolls the dark dice. In Three Town, there are three triplets waging a civil war against each other over a family dispute.” Each of those areas should offer a “really different” setting for the game’s cartoon-gothic look, inspired by A Nightmare Before Christmas, Over the Garden Wall, and Grimms’ Fairytales.
So what’s the game around those explorable areas? “You go around and talk to characters - it has dialogue trees, you can go up to characters and talk to them, and everything is fully voiced,” Lyngeled tells me. “So that bit is a little bit like a very light version of Skyrim - it really feels like you can dive into the world and talk to the characters, find quests, and figure out what’s going on.”
And when that exploration, and those quests, inevitably have you come up against the armed forces of the people in charge of Random, that’s when the battles begin. “It’s a mix between full-on action and then a bit of tactics,” explains Lyngeled. That’s a seamless process, too: “It’s a very fluid dance between action and tactics,” adds Redmalm. “It’s an action-adventure with a twist”.
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It’s not clear exactly how we’ll be performing that fluid dance just yet, although trailers have shown Even wielding a giant mace as well as a bow and arrow - so it appears we’ll be wielding multiple weapon types - and Lyngeled explains that the section of the trailer that shows the world around Even being paused is a hint about what’s to come (perhaps meaning you'll be able to pause the action to make tactical choices, before diving back into the fray).
Dicey factors into that action in some regards. While there will be sections where you control him directly, Dicey’s main function seems to be in giving Even her powers as she fights: “Rolling Dicey enables you to become this superhero - he's like this crazy jack-in-the-box of powers that he gives you,” says Redmalm. Fittingly, of course, those powers are subject to your rolls - you might get lucky in a situation, or you might not (although Redmalm makes clear that even when you fail to get what you want, it should feel thrilling).
There’s another random element to the gameplay that the directors simply won’t tell me about in detail right now, with a tease about how board games are also an element of Random’s gameplay. “Board games are built into the world itself,” says Lyngeled, “and you sort of get stuck in them. Part of it is of course using some of the mechanics that Dicey can do - you know, running while throwing the dice.” He laughs nervously, and stops there. “I’m always saying too much.”
Zoink!’s developers are very keen for you to know that there’s more that remains unseen. “In this reveal trailer, we didn't even dive into really the gameplay mechanics of it - and they are quite unique. There’s hints of it. Obviously, because we're not showing so much gameplay, everyone just focuses on the art design, and I'm happy that they do that. But for us, we can tell great stories and we can make great art, but I think what we're really trying to focus on right now is really making sure that it's a great game design.”
Lost In Random already sounds like a more interesting, unusual proposition than we’d assumed when we saw it last week - once it arrives for Switch, PS4, Xbox One and Steam in 2021 (with next-gen currently being looked at), it sounds as though we’ll have even more to look forward to.
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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.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Summer Update Adds Ocean Swimming
Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Summer Update Wave 1 will add ocean swimming, new characters, new items to find and donate, new DIY recipes, and more.
This free update will arrive on July 3, 2020, and will allow players to swim for the first time in New Horizons. While swimming, players can find and donate new sea creatures, like a Sea Star or Sea Anemone, run into Pascal the otter who will give out new DIY recipes like a Mermaid Dresser, and more.
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There will be other encounters throughout the island, like running into Gulliver in a new red outfit. Who knows what that change will bring with it!
This update won't be the only one this Summer, however, as Update #2 will arrive in Early August. While no details were given, the release window announcement was surrounded by fireworks, possibly hinting at things to come.
Pascal the otter has appeared in other Animal Crossing games, and in New Leaf he would show up upon player's finding a scallop. He is also very wise in the field of philosophy, so be sure to listen to him when he pops up.
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Fore more on Animal Crossing: New Horizons, be sure to check out our Animal Crossing Celebrity Island Tours, where we had such stars as Westworld's Shannon Woodward, IGN Alum Alanah Pearce, Shang-Chi's Simu Liu's, and Star Wars: Rogue One's Gary Whitta show off their islands while raising money for the WHO COVID Response Fund and the Bail Project.
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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 who loves the ocean. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
Pokemon Unite Reveal Becomes The Pokemon Company’s Most Disliked Video on YouTube
Yesterday's Pokemon Unite presentation has quickly become The Pokemon Company's most disliked video on YouTube, ever.
Yesterday's Pokemon Presents broadcast has accrued over 170,000 dislikes in under 24 hours (as noted by Nintendo Life), a strong response from fans after the hotly anticipated reveal turned out to be a MOBA-like where you play as teams of Pokemon, earning abilities and vying for control of a top-down battlefield.
In a further showing of community reaction to the new game, the channel's second most disliked video is the standalone trailer for the game, with over 55,000 dislikes. Both videos have seen their dislikes far outstrip the likes given. While not a solid measurement of overall fan reaction to the game, it's very clear that Unite's announcement has been a controversial one.
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Many were expecting something more conventional from the presentation, which was announced last week following the reveal of New Pokemon Snap, which is coming to the Nintendo Switch. At the time, many believed that Pokemon President Tsunekazu Ishihara was teasing a Johto-set follow-up to Pokemon Let's Go after internet sleuths caught a line-up of suspicious plush 'mons in the cabinet behind Ishihara when he first teased yesterday's conference.
Pokemon Unite, a "strategic team-based battle game", arrives thanks to a collaboration between The Pokemon Company and Tencent's TiMi Studios, which previously worked on Call of Duty: Mobile and Arena of Valor. Some of the confirmed Pokemon that are playable in the game include Snorlax, Haunter, Pikachu, Squirtle and more.
Pokemon Unite will land on Nintendo Switch and mobile devices and will feature cross-play. It's being billed as a "free-to-start" game, and we'll be sure to keep you posted when we hear about a potential launch date for the game.
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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN, who thinks we could all be a little more open-minded about this chill-looking MOBA. Follow him on Twitter.
Tokyo Game Show 2020 Online Will Take Place In September
The organisers of Tokyo Game Show have revealed more details about the digital replacement for the conference that will be taking place in September this year.
Beginning Wednesday, September 23 and ending Sunday, September 27, Tokyo Game Show 2020 Online will replace the physical event, and offer announcements from “major publishers to indie game developers.” As well as a number of reveals, there will be online exhibits, esports tournaments and panels, all hosted online for free.
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As of today, companies can register to exhibit during the event. For more details, you can check out the Tokyo Game Show 2020 Online website.
TGS 2020 was cancelled in early May due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which also caused the cancellation of many of this year’s games industry showcases such as GDC, E3 and Gamescom.
IGN has been hosting its own replacement conference called the IGN Summer of Gaming, offering news, interviews and reveals across the month of June. The event is being held in partnership with a number of top publishers, and you can check out the full schedule here. As part of that show, we've been raising money for COVID-19 relief and the Black Lives Matter movement - if you can, please give generously at donate.ign.com.
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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
Disney’s California Parks Reopening Delayed
Disney has delayed the reopening of its Californian parks, with the state of California waiting to offer safety guidelines.
Universal Gave Tarantino an Unusual Pitch for Hateful Eight and It Didn’t Go Well
Prolific director and cinephile Quentin Tarantino was originally pitched on the idea of releasing his Oscar-winning Hateful Eight film on iPhones instead of theaters by NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell.
In a new profile piece on Shell by The Wall Street Journal (via IndieWire), the CEO recalls a time when Tarantino was looking for financing for The Hateful Eight, which was difficult at the time, due to the director's desire to shoot the film in 70mm and retrofit theaters so they would be able to properly display the movie.
According to the Wall Street Journal, "Jeff Shell, at the time the head of the Universal studio, voiced his own pitch. 'What if we released it on iPhones?' he said. 'Great,' Mr. Tarantino replied, and stormed out of the meeting."
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Tarantino would end up working with The Weinstein Company on The Hateful Eight, with the film going on to gross over $155 million at the worldwide box office and earn iconic composer Ennio Morricone his first Academy Award.
While Shell's pitch may seem a bit unorthodox, the NBCUniversal boss has recently found financial success in the digital streaming space by thinking outside the box with the debut of Trolls World Tour, which made close to $100 million in online rental fees after skipping a theatrical release. This unexpected on-demand premiere sparked a feud between Universal and major movie theater chains, with AMC and Regal Entertainment refusing to play Universal movies once their cinemas reopen.
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David Griffin still watches DuckTales in his pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. He's also the TV Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.
IGN Expo Day 5: Everything Announced and Revealed – Summer of Gaming
Day 5 of IGN Expo has wrapped up and there were some new reveals, announcements, and a bunch of Avengers. We’ve collected today’s biggest news, trailers, and more below in case you missed anything.
A special bonus Expo Day to accompany the big Avengers War Table livestream. It wasn’t all just Iron Man and Thor though. There was a first look at some new gameplay for titles like Fall Guys, and as always we are still supporting important causes like the World Health Oragnization and The Bail Project which you can still donate to at donate.ign.com.
What did you think about IGN Expo Day 5? - and IGN Expo as a whole? What was your favorite thing announced during the show? Let us know with a Yap below!
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