Update: SIE has confirmed that PlayStation Studios JAPAN Studio will be re-organized following reports that game development at the first-party developer will be scaled back. In a statement to IGN, Sony announced that Japan Studio will be "re-centered" around Team ASOBI, the development unit behind Astro's Playroom. Localization, IP management, and external production will also be concentrated within the global functions wing of PlayStation Studios. Sony launched PlayStation Studios as a new umbrella brand that houses the company's first-party game developers including Sony Santa Monica, Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, Insomniac, and more. Effectively shifting parts of Japan Studio's assets to the global brand. Here is the full statement from JAPAN Studio below:

In an effort to further strengthen business operations, SIE can confirm PlayStation Studios JAPAN Studio will be re-organized into a new organization on April 1.  JAPAN Studio will be re-centered to Team ASOBI, the creative team behind Astro's PLAYROOM, allowing the team to focus on a single vision and build on the popularity of Astro’s PLAYROOM.   In addition, the roles of external production, software localization, and IP management of JAPAN Studio titles will be concentrated within the global functions of PlayStation Studios.

[poilib element="accentDivider"] Original Story: Sony is reportedly scaling back video game development at Sony Japan Studio, a Tokyo-based first-party developer responsible for games like Ape Escape, Gravity Rush, and The Last Guardian. According to sources, VGC is reporting that a “vast majority” of Japan Studio’s developers have been laid off after their annual contracts weren’t renewed. What remains at the studio are the localization and business staff; as well as ASOBI Team, the developer of the Astro Bot series. ASOBI will reportedly continue to make games as a standalone studio.

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It’s unclear what the future holds for Japan Studio’s External Development Department, which helped on such titles as Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne, as well as working with other third-party developers in Japan. IGN has reached out to PlayStation for comment and has added the studio's response in an update above. Sources tell VGC that Japan Studio has just not been profitable enough, and there were disagreements over the direction of the studio. Japan Studio wanted to create games for the Japanese market first with global appeal, while PlayStation reportedly wanted Japan Studio to work on global hits, similar to its North American and European first-party teams. There has been a string of high-profile departures from Sony’s Tokyo-based studio in the past couple of years. Keiichiro Toyama, the director of Silent Hill and Gravity Rush, left Japan Studio in 2020 along with Gravity Rush designers Junya Okura and Kazunobu Sato to form Bokeh Game Studio. And just the other day, Bloodborne producer Masaaki Yamagiwa also announced on Twitter that he left Japan Studio, though he says he intends to remain in the games industry. Bloomberg reported in November that Japan Studio has been “sidelined,” though executives have downplayed those reports. PlayStation’s Jim Ryan and other executives at the company stressed all first-party studios are important to PlayStation, though the focus remains on creating global hits rather than local ones. Some of the Sony Japan Studio veterans are already working as independent developers. Bokeh Game Studio for example shared concepts of their first project, a horror game aiming for a 2023 release. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is News Editor at IGN.

Update It's baaaaack. The extremely popular 50% off deal went away when CBS All Access turned into Paramount+, but now it's available again with a new coupon code. All you have to do is sign up for a year and enter the coupon code YEAR at checkout. You can get it here. If you're looking to add another monthly streaming service to your dossier, you've no doubt heard about Paramount+, the newest major network to enter the streaming fray. But what, exactly, is Paramount+ and what's its relationship to CBS All Access? Read on to unravel the mystery.

How Do I Sign Up for Paramount+?

[poilib element="commerceDeal" parameters="slug=paramount-plus-sign-up-deal"] Right now you can sign up for Paramount+ and save 50% off an annual subscription (normally $59.99). The plan with ads is normally $59.99, and the ad-free plan is $99.99 a year, so chopping those figures in half is a pretty sweet deal. Plus you get your first 7 days for free. When you get to the subscription page, make sure to click on the "Save 15% with an annual membership" to change the monthly to yearly rates. After that, enter the coupon code YEAR in the box to knock 50% off the subscription.

What Is Paramount+?

OK, so remember CBS All Access? Well, the simplified version is Paramount+ is basically CBS All Access with a new name. The slightly more advanced version is Paramount+ folded all of CBS All Access' content into the new service and added more shows and movies, as well as live sports and news, so it earned its "plus" rating. According to the Paramount+ FAQ, the new service adds "exclusive new original series," along with "thousands of additional episodes from CBS, BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and Smithsonian Channel," and also promises "hundreds of movies from Paramount Pictures." So there's a lot of new stuff, for sure. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/24/halo-tv-series-will-debut-on-streaming-service"]

How Much Does Paramount+ Cost?

If you want Paramount+ with ad-supported content, it's $5.99 a month or $59.99 for a full year. If you'd rather not watch commercials, you can sign up for ad-free Paramount+ for $99.99 a year. If you sign up now, you can save 50% off an annual subscription by using coupon code YEAR, which is pretty sweet.

If I Have Paramount+ With Ads, Can I Upgrade?

Yeah totally. As long as you have a Paramount+ account, monthly or annual, you can upgrade your plan to whatever fits your needs. However, the sign-up page warns trial subscribers will forfeit any time they have left on their 7-day free trial, so it's best to maximize your value by waiting that one out.

Every Movie and TV Series Coming to Paramount+

For my money, it doesn't get much better than an all-new Beavis and Butthead movie, but there are plenty of other newly-announced shows coming to Paramount+. Mission Impossible 7, A Quiet Place 2, a Workaholics movie, a new Reno 911 special and more were recently announced for Paramount+. The Halo TV series is moving from Showtime to Paramount+, and there's also a Frasier revival in the works and a weird-looking Rugrats reboot. For a list of everything coming to Paramount+ at launch and in the future, check out the gallery below: [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-exclusive-movie-and-tv-series-coming-to-paramount&captions=true"]

What Devices Work With Paramount+?

Here are the list of supported devices, via the Paramount+ FAQ:

• Apple TV
• iPhone and iPad
• Android TV
• Android phone and tablet
• Chromecast
• Fire TV
• Portal TV
• PlayStation 4
• Samsung TV
• Vizio TV
• LG TV
• Roku
• Xbox
• Xfinity Flex

UPDATE: originally the article said CBS All Access was $5.99 a week, when it's actually $5.99 a month. The article has been updated with this correction. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Seth Macy is IGN's Executive Editor, IGN Commerce, and just wants to be your friend.

After the success of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and the troubles of Anthem, Dragon Age 4 will reportedly be a single-player RPG without multiplayer. Just a day after the official cancellation of Anthem Next, an update planned for BioWare's latest game that aimed to overhaul many of the live game's systems and fix its problems, Bloomberg reports that Dragon Age 4 will not have multiplayer and instead will be a single-player only RPG. According to Bloomberg's report, EA gave BioWare, the team behind Dragon Age 4, the go-ahead to remove all planned multiplayer and games as service components from the RPG in recent months. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/11/dragon-age-4-cinematic-trailer"] This pivot to an entirely single-player experience is reportedly the result of Fallen Order's success, which sold millions of copies to beat out EA's expectations, and the failure of Anthem to win back audiences after a rocky launch. Bloomberg reports that sources close to the development of Dragon Age 4 said the game was previously designed to have a "heavy multiplayer component." The game's development began in 2015 and two years later, in the fall of 2017, EA and BioWare reportedly rebooted development to include long-term monetization, the report reads. That reboot and push for monetization are apparently what led to the departure of Mike Laidlaw from BioWare. Dragon Age 4 was then referred to as "Anthem with dragons" by those working on the game. During this time, some of BioWare's leaders pushed back against EA and fought to pivot development back to a single-player focus. It sounds like they eventually won the fight for single-player if this new report is anything to go on. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=dragon-age-4-game-awards-trailer-screenshots&captions=true"] A release date for Dragon Age 4 has not been announced. The next thing to come from BioWare is Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, which is set to release this May. While waiting for that and the eventual return to Thedas, check out this Dragon Age 4 teaser trailer and then read this story about how Tevinter was confirmed to be the main location of the upcoming game. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

2021 is a big year for Star Wars books, between the launch of the High Republic publishing initiative, Marvel's War of the Bounty Hunters crossover and the finale of the Alphabet Squadron series of novels. If the last of those projects is on your radar, you'll be pleased to know IGN has an exclusive excerpt of Star Wars: Victory's Price - An Alphabet Squadron Novel. Victory's Price is the final book in the Alphabet Squadron trilogy by author Alexander Freed. The series is set shortly after the events of Return of the Jedi, as the titular New Republic fighter squadron hunts down an elite Imperial unit known as Shadow Wing. These books also tie into Marvel's Star Wars: TIE Fighter comic, which chronicles the opposite side of that conflict. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/01/21/star-wars-2021-upcoming-tv-shows-games-comics-and-more"] First, a little context before we get into the excerpt. This passage focuses on one of the series' main protagonists, Imperial defector Nath Tensent, as he tries to fend off a group of buzzdroids attacking the Deliverance, a former Imperial Star Destroyer retrofitted by the New Republic. Star Wars: Victory's Price - An Alphabet Squadron Novel is due for release on Tuesday, March 2. If you're hungry for more Star Wars book content, check out our excerpt of Star Wars: the High Republic - Into the Dark and the first chapter of Star Wars: The High Republic - Light of the Jedi. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

This week in GTA Online, claim Double Rewards in Special Cargo Sell Missions, Stunt Races (and more), buy the brand new Nagasaki Weaponized Dinghy, and much more.

G.I. Joe undercover agent, Lady Jaye, is getting her own live-action television series. The show will come to Amazon, according to Deadline, and is the creation of Erik Oleson, who will also serve as the showrunner. Oleson was the executive producer and lead writer for Amazon's The Man in High Castle. Lorenzo DiBonaventura, who is perhaps best known for producing Michael Bay's live-action Transformers movie franchise, will be the executive producer for the series. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=snake-eyes-movie-every-confirmed-actor-and-character&captions=true"] Deadline reports that this Lady Jaye series will be a standalone series centered on the G.I. Joe operative, but will connect to the wider G.I. Joe universe. A live-action version of Lady Jaye was last seen in 2013's G.I. Joe: Retaliation and she was portrayed by Adrianne Palicki. It's unclear if this series will follow that Lady Jaye or a new and separate version of the character. Lady Jaye was introduced to the G.I. Joe world in the 1984 animated series before an action figure of the character was created. You can read more about the character and their history and place in the G.I. Joe universe here. For more G.I. Joe, check out this first look of Henry Golding as Snake Eyes and then read this story about Andrew Koji being cast to play the villainous Storm Shadow in the movie. Check out IGN's list of every confirmed actor and character in the Snake Eyes movie after that. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. He always wished he had G.I. Joe action figures to play with growing up, but never owned a single one. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

Resident Evil filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson is set to direct In the Lost Lands, an adaptation of a short story from Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the cast of In the Lost Lands will be led by Milla Jovovich, Anderson's wife and star of the previous Resident Evil movies, as well as the recent Monster Hunter movie adaptation, together with Dave Bautista, from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, and Zack Snyder's upcoming zombie heist thriller Army of the Dead. The fantasy-adventure movie will tell the story of a queen who, desperate to fulfill her love, hires a powerful sorceress, named Gray Alys (played by Jovovich). As they journey to the ghostly wilderness of the Lost Lands, Alys and her guide, the drifter Boyce (Bautista), must outwit and outfight man and demon in a fable that explores the very nature of good and evil, debt and fulfillment, and love and loss. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/06/23/george-r-r-martin-gives-an-update-on-the-winds-of-winter"] In the Lost Lands was first announced back in 2015, but the project fell quiet. It now appears to be making strides in the right direction again, with a team of people assuming different roles. Anderson, Jovovich, and Bautista are producing the picture, with Anderson's long-time collaborator, Jeremy Bolt (Resident Evil franchise), also producing alongside Jonathan Meisner through his production company with Bautista, Dream Bros Entertainment, and Constantin Werner. CAA is said to be arranging the movie's financing and representing its domestic rights while FilmNation Entertainment is on board to handle international sales for the project, which will be introduced at the upcoming virtual Berlin market. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=game-of-thrones-which-dead-tv-characters-are-still-alive-in-winds-of-winter&captions=true"] Meanwhile, George RR Martin is still in the thick of writing The Winds of Winter, the sixth installment of his fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire that was adapted into HBO's Game of Thrones. He hopes to finish writing the long-awaited novel this year, though he admits that he has "hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion." [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Doom, Quake and Alice alum American McGee has revealed Oz: Adventures, a television series and video game project that has been picked up for development by Radar Pictures. The project is based on the Oz series of books, which began with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. McGee said on Instagram that he and his team "will be working to develop the Oz: Adventures concept for production as a TV series and video game. With luck, you'll soon turn on one of your content providers (HBO? Netflix? Amazon?) and find 'OZ: Adventures' (Game and TV show) among your entertainment options," McGee continues. McGee describes his version of Oz as "Running Man vs. Witches, Quadlings, and Munchkins. Characters are involuntarily pulled into Oz from all over the world and all through time."

Happy to announce "OZ: Adventures" our twist on the original Oz books, is now with Radar Pictures. They are developing the concept for TV and Games. We revealed this news and talked about the potential for this project over on our latest Twitch Stream: https://t.co/hfqL6aOObD pic.twitter.com/UPcaDSOUKq

— American McGee (@americanmcgee) February 25, 2021

McGee shared Radar Pictures' speculative pitching presentation for Oz: Adventures during a recent Twitch stream, where the game is described as a single-player episodic narrative game. "Each episode takes place during a different time era, plunging vastly different characters with different abilities and storylines into the beautiful but arcane world of Oz. Do they succeed? Do they perish? What secrets do they uncover?," the presentation reads. McGee is also still working on Alice: Asylum, a potential third game in his Alice series that is currently in pre-production, with support from fans on Patreon. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Developer HardCodeWay and publisher Vision Edge Entertainment have announced Dinos Reborn, a first-person survival game in which you'll need to craft, explore, hunt, and kill dinosaurs on a mysterious planet that feels like it came out of a time capsule on Earth after you crash-land there. It's due out for PC as well as PlayStation and Xbox consoles in 2022. Check out the announcement trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below. As in many survival games, you'll need to manage hunger, thirst, and fatigue. You'll also need to craft food, weapons, medicine, and shelter while you manage your diet (watch out for poisons!), scout the local fauna to see who might help you and who might try to eat you, and more. HardCodeWay sets the scene by saying, "You look up and see – a pterodactyl! You must be hallucinating. Calm down, take a deep breath, and try to remember your name. Nothing. Can you recall who you are or what you're doing here? You can't. All is cloudy and lost in a brain fog. Still, that's the least of your many problems, as the most important thing right now is your survival. Only staying alive will allow you to uncover your identity and your purpose on this planet. Face dangers, turn yourself from prey to predator, and discover all the mysteries of this place. Otherwise, you’ll be lost, and with you, a mission bigger than yourself." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=dinos-reborn-screenshots&captions=true"] If you're interested in playing on PC, you can add Dinos Reborn to your Steam Wishlist. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.

Even from its initial reveal trailer, Young Horses’ charming first-person adventure Bugsnax clearly had something darker looming in the shadows of Snaktooth Island, literally and metaphorically. And fans with a sneaking suspicion were correct, as Bugsnax revealed a more layered world, not just in some of its darker twists but also in its nuanced approach to the ensemble cast and their respective lives.In the earliest draft of Bugsnax’s script though, that revelatory ending was very different, both on narrative and mechanical levels. Trust us - we’ve read the script. In speaking with Bugsnax Creative Director Kevin Zuhn, who shared the original script with IGN, it’s clear that the changes to Bugsnax’s ending not only allowed for a more emotionally resonant conclusion but also one that helped solve for gameplay, lore, and resolution issues from earlier versions. And one of the biggest changes from which many of the other alterations stem is a drastic change of fate for one character. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/11/09/bugsnax-review"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Spoilers for Bugsnax’s original and actual endings follow! Do not read on if you intend to play - and to find out why you might want to, be sure to read IGN’s Bugsnax review. [poilib element="accentDivider"] You can check out the full run-down of the ending in our Bugsnax wiki guide, but in short, here’s how the adventure actually wraps up: Players discover Lizbert Megafig (who invited the main character to Snaktooth Island in the first place) has now assumed a controlling role over the Bugsnax, but that hold is waning as the body-consuming parasites grow in power. Lizbert and her love Eggabell remain in the UnderSnax to keep the parasites at bay while the player, along with Filbo, head back to the surface to save all the other Grumpuses and escape the grasp of the Bugsnax. Players then go through a bit of a gauntlet, fending off the snax while saving the island’s denizens to make a daring escape back to the mainland safely with either some or all of the Grumpuses. Before returning to regular life, the player has a chance to speak with each surviving Grumpus about what’s happened, and what they hope to do now. There’s also a post-credits sequence, but we’ll get to that in a bit. The bones of this ending are in the original draft, unlike the bones of the boneless Bugsnax, but much of how it plays out is drastically different, simultaneously darker and sillier in many regards. But undoubtedly the biggest change from Bugsnax’s original version to what all of us actually played, occurs before you even get to the UnderSnax (which didn’t even exist in that first draft - it’s just some cave Lizbert is in). And that’s the fact that Eggabell died on her and Lizbert’s adventures up the mountain – and in a gruesome fashion. Lizbert explains how Eggabell missed a jump as they were scaling the island’s peaks, and when Lizbert managed to pull her up, her Bugsnax-addicted love had become something else, something almost zombie-like in how fully the Bugsnax had taken over. After an altercation, where a clearly not-in-control Eggabell attacked Lizbert, the latter pushes Eggabell off of her, and off of a cliff, to her doom. And rather than even having a body to bury, Eggabell splits apart into a host of other Bugsnax. Now, obviously, none of that happens in the actual game. Eggabell, in fact, is paramount to the third act. Very much alive, she helps players understand more about what’s happened and, functionally, set players off on a quest to open a mysterious door into the heart of the island. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-best-ps5-games&captions=true"] For a number of reasons that Zuhn dove into as we spoke, they succinctly explained how that original version of events, sans Eggabell, in his own words, quite simply “sucked.” “At the time that draft was written, I knew that Lizbert's partner had died before I knew who her partner was. I didn't know that much about Eggabell as a character because of the way that story was structured. With the caveat that it sucked, all of it sucked,” Zuhn said. One solution that came in between the first and final versions of the story was to add the videotapes players can collect around Snaktooth, which give a glimpse into Eggabell and Lizbert’s relationship. But Zuhn really emphasized that, while Eggabell remained dead, even that level of showing still felt more like telling. “If [the relationship is] too abstract, you understand someone is sad about losing a partner, but you can't be sad about it if you don't know or feel anything about that relationship,” they explained. “And that's why we created those video diaries to show what it was because it's easier to show that than it is for Elizabeth to just tell you what a great relationship it was. That's not good storytelling, though.” Yet still, Zuhn and the team understood that a story that had Eggabell dead from the start wasn’t quite conveying the emotional connection players needed to care about finding Lizbert. Eventually, the realization came that Eggabell, while an integral part of the game’s backstory, needed to also be an integral part of its present story. “After that point was when I was confronted with the fact that this story would be better if Eggabell was a character who got to be in it instead of falling into a trope hole.” [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%22I%20was%20confronted%20with%20the%20fact%20that%20this%20story%20would%20be%20better%20if%20Eggabell%20was%20a%20character%20who%20got%20to%20be%20in%20it.%22"]That “trope hole” Zuhn is referring to is realizing they had inadvertently played into the Bury Your Gays trope in his original draft. In part, they attribute that realization to teammates like story editor Sage Coffey and others, who helped Zuhn realize the script played into a trope that sees LGBTQIA+ characters having love interests killed off as little more than motivation to another character in larger numbers than cis-gendered characters. By recognizing that the script played into that trend, which Zuhn of course wanted to avoid and move away from, Zuhn emphasized how it only made everything about Bugsnax’s story better to bring Eggabell more concretely into the game.. “Some of the members of my team had already told me, ‘This is a bad trope.’ But when Sage [Coffey] came on as the story editor, the first thing they said needed to change was [Eggabell’s off-screen death]. Sage was like, ‘This is the worst part of the story. You should do something different. “That [original ending] by itself was a real nasty bummer of a story, but also in the context of the wider media landscape, is a thing that happens too much. And here, the story itself became stronger and better when I avoided doing that.”

How Story Informed Gameplay, and Gameplay Informed Story

Making Eggabell an active, independent participant in the events of Bugsnax’s current narrative translated into several major creative changes that allowed for a much more cohesive third act, one more connected to the DNA of the entire game. One of those changes was a huge structural shift, because if it weren’t for Eggabell’s proper introduction, players wouldn’t necessarily have that much to do in the last stretch of Bugsnax as they reached the Frosted Peak. “[The Frosted Peak section] was just kind of a big blank hole in the story. You get up there, nothing happens, there's a mysterious door and you don't know what it is or how to open it. And it is almost bizarre the extent to which [I realized] ‘Well, Eggabell is alive, she's there. She can tell you about the door and how to open it and why you should open it because she thinks Lizbert’s behind it.’ Eggabell can explain to you the events that occurred on that mountain that got Lizbert stuck in the UnderSnax. “And at the same time that really, really changed Lizbert's attitude going forward in the story, because in that first draft, meeting Lizbert, she's really upset and almost angry. There is pretty much no resolution to her story because too much has gone wrong [in the original draft].” As Zuhn explained, the addition of Eggabell benefitted nearly every facet of the story, the game’s structure, and in offering the player more reasons to actually care about and understand their journey. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%22I%20thought%20of%20Eggabell%20as%20someone%20who%20really%20embraced%20coming%20to%20the%20island%20as%20an%20opportunity%20to%20change%20herself%20because%20that%20is%20what%20she%20wanted%20to%20do%20more%20than%20anything.%22"]“A lot of her struggle is with her feeling of self-worth, she struggles with a lot of depression as many of the characters do. But for her in particular it's more debilitating. I thought of Eggabell as someone who really embraced coming to the island as an opportunity to change herself because that is what she wanted to do more than anything, is to not be herself anymore. It's just that she made the choice of turning herself into Lizbert, which was the wrong choice,” Zuhn said of Eggabell’s characterization. And as Zuhn began to bring Eggabell to life in later drafts, quite literally, it allowed for the player’s connection to the mystery of Lizbert’s disappearance to become more grounded and understandable in the grander scheme of things. “In the [final] version where Eggabell is looking for her, they can meet again and they can reconcile the problems they were having. And both of them have the opportunity to move forward, which is a lot more in keeping of where the story actually goes,” Zuhn said, also noting that, for players who think Lizbert and Eggabell meet a grim end, that is not the case. “After all of that some players are confused and do think that Lizbert and Eggabell die at the end but they don't. They're alive.” Giving Eggabell and Lizbert the same emotional depth as the rest of the cast ultimately tied into Zuhn’s overall goals in depicting the ensemble battling with their personal demons. From the first to the final draft, all of the characters grow from more archetypal figures to well-rounded, nuanced characters with fuller arcs. Zuhn recalled one experience that really informed this mission. “We had the early version of the Garden Grove and you would meet up with Wambus and do these quests. [Producer and Programmer] Kevin Geisler's dad played it. Kevin Geisler's dad is a farmer by trade. “He played it and he made the comment to Kevin, ‘You made the farmer stupid.’ And that hit me, because I thought, ‘Oh well, I didn't mean for Wambus to come off as a stupid character.’ But I understand that I’d written him in a way that isn't empathetic enough to what his problems are and how he feels." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/11/16/bugsnax-snakkolades-trailer"] Zuhn explained that they still wanted to make Wambus, and every other Grumpus, fallible, and still bring their unique personalities to the game, but they aimed to do so with more empathy than before. “I reworked a lot about his character. He's still Texan. He still has a farm, etc. But I wrote in a way to make sure that he was empathetic and relatable because any character that I put in this story, someone is going to relate to them and they don't want to see themselves made fun of. “I think once I understood that was my mission… they grew. It's not that I had to completely rewrite anybody, but me understanding them better helps the audience to understand them better.”

Return of the Living Bugsnax

The dramatic changes to Bugsnax’s ending kept coming, though. In the original script, one of several endings could occur: the neutral ending sees whatever Grumpuses survive fending off zombified Bugsnax versions of the Grumpuses who do not survive, before deciding to leave the island; the bad ending sees every Grumpus but Filbo transform into a zombie and after a short chase, Filbo sacrifices himself to save the player, who returns home safely, but without much evidence of what has happened; and in the good ending with no zombie Grumpuses, everyone but the player decides to stay on the island and try to make life work, knowing that they just can’t constantly eat Bugsnax as they were. And that major battle in Snaxburg? It didn't exist at first, and at one point even took on more of a tower defense mechanic. Zuhn explained how these original endings were born largely of the same idea that made it into the final game, but that they didn’t really quite gel narratively and mechanically. “Our thinking going into this first draft was that we knew the game was going to have a dark ending because we knew that Bugsnax were not good. You should not be eating them and that there would be consequences for having done so. And that was why initially... shit goes bad. “It goes wild, everyone eats each other at the end, but I think it was apparent pretty early on that, though that is very shocking, it's not fulfilling. It doesn't do anything with the theme.” [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%22I%20think%20it%20was%20apparent%20pretty%20early%20on%20that%2C%20though%20that%20is%20very%20shocking%2C%20it's%20not%20fulfilling.%22"]Much of that thematic work was making sure the Grumpuses and the journey you went on with them had some emotional “reckoning” - there had to be a reason you all went through this harrowing ordeal, otherwise it lessed the player’s reasons to care about any of it. “Everyone just turning into zombies didn't really give any of them a reckoning with their personal demons or put any focus on them as characters,” Zuhn said. “It was just a bad thing that happened to them. And it's antithetical to where we ended up going because Bugsnax, as it is in release, is so much about the characters and their journeys as people. I wanted to do a version of the ending that actually involved that. “And granted, they do come after you at the end of the game right now, but that's a physical manifestation of [Bugsnax’s true nature],” they explained. “What really matters is that if you take them, you'll lose yourself. And the zombie thing, the threat of this is that they were zombies, that they'll bite you, and that’s nothing.” That nothing became very much something that tied into the entire journey that preceded it - with the introduction of the UnderSnax and the added focus on Eggabell, Zuhn and the team figured out how to weave the ending more directly into the emotional patchwork of this ensemble story. “The way to get at the heart of it was to say any physical change happening on this island is a result of the Bugsnax themselves. They are the heart of everything on this island, and that helped shape the way the ending happened because one, Bugsnax come out of this underground. They can be everywhere. There's kind of no escaping them. And because there's this big underground network of Bugsnax, Lizbert has a connection to them throughout the island. This explains how she's been able to keep them in check this whole time. And then, also this speaks to the aspect of willpower having an effect on them,” Zuhn noted, reflecting on the willpower most of the island’s denizens didn’t have to stop consuming Bugsnax at that point." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/bugsnax-developers-react-to-15-minute-speedrun"] Another major aspect of solidifying not just the ending, but of the entire game, was in deciding who the player character actually was. The original draft sees the player as no one in particular, and various other roles were attempted, including making the player related to Lizbert. But as Zuhn noted, that didn’t leave much room for mystery. “We wound up at journalist after trying these other ideas because we thought it was the right career for someone who is going on an investigation, who will say, ‘Oh, there's a mysterious island and a bunch of mysterious characters that I want to know about,’” Zuhn explained. “You're not just a journalist, you're a journalist who is in a lot of hot water and really needs this to work, to kind of also nail in that part where you two are like the rest of the characters in this story. Someone who has come to the island trying to make up for something in your life.” All of that motivation, Zuhn said, cleared up a lot of playtesting misconceptions about why this journey mattered and, again, aimed to bring more emotional resonance and importance to every interaction. That included the interviewing mechanic - while, yes, the game previously had dialogue interactions, the concept of really digging into these characters “crystallized around your role as a journalist.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=bugsnax-screenshots-4k&captions=true"] Giving the player more reasons to care and learn about the Grumpuses throughout the story, to better understand their personal trials as well as the greater stakes at play, as well as to realize just how much of a threat Bugsnax actually were, Zuhn realized through production how those bad and neutral zombie endings offered little in the way of emotional catharsis, and the good ending flew in the face of what the Grumpuses should have learned by that point. “At the time [of the original draft], a big calamity is going to happen but nobody has eaten enough to transform into a zombie and they're like, ‘Well, nothing bad actually happened to us, so I guess it's fine and we can just stay here and will be careful about those Bugsnax because we know they're dangerous now.’ “I get why I put that on paper, but as yet another symptom of not having gotten the theme yet that Bugsnax represent your personal demons, you can't just sit and eat some of them, some of the time and be fine. No matter what happens in the ending, they have to leave this place." That realization, of ensuring that the Grumpuses had to leave the island, led to the creation of Bugsnax’s denouement, where the Grumpuses that did escape, along with the player, ruminate on what’s transpired and look toward what the future might be. This scene largely came together, Zuhn explained, once the final battle in which you hold off Bugsnax attacking the Grumpuses, came together. “Because that ending final battle thing coalesced, that inspired me to then make what the epilogue is,” they said. “I think that scene is way better than any scene where they stay there. We had finally figured out what shape the gameplay would take, and that gave me the ability to move forward from there, because sometimes it can be very difficult to write a future scene without knowing how the game could impact it. Anytime I did that previously, I would turn out to be wrong, I would be presupposing too much.” [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%E2%80%9CEvery%20running%20joke%20is%20an%20opportunity%20for%20more%20storytelling.%22"]That scene became more than that, because for players who manage to save every Grumpus, a post-credits scene teases that, perhaps, there are more in the world who know of Bugsnax and what they’re capable of. The entire game, Snorpy speaks of the Grumpinati as some shadow organization, but it could be viewed as just a silly conspiracy theory. Until that scene, of course. But Zuhn cautions that you shouldn’t believe everything every character says, while also noting they were very intentional about what clues and teases ended up in the story. “Every running joke is an opportunity for more storytelling,” Zuhn said. “I don't see any reason not to explore the idea. At the same time, everybody should really take what Snorpy says with a big grain of salt. Just because a character in the story thinks something is true doesn't mean that their opinion is good. But at the same time, clearly there is something going on that Clumpy knows more than she was letting on at the start of the game. And I wanted to do that at the very end of the story to give you something to wonder about, to re-contextualize some things you might have been thinking.” And it's clear that Zuhn was able to re-contextualize much of the work in his original draft into something more emotionally resonant to the themes at work and considerate of its characters to craft the stirring ending present in the final release. Were it not for the addition of Eggabell into the present story and the move away from the zombified endings, it's impossible to say how players would have received the ending. But as it stands now, Bugsnax offers a more well-rounded conclusion, and just enough dangling questions to leave players, this writer included, hungry for more. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior News Editor, host of Podcast Beyond!, and PlayStation lead. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.