In a move I can only assume is meant to bring life to a very particular Simpsons joke, Disney’s California Adventure theme park is temporarily re-opening for a “limited-time ticket experience" starting some time in mid-March.

In a memo sent out to Disney employees, Disneyland president Ken Potrock announced that 1,000 Disneyland employees will return to work sometime in mid-March for the event, Good Morning America reports. It's unclear how many park attendees Disney is planning for.

Don’t expect to visit the Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean, though. Disneyland rides and attractions will not be open during the event.

Instead, the event will focus on “world-famous food and beverage offerings from around the resort, the latest merchandise and unique, carefully crafted entertainment experiences." And Disneyland will still be closed due to California’s restrictions on theme parks and other large events during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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"While that is clearly not all we want to accomplish, it’s a start," Potrock said. "Teams are working as we speak to start recalling identified Cast in the coming weeks."

Potrock also stated that Disney California Adventure will operate with “limited capacity and enhanced safety measures” and be “offered multiple days a week.” Potrock has previously had harsh words for California governor Gavin Newsom, who has kept theme parks in the state largely closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, while Florida has allowed Disney World to remain open.

Disney recently shuttered its annual pass program due to the impact of the pandemic, promising to refund customers and return with new membership options once parks can resume regular business. Even with about 1,000 employees returning to Disney California Adventure, Disney is still laying off an estimated 32,000 employees by mid-2021.

[caption id="attachment_247099" align="alignnone" width="720"] ANAHEIM, CA - NOVEMBER 19: Ramona Rodriguez and Jacqueline Montanez walk along the Grizzly Peak Airfield inside Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim, CA, on Thursday, November 19, 2020. The Disneyland Resort opened some retail and dining in the park as an extension of the Downtown Disney District. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)[/caption]

After Newsom lifted California’s stay-at-home order in January, outdoor dining was allowed to resume in Downtown Disney.

It’s been almost a full year since Disneyland and California Adventure closed. The park shut its doors on March 14, 2020, and Anaheim has proven to be one of California’s hotbeds of COVID-19 cases.

According to Anaheim.net, Anaheim currently has seen almost 40,000 cases of COVID-19, with five deaths reported on February 8. A total of 621 Anaheim residents have died due to complications arising from COVID-19. California as a state has seen more than 3 million COVID-19 cases, with more than 44,000 reported deaths.

Disney is also expected to announce its quarterly earnings report later this week, in what will be the most up-to-date snapshot of the park’s financial situation.

[poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN.

The developers of Terraria, Re-Logic, have confirmed that alongside Terraria for Stadia, any future games from the company will also skip Google platforms. However, existing Android and Google Play versions of Terraria will not be affected. Re-Logic has also given IGN deeper insight into its frustrations with Google as a company. Earlier today, Terraria co-creator Andrew Spinks shared their ordeal of losing all access to their Google accounts, including Gmail, Google Play, Google Drive, and more. Attempts to reinstate these accounts were apparently unsuccessful, and Spinks publicly announced Re-Logic’s relationship with Google is severed and an unannounced version of Terrarria for Stadia is canceled. In a follow-up email to IGN, Re-Logic clarified that this means only future versions of Terraria, such as the one on Stadia, “as well as any other games that our studio will develop in the future,” will not be on Google platforms. As for Android and Google Play versions of Terraria, the developers say that these versions will not be affected. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/06/27/terraria-nintendo-switch-launch-trailer"] “Punishing existing customers who paid for our game on these platforms is not what we are about,” Re-Logic says. “To be clear: there should be no impact whatsoever to Terraria on Google platforms, both existing/purchased games as well as ongoing store availability.” Spinks’ disabled Google account included legacy connections to Re-Logic, such as access to the developer's YouTube account, important documents on Google Drive, and more. All of which have been severed as a result of the account loss. Re-Logic tells IGN that the problems actually began mid-to-late January after Spinks’ account received a notice from YouTube that claimed their channel violated the terms of service. Re-Logic says it had not updated its YouTube channel in three months at the time of the notice and nobody on the team could find anything strange. They claim that follow-ups from Google about this matter didn’t indicate this was a serious problem. “[T]he initial correspondence from YouTube on this matter [was] clear that this was not a major issue,” according to Re-logic. And Re-Logic claims that they were later told by YouTube that their channel “is clean and has no issues.” However, Re-Logic says Spinks lost access to their entire account three days later, and attempts at appeal through public and private channels have not yielded any results. “Many avenues were attempted with Google in private to resolve this matter — well beyond what people may have observed on Twitter a few weeks ago. Information has been sparse and difficult to obtain even with us being a long-standing partner,” Re-Logic says in an email. IGN has reached out to Google with Re-Logic’s claims but has not heard back in time for the publication of this story. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/08/the-unexpected-reason-terraria-on-stadia-is-canceled-ign-now"] Meanwhile, Re-Logic says the decision to pull away from Google was not taken lightly and hopes to shine a spotlight on the issues of what happens when Google bans users. But the developers also thanked “those within Google that did their best to assist to no avail.” “Perhaps some meaningful change on the customer service front will take place within Google as a result,” says Re-Logic. “It is sorely needed.” Google losing a popular title like Terraria on Stadia could be troublesome after the company shut down its internal developer studio to focus on bringing third-party games to the platform. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN.

Warning: this article contains full spoilers for WandaVision: Episode 5! [poilib element="accentDivider"] [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/05/wandavision-episode-5-review"] As far as MCU cameos go, they don't get much bigger or more wild than Evan Peters crossing cinematic universes to play Quicksilver in WandaVision. And as head writer Jac Schaeffer revealed to Marvel.com, the real challenge wasn't convincing Peters to reprise his role in the MCU, but making that plot twist work within the context of WandaVision. “We loved the idea of [bringing him back],” Schaeffer told Marvel.com. “And then we were like, how in the world are we going to make this make logical sense? Like, how do we justify this? Because that's the thing, you can hatch a million great ideas, but to make them land, to make them be grounded, to make them feel organic to the larger story.” It does appear there were plenty of logistical hurdles to cross before Peters was cleared to appear in WandaVision. “We were rooting for it for so long, and didn't know if it would be possible,” Schaeffer continued. “It was complicated to make happen. Evan was always up for it — like, always, always, always. He is a comic book fan, and a Marvel fan. He is always up for the absolute weirdest option. And he's a pleasure — truly a pleasure to work with.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=wandavision-cast-and-characters&captions=true"] While Schaeffer obviously isn't revealing the true nature of this cameo and whether this actually is the Pietro Maximoff of Fox's X-Men movies or some sort of impostor, she did hint fans will see the full consequences of this unexpected family reunion play out in Episode 6. Schaeffer said, “We thought like, how do we give him this entrance, and then enjoy that, and then make it crazy? And we had long had the idea of the trope of the brother, or the relative, or whoever comes to town and like, stirs things up with the family — that sitcom trope.” We have our own thoughts on whether Quicksilver's return is real or a big fake-out. Check out the newest installment of Canon Fodder below for more on that mystery: [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/06/wandavision-episode-5-was-that-big-reveal-a-fakeout-mcu-canon-fodder"] For more on WandaVision, check out our breakdown of all the Marvel Easter eggs and TV sitcom references, and then see why we think a major Marvel villain may be pulling the strings in this series. [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.

Almost a full year after announcing it planned to release 93 games in the following five years, Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive has once again said it will release 93 games in the next five years. This number comes from Take-Two Interactive's earnings call today, in which the company gave the very specific number without acknowledging that a year had gone by since it first gave that number, or outlining how its releases over the last year fit into that planned roster of exactly 93 titles. When asked by an investor on the call to elaborate on how the last year had impacted the number, Take-Two president Karl Slatoff seemed to indicate that "93 titles in five years" as a benchmark had begun in 2020, and was not simply being moved up as a new goal to start in 2021. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/15/gtas-cayo-perico-heist-seven-years-of-evolution"] "The '93 titles' that we put out there was a snapshot, it was a moment in time," he said. "And we really haven't given any updates on that since then. Of course, things move in and out all the time, it hasn't really been that long since then, so you can't really expect that there's going to be a significant amount of movement, but I can tell you for sure there are some things that have fallen out and some things that are back in. But generally speaking, these are still pretty good numbers. We do expect that this pipeline will be fluid as we get things through various milestones, so it will be changing over time, but we haven't provided any additional updates other than the initial announcement that we made." He also broke down some stats on the company's expectations for those 93 titles, which are incidentally again the same stats he gave in May of last year: 63 titles are "core gaming experiences," 17 are "mid-core" and 13 are "casual." He expects 47 of the releases will be existing IP, while the rest are new IP. 72 are planned for console, PC, and streaming services, with seven of those 72 crossing over to mobile; 23 of the 93 will be on mobile only. And 67 of the games will be premium releases, while 26 are free-to-play. This is not to say Take-Two hasn't made progress toward that goal of 93 releases in the last year. In 2020, its subsidiaries released a number of games, including Disintegration from Private Division, and numerous games from 2K Games including Carnival Games, NBA 2K21, XCOM: Chimera Squad, WWE 2K Battlegrounds, and Mafia: Definition Edition. It also released various DLC packs (which Slatoff had previously slated did not count toward the 93 game releases) as well as older games re-releasing on new platforms, such as Borderlands 3 and NBA 2K21 coming to next-gen platforms, and BioShock: The Collection coming to Nintendo Switch -- it is unclear if these would be included in the 93. It is also likely that this figure is indicative of a milestone set in the current fiscal year, which Take-Two is still in the middle of and which ends on March 31, 2020. It's possible that the company gives a more full update on its progress toward the 93 game releases in its next quarter financials, which will include its full-year earnings and goals for the new fiscal year. Upcoming games that could potentially be among this number include the not-yet-announced GTA 6, a new BioShock game, Kerbal Space Program 2 (which has been delayed to at least 2022), and the usual annual slate of 2K Sports titles including NBA 2K. Take-Two reported another strong quarter of earnings, including new record milestones for GTA Online and Red Dead Online, with the former seeing engagement numbers rise following the release of the Cayo Perico Heist late last year. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Electronic Arts will acquire mobile game studio Glu Mobile for a weighty $2.1 billion, the companies announced Monday, making it one of the most costly video game acquisitions in history.

Glu Mobile is, as the name implies, a mobile game development studio with a few heavy-hitting franchises to its name: Diner Dash, Disney Sorceror’s Arena, WWE Universe, TapSports Baseball ‘20, Kim Kardashian Hollywood, Deer Hunter, and others.

EA is demonstrating a clear interest in developing their mobile game business with the acquisition. Glu Mobile reports their game catalog has earned more than $1.32 billion in bookings over the past year. EA states that their reasoning for acquiring Glu Mobile includes growing their mobile games portfolio into sports, RPG, lifestyle, casual, and “midcore” games.

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As part of the deal, Glu Mobile is getting access to EA’s global licensing and distribution capabilities. Glu Mobile’s experience in monetizing sports and casual games is also a point of interest for EA.

“Our acquisition of Glu combines amazing teams and deeply-engaging products to create a mobile games leader with proven expertise across many fast-growing genres,” said Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts. “Mobile continues to grow as the biggest gaming platform in the world, and with the addition of Glu’s games and talent, we’re doubling the size of our mobile business. With a deep IP portfolio and an expanding global audience, we’ll deliver more exciting experiences for our players and drive further growth for Electronic Arts.”

The acquisition brings Glu Mobile’s 500 game developers (and approximately 800 total employees) under EA’s umbrella.

EA is on a recent tear with game studio acquisitions. The company defeated Take-Two Interactive to acquire DiRT developer Codemasters in January for $1.2 billion.

While the acquisition is dwarfed by a few considerably larger grabs, it still stands as one of the most expensive of all time. According to Statista, Tencent acquired Clash Royale developer Supercell for $8.6 billion. Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media (parent company to Bethesda, id Software, Arkane, MachineGames, and Tango) in 2020 for $7.5 billion. Activision acquired Candy Crush developer King for $5.9 billion in 2016, while Microsoft acquired Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion for 2014.

EA’s acquisition of Glu Mobile places it above other business deals like Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR ($2 billion), Zynga’s acquisition of Peak ($1.8 billion), and Bandai’s acquisition of Namco.

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EA previously purchased Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled developer Popcap games for $750 million in 2012. Adjusted for inflation, EA has spent roughly double that amount for Glu Mobile. Popcap’s acquisition eventually brought us Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 1 and 2, and Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville.

The Glu Mobile acquisition is expected to close on June 30, 2021, subject to all necessary approvals.

[poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/easily acquired for IGN.

2020 was yet another record-setting year for Grand Theft Auto 5 and GTA Online, according to publisher Take-Two Interactive's quarterly financial results. In an earnings brief, Take-Two revealed that GTA 5 has sold over 140 million units to date — that's about ten million units sold since May of last year. Additionally, more units of GTA 5 were sold in calendar 2020 than in any other year except for the game's launch year of 2013 — when it sold 32.5 million. GTA Online is also doing well years after launch, with Take-Two saying the game had more players each month in 2020 than any other month since launch, as well as for the full year of 2020 than in any other year since its launch. It also saw the game's highest participation rate from both new and returning players, and its revenue was up 28% year-over-year for the quarter. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/15/gta-online-cayo-perico-heist-gameplay"] As a part of its earnings, Take-Two reaffirmed its commitment to release GTA 5 on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in the second half of 2021, as well as continue to update the game with new content this year. GTA was not the only Take-Two franchise that saw continued surges of interest in 2020. Red Dead Redemption 2 has now sold over 36 million units worldwide, and Red Dead Online reached more players in December of 2020 than it ever has since its beta launch in 2018. NBA 2K21 has now sold over 8 million units and Borderlands 3 has sold over 12 million units. Take-Two attributes much of GTA Online's ongoing success this year to its ongoing slate of new content releases, including the recently-released Cayo Perico Heist -- the first-ever heist that GTA Online players can play entirely by themselves if they choose. Players have also taken GTA Online's sandbox to create their own storylines and entertainment. The Green versus Purple Alien gang war in GTA Online was something players devised on their own within Rockstar's online universe and speaks to GTA Online's enduring popularity. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

2020 was yet another record-setting year for Grand Theft Auto 5 and GTA Online, according to publisher Take-Two Interactive's quarterly financial results. In an earnings brief, Take-Two revealed that GTA 5 has sold over 140 million units to date — that's about ten million units sold since May of last year. Additionally, more units of GTA 5 were sold in calendar 2020 than in any other year except for the game's launch year of 2013 — when it sold 32.5 million. GTA Online is also doing well years after launch, with Take-Two saying the game had more players each month in 2020 than any other month since launch, as well as for the full year of 2020 than in any other year since its launch. It also saw the game's highest participation rate from both new and returning players, and its revenue was up 28% year-over-year for the quarter. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/15/gta-online-cayo-perico-heist-gameplay"] As a part of its earnings, Take-Two reaffirmed its commitment to release GTA 5 on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in the second half of 2021, as well as continue to update the game with new content this year. GTA was not the only Take-Two franchise that saw continued surges of interest in 2020. Red Dead Redemption 2 has now sold over 36 million units worldwide, and Red Dead Online reached more players in December of 2020 than it ever has since its beta launch in 2018. NBA 2K21 has now sold over 8 million units and Borderlands 3 has sold over 12 million units. Take-Two attributes much of GTA Online's ongoing success this year to its ongoing slate of new content releases, including the recently-released Cayo Perico Heist -- the first-ever heist that GTA Online players can play entirely by themselves if they choose. Players have also taken GTA Online's sandbox to create their own storylines and entertainment. The Green versus Purple Alien gang war in GTA Online was something players devised on their own within Rockstar's online universe and speaks to GTA Online's enduring popularity. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

The fate of Anthem hangs in the balance depending on how an internal review of the reboot goes. That’s according to a new report which says there is a chance EA expands the Anthem Next team or shelves the game altogether. In a new report from Bloomberg, EA executives will review the latest version of Anthem Next later this week. Depending on how the project is progressing, EA will continue to back and grow the Anthem Next team or “abandon the project.” Anthem Next was set to be a re-do of sorts for Anthem, BioWare’s live-service action RPG which quickly lost traction with players. BioWare handed Anthem to BioWare Austin which specifically works on live projects like Star Wars: The Old Republic. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-ign-bioware-game-review&captions=true"] BioWare Austin executive producer Christian Dailey became the face of Anthem Next, writing three blog posts about Anthem Next's development throughout 2020. But according to the report, Dailey left the Anthem team in December as part of a management shake-up. BioWare's Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah also the company in December. Dailey’s departure put more questions around the future of the project. In its development blog, BioWare Austin detailed some changes that the team considered for Anthem Next, including updates to loot drops, weapons, the Javelins — the robot armor players pilot and customize — and skill tree changes. Basically, a top-down overhaul and Bloomberg says other major changes have been made to Anthem’s “core systems and user interface[.]” [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/02/21/anthem-review"] This isn’t to say Anthem Next has been officially canceled. That remains to be seen following EA’s internal review, and if the project is shaping up to satisfaction the dev team will be expanded to pursue the project further. IGN reviewed Anthem and gave it a 6.5 saying its energetic combat can’t save the lack of content and tedious grind. But second chances have become increasingly common in video games thanks to success stories like Final Fantasy 14 and No Man’s Sky. Meanwhile, BioWare's Canadian studios are working on a new Dragon Age and Mass Effect [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him at @lawoftd on Twitter.

The fate of Anthem hangs in the balance depending on how an internal review of the reboot goes. That’s according to a new report which says there is a chance EA expands the Anthem Next team or shelves the game altogether. In a new report from Bloomberg, EA executives will review the latest version of Anthem Next later this week. Depending on how the project is progressing, EA will continue to back and grow the Anthem Next team or “abandon the project.” Anthem Next was set to be a re-do of sorts for Anthem, BioWare’s live-service action RPG which quickly lost traction with players. BioWare handed Anthem to BioWare Austin which specifically works on live projects like Star Wars: The Old Republic. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-ign-bioware-game-review&captions=true"] BioWare Austin executive producer Christian Dailey became the face of Anthem Next, writing three blog posts about Anthem Next's development throughout 2020. But according to the report, Dailey left the Anthem team in December as part of a management shake-up. BioWare's Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah also the company in December. Dailey’s departure put more questions around the future of the project. In its development blog, BioWare Austin detailed some changes that the team considered for Anthem Next, including updates to loot drops, weapons, the Javelins — the robot armor players pilot and customize — and skill tree changes. Basically, a top-down overhaul and Bloomberg says other major changes have been made to Anthem’s “core systems and user interface[.]” [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/02/21/anthem-review"] This isn’t to say Anthem Next has been officially canceled. That remains to be seen following EA’s internal review, and if the project is shaping up to satisfaction the dev team will be expanded to pursue the project further. IGN reviewed Anthem and gave it a 6.5 saying its energetic combat can’t save the lack of content and tedious grind. But second chances have become increasingly common in video games thanks to success stories like Final Fantasy 14 and No Man’s Sky. Meanwhile, BioWare's Canadian studios are working on a new Dragon Age and Mass Effect [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him at @lawoftd on Twitter.

Actor Viggo Mortensen revealed that he turned down the role of the X-Men’s Wolverine thanks in part to his son Henry.

On an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via MovieWeb), Mortensen detailed how an early meeting with 20th Century Fox and director Bryan Singer colored his thoughts on potentially being locked into a superhero role for years to come. Besides his own personal misgivings, Mortensen’s young son Henry, a fan of the X-Men, noted how different Singer’s incarnation of the superhero group looked.

"The thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over,” Mortensen said. “I was nervous about that. And also there were some things... I mean they straightened most of them out, but I did take Henry to the meeting I had with the director as my sort of good luck charm and guide. In the back of my mind, I was thinking he could learn something, too, because I did let Henry read the script and he goes 'This is wrong, that's not how it is.'"

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Singer eventually asked Henry if he was familiar with Wolverine, Mortensen said.

“And he goes 'yeah, but he doesn't look like this,' And all of a sudden the director is falling all over himself and then the rest of the meeting was him explaining in detail to Henry why he was taking certain liberties,” Mortensen said. “We walked out of there, and Henry asks if he will change the things he told him about, and I say I don't think so. I'm not going to do it anyway, because I'm not sure I want to be doing this for years, and then a couple of years later I'm doing three Lord Of The Rings [films] so who knows."

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While three Lord of the Rings movies is quite the project, it ended up being far less of an ask than what Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman got over the course of seven (technically eight) X-Men movies, most of which focused on Wolverine as the central lead. It's well-known that Jackman wasn't the first choice to play Wolverine, but call it a happy accident, considering Jackman is easily the most lauded and popular part of the X-Men film franchise.

Mortensen even turned down a role in the Hobbit trilogy prior to that franchise’s filming way back in 2008. The actor is definitely the type to be careful with his role selection, typically appearing in only one to two movies per year. His most recent major appearance in 2019’s Green Book (alongside Mahershala Ali) earned him an Oscar Award nomination for best actor. He most recently made his directorial debut for 2020’s Falling, starring Mortensen as a gay man caring for his dementia-ridden homophobic father.

Now that Disney owns 20th Century Fox, the future of the X-Men franchise has been a popular question considering the MCU made it all the way to Avengers: Endgame with nary a mutant. You can read our thoughts on what WandaVision latest twists and turns might mean for the future of the MCU. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/strider for IGN.