The latest internal documents revealed in the Epic vs Apple court case appear to be from Xbox, including an internal analysis Xbox conducted of The Last of Us Part 2, one of the biggest video game releases from its console rival, PlayStation. This analysis reads like a review and is the closest you'll get to see what Xbox thinks of PlayStation's major release. Companies often gather extensive data on their products, the video game industry is no different. While companies sometimes hold mock reviews of their own games, Xbox's documents show that it also analyzes rival games as well. So what did Xbox think of The Last of Us 2? For the most part, their analysis was overwhelmingly positive. Spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 below [poilib element="accentDivider"] [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-ign-naughty-dog-game-review&captions=true"] "The last of Us Part 2 is the exceedingly rare video game where it accomplishes in moving forward the art of narrative storytelling in video games as a medium ultimately outweighs whether or not everyone 'likes' it or even if everyone has 'fun' playing it," Xbox writes in an internal analysis acquired by IGN from the Epic vs. Apple court trial. Xbox praises The Last of Us Part 2's gameplay as a "notable improvement" over the first game and calls the visual quality and attention to detail "absolutely best-in-class in basically every area, and the overall presentation is significantly ahead of anything that other teams have been producing on console and PC." The internal team at Xbox says they "were frequently stunned by the quality of the game's visuals, something that sadly seldom happens these days." As for the choice to split the narrative between Elli and Abby, Xbox says players have "every right" to their feelings on Naughty Dog's two protagonists and the game's "final contentious outcome," but ultimately for folks who care about "the evolution and expansion of what storytelling in interactive entertainment CAN BE [emphasis Xbox's], those things ultimately matter less than how incredibly well Naughty Dog has crafted and delivered the story that THEY [emphasis Xbox's] wanted to tell." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/27/8-minutes-of-the-last-of-us-part-2-gameplay"] Sounds like the team that analyzed The Last of Us Part 2 at Xbox was overall keen on Naughty Dog's major sequel. If there's one criticism, the team at Xbox says their biggest "gripe" was with the inventory system and the lack of any "quick switch" between items during moment-to-moment gameplay. Furthermore, Xbox was critical of the gun combat writing, "Naughty Dog still can't seem to make decent gun combat in any of their games, and this one is no exception." Ouch. Epic's court case with Apple continues to unearth a trove of internal documents, some of them confirming what we already knew like Sony's hesitance to enable cross-play. As the trial continues, check back with IGN for all the latest updates. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor.

It’s going to take a minute for longtime Rugrats fans to get used to the new animation style if the latest trailer is anything to go by.

Nickelodeon and Paramount+ released a new trailer for their upcoming Rugrats series. The trailer features reimagined, 3D versions of Tommy Pickles and the crew making their way through a series of adventures — including encountering a dinosaur that doesn’t exactly look like Reptar. Older fans of the show should be happy to see the entire crew, including Angelica, present.

“Rugrats is one of the biggest and most influential TV hits among kids and parents ever, and we can’t wait for the all-new series to debut on Paramount+,” Ramsey Naito, president of Nickelodeon Animation, said in a press release.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/25/rugrats-reboot-official-first-look-clip-from-paramount"]

Nickelodeon’s new Rugrats series will debut on Paramount+ beginning on May 27th. The first set of episodes will be available to stream at once, with more episodes rolling out at a later date, according to Nickelodeon. The first episode, “Second Time Around,” is a one hour premiere. It features Tommy leading “the babies on a daring adventure to help Chuckie after his big attempt to be brave goes horribly wrong,” according to the company.

Rugrats first premiered in 1991 as a 2D cartoon. It has become one of Nickelodeon’s most recognizable cartoons, alongside The Wild Thornberry’s, Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom, Spongebob Squarepants, and Rocket Power to name a few. Rugrats spawned three theatrical movies, and ran for nine seasons over 13 years.

Paramount+ is ViacomCBS’ new streaming service that launched in March. Alongside originals, like the upcoming Halo live-action series, it’s also home to a huge library of Nickelodeon, MTV, CBS, BET, Comedy Central, and other series and films.

It’s going to take a minute for longtime Rugrats fans to get used to the new animation style if the latest trailer is anything to go by.

Nickelodeon and Paramount+ released a new trailer for their upcoming Rugrats series. The trailer features reimagined, 3D versions of Tommy Pickles and the crew making their way through a series of adventures — including encountering a dinosaur that doesn’t exactly look like Reptar. Older fans of the show should be happy to see the entire crew, including Angelica, present.

“Rugrats is one of the biggest and most influential TV hits among kids and parents ever, and we can’t wait for the all-new series to debut on Paramount+,” Ramsey Naito, president of Nickelodeon Animation, said in a press release.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/25/rugrats-reboot-official-first-look-clip-from-paramount"]

Nickelodeon’s new Rugrats series will debut on Paramount+ beginning on May 27th. The first set of episodes will be available to stream at once, with more episodes rolling out at a later date, according to Nickelodeon. The first episode, “Second Time Around,” is a one hour premiere. It features Tommy leading “the babies on a daring adventure to help Chuckie after his big attempt to be brave goes horribly wrong,” according to the company.

Rugrats first premiered in 1991 as a 2D cartoon. It has become one of Nickelodeon’s most recognizable cartoons, alongside The Wild Thornberry’s, Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom, Spongebob Squarepants, and Rocket Power to name a few. Rugrats spawned three theatrical movies, and ran for nine seasons over 13 years.

Paramount+ is ViacomCBS’ new streaming service that launched in March. Alongside originals, like the upcoming Halo live-action series, it’s also home to a huge library of Nickelodeon, MTV, CBS, BET, Comedy Central, and other series and films.

Marvel has announced that Loki will stream on Wednesdays rather than the Friday slot established by WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. This shift will bring the season's start date forward to June 9. It was originally set to launch on June 11. Check out the announcement video below:  [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/05/marvel-studios-loki-announcement-video"] This move will mean our dose of the MCU is no longer the signal of the start of the weekend, but instead a mid-week treat. The show will, of course, feature Tom Hiddleston's charismatic Loki, alongside Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku, and Richard E. Grant. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/04/05/marvel-studios-loki-official-trailer-2"] Like WandaVision, Loki is said to have a connection to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It will be the next MCU project on Disney+, following The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, which recently concluded its six-episode run. Loki is also set to run for six episodes. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Marvel has announced that Loki will stream on Wednesdays rather than the Friday slot established by WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. This shift will bring the season's start date forward to June 9. It was originally set to launch on June 11. Check out the announcement video below:  [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/05/marvel-studios-loki-announcement-video"] This move will mean our dose of the MCU is no longer the signal of the start of the weekend, but instead a mid-week treat. The show will, of course, feature Tom Hiddleston's charismatic Loki, alongside Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku, and Richard E. Grant. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/04/05/marvel-studios-loki-official-trailer-2"] Like WandaVision, Loki is said to have a connection to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It will be the next MCU project on Disney+, following The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, which recently concluded its six-episode run. Loki is also set to run for six episodes. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

The first images from the set of House of the Dragon have been revealed. The photographs, taken at a beach location, show five of the key cast members. Sporting the instantly recognisable hair of the Targaryen family are Emma D'Arcy and Matt Smith as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Prince Daemon Targaryen. The second duo photograph is of Alicent Hightower and Otto Hightower, played by Olivia Cooke and Rhys Ifans. Finally, standing on his lonesome is Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon, a character known as "The Sea Snake". [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=house-of-the-dragon-first-images-from-the-game-of-thrones-prequel&captions=true"] Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen is the king’s first-born child and a dragonrider. Prince Daemon Targaryen is her uncle, and younger brother of King Viserys. An heir to the throne, he is said to be a peerless warrior and a dragonrider. Otto Hightower is the hand of the king, who believes Daemon Targaryen is the largest threat to the realm. Alicent is his daughter, and was raised in the Red Keep close to the king's inner-circle. Finally, the Sea Snake is the Lord of House Velaryon, a Valyrian bloodline as old as House Targaryen. He's a famed nautical adventurer and head of a family richer than even the Lannisters. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/10/30/game-of-thrones-prequel-series-house-of-the-dragon-coming-to-hbo"] For more, be sure to check out our House of the Dragon explainer to learn exactly what HBO's Game of Thrones prequel will explore. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

The first images from the set of House of the Dragon have been revealed. The photographs, taken at a beach location, show five of the key cast members. Sporting the instantly recognisable hair of the Targaryen family are Emma D'Arcy and Matt Smith as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Prince Daemon Targaryen. The second duo photograph is of Alicent Hightower and Otto Hightower, played by Olivia Cooke and Rhys Ifans. Finally, standing on his lonesome is Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon, a character known as "The Sea Snake". [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=house-of-the-dragon-first-images-from-the-game-of-thrones-prequel&captions=true"] Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen is the king’s first-born child and a dragonrider. Prince Daemon Targaryen is her uncle, and younger brother of King Viserys. An heir to the throne, he is said to be a peerless warrior and a dragonrider. Otto Hightower is the hand of the king, who believes Daemon Targaryen is the largest threat to the realm. Alicent is his daughter, and was raised in the Red Keep close to the king's inner-circle. Finally, the Sea Snake is the Lord of House Velaryon, a Valyrian bloodline as old as House Targaryen. He's a famed nautical adventurer and head of a family richer than even the Lannisters. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/10/30/game-of-thrones-prequel-series-house-of-the-dragon-coming-to-hbo"] For more, be sure to check out our House of the Dragon explainer to learn exactly what HBO's Game of Thrones prequel will explore. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

A NASA probe heading for the Sun flew by Venus and picked up a natural radio signal, which happens to be the first measurement of the planet's atmosphere in nearly 30 years. The mission of NASA's Parker Solar Probe is to dive close to the Sun, but in order to do that, it needed to slow down its speed before the approach, according to a NASA blog post. It did this by flying close enough to Venus that its gravity and atmosphere would lower its speed. NASA also saw this as an opportunity to measure the Venusian atmosphere for the first time in almost 30 years and so it did. The probe picked up a radio signal that has been translated into sound and you can listen to it below. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/05/nasas-parker-solar-probe-uncovers-radio-signal-from-venus-atmosphere"] "The goal of flying by Venus is to slow down the spacecraft so that Parker Solar Probe can dive closer to the Sun," Parker Solar Probe scientists, Nour E. Raouafi, of the Applied Physics Laboratory said in the blog post. "But we would not miss the opportunity to gather science data and provide unique insights into a mysterious planet such as Venus." This radio signal read came from a flyby the Parker Solar Probe made on July 11, 2020, and it was the closest flyby made to date – the probe was just 517 miles above the surface. It was the probe's FIELDS instrument, which is named after the "electric and magnetic fields it measures in the Sun's atmosphere," according to NASA, that actually picked up the radio signal. When the probe was close to Venus, the FIELDS instrument detected a natural, low-frequency radio signal for just seven minutes and this data caught the attention of Glyn Collison of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, who is the lead scientist on this study. He recognized the shape and the strength of the signal, according to NASA, but he couldn't quite place it. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=cosmos-possible-worlds-gallery&captions=true"] Collison woke up the next day saying, "Oh my god, I know what this is," NASA said, and that's because it was a signal he recognized from some of his previous work: a similar signal appeared when NASA's Galileo orbiter passed through the ionospheres of Jupiter's moons in the early 2000s. "Like Earth, Venus sports an electrically charged layer of gas at the upper edge of its atmosphere, called the ionosphere," NASA's blog post reads. "This sea of charged gases, or plasma, naturally emits radio waves that can be detected by instruments like FIELDS. When Collison and his team identified that signal, they realized Parker Solar Probe had skimmed Venus' upper atmosphere." The team behind the study used the radio signals from Venus to calculate the density of the ionosphere that the probe passed through, something that hadn't been done since the Pioneer Venus Orbiter's 1992 passthrough. Data obtained from that probe and in the years that followed seemed to indicate the ionosphere was thinner during the Sun's calm phase known as the solar minimum. That theory was impossible to confirm, but the Parker Solar Probe's flyby might change that. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/14/signs-of-alien-life-found-on-venus-ign-now"] "When multiple missions are confirming the same result, one after the other, that gives you a lot of confidence that the thinning is real," study co-author, Robin Ramstad, said in regards to the Parker Solar Probe also showing that Venus' ionosphere was thinner during the time it passed by. Venus and Earth have long been referred to as Twin planets – they were both born of a similar process, both are rocky, and their size and structural makeup is quite similar, but that doesn't mean there aren't differences. Venus doesn't have a magnetic field like Earth, and if a human tried to walk on the surface of the planet as they do on Earth, they'd likely instantly die due to the surface boiling at temperatures hot enough to melt lead. NASA says that at most, spacecrafts have lasted only a couple of hours on the planet. Despite how difficult it is to study Venus, its distance from Earth aside, it's an important scientific mission to do so as it, "helps scientists understand how these twins have evolved, and what makes Earth-like planets habitable or not." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-25-best-sci-fi-movies&captions=true"] "To see Venus now, it's all about these little glimpses," Collison said. For more about Venus, read this story about how possible signs of life detected on the planet go back as far as 1978. Read this story about how the Moon is rusting and Earth might be the culprit after that and then check out this story about astronomers that have discovered 139 new "minor planets" at the edge of our solar system. Be sure to check out IGN's list of the 25 best sci-fi movies, too. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

Warner Bros. is reportedly searching for a Black director to helm a new Superman movie, in which the Krypton-born superhero will be played by a Black actor. According to anonymous sources talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. and DC are "committed" to hiring a Black director to helm the movie, the script for which is being written by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The plan is reportedly for the movie to feature a Black actor in the role of Superman. A source said it would be "tone-deaf" for J.J. Abrams, who is attached to produce, to also direct. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=dc-extended-universe-every-upcoming-movie&captions=true"] The report has no concrete details on who could take on the role of Superman, nor which directors could be in the running. THR's sources do, however, note that this incarnation of Superman will not be part of the DCEU born from the ashes of the Snyderverse. While Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa's Aquaman, and Ezra Miller's Flash will continue a linked DC universe on-screen, the current plan is reportedly for the new Superman to be standalone, much like Matt Reeves' upcoming The Batman and Todd Phillips' Joker. Furthering that standalone idea, the report states that one option currently under consideration for the Superman movie is that it is a 20th century period piece. This would, much like Joker and its 1980s setting, help separate Superman from other DC films. Recently, Michael B. Jordan downplayed rumours that he was going to wear the blue suit and red cape. He reportedly pitched a Superman movie to Warner and DC in 2019. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 will release for Nintendo Switch on June 25. Earlier this year Activision announced that the remake of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 would arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in March. At the same time it confirmed that a Switch version was also in the works, but offered no release date. Now, Activision has finally provided June 25 as the date we can expect Tony Hawk's to hit Nintendo's console. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/23/tony-hawks-pro-skater-1-and-2-ps5-xbox-series-xs-and-nintendo-switch-trailer"] Naturally, you shouldn't expect the fancy graphical enhancements present in the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions to be part of the Switch version, but it does feel like an ideal Switch game even without "High-fidelity atmospherics". Our Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 Remake review is particularly glowing, saying that the remake "proves that going backwards has been the best step forward for the series in 15 years." [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.