IGN can exclusively reveal a brand-new Star Wars comic series - Star Wars: Crimson Reign - that is set to continue the story that began with War of the Bounty Hunters and will “reshape the history of the Star Wars Galaxy during the Age of Rebellion.”

This limited series will debut in November 2021 and will consist of five issues, all of which will be written by Charles Soule, a veteran Star Wars author who has not only worked on a ton of Star Wars comics, but is one of the key writers for The High Republic. His book, Light of the Jedi, is the novel that kicked off this new initiative that takes place about 200 years before The Phantom Menace.

Speaking to IGN, Soule hinted at what fans can expect from Crimson Reign, a story that will focus on the Crimson Dawn and Qi’ra, who fans may recognize as Emilia Clarke’s character from Solo: A Star Wars Story.

"I planned to tell the story we're seeing in War of the Bounty Hunters from the very first pitches I wrote when I knew I'd be taking over the Star Wars title for Marvel,” Soule said. “But it was really when I knew I had a secret weapon to deploy storywise that the seeds of Crimson Reign began to take root in my mind: Qi'ra, former paramour of Han Solo and current leader of the infamous Crimson Dawn crime syndicate, as portrayed by Emilia Clarke in Solo: A Star Wars Story film.

“While Qi'ra plays a huge part in War of the Bounty Hunters, that event is really a Boba Fett story. I have a bigger story I'm going to tell with Qi'ra and Crimson Dawn, and it's all connected to the reasons she kicked things off in War of the Bounty Hunters in the first place. You'll learn more about that in the closing pages of War of the Bounty Hunters #5, out in October, and I think fans have no idea how exciting and new this story will feel.”

Soule has wanted to explore the time between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi since he first started writing Star Wars, and believes this story is one many fans will enjoy.

“From the moment I took the gig writing Star Wars, I wanted to do new things in the Star Wars timeline between Episodes V and VI, using new characters from all eras of the galaxy far, far away,” Soule said. “Crimson Reign, which continues what I plan as a trilogy that began with War of the Bounty Hunters, is a great example of how I like to write Star Wars stories. Everything and everyone is fair game, and I think people are really going to enjoy it. Await the Reign."

Star Wars: Crimson Reign’s art is done by Steve Cummings, who will also be doing a Variant cover for the first issue. The main cover is from Leinil Francis Yu, and a Connecting Variant Cover comes from Ario Anindito.

For more Star Wars, be sure to check out which major movie character Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters revealed the fate of in its pages and the latest trailer for Star Wars: Visions.

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.

Dune director Denis Villeneuve has criticized the decision to release his latest sci-fi epic on HBO Max on the same day it hits theaters, saying his movie wasn't made for television.

Speaking to Total Film, Villeneuve doubled down on some of his previous comments about day-and-date releases. He acknowledged the "tremendous pressure" the movie industry has been put under due to the COVID-19 pandemic but stated that he was still not happy about Dune dropping simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max.

"The way it happened, I'm still not happy," Villeneuve said of Warner Bros. release plans, noting how the pandemic had been the enemy of cinema. "Frankly, to watch Dune on a television, the best way I can compare it is to drive a speedboat in your bathtub. For me, it's ridiculous. It's a movie that has been made as a tribute to the big-screen experience."

Warner Bros. announced its industry-shaking approach to distributing movies last year, revealing that the studio's entire 2021 film slate would be available concurrently for an exclusive window on HBO Max. Villeneuve opposed the decision at the time, saying that film is "one of the very last artistic, in-person collective experiences we share as human beings."

Villeneuve also expressed his concerns over Dune not having the chance to perform financially in order to be viable, saying piracy would be a consequence of the dual release. The filmmaker further touched on the pressure of Dune performing at the box office while speaking to Total Film, though he displayed fresh hope for the future of the franchise.

"Everybody at Warner Bros and Legendary, they are 100 percent behind the project," he confidently revealed. "They feel that it would need a really bad outcome at the box office to not have a Dune: Part Two, because they love the movie. They are proud of the movie, so they want the movie to move forward. And they still did half of it. So, you know, I'm very optimistic."

Dune is the first of a planned duology adapting Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi novel. Villeneuve has already confirmed that Zendaya's character would emerge as the protagonist of the adaptation's next installment, taking the reins from Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides who is the main focus of the upcoming release — which is due out on October 22.

Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

The community-driven game platform Roblox, which has a large audience of young children, is seemingly struggling to contain incidents of mass shooting recreations arising on its platform.

As reported by The Verge, recreations of New Zealand's Christchurch mass shooting have been spotted on a number of occasions by Anti-Defamation League researcher Daniel Kelley. Kelley, who recently tweeted about the incidents, said that he was able to find two separate recreations of the tragedy within a "brisk 10 minute keyword search."

Since January 2020, Kelley has reportedly found three separate instances where Roblox experiences have been created depicting the Christchurch shootings. "I would like one time to search for 'Christchurch' on Roblox," Kelley tweeted after finding a recent experience, "and not find a new recreation of the 2019 mosque shooting on a game platform aimed at very young children." he finished. Two of the experiences found by Kelley had reportedly been visited over two hundred times each on the platform.

I swear to God, I would like one time to search for "Christchurch" on Roblox and not find a new recreation of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting on a game platform aimed at very young children. https://t.co/SovJq00knY pic.twitter.com/0BvRtGYZHE

— Daniel Kelley (@danieljkelley) August 13, 2021

Speaking to The Verge, Roblox said that it proactively monitors the platform for terrorist content and in particular that it is "aggressively monitoring" recreations of mass shootings. Despite this, the company also noted that references to the Christchurch shooting, in particular, are difficult to filter using automatic text references as these would likely also block legitimate and fair references to the city with the same name. Roblox says that its "proactive detection" includes human review but that seemingly didn't stop a number of experiences that infringe upon the platform's Community Rules from slipping through.

Roblox confirmed that it has since removed the aforementioned experiences from its platform. A company representative said, "We promptly removed this experience from Roblox after it was brought to our attention and suspended the user responsible for violating our Community Rules." The statement went on to reiterate that Roblox does not tolerate "racism, discriminatory speech, or content related to tragic events."

Earlier this year, Roblox went public via a direct listing which impressed investors enough to earn it a first-day valuation of $45 billion. The company's valuation puts it ahead of many other leading companies in the industry. Whilst content depicting mass shootings and other terrorist-related ideals would potentially damage Roblox's business valuation, Kelley said that the real harm found in these experiences comes through the ideologies that they normalize.

“Each game on Roblox is a potentially a social platform in and of itself, and can potentially give refuge to players of all ages who are flirting with or fully engaged with hateful ideologies online,” Kelley told The Verge. “Every space that allows for the veneration of hateful ideologies [...] contributes to the normalization of these ideologies and their spread.”

Whilst the company continues to monitor its platform for content that infringes its Community Rules, Roblox has also recently been at the centre of a $200 million lawsuit that sees it on the receiving end of a claim that the platform has been allowing unlicensed song use by its users. The National Music Publishers' Association CEO David Israelite announced the lawsuit against Roblox in June.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Abandoned will get its first gameplay reveal in “a few months,” according to its creator. Its first cinematic trailer – which was controversially not added to the game’s much-touted Realtime Trailers App – will follow sooner, but developer Blue Box doesn’t want to commit to specific dates after recent release issues.

After a delay, the Abandoned Realtime Trailers App went live last week, but only included a four-second teaser that had previously been shown on Twitter. Speaking to IGN, Blue Box founder Hasan Kahraman explained that a planned cinematic trailer will be released soon:

“What we had in mind was actually a 30-second teaser with more content in it, but then we had engine issues. And we had to make sure that we could solve this in time, but we didn't have enough time. We realized that this was going to take much longer than just three days, because our initial plan was to release it before the weekend. So we had to cut down everything and then just leave it with just four or five seconds of footage.

“We're still hoping to correct the opening teaser with the original footage. We will also put some content in there that we haven’t announced. It's definitely worth keeping an eye out. Should people keep the real-time experience on their console? I think it's best people keep it, but if you need storage just delete it and we will inform on Twitter once there are any new updates.”

With questions surrounding the studio as a whole, Kahraman is also aware that Abandoned needs to show off what it will actually be come release. “We have to show gameplay, because people are nervous. You have a lot of mixed feelings. You have people who are angry. You have people who are looking forward to the game. There's people who are skeptical. They're like, ‘No, the game doesn't exist.' It's completely fine to say that because you haven’t seen anything of the game, let's be honest.”

But Kahraman insists that a first full showing is in the works: “We're working on the gameplay reveal. But right now, it is not ready for the public to see – if you show off the very first impression of the gameplay, that is the most important footage. We want to make sure that that is polished and good enough to showcase.” So when might that appear? “I'm not going to give a specific date because that is the first mistake [we made], making a very tight deadline. We're hoping just in a few months, really, it won’t take too long. It's not going to take a quarter or something like that.”

Kahraman also told IGN that the gameplay reveal will be accompanied by the release of an entirely separate, free game, The Haunting. The Haunting was a game previously worked on by Blue Box, but has been passed onto a group of developer friends, and will now be published by Kahraman's company on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation.

I asked Kahraman why the company chose not to simply delay the app again, given that he admits the release has been a 'disaster'. “That was actually a necessity because people were getting frustrated. I knew that the moment we just put this out with this short amount of footage it was just going to make people disappointed, but we are also working on getting more content out there.”

The developer also addressed how the team didn’t know about the problems ahead of launch: “We had shader issues that we discovered at the last minute. [...] We had black spots in multiple areas that we saw last-minute. We wanted to quickly do a last-minute patch, but once we solved the shader issues, then we got an engine problem. It was actually multiple issues. That's basically where it went wrong. It was announced too soon, and there were the engine issues. That's definitely something we learned for the future.”

Abandoned was announced for PS5 in April, and has been the subject of conspiracy theories ever since, with Kahraman having to prove he's a real person to those waiting for the game. The game is scheduled for release in 2022.

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.

“I knew that I shouldn't take a look at what people say, but as soon as I opened Twitter and saw these reactions, I was like…” Abandoned creator and Blue Box Game Studios boss Hasan Kahraman stops for a second to consider his words. “The thing is, people are disappointed and people are frustrated and angry. And the thing is that they're calling me or Blue Box a scammer. That is the biggest thing that, even today, is still bothering me”

There can be few games that have had as long, hard, and strange a road to release as the upcoming Abandoned. The game has been hit by conspiracy theories, its marketing plagued by technical issues, and Kahraman has made marketing decisions he now wishes he could take back. After a huge backlash to the game’s latest mishap – where a much-touted ‘Realtime Trailers’ app went live after multiple delays without any new trailer content to show – the community around the game began looking deeper into Blue Box’s history to try and work out exactly what the Dutch developer had been before all of this.

What they found (as demonstrated on Reddit by TicTacPaul) was a set of five promised games, none of which had seen a full (if any) release. It led to a response that Kahraman says has been unfair, with some characterising the Blue Box team as scammers; a group that announced games to, in some way, earn money without having to release a project. Kahraman says the reality is less exotic – Blue Box is still a small company, and began even smaller, and took some time to learn the ropes of game development, cancelling many of its projects before they began eating up the time and money it would take to bring them to life. Kahraman spent some time talking us through each of those games’ journeys.

Kahraman also tells IGN that one of the few games Blue Box had charged customers for – Fatal Frame homage The Haunting: Blood Water Curse – will be finished and released for free ahead of Abandoned’s launch. Those who bought the Early Access version will be offered an Abandoned bundle for free as a make-good.

Blue Box's Early History

It’s clear at this point that Kahraman isn’t the kind of person that necessarily looks before he leaps. The developer admits some of Blue Box’s decisions have caused trouble for the studio and disappointed fans, something he seems to genuinely regret. Blue Box is now made up of 10 full-time staff (boosted to around 50 people on Abandoned, accounting for freelancers and outsourcing studios), but it’s been as low as two, with just Kahraman and a friend working on some early projects. The upshot is that Kahraman would often announce games before it was totally clear they were feasible to make.

The studio’s earliest project, Rewind: A Paranormal Investigation Game, was put up on Kickstarter, before that campaign was cancelled due to securing private investment. Kahraman says that investment allowed Blue Box to rework the game, retitling it Rewind: Voices of the Past. However, the project grew beyond the young studio’s capabilities and, without further investment, it was fully cancelled.

Contrary to some thoughts expressed on social media, Kahraman insists that the original investment money was paid back, to ensure Blue Box wasn’t left in debt. “It doesn't work that way,” he explains, “because if you don't return the funds, then you'll have debt – and it's not that an investor is like, ‘Hey, here you go, here's 200K. If it works out, cool. If it doesn't work out, keep the money.’ It doesn't work that way.”

Other early projects included The Lost Tape (a game that used early concepts for Rewind, and was cancelled before any version was released because of the potential costs) and The Whisperer, another attempt at a Paranormal Investigation game. The Whisperer did see release on mobile – as a free-to-play game with a $0.99 purchase to turn off ads – but was quickly pulled. Kahraman says the game was removed because it had been made for PC and didn’t run well enough on phones. To Kahraman’s knowledge, all those who bought the game received refunds, but he says anyone who didn’t can email Blue Box with proof of purchase to claim one.

Similarly, Tales of Six Swords – a mobile homage to JRPGs with a far more vibrant style than Blue Box’s other projects – was released for free on Android, but subsequently pulled because the company couldn’t reach the scale of game it was aiming for with limited file sizes. Kahraman says that, in this case, pulling the game wasn’t because Blue Box won’t complete it, but because it wants to do the idea justice: “We aren't actually done with that. We actually still like the idea and maybe in the future, we'll definitely do something with it.”

All of these early projects share an element in common – they were announced or released very early, a pattern we’ve seen repeated on Abandoned. Overenthusiasm can easily become a mistake rather than a virtue, and has clearly caused problems for Blue Box and those interested in its games. But Kahraman repeatedly tells me that it’s inexperience that’s to blame, not the malice that’s been perceived by some circles.

“I'm still trying to figure out why people call us scammers,” says Kahraman, “because our past is like... we are a small studio, and we were even smaller, and the games that we've made in the past were just [made] part-time with small audiences – or actually having no audience at all.”

Indie studios at the start of their lifespan regularly begin and cancel projects with little to no notice paid by the public – it’s just that few gain the public attention (and scorn) that Blue Box has. Kahraman says his studio is no different to others: “[Some of] these games were actually put there in the hope to create an audience. And when you see that there is no audience, you just cancel it out, or if the game doesn't work out, you just cancel it out. But it isn't that people bought something, it isn't that someone has spent money on it, it was just showcasing it. If there was no audience, you cancel it.”

But with the gaming world’s eyes now on their every move, Kahraman and Blue Box now want to prove their value by making good on the last of the projects announced ahead of Abandoned.

The Return of The Haunting

Blue Box’s last release before Abandoned was The Haunting, a horror game inspired by Fatal Frame and launched into Early Access last year. It too suffered due to a lack of experience around releasing a game still in development:

“It was released in Early Access in an alpha version. So it had a lot of placeholders and involved animations and character models,” Kahraman explains. “We've learned that if you are making a story game, a single-player game, you shouldn't do an Early Access because people didn't get that. People assume that, ‘Hey, there's this game out there, let's buy it and play it and we'll see some production quality stuff right there’, but the truth is that it's actually an Early Access game. And that is the reason why it didn't go well because it wasn't received well because people saw that it was broken, that it wasn't finished.”

Some confusion has surrounded the future of The Haunting – instead of updating the project, it was removed from sale and Blue Box announced that development would be completed by an unknown indie studio called CreateQ. Kahraman explains to me that CreateQ is in fact a four-person developer made up of friends of Blue Box, a team comprised of full-time developers who are working on The Haunting as a side project. According to Kahraman, development is ongoing, using some of Blue Box’s original ideas, but reworked by the members of CreateQ.

“I started working on The Haunting and I think most of the components that I used are still being used, but it's just that the concept has been changed from the ground up,” Kahraman says. “The Haunting was like our Western version of Fatal Frame, with the camera, and shooting [ghosts] and stuff. That's basically what it is. It has some puzzles. We use some old school style exploration from horror games like Fatal Frame 1 and 2. [...] The screenshots you see on Steam right now, that was a concept that we were working on, but it's not that game. We will put [new] screenshots on the Steam page very shortly.”

The idea now is to release The Haunting as a full, finished product, for free, with Blue Box taking the financial brunt of the project and acting as its publisher. The aim is to release The Haunting on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox alongside Abandoned’s first gameplay trailer – now due in “a few months”, according to Kahraman.

For those who had already bought the Early Access version, Blue Box will soon add a form to its website and, upon receiving proof of purchase, will offer a ‘complete bundle’ of Abandoned for free in return once it sees release (it’s not clear what that complete bundle includes, other than the game). I asked Kahraman whether full refunds could be offered instead, who replied saying this is a more difficult process, presumably due to payment originally being taken through Steam, but the team would work on providing them should there be enough demand.

Abandoned in Context

Taken in the context of Blue Box’s past projects, the issues Abandoned has faced become more obviously a part of that story, rather than a cause for conspiracy thinking. The hazy announcement that led to speculation is yet another example of Blue Box seemingly talking about a game too early. The reveal of marketing assets that seem to fan those same flames is a symptom of still being a small studio – as Kahraman puts it, “I have to admit that was a big mistake, but it was completely unintentional. [...] We're small and this is the first time we actually got the world stage. We don't have experience with marketing and PR at all. Excuse my language, but it's really easy to f**k up.”

Even the announcement of a trailers app that won’t actually show a new trailer for some time is borne out of inexperience: “What went wrong was we announced everything too soon. Let's be honest, even the app was just too soon. First, we were like, yes, it's going to be [released in] June, but then again, we never thought that we would have this huge world stage. What I'm trying to say is that with this amount of eyes looking at your game, you need to polish it even more. [...] That's definitely something we learned for the future.”

Blue Box is by no means blameless, and by courting the kind of publicity it did while development on the app wasn’t finished, there’s no doubt that it managed to sow the seeds of its own social media backlash. But that Kahraman and the team are being made the centre of harmful conspiracy theories – and getting personal threats as a result – is far beyond the punishment deserving of those mistakes.

Kahraman actively wishes he could take some of his decisions back, perhaps make Abandoned a project that was announced later, described more cleanly, and managed to pull off its big marketing gambit. But this is the internet – once the mistakes are made, there’s very little chance of taking them back (proven by the fact that even the company’s earliest mistakes are now on show for the world to find). As he puts it, “If we put something up, just in that instant, we [would already have] 80 likes or 100 likes in just a second. By then, it's too late to do [anything], but I don't know. It was just unfortunate really.”

It’s fair to question Blue Box’s experience with releasing games on the scale of what Abandoned promises to be – but I find it hard to question the conviction of Kahraman to actually make it happen. This isn’t a story of scammers thrust into the limelight – it’s the story of a group of young developers that were handed a much louder microphone than expected, and saying the wrong things to a lot of people simultaneously. Where Abandoned goes from here, and if it makes more mistakes, is up in the air, but Kahraman is determined to prove the doubters wrong:

“Is the Realtime Experience App going to be there? Yes, definitely. Everything you see there in the menu, that is going to be released. People are waiting for content and we're not going to abandon it. [...] I 100% understand everyone. I completely agree with why they're raging. I'm not saying that I don't understand them. If I were a gamer and if someone else was doing exactly the same thing, I would be really hyped to see a realtime experience, and if it wasn’t coming, I would be disappointed. But they're labeling us as scammers – that hurts. I still respect everyone really, and I'm hoping to see them still looking out for Abandoned, [despite] what they say. I do understand and I have nothing against them really. It only hurts.”

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.

Netflix has released seven never-before-seen character posters from its upcoming animated film, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, which is set to debut worldwide on Monday, August 23, 2021.

The posters feature Geralt's mentor Vesemir (Theo James), the powerful sorceress Tetra Gilcrest (Lara Pulver), the fallen elf king Finlavandel (Tom Canton), and more!

IGN can exclusively reveal the characters posters in the gallery below:

Here's how Netflix describes the movie: "Before Geralt, there was his mentor Vesemir -- a swashbuckling young witcher who escaped a life of poverty to slay monsters for coin. But when a strange new monster begins terrorizing a politically fraught kingdom, Vesemir finds himself on a frightening adventure that forces him to confront the demons of his past."

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is directed by Studio Mir's Kwang Il Han (Avatar: The Last Airbender), written by Beau DeMayo (The Originals), and executive produced by Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich.

For more Witcher, be sure to check out our full review of The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, our interview with the creators of the movie on the advantages of animation versus live-action, and everything else new to Netflix for August 2021.

David Griffin is the TV Streaming Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.

Nintendo announced that the free-to-play spinoff, Pokémon Unite, will be released fr Android and iOS devices on September 22 — roughly two months after the game was released on Nintendo Switch. It was also revealed that ice and ground-type Mamoswine and fairy-type Sylveon are coming to the free-to-play spinoff game in future updates.

Announced during today's Pokémon Presents broadcast, players looking to play this game on mobile devices can pre-register on the App Store and Google Play. Nintendo notes that if the pre-registration hits a certain number of participants, those that sign up will receive some in-game bonus items, such as 1,000 Aeos tickets and a festival-style skin for Pikachu.

#PokemonUNITE is coming to mobile on September 22!

Pre-register for special rewards! pic.twitter.com/r671Bs31el

— Pokémon UNITE (@PokemonUnite) August 18, 2021

Pokémon Unite is a MOBA game where two teams of five players are battle each other to take control over multiple points spread out across a map. The game is developed by TiMi Studios, a Tencent subsidiary best-known for developing Call of Duty: Mobile.

2021 is an important year for Pokémon as the franchise celebrates its 25th anniversary. Along with the release of Pokémon Unite, several other Pokémon titles have been released this year, such as New Pokémon Snap, which launched earlier this year, In addition to Generation Four remakes Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, which will release exclusively on Nintendo Switch on November 19, the latter two titles also appearing at today's presentation with new gameplay details, such as the ability to allow your Pokemon to follow you and character customization.

While many Pokémon titles are releasing this year, another highly anticipated entry in the Pokémon series, Legends: Arceus, will release on the Nintendo Switch on January 28, 2022.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

During today's Pokémon Presents event, we got a more detailed look at Pokémon Legends: Arceus, including new Hisuian Pokemon like Wyrdeer, Basculegion and Hisuian forms of Growlithe and Braviary, its updated battle system, story and open world details, and much more.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus is still set to be released on January 28, 2022, and it will take place in the Hisui Region, which will eventually become the Sinnoh Region that Pokemon Diamond and Pearl take place in. Your adventure will begin in Jubilife Village, and players will work to become a member of the Galaxy Expedition Team, which includes different sub-groups like Medical Corps, Security Corps and Survey Corps.

Jubilife Village will be your home base in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and it is where you will accept quests and assignments and prepare for your upcoming adventures. Fun fact: Jubilife Village will become Jubilife City in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl.

The massive Mount Coronet is located in the center of the Hisui Region and the surrounding areas are more-or-less their own ecosystems with different weather, landscapes, and Pokemon that call it home. Obsidian Fieldlands was shown off in the latest trailer, and is filled with trees and flowers and grass and "appears to teem with Pokemon that favor meadows and forests."

Pokemon Legends: Arceus will have unique forms of familiar Pokemon like Growlithe and Braviary, but it will also have brand-new Pokemon to collect. These new Pokemon include Wyrdeer, a Normal/Psychic Pokemon who evolves from Stantler and is very important to the Hisui region and its people. Basculegion is another new Water/Ghost Pokemon that evolves from Basculin. This Pokemon is possessed by "the souls of other Basculin from its school that could not withstand the harsh journey upstream."

Along your journey, you will also meet with such characters as Commander Kamado - the leader of Galaxy Expedition Team and ancestor of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl's Professor Rowan - and Captain Cyllene - the leader of Galaxy Team's Survey Corps. As with all Pokemon games, you will also be introduced to a Professor who will help you on your way. In Pokemon Legends: Arceus, this professor is named Laventon.

After you meet Professor Laventon and choose one of your starter Pokemon - Rowlet, Cyndaquill, or Oshawatt - you will be able to go out and explore Pokemon Legends: Arceus' open-world and experience its new battle system.

While you will be able to catch some Pokemon by just aiming and throwing a Pokeball, stronger Pokemon will need to be weakened by those Pokemon you have already caught. However, the battle system in this new game is a bit of a twist from the main series entries.

Instead of Pokemon using their moves one after another, Pokemon's stats and other factors may allow them to use multiple actions in a row. One of these other factors is the Agile Style and Strong Style system. Pokemon are still limited to four moves at a time, but these new styles can change the flow of battle and mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Agile Style moves will raise the user's action speed, but it comes at the cost of a move's power. Strong Style, on the other hand, raises the power of a move at the cost of your Pokemon's action speed.

Once weakened, players will be able to capture these Pokemon to add them to your Pokedex, yet there is much more to completing this Pokedex than simply catching them all. There will also be research tasks to complete that will raise your rank in the Galaxy Expedition Team and will help unlock new areas to explore. These tasks include seeing them use certain moves, evolving them, defeating them, and more.

Speaking of exploring, players will leave the comfort of Jubilife Village to go on adventures, but there will be base camps along the way that will allow you to rest and heal up your Pokemon. Furthermore, you can use the camp's workbench to craft items like Poke Balls and more.

As was shown in the reveal trailer, these Poke Balls are from a time long past and are made out of wood and utilize steam to catch Pokemon. Besides the standard Poke Balls, there will also be Smoke Bombs that will make it harder for Pokemon to see you so your can sneak up on them. Additionally, there will be Heavy Balls that are better at catching Pokemon that haven't seen you, but are heavier and don't travel as far as a standard one.

Alongside Pokemon Legends: Arceus, this Pokemon Presents gave us new details on Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, as well as a mobile release date for Pokemon Unite.

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.