A new gameplay overview of Elden Ring has revealed FromSoftware's focus on making sure players aren't overly stressed while playing the game – but seemingly without reducing the difficulty you'd expect from Souls game enemies.

Speaking during Taipei Game Show, producer Yasuhiro Kitao repeatedly explained how elements of the game had been tooled to reduce player stress – in effect making the game difficult in the right places, but gentler in how you reach them.

"With the game's world being so large, that can produce real depth and breadth of enjoyment, but it can also lead to unnecessary stress for some players," explained Kitao. "The dev team has been very careful to avoid that where possible."

Interviewer Misuzu Araki replied: "With battle already being fairly difficult, I can understand wanting to reduce stress elsewhere." Kitao agreed: "Yes, especially as the enemies are so strong."

With that in mind, it seems Elden Ring's enemies and bosses will be as tough as you'd hope/fear from a new game from the Dark Souls developer, but Kitao made clear that a number of changes have been made to how you get to them.

Elden Ring's new ability to summon and ride a horse, for example has been touted as a major part of that focus. "Horses provide a stress-free method of traveling across the long distances the player needs to travel in the game," explained Kitao. He continued that your horse's ability to travel up air currents was also a part of that thinking: "That system was introduced as a means of quickly and enjoyably moving vertically upward in order to explore those higher areas."

On the theme of getting around Elden Ring's huge map, Kitao also explained that fast travel to locations you've already visited was introduced as a way of combating stress, and offering freedom to players. That freedom itself is a way of allowing the player a smoother journey through the world, allowing you to turn back from an area you might be finding to tough, try somewhere else, and return later on having leveled up your character. As an example, Kitao pointed out that the Stormveil area (and boss) from the game's Network Test could be avoided completely in full game, or returned to much later.

In terms of regular enemies, Kitao said it was a major challenge to balance the map feeling too empty, or too full of encounters: "The challenge was to place enemies in a way that would keep players interested, but still provide them with a low-stress experience. This applies to item distribution too, as well as in-game events. Fine tuning these placements and timings has been ongoing until the very end."

He also confirmed that in-game time of day or weather effects won't alter enemy placements 'significantly' (although a "very small" number of enemy types will appear only at night): "Changing enemies for all times of day would create a kind of pressure on users to play the game at various different times," explained Kitao. "We felt this was a stress our users could do without."

Perhaps the biggest change to the established 'rules' of a Souls game comes in how the game deals with checkpointing in certain particularly difficult areas. As with previous games, players collect experience – now called 'runes' instead of 'souls' – that are dropped when they die, but can be collected again. However, the process of respawning can now be a little different:

"With the map being so vast, [traveling back to collect runes] can become an unwanted stress for the player," said Kitao. "With that in mind, we have identified a number of difficult spots, places with lots of enemies or powerful foes, as points at which many players will die and need to re-attempt that challenge. The player is able to select the option of respawning very near the spot of their death for these locations. This kind of measure is another example of the team's efforts to implement systems to mitigate player stress caused by the sheer magnitude of the game map."

It's clear, then, that Elden Ring will be a game that allows you to get to those difficult fights more smoothly than previous games, simply because of the sheer distances involved. It's also going to let you choose what you want to play along the way a little more freely – with Kitao making clear that the game can be finished in 30 hours, but with dozens of hours of extra content to play on top of that.

The interview also revealed that the game has finally gone gold, and shouldn't suffer any more delays to its February 25 release date – so you'll get to experience all this new open world has to offer very soon.

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.

Elon Musk's brain chip company Neuralink appears to be gearing up to launch its first-ever human trials, with the firm now looking to recruit a director to run the tests.

According to The Guardian, the entrepreneur, who owns a variety of science-based start-ups, is preparing to take Neuralink's brain chip research to the next stage by hiring a mission-driven Clinical Trial Director to begin human testing. The company is moving toward potentially finding a way to use the technology to treat people with brain and spinal injuries.

"You'll work closely with some of the most innovative doctors and top engineers, as well as working with Neuralink's first clinical trial participants," per the advert. "You will lead and help build the team responsible for enabling Neuralink's clinical research activities and developing the regulatory interactions that come with a fast-paced and ever-evolving environment."

Neuralink previously conducted trials of its neurotech on pigs and monkeys, including one test that involved implanting a chip into a monkey's brain. Using the device, the primate found a way to interact with a computer and play video games such as "mind pong," proving humans may eventually be able to use the chip to control computerized devices with their minds.

"First Neuralink product will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs," Musk tweeted last year, reinforcing the company's goals. "Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again."

Musk co-founded the Silicon Valley tech company in 2016 and continues to build out its team. Another recent job advertisement on the Neuralink website reveals that the organization is currently on the lookout for a Clinical Trial Coordinator who will support future studies as the company moves towards testing its brain-computer interface in human trials.

In addition to exploring neural networks, Musk is keen to revolutionize space technology. The billionaire businessman has announced plans to launch a dogecoin-funded satellite to the moon this year, but not before he's raced remote-controlled cars on the lunar surface. There's also plans to return to the moon in 2024, and SpaceX is building the lunar lander for that.

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

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio just got its first teaser trailer, promising a wildly different take on the classic fairy tale. After over a decade in production, Del Toro’s Pinocchio was finally announced by Netflix just a few years ago. Now, this new teaser showcases Del Toro’s first stop motion film with a rather cool, if very brief, clip.

And it features none other than Ewan McGregor.

Pinocchio retells the classic fairy tale from Carlo Collodi in which a wooden puppet is magically brought to life to aid the broken-hearted woodcarver, Geppetto. It’s a familiar story that has been brought to the big screen before – most famously in the 1940 Walt Disney animated feature.

But while this tale has been told before, Del Toro leans into it, promising a new take.

“It’s a story you may think you know, but... you don’t. Not really,” says Sebastian J. Cricket in this first teaser trailer. “You see, I, Sebastian J. Cricket, was there. As a matter of fact, I lived, actually lived, in the heart of the wooden boy.”

The new teaser trailer may only be around 30 seconds long, but it already looks about as enchanting as you might imagine.

Del Toro’s take on the classic is something of a passion project and has been in the works since 2008.

"No art form has influenced my life and my work more than animation and no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio,” he said when the film was greenlit in 2018. “I've wanted to make this movie for as long as I can remember."

Ewan McGregor voices Sebastian J. Cricket alongside an impressive cast including David Bradley, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, and Burn Gorman.

Newcomer Gregory Mann will star as Pinocchio.

Guillermo del Toro directed the movie based on a script he co-wrote with Patrick McHale. Del Toro is also producing the film, along with Lisa Henson, Alex Bulkley, Corey Campodonico, and Gary Ungar.

Pinocchio debuts on Netflix in December 2022.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Elden Ring can be finished in 30 hours, says producer Yasuhiro Kitao, but there are 'many dozens' of hours of optional content for fans to sink their teeth into. And no, you won't be able to see absolutely everything in one playthrough.

As part of a new interview on the game during the Taipei Game Show, Kitao spoke further about the game's length and what fans can expect from the action RPG when it launches next month. "This will differ significantly by player," Kitao explained when asked how long Elden Ring would take fans to complete.

"But in terms of the targets set during development, the idea is that the main route should be able to be completed within around 30 hours. The game as a whole is quite massive, and contains many dozens more hours worth of gameplay, but if we are talking about the main route only, it shouldn't take much longer than that."

Elsewhere in the interview, Kitao spoke about the additional ways that Elden Ring will look to stretch out its experience for players. Similar to other previously developed FromSoftware games such as Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Elden Ring will feature a New Game Plus mode, which will allow players to play through the campaign again, with extra challenges.

"Like our other titles, the game features replayability features," explains Kitao. "After clearing the game the first time, you can carry across your character data and play the game again, against powered up enemies." Kitao added later that you'll take equipment with you back to the start of the game in New Game Plus.

Although many players will likely look to take their time during a first playthrough in order to soak in the game's beautifully designed environments, Kitao went on to state that "technically it's impossible to reach 100 percent [of seeing everything in a first playthrough]" because of the branching nature of the game near its end. That being said, for those of you hoping to see as much as possible during your first run of the game, the producer did confirm that you'll be able to get "pretty close" to seeing the whole thing the first time around.

Elsewhere in the interview, Kitao notified fans that Elden Ring has finally gone gold - meaning that the game shouldn't receive any delay from its release across PC and consoles on February 25. Asked if development was going smoothly, Kitao said, “It is. Elden Ring was originally slated for release in January of this year, and it has been pushed back once to February."

"But please be assured, the title will be ready for sale on February 25. The master version has already been submitted, and right now, the team is working on a day one patch to make sure everything in the game is just so.”

For more from Elden Ring, be sure to check out this piece detailing how the game's character creator recently leaked and how fans were impressed by how in-depth it is.

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

Warcraft 3: Re-Reforged is a fan-made campaign mod for Warcraft 3: Reforged that looks to give fans the remastered experience that Blizzard itself never really delivered.

As reported by Ars Technica, the fan-made project – which has been put together single-handedly by modder InsaneMonster – recently received a pretty substantial update following its initial launch a year ago.

The mod itself looks to improve upon Blizzard's lackluster release of Warcraft 3: Reforged by offering improved cinematics, further detailed lore, and a number of other changes to give the game a more well-rounded aesthetic feel – one that fans were expecting to get the first time around.

While InsaneMonster's Patreon-supported project had already added the Exodus of the Horde orc campaign prologue, the latest update brings the number of total playable chapters to ten with the addition of the first five levels of the game's Scourge of Lordaeron human campaign.

In relaunching a number of the game's chapters, the mod brings a number of changes including custom dynamic camera angles, which are integrated into both end mission cutscenes and mid-campaign character conversations. Those camera angles are designed to replicate the cinematics promised when the game was first announced, but never materialised.

Players jumping into Warcraft 3: Re-Reforged will also note that a number of maps and missions have also been remixed, as well as see changes that have been made to the game's AI scripts, difficulty levels, on-screen lore/mission indicator popups, and a wider range of language support.

In contrast to the modder's efforts, it's safe to say that Blizzard's launch of the official Warcraft 3: Reforged wasn't exactly well-received. Following the release of the game, fans widely criticised the remaster, arguing what the studio had produced didn't stand up against what had been promised when the game was announced in 2018.

This led to Blizzard changing its refund policy surrounding the game in order to allow people to return it to the studio for a full refund, no questions asked. Months after the game released, reports then surfaced suggesting that Blizzard had taken pre-orders for the game despite knowing that it wouldn't be sufficiently ready for release.

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

Behaviour Interactive and Lionsgate Films have announced Archives Tome 10: SAW, the latest content addition to Dead by Daylight that adds notoriously sadistic horror movie villain Jigsaw to the world of the popular multiplayer horror game. It will be available on all platforms on January 26.

Players will explore the memories of Amanda Young and Detective Tapp, unlocking the Book of SAW Collection as well as new rewards: new outfits for those two characters as well as 60 new cosmetic items for their own characters. Check out the new reveal trailer at the top of the page, as well as older screenshots in the gallery below:

“Over and above our primary objective of providing our fans with fun and continuously renewed content, one of our goals when integrating a powerful movie franchise such as SAW is to invite a larger community into the Dead by Daylight universe," said Dead by Daylight game director Mathieu Côté. "We’re truly grateful to our partner Lionsgate for offering us this opportunity.”

Don't miss IGN's re-review of Dead by Daylight from last year.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Elden Ring, the highly-anticipated action-RPG by FromSoftware (and with additional world-building elements from Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin), has officially gone gold.

As revealed on Twitter by @EldenRingUpdate, a Taipei Game Show video confirms the game has now gone gold and shouldn't receive any delay from its release across PC and consoles on February 25.

For those unfamiliar with the term, going gold offers an important step forward in a game's development process because it indicates that a master version of the game has been finalised and that it's on its way to being turned into digital and disk-based copies, ready for sale (although Day 1 updates are often worked on after going gold).

Here's a compilation of the new Elden Ring footage from Taipei Game Show today

The best news: Elden Ring has gone gold and will not be delayed! https://t.co/64MZT9QNyO

— Mordecai (@EldenRingUpdate) January 24, 2022

Originally due to launch this month, fans across social media will be delighted to hear that everything is on schedule for the game's latest February release date. As explained in a new video, FromSoftware‘s Yasuhiro Kitao further reassured fans over the game's development during a presentation at the Taipei Game Show.

Asked if development was going smoothly, Kitao said, “It is. Elden Ring was originally slated for release in January of this year, and it has been pushed back once to February. But please be assured, the title will be ready for sale on February 25. The master version has already been submitted, and right now, the team is working on a day one patch to make sure everything in the game is just so.”

While still a month away from going on sale, Elden Ring has already started 2022 the right way by becoming Steam's most-wishlisted game. The Hidetaka Miyazaki directed title claimed the top spot away from Techland's Dying Light 2 this month - ending a twelve-month streak in the position from the zombie open-world action RPG.

That being said, news of the game's pre-release success isn't to be surprised. From footage of the game's beautiful environments and behemoth bosses to a leaked version of its character editor, fans seem to be lapping up all the content they can before next month's launch.

For more on Elden Ring, make sure to check out this article delving into why game director Hidetaka Miyazaki is yet to play Bluepoint's remake of Demon's Souls.

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

Tom Holland has revealed that the cargo plane sequence in Uncharted is the ‘hardest’ action sequence he’s ever worked on.

During a new featurette that takes us behind the scenes (well, scene) of the upcoming video game movie, Tom Holland sheds some light on the impressive action set-piece.

“The sequence where we’re flying out the back of the plane on the boxes – we must have shot that for five weeks, almost every day,” he revealed. “At times, I would be, like, one hundred feet in the air, attached to a box that is spinning, and then I would basically hang on until it would throw me off and it was really scary.”

We got our first glimpse of this impressive action sequence in the recent Uncharted trailer. Here, we see Nathan Drake (played by Tom Holland) falling out of the back of a cargo plane… and then desperately scrambling across mid-air cargo crates to clamber his way back inside.

“I think that level of fear just makes that scene that much more authentic,” he explained. “It’s the hardest action sequence I’ve ever made.”

The trailer features multiple scenes that seem to be based on the games. In this case, the adrenaline-fuelled cargo plan sequence mirrors a set piece from Uncharted 3 where Drake is dragged behind a cargo plane.

Although other scenes seem to be inspired by the game too, it looks as though Uncharted will be more of an origin story, which explains why Tom Holland was cast as the far younger Nathan Drake. Additionally, his middle-aged mentor Sully will be played by Mark Wahlberg, with only a brief hint of his iconic moustache.

Tom Holland stars as Nathan Drake alongside Mark Wahlberg as Sully. Joining them are Sophia Ali as a fellow treasure hunter and love interest Chloe Frazer, Tati Gabrielle as Braddock, and Antonio Banderas as the film’s currently unnamed (but presumably badass) villain.

Uncharted is directed by Ruben Fleischer, and based on a script by Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Fans think that an item found inside a Kingdom Hearts-themed hotel room in Tokyo may be important to the future of the series' plot.

Last year, Tokyo Disney announced that it was bringing to life a Kingdom Hearts-inspired hotel room in celebration of the series' 20th anniversary. As summed up by resetEra user Desma, fans now believe that the room might hold a secret toward the franchise's future.

Disney originally advertised that the room would include a secret item for fans when announcing the Kingdom Hearts stay last year. Among a number of other themed decorations, the room includes a treasure chest that fans can open during their trip. Now, thanks to Kingdom Hearts fan and Twitter user aitaikimochi, the community has finally found out what's inside.

Details of the treasure box and the Sora and Kairi beds pic.twitter.com/SvLgZsRc3L

— ☆オードリーAudrey☆ (@aitaikimochi) January 23, 2022

While aitaikimochi wasn't able to photograph the contents of the chest, due to images of the item existing under embargo until April 28, they were able to give a description of what they saw. According to the fan, the chest contains a copy of the games' Oathkeeper keyblade - though with a number of distinct differences.

As stated in the tweet below, the keyblade is somewhat similar in size to the Oblivion key used to enter the hotel room (as pictured). Unlike more familiar depictions of Oathkeeper, however, the charm depicted on the keyblade is supposedly blue on both sides - a change that moves away from its typical blue and yellow design. Not only that, but aitaikimochi also stated that the center of the charm contains a gold circle on it and that this version of Oathkeeper doesn't have Sora's face etched onto it.

For Kingdom Hearts theory crafters, details on the hotel room:
1) Oblivion opens room door
2) Treasure box contains Oathkeeper
3) Oathkeeper Kairi charm is blue on both sides, no Sora face
4) Center of Kairi charm is a gold circle
5) Rest of Oathkeeper colors is a perfect replica pic.twitter.com/ZsNsrXjKKJ

— ☆オードリーAudrey☆ (@aitaikimochi) January 23, 2022

Those changes have led fan replying to aitaikimochi's thread with a number of different theories, suggesting their own thoughts on what the modified keyblade could mean.

From one fan suggesting that the keyblade could signify a new evolution of Oathkeeper (similar to the upgradeable keys in Kingdom Hearts Union), to others speculating that the blade's all-blue charm might hint at a Kaira and Aqua-based game, it's certainly got people talking.

Kingdom Hearts has a famously in-depth plot, filled out across the 3 mainline games and many, many spin-offs, so it's not incredibly surprising that it might be hiding hints in somewhere more unusual. Following Kingdom Hearts 3, creator Tetsuya Nomura said he'd like to tell a new story and "drastically" change the game's world - he probably didn't mean 'by turning it into a hotel room ARG', but this could be a hint of his next in-game move.

For more on Kingdom Hearts, make sure to check out this piece showing off nine minutes of Kingdom Hearts 3 gameplay on the Nintendo Switch.

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

Two fans of Ana de Armas are suing Universal, alleging they were duped into renting the 2019 movie Yesterday because the actress appeared in the trailer but not the final cut of the film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rosza, of California, and Conor Woulfe, of Maryland, claim they each paid $3.99 to watch Yesterday on Amazon Prime after they checked out the trailer for the musical rom-com, which featured de Armas, however, they later discovered that the actress' scenes had been removed from the Beatles-inspired film.

As a result of this revelation, the two film fans are seeking to recoup at least $5m in compensation on behalf of the affected viewers in their two home states who paid to watch Yesterday, claiming that Universal Pictures used de Armas' "fame, radiance and brilliance" to promote the film and attract sales by including her scenes in the trailer.

"Although Defendant included the scenes with Ms. de Armas in the movie trailer advertisements, for the purposes of promoting Yesterday and enticing film sales and rentals, Ms. de Armas is not and was never in the publicly released version of the movie," states the complaint, which was filed in California federal court on January 21, 2022.

Yesterday imagines a world where the Beatles never existed as Jack Malik, a struggling singer-songwriter, wakes up from an accident to find he's the only person on Earth who remembers the iconic Liverpool band. De Armas was initially cast as a love interest for Malik but had her scenes cut because audiences didn't like that aspect of the storyline, per BBC.

"Unable to rely on fame of the actors playing Jack Malik or Ellie to maximize ticket and movie sales and rentals, Defendant consequently used Ms. de Armas' fame, radiance and brilliance to promote the film by including her scenes in the movie trailers advertising Yesterday," reads the lawsuit, which also references a song that was included in the trailer but cut from the film.

Although de Armas didn't end up making an appearance in Yesterday, she recently starred as CIA agent Paloma in Cary Joji Fukunaga's James Bond movie No Time to Die. The film earned an estimated $56 million at the US box office in its opening weekend and surpassed $300 million globally, with the fifth-best US opening during the COVID-19 pandemic era.

De Armas is also reportedly in talks to play the lead role in the John Wick spinoff, Ballerina, which will centre around a young female assassin who is motivated to seek out the people responsible for killing her family and bring them to justice. The film is set to be directed by Les Wiseman from a script by Shay Hatten but few other details are known at this time.

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