Veteran Fast franchise director Justin Lin will no longer direct the upcoming Fast X. Production has halted so that the studio can find a replacement director.

According to Deadline, Lin — who previously directed The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, and F9 — was tapped to direct the two-part finale Fast X and Fast & Furious 11. However, although filming on Fast X already started, Lin will step down from the director's seat over creative differences, while still remaining a producer on the films.

In a statement, Lin says, "With the support of Universal, I have made the difficult decision to step back as director of FAST X, while remaining with the project as a producer." While Lin didn't elaborate on his decision to step down, he thanked the actors and stunt team, and added "On a personal note, as the child of Asian immigrants, I am proud of helping to build the most diverse franchise in movie history."

Production on Fast X had just begun, but there will be a brief pause to find Lin's replacement. A decision is likely to happen soon as the studio is reportedly already talking to replacement candidates.

Lin is highly-regarded among fans for having directed some of the most critically-acclaimed entries in the Fast franchise, including Fast Five and Fast and Furious 6 (and cult favorite Tokyo Drift). Lin oversaw the series' transformation from its early movies into the globe-trotting blockbusters they are today. After leaving the series in 2013, Lin returned to the franchise in 2021 for F9 and was set to finish out the franchise before today's news.

It's unclear who could replace Lin, though there have been several directors who have tackled the Fast series including James Wan.

Fast X would have concluded the Fast franchise and includes most of the key Fast cast members as well as newcomers like Jason Momoa and Brie Larson.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Universal Pictures Home Entertainment)

Veteran Fast franchise director Justin Lin will no longer direct the upcoming Fast X. Production has halted so that the studio can find a replacement director.

According to Deadline, Lin — who previously directed The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, and F9 — was tapped to direct the two-part finale Fast X and Fast & Furious 11. However, although filming on Fast X already started, Lin will step down from the director's seat over creative differences, while still remaining a producer on the films.

In a statement, Lin says, "With the support of Universal, I have made the difficult decision to step back as director of FAST X, while remaining with the project as a producer." While Lin didn't elaborate on his decision to step down, he thanked the actors and stunt team, and added "On a personal note, as the child of Asian immigrants, I am proud of helping to build the most diverse franchise in movie history."

Production on Fast X had just begun, but there will be a brief pause to find Lin's replacement. A decision is likely to happen soon as the studio is reportedly already talking to replacement candidates.

Lin is highly-regarded among fans for having directed some of the most critically-acclaimed entries in the Fast franchise, including Fast Five and Fast and Furious 6 (and cult favorite Tokyo Drift). Lin oversaw the series' transformation from its early movies into the globe-trotting blockbusters they are today. After leaving the series in 2013, Lin returned to the franchise in 2021 for F9 and was set to finish out the franchise before today's news.

It's unclear who could replace Lin, though there have been several directors who have tackled the Fast series including James Wan.

Fast X would have concluded the Fast franchise and includes most of the key Fast cast members as well as newcomers like Jason Momoa and Brie Larson.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Universal Pictures Home Entertainment)

It looks like Sony Pictures has found a new director to captain its Robotech live-action film. Deadline is reporting that Rhys Thomas has signed on to direct the film, fresh off his stint as a director on Marvel's Hawkeye series. Thomas directed the first, second, and final episodes of the Disney+ series. Prior to that, his work was mostly in the comedy vein, directing Documentary Now and many segments on Saturday Night Live.

Robotech has been in development at Sony Pictures since 2017. The current iteration of the film is based on a script by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, with a subsequent rewrite by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka. The film is being produced by Mark Canton and Gianni Nunnari, who previously produced 300, Immortals, and 300: Rise of an Empire together.

The live-action film is based on the Robotech property owned by Harmony Gold. The 80s animated series was comprised of three different Japanese animated series — Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada — that were redubbed and recut to have a single overarching storyline. This unique genesis has been a part of the legal battle between Harmony Gold and advertising firm Big West, who owns the original Japanese series Macross. Both companies came to an agreement in 2021, allowing the Robotech live-action film to move forward.

Robotech has been in development in Hollywood since 2007, when Warner Bros was seeking to develop a live-action film with Tobey Maguire's production company. Sony Pictures picked up the project in 2015 with the intention of "moving quickly toward production of a future global franchise."

At the time, Aquaman director James Wan was slated to direct the film. Wan told IGN that he intended to be "respectful to the origin of the material," while also telling a more modern story. Stephen King's IT and The Flash director Andy Muschietti stepped up to helm the franchise when Wan left to direct the first Aquaman. Muschietti even visited Harmony Gold's offices to promote the film.

It remains to be seen whether Robotech will finally make it to the big screen after all this time. At the very least, the legal battles are done, giving the film a long, clean runaway for takeoff.

Blogroll image credit: Matt Winkelmeye / Getty Images

Mike Williams is a freelance writer at IGN.

It looks like Sony Pictures has found a new director to captain its Robotech live-action film. Deadline is reporting that Rhys Thomas has signed on to direct the film, fresh off his stint as a director on Marvel's Hawkeye series. Thomas directed the first, second, and final episodes of the Disney+ series. Prior to that, his work was mostly in the comedy vein, directing Documentary Now and many segments on Saturday Night Live.

Robotech has been in development at Sony Pictures since 2017. The current iteration of the film is based on a script by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, with a subsequent rewrite by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka. The film is being produced by Mark Canton and Gianni Nunnari, who previously produced 300, Immortals, and 300: Rise of an Empire together.

The live-action film is based on the Robotech property owned by Harmony Gold. The 80s animated series was comprised of three different Japanese animated series — Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada — that were redubbed and recut to have a single overarching storyline. This unique genesis has been a part of the legal battle between Harmony Gold and advertising firm Big West, who owns the original Japanese series Macross. Both companies came to an agreement in 2021, allowing the Robotech live-action film to move forward.

Robotech has been in development in Hollywood since 2007, when Warner Bros was seeking to develop a live-action film with Tobey Maguire's production company. Sony Pictures picked up the project in 2015 with the intention of "moving quickly toward production of a future global franchise."

At the time, Aquaman director James Wan was slated to direct the film. Wan told IGN that he intended to be "respectful to the origin of the material," while also telling a more modern story. Stephen King's IT and The Flash director Andy Muschietti stepped up to helm the franchise when Wan left to direct the first Aquaman. Muschietti even visited Harmony Gold's offices to promote the film.

It remains to be seen whether Robotech will finally make it to the big screen after all this time. At the very least, the legal battles are done, giving the film a long, clean runaway for takeoff.

Blogroll image credit: Matt Winkelmeye / Getty Images

Mike Williams is a freelance writer at IGN.

While explaining how graphics drivers work, it seems that Nvidia couldn't help taking a jab at AMD in the process.

In a new video (and accompanying blog post) intended to explain Nvidia's arduous process of creating it's "Game Ready" drivers, Nvidia Senior Product Manager Sean Pelletier detailed how graphics drivers work and why it's important to ensure the right drivers are available when new games release.

Towards the end, Pelletier noted Nvidia doesn't release beta drivers because of how "integral the driver is to the overall experience." He likened the drivers to video games, saying that fully released games are "held to a higher standard" than the beta version of the same game. He seems to be inferring that Nvidia's Game Ready drivers, which are typically released on the same day as a game's launch, are superior to beta drivers that AMD may put out.

From the blog post:

Only once all this work is completed do we launch the driver via GeForce.com and GeForce Experience. And because the Game Ready Driver Program and our promise of quality relies on all of this work, we don’t release sub-par beta drivers with minimal testing, let alone multiple conflicting beta drivers forked from different development branches that support different games and products, which confuse customers.

Of course, astute PC gamers already know that despite Nvidia's in-depth testing and verification process, the company still deals with occasional driver problems. Sometimes, Nvidia has to release an updated driver to fix problems that the original driver caused.

Despite the jab at AMD, the video itself is well-made and does a good job outling the process of driver creation from beginning to end. The Game Ready program was started in 2014 as a way to optimize drivers by interacting directly with game development teams.

Nvidia also bragged about every single Game Ready driver being Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) certified. That said, WHQL certifcation is certainly appreciated but focuses more on Windows functionality rather than specific games.

Finally, releasing "beta" drivers isn't necessarily a bad thing. By definition, a beta is a trial of software or any product by a third party during the final stages of development. It allows people outside of the development to put fresh eyes on the product and may lead to finding bugs that were otherwise undiscovered by the development team.

Of course, being a video about drivers, Nvidia has also released its latest 512.59 Game Ready drivers which contains optimizations for Dune: Spice Wars. It also includes ray tracing support for the Chernobylite survival game and adds DLSS support to JX3 Online and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt.

David Matthews is a freelance writer specializing in consumer tech and gaming. He also strongly believes that sugar does not go in grits. Follow him on Twitter @shortblktechie

While explaining how graphics drivers work, it seems that Nvidia couldn't help taking a jab at AMD in the process.

In a new video (and accompanying blog post) intended to explain Nvidia's arduous process of creating it's "Game Ready" drivers, Nvidia Senior Product Manager Sean Pelletier detailed how graphics drivers work and why it's important to ensure the right drivers are available when new games release.

Towards the end, Pelletier noted Nvidia doesn't release beta drivers because of how "integral the driver is to the overall experience." He likened the drivers to video games, saying that fully released games are "held to a higher standard" than the beta version of the same game. He seems to be inferring that Nvidia's Game Ready drivers, which are typically released on the same day as a game's launch, are superior to beta drivers that AMD may put out.

From the blog post:

Only once all this work is completed do we launch the driver via GeForce.com and GeForce Experience. And because the Game Ready Driver Program and our promise of quality relies on all of this work, we don’t release sub-par beta drivers with minimal testing, let alone multiple conflicting beta drivers forked from different development branches that support different games and products, which confuse customers.

Of course, astute PC gamers already know that despite Nvidia's in-depth testing and verification process, the company still deals with occasional driver problems. Sometimes, Nvidia has to release an updated driver to fix problems that the original driver caused.

Despite the jab at AMD, the video itself is well-made and does a good job outling the process of driver creation from beginning to end. The Game Ready program was started in 2014 as a way to optimize drivers by interacting directly with game development teams.

Nvidia also bragged about every single Game Ready driver being Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) certified. That said, WHQL certifcation is certainly appreciated but focuses more on Windows functionality rather than specific games.

Finally, releasing "beta" drivers isn't necessarily a bad thing. By definition, a beta is a trial of software or any product by a third party during the final stages of development. It allows people outside of the development to put fresh eyes on the product and may lead to finding bugs that were otherwise undiscovered by the development team.

Of course, being a video about drivers, Nvidia has also released its latest 512.59 Game Ready drivers which contains optimizations for Dune: Spice Wars. It also includes ray tracing support for the Chernobylite survival game and adds DLSS support to JX3 Online and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt.

David Matthews is a freelance writer specializing in consumer tech and gaming. He also strongly believes that sugar does not go in grits. Follow him on Twitter @shortblktechie

Telltale's The Walking Dead was originally pitched as a Left 4 Dead spin-off game, before the team took the idea to Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman.

In a documentary celebrating the game's tenth anniversary, as spotted by Eurogamer, the game's original developers revealed they were at first in talks with Valve about a Left 4 Dead narrative-led spin-off.

A simple prototype was made but the plans fell through, and only later did Telltale approach The Walking Dead's creator Robert Kirkman about setting a game in his universe.

"The very first Walking Dead prototype, which actually was for a different zombie thing that ended up turning into the Walking Dead, the first conversation was actually with Valve," said season design and direction lead Jake Rodkin. "It was about: what if we did a narrative side-story in the universe of Left 4 Dead?"

The protype was a completely text-based game that presented options for the player to choose, instead of seeing them actually play out in the game world as in the final version of The Walking Dead. The gameplay saw players attempting to 'spin plates' by looking after a number of characters simultaneously, with bad or late decisions causing thwir narratives to go wrong.

"Thematically that's a lot closer to what The Walking Dead was about than Left 4 Dead, or even a lot of other zombie franchises, so it ended up being a really good fit," Rodkin added.

"I'm really glad that didn't work out!", Robert Kirman added about the Left 4 Dead idea.

Telltale's The Walking Dead Season One became a huge critical and commercial success and essentially inspired an entire generation of games at the studio.

In our 9/10 review of Season One, IGN simply said: "The Walking Dead: The Game demands to be experienced."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Saudi Arabian censors want Disney to cut LGBTQ references from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but so far, the studio has refused.

Speaking to Agence France-Presse (via The Guardian) Saudi Arabia’s general supervisor of cinema classification Nawaf Alsabhan explained that they’ve requested the removal of “barely 12 seconds” when new superhero America Chavez (played by Xochitl Gomez) refers to her “two moms”.

“It’s just her talking about her moms, because she has two moms,” explained Alsabhan. “And being in the Middle East, it’s very tough to pass something like this.”

“We sent it to the distributor, and the distributor sent it to Disney, and Disney has told us they are not willing,” he revealed.

The upcoming Doctor Strange sequel was previously reported to have been banned in the country, as well as in Kuwait. But Asabhan disputed these reports.

“It will never be banned,” he said. “There’s no reason to ban the film. It’s a simple edit... So far, they have refused. But we haven’t closed the door. We’re still trying.”

Advanced ticket sales have been halted in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, but are currently still available in the United Arab Emirates.

Although Saudia Arabia has not outright banned the film, it looks as though Doctor Strange 2 could fall foul of the censors in the same way The Eternals did – Disney’s refusal to edit gay references out of the recent Marvel movie meant it was not shown in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, alongside Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch. They’re joined by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, and Xochitl Gomez.

Sam Raimi directed the movie from a script by Michael Waldron, based on characters created by comic book legends, Steve Ditko, and Stan Lee.

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

Valve has released a hefty update for the Steam Deck that adds a lock screen, window switching, and more.

The changes were revealed in the latest patch notes, but Valve also released a deep-dive into the more significant features, first showing off the new lock screen (below).

The optional feature lets users set a PIN when the Steam Deck wakes or boots up, or when logging in or switching to Desktop mode.

Window switching can now be used on any software that already supports the feature and essentially brings up a handy quick select menu that lets users move swiftly between their games and apps.

Valve also updated the achievements page to make it load faster and easier to navigate, and added the option to compare your achievements with those of friends or global stats.

The last main feature highlighted in the deep-dive is the addition of localised keyboards. Valve has added keyboards for 21 languages and layouts, and multiple layouts can be enabled at the same time through the globe button (similar to Android and iOS).

The new additions don't include keyboards for Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, but Valve said it was working on those and they'll appear in the future.

It's the first major update for a while, but the Steam Deck has already seem some other big additions since launch including the addition of Windows compatibility and Xbox Game Pass support.

In our 7/10 review, IGN said: "When Steam Deck lives up to its promises, it's sublime, but when it falls short, it falls hard."

The full patch notes can be seen below:

Client Update:

• Added Lock Screen feature
  • Lock screen is specific to device, and can be set to show up on wake, boot, login, and/or when switching to Desktop mode
  • PIN can be entered using the touchscreen or controls
• Added localized keyboards for 21 languages and layouts
  • Multiple keyboards can be enabled in Settings > Keyboard > Active Keyboards
  • Use the new globe key on the keyboard to cycle between active keyboards
• Added support for multiple windows within one application or game.
  • Press Steam to view active windows and select which window you would like to view
  • Useful for web browsers or games with launchers
• Updated Achievements page design, making it faster to load and easier to navigate
• New achievements drop down allows players to quickly compare stats against any friend who also plays
• Add Friend and Pending Requests have been combined into a single new page for better handling of friend requests
• Added logic to detect and notify user when a microSD card doesn't match advertised storage size and specifications, instead of attempting to format (for a very long time)
• Fixed issue where Steam and (...) button couldn't be used with Remote Play when streaming games from PC
• More performance improvements for players with very large game libraries

OS Update:

• Added messaging when a charger that doesn't meet the minimum bar is plugged in
• Added uncapped framerate setting in Quick Access menu > Performance
• Added Half-Rate Shading experimental option to Quick Access menu > Performance, forcing 2x2 Variable Rate Shading into existing games for power savings
• Added fTPM support, enabling Windows 11 installation
• Added button combo: hold "..." + "Volume Down" to reset PD contract in the cases where Steam Deck gets stuck due to an incompatible Type-C device
• Updated power LED to dim a few seconds after power supply connection events for better experience in dark environments
• Improved compatibility for a number of Type-C docks and PSUs
• Improved battery life in idle or very low usage scenarios
• Improved stability
• Fixed issues where the touchscreen does not work after some boots
• Fixed compatibility with some SD cards specifically when used as boot devices.
• Fixed extra haptic click when pressing on trackpads
• Fixed ACPI error spew in the kernel

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

While not many details were given, Sony officially announced the next Venom and Ghostbusters films at CinemaCon 2022.

No release dates were given, but they were confirmed in a sizzle reel from Sony that also shared a few seconds of footage from Kraven the Hunter.

Venom 3 will continue the story from Venom: Let There Be Carnage, while the new Ghostbusters movie will follow the events of Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

The third Venom was confirmed by producer Amy Pascal in late 2021, saying, "we are in the planning stages right now, but what we are focused on is getting everybody to come and see No Way Home.” This marks the first official reveal from Sony.

The world of Ghostbusters is quickly expanding as, in addition to this new film, fans have Ghostbuster VR and the 4v1 asymmetrical multiplayer game Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed to look forward to.

Sony also shared other big news at CinemaCon, including the title of the third Spider-Verse film and the annoucement of the Spider-Man spin-off El Muerto.

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.