An Overwatch 2 Tracer skin is being given away at McDonalds, and seemingly only in Australia.

As reported by Dot Esports, developer Blizzard and McDonalds have united for the promotion that rewards the Overwatch 2 "Tracer Lightning" skin to anyone who orders a Big Mac, McChicken, or 10-piece Chicken McNuggets combo through the MyMacca's App.

The skin is available at every McDonalds across Australia until the end of October, and there's currently no word as to whether the promotion will spread to the U.S. or other regions.

If you're an Overwatch veteran, you may recognise the skin from Overwatch's 2018 anniversary event. These days, the skin is sometimes available in the Overwatch shop, but since the shop cycles its inventory there is no way of knowing exactly when you can buy it. As such, the McDonalds promotion is the only current sure-fire way to get the skin, at least for Australian players.

Other publishers have made similar deals in the past, often resulting in codes for the digital product being sold online for huge amounts of money. Fortnite's Merry Mint Pickaxe was available in the holiday period of 2019 to those who bought Fortnite merchandise at certain retailers, for example, and those codes are now selling for upwards of $100.

Overwatch 2 launched on October 4 and, as is often the case with online games, it had a rocky launch that left several fans completely unable to play the game.

Blizzard's servers were plagued with DDoS attacks that caused lengthy queue times for those trying to play early on, and further issues emerged as a result of new Blizzard policies that required players to connect a phone number to their account before playing.

Though the requirement was implemented as a security feature, Blizzard quickly backtracked and removed the feature for most of its players, only requiring those with new accounts to attach a phone number. Further controversy emerged, however, as fans using pre-paid phone packages found they were not considered viable for the service and as a result they couldn't play Overwatch 2.

The game is relatively settled now, however, and outside of a targeted fix for Zarya in Total Mayhem on October 25 and (presumably) the return of Bastion and Torbjörn, who were removed from Overwatch 2 just days after it launched due to serious glitches, Blizzard said it won't implement any balance updates until Season 2 begins in December.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Editor's note: this story previously stated that the Tracer skin was exclusive to McDonalds. It has now been updated to reflect the skin's origin as a 2018 anniversary cosmetic.

Atreus may have matured by God of War Ragnarok, but so did his voice actor. During a new behind-the-scenes video, supervising dialogue designer Jodie Kupsco explained how puberty caused trouble for the God of War sequel.

“Our actor for Atreus, Sunny [Suljic], is a teenage boy, and his voice changed dramatically throughout several years on this title,” she explained. “We had to go in and even-out that performance so it sounds like it took place over a short period of time. That was a unique challenge on this one.”

An extended production period due to the pandemic meant that the God of War Ragnarok team not only had to think creatively to get around Suljic’s rapidly changing voice, but also how to film cinematics on a motion capture soundstage that was limited by pandemic rules.

“We avoided compromising the story we were trying to tell as a result of the pandemic and these limitations we had to deal with,” said senior producer, Ariel Angelotti. “There were no cinematics that we changed; we still have the same characters in them in the final game. We just had to get a bit creative with how we shot the content.”

The developers needed to avoid having too many voice actors on set at any one time, so they resorted to voice actors doubling up to play additional background characters.

This allowed them “to be able to avoid a situation where too many people were on-set on any given day.” They also had some actors “stand in” for others on the day. However, even with his rapidly deepening voice, I can’t help thinking it’s unlikely that Atreus’ voice actor took over as Kratos at any point.

Want to read more about God of War Ragnarok? Check out all the latest God of War Ragnarok reveals as well as the Norse mythology behind its latest trailer.

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

Morpheus actor Laurence Fishburne doesn't think he missed out by not being a part of Matrix: Resurrections alongside stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss.

Alongside many critics, Fishburne wasn't particularly impressed by Resurrections, which brought the Matrix back after almost 20 years for a fourth instalment.

Speaking to Variety, Fishburne was asked plainly if he thought he'd missed out by not being involved. "No, not really", he replied.

"It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be," Fishburne said. "And it wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. But I thought Carrie-Anne and Keanu really did their thing. Yeah, that’s what I thought."

Fishburne was a notable absence from Resurrections, which brought back Reeves as Neo, Moss as Trinity, Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe, and Lambert Wilson as The Merovingian. An AI version of the Morpheus character is played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in Resurrections, but there isn't a definitive answer as to why Fishburne wasn't invited back. Fishburne himself even said in 2021 that he didn't know why he wasn't asked to reprise the role.

Though the logic for Morpheus's absence was somewhat explained in Resurrections, many speculated that it was actually because he died in the canonical 2005 video game The Matrix Online.

In our 4/10 review of the film, IGN said: "The Matrix Resurrections is a bunch of really good ideas stacked together to make a bad — and sometimes ugly — film."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Update 10/10/2022: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has approved Blizzard Albany's 21 quality assurance workers' request to vote to unionise.

As reported by The Washington Post, The NLRB found that the QA workers can earn up to $41,995 a year if they work full time with no weeks off - while other Blizzard Albany employees earn between $56,250 and $175,050 - and therefore dismissed Activision Blizzard's claim that the QA workers fell into the same general category as the rest of its employees.

"While we respect the NLRB process, we strongly disagree that a decision that could significantly impact the future of the entire Albany-based Diablo team should be made by just a handful of employees," said Activision Blizzard spokesman Rich George.

"Given our tightly integrated operations in Albany, all of our eligible non-supervisory employees there should have a voice and be allowed to vote, not just the approximately 20 quality assurance testers picked by the union."

We are thrilled to announce that the NLRB ruled in our favor to have an election of Albany QA testers at Blizzard. With 94% committed to winning the union, we look forward to counting ballots a month from today!#1u #UnionYes

— GWA Albany (@WeAreGWAAlbany) October 19, 2022

Original Story 07/20/2022: A group of quality assurance workers at Blizzard Albany, the Activision Blizzard developer previously named Vicarious Visions (known for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 and Skylanders), are working to unionise.

As reported by The Washington Post, the group of around 20 employees has filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and asked Activision Blizzard management to voluntarily recognise the union.

Today, we announce a new union at Activision Blizzard.

QA is currently an undervalued discipline in the games and software industries. We strive to
foster work environments where we are respected and compensated for our essential role in the
development process. 1/5

— GWA Albany (@WeAreGWAAlbany) July 19, 2022

Activision Blizzard has not confirmed whether it will or not, however, but said a decision will be announced formally and publicly to the NLRB. A spokesperson told The Washington Post that "we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union."

The efforts of quality assurance workers at Raven Software - who formed Activision Blizzard's first union in January - encouraged the employees of Blizzard Albany to unionise themselves, as associate test analyst Amanda Laven said "it's been very, very helpful and inspiring" to see other employees show it's possible.

"Seeing their process, it’s been demystifying to see them do it first and have an idea of how things go and how the company might respond," she added. "We’ve already gotten to see some someone do it in our own company, and they’ve been very forthcoming with us talking to us about what things are like and what problems they encountered."

The unionisation effort has been growing through the games industry, seemingly slowly but surely. Quality assurance testers working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf for external support company Keywords Studio also officially voted to unionise in June.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Don’t panic – The Callisto Protocol isn’t delayed. And it will be getting a 60fps mode, too.

Developers announced via Twitter that the upcoming game from Dead Space creator Glen Schofield is still on its way on December 2, 2022, despite a post from the Epic Games Store listing a release date of February 12, 2023 (as reported by TheGamer).

“We would love to inform you all that we will be shipping globally on December 2nd,” they confirmed. “And yes, we'll have a 60 FPS performance mode.”

We would love to inform you all that we will be shipping globally on December 2nd. And yes, we'll have a 60 FPS performance mode.

— The Callisto Protocol (@CallistoTheGame) October 18, 2022

Following confirmation that The Callisto Protocol is still launching in December, it’s likely that the Epic Games release date change was down to a simple error.

Still, it’s great to see the game’s developer put minds at ease so quickly, as well as confirming that the game will be getting a 60fps performance mode following recent backlash to Gotham Knights.

Just a couple of days ago, Gotham Knights announced it would only appear in 30fps on consoles.

“Due to the types of features we have in our game, like providing a fully untethered co-op experience in our highly detailed open-world, it's not as straightforward as lowering the resolution and getting a higher FPS,” said Gotham Knights executive producer Fleur Marty. “For this reason, our game does not have a performance/quality toggle option and will run at 30FPS on consoles.”

Fortunately, it looks as though The Callisto Protocol won’t be following suit.

It’s certainly good news for fans, who eagerly await what’s aiming to be the scariest next-gen survival horror game.

“I’m looking forward to really trying to make the scariest game on next-gen platforms [and PC],” said Schofield. “From what I hear — it’s hard to be the creative and talk nicely about it — but from what I hear… [Dead Space] was one of the scarier games of [its generation] and I want to do the same on next-gen, or what’s considered now the current-gen.”

Watching it all unfold in glorious silky-smooth 60fps will be even better.

Want to read more about The Callisto Protocol? Check out why The Callisto Protocol isn’t just Dead Space 4 as well as the achievement you can only get by dying a lot.

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

Don’t panic – The Callisto Protocol isn’t delayed. And it will be getting a 60fps mode, too.

Developers announced via Twitter that the upcoming game from Dead Space creator Glen Schofield is still on its way on December 2, 2022, despite a post from the Epic Games Store listing a release date of February 12, 2023 (as reported by TheGamer).

“We would love to inform you all that we will be shipping globally on December 2nd,” they confirmed. “And yes, we'll have a 60 FPS performance mode.”

We would love to inform you all that we will be shipping globally on December 2nd. And yes, we'll have a 60 FPS performance mode.

— The Callisto Protocol (@CallistoTheGame) October 18, 2022

Following confirmation that The Callisto Protocol is still launching in December, it’s likely that the Epic Games release date change was down to a simple error.

Still, it’s great to see the game’s developer put minds at ease so quickly, as well as confirming that the game will be getting a 60fps performance mode following recent backlash to Gotham Knights.

Just a couple of days ago, Gotham Knights announced it would only appear in 30fps on consoles.

“Due to the types of features we have in our game, like providing a fully untethered co-op experience in our highly detailed open-world, it's not as straightforward as lowering the resolution and getting a higher FPS,” said Gotham Knights executive producer Fleur Marty. “For this reason, our game does not have a performance/quality toggle option and will run at 30FPS on consoles.”

Fortunately, it looks as though The Callisto Protocol won’t be following suit.

It’s certainly good news for fans, who eagerly await what’s aiming to be the scariest next-gen survival horror game.

“I’m looking forward to really trying to make the scariest game on next-gen platforms [and PC],” said Schofield. “From what I hear — it’s hard to be the creative and talk nicely about it — but from what I hear… [Dead Space] was one of the scarier games of [its generation] and I want to do the same on next-gen, or what’s considered now the current-gen.”

Watching it all unfold in glorious silky-smooth 60fps will be even better.

Want to read more about The Callisto Protocol? Check out why The Callisto Protocol isn’t just Dead Space 4 as well as the achievement you can only get by dying a lot.

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

Netflix is continuing its expansion into gaming by opening a new development studio in Southern California.

According to TechCrunch, Netflix’s VP of gaming, Mike Verdu, said this new studio will include former Blizzard vice president and Overwatch boss Chako Sonny at the helm.

“He could have done anything, but he chose to come here,” said Verdu. “You don’t get people like that coming to your organization to build the next big thing in gaming unless there’s a sense that we’re really in it for the long haul and in it for the right reasons.”

The online streaming giant is looking to increase its foothold in gaming, and might even look to create its own cloud gaming service.

“It’s a value add,” said Verdu. “We’re not asking you to subscribe as a console replacement. It’s a completely different business model. The hope is over time that it just becomes this very natural way to play games wherever you are.”

Of course, Netflix wouldn’t be the first to try streaming video games. Google Stadia attempted just that, allowing users access to a library of video games without a PC or games console, using just the Stadia device and service. Unfortunately, it struggled to survive, and with dwindling numbers, Google announced it will shutter Google Stadia by January 2023.

But Netflix doesn’t believe Stadia itself failed, just its business model. “Stadia was a technical success,” said Verdu. “It was fun to play games on Stadia. It had some issues with the business model, sure.” Although Google Stadia used a dedicated controller, Verdu wouldn’t confirm whether or not this would be the case for Netflix’s own cloud gaming service.

While Netflix has been experimenting with gaming for some time, it seems that less than one percent of Netflix subscribers actually play their games.

There are currently 35 games available to download via Netflix, with another 55 currently on their way, including those based on original IPs such as Stranger Things, as well as licensed games, such as Spongebob Squarepants. What game Netflix’s new studio will produce first remains to be seen.

Want to read more about Netflix? Check out how Netflix aims to create the best gaming service in the industry and find out more about Netflix’s other new games studio in Finland.

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

Netflix is continuing its expansion into gaming by opening a new development studio in Southern California.

According to TechCrunch, Netflix’s VP of gaming, Mike Verdu, said this new studio will include former Blizzard vice president and Overwatch boss Chako Sonny at the helm.

“He could have done anything, but he chose to come here,” said Verdu. “You don’t get people like that coming to your organization to build the next big thing in gaming unless there’s a sense that we’re really in it for the long haul and in it for the right reasons.”

The online streaming giant is looking to increase its foothold in gaming, and might even look to create its own cloud gaming service.

“It’s a value add,” said Verdu. “We’re not asking you to subscribe as a console replacement. It’s a completely different business model. The hope is over time that it just becomes this very natural way to play games wherever you are.”

Of course, Netflix wouldn’t be the first to try streaming video games. Google Stadia attempted just that, allowing users access to a library of video games without a PC or games console, using just the Stadia device and service. Unfortunately, it struggled to survive, and with dwindling numbers, Google announced it will shutter Google Stadia by January 2023.

But Netflix doesn’t believe Stadia itself failed, just its business model. “Stadia was a technical success,” said Verdu. “It was fun to play games on Stadia. It had some issues with the business model, sure.” Although Google Stadia used a dedicated controller, Verdu wouldn’t confirm whether or not this would be the case for Netflix’s own cloud gaming service.

While Netflix has been experimenting with gaming for some time, it seems that less than one percent of Netflix subscribers actually play their games.

There are currently 35 games available to download via Netflix, with another 55 currently on their way, including those based on original IPs such as Stranger Things, as well as licensed games, such as Spongebob Squarepants. What game Netflix’s new studio will produce first remains to be seen.

Want to read more about Netflix? Check out how Netflix aims to create the best gaming service in the industry and find out more about Netflix’s other new games studio in Finland.

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

You’ve heard the rumors – Sacha Baron Cohen has been tipped for a role in Ironheart.

According to Deadline, the British actor could be boarding the upcoming Marvel project as a long-awaited villain – none other than Mephisto.

“A source close to the production confirmed to Deadline that there has been talk on the set about Cohen being part of Ironheart, likely playing Mephisto,” they confirmed.

Mephisto first appeared in the comic books in Silver Surfer #3 in 1968 and has been long-awaited by comic books fans eager to see him on the big screen.

One of Marvel’s more supernatural villains, Mephisto seems like an odd fit for Ironheart. After all, he more traditionally tussles with the likes of Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, and Scarlet Witch, and was a major player in creating Wanda’s children, Tommy and Billy. At least, in the comic books.

Ironheart stars Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, a genius inventor, and creator of an advanced, Iron Man-like suit of armor. The cast also includes Anthony Ramos, Manny Montana, Shakira Barrera, Alden Ehrenreich, Regan Aliyah, Shea Couleé, and Zoe Terakes.

Of course, Ironheart is only the beginning.

Much like other Marvel characters, Mephisto is expected to appear in numerous projects – not just Ironheart. One possible candidate is the upcoming WandaVision spin-off, Agatha: Coven of Chaos, after Mephisto’s presence was teased in the recent Disney+ show.

Rumors of Cohen’s MCU role first began to spread on social media several days ago, with notable comic book movie accounts discussing his possible casting as Mephisto.

Cohen is perhaps most famous for Borat – the fictional Kazakhstan journalist who Cohen has brought to the bring scene to critical acclaim in both Borat and Borat 2.

He also recently starred in The Trial of the Chicago 7 and is set to star in the upcoming Apple+ series, Disclaimer.

Want to read more about Ironheart? Check out the entire cast of Ironheart (so far) and find out whether Ironheart will be the MCU’s new Iron Man.

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

You’ve heard the rumors – Sacha Baron Cohen has been tipped for a role in Ironheart.

According to Deadline, the British actor could be boarding the upcoming Marvel project as a long-awaited villain – none other than Mephisto.

“A source close to the production confirmed to Deadline that there has been talk on the set about Cohen being part of Ironheart, likely playing Mephisto,” they confirmed.

Mephisto first appeared in the comic books in Silver Surfer #3 in 1968 and has been long-awaited by comic books fans eager to see him on the big screen.

One of Marvel’s more supernatural villains, Mephisto seems like an odd fit for Ironheart. After all, he more traditionally tussles with the likes of Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, and Scarlet Witch, and was a major player in creating Wanda’s children, Tommy and Billy. At least, in the comic books.

Ironheart stars Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, a genius inventor, and creator of an advanced, Iron Man-like suit of armor. The cast also includes Anthony Ramos, Manny Montana, Shakira Barrera, Alden Ehrenreich, Regan Aliyah, Shea Couleé, and Zoe Terakes.

Of course, Ironheart is only the beginning.

Much like other Marvel characters, Mephisto is expected to appear in numerous projects – not just Ironheart. One possible candidate is the upcoming WandaVision spin-off, Agatha: Coven of Chaos, after Mephisto’s presence was teased in the recent Disney+ show.

Rumors of Cohen’s MCU role first began to spread on social media several days ago, with notable comic book movie accounts discussing his possible casting as Mephisto.

Cohen is perhaps most famous for Borat – the fictional Kazakhstan journalist who Cohen has brought to the bring scene to critical acclaim in both Borat and Borat 2.

He also recently starred in The Trial of the Chicago 7 and is set to star in the upcoming Apple+ series, Disclaimer.

Want to read more about Ironheart? Check out the entire cast of Ironheart (so far) and find out whether Ironheart will be the MCU’s new Iron Man.

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