Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is still confident that the company’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard will be approved, and said, "if this is about competition, let us have competition.”

In an interview with Bloomberg, Nadella says, “Of course, any acquisition of this size will go through scrutiny, but we feel very, very confident that we’ll come out.”

A key concern, particularly for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK, has been that the merger could be anti-competitive for the gaming industry as a whole. However, Nadella points out that Microsoft’s main competitor, Sony, has also acquired studios, including big ones like Bungie.

Nadella continues, “So if this is about competition, let us have competition.”

Concerns surrounding the anti-competitiveness of the merger center around franchises like Call of Duty potentially becoming exclusive to Microsoft platforms. Xbox’s Phil Spencer has already confirmed that he’d like to keep Call of Duty a multiplatform franchise for the time being, but add its titles to Xbox Game Pass in order to make it accessible in different ways to Xbox customers.

But PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan lambasted Xbox’s offer of extending Call of Duty’s availability on PlayStation for only three additional years after existing contacts expire, calling it “inadequate.”

Other companies, such as Electronic Arts, think that a successful merger could mean new opportunities for their own franchises. CEO Andrew Wilson says that the multiplatform nature of the Battlefield franchise could benefit from Call of Duty potentially becoming a Microsoft-exclusive one.

The near $70 billion deal is by far the biggest gaming buyout of its kind, and is being scrutinized by regulators across the world. The deal is undergoing investigaton in the UK, US, Brazil and more – a final decision is still likely to be months away at least.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey

When Mario + Rabbids creative director Davide Soliani first started working on Kingdom Battle, he was given express instructions from Ubisoft: Rabbids do not, under any circumstances, talk.

“I had to gain trust also from Ubisoft, not just Nintendo,” Soliani says. “And Ubisoft told me, ‘Rabbids are not speaking.’ That was a rule.

“But they never told me that the Rabbids couldn't sing, so I introduced the Phantom.”

The Phantom is one of Kingdom Battle’s most memorable moments, where a giant Rabbid opera ghost sings an entire musical number about how much he hates Mario, peppered with gags about Mario’s past appearances and personality quirks. Audiences loved it. And that positive reception led Soliani to get Ubisoft onboard for breaking the rules in the sequel, Sparks of Hope.

So yes, the Rabbids talk now.

“I gained trust from Ubisoft to venture towards a new horizon…Everything we are doing, it's part of a process of evolution that will lead us somewhere else. I think that as a team, we really love experimenting and we will keep doing it in the DLC. And then, who knows in the future what will happen?”

The Rabbids have undergone a pretty dramatic shift in reception since Kingdom Battle, largely thanks to the game’s treatment of them. When Kingdom Battle was first leaked prior to its 2017 E3 showing, the idea of a Mario and Rabbids collaboration seemed absurd. Rabbids were obnoxious characters, generally relegated to children’s media. The internet laughed — and not necessarily kindly — at characters like Rabbid Peach with her phone obsession. But what audiences slowly came to realize over the course of trailers, gameplay, reviews, and later playing it themselves was that the Mario + Rabbids team had put a lot of effort into making the Rabbids…well, still obnoxious, but lovably so.

“I think that when Rabbids started as a video game [they were initially Rayman enemies back in 2006], they were kind of cute and a nice surprise the very first time,” Soliani says. “But then, afterwards we didn't manage to not abuse some of their features. At some point, maybe people were annoyed of them screaming.

“One of the rules that we set ourselves as a team was, ‘Okay, they should never, never scream once again in Kingdom Battle,’ because that was absolutely annoying us.”

The Rabbids in Kingdom Battle did still yell a lot, especially their signature “Bwah” cry, but Kingdom Battle gave them room to express a lot more. They kept much of their physical, slapstick comedy, but by introducing a roster of playable Rabbids heroes, Ubisoft was able to give them different emotions; even a little bit of complexity. And different types of humor, as well, like the aforementioned Phantom song – the whole thing is a hilarious, witty roast of Nintendo’s biggest mascot. Unheard of for any character, especially a Rabbid, to perform.

Now, with Sparks of Hope, Soliani wants to take that complexity farther. There are new Rabbids, both NPCs and heroes, and thus new emotions. Rabbid Rosalina embodies ennui, while Edge is (per Soliani) a “female Clint Eastwood” inspired by JRPGs. And now, they need words other than “bwah” to express those emotions.

“With the production of the voices…we believe that we have been able to announce their psychological trait and their emotion and to bring it in the game in a way that in Kingdom Battle was not possible…We are evolving the cosmology around the Rabbids and this is giving us also the possibility to create different kind of humor compared to the classical slapstick.”

Soliani calls the decision to give the Rabbids voices a “scary” one, comparable with the dramatic changes to the combat system. He says the team was skeptical ahead of its internal tests, but after hearing them, everyone “fell in love.”

“For example, today the character that I prefer, that was not my preferred one in Kingdom Battle is Rabbid Mario. Because when he is speaking, he’s saying such stupid stuff that is making me laugh and this is changing my mood, makes me jolly.”

He adds that beloved as they were, the process still wasn’t easy. It was challenging to find the right voices for each Rabbid in every spoken language, especially because the Rabbids were speaking as much as (at times more!) than the Nintendo characters. For these reasons, they did opt to keep the heroes’ voices somewhat spare, opting to let Beep-0, Jeanie, and Rabbid NPCs carry the storytelling wherever possible.

And for the new characters especially, that meant introducing strong enough personalities that “could stay on stage” with the Rabbids’ speech. For Soliani, the gold standard of that was Rabbid Peach, who went from being mocked upon the first leak of Kingdom Battle to being a beloved mascot of the franchise, and in the preview I played of Sparks of Hope, almost a deuteragonist to Mario himself.

“Creating another powerful character as she has been in both Donkey Kong Adventure and in Kingdom Battle was not an easy task,” Soliani says. “But I think that we found our perfect recipe with Rabbid Rosalina, because she can be a show stealer. I remember that when we revealed the game for the very first time, everyone was speaking about how bored of life she was. A lot of people were actually saying, ‘I'm the same, she's like me.’”

I ask Soliani if he thinks he’s created any moments in Sparks of Hope that will top the Phantom’s song in Kingdom Battle. He isn’t giving away spoilers, but implies that while there isn’t anything quite like that number, there may be different types of emotional highs on the horizon.

“[In Sparks of Hope], I think that we tried to expand the tactical possibilities and some of the combat situations…But there are other moments in my opinion, that are more tied to the narrative and what is happening, because now each character also has a personal goal and there are moments that made me very emotional in some parts of the game.”

For more on Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, check out our final preview of the game, as well as the rest of our interview with Soliani about Sparks of Hope’s difficulty settings, and its upcoming Rayman DLC.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Mario + Rabbids creative director Davide Soliani says that the best compliment he ever received for Kingdom Battle is that it helped someone fall in love with even more tactical games.

“We tried to make people enjoy tactical games, even if they were initially scared of [trying them.] We made it more colorful, almost chroma-therapeutic, more inviting.”

So now, with Sparks of Hope on the horizon, he wants to throw the doors open even wider. Soliani wants Sparks of Hope to still be a gateway to the genre for new players, but also to properly challenge those who have grown into tactics experts.

The most obvious way that the Sparks of Hope team is accomplishing that is with difficulty levels. Following the tutorial, Beep-0 asks the player roughly how hard they think their mission is going to be, inviting them to select an easy, normal, or expert difficulty that can be adjusted again in the menu at any time.

But there are other, smaller ways in which Sparks of Hope invites a somewhat more customizable difficulty. As we point out in our preview, it’s easier to grind levels with all the roaming enemies around the map, sidequests, and secrets, so if you’re struggling with a story fight there are ways to push through. But you’re also more than free to charge through the story for a more challenging experience, and circle back to whatever extra missions you’re interested in later on.

Soliani says that the difficulty systems were at least in part inspired by his love of indie platformer darling Celeste, which is notoriously difficult but also includes a number of options to turn on and off specific challenging elements, including the ability to just make the protagonist, Madeline, invincible.

“I think that in the past, I spoke with the people who had a child and they were playing the game together,” Soliani says. “And sometimes it was too difficult for them to progress. And then I say, ‘Okay, but if someone wants to enjoy the game just for the narrative, why not?’ So today, by acting on the level of difficulty, you can also be invincible and do the whole game and join the narrative, the visuals, the humor without challenge.”

But at the same time, he adds, a lot of people already in the Mario + Rabbids community gave feedback that the game should be even harder. So Soliani and Ubisoft obliged them, too.

“I think that you can really tailor the experience of this kind of game around the type of player you are. So we said we should really open up to our player and make sure that they can enjoy the game as they want. They want more difficulty, go for it. They want something easier, go for it.”

We have yet to see exactly how wild that challenge can get, but we were able to explore some of the much wider tactical possibilities of Sparks of Hope in our preview of the game. You can also see more from our interview with Soliani, including why the Rabbids talk now, and what Nintendo character Soliani (as a fan) wants to see added to Mario + Rabbids in the future.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Mario + Rabbids creative director Davide Soliani has been at Ubisoft for a long, long time. He’s been there so long his first game was Rayman for the Game Boy Color, which he worked on after signing on back in 1997.

So getting to put Rayman in Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope after all these years has been a bit of a dream come true for him.

“I was taking care of the traces and the level design [for the GBC game],” he says. “It was my first love basically, my first challenge where I started to learn a lot of things. And I always dreamed about being able to work again with these characters.

“And finally, because of the Rabbids’ presence in the Mario + Rabbids Universe, I have been able to justify this appearance. I think that we will create a very interesting adventure as we have been able to do with the Donkey Kong Adventure.”

Though Soliani has been dreaming of bringing his beloved Rayman back in step with the Rabbids for years, that’s not the only character he has in mind. He also has a pile of Nintendo characters he’s been allowed to mine for Mario + Rabbids. And while we’ve seen the introduction of some new heroes in Sparks of Hope, such as Bowser and Rabbid Rosalina, there are still some characters Soliani wishes he could have brought along for the ride.

He clarifies to me that these wishes are coming from him as a player, not a creative director, since he can’t divulge secrets about what they may work on in the future. But as a player, his most-wanted hero character in Mario + Rabbids would be Daisy.

“It's been a pity that we couldn't put [her in], but that would be nice,” he says.

Then, he remembers Wario, too, and laughingly says he can’t choose.

Wario, of course, has made somewhat of an appearance already in the form of Rabbid Wario in Kingdom Battle alongside Rabbid Waluigi (sorry, that’s Bwario and Bwaluigi, my mistake). Soliani doesn’t tell me whether or not the duo return for the sequel, but does explain that Wario would be a bit more difficult to introduce as a main character in a game like Mario + Rabbids, because “seeing Wario as a hero” is “way more difficult.” Possible, but difficult.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for Bwario and Bwaluigi in Sparks of Hope, but in the meantime you can check out our final preview of the game as well as the rest of our interview with Soliani covering topics like why the Rabbids talk now, and how Mario + Rabbids wants to be a gateway to more tactics games.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

David Cronenberg’s Scanners, the cult classic horror that you may know for its graphically exploding head, is being turned into a TV show.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 1981 horror movie is being adapted for television in a new series that’s headed to HBO.

William Bridges, who co-wrote the Emmy award-winning USS Callister episode of Black Mirror, is the show’s writer and showrunner, with Yann Demange directing. The film’s original writer and director David Cronenberg is on board as executive producer.

Scanners was originally released in 1981 and tells the story of a group of people with psychic, telepathic, and telekinetic powers – known as “scanners”. Weapons and security system maker ConSec attempts to seek out these people to use them for their own shadowy purposes. But the rogue scanner Revok (Michael Ironside) wages a war against the company.

That is, until another scanner, Cameron Vale (Stephen lack) is sent to put a stop to him. The results include some famously graphic violence, including a character's head exploding in wild fashion. The TV show will have a lot to live up to on that front.

The film earned just $14.2 million at the worldwide box office but has since become a cult classic. Cronenberg went on to follow it up with Videodrome and The Dead Zone.

Scanners is widely considered to be Cronenberg’s first mainstream success. The upcoming series isn’t a reboot or remake but instead exists within the world of Scanners.

“The series is being described as a visceral thriller set in the mind-bending world of Cronenberg’s film,” said The Hollywood Reporter. “It will focus on two women living on the fringes of modern society who are pursued by relentless agents with unimaginable powers and thus must learn to work together to topple a vast conspiracy determined to bring them to heel.”

The upcoming series has reportedly been in the works for the last five years, while Cronenberg himself was busy making his recent sci-fi body horror flick, Crimes of the Future. Who will be cast in the show’s two leading roles remains to be seen, but this is a great time for fans of head-exploding horror.

Want to read more about David Cronenberg? Check out how Crimes of the Future brings a grim evolution to sex, and why Cronenberg’s latest won’t get a director’s cut.

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

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands developer Gearbox says the Borderlands spin-off is now the start of a new franchise all of its own.

Gearbox Software has called the Borderlands spin-off a “major victory” after a solid launch, with CEO Randy Pitchford saying that Gearbox now sees this as a new franchise, with “future experiences already under development.”

“Wonderlands shattered all of our target expectations, both critically and commercially,” said Pitchford during the Embracer Group’s annual general meeting, “and I'm thrilled to report that in addition to great financial rewards from this victory that will be coming our way in the coming quarters, we have established a firm beachhead, and we now clearly have a new franchise on our hands.”

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was released back in March 2022, adapting the RPG-style action of the Borderlands 2 DLC Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep and turning it into its own standalone game. It was met with positivity from fans and critics alike. Clearly, the game has been enough of a commercial success that Gearbox is keen to make more. Whether that means additional games in the franchise or additional DLC remains to be seen.

IGN’s Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands review gave it 8/10 and said: “Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a fantastic fantasy take on Borderlands’ tried-and-true looter shooter formula. As spin-offs go, it sticks dangerously close to its past successes which at times felt a bit unoriginal and some of the new stuff it tries, like procedurally generated combat encounters, didn’t pan out terribly well. Luckily, the excellent writing, hilarious performances from an all-star cast, and ridiculous combat continue to shine brightly and make this tabletop-inspired explosion-fest absolutely worth your time.”

Want to read more about Borderlands and Tiny Tina’s Wonderland? Find out everything you need to know about Tiny Tina as well as who will be playing her in the Borderlands movie.

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

Netflix will reveal a slate of new shows and movies this weekend when Tudum returns on Saturday, September 24.

The global event will be a showcase of several highly-anticipated Netflix shows and movies, including The Witcher, Umbrella Academy, Wednesday, and more. And Netflix has shared a list of what you can expect to see at Tudum.

Netflix revealed that over 120 series, films, specials, and games will be introduced at Tudum this weekend, and the company has shared some highlights. Top of the list will likely be The Witcher Season 3, with stars Henry Cavill, Anya Chalotra, and Freya Allen on deck to reveal some updates.

Michelle Yeoh, Sophia Brown, and Laurence O’Fuarain will also be there to talk about the spinoff The Witcher: Blood Origin.

Other highlights on the series side include a sneak peek of season 2 of Shadow and Bone, a trailer for season four of Manifest, an exclusive clip for Wednesday, a first look at the Bridgerton spinoff, Queen Charlotte, and appearances from the cast of Squid Game.

On the film side, Netflix will share a trailer for Enola Holmes 2, an exclusive clip from Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a look at Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, and appearances from the cast of The Old Guard 2.

Netflix will also have some game announcements on deck when Jamie Foxx introduces a first look at Oxenfree: Netflix Edition.

Tudum will premiere at 10 am PT/1 pm ET on Saturday, September 24. Check out IGN for all the latest news, trailers, and reveals from the event.

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

Video game YouTuber Dunkey is starting an indie game publisher.

The popular gaming YouTuber Jason Yevgeniy Gastrow (aka Dunkey) has announced Bigmode – a new game publishing company that will help indie games “stand out” from the crowd.

“I’ve been on YouTube for eleven years now and one of the core themes of my channel has always been to slam dunk soulless cash grabs into the garbage can and lift up and praise the truly inspired works of art in this medium,” said Gastrow. “For years and years, I have always sought out the very best indie games out there and have tried to do them justice, putting millions of eyes on the games that actually deserve attention.”

Gastrow has amassed over seven million subscribers and several billion views. That’s quite a built-in audience for any indie game developer thinking of signing up for his new publisher. However, he explained that Bigmode will be a continuation of his channel:

“A lot of games out there understand how to emulate the look of your favorite games but don't deliver where it actually counts. Many of the true games out there are being drowned out in a sea of mediocrity. You need someone who can help you be seen.”

Bigmode is founded by Gastrow along with his wife, fellow YouTuber Leah “Leahbee” Gastrow.

“Me and Leah aren't just the face of this company; we are the company,” he explained. “This is our vision and our number one priority is to publish some of the very best games out there. In today's indie landscape, buying a game can be like buying a loot crate in Counter-Strike: you don't know what you're going to get but you're probably going to be sad.”

Dunkey wants to be involved in Bigmode's games' development, but says he knows what works due to his countless hours playing them.

“I understand what kind of ideas always work, what ideas never work, what kind of ideas are fresh or need to come back, and what is extremely played out,” he added. “I'm hyping myself up a lot in this video but Bigmode will be all about building up the games and the developers. We've put a lot of effort into making the most developer-friendly contracts possible. I think we're going to bring insane value to the table and the bottom line is: help good games succeed and help them continue to succeed into the future.”

One aspect that seems to be a real crowd pleaser, is that Bigmode will not publish any games containing NFTs, blockchain, or crypto. Developers can already get in touch with Bigmode to submit their games for consideration.

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

A prominent Spider-Man modder has worked on an experimental first-person mode for the game, showing off web-swinging from the (slightly nausea-inducing) perspective.

YouTube user jedijosh920 first released gameplay of the mod with a fixed camera perspective, meaning the first-person view is steady as Spider-Man swings around New York.

This version is probably more comfortable to use but does come with some caveats, as when the player performs tricks and flips in the air, the fixed perspective meant his body will flash up in front of the camera instead of reacting more naturally.

Spider-Man First Person Mod... do you want a Spider-Man FPS mode in Spider-Man 2? pic.twitter.com/9BJqzmyEtX

— Chaos (@Chaosxsilencer) September 20, 2022

Fans therefore called for the fully accurate version, where the camera would move exactly with Spider-Man's eyeline and, for better or worse, jedijosh920 delivered. The next video they released does exactly that, showing every movement of the head as Spider-Man climbs up walls, dives from skyscrapers, and flips and twists in the air.

The result is pretty impressive, (presumably) recreating exactly what it looks like to be the superhero swinging around New York. That being said, it's also a tough watch for those who get motion sickness easily, so viewer beware.

It's not the only mod added to the PC version of Spider-Man, as Stan Lee and other characters including Mary Jane, Vulture, and Kingpin have been made playable protagonists.

Modding is just one of the inevitable consequences of Sony putting Spider-Man on PC, alongside rigorous searching through files that have already revealed what appears to be a scrapped multiplayer mode and plans for a PlayStation PC games launcher.

Other Sony games have received similarly wacky mods after being brought to PC. God of War protagonist Kratos, for example, has been put up against Halo's Master Chief and someone even made a Simpsons Hit and Run mod.

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

Microsoft has released its September update for the Xbox Series and Xbox One consoles, completely revamping the game library, adding customisable colour options to the Elite Series 2 controller, and more.

The details were revealed on the Xbox Wire, with the updated game library being arguably the biggest change. The My Games and Apps section has been redesigned to give more streamlined access to anything the player is able to play, whether it be in their own library, through Xbox Game Pass, Games with Gold, EA Access, and so on.

Those playing with an Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 can enjoy an extra bonus in the update too, as Microsoft has added the ability to change the colour of the Xbox logo light on the gamepad. The options are pretty diverse too, as the player can not only choose the base colour but also the hue and saturation as well.

The update also brings more flexibility when it comes to storage locations, as the player can now select different installation locations like expansion cards, external hard drives, and so on from the get go instead of having to move things over after they're already installed on the internal hard drive.

A new "Let Xbox Decide" option can also be selected, in which case the console will install the game in the fastest drive with available space.

Party chat noise suppression, while it was added to the Xbox Series X and S earlier in September, has now bee added to the Xbox One and Windows 10 and 11 on PC. The feature basically cuts out all background noise heard on the other side of a party chat, removing heavy breathing, gamepad clicks, and so on.

A couple of minor additions have also arrived in the update, including the ability to share gameplay captures with a link on Windows PCs and start parties on the Xbox app.

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