The Pokémon Company has announced a BOOster Bundle of trading cards for people to give out instead of candy on Halloween.

As reported by GameSpot, The BOOster Bundle comes with 40 mini packets of Pokémon cards, each including a pumpkin Pikachu stamp and three trading cards.

Given the BOOster name and Trick or Trade tagline, the bundle is all Halloween themed, featuring Gengar on the front and a variety of other spooky Pokémon inside. Though The Pokémon Company hasn't said if these will be unique cards for this mini set or just reprints of previously released cards, it's so far confirmed that Gengar, Mimikyu, Polteageist, Pumpkaboo, and Zubat will all feature.

The pack will be available on September 1 alongside the next full set, Lost Origin, and available from anywhere that sells Pokémon trading cards typically.

It's not the first time people have broken the mould with Pokémon cards lately, as the last Pokémon GO set featured an amazing new hidden Ditto mechanic. A reality show based on the trading card game was also announced, and someone even entered an official Pokémon card tournament with a deck exclusively made of jumbo sized cards.

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

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 on Nintendo Switch will act as a "culmination" of the trilogy, but won't be a conclusion for the series overall according to its executive director.

In an interview with Nintendo itself, Tetsuya Takahashi said the first three mainline Xenoblade Chronicles games (not including the more futuristic Chronicles X) share similar themes and gameplay ideas that connect them as a trilogy.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 therefore rounds out the trilogy thematically – but Takahashi made clear it's not the end of the series as a whole. "This is like a summary for moving on to the next step in the future," he said.

"Although some elements and designs from one and two will appear in this third entry here and there, there is no need to have played the first and second games to understand the story or how to play," Takahashi explained. "However, since this is a series of works, the underlying theme is consistent, and in each case, the story unfolds based on 'the relationship between foreign things'.

"I used the word 'culmination' earlier, but this title brings together all the themes that have been developed over the past 15 years since 2007, when development of the first title in the Xenoblade Chronicles series began, as well as the gameplay systems that have been developed throughout the series."

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was announced in February and will be released on July 29. As with the previous games, it's a JRPG that features an automatic combat system where the player must combine a number of attacks and effects to achieve victory, set amid a war-torn futuristic world called Aionios.

In our 8/10 review, IGN said: "Xenoblade Chronicles 3 can take some meandering detours across its massive 150-hour campaign, but great characters and addictive tactical combat make it all well worth the time."

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

Adult Swim has announced that Rick and Morty Season 6 will premiere globally and across the multiverse on September 4.

The long-awaited sixth season will premiere at 11 pm ET/PT on September 4, picking right up from where we left the anarchic duo at the end of the fifth season. According to the official logline for the new season, Rick and Morty will be "worse for wear and down on their luck," but "will they manage to bounce back for more adventures? Or will they get swept up in an ocean of piss!"

If you're wondering exactly what awaits Rick and Morty in the forthcoming episodes, the synopsis teases "Family! Intrigue!" and possibly even "A bunch of dinosaurs!" Whatever the case may be, Michael Ouweleen, the president of Adult Swim and Cartoon Network, has promised another "iconic season" following the intergalactic escapades of the show's titular characters.

"It's hard to overstate the impact of Rick and Morty. More than a hit show, it is truly a global phenomenon," Ouweleen said of the Emmy award-winning comedy series, which has now been viewed over 10 billion times globally, across linear, digital, and streaming. "As we prepare to launch this soon-to-be iconic season, we will be giving fans a unique way to be part of the fun – so keep your eyes peeled."

Adult Swim capped off Rick and Morty's fifth season with a two-part finale on September 5, 2021, which means that the upcoming sixth season is arriving almost a full year after the last time we caught up with the dimension-hopping duo. The last episode presented fans with Evil Morty and the Evil Morty Plan, The Rick and Morty Citadel, and a good look at what the larger multiverse is doing.

Created and executive produced by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, Rick and Morty stars the voice talents of Roiland as Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith, Sarah Chalke as Beth Smith, Chris Parnell as Jerry Smith, and Spencer Grammer as Summer Smith, plus many others that have been part of the story so far.

IGN's review of Rick and Morty's fifth season finale called it a "lore-stuffed bookend to one of the strongest seasons thus far." However, it also noted that the half-hour episode chucked canon material at viewers at "a breakneck and sometimes confusing pace," which ultimately made its rapidly advancing plot points "difficult to follow and decidedly rushed."

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

Things are about to get weird this fall with Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is set to release November 4, 2022.

The announcement of the release date comes alongside a new poster featuring star Daniel Radcliffe sporting Weird Al’s signature curly mop of hair and accordion.

The film will follow the story of Weird Al in the (ahem) unexaggerated true story about the greatest musician of our time. Radcliffe portrays the rebellious Yankovic, who grew up in a family with an unconventional upbringing where playing the accordion was a sin, on his meteoric rise to fame and superstardom.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story will stream for free this fall exclusively on The Roku Channel. Earlier this year, we got a glimpse of Radcliffe in full Weird Al regalia. From his signature Hawaiian shirt to that mustache, Radcliffe checks all the boxes. Radcliffe will portray the king of parody during a time of his life where he (apparently) lived an excessive lifestyle and pursued an infamous romance that nearly destroyed him.

In May, a teaser trailer dropped that gives a glimpse into the movie and features Yankovic’s “Like a Surgeon,” a parody of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.” Radcliffe will star alongside Westworld’s Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna and Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson as Oprah.

The film will be released in the same month as The Illustrated Al, a graphic novel illustrating Yankovic’s music. The graphic novel will work as a songbook highlighting 20 tracks from Yankovic's career. Each song will be interpreted by a different artist and arranged as a sequential comic book tale.

Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.

The Roblox "oof" sound, which became famous not just with players but around the internet as a meme, has been removed from the game entirely due to a licensing issue.

The simple soundbite, a second-long "oof" sound that plays when a player dies or resets their character, has proven surprisingly awkward due to copyright claims in the last few years. It would appear these complications are now officially too much Roblox's development team, however, which has now announced the "oof" sound is no longer in the game.

It's been replaced with a similar default sound but, as announced on the Roblox Twitter (below), a whole range of new sounds, both old and new, will be released into the Avatar Shop in the future to make the transition away from the classic "oof" more palatable.

Related to sounds, due to a licensing issue we have removed the “oof” sound from Roblox and have created a replacement default sound which launches today.
We plan to expand our Avatar Shop with a whole range of both old and new sounds in the future. More to come on this.

— Roblox (@Roblox) July 26, 2022

Issues first arose in 2020 when video game composer Tommy Tallarico recognised the now iconic sound as his own creation, originally from a game called Messiah. The "oof" was removed from the game as a result until Tallarico and Roblox reached an agreement to reintroduce it, but at a roughly $1 cost for creators.

That agreement has seemingly ended, however, as the sound was removed "due to a licensing issue," the tweet said. The sheer ubiquity of the noise has turned it into meme-fodder across the internet, with rapper Post Malone even saying he'd made an entire 2-hour Coachella set based on the sound.

Despite being considered a game platform for children, Roblox often finds itself seeped in more adult controversy. Kim Kardashian threatened to sue the platform in April after her son found a fake sex tape game featuring the celebrity, and Roblox itself launched a lawsuit against a YouTuber for posting "terrorist threats" in November.

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

Grand Theft Auto 6 will reportedly feature a female playable character in its campaign for the first time. Rockstar apparently plans to launch the game with a single city, but add more locations over time through updates.

As part of a report on Rockstar by Bloomberg, sources close to the studio discussed the new female character, who will be Latina. The character will reportedly be part of a pair of bank robbers in a story influenced by real-life criminals Bonnie & Clyde.

Female protagonists have previously only been available as custom characters in GTA Online, never in the game's single player campaigns. Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser (who has since left the company) previously indicated the company was thinking about a female lead as far back as 2013. [Update: The first Grand Theft Auto game featured female playable characters - this would mark the first in the 3D GTA series as we know it today]

The report also indicates that the launch version of GTA 6 will begin with fictionalized Miami and surrounding areas (presumably a return for Vice City), but will be updated with "new missions and cities on a regular basis". That launch version apparently already includes more interior locations than any GTA game previously.

Per the report, the game is codenamed Project Americas due to its original plan to include huge territories based on North and South America – a plan that was scrapped in part to reduce crunch for employees.

Sources say that developers on the game are sceptical about predictions for a launch between April 2023 and March 2024 due to multiple changes on the team and bottlenecks in production. Some developers are even said to have quit due to a lack of progress on the game recently. Developers on the team reportedly expect the game to be at least two years away, and say that no firm release date has been set internally.

However, much of the report focuses on progressive changes at Rockstar in recent years, including a more inclusive office culture, a focus on reducing crunch, a removal of abusive managers, conversion of contractors into full-time employees and a restructure to improve working conditions. Morale is said to be higher at the company as a result, and one source said Rockstar was “a boys’ club transformed into a real company.”

The report also points to a more progressive mindset at the company in narrative terms, too. Bloomberg says that a mode called Cops 'n' Crooks was shelved before release following the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, and has not been considered for release since. The company is also focusing on making fewer jokes in GTA that 'punch down' at marginalized groups.

After years of rumours, GTA 6 was finally confirmed this year, but more official news will apprently only be released when Rockstar is ready, not when its owner Take-Two requests it. Rockstar is said to have moved more developers onto GTA 6 recently having scrapped remasters of Red Dead Redemption and GTA 4.

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.

Brand new platform fighter MultiVersus is already hitting huge player numbers and nearing to tops of console charts.

After a launching into open beta yesterday, the new fighting game from Warner Bros. has seen some staggering numbers – reaching a peak of 144,456 concurrent players yesterday on Steam alone. This puts the game ahead of the likes of Warframe, Rust, and even Destiny 2.

The free-to-play multiversal crossover game, starring the likes of Batman, Bugs Bunny, and Shaggy, has already proven to be an extremely popular alternative to Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. And even without console figures, the game’s Beta launch is doing ridiculous numbers.

Multiversus might have just become the most played fighting game in recorded history. Without console numbers and several servers currently down. Might be closer to 200k with all platforms.

Guess this Free2Play thing really works huh? pic.twitter.com/Wz4buvM5i1

— Maximilian Dood (@maximilian_) July 26, 2022

MultiVersus is also proving to be very popular on consoles with the game creeping into the Xbox Most Played list. It’s also currently sitting at second place in the Xbox Series X/S Top Free Games, pipped to first place by Fall Guys.

On PlayStation, it’s a similar story, appearing 2nd on the PS5 Most Downloaded list, only beaten to the top spot by “That Cat Game”, aka Stray (itself a free download for PS Plus subscribers).

It looks as though the game’s free-to-play status, as well as the popularity of its characters, has created the perfect combo to give MultiVersus the edge. We’ll have to check how the player numbers look in the coming months to get a better idea of how popular the new fighting game will really be. For now, it looks as though Warner Bros. is onto a winner.

Despite a smooth beta launch, MultiVersus players have already seen some nerfs implemented to the popular character, Taz. “If you have been following early access, Taz’s Tornado has been dominating his character kit and presenting a non-obvious knowledge check for newer players,” read yesterday’s patch notes. “By reducing its effectiveness we hope to improve his gameplay health and loop and bring the game to a healthier state for newer players.”

The problem was that Taz’s signature tornado move was absolutely steamrolling other players, causing significant knockback and regularly comboing for several hits with minimal effort.

“The tornado is Taz's signature move so we want to keep it as one of his most powerful attacks,” explained developer Player First. And that will likely mean adding a cooldown in the long run.

Want to find out more about MultiVersus? Check out our character guide for a full list of playable characters, as well as our tips and tricks to get the most out of your match-ups.

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

Black Adam will bring about a “new era” of DC movies according to Dwayne Johnson.

During an interview with Screen Rant, the 50-year-old actor explained how his upcoming Black Adam solo movie will change the future of the DC Universe.

“That footage is a reflection of our director’s vision, who wanted to create something that was different,” said Johnson about the new Black Adam trailer. “[Jaume Collet-Serra] wanted to create a movie that was disruptive, but he also wanted to create a movie that would start the pendulum swing in the DC universe… to usher in a new era of the DC universe.”

Black Adam is not your usual hero. Starting life as a comic book villain and nemesis of popular DC superhero Shazam! it looks as though Johnson’s portrayal of the classic DC character will veer more into antihero territory – and he says that brings DC into a new era.

“A new antihero era, a new era of tone, a new era of story, and also… It’s this incredible opportunity that we have… to just build out the DC Universe.”

Johnson's comments came just days after DC's Jim Lee suggested that the company had no plans to make more movies set in the the 'Snyderverse' – the series of Zack Snyder DC movies that culminated with Justice League. Given that Johnson has previously teased a Black Adam cinematic universe, it may be that he considers this the new continuity to follow for DC's movies.

“[We want] to build out the DC Universe with disruption, with respect, listening to the fans, because they’ll always guide you,” he added. “I was a DC kid right out of the gates. I’m still a DC kid because I’m a big ass kid – I don’t think I ever grow up. But if you look a little further past the obvious characters in the DC world, there is a cadre of so many cool characters that we look forward to highlighting and introducing to the world.”

Some of those less-obvious DC characters will debut in the upcoming Black Adam film as the DC antihero takes on the Justice Society of America, also known as the JSA.

“The JSA pre-dated the Justice League,” said Johnson. “So, there’s a lot of great characters and it feels like audiences have been really responding to our JSA and these great characters so fingers crossed.”

Want to find out more about the JSA and how they connect to Black Adam? Check out our guide to the Justice Society of America as well as who’s been cast in the ambitious DC solo movie.

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

A dedicated fan is creating a remaster mod for The Simpsons: Hit & Run – while also hand-drawing every cutscene for the game in the classic Simpsons style.

El Gato Del Tejado on YouTube uploaded a video showing their progress so far, which includes the complications that occur when remastering a near-two decade old game by yourself. One of these issues occurred as El Gato Del Tejado began work on Hit & Run's cutscenes, which are depicted in 3D in the original 2003 version.

"I would love to see the cutscenes of Hit & Run with current 3D technology like [the] Crash Bandicoot remake or Battle for Bikini Bottom," they said in the video. "I don't have much experience in 3D animation, so better to choose 2D."

El Gato Del Tejado explained that they tried using rotoscoping - where animators trace over footage frame by frame - but this only really worked for the backgrounds and not for the actual characters. The only alternative was to draw these by hand, and several pages of research of Simpsons creator Matt Groening's work was shown before the final result. Instead of being in 3D like the original game, the remaster mod will therefore have a cutscene style more akin to the Simpsons cartoon.

However, outside of cutscenes, El Gato Del Tejado is updating the original 3D look of the game. A previous video showed the modder's work recreating dozens of textures, and updating the Homer Simpson model to offer a more modern look at the character. It's clearly not going to be a quick process, with El Gato Del Tejado readily admitting the issues they've run into (including how Bart's nose disappeared in the new style and how Lisa turned into a monster), but the work so far is pretty astonishing.

El Gato Del Tejado hasn't offered a timescale for how long the work might take, but has opened a Patreon to help fund the project.

It's not the first remake of The Simpsons: Hit & Run, however, as several other modders have tried to recreate the beloved open world game.

One modder started recreating the game in Unreal Engine 5, impressing the original lead designer, while a Dreams player created perhaps the weirdest version yet. Finally, one completely ridiculous mash-up saw modders combine The Simpsons: Hit and Run with God of War.

Thumbnail Image Credit: El Gato Del Tejado on YouTube

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

The developer of VRChat has banned all mods for its virtual reality-based social platform, and the community is incredibly unhappy.

As reported by PC Gamer, VRChat announced it would soon introduce Easy Anti-Cheat – a common PC counter-hacking and cheating service used in games including Elden Ring, Fortnite, and more. It's being introduced because, according to the developers, "malicious modified clients allow users to attack and harass others, causing a huge amount of moderation issues".

There were other reasons listed too, with developer VRChat Inc. saying that "even seemingly non-malicious modifications complicate the support and development of VRChat, and make it impossible for VRChat creators to work within the expected, documented bounds of VRChat."

A compilation of reactions to VRChat adding Easy Anti Cheat (to ban mods)

A passionate member of my discord put this together and I thought it was a great way to archive the moment (with their permission) pic.twitter.com/A4jJaIqdWI

— Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) July 26, 2022

Some mods add major features to VRChat and are otherwise a huge part of its appeal for the community. For some, those mods' features are more vital, such as adding closed captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing, which will be removed as a result of the anti-cheat implementation.

As you might expect, the announcement has sent the community into an uproar, with Twitter, Discord, and other social platforms exploding with complaints in response to the blog post. The game's Steam page shot from showing mostly positive reviews to overwhelmingly negative as a result of the announcement, as users with hundreds of hours of playtime slammed the developers behind the game they love.

User FrostClaw wrote: "Horrible devs. Entirely disconnected from the community and what they want." Another, Zullfix, wrote that Easy Anti-Cheat will "lower framerates, increase instability, stop 'wholesome' mods, accessibility modes, and quality of life mods" among other things.

@VRChat "VRC-CC" is a mod that adds closed captions to movie worlds so deaf/HH people can watch movies with their friends. VRChat is killing that today by banning all mods. They've done absolutely nothing to address serious accessibility gaps on their platform. Please RT pic.twitter.com/DuJSUJCb4n

— Foxipso (@TheFoxipso) July 25, 2022

VRChat Inc. has issued a response to the community, updating its initial blog post to say that it has heard and understood the complaints but it will not cancel the implementation of Easy Anti-Cheat.

"However, we hear you and see you saying that many of the modified client features that are being lost due to this are extremely important to you, or in some cases allow you to use VRChat at all, when in regards to modifications that added accessibility features that VRChat currently lacks," it said.

"Addressing these concerns and feedback is our highest priority. We are changing our internal development roadmap and priorities to focus on the features and additions that you want. Currently ongoing projects are being paused, rescheduled, or re-prioritized, and resources are being re-allocated to account for this change."

The first changes being made pertain to accessibility issues such as the removal of closed captions, with VRChat Inc. saying it is fast-tracking several similar features through production. It promised that more information will follow soon, and that these initial updates will be first of many, also thanking fans for their patience as they work through the list of concerns.

Whether fans will show that patience remains to be seen.

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