It’s obvious that Thor passes the torch to Jane Foster in Thor: Love and Thunder. Right? Well, not exactly.

During an interview with Total Film, director Taika Waititi said that he doesn’t think Thor will be stepping down from his role as the God of Thunder.

“It’s really fun, the idea that Thor got Stormbreaker, that big axe, and now his hammer’s back and it’s in the hands of someone else," he said "It’s no longer his hammer. It’s the idea that someone’s taking his place. I think a lot of fans are gonna potentially assume, ‘Oh, OK, this is the passing on of the torch’... I’m not privy to any plans Marvel has for the future, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

Of course, it’s easy to see why we might think that. Marvel fans have been excited about Thor 3’s new direction after Jane Foster was seen suited up in a very Thor-like costume, and even harnessing the power of lightning in the recent trailer.

Although Jane Foster does become the new Thor at one point in the comic books, we have no idea how closely Marvel will follow that particular storyline. And neither does Waititi.

“We stick pretty closely to Jane’s storyline, and what happened to Jane... because that was such an influence on the film,” he revealed. “We’re trying to take the best parts of that.”

It certainly sounds like a pretty epic Thor sequel, with Christian Bale joining as Gorr the God Butcher.

Here’s the official synopsis: “The film finds Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced – a quest for inner peace. But his retirement is interrupted by a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of the gods.”

“To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi), and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who – to Thor’s surprise – inexplicably wields his magical hammer, Mjolnir, as the Mighty Thor. Together, they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance and stop him before it’s too late.”

Thor: Love and Thunder stars Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, and Russel Crowe. Taika Waititi directed the film based on a script he co-wrote with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

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

Three major PlayStation franchises are getting TV adaptations with Horizon going to Netflix, God of War to Amazon, and Gran Turismo to a currently unannounced platform or network.

Revealed in an investor briefing on May 26 and confirmed by industry insiders including David Gibson on Twitter (below), Sony president Jim Ryan revealed during a Q&A that the company was expanding its entertainment adaptations even further.

The long-rumoured God of War series and other shows will join PlayStation exclusives including The Last of Us, Uncharted, and Ghost of Tsushima in being adapted to other media, though there's no inclination as to when these series will be released.

Sony IR - 3 positives in the presentation 1) Horizon (Netflix), God of War (Amazon) and Gran Turismo in TV development 2) 2 live service games coming in FY3/23 are not Destiny and 3) PC gaming revenues will surge 3.8x in FY3/23 (which I think relates to live service games) #sony

— David Gibson (@gibbogame) May 26, 2022

The variety in streaming platforms isn't terribly surprising either, as Sony hasn't favoured any service in particular so far. The Last of Us TV show will air on HBO, for example, while a Twisted Metal series is going to Peacock.

Netflix, which will be home to the Horizon show, has already shown a strong interest in video game adaptations (and video games themselves) with the likes of its hit League of Legends Arcane series and Castlevania anime too.

Amazon Studios, meanwhile, is currently working on a Fallout TV series from the creators of Westworld and a Mass Effect show is also coming to Prime Video.

It's unclear if these shows will include characters already featured in the games, with Gran Turismo being the most open ended as it doesn't really have any characters at all, revolving solely around track racing.

Horizon, on the other hand, already has two titles under its belt and developer Guerrilla Games is also thinking about a third game. God of War has been around since 2005 and features eight mainline games, but its 2018 reboot is arguably the best of the bunch having received incredible praise from players and critics alike.

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

Sony is telling its investors to prepare for a big PC gaming windfall in the coming year. Really big.

In a business segment briefing for shareholders today, one slide showed off Sony's net sales from PC games thus far, highlighting how titles such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, Days Gone, and God of War had brought in $80 million in the last fiscal year (which ended on March 31, 2022).

But the gaming giant expects more to come, and is telling them to expect a whopping $300 million in net sales on PC in the coming fiscal year ending March 31, 2023.

That's a massive jump, especially for a gaming hardware manufacturer that has only just in recent years dipped its toe into the PC space with real seriousness. What's more, it's not fully clear where that chunk of change is coming from. At the moment, Sony's only announced plan for PC is Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which still doesn't have a release date.

What's most likely happening here is that Sony has high expectations of Bungie, with its acquisition of the Destiny 2 maker expected to close by the end of this year. With Bungie being privately held, we don't have a good idea of what it brings in, though analyst Michael Pachter has speculated it's around $200 million in revenue a year across all sources (including console, merchandise, and more).

But it's likely Sony's PC ambitions extend beyond just Bungie. A slide later in the presentation shows that Sony expects approximately 15% to 20% of its releases in the coming year to be on PC, with that percentage increasing to closer to 30% by the end of 2025. Plus, there's its recent moves like its introduction of the PlayStation PC brand and seeming interest from many of PlayStation's internal studios in bringing their games to the platform. So far, that interest is working out well for PC players, with God of War running reasonably well on machines. Let's hope Uncharted runs similarly or better. Now give us Bloodborne?

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

As other companies in the games industry speak out about abortion rights in the wake of the government’s recent decisions, Electronic Arts is telling employees it plans to stay silent.

According to a report by Kotaku, during a company meeting on May 24, multiple EA staff members questioned executives about a possible statement regarding these two issues. In response, they were told that the company wouldn’t announce a stance because “being an inclusive company means being inclusive of all those points of view.”

“These things are hard and they’re personal and we all have our own perspectives and sometimes we won’t speak, and that will be upsetting and I understand that, we really do,” Chief People Officer Mala Singh told employees during this meeting, according to the transcript obtained by Kotaku.

Despite the FIFA publisher’s refusal to make a public statement regarding the issues, EA’s corporate communications director Lacey Haines told Kotaku that the company is focusing on “making sure that people have access to the healthcare benefits we provide as a company, even if those aren’t available locally.”

EA also signed an open letter opposing Texas’ anti-trans bill in March.

In the wake of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn historic abortion rights case Roe v. Wade, studios including Destiny 2 creator Bungie and Psychonauts creator Double Fine have publicly taken clear stances in favor of abortion rights in contrast to EA.

Like EA, however, Sony has declined to release any public statements about abortion rights. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan told employeesin an internal email to “respect differences of opinion” in response to discussion surrounding Roe V. Wade. PlayStation-owned Insomniac has reportedly pushed back internally and pledged a total of $50,000 to the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, and while PlayStation is matching that total through PlayStation Cares, it is preventing internal studios like Insomniac from speaking publicly as well.

Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.

Speed Racer is reportedly getting a live-action series at Apple with J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot attached as executive producer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The scripted series will reportedly be co-written by Hiram Martinez who has worked on the TV series Snowpiercer. He would also act as showrunner.

Apple, Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. are said to have been impressed with Martinez’s “exciting take” on the original. The other co-writer and showrunner is reportedly Ron Fitzgerald, who works with Abrams on Westworld.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series has been in talks for years and “stems from Abrams and Bad Robot’s overall deal with Warner Bros. TV.” The series found its way to Apple a while back but the development has been “excruciatingly slow.” In 2019, Abrams signed a $250 million 5-year deal with WarnerMedia which has led to some of his more recent projects.

Speed Racer, initially a manga and animated series, has had several iterations in both games and films. It originally began as a manga and eventually became a hit anime in the 1960s. The 2008 live-action movie of Speed Racer was directed by The Wachowskis but ended up losing money for Warner Bros. Pictures.

As part of Abrams' deal with Warner Bros., he’s had quite a few projects in the pipeline. Last year, it was confirmed that a movie adaptation of the hit game Portal was still in the works. Just last month, it was announced Abrams would be helming the live-action movie Hot Wheels based on everyone’s favorite toy cars.

If you’re looking for even more Abrams news, be sure to check out the latest on the debut of the new season of Westworld, where he serves as executive producer.

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

Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022 is finally here. In just a hour we'll likely see what is likely to be an announcement packed show – so much so that Microsoft plans a second summer showcase one week later. You'll be able to catch both shows on IGN’s as part of our Summer of Gaming of course.

Microsoft hasn’t specified exactly how long the show will run for, but expect to see a bunch of new games to be announced and updates on long-awaited games like Starfield and Redfall. And there could be even bigger top the Resident Evil 4 Remake announcement during PlayStation's State of Play event and The Last of Us Part 1 debuting at Summer Game Fest. As ever, IGN will be carrying the stream on multiple channels, so here’s a full guide on when and where to watch the show, as well as a few things we hope will be included in the showcase.

Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022 Start Time

The upcoming Xbox and Bethesda 2022 Showcase will air on Sunday, June 12 starting at 10am PT, or 1pm ET and 6pm BST. If you’re tuning in from Australia, that translates to Monday, June 13 at 3am AEST.

How to Watch Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase Live

Here’s the full list of places you can watch the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022:

• IGN.com (homepage)
• IGN's Facebook Channel
• IGN’s Twitter
• IGN's Twitch Channel
• IGN’s Youtube Channel
• IGN's iOS App
• IGN's Android App
• IGN's Xbox One App
• Roku
• IGN App for Android TV
• IGN for Amazon Fire TV
• Apple TV
• IGN 1 on Samsung TV Plus
• Pluto TV

What to Expect From Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022

Microsoft hasn’t made any official announcements of what games it’ll feature during its showcase, but we can make a few educated guesses based on what’s in development already.

The promotional image of a field of stars seems to heavily suggest will see new Starfield footage in some form whether it be a trailer or gameplay. As Bethesda’s most anticipated game yet, we were all disappointed to hear it, and Redfall, had been delayed to the first half of 2023. But we hope seeing some new footage and hearing about developments of both games will be able to satiate us until next year.

Bethesda will also hopefully give us a bigger glimpse of the new Indiana Jones game in development by MachineGames since it only debuted as a short teaser in January 2021.

Outside of Bethesda, Microsoft also could deliver updates on the latest Forza Motorsport and finally reveal the latest iteration of Fable. We also have high hopes for Senua's Saga: Hellblade II to make an appearance and hopefully get a release date too.

Of course, there are many more games on our wishlist and we’re sure to hear about more leaks and announcements as we get closer to the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022. And we’ll be sure to report on anything new and cover all the announcements as they happen, so be sure to check this page regularly.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Kevin Lee is IGN's SEO Updates Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.

Vampires, rejoice: V Rising now has an offline mode.

Stunlock Studios, the team behind the new open-world vampire game, added the feature via Patch 0.5.41448 today. According to the patch notes, the new mode allows players to play “solo or with friends on the same local network,” allowing for the game’s vampiric action to continue regardless of access to online connection.

The mode can be enabled through “the host game screen and when starting up the server.”

Stunlock Studios reminded players that the feature might require some tinkering later on as the game is still in early access. “Please keep in mind that we will work on improving the LAN Mode as we continue to develop V Rising during Early Access,” the notes read.

The patch also includes features and fixes such as:

• The ability to send server-wide messages.
• New Steam Cloud features.
• Fixed “Authentication Error" that hindered players from getting back onto specific servers.
• Less cost return on salvaging cloaks, meaning players can’t make a profit by crafting and salvaging cloaks.
• Players may no longer place soul shards in containers.

V Rising has been massively popular since its early access launch just over a week ago — even its developers were surprised by the game’s success. Despite a few minor setbacks like its time-consuming crafting system, we praised its stylish bosses and art direction in our in-progress review.

Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.

Dead Space creator Glen Schofield has revealed new information about his upcoming sci-fi horror The Callisto Protocol - still scheduled for 2022 — including a breakdown of combat, its not-so-subtle Dead Space influence, and more.

In an extensive interview with Game Informer, with screenshots shared on Reddit, Schofield explained the game's basic story. Set 300 years in the future, protagonist Jacob Lee is forced to make his way through a prison on Jupiter's Callisto moon that's become overrun with all sorts of horrifying monsters.

Combat in The Callisto Protocol

Lee is just an average cargo ship pilot so doesn't have any special training. Over the course of the game, he'll gather new weapons, but in the demo shown to Game Informer he's only equipped with a baton, a pistol, a shotgun, and a device called the GRP that lets players push and pull items (or enemies) across the environment.

A combination of every weapon at your disposal will often be needed to get through combat encounters with the gross, once-human monsters called Biophages and, according to design director Ben Walker, the player won't ever feel particularly powerful.

"We want you to be afraid of single enemies," he said. "All these tools we built up for Jacob are to deal with the difficulty as opposed to coming at it from the end of, 'hey, you can kill all these cool things, now let's make some enemies'. We did it in reverse for that very reason. You feel scared, and you have to make the right calls at the right time."

Dead Space's Influence on The Callisto Protocol

Dead Space — a space-based sci-fi horror game from 2008 that IGN said was great — was also created by Schofield and he was pretty open about pulling ideas directly from Dead Space. "I'm not going to shy away from a good idea because it was in one of my games," he said. "All game makers look at ideas from other games. Picasso said, 'good artists borrow, great artists steal'. Well, why not steal from myself?"

After leaving EA and Activision Schofield linked up with PUBG: Battlegrounds publisher Krafton, whose CEO Chang-Han Kim guaranteed Schofield "100% creative autonomy".

The Callisto Protocol's Connection to PUBG: Battlegrounds

While the PUBG connection was confirmed soon after the game's reveal, Schofield shared more information on the two games' connection, saying that while it is technically the same universe, The Callisto Protocol is so far in the future that it doesn't really matter.

"The idea of us being in the universe at first sounded really good, and then as you start coming up with your story we realized, 'wow, this is a little out there,'" Schofield said. "We built in some touchpoints, and you'll find them throughout the game like Easter eggs and things like that."

PUBG is known more for its Battle Royale gameplay than its story but publisher Krafton does have official lore and a timeline for the PUBG universe.

"They write this giant timeline and our writers are involved in helping," Schofield continued. "We sit on the timeline but we sit pretty far out there, and kind of alone. So if they ever make another game, let's say that's after our timeline, I would imagine our game will inform that more than we are being informed by their timeline."

The Callisto Protocol is set to be released this year. Coincidentally, EA is also working on a remake of the first Dead Space, something Schofield says is "weird" given that he's still working in the horror genre.

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

The fossilized remains of a new species of pterosaur were discovered in the Andes Mountains and scientists are calling it the “Dragon of Death.” This 30-foot-long predator ruled the skies 86 million years ago.

The news comes from a press release from the National University of Cuyo. The “Dragon of Death,” also known as ​​Thanatosdrakon amaru, was found in Argentina's western Mendoza province's Andes mountains. Scientists discovered around 40 well-preserved remains including vertebrae and fore and hind limb bones.

The study was published online in April, and a 1:1 recreation of the newly discovered species has drawn attention to the newly published findings.

Hermosa reconstrucción del pterosaurio Thanatosdrakon amaru hallado en Mendoza, Argentina, y estudiado por Leonardo Ortiz David. pic.twitter.com/0rRYXnVP9f

— Federico Kukso (@fedkukso) May 23, 2022

Some of the bones have unique characteristics unseen in pterosaurs previously, and these remains are the largest pterosaur ever discovered in South America.

It was these characteristics that led to the deadly name for the newly discovered species. Thanatous is ancient Greek for death while drakon means dragon.

Pterosaurs were flying reptiles with hollow bones and the earliest vertebrates to have powered flights. Their often enormous size helped them to rule the skies. Oftentimes, they are confused with dinosaurs, which are a closely related group.

Pterosaurs came in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Over the years, many remains have been found of these fearsome flying creatures. Some were larger than the “Dragon of Death” while some were as smaller than a chicken. The newly discovered pterosaur is the largest one to be discovered in South America.

New fossil discoveries are always happening all across the world. Earlier this month, paleontologists shared their findings on the remains of a long-extinct dog species.

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

Image Credit: GettyImages

The upcoming cyberpunk action-adventure platformer Replaced has been delayed until 2023 due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

In a Tweet, the folks at Sad Cat Studios announced the game's new release window and explained the reasoning for the delay, which is closely tied to the location of its team.

Ş̸̯̅̇͌̈̚ô̴̡̬̣͚̮͜ŗ̶̳̯̹͖̣̆͑r̴̢̖̲͎̙̬̹̓̆̓̾̂̈́̊̕y̶̡̡̫͔̩̲̩͉̌̈́̊ pic.twitter.com/KgY852bBna

— REPLACED (@REPLACEDGame) May 25, 2022

“The Belarusian based studio working on the game, Sad Cat Studios, has a team of talented developers from Belarus and Ukraine,” the Tweet reads. “Unfortunately, the continued war in Ukraine has heavily impacted the development of Replaced, as most of the team resides in the neighboring regions.”

“The priority for Sad Cat was for the safety of the team and their families,” the post continues. “As a result, part of the team has now relocated and work has only recently restarted on Replaced.”

While the team is once again hard at work after this relocation, the Tweet makes it clear that developers’ mental and physical health are still being prioritized with this newly announced delay.

Replaced was first announced at E3 2021 and was originally slated for a launch to Xbox and PC in 2022. It isn’t the only game that’s been delayed in 2022, with titles like Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp and Little Orpheus also facing delays due to the war.

Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.