Deus Ex: Human Revolution developer Eidos Montréal worked on a cancelled version of Final Fantasy 15 before Square Enix returned development to its Japanese studios.

Jonathan Jacque-Belletête, an ex-art director for Eidos Montréal, told TrueAchievements that his studio once worked on a "really, really cool" version of the game.

"[Eidos Montréal] brought back Deus Ex. I was the art director on that, Deus Ex: Human Revolution," Jacque-Belletête said. "Then the executive art director on Mankind Divided, then we tried to do Final Fantasy 15.

"Then they decided to bring it back to Japan, which I think was a big mistake," he continued. "But it's still the truth. Ours was really, really cool."

It's unclear from Jacque-Belletête's comments when or how long Eidos Montréal worked on the game or if it reached any significant stages of development. However, in 2018, YouTuber Super Bunnyhop reported on the existence of the project, saying that it was a "space opera RPG" with "western appeal", but wasn't much more fully-fledged as a project than a plan for game design and early art.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was released in 2011 while Mankind Divided didn't launch until 2016, the same year that Final Fantasy 15 was released. As Jacque-Belletête said he worked on Final Fantasy after these two projects, it was likely just a very early conceptual stage that followed Mankind Divided's.

Final Fantasy 15 had an infamously turbulent development period, originally being designed as a spin-off game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 before being rebranded and redesigned for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Development is thought to have restarted completely on what became Final Fantasy 15 in 2012, but it's unclear if Eidos Montréal worked on the game before or after this point. Regardless, it was later returned to Square Enix's Japanese studios.

Square Enix recently sold Eidos Montréal alongside Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix Montréal to Embracer Group for $300 million, which included the Deus Ex and Tomb Raider IPs.

In our 8/10 review, IGN said: "Final Fantasy XV takes some risks that don't always pay off, but the strong quartet of heroes give it tons of heart."

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

Top Gun: Maverick director Joe Kosinski has spoken about the movie's astonishing practical effects, and how one shot could only be filmed a single time... because it destroyed the set.

During an interview with IGN's Simon Cardy, Kosinski and star Miles Teller explained how Top Gun: Maverick's breathtaking aerial sequences were achieved using unprecedented practical effects. Kosinski admitted they had to ride into the danger zone to execute some of the incredible flying scenes, noting that one shot even blew away the set, inadvertently leaving them with a single take to use.

"The scene where [stealth plane] Darkstar flies over Ed Harris, it destroyed the set," Kosinski said, highlighting a single shot that can be seen in the gif below. "You watch it rip the roof off the guard shack. That was not planned. That was a one-take thing where we destroyed the set and that's the only shot we got and that's in the movie."

It's perhaps no surprise that the fictional Darkstar caused so much damage – the plane's design was so realistic that China may have moved a satellite to keep tabs on it.

Kosinski chose to use practical effects as opposed to CG for this movie because he wanted to capture the feeling of being a Top Gun pilot by "shooting it for real." However, it required a lot of time and dedication from the cast and crew – star Tom Cruise created a rigorous, Navy-approved boot camp to prepare his co-stars before the cameras started rolling.

You can read much more about the huge amount of work that went into the movie's practical effects in our full interview article, or by watching the video version below:

Kosinski previously revealed that he shot over 800 hours of footage for the movie, and there's no doubt that the unprecedented extent that Kosinski and the team went to in order to film Maverick in the most realistic way possible leads to quite the cinematic experience — one that Cruise was determined to see play out on the big screen rather than streaming services.

Top Gun: Maverick will be released worldwide on May 27. This decades-later sequel to Tony Scott's Top Gun features Tom Cruise's return as Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell alongside Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Monica Barbaro, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Ed Harris, Danny Ramirez, Manny Jacinto, and Greg Tarzan Davis.

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

The Final Fantasy 9 animated series will be revealed at the Las Vegas Licensing Expo this week.

Bruno Danzel d’Aumont, the vice president of international licensing and marketing at Cyber Group Studios - the animation studio that's developing the series with Square Enix - revealed to Animation Magazine that the Final Fantasy series would be one of four new shows revealed at the event.

The Licensing Expo takes place from May 24 to May 26, at which point the Final Fantasy series will seemingly have been in production for a few months, as work was expected to begin in late 2021 or early 2022. The Final Fantasy 9 series was revealed in June last year with an episode count and length still unconfirmed by either Cyber Group Studios or Square Enix.

"[The Expo] will be a great opportunity to share our upcoming plans with our licensees, agents, and new partners," d’Aumont said. "Additionally, our most recently developed shows — Digital Girl, The McFire Family, Press Start! and Final Fantasy IX — will be presented for the first time.

"These four new series have a strong licensing appeal for different age targets," he added.

It's unclear at what point during the Licensing Expo this first look at the Final Fantasy series will be given but the entire event is expected to be streamed online, meaning fans won't need to be in attendance in Las Vegas in order to see the reveal as soon as it happens.

In our 9/10 review of the original game, IGN said: "Square's developers have once again outdone themselves as far as technical execution and visual artistry, building a fantasy world that I could be content to simply stare at."

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

The Final Fantasy 9 animated series will be revealed at the Las Vegas Licensing Expo this week.

Bruno Danzel d’Aumont, the vice president of international licensing and marketing at Cyber Group Studios - the animation studio that's developing the series with Square Enix - revealed to Animation Magazine that the Final Fantasy series would be one of four new shows revealed at the event.

The Licensing Expo takes place from May 24 to May 26, at which point the Final Fantasy series will seemingly have been in production for a few months, as work was expected to begin in late 2021 or early 2022. The Final Fantasy 9 series was revealed in June last year with an episode count and length still unconfirmed by either Cyber Group Studios or Square Enix.

"[The Expo] will be a great opportunity to share our upcoming plans with our licensees, agents, and new partners," d’Aumont said. "Additionally, our most recently developed shows — Digital Girl, The McFire Family, Press Start! and Final Fantasy IX — will be presented for the first time.

"These four new series have a strong licensing appeal for different age targets," he added.

It's unclear at what point during the Licensing Expo this first look at the Final Fantasy series will be given but the entire event is expected to be streamed online, meaning fans won't need to be in attendance in Las Vegas in order to see the reveal as soon as it happens.

In our 9/10 review of the original game, IGN said: "Square's developers have once again outdone themselves as far as technical execution and visual artistry, building a fantasy world that I could be content to simply stare at."

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

Editor's Note: The war in Ukraine is an ongoing, painful and emotive topic. IGN urges community members to be respectful when engaging in conversation around this subject and does not endorse harassment of any kind.

Kyiv-based GSC Game World has seemingly confirmed it has resumed development on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl following a pause that was due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As reported by PC Gamer, GRY-Online shared the news of the update in Polish, saying a message was delivered in Discord by GSC Game World community representative Mol1t that said development on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 "continues" and "the work is in progress."

GSC said that development on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 would be paused earlier this year due to the invasion and that work on the game would continue after Ukraine's victory over Russia in the ongoing war. The team also explained on its YouTube channel titled "Lights! Camera! War..." how their lives have changed since the invasion began.

PC Gamer has noted that rumors have indicated that some of the developers have relocated to Prague, and it also wrote about how GSC changed the name of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl to reflect the Ukrainian spelling rather than the Russian.

It was also shared that the game's official Discord was closed to new chat following the development pause announcement, but it has reopened in the past few days.

In January, GSC revealed that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was delayed to December 8, 2022, and it has shared no further updates since as to whether that date has been impacted by these recent developments.

For more on the ongoing war in Ukraine, check out others in the games industry who have been either impacted by it or who have thrown in their support for Ukraine.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Editor's Note: The war in Ukraine is an ongoing, painful and emotive topic. IGN urges community members to be respectful when engaging in conversation around this subject and does not endorse harassment of any kind.

Kyiv-based GSC Game World has seemingly confirmed it has resumed development on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl following a pause that was due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As reported by PC Gamer, GRY-Online shared the news of the update in Polish, saying a message was delivered in Discord by GSC Game World community representative Mol1t that said development on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 "continues" and "the work is in progress."

GSC said that development on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 would be paused earlier this year due to the invasion and that work on the game would continue after Ukraine's victory over Russia in the ongoing war. The team also explained on its YouTube channel titled "Lights! Camera! War..." how their lives have changed since the invasion began.

PC Gamer has noted that rumors have indicated that some of the developers have relocated to Prague, and it also wrote about how GSC changed the name of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl to reflect the Ukrainian spelling rather than the Russian.

It was also shared that the game's official Discord was closed to new chat following the development pause announcement, but it has reopened in the past few days.

In January, GSC revealed that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was delayed to December 8, 2022, and it has shared no further updates since as to whether that date has been impacted by these recent developments.

For more on the ongoing war in Ukraine, check out others in the games industry who have been either impacted by it or who have thrown in their support for Ukraine.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Colin Cantwell, the concept artist who designed Star Wars' X-Wing Starfighter, TIE Fighter, Star Destroyer, Death Star, and more, has died at the age of 90.

As reported by THR, Cantwell's long-time partner Sierra Dall confirmed that he passed away at his Colorado home on Saturday, May 23.

While he was perhaps most well-known for his work on Star Wars, his impressive resume also includes special photographic effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, technical dialogue for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and computer graphics design consultant for WarGames.

For 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cantwell worked closely with Stanley Kubrick and "persuaded him not to start the movie with a 20-minute conference table discussion" alongside being instrumental in creating the film's opening.

For WarGames, he programmed the Hewlett Packard monitors to show the bomb scenes on NORAD screens as the WOPR almost launched nuclear weapons. His work on that project would led him to program software that "took the actual Hewlett Packard from a few colors to 5,000 colors.

Cantwell was born in San Francisco in 1932 and was diagnosed with tuberculosis and a partial retina detachment at an early age. During a Reddit AMA in 2016, he shared that the cure was to stay in a dark room with a heavy vest on his chest to prevent coughing attacks.

"I spent nearly two years of my childhood immobilized in this dark room. Suffice to say, nothing else could slow me down after that!” Cantwell said.

He would continue on to graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in animation and would then be personally invited by Frank Lloyd Wright to attend his School of Architecture.

Prior to taking Hollywood and that galaxy far, far away by storm, Cantwell worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA during the '60s space race between the U.S. and Russia and created educational programs for the public to better understand what was going on.

He was even the one who fed information to Walter Cronkite as he made his historic moon landing broadcast in 1969.

Outside of all this work, Cantwell also found the time to write two science fiction novels, CoreFires 1 and CoreFires 2.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Colin Cantwell, the concept artist who designed Star Wars' X-Wing Starfighter, TIE Fighter, Star Destroyer, Death Star, and more, has died at the age of 90.

As reported by THR, Cantwell's long-time partner Sierra Dall confirmed that he passed away at his Colorado home on Saturday, May 23.

While he was perhaps most well-known for his work on Star Wars, his impressive resume also includes special photographic effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, technical dialogue for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and computer graphics design consultant for WarGames.

For 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cantwell worked closely with Stanley Kubrick and "persuaded him not to start the movie with a 20-minute conference table discussion" alongside being instrumental in creating the film's opening.

For WarGames, he programmed the Hewlett Packard monitors to show the bomb scenes on NORAD screens as the WOPR almost launched nuclear weapons. His work on that project would led him to program software that "took the actual Hewlett Packard from a few colors to 5,000 colors.

Cantwell was born in San Francisco in 1932 and was diagnosed with tuberculosis and a partial retina detachment at an early age. During a Reddit AMA in 2016, he shared that the cure was to stay in a dark room with a heavy vest on his chest to prevent coughing attacks.

"I spent nearly two years of my childhood immobilized in this dark room. Suffice to say, nothing else could slow me down after that!” Cantwell said.

He would continue on to graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in animation and would then be personally invited by Frank Lloyd Wright to attend his School of Architecture.

Prior to taking Hollywood and that galaxy far, far away by storm, Cantwell worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA during the '60s space race between the U.S. and Russia and created educational programs for the public to better understand what was going on.

He was even the one who fed information to Walter Cronkite as he made his historic moon landing broadcast in 1969.

Outside of all this work, Cantwell also found the time to write two science fiction novels, CoreFires 1 and CoreFires 2.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has held off Downton Abbey: A New Era to win its third straight domestic weekend box office.

As reported by Variety, Doctor Strange 2 brought in another $31.6 million domestically, pushing its total North American haul to $342 million. The latest Marvel film has reached $461 million internationally and has officially crossed $800 million worldwide.

Downton Abbey: A New Era earned $16 million in its first weekend and placed second. While it was a bit lower than projected, it performed well for those 55 and older as nearly 50% of ticket sales were from that demographic.

Internationally, Downton Abbey: A New Era brought in another $35 million, bringing its global tally to $51.7 million. This second Downton Abbey film cost $40 million to produce and was twice as expensive as the original.

Speaking of the original, the first Downton Abbey opened to $31 million at the domestic box office and crossed $192 million during its global theatrical run.

In our Downton Abbey: A New Era review, we said that it "starts out as a wistful return to the familiar before shedding its skin and letting the series’ nauseating ugliness come frothing to the surface. It goes from funny and charming to jaw-droppingly grim at the drop of a hat — a wild tonal whiplash that’s absolutely worth a watch. It’s a concentrated dose of Downton Abbey."

The Bad Guys took third place with $6.1 million and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 added another $3.9 million to its total. Rounding out the top five and finally knocking off Everything Everywhere All at Once was Alex Garland's Men with $3.29 million.

While Everything Everywhere All at Once's $3.1 million didn't make the top five, it did cross the $52 million mark and has officially become A24's highest-grossing domestic release in history.

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

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has held off Downton Abbey: A New Era to win its third straight domestic weekend box office.

As reported by Variety, Doctor Strange 2 brought in another $31.6 million domestically, pushing its total North American haul to $342 million. The latest Marvel film has reached $461 million internationally and has officially crossed $800 million worldwide.

Downton Abbey: A New Era earned $16 million in its first weekend and placed second. While it was a bit lower than projected, it performed well for those 55 and older as nearly 50% of ticket sales were from that demographic.

Internationally, Downton Abbey: A New Era brought in another $35 million, bringing its global tally to $51.7 million. This second Downton Abbey film cost $40 million to produce and was twice as expensive as the original.

Speaking of the original, the first Downton Abbey opened to $31 million at the domestic box office and crossed $192 million during its global theatrical run.

In our Downton Abbey: A New Era review, we said that it "starts out as a wistful return to the familiar before shedding its skin and letting the series’ nauseating ugliness come frothing to the surface. It goes from funny and charming to jaw-droppingly grim at the drop of a hat — a wild tonal whiplash that’s absolutely worth a watch. It’s a concentrated dose of Downton Abbey."

The Bad Guys took third place with $6.1 million and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 added another $3.9 million to its total. Rounding out the top five and finally knocking off Everything Everywhere All at Once was Alex Garland's Men with $3.29 million.

While Everything Everywhere All at Once's $3.1 million didn't make the top five, it did cross the $52 million mark and has officially become A24's highest-grossing domestic release in history.

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

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.