Second Dinner, the independent studio founded by former Hearthstone director Ben Brode, is finally unveiling the mysterious Marvel project it’s been working on for the last few years. It’s called Marvel Snap, and it’s a free-to-play collectible card game and battler published by ByteDance gaming arm Nuverse.

Marvel Snap clearly wears its Hearthstone DNA on its sleeve, right down to the booming voice of Brode showing off mechanics in the official reveal. Its main draw is the brevity of the matches, with the average Marvel Snap game ideally only lasting around three minutes. It accomplishes this by eliminating back-and-forth turns and allowing players to play simultaneously, layering turns on top of one another. It also limits both players to a 12-card deck in a given game.

Games take place across three randomized locations — out of a possible 50 — that can impact strategy. It’s tough to tell from the reveal exactly how gameplay flows or works, but one element described in the reveal is the battle over “cosmic cubes,” where players fight to be the one with the most cubes at the end of the match. Connected to that is the ability to “snap” an opponent to double the cubes at stake.

At launch, Marvel Snap will include over 150 base cards made up of Marvel heroes and villains, including different variants of characters with different art and artists. More cards will be released each month as new seasons roll out, and all cards can be acquired in-game with time without spending any money, though it sounds like microtransactions of some sort will be present given that it’s a free-to-play game. For now, Second Dinner hasn't said exactly which characters will be available at launch, but so far we've seen cards of Cosmo, Captain America, Multiple Man, Shang-chi, Scarlet Witch, The Infinaut, Iceman, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Professor X, White Tiger, Gamora, Hulk, Mysterio, Venom, and a ton more in various screenshots and footage. So we can expect a pretty robust lineup.

Marvel Snap is “mobile first,” but not mobile only, and Second Dinner has plans for an early access on PC to drop simultaneously with its upcoming mobile launch. There’s no official release date just yet, but a beta is said to be coming “soon.”

Second Dinner was announced back in 2019 from Brode and fellow Blizzard veteran Hamilton Chu, who have since been joined by Jomaro Kindred, Yong Woo, and Michael Schweitzer – all also from Blizzard’s Hearthstone team, among other projects. Marvel Snap is being published through a partnership with Marvel and publisher Nuverse, which is the gaming arm of TikTok parent company ByteDance.

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

Second Dinner, the independent studio founded by former Hearthstone director Ben Brode, is finally unveiling the mysterious Marvel project it’s been working on for the last few years. It’s called Marvel Snap, and it’s a free-to-play collectible card game and battler published by ByteDance gaming arm Nuverse.

Marvel Snap clearly wears its Hearthstone DNA on its sleeve, right down to the booming voice of Brode showing off mechanics in the official reveal. Its main draw is the brevity of the matches, with the average Marvel Snap game ideally only lasting around three minutes. It accomplishes this by eliminating back-and-forth turns and allowing players to play simultaneously, layering turns on top of one another. It also limits both players to a 12-card deck in a given game.

Games take place across three randomized locations — out of a possible 50 — that can impact strategy. It’s tough to tell from the reveal exactly how gameplay flows or works, but one element described in the reveal is the battle over “cosmic cubes,” where players fight to be the one with the most cubes at the end of the match. Connected to that is the ability to “snap” an opponent to double the cubes at stake.

At launch, Marvel Snap will include over 150 base cards made up of Marvel heroes and villains, including different variants of characters with different art and artists. More cards will be released each month as new seasons roll out, and all cards can be acquired in-game with time without spending any money, though it sounds like microtransactions of some sort will be present given that it’s a free-to-play game. For now, Second Dinner hasn't said exactly which characters will be available at launch, but so far we've seen cards of Cosmo, Captain America, Multiple Man, Shang-chi, Scarlet Witch, The Infinaut, Iceman, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Professor X, White Tiger, Gamora, Hulk, Mysterio, Venom, and a ton more in various screenshots and footage. So we can expect a pretty robust lineup.

Marvel Snap is “mobile first,” but not mobile only, and Second Dinner has plans for an early access on PC to drop simultaneously with its upcoming mobile launch. There’s no official release date just yet, but a beta is said to be coming “soon.”

Second Dinner was announced back in 2019 from Brode and fellow Blizzard veteran Hamilton Chu, who have since been joined by Jomaro Kindred, Yong Woo, and Michael Schweitzer – all also from Blizzard’s Hearthstone team, among other projects. Marvel Snap is being published through a partnership with Marvel and publisher Nuverse, which is the gaming arm of TikTok parent company ByteDance.

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

The writer behind an upcoming Batman comic in the One Bad Day series has promised "the scariest f**king Riddler of all time".

Eisner winning long-term Batman writer Tom King has partnered with artist Mitch Gerads to deliver the Riddler's One Bad Day, part of a new "definitive" series of 64 page one-shot comics featuring several Batman villains including Two-Face, Penguin, and more.

The One Bad Day name is a reference to The Killing Joke, one of the most famous one-shot comics of all time featuring perhaps the darkest version of The Joker, in which he says "all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy".

Just announced. @MitchGerads and I are giving you the scariest fucking Riddler of all time. #BatmanOneBadDay THE RIDDLER, a new 64 page OGN out in August.

Some questions don’t have answers. pic.twitter.com/4aYOmTkjhw

— Tom King (@TomKingTK) May 17, 2022

Gerads reiterated his creative partner's message in another tweet, saying the comic is his "genuine long-time dream book, and Tom King delivered the absolute perfect script for it.

"I’ve never been this excited to get a book into your mitts! I’ve been putting everything I have into every page. The Riddler is TERRIFYING."

The Riddler comic is the first in the One Bad Day series and is due to release this August. Though neither King or Gerads said much else, DC has given an official plot synopsis that certainly sounds similar in premise to The Killing Joke.

"Edward Nygma’s meticulous rules and systems go out the window when he kills seemingly at random, but Batman isn’t buying it.," it said. "This tense intellectual thriller sees Batman unravel as he tries to decode the Riddler’s motivation."

The Riddler first appeared in 1948 and, like most DC characters, has gone through countless iterations, some light-hearted and some less so.

The villain was central to the latest film reboot, with Matt Reeves' The Batman definitely falling on the darker side of things with his serial killer version of The Riddler.

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

The writer behind an upcoming Batman comic in the One Bad Day series has promised "the scariest f**king Riddler of all time".

Eisner winning long-term Batman writer Tom King has partnered with artist Mitch Gerads to deliver the Riddler's One Bad Day, part of a new "definitive" series of 64 page one-shot comics featuring several Batman villains including Two-Face, Penguin, and more.

The One Bad Day name is a reference to The Killing Joke, one of the most famous one-shot comics of all time featuring perhaps the darkest version of The Joker, in which he says "all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy".

Just announced. @MitchGerads and I are giving you the scariest fucking Riddler of all time. #BatmanOneBadDay THE RIDDLER, a new 64 page OGN out in August.

Some questions don’t have answers. pic.twitter.com/4aYOmTkjhw

— Tom King (@TomKingTK) May 17, 2022

Gerads reiterated his creative partner's message in another tweet, saying the comic is his "genuine long-time dream book, and Tom King delivered the absolute perfect script for it.

"I’ve never been this excited to get a book into your mitts! I’ve been putting everything I have into every page. The Riddler is TERRIFYING."

The Riddler comic is the first in the One Bad Day series and is due to release this August. Though neither King or Gerads said much else, DC has given an official plot synopsis that certainly sounds similar in premise to The Killing Joke.

"Edward Nygma’s meticulous rules and systems go out the window when he kills seemingly at random, but Batman isn’t buying it.," it said. "This tense intellectual thriller sees Batman unravel as he tries to decode the Riddler’s motivation."

The Riddler first appeared in 1948 and, like most DC characters, has gone through countless iterations, some light-hearted and some less so.

The villain was central to the latest film reboot, with Matt Reeves' The Batman definitely falling on the darker side of things with his serial killer version of The Riddler.

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

Stranger Things Season 4 is just over a week away, but a tie-in Monopoly game spoiling some major plot points has seemingly hit shelves before the penultimate season has hit screens.

It looks like a few people have temporarily paused their D&D campaigns in favor of picking up a new Stranger Things Monopoly game that ties into the upcoming fourth season of the hit Netflix series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, images of the board game have started making the rounds online, with a few of the game's cards spoiling major plot points.

A Reddit thread created about the leak claimed the game was purchased at "a nationally recognized retailer and purchased fair and square by a consumer. Nobody stole it; nobody leaked a sample." Although that information is unconfirmed, many people have been sharing the cards online and theorizing harder than Murray Bauman about upcoming events.

The Duffer brothers, on the other hand, are said to have had a "total meltdown" about the leaked spoilers, as sources claim that they were never consulted about the game and certainly didn't approve of it being released ahead of Season 4, regardless of whether or not it was meant to be, as they like to maintain a certain level of secrecy around the show.

The fourth season marks the beginning of the end for Stranger Things, as the Duffer brothers announced in a letter to fans in February that the Netflix hit would wrap up after Season 5, meaning there's plenty to be revealed about the characters and the lore of the Upside Down in the next season. Knowledge of what's coming varies from person to person.

"We really wanted to give as many of our characters as we could their time to shine and to really work on their character development and their arcs," Ross explained in IGN's first ever digital cover story, reflecting on Season 4's bumper length. "And we've talked about this being a very revelatory season, in that there's a lot of stuff that we want to tell the audience."

It's the first season of Stranger Things to be split in two, with Part 1 debuting on May 27 and another batch of episodes hitting Netflix on July 1. It's also reported to be its most expensive season yet, given that it's over five hours longer than previous seasons, as well as allegedly one of the most expensive TV shows of all time (although Netflix has not confirmed that).

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

Stranger Things Season 4 is just over a week away, but a tie-in Monopoly game spoiling some major plot points has seemingly hit shelves before the penultimate season has hit screens.

It looks like a few people have temporarily paused their D&D campaigns in favor of picking up a new Stranger Things Monopoly game that ties into the upcoming fourth season of the hit Netflix series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, images of the board game have started making the rounds online, with a few of the game's cards spoiling major plot points.

A Reddit thread created about the leak claimed the game was purchased at "a nationally recognized retailer and purchased fair and square by a consumer. Nobody stole it; nobody leaked a sample." Although that information is unconfirmed, many people have been sharing the cards online and theorizing harder than Murray Bauman about upcoming events.

The Duffer brothers, on the other hand, are said to have had a "total meltdown" about the leaked spoilers, as sources claim that they were never consulted about the game and certainly didn't approve of it being released ahead of Season 4, regardless of whether or not it was meant to be, as they like to maintain a certain level of secrecy around the show.

The fourth season marks the beginning of the end for Stranger Things, as the Duffer brothers announced in a letter to fans in February that the Netflix hit would wrap up after Season 5, meaning there's plenty to be revealed about the characters and the lore of the Upside Down in the next season. Knowledge of what's coming varies from person to person.

"We really wanted to give as many of our characters as we could their time to shine and to really work on their character development and their arcs," Ross explained in IGN's first ever digital cover story, reflecting on Season 4's bumper length. "And we've talked about this being a very revelatory season, in that there's a lot of stuff that we want to tell the audience."

It's the first season of Stranger Things to be split in two, with Part 1 debuting on May 27 and another batch of episodes hitting Netflix on July 1. It's also reported to be its most expensive season yet, given that it's over five hours longer than previous seasons, as well as allegedly one of the most expensive TV shows of all time (although Netflix has not confirmed that).

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

God of War Ragnarok will include more than 60 accessibility features when it arrives on PlayStation 4 and 5 later this year.

The list of features was revealed in a PlayStation Blog post which said developer Sony Santa Monica has combined the options available in the original God of War (2018) with those in the PC version, and added some brand new ones too.

The new features added include full controller customisation, with players able to choose from several preset layouts or map their controller themselves to a layout that works best for them.

Complex actions will also come with a preset list of alternative options, and for actions that require more than one button, several shortcuts can be assigned instead including Touch Pad swipes.

For traversing in Ragnarok, players can choose to enable features such as automatic sprinting that require less button inputs altogether, and other actions including jumping gaps, vaulting, and so on can be automated too.

A Navigation Assist button has also been added that switches the player's view towards the next story objective, and audio cues can be used to reveal interactive objects while exploring and even in combat such as for weapon swap cues.

Sony Santa Monica has also "invested heavily" in improving its subtitle and caption system. The minimum text size has been increased and new scaling has been added, including an extra-large text size.

The text itself is also customisable with players able to mix and match with seven different colours between speaker names, the subtitle body, and individual sound captions (that can also be customised with several options available to represent different sounds).

Direction indicators can also be added for sounds important to the story, such as Kratos hearing a noise to his left that players are encouraged to explore, that will tell players what direction the sound came from.

The background behind subtitles can also be customised, with players able to blur the background or darken it with multiple opacity settings available.

The size of in-game icons, such as button prompts, indicators of a locked chest, and so on, can also be adjusted in size.

Another visual option is a high-contrast mode that allows players to highlight enemies, items, traversal paint, and so on in different colours to make things clearer to see.

A persistent dot option has also been added that provides an additional focal point to reduce motion sickness, alongside options to toggle on and off different actions with a single button press (such as holding the shield up) instead of holding the button.

God of War Ragnarok, despite several rumours suggesting otherwise, is still scheduled for a 2022 release date, with developers reassuring fans in April that the game would be released this year.

PlayStation exclusives have been somewhat inconsistent with adding a diverse set of accessibility options at launch, with games such as The Last of Us Part 2 setting a high standard (by letting players set accessibility options before anything else) but the more recent release of Deathloop was lacking in accessibility options for months (although the latest patch has added extensive options).

Microsoft has made accessibility a focus within its developers by introducing guidelines for its developers and even an evaluation system that ensures games are built with all players in mind.

The initiatives appear to be working, as the Xbox Series X includes a number of accessibility focused options and Xbox console exclusive Forza Horizon 5 won IGN's Noteworthy Advancement in Accessibility award last year.

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

God of War Ragnarok will include more than 60 accessibility features when it arrives on PlayStation 4 and 5 later this year.

The list of features was revealed in a PlayStation Blog post which said developer Sony Santa Monica has combined the options available in the original God of War (2018) with those in the PC version, and added some brand new ones too.

The new features added include full controller customisation, with players able to choose from several preset layouts or map their controller themselves to a layout that works best for them.

Complex actions will also come with a preset list of alternative options, and for actions that require more than one button, several shortcuts can be assigned instead including Touch Pad swipes.

For traversing in Ragnarok, players can choose to enable features such as automatic sprinting that require less button inputs altogether, and other actions including jumping gaps, vaulting, and so on can be automated too.

A Navigation Assist button has also been added that switches the player's view towards the next story objective, and audio cues can be used to reveal interactive objects while exploring and even in combat such as for weapon swap cues.

Sony Santa Monica has also "invested heavily" in improving its subtitle and caption system. The minimum text size has been increased and new scaling has been added, including an extra-large text size.

The text itself is also customisable with players able to mix and match with seven different colours between speaker names, the subtitle body, and individual sound captions (that can also be customised with several options available to represent different sounds).

Direction indicators can also be added for sounds important to the story, such as Kratos hearing a noise to his left that players are encouraged to explore, that will tell players what direction the sound came from.

The background behind subtitles can also be customised, with players able to blur the background or darken it with multiple opacity settings available.

The size of in-game icons, such as button prompts, indicators of a locked chest, and so on, can also be adjusted in size.

Another visual option is a high-contrast mode that allows players to highlight enemies, items, traversal paint, and so on in different colours to make things clearer to see.

A persistent dot option has also been added that provides an additional focal point to reduce motion sickness, alongside options to toggle on and off different actions with a single button press (such as holding the shield up) instead of holding the button.

God of War Ragnarok, despite several rumours suggesting otherwise, is still scheduled for a 2022 release date, with developers reassuring fans in April that the game would be released this year.

PlayStation exclusives have been somewhat inconsistent with adding a diverse set of accessibility options at launch, with games such as The Last of Us Part 2 setting a high standard (by letting players set accessibility options before anything else) but the more recent release of Deathloop was lacking in accessibility options for months (although the latest patch has added extensive options).

Microsoft has made accessibility a focus within its developers by introducing guidelines for its developers and even an evaluation system that ensures games are built with all players in mind.

The initiatives appear to be working, as the Xbox Series X includes a number of accessibility focused options and Xbox console exclusive Forza Horizon 5 won IGN's Noteworthy Advancement in Accessibility award last year.

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

CD Projekt Red has announced that the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt are planned to release at the end of this year.

Let's make this 7th anniversary even better, shall we?

We're delighted to share that the Next Gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is planned to release in Q4 2022.

See you on the Path, witchers! pic.twitter.com/2wQbxMP4zh

— The Witcher (@witchergame) May 19, 2022

In a Twitter post celebrating the 7th anniversary of The Witcher 3, the official Witcher account said "We're delighted to share that the Next Gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is planned to release in Q4 2022."

Last month CDPR had to assure fans that the next-gen version of The Witcher 3 was "not in development hell" after the developer delayed the upgraded version of the celebrated RPG indefinitely.

The enhanced version, which will be released as a free update for owners of the existing PC, PS4, and Xbox One versions of the game, will visually and technically boost the RPG for those playing on PS5, Xbox Series X, and beefier PCs. It was originally planned to release late 2021, but has faced delays on the journey to launch.

Q4 begins on October 1 and concludes December 31, so CD Projekt are planning to launch in the final months of the year. That's typically a packed time for video games, but with Starfield delayed into 2023, that's one less gargantuan RPG it has to content with.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

CD Projekt Red has announced that the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt are planned to release at the end of this year.

Let's make this 7th anniversary even better, shall we?

We're delighted to share that the Next Gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is planned to release in Q4 2022.

See you on the Path, witchers! pic.twitter.com/2wQbxMP4zh

— The Witcher (@witchergame) May 19, 2022

In a Twitter post celebrating the 7th anniversary of The Witcher 3, the official Witcher account said "We're delighted to share that the Next Gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is planned to release in Q4 2022."

Last month CDPR had to assure fans that the next-gen version of The Witcher 3 was "not in development hell" after the developer delayed the upgraded version of the celebrated RPG indefinitely.

The enhanced version, which will be released as a free update for owners of the existing PC, PS4, and Xbox One versions of the game, will visually and technically boost the RPG for those playing on PS5, Xbox Series X, and beefier PCs. It was originally planned to release late 2021, but has faced delays on the journey to launch.

Q4 begins on October 1 and concludes December 31, so CD Projekt are planning to launch in the final months of the year. That's typically a packed time for video games, but with Starfield delayed into 2023, that's one less gargantuan RPG it has to content with.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.