Sony is investing a further $1 billion in Fortnite publisher Epic Games. The investment is intended to deepen Sony's investment in the metaverse, adding to the $450 million it invested in Epic Games last year.

CEO of Sony Group Corporation Kenichiro Yoshida said: "As a creative entertainment company, we are thrilled to invest in Epic to deepen our relationship in the metaverse field, a space where creators and users share their time.

"We are also confident that Epic’s expertise, including their powerful game engine, combined with Sony’s technologies, will accelerate our various efforts such as the development of new digital fan experiences in sports and our virtual production initiatives."

Epic Games CEO and founder Tim Sweeney added: "As we reimagine the future of entertainment and play we need partners who share our vision. We have found this in our partnership with Sony and KIRKBI.

"This investment will accelerate our work to build the metaverse and create spaces where players can have fun with friends, brands can build creative and immersive experiences and creators can build a community and thrive."

KIRKBI, the company behind LEGO, also invested $1 billion, just days after Epic Games and The LEGO Group announced a new collaboration to create a child-friendly space within the metaverse.

Epic Games announced its intentions in the metaverse last April when Sony made its initial investment of $200 million, saying it wanted to expand the social experiences in its games while supporting the people that make them.

The metaverse it hopes to create, which is being supported with these billion dollar investments from Sony and KIRKBI, revolves around interconnectivity. Sweeney has said previously that he hopes to see major tech forms begin to share the digital space more and more to create a fluid online experience for its consumers.

His company isn't the only gaming giant to invest in the metaverse though, as PUBG: Battlegrounds developer Krafton recently partnered with other tech firms to create its own NFT-based version while Bandai Namco is to spend $130 on its "IP metaverse".

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

The Batman officially arrives on HBO Max on April 18 before airing on traditional HBO on April 23. The release date was previously thought to be a day later on April 19 due to a glitch on the HBO website, as reported by Deadline, but the streaming platform has now confirmed the official release date.

It continues Warner Bros.' trend of releasing its films on HBO Max exactly 45 days after their theatrical release, where The Batman has currently grossed $359 million domestically and $735 million worldwide.

The opportunity to watch and rewatch the film will likely lead to further speculation on what's next for Robert Pattinson's Dark Knight. While a sequel isn't confirmed at the moment, there are two TV shows set in the same universe already on the way: one focused on Colin Farrell's Penguin, and a Gotham PD series that tells a "haunted house" style story based in Arkham.

The cast and crew have shared what they'd like in a proper film sequel, though. Pattinson himself wants to see a take on the Court of Owls saga while director Matt Reeves hopes to bring Mr. Freeze to his dark and gritty Batman universe.

In our 10/10 review, IGN said: "Matt Reeves’ violent, thrilling, darkly beautiful take on The Batman more than justifies its place in the franchise’s canon."

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

A classic Dungeons & Dragons character from the 1980s cartoon is coming to Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, the officially licensed D&D strategy game. Developer Codename Entertainment is gearing up to release the game's 100th Champion, and to celebrate, they're bringing the Dungeon Master from the 1983 D&D cartoon into the fold.

Idle Champions is a free-to-play D&D strategy game available on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, PC, iOS, and Android. The game brings together characters from different novels, campaigns, and shows into one large D&D crossover. The developers work with D&D content creators to bring popular characters into the game, including contributions from content creators like Mark Meer, Anna Prosser, B. Dave Walters, and more.

Now, the newest Champion to join the bunch is Dungeon Master from the classic 1983 D&D cartoon. Players can unlock him in The Running event that kicks off April 27 and ends on May 9. In addition to the Dungeon Master Champion, the content drop also includes Uni the Unicorn from the cartoon. The developers say it was a blast to work these classic characters into the game.

"This was our 100th Champion, and we had a lot of classic D&D characters to choose from," Idle Champions' Live Services Manager, Chris Dupuis, said. "However, when we finally landed on Dungeon Master, everything clicked into place - I knew we had something special brewing."

The Dungeon Master's gameplay traits take inspiration from his role in the cartoon. The developers say he has a habit of disappearing, much like in the classic show. When he's gone, Uni takes his place on the battlefield.

And, two other characters from the cartoon will also make an appearance in Idle Champions. Two classic villains, Venger and Tiamat, will show up to try and impede your progress. Venger is the main villain in the TV show, and Tiamat is a five-headed dragon that also faces off against the band of friends in the cartoon.

The Dungeons & Dragons TV series originally aired from 1983 to 1985 on CBS. The show followed a group of friends transported into the world of Dungeons & Dragons, who had to find their way home with help from the Dungeon Master. It is still seen as a classic today, ranking 64th on IGN's top 100 animated series of all time list.

Besides the new characters releasing on April 27, that date also represents the release of Idle Champions' first round of localization, with support for French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Latin American Spanish, and Simplified Chinese coming to the game.

To learn more about Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms' 100th Champion, you can check out the game's official website. And, for more on D&D, check out the new sourcebook that's adding all-new settings to the game.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

IGN and Rogue Games have partnered up to produce Rogue Jam, a brand-new game jam that not only offers publishing deals to indie developers, but also $800,000 in total prize money that will be used to bring their game to life. Devs from around the world submitted their unreleased games late last year, and the Rogue Jam panel of judges that includes IGN EVP and CCO Peer Schneider and former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé have spent the last couple months picking the best of the best.

The winning games and developers will be announced beginning April 18, and this watch guide will help ensure you don’t miss a thing and can see some of the biggest and brightest indie games that may one day just become your new favorite.

Rogue Jam 2022 Winners Showcase Start Times

The Rogue Jame winners showcases will begin on April 18 with the premiere of Episode 1 - Huge Potential. The awards will air each day leading up to the announcement of the Overall Winner on Friday, April 22. The full schedule is as follows;

• Episode 1 - Huge Potential: Monday, April 18 at 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm BST / Tuesday, April 19 at 2am AEST.
• Episode 2 - Eye-Poppingly Beautiful: Monday, April 25 at 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm BST / Tuesday, April 26 at 2am AEST.
• Episode 3 - WTF?: Monday, May 2 at 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm BST / Tuesday, May 3 at 2am AEST.
• Episode 4 - Overall Winner : Monday, May 9 at 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm BST / Tuesday, May 10 at 2am AEST.
• Episode 5 - Audience Choice: Monday, May 16 at 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm BST / Tuesday, May 17 at 2am AEST.

Where to Watch the Rogue Jam 2022 Winners Showcases

If you’re interested in watching the Rogue Jam 2022 Winners Showcases, we’ll be hosting the streams here and across our many channels on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Here’s the full list of places you can watch the shows with us:

• IGN.com (homepage)
• IGN’s Youtube Channel
• IGN's iOS App
• IGN's Android App
• IGN's PlayStation 4 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
• Plex Live TV

What to Expect From the Rogue Jam 2022 Winners Showcases

The Rogue Jam 2022 Winners Showcases will award and recognize outstanding indie games that impressed a panel of judges that, as previously mentioned, include IGN EVP and CCO Peer Schneider and former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé. The full list of judges is as follows;

• Kimberly Pointer Corbett, Warner Bros. Games Senior Vice President of Digital Publishing
• Reggie Fils-Aimé, former Nintendo of America President, Board Advisor at Rogue Games
• Peer Schneider, IGN Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer
• Chris Lee, Netflix Head of Game Sourcing and Interactive Games
• Matt Casamassina, Rogue Games CEO
• Chris Archer, Rogue Games Chief Strategy Officer

There will be a total of five winners across five different categories, and each of them will award a certain prize to the indie dev chosen. Each game is judged on Fun, Originality, Presentation, Polish, and The Rogue Factor, and the categories and prizes are as follows;

• Overall Winner: $500,000 and a Rogue Publishing Deal
• WTF?: $100,000 and a Rogue Publishing Deal
• Eye-Poppingly Beautiful: $100,000 and a Rogue Publishing Deal
• Huge Potential: $50,000 and Rogue Right of First Refusal
• Audience Choice: $50,000 and Rogue Right of First Refusal

The games will have been chosen following a two-month window where the judges have had ample time to try the games and discuss each one with the other panelists. While we don’t have a full list of potential winners, the top three games in the Audience Choice category have been revealed and are I’m Not Jelly, Mysplaced, and Cold Fortune.

Rogue Games itself was founded by IGN co-founder Matt Casamassina and it recently raised $2.5 million in funding to publish “batsh*t insane” indie games for PC, consoles, and mobile. Rogue recently partnered with both Netflix and Bloober Team, and it has a robust portfolio of innovative indie and original licensed games spanning the next few years.

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

The creators of Stranger Things have referenced Game of Thrones while speaking about Season 4, explaining that the story just became "bigger and bigger."

Speaking at Deadline's Contenders Television conference, Matt and Ross Duffer revealed they refer to Stranger Things Season 4 as their "Game of Thrones season" because it has a sprawling story that takes place across different locations, with various groups of characters driving forward separate narratives, all packaged together in the longest season yet.

"We kind of jokingly call it our Game of Thrones season because it's so spread out, so I think that's what's unique or most unique about the season," Matt shared, while Ross explained that they didn't know how big the season would become when they were in the early stages of developing it as they had to consider how much story they wanted to tell in the next chapter.

"Game of Thrones is one thing we've referenced, but also for us really what it's about is revelations, in that we really wanted to start giving the audience some answers," Ross added, revealing that they wrote "a giant 20-page document" for Netflix during the first season to outline the mythology of the show and explain what exactly was going on.

"This season, we really wanted to really get into it and [revealing] some of those answers. But to do that properly, we needed time, so it just became bigger and bigger," the brothers explained, addressing the season's expansive story landscape. "We have these three storylines, are all connected and kind of interwoven together, but it's just very different tones."

While speaking on the panel, Matt and Ross confirmed Season 4 will be "double the length" of any other season that has come before it, with every single episode of the next season running for an hour or longer. Up until now, the longest episode of Stranger Things came at the end of Season 3 during The Battle of Starcourt, which played out across 78 minutes.

"I don't think we have an episode clocking in under an hour – even in Season 1 there were episodes that were like 35 minutes. You kind of forget that," said Matt. "This season, they're very long, so I think it's almost double the length of any season. So that's one reason it's taken so long. It does have this sort of epic quality to it. It's a different feel, for sure."

The penultimate season of Stranger Things is expected to be "bigger, bolder, and more intricate" that previous installments, and will have plenty of surprises in store. As such, the fourth chapter will be split into two parts, with Volume 1 making its debut on Netflix on May 27, and Volume 2 releasing five weeks later on July 1 to complete the nine-episode season.

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

Ubisoft's Watch Dogs is getting an official manga set in Tokyo. The manga will debut in Japanese on April 12 and is simply called Watch Dogs Tokyo, as spotted by manga news feed Manga Mogura RE (below) and shared by Games Radar.

It will feature the evil Bloom Corporation from the Watch Dogs games — which have so far been set in Chicago, San Francisco, and most recently London — as it extends its reach to Japan.

A new manga series based on the "Watch Dogs" video game series by Ubisoft titled "Watch Dogs Tokyo" drawn by Kamo Syuhei (Gangsta: Cursed) & written by Shirato Seiichi will start on Kurage Bunch website on April 12, 2022

Image © Shinchosha, Ubisoft, Kamo Syuhei, Shirato Seiichi pic.twitter.com/XSGhtKiths

— Manga Mogura RE (@MangaMoguraRE) April 7, 2022

Manga Mogura RE also shared a plot synopsis, saying: "It will be about a special new infrastructure system from a company called Bloom Japan used by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to change people's lives. However this new system does in fact also harbour a great darkness.

Not much else is know other than it will be released on manga website Kurage Bunch and is drawn by Kamo Syuhei and written by Shirato Seiichi. It's currently unknown if an English version of the manga will be released.

This isn't Watch Dogs' first foray into the comics world. A four-part series based on Watch Dogs Legion was released last November..

The series has otherwise been quiet since last summer when the Legion of the Dead DLC was released and Ubisoft is yet to confirm if another Watch Dogs game is in development.

IGN has reached out to Ubisoft for comment on the manga's release.

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

A new show from Peacock wants to make you think about death and get sad and stuff. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning is an hour-long home makeover show narrated by Amy Poehler and based on the best-selling book by Margareta Magnusson.

Essentially, it will help people organize their homes and prepare for death… while enjoying the rest of their lives.

“We are so excited to work on such a life-affirming project with the genius creators at Scout,” said Poehler in a statement. “Swedish Death Cleaning reminds us to focus on what is truly important, and we couldn’t find a better team to take this journey with than Peacock and the incredible Scout Team.”

The show will star a Swedish Death Cleaner who helps people who “are at a major crossroads” to organize and declutter their homes.

The art of Death Cleaning (or Döstädning) is a Swedish trend that involves people and their families putting their affairs in order and cutting down on clutter before the person’s death. The idea is to do away with stress and take stock of what’s important.

It’s a little bit Marie Kondo… but with more of a focus on kicking the bucket.

“Whether it's sorting the family heirlooms from the junk, downsizing to a smaller place, or setting up a system to help you stop misplacing your keys, death cleaning gives us the chance to make the later years of our lives as comfortable and stress-free as possible,” reads the book’s synopsis. “Whatever your age, Swedish death cleaning can be used to help you de-clutter your life, and take stock of what's important.”

Each episode of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning will focus on a different person who is visited by the Death Cleaner to help them organize their lives.

It will feature interviews with the homeowner and their families, as well as friends and neighbors as the Death Cleaner encourages their subjects to pass along mementos before their death… and get rid of things they don’t really need.

Peacock has ordered a full series of the show which is created and produced by Scout Productions alongside Amy Poehler’s production company, Paper Kite Productions.

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

Elden Ring seemingly once featured items and quests that focused on exploring NPCs dreams.

Lance McDonald, a prominent dataminer who's previously revealed secrets in Demon's Souls and Bloodborne, explored the mechanic using 2021's network test version of Elden Ring (spotted by Eurogamer).

Though cut from the final game, the content had a unique, fully voiced and animated character called Monk Jiko who requested the player bring him Dream Mist - an item acquired from the dreams of certain NPCs.

I worked really hard on this video you should look at it and tell your friend(s) to look at it https://t.co/bU7soHcJP0

— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) April 11, 2022

Exploration was limited in the early version of Elden Ring but McDonald showed two sleeping characters, a Wolf and Land Octopus, with a "dense fog of sleep" floating around them, indicating that Dream Mist could be extracted.

These were exchanged with Monk Jiko (who was found at the Scavenger's Shack location) for Dreambrew, an item that could be given to different NPCs, sending them to sleep and prompting new dialogue options based on the dreams they had.

McDonald's video shows Dreambrew being used with an early character, Merchant Kalé. After a short bit of voiced dialogue, a message appears saying, "After drinking, he sleeps. His sleep is disturbed by a nightmare of his eyes being burned by the frenzied flame".

McDonald says that Monk Jiko originally had a questline that would weave across much of the game world, and that many characters in the game have unused dialogue related to it. A similar mechanic was seen in previous FromSoftware title Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, where players could uncover new information about the characters and world by sharing a cup of sake with certain NPCs.

Players have uncovered several other bizarre secrets in Elden Ring including a way to make one of its toughest bosses defeat itself, a pair of fancy underwear hidden away in the game files, and a hidden wall that only opens after 50 hits.

In our 10/10 review, IGN said: "Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path."

To make those choices with the best available information, check out our full guide that features everything you could ever hope to know about Elden Ring, including collectible locations, boss strategies, and more.

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

Warning: This article contains potential spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunder.

Thor is getting an all-new look in Thor: Love and Thunder, and it might give us some idea of what he’s been up to since Avengers: Endgame.

It’s no secret that Thor chose to head off into space after that climactic showdown with Thanos in Endgame, and while we all assumed he would join the Guardians of the Galaxy on their cosmic adventures, it looks as though he might have taken a slightly different path.

A new line of Marvel action figures unveiled via Reddit has revealed a new look for the Asgardian ahead of the upcoming sequel… and it’s a surprising glimpse into his recent activities.

That’s right – it looks as though Thor has become a Ravager.

The new toy line reveals several new looks for the Norse god, with a couple of cool riffs on his classic costume. However, it’s the “Ravager Thor” figure that’s really got us scratching our heads. Has Thor decided to take up the Ravager lifestyle?

The toys also include another look at Natalie Portman's appearance as Mighty Thor, and a full look at Christian Bale's take on Gorr the God Butcher.

We've actually already seen parts of Hemsworth's real-life costume before – we just didn't know quite what we were seeing. This set photo shows Chris Hemsworth in what we now know is the “Ravager Thor” costume:

Does this mean we’ll see Thor rolling with Kraglin and the other Ravagers? It certainly seems like a missed opportunity if Sylvester Stallone’s Stakar Ogord isn’t in the mix, too. But for now, we’ll have to wait and see.

Thor: Love and Thunder stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor alongside Natalie Portman, Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Karen Gillan, Jaimie Alexander, Chris Pratt, Sean Gunn, and Taika Waititi.

Taika Waititi directed the film based on a script he co-wrote with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. Marvel boss Kevin Feige produced the film along with Victoria Alonso, Louis D’Esposito, and Todd Hallowell as executive producers.

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

One of the lasting images of Nintendo's motion control era is a Wii Remote crashing through a high-definition television, its hapless owner looking on in shock. It would wind up lodged into the collective memory to such an extent that the Hard Drive would eventually memorialize it with the headline, "Neglected Wii Controller Hurls Itself at Flatscreen TV," complete with a cracked image of Wii Sports Tennis.

It captures a particular moment in video game zeitgeist, when Nintendo inaugurated a new era for motion controls by releasing the Wii and making the world go wild for waggle. It's a moment that Nintendo Switch Sports seeks to recapture, and as I discovered when my shoe went flying off my foot and bounced off the (thankfully) undamaged television screen, it's largely successful.

Nintendo Switch Sports is a collection of six sports – some of which will be familiar to longtime Nintendo fans, some of which are brand new. Tennis and bowling are functionally very similar to their counterparts on the Wii, while the more complex motion controls of Badminton and Swordfighting are reminiscent of Wii Sports Resort. It’s worth mentioning that Nintendo Switch Sports has roughly half the number of minigames available in Wii Sports Resort, though it will add Golf as a free download later in the year to bring the total to seven.

What it offers instead is online multiplayer – a first for the series – adding expanded functionality for some of the games, such as eight player multiplayer in bowling. Feedback from a recent online test was good, and there’s every indication that Nintendo Switch Sports’ online multiplayer will be a strength when the final release becomes available later this month.

Realizing the dreams of the Wii

But local multiplayer is the heart of Nintendo Switch Sports’ appeal, and that was how I spent most of my time in my recent hands-on preview. After choosing my customized “Sportsmate” – Nintendo’s replacement for the Mii – I tried all six minigames, beginning with a 13-round shooting session in soccer and finishing up with swordfighting. By the end I had even managed to work up a little bit of a sweat, bringing me back to the days when I would treat Wii Sports as actual batting practice rather than a series of half-hearted wrist flicks.

My favorite of the minigames was the swordfighting. Referred to as chambara – a nod to Japan’s samurai film genre – it pits two swordfighters against one another as they try to push each other off a platform and into the water below. Rounds consist of a breathless flurry of blocks and ripostes that at first feel like the motion-controlled version of button-mashing, but soon reveal a deep and entertaining level of strategy that belie its deceptively simple mechanics.

It made me think of the early days of the Wii, when everyone was obsessed with the notion of a lightsaber game using the Wii Remote. The demand laid bare the limitations of the original Wii Remote, prompting Nintendo to release the improved Wii MotionPlus peripheral alongside Wii Sports Resort. We’ve had many sword games since, but as I overwhelmed Nintendo’s PR rep with a flurry of diagonal slashes, I thought of my once fervent wish for a motion-controlled lightsaber game.

Tennis, by contrast, utterly defeated me. Having made the leap to Switch more or less unchanged, it’s still based more on timing than actual finesse, or so it seems to me. Of course, I’m pretty miserable at tennis in real life, too, so maybe this is just an example of Nintendo Switch Sports being more realistic than I give it credit for. I had better luck with badminton, which was similar to tennis, but featured more precise motion controls on top of a deeper strategy layer thanks to its spike mechanic.

The best moment, though, was when I accidentally reenacted one of the famous memes from the mid-2000s… with my shoe. Nintendo Switch Sports supports Ring Fit’s leg strap, which is used for its new soccer minigame. I was trying out its shootout mode, which involved swinging my leg awkwardly at just the right moment, and off my shoe went. It goes to show that the more things change with Nintendo Switch Sports, the more they stay the same.

Motion controls have come of age in the years since the Wii. They're far more sophisticated now, and they can be found in everything from Doom to VR platforms. They haven't quite been the fundamental paradigm shift that some imagined they might be when the Wii was released, but they've certainly found their niche.

Either way, I had fun revisiting the early days of motion controls for an afternoon. Like the original Wii Sports, most of the minigames rely more on novelty than substance, which makes me question whether they will ultimately have any degree of staying power. But I don’t think anyone expected to still be talking about Wii Sports more than 15 years after its original release. Some games are just timeless.

Nintendo Switch Sports will be out April 29 on Nintendo Switch.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.