Despite its rocky start, Square Enix has confirmed that there are "no plans to reduce the scale of development on Babylon's Fall."

Babylon's Fall, the latest game from PlatinumGames, was released earlier this month and was met with mostly negative reviews. On Metacritic, a site that aggregates game reviews, the game is currently sitting at a 42.

In our 4/10 Babylon's Fall review, we said that it "isn't a broken action RPG, but it isn't a good one, either – and it's one of the ugliest games in several console generations."

Despite these reviews and more, Square Enix is doubling down and wishes to make this game as great as it can be. On Twitter, the official Babylon's Fall Twitter account tweeted out a message to fans that looks to answer the question, "Is the continuing service in danger?"

"No, there are no plans to reduce the scale of development on Babylon's Fall," The tweet reads. "Content up to the end of Season 2 is now practically complete and we have started to work on Season 3 and beyond.

"We will continue to provide new content for the game and make improvements based on player feedback, striving to keep existing players playing and to attract newcomers. We would like to thank all Sentinals already enjoying the world of Babylon's Fall, as we look forward to welcoming more of you in the future!"

The team also revealed new details on Babylon's Fall update 1.10 and the NieR: Automata collaboration event. This update adds a new chapter in "Resurgence," a new map in "Tower of Babylon: Blockade Zone," a new faction and weapon type, a level cap increase, a new high difficulty level game mode called Gauntlet, and much more.

As for the NieR: Automata collaboration, that event will run from March 29 - April 26 and will have a "plethora of collaboration items, quests and more that will allow you to enjoy the world of Nier: Automata to your heart's content."

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.

Despite its rocky start, Square Enix has confirmed that there are "no plans to reduce the scale of development on Babylon's Fall."

Babylon's Fall, the latest game from PlatinumGames, was released earlier this month and was met with mostly negative reviews. On Metacritic, a site that aggregates game reviews, the game is currently sitting at a 42.

In our 4/10 Babylon's Fall review, we said that it "isn't a broken action RPG, but it isn't a good one, either – and it's one of the ugliest games in several console generations."

Despite these reviews and more, Square Enix is doubling down and wishes to make this game as great as it can be. On Twitter, the official Babylon's Fall Twitter account tweeted out a message to fans that looks to answer the question, "Is the continuing service in danger?"

"No, there are no plans to reduce the scale of development on Babylon's Fall," The tweet reads. "Content up to the end of Season 2 is now practically complete and we have started to work on Season 3 and beyond.

"We will continue to provide new content for the game and make improvements based on player feedback, striving to keep existing players playing and to attract newcomers. We would like to thank all Sentinals already enjoying the world of Babylon's Fall, as we look forward to welcoming more of you in the future!"

The team also revealed new details on Babylon's Fall update 1.10 and the NieR: Automata collaboration event. This update adds a new chapter in "Resurgence," a new map in "Tower of Babylon: Blockade Zone," a new faction and weapon type, a level cap increase, a new high difficulty level game mode called Gauntlet, and much more.

As for the NieR: Automata collaboration, that event will run from March 29 - April 26 and will have a "plethora of collaboration items, quests and more that will allow you to enjoy the world of Nier: Automata to your heart's content."

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.

The Jim Henson Company is known for creating some of the most beloved puppets in the world, including Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, and countless other Muppets. However, it appears certain people behind these lovable characters, specifically, the wranglers, have been subject to unsafe conditions and abuse.

As reported by THR, puppet wrangling is an on-set position that requires a wide variety of skills alongside expertise at building and repairing puppets. As of this writing, there are only about 25 people in the world who work as full-time wranglers, and they are seeking union representation as no one in their position has successfully done so since the position was created around the 1970s.

This fight for unionization and the life of these wranglers was illustrated in a story from one on Disney+'s Earth to Ned. When working on the show produced by The Jim Henson Company, he was told not to interact directly with one of the show's star puppeteers, Kevin Clash.

"Amongst other puppeteers, he’s known to be very bubbly and kind,” he recalls being warned of Clash. “But when it came to wranglers, I was told he tends to be condescending and nasty.”

For those unaware, Clash is credited with creating and voicing Sesame Street's Elmo. However, he was also charged with four civil lawsuits by four men who alleged Clash had sex with them when they were minors. This led Clash to resign from Sesame Workshop, despite all the cases later being dismissed as the six-year statute of limitation on the allegations had expired.

Clash would eventually join the puppet world once again when he began working with Brian and Lisa Henson - the children of Jim Henson - on various Henson Company productions, including The Happytime Murders, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and the previously mentioned Earth to Ned.

Getting back to Earth to Ned, the wrangler from earlier in the story would eventually learn of his temper firsthand.

"He yelled at me because he was leaving a voicemail as Elmo for someone’s kid," The wrangler said. "I think I was standing too close to him. He told me to ‘shut the fuck up.’”

While other puppet pros would defend Clash, the wrangler, and the dozen other people interviewed for THR's story, painted a picture of workplace abuses for these wranglers.

The Hazardous Life of Wrangler

Many of these wranglers are freelancers, and this means living in fear of the health consequences of working around the toxic glues and chemicals used in puppet-making. They also must deal with being viewed as "lesser than" their puppet performer counterparts, even though they tend to be "far more skilled in the fabrication, engineering, and manipulation of puppets."

"The job of the wrangler is eating shit and taking blame,” said one seasoned wrangler.

As far as the toxic glues and chemicals are concerned, these have been a suspect in the illness and death of many in the puppeteer business, and that matter is made worse at the Henson Company's Creature Shop as the alleged last recorded visit by an OSHA inspector was in 2017.

Furthermore, the wranglers interviewed for the story never had safety training and the safety protocols at the company were left to them and them alone.

“They’re supposed to be doing safety seminars," Chemist, industrial hygienist, and safety consultant to SAG-AFTRA Monona Rossol said about The Henson Company. "Do they? Fuck no. Pardon my language. It would take so little to take the necessary precautions, but they just don’t do it.”

This lack of safety protocols has led to the Henson Creature Shop having a "litany of workplace hazards," including industrial-sized cans of Barge glue being placed around the workshop and gallons of flammable polyester resin stored in "damaged, leaking buckets." Oh, and breaker boxes and electrical wires are just a few feet away.

In addition to safety hazards, Henson Shows like Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock are "chaotic, underfunded, and short-staffed."

"When I arrived at my last build job for Henson, they’d been working for one week on a job budgeted for two months, yet were insisting that the company was ‘out of money,’" Another wrangler said. "It [raises] a really fundamental question: How and where is the money being spent? How can the company be ‘out of money’ if it hasn’t built anything?”

While many believe unionizing could solve many of these issues, there is even disagreement within the wrangling community of which guild would be the right one to join.

"It’s hard for one group to want to claim us,” says wrangler Rachel Burson. “Because we do handle the costumes on the puppets. We do handle the props on the puppets. We do special effects. We have to put our foot in so many different departments. I think it just falls under the concept of tradition. ‘This is just always how it’s been.’"

The Jim Henson Company denied many of the allegations described in this story, including that the company is "anti-union."

"Henson is not ‘anti-union,’ ” says a lawyer for The Jim Henson Company. “Neither is Brian Henson or Lisa Henson. Henson follows and respects all labor laws. The company does not tolerate abusive behavior. Wranglers and puppeteers both play important roles in Henson productions. The company respects the right of employees to unionize.”

Many of these wranglers are now looking forward to the next round of negotiations between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and SAG-AFTRA, which is set to take place in 2023. Even more are hopeful things change well before then, especially with the help of SAG-AFTRA puppeteers.

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.

The Jim Henson Company is known for creating some of the most beloved puppets in the world, including Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, and countless other Muppets. However, it appears certain people behind these lovable characters, specifically, the wranglers, have been subject to unsafe conditions and abuse.

As reported by THR, puppet wrangling is an on-set position that requires a wide variety of skills alongside expertise at building and repairing puppets. As of this writing, there are only about 25 people in the world who work as full-time wranglers, and they are seeking union representation as no one in their position has successfully done so since the position was created around the 1970s.

This fight for unionization and the life of these wranglers was illustrated in a story from one on Disney+'s Earth to Ned. When working on the show produced by The Jim Henson Company, he was told not to interact directly with one of the show's star puppeteers, Kevin Clash.

"Amongst other puppeteers, he’s known to be very bubbly and kind,” he recalls being warned of Clash. “But when it came to wranglers, I was told he tends to be condescending and nasty.”

For those unaware, Clash is credited with creating and voicing Sesame Street's Elmo. However, he was also charged with four civil lawsuits by four men who alleged Clash had sex with them when they were minors. This led Clash to resign from Sesame Workshop, despite all the cases later being dismissed as the six-year statute of limitation on the allegations had expired.

Clash would eventually join the puppet world once again when he began working with Brian and Lisa Henson - the children of Jim Henson - on various Henson Company productions, including The Happytime Murders, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and the previously mentioned Earth to Ned.

Getting back to Earth to Ned, the wrangler from earlier in the story would eventually learn of his temper firsthand.

"He yelled at me because he was leaving a voicemail as Elmo for someone’s kid," The wrangler said. "I think I was standing too close to him. He told me to ‘shut the fuck up.’”

While other puppet pros would defend Clash, the wrangler, and the dozen other people interviewed for THR's story, painted a picture of workplace abuses for these wranglers.

The Hazardous Life of Wrangler

Many of these wranglers are freelancers, and this means living in fear of the health consequences of working around the toxic glues and chemicals used in puppet-making. They also must deal with being viewed as "lesser than" their puppet performer counterparts, even though they tend to be "far more skilled in the fabrication, engineering, and manipulation of puppets."

"The job of the wrangler is eating shit and taking blame,” said one seasoned wrangler.

As far as the toxic glues and chemicals are concerned, these have been a suspect in the illness and death of many in the puppeteer business, and that matter is made worse at the Henson Company's Creature Shop as the alleged last recorded visit by an OSHA inspector was in 2017.

Furthermore, the wranglers interviewed for the story never had safety training and the safety protocols at the company were left to them and them alone.

“They’re supposed to be doing safety seminars," Chemist, industrial hygienist, and safety consultant to SAG-AFTRA Monona Rossol said about The Henson Company. "Do they? Fuck no. Pardon my language. It would take so little to take the necessary precautions, but they just don’t do it.”

This lack of safety protocols has led to the Henson Creature Shop having a "litany of workplace hazards," including industrial-sized cans of Barge glue being placed around the workshop and gallons of flammable polyester resin stored in "damaged, leaking buckets." Oh, and breaker boxes and electrical wires are just a few feet away.

In addition to safety hazards, Henson Shows like Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock are "chaotic, underfunded, and short-staffed."

"When I arrived at my last build job for Henson, they’d been working for one week on a job budgeted for two months, yet were insisting that the company was ‘out of money,’" Another wrangler said. "It [raises] a really fundamental question: How and where is the money being spent? How can the company be ‘out of money’ if it hasn’t built anything?”

While many believe unionizing could solve many of these issues, there is even disagreement within the wrangling community of which guild would be the right one to join.

"It’s hard for one group to want to claim us,” says wrangler Rachel Burson. “Because we do handle the costumes on the puppets. We do handle the props on the puppets. We do special effects. We have to put our foot in so many different departments. I think it just falls under the concept of tradition. ‘This is just always how it’s been.’"

The Jim Henson Company denied many of the allegations described in this story, including that the company is "anti-union."

"Henson is not ‘anti-union,’ ” says a lawyer for The Jim Henson Company. “Neither is Brian Henson or Lisa Henson. Henson follows and respects all labor laws. The company does not tolerate abusive behavior. Wranglers and puppeteers both play important roles in Henson productions. The company respects the right of employees to unionize.”

Many of these wranglers are now looking forward to the next round of negotiations between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and SAG-AFTRA, which is set to take place in 2023. Even more are hopeful things change well before then, especially with the help of SAG-AFTRA puppeteers.

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.

While Elden Ring has been having numerous issues on PC, the version on Steam Deck is now running a lot smoother and Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais has shared how they fixed the handheld gaming PC's problems with the game.

At launch, one of the biggest issues those who chose to play Elden Ring on PC ran into was related to frame rate and stuttering. As reported by Eurogamer, its "working theory" was that "we were looking at yet another PC game suffering from shader compilation issues: split-second pauses whenever a new visual effect came into play."

This is a much bigger issue to solve on PC as the range of hardware specs on systems are obviously a lot greater than seen on console. Using this same thought process, the Steam Deck also "has an advantage, because it is a fixed piece of hardware, just like a console."

"On the Linux/Proton side, we have a pretty extensive shader pre-caching system with multiple levels of source-level and binary cache representations pre-seeded and shared across users," Griffais said. "On the Deck, we take this to the next level, since we have a unique GPU/driver combination to target, and the majority of the shaders that you run locally are actually pre-built on servers in our infrastructure. When the game is trying to issue a shader compile through its graphics API of choice, those are usually skipped, as we find the pre-compiled cache entry on disk.

"Shader pipeline-driven stutter isn't the majority of the big hitches we've seen in that game. The recent example we've highlighted has more to do with the game creating many thousand resources such as command buffers at certain spots, which was making our memory manager go into overdrive trying to handle it. We cache such allocations more aggressively now, which seems to have helped a ton.

"I can't comment as to whether this is the problem the game experiences on other platforms, as well, but we've been playing on Deck with all these elements in place and the experience has been very smooth."

As shown in a video from Digital Foundry, "using a mixture of the medium quality preset with strategically boosted high settings (textures and anti-aliasing) along with a reduction in shader quality from medium to low (it doesn't seem to make any difference to the visuals) and engage Valve's system level 30fps cap and what we have is effectively a 720p rendition of the PlayStation 4 version of Elden Ring."

Another benefit the Steam Deck has is that "because Valve's 30fps cap delivers even 33.3ms frame-times - unlike From Software's internal clock-based solution - you get a much smoother experience."

For more on Elden Ring's performance, check out our review of how it runs on PS5 vs. Xbox Series X/S.

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.

While Elden Ring has been having numerous issues on PC, the version on Steam Deck is now running a lot smoother and Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais has shared how they fixed the handheld gaming PC's problems with the game.

At launch, one of the biggest issues those who chose to play Elden Ring on PC ran into was related to frame rate and stuttering. As reported by Eurogamer, its "working theory" was that "we were looking at yet another PC game suffering from shader compilation issues: split-second pauses whenever a new visual effect came into play."

This is a much bigger issue to solve on PC as the range of hardware specs on systems are obviously a lot greater than seen on console. Using this same thought process, the Steam Deck also "has an advantage, because it is a fixed piece of hardware, just like a console."

"On the Linux/Proton side, we have a pretty extensive shader pre-caching system with multiple levels of source-level and binary cache representations pre-seeded and shared across users," Griffais said. "On the Deck, we take this to the next level, since we have a unique GPU/driver combination to target, and the majority of the shaders that you run locally are actually pre-built on servers in our infrastructure. When the game is trying to issue a shader compile through its graphics API of choice, those are usually skipped, as we find the pre-compiled cache entry on disk.

"Shader pipeline-driven stutter isn't the majority of the big hitches we've seen in that game. The recent example we've highlighted has more to do with the game creating many thousand resources such as command buffers at certain spots, which was making our memory manager go into overdrive trying to handle it. We cache such allocations more aggressively now, which seems to have helped a ton.

"I can't comment as to whether this is the problem the game experiences on other platforms, as well, but we've been playing on Deck with all these elements in place and the experience has been very smooth."

As shown in a video from Digital Foundry, "using a mixture of the medium quality preset with strategically boosted high settings (textures and anti-aliasing) along with a reduction in shader quality from medium to low (it doesn't seem to make any difference to the visuals) and engage Valve's system level 30fps cap and what we have is effectively a 720p rendition of the PlayStation 4 version of Elden Ring."

Another benefit the Steam Deck has is that "because Valve's 30fps cap delivers even 33.3ms frame-times - unlike From Software's internal clock-based solution - you get a much smoother experience."

For more on Elden Ring's performance, check out our review of how it runs on PS5 vs. Xbox Series X/S.

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.

Hearthstone's next expansion, Voyage to the Sunken City, is coming on April 12 in NA and April 13 in ANZ, and has a colourful nautical theme based around the ancient city of Zin-Azshari, which (according to World of Warcraft lore) was sent to the bottom of the ocean in the cataclysm. (More details in our annoucement article from yesterday.) Across the set's 135 cards you'll find vengeful Naga, sunken treasure, pirates, sea monsters and more. Today, we're going to showcase two of those elements, with Nellie, the Great Thresher, a brand new legendary for Warrior.

As you can see, Nellie is one of the new Colossal creatures, which means that it's too big to fit on one card. It's a Colossal +1, so summons one additional appendage when it hits the board - in this case, Nellie's Pirate Ship. A 5/5 and a 2/6 taunt for seven mana is nothing to sniff at, but what makes Nellie so powerful is its battlecry, which gives you three separate Discovers (choose one card out of three) of pirate minions, which are then added as a deathrattle reward to Nellie's Pirate Ship. When Nellie's Pirate Ship is destroyed, they're then added to your hand, and cost one mana each. So if you're able to find a Mr Smite or two, Nellie's Pirate Ship can represent quite a lot of very cheap damage from hand.

We don't really know what the Standard Hearthstone landscape will be like after rotation (which happens when Voyage to the Sunken City is released, and sees Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire leave the format), particularly since we don't yet know what the new core set will contain (this is the foundational card pool and is free to use for all players), but it's clear that this card has a tonne of potential to see play, and the other Colossal cards that have been revealed so far look extremely promising too.

Elsewhere in the set, there's another new mechanic - Dredge - which lets players look at the bottom three cards of their deck, and choose one to bring to the top, and a brand new minion type - Naga. Sure, there are a number of Naga cards already in Hearthstone, but they're now a tribe like mechs or beasts, with their own spell-focused synergies. You can see all the cards that were revealed with the set's initial announcement in the slideshow below, and as more are revealed, be sure to check Hearthstone's official card collection page to see all the latest.

Cam Shea has worked at IGN since before the before times, and has covered Hearthstone since it was gleam in Ben Brode's eye. When he's not playing games he's mixing records.

Hearthstone's next expansion, Voyage to the Sunken City, is coming on April 12 in NA and April 13 in ANZ, and has a colourful nautical theme based around the ancient city of Zin-Azshari, which (according to World of Warcraft lore) was sent to the bottom of the ocean in the cataclysm. (More details in our annoucement article from yesterday.) Across the set's 135 cards you'll find vengeful Naga, sunken treasure, pirates, sea monsters and more. Today, we're going to showcase two of those elements, with Nellie, the Great Thresher, a brand new legendary for Warrior.

As you can see, Nellie is one of the new Colossal creatures, which means that it's too big to fit on one card. It's a Colossal +1, so summons one additional appendage when it hits the board - in this case, Nellie's Pirate Ship. A 5/5 and a 2/6 taunt for seven mana is nothing to sniff at, but what makes Nellie so powerful is its battlecry, which gives you three separate Discovers (choose one card out of three) of pirate minions, which are then added as a deathrattle reward to Nellie's Pirate Ship. When Nellie's Pirate Ship is destroyed, they're then added to your hand, and cost one mana each. So if you're able to find a Mr Smite or two, Nellie's Pirate Ship can represent quite a lot of very cheap damage from hand.

We don't really know what the Standard Hearthstone landscape will be like after rotation (which happens when Voyage to the Sunken City is released, and sees Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire leave the format), particularly since we don't yet know what the new core set will contain (this is the foundational card pool and is free to use for all players), but it's clear that this card has a tonne of potential to see play, and the other Colossal cards that have been revealed so far look extremely promising too.

Elsewhere in the set, there's another new mechanic - Dredge - which lets players look at the bottom three cards of their deck, and choose one to bring to the top, and a brand new minion type - Naga. Sure, there are a number of Naga cards already in Hearthstone, but they're now a tribe like mechs or beasts, with their own spell-focused synergies. You can see all the cards that were revealed with the set's initial announcement in the slideshow below, and as more are revealed, be sure to check Hearthstone's official card collection page to see all the latest.

Cam Shea has worked at IGN since before the before times, and has covered Hearthstone since it was gleam in Ben Brode's eye. When he's not playing games he's mixing records.

The Media Indie Exchange (MIX) is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2022, and to honor the milestone of when its first-ever event was held at IGN’s offices in at GDC 2021, it is kicking off a year full of indie game goodness with both the MIX Online Showcase and the Black Voices in Gaming stream.

IGN is carrying both streams and, as usual, this watch guide will provide you with everything you need to know to watch the shows, including when they start, a list of places you can watch them with us, and what you can expect to see at the shows.

The MIX Online Showcase and the Black Voices in Gaming Stream Start Time

The MIX Online Showcase will take place on Tuesday, March 22, at 10am PT/1pm ET/5pm GMT. If you live in Australia, that translates to Wednesday, March 23, at 4am AEDT.

The Black Voices in Gaming stream will follow The MIX Online Showcase on Tuesday, March 22, at 12pm PT/3pm ET/7pm GMT. If you live in Australia, that translates to Wednesday, March 23, at 6am AEDT.

Where to Watch the MIX Online Showcase and Black Voices in Gaming Stream

If you’re interested in watching the MIX Online Showcase and the Black Voices in Gaming stream, we’ll be hosting the events 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 Facebook Channel
• IGN’s Twitter
• IGN's Twitch Channel
• IGN’s Youtube Channel
• IGN's TikTok
• 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

The MIX Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary in 2022

As previously mentioned, The MIX is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2022 and co-founder and director Justin Woodward spoke with IGN about how he and his team have been highlighting incredible indie games for nearly a decade.

“In 10 years we have come a long way with The MIX,” Woodward said. “We went from putting together an intimate showcase with a couple of kegs and a couple of dozen indie games where it was hosted in the IGN lunchroom to sold-out music venues in Seattle and traveling to Kyoto in order to put together a MIX VIP showcase.

“It has been an amazing journey where we have been able to help hundreds of our fellow developers excel in their visibility efforts, cultivating meaningful business connections and lifelong friendships in the process. We look forward to evolving The MIX and creating a larger platform in order to continue to support devs and showcase dope games.”

In 2011, Woodward and his development studio Interabang Entertainment took part in the IGN Indie Open House, which was an accelerator that allowed indie developers to create the games they’ve always wanted to make. It also allowed them to pitch to the press and publishers and get them ready to present at shows like E3.

In 2012, Woodward and the team were more involved in the organization of the program, and the Indie Open House teams asked IGN if they could put together an untitled mixer in the cafeteria. To make a long story short, it was a huge success and a couple hundred people showed up to what would end up officially becoming the Media Indie Exchange.

Since then, The MIX team has organized events all over the world and it shows no signs of stopping in its quest to highlight indie developers and their games. Here at IGN, we couldn’t be happier for their success, and look forward to these showcases and many more.

“I fondly recall the humble beginnings of MIX,” IGN’s Chief Content Officer Peer Schneider said. “We were excited to help out indie developers by donating office space and providing a place for events where small games could be discovered — and, in some cases, become big games.”

What to Expect at The MIX Online Showcase and the Black Voices in Gaming Stream

March 22 is a big day in the world of indie games, and the festivities will kick off with The MIX Online Showcase. During the show, The MIX will help present announcements, trailers, new gameplay, and so much more for over 70 games.

Some of the games included in the show are Serial Cleaners, Princes Farmer, Card Shark, Akurra, Ak-Xolotl, Blacktop Hoops, Coromon, Time on Frog Island, Sopa, Kao the Kangaroo, Souldiers, VoidTrain, Smalland, Have a Nice Death, Restless Soul, Freshly Frosted, and more.

Following The MIX Online Showcase, the Black Voices in Gaming stream will begin. This event is all about highlighting Black voices in the gaming industry and it is “dedicated exclusively to presenting games created by Black developers, titles featuring Black protagonists, and conversations with these creators.”

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

The Media Indie Exchange (MIX) is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2022, and to honor the milestone of when its first-ever event was held at IGN’s offices in at GDC 2021, it is kicking off a year full of indie game goodness with both the MIX Online Showcase and the Black Voices in Gaming stream.

IGN is carrying both streams and, as usual, this watch guide will provide you with everything you need to know to watch the shows, including when they start, a list of places you can watch them with us, and what you can expect to see at the shows.

The MIX Online Showcase and the Black Voices in Gaming Stream Start Time

The MIX Online Showcase will take place on Tuesday, March 22, at 10am PT/1pm ET/5pm GMT. If you live in Australia, that translates to Wednesday, March 23, at 4am AEDT.

The Black Voices in Gaming stream will follow The MIX Online Showcase on Tuesday, March 22, at 12pm PT/3pm ET/7pm GMT. If you live in Australia, that translates to Wednesday, March 23, at 6am AEDT.

Where to Watch the MIX Online Showcase and Black Voices in Gaming Stream

If you’re interested in watching the MIX Online Showcase and the Black Voices in Gaming stream, we’ll be hosting the events 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 Facebook Channel
• IGN’s Twitter
• IGN's Twitch Channel
• IGN’s Youtube Channel
• IGN's TikTok
• 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

The MIX Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary in 2022

As previously mentioned, The MIX is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2022 and co-founder and director Justin Woodward spoke with IGN about how he and his team have been highlighting incredible indie games for nearly a decade.

“In 10 years we have come a long way with The MIX,” Woodward said. “We went from putting together an intimate showcase with a couple of kegs and a couple of dozen indie games where it was hosted in the IGN lunchroom to sold-out music venues in Seattle and traveling to Kyoto in order to put together a MIX VIP showcase.

“It has been an amazing journey where we have been able to help hundreds of our fellow developers excel in their visibility efforts, cultivating meaningful business connections and lifelong friendships in the process. We look forward to evolving The MIX and creating a larger platform in order to continue to support devs and showcase dope games.”

In 2011, Woodward and his development studio Interabang Entertainment took part in the IGN Indie Open House, which was an accelerator that allowed indie developers to create the games they’ve always wanted to make. It also allowed them to pitch to the press and publishers and get them ready to present at shows like E3.

In 2012, Woodward and the team were more involved in the organization of the program, and the Indie Open House teams asked IGN if they could put together an untitled mixer in the cafeteria. To make a long story short, it was a huge success and a couple hundred people showed up to what would end up officially becoming the Media Indie Exchange.

Since then, The MIX team has organized events all over the world and it shows no signs of stopping in its quest to highlight indie developers and their games. Here at IGN, we couldn’t be happier for their success, and look forward to these showcases and many more.

“I fondly recall the humble beginnings of MIX,” IGN’s Chief Content Officer Peer Schneider said. “We were excited to help out indie developers by donating office space and providing a place for events where small games could be discovered — and, in some cases, become big games.”

What to Expect at The MIX Online Showcase and the Black Voices in Gaming Stream

March 22 is a big day in the world of indie games, and the festivities will kick off with The MIX Online Showcase. During the show, The MIX will help present announcements, trailers, new gameplay, and so much more for over 70 games.

Some of the games included in the show are Serial Cleaners, Princes Farmer, Card Shark, Akurra, Ak-Xolotl, Blacktop Hoops, Coromon, Time on Frog Island, Sopa, Kao the Kangaroo, Souldiers, VoidTrain, Smalland, Have a Nice Death, Restless Soul, Freshly Frosted, and more.

Following The MIX Online Showcase, the Black Voices in Gaming stream will begin. This event is all about highlighting Black voices in the gaming industry and it is “dedicated exclusively to presenting games created by Black developers, titles featuring Black protagonists, and conversations with these creators.”

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