Monthly Archives: September 2020
Critical Role: Exclusive Art From Dark Horse’s New Prequel Comic
Update: IGN can now exclusively reveal the final cover art for the first chapter of Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Series III.
Check out the new image from artist Minttu Hynninen below:
The first issue is now slated for release on February 10, 2021.
The original story is below:
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Dark Horse Comics is continuing to expand on the massively popular web series Critical Role. IGN can exclusively reveal first details on the latest Critical Role prequel comic, dubbed Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Series III.
The latest entry in the Vox Machina Origins series reunites the full creative team from last time around, with series creator/host Matthew Mercer co-writing with Jody Houser, Olivia Samson drawing the book, MASSYK coloring and Ariana Maher lettering.
Unfortunately, the final cover for issue #1 hasn't been released yet, but we'll update this story once Dark Horse makes it available.
For those unfamiliar with Critical Role, the weekly web series features Mercer acting as host and Dungeon Master for a long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaign, with a group of professional voice actors and recurring celebrity guests taking part in the game and helping flesh out the fantasy realm of Exandria. The original Critical Role campaign spanned 115 episodes between 2015 and 2017, while Mercer and his cast have been slowly making their way through a second campaign since 2018 (with the series temporarily going on hiatus earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
So where does the comic fit in? As the title suggests, the various Vox Machina Origins books have focused on the titular cast of fantasy adventurers from the original campaign, with these books fleshing out their early adventures before the events of that campaign. Series III opens with our heroes enjoying a well-deserved vacation in luxurious Westruun. Unfortunately, a lack of funds forces the group to join an underground fight club, which then puts them on the hunt for a missing child.
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Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Series III #1 is scheduled for release on December 9, 2020 [update - the release date has now been pushed back to February 10, 2021]. If you need to get caught up on the previous two volumes, Dark Horse will be collecting both in an oversized hardcover called Critical Role: Vox Machine Origins Library Edition Vol. 1, which hits comic shops on November 11 and bookstores on November 24.
Critical Role has grown to become a full-fledged multimedia franchise in recent years. Wizards of the Coast released a Critical Role-themed D&D book earlier in 2020. The Critical Role team also successfully Kickstarted Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina animated series, which earned over $11 million by the campaign’s end and an eventual two-season series order from Amazon Prime Video.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/04/05/critical-role-kickstarter-breaks-records"]
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
The first issue is now slated for release on February 10, 2021.
The original story is below:
[poilib element="accentDivider"]
Dark Horse Comics is continuing to expand on the massively popular web series Critical Role. IGN can exclusively reveal first details on the latest Critical Role prequel comic, dubbed Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Series III.
The latest entry in the Vox Machina Origins series reunites the full creative team from last time around, with series creator/host Matthew Mercer co-writing with Jody Houser, Olivia Samson drawing the book, MASSYK coloring and Ariana Maher lettering.
Unfortunately, the final cover for issue #1 hasn't been released yet, but we'll update this story once Dark Horse makes it available.
For those unfamiliar with Critical Role, the weekly web series features Mercer acting as host and Dungeon Master for a long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaign, with a group of professional voice actors and recurring celebrity guests taking part in the game and helping flesh out the fantasy realm of Exandria. The original Critical Role campaign spanned 115 episodes between 2015 and 2017, while Mercer and his cast have been slowly making their way through a second campaign since 2018 (with the series temporarily going on hiatus earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
So where does the comic fit in? As the title suggests, the various Vox Machina Origins books have focused on the titular cast of fantasy adventurers from the original campaign, with these books fleshing out their early adventures before the events of that campaign. Series III opens with our heroes enjoying a well-deserved vacation in luxurious Westruun. Unfortunately, a lack of funds forces the group to join an underground fight club, which then puts them on the hunt for a missing child.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-best-comics-of-the-decade-2010-2019&captions=true"]
Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Series III #1 is scheduled for release on December 9, 2020 [update - the release date has now been pushed back to February 10, 2021]. If you need to get caught up on the previous two volumes, Dark Horse will be collecting both in an oversized hardcover called Critical Role: Vox Machine Origins Library Edition Vol. 1, which hits comic shops on November 11 and bookstores on November 24.
Critical Role has grown to become a full-fledged multimedia franchise in recent years. Wizards of the Coast released a Critical Role-themed D&D book earlier in 2020. The Critical Role team also successfully Kickstarted Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina animated series, which earned over $11 million by the campaign’s end and an eventual two-season series order from Amazon Prime Video.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/04/05/critical-role-kickstarter-breaks-records"]
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.Xbox Series S: 8 New Details We’ve Learned
With Xbox Series S now finally out in the wild, we're learning more about exactly what form Microsoft's lower-priced next-gen console will take, and how the company thinks of it amid the growing Xbox family of consoles.
In a presentation by Xbox System Architect Andrew Goossen and subsequent interview with Xbox director of program management Jason Ronald, we learned a number of new details about Series S, from how it's always been a part of the plans for Microsoft, to the new features it will continue to get post-launch.
Check out the new details we've learned below:
- Planning for Xbox Series X and S began in 2016, and Microsoft planned to release two consoles at different price points from the very beginning of that process. The idea was always to have both offer the same core experience, while allowing developers to scale games to work on both models
- Games on Xbox Series S should be around 30% smaller than their Series X equivalents due to reduced texture resolutions.
- Microsoft doesn't think Series S will limit developers as the console generation goes on, because of how the "core capabilities are the same between the two consoles" (per Jason Ronald), as well as the number of options developers have for how to allocate resources on the console.
- While the console aims for a 1440p resolution, it's capable of outputting a full 4K signal, and developers can choose to use that capability if they wish. They can also output at a lower resolution in order to utilise more complex graphical effects.
- Series S and X will launch with Dolby Vision support for Netflix, Disney+ and Vudu, with Dolby Vision support for games coming to both consoles in Spring 2021.
- Series S is capable of running the same ray tracing effects as Series X, rather than a limited version, but developers can choose to turn it off to allow for other effects.
- Microsoft has no plans to stop supporting Series S later in the generation, seeing the Xbox Series consoles as a single family of devices.
- Ronald reiterated that, while Series S will not run Xbox One X enhanced games, it will apply its own improvements to last-gen titles, including "improved texture filtering, higher, more consistent frame rates, faster loading times, and even things like auto-HDR." The team will also be looking at further enhancing specific games from the Xbox One back catalogue for Series S, using new techniques to enhance resolution, and potentially double frame rates.
Xbox Series S: 8 New Details We’ve Learned
With Xbox Series S now finally out in the wild, we're learning more about exactly what form Microsoft's lower-priced next-gen console will take, and how the company thinks of it amid the growing Xbox family of consoles.
In a presentation by Xbox System Architect Andrew Goossen and subsequent interview with Xbox director of program management Jason Ronald, we learned a number of new details about Series S, from how it's always been a part of the plans for Microsoft, to the new features it will continue to get post-launch.
Check out the new details we've learned below:
- Planning for Xbox Series X and S began in 2016, and Microsoft planned to release two consoles at different price points from the very beginning of that process. The idea was always to have both offer the same core experience, while allowing developers to scale games to work on both models
- Games on Xbox Series S should be around 30% smaller than their Series X equivalents due to reduced texture resolutions.
- Microsoft doesn't think Series S will limit developers as the console generation goes on, because of how the "core capabilities are the same between the two consoles" (per Jason Ronald), as well as the number of options developers have for how to allocate resources on the console.
- While the console aims for a 1440p resolution, it's capable of outputting a full 4K signal, and developers can choose to use that capability if they wish. They can also output at a lower resolution in order to utilise more complex graphical effects.
- Series S and X will launch with Dolby Vision support for Netflix, Disney+ and Vudu, with Dolby Vision support for games coming to both consoles in Spring 2021.
- Series S is capable of running the same ray tracing effects as Series X, rather than a limited version, but developers can choose to turn it off to allow for other effects.
- Microsoft has no plans to stop supporting Series S later in the generation, seeing the Xbox Series consoles as a single family of devices.
- Ronald reiterated that, while Series S will not run Xbox One X enhanced games, it will apply its own improvements to last-gen titles, including "improved texture filtering, higher, more consistent frame rates, faster loading times, and even things like auto-HDR." The team will also be looking at further enhancing specific games from the Xbox One back catalogue for Series S, using new techniques to enhance resolution, and potentially double frame rates.
Xbox Series S Game Sizes Will Be Smaller Than on Series X
Game install sizes are bigger than ever, so it’s not unreasonable to be worried about the storage capacity of the all-digital Xbox Series S. The lesser next-gen Xbox has a 512GB SSD, compared to a full 1TB on the more powerful Xbox Series X, however one saving grace is that game sizes will be smaller on the Series S.
In an interview with IGN, Xbox director of program management Jason Ronald confirmed that game install sizes will be approximately 30% smaller on the Series S than on the Series X. This is due to the reduced resolution texture packages needed for games on the Series S, which will be targeting 1440p resolution instead of 4K on the Series X.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=confirmed-xbox-series-x-games&captions=true"]
“With a performance target of 1440p at 60 fps, our expectation is that developers will not ship their highest level mipmaps to Xbox Series S, which will reduce the size of the games,” Ronald said. “Ultimately the controls in the developer's hands. We've had this technology for a while that allows developers to intelligently choose which assets to install on which device they're playing on. So the flexibility is in the developers’ hands to make sure the right assets are there.”
In the interview, Ronald also discussed how the Xbox Series S’s lower power won’t limit developers.
Xbox Series X and Series S preorders go live on September 22.
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Xbox Series S Game Sizes Will Be Smaller Than on Series X
Game install sizes are bigger than ever, so it’s not unreasonable to be worried about the storage capacity of the all-digital Xbox Series S. The lesser next-gen Xbox has a 512GB SSD, compared to a full 1TB on the more powerful Xbox Series X, however one saving grace is that game sizes will be smaller on the Series S.
In an interview with IGN, Xbox director of program management Jason Ronald confirmed that game install sizes will be approximately 30% smaller on the Series S than on the Series X. This is due to the reduced resolution texture packages needed for games on the Series S, which will be targeting 1440p resolution instead of 4K on the Series X.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=confirmed-xbox-series-x-games&captions=true"]
“With a performance target of 1440p at 60 fps, our expectation is that developers will not ship their highest level mipmaps to Xbox Series S, which will reduce the size of the games,” Ronald said. “Ultimately the controls in the developer's hands. We've had this technology for a while that allows developers to intelligently choose which assets to install on which device they're playing on. So the flexibility is in the developers’ hands to make sure the right assets are there.”
In the interview, Ronald also discussed how the Xbox Series S’s lower power won’t limit developers.
Xbox Series X and Series S preorders go live on September 22.
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Xbox Says Developers Won’t be Limited by Series S Lower Power
The Xbox Series S is a lower powered console than the Xbox Series X, but Microsoft doesn’t think that will be a limiting factor for developers throughout the upcoming console generation. In an interview with IGN, Xbox director of program management Jason Ronald explained how the Series S’s powerful CPU and fast SSD will allow it to deliver the same game experience as the Series X, simply with scaled back visuals.
“The core capabilities are the same between the two consoles,” Ronald said. “Variable rate shading, DirectX Raytracing, the entire Xbox Velocity Architecture – we wanted to make sure those capabilities were there, but ultimately, it’s within the developer’s control to do what’s right for their individual game.”
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=xbox-series-s-and-series-x-comparison-photos&captions=true"]
Xbox Velocity Architecture refers to the NVMe SSD inside both the Series X and Series S, which will allow for drastically faster load times on the new consoles. In theory, it’ll also change how developers can approach things like level design, as things like long corridors and unnecessary elevator rides will no longer be necessary to hide the long load times required of slower old-gen spinning-disk hard drives.
“The areas that usually create the biggest challenges for developers – things like CPU performance and I/O performance – those are the things that were really critically important to us to make sure that they were symmetrical across Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X, because those are the areas that are really going to unlock kind of that next level of game design and that transformative gaming experience,” Ronald said. “And then developers already are really good at being able to scale up and scale down on the visual quality as they see fit for their players.”
Ronald also confirmed that while the Series S will target 1440p resolution, the system is fully capable of outputting a 4K signal, and it will be up to game developers to decide what native resolution they want their games rendering at.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=confirmed-xbox-series-x-games&captions=true"]
“The way that we designed the developer environment was that a developer would ideally target 4K at 60 fps, up to a 120 fps on Xbox Series X, and then they could easily scale down to the Xbox Series S by reducing the rendering resolution to 1440p,” Ronald said. “But they're not locked into that. So the developer can choose to use the power of the Xbox Series S in the way that they see fit. So in some cases they may choose to render at, say, 1080p, and then use the extra GPU headroom for things like better anti-aliasing or better graphical effects. On the other hand, the developer may choose to go after something like 120 fps, if that's right for the title, and that might result in resolution tradeoffs.”
Developer choice will extend to things like ray tracing on the Series S as well. The system is capable of doing ray tracing, but it will be up to developers to decide if that’s how they want to use the available GPU power.
“In some cases with a lower resolution, they'll be able to deliver the same ray tracing experience they have on Series X,” Ronald said, “and other cases, they may choose to disable that in order to turn on other effects that improve the overall experience.”
In other words, gamers should expect the same games, whether they’re playing on Series X or Series S, with resolution and graphical quality being the primary differentiation. Thankfully, that lower resolution will mean that game install sizes will be smaller on the Series S.
Xbox Series X and Series S pre-orders go live on September 22.
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Xbox Says Developers Won’t be Limited by Series S Lower Power
The Xbox Series S is a lower powered console than the Xbox Series X, but Microsoft doesn’t think that will be a limiting factor for developers throughout the upcoming console generation. In an interview with IGN, Xbox director of program management Jason Ronald explained how the Series S’s powerful CPU and fast SSD will allow it to deliver the same game experience as the Series X, simply with scaled back visuals.
“The core capabilities are the same between the two consoles,” Ronald said. “Variable rate shading, DirectX Raytracing, the entire Xbox Velocity Architecture – we wanted to make sure those capabilities were there, but ultimately, it’s within the developer’s control to do what’s right for their individual game.”
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=xbox-series-s-and-series-x-comparison-photos&captions=true"]
Xbox Velocity Architecture refers to the NVMe SSD inside both the Series X and Series S, which will allow for drastically faster load times on the new consoles. In theory, it’ll also change how developers can approach things like level design, as things like long corridors and unnecessary elevator rides will no longer be necessary to hide the long load times required of slower old-gen spinning-disk hard drives.
“The areas that usually create the biggest challenges for developers – things like CPU performance and I/O performance – those are the things that were really critically important to us to make sure that they were symmetrical across Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X, because those are the areas that are really going to unlock kind of that next level of game design and that transformative gaming experience,” Ronald said. “And then developers already are really good at being able to scale up and scale down on the visual quality as they see fit for their players.”
Ronald also confirmed that while the Series S will target 1440p resolution, the system is fully capable of outputting a 4K signal, and it will be up to game developers to decide what native resolution they want their games rendering at.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=confirmed-xbox-series-x-games&captions=true"]
“The way that we designed the developer environment was that a developer would ideally target 4K at 60 fps, up to a 120 fps on Xbox Series X, and then they could easily scale down to the Xbox Series S by reducing the rendering resolution to 1440p,” Ronald said. “But they're not locked into that. So the developer can choose to use the power of the Xbox Series S in the way that they see fit. So in some cases they may choose to render at, say, 1080p, and then use the extra GPU headroom for things like better anti-aliasing or better graphical effects. On the other hand, the developer may choose to go after something like 120 fps, if that's right for the title, and that might result in resolution tradeoffs.”
Developer choice will extend to things like ray tracing on the Series S as well. The system is capable of doing ray tracing, but it will be up to developers to decide if that’s how they want to use the available GPU power.
“In some cases with a lower resolution, they'll be able to deliver the same ray tracing experience they have on Series X,” Ronald said, “and other cases, they may choose to disable that in order to turn on other effects that improve the overall experience.”
In other words, gamers should expect the same games, whether they’re playing on Series X or Series S, with resolution and graphical quality being the primary differentiation. Thankfully, that lower resolution will mean that game install sizes will be smaller on the Series S.
Xbox Series X and Series S pre-orders go live on September 22.
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Spawn Movie: Script Taking On a New Direction
Fans have been waiting for the long awaited Spawn reboot ever since Todd McFarlane announced that he would be collaborating with Blumhouse to bring the character back to the silver screen, but it looks like the wait will have to be a bit longer than expected, with the script not deemed ready by producer Jason Blum.
In an interview with Abu Dhabi Culture as part of their #CulturAllConversations series, Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions has said that the Spawn live-action movie with Jamie Foxx is still not quite ready, with the script taking a completely new direction. Blum also reiterated that the film would be R-rated.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/10/07/mcfarlane-wants-his-spawn-reboot-to-make-children-cry-ign-access"]
“The script has got to be right. There is a real desire [for the movie], you have Jamie Foxx, and Spawn, and Todd McFarlane, and like, 'You've just gotta make the movie!'", Blum said. “I think probably I've frustrated Todd a little bit, and I've just said, like, we don’t just have to make the movie, you know we have to make the right movie, with the right script. And it’s a hard script to get right – and, you know, the recent events in the United States around race have made it even harder to get it right. You've got to do it really carefully and thoughtfully.”
“So, we're going to make the movie, definitely. I don’t know when we are going to make the movie. We are actually kind of re-tackling... we're going down a different direction with the story than we had in the past, but we are not going to make the movie until that script is great. But one of these days it will be great and we will make it.”
The movie was announced in 2017 by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, which subsequently signed Jamie Foxx as the titular character, as well as one of the Marvel’s Avengers, Jeremy Renner as Detective “Twitch” Williams. And while Foxx promised an update on the film earlier in the year, it seems the movie is still quite a bit away from reaching theaters..
While it’s disappointing to hear that the Spawn movie is still in the works so long after announcement, it’s encouraging to see that it isn’t being rushed into production until the story is both culturally sensitive and engaging to the fans.
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Mufaddal Fakhruddin is a Senior Editor at IGN Middle East.
Spawn Movie: Script Taking On a New Direction
Fans have been waiting for the long awaited Spawn reboot ever since Todd McFarlane announced that he would be collaborating with Blumhouse to bring the character back to the silver screen, but it looks like the wait will have to be a bit longer than expected, with the script not deemed ready by producer Jason Blum.
In an interview with Abu Dhabi Culture as part of their #CulturAllConversations series, Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions has said that the Spawn live-action movie with Jamie Foxx is still not quite ready, with the script taking a completely new direction. Blum also reiterated that the film would be R-rated.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/10/07/mcfarlane-wants-his-spawn-reboot-to-make-children-cry-ign-access"]
“The script has got to be right. There is a real desire [for the movie], you have Jamie Foxx, and Spawn, and Todd McFarlane, and like, 'You've just gotta make the movie!'", Blum said. “I think probably I've frustrated Todd a little bit, and I've just said, like, we don’t just have to make the movie, you know we have to make the right movie, with the right script. And it’s a hard script to get right – and, you know, the recent events in the United States around race have made it even harder to get it right. You've got to do it really carefully and thoughtfully.”
“So, we're going to make the movie, definitely. I don’t know when we are going to make the movie. We are actually kind of re-tackling... we're going down a different direction with the story than we had in the past, but we are not going to make the movie until that script is great. But one of these days it will be great and we will make it.”
The movie was announced in 2017 by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, which subsequently signed Jamie Foxx as the titular character, as well as one of the Marvel’s Avengers, Jeremy Renner as Detective “Twitch” Williams. And while Foxx promised an update on the film earlier in the year, it seems the movie is still quite a bit away from reaching theaters..
While it’s disappointing to hear that the Spawn movie is still in the works so long after announcement, it’s encouraging to see that it isn’t being rushed into production until the story is both culturally sensitive and engaging to the fans.
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Mufaddal Fakhruddin is a Senior Editor at IGN Middle East.
Uncharted Movie: Mark Wahlberg May Have Confirmed Sully’s Mustache
Update (10/25/20) - Mark Wahlberg, on his Instagram, may very well have given us our first look at his version of Victor "Sully" Sullivan in the upcoming Uncharted movie that also stars Tom Holland as a younger Nathan Drake, who also gave us a first look at his character earlier this week.
In the Uncharted game series, Sully - an "American treasure hunter, fortune seeker and businessman, as well as a friend, mentor and father figure to Drake - is shown as both a younger and older man sporting a moustache. With the Uncharted movie acting as an origin story for Nathan Drake, many expected Wahlberg to sport Sully's younger look from the games, but based on these images, that maybe not be the case. There are some caveats here. It's not entirely clear if these pictures were taken during active filming - there's the chance that what's seen above is a test shot, and Wahlberg will wear a false moustache for the filming. For the sake of those working on the film, I hope so, because the initial reaction has been a mixture of shock, disbelief and gifs:| @TomHolland1996 and Mark Wahlberg shooting #Uncharted in Berlin last night pic.twitter.com/ZfjMQwawf1
— Tom Holland News (@THollandNews) September 15, 2020
I know they are young Nate and Sully but Where is Sully’s moustache ?
— Adriana Bernal (@AdrianaBernal4) September 16, 2020
No mustache, no gray in the hair, no cigar, meh
— Jacob's Quest (@JacobsQuest) September 15, 2020
It’s- It’s just Mark Wahlberg. Sully just looks like Mark Wahlberg
— Ben Diamond (@OurFutureDays) September 15, 2020
— Hulkbuster | BLM (@hulkbustar) September 15, 2020Are we looking at the newest moustache-related controversy in popular culture, after Superman's CGI-ed top lip in Justice League? Only time will tell. Then again, perhaps we should be happy to see any Uncharted movie news at all, given the film has had seven different directors attached at one time or another. Now that production has finally begun, Tom Holland says it's "everything I dreamed it would be". [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=live-action-versions-of-video-game-characters&captions=true"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.