Author: Game Infliction

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone have a new premium emote that lets you hide in a cardboard box — and of course players are abusing it.

Call of Duty has seen its fair share of microtransactions dubbed pay-to-win by the community. The infamous Roze skin, which was incredibly hard to see, ended up being changed for battle royale Warzone. The developers of Call of Duty recently ended up changing a Terminator skin for similar reasons. But this cardboard box emote may be the most pay-to-win of them all.

It’s part of the premium 2,400 COD Points Cardboard Commando bundle, which turns your soldier and weapons into cardboard. Fun at first glance, and certainly in-keeping with Call of Duty’s penchant for goofy skins. But it’s the Surprise Gift emote included in the bundle that has raised more than a few eyebrows within the Call of Duty community.

A former PlayStation narrative director is petitioning the creators of the Until Dawn movie to credit the game’s writers in the film.

As spotted by Eurogamer, Kim MacAskill’s petition is “calling upon Sony, a leader in the gaming world, to set a precedent for change by revising the Until Dawn credits” by “asking for them to revise their approach to IP crediting, particularly in transmedia adaptations.”

“I’ve just left Until Dawn where the film director, writers, etc, were all credited, but instead of [Sony] mentioning the leading game dev(s) who created this ICONIC game you’re clearly proud of, [Sony] just wrapped it as ‘based on the Sony game’,” MacAskill wrote.

“They spent years breaking their brains to make something incredible, and the world DESERVES to know their names… instead… No credit. No thanks. No honor.”

MacAskill went into more detail on a LinkedIn post, asking what the difference was between HBO’s adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us — which credits both the studio itself and Neil Druckmann as both writer and director — and the Until Dawn movie.

The director said Sony execs “firmly told” her that “the IP I personally created would NEVER be credited to me as I was salaried (no royalties, no control, no ownership, no acknowledgement)”, addressing Sony directly with: “I am struggling with the difference between Neil Druckmann’s favor and that of others in your company.”

The creative director said that when she enquired about the rights to the intellectual property she created while working for Sony, a company rep told her the megacorp “understood” her position but “this is not something that [Sony] can do,” and that it was “nothing personal” — “this is not specifically for you, but this is completely firm-wide.”

“All I wanted was to be credited and to potentially have enough ownership for adaptation,” she added.

“I am asking for [Sony] to revise their approach to IP crediting, particularly in transmedia adaptations,” the director wrote on the petition. “Providing an executive producer credit or acknowledgment equivalent would honor those creators whose visions and passion have given birth to these incredible stories and design, proving transformational in the entertainment landscape.

“Let’s advocate not only for the Until Dawn creators but for the integrity of the industry. By ensuring that creative voices are properly recognized, we can continue to inspire future generations of creators who dare to dream beyond current constraints. Sign this petition to urge Sony… and stand with all game creators… demanding well-deserved recognition in transmedia narratives.”

In related news, we reported earlier today that it appears one of the PlayStation Plus games for May 2025 will be Until Dawn Remastered. It could be a means of promoting the new Until Dawn movie, which released just ahead of the weekend. It didn’t particularly impress us; we awarded it 5/10, writing in IGN’s Until Dawn movie review: “Until Dawn is more disappointing than deadly, leaving all the promise of the horror game behind for a jumble of horror-movie re-creations.”

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

It looks like one of the PlayStation Plus games for May 2025 has leaked.

While nothing is confirmed by Sony yet, rumor has it teen slasher horror romp Until Dawn will be a free download for PlayStation players in May. Although the key art certainly suggests it’s the Until Dawn Remastered that’s coming, rather than the 2014 original, it’s not entirely clear; we’ll confirm just as soon as we know for sure.

PlayStation Plus is an online gaming service for PlayStation platforms that includes free monthly games, limited-time trials, online multiplayer, and member-exclusive discounts. It also includes a catalog of hundreds of current and classic games for Extra and Premium members, although the monthly free games are available to all players, regardless of their subscription tier.

As speculated by some members of the PlayStation subreddit (thanks, PushSquare), this could be a means of promoting the new Until Dawn movie, which released just ahead of the weekend. It didn’t particularly impress us; we awarded it 5/10, writing in IGN’s Until Dawn movie review: “Until Dawn is more disappointing than deadly, leaving all the promise of the horror game behind for a jumble of horror-movie re-creations.”

That’s the same score we awarded the 2024 remaster, calling the game an “overpriced and under-featured remake that seems less like a must-have bit of moonlit murder and something closer to daylight robbery” in IGN’s Until Dawn Remastered review. Supermassive’s 2015 original fared much better, getting a 7.5/10 from us.

22 games are set to be pulled from the PlayStation Plus library next month, including Grand Theft Auto 5, Payday 2: Crimewave Edition, and the last playable versions of first-party titles Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2. As a result, Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2 will now completely disappear for modern consoles.

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

The following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2, episode 3.

This week’s episode of The Last of Us takes a moment to grieve and breathe after last week’s showstopper. It also takes a little detour from the game; much of this episode depicts the reaction of Jackson’s people to the events they’ve just suffered, and their vote on if they should pursue Abby or not. This is all original material for the show, and so there’s actually very few scenes in this episode that are taken straight from the game.

There are four key sequences from this episode that are recreations of moments from the game, and here we’ve compared them against the original source material, analysing what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. You can see both versions in the video above, or read on below for our written explanations.

Joel’s House

Following the harrowing murder of Joel in episode 2, Ellie visits her deceased father-figure’s house to mourn. As in the game, the front yard is covered in flowers left by the residents of Jackson. Unlike the game, though, Ellie enters alone rather than accompanied by Dina.

The show’s version of Joel’s house features many of the same props that decorated this location in the game, including his workshop room full of carved animals. In Joel’s bedroom, the bed linen is the same blue and white sheets. More importantly there’s the same red box on the bed that contains his signature items: the broken watch and his revolver. Ellie takes these and holsters the revolver in the waistband of her jeans, just as she does in the game.

Tommy’s Plans

The need for revenge begins to rise when Ellie talks to Tommy about what happened. While the broad strokes of this scene are the same in both show and game, particularly in tone, the actual setting and words are not recreated one-to-one. In both versions Ellie is angry and frustrated that Tommy wants to be more sensible about their next move, and so tonally the scenes match. However, where in the game this conversation takes place in a quiet, private room between just the two of them, in the show it’s conducted out in the open with Dina present.

In terms of dialogue there are close matches – both versions of Ellie say that Joel “would be halfway to Seattle by now” if the situation was reversed. Both versions of Tommy also note that Jackson would be left vulnerable, although in the show this is a clear reference to the prior episode’s horde attack rather than the game’s more general assessment. In both scenarios Tommy says it’s ultimately up to Maria as to if they get to hunt down Abby, but in the show he says that it will need to go to a full town vote, while the game version says he expects there will be “folks she can spare”.

The Ride to Seattle

Ellie and Dina head out to Seattle on horseback in search of Abby and her group. In both versions Dina asks Ellie to recall the first person she killed, and Ellie proceeds to explain how she saved Joel from a bandit in the first game/season. While the show’s dialogue is not an exact match to the game’s script, the details are largely the same – Joel was attacked and Ellie pulled the trigger to save him. The conversation is longer in the game, however, as Dina reciprocates with her own story of her first kill.

Later, the pair discover an overgrown car, which they consider a sign that they’re finally close to Seattle. This is, again, broadly similar to a moment from the game, even if the dialogue line is not a one-to-one match.

6 out of 10

Later in the episode we see Ellie and Dina camped out in a tent. Before lights out, Dina asks Ellie a question: how would she rate their kiss at the dance out of 10? This moment is a recreation of a scene from the game, but the timing and content of this conversation is notably different to the original game version.

In the game, Dina asks Ellie to rate the kiss while they are smoking marijuana at Eugene’s weed den. As we know from last week’s episode, this doesn’t happen in the show since it is Jesse, not Dina, who accompanies Ellie to Eugene’s den. It’s not just the time and location of this exchange that is altered, though. In the show, Ellie says that she’d rate the kiss a six, something that Dina is playfully upset about. In the game, it’s flipped – Ellie hesitates to answer, and so Dina says she’d score it a “solid six”. The two interpretations showcase very different dynamics; Dina in the game is much more confident and knows how to pull Ellie’s strings – she enjoys teasing her. Dina in the show, meanwhile, is depicted as more “teenage” in her approach, which emphasises the “young girls in the apocalypse” element of their love story.

For more from The Last of Us, check out our spoiler-free season two review and our spoiler-filled review of the third episode. We’ve also looked at how the changes to Abby have affected the way the show handled Joel’s death, and spoken to Kaitlyn Dever about how her version of Abby is “so much more” than her rage.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.