It’s a good day for fans of the Alan Wake and Control universes. Remedy Entertainment announced today it’s partnering with Annapurna Interactive to work on film, TV, and “other audiovisual formats” based on these franchises…as well as help fund the upcoming Control 2.
In a press release, Remedy and Annapurna revealed that Annapurna would serve as a co-production and co-financing partner on Control 2. Remedy will remain focused on developing that and other games, while Annapurna takes the lead on multimedia adaptations.
“This deal with Remedy isn’t just about adapting great games—-it’s about breaking new ground in how companies can collaborate,” said Hector Sanchez, former head of Unreal Engine games business at Epic and recently-named president of interactive and new media at Annapurna.
“By backing Remedy’s move toward self-publishing, we’re putting our faith in their vision. We know from experience that Remedy is a first-class games development partner, and we’re excited to share their work with an even wider audience by bringing the Control and Alan Wake universes to film, television and beyond.”
We had a great time with Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus when it landed on Switch last month and now developer Squid Shock Studios has released the first console update to make things that bit smoother.
The main focus seems to be on pesky bugs and glitches this time around, with the studio reporting that all console versions are now in sync with what you’ll find on PC. Changes include making the map easier to read, more accurate attack animations, text tweaks and more.
Hi there! I am John Kalderon of Angry Demon Studioand we are purr-sitively thrilled to announce that Gori: Cuddly Carnage, our action-packed hack ‘n’ slash adventure, is out now!
Set in a neon-drenched futuristic world where it’s up to Gori and F.R.A.N.K, his comical and deadly sentient hoverboard, with their deadpan A.I companion, CH1-P, to execute lethal combos to slay the evil Adorable Army.
To help you land those devastating combos, here are our top tips and tricks to help you throughout your epic battle to prevent the Adorable Army from conquering the galaxy!
Don’t Stop Moving
In Gori: Cuddly Carnage you will want to make sure you’re always on the move, putting your platforming skills to the limit as you rampage through twisted landscapes filled with dangerous foes! Power slide, grind, evade and make use of your boost – it’s the best way to dodge any and all oncoming attacks.
Power Up F.R.A.N.K
As mentioned, F.R.A.N.K is a sentient hoverboard, who is both your means of transport and the ultimate weapon! Keep an eye on F.R.A.N.K’s energy to unleash powerful and devastating attacks. Be sure to utilize any rails or billboards you come across to power him up!
Get the Ultimate Combo
Keep your combo going to hit PPP rank (Pawsitively Purrfect Points!) by switching between a range of different attacks, and grinding on billboards or grind rails. Cause maximum carnage and don’t get hit to secure the best combo score!
Plan Your Attack
Saving the entire galaxy from the formidable and bloodthirsty Adorable Army is no easy feat, so when faced with a horde of enemies be sure to take out those ranged attacks first – after all, Gori is allergic to bullets!
Slay In Style
Using your extreme hoverboard parkour skills, make sure to explore every single corner of each level to find collectables to unlock radical new filters, outfits and “fur” styles for Gori!
Meow
And finally, don’t forget to press the ‘Meow’ button (for good vibes).
We are so proud to be releasing Gori: Cuddly Carnage, we hope that you have a great time skating and slashing through the twisted landscapes and meeting a host of unexpected allies in a script packed with heart and adult humor as razor-sharp as F.R.A.N.K’s blades!
Humanity has been destroyed – and it’s up to Gori, along with his deadly but wise-cracking sentient hoverboard, F.R.A.N.K, and morose A.I companion, CH1-P, to slay the evil Adorable Army with lethal combos.
Fuelled by insatiable demand, ‘Cool-Toyz Inc.’ created ‘Ultra Pets’. The ultimate companions that never hunger, never require bathroom breaks and are impervious to the ravages of time. Little did anyone expect the mutation that transformed these perfect pets into twisted toys straight from your nightmares, hell-bent on wiping out humanity.
Master explosive weaponry and devastating combos in an epic battle to prevent the Adorable Army from conquering the galaxy, and rescue Professor Y, their missing creator and only human who showed Gori and his friends love. Push your combat and platforming skills to the limits as you fight your way through twisted landscapes filled with environmental hazards, razor-sharp adult humour and a bone-crunching, pulse-pounding soundtrack.
These reluctant heroes must track down and obliterate the generals of the Adorable Army, and with the help of a wild cast of unlikely allies – discover the truth about Cool-Toyz Inc. and unravel the secrets of this thrilling, action-packed hack ‘n’ slash adventure. Get ready to unleash the cuddly carnage!
PLAY AS A BADASS CAT – One of the last prototype synthetic pets, smuggled out of Cool-Toyz Inc before destruction, Gori is cute, cuddly, yet extremely deadly.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE… – Save the galaxy with a team of the unlikeliest heroes, from F.R.A.N.K and CH1-P to a host of unexpected allies, with a script packed with heart and adult humour that’s as razor-sharp as F.R.A.N.K’s blades!
SLAY WITH STYLE – Battle the blood-thirsty hordes of the Adorable Army in fast-paced combat where your hoverboard is your weapon! Power slide, grind and spin to cause MAXIMUM carnage and high combo scores.
LEVEL UP – From neon-drenched city streets and toy factories awash with deadly toxins, to twisted carnivals and the insides of arcade machines – each level is filled with lethal environmental hazards and mutated toys to push your combat and platforming skills to their limits.
LOCK AND LOAD – This cat has claws… and a devastating arsenal of explosives, razor-sharp weaponry and unlockable moves to lay waste to the Adorable Army in the most brutal and stylish way possible.
HUNT FOR SECRETS – Use your extreme hoverboard parkour skills to explore every corner of the level for collectables that unlock radical new filters, outfits and fur-styles for Gori!
PACKED WITH GORE – Paint the town red with F.R.A.N.K’s blades as you slice and dice with gratuitous amounts of dismemberment – body horror and the most twisted toy designs you’ve ever seen!
EXPLOSIVE AND SOUNDTRACK – Skate and slay out to an original bone-crunching soundtrack bursting with energy across multiple genres.
Activision recently declassified a trove of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 intel, including hands-on with Multiplayer, round-based Zombies, and Warzone. I blasted across six new Multiplayer maps, the undead-infested Liberty Falls, and a Nuketown-inspired Resurgence map. Each Black Ops 6 mode also touts Treyarch’s new Omnimovement mechanic, adding slick fluidity to the series’ signature gunplay.
Omnimovement – Black Ops 6’s new marque mechanic is crackling with potential. You can now sprint and hold the Circle button to dive in any direction while maintaining 360-degree aiming control. By the time I wrapped my mind around the possibilities, and was diving down staircases and doing mid-air 180s to take out pursuers. Another favorite technique is to dive into an enemy-occupied room and gun them down before they can react. Better yet, Omnimovement is globally featured across MP, Zombies, and Warzone.
Global weapon loadouts and progression – Two huge quality-of-life improvements for Black Ops 6 make managing your arsenal smoother. Global weapon progression means you’ll have access to all the weapons and attachments you earn across Multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone. Additionally, any loadout or Gunsmith edits you make in one mode will be mirrored globally to the other modes.
Kill Order mode – This new mode has both teams protecting their own High-Value Target while hunting down the enemy’s HVT. Treyarch has found a slick balance between chaotic TDM-style action and a light layer of strategic, objective-based play. It’s definitely entering my regular rotation.
Body shields – Got the drop on an enemy? A new body shield mechanic lets players grab an unaware enemy for some extra protection. For a diabolical touch, Treyarch has activated proximity chat across teams to exchange words. Mind your sportsmanlike conduct! Best Play – Celebrate your team’s game-winning display or examine your downfall with the return of Best Play cams, which mark the end of the match with a third-person camera flourish.
Shoot doors to open them – A nice hands-free touch.
Treyarch’s MP design philosophy – Black Ops 6 marks a return to the studio’s MP bread and butter: small, fast, three-lane maps. The move away from large, expansive maps means you’ll always be around the corner from some combat. Prepare for 16 all-new maps at launch.
New Multiplayer Maps – I fought across six of the upcoming Core 6v6 maps during the hands-on event.
Scud – A massive, downed radar dish acts as a map reference point. Deep winding trenches, underground passages, and explosive red barrels are scattered around the map for plenty of unpredictable action.
Rewind – Firefight through a U.S. city street, with the map’s namesake being a ‘90s-era video rental store within a strip mall. Close-quarters combat breaks out amidst piles of VHS tapes, with a fast-food restaurant across the road for more intense encounters.
Skyline – A ritzy condo atop a city skyscraper. A narrow upper-floor hallway became a central point of conflict, where plenty of ranged firefights broke out, complete with a swimming pool below to dive down into when things get heated. Watch out for the perilous elevator shafts at the map’s bottom.
Babylon – These crumbling, sandy ruins are a paradise for anyone craving intimate battles in tight spaces. Pack an SMG or shotgun to help clear corners.
Derelict – Abandoned train cars fill a shattered trainyard, creating jagged pathways through the map with unique lines of sight that will keep your head on a swivel.
Round-based Zombies
Round-based returns – Treyarch resurrects to the roots of Zombies mode with players surviving waves of progressively stronger monstrosities, demanding steady progress through the map and powering up weapons to survive. The two launch maps include the claustrophobic Terminus and colorful new Liberty Falls…
Liberty Falls map – This launch map is a slice of necrotic Americana. Blast through waves of undead while exploring the small town’s vehicle-cluttered streets, the lanes of a bowling alley, motel, comic book shop, otherworldly church, and more locations. Ziplines connect the rooftop destinations of the town, creating a layer of twisty-turny paths to learn.
Shared Door Buys – Players can now pool funds to open doors and progress through Zombies maps, which means more money for powering up your gear.
Exfil or die – Risk and reward reign in round-based Zombies. Exfil offers an opportunity to end your run on a high note, or you can go down fighting in new dramatic game over outros that change dynamically depending on where and how you die. I botched my exfil, failing to clear out the zombies swarming the landing zone in time. My resulting game over involved an armored zombie grabbing onto my escaping chopper and punching it to smithereens.
Melee Macchiato Perk – This new drink powers up your punch to send zombies flying across the map with a click of R3.
Wonder Weapons – Demolish the dead with the Ray Gun, Beamsmasher, and devastating Thrustodyne Model 23. The latter is a massive, repurposed jet engine that vacuums up zombie packs and shreds them to ribbons.
Directed Mode – Need a guide through the zombie hordes? Treyarch is releasing a new Directed Mode post-launch with Season 1, which will assist players in the Main Quest up through wave 15.
Warzone
Area 99 – The launch of Black Ops 6 is accompanied by a new Resurgence map. Area 99 is the birthplace of the iconic Black Ops map, Nuketown. An abandoned facility with a decrepit retro ‘60s vibe makes for a fresh Warzone addition.
New Points of Interest – Area 99 packs 10 tantalizing spots to land. Here are a few I fought through:
Pod Dormitory – These retro-futuristic multicolored dorms are made of offshoot pod-like capsule apartments. A great spot to land and possibly snag some loot, privacy, and a vantage point.
House Factory – A destination filled with half-constructed prefabricated houses, resulting in some interesting and unexpected sightlines. This point of interest even includes a tiny replica of the iconic Nuketown map. Cute!
Nuclear Reactor – Take it from me – do not jump into the glowing green irradiated coolant.
Mannequin Assembly – Piles of damaged mannequins are scattered all around this facility, presumably destined for a weapons testing site somewhere.. Watch out for the hydraulic press above the conveyor belt, which is still active…
Other Points of Interest – Look forward to also looting Nuketown Shipping, Test Site, Bunker, Loading Bay, Cooling Towers, and Warehouse.
The weapon inspect animations are undeniably cool.
Treyarch and the rest of the COD devs have something special in store here for Black Ops fans especially, and Omnimovement is a gameplay innovation that makes the storied franchise player extra fresh once again.
But don’t just take my word for it. If you pre-ordered Black Ops 6, you’ll be able to dive into the early access beta starting tomorrow, August 30. The full game launches on October 25.
Baldur’s Gate 3 currently holds the world record for the video game with the longest script, but Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will seemingly take that award for itself when it launches in 2025.
Dan Vávra, co founder and creative director at Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 developer Warhorse Studios, said on X/Twitter that the game script currently totals 2.2 million words. Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios said on Steam its game totalled “roughly 2,000,000 words” at launch, meaning Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 could be the new champ.
“Yesterday, we were counting with our lead designer Prokop Jirsa how much we actually wrote for KCD2,” Vávra said. “So guess how big the script is? 2,200,000 words! Or 11,000 typical screenwriting pages. That’s a 100 scripts for a typical two-hour movie, or about 25 average novels.”
Some further context sees Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 come in at almost four times the length of famously long novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, which sits at 587,287 words long, and all the A Song of Ice and Fire books combined, which total 1,736,054 words from A Game of Thrones to A Dance With Dragons.
In IGN’s 8/10 review of the original, we said: “Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an RPG that does the medieval era right with a refreshingly small-scale story and strong realistic combat.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Amid the cacophony caused by Call of Duty Next, one new Black Ops 6 feature flew under the radar — but it could end up as the most impactful of all.
Black Ops 6, out October 25, 2024, has a new Body Shield feature in multiplayer that lets you grab an enemy and hold them in front of you to soak up bullets, while firing off a few rounds of your own.
We’ve seen a body shield feature in plenty of shooters over the years, but what developer Treyarch has done here is enabled voice chat between the attacker and the victim.
We heard you and can confirm that the Body Shield feature in Multiplayer will enable voice chat between the attacker and victim.
“Be nice…” the studio tweeted, perhaps in hope more than expectation.
As you’d expect from the notoriously toxic Call of Duty community, reaction is a mix of disbelief and excitement. Disbelief in that some can’t believe Treyarch actually added voice chat to the feature knowing full well the toxicity it will probably enable, excitement in that some are delighted Treyarch actually added voice chat to the feature knowing full well the toxicity it will probably enable.
You will be able to use Proximity Chat against players you turn into a human shield in #BlackOps6
Imagine getting turned to a human shield and they start whispering in your ear. pic.twitter.com/p4LjGHWNEf
And already there are fears that what’s said during Body Shield might end up getting you banned, if Activision’s AI-powered voice chat moderation picks up something it deems in breach of its rules. “What could go wrong?” wondered redditor Evisra over on the Black Ops 6 subreddit. A lot, most fans seem to predict.
Call of Duty sort of has this feature already in Warzone. In that game, The battle royale spin-off enables voice chat for deaths, so players can hear their opponent scream into the mic when they’re killed. This Body Shield feature for Black Ops 6, however, feels altogether more intimate.
Anyone who’s played Call of Duty multiplayer recently will know that there tends not to be much voice chat going on. Most play with their mic off, or are in a party chat with their friends. With this feature, Black Ops 6 might change that.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
The first time I encountered Jack King-Spooner’s work, it was when he sent me a copy of Sluggish Morss: Pattern Circus over hospital wifi late at night. The game was a bright spot in a bad time, which might seem peculiar given that Sluggish Morss often looks like a whale’s upset stomach, but it’s such a feverishly inventive creation. It blew the dust from my synapses.
The same appears true of King-Spooner’s upcoming Judero, on which he is collaborating with Soul Searching developer Talha Kaya. It casts you as a “pagan seer” armed with a big stick, who is searching the mythical Scottish borderlands for evil creatures to clobber. It looks cheerier and airier than Sluggish Morss, with a more overt emphasis on mechanics such as combat, but it has the same pickled 3am energy to it. It’s also now got a release date – 16th September – and a new trailer below.
Have you been hoping to add The Legend of Zelda animated TV show to your physical media collection? If so, we have good news! You can now preorder the complete The Legend of Zelda TV series, with all 13 episodes, on DVD at Amazon, Target, and Walmart for $13.59. This series is set to release on October 22, so you won’t have to wait too long to add it to your library, either. Head to the link below to secure your copy.
The Legend of Zelda – The Complete Series on DVD Is Up for Preorder
If you’ve been hoping to invest in a new TV to watch these shows and films on, there are plenty of TV deals to check out as Labor Day sales kick off, too. At the moment, Amazon’s Labor Day sale is live with a few Fire TVs marked down that are worth checking out. You can also have a look at our roundup of the best TV deals right now to see what else stands out. Sonos and Bose’s Labor Day sales are also live right now with some excellent sound bar deals, if you want to enhance the sound system with your new TV.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
The situation: Sumo Newcastle are making a dystopian on-foot multiplayer racing game called Deathsprint 66, in which you control one of eight Running Men hurtling through the spiked and bladed contours of a futuristic megacity. The complication: competing against other actual human beings isn’t always pleasant or desirable, especially when hurtling through the spiked and bladed contours of a futuristic megacity. The solution: Deathsprint 66 is getting a set of PvE-focussed “Episodes” in which just one human player plus optional bots hurtle through the spiked and bladed contours of a futuristic megacity.
Developer LAVABIRD and publisher First Break Labs have revealed Warside, a tactics battler that… uh… well, it’s Advance Wars, basically.
There’s no specific launch date for the game yet, but Warside will be heading to the Switch soon, boasting over 30 missions in its single-player campaign with more than 25 military unit types to deploy. Local and online co-op is available, and players can also battle each other in PvP matches.
