The Nintendo Switch Online’s Game Boy Advance library swells next week with the addition of Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.
Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, developed by HAL Laboratory and released in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance, is set in the Mirror World, a place where Kirby is split into four and must battle against Dark Meta Knight.
It stood out at the time for its Metroidvania-style gameplay and, in a first for the series, co-op multiplayer. The Switch Online version supports four-player co-op locally on one Switch console or online.
Kirby & the Amazing Mirror launches on Nintendo Switch via the $49.99 / £34.99 / €39.99 Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription on September 29.
The addition of Kirby & the Amazing Mirror to Nintendo Switch Online means its Game Boy Advance library now has 12 games. Here’s the list:
Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3
WarioWare, Inc.: Minigame Mania
Kuru Kuru Kururin
Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Metroid Fusion
Super Mario Advance
Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3
Fire Emblem
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror
Golden Sun and F-Zero Maximum Velocity are coming at some point, Nintendo has said.
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.
As players continue to dig up all of Baldur’s Gate 3’s secrets, someone has found a hidden Karlach interaction where she looks at and talks to the player directly. It’s pretty cool – and only a little bit unsettling.
As found by YouTuber Chubblot (h/t GameRant), the interaction involves fan-favorite Karlach, who’s become so popular that Larian Studios included an ending with “better closure” for her romance in Patch 2. In the recently discovered clip, everyone’s favorite Tiefling Barbarian asks the player a series of questions before having what appears to be a bit of an existential crisis as she realizes she’s locked in a video game, only to repeat the same hundred or so hours over and over again.
Just Karlach randomly becoming aware of her status as a video game character nbd. pic.twitter.com/9Vzq2n8AfW
At first, things start off pretty tame, with Karlach asking the player character if she can try a magic trick she learned in Avernus that involves discerning whether or not the person she’s talking to is telling the truth. And, instead of facing the player character, she faces the screen and stares right at it. First she asks you what your name is, then about her name.
Things take a bit of a turn after this, as she starts to become seemingly self-aware and asks the player, “What’s happening here?” Then she goes deeper still, asking questions about grand design, destiny, and the bounds of her reality. She even asks if they’ve played the game before. Finally, her spiral ends with asking the player if they’re having fun. Chubblot says yes, and she’s clearly relieved. Then things just snap back to normal, ending on, thankfully, something of a pleasant note.
If you’re deep in your Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough and wondering why you haven’t encountered this existential interaction yet, well, it’s kind of difficult to trigger. Chubblot apparently used a back-end tool to dig it up, originally assuming it was cut content. But Karlach’s voice actress herself, Samantha Beart, confirmed on X/Twitter that that’s actually not the case.
“Perhaps I’ll talk about it when someone triggers this organically,” Beart wrote, setting the record straight that the interaction is possible to trigger organically, if just very difficult. Chubblot added that he’s on his fourth playthrough and has never seen it trigger organically.
SPOILERS in the video – Karlach easter egg – you’ve been warned!
Congrats on finding this, perhaps I’ll talk about it when someone triggers this organically (rather than yanking the file and then getting confused about context)… https://t.co/0tpXsSpDFu
— Samantha Béart is Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3 ❤️🔥 (@SamanthaBeart) September 16, 2023
As far as we know, no player has found out how to trigger this scene, but we’d like to see the context for when someone does. But if you want to discover the scenes that we have found, our Karlach romance guide should be of help.
As players continue to dig up all of Baldur’s Gate 3’s secrets, someone has found a hidden Karlach interaction where she looks at and talks to the player directly. It’s pretty cool – and only a little bit unsettling.
As found by YouTuber Chubblot (h/t GameRant), the interaction involves fan-favorite Karlach, who’s become so popular that Larian Studios included an ending with “better closure” for her romance in Patch 2. In the recently discovered clip, everyone’s favourite Tiefling Barbarian asks the player a series of questions before having what appears to be a bit of an existential crisis as she realizes she’s locked in a video game, only to repeat the same hundred or so hours over and over again.
Just Karlach randomly becoming aware of her status as a video game character nbd. pic.twitter.com/9Vzq2n8AfW
At first, things start off pretty tame, with Karlach asking the player character if she can try a magic trick she learned in Avernus that involves discerning whether or not the person she’s talking to is telling the truth. And, instead of facing the player character, she faces the screen and stares right at it. First she asks you what your name is, then about her name.
Things take a bit of a turn after this, as she starts to become seemingly self-aware and asks the player, “What’s happening here?” Then she goes deeper still, asking questions about grand design, destiny, and the bounds of her reality. She even asks if they’ve played the game before. Finally, her spiral ends with asking the player if they’re having fun. Chubblot says yes, and she’s clearly relieved. Then things just snap back to normal, ending on, thankfully, something of a pleasant note.
If you’re deep in your Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough and wondering why you haven’t encountered this existential interaction yet, well, it’s kind of difficult to trigger. Chubblot apparently used a back-end tool to dig it up, originally assuming it was cut content. But Karlach’s voice actress herself, Samantha Beart, confirmed on X/Twitter that that’s actually not the case.
“Perhaps I’ll talk about it when someone triggers this organically,” Beart wrote, setting the record straight that the interaction is possible to trigger organically, if just very difficult. Chubblot added that he’s on his fourth playthrough and has never seen it trigger organically.
SPOILERS in the video – Karlach easter egg – you’ve been warned!
Congrats on finding this, perhaps I’ll talk about it when someone triggers this organically (rather than yanking the file and then getting confused about context)… https://t.co/0tpXsSpDFu
— Samantha Béart is Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3 ❤️🔥 (@SamanthaBeart) September 16, 2023
As far as we know, no player has found out how to trigger this scene, but we’d like to see the context for when someone does. But if you want to discover the scenes that we have found, our Karlach romance guide should be of help.
Resident Evil 4 sure knows how to set the tone: the remake’s intro sees Leon slowly advancing through creepy woods and rotting, ominous houses, culminating in the horrifying crescendo that is the infamous village attack. But with that groundwork already laid, The Separate Ways DLC has no need for such a slow build-up, and smartly wastes very little time shifting into high gear: we’re put up against an extremely imposing boss mere minutes after taking control of Ada Wong, the star of this show. In fact, though it only took me just over four hours to complete this side story’s seven chapters, Separate Ways rarely wastes a moment of your time, and proves to be a highly entertaining roller coaster that includes some very satisfying new takes on ideas from its original 2005 inspiration.
The story of our cool and competent covert operative runs basically parallel to that of Leon Kennedy’s quest to find the President’s daughter in a remote Spanish village, and while their paths often intersect in interesting ways, it’s the objectives that Ada follows on behalf of a familiar shadowy figure – and some revelations that should surprise even those who know the original’s story inside and out – that make her adventure worth playing.
Where the original included more than a few “Go help Leon before he dies a nasty death” tasks, the remake’s Separate Ways feel more like a believable arc of Ada having to choose between leaving emotions at the door and putting the mission first, all while lending her own brand of assistance (but still looking for a way to use the situation to her advantage later). Ada’s story in Separate Ways also has more room to breathe than it did in the 2005 version, with less focus on retelling Leon’s story from a different angle, and more about her growing reluctance to put her client before her allies.
The fights stand out from what Leon has to deal with.
Rather than having Ada largely follow Leon’s familiar story path and events as the original Separate Ways did, this particular version does an exemplary job of giving Ada her own adversaries to contend with in a variety of ways. Right from the get-go, Ada’s own private antagonist in the form of a relentless, black-robed monstrosity that stalks her for a good portion of the story. The fights you have stand out from what Leon has to deal with, even as you find yourself in familiar locations. There’s a wonderful range of encounters — from zipping between rooftops to avoid an El Gigante’s attacks, to panicked escapes from unstoppable killing machines. With Ada’s story being as condensed as it is compared to what Leon goes through, every encounter remains fast and fresh, repeat performances feel exceedingly rare, and every boss fight has a new surprise.
You’ll revisit a lot of the same locations seen by Leon during Separate Ways, and while that may not sound exciting, Capcom makes smart use of familiar terrain by changing the context — often having you fight through enemies going a different direction than Leon did — which provides new ambush points, enemy surprises, and new pathways to learn that weren’t there before. I especially liked how some places that were mostly a lull in the action for Leon, like the old factory and village chief’s house, had different foes waiting for Ada this time around.
However, Separate Ways isn’t solely content to retread old ground, and some interesting choices are made on when to send Ada off into uncharted territory. These places might not be too wildly off the beaten path, but they do make for some entertaining moments, such as turning a corner and realizing you’re actually right above an area that Leon will arrive at soon after, letting you watch a familiar cutscene from a very different point of view. While some cutscenes will obviously play out just as they did from Leon’s perspective, there were plenty of fun twists on seeing exactly what Ada and Luis were doing when one of them contacted Leon on the radio. Even though you can’t exactly alter destiny and team up directly, it was always cool to hear Leon fighting off hordes of villagers nearby, or hearing faint crying while scaling a church rooftop.
There were plenty of fun twists on seeing exactly what Ada and Luis were doing.
I’m also extremely pleased to announce that if — like me — you were bummed about certain scenic spots from the 2005 Resident Evil 4 not appearing in RE4 Remake, you may greatly enjoy how Separate Ways manages to find unexpected ways to sprinkle recognizable sewers, gondolas, and high-tech labs into Ada’s path.
Ada herself is no slouch, and benefits from all the same features that Leon enjoys in RE4 Remake in addition to some nifty new gadgets of her own. She can sneak, slit throats, parry, and kick just as well as Leon, and her unique grapple gun allows her to zip-kick straight to a stunned enemy as if she were a guest character in a Batman Arkham game. I found it incredibly useful, using it to zip past swarms looking to pin me down and scatter them like bowling pins, pulling off headshots all the while. The grapple gun also works to quickly platform across areas in a hurry, and though it only attaches in very specific spots, it gave me new ways to move around many of the larger open areas and let me pull off maneuvers like grappling across the castle’s courtyard maze to intercept a fleeing zealot, or escaping quickly when I was backed into a corner.
The Batman similarities don’t stop there.
The Batman similarities don’t stop there: when Ada isn’t zipping across rooftops like Leon Kennedy’s version of the Dark Knight, she also employs her own detective vision mode with special contact lenses to solve a few puzzles. Unfortunately, none of this is anywhere near as flashy as the grapple gun, and more than once I was told to solve the thrilling mystery of “follow these specific footprints along a very straightforward path.” Part of me wishes there was more that could be done with the gadget, but I’m also glad these simpler puzzle ideas were used sparingly enough that it didn’t ruin the pacing.
Aside from having to occasionally get her informant Luis Sera out of trouble, Ada isn’t constrained by the ebb and flow of RE4 Remake’s main story. There’s no helpless girl to haul around or somber moments of rest and reflection before the next leg of the journey, and Separate Ways takes full advantage of this by rarely dialing things down. In her quest to acquire a specimen for her client, there’s rarely a dull moment. You can still chat up the mysterious Merchant and upgrade Ada’s unique shotgun and explosive bow, and there’s oodles of treasure to find by spotting chests and hanging objects, but I appreciate that Separate Ways doesn’t try and slow its momentum with shooting range minigames (though Ada can still buy charms to gain passive bonuses, which is a great touch). There are even a few merchant requests to take on if you do want to take things slower; my favorite was trying to find a few camouflaged Novistadors in an area before moving on, which required careful scanning of walls and ceilings (with the help of a bio-sensor).
There’s rarely a dull moment.
While the story is destined to end with Leon’s showdown with Saddler, I appreciate that Capcom didn’t shy away from giving Ada a chance to shine on her own, culminating in a one-two punch of a satisfying solo boss fight, and a behind the scenes race to help Leon deliver the killing blow that matched the heart-pounding pace of Leon’s eventual escape from the island. There’s even some added context to Ada’s ending we don’t see from Leon’s point of view, and it’s left me intrigued about what the developer has in store for their inevitable Resident Evil 5 Remake.
2019 was some year. Baby Yoda. The end of Avengers and Game of Thrones. Two separate Fyre Festival documentaries. The first documented case of COVID-19. Suffice to say, there was… plenty going on. In fact, just about all we didn’t get in 2019 was a new instalment of the Forza Motorsport series.
We were due for it, so to speak. Since the arrival of the original in 2005, a new Forza Motorsport had dependably arrived every two years – across three generations of Xbox console hardware – for over a decade. But there would be no Forza Motorsport in 2019, despite the fact it had been two years since the launch of 2017’s Forza Motorsport 7. There’d be no Forza Motorsport in 2020, 2021, or 2022 either.
Building the next evolution of the Forza Motorsport series was going to take time, because the next evolution of the Forza Motorsport series had to be more than just a product. It was going to be a platform.
“We supported Forza Motorsport 7 more than we had any of the previous Motorsports,” explains Forza Racing Franchise Creative Director Dan Greenawalt. “So there were a lot of updates, there were changes – both free and paid. We really supported that game. And you could see the trend from Horizon 4 and into Horizon 5, and Horizon 3 even, where there’s just more supporting of our games going on.”
“We made some pretty fundamental changes in Forza Motorsport 7. Some based on fan feedback and reaction, and some based on things we wanted to do. But looking at Forza all up, we believed there was a new chapter; there was a time to turn the page.”
Looking at Forza all up, we believed there was a new chapter; there was a time to turn the page.
According to Greenawalt, it was time to embrace what made the Motorsport and Horizon pillars of Forza special in their own separate ways. The answer was to celebrate Forza Motorsport’s focus on skill and competition by crafting it into a competitive “racing platform for the future” that can evolve with its audience.
It’s important to note that, as far as Turn 10 is concerned, Forza Motorsport’s growth into a platform means taking the traditional Forza Motorsport formula and using it as the foundation for a growing world of racing – not turning the long-running racing sim into a typical live-service game. Don’t expect a limited set of content and salvoes of battle pass mumbo jumbo to follow here.
“Our approach right now is not to make a games-as-a-service,” stresses Greenawalt. “This is a massive game, and it’s launching for a $70 price, and there is a premium add-on. This is a massive AAA launch, so it’s not actually becoming a, ‘Hey, launch small and build over time.’ It’s not a service game. This is a AAA game.”
“The thing is it’s being supported with a backend that is more connected than ever, and gamers are more connected now. So we’re able to basically do both. We can have a massive AAA launch, and then we can build a platform over time.”
Building that platform means a constant supply of new content, including cars and circuits. The Forza Motorsport series has traditionally benefited from a strong and steady post-release supply of both over the years, but this new approach will see content injected into the game in a more meaningful way. That is, it’ll be scattered throughout the game as if it was always there.
“So when all of this new content comes into the game, it’s not just, ‘Oh, there’s just a bunch of cars and we don’t know what to do with ’em; have fun with them,’ [which is] kind of how we’ve released them in the past,” Forza Motorsport Creative Director Chris Esaki concedes. “Like, new cars are cool; go into free play, go into multiplayer, have fun with them, right?”
We have the opportunity now, with this more agile technology foundation that we have, to put a car into the game or put a track into the game and quickly put that across every surface area in the experience.
“We have the opportunity now, with this more agile technology foundation that we have, to put a car into the game or put a track into the game and quickly put that across every surface area in the experience. So a car comes into the game and now it’s actually where it would be appropriate. It’s in a new career mode event that wasn’t there before, on day one. Or a whole new event that didn’t exist before at all. So the same thing with tracks, and it just starts to shift and evolve this content so it always feels fresh every time there’s new content in the game.
“If you’ve played it on day one, it’s going to be different 30 days later, or 60 days later. A year from now it probably looks nothing like day one content. And so it just has this feeling of freshness all across the surface area of the game.”
As Esaki points out, previous Forza Motorsports games didn’t change in this way as new content arrived; in fact, according to Esaki, in the previous era of Motorsport there would have been no real technical way that it could have been achieved other than to “super brute force it.” Simply put, the games just weren’t set up to accommodate such changes.
But the next Forza Motorsport is.
“In November, with our first big update, Yas Marina is going to be coming into the game,” reveals Greenawalt. “It’s going to come in just as Chris described. Free, and it’s going to come into career seamlessly; if you started playing the day after it came in, you’d never even know it was never there.”
“The game is just going to shift over time very naturally. It’ll come into multiplayer, single player – all over the place – and then we’re going to add more tracks over time.”
In November, with our first big update, Yas Marina is going to be coming into the game.
The team confirms another unrevealed track is due in December, and reiterated that the Nurburgring Nordschleife is still coming into the game in “spring”, but “that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
“We certainly don’t want to split the community up, especially multiplayer,” says Esaki. “So all of the tracks right now for the foreseeable future, they’re all coming to the game for free. So that’s going to be enjoyed by everyone.”
There’s another huge reason for Forza Motorsport’s platform-first approach, and that’s player investment.
“I look at some other experiences that are out there, and people have so much invested in an experience,” says Esaki. “It’s not just hundreds of hours, it’s thousands of hours that they’re playing League of Legends, or World of Warcraft, or some other experience that they’ve just spent their lives in. And that’s how players have played Forza forever. They’ve invested thousands of hours in the game, but it’s been over all the different generations.”
That’s how players have played Forza forever. They’ve invested thousands of hours in the game, but it’s been over all the different generations.
Esaki believes that knowing the focus is not just going to shift over to another bespoke Forza Motorsport game in a few years is good for players.
“That all of that investment will stay with you is a powerful feeling,” he says. “It’s just this feeling that this is the place that I’ve invested time in, and I feel really good about it and it values that time that I’ve spent in it and it grows with me. So I think that’s a very different feeling for this Motorsport.”
For Greenawalt, the core element that makes Forza Motorsport the right experience to evolve into a platform is the nature of how skill and competition are at the heart of it.
“Once you’ve developed a skill gap, you don’t actually want to trade it in,” he says. “And that’s why you look at games like Dota, League of Legends, Counterstrike; these are the games that go more towards being a platform. Again, I’m not talking about a service; I’m really talking about being more of a platform, and it comes out of that skill.”
“That’s what pushed us down this route. It wasn’t, ‘Hey, we want to build a platform and therefore let’s make it skill-based.’ It was, ‘No, Motorsport in its heart is skill and competition; we should make that a platform.”
For his part, Greenawalt – who’s been involved with steering the series since its inception – remains visibly enthusiastic about the exciting changes he’s witnessed in the racing genre after nearly two decades of Forza.
“My old boss left Microsoft a couple years ago and when he did, he was rifling through his drawers and he found our original pitch for Forza Motorsport, and he took a photo of the first two pages and sent it over to me in a text,” he begins. “And it’s horrible. It’s so bad. It’s so poorly written, even. Oh my god. And as I read it, I was horrified to see my own turn of phrase. It was so clearly written by me.”
Greenawalt lightheartedly admits it was slightly embarrassing.
“So I would say the first thing that’s changed the most is our level of professionalism and excellence in our jobs!” he laughs. “The team has gotten smarter, and I would say when you look at Forza Tech and what we’re delivering with this incredible graphical engine that’s now powering Motorsport, Horizon – as well as working on Fable – that has allowed us to draw in a level of talent that is not about racing or about RPGs; it’s just about great game making. I mean, truly world-class talent.”
Greenawalt believes the strength of the team has essentially upped everybody’s game.
“The team’s much bigger and it’s much more skilled, and I wouldn’t hire myself,” he grins. “I’ve lived to that position where I look back at my skills when I was in my twenties and I’m, like, ‘Nope; hard pass. You don’t get a job.’”
Beyond that, however, is the fact that racing games like Forza Motorsport no longer draw inspiration strictly from what’s happening on real-world race tracks.
“This has been the single largest shift, and I think it’s the hardest one for people to understand,” says Greenawalt. “We used to build a game that was a shadow of the real world. That is, in the real world, there’s racing – and then you can also kind of do it in a game. It’s gamified racing. What’s changed for the manufacturers and how they deal with us, what’s changed for the community, and what’s changed in racing is that we’re no longer a shadow of the real world. We’re a different world.”
What’s changed… is that we’re no longer a shadow of the real world. We’re a different world.
“We’re a world where community is built, where people have friends. It’s integral. Community is in there. More than anything, the community has flipped it over to now we’re a real boy; we’re no longer the puppet. And I think that’s great. I think that also inspires the team too, that they’re changing car culture.”
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can chat to him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.
Warning: This article contains limited spoilers for Spider-Man 2!
Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 video game is fast approaching its October 20 release date, and IGN got to play a hands-on demo to get a taste of what’s to come (check out our in-depth Spider-Man 2 gameplay preview). Being the big superhero fans that we are, we couldn’t help but geek out about the story they’re telling with the symbiote, which we all know starts with black-suit Spider-Man and ends with Venom. The small chunk of story we played through was overflowing with all manner of references to iconic black-suit Spidey and Venom comics as well as movies and television shows, so here’s a rundown of all the Venomized stuff we saw, and a look at how Insomniac is crafting a new story from these old classics.
If you haven’t already, check out the first Spider-Man 2 gameplay preview below, which sets the tone for everything we played in the demo:
Take Me to Church
Our demo started off with a cinematic where Peter Parker, already in the black symbiote suit, is confronted by Kraven the Hunter inside a cathedral. This church setting is a signature element of the Venom saga, as it’s where Peter loses the symbiote and the black goo chooses an at-rock-bottom Eddie Brock as its new host. However, this time around there is no Eddie Brock (more on that in a moment), but the scene does include the crucial revelation that the symbiote is weak to loud sounds, as seen when the large church bell is accidentally struck during the confrontation and the symbiote convulses in pain. Peter is able to steal an important vial of liquid from Kraven and escape, but it comes at the cost of exposing a major weakness to his dangerous new enemy.
After Peter escapes, Kraven monologues to himself a bit, ending on the proclamation that tracking down Spider-Man will be his “final hunt.” Any Marvel comic reader will recognize this as a not-so-subtle reference to the classic storyline Kraven’s Last Hunt, which clearly inspired the story of Spider-Man 2. In that comic, Kraven pledges to hunt down and kill Spider-Man, and seemingly succeeds, before Spidey digs himself out of his grave and returns to defeat Kraven. Notably, Spider-Man wears a black suit in that story, but it’s just a cloth version, not the symbiote. In the game, Spidey is bonded with the powerful symbiote, so Kraven faces an even bigger challenge than in the original story.
Harry Osborn and the Oscorp Particle Accelerator
The next part of the story sees Peter meet up with Harry Osborn, who was missing in the first game, only for the ending stinger to show him suspended in black goo inside Norman Osborn’s secret Oscorp lab. We didn’t get to play the beginning of the story, so it was a bit of a shock to see Harry is back on his feet–and he already knows Peter is Spider-Man! The two are working together, seemingly to find a cure for whatever terminal disease Harry is suffering from. They use the particle accelerator to activate the liquid in the vial Peter stole from Kraven.
As you would expect, just as it looks like things are going well, everything suddenly goes horribly wrong and Kraven’s goons attack the lab. At the climax of the battle, the goons close in on Harry and are about to attack him, but a restrained Peter, desperate to save his friend, unleashes his rage and unlocks a monstrous new ability for the symbiote where a dozen tentacles pop out and attack enemies in all directions. As those familiar with how this story goes already know, the symbiote corrupts Peter by making him incredibly angry, ruthless, and violent–and this is the first instance of that inevitable turn to the Dark Side. Harry is grateful for being saved but is clearly unnerved by what he just witnessed his best friend do.
Does Harry Osborn Become Venom?
Yes, Peter has the symbiote now, but the going theory is that Harry Osborn eventually becomes Venom. Insomniac has already said Venom’s host is not Eddie Brock like in the comics, and Harry is the most obvious next candidate. It seems as though the symbiote is an experimental cure for Harry’s disease, but it somehow becomes sentient and winds up bonded to Peter. The symbiote starting out as an experimental medical treatment is pulled from the Ultimate Spider-Man comic book version of the Venom story.
There’s also the fact that the story trailer for Spider-Man 2 (which you can view below) starts with Harry saying “We’re going to heal the world,” and then it ends with Venom saying the same thing. Could it be anymore obvious?
The idea of Harry being Venom instead of Eddie Brock isn’t a wholly new one. In the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, Harry became Venom, as well. So it looks like Insomniac took inspiration from that show to tell their Venom story.
The Origin of the Venom Symbiote
At one point in the demo, we investigated a lab as Peter and came across a computer showing an analysis of a strange mineral that Oscorp had run through the particle accelerator. A button press prompts a machine to present the mineral, a jagged, black rock with glowing red cracks. The story trailer showed a meteor strike, so if we’re putting one and two together, it seems as though the Venom symbiote came from the meteor after it was put through the particle accelerator.
The origin of the symbiote has changed several times over the years. It originally came from a lab on a distant planet during the Secret Wars crossover event, but pretty much all versions since then simplify things by saying it came from space, either from astronauts discovering it on a mission to space or from a meteor crashing to Earth. It looks like Spider-Man 2 isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel with where the symbiote came from.
Spider-Man 3 Black-Suit Costume
The infamous Spider-Man 3 movie by director Sam Rami featured the symbiote story on the big screen for the first time, and we saw Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker don a black version of his Spidey suit. That suit is an unlockable skin in the game. Many fans wanted to wear it in the first game, but it’s clear that Insomniac was saving all Venom-related goodies for the sequel, and now players finally can suit up in those signature black duds. Awkward street dancing not included.
Who’s the Real Monster?
After the Lizard escapes, Peter goes down into the sewers to find him. Doctor Curt Connors is apparently the only one who can help cure Harry’s condition, so it’s vitally important that he’s found and transformed back into a human. To complicate matters, the Lizard is shedding his skin, which causes him to grow in size and become even more beast-like, just like in the Spider-Man “Shed” comic. When Peter eventually catches up to him, we see he’s become a massive creature with dozens of spikes going down his back. It’s time for a boss fight!
There’s an excellent bit of storytelling that goes on during this boss fight. Even though the Lizard is a giant, gnarly monster who could eat a normal man in one gulp, it’s hard not to feel bad for him as Peter absolutely wails on him with thunderous symbiote punches. Lizard didn’t want to become the Lizard, and he just wants to turn back and go home to his wife and kid. But as the fight goes on, Peter doesn’t seem to care about that as much as he does unleashing his newfound power in the form of brutal symbiote attacks. It’s a not-so-subtle admission that Connors may be the giant lizard, but Peter has become the true monster, complete with his very own gravely Christian Bale-Batman voice.
That’s where our demo ended, but even after playing just a couple hours, it was cool to see how Spider-Man 2 is pulling from so many different Venom stories in the Spider-Man franchise’s past, but remixing them into something fresh and new. There are plenty more signature Venom elements that could still make their way into the story, from the symbiote’s weakness to fire and Venom eating people, to familiar characters such as Carnage and Knull. But we’ll have to wait until Spider-Man 2 comes out to see what happens.
While Todd McFarlane waits out the writers and actors’ strikes so he can finally regain momentum on his Spawn film, his signature character is joining one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. Activision has just revealed Spawn will be appearing in Call of Duty’s Season 6 battle pass as part of the game’s annual The Haunting event.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone players who purchase the Season 6 pass will immediately unlock a new playable Operator in Al Simmons, Spawn’s Mortal World identity. Spawn will also a “more tactical” skin at the start of the battle pass, with another skin unlocking at tier 100.
For a more scorched Spawn, there’s a “burned Spawn” skin in the pass as well, in addition to six other new skins depicting his various friends and foes. Check them out in the screenshots and descriptions below.
Burned Spawn (Al Simmons Skin) – Prior to his transformation into Spawn, Al Simmons was deceived and burned alive. This shrouded figure is one of many forms Spawn takes.
Creepy Clown (Fender Skin) – A hell-born half-demon of considerable power and deviancy, the arch-villain Violator has taken the form of a rotund clown to anger Spawn.
Violator (König Skin) –Closer to the true form, the cruel and arrogant Violator brings “death on two legs” in the form of a grotesquely headed Operator to further infuriate Spawn.
Disruptor (Horangi Skin) – Masquerading as a businessman and responsible for the death and transformation of Al Simmons, Disruptor is known by many names and is feared as a crime lord.
Soul Crusher (Vega Skin) – A mysterious rival of Spawn’s, Soul Crusher is an enigmatic figure, using noxious gasses to asphyxiate his victims into submission.
Nikto Spawn (Nikto Skin) – Operator Nikto favors a similar tactical look and impressive mask getup and takes it to the next level with this Spawn homage.
Gaia (Nova Skin) – Said to be an earthen form of Mother Nature herself, Gaia is an ancient goddess of considerable power and seeks ruination for those intent on despoiling her realm.
Spawn is no stranger to video games, having starred in his own titles dating back to 1995 and Spawn: The Video Game for SNES and also appearances in Mortal Kombat and Soulcalibur II. But joining the iconic Call of Duty license was something that McFarlane admits caught him by surprise. When asked how the deal was made in an interview with IGN, McFarlane says that “I crawled to their home office on my hands and knees and I begged and said I was going to go on a starvation strike and they said they had already sent an email.”
Jokes aside, the comic book creator and toy mogul says what actually happened is that Activision reached out about collaborating with Todd McFarlane Productions about bringing their headliner into the Call of Duty world. “I guess you’ll have to ask them why Spawn made it on their list but they gave me a phone call,” he recalls. “I’d worked with Activision and some of their people in the past on prior projects, not necessarily Call of Duty, so I knew a couple of the guys there and they made the ask.”
Once the ask was made, McFarlane wasted no time saying “yes.” “I went, what? Spawn gets to be in a triple-A brand? Look, anytime you can get attached and you get to ride on the coattails of something that big, you take those shots every single time,” he says.
“Anytime you can get attached and you get to ride on the coattails of something that big, you take those shots every single time.
McFarlane was in contact with the Activision team on a regular basis to ensure Spawn was integrated into the Call of Duty universe in a way that made sense for fans of the game.
“My rule always whenever I lend Spawn out, especially when he is going outside of his comfort zone, is I assume that the vast majority of people do not know who or what Spawn is,” McFarlane explains. “They don’t know who I am, they don’t know what Image Comics is, they don’t know any of that. They’re just basically video game and particularly Call of Duty fanatics. And so the rule is always the same, create and make something with this character.”
Considering how he’s built an empire in part by maintaining his creative control over the Spawn IP, it is somewhat surprising to hear how open McFarlane is to having others utilize his creation in other media formats. But he says being flexible in that regard better serves Spawn in the long run. “I’m going to give you a wide berth to do whatever you need to do to integrate Spawn into your game so he doesn’t look like an outsider and go from there. That way, somebody who’s been a fan of the game for the last eight years, all of a sudden might see one of the iterations of one of the characters they’re doing and go, ‘Man, that’s going to be my favorite guy.’ And a year from now, somebody’s going to tap him on the shoulder and say, ‘Hey, do you know that guy comes from a comic book?’”
McFarlane spoke to IGN while he was in a car returning home from a trip to Los Angeles and the Activision studios, where he laid eyes on the final Spawn character designs. “I was approving a bunch of stuff to see it in hi-def on their cameras, because you know, on Zoom your resolution is only so good, right? They were constantly showing me visuals and I thought they looked good on Zoom, but I was blown away seeing it on a computer,” he says. “The original, the OG Spawn, it’s tough to camouflage that guy. He’s got a costume, he’s got a cape, he doesn’t look super military. But the [game] designers put a ton of military on [the character] to make him look seamless within the game.”
Bringing a supernatural antihero into the virtual military battlefield of Call of Duty may not make sense at first glance, but McFarlane notes that Al Simmons’ backstory is steeped in the military. “Look at the character Spawn, who is Lieutenant Colonel Al Simmons, right? He’s got a military background. It’s been part of his story literally since issue number one, because I intentionally made it so that he shouldn’t use his superpowers all the time,” McFarlane says. “So he has to rely on his natural skill. And part of those natural skills were the ones that he honed when he was in the military when he was younger before he became Spawn. So having Spawn in a military game is not trying to put a round peg in a square hole.”
Spawn continues to be a popular ongoing title under the Image Comics umbrella, and stands as the longest-running independent comic book of all time. The character’s legacy has been bolstered by its numerous appearances in other media, especially video games. In many ways, games have done a better job keeping Spawn in the mainstream of pop culture than any other form of entertainment media.
“Why are the video game people way ahead of the game and understand it way more than Hollywood? I don’t know,” McFarlane says. “We’re going to have a big conversation with Hollywood about that someday.”
McFarlane is already thinking about what comes next once Spawn debuts in Call of Duty, and believes that his long-gestating Spawn movie could play a part in a return appearance.
“Here’s my expectation, I don’t know what [Activision’s] criteria is and what their matrix is of having something work and be a success, right? But I’ve got so many other looks of Spawn and other characters in the Spawn world that we can easily come back into the pool and do this again and again and again if it makes sense,” he says. “Oh, by the way, in the future, when that movie comes and fingers crossed it works, then it will just make it easier for us to circle back around to the good people at Activision and say, ‘Hey guys, we were just getting warmed up. Now we’ve got a whole globe that knows who Spawn is because they went to the movies.”
Ubisoft has confirmed Tom Clancy’s The Division 3 is now in development at Massive Entertainment.
The Swedish studio, currently working on Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, is the original developer of The Division 1 and 2. Ubisoft said Massive is currently building a team for the third game in the series.
Star Wars Outlaws creative director Julian Gerighty has become executive producer for The Division franchise, which has nearly 40 million players across all titles. Gerighty will now oversee all The Division games and products, including The Division 3.
“This announcement represents Ubisoft’s dedication to the longevity of the brand,” Ubisoft said in a note to press. “In his new role, Julian will drive the many interdependent production elements of The Division brand in a unified direction. This includes development oversight, operations, and creative vision together with the development teams around the world who are currently developing the mobile game Tom Clancy’s The Division Resurgence, Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland, and Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.”
Gerighty will remain on Star Wars Outlaws through launch “to ensure the game meets the intended creative vision and provides a great experience for players”, Ubisoft added.
“There are only a few games that I can genuinely say blew me away the first time I saw them, and Tom Clancy’s The Division is one of them,” Gerighty commented. “I was immediately hooked, like so many others who are part of our devoted player community. It’s a privilege and an honor to be able to continue to build incredible and unforgettable experiences in this amazing world with the most talented teams around the world, and I can’t wait for what’s next.”
Tom Clancy’s The Division launched in 2016 following a headline-grabbing gameplay reveal at at E3 2013 that heralded the beginning of the next-generation on Ubisoft’s new Snowdrop game engine. It’s set in a near future New York City in the aftermath of a viral pandemic, with the player tasked with rebuilding Manhattan.
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 launched in 2019, and is set in a near-future Washington, D.C. the player works to rebuild. However, it failed to replicate the success of its predecessor, with Ubisoft later admitting The Division 2 underperformed commercially.
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.
You can use the mirror to change your appearance, voice, and pronouns. But what it doesn’t do is let you change your race and body type. You also can’t alter Origins, which is to be expected. As Larian put it: “they’re all very particular about their hair.” I’m sure Gale and Astarion in particular would admit to that.
With Patch 3 comes the Magic Mirror, which lives in your camp and allows you to change your Tav’s appearance whenever you’d like!
💄 Change appearance, voice, pronouns 🧝♀️ Race & body type can’t be changed 🪞 Can’t alter Origins — they’re all *very* particular about their hair pic.twitter.com/fZo4LOOCLO
In a recent tweet, Larian described Patch 3 as “a big one”, and said that it delayed its release to today “to ensure thorough testing”.
In a follow-up tweet, Larian boss Swen Vincke said: “Cross fingers for patch 3 – it’s going through its final round of QA today and if it passes, we can release it tomorrow. You can do this patch 3!”
Patch 3 is intended to launch alongside full support for Baldur’s Gate 3 on Mac. The hope for Patch 3 is that it addresses ongoing performance issues, particularly with Act 3, across PC and console now the sprawling Dungeons and Dragons-themed role-playing game is out on PlayStation 5.
As IGN reported, Baldur’s Gate 3’s split-screen mostly works fine, but performance tanks when two characters explore different parts of a city, with the frames per second fluctuating especially in the densely populated Act 3.
In IGN’s review of Baldur’s Gate 3, which returned a 10/10, we said: “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.”
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.
If you’re excited to play PlayStation 5 exclusive Spider-Man 2 and looking to add a bit more realism (and challenge) to your web-slinging adventure, you can turn on fall damage, developer Insomniac has confirmed to IGN.
The new feature was first pointed out by YouTuber Caboose. While the creator has no footage of Spider-Man 2’s fall damage in action and admits to not testing the feature out during his hands-on demo with the game, he admits he discovered the feature exists in-game as he was fiddling around in the settings and saw a toggle button to turn fall damage on or off.
In a statement to IGN, Senior Programming Director Doug Sheahan said the feature does exist in Spider-Man 2 and confirmed fall damage is not enabled by default. “Something we’re seeing more and more of is that players like to be able to customize their experience,” Sheahan explained. “For those players, we added the ability to enable fall damage (fall damage defaults to Off) and even let people tweak how swinging feels with our Swing Steering Assist setting. We hope players who enjoy a deep dive into the details have fun experimenting.”
Insomniac’s previous Spider-Man games do not include fall damage, though the feature has existed in previous games featuring the webhead, including the 2004 game Spider-Man 2. The idea of fall damage is a practical one to implement, especially in a Spider-Man game, as Peter Parker and Miles Morales are traversing the Big Apple and reaching great heights. Some reckless traversal could realistically cause one of them to get hurt.
While fall damage as a feature has existed in games for years, it can be a topic of discourse. While some oppose the idea of fall damage, arguing it takes some of the fun away in games that include it, others appreciate the feature, saying it adds realism. Some Spider-Man fans argue it makes being the Webslinger much more fun. In either case, Insomniac allowing players to turn fall damage on or off is the right choice: if you want the added challenge of fall damage while playing, you can turn it on. If you don’t, leave it off.
