Promise Mascot Agency just announced its voice cast, which includes a number of surprise additions from the world of video game development.

Kaizen Game Works’ open-world narrative adventure sees players explore a cursed Japanese town and recruit mascot friends. You even help a living finger work through anger issues.

Where Promise Mascot Agency is punching above its weight is in the voice cast department. It’s nabbed PlayStation developer legend Shuhei Yoshida in his first ever video game voice role, and the announcement comes hot on the heels of Yoshida’s last day at Sony.

At farewell party yesterday 😆 pic.twitter.com/hpiPWQIO1z

— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) January 14, 2025

Shuhei Yoshida worked on PlayStation from the very beginning, playing a key role in the original console’s success from 1993. He was one of the more public-facing PlayStation executives while President of SIE Worldwide Studios from 2008 to 2019, championing indie and VR success in particular. Yoshida announced his exit from Sony in November during his 31st year at PlayStation.

“When I hit 30 years, I was thinking, hmm, it may be about time for me to move on,” he explained at the time. “You know, the company’s been doing great. I love PS5, I love the games that are coming out on this platform. And we have new generations of management who I respect and admire. And I’m so excited for the future of PlayStation.”

While Yoshida long-term plan remains up in the air, in the short-term he’s turned to video game voice acting, and that’s where Promise Mascot Agency comes in. Yoshida plays Monouge, an odd-looking green-skinned former mascot who is opening their own game center.

Yoshida isn’t the only big name joining the Promise Mascot Agency voice cast. Yakuza: Like A Dragon’s Takaya Kuroda, who plays series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, and Legend of Zelda’s Ayano Shibuya also star, as do Eri Saito (Chainsaw Man, Metal Gear Solid 4, Way of the Samurai 3) and Swery, developer of Deadly Premonition, The Good Life, and Spy Fiction.

You can see what Yoshida and co sound like in-game in the exclusive trailer, below.

“We can’t believe that our weird game managed to attract such a strong voice cast,” said game director Oli Clarke Smith.

“When our lead Japanese localiser, Roppyaku Tsurumi, told us that Kuroda-san had auditioned, we just about lost our minds. All of the cast have brought our group of misfits to life wonderfully. After working on these characters for four years, they have become like friends to us, and we’re so happy that they have all been given a voice. The team at the recording studio, Xenorex, did an amazing job.”

Here’s the official blurb:

Takaya Kuroda voices the disgraced ex-yakuza Michi, exiled to the forgotten (and quite definitely cursed) Japanese town of Kaso-Machi with two goals: pay off his debt and restore glory to the town’s defunct mascot agency! Recruit the weird and wonderful mascots across town with help from your severed finger assistant manager and chaos goblin, Pinky☆ – voiced by Ayana Shibuya, negotiate their contracts and assign them jobs they love.

Promise Mascot Agency will be available on PC and consoles early 2025.

Photo by Stuart Wilson/BAFTA/Getty Images for BAFTA.

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.

Captain America: Brave New World is not only the shortest Captain America film in Marvel Cinematic Universe history, but it’s one of the shortest MCU films.

AMC Theatres revealed the runtime for Brave New World is one hour and 58 minutes, making it one of the few MCU films to come in under two hours, and the seventh shortest (out of 35 films) overall. The previous three Captain America films are all over two hours long.

While most of the shorter films come in Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the MCU, a handful of outliers came more recently. The shortest MCU film is 2022’s The Marvels at one hour and 45 minutes, for example, followed by The Incredible Hulk, Thor: The Dark World, Thor, Doctor Strange, and Ant-Man.

Brave New World arrives next, alongside Ant-Man and The Wasp which is also one hour and 58 minutes long. For comparison, the longest MCU film is Avengers: Endgame at three hours and one minute, followed by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Eternals, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

Though it’s finally just a few weeks away with a release date of February 14, Brave New World has allegedly been subject to myriad rewrites and reshoots (including of scenes surrounding WWE star Seth Rollins) though it’s unclear how this has affected the overall runtime.

Brave New World is the first Captain America film following the retirement of Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers and instead stars Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson in the titular role. He’s promised it continues the Captain America series’ legacy as another grounded, espionage adventure, however.

It’s also set to fold in some deep cut characters from Marvel lore, including the pay off for a tease included in the second ever MCU film, The Incredible Hulk, through the introduction of The Leader. It similarly stars Red Hulk.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Nintendo is famously litigious when it comes to emulators. In March 2024, developers of Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu were ordered to pay $2.4 million in damages after a court settlement with Nintendo. In October 2024, Switch emulator Ryujinx ceased development following “contact from Nintendo.” In 2023, the developers behind Dolphin, an emulator for Gamecube and Wii, were advised against a full Steam release by lawyers at Valve, who were contacted by Nintendo’s lawyers alongside “strong legal wording.”

Perhaps most famously, in 2023 Gary Bowser, a reseller of Team Xecuter products that allowed users to bypass the Nintendo Switch’s anti-piracy measures, was charged with fraud and ordered to pay $14.5m back to Nintendo, a debt he will repay for life.

Now, a patent lawyer representing Nintendo has lifted the lid on the company’s approach to piracy and emulation, and discussed how the propagation of emulators could lead to software piracy.

In a report from Denfaminicogamer (via VGC) at Tokyo eSports Festa 2025, “Intellectual Property Managers” from Capcom, Sega, and Nintendo gathered to discuss the laws designed to protect companies’ intellectual property. Speaking for Nintendo was a patent attorney and Assistant Manager of the Intellectual Property Division, Koji Nishiura. In a translation by Automaton, he explained:

“To begin with, are emulators illegal or not? This is a point often debated. While you can’t immediately claim that an emulator is illegal in itself, it can become illegal depending on how it’s used.”

Nishiura explained further that if an emulator copies a program from the game it is running, it may constitute copyright infringement, and this is also the case if the emulator can disable a console’s security mechanisms.

This is largely down to Japan’s “Unfair Competition Prevention Act,” or UCPA, which is only enforceable in Japan itself. This makes it more difficult for Nintendo to pursue legal action overseas.

The example given in a slide during the Tokyo eSports Festa talk was the Nintendo DS “R4” card, which allowed users of the cartridge to circumvent and run backed-up or pirated versions of games on a single cartridge. Ultimately, after Nintendo and 50 other software manufacturers cried out about the R4, Nintendo won a ruling that the manufacturers and resellers violated the UCPA, effectively outlawing sales of the R4 in 2009.

Nishiura further explained that tools that allow users to download pirated software within an emulator or piece of software would also constitute copyright law infringement. Named “reach apps” in Japanese law, these third-party tools like the 3DS’s infamous “Freeshop,” or third-party app installer “Tinfoil” for Switch, may also violate copyright laws.

In its Yuzu lawsuit, Nintendo claimed that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was pirated one million times. Specifically, the filing claimed that Yuzu’s Patreon page allowed its developers to earn $30,000 per month by providing subscribers with “daily updates,” “early access,” and “special unreleased features” to games like Tears of the Kingdom.

Sayem is a freelancer based in the UK, covering tech and hardware. You can get in touch with him at @sayem.zone on Bluesky.

Ubisoft has finally fixed the Windows 11 versions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Origins but Odyssey remains broken.

The Ubisoft games broken by Windows 11 version 24H2 in November are therefore now, almost, fully fixed. While Ubisoft released updates to Viking era England-set Valhalla and Ancient Egypt-set Origins, Ancient Greece-set Odyssey is still without a fix.

“Hello everyone, we have just deployed a new title update for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla,” Ubisoft said on the game’s Steam page, alongside a similar one on Origins’. “This patch fixes compatibility issues with Windows 11 update 24H2.”

These “compatibility issues” saw the Assassin’s Creed games crash every few minutes, essentially rendering them unplayable. While Ubisoft released fixes for other affected games Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora relatively quickly, disgruntled Assassin’s Creed fans review bombed their games on Steam in an attempt to prompt action.

This finally came two months later, though obviously Odyssey remains broken. Ubisoft has not said when it will release a fix for this final game.

These issues come amid a stream of other bad news for Ubisoft, which hoped it would now be celebrating big hits in Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows but is instead scrambling amid poor sales of the former and a handful of delays to the latter.

Star Wars Outlaws underperforming prompted myriad changes at the developer including a cancelling of its Season Pass and faux “early access” model alongside a return to Steam. In dire need of a success, it has delayed the Japan set Assassin’s Creed Shadows twice in hopes its eventual release on March 20 will bring a win.

The game has not enjoyed a particularly positive promotional period so far, however, with the development team having to apologize on separate occasions for inaccuracies in Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ depictions of Japan and using a historical recreation group’s flag without permission.

Yet another controversy came as collectible figure maker PureArts removed an Assassin’s Creed Shadows statue from sale over its “insensitive” design, and combined with the two delays, fans are growing increasingly impatient as a result.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

The developer of well-received Steam Early Access first-person shooter Fortune’s Run has ceased work on the game after receiving a three-year prison sentence.

In a shock announcement on the Fortune’s Run Steam page, sole developer Dizzie explained “why the development is imploding.”

“First of all, I have some stuff going on I need to make public as it’s going to interrupt development,” Dizzie said.

“I’ve been sentenced to prison for the next three years. It’s a long story, but I’ve lived a very different life before I was a game developer, and I wasn’t living very well. My case is about five years old now, I have been going through the legal process the whole time I’ve been working on this. I have finally been found guilty and sentenced, and I’m going away next month.

“It’s a shame, but it’s the consequences of my actions. I was a very violent person and I hurt a lot of people in my life. Unfortunately, the sentence isn’t going to help with that at all, but I guess we all know that.

“So the game isn’t totally dead, but unfortunately due to even further bad things happening, it’s unclear what will happen.”

Fortune’s Run launched in early access form on Steam in September 2023 and met with a “very positive” user review rating. Its blend of quick-fire first-person shooter elements with immersive sim mechanics inspired by the likes of Deus Ex and Thief caught the attention of PC Gamer, which called Fortune’s Run “one of the best shooters you can play right now.” Dizzie was one of just two developers working on the game, the other being their wife, Arachne, although she recently left the project.

Dizzie refused to reveal the exact nature of the sentence or the charges, but insisted they did not commit “a sex crime.” “What I did was wrong and that’s all you need to know,” Dizzie added.

Dizzie also told Fortune’s Run fans that the case dates from “before I met the other dev,” which is a reference to Arachne. “She is not related to it in any way,” Dizzie added.

It appears to be the case that Arachne left the project following a significant surgery last summer. “Like I said, the other dev was recovering from a botched surgery,” Dizzie said. “If you want to accuse me of something, accuse me of stressing her out with my legal problems and my crazy work schedule.”

“The other developer has left the project,” Dizzie’s message continued. “Once she recovered, she decided that she was no longer interested in game development. She was in charge of [quality assurance] and a few level segments, all of which [have] been abandoned and I’ve been forced to get by on my own for the past while. It’s been very difficult to do alone but I actually managed, by basically not sleeping, to complete all of the work in time so that it could be released before I’m sent away.”

As you’d expect, the prison sentence puts an end to Fortune’s Run development, although Dizzie insisted it will begin again upon release.

“Since we [Dizzie and Arachne] decided to part ways, development will be completely interrupted until I’m released,” Dizzie said.

“I know many of you will be upset and disappointed but please understand that there’s absolutely nothing I can do. These wheels were in motion long before I started making this game and it’s just been slowly unraveling in my face the whole time.

“I want to underline that I’m no longer in financial dire straits since our game actually sold okay, so I should be able to afford rent once I get out, so there’s a chance that if you wait a few years I’ll be able to cap off the release. In fact, there’s not very much content left to work on; I’ve been making stubs and prototypes of the missing levels in my spare time.

“I am extremely passionate about this stuff and I’m never going to stop making games. I’d like to finish this one, but I don’t know what will happen. I’m going to do my best, because I love this game and I want to finish it. Seriously, I just want to finish it. Finish it already, Dizzie!”

In a separate post on Steam, Dizzie published patch notes for a new Fortune’s Run update and mentioned an upcoming post that will detail work set to take place next month before his prison sentence begins.

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.