“Schmigadoon” has been canceled at Apple TV+. The series aired two seasons at the streaming service, with the most recent season debuting in April 2023. Series co-creator Cinco Paul shared the news of the cancellation on Instagram. “I am sad to share that Apple will not be moving forward with Season 3 of Schmigadoon!” Paul […]
ENTERTAINMENT
In a Galaxy Far, Far Away, Jodie Foster Played Princess Leia in Star Wars
Jodie Foster might have played Princess Leia in Star Wars instead of Carrie Fisher, as the Freaky Friday and The Silence of the Lambs star has revealed she was offered the role first but turned it down.
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Foster said on NBC’s Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon she was offered the role of Leia when she was pitched as a younger character, aged just 13 or 14.
“I was [offered the role], yeah,” Foster said. “They were going for a younger Princess Leia but I had a conflict. I was doing a Disney movie and I just didn’t want to pull out of the Disney movie because I was already under contract.”
Foster would have been 13 or 14 during filming of the original film, now called Star Wars: Episode 4 – A New Hope, compared to Fisher who was 19. It’s unclear which Disney film caused Foster to turn down the role, though it’s perhaps 1976’s Freaky Friday.
Regardless, she seemingly has no regrets giving up the role. “They did an amazing job,” Foster said of Lucasfilm and the original Star Wars cast. “I don’t know how good I would have been. I might have had different hair. I might have gone with a pineapple.”
Star Wars, of course, has grown into one of the most popular franchises of all time, and somewhat ironically is now owned by Disney. Though there hasn’t been a film release since Star Wars: Episode 9 – The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, Disney currently has eight films in the works.
This includes a trilogy from Star Wars: Episode 8 – The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, one from Thor Ragnarok director Taika Waititi, another from The Mandalorian and Ahsoka’s Dave Filoni, and one from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny director James Mangold.
Sequel Trilogy star Daisy Ridley is also set to return as Rey Skywalker in a movie directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, taking place 15 years after Star Wars: Episode 9 – The Rise of Skywalker.
And if that’s not enough, another Star Wars film was announced in January 2024. The Mandalorian & Grogu comes from Jon Favreau and will go into production later in the year.
None of these have actual premiere dates, though Disney has three Star Wars films on its schedule. It’s unclear which will be which, but these films are set for May 22, 2026, followed by December 18, 2026 and December 17, 2027.
Image Credit: Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Bethesda Reveals Full Patch Notes for Starfield’s Big 1.9.47.0 Update
Bethesda has released Starfield’s first major update in 2024 into beta, with “over a hundred fixes and adjustments” introduced, most of which address fixing quests and adding quality-of-life improvements to the company’s space RPG.
In a blog post, Bethesda detailed every change coming to Starfield as part of update 1.9.47.0. Some of the tweaks that immediately stand out include improved widescreen support, allowing for the game to now support 32:9, 21:9, and 16:10 aspect ratios, and fixes to the Eye of the Storm Quest. The latter has been one of the quests some have been unable to complete, most notably when the player reaches the data transfer section.
Bethesda further reiterated that it will “continue to have a steady stream of updates about every six weeks,” telling those that might not have seen an issue addressed in this latest to not “lose faith” and encouraging users to continue sharing issues and feedback with the team.
In our review of Starfield, which we awarded a 7 out of 10, we said: “Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually, the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.”
You can check out the full Update 1.9.47.0 notes below.
Starfield Update 1.9.47.0 Notes
- Animation
- Fixed player character’s eyes remaining closed instead of blinking in third person view.
- Addressed rare cases where small animation pops could be seen in third person.
- Creatures and Enemies
- Fixed incorrectly invisible creatures on some planets.
- Fixed an issue that could occur on some enemies causing them to stand instead of falling to the ground.
- Crew and Companions
- Fixed crew members and companions positioning near the cockpit after fast traveling to the ship.
- Companions: Fixed a possible control-lock when talking to a companion without entering a dialogue while simultaneously trying to exit the ship.
- General
- Fixed an issue that prevented Windows users saving if their username featured certain characters (PC).
- Fixed rare save game corruptions on PC (MSS and Steam).
- Fixed an issue that could lead to a control lock or a crash after loading a quicksave while in the targeting mode.
- Fixed player marker following the camera on the surface map.
- Fixed a rare issue that could prevent access to the main menu on when prompted to “Press any button to Start” (Xbox).
- Body type should no longer reset to default when loading a Starborn save from the main menu.
- Fixed flickering on Neon’s Trade Tower elevator panel.
- Improved the appearance of the Ryujin Kiosk material during nighttime.
- Fixed rare issue with how Cydonia’s panel could display the hours without incident.
- Added Optimizations to cloud syncing of save games (MSS/Xbox).
- Improved how crowds behave when desired target is reserved.
- Fixed an issue that could cause airlock doors to sometimes appear floating in sky when arriving at locations.
- Fixed unintended text appearing on the shipbuilder’s UI.
- Fixed game session not properly resuming from shutdown in Energy Save mode (Xbox).
- Various stability improvements.
- Graphics
- Improved widescreen support (32:9, 21:9 and 16:10).
- Added support for stars displaying sun disk geometry.
- Shadows can now be seen on planet rings from planet surface.
- Improved eyes and skin on crowd characters.
- Improved reflection on water.
- Improved contact shadows on character skin (Xbox and PC Medium/High/Ultra).
- Improved contact shadows on character cloth (PC High/Ultra).
- Improved contact shadows on first person (PC Ultra).
- Improved lighting in character generation menu.
- Reduced the appearance of some minor artifacts during cutscene camera transitions.
- Fixed flickering on a number of VFX (Sandstorm, corrosive liquid pools, waterfall).
- Fixed a rare issue where the camera would lock while in handscanner mode whenever watching flying fauna (Xbox).
- Fixed potential control lock when opening a game menu a moment before triggering a dialogue with another character.
- Addressed various shadow popping, flickering and artifact issues.
- Improved the visibility of the sun’s lens flare during sunrise and sunset.
- Fixed a rare issue where foam or grime would not show up.
- Fixed rare flickering VFX that could occur in space (Xbox Series S).
- Fixed rare hair flickering (Xbox Series X/S).
- Fixed occasional flicker on digiframes and TV screens.
- Adjusted the appearance of bloom when activating the handscanner.
- Improved the appearance of clouds during weather transitions.
- Fixed rare cases where alignment of grass and wind could appear disconnected.
- Reduced bloom intensity effect while motion blur is active (PC).
- Addressed issues with concealment effect not always applying when using the handscanner.
- Fixed visible edge of the ocean in the distance when seen from a very high point of view.
- Fixed rare white flickering dots around characters’ hair during cut scenes.
- Fixed a readability issue in the Starmap when using large menu font mode.
- Fixed inventory menu occasionally failing to generate previews when using a mouse (PC).
- Fixed a brief Depth of Field issue that sometimes occurred when aiming, alt-tabbing or leaving a dialogue screen.
- Fixed occasional lighting transition issues after loading or exiting a location.
- Fixed an issue that could cause intermittent bands to appear in distance fog.
- Fixed a rare issue that could cause fog color to appear inconsistent.
- Fixed a rare issue that could cause rocks to disappear near the player on the surface of a planet.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when switching to DLSS with dynamic resolution active (PC).
- Fixed flickering and delayed shadows sometimes occurring after unpausing the game.
- Fixed various FSR2 and DLSS artifacts (noise, black dots, ghosting).
- Fixed flickering when using the handscanner with DLSS enabled.
- Fixed initial lighting conditions when landing on a planet.
- Improved lighting at 73 locations.
- Fixed various geometry, texture, and ghosting issues.
- OUTPOSTS
- Fixed a rare missing terrain issue that could occur after fast traveling to an outpost near New Atlantis.
- Fixed an issue that could cause bulldozed objects to reappear when returning to an outpost.
- Fixed and issue that caused hazard damage to remain even when the hazard was removed by bulldozing in outposts.
- Fixed an issue where outpost’s cargo links would be removed from the terminal list if connected, disconnected, then reconnected to another cargo link during the cargo ship landing sequence.
- Fixed an issue where weapon cases built by the player in an Outpost would populate with weapons and ammo after reloading the game.
- Powers
- Fixed a rare issue that could cause the Phased Time power to remain enabled.
- Fixed the extreme speed that could occur in zero G when using the Phased Time power.
- Solar Flare Power now accounts for critical hits.
- Quests and Random Encounters
- Absolute Power: Fixed missing slate in the safe preventing from completing the optional objective “Locate Evidence to Extort Ayumi Komiko”.
- Background Checks: Fixed possible control-lock that could occur if caught by security.
- Derelict Ship: Fixed an issue preventing the player from reaching the pilot seat if they did not have access to advanced locks.
- Drinks on the House: Fixed rare occurrence where the door to Sub 12 could remain locked.
- Echoes of the Past: Fixed Delgado getting stuck at bottom of stairs during “Continue Exploring the Lock” that could occur if The Lock was left during Delgado’s history dialogue.
- Echoes of the Past: Resolved an issue that could cause Mathis’ and Delgado’s guns to be invisible.
- Eye of the Storm: Fixed an issue that could cause data transfer to not start after placing the Data Core.
- Eye of the Storm: Fixed an issue where the docking prompt would be missing on the Legacy ship if the player undocked with the Legacy and then reloaded a save before having started the mission.
- Executive Level: Fixed an issue where players could get stuck on a chair in the Ryujin Industries HQ conference room.
- Failure to Communicate: Fixed an issue that prevented the player from finishing the quest if they downed all the members of the defense pact (Alban Lopez, Jacquelyn Lemaire, and Chanda Banda).
- Further Into the Unknown: Fixed a rare crash that could occur when trying to dock with The Eye.
- Groundpounder: Fixed an issue where the door to Lezama could sometimes be locked if the player left the location during the quest and came back later.
- Hostile Intelligence: Fixed blocked doors in the Steam Tunnels room where the Terrormorph transformation occurs.
- Into the Unknown: Fixed a rare issue that could prevent the quest from starting after completing The Old Neighborhood.
- Into the Unknown: Fixed a rare issue where a Temple location might not populate when receiving the “Go to” objective.
- Legacy’s End: Fixed an issue that could prevent interacting with Delgado when he was behind the glass inside in the command center of The Key.
- Legacy’s End: Fixed a debris pile where to player could become stuck while trying to reach the Mess Hall.
- Missed Beyond Measure: Fixed a dialogue between Sarah and Walter not playing at The Lodge.
- No Sudden Moves: Fixed companions not following player during personal quests.
- On The Run: Fixed various issues related to Mei Devine becoming inaccessible the objective updated to “Listen to Mei Devine’s Introduction”.
- On The Run: Fixed a possible control lock when sitting at the table to talk to Jade MacMillan.
- One Small Step: Fixed a rare issue that could prevent Lin / Heller from exiting the airlock.
- Operation Starseed: Fixed a bad view that could occur if the Beagle was boarded after a long idle.
- Power From Beyond: Fixed an issue that caused missing Starborn temples and scanner disturbances that could prevent obtaining all Starborn powers from that universe.
- Rough Landings: Resolved an issue that could occur during the “Meet up with Milena Axelrod” objective that could prevent ships from appearing at the desired location.
- Shadows in Neon: Fixed an issue that could occur when repeatedly using the door to Jaylen Pryce’s office before he progressed to Neon Core.
- Supra et Ultra: Fixed a control lock that could occur when entering the Flight Simulator while a guard is attempting arrest.
- Tapping the Grid: Fixed inaccessible junction boxes that could occur after the Hunter attacks the Lodge.
- The Best There Is: Fixed an issue that could prevent objective from advancing when talking to Naeva and Jasmine in the engineering room.
- The Empty Nest: Fixed and issue that could cause Sam Coe’s gun to be invisible when inside Jacob’s house.
- The Heart of Mars: Fixed another location that could potentially prevent recovering The Heart of Mars.
- The Pale Lady: Fixed rare case of inaccessible ship crew log data slate making it impossible to complete the encounter.
- Top of the L.I.S.T.: Phil Hill should now accept survey data for Sumati.
- War Relics: Resolved an issue that could prevent Kaiser from moving to the mission site.
- Where Hope is Built: Fixed a crash that could occur with a specific set of player behaviors.
- Ships and Ship Customization
- Fixed another case that could cause an asteroid to follow a ship in space.
- Fixed ship hatch being marked inaccessible after swapping to a new home ship.
- Fixed an issue where the ship could end up in an unintended state by simultaneously attempting fast travel during a grav jump.
- Fixed a view issue that could occur when fast traveling during ship targeting mode.
- Fixed an issue that could occur when entering Ship Targeting mode immediately after selecting a Grav Jump.
- Fixed an issue that caused non-functional ladders to appear when the player modified their ship with a Taiyo All-In-One Berth Top A and a Deimos 1×1.
- Fixed an issue where the Legendary ship could take too long to resume firing after the weapons were repaired.
- Space combat should now match ground combat difficulty increase with successive trips through the Unity.
- Fixed an issue where loading an exit save made while docked to a space station could cause names of ships to change.
- Fixed marker not pointing to the current home ship after performing a save/load between different ships.
- Fixed in issue that could cause the Frontier to incorrectly appear if a non-home ship was removed from a landing pad.
- Skills
- REJUVENATION: Rejuvenation skill VFX no longer replay whenever the handscanner is opened in third person.
- SURVEYING: Fixed surveying challenge progress issue with mineral resource.
- TARGETING CONTROL SYSTEMS: Fixed inconsistencies with level 3 and 4.
- Weapons and Items
- Fixed incorrect reload amounts that could occur when consuming a Trauma Pack.
- Fixed FOV and zoom issues with weapon scopes.
- Fixed weapon sound effects occasionally continuing to play after killing an enemy.
- Fixed turret state not being restored properly after and save and load.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the helmet light to not reappear in third person after a save and load.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
94-Year-Old June Squibb Does Her Own Stunts in ‘Thelma,’ a Sundance Spin on ‘Mission: Impossible’
June Squibb insists on doing her own stunts. “I never think of myself as being old,” says the 94-year-old Oscar-nominated actor as she heads to Sundance for the premiere of her new film “Thelma.” It’s an adventure movie that proves kicking ass isn’t just a young person’s game. In it a grandmother loses $10,000 in […]
‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ Sequel Pilot Ordered at Disney Channel, Selena Gomez and David Henrie Among Cast
A pilot for a “Wizards of Waverly Place” sequel series has been ordered at Disney Channel, Variety has confirmed. Original series star David Henrie will star in and executive produce the potential series, with original star Selena Gomez set to guest star in the pilot and executive produce. Henrie will reprise the role of Justin […]
One-Third of Game Developers Say Their Company Was Hit By Layoffs Last Year
In stark contrast to a year of blockbuster video game hits, one of the biggest ongoing industry trends in 2023 was the prevalence of mass layoffs. While actual figures are difficult to get ahold of, estimates suggest the number of workers laid off in games last year approached or exceeded 10,000, and 2024 isn’t looking much better. Now, a GDC survey of developers suggests that one-third of all game developers were impacted by layoffs last year, either directly or by witnessing them happen at their company.
This comes from the GDC State of the Industry Survey, developed in partnership with Game Developer and with analytical support from Omdia. The survey encompasses over 3000 game developers and covers numerous topics, including platforms of interest, demographics, questions about emerging tech, and more.
In 2023, it also asked about layoffs. 35% of developers said their company had been impacted by layoffs in 2023, and 7% were laid off themselves. Layoffs appeared to most dramatically impact the quality assurance (QA) sector, with 22% of QA workers saying they were laid off. Looking ahead, over half of developers surveyed said they were at least a little bit concerned their company would have layoffs in the next 12 months. Notably, the percentage of workers surveyed in favor of unionization also went up – 57% this year, compared to 53% last year.
Another challenging topic covered by the survey was the issue of generative AI. 49% of developers said that generative AI was being used in their workplace in some capacity, while 23% said they had no interest in generative AI at all. Interestingly, more indie devs (37%) said they were using generative AI in their work, whereas only 22% of AAA and AA devs said they were using it. Just over half of all developers said their companies had a policy of some kind on the use of generative AI, but AAA companies were also more likely than indie studios to have those policies, especially when it came to restricting the technology’s use. One-fifth (21%) of AAA developers said their companies have banned the use of such tools, compared to 9% of indie developers. Almost all developers had at least some concerned about the ethics of generative AI (84%)
As for blockchain tech? That’s so last year. Interest was on the decline, with 77% of developers saying their studio had no interest in it, and only 2% reporting they were using it currently.
On a more positive note, it sounds like there’s already some buzz around the Nintendo Switch 2, whatever that turns out to be. 8% of developers said they were currently developing games for a “Nintendo Switch successor,” and 32% of developers said that developing for the platform was interesting to them. That interest level is especially notable given that it was the third most intriguing platform for developers this year, behind PC and PS5, and was of interest to more developers than the current Switch, which only 25% of developers said was on their radar.
You can read the entirety of this year’s GDC State of the Industry Survey right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Palworld Early Access Review in Progress
Nothing about what Palworld attempts to do seems like it should work in the slightest. A thinly veiled Pokémon clone where you and your collectible monsters shoot people in the face with literal guns? A base building survival game where you use your kidnapped creatures as laborers, and are then forced to cook and eat those unpaid employees when times get tough? An open-world co-op adventure where you and your friends thwack helpless sheep over the head with a baseball bat to harvest their wool? Defying the odds, this wholly irreverent, gun-toting take on the creature collection genre has proven unrelentingly fun for the 15 hours I’ve binged so far. Its survival mechanics are intuitive and deep, its action-packed combat is silly and satisfying, and exploring the world in search of new Pals to kick the snot out of hasn’t come close to getting old – all of which is even more impressive considering this is just its Early Access release. I am baffled to report, dear reader, that Palworld is very good.
Despite the clear, eyebrow-raising inspiration it takes from a certain creature collecting powerhouse, Palworld more closely resembles a formulaic survival game like Grounded, with a roster of lovable monsters to capture as a clever twist on that formula. You find yourself inexplicably dropped into the wilderness of a strange land filled with oversized, dangerous beasts called Pals. From there you’ll need to build a base, hilariously force the local fauna into your servitude, and upgrade your gear to wage war against the rotten members of the Syndicate who try to murder you with assault weapons every chance they get. You won’t find yourself hanging out in idyllic towns or challenging gym leaders to friendly contests – this isn’t that kind of adventure (unless it has a very stark change of tone later on). Instead, your goal is to survive the harsh land and face off against evil and/or psychotic Pal trainers who raze villages, attack your base, and command foreboding towers and dungeons filled with goons who shoot to kill.
And yeah, tonally, that’s an utterly unhinged combination. One moment I was taking in pastoral views as I explored for new Pals, gliding, climbing, crafting, and cooking like this was an off-brand Tears of the Kingdom. The next moment I was firing guns at armed thugs and considering the possibility of butchering a Pal who had been mentally broken by the poor working conditions of my sweatshop so I could consume his meat to avoid starvation. Rather than not addressing the questionable aspects of the creature collecting genre, Palworld amusingly leans into them and lets you do absurd things like pick up your fiery fox Pal and use it as a flamethrower to burn your enemies to a crisp, or equip your monkey Pal with a machine gun (which sure beats using tail whip). Once you get over how incredibly weird that all feels, it’s a complete blast.
Catching Pals out in the open world has been a ton of fun so far, though it’s definitely a bit weird to hack a small penguin unconscious with an ax, or even more alarmingly, take out a gun and riddle your target with lead before stuffing it into a capture sphere. It feels extremely wrong at first, to be sure, but I found myself disturbingly used to the ritual after a few hours – I mean, is doing the dirty work myself really all that different from battling them with another captured creature instead?
The Pals themselves, on the other hand, aren’t quite as original as the process of catching them, as I’d mostly describe the ones I’ve seen as “almost copyright infringement.” Seriously, there’s a mouselike lightning Pal, a sassy two-legged cat Pal, a dinosaur with a flower on its head, and many more that reminded me an awful lot of some collectible monsters from the days of my youth. That said, uninspired as they are, most have pretty neat designs and a lot of personality, which makes each one a ton of fun to hunt and do battle against.
Though capturing, leveling up, and fighting alongside Pals is a major and awesome part of the adventure, you’ll likely spend much more time hanging out at your bases, where you’ll craft useful items and facilities, cook meals, and arm yourself for war in the epic battles ahead. Just like most other survival games, you’ll need to keep a steady stream of crafting materials flowing in, like wood, stone, and food, and the key to automating that process so you don’t spend endless hours mind-numbingly chopping down trees and swatting rocks with a pickaxe is by making clever use of the Pals themselves. For example, farming could soak up lots of your time as you plant seeds, water your plots, and then harvest the crops, but once you’ve captured some Pals and put them to work at your base, you can have a plant Pal spit seeds out of its mouth, then have a water Pal blast them with water, before another Pal comes along to harvest the crop and move it to your storage container.
This Pal-based cooperation is not only ridiculously adorable to watch, but gives you even more reasons to catch every creature you find. You might not have much use for the fox-like Pal Foxparks in battle, but if you keep one at your base, whenever you fire up the grill to cook or use the furnace to smelt some ingots, your charming fire friend will come running to shoot fire at the appliance and make the task go by faster. Even the weakest creatures give you a whole new reason to catch not just one of them, but a whole bunch to be put to work at whatever it is they do well.
I’ve only barely scratched the surface of a world map that seems quite large, but so far running around and looking for hidden chests, battling dangerous boss Pals, raiding dungeons stuffed with loot, and chatting with a handful of NPCs and vendors scattered throughout the wilderness has been consistently entertaining. In one area I was ambushed by some wolflike Pals and a giant boss who was way beyond my level absolutely destroyed me, while in another I fought a camp of evil Pal trainers who had raided the area and put Pals in cages, and in another yet I found a shady blackmarket trader who was selling rare, probably illicitly obtained Pals. I recently unlocked the ability to ride some of my airborne Pals, too, which has opened up a lot of exploration options, but there’s still quite a lot left to do and see. Time will tell just how much depth there is, but after taking down a few bosses and with a few dozen Pals unlocked in my Paldeck, I’m absolutely champing at the bit to see more.
How Asgard’s Wrath 2 Devs Crammed an Entire Open World Into a VR Headset
Open-world games like Starfield and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have the seemingly impossible job of maintaining a delicate balancing act. If they give too much freedom in too empty a sandbox, the signal-to-noise ratio runs the risk of getting muddy, and all that freedom quickly loses its luster. On the other hand, if the world feels too small, it’s easy to wonder why the developers bothered setting their game in an open world instead of a linear one. Asgard’s Wrath 2 – a built-for-VR, Meta Quest 3-optimized, open-world RPG – manages to strike that balance perfectly all while in the relatively new medium: VR. And yet, the principles its developers followed to reach the apex of both VR roleplaying and open-world exploration are strikingly familiar.
“There is nobody that has seen every single square inch of this world,” Mike Doran, production director at Oculus Studios tells me. “It’s one thing to build a giant open world, but if there’s not enough to do in it, who cares?”
Oculus Studios Senior Producer Mari Kyle adds in her own tidbit of universal wisdom, “We’re all gamers and we all want to make something that feels satisfying to us and feels like the games that we love.” For instance, the first open-world area in Wrath 2’s sprawling campaign, the Great Sand Sea, wouldn’t be nearly as detailed without her and her team’s early input. Its vast dunes and craggy desert canyons are teeming with points of interest, but even the most basic interactions feel good – whether you’re fighting swarms of lizard men in one of many side dungeons, or even just plucking ore from a well-placed vein.
“I could feel it in my bones that there should be a combat encounter here,” Kyle explains about her first visits to an early version of Asgard’s Wrath 2’s Egypt-inspired desert expanse. “Or like, I can feel that a player is going to go and explore in this area that totally looks like there’s nothing there – but if they find something it’ll feel really rewarding.”
“Whether it’s the big thing of rocks with the monster den inside of it on the way to the Red Chasm, or combat encounters inside of these little areas that you wouldn’t expect. Just making sure that, as we were exploring it, we wanted to feel rewarded and make sure that people who do put in that extra effort to explore it were rewarded too.”
VR games are far more physically intense than regular games, as there’s a degree of mental fortitude involved in sticking with a big, 30+ hour VR game. Plus there just aren’t that many lengthy VR games out there, partially for that aforementioned reason. But of the three major players behind Asgard’s Wrath 2’s runaway success sitting on the conference call with me, no one was more personally attached to the series than Mat Kraemer, Asgard’s Wrath 2’s creative director at Sanzaru, who also chalks up Wrath 2’s ability to keep people coming back as a simple matter of good game design.
Make It Bigger, and Smaller
“On the first game, we were worried like ‘what is the retention going to be like? Are people really going to play this, this long?’ and we were blown away by how long people would stay in [VR] and keep playing the game,” Kraemer explains. “The best answer for this – it’s not necessarily a VR answer, it’s just a gaming answer – is ‘I want to play games that surprise me.’”
And Asgard’s Wrath 2 is full of surprises, from its larger-than-life opening battle with the massive, griffin-like Hieracosphinx, to the epic switchups in direction that come about in its later Sagas as game-changing new characters enter the fold.
Even then, there’s so much going on under the surface that I knew I needed to dig further to fully wrap my head around Sanzaru’s herculean lift toward the heavens. Making a VR game is difficult, but the minds at Sanzaru somehow managed to create an open-world VR RPG that spans 100+ hours and runs buttery smooth on the fully mobile Quest 3 headset. But how exactly did Sanzaru manage to follow up Asgard’s Wrath 1, a 130-gigabyte PC VR game, by delivering a Quest 3 exclusive that achieves the seemingly impossible feat of packing in four times the amount of content of its predecessor at one-quarter of the size?
Doran tells me the team spent the months leading up to the launch of the first game experimenting with the OG Quest before a plan for a sequel was formulated. But when it became clear that Asgard’s Wrath was a hit and support for the Quest was only growing in size, the team was immediately able to apply the lessons learned during the development of the first game to a whole new project.
“A fair amount of it was ‘what would we do differently if we were making the same type of game?’” Doran explains. “So there’s some element of that, and then another element of ‘we’re going to have to rebuild this for mobile computers – combat, questing, map sizes, all of those things.’”
The process Sanzaru followed to reinvent every asset for the Quest wasn’t exactly simple. Evidently, the team needed to do some serious trial-and-error before locking down Asgard’s Wrath 2’s visual identity on mobile hardware. “When we started out, we didn’t think it could look like what you see today,” Kraemer points out. “The shaders were completely different; it looked more like Disney Pixar. Like, a very different approach. And we were like ‘man, I really wanna see real Asgard’s Wrath! The grit, that tonal style – that’s the franchise,’ so we shifted to dig into that and lean that way.”
Playing Asgard’s Wrath 2, I noticed the art style was particularly contrasty, deviating from the style of the first game with brighter colors and more vibrance. Everything right down to the sand looks amazing on the Quest 3’s hardware to the point where you’d think it shouldn’t work as well for a game of its scope! Yet, even with glistening sand and giant beasts roaming in the distance, somehow it does. According to Kraemer, this can be attributed to “a phenomenal engineering team, an amazing art team, and then all the support from the Meta side.”
That vibrant new art style immediately came to life during the opening sequence, where Asgard’s Wrath 2 reintroduced me to the realm of the gods by giving me a tour of the first game’s major story beats on the back of a giant raven. My question to the team: how did the cinematography of these early cutscenes come together, looking and feeling so good in my Quest 3?
As Doran tells it, “The worst thing in the world is watching a really long cutscene in VR where you’re static, and it’s like a play happening around you.”
“So the fact that you’re moving helps a lot. [For instance, in the opening sequence of Saga 1] you’re following Abraxas as he’s going through all these traps, and we get to do little tricks – like he dodges an arrow that you don’t even see yet and it flies right by your head, and it keeps you engaged even though you were passive in that moment. A lot of little things like that, and keeping within a certain time length overall.”
Trusty Steeds
Much like the impressively cinematic story sequences that the original also did well (as we noted in our 9.4/10 review of Asgard’s Wrath), Asgard’s Wrath 2’s animal follower system was one of the main returning features from the first game. Sure, there are fewer followers than before – but the ones that exist also double as mounts, which is an important factor since the introduction of mounts means players can cover a larger distance without interruption. “We had [fewer followers] in this game than we did in the first one,” Kraemer explains, “but we wanted to do something more with them. We wanted more depth with them, we wanted to learn more about their stories.”
“You’ve got the finishers, and then you can transform them to get mount stuff; that alone really opened up the gates of creativity. We also didn’t want all the mounts when you transform them to be the same.” That the first concept art for Asgard’s Wrath 2 showed Abraxas riding a mount proves how early on the team wanted to include mounts in the sequel.
Mounts in VR have been a controversial topic far longer than I’ve owned a headset, but when I encountered Asgard’s Wrath 2’s mount system for the first time, it was such a well-developed experience – jumping into it and suddenly riding across the desert – that I had to wonder about the problems Sanzaru ran into during the testing phase. According to Doran, the genius autorun mechanic that activates when you pull on a mount’s virtual reins “came online pretty early,” and all the other quality-of-life features followed thereafter. But it certainly wasn’t easy.
“What was interesting was all the stuff that was needed to add to [Mount riding],” Doran explains.. “Like being able to push ‘A’ to instantly hop on or off the mount, being able to grapple to get onto your mount, and it was like… we started talking about all these kinds of things and they made all of them work.”
Like Zelda, But in VR
Doran describes the first game as being more akin to a Metroidvania, with big levels and exploration gated by abilities and backtracking. But even just playing the second game without speaking to the lead developers, it’s clear they wanted to give it a different kind of Nintendo treatment.
“From the earliest discussions about the second game, we wanted it to have more of a – and I don’t use this comparison lightly at all – but more of a Zelda feel,” Doran explains.”More of a true open landscape that you’re exploring. Not necessarily Breath of the Wild big, but if you think about [The Great Sand Sea, that feels kinda like Hyrule Field from [The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time].”
At this point, I was curious to know more about some of Asgard’s Wrath 2’s more modern open-world inspirations. Did its developers intend it to share any DNA with games like Starfield, or Tears of the Kingdom perhaps? “All of the above,” Kraemer says. “I mean, I was playing Starfield a couple months ago. Zelda, all those games. I mean, we love games.”
And yet, given the Quest 3 only has so much battery life, I knew I needed to ask the team not only how they got around friction, but also how they approached keeping people engaged in an open world for upward of 100 hours.
Doran continues, “I think the root of what you’re actually asking about is, how do we compel people to spend a lot of time in a device that they don’t usually spend this much time in?… How do we structure this whole thing in such a way that they don’t feel like they have to play for two, three hours – but they can if they want.”
There are two answers according to Doran; one, about making it easy to save and jump in and out of the game, the other, most importantly, is accessibility.
Speaking on this further, Doran tells me they consider factors like the pain points people might encounter. “Some of them are gameplay, like you said. But there are other, more foundational things about accessibility. We would have cut so many things to make this game easier for ourselves if I’m completely honest with you.”
“There are a lot of nice areas that you can take a break from the game and hop back in,” Kyle chimes in. “Even with the Uncharted Rifts that are procedurally generated, we have checkpoints in them – so you can leave them if you like and then come back and do your Rift run later. It was super top-of-mind for us when we were going through this development that people had good chunks to play in.”
Uncharted Rifts are one of the many unique experiences in Asgard’s Wrath 2, offering more of a roguelike experience by way of increasingly difficult trials that let you bring loot back into the main campaign. But more importantly, they serve as a testing arena for elements of the campaign that would later get rolled out as the team builds upon the open world. According to Kraemer, “We always knew we wanted that mode from the beginning.”
“And hats off to the amazing John Hsia our lead [level] designer, he’s a huge roguelike fan,” Kraemer notes. “He’ll finish Dark Souls with no armor, no nothing, he’s hardcore. We love roguelike loops.”
Nearing the end of our chat, one of my final questions was simply… how long do Rifts go for? Hypothetically, could someone complete Rift after Rift ad infinitum?
“Nobody knows!” Doran says as myself and the team laugh. “Yeah, it’s endless,” Kyle concurs.
With the endless amount of content packed into Asgard’s Wrath 2, it truly is the Quest 3’s killer app, rivaling the PC-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx for the title of VR’s best game. From my own experiences, it’ll put the battery life of your Quest 3 to the ultimate test as you lose yourself exploring, questing, and fighting across the ancient Egyptian desert – that is, if you don’t find yourself trapped in Rift after Rift after Rift.
Some quotes have been condensed for clarity.
The Last of Us Season 2 Cast: Who’s New and Coming Back to the HBO Show?
The Last of Us is returning for a second season in 2025 and we’re finally starting to learn who will be joining the cast, playing some of our favorite characters from the second game in Naughty Dog’s PlayStation series. It all kicked off with the big reveal that Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever would be taking on the role of Abby, followed soon after that by the casting announcements of Jesse and Dina.
There will be plenty more reveals as we get closer to the much-anticipated debut of Season 2, and we’ll be updating this article as we learn more! For now, however, come check out who the new cast members are, who is returning, who may return, and who, sadly, appears not to be coming back.
The Last of Us TV Show Season 2 New Cast
Kaitlyn Dever as Abby
The biggest question everyone had going into Season 2 of The Last of Us was who was going to play Abby? Thankfully, HBO finally gave us the answer when it revealed Booksmart and Justified’s Kaitlyn Dever will be playing her.
Abby is one of the playable characters in The Last of Us Part 2 and has a huge role to play in the upcoming story. While we won’t spoil too much here, Abby is a member of the Fireflies who crosses paths with Joel and Ellie early in the second game. HBO has described Abby as a “skilled soldier whose black-and-white view of the world is challenged as she seeks vengeance for those she loved.”
“Our casting process for season two has been identical to season one: we look for world-class actors who embody the souls of the characters in the source material,” series co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann said in a joint statement. “Nothing matters more than talent, and we’re thrilled to have an acclaimed performer like Kaitlyn join Pedro, Bella and the rest of our family.”
Who Voiced Abby in The Last of Us Part 2 Game? Laura Bailey
Young Mazino as Jesse
Beef star Young Mazino will be joining Season 2 of The Last of Us as Jesse, a “pillar of the community who puts everyone else’s needs before his own, sometimes at terrible cost.”
Jesse was first introduced in The Last of Us Part 2 and is a leader of the patrol groups in Jackson, Wyoming, a community Joel, Ellie, and Tommy call home at the beginning of the second game. He is a friend of Ellie and is also an ex-boyfriend of Dina.
“Young is one of those rare actors who is immediately undeniable the moment you see him,” Mazin and Druckmann said. “We’re so lucky to have him, and we can’t wait for the audience to see Young shine in our show.”
Who Voiced Jesse in The Last of Us Part 2 Game? Stephen Chang
Isabella Merced as Dina
Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Transformers: The Last Knight’s Isabella Merced is playing Dina in The Last of Us’ second season. For those unfamiliar, Dina is another member of the community of Jackson and is Ellie’s partner who plays a pivotal role in the story. Her relationship with Ellie evolves and grows in many ways throughout the game and she is one of the strongest voices in her life. Does she always listen to that voice? You’ll have to wait to find out.
“Dina is warm, brilliant, wild, funny, moral, dangerous and instantly lovable,” said Mazin and Druckmann. “You can search forever for an actor who effortlessly embodies all of those things, or you can find Isabela Merced right away.”
Who Voiced Dina in The Last of Us Part 2 Game? Shannon Woodward
The Last of Us TV Show Season 2 Confirmed Returning Cast
Spoilers ahead for The Last of Us Season 1!
Pedro Pascal as Joel
Pedro Pascal will once again be returning as Joel in the second season of The Last of Us. When we last left Joel, he had just gone on a murderous rampage against the Fireflies to save Ellie. Marlene explained to Joel that while the procedure to see if Ellie’s body could actually lead to a cure would kill her, it would be for the greater good. Joel clearly didn’t agree this was the right option and rescued Ellie, takingher away from there.
The final scene saw him lying to Ellie and telling her the Fireflies had already failed to develop a cure for the cordyceps infection and that they didn’t need her anymore. He also chose not to reveal the bloodshed he left behind. When he swore to Ellie that what he said was true, Ellie just gave him an uneasy, “Okay.”
Who Voiced Joel in The Last of Us Part 2 Game? Troy Baker
Bella Ramsey as Ellie
Bella Ramsey will be returning as Ellie in The Last of Us’ second season and will once again star alongside Pedro Pascal’s Joel. As with Joel, the last time we saw Ellie was when she was lied to by Joel about what happened with the Fireflies at that fateful hospital. Ellie was under anesthesia as she was getting ready for a procedure that would kill her but hopefully find a cure for the cordyceps infection. She didn’t know she was going to die.
Joel wasn’t OK with that and rescued her while killing many along the way, yet Ellie was unconscious the whole time so didn’t have a choice in the matter. We don’t know exactly what Ellie thinks after Joel lies to her at the end of the season, but Season 2 will no doubt dive deep into that and what it means for their relationship.
Who Voiced Bella in The Last of Us Part 2 Game? Ashley Johnson
The Last of Us TV Show Season 2 Possible Returning Cast
Gabriel Luna as Tommy
Tommy is Joel’s brother and Gabriel Luna will most likely be making a return in Season 2 as the character played a big part in The Last of Us Part 2. We last saw him in Jackson with his wife, Maria. Joel had initially asked Tommy to take Ellie to the Fireflies after he admitted he wasn’t strong enough to do it and couldn’t after the loss of his daughter, Sarah. However, he changed his mind after speaking with Ellie and the two left Tommy behind in Jackson, but not before Tommy said they always had a home there.
Rutina Wesley as Maria
Rutina Wesley’s Maria is a leader of the Jackson community and Tommy’s wife. We last saw her in Jackson when she was cutting Ellie’s hair and telling her to be careful who to trust. She will most likely be returning for Season 2.
Merle Dandridge as Marlene
Merle Dandridge’s Marlene was killed by Joel in the final episode of The Last of Us’ first season, so we won’t be seeing her in the present time of Season 2. However, she did appear in flashbacks during The Last of Us Part 2 and very well may show up again this next season in that fashion.
Anna Torv as Tess
Anna Torv’s Tess was a smuggler and close friend of Joel in Boston who was with him when Marlene gave them the mission to get Ellie out of the city and to the Fireflies. Unfortunately, Tess sacrificed herself to save Joel and Ellie after she was bitten, and she was controversially killed by a Clicker who “kissed” her with disgusting mouth tendrils.
While Tess didn’t appear in The Last of Us Part 2, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we could get another flashback to Joel and Tess’ life before she died in the show to flesh out their story.
Will Nick Offerman’s Bill and Murray Bartlett’s Frank Return in The Last of Us?
It doesn’t sound like it…
The Last of Us’ episode which focused on the story of Nick Offerman’s Bill and Murray Bartlett’s Frank was one of our favorite of the show’s first season. In fact, we loved it so much that we gave it a rare 10/10.
“Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett take on leading role duties with elegance, leaving an unmistakably beautiful mark on the show as we’re shown a side of humanity that makes what Joel and Ellie are fighting for worth saving,” IGN’s Simon Cardy wrote. “It’s an episode, just like love, that lives long in the memory after experiencing it.”
While their love story has sadly ended, there was hope we could see them again in another flashback. Offerman even said there were ideas for a potential spin-off prequel series focused on the characters.
However, Mazin has shut down that idea and said Offerman was just joking about the prequel. “I’m very proud of the episode we did with Bill and Frank,” Mazin said. “There won’t be more Bill and Frank. Nick was joking about a prequel, that was kind of a joke. We are very happy with what we achieved.”
For more, check out our review of The Last of Us Season 1 and seven cool details from The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered’s Lost Levels.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
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