Along with their announcement that they’re releasing a new Call of Duty this new Call of Duty this year, Activision has revealed the roadmap for Season 2 of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s multiplayer, and it includes an old favorite: Rust. Known as one of the smallest maps in the entire Call of Duty franchise, Rust has divided fans since it first debuted back in 2009’s Modern Warfare 2.
Like the infamous Shipment from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the compact size of the map means that you’re likely to spawn in the crosshairs of one of your opponents, making for very quick matches. The map is also known for encouraging tactics that some players dislike, like camping and grenade spamming. Still, if you like quick and dirty close-quarters-combat, Rust is the map for you.
Rust takes place in the middle of a sandstorm
Rust will be available at the launch of Season 2 on February 11, and it’s free to those who already own Modern Warfare. It also includes new maps and a Battle Pass. Not everything will be available on day one, but there is plenty of content hitting on Tuesday.
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When Sony purchasedSpider-Man developer Insomniac Games, it seemed like a natural fit for a studio that had long worked closely with PlayStation on exclusives. Recent financial disclosures show just how much Sony paid for the developer.
Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad noted on Twitter that according to recent SEC filings, Sony paid roughly $229 million, mostly in cash, when the deal closed in November. The sale was first announced in August.
Insomniac had worked mostly on PlayStation exclusives since its founding in 1994, and was known for mascot-driven platformers like Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet & Clank. Though it worked on a handful of iOS and multiplatform games, and the Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive, Spider-Man was a return to PlayStation exclusivity, as Sony owns the game rights to the character.
There’s a buy two, get one free sale at Target this week, which means there’s also a buy two, get one free sale at Amazon. Amazon always matches Target’s sales nowadays, and this particular B2G1 free promotion is a mix-and-match sale across games, movies, board games, and books.
Amazon’s selection of games is far more limited than Target’s, but this fact is slightly deceiving. Some of the games in Target’s sale, such as Borderlands 3 and NBA 2K20, aren’t featured in Amazon’s sale. But Target has those games and others listed for their full $60 price, while Amazon has them for 50% off or more. Essentially, before you shop Target’s sale, make sure you can’t find what you want for less at Amazon.
The movie deals are even better. The recently-released Doctor Sleep, one of my favorite movies of 2019, and Oscar winner Joker are up for grabs on Blu-ray–Joker is even discounted to $15, too. The biggest movie of last year, Avengers: Endgame, is also featured in the promotion. Anime fans can grab Studio Ghibli films like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke as well as The Legend of Korra: Complete Series. If you liked Parasite, you should check out Snowpiercer, one of director Bong Joon-ho’s earlier movies, which is also discounted to the incredibly low price of $6.46.
As it’s a mix-and-match sale, you can pick three items across any category and get the cheapest item free. You can browse the full B2G1 free sale at Amazon and check out our favorite deals below. Amazon doesn’t list an end date for the sale, but expect it to run until Target’s sale ends on February 15. Keep in mind the following prices may differ from what’s indicated below due to how often pricing fluctuates at Amazon.
Video games
Blu-rays and DVDs
Graphic novels and art books
Board and card games
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Netflix has renewed Sex Education for a third season.
The British comedy drama, starring Gillian Anderson, Asa Butterfield, Emma Mackey, and Ncuti Gatwa, deals with the intertwined lives of several high school students. The first season saw Butterfield’s character, Otis, sneakily set up a sex clinic at school, providing advice he learns via his mother (Anderson) who works as a sex therapist. Season 2 evolved the show into a more character-led story, largely abandoning the ‘case of the week’ style. Season 3 looks likely to continue that trend.
Netflix’s short renewal announcement states that the season goes into production this year. No release date has been set, but both season 1 and 2 aired in January in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Our review of Sex Education Season 2 said the show “stands tall with bright characters, fun performances, and an unequaled candidness about sex.” Naturally, we’re more than happy to see a third season.
WWE has confirmed that WrestleMania 37 will be hosted at the SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles in March 2021.
In an official announcement on Monday, the WWE network revealed that the major sports-entertainment event would be heading to Inglewood, California on Sunday, March 28, 2021.
“On behalf of everyone at WWE, we are excited to bring WrestleMania back to Los Angeles,” said Vince McMahon, WWE Chairman & CEO. “WrestleMania will set the bar for future sports and entertainment events held at SoFi Stadium as we add this facility to the list of iconic venues that have hosted our pop-culture extravaganza.”
In addition to WrestleMania 37, the weeklong celebration will include Friday Night SmackDown, NXT TakeOver and Monday Night Raw at Staples Center, WrestleMania Axxess, as well as the annual WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.
Scheduled to open in July 2020, the state-of-the-art SoFi Stadium will also host the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers for the 2020 NFL season, the Super Bowl LVI in February 2022 and the College Football Playoff National Championship in January 2023.
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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.
A grieving mother was recently given the chance be reunited with a recreation of her deceased daughter in virtual reality. Jang Ji-sung’s daughter Nayeon died in 2016 from an incurable disease at the age of seven.
The video (uploaded by MBC Documentary) of Ji-sun interacting with her deceased daughter was aired as part of a South Korean documentary on February 6. The team behind the documentary spent eight months creating the VR recreation of Nayeon, reports PC Gamer.
[Image Credit: MBCDocumentary]With a headset and pair of haptic gloves, Ji-sung was able to virtually play with a rendering of her daughter, and could even hear an approximation of her actual voice.
In the documentary clip linked above, viewer’s were able to witness the emotional moment when Ji-sung was reunited with her virtually rendered daughter. The clip is around ten-minutes long, with the majority of it showing Ji-sung having a picnic in the park with Nayeon.
An emotional family watched on as the grieving mother spoke and played with Nayeon’s VR recreation. Due to the nature of the topic, the video is difficult to watch — so please take that into consideration before viewing.
Interacting with deceased loved ones is something that has yet to be fully explored yet by VR technology. Despite some concerns that it could negatively affect the grieving process, there are a handful of companies that are currently exploring VR capabilities in this area.
VR technology has come a long way over the past few years, with developers being able to use it to offer experience’s that other forms of media cannot. However, VR is still struggling to take off, indicated by Sony’s recent closure of its first-party VR studio, which never released a game.
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Andrew Smith is a freelance contributor with IGN. Follow him on Twitter @_andrewtsmith.
Dead Cells developer Motion Twin has revealed a new animated trailer for its upcoming DLC update, The Bad Seed, ahead of its February 11 release on Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and PC.
As illustrated in the bittersweet trailer above, Dead Cells’ The Bad Seed DLC introduces a rogue’s gallery of brand-new, gooey monsters that inhabit two new, optional biomes.
The Arboretum is a “lush paradise to deceivingly adorable creatures,” and The Swamp, an “overgrown arboreal settlement inhabited by ambushing blow gunners and spear wielders” is the lesser of two evils compared to the “gargantuan purple ticks that reign uncontested on the ground.” Sounds great. Good stuff.
The new Bad Seed biomes add to an alternate path to reach the final encounter without changing the existing routes, but the additional new weapons included in the DLC – including the first double-slot weapon – will be useful in any of the nightmarish hellscapes in which you ply your trade.
Lastly, and obviously, most importantly, there’s an adorably loyal mushroom companion – again, check the trailer above for proof of adorableness / Stockholm syndrome.
Priced at $5 USD, The Bad Seed DLC is the seventeenth Dead Cells update to date and the first that will come with a cost since its May 2017 release.
For Halo Infinite, the team at 343 Industries built more than a game. They also developed a brand-new game engine, Slipspace. Now, the studio has spoken a bit more about what that engine allows the team to do–and it sounds like a lot.
Halo franchise director Frank O’Connor said in a video that the Slipspace engine was designed for “next-generation” game development, and also to be easier to work with.
“We had to create an engine that was more powerful for next-generation development, but also more nimble, so the creatives and engineers are able to work more easily and iterate faster,” he said. “This technical groundwork is vital to build a platform for the future of Halo.”
Engineering director David Berger said in the video that the Slipspace engine allows the team at 343 to do things that were not possible with the previous game-making tools. “You have to make tools that allow you to make new features that allow you to make features that weren’t thought about [before]. You’ve gotta give the content-creators room to ideate outside of that,” he said.
Multiplayer director Tom French, meanwhile, said one of the benefits of the Slipspace engine is that it allows the team to try new things more quickly than before.
“Designers are more empowered themselves to actually tackle a problem and prototype something quicker and faster than we’ve ever done before,” he said.
In another intriguing piece of news, 343 community manager Brian Jarrard recently teased that he was in the office on a Saturday for a playtest. He’s presumably referencing Halo Infinite, and if the team is working on the weekend, the studio might be gearing up for some kind of announcement soon. Halo Infinite is launching later this year, and there will be beta tests beforehand, so it is high time for Microsoft to finally show and say more about it.
If you’re at the studio on a Saturday for a playtest, is it really “work?” 🤔 Do what you love and it’s never “work.” 🤘
This year’s Oscars have come to a close, and there were some big moments throughout the evening. Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite was the first non-English film to win Best Picture, and Joaquin Phoenix was the second actor to play the Joker to win and Academy Award. But what many people want to know is what movie won the most awards for the 92nd Academy Awards?
There were more than a dozen movies up for more than one award this year, but nothing was nominated more than Joker, which landed a total of 11 noms, one more than 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and The Irishman. However, when it came to the 2020 Oscars, the South Korean film Parasite ended up getting the most wins. Check out the most winning movies from this year.
Most wins at the 92nd Academy Awards
Parasite (Four wins)
1917 (Three wins)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Two wins)
Ford vs Ferrari (Two wins)
Joker (Two wins)
Parasite grabbed the Oscars for Best Film, Director, International Feature Film, and Original Screenplay. You can check out the acceptance speech for Parasite’s Best Film win below.
Second place went to 1917, coming in with three wins, including Best Visual Effects, Cinematography, and Sound Mixing, even though it was one of the three most-nominated films of the year.
One of the most shocking things of the night wasn’t what won; it was what didn’t win. Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman was up for 10 awards–two of which were Best Actor in a Supporting Role–and it didn’t win any of them. It was the only movie to be nominated for Best Picture that didn’t win in any of its nominated categories.
