Resident Evil Resistance, the asynchronous multiplayer mode that released alongside Resident Evil 3, is introducing a new Mastermind in May. Antagonist Nicholai Ginovaef will join the roster for those who enjoy terrorising survivors with Tyrants, traps, and other nefarious means.
On the flip side, protagonist Jill Valentine, along with her trusty Samurai Edge and dodge, joins the ranks of survivors today. Capcom announced the news via Twitter with an updated roadmap for future content–with more scheduled to arrive in June and July onwards. Ginovaef will add to a Mastermind roster that also includes the likes of Alex Wesker and Annette Birkin.
Jill Valentine has joined the survivor ranks in Resistance! With her trusty Samurai Edge and dodge, she’ll surely put a dent in any Mastermind’s work. Unfortunately for Jill, Nicholai Ginovaef will take a seat in the Mastermind throne in a future title update… pic.twitter.com/eyodaGHNVJ
In other Resistance news, Capcom recently announced that a patch is incoming with daily mission tweaks and more, after inviting feedback from fans.
Resistance is packaged as part of Resident Evil 3, which also hit a big sales milestone very quickly.
“As a remake, Resident Evil 3 not only falls short of honoring its source, but it also doesn’t quite stick the landing as a standalone horror experience,” Alessandro Fillari wrote in GameSpot’s Resident Evil 3 review. “Even without taking into account the original game, or its predecessor, RE3 struggles to keep up with its pace amid a clashing of elements from survival horror and standard action. While it has a strong start and gives its principal villain some great moments, this truncated retelling of the concluding game from the original Resident Evil trilogy doesn’t do it proper justice.”
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Here at IGN, we’re always looking for new ways to bring our community together to embrace what we’re most passionate about. That’s why we launched Watch From Home Theater, a weekly live show where we unite some of your favorite IGN personalities and special celebrity guests to have a digital movie night together with you watching some of our favorite films of all time.
This Thursday, April 23rd at 5 p.m. PT, we’re watching Steven Spielberg’s iconic and ultimate thrill ride, Jurassic Park, with special guest and original cast member Joseph Mazzello, who played Tim Murphy! Since his breakout role as the dinosaur-loving preteen grandson of John Hammond, Mazzello has gone on to star in The Pacific, The Social Network, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and, most recently, as Queen bassist John Deacon in the Academy Award-winning Bohemian Rhapsody.
“While we all continue to sit tight and wait for these scary and uncertain times to eventually be behind us, my favorite way to escape the worry and pass the time has been by watching classic films, and in my completely unbiased opinion, Jurassic Park is one of the all time greats,” Mazzello told IGN. “I can’t wait to join together with other fans to celebrate this iconic film and share the stories, insight, and fond and funny memories I collected while playing ‘Tim Murphy.’ It’s gonna be a blast!”
Featuring Academy Award-winning visual effects and groundbreaking filmmaking that has been hailed as “a triumph of special effects artistry” by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, Jurassic Park is sheer movie-making magic that was 65 million years in the making. Taking audiences to an amazing yet dangerous theme park on a remote island where dinosaurs once again roam the earth and five people must battle to survive among the prehistoric predators, Jurassic Park stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough.
While we will be sharing some select scenes from the movie as part of IGN’s WFH Theater live stream, we encourage you to watch Jurassic Park along with us on your own devices for the full live commentary experience! Be sure to stay with us throughout the entire live stream as we’ll be giving away digital codes for the film as well as mystery disosaur prizes from Mattel.
So grab your copy of the beloved 1993 Universal Pictures movie, and sync up with us. If you don’t already own the movie, Comcast customers can find Jurassic Park on the newly launched Peacock streaming service, or you also can stream Jurassic Park on TNT or TBS to watch online through your cable provider. You also can rent Jurassic Park on any of the digital platforms below:
Watch From Home Theater isn’t just a show or an opportunity to watch a movie; it’s a hangout with passionate people who share one thing in common — their love of film. Each week, we’ll invite our viewers to join in the conversation by dropping questions into the chat on whatever platform you’re watching for our host, Clint Gage, to ask our celebrity guest. With running commentaries that range from insightful to silly, each viewing will take on a life of its own based on each film.
If you missed our first episode, you can watch our live commentary of The Invisible Man with director Leigh Whannell below in its entirety!
You can also watch our second episode, where we watched Night of the Living Dead with The Walking Dead EP and special makeup effects master Greg Nicotero:
Have any questions for us in the meantime? Drop them in the comments below and we’ll do our best to answer before showtime. We’re excited to watch with you!
If you are hungry for new experiences, and you don’t have a lot of cash to spend, I have excellent news. You can grab some truly incredible games for PC right now in the latest GOG sale.
All-time greats like BioShock Remastered and BioShock 2 Remastered are available for just $6.59 each, complete editions of great coop games like Overcooked and Overcooked 2 are available for up to 75% off, and a whole lot more.
Beloved by many and widely considered to be one of the most memorable games of all time, BioShock has been remastered and looks better than ever.
This version supports 4K, full controller support, director’s commentary, challenge rooms, and more, and also comes with a copy of the original, unaltered BioShock. The pair are available for just $6.59 (down from $20), which is a steal no matter how you slice it.
Following BioShock was a tall order, but if you are looking for pure gameplay refinement to the first-person classic, BioShock 2 delivers in spades.
Return to Rapture for just $6.59 (down from $20) with BioShock 2 Remastered and get the unaltered BioShock 2 as well, alongside 4K support, The Protector Trials, and more.
There are few games which can deliver the pure, frantic joy of Overcooked! 2, and right now you can save 40% on what has become a modern classic (and staple in my home).
Play the base game and each of the four delightful DLC packs for just $29.30 total (down from $48.59) and give yourself countless hours of chaotic fun for up to four players (with both local and online coop).
Brian Barnett writes wiki guides, deals posts, features, and much more for IGN. You can get your fix of Brian’s antics on Twitter and Instagram (@Ribnax).
April 2020 has been an unusually dry month for new comic book releases, but that dry spell is slowly coming to an end. DC Comics has revealed it will resume shipping new comics to stores on Tuesday, April 28.
Unfortunately, don’t expect a full roster of new DC releases right off the bat. The publisher will be shipping a more limited selection of books over the next few weeks, with flagship titles like Batman and Superman still MIA. Here’s the full shipping list revealed so far:
April 28
Batman #89 (3rd printing)
Daphne Byrne #4
The Dreaming #20
Nightwing #70 (2nd printing)
Batman GIANT #4
May 5
Batman and the Outsiders #12
DC Super Stars #17 (Facsimile Edition)
The Flash #753
The Green Lantern: Season Two #3
Hawkman #23
House of Whispers #20
Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity #4
May 12
Harley Quinn #72
Justice League #44
Justice League Odyssey #20
Lois Lane #10
Metal Men #6
Marvel has yet to announce when it plans to resume shipping new comics. We’ve reached out to the publisher for comment and will update this story when we learn more.
Limited selection or not, this definitely good news for comic readers starved for new reading material, especially on the heels of confirmation that San Diego Comic-Con 2020 has been canceled. If you’re unsure whether your local comic shop is still open and receiving new deliveries during the COVID-19 pandemic, DC has a comic shop tracker tool that should provide more information.
It’s 2020, and video game graphics keep getting better and better. For PC gamers, that means keeping up with an ever-improving standard for machines, especially when it comes to high frame rates in 4K and the ever sought after ray tracing. So we’ve compiled a list of games that not only look great on consoles or low-spec PCs, but completely dazzle when cranked up to ultra settings.
Note, the ranking here was chosen not on a games review score, but instead the sheer amount of raw graphics card power required to really allow these games to shine at max settings. To that end, here are the Top 10 games that make the most of your high-end gaming PC.
To see our list, you can either scroll down the page like normal or click through the slideshow below, paired with really pretty screenshots!
Known for its huge open, er, battlefields, Battlefield V still manages to dazzle visually, which are two aspects that combine to truly test your PC’s limits. Large open spaces with a high level of detail, combined with destructible buildings and high player counts will really test your rig. Having so many players in a space at once, all doing different things requires a lot of power, but the payoff is well worth it when it all comes together.
Recommended Hardware: AMD Radeon R9 290 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 (4GB VRAM or more with Shader Model 5.0) or better
Assassin’s Creed always gives us big, beautiful worlds, which makes for some hefty system requirements. Odyssey not only gives us stunning Greek landscapes to play around in, but a gorgeous rendition of the Mediterranean Sea to sail as well. From the shimmering bronze and marble statues of the acropolis to the wilds of Macedonia and volcanic beaches of Anaphi, Odyssey running on max settings is one of the most beautiful games available on PC – though it’s optimized really well for lower-end rigs, too!
Recommended Hardware: Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB (Current available GPU RTX2060) or AMD equivalent
While the leap from Wolfenstein 2: New Colossus to Youngblood didn’t change much in the way of graphics, the recent ray tracing patch applied to Youngblood puts it just a step ahead of its predecessor. Whether it’s the crystal clear reflections glistening off your gun as you take down nazis, or the sparkling puddles found throughout the war-torn streets, Youngblood never stops dazzling. Pair that with truly breathtaking explosions and glowing fires, and – with a card beefy enough – Wolfenstein: Youngblood is a sight to behold.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the most beautiful entry in the series yet, and its shadowy locales really make the most of a high-end rig – we mean that literally, by the way: look at these lighting effects! Yes, the recent addition of ray tracing support takes an already beautiful game and makes it even better – just watch out for leopards.
Recommended hardware – Nvidia GTX 970 OR Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB OR AMD R9 290x OR AMD RX 470
Racing games don’t get more beautiful than Forza, and the latest entry in the Horizon series takes those cars into a gorgeous open-world take on Great Britain. Between the hundreds of expertly-rendered cars and the seasonal changes that overtake the world, Forza Horizon 4 will put your graphics card to the test – in the best way possible.
Once considered the cutting edge of gaming visuals, Resident Evil 3 is once again leading the way with a beautiful remake that pushes machines to their limit. The spooky streets of Raccoon City have come a long way since 1999, and are now fully realized in HD and 4K. Zombies and other monstrosities are depicted with excruciating detail, making them both incredibly scary but also seriously worth ogling every detail. Resident Evil has come a long way over the decades, and Resident Evil 3 is the stunning – and horrifying – proof.
Doom Eternal is finally here, and you’re going to want to check that your graphics card is up to date in order to get the best view of Hell possible. The techno-hellish surroundings are beautifully realized, and the fast and furious action as you kill creatively-designed demonic monstrosities not only looks great in 4K – and can even hit an astonishing thousand frames per second on top-of-the-line supercomputers – but it’s been optimized to run well on older hardware, too.
Recommended hardware – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, AMD Radeon RX 580 or better (RTX 2060 for Ray-Tracing)
Control is a visual mind-bender, and while its trippy transforming hallways look great on any platform, it looks especially awesome on a powerful PC – especially with the recent upgrade for ray tracing support. It’s one of the best showcases for how good ray tracing can look, whether in its jaw-dropping setpieces or when you’re just exploring the midcentury-modern halls of The Oldest House.
What may well be one of the most beautiful games of the generation on any platform, Red Dead Redemption 2 features a gorgeous, wide-open Western countryside that truly looks its best on PC. With true 4K/60 capabilities, new ultra-HD textures and plenty of other updated visuals, you’ll need a serious build to take full advantage of the PC port, but we’re sure you’ll find it well worth the effort, pard’ner.
The gritty, grimy Metro series isthe most system-intensive entry in the series yet, and with good reason. With a variety of locales, from wintry urban landscapes to verdant forests and dank underground tunnels, its bleak post-apocalyptic take on Russia and eastern Europe has never looked better.. Metro Exodus also now supports ray tracing, which makes the game even more beautiful – especially in the flickering lamplights of the underground sections. It may be the most harrowing chapter of Artyom’s journey yet – but it’s also by far the prettiest.
San Diego Comic-Con 2020 has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. This is the first time in the con’s 50-year history that SDCC has been canceled. The event will instead return to the San Diego Convention Center from July 22-25, 2021.
WonderCon Anaheim, which was scheduled to run April 10-12, 2020, will now return March 26-28, 2021.
Comic-Con released the following statement Friday explaining their decision to cancel the event:
“Recognizing that countless attendees save and plan for its conventions each year, and how many exhibitors and stakeholders rely upon its events for a major portion of their livelihood, they had hoped to delay this decision in anticipation that COVID-19 concerns might lessen by summer. Continuous monitoring of health advisories and recent statements by the Governor of California have made it clear that it would not be safe to move forward with plans for this year.”
SDCC also announced the following information for badge holders, exhibitors, and hotel bookings:
Individuals who purchased badges for Comic-Con 2020 will have the option to request a refund or transfer their badges to Comic-Con 2021. All 2020 badge holders will receive an email within the next week with instructions on how to request a refund.
Exhibitors for Comic-Con 2020 will also have the option to request a refund or transfer their payments to Comic-Con 2021 and will also receive an email within the next week with instructions on how to process their request.
In the next few days onPeak, Comic-Con’s official hotel affiliate, will be canceling all hotel reservations and refunding all deposits made through them. There is no need for anyone who booked through onPeak to take any action, including trying to cancel their reservations online or contacting the company via phone as the process will be handled automatically. Those who booked rooms through onPeak will be notified when refunds have been completed.
San Diego Comic-Con becomes the latest in a long line of industry events canceled due to COVID-19, with E3 and Gamescom being among the notable gaming events scrapped due to the pandemic.
IGN can exclusively reveal who the new celebrity Dungeon Master will be on the forthcoming third season of Rollout, the UpUpDownDown’s D&D-meets-WWE streaming show featuring WWE Superstar Xavier Woods (aka Austin Creed).
This season’s new celeb Dungeon Master is none other than Freddie Prinze Jr. of Star Wars Rebels and Scooby-Doo fame.
Prinze also wrote an original RPG story arc that takes place in 22nd century Japan, a quest that will span Season 3.
Prinze joins Xavier Woods, Alexa Bliss, Ember Moon, Tyler Breeze, and Dio Madden for five all-new episodes of Rollout, which premieres Tuesday, April 21, at 10am ET on the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel.
“Expect the unexpected,” Prinze promises viewers in our exclusive trailer for Season 3, which you can view above.
And also be sure to watch Xavier Woods right here on IGN News Live at 4pm today where he’ll talk Rollout and more!
Beginning in 2019, UpUpDownDown “explores the worlds of video gaming and nerdom,” showcasing WWE Superstar interviews and virtual battles between panelists for the UpUpDownDown Championship.
Ozark Season 3 ended with a bang… literally. And now that Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer) is dead and out of the picture thanks to cartel boss Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), what’s in store for Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) if Ozark gets picked up for a fourth season? And let’s not forget about their children, Charlotte and Jonah, who went through their own significant transformations in Season 3. Will the Byrde family stay unified or fall apart before it’s all over?
In order to find the answers to these questions and more, IGN spoke to showrunner Chris Mundy to get the inside scoop.
Marty and Wendy once again get out of a sticky situation by earning the trust of ruthless cartel boss Omar Navarro. In a surprising turn of events, Navarro’s hitman kills long-time employee Helen Pierce. But why did Navarro end up siding with the Byrdes and not Helen? “I think that Navarro had to make a choice between Marty and Wendy or Helen,” Mundy said. “And Helen had long service and loyalty, but Marty and Wendy had pulled off a couple of impossible things: One was getting a casino to launder money through, and the other is getting the FBI and US government to intercede in a drug war. Those are some magical things that Helen couldn’t do.”
Is Ben Davis (Wendy’s Brother) really dead?
Photo courtesy of Netflix
Per Mundy, Ben “is actually dead,” but that didn’t stop us from being a bit skeptical because we never see him die on screen. So why did Mundy and his team of writers decide not to reveal the deadly deed? “The important thing about Ben’s death was about the emotional impact on Wendy,” Mundy told IGN. “It just felt like if we showed the death on screen, that in some strange way it was going to take away from what we were really telling, which is, look at what Wendy did and had to do. We didn’t want to take away from that emotion and when you do violence there’s something visceral about it, and we only wanted to lean into it from the emotional.”
Wendy is obviously distraught after being complicit in the death of her own brother, but has she truly gone over to the dark side now or is there still some humanity left in her? “I feel like Wendy and Marty are still trying to desperately hold onto their humanity even as they do worse and worse things,” Mundy explained. “They would probably say they’re forced to do worse and worse things. I don’t think it’s a situation where she’s become a psychopath and is taking pleasure out of these kinds of things.”
Was Ben’s Death Too Much for Jonah to Handle?
Photo courtesy of Netflix
The last time we see Jonah in Season 3, the young man has a haunted look on his face as he holds his Uncle’s recently cremated remains in his hand. Jonah proved that he’s more than capable of standing up for himself — and he even kissed a girl! But now that he’s aware of his mother’s involvement in Ben’s death, how will that affect Jonah moving forward from an emotional standpoint?
“Because Jonah’s so intellectually curious, Jonah took to the idea of them being this family in crime easier than Charlotte did… if his dad’s going to launder money, then he’s going to learn how to launder money,” Mundy said. “[Jonah’s] been the one who’s kind of skated through it, relying on his intellect. And this is the first time the full emotional impact crushed him. [Ben’s death] was too heavy, and learning that his mom is complicit in it is more than he could handle. It was the first real break we’ve seen from Jonah.”
What’s the Deal with Wyatt and Darlene’s Relationship?
Photo courtesy of Netflix
One of the most peculiar storylines in Season 3 is the romantic relationship between Wyatt and Darlene and we’re a bit worried about Wyatt, since Darlene killed her last husband. So what makes this odd couple work?
“We talked about in the writer’s room pretty early. And it was one of those things like, ‘Are we really doing it?’ The important thing for us was to play it very straight: the way we filmed it, the way we wrote it, the way they talked to each other,” Mundy told IGN. “This was a relationship born out of two people who had similar needs. They’re both damaged, and they each helped each other through a hard time, so it’s a real relationship. Obviously the age difference is a big one but we didn’t want to play it as a comedy. We wanted their connection to be real.”
What Video Game Is Marty Playing?
Photo courtesy of Netflix
In episode four, titled “Boss Fight,” we flashback to Marty’s childhood while he’s visiting his dying father in the hospital. Looking for a distraction, Marty notices another kid playing an arcade game called Beast Slayer. Mundy informed us that Beast Slayer was made up for Season 3, however, it’s based on a real game called Altered Beast. Altered Beast is a beat ’em up arcade game that was originally released in 1988 by Sega.
Mundy couldn’t remember the specifics of why they weren’t allowed to use the real Altered Beast arcade game in the episode, but it usually has to do with “people not willing to license things or the pure cost of it,” Mundy said. At one point in production, Mundy and his team thought about calling the game “Boss Fight,” but thought that might confuse the audience since the title of the episode shares the same name.
Ozark has not been renewed for a fourth season yet. What are you most excited to see if Netflix picks up the series for another season? Let us know in the comments.
On Wednesday, April 15, WWE laid off multiple WWE Superstars. The names were released and/or leaked to the public in a slow trickle over the course of the day. Unlike several WWE producers who were furloughed, the 22 WWE Superstars were “future endeavored” and will need to find other employment.
The current COVID-19 pandemic precipitated these cuts. Typically, WWE makes a bulk of its monthly revenue on live arena shows. In the wake of the pandemic, the company has been forced to cancel and refund its upcoming live events. Since March 13, WWE has been broadcasting Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and even Wrestlemania 36 from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, with no audience.
In an April 15 press release, WWE announced a “headcount reduction” due to COVID-19 and “current government mandated impacts” on WWE. The company also announced it would be reducing executive and board member compensation; decreasing operating expenses; cutting talent expenses, third party staffing and consulting; and deferring spending on building the company’s new headquarters. WWE estimates the company will save $4 million from releasing and furloughing employees and cutting their compensations.
WWE has faced criticisms for these actions. Some of it stems from the revelation that the now-defunct XFL and the WWE were more closely linked than WWE chairman Vince McMahon initially led on. When he announced the XFL league in January 2018, Vince McMahon insisted that both companies would operate as separate entities; he would pledge $500 million out of his own pocket to fund the XFL. However, the XFL bankruptcy filings revealed that the WWE owns 23.5% of the Class B stocks in the company, which means that the XFL and WWE’s financial problems are inextricably linked.
WWE has also been criticized for placing its employees in unnecessary harm’s way. WWE was originally included in Florida’s statewide lockdown, which would have temporarily put an end to the company’s live shows. However, a last-minute signed order from Florida’s emergency management director reclassified WWE as an essential business, which allowed them to remain open. These actions would, theoretically, give WWE some financial space to avoid layoffs of certain employees, many of whom–like recently released Sarah Logan and No Way Jose–were traveling to the Performance Center to wrestle at personal risk.
Other critics have called attention to the McMahon family’s political clout in Florida and question whether that led to WWE’s reclassification as “essential.” Linda McMahon, Vince McMahon’s wife and former CEO of WWE, heads a Super PAC called America First Action, which supports President Trump’s re-election campaign and recently announced $18.5 million in television advertisement spending towards that objective. On April 14, President Trump announced that Vince McMahon would be an advisor on his Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups, designated to assist in re-opening the economy following the pandemic.
Lastly, WWE announced they would be paying a stock dividend to all WWE stockholders that would amount to $.12 per share. With 78 million shares, that equates to $9.4 million paid out to stockholders–more than the $4 million the company estimated it would save with its headcount reduction.
It is unknown, at this time, if this was the only round or just the first round of layoffs at WWE. Gamespot will continue reporting on the releases at WWE and the response from WWE Superstars, both current and former.
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If you’ve been playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, odds are you’ve become as obsessed with turnip prices as everyone else. The vegetable, which has been featured in every Animal Crossing game to date, is the star crop of New Horizon’s “Stalk Market,” with prices fluctuating between the modestly lucrative to positively ludicrous. Plant enough turnips and you’ll be looking at enough bells to essentially turn your island into a 5-star resort.
This has spurred Animal Crossing’s more entrepreneurial fans to do something that would almost certainly land real-world stock analysts in hot water. Across sites like Twitter and the “Turnip Exchange,” people are coordinating to sell their turnips at the highest prices possible, or maybe perform a quid-pro-quo for access to their island. What’s emerged out of the turnip thicket is a sort of online black market, with multiple price-tracking sites, turnip algorithm calculators, and even small armies of bouncers to keep less-than-honest players in line.
But while Animal Crossing players have probably felt like deviously clever insider stock traders these past few weeks, they probably wouldn’t have been able to do it without one of the U.S.’s most omnipotent intelligence agencies: The National Security Agency (The NSA).
Twitter user Ninji, a 25-year-old software developer who has previously built tools for games like Super Mario Bros Wii, reverse-engineered Animal Crossing’s code using the NSA’s free reverse-engineering software Ghidra. Using Ghidra, Ninji managed to find the Nintendo Switch equivalent of a .exe file, which in theory would allow them to figure out all the game’s various secrets, including turnip price algorithms. In practice, things weren’t so simple.
“This compiled code is heavily processed and only includes the information that the Switch’s processor actually needs to run the game,” Ninji told IGN. “So, all the comments and most of the names in the original source code are gone. It’s a big puzzle where you have tiny clues all over the place and you have to use them to figure out what specific sections of code do.”
Buried in Animal Crossing’s code, there’s a flag labeled “FirstKabuBuy” (“Kabu” is Japanese for Turnip) and following that trail led Ninji straight to the turnip pricing code.
“I figured people would probably be interested in knowing how the turnip pricing worked, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how much attention it’s gotten,” Ninji told IGN. “It’s pretty neat to see something I’ve done having an impact on so many people though, even if it’s just in a tiny way.”
The code that Ninji eventually posted online would go on to help create the Turnip Prophet site (created by one Mike Bryant), which lets users use an algorithm to determine (with a fair amount of accuracy) what their turnip prices will be throughout the week.
While Turnip Prophet and similar sites are great for players trying to keep tabs on their personal stalk market standings, many players aren’t content to wait around, so they’ve begun visiting sites like Turnip.Exchange, created by the team at Warp World, a gaming and streaming tool developer.
Turnip Exchange lets users either host their own island (and post their current turnip value) or request to visit another player’s island. Many island hosts are also using their island’s card on Turnip Exchange to ask for some sort of compensation for entry to their island, often in the form of bells, specific items, or recipes.
“I was attempting to sell my turnips with a friend that had gotten a Dodo Code online from a Twitter message, and it took us over 40 minutes of trying to enter the code and going through menu after menu, and message after message of interference,” Warp World CEO and president Matthew Jakubowski told IGN “So I vowed that day to build something that would make it easier for everyone.”
That something has since grown immensely, with Warp World saying its portal has 1.3 million users, and a peak concurrent user count of 300,000. Jakubowski and the team at Warp World managed to build the Turnip Exchange portal in only about five days.
However, for a venture intended to make things easier for players, the Warp World team have still seen their fair share of backlash. “I’ve always been a casual player of Animal Crossing, maybe dabbling into the turnip business every so often,” Jakubowski adds. “But the number of people that are very serious about their island/items really surprises me…There have been people that have had internet issues with hosts and so their items would get lost, and the amount of angry emails, tweets, Discord messages directed at us is absolutely astounding. We make sure to let users know that things like that can happen, but there is only so much you can do. I feel bad for the number of messages Nintendo must be getting as a whole.”
Considering the turnip business is big business, it’s unsurprising that not everyone is playing nice. Though visiting players are fairly restricted in what they can do to another player’s island, it’s possible for visitors to take more than they’re welcome to, or ignore a host’s requests for a tip in the form of bells.
This has spurred some players to hire their friends as, to put it simply, Animal Crossing island bouncers.
Corey Reynolds, one such player, brought in a few friends to help ensure that people were paying his requested fee of gold, star fragments, or Nook Miles. Reynolds built a fenced-in path that led straight to the Nook’s Cranny shop where players can trade in turnips, and stationed a friend there to block the path until their visitor dropped the necessary fee.
An Animal Crossing ‘bouncer’.
“Honestly it was extremely efficient,” Reynolds told IGN. “After I was done hosting my island, we split all profits equally. I think this is a great way for any host to make sure their guests are true to their word with bringing their payment.”
Like any boom market, there will be plenty of cheapskates looking to exploit the masses in other ways. Animal Crossing’s turnip market could open the door for less-than-honest individuals to pull one over on their followers, much like similar scams for Fortnite V-Bucks or other virtual currencies.
“Some folks actually seem to be using high turnip prices as an attempt to curry favor with people,” Ninji says. “I saw one Twitch streamer trying to gain viewers by promising artificially high turnip prices (which I know from my research to be impossible without save-file hacking) as well as other unrealistic giveaways.”
Elsewhere, moderators on the r/ACTurnips subreddit have posted warnings of at least one individual offering what they believe to be pornographic images of themselves in exchange for turnip trips.
On r/ACTurnips, entry fees to access another island’s high prices that you’d commonly see on some of the other turnip sites are banned. A post from a moderator explains that this is due to reports of island hosts booting players after they’ve already paid an exorbitant bell fee. Bots that disperse a person’s unique Dodo Code (which allows someone to visit your island) are also a common issue. One r/ACTurnips user produced a brief video on how to create a Google Form that, they say, will catch most bots with a Captcha test.
Elsewhere, the internet is aflutter with other groups and individuals getting in on the turnip craze. As reported by The Verge, a small group of financial tech startup employees has started using their company’s Slack to exchange turnip information in a dedicated channel. One co-worker went so far as to develop a custom Slackbot that tracked each employee’s turnip prices.
The world of Animal Crossing is meant to be one of chill hang-outs, fun fashion parties, and developing the most rad island imaginable. The online turnip market that’s emerged out of Animal Crossing just goes to show that Tom Nook has some serious competition when it comes to being the suavest (or most sinister) businessman in town.
Don’t forget to check out IGN’s own official turnip guides for a much more legit bit of assistance.
