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Disney is making major changes to its upcoming slate of theatrical releases. Perhaps the most surprising shift involves Artemis Fowl, which will now bypass movie theaters entirely and instead debut on the Disney+ streaming service.

This is the latest setback for director Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of the YA fantasy novels. After spending years in development hell at Disney, Artemis Fowl was originally scheduled to release on August 9, 2019, before being pushed back to May 29, 2020. Disney will reveal the new streaming release date at a later time, suggesting that May 29 release is no longer in the cards.

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Artemis Fowl is the most significant example yet of a major 2020 movie shifting from a theatrical release to streaming in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, Universal revealed Trolls World Tour, The Invisible Man, The Hunt and Emma were all headed to video on-demand. Meanwhile, other blockbusters like Onward, Birds of Prey, and Sonic the Hedgehog had their theatrical runs cut short and pivoted to VOD releases.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and when it’ll be safe to reopen movie theaters in the US, it is doubtful Artemis Fowl will be the last example of a major 2020 blockbuster switching to streaming. Disney’s New Mutants (which was supposed to be released on April 3) seems another likely candidate for VOD as Disney curiously did not provide a new release date for it in their announcement Friday.

For more on the pandemic’s growing effects on the entertainment industry, check out our breakdown of every film and TV project delayed so far, and learn why AMC is facing major financial troubles as a result.

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And to prep for Artemis Fowl’s long-awaited release, here’s how you can bundle Disney+ and Hulu.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Ubisoft has revealed the Operator changes for Rainbow Six Siege in Update Y5S1.2. In this update, five Operators are being adjusted–Ying, Jäger, Mozzie, Buck, and Goyo–with Ying getting a noticeable buff to up her utility in combat. A few guns are getting balance changes too.

In a the update’s patch notes, Ubisoft writes that the update replaces Ying’s claymore (which recently replaced her frag grenades) with smoke grenades, a change the developer hopes will “increase the level of synergy she deploys when spearheading” the attacking team’s assault, specifically when it comes to circumventing Mira’s Black Mirrors or Goyo’s Volcàn Shields.

The update also ups the damage on Ying’s T-95 LSW light machine gun from 43 to 46 and the number of Candelas she has from three to four. Both changes should help her both disorient and deal out damage more quickly, which in turn will likely increase her utility both as the first one to breach an enemy’s team defenses and her likelihood of winning a one-on-one duel.

The other four Operators don’t have as many changes, though their respective adjustments will still likely have an influence on their in-match meta. Both Jäger and Mozzie’s changes, for example, are aimed at keeping players from roaming as much. Meanwhile the adjustments made to Buck and Goyo are more straightforward buffs and nerfs.

Jäger has gone from an Operator with level three speed and level one armor to one with level two speed and level two armor in order to encourage players to stick a bit closer to their teammates and not roam as much. Mozzie loses his Super Shorty, the extremely powerful shotgun that assisted in the defender’s ability to safely roam and escape from ambushes with explosive firepower.

Buck gains claymores at the cost of his frag grenades and gets a nice buff to his Skeleton Key’s magazine size and total number of rounds, which allows him to continue to be one of the game’s best breach attackers while removing the offensive power he shares with Sledge (who has fallen in utility thanks to Buck’s usefulness). “By removing his frags and giving more gadget ammunition, we expect players to have to operate a choice between an excellent downward attacker and a versatile soft breacher,” Ubisoft wrote. Goyo loses one of his Volcàn Shields, dropping the total number from three to two–a change that’s likely to be more immediately felt on the professional esport side of the game, not in casual play.

Rainbow Six Siege Y5S1.2 Operator And Weapon Adjustments

Ying

• Added smoke grenade
• Removed Claymore
• Increased T-95 LSW damage to 46 (up from 43).
• Added one Candela (4 Candelas in total)

Jäger

• Changed Operator from 3 speed/1 armor to 2 speed/2 armor.

Mozzie

• Removed Super Shorty.

Buck

• Removed frag grenades
• Added Claymore
• Skeleton Key
  • Increased magazine capacity from 5 to 6.
  • Increased total amount of rounds from 21 to 26.

Goyo

• Removed one Volcàn Shield (from 3 to 2)

Guns

• M-12
  • Added Razor Holographic sights to Caveira’s M-12.
• TCSG12
  • Reduced weapon damage from 84 to 55.
  • Increased total ammunition (from 51 to 61)

Ubisoft has clarified its stance on balancing Rainbow Six Siege for the game’s professional players, specifically what it meant by earlier stating, “if professional players are not happy with our proposed features, then that means we are going in the right direction.” In a blog post for the in-game Operator adjustments in update Y5S1.2, Ubisoft said it merely wanted to convey that it’s the developer’s job to push Siege’s playerbase out of its comfort zone on occasion.

“It is true that part of our balancing efforts is to push every player, professionals included, out of their comfort zone,” Ubisoft wrote. “This does not mean we are going about things to be intentionally frustrating for these players, but instead make adjustments to ensure our professional players are the best at the game as a whole, and not a specific update or meta. We also have to consider the entire player-base, and while some aspects of professional play will trickle down to general matchmaking, not all do (Goyo for example).”

In regards to Goyo, the Ember Rise Operator has a low pick and low win rate. Apparently, not many casual players see much utility in placing booby-trapped deployable shields–which makes a lot of sense given that they can be just as big of a detriment to Goyo’s fellow defenders as to the opposing attackers.

However, Goyo is quite popular at the professional level, so Ubisoft is removing one of the defender’s shields in hopes it stems some of the frustration of going up against him. Given Goyo’s already low pick-rate and average success at the non-professional level, this change shouldn’t have too much influence on his performance outside of esport competitions.

“We will improve our communication around balancing changes to include additional context and explanations for instances where we make a decision on an important topic and are in disagreement with our professional players,” Ubisoft wrote. “This will provide everyone with a common starting point for discussion. Please note that this is not feasible for every topic, but we will do it for the more critical topics.”

Update Y5S1.2 makes adjustments to five Operators–Ying, Jäger, Mozzie, Buck, and Goyo–with Ying getting a noticeable buff that should help raise her utility, both when spearheading the attacker’s offensive and when facing off against a defender in a one-on-one fight.

The Resident Evil 3 remake sticks very close to the original’s action-focused take on survival horror. While this can give you a greater feeling of control in your struggle to survive the hordes of undead, the game can often feel like it leans too heavily on action, resulting in encounters that aren’t very scary. While Resident Evil 3’s campaign is brief, and the game doesn’t have much in the way of bonus content, completing the story on Hardcore difficulty opens up a new difficulty mode that feels closer to a survival horror experience–presenting RE3 at its best.

After completing Hardcore mode, which is the hard mode available from the beginning and which has more aggressive enemies, RE3 will open up a bonus difficulty called Nightmare. Essentially a “very hard” mode, it includes tougher enemies and less ammo and reshuffles item locations. Those changes are already a lot to deal with, but what makes Nightmare mode so interesting are the remixed enemy encounters. In addition to throwing more zombies at you, tougher monsters appear much earlier, and Nemesis is far more aggressive and faster than before. My Nightmare mode playthrough, which rounded out to about four hours, offered a more worthwhile approach to RE3’s survival horror, that actively placed more pressure on me as it went on.

One of the reasons why survival horror is so effective is that it actively creates an air of uncertainty, of not knowing what awaits around the corner. This feeling will inevitably be diminished once you’ve gotten an understanding of the dangers in each environment, especially on repeat playthroughs. What I appreciated most about Nightmare mode is that it almost immediately lets you know that things aren’t going to be the same this time around.

This sentiment was exemplified shortly after leaving the subway for the first time. I rushed into an alleyway after taking out my first zombie and almost ran head-on into a crowd of eight undead looking for their next meal. What was a short encounter with a couple of distracted zombies in other modes is now a moment where your run can meet a quick and violent end, and it offered the first of many rushes that I seldom felt in my earlier playthroughs.

The repositioning and reordering of enemies not only makes for more claustrophobic encounters, but some areas now prompt detours based on the increased danger. This reordering is especially evident when Nemesis comes into play in the Downtown area. Like Mr. X from RE2, Nemesis is a disruptor, and just when you feel you’ve gotten a handle of the undead and the layout of the area, the villain makes a sudden entrance and forces you on the run, turning the common enemies and the tight corridors of the areas into genuine threats once again. Nightmare mode ratchets this up considerably with the undead in higher numbers, and in some cases, they will block pathways when you’re trying to make a break from the unstoppable bioweapon.

In addition to all these changes to the gameplay, Nightmare mode also adds bits of narrative that speak more to the current emotional state of the characters not seen in the standard modes. But in an interesting twist, it also shows off unseen events. By far, my favorite moment in RE3 is the revisit to the RPD station. During this sequence, you get to see Brad Vickers’s last appearance in the game, now as a zombie. In the default difficulties, this encounter ends in the courtyard, with you going about your business inside the station. But in Nightmare mode, the harder difficulty gives Brad more time to shine, as he stalks you through the station on more occasions. And just like his appearance in the original RE2, Brad is one tough zombie, and it’ll take more rounds than usual to put him down.

In my five playthroughs of Resident Evil 3 remake, I had the most fun with the game in Nightmare. As I mentioned in my full review, I felt that RE3 struggled to maintain the balance between survival horror and action gameplay. Nightmare mode, however, pushes the game further to survival horror, putting significant pressure on you to pick your battles and conserve ammo–which is when survival horror is at its best. And if you’re still looking for more of a challenge, the game’s final difficulty–Inferno–will unlock after finishing Nightmare mode, pushing the challenge even further.

Even with some of the bonus items and weapons I managed to scrounge up after my first run through the game, Nightmare mode still presented a significant obstacle to complete. Many encounters in this difficulty are genuinely clever, and it makes me wonder why they weren’t included in the standard modes. I usually groan at taking on harder difficulties, but Nightmare mode turned out to be a pleasant surprise from a game I thought I knew in and out, and it ended up showcasing the remake at its best.

Marvel’s Secret Wars is available to subscribers of Comixology Unlimited and can also be purchased on Amazon and Comixology. 

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In a fantastical realm dominated by war, feudal lords scheme and betray one another in order to curry favor with an all-powerful monarch. And while they plot against one another, a vast wall is all that stands between them and a literal army of undead monstrosities. Humanity’s greatest struggle for survival has arrived, and only a brave few heroes remain to keep hope alive. Sounds an awful lot like Game of Thrones, doesn’t it? But in this case, we’re talking about Marvel’s Secret Wars.

Binge It! The Magicians Is a Modern Heartfelt Fantasy for Adult Nerds

Secret Wars is a 2015 miniseries from writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribic. It’s not directly connected to 1984’s Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, though the two books do share certain characters and plot elements. While countless Marvel stories put the fate of the world or the entire universe in jeopardy, Secret Wars opens with the complete and utter destruction of the entire multiverse. Even the combined might of the Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men isn’t enough to stave off the inevitable death of everything. Instead, it’s Doctor Doom of all people who manages to save humankind from total oblivion.

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In Secret Wars, Doom has achieved true omnipotence, finally gaining the power to match his boundless ego. Doom uses that power to salvage fragments of dozens of different dead universes, stitching together a solitary, hodgepodge planet called Battleworld. Battleworld is divided into domains, each ruled by a baron who answers only to God Emperor Doom and his army of Thors. Only Doom himself and a handful of heroes remember reality as it once was. But as they say, what is dead may never die…

As far as Marvel crossovers go, Secret Wars is hard to top. It has a compelling premise with a clear hook regardless of your familiarity with Marvel’s comic book universe. In fact, Secret Wars serves as the climax of Hickman’s Marvel work up to that point, building on years of stories in books like Fantastic Four, Avengers, New Avengers and Infinity. But the beauty of Secret Wars is that it only demands as much commitment as you’re willing to give. You can spend weeks going back and reading all the comics that set the stage for this grand Marvel epic. You can branch out and read the numerous Secret Wars tie-in comics that flesh out the Battleworld environment and its key players. Heck, there’s even a comic called X-Men ’92 that acts as a sequel to the iconic animated series. Or you can just read the nine-issue Secret Wars story. Your choice.

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Secret Wars makes for a great gateway comic for fantasy/sci-fi fans who want to dip their toes into superhero comics. As discussed earlier, the plot is very reminiscent of Game of Thrones, and some of the most memorable scenes in the series focus on Doom’s barons squabbling and jockeying for power. This book is the genesis of Hickman’s hilariously sassy interpretation of Mister Sinister. It’s definitely a book that can scratch that Game of Thrones itch as we all wait for George R.R. Martin to wrap up his saga.

But it’s the Dune influence that truly stands out. In both tone and subject matter, Hickman’s comics work shows a strong Frank Herbert influence. It’s no coincidence that Doom has proclaimed himself God Emperor in this story, just like the tyrannical Leto II Atreides in 1981’s God Emperor of Dune. The Dune books are heavily preoccupied with the idea that even godlike power has its limitations. Just because a spice-empowered Paul Atreides can peer into the future doesn’t mean he fully comprehends that future or has the power to alter it to his whim. In Secret Wars, Doom has all the power he could ever want, yet all he can do with that power is create a glorified life raft of a world in an endless sea of entropy. One particularly revealing scene shows us that Doom, in all his self-loathing, can’t even muster the power to fix his disfigured face.

In addition to delivering great Game of Thrones-style drama and one of the finest character studies of Doctor Doom ever published, Secret Wars is a powerful meditation on hope in the face of overwhelming odds. In that way, the book feels only more resonant in 2020. No matter how many cosmic devourers and power-hungry despots come along, life always finds a way to persevere. And even someone as twisted as Victor Von Doom is still capable of redemption.

More From Binge It!…

• Netflix’s The Letter for the King Is YA Game of Thrones, and It’s Great
• The Outsider Is a Supernatural Crime Drama That Should Please Stephen King Fans
• The Gross, Horrifying, Weird World of China Miéville’s Bas-Lag Trilogy
• Outlander Is the Hottest Time-Travel Show Ever Made
• The Magicians Is a Modern Heartfelt Fantasy for Adult Nerds

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Binge It! is IGN’s recommendation series. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, music… if you can binge it, we’re here to talk about it. In each installment of Binge It!, we’ll discuss a piece of content we’re passionate about — and why you should check it out.

Spawn’s arrival in Mortal Kombat 11 was something we’d been expecting for a while, but after a long wait, the beloved Image Comics superhero arrived in NetherRealm Studios’ gruesome brawler last month. IGN had a chance to speak with NetherRealm Studios creative director and Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon about how Todd McFarlane’s favorite Hellspawn wound up in the MK11 roster.

IGN: How does the process of working with Todd McFarlane differ from working with DC?

Ed Boon: Both Todd McFarlane’s team and DC have been very cooperative and collaborative. Each want to see their characters represented accurately in our game. Because Spawn is by nature a super violent character and is in an M-rated Mortal Kombat game, naturally there were fewer limitations to work with him. Todd did make it clear that he did not want us to hold back, and from that standpoint there were very few limitations put on the Mortal Kombat team.

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IGN: Spawn’s always been a lot more M-rated than some of the other IPs NetherRealm has put into Mortal Kombat, was there anything you wanted to try that got shot down?

EB: Actually, Alien, Predator, Jason and some others were up there too. ☺ But for Spawn, yes… there really wasn’t much that we wanted to do that got shut down as far as actual content was concerned. There were a couple of minor adjustments we made to stay within the character and history of Spawn, but those changes were not related to toning anything down. It was almost like Spawn was one of our characters… I bet we could have incorporated him into our story if we had the opportunity. ☺

IGN: Whose idea was it to give Spawn a sword? We realize Medieval Spawn totally is a thing; we’re just used to seeing Al Simmons lugging around giant machine guns.

EB: During the creation of our fighting characters, ideas come from all over the place. Often times the concept artist illustrates something that inspires someone from another group, and vice versa. The idea to have Spawn use a sword in our game probably came from our design group. They often request props and weapons while trying to define how a fighter will play. Part of the challenge of introducing a guest character in a game that already has 25 or 30 existing characters is introducing something new to the mix. Everybody knows that Spawn has his signature chains, but we felt that adding the swords as well would make him that much more interesting to play.

IGN: Todd McFarlane himself revealed that Spawn would be in Mortal Kombat 11 way back in 2018, shortly after the game itself was announced — do you have any top secret upcoming projects of Todd’s you want to spoil? (Just kidding… mostly) 🙂 

EB: LOL … maybe he was just showing his excitement because he WANTED Spawn in Mortal Kombat 11. But no, I don’t have anything to spoil.

IGN: Keith David voices Spawn, reprising his role from the HBO animated series — did you get a chance to work with him? How did he react at the news he’d be playing Al Simmons again?

EB: I have met Keith. He really is a good guy. Very cultured. I was not at the recording sessions when he did the voice of Spawn for us, but I immediately identified his voice when I heard the results of the recording sessions. He was also gracious enough to appear at our Final Kombat esports championship here in Chicago. He really is a great sport, and I hope we can work together again in the future.

IGN: Whose idea was Spawn initially? Did NetherRealm approach McFarlane, did McFarlane approach NetherRealm, or was it in response to fan demand?

EB: I honestly believe it was a combination of all three. We have always wanted to have Spawn in one of our Mortal Kombat games. I’ve heard a number of times that Todd McFarland expressed interest in seeing Spawn in Mortal Kombat. As far as the fans are concerned Spawn is probably one of the most requested characters ever to be in the franchise. He really is a perfect fit.

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IGN: McFarlane Toys is making MK action figures, and you’re putting Spawn in Mortal Kombat – tell us about that relationship?

EB: In the simplest of terms, I would describe it as a full circle mutual admiration collaboration. 😉 NetherRealm has always been huge fans of the McFarlane figures. The proof is in the pudding. If you walk around our studio you will see their action figures littered across many team members’ desks and workstations. We genuinely are big fans of the quality of their work. I couldn’t think of better timing as far as all of this cross pollination of intellectual properties and expertise in our various forms of art.

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There you have it! Spawn and Mortal Kombat, a match made in… Well, maybe not heaven, but some kind of afterlife.

While Spawn in Mortal Kombat makes sense aesthetically and stylistically, IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman thought he also worked well technically! You can check out his full review of the DLC here.

Disney announced a series of new release dates Friday that see several major date changes for Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Black Widow, which was to have opened in May but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, will now take the November 6, 2020, slot originally occupied by The Eternals.

The Eternals, in turn, moves to Feb. 12, 2021, which was when Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was to have opened. Shang-Chi now takes the May 7, 2021, date that had belonged to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

The Doctor Strange sequel moves to Nov. 5, 2021, which bumps Thor: Love And Thunder to Feb. 28, 2022.

Black Panther 2 remains slated for May 8, 2022, while Captain Marvel 2 shifts ahead two weeks to July 8, 2022.

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Disney’s release date changes obviously don’t just affect the MCU. Mulan, which was to have opened in March before being postponed, is now opening July 24, 2020. That, in turn, bumps Jungle Cruise a whole year to July 30, 2021.

Likewise, Indiana Jones 5 has also been pushed another whole year, from July 9, 2021 to July 29, 2022.

The Ryan Reynolds-Taika Waititi video game comedy Free Guy moves from this July to December 11. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel remain put on on Dec. 18 and Dec. 25, respectively.

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Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch has been shifted from its original July 14 release date to Oct. 16.

Curiously, Disney has yet to set new release dates for several titles formerly owned by Fox: The New Mutants, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Antlers, and Woman in the Window.

Will any of those titles join Artemis Fowl in being shifted from a theatrical release to Disney+ instead? Time will tell.

Pokemon Go is celebrating the start of spring with a new event. The festivities run from April 9 through April 16, during which time you’ll have a much greater chance to find certain springtime Pokemon and even another Shiny.

First, Niantic is introducing a few special spring-themed Pokemon to the game. You’ll be able to encounter Buneary wearing a flower crown and Pikachu wearing a flower hat throughout the event. Flower crown versions of Pichu and Togepi will also hatch from 2 km eggs, as will Happiny, Munchlax, Tyrogue, Chingling, and Riolu.

Additionally, certain Pokemon will appear more often throughout the event. There will be increased spawns of Chansey, Mareep, Marill, Torchic, and Exeggcute–the latter may even be Shiny. Niantic is also offering special Field Research tasks that lead to encounters with Alolan Exeggutor, Azumarill, and the rare Gen 5 Pokemon Audino.

Finally, a handful of different bonuses will be live throughout the event. You’ll receive twice the normal amount of Candy for hatching eggs, and Lucky Eggs will last for one hour. Given that social distancing measures remain in place in many parts of the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Niantic is also halving the distance it takes to hatch eggs indefinitely. You can read more details about the upcoming spring event on Pokemon Go’s website.

In the meantime, the April Fools’-themed Tricky Pokemon event is still live. That runs until April 7 and features “tricky” Pokemon like Sudowoodo and the debuting Stunfisk. A new Legendary Pokemon, Landorus, is also available in Raids for a limited time this month, and Niantic has rolled out a new set of Field Research tasks for April.

There have been a lot of gaming mysteries over the years, many of which have now been solved. What happened to Half-Life 2: Episode 3? Well, we kind of know. What’s the meaning of the Mt. Chiliad mystery? We got our answer. But there’s a new gaming enigma, one that stretches back into last year, a mystery still waiting to be solved as I type:

What in the freshly-baked hell is going on with Cooking Mama: Cookstar?

The core of this mystery lies in the fact that, depending on where you look, Cooking Mama: Cookstar is either out now, coming soon, or completely MIA. A trailer on the game’s (extremely quiet) Twitter feed definitively announces that it’s “available now” on Nintendo Switch. That statement is, at best, partially true.

If you can’t stand the heat, get into Mama’s kitchen! #CookingMama is back with her most fantastic and fun video game adventure ever!

Introducing Cooking Mama: Cookstar. A brand-new Cooking Mama experience created for Nintendo Switch™.

Order here: https://t.co/gxje6DKjyZ pic.twitter.com/tHFa35WKZ2

— Cooking Mama: Cookstar (@CookstarMama) March 26, 2020

That trailer (and the game’s website) point to a Nintendo eShop version of the game, but if you search for that version at time of writing – in the US or Europe – the eShop returns no results, not even a ‘Coming Soon’ entry. Even stranger, the game was released on the US eShop last week, but only for a few hours, before being unceremoniously pulled from sale and its listing scrubbed from Nintendo’s digital store entirely.

Physical copies of Cookstar are a different story. According to some very pleased/confused Redditors, copies have quietly appeared in select US outlets of Target. Amazon only lists third-party sellers (at least one of which seems to have been set up solely to sell this new Cooking Mama game, strangely), implying the retail giant has no copies at all.

In Europe, the game is seemingly impossible to get a hold of right now, and is listed by several retailers for a release later this month – but none of them seem to agree about when. Don’t even get me started on the apparent PS4 version of the game, which is listed for sale across the internet, but hasn’t been outwardly mentioned by any official source around ‘launch’.

Cooking Mama: Cookstar is, in essence, Schrödinger’s Video Game, seemingly existing and non-existing simultaneously, with neither state particularly easy to prove. Can you tell I’ve been looking into this for too long?

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In short, this is all a bit of a mess, and a contingent of fans across social media are becoming vocal about how very unusual this situation has become. The few people that have been able secure a copy have been able to upload images and videos of the game. As you’d expect, it looks like just another Cooking Mama game – nothing about what I’ve seen suggests that it’s broken, offensive, or any other quality that could cause this level of confusion, silence and general oddity.

But perhaps all this should have been expected, because almost everything about the run-up to Cookstar’s release has been decidedly odd. Also called Cooking Mama: Coming Home to Mama (I can’t fully work out when or why it swapped to Cookstar), the game has been inadvertently revealed by ratings boards in 2019, and had an unlisted game trailer leak (including an incorrect release window and a non-existent website).

The first real mystery to contend with is who has actually made this game. The Cooking Mama series was created by Japanese developer Office Create, which hit a goldmine when the games started to sell by the million on Nintendo DS. Office Create eventually changed its name to Cooking Mama Ltd., making 10 mainline and spin-off games in the series. Seemingly just to confuse me further, it seems that, at some point, it changed its name back to Office Create, the developer listed on the most recently released Cooking Mama games. But neither of those company names are on the packaging or merchandising for Cookstar.

An early classification by the Australian ratings board listed its developer as 1st Playable Productions – an education game developer – but that classification has since been removed, and a new listing includes no mention of 1st Playable. 1st Playable itself makes no mention of the game on its website.

Nintendo and the devs really dropped the ball with Cooking Mama Cookstar. I was able to preorder as soon as the trailer went out but displaying the game on eShop only to take it off with no explanation and then leave folks hanging when it was suppose to out in late March. pic.twitter.com/GRWDK0mGtx

— SIMPAI is on Alba Island (@MadamZeti) April 3, 2020

The sole mention of a creator on Cooking Mama: Cookstar’s box is Planet Entertainment. Planet Entertainment is a part of Planet Digital Partners, a US company that boasts, in its own words, “an all-star team of video game industry leaders including the former PlayStation Europe President, the founder of Take 2/Grand Theft Auto, the former CEO of Guitar Hero and hit-maker developers of Halo, Quake, and NBA Playgrounds.”

That would seem to get us somewhere, but even this is something of a dead end. Neither Planet Entertainment, nor Planet Digital claim to be developers – both list themselves as publishers. I tried to work out if Planet Entertainment could be the development arm of Planet Digital Partners, and looked up its listed company headquarters – it’s just a sizeable house in rural Connecticut. I mean, it’s not impossible that that house is bustling with clever people coding virtual lettuce, but it doesn’t feel likely.

And it gets stranger: Planet doesn’t seem to acknowledge its involvement with Cooking Mama: Cookstar anywhere other than the game’s box, and the Cookstar website. The company Twitter account has been silent since 2019, and there’s no mention of the game on the Planet Entertainment website. In fact, that website has actively deleted older posts about the game.

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Thankfully, we can see some of those original posts, because they were hosted elsewhere – and an August 2019 entry became notable for announcing that the new Cooking Mama would be the “first game to integrate blockchain technology on major consoles”, which led to widespread confusion at the time. That press release discussed adding in-game currencies, online events and “Private-Key Enabled Balanced DRM”. Please remember, we’re talking about a Cooking Mama game.

Just to up the strangeness a little more, a final paragraph announced that the game would have a vegetarian mode – for which it won an award from PETA. Only the vegetarian mode appears to have made it into the final release from what I’ve seen of the game.

It adds up to make one of the stranger cases of a missing game that I can remember – certainly not vaporware, but very certainly a hazy proposition. A game released in a liminal space – it’s out, but it’s not out out. Someone, somewhere is running a Twitter account specifically about Cookstar, but isn’t responding to fan queries about what’s happened to the game – who is that? How have both digital and physical releases ended up in fans’ hands legitimately, when they should seemingly have never been released?

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The sad thing is, at the heart of this whirlwind of weirdness, there’s a group of people that just want to play a new game, and can’t – and they aren’t being told why.

I’ve attempted to make contact with Planet Entertainment, Planet Digital Partners, Koch Media, and Office Create about the game, to try and get to the bottom of who made Cooking Mama: Cookstar, when it will be officially released, why any of this has happened at all, and to check if it actually is the world’s first blockchain-enabled console game. At time of writing, none of them have responded. A PR agency for Planet, Sandbox Strategies, has replied but unfortunately can’t answer my questions. The mystery, unfortunately, continues.

If you have any information about the saga of Cooking Mama: Cookstar, please email [email protected]. Please, at the very least for my poor brain’s sake, do it.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News, and he can’t decide if this was fun or terrifying to research. Follow him on Twitter.