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Christopher Tolkien, the son of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, has died at the age of 95. News of his death came from a statement on the Tolkien Society website Thursday.

“It is with great sadness that we can confirm that Tolkien’s son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien has died aged 95,” the statement said.

The Head of the Tolkien Estate

After his father passed away in 1973, Christopher became the literary executor of the Tolkien Estate, and it was he who edited The Silmarillion and had it published in 1977, as well as The Fall of Gondolin in 2018, which were based on his father’s unpublished Lord of the Rings material.

Christopher drew the maps of Middle-earth featured in the Lord of the Rings books.

The Lord of the Rings Films

Christopher was a vocal critic of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy based on his father’s work. He expressed his distaste for the Peter Jackson films, saying in a 2012 interview about Lord of the Rings with French newspaper Le Monde, “They gutted the book, making an action film for 15 to 25-year-olds.”

His frustrations with the Lord of the Rings films took form in a series of lawsuits, one of which he claimed New Line Cinema owed the Tolkien family £80 million in unpaid royalties. In 2009, an undisclosed settlement was reached between the two parties, and he retracted his public objection to The Hobbit films based on his father’s work.

A Look Back at the Life of Christopher Tolkien

Christopher was born in Leeds, United Kingdom on November 21, 1924, fought in World War II as part of the Royal Air Force, and became a lecturer in Old and Middle English as well as Old Icelandic at the University of Oxford.

A Tribute to Christopher Tolkien

Mark Ordesky, producer on The Lord of the Rings movies, expressed his condolences on social media, tweeting, “An age of Middle-earth has ended. We have Christopher Tolkien to thank for countless vistas and legends we might never have known without his dedication and stewardship. The world is brighter for the light you cast, like the Star of Eärendil.”

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Joshua is Senior Features Editor at IGN. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.

 

Destiny 2 teased a new shirt for its store recently, with all proceeds being put towards relief efforts for the bushfires that have been ravaging Australia. The shirt, the sales of which will benefit New South Wales Rural Fire Services and WIRES wildlife rescue, is available now for preorder. It depicts a ship flying over the Australian outback. It’s called “Guardians for Australia.”

The shirt, which is available in men’s and women’s sizes, comes with a free code for a “Star Light, Star Bright” emblem, redeemable within the game. The shirt retails for $25. It will be available until February 19, and shipping to Australia is available at a rate of US$7.50.

A separate fan campaign from Destiny’s ANZ fanbase is also underway, and is looking to earn AU$20,000 for the Australian Red Cross. To date, it has brought in $14,311 and climbing.

This is just one of several gaming initiatives currently raising money to help Australia. A new Humble Bundle has collected together 29 games, with proceeds going towards three different charities, and Call of Duty and Ubisoft have also gotten involved. Several auctions are running on Twitter right now under the oversight of the Game Devs For Fireys initiative.

Over at CNET, there’s an extensive breakdown of what’s happening and how you can help, and what you should know, about the Australian bushfires.

Google Stadia only has one exclusive game right now–Tequila Works’ Gylt, which launched with the system. However, that’s set to change over the first half of 2020, with Google planning on several new exclusives for the system.

“Looking at our upcoming lineup, we are tracking more than 120 games coming to Stadia in 2020,” a press release reads, “and are targeting more than ten games in the first half of this year alone that will be only available on Stadia when they launch.”

“We’re working with our partners to share more on those games soon,” the release continues.

There’s no word yet on what those exclusives could be, although it’s possible that Typhoon Studios, the developer of Journey to the Savage Planet, is working on something after being bought out by Stadia. Tequila Works CEO Raul Rubio has sung the praises of developing for Stadia, so it’s possible that other major studios have been courted for exclusives.

Furthermore, additional features have been promised for the next three months. These include:

• Support for 4k gaming on the Web
• Further Assistant functionality when playing on the Web
• Support for additional Android Phones
• Wireless gameplay on the Web through the Stadia controller

It’s worth noting that Xbox Series X plans on launching without any next-gen exclusives; the major players on the console market are all taking noticeably different approaches right now.

AMC’s Better Call Saul has been renewed for a sixth and final season ahead of its Season 5 premiere. The announcement was made by showrunner Peter Gould at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour.

“From day one of Better Call Saul, my dream was to tell the complete story of our complicated and compromised hero, Jimmy McGill – now AMC and Sony are making that dream come true,” Gould said. “We couldn’t be more grateful to the fans and critics who are making this journey possible. Next month we start work on the sixth and final season — we’re going to do our damnedest to stick the landing.” Gould went on to say that Season 6 will premiere sometime in 2021.

When asked about the possibility for more spinoffs set within the Breaking Bad universe (especially following the positive reviews El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie received from fans and critics), executive producer Vince Gilligan said, “I think you can put too much hot fudge on a sundae. I certainly don’t have any plans to keep the universe going after this wonderful series ends. You don’t want to drive it into the ground.”

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Gould also spilled the beans about some iconic Breaking Bad characters making cameos in Season 5, so stop reading now if you want to avoid spoilers…

While we’re not sure how these characters will be featured, Gould did say that Dean Norris will return as Hank Schrader during episodes 3 and 4 of Better Call Saul Season 5. Steven Michael Quezada will also appear as Steven Gomez. Gould declined to reveal if we’d see other Breaking Bad characters in Season 5, however, he did confirm that Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman and Bryan Cranston’s Walter White will not be making guest appearances.

For more on the world of Breaking Bad, be sure to check out our review of El Camino: A Breaking bad Movie in the video below:

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David Griffin still watches DuckTales in his pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. He’s also the TV Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.

As part of a CD Projekt Red press conference following Cyberpunk 2077’s five-month delay, the Polish developer confirmed that it will be asking its employees to work extra long hours to finish the much-anticipated role-playing game ahead of its scheduled release in September.

During a Q&A session, CD Projekt Red was asked if the development team would need to “crunch” to finish Cyberpunk 2077. Adam Kicinski, who is CD Projekt Red’s joint CEO, confirmed that he expects the team to need to work long hours to finish the game, though he said there is a plan in place to attempt to lessen the periods of crunch.

“To some degree, yes–to be honest,” Kicinski said. “We try to limit crunch as much as possible, but it is the final stage. We try to be reasonable in this regard, but yes. Unfortunately.”

“Crunch” is the video game industry term for working for an unreasonable and unhealthy amount of time on a project. Typically, but not always, periods of crunch happen near the end of development.

CD Projekt Red is developing Cyberpunk 2077 across its studios in Krakow and Warsaw offices. At PAX Aus in October 2019, CDPR Krakow boss John Mamais told GameSpot everyone at his studio was working “really hard,” and that while the staffers can feel rejuvenated by showing the game at tradeshows, this also puts the team “in a vice, in a way.”

Mamais also spoke about how CDPR’s culture of hard work is not a good fit for everyone. He said CDPR does what it can to limit crunch, but this isn’t always possible.

“You sacrifice some things to do that and be part of that. There are a lot of people who come into the industry that are fresh; they don’t really understand what it takes to do it,” he said. “So we get a lot of new guys coming in, and they go, ‘Oh god, this is like too much.’ But then we have other guys come in from Rockstar Games, and they’re like, ‘This is not even crunch!’ We’re doing the best we can to keep the work under control. But sometimes when you’re doing some big-ass game like this, it’s not always possible to do that. It takes really hard work to make it really awesome.”

It was also confirmed during the Q&A that the Cyberpunk 2077 delay has shifted other projects back as well, as the Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer game will now release in 2022 at the soonest. Additionally, although Cyberpunk 2077’s new September 17 release date is closer to the releases of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, CDPR still has no plans to support those systems.

CDPR also confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 has been playable from start to finish for months, but “there’s still work to done,” which is why the company’s board of directors unanimously voted for the delay.

“Night City is massive–full of stories, content and places to visit, but due to the sheer scale and complexity of it all, we need more time to finish playtesting, fixing, and polishing,” the company said. “We want Cyberpunk 2077 to be our crowning achievement for this generation and postponing launch will give us the precious months we need to make the game perfect.”

Kicinski clarified during the Q&A that some parts of Cyberpunk 2077 were on schedule while others were not. He added that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the game, only that the studio needs more time for polishing and other efforts related to the size and complexity of the project.

The executive also confirmed during the Q&A that the Cyberpunk 2077 development team was only informed of the delay “minutes” before the official announcement came through.

This is not the first time that CDPR may be crunching on one of its big releases. In 2014, the company was aaccused of crunching for more than one year to finish The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Find out how to pre-order Cyberpunk 2077 and more in our guide to everything Cyberpunk 2077.

Read next: Cyberpunk 2077, Avengers, And Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Developers Talk Crunch Culture

Funko’s latest addition to its Marvel’s Avengers Assemble collection of Pops has been dubbed “I Am Iron Man” and will pay tribute to Tony Stark’s noble sacrifice at the end of Avengers Endgame. The Pop will be released in April and is currently available for pre-order at Entertainment Earth.

The new Iron Man Funko Pop will cost $15 and is currently marked as a Previews Exclusive, which means it will only be available in a limited quantity at select retailers. Unfortunately, Funko hasn’t announced when the Pop will be hitting stores, so if you want to pick one up, it’d be best to grab one via the pre-order link above, while supplies last.

Funko’s Avengers Assemble collection will include a total of six Pops (at the time of writing) over the course of 2020, all of which can be linked together to form an “Avengers assemble” style set. The first of the six will be released later this month, with a new one coming around every other month, according to ComicBook.com.

To complete the Avengers Assemble collection, players will need to keep an eye out for the Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, Hulk, and now the “I Am Iron Man” release date announcements.

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Robert Downey Jr. recently made some comments about whether he’d return to the MCU in some capacity, but it’s unclear if or when that might actually ever happen.

Endgame was one of the biggest box office winners in 2019, officially passing Avatar as the highest-grossing box office film of all time. However, James Cameron says that Avatar will end up beating Endgame when it’s all said and done. Additionally, be sure to check out IGN’s official Avengers: Endgame review.

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Andrew Smith is a freelance contributor with IGN and an avid Funko Pop collector. Follow him on Twitter @_andrewtsmith.

In its nearly six years of activity, Elder Scrolls Online has grown from another online game that struggled to find its footing, to a satisfying, content-rich MMO that offers an unusual amount of freedom to explore. With more updates opening up the familiar locales of the land of Tamriel, such as Morrowind and Elsweyr, developer ZeniMax Online Studios is preparing the next major expansion that seeks to rekindle a sense of nostalgia for a certain northern region from Elder Scrolls lore.

Revealed during Bethesda’s ESO 2020 livestream, Bethesda VP of Marketing Pete Hines and creative director Rich Lambert detailed the upcoming season of content known as the Dark Heart of Skyrim. Launching on May 18 for PC (consoles will get the update on June 2), the land of Skyrim, quests, and loot will be open for players to uncover. Like last year’s Season of the Dragon, new events will be added throughout 2020, expanding the new region and its lore. During the livestream, the creative director stated this about the resivit to Skyrim: “We felt it was important to offer something familiar, but we very much wanted to forge our own path with Skyrim.”

Set 900 years before the events of Elder Scrolls V, the Skyrim of ESO isn’t exactly the same as it was in the previous game. While familiar places like Solitude, Dragon Bridge, and Morthal are back, the entire region has been corrupted by the influence of vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural forces, which gives it more of a gothic and macabre aesthetic. Closing out the cinematic trailer was a brief glimpse of a massive underground fortress home to the coven of vampires–the dark heart of Skyrim. Starting off the season will be a special prologue quest that’s available to all players, setting the stage for the new adventures in Skyrim.

Encompassing the Dark Heart of Skyrim season are four substantial updates. The first two, Harrowstorm and Greymoor, will be available at launch. Harrowstorm focuses on new dungeons and world events to take part in, tasking you and your party to face off against hordes of vampires other monsters. The Greymoor questline is the most substantial form of content to take part in, which is the main questline in Skyrim. According to Bethesda, the narrative in Greymoor will be the darkest one of the series, revealing the grimmer aspects of the land of Skyrim, why it attracts such supernatural forces. Later in 2020, two more updates focusing on additional story and dungeons will close out the Dark Heart of Skyrim season.

A returning location that players will be able to explore is Blackreach, the massive underground cavern from The Elder Scrolls V. According to the developers, the subterranean networks makes up over 40% of Skyrim’s size in ESO. In addition to the new land to explore and quests to follow, the Dark Heart of Skyrim season will also introduce a suite of new quality-of-life updates, activities, and new features. For instance, one new side-activity is the Antiquities system, allowing players to hunt for lost relics from around the world to buff their characters and party with new mythic items that have unique properties. While exploring Skyrim, you can also take part in Harrowstorm world events, which has you and your group battle waves of foes.

No doubt, the big standout with this upcoming season is the prospect of returning to Skyrim. Released almost nine years ago, the Elder Scrolls V still remains one of Bethesda’s most well-loved games, so getting to explore the region in an MMO presents an interesting way to re-experience the lore and iconography of the region. In the years following ESO’s initial release, the MMO was updated to allow for more open-ended exploration of the world that will scale to your level and party-size. For players looking to jump into ESO for the first time, you can even start a new character in the region of Skyrim, letting you explore the land right from the outset.

For more info on what’s new with Elder Scrolls Online, including what to expect in Skyrim and the larger season of content in Dark Heart of Skyrim, be sure to check back with GameSpot.