“Stay out of his life.”

The first trailer for the Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark is now out, and it promises a new and unique take on the world of the beloved HBO mob series. Set in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Many Saints will tell the story of Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola), the father of the show’s Christopher Moltisanti who we only ever heard stories of from Tony and Chrissy prior to this.

Judging by the trailer for Many Saints of Newark, however, a young Tony Soprano will play a larger role in the film than fans might’ve expected, with the late James Gandolfini’s son Michael taking on the part from his dad. We spoke to the film’s director Alan Taylor, who also helmed some of the greatest episodes of the show (“Kennedy and Heidi”… oof), about how Many Saints connects Dickie’s world to Tony’s, what it was like casting Michael Gandolfini, and much more.

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A Dickie Moltisanti Movie or a Tony Soprano Movie?

It was intriguing that when the oft-rumored, seemingly unlikely Sopranos movie was finally announced, it was revealed that Dickie Moltisanti would be the central character. Christopher, who was Tony’s “nephew” and heir apparent on the show, never knew his father, who died when he was just a baby.

Despite the prominence of young Tony in the trailer, Taylor says that the new film is “absolutely Dickie’s story.

“He is, in my mind anyway, a kind of classic Sopranos man for all kinds of reasons, and that’s why we can explore all the same themes and tones through him that we know from the show,” says Taylor.

At the same time, the marketing department has to sell the movie, just as they have to sell any other movie, and so tying Dickie to the more familiar aspects of The Sopranos is integral to the film’s success. (Cue the “Woke Up This Morning​” theme song.)

“I think our interest in him, and… the audience’s interest in him, comes from the fact that he is the guy that most shaped the guy we all know and have a complex relationship to,” says Taylor.

Taylor later elaborated: “So to make that connection [to the audience] and convey this basic idea, we thought, ‘Okay, you know Tony. Or at least you’ve heard about him. What you don’t know is that this is the guy that made him who he is. And we’re going to tell you his story.’ So there is a kind of handoff within the trailer.”

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Indeed, we always knew that Dickie was a very important presence in Tony’s life and development. The show always gave the impression that Dickie was a mentor to Tony as much as Tony was a mentor to Christopher, and that Tony had an undying affection for him even all these years after Dickie’s death. (And by the way, Taylor promises that we will find out the full story of Dickie’s fate in the movie.)

“His relationship to Tony is key, for him and for Tony,” says the director. “But all of our stories in the movie, and there’s a few, all are grounded in Dickie. So his relationship with Harold, this character that Leslie Odom is playing, and the conflict between them — it’s very much Dickie’s conflict. And there’s a love story with this wonderful actress. And Dickie’s relationship to Ray Liotta is a huge part of the movie. So it’s all very Dickie-centric, but our way in, and even the way the movie starts is sort of taking us through Tony to Dickie.”

Which brings us to that last line in the trailer when Ray Liotta’s character says to Dickie, “Stay out of his life.”

“That is one of my favorite lines in the trailer,” says Taylor. “And I’m glad they ended it there, because what we’re saying is, ‘This relationship shaped Tony more than any others, and the best advice this guy got was to stay away from Tony.’ So it’s a loving family relationship, but it’s a loving family relationship in the Sopranos’ world. So…”

Casting Michael Gandolfini as Tony Soprano

The sad passing of James Gandolfini in 2013 seemed at the time to mean that a return to the Sopranos world in some form was unlikely (the series had ended in 2007). But the prequel setting of The Many Saints of Newark also gave Taylor and Sopranos creator David Chase, who also wrote the film with Lawrence Konner, a unique opportunity to cast Gandolfini’s son Michael in the role. It was also a stressful proposition for the director to make a Sopranos story without James.

“That was central to our conceiving of the movie, I think, and sort of like a touchstone in a way,” says Taylor. “And it’s not like we jumped off immediately and did that. We had been actively looking for the youngest Tony and for the more teenage Tony. But this idea was always sort of hovering there as a possibility for Michael before we even knew if he’d be comfortable doing it or interested. And then when we did decide to go that way, we put him through the ringer. We made him come in and audition and show that he could do it. And I was really happy with the audition he gave, but there was also this wave of, ‘My God, this is so the right thing to do.’”

Even the glimpses we get of Michael’s take on “teenage Tony” in the trailer indicate a performance that just might do what might’ve seemed impossible — to recreate the intense presence and aura of James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano.

“In our dinner, before we started shooting, [Michael] stood up and said he wanted to thank everybody for this chance to say hello to his father again, and goodbye again,” recalls Taylor. “And everybody fell off their chairs. But I think he became sort of the heart of the movie for us. And it made us feel like we were doing something right by having him there. He seemed to enjoy it and rise to the occasion. And there’s a few moments in the movie where you sort of see him become the character we know from the show. It’s really compelling.”

Of course, as the director says, you can’t tell Tony’s story without his mom being a big part of it. And Vera Farmiga is here as Livia Soprano, the complicated character from the show with an even more complicated relationship with her son. Taylor said that he actually shot more with Farmiga that didn’t make it into the theatrical cut of the film, and that he’d love to do an extended version at some point with that extra footage.

“There was some wonderful stuff that helps [you] understand her inner psychology,” he says. “But some of that fell by the wayside. She’s very important in his life. You get the dynamic [in the theatrical cut]. She’s younger and beautiful, and you still see a kind of flirty energy between her and [Tony’s dad] Johnny — in between the smashing plates and throwing pots and trying to shoot each other! You see this younger couple and why he was attracted to her. And you get a moment with her where you… It’s really sort of heartbreaking. The mothering impulse is there too, but you see this is before it was totally sort of curdled as time went on.”

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Taylor also drops some hints about the film that will surely have fans looking back at episodes of the show in a new light: “She has a crush on Dickie sort of, because Dickie is sort of the elegant one. And Junior can be jealous of the fact that Livia and Tony both seem to like Dickie more than him.” But also, Livia’s trajectory fits into the bigger scheme of Many Saints’ story and themes, including Dickie’s arc. “Dickie is somebody who’s really trying to change his cycle, and trying to change his destiny,” says Taylor.

“I think some people sort of drive each other crazier over time,” says Taylor. “And I think she and Johnny had a relationship that sort of curdled both of them. But it’s nice to see the glimpses that could have gone the other way. Livia didn’t have to turn out like Livia. We see a very concrete moment that could have changed Livia’s story in the movie. And Tony and Dickie are both involved in that. These people we know… We think we know who they are. This is just a reminder that it didn’t have to go that way, or did it sort of have to go to that? It’s the question of how locked in are we?”

The Many Saints of Newark will be released in theaters in the US on October 1 and will be available on HBO Max 31 days from the theatrical release.

Tilda Swinton is glad the controversy surrounding her casting as The Ancient One in Marvel’s 2016 Doctor Strange movie happened, citing that “sometimes, it needs to get messy” for things to get better.

Swinton’s remarks come as part of a larger discussion surrounding her role in Doctor Strange with Variety, who interviewed the actress about everything surrounding that controversy. This interview comes after Marvel Studios boss, Kevin Feige, commented on the same controversy last month.

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At the time of the controversy, Marvel Studios released a statement that said “the Ancient One is a title that is not exclusively held by any one character, but rather a moniker passed down through time, and in this particular film, the embodiment is Celtic,” as noted by Variety.

The statement went on to say that Marvel Studios was “very proud to have the enormously talented Tilda Swinton portray this unique and complex character alongside our richly diverse cast.” That remained Marvel’s stance on the matter until last month, when Feige said he regretted whitewashing the role, which has been historically portrayed by an Asian male.

“We thought we were being so smart and so cutting-edge,” Feige said. “We’re not going to do the cliché of the wizened, old, wise Asian Man. But it was a wake-up call to say, ‘Well, wait a minute, is there any other way to figure it out? Is there any other way to both not fall into the cliché and cast an Asian actor? And the answer to that, of course, is yes.”

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When Variety told Swinton that Feige had said that, she said was not previously aware of his comments, but that she is “very, very grateful that he said that.” She went on to admit that she did have a question mark in her mind when she was cast as The Ancient One.

“I remember at the time having a question mark in my own mind, and being attendant to the public response to the idea that a Scottish woman will be playing this character, and being aware that there was no resistance at all — there was widespread welcome — which shifted at a certain point, for very good reason with which I had an enormous amount of sympathy.”

Swinton said “conscious” criticism grew “righteously” and that now, she relishes the conversation between an audience and a film’s narrative.

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“The audience feels even more empowered to contribute to the narrative and to feel heard within the narrative, and that’s a really healthy social development.”

Swinton found herself in more controversy at the time after reaching out to comedian Margaret Cho, who is of Korean descent, to ask about why Asian people were offended by her casting, according to Variety. Swinton had never met or spoken to Cho, but seemingly reached out to Cho because of Cho’s Asian descent.

Cho said Swinton “wanted to get my take on why all the Asian people were so mad… and it was so weird,” according to Variety. Swinton then released the full email exchange between herself and Cho as a response and in it, Cho said Asian and Asian American stories “are told by white actors over and over again and we feel at a loss to know how to cope with it.”

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Cho later said that this email exchange made her feel like a “house Asian” as she was asked to essentially explain “whitewashing” to Swinton on behalf of all Asian and Asian-American people.

Swinton told Variety that her decision to reach out to Cho was “questionable,” “naive,” and “clearly confusing,” but that beyond starting the email exchange in the first place, she had “zero regrets” in regards to the conversation with Cho.

Despite that, Swinton admits that this email exchange and the wider Ancient One controversy that surrounded her was a “hot moment.” However, she’s grateful that it happened, despite it being a “hot, sticky, gnarly moment.”

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“But the way in which people get listened to is by speaking up and getting hot. And sometimes, it needs to get messy.”

For more about Doctor Strange and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, check out our thoughts on the movie that featured Swinton in IGN’s Doctor Strange review and then watch this video about how MCU fans spotted some Doctor Strange-related changes to WandaVision. Read about how Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness is inspired by Anthony Bourdain and Indiana Jones after that.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

In 1998, if you wanted to watch Netflix, you had to rent a DVD then wait for the company to physically mail it to you. The service probably didn’t have exactly what you wanted, and you had to wait days to receive it. Still, it was ever-so-slightly more convenient than driving to the local “movie store” (we seriously called them that.) A few years later, the billion-dollar monolith Blockbuster was chasing Netflix’s crumbs. 

Anyone who remembers this seismic shift understands how important Xbox’s Game Pass service might be. The all-you-can-eat game buffet has many of the same qualities that helped Netflix on its meteoric rise. It represents a seismic change in the industry, it’s a great value, and it still feels incredibly futuristic. And in the still-technically-beta Project xCloud, now officially called Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft’s subscription service also already has the streaming feature it took Netflix years to develop – and it’s included for free with a Game Pass Ultimate subscription. 

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But unlike Netflix, Xbox Cloud Gaming is entering a category already packed with heavyweight contenders. How does it stand up to services like GeForce Now, Rainway, Stadia, Shadow, PlayStation Now, and Amazon Luna?  

Xbox Cloud Gaming – Catalog and Interface

Xbox Cloud Gaming is currently available via a dedicated app on Android devices, as well as Windows 10 PCs and Apple devices via Microsoft Edge, Chrome, or Safari. While it started as a relatively limited service with minimal platform support, it’s quickly extended to a decent variety of platforms. Still, services like Stadia still have it beat with their support for TVs via Chromecast, while Rainway is available on practically everything. That said, Microsoft has plans for the service to come to TVs (sans Xbox) via a forthcoming streaming stick, as well as direct integration within smart TVs.

Xbox Cloud Gaming’s native mobile support is limited to Android due to business disputes between Apple and Microsoft, but we tested the service extensively on Apple devices thanks to browser support. While it still feels pretty rough – with audio and controller latency issues abound – it’s also amazing to see Master Chief on your iPhone. And while it’s not advertised on their website, using Edge, Chrome, and even Safari on Mac also worked, at least during our testing. This is pretty stunning functionality to leave off their marketing, and I can easily see this being one of the best use-cases there is for GamePass.

I’ve seen Xbox Cloud Gaming’s design – which lives inside the Xbox Game Pass app – a thousand times, in everything from Apple’s App Store to Amazon’s homepage. It’s a simple, well-designed page – there’s a rotating carousel of featured content at the top and lockers below. Those lockers designate recently played, recently added, popular games, and touchscreen-optimized games. It’s nothing fancy, and that’s a good thing. Within seconds, I could find what I was looking for and start a game.

The offerings themselves change often, but so far, there’s plenty to choose from. Near its original release, I counted 182 games. Now, there are 267 available to stream on Cloud Gaming, out of a total 385 available on Game Pass as a whole. There are some big-name games available like Doom Eternal, The Master Chief Collection, Halo 5, and Gears 5, and this list is growing impressively fast. Games like MLB The Show 21, Control, and Outriders have been added in the months since launch. Still, much of the catalog is composed of older hits and indies, many of which are relatively unknown. Xbox has promised a slew of first-party blockbusters all coming to Game Pass on the same day as their console release, but it’s not totally clear if all of these games will also be playable via Cloud Gaming. In other words, Game Pass (already) suffers from segmentation. 

That’s because the Game Pass catalog is split between PC, Console, and Cloud. Currently, PC-exclusive games are not available to stream (though it’s something Microsoft is working on), and up until recently the Console catalog was identical to the Cloud catalog. Months ago, I surmised that the libraries would eventually deviate, and it would end with the Cloud catalog having the worst selection of the three. Sadly, I was right on the money. Already games like FIFA 21, Dragon Quest Builders 2, and even Xbox-exclusive The Medium are absent from the cloud catalog. Still, the cloud offerings are nothing to scoff at, with a well-rounded list of games ranging from racing to horror.

Tapping a game in your recently played locker instantly launches it, while tapping a new game displays the product page, complete with screenshots, ESRB rating, and the ability to install it to your console or PC. On Android, once you’re inside the game, settings and options are sleekly hidden away. Tapping the screen brings a small overlay in the top left-hand corner of the screen, with a microscopic ellipses and an Xbox button. The Xbox button brings up the familiar Guide menu, allowing you to see Friends, start a party, accept invitations, or view your achievements. Tapping the ellipses brings up a Cloud Gaming-specific menu, allowing you to mute or unmute your microphone, supply feedback to Xbox, or quit the game. (Swiping twice from the top or bottom of the screen also allows you to leave the game as well.) 

However, on Windows 10 browsers and Apple devices, the Xbox and ellipses icons are always on-screen. Any modern iOS or iPadOS device makes the experience even worse by also including the swipe bar on-screen at all times. 

On mobile, Xbox Cloud Gaming deals with voice chat in a pretty smart way, letting you chat with friends using the microphone already on your phone. Unfortunately, without headphones, your friends and teammates will hear everything you hear, including their own voices. I found no way to turn off game audio while keeping my party chat on, which means the only practical way to play multiplayer games was with a headset. 

There’s a slew of games optimized for touchscreens. Many of these games are already on phones, but they’re far from “phone games.” There are games like Dead Cells, Slay the Spire, Streets of Rage 4, Hellblade, Minecraft Dungeons, and Tell Me Why. These games utilize on-screen touchpads that you can move, configure, and customize to whatever size phone you have. Doing so is a touch unintuitive, and the first time I loaded it up, several of the buttons were so far off the screen I had no idea they existed. But once I figured it out, I was able to play a few games without many problems besides the obvious ones: no tactile feedback, my fingers covering half the screen, and the general slipperiness of touchscreen gaming. Even so, it’s a viable way to log on for daily rewards or whatnot.

Xbox Cloud Gaming – Performance & Latency

Every streaming service review deserves a boilerplate disclaimer: When using Cloud Gaming (and every other game-streaming service), your internet connection is the single, mercilessly exacting determinant for how your experience will play out.

Suppose you’re in the middle of rural America with a poor internet connection. In that case, there’s really nothing you can do to achieve even a subpar cloud gaming experience, shy of buying a satellite and pointing it into your living room. But as 5G rolls out across the country, the required speeds will become available to more and more Americans. 

Xbox Cloud Gaming requires at least 10Mbps download speeds and recommends a 5GHz WiFi connection. At 940mbps down, my San Francisco internet connection was nearly 100 times faster than necessary. That kind of bandwidth isn’t typical though, even for San Francisco, so I also tried it using a slower (but still adequate) WiFi connection, as well as a connection much further from the router.

The good news is connections were all pretty stable. Once a game started, I never dropped it. But checking a text message, or upping the brightness, or anything that required me to leave the game often booted me to the loading screen. 

And unfortunately, loading takes a very long time – though it has improved greatly as the service has matured. For instance, several months ago, I measured that Halo 5 took 37 seconds to load. Today, it took just under 17 seconds.

Graphical fidelity and game size doesn’t seem to factor, with smaller (possibly less in-demand) games sometimes taking longer to load. Celeste took 20 seconds to load, while Slay the Spire took 25 seconds to load. Which is, again, a marked improvement from where it started. Celeste had taken 47 seconds when Cloud Gaming launched on Android phones, and Slay the Spire had clocked in at a whopping 52 seconds.

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Still, after years of scrolling and tapping apps at fever-pace, these are long waits to stare at your phone. And on some occasions, the loading screen just never resolved. I waited more than four minutes for Guacamelee 2 to open and more than six minutes to boot up Ori and the Blind Forest. Neither opened.

Quitting the game and restarting it wasn’t the silver bullet I’d hoped for, either. After quitting Ori, the next time I opened the game, it hung up on the loading screen again, then crashed to my home screen the following two times. Nothing about the service deterred me from it more than these will-they-won’t-they loading screens.

Once actually in-game, my experience playing was mixed. Over the last few months, I’ve played nearly every game I was interested in, including Forza, Halo 5, Ori and the Blind Forest (once I eventually got it working), the Master Chief Collection, and Absolver, among many, many more. On mobile, the controls always seemed to register relatively snappily. I’m used to a certain level of barely perceptible latency while streaming, but in some cases, even when the visuals started artifacting like a thirty-year-old jpeg, the game still seemed to recognize my inputs. At one point, with nothing but blocky smudges on-screen, I was able to aim a Spartan Laser in the right direction and secure a double kill.

Xbox knows this, and it’s licensed several phone-controller hybrids, including the Razer Kishi and Backbone One. I tested the Kishi and a Moga phone-clip that connects directly to your Xbox controller. With my 1,000 Mbps down connection, both of these control schemes were close to flawless, with no discernible latency when close to the router or hotspot. With a little distance, however, I could feel that almost negligible muddiness that comes with streaming games. Now and again, a small line would traverse down the screen, moving pixels ever so slightly to catch-up with the action.

I also had a slew of problems connecting next-gen controllers to Apple devices. With the 14.5 iOS update, Xbox Series controllers can now pair through bluetooth – but in practice, connecting to iOS devices can still be a little troublesome. These connection issues will surely be ironed out as Xbox Cloud gaming on iOS moves out of limited beta and Apple releases its own updates. But right now when paired with those awfully long load screens, I found setup to be most painful on iOS.

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While browser support is still in limited beta, it’s also worth pointing out that on Mac and Windows 10, I ran into a slew of problems. Audio and gameplay cut out was frequent, and at one point my computer stopped registering inputs from the controller. In many ways, your phone is the worst place to play these games due to the small screen and constant barrage of notifications that require your attention, so I’m eager to continue testing cloud gaming on browsers – especially as stability improvements continue to rollout. It’s also worth noting that a controller is required for playing via browser. Mouse and keyboard are not supported – even in the case of games that have a PC version – as it’s the console version that’s being streamed. 

Xbox Cloud Gaming – Bandwidth Usage

All game streaming services will eat through tons of data, but Xbox Cloud Gaming used a lot less data than we’ve come to expect. Unlike Stadia, which burned through 6.2GBs in 30 minutes of gameplay, we saw a much more reasonable 1.3GBs of data on Xbox’s service in that same time.

That’s because, unlike Stadia’s 4K target, until recently Xbox Cloud Gaming only aimed for a 720p resolution – but now has 1080p resolutions, with up to 60fps. That could be a bit of a disappointment for resolution aficionados, but your data cap will thank you. 

Warning: Spoilers for Episode 4 of Loki follow.

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The Loki series has taken Marvel fans across time and space, and in Episode 4, “The Nexus Event,” things seem to go somewhere altogether different. In the series’ first post-credits scene, Loki wakes up to find himself in a ravaged world that he first mistakes for Hel. Crumbling buildings, even a ruined Avengers tower, are scattered across the gray landscape.

The first person to greet him in this strange place is himself–or, more accurately, variants of himself we haven’t met before in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Could this be an entire world of Lokis? Or maybe home to all displaced variants? 

While two of these Lokis are very familiar to comic book fans, the other two are something of a wonderful puzzle. Let’s meet these new variants. 

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Classic Loki (Richard E. Grant Loki)

“Classic” Loki, as he’s listed in the credits, is the most recognizable of the bunch. He’s clad in yellow and green spandex and is the first to speak to the bewildered God of Mischief. (Also, Richard E. Grant is a brilliant stroke of casting genius for this surly Loki.)

This is the God of Evil that tormented Thor for most of the time since the character was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1962. He plagued not only his brother, but his machinations extended to Earth and the Avengers and Doctor Strange as well. Far more villainous than mischievous, this version of Loki served his role as the bringer of Ragnarok without the antihero qualities that the God of Mischief has adopted since. 

Classic Loki seems to be the most haggard of the bunch, with dirty clothes and a bag slung over a shoulder. Has he been on this crumbling world the longest? 

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Kid Loki (Jack Veal Loki)

We’ve obviously seen Lady Loki in the series in the form of Sylvie, and now it’s Kid Loki’s turn to make an appearance. In the comics, after the fall of Asgard, Loki was reborn on Earth as a young boy and a far more compassionate version of his previous self. This reborn God of Mischief was the first step on Loki’s path to chaos instead of pure villainy. He played an important role in the wide-ranging battle against the God of Fear during the Fear Itself comic event, using his iconic cunning to give Thor a fighting chance.

Kid Loki ultimately died at the hands of Classic Loki, so this mid-credits scene has some slightly awkward undertones. Jack Veal plays him on the show.

Boastful Loki (Deobai Oparei Loki)

The Loki on the left is credited as Boastful Loki and is played by Deobai Oparei. This displaced variant appears to be a combination of both the gods of mischief and thunder, holding a hammer of his own while donning the familiar costume of Loki. Is he a variant that perhaps proved worthy?

Loki has picked up Mjolnir in the comics before. In 2014’s mega event AXIS, heroes and villains had their personalities inverted due to a magic spell. Loki became a god of good. When it was time to face the evil Thor in Loki: Agent of Asgard #9, the former God of Mischief reached for Mjolnir in a desperate attempt to fight back—and was found worthy. But it didn’t last. When the spell was reversed, the two brothers returned to their former personalities, and Mjolnir fell from Loki’s hands.

 The God of Mischief would lift the hammer again in 2020’s Thor #4, but the rest of that story has yet to be told. It remains to be seen how much, if any, of this version of Loki will be part of Boastful Loki’s backstory.

Alligator Loki

Blink and you might miss it, but a reptile wearing a familiar crown is perched on Kid Loki’s lap. Do we know anything else about this variant? No. Are we obsessed with it already? Yes.

Thor was once turned into a frog–by Loki, obviously–and a frog version of Thor from another Earth served as a member of the Pet Avengers. (Don’t laugh. They defeated Thanos.) Alligator Loki might be a nod to the Frog of Thunder’s adventures in Thor #365, which involved snarling alligators in the sewers of New York. 

From the series’ trailers we know that the Vote Loki version of the Asgardian has yet to make his appearance. Who else might be waiting in Loki Limbo?

For more on the show, check out the Loki release schedule, find out if there are Loki post credits scenes each week, dig in on some Time Keepers theories, and get some back story on Sylvie Laufeyson, Sophia Di Martino’s Lady Loki Variant as well as our theories on Episode 4 and whether or not Loki is in love with Sylvie!

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Kelly Knox is a freelance entertainment writer who also contributes to StarWars.com, DCComics.com, Nerdist, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @kelly_knox to talk Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, and comics.

Be sure to check out our review of Netflix’s America: The Motion Picture right here. The film is currently available to stream on Netflix.

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Just in time for the 4th of July, Netflix’s awesomely erroneous animated adventure America: The Motion Picture has arrived to unleash an absolutely bonkers retelling of the Revolutionary War like you’ve never seen. Want to witness a chainsaw-armed George Washington team with a lightning-shooting Thomas Edison? Ready to behold Benedict Arnold turning into a werewolf and sinking his fangs into…Abe Lincoln? Well, yer gonna.

Written by Archer’s Dave Callaham and directed by Archer’s Matt Thompson, making his full-length animated feature debut, America: The Motion Picture is a swirl of action-packed insanity starring Channing Tatum, Will Forte, Jason Mantzoukas, Andy Samberg, Olivia Munn, and Simon Pegg. It’s an R-rated romp overflowing with common, and uncommon, misconceptions about our nation’s history. IGN spoke to both Thompson and Callaham about this star-studded project and their specific approach to crafting the craziness.

Firstly, and this might actually be the least of the film’s silly inaccuracies, the story hinges on George Washington being best buds with Abraham Lincoln, and it’s only slightly worrying that some folks either might already think this is true or will think it’s true after the movie. “There are many things in this movie that I think people might slightly accept,” Thompson laughed, “and one of my favorites — and Dave stuck with this a long time ago — is that I think people will believe that King James was in power when the colonists began to revolt. It was King George, but it’s awesome because it just kind of rolls right past you.”

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“My approach to writing,” Callaham added, “and luckily Matt joined me in his approach to the filmmaking, was no research. That was always the rule. The general approach for me on the writing side was that I was just going to write from the hip and when I need a bad guy it’s going to be the first thing that comes to mind. And that’s how you end up with a King James. And when you need the song, what’s the first American song that comes to mind? That would be ‘Free Bird’ for me.”

Thompson joyfully agreed, saying “If there was a SurveyMonkey for Americans that asked them what song they would want to make our American anthem, I bet ‘Free Bird’ would be very high on that list.”

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“It’s basically what Americans think of when they think of these moments,” Callaham continued. “And that’s why you have things like Vietnam and the Titanic — which is not necessarily a purely American thing — but just large-scale things that people are vaguely, probably familiar with but might not always know the context of.”

At one point, Thompson and Callaham toyed with the idea of bookending the film somehow, to explain why the story was being told in such a bonkers manner, but ultimately it just wasn’t funny to them. “We just wanted to tell a story and keep you encased in this world,” Thompson explained. “We just love the idea that right away George Washington is doing battle with his old friend Benedict Arnold, who just happens to be a werewolf, and just have you stay inside that moment and not question it. Or question why George Washington has arm chainsaws, for that matter.”

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Thompson did discover, however, that directing a full feature was way different from animated TV. “I thought I was just making three episodes of Archer back-to-back, in a way, and I was completely wrong,” he told IGN. “I really learned a lot from listening to (executive producers) [Phil] Lord and [Christopher] Miller specifically. They kept talking to me about how you really have to care about these main characters how you really have to root for them. And how it has to have heart and that people really want to see good people succeed. And a lot of the comedy I’ve made over the years involves someone punching someone else in the face and going ‘haha!’ But you have to root for these people, so it took me a long time to have these nice quieter moments where you follow the characters’ goals and you follow these characters’ hearts. And that heart helps sustain 90 minutes, because if you didn’t care about these characters you’d turn it off after 20 minutes because you couldn’t take the gag after gag after gag.”

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Speaking of those characters, America: The Motion Picture has a stellar lineup of voice talent, the first being Channing Tatum, who also served as an executive producer on the movie. And with Tatum in the lead, it made the casting process a little easier.

“So we’re not knocking on people’s doors saying ‘hey, we’ve got this movie where a giant Paul Bunyan fights a robot Big Ben,’ Thompson said. “No, we say we have a movie starring Channing Tatum and that’s when they’ll read your script and hopefully respond to it. Some of the folks are good friends of mine. Like, I’ve known Judy Greer, who plays Martha Washington, for a very long time. I’ve known Killer Mike for a good bit too. And there’s Jason Mantzoukas, who’s probably the funniest improv comic that I’ve ever met. But then we got other people like Bobby Moynihan, who brought just a lot of wonderful soul and silliness to Paul Revere. And Olivia Munn, who has a lot of great strength about her and we love that she always pushes back and never lets anybody get over on her.”

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“And through my friends at FX I got to meet Raoul Trujillo who is on the FX show Mayans, and Raoul really helped teach me how Geronimo should act and sound. I was extremely thankful for that. And to round it out we’ve got Simon Pegg and Andy Samberg as the bad guys. And Samberg is just chewing scenery. People don’t even know it’s Samberg in the movie because he’s doing such an affected voice. And then Simon Pegg is just doing this big deep growling voice that makes King James scary. He just killed it. There’s a lot of Emperor Palpatine to it.”

America: The Motion picture also contains more than its fair share of movie spoofs, from big properties like Star Wars and the Fast and the Furious franchise to smaller, niche offerings. “We both have the same sort of pop culture understanding that most people of our generation do,” Callaham said. “So there are Star Wars and Avengers references and so on, but also Matt and I both have certain strange things that we like. Like Harry and the Hendersons. That’s also why there’s a very elaborate Swordfish gag. It’s just whatever makes us laugh.”

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Netflix’s America: The Motion Picture is currently available to stream.

July is upon us and, admittedly, we’re going to be entering a slow period for releases. That said, now is the winter of your discount content. Franchises you should have ploughed through by now (but haven’t) can be secured for way less. Take advantage as you “work” from home. Escape to fantasy worlds far flung from our largely unimpressive reality!

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Spike Chunsoft has announced that 2019’s AI: The Somnium Files is getting a sequel called AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative. The game will release in Spring 2022 for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

The story follows newly-appointed Special Agent Mizuki and her AI partner Aiba. Six years ago, the right half of a corpse was mysteriously discovered. But the left half was never found until six years later, when it appeared as a fresh corpse with no signs of decay. That implied that the victim had still been alive until recently. Mizuki and Aiba are now on the case to solve what are called the Half Body serial killings.

A collector’s edition was revealed as well, which includes the full game, a Good Smile POP UP Parade figure of Aiba standing at around 170mm, an artbook featuring art from series character designer Yusuke Kozaki, and an official soundtrack by returning composer Keisuke Ito, dubbed HARMOniOUS DISCORD. This edition will cost $119.95.

Interestingly, there are some discrepancies regarding whether the game is coming to the new generation of consoles. PlayStation also made an announcement on Twitter saying that it would also come to PS5, but it’s not clear if it is a native version or if it is referring to the PS4 game being backwards compatible with the system. Additionally, the game’s official website notes that it will also come to Xbox Series X.

Microsoft Flight Simulator was lauded as a stunning technical achievement when it launched last year, using innovative technology to functionally map the entire world. There was just one problem: a lot of people couldn’t actually play it, at least not with out some serious compromises.

With Microsoft Flight Simulator’s extremely heavy CPU load, even high-end PC owners rocking an RTX 3080 graphics card frequently struggled to hit 60fps. Mid-range setups fared far worse. If you didn’t have a really good processor, you were most likely out of luck, even if you had a powerful GPU.

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Close to a year later, Asobo is introducing some substantial updates to Microsoft Flight Simulator. In a livestream showcasing the forthcoming Sim Update 5, the development team did a compare and contrast between the two versions. The differences were striking. Where Sim Update 4 struggled to stay about 30fps with a 100 percent CPU load, Sim Update 5 hit a cool 60fps on Ultra Settings using real flying conditions — and all this on an i7-9700k rig with an RTX 2060 Super graphics card. Not too shabby.

“We have re-written a lot of the parts of the engine […] in order to get the maximum performance from the Sim and the minimum resources from memory,” said Sebastian Wloch, co-founder of Asobo Studio.

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On top of the improvements to the PC version, Asobo also revealed some of the specs for the Xbox Series X|S version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. The studio confirmed that Xbox Series X will run Microsoft Flight Simulator in 4K while Xbox Series X will render it in 1080p. Both consoles will run in 30fps on most TVs, though it will be possible to play with an unlocked framerate on variable refresh rate monitors.

We awarded Microsoft Flight Simulator a perfect score when it launched last year on PC, lauding it as “legitimately incredible.” It has since seen several updates and other improvements. Sim Update 5 is slated to launch July 27 — the same day as the Xbox Series X|S release.

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Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN.

Via new Steam listings, Square Enix released teaser images for the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games. To put it politely, choices were made regarding the new font in the remastered games, and the internet largely thinks they were bad ones.

You can check out a few in-game screenshots below that we pulled from the Steam listings and judge for yourself. But Twitter user Patera Quetzal pretty much summed up the general feelings in a tidy meme.

Square Enix has struggled with its PC remasters of their classic pixel games in the past, and unsightly fonts aren’t a new issue for the devs. The original FFV port that’s due to be yanked soon and replaced by the remastered version was also criticized for its weird font choice as well as as well as a modernized graphical style that stripped the charm from the original characters designs.

Final Fantasy, FFII, and FFIII will be available on July 28. FFIV, FFV, and FFVI have unknown release dates, but will get released sometime in 2021.

You can buy the remastered games separately, or in a discounted FFI-IV bundle that gives 22% off all 12 items included. Final Fantasy, FFII, and FFIII are currently all discounted 20% off and can be purchased for $10 each.

The remastered versions of FFI to FFIV are currently not available on consoles, though hopefully Square Enix will consider porting their classic remastered FF games in the future. (There’s a free idea that will make you a lot of money, Square Enix. The people want the remastered bundle on the Switch!)