Category: Video Games

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick is known for being very upfront with media and investors about where he thinks technology, especially around games, is heading. And during today’s earnings call, Zelnick made his thoughts clear on a subject that’s recently been popular in tech circles: artificial intelligence, and whether or not it will transform game development.

Zelnick offered a lengthy response to a question about AI technology like ChatGPT, opening by noting his own historic skepticism around overwrough technology hype and saying that while AI stands for artificial intelligence, “there is no such thing as artificial intelligence.”

That said, he’s “really excited” about the current leaps being made by AI and machine learning, and believes that tools are actively being created that will eventually reduce development costs in gaming. However, he doesn’t think it’s going to impact overall cost structure – because if development becomes easier, he says, developers and publisher will simply want to do even more.

“The belief among college students [is] that ChatGPT is now going to allow them to make a query and send their homework. The problem is if the question is, ‘Describe what actually happened on the night of Paul Revere’s ride’, and everyone gets the same question, which you do in class, and everyone uses ChatGPT, oops, everyone’s going to submit the same essay, last time I checked.

“ChatGPT is today’s hand calculator. When I was a kid, there was no such thing, I hate to admit, but it’s true, so I had to do math longhand. And then hand calculators came along and parents were up in arms and thought, ‘Oh kids won’t have to learn math anymore,’ and the answer is yes, you still have to learn math, turns out, you absolutely have to learn math, but you have a tool that makes it easier to do. And ChatGPT is the same thing.

“We are ushering in a very exciting era of new tools and they’re going to allow our teams and our competitors’ teams to do really interesting things more efficiently, so we’re going to want to do more, we’re going to want to be even more creative. And no, it’s not going to allow someone to say, ‘Please develop the competitor to Grand Theft Auto that’s better than Grand Theft Auto’, and then they just send it out and ship it digitally and that will be that. People will try, but that won’t happen.”

Additionally, Zelnick offered some commentary on another technological topic: cloud gaming. When asked about this subject, Zelnick acknowledged Take-Two believed in the tech and had, in fact, been an early supporter of recently defunct Google Stadia.

That said, he’s not convinced it’s revolutionary, especially after what happened to Stadia specifically.

“Cloud gaming is a technology, not a business model,” he said. “It’s a distribution technology. And our view is broader distribution is always a good thing in the entertainment business. If we can reach more consumers with our properties we’re happy to do it as long as the terms make sense, and I think broader distribution over time probably benefits us in any number of ways including the cost of distribution which I believe will go down over time.

“That said, I’ve never felt like cloud gaming would represent a seismic change, because I think if you’re prepared to pay $60 or $70 for a frontline title, you’re also prepared to buy a console, and I think Stadia found that out. So bringing high quality titles to consumers that don’t have consoles will probably have an effect around the edges but I don’t think it’ll be a revolution in the business. I think it will be more an evolution in the business. And there are still technical challenges to be addressed.”

Zelnick also offered commentary to IGN on other topics connected to the earnings, including the impact of GTA 6 leaks on Take-Two’s business plans, and a very, very loose release window for Ghost Story Games’ Judas.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

After years apparently in development hell, Ghost Story Games appears to finally be ready to show us more of its mysterious FPS, Judas. We got our first real look at the next game from BioShock creator Ken Levine at The Game Awards last December, and according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, we’ll get to actually play it for ourselves…sometime before the end of March of 2025.

This comes from Take-Two’s quarterly earnings report, which outlines that it has 87 total games planned for release between fiscal 2023 (the fiscal year we’re in now, which concludes at the end of March) and fiscal 2025 (which ends at the end of March 2025). Speaking to IGN ahead of the earnings release, I asked Zelnick if Judas was included in that 87 number, and he said yes.

That said, delays happen all the time, 2025 is far away, and delays have been especially prevalent across AAA game development in recent years. I followed up by asking Zelnick if he anticipated significant delays to impact that promise of 87 games, and while he acknowledged some delays were always possible, he seemed confident in the plan Take-Two is putting out to its investors.

“We did have some slippage in the last few years,” he said. “We feel really stable right now. I feel great about our upcoming schedule. Of course there’s always the possibility of some slippage but the teams seem to be functioning really well and I’m optimistic about delivering great titles to the marketplace on an ongoing basis.”

In the same conversation, Zelnick clarified the possibility of layoffs at the publisher in the coming months, saying that while some jobs may be lost, he expects the impact to be “modest.” He also discussed the GTA 6 leaks from late last year and their emotional impact on the team.

As for Judas, we got our first true look at Ken Levine and Ghost Story’s upcoming project at The Game Awards last year. We know that it’s a single-player, narrative first-person shooter that’s coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Game Store.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Major League Baseball, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and San Diego Studio are partnering to introduce legends from baseball’s Negro Leagues to MLB The Show 23.

In a video posted to MLB’s Twitter, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick spoke about the partnership, saying the museum is thrilled to “take you on a journey back to the Negro Leagues and introduce you to some of the baddest brothers and sisters to ever play this game.” You can check out the full video for yourself below, which introduces the players and shares some brief history of the Negro Leagues.

MLB The Show 23’s new game mode is called Storylines: A New Game Experience Celebrating The Negro Leagues. Eight Negro League legends are a part of MLB The Show 23: Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, Buck O’Neil, Rube Foster, Hilton Smith, Hank Thompson, John Donaldson and Martín Dihigo.

MLB announced that Storylines will feature a narrative experience for each featured Negro League player, with “short videos about the players mixed with gameplay centered on important moments of their careers.” The players will also be available in exhibition mode and other areas of the game.

This isn’t just a one-off idea, either. MLB The Show 23 will feature Season 1 of Storylines, with every new MLB The Show game including a new roster of Negro League legends. Kendrick will narrate the stories in the mode, and also helped select the list of Negro Leaguers to introduce over the next several years.

San Diego Studio will also donate $1 to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum for every copy of MLB The Show 23 Collector’s Edition sold from now to the end of 2023.

The Negro Leagues was established on February 13, 1920. They operated from 1920 until around 1960, giving African Americans and Latin Americans a place to play baseball when Major League Baseball was segregated. The Negro Leagues saw some of the greatest players in the history of the sport, and in 2020, MLB bestowed Major League status upon seven professional Negro Leagues, officially recognizing over 3,000 players as Major Leaguers.

Last week, we learned the cover athletes for MLB The Show 23. Jazz Chisholm Jr. of the Miami Marlins will headline the standard edition, while New York Yankees icon Derek Jeter will grace the Captain Edition of the game. MLB The Show 23 launches on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on March 28, 2023.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Superman’s son Jon Kent is spinning out into a new DC Comics series called Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent, but there’s a big piece of the story DC hasn’t revealed until now. The series will feature Jon crossing over into the Injustice: Gods Among Us universe.

Adventures of Superman is one of several books included in DC’s line-wide revamp of the Superman franchise this year. Up till now, DC only revealed that the series will feature a rematch between Jon and Earth-3’s Ultraman (a villain who’s busy trying to murder the Supermen of the multiverse) and that Jon’s powers are beginning to flare out of control. Now we know that Jon will be further tested by meeting a version of his father who was driven to become a despotic tyrant instead of a force for good.

This is an auspicious crossover, considering that series writer Tom Taylor also penned the bulk of DC’s Injustice: Gods Among Us and Injustice 2 comics. Taylor has helped greatly flesh out a universe where Superman is driven mad by the deaths of his wife and unborn child. So what happens when he meets his son from another universe?

“Injustice for me is a very troubled time,” Taylor told DC.com. “I had so much fun on that book. Obviously, I was on it for years. I think I was originally hired for fifteen chapters, and I wrote over 150. But there’s a lot about Injustice that that rubs me up the wrong way. I don’t believe Superman, no matter what happens to him, can become that person. I don’t believe Wonder Woman becomes that person. So, for me, it’s a really interesting Elseworld, and throwing Jon Kent as sort of that beacon of hope and in a way, quite an innocent character and a character who wants the best for the world, throwing him into that world where his father has become a dictator gives us so much to play with. I’ve been talking about this story to all my friends who will listen for months, long before we knew where we were going with this.”

Taylor revealed that Jon will arrive in the Injustice universe during the period of Injustice 2: Year 5, meaning it takes place shortly before the events of the second game. He also noted that while Jon’s encounters with the Injustice Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman will be key moments in the series, there’s another character who’s relationship to Jon becomes key.

“I guess the biggest one—and I wasn’t going to give this away, but you know what, for anyone reading this I will—there is a different Damian Wayne in the Injustice world. Literally his best friend is essentially not on the side of the angels in this world. That is going to give us a very fun and entertaining dynamic and quite a tortured dynamic to play with.”

Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent #1 is slated for release on March 17, 2023.

Taylor is also hard at work on a new volume of Titans, one which repositions the team as the replacement for the Justice League after the events of Dark Crisis. Similarly, Marvel is about to introduce a new team of Avengers when that series relaunches later this year.

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

Overwatch 2 Season 3 will not only feature an Asian Mythology theme, a new Antarctica Control map, and a Valentine’s Day-themed browser-based Overwatch Dating Simulator, but it will also see the game’s first IP collaboration with Doomfist’s One-Punch Man skin.

Season 3 of Overwatch 2 will begin on February 7 and the One-Punch Man collaboration follows comments by Overwatch’s commercial leader and vice president, Jon Spector, about the company’s interest in exploring brand crossovers in the game similar to those seen in Fortnite.

Overwatch previously crossed over with other Blizzard games for special skins like Widowmaker’s Nova and Kerrigan Legendary skins, but this will mark the first time Overwatch 2 has seen a skin from another company.

As for the other additions in Season 3, the first one discussed was the new Antarctica Control map. Fans may remember that the main facility of Ecopoint: Antarctica was seen in Mei’s “Rise and Shine” cinematic, but this will be the first time players will be able to explore it to the fullest. Blizzard promises it is a “lore-rich tundra with several stories yet to be told.”

As previously mentioned, Season 3 as a whole will have an Asian Mythology theme. Alongside featuring Overwatch’s “most unique skins to date,” those who complete the Premium Battle Pass will be able to unlock the Amaterasu Kiriko Mythic skin, which is “inspired by various deities in Japanese mythology with customizations you can mix and match themed for the moon, the sea, and storms.” As an added bonus, Kiriko’s spirit fox even gets a new look with the skin.

Players will also be happy to know that Season 3 will offer even more rewards for just logging in and playing Overwatch 2. There will be 10 additional tiers on the free Battle Pass track and an additional 1,500 credits to earn, while the premium track will add an additional 500 Credits.

Blizzard also noted that all 300 Epic and Legendary event hero skins from Overwatch have been added to the Hero Gallery and will always be available for purchase, and they have also gotten a discount from 1,900 Credits to 1,500 Credits.

Lastly, skins and cosmetics will be earnable outside the Battle Pass via in-game events, and more details will be revealed in the future.

As for the Loverwatch Dating Sim, it will be part of the Ultimate Valentine event that will see a Hanzo 4v4 Limited Time Mode and Support-themed challenges added to the game alongside two epic skins and other rewards.

Loverwatch is a non-canon text-based dating sim where players will have the chance to try to date Mercy or Genji. There will be dialogue options to choose from, and a Cupid that looks “suspiciously like Hanzo” will assist you. If you are able to unlock the secret ending, you will earn a themed POTG Highlight. Loverwatch will be available at this link and will be playable from February 13-28 and will take about 30 minutes to complete.

There is so much more coming in Season 3, including the return of PachiMarchi from March 21 to April 4, a ton of balance, matchmaking, and quality-of-life changes, the Overwatch World Cup celebration, streamer mode and accessibility improvements, and more.

For more, check out our Overwatch 2 review, where we said its “switch to a 5v5 format breathes new life into what was once the sharpest shooter around. It just hasn’t quite recaptured all of that glory – yet.” Maybe Season 3 will get it even closer to that glory.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.