We've been enjoying our time in Respawn's new free-to-play battle royale game, Apex Legends, exploring the diverse ability sets of the eight different Legends. However, two Legends, the psychotic Caustic and goofball Mirage, are locked from the start. You can either drop some real-world cash to buy both immediately, or earn in-game Legend tokens to unlock them. We've finally discovered how long it would take to do the latter.Phil Hornshaw, who wrote up our early impressions of Apex Legends and is currently putting together our review of the game, earned the necessary 12000 Legend tokens to unlock one of the two Legends when he reached level 23, which took him about 17 hours. He still hasn't earned enough to unlock a second character, as Legend tokens unlock more slowly after reaching level 20.Obviously, this amount of time could fluctuate for you, as you can level up faster by completing bounties and hunting down the featured Champion. Surviving for longer periods of time, getting high kill counts, reviving allies, respawning allies, killing the Champion's squad, killing the Kill Leader, or playing with people you're friends with (instead of randoms) nets you moderate to large experience bonuses too.Killing the Champion or their squad or surviving for a long time are the fastest ways to level up. Defeating the Champion nets you a 500 XP bonus, and it's another 500 for taking out their whole squad. You get about a 200 XP bonus for every minute you survive, according to PSU, which means you can get huge bonuses for just hiding and surviving until the very end of a 17-20 minute match. If you're playing with two friends, you get an extra 300 XP bonus if your squad makes it to the top three as well.You might also be able to unlock new Legends and cosmetics faster once Apex Legends' Battle Pass comes out. Respawn hasn't provided a definite release date for the Battle Pass, but it's currently scheduled for March. Although Respawn has confirmed cross-progression won't be added, cross-platform play could still happen in Apex Legend's future.Apex Legends is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.Info from Gamespot.com

Apex Legends, the free-to-play battle royale game from Titanfall developer Respawn, continues to have a strong opening week. The game has now crossed 10 million players, with a record of more than 1 million concurrent players, Respawn announced in a blog post."This has been a truly incredible journey. We tested and tweaked. We argued and agreed. We got to a point where we felt some magic. We knew it would be risky to take the franchise in this direction, to go free to play, and do a surprise launch," Respawn founder Vince Zampella said. "But we fell in love with Apex Legends and wanted, needed, other people to play it too."He added that the massive success of Apex Legends so far has exceeded the company's "wildest dreams." Zampella went on to say that launch is "just the beginning" for Apex Legends. As announced previously, the title will offer a Fortnite-style battle pass that will deliver seasons' worth of new content over time.In fact, Respawn said it hopes the game can live on until 2027 or longer. Players can expect "exciting changes and gameplay evolutions" for the game as it progresses.By comparison, the latest statistics from Epic Games show that Fortnite has 200 million players and a peak concurrent record of 8.3 million players. But Fortnite is a sensation unlike almost anything else.Apex Legends was announced and released earlier this week on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It was a quick success, as it picked up 1 million players in eight hours, going on to reach 2.5 million players not much longer and a peak concurrent user record of 600,000 players. As today's numbers demonstrate, the game is enjoying a nice growth trajectory, and it'll be interesting to see how much bigger the game becomes over time.Apex Legends is far from the first competitor to Fortnite and PUBG, but it's different in that it comes from a massive, established publisher in Electronic Arts.In addition to Apex Legends, Respawn is working on something new in the Titanfall universe to release later this year, though whether or not it is the much-requested Titanfall 3 remains to be seen. Additionally, Respawn is developing a Star Wars game called Jedi: Fallen Order, and it is also slated to launch in 2019. Info from Gamespot.com

Now that Week 10's challenges have arrived on all platforms, Season 7 of Fortnite is finally winding down, although developer Epic Games still has a few more surprises in store for players before Season 8 begins. The studio has announced the Valentine's-themed Share the Love event, which kicks off on February 8 and will encompass new challenges, rewards, and more.Once the event is underway, players who support a Creator or enter a Creator Code will receive the Cuddle Hearts wrap for free. The wrap will be available following next week's 7.40 update and sports a very Bret Hart-esque pink and black design, as you can see below.Also arriving with the 7.40 update will be a new set of Overtime challenges, which will be available through the end of the season. Completing the challenges will unlock five new rewards, such as the Valentine wrap and Vines contrail. Battle Pass holders will also be to unlock new styles of the Trog, Powder, and Onesie skins.On top of the new challenges, Epic will hold two double XP weekends in Fortnite, on February 15-17 and February 22-24, giving players one final chance to level their Battle Pass up before Season 7 ends. The developer has also announced a Share the Love Competitive Series, with placement matches set to take place on February 9 and 10.Finally, Fortnite Creative is getting a Featured Island Frenzy event. Epic will rotate a new set of featured islands in the mode each day between February 12 and 22. You can read more details about the Share the Love event on Epic's website.Season 7 of Fortnite is scheduled to end on February 28, so you only have a little more time to complete any outstanding challenges. You can find tips to help expedite the process in our complete Season 7 challenges guide.Info from Gamespot.com

Death Stranding, the next game from Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima, is already playable--and developer Kojima Productions is allowing outside people to play it. Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who is directing the upcoming Metal Gear Solid movie, recently tweeted that he's had a chance to play Death Stranding. In short, he was blown away, describing the game as a "miracle.""YOU. ARE. NOT. READY," Vogt-Roberts said of his impressions of Death Stranding thus far.So @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN let me play DEATH STRANDING❗️The world is next-level immaculate. It’s like freebasing pure Kojima & Shinkawa. Remember when FURY ROAD blew you away but also made you (in the best-most-thankful way) ask “wtf” how does this miracle exist? YOU. ARE. NOT. READY❗️ pic.twitter.com/RkVxtZCcbj — Jordan Vogt-Roberts (@VogtRoberts) February 6, 2019Vogt-Roberts isn't the only celebrity to speak highly of Death Stranding. Speaking to Metro, The Walking Dead actor Norman Reedus, who plays a character in Death Stranding, said he's never seen anything like what Kojima is doing with the game."The concept is so far out into the future. Instead of eliminating everyone around you, it's bringing everyone together," he explained. "It's a very positive video game, but scary and depressing at the same time. It’s kind of a new movie. I've never seen anything like what we're doing."Overall, Reedus said Death Stranding is a "crazy complicated game." The trailers and information about the title released thus far do not fully encapsulate what Death Stranding is, it seems."The trailers show you an aspect of it, but not a whole picture of what the game will be," he said.Death Stranding is Kojima's first new game since his split with Konami. Very little is known about the game, and that appears to be intentional, with Kojima weaving secrets into its new trailers. In addition to Reedus, the game features other celebrities such as Mads Mikkelsen, Lea Seydoux, Lindsay Wagner, Guillermo del Toro, and Troy Baker. No release date has been set as of yet. Info from Gamespot.com

Fortnite's Week 10 challenges have gone live across all platforms, which means we're coming to the end of the game's seventh season. Developer Epic Games still hasn't announced when Season 8 of Battle Royale will begin, but we do know when the current season will formally wrap up.According to Epic's website, Season 7 of Fortnite is scheduled to end on Thursday, February 28. This doesn't necessarily mean that Season 8 will kick off immediately afterward; there have been instances in the past where a new season would begin a few days after the previous one ended. However, it does give us some idea of when we can expect Season 8 to start.As for what awaits in the new season, that remains remains anyone's guess. Epic hasn't shared any details yet about Season 8, although some strange things have begun happening in the game. Recently, players have experienced sudden earthquakes in the middle of a match, and based on audio files gleaned from a datamine, it appears the tremors will only continue to grow in strength.It's unclear what these earthquakes portend for Season 8, but Epic typically ushers in new seasons of Fortnite with some sort of world-changing event. Prior to the start of Season 7, an iceberg could be seen drifting toward the island, and Season 6 began after the infamous purple cube known as Kevin plunged into Loot Lake and transformed it.In the meantime, players still have a little more time to complete this season's challenges. If you need help, you can find times and guides in our complete Season 7 challenges roundup. Epic has also announced a big Share the Love event for the game, which will encompass new Overtime challenges, additional rewards to unlock, and two double XP weekends.Info from Gamespot.com

Crunchyroll has announced the host for this year's Anime Awards. The company also revealed the list of presenters that will be revealing the winners for each award during the ceremony.For 2019's Anime Awards, voice actress Cristina Vee is scheduled to be the host. Vee is well known within the anime and gaming community for voicing dozens of popular characters. For anime, Vee is most famous for portraying The Familiar of Zero's Louise, Sailor Moon's Rei Hino, Hunter x Hunter's Killua Zoldyck, Devilman Crybaby's Miki Makimura, and--most recently--Konosuba's Darkness. In video games, Vee is best known for voicing Riven the Exile in League of Legends, Ophilia in Octopath Traveler, and Shantae in the past two Shantae titles.Crunchyroll has secured several talented folks from the anime and animation industry to present the awards. Some are notable for their creative work within the industry, such as Made in Abyss composer Kevin Penkin and Rooster Teeth director and writer Miles Luna. Others are known for their efforts in reporting on and influencing the industry, like IGN senior editor Miranda Sanchez and YouTube content creator Geoff "Mother's Basement" Thew. The full list of presenters are outlined below.Crunchyroll's Anime Awards 2019 PresentersMichelle Phan -- Entrepreneur, EM Cosmetics, and influencerRyan Potter -- Actor (DC's Titans and Big Hero 6)Justin Briner -- English voice actor (My Hero Academia)Kevin Penkin -- Composer (The Rising of the Shield Hero and Made in Abyss)Freddie Wong -- RocketJump Productions, Director (Anime Crimes Division)SungWon Cho (ProZD) -- Creator/Influencer (Anime Crimes Division)Roger DiLuigi -- Creator/Influencer (Roger's Base)Yssa Badiola -- Animator/Director, Rooster TeethMiles Luna -- Writer/Director, Rooster Teeth (gen:LOCK)Tristan Gallant -- Creator/Influencer (Glass Reflection)Miranda Sanchez -- Senior Editor, IGNGeoff Thew -- Creator/Influencer (Mother's Basement)Victoria Holden, Miles Thomas, and Tim Lyu -- Crunchyroll staff and supporting hostsThis year's Crunchyroll Anime Awards will be held February 16 at 6PM PT / 9PM ET / 2AM UK. You can buy tickets to watch them live in San Francisco, CA or tune in on Twitch to watch Crunchyroll's livestream. New award categories were added to this year's event. As one of the judges, I assisted in deciding the nominations for each category.Info from Gamespot.com

It's rare that you'll ever feel stressed while playing Astroneer. Its colourful planets and soothing synth soundtrack make exploring its handful of varied planets a treat for the senses, but its reined-in take on survival is what makes your hours with it as serene as possible. With little to worry about in terms of actually surviving, Astroneer shifts its focus to a core resource gathering and building loop. But, disappointingly, it struggles to entice you to visit all of the land it has to see.Astroneer's solar system includes seven uniquely styled planets with procedurally generated terrain. They feature a familiar low-polygon styling that is made striking thanks to bold, vibrant colors and a great range of colour palettes used throughout the solar system. Your starting planet features gorgeously green fields stretching for miles on end, while another nearby feels far less inviting with harsh mustard-yellow mountain ranges and darker, more ominous clouds hanging above. The cartoonish designs that stretch from your customizable character to the structures you build blend well with the vibrant backdrops. Everything looks larger than it should realistically be, from the tires on your trusty rover to the simplistic 3D printers you make use of frequently, but it's an aesthetic that gives Astroneer a great and distinct look.You play as a lonesome Astroneer, or as part of a pair if you choose to play cooperatively with a friend. You're given nothing more than a few tools and a home on a planet mostly devoid of life to start off with. You also aren't given any objectives, either--instead you're encouraged to explore the land around you and harvest useful resources to fuel your home expansion. Resources such as the vaguely named "compound" lie in abundance next to resin and organic matter on a planet's surface, with the catacombs beneath it housing rare metals and strange alien elements. Your progress is defined by how you expand your home on the planet, with no direction or set path imposed on you.You can feel aimless at first, but the initial hours of Astroneer are some of its most intriguing. With nothing but foreign land stretching out all around you, it's tantalizing to pick a direction and set out. Your exploration is limited by oxygen, though--without a direct connection to your home or a substantially large oxygen generator, you will quickly burn through the reserves on your backpack and succumb to suffocation. You can craft and then drop oxygen tethers to extend your supply far beyond your starting point, and, in the process, leave a glowing blue trail that can easily lead you back home when you need to return. It strikes a good balance between being both a simple survival mechanic and a way to chart your explorations on a planet, letting you recklessly explore with a means to return safely.As you start hoarding and building more, your options start expanding. After gathering resources on foot, you can craft a tractor which can carry a train of trailers, allowing you to gather more resources during a single expedition. Refiners let you turn basic resources into the building blocks of more helpful structures. These can range from simple large storage units to lighten the load of your backpack to massive research chambers and soil refiners that reward you with research points and basic resources respectively.Without a narrative reason to push your exploration, watching your barebones homestead expand over time is the strongest driving force behind your extensive exploration. Specialised structures require unique resources that can't be synthesized through constructed tools alone, which encourages you to explore beyond your starting biome. Yet despite the prospect of adding new structures to your home base, extended exploration on other planets isn't that alluring. It takes a lot of investment to build up your main base on your starting planet, and there's no way for you to move this from one planet to the next. Without established sources of oxygen and power, survival on each new planet is tricky, and it feels like you're starting from scratch. It's far easier to make short trips to other planets in the solar system and gather the exact resources you need as quickly as you can, almost completely ignoring their unique designs and possible secrets in the process.When you aren't managing oxygen on the go, you're overseeing power distribution between new structures around your base. Each operation--such as refining raw materials, researching mysterious ores, and printing new tools--requires power to operate efficiently. Operations will slow down or speed up relative to how much power they're supplied, encouraging you to route power intelligently throughout your base. Instead of managing this in a series of menus, you have to physically connect each module and structure with large red power plugs. The constant redirection of power can become tedious to manage individually; it's not complicated to understand where power is coming from, but the larger your base becomes, the messier the tangled web of power wires becomes, too.Astroneer's overall inventory management also struggles at scale. You aren't inundated with meters and bars to watch on your journeys; all the information you need is conveyed mostly by your large backpack. Your inventory, for example, is always visible, with stacks of resources occupying single slots on your backpack and mining tool. You can zoom in on this and swap out items without having to dive into a menu, or drag and drop items out of personal storage and into a structure nearby with the flick of the mouse. It initially seems clever, but problems arise again when there's just too much to manage. Trying to place a stack of organic matter on a specific small generator becomes challenging when your zoomed-in backpack view takes up half the screen in an already chaotic home base, for example, and finer movements with your mouse are undone by an overly aggressive automatic snapping that makes trying to place an object cumbersome and frustrating.Inventory management initially seems clever, but problems arise when there's just too much to manage.There are some technical hiccups that unbalance this serene setting on occasion, but none that are severe enough to really hamper your progress. Performance on PC (which in this case featured a RTX 2080Ti and 6th generation Core i7) can inexplicably plummet when you're surrounded by numerous oxygen tethers, and I had two separate instances where I clipped through the ground and was forced to reload a previous save. Astroneer is generous with when it saves, though, so progress loss is infrequent.Astroneer succeeds when it's enraptured you with its beautiful visuals and the irresistible call to explore the planet you find yourself on. Although it lacks a central through line to give you guidance, the variety of structures you can build helps point you towards new resources to hunt for. It struggles to incentivise you to sufficiently explore other planets within its single solar system, however, while also forcing you to work with an inventory system that is often unwieldy. These are frequent frustrations that Astroneer never fully overcomes either, but they're worth putting up with to experience its serene sense of planetary exploration.Info from Gamespot.com

A war rages on for centuries between the powers of light and dark. After strife and sorrow, the light prevails in a veritable burst of glory that changes the course of the world forever. However, life goes on, and adventurers rise from the rubble of the old world to claim their fortune. This is where you come in. Considered the lowest of the low on the mercenary food chain, you harbor a dark secret and a tragic past: You've made a pact with an evil draconic legacy that seeks to disrupt the world anew. Unfortunately, you have to be a somebody to set things right, and so begins the true saga of many a video game protagonist--murder, mayhem, and fetch quests. Dragon Marked for Death delivers on all three fronts with colorful aplomb, but if you're looking for a solid single-player experience, then your prize is likely in another castle.Inti Creates' latest offers a classic side-scrolling multiplayer action experience that will be instantly familiar--the studio is intimately acquainted with some of the most famous titles of the genre, such as Mega Man and Azure Striker Gunvolt, and Dragon Marked for Death appears to contain the necessary components for success. The big point of difference is the elegant anime visuals sprinkled on top of retro fantasy, which make it feel like a more original conception. It's a nice, modern facelift on the bare bones of Azure Striker Gunvolt, albeit with a less-stylised UI and a statistic display familiar to any RPG fan.There are four distinct classes, all with their own quirks and charms, and each of the game's levels can be traversed in different ways that let you make the most of your character's capabilities. The Shinobi and the Empress classes, in particular, have gap-closing abilities that allow them to flit across stages with deadly efficiency, while the Warrior and Witch have far more situational movement inputs that open up the map in more indirect ways. Dragon Marked for Death differentiates these classes by difficulty, and this is evident in the way that the title has been released on the Nintendo eShop. There are two versions: Frontline Fighters (containing the Warrior and the Empress) and Advanced Attackers (containing the Shinobi and the Witch). In order to acquire the classes that your chosen version is missing, you'll need to buy them as additional DLC.As indicated by the names of each release, some of the classes are better suited to getting hot and heavy up close. The Warrior is the most robust and is well-suited to living through absolutely everything that could be thrown at you. The Empress strikes a balance between mobility, damage options, and defensive capability--the perfect class for beginners. On the other hand, the Shinobi is more of a glass cannon, blessed with speed and damage in spades. And the Witch, potentially the most rewarding class to use if you can handle it, has powerful spell combinations entered with button sequences that you have to memorize, all locked inside someone with the physical constitution of wet tissue.In solo play, it's easy to identify where things could get a little hairy for each class. Enemies are relentless in their pursuit of your character once they spot you, and each level sees you facing off against a variety of minions and sub-bosses that all have one single-minded focus: your destruction. You face down ogres who spew fire, cut a swathe through the bellies of seafaring monsters large enough to drown entire ships, and dodge bullets that take away your ability to control your movement. If you're advancing through the maps as they become available, each one will feel like a challenge and an exercise in how you manage both your class and your time. No matter which class you pick up, going toe to toe with the baddies is rewarding once you figure out the intricacies of damage dealing. Whether it’s suped-up spells that wipe out everything in a five-mile radius, knowing when to deploy a shield in that split-second between life and death, or running up walls and gleefully skewering your foes, there’s an interesting game plan for every character in Dragon Marked For Death.Do you kill as many mobs as possible for experience and money? Do you skip all of the minor enemies in order to head straight for the sub-bosses at the cost of missing out on healing opportunities? If you run out of time on a level it's Game Over, and if you run out of your vitality, it's also a rude kick back to the starting line. Dragon Marked for Death forces you to find a strategy that works for you, and the timers are just tight enough that you're incentivized to learn the layout of maps and the quirks of the enemies inhabiting them if you want a chance at success. You repeat levels at different difficulties as you get stronger, farming missions for experience and for the gold to equip yourself with better weapons, all so you can chip away at the seemingly immovable wall of at-level quests to progress the story. This is essentially the gameplay loop that is fundamental to the title--grinding.A frustrating difficulty curve emerges when venturing solo, and even if you're accustomed to this kind of loop, it's a bitter pill to swallow compared to the experience provided by the multiplayer mode. Each classes' distinct identity makes it feel like they've been designed for the sole purpose of filling a party role in an MMORPG, since their strengths and weaknesses are complementary. Playing as just one without any backup feels incredibly limiting--you aren't capable of much in the face of high stakes.Luckily, linking up in multiplayer with your friends is as seamless as jumping into single-player. You need a Nintendo Online subscription if you're worlds apart, or simply flip to the local multiplayer menu if you're sitting next to each other. It's as easy as dropping in and out of a party, with the leader selecting what maps to tackle. After you finish a stage, you're returned to the map selection screen so you can jump right back into the action, and it's that kind of action that will keep you coming back for more.Multiplayer is compelling because the classes work better in tandem--tank characters keeping the heat off damage dealers always results in a boss dying quicker--and levels feel less deadly when the Witch can focus on blasting through anything and everything with a Warrior to cover her from any fatal damage. In later stages, single-player requires an amount of dedication to the grind that can suck the fun out of the encounters, especially when you have had a taste of co-op and can spot moments where having a party would have helped save your bacon.Akin to the classes themselves, the levels were clearly designed with multiplayer in mind. Because of the varied ways in which maps can be explored, including hidden segments that can be tricky to navigate if you don’t have a particular movement skill or the sufficient patience to figure out an alternative route, having more than one class in play at a time helps make those closed-off areas feel more accessible. The relentlessness of your foes is another thing which makes the single-player experience feel a little less than well-balanced in difficulty if you’re tackling new content as soon as you unlock it; you won’t have sufficient items or perhaps the know-how to navigate certain levels. As the Witch in particular, you only learn certain elemental spells when hitting level thresholds, which can leave you at a type disadvantage for longer than is necessary. What smoothes out all those little bumps, however, is another player to take the heat off you, and the experience bonus granted from multiplayer also sweetens that deal.Overall, Dragon Marked for Death is a polished experience that draws on a lot of existing genre sensibilities, but with a heavy focus on aspects that make for a good co-op experience. The classes are thematically coherent and entertainingly distinct, and the levels are just varied enough that gliding through one for the first time is always aurally and visually pleasing. The unbalanced single-player experience is a big sticking point, but if you have friends who are willing to take up the Dragonblood mantle with you, then there are few action platformers more entertaining.Info from Gamespot.com

With this new era of reboot television, some might be wondering if one of the most famous modern TV shows, Lost, might be eyed for a revival someday. It may never return to screens, but ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke hopes it might someday.Speaking at the Television Critics Association event recently, Burke said she dreams about Lost coming back to TV, but she stressed that no official conversations have taken place about it."It's literally at this point just what I dream about when I go to bed at night," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "I have not spoken to [executive producers] Carlton [Cuse] or J.J. [Abrams] or ABC Studios about it. But I do often get asked the question what show would I reboot and often my answer is Lost--sometimes Alias. Nothing to report yet. Maybe ever. But it would be a fun thing to have a conversation about."If a Lost revival does happen, Cuse may not be a part of it. Cuse told THR last year that he and Lindelof have said for a long time that they wouldn't work on Lost again because "we told the story that we wanted to tell." Cuse added that he would personally be OK if ABC brought someone else on to reboot Lost with characters who go to the island at a different period of time."I would be less excited if they wanted to use the characters that we had in our show," he said.Lost ran for six seasons from 2004 to 2010. One of its other co-creators was JJ Abrams, who would go on to direct Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the new Star Trek.Would you be interested in a reboot of Lost? Let us know in the comments below!Info from Gamespot.com

Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo have reaffirmed that the current cut of the much-anticipated film is three hours long; the editing process isn't over yet, but it appears Endgame will end up being the longest Marvel movie ever.Asked by Collider if Marvel and Disney are OK with Endgame running for as long as Titanic, the Russo brothers said Marvel/Disney are "down with what the best story is," even at three hours.Endgame is so long because it's said to wrap up a story that started 22 movies ago. Not only that, but extra time is required for scenes to allow the film to deliver emotional resonance, they said."Right now, we think the movie is playing well and we've had great responses from our test audiences and we're feeling very good about where it is," they said. "We're still doing work to it. We're not done with it. Again, this is a culmination film of 22 movies, it's a lot of storytelling to work into it. Emotion is an intrinsic part of that to us. When you have to tell a really complicated story and you want strong emotional moments with the characters, it just requires a certain amount of real estate. This one, in particular, feels like three hours worth of real estate."They added that in the four screenings for test audiences so far, not one person has left their chair to use the bathroom.For comparison, Avengers: Infinity War was already a long movie, running for two hours and 40 minutes.Endgame hits theatres in the US on April 26. A new trailer for it was shown during the Super Bowl this weekend; for more, check out GameSpot's Endgame trailer breakdown in the video embed above. The movie will be preceded by one other Marvel film, Captain Marvel, which releases in March.Info from Gamespot.com

One of the franchises that Disney will get when its deal to buy the bulk of 20th Century Fox's assets is complete is the Deadpool series. Unlike a lot of Disney's programming, Deadpool is not family friendly--that's part of the appeal and what makes the series so refreshing and unique. But will the House of Mouse's acquisition of Deadpool change that? It sounds like no.Disney chief Bob Iger said on an earnings call that he understands there is significant interest in the R-rated Deadpool movies, and he pledged that Disney will "continue in that business," and potentially even expand to do more."We do believe there is room for the Fox properties to exist without significant Disney influence over the nature of the content, meaning that we see that there is certainly popularity amongst Marvel fans for the R-rated Deadpool films, as a for instance," he said. "We're going to continue in that business, and there might be room for more of that."Iger added that it is not concerned about "standards and practices" considerations when it looks at the assets it's acquiring from Fox. In addition to Deadpool, Disney is getting The Simpsons and Family Guy, which are known to be edgier and less family friendly. The important matter will be ensuring that more adult-focused programming is branded that way, Iger explained."There's nothing that we've really seen in the Fox either library or in the activities that Fox is engaging in today from a standards perspective that would be of concern to us as long as we're very carefully branding them and making sure that we're not in any way confusing the consumer with product that would be sort of either Disney product or the more traditional Marvel product," Iger said.While Deadpool 2 hit theatres as an R-rated film, a toned down PG-13 cut featuring Fred Savage was released around the holidays in an attempt to reach a wider audience.No new Deadpool films have been announced, but given the enormous success of the franchise so far, you can expect more to come at some point down the road. Deadpool 2 made a massive $785 million at the box office against a budget of $110 million.In other Disney news, Iger also commented on how Disney struggled to publish video games internally, so that's why Disney has partnered with companies like EA for licensing deals.Info from Gamespot.com

Following the launch of Apex Legends, developer Respawn Entertainment confirmed it is working on a new Titanfall experience. Little is known about what this project is, but the studio has said it isn't a third entry in the mainline series. While many have speculated that it could relate to the VR game Respawn is known to be developing, studio CEO Vince Zampella has said this isn't the case.On Twitter, Zampella replied to a user that suggested that the other Titanfall project Respawn is working on is for VR, and outright shot down the idea. In its earnings call, publisher EA described the game as a "premium" title but suggested it was not a typical Titanfall sequel.No! — Vince Zampella (@VinceZampella) February 5, 2019Apex Legends is a free-to-play battle royale game set in the Titanfall universe. However, it is missing many of the hallmarks of a Titanfall game, most notably the mechs and the parkour-inspired movement mechanics. Naturally, fans of the first two Titanfall games were left somewhat disappointed when Respawn said Titanfall 3 isn't happening. However, Zampella gave them some hope."We are also working on more Titanfall for later in the year (yes, I said the T word)," he said. "We love being able to experiment in this crazy universe!" EA later released its earnings report and, as part of the statements it made alongside it, committed to "[growing] Apex Legends and related Titanfall experiences."Respawn is also working on Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, which is expected to release this fall. The game was briefly mentioned in EA's financial reports, alongside other upcoming titles from the publisher. Surprisingly, EA also confirmed it was working on new Plants vs. Zombies and Need for Speed titles.Apex Legends has had a successful launch, and reached 1 million unique players in under eight hours. A day after its initial launch, EA confirmed the game had gathered 2.5 million unique players and seen 600,000 concurrent players.Info from Gamespot.com

Take-Two Interactive has reported strong financial results for the third quarter of 2019, led by the huge success of Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2. In a statement, the company confirmed that, to date, Red Dead Redemption 2 has "sold-in more than 23 million units worldwide." It's worth noting that "sold-in" means shipped to retailers and not necessarily to consumers. However, typically, sold-in stock is a good indication of how much is sold through to people.Take-Two's revenue grew to $1.2 billion, which is up from $480 million during the same period in the previous financial year. "The largest contributors to net revenue in fiscal third quarter 2019 were Red Dead Redemption 2, NBA 2K19 and NBA 2K18, Grand Theft Auto Online and Grand Theft Auto V, WWE 2K19 and WWE SuperCard, Dragon City and Monster Legends, and Sid Meier’s Civilization VI," Take-Two said.Red Dead Redemption 2 was also noted as being one of the largest contributors to digitally-delivered revenue in the quarter, alongside Grand Theft Auto Online, Grand Theft Auto V, and NBA 2K18, among others."Our outperformance was driven primarily by the record-breaking launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 along with strong results from NBA 2K19," added Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick. "In addition, consumers engaged significantly with our offerings, and recurrent consumer spending grew 31% to a new record. We generated strong cash flow and ended the period with $1.6 billion in cash and short-term investments, after deploying $109 million to repurchase 1 million shares of our stock."Red Dead Redemption 2 has now outsold its predecessor, Red Dead Redemption, by a comfortable margin. As of February 2017 the first Red Dead Redemption has sold 15 million units in total. Its sequel has managed to shoot past this number in a fraction of the time. In an investor call, Zelnick highlighted that Red Dead Redemption 2 has "sold more in its first eight days than its predecessor sold in eight years."Red Dead Redemption 2 has received critical acclaim, earning a 9/10 from GameSpot. Kallie Plagge described it as "an excellent prequel, but it's also an emotional, thought-provoking story in its own right, and it's a world that is hard to leave when it's done." You can read our full Red Dead Redemption 2 review for more of Kallie's thoughts on it. Info from Gamespot.com

Apex Legends from Respawn surprise-launched this week, and already one of the top-requested features is cross-play between its various platforms. During the Q&A portion of a recent earnings call, CEO Andrew Wilson suggested that while their data has found the feature isn't widely used by players, it still plans to utilize it--especially for franchises with big player bases like FIFA."We think cross-play and cross-progress is going to be a very important part of our future, and you should anticipate that we'll be doing more in that space," Wilson said. "What our information would suggest to us is that there isn't a tremendous amount of play across devices, but that overall liquidity in any gaming community is a good and positive thing, even if it's only a few people or a small portion of the community that utilizes that."We absolutely are looking into that in the context of Apex, and we'll be looking at that across our portfolio over time. We think about franchises with tremendously large communities like FIFA, and we think that they would absolutely benefit from cross-play and cross-progress, as more and more people come into these big communities."That doesn't sound as if the feature is high on the company's priority list, but it's not ruling it out either. Respawn has hinted that cross-platform play could come to Apex Legends in the future, but it has already ruled out cross-platform progression due to how the basic framework was built.The EA earnings call also confirmed that in addition to Apex Legends, Respawn has another Titanfall project in the works. We know that it's a "premium game [coming] this year that is a new twist on the Titanfall universe," according to Wilson, and Respawn head Vince Zampella has since confirmed that it isn't a VR game. The earnings call also confirmed a new Need for Speed and Plants vs Zombies are both on the horizon.Info from Gamespot.com

Disney continues to remake its classic fairy tale movies, and 2019 will see three live-action updates of animated favorites. Aladdin and The Lion King are due for release later this year, but ahead of that we have a new version of Dumbo. A new trailer has now been released.This latest promo sets up the classic story, in which a struggling circus welcomes a new baby elephant to its ranks. Of course, Dumbo's giant ears make him unpopular with the circus bosses, until a discovery that he can fly changes everything. It's directed by Tim Burton, so looks as magical and inventive as you'd expect from the director of Alice in Wonderland and Edward Scissorhands. Check it out above.Dumbo stars Colin Farrell as the former circus star who is now unable to perform because of a wartime injury, plus Michael Keaton as villainous entrepreneur Vandemere, Danny DeVito as circus owner Max Medici, and Eva Green as trapeze artist Colette Marchant. It releases on March 29, 2019.In terms of other Disney adaptations, Aladdin arrives in May, while The Lion King is released in July. Further down the line, a new version of Mulan is set for a 2020 release. There are also movies based on Cruella De Ville (101 Dalmations) and Tinker Bell (Peter Pan) reportedly in development.Info from Gamespot.com