Epic Games has announced that it has acquired rhythm game maker Harmonix, best known for titles like Rock Band and Dance Central.

In a press release, Epic announced that as it continues work on building the metaverse, it has enlisted Harmonix to “reimagine how music is experienced, created, and distributed.” Harmonix will help develop “musical journeys and gameplay for Fortnite,” while still working on Rock Band 4.

Harmonix offered more insight into its future in its community blog. The studio announced that it will continue its existing DLC plans and plans to release more tracks next year. Rock Band Rivals Seasons will also continue with plans for both Season 25 and 26.

The studio reiterated that it will next be working with Epic on creating musical journeys and gameplay for Fortnite. Sadly, Harmonix also says it does not plan to resume production on more Rock Band instruments, so expect them to still be rare commodities on the second-hand market.

Harmonix is the latest in a string of acquisitions for Epic Games. Alongside tech-focused ventures, Epic acquired Rocket League studio Psyonix and Fall Guys developer Mediatonic.

The most recent rhythm game from Harmonix is Fuser, a music festival game where players can create a custom DJ set to play in front of a virtual crowd. IGN reviewed Fuser and awarded it a 7 praising its core campaign but offered little outside of it.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Welcome to IGN Unfiltered, our (somewhat) regularly occurring interview series where we sit down with the best, brightest, and most fascinating minds in the video game industry. (Catch up on the other 60 episodes here.) My guest this episode is Halo Infinite head of creative and longtime Bungie writer Joseph Staten. In this career-spanning interview, Staten discusses his unique path into the video game industry, the early days of Halo at Bungie, helping create Destiny, and how he's affected Halo Infinite since joining the team in 2020 just prior to the one-year delay.

Check out the full episode in the video above, but if you'd prefer to listen to the interview, here's an audio-only podcast download link (or you can listen via the IGN Unfiltered feed on your favorite podcast service). One way or the other I hope you'll check out the interview! And if you missed it, here's the previous Unfiltered episode from earlier this month, in which Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard discusses Skyrim's 10th anniversary, what's going on with Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, and more:

Catch up on every episode of IGN Unfiltered here, including conversations with Bethesda game director Todd Howard, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, former PlayStation boss Jack Tretton, Journey creator Jenova Chen, Halo boss Bonnie Ross, and many more!

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the ending of Venom: Let There Be Carnage! If you haven't already, be sure to check out our review of the Venom sequel.

Even as Spider-Man fans look ahead to upcoming movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Morbius, the wild ride that is Venom: Let There Be Carnage isn't quite over.

IGN can exclusively debut an extended deleted scene — featuring unfinished visual effects — that didn't make it into the theatrical version. Venom: Let There Be Carnage is now on digital and arrives on 4K UHD, Blu-Ray, and DVD on December 14, 2021. The home entertainment release includes over an hour of special features, including bloopers, deleted scenes, Easter Eggs, and more.

Dubbed "Unholy Trinity," this clip offers a closer look at how Woody Harrelson's Cletus Kasady, Naomie Harris' Frances Barrison, and the Carnage symbiote formed a three-way pact of evil. Check it out in the video player above or embedded below:

This scene is set shortly after Kasady escapes death by lethal injection and frees his lover with the help of the Carnage symbiote. Here we get a better idea of the symbiote's plans for the world, as he wants to use his new allies to wipe out humanity and replace them with a new race of human/symbiote hybrids.

Clearly, that plan didn't work out for the symbiote. But as we've already explored, being dead doesn't necessarily mean that much for Carnage. Perhaps he'll be back to try again in a future sequel?

For now, we want to know what that surprising mid-credits scene means for Venom's future role in the MCU. The sequel also raised plenty of other WTF questions.

For more on Sony's Spider-Man Universe, check out the evidence for and against Morbius taking place in the MCU and see our biggest burning questions about the new Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer.

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

The Mercenaries mode is coming to Resident Evil 4 VR in 2022.

As noted in an Oculus press release, the fan-favorite mode will arrive as a free update sometime next year. Prior to the announcement, the RE4 VR was the only version of Resident Evil 4 not to include The Mercenaries. The Mercenaries is an arcade-style mini-game that first appeared in Resident Evil 3, in which players are tasked with obtaining the highest score by killing as many enemies as possible before the timer runs out.

Alongside the inclusion of The Mercenaries mode, Oculus also announced that it plans to add additional mobility and comfort settings into Resident Evil 4 VR sometime next year. This includes hand-based steering, better left-handed controls, and the option to fine-tune the location of your chest and waist inventory slots.

Resident Evil 4 VR launched last month and it quickly became one of the most popular games for the Quest 2 headset. According to Oculus, based on gross sales in the first week since release, Resident Evil 4 VR has become "the fastest-selling app in the history of Quest."

The game has been met with critical acclaim and was nominated for "Best VR/AR Game" at the 2021 Game Awards. In my review of Resident Evil 4 VR, despite the fact the game lacked additional modes like Separate Ways, I noted that it offered a fresh take on one of the most ported entries in Capcom's popular survival horror series.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster

Halo Infinite's Joseph Staten has discussed the year-long delay to the game, saying that while it was "very, very hard", he is "so proud of the studio and Xbox" for make the decision to prioritise player experience over putting an unfinished game out.

With Halo Infinite's multiplayer is out in the wild, and apart from early criticisms of the game's Battle Pass system, the game is largely receiving praise from fans. While final verdicts on next month's campaign are still to come, the multiplayer's positive reception is the first step in what could be a huge redemption story for Halo Infinite.

After a reveal that left many fans underwhelmed and led to Craig the Brute's rise to internet stardom, Halo Infinite was delayed from its Holiday 2020 launch window all the way to Q4 2021. In hindsight, even Phil Spencer said he regrets how the reveal went down.

Now, we're learning even more about what was going on inside Xbox and developer 343 during the delay of Halo Infinite. Speaking on IGN Unfiltered, Halo veteran Joseph Staten went in-depth on his experience working on Infinite, from joining the project part way through development, to the tough decision to delay the game out of the Xbox Series X's launch window.

On a hot summer day in 2020, the internet was ablaze with negative reactions to Halo Infinite's big reveal. Staten, who is known for his work on Bungie's original Halo trilogy, wanted to see if he could help. He called Bonnie Ross, VP at Xbox Game Studios to see if he could help at all with the seemingly troubled development of Halo Infinite. Now, Staten says that was the start of a "brand new career."

Staten, who was instrumental in the success of Bungie's Halo games, was all of a sudden thrust into the role of Project Lead for Halo Infinite's campaign.

Inside 343's Decision to Delay Halo Infinite

In August 2020, shortly after Halo Infinite's big campaign debut, the news of the delay came out. Staten says there was a lot of stress and pressure involved with the delay, even though it ended up being the right choice.

"[There was] a huge amount of pressure to stay the course. I think a really wonderful example of Xbox leadership doing the right thing for our fans, doing the right thing […] for players, even though it hurt them, Even though there were costs associated with that." Staten said. "It was 100% a player-first decision, and I'm so proud of the studio and Xbox for making that decision."

Staten says the campaign benefitted the most from the delay because it's the "largest Halo campaign we've ever made." The team was also grateful for more time to work on the multiplayer, Staten says the difference is that multiplayer, "doesn't have the same surface area as the campaign."

The team looked at 10 different main areas of the game they wanted to work on. Staten says two of the 10 areas were how to identify and find equipment easily, and how to use the grapple hook, which he calls the "fourth leg" of Halo combat, in addition to weapons, melee, and grenades.

Staten added that another main goal was to finish the game in a healthy way for the studio, to prepare them for moving onto supporting the live service aspect of Halo Infinite. Even though the game is coming out in full next month, not every feature will be there at launch. Fan-favorite modes like campaign co-op and Forge won't show up until May 2022 at the earliest.

Delaying Halo Infinite co-op was "very, very hard," according to Staten. He says the simple truth is that, "co-op wasn't ready," and 343 decided to prioritize effort in other areas, like making sure performance is stable on all platforms.

"If we don't maintain a high bar, if we don't commit ourselves to excellence and commit ourselves to every time we launch something to delighting our customers, living up to their expectations, ideally exceeding our expectations, I don't think we're doing this job right," Staten said.

For more on the development of Halo Infinite, check out the full interview with 343's Joseph Staten. And, be sure to check out our preview of Infinite's campaign.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.