This is a spoiler-free review of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which debuts in theaters on Nov. 24.

When Sony announced that it was going to relaunch the live-action Resident Evil film series, I was cautiously optimistic, curious to see how director Johannes Roberts would stick to the source material after a promising first trailer. Unfortunately, Welcome to Raccoon City is disappointing as a horror movie; in fact, it felt more like a comedy at times than something that would keep me on the edge of my seat. It’s got some interesting ideas, but between the cheesy writing that doesn't do its thinly-sketched characters much justice and a rushed third act, it’ll be hard to rewatch this one as a fan of the series.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City’s plot adapts the stories of the first two Resident Evil games with one portion of the story focusing on Chris Redfield (Robbie Amell), Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen), and Albert Wesker (Tom Hopper) as they explore the Spencer Mansion, while the other storyline focuses on Leon Kennedy (Avan Jogia) and Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario) as the duo looks for a way out of Raccoon City before the town explodes. The cast isn’t a problem, with a solid performance from each fitting mostly to their fictional character counterparts. Plus, the post-credits scene certainly teases that we’ll be seeing more of one specific character should a sequel be greenlit.

Despite a good performance from Jogia, there is a somewhat annoying issue in the way Leon’s written here. His background’s been changed a little bit, and he’s still considered that “rookie member of the force” as he was in Resident Evil 2 (he was only a cop for one day in that game). Yet, most of the scenes with Leon had him either being extremely incompetent or taking the brunt of the joke, which can become frustrating and grating, particularly if you’re a fan of Leon S. Kennedy. I can appreciate the screenplay leaning into his inexperience, but the gag quickly grew tiresome, especially as we’re expecting a darker and scarier film from this.

My biggest concern going into the movie, however, was the fact that it was sandwiching the plots of two video games together, and the relatively lean runtime of 107 minutes does indeed make the entire product feel extremely rushed once the third act approaches. That said, I wasn’t expecting to be a beat-by-beat repeat of the first two games, and why should it be? You can watch YouTube supercuts of all the cutscenes for that. Even though the entire film feels both underwhelming and overwhelming with how much they tried to pack in, it’s worth giving Roberts credit for wanting to try to make a film that had closer ties to the games than any of the Paul W.S. Anderson films. Still, it might have been a more realistic goal to focus on, say, the story of just one of the games rather than trying to figure out how many key plot points they could shove into a short run time.

Meanwhile, the main setting — the titular Racoon City — is suitably intriguing. In the first act, Roberts sets up Raccoon City as a decaying town in economic shambles after Umbrella, the powerful and extremely influential corporation known for developing pharmaceuticals and weapons leaves with but a few employees left. The atmosphere and several scenes that focus on the city itself really help bring a fresher take on this fictional location, and it would’ve been nice to see more about it, as it mostly leaves a lot up to your own interpretation.

We do in some instances see the impact Umbrella had on not only the town but on the residents. The walls of the Raccoon City Orphanage, for instance, are littered with propaganda posters, and the Raccoon City Police Department has been stripped to a skeleton crew because of budget cuts. These are subtle yet smart ways of setting the tone, and something, again, I would’ve liked to see more of, underscoring the double-edged sword Umbrella was for this town before its inevitable destruction.

As far as the main attraction, there’s a decent amount of zombies (and other infected that players of the games will recognize) on screen, but don’t expect a ton of high-action undead-slaying scenes. There is one in particular that feels both fun and tense, but if you’re here for a constant barrage of zombie-fighting action, you’ll be disappointed.

It’s fun to catch some enemies from the first game pop up, including Lisa Trevor, the infected superhuman that appeared in the 2002 remake of Resident Evil. While she’s still a tragic character negatively impacted by Umbrella’s inhumane experiments, her screen time is disappointingly short, to the point where if she had been removed from the film entirely, it would not have too much impact on the overall story.

Until the second act, when the infection begins to take over the city, there’s a surprising lack of action. We do see the zombies breach the gate at the police station, but it’s kind of a bummer to not get any extended looks at them running around in this chaotic town. Sure, the main focus of Resident Evil 2 was mostly contained to the police station and a few other areas, but it felt like a missed opportunity to really flaunt how much damage was done to the city.

Nintendo has joined the likes of Sony and Xbox, speaking out against Activision Blizzard due to recent reports of sexual misconduct and toxicity.

In a new report by Fanbyte, Doug Bowser reportedly expressed concern over the ongoing situation at Activision Blizzard in a company-wide email, calling the allegations "distressing and disturbing."

“Along with all of you, I’ve been following the latest developments with Activision Blizzard and the ongoing reports of sexual harassment and toxicity at the company,” he explained. “I find these accounts distressing and disturbing. They run counter to my values as well as Nintendo’s beliefs, values and policies.”

The email reportedly goes on to explain that Nintendo is committed to providing an “open and inclusive” workplace and expects the same from the industry and its partners. Bowser also states that Nintendo has been “in contact with Activision, have taken action and are assessing others.” Although the email apparently stops short of giving further details.

However, the Nintendo chief does reportedly confirm that the company has been working with the ESA – a lobbying organization in which both Nintendo and Activision Blizzard are members. Bowser wrote that Nintendo has been working with the ESA since last week in order to “strengthen its stances on harassment and abuse in the workplace”.

“Every company in the industry must create an environment where everyone is respected and treated as equals,” the email reads. “And where all understand the consequences of not doing so.”

IGN has reached out to Nintendo of America for comment but has yet to receive a response at the time of publishing.

Nintendo’s comments follow PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan who is said to be "disheartened and frankly stunned" by the Activision Blizzard scandal. Xbox boss Phil Spencer also added that he is “disturbed and deeply troubled” by the ongoing events.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has found himself under pressure to resign, and has reportedly told the company he would consider stepping down if he’s unable to quickly fix the ongoing issues at the company.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

IO Interactive announced a new roadmap for Hitman 3 Year 2 with new content coming in January 2022, including ray tracing, PC VR, and an Elusive Target Arcade.

The game is already optimized and enhanced on PC with support for 8+ core CPUs and variable rate shading. Working together with Intel, IO Interactive will also bring ray tracing to Hitman 3 sometime in 2022. PlayStation owners can already play Hitman 3 with PSVR support, but now it's also coming to VR PC in January 2022.

IO Interactive will reveal full technical details, including the platforms that it is supporting before Year 2 starts on January 20, which coincidentally is exactly one year after the game originally launched. Hitman 3 has a timed Epic Games Store exclusivity deal on PC, so it's possible that the PC VR version could come to SteamVR as one of the supported platforms.

Elusive Target Arcade is a new take on the franchise's Elusive Targets. It's the ultimate Elusive Target challenge and will be a permanent add-on to the game, rather than one-time-only events like previous entries.

IO Interactive will reveal another major update to Hitman 3 in Spring 2022, and new maps, storylines, and modes are lined up for the next 12 months. The World of Assassination trilogy has also reached 50 million players so far, with Hitman 3 being the most successful entry in the series of all time.

Hitman 3 has received plenty of updates so far, such as its Seven Deadly Sins expansion of which the final one, Wrath, launched on October 29.

In IGN's Hitman 3 review, Luke Reilly said, "Rich, rewarding, and highly replayable, Hitman 3 is a superb installment of IO’s idiosyncratic but much-loved stealth series."

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey

The Last Duel may have been a critical success, but it was a box office failure. Now, director Ridley Scott thinks he knows why.

During an interview on Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast, Sir Ridley Scott complained that The Last Duel’s box office calamity was all down to millennials.

“I think what it boils down to — what we’ve got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these fucking cellphones,” said Scott. “The millennian [sic] do not ever want to be taught anything unless you’re told it on a cellphone.”

“This is a broad stroke, but I think we’re dealing with it right now with Facebook,” he explained. “This is a misdirection that has happened where it’s given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think.”

The Last Duel has earned just $27 million worldwide after its debut last month. Starring Ben Affleck, Jodie Comer, Matt Damon, and Adam Driver, the film delivered staggering combat as well as poignant social commentary. But The Last Duel has so far failed to capture the imagination of audiences, as well as failing to recoup its $100 million budget.

Although Scott was originally concerned that Disney would undersell his historical epic, that turned out not to be the case.

“Disney did a fantastic promotion job,” he admitted. “The bosses loved the movie… I was concerned it was not for them.”

Despite this, The Last Duel still performed abysmally at the box office. But Scott stands by the movie, and states that the studio’s decisions were sound from start to finish.

“That’s the call you make,” he said about taking on the project. “That’s the call Fox made. We all thought it was a terrific script. And we made it. You can’t win all the time. I’ve never had one regret on any movie I’ve ever made. Nothing. I learned very early on to be your own critic. The only thing you should really have an opinion on is what you just did. Walk away. Make sure you’re happy. And don’t look back. That’s me.”

IGN’s own review said The Last Duel is “a grueling watch and certainly not for the faint-hearted. However, it rewards you with social commentary that’s as relevant today as in 14th century France… The Last Duel offers several bloody, brutal battle scenes and a fierce final duel that’s up there among director Ridley Scott’s finest fight scenes.”

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

One thing that has always set Battlefield apart from its competitors like Call of Duty is the over-the-top tank, airplane, and helicopter-related shenanigans you can get up to.

But in Battlefield 2042, players are finding said shenanigans difficult to counter when on foot due to the limited toolkit of anti-vehicle weaponry available. In fact, a reddit user going by SheroxXx found that the NWT-50 sniper rifle can kill a tank significantly faster than the M5 recoilless, which was purpose-built by the developers to be an anti-armor weapon.

One of the main factors seems to be the rate of fire, with the NWT able to fire far faster than the M5. In fact, it can take out a tank almost twice as fast. It's also more forgiving, as missing a shot or two still leaves you with a pretty decent amount of damage left in the magazine. As user DovahBornKing points out in the comments, tanks in 2042 take at least four rockets to kill, even from behind, and you can only carry three without having to resupply. This serves to make tanks feel really scary, but it doesn't feel especially balanced if you're the one on foot

The NWT takes a long time to unlock, but typically late-game sniper rifles aren't straight-up twice as good as a rocket launcher. Ideally, unlocks should give you more options and new ways to play. This situation makes the M5 feel like a wet noodle launcher you're forced to use until you can unlock a real anti-armor gun, and ensures that there really is no playstyle niche for our poor, recoilless friend once you have access to the NWT.

This situation tracks with the fact that Battlefield 2042 is both one of the most played and lowest-rated games on Steam right now. Missing features from earlier games in the series, such as tanks no longer taking extra damage from the rear and sides as noted above, are among the most common complaints. Everyone wants to play the new Battlefield enough that the many launch issues haven't stopped them from jumping in, but they're such a constant distraction that over 30,000 people took the time to post their own cautionary tales for potential buyers.

How do you deal with tanks in Battlefield 2042? We have some tips that might help over on our Battlefield 2042 wiki guide.

Thanks to VG247 for the tip.

Leana Hafer is a freelance contributor at IGN