More than 500 employees at Activision Blizzard have signed a petition calling for the removal of CEO Bobby Kotick, who has been under fire this week following revelations from the Wall Street Journal that he was aware of the publisher's culture of harassment "for years."

Today over 500 current ABK employees and contractors signed a petition calling for the removal of Bobby Kotick as our CEO https://t.co/QP9sOJ76bK

— ABetterABK 💙 ABK Workers Alliance (@ABetterABK) November 18, 2021

The petition encompasses virtually every part of Activision Blizzard's business, with employees from Activision, Blizzard, King, Infinity Ward, Raven Software, Toys For Bob, and other studios all signing on. The intro reads:

We, the undersigned, no longer have confidence in the leadership of Bobby Kotick as the CEO of Activision Blizzard. The information that has come to light about his behaviors and practices in the running of our companies runs counter to the culture and integrity we require of our leadership–and directly conflicts with the initiatives started by our peers. We ask that Bobby Kotick remove himself as CEO of Activision Blizzard, and that shareholders be allowed to select the new CEO without the input of Bobby, who we are aware owns a substantial portion of the voting rights of the shareholders.

The petition follows fresh allegations this week that Kotick personally intervened to block the removal of a high-level employee accused of harassment. The Activision Blizzard board has repeatedly stood behind Kotick, including at yesterday's all-hands meeting.

The report also revealed that former Blizzard Jen Oneal chose to resign in part because of unequal pay with her male counterpart. Yesterday, IGN reported that Oneal was offered an equal contract only after tendering her resignation.

Activision Blizzard remains embroiled in multiple lawsuits over the harassment allegations, which first came to light over the summer. You can read IGN's full timeline of the Activision Blizzard scandal here.

Blogroll image credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN

It's been a long 17 years for F-Zero fans. Nintendo's wicked-fast futuristic racing series came screeching to a halt way back in 2004 with the Japan-only release of F-Zero Climax. Since then, fans have been starved for new F-Zero content, with Nintendo only providing small rations of the series through games like Nintendo Land and Mario Kart 8.

However, F-Zero fans are finding hope in an upcoming indie project that looks a lot like the dormant series. Titled Aero GPX, the new game looks to replicate the blistering speed, split-second decision making, and memorable personality that once made F-Zero so beloved. IGN spoke to Aero GPX creator Aaron McDevitt about his inspiration to create a love letter to F-Zero, changes that longtime fans of the series can expect, and what makes racers like F-Zero stand apart in the genre.

Quick test of a cylinder track over the new ocean shader: pic.twitter.com/b7VR67Fo6S

— Aaronmac64 (Aero GPX) (@aaronmac64) October 23, 2021

McDevitt has been modding games for years, but Aero GPX is his first real crack at making a game from scratch. He says he was inspired by F-Zero because of how different it feels compared to other racers on the market.

"I've been playing F-Zero games all my life, ever since F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64," McDevitt says. "Like everybody back then, I noticed that F-Zero X was just doing something different with how fast it ran. Locked 60 fps on Nintendo 64 was unheard of, and it pushed the technological envelope that I definitely had not seen on a console like that before."

That focus on high-tech solutions has always lived within F-Zero. Beginning on the SNES, the original game used a texture mapping solution called Mode 7 to simulate 3D graphics – something that would otherwise have been impossible on the console. The game itself kicked off a series known for high speed, zero gravity racing, unforgiving tracks, and a memorable cast of characters anchored by Captain Falcon, who has become much better known for his appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series.

Compared to other Nintendo series, and to many other racing games in general, F-Zero leans more towards the hardcore. F-Zero X was released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998, and introduced the concept of a tied health and boost meter to the series – if you want to get a speed boost, you have to sacrifice some of your vehicle's integrity. It's a high-leverage risk-reward system that benefits the brave, and punishes the reckless.

While McDevitt says Aero GPX most closely resembles F-Zero X, he isn't setting out to make a simple F-Zero clone. Aero GPX seems to be designed as the evolution of F-Zero X and F-Zero GX, the franchise's final home console entry that was released on the GameCube nearly two decades ago. One major change in Aero GPX directly relates to that risk-reward system.

"I feel like the unified health boost energy system of F-Zero is very much a part of that game and that franchise's iconography, and I don't want to directly rip that," McDevitt says. "I want to try and find other ways of selling the same experience and the same type of decision making, and twist it for Aero GPX where I get the same feel, but I do it in a different way."

In the current build of Aero GPX, the health meter and boost meter are separate, which is a departure from the established formula. Instead, whenever you reach an opportunity to refill your meter, you'll have to make a rapid decision between restoring your health to preserve your vehicle, or filling your boost meter to go even faster.

That decision-making requirement is just part of what makes F-Zero, and in turn, Aero GPX, more demanding than what some racing game players are used to. There are no items to bail you out, the AI competition is fierce, and if you fall off the track even once, you die and have to start the race from the beginning.

McDevitt says this hardcore nature is part of F-Zero's DNA, and it's something he's working to capture in Aero GPX, specifically in the way F-Zero rewards precision.

"F-Zero basically wants you to cheat death in order to go faster. Interact with other racers, use your own health pool in order to take them out of the race, but also use your health pool to boost and move forward," McDevitt says. "There's also the way the traction and the handling system works, and how it rewards you for being very nuanced with your analogue control stick movement. I think that's just something that no other game has nailed yet, where it feels instantly responsive to player input."

On the flipside, McDevitt says he's also working to improve the more technical aspects of the genre, implementing hardcore maneuvers and strategies that will pay off for players willing to put in the time and effort. Some of these features include a greater focus on aerial movement through tubes of air called slipstreams, nosediving to gain speed, and other mechanics implemented for those who want to hit the highest speeds possible.

However, just because the game can be technically challenging doesn't mean McDevitt isn't making it with everyone in mind.

"Accessibility is a huge pillar of my design," McDevitt says. "I've got a lot of accessibility features planned, like autopiloting assistance. I want this to be a game that everyone can comfortably experience. I will have the super hard master tier difficulty on the career mode and grand prix for the players who want that challenge. I do still want to have that, but I'm going to do my best to make this an accessible game that as many people as possible can play."

Not giving up hope on a F-Zero revival

McDevitt has been working on the game for a while, but there's still a long way to go. He says he wants to include 30 unique characters and vehicles in the game to match the style and tone of F-Zero, along with developing tracks, a campaign, and more.

"I am taking it one day at a time, but I want to try and get it out by the end of next year or early [2023]," McDevitt says. "I have most of my structure done, and the game physics and all of the base programming is fairly set in stone. From here on out, it's moving onto the content and design phase, which is easier said than done. It's still a Herculean task, but it's kind of the thing I've done before. It's still gonna be quite a bit of work and still gonna be some time, but I do think I can do this next phase of development a bit quicker."

The goal is for the game to initially launch on PC, but McDevitt hopes to bring it to Switch and anywhere else he can put it, "with an analogue stick." And as for Nintendo's future with F-Zero, McDevitt is one of the longtime fans who isn't giving up hope just yet.

"I hope [F-Zero] does return. And I honestly do think it will eventually. Once Nintendo gets a killer idea for a new F-Zero game that pushes the technological envelope again, I think they'll return. I honestly do."

McDevitt's thoughts on F-Zero's official revival echo those of Takaya Imamura, the retired Nintendo artist and designer who helped create Captain Falcon. In an interview with IGN earlier this year, Imamura said F-Zero isn't dead, but "without a grand new idea, it’s hard to bring it back.”

For now, indies like Aero GPX seem to be the main way classic F-Zero fans can look forward to something new, and McDevitt understands the passion that surrounds the community.

"I want people to be patient if they're seeing Aero GPX, and understand it is still early. But Aero GPX is something I fully intend to bring out eventually. It's been a wild passion project of mine, and to see people be so excited about it kind of warms my heart, and I want to take this thing through to the finish line. That's a really cheesy pun, but I guess it's true!"

You can follow the development of Aero GPX at @aaronmac64 on Twitter.

Logan Plant is a freelance contributor at IGN

With the new Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer out in the wild, Marvel fans around the world now have a much better idea of what Peter Parker’s latest MCU adventure will involve. Although we had already seen Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, we’ve now been reintroduced to a veritable sampler platter of previous Spider-Man foes who will confront our favourite wall-crawler, including Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Rhys Ifans’ Lizard and Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman.

However, what is perhaps even more interesting than the return of these old enemies is that the trailer also reveals what appears to be the trilogy closer’s main conflict: Tom Holland's Peter isn’t just trying to stop the multiverse bad guys, he’s also trying to save their lives. By doing this, No Way Home isn’t just giving Spider-Man his toughest challenge yet, it’s also challenging what it means to be a hero in the MCU.

We Don’t Trade Lives… or Do We?

As discussed previously on IGN, the MCU has kind of a bad habit of killing off their antagonists at the end of their films. However, the more pressing concern here is that with most previous MCU heroes, particularly the Avengers, being a hero more often than not includes killing the villains who are threatening the world. For example, before the final battle with Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, Thor says, “Let’s kill him properly this time,” and Iron Man explicitly does so when he performs his own Snap with the Infinity Stones.

That may be an extreme example given that Thanos wiped out half of all life in the universe, but it falls into a pattern of the MCU heroes willfully enacting plans that kill their foes. All of Iron Man’s solo films end with their villains being killed in combat with him (or Pepper, in the case of Killian in Iron Man 3), Malekith and Hela are both wiped out by actions Thor and his allies take, Alexander Pierce is shot by Nick Fury, Ultron is destroyed by Vision, Killmonger is stabbed by T’Challa, and Dreykov is blown up by Yelena Belova. Even the Guardians make it clear that they are trying to kill Ronan and Ego in their respective films, and they succeed on both counts.

Now, whether or not murdering people who are threatening others or the world (or the universe) at large is considered “heroic” by any individual audience member is a subjective moral question. But the pertinent issue here is that it is being presented as heroic in the context of the narrative of these films. Ending the lives of villains in order to save the lives of others is part of the moral framework of this franchise. However, there are exceptions, and Spider-Man is the most obvious one. Not only does Spider-Man not kill his enemies (aside from some poor mindless Outriders in the Endgame finale), he is one of the only heroes to put his own life at risk to save them. (In the comics, “No one dies” was even his motto for a while.) But judging by the new trailer, No Way Home looks to take this a step further, one that may be a massive change for the MCU.

It’s Their Fate… or Is It?

In the new trailer, Doctor Strange says that the arrival of villains from across the multiverse is a result of the botched spell that was supposed to make the world forget that Peter is Spider-Man. He also learns from both Strange and Doctor Octopus (who appears to possibly be an ally?) that the villains were all supposed to perish in battle with their own Spider-Men from their home dimensions. According to Strange, they need to be sent back because they are “a danger to our universe.” This causes Peter to turn against Strange, clearly in an attempt to save their lives and come up with a new solution to fix the multiverse damage without sending all the villains to their supposedly inevitable deaths.

Going by the trailer, the central dramatic conflict of the film is Peter needing to put his own reality in danger in order to save the lives of people who would otherwise be his enemies. This isn’t just going out of his way not to kill his foes; Peter is actively putting himself and possibly his own world in jeopardy because he cares for the mortality of those who want to do him harm. It’s a profoundly Spider-Man problem to have, and shows him taking responsibility for the way he’s upended the natural order of the universe by asking Strange to erase the world’s knowledge of his secret identity, despite the fact that the only reason his identity was exposed in the first place was because Mysterio lied to the world and framed Peter for a murder he didn’t commit. However, it also stands in stark opposition to how most MCU heroes approach things.

In the previous MCU Spider-Man films, Peter established a throughline of caring for the lives of his enemies. He nearly got himself killed trying to save the Vulture in their final battle on the beach in Homecoming. And while Mysterio did “die” (or did he?) in Far From Home, it was a result of the villain making a mistake, not Peter intentionally causing his demise. By making the entire moral dilemma of No Way Home about saving the lives of the villains, Peter (and by extension, the film) is rejecting the previous moral framework the MCU has established, and meaningfully distinguishes what Spider-Man’s definition of heroism actually is in this universe.

While we don’t yet know how this idea will be followed through in the finished film, that it’s being presented as such a major part of the movie at all is a clear indication that Peter may have the power to change how the MCU operates. If he succeeds in No Way Home and continues to be one of the flagship characters of this franchise, who knows? Perhaps future MCU heroes will follow in his footsteps in the same way Peter once followed in those of the Avengers.

Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.

Myth of Empires, the new large-scale multiplayer sandbox title from development studio Angela Game, has officially entered Early Access and offers players a chance to not only try about 70% of the content that will be featured in the full game, but also let them rest easy knowing that all their data will carry over when the game is officially released.

Myth of Empire’s Early Access will let players gather and hunt for resources to craft equipment, build massive fortresses, capture farmland and mines, plant crops, produce food, and gather minerals in their quest for victory. Horses can be captured and tamed, NPCs can be recruited to be used as both cavalry and warriors, and much more.

To help players build their own perfect empire, 25 skill trees will be available that each offer a variety of options to improve all aspects of gameplay. These upgrades will help them in their conquest to seize control of enemy territories, which can even be used to levy taxes to increase player’s cash reserves.

As previously mentioned, Myth of Empires Early Access will contain about 70% of the content that will be found in the full game. As the Early Access period continues, Angela Game will add such new features as “tree-based structures, NPC appearance customization, modding tools, new ways to use animals on the battlefield, musical instruments, new architecture and furniture, new armors and weapon skins, and more.”

Myth of Empires is meant to be welcoming to players of all skill levels. While everyone will start on a PVE server, they will be able to choose to transfer to a PVP server when they reach a certain level. While this obviously comes with more risks, the resources and rewards are greater. Furthermore, players can move back and forth between PVE and PVP servers when needed.

Another aspect that sets Myth of Empires apart is that servers all over the world are connected to each other and have their own geographic location on the in-game map. This allows players from all over the world to form alliances with one another or “unify the whole world in the game.”

For more on Myth of Empires, be sure to check out the six things you need to know about this upcoming multiplayer sandbox game so you’ll be the best leader of your army you can be. Once you feel like you’re ready for battle, head over to Myth of Empire’s Steam page to get started on your adventure today!

Clocking in at nearly 500 episodes and counting, it's safe to say The Last Podcast On the Left is one of the most successful horror podcasts ever. Now the series is expanding into an entirely new medium, as hosts Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski and Ben Kissel spearhead a graphic novel series dubbed The Last Comic On the Left.

Where The Last Podcast On the Left takes a humorous approach to true crime cases and horror topics like ghosts, cryptids, serial killers and UFOs, The Last Comic On the Left is intended as a tribute to classic horror anthologies like Creepy, Eerie and Tales From the Crypt. The series will feature a number of different but interconnected horror tales from horror comics veterans like James Tynion IV (Something Is Killing the Children) and Rick Veitch (Swamp Thing).

The Last Comic On the Left will be published as a series of full-length graphic novels through Z2 Comics. The creative lineup for Vol. 1 includes:

• James Tynion IV (The Department of Truth, Something Is Killing the Children)
• Rick Veitch (Swamp Thing, Miracleman)
• Bob Fingerman (Minimum Wage, Beg the Question)
• Tyler Boss (4 Kids Walk Into a Bank, What’s the Furthest Place From Here?)
• Ryan Cady (Machine Gun Kelly’s Hotel Diablo, Sublime: $5 at the Door)
• Eliot Rahal (Machine Gun Kelly’s Hotel Diablo, the upcoming Cheech and Chong's Chronicles: The Graphic Novel)
• Morgan Beem (Swamp Thing: Twin Branches, The Family Trade)
• Noah Van Sciver (Grateful Dead Origins, the upcoming Cheech and Chong's Chronicles: The Graphic Novel)
• Logan Faerber ('Namwolf, The Woods)

In addition to those stories, Vol. 1 will include a tale written by Parks and Zebrowski and illustrated by John McCrea (Hitman). Eric Powell (The Goon), Martin Morazzo (Ice Cream Man) and Bob Fingerman provide cover art for Vol. 1. A deluxe edition version of the graphic novel will also include a series of cryptid-themed art prints.

“We are excited to expand our comic bloodlust with Z2 and The Last Comic On the Left,” Zebrowski said in Z2's press release. “We get to see many of our more ‘colorful’ ideas receive the evil MAD Magazine treatment. Z2 works with some of the most talented artists and creators in the comic business and it’s a privilege to be in their talented hands.”

"When I first got turned onto The Last Podcast On The Left a couple years ago, I was immediately hooked. As a lifelong weirdo with an obsession for crime, paranormal, and the occult, I learned to stifle talking about it in mixed company—listening to this podcast about the strange was an instant release valve,” Z2 Comics Publisher Josh Frankel said. “To be able to work with the guys to bring their comedic vision to life, as well as to do so in a format that pays homage to some of the greatest publications of all time, is insane to me."

The Last Comic On the Left Vol. 1 is currently available to preorder through Z2 Comics and is slated for release in Spring 2022.

The Last Podcast On the Left isn't the only podcast making the jump to other media. Critical Role is currently in development as an animated series at Amazon called The Legend of Vox Machina: Critical Role, and the series also getting an officially licensed D&D book called Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep.

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