Ubisoft has announced that it will be opening its first Entertainment Center in 2025. As part of the announcement, the company also notes that it is also currently developing a full-scale theme park, though that will debut at a later date.

As revealed in a press release, the studio says that it is set to open its first Ubisoft Entertainment Center at Studios Occitanie Méditerranée in 2025. The French-based center will be located around a 40-minute drive from the city of Montpellier and will include a professional film studio, multiple entertainment offerings, as well as retail, dining, and hospitality.

“Studios Occitanie is excited to become the first location for Ubisoft’s groundbreaking Entertainment Center concept,” said Bruno Granja, founder of Studios Occitanie. “Gaming has grown to become the biggest form of entertainment. It makes sense that we partner with France’s leading game publisher to create a new kind of immersive experience that celebrates gaming culture.”

While Ubisoft has kept relatively quiet on the finer details of the center, it has given fans some insight into what they can expect in 2025. According to the press release, the center will be the first of a number of venues to offer immersive entertainment experiences in fully interactive worlds based on Ubisoft's popular game franchises.

Although the center's experiences will be linked to various Ubisoft franchises, the studio will partner with design and production company Storyland Studios, as well as Alterface’s gamification technology, Wander, to bring the project to life.

“Thanks to the Wander technology, we’re creating unlimited opportunities for guests who want to engage with our experience on a deeper level, to do so in an interactive, personalized, and ever-evolving way,” says Product Manager at Alterface, Etienne Sainton.

Following the news of Storyland Studio's involvement in the project, Ubisoft also confirmed that it was working with the company to design a large-scale Ubisoft Theme Park. At present, the studio hasn't commented on a potential timeframe for the park nor an intended location, but it could well prove to be the Ubisoft equivalent of Super Nintendo World, the Mario-themed park in Japan.

For more on Ubisoft, make sure to check out this article detailing how the company is planning to create its own blockchain games in the future.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Gotham and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order star Cameron Monaghan leads the cast of the upcoming thriller Shattered, which also stars John Malkovich, Frank Grillo, Lilly Krug (Every Breath You Take), and Sasha Luss (Anna).

You can watch the new Red Band trailer for the movie — which is officially described as an action thriller in the vein of Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct — exclusively in the player above or via the embed below.

Directed by Luis Prieto from a screenplay by David Loughery, the official synopsis below sheds more light on the film’s plot:

“As lonely tech millionaire Chris (Cameron Monaghan) encounters charming, sexy Sky (Lilly Krug), passion grows between them. And when he’s injured, she quickly steps in as his nurse. But Sky’s odd behavior makes Chris suspect that she has more sinister intentions, especially when Sky’s roommate is found dead from mysterious causes.”

And as the trailer reveals, Frank Grillo’s character is not the good samaritan that he first appears to be, while John Malkovich’s nosy neighbor may have spied more than he bargained for.

In addition to the new trailer, IGN can also exclusively debut the poster for Shattered. Click on the image below for the high-res version.

Shattered will be available in select theaters and On Demand on January 14, 2022, and available on Blu-ray and DVD on February 22.

Henry Cavill has thrown his support behind The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich's seven-season plan for the widely popular Netflix series.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter for a recent feature, Cavill suggested that he would be up for reprising his role as Geralt of Rivia for seven seasons if the show keeps going, though he did have one stipulation. "Absolutely," Cavill said in regards to supporting Hissrich's vision. "As long as we can keep telling great stories which honor [author Andrzej] Sapkowski's work."

Cavill's caveat for the future of the series is one that has stayed at the forefront of their minds when developing the show, though Hissrich told THR that Cavill had presented a number of ideas for the show's second season, which arrives on Netflix on December 17, as he was keen to find a way for his character to open up more in the coming episodes.

"A lot of the notes he was sending to me were about Geralt's dialogue — could he, first of all, say more," Hissrich said. "Everybody came out of season one laughing and loving Geralt's fuming. But Henry was saying that when you read the books you spend a lot of time in Geralt's head. So how can we put that on the page? Meanwhile, I wanted to tell the story of him becoming a father figure to Ciri. So those two things coalesced wonderfully. He opens up to get Ciri to trust him, by speaking his mind and his heart more."

The first episode of the second season will adapt Andrzej Sapkowski's A Grain of Truth, the third story in The Last Wish, that explores family dynamics and relationships. In the tale, Geralt stumbles upon a rundown manor inhabited by a monstrous, cursed nobleman known as Nivellen, who is being portrayed by Kristofer Hivju in the Netflix series.

However, Season 2 of The Witcher will initially pick up with Geralt taking Ciri to his childhood home of Kaer Morhen, where he will task himself with protecting her from the mysterious power she possesses while the Continent's kings, elves, humans, and demons strive for supremacy outside the walls of the castle located in the Kingdom of Kaedwen.

It has been confirmed that The Witcher will return for a third season as part of Netflix's "growing Witcher universe," which now also includes a second anime feature film as well as a family-friendly series set in the same world. So if you haven't already, now might be a good time to check out our Witcher reading guide to find out where to start.

Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

John Krasinski has revealed that he refused to shoot a scene in The Office that would have depicted his character Jim cheating on his wife Pam (Jenna Fisher) during the show's eighth season.

As spotted by the New York Post, Krasinski wrote about the scene during an entry for a new book about the show called Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office.

Showrunners at the time had apparently planned on writing a scene into the episode 'After Hours', where Krasinski's character would "make out" with his wife's maternity leave replacement Cathy when the pair found themselves alone together in a Florida hotel room.

“That’s the only time I remember putting my foot down…" says Krasinski in the book. "I remember saying things that I never thought I’d say before, like, ‘I’m not going to shoot it," he writes before explaining that he took the issue to executive producer and director Greg Daniels.

“My feeling is there is a threshold with which you can push our audience. They are so dedicated. We have shown such great respect to them. But there’s a moment where if you push them too far, they’ll never come back. And I think that if you show Jim cheating, they’ll never come back.”

While the couple had their fair share of ups and downs across the sitcom's nine seasons, the show's community will likely be glad to hear that Daniels ultimately decided not to shoot the scene. Though, perhaps unsurprisingly the director does note that a number of the factors affecting the couple were introduced in part to keep fans engaged with the show.

“I feel like that kind of worry was good in terms of the fans’ engagement. I think they knew what was coming,” Daniels says when discussing plot points such as the show's decision to bring in Brian the sound technician to comfort Pam following a fallout between the pair.

“They were very comfortable with the show they were getting, and I needed to worry them that maybe I was going to give them a bad ending so they were happy when they got a good ending,” he finishes.

For more on The Office, make sure to check out this article detailing how James Gandolfini was paid $3 million to not become the new boss in the show.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

If you think of high-end graphics, some names immediately come to mind: Epic, DICE, CryEngine. But as technology continues to disseminate across the world, more and more game studios in various global tech hubs are beginning to turn heads with their advancements in video game visuals.

One such company is Pearl Abyss, a South Korean video game company primarily known for the MMORPG Black Desert Online. Recently, the studio caught our attention with a show-stopping presentation of DokeV built using a proprietary engine Pearl Abyss is developing with an eye towards the studio’s future.

IGN was able to speak with Pearl Abyss’ Head of Game Engine Division and Lead Engine Programmer Kwaghyeon Go to talk more about this new engine, whose name IGN can reveal is called the “Blackspace Engine.”

Pearl Abyss’ biggest game currently is the MMORPG Black Desert Online, which Pearl Abyss developed using an earlier proprietary engine. But new projects require new technology.

“When devising new projects after Black Desert, we felt the need for a new engine with the latest technology for even better quality and performance. Additionally, it also had to be able to cover multiple projects,” Go says.

Enter Blackspace Engine, Pearl Abyss’ new, next-gen engine currently used to develop upcoming projects including Crimson Desert, PLAN 8, and DokeV, an open-world adventure where players can go on adventures with monsters based on Korean folklore.

Take the GamesCom trailer for DokeV for example which has already garnered over 7 million views. The K-Pop soaked trailer is filled with highly detailed environments, eye-popping particle effects, and rich textures, and a bulk of the comments are dedicated to discussing DokeV’s visuals.

“It’s our belief that amazing graphics and attention to detail determine the core quality of a game,” Go says. “After all, it’s these details that help create such an immersive experience.”

Go says its next-gen engine allows “for a more detailed representation of visual depth and increases the draw distance.” Furthermore, “improvements in atmospheric scattering and global illumination techniques provide more accurate lighting that takes into account the flow of time and spatial changes.”

Pearl Abyss also boasts an advanced motion capture and 3D-scanning studio, and the company plans to open a dedicated art studio in 2022.

According to Go, “The Pearl Abyss Art Center will be the largest art studio in the whole of the Korean games industry and will be equipped with state-of-the-art facilities for gaming technology and design research.” It will also boast a new, nearly 11,000 square feet motion capture studio designed to shoot wire-action sequences, bulky objects, and even animals.

Alongside PC, DokeV has been announced for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. South Korean game developers have largely focused on PC and mobile, so IGN asked if DokeV was part of a new strategy targeting the global console market.

To this, Go cited Black Desert on console, which was released in 2019 and helped cater to a large overseas console market. Go says Pearl Abyss is one of the first South Korean companies actively pursuing the “challenging console market.”

Despite the competition, Pearl Abyss aims to expand its console offerings by supporting cross-play between platforms as well as next-gen console versions of its games.

As for Pearl Abyss’ decision to develop a proprietary engine rather than license an engine from another company, Go says it’s about “internalizing core game development technologies” by developing an engine using the company’s “advanced technology.” He added that Pearl Abyss seeks to resolve the long-term risks that come with relying on external development platforms.

“With one’s own engine, it is possible to build an efficient development process and actively respond to changes on various platforms,” Go says.

Aside from developing an engine capable of high-end graphics, Go says the BlackSpace Engine has other features that aid in the development of open-world games. “Many aspects can be automated, procedurally generated, and customized with Pearl Abyss’ engine,” Go says. Along with realistic audio expression and smooth transitions between cutscenes and gameplay which Go says offers a more immersive experience he says, “The biggest advantage of an in-house engine may be the freedom to add functions quickly when the need arises and to change them in the direction that we want.”

While there are currently no plans to license the BlackSpace engine to partner developers a la Epic or Unity, Go says Pearl Abyss’s next-gen engine can be used to create a virtual space “akin to real-life” and can be “combined with the latest technology to create a more realistic metaverse.” As a result, Pearl Abyss is considering the possibilities of using the engine “in a wide variety of fields.”

As games like DokeV continue to impress the world with its visuals, Go says Pearl Abyss will continue to focus on games like Black Desert while pursuing high-quality graphics and attention to detail, “all the while focusing on the gameplay itself as much as on the graphics.”

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