Some games are inspired by the developer's deep, personal experiences. Others are sparked by real-world events, or love of other media.

For Skatebird developer Megan Fox, it all began with a gif of a bird on a skateboard.

Also, here: pic.twitter.com/Z0wPfDGrtf

— Megan Fox (🛹🐦 OUT NOW) (@glassbottommeg) June 15, 2020

Fox is a seasoned developer, having worked in AAA on LEGO Universe before going indie and releasing games like Jones on Fire, Hot Tin Roof, and Spartan Fist. She started working on Skatebird in 2018 after, she says, Spartan Fist "bombed" and she had to let her entire development team go. Whatever she made next, Fox at the time was certain she would need to do it mostly alone.

But that certainty didn't last long. First, a fellow game developer who goes by KevKev offered up a physics-based, skateboarding prototype codebase to anyone who wanted it, after he found that putting humans on skateboards was "inconsistent and weird." Fox began messing around with it, letting the inspiration from the gif she had seen lead the way, and quickly discovered it was much easier to put a bird on a skateboard than a human.

"You know what a human on a skateboard is supposed to look like," Fox says. "Pros are supposed to look cool. There's a particular look and a stance and so forth. If you put a bird on a skateboard, well, no one really knows how it's supposed to stand on the skateboard. And if they flap a lot and look awkward, well, they're a bird on a skateboard."

Skatebirds of a Feather

Fox wasn't the only one who thought birds on skateboards looked like fun. At E3 2019, Fox found a slot for Skatebird at the Kinda Funny Games Showcase and launched her Kickstarter simultaneously. The support was tremendous, enough for Fox to expand the scope of the game from a fun little skating gag to include objectives, a story, and far more birds than originally planned. Though she planned for this next project to be a solo fun, Fox started working with other people again to support Skatebird's development. What began as a "whatever the hell" kind of gag had turned into a full, serious project.

"I think people think it's a lot bigger than it is," Fox says. "It takes about five to eight hours to beat. It's not huge. But then I guess that's the size of most skate games. So maybe it is."

While the idea for Skatebird started as a bit of a goof, its expanded scope meant Fox quickly had to become an expert on two things she didn't know much about: birds and skateboarding. The former happened organically once she moved to the Seattle area and started feeding birds as a hobby, gradually learning the names of and how to identify different species.

She also hired a skateboarding expert to teach her about the different tricks and techniques, as she wanted Skatebird genuinely reflect the sport rather than including a bunch of made-up tricks. Having only skateboarded briefly in the past "in combat boots while wearing a trench coat," Fox opted not to get back on the board during development to avoid injuring herself, but intends to take up the hobby again now that the game's launched.

Alongside the research, Fox wanted her skateboarding game to be accessible in a way that big-name skateboarding titles had grasped at, but ultimately fallen short of. To do this, she looked to the Tony Hawk games' very clear button assignments (meaning they could easily be rearranged or mapped to a different controller if needed) and attempted to combine them with EA's Skate franchise's elimination of the more precise arcade aspects.

"You can collapse almost all of the buttons down to one button, you can make it so that a single button does the grind and flip trick," she says. "And it's not ideal, like you can't pull off every single trick in the game this way. But you can totally play the game this way."

The finished Skatebird is cute and whimsical and full of, as Fox desired for it, birds "trying their best." It's tied together by a story of a bird whose "Big Friend" (a human, of course) has given up skateboarding, motivating the bird to try and inspire them to pick it up again as they skate around tiny, bird-sized courses. There are objectives to discover and lots of customization for the bird hero. Though primarily a skate game, there's no denying Skatebird's meme-ability, true to the gifs that inspired it.

Skatebird comes at a time when skate games are seeing a bit of a renaissance, from indie title announcements like Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and goofy riffs like Street Uni X (think Tony Hawk but a unicycle), to AAA endeavors like EA's revival of the Skate franchise and, of course, the return of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2.

Whether or not the genre sticks around for good or skates off into the sunset, Fox says that now turned out to accidentally be a great time to release a skateboarding video game.

"There are tons and tons of indies that are starting to play in this genre," Fox says. "And usually, that's the sign that the genre has blossomed and is really starting. And then when EA Skate comes out, that's the sign that AAA is entering the space again, because indies have once again shown that this genre exists and it works and it makes money and AAA goes, 'I like money.' And then they come in and after that, I don't know what will happen. They could kill the genre again, or maybe not. But at least right now it's pretty cool."

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

It’s that time of year again where the days start getting shorter, the football season has started, and inevitably, EA Sports releases a new FIFA. But what’s new in FIFA 22? And more importantly, what’s actually going to make a difference? Here is everything we think is worth taking notice of:

Gameplay

1. Hypermotion – This year’s buzzword is Hypermotion; new technology being implemented on the PS5 and Series X/S versions of FIFA 22. This machine-learning algorithm learns from capture of real-life 11 vs 11 matches, then performs new animations in real-time to create organic player movement, including passes, shots, and something as simple as trapping the ball.

Players take the ball in their stride with ease with hitching and stuttering kept to a minimum during sprints when trying to collect a pass. It promises a much more fluid feel to general gameplay. For much more detail on this, check out my gameplay preview here.

2. Goalkeeper Rewrite – Dodgy goalkeeping has been an issue that has plagued FIFA recently, but a new intelligence system aims to make them much more reliable. New personality types are also being introduced in order to replicate the different styles of ‘keeper found around the world from sweepers to pure shot-stoppers.

3. Explosive Sprint – This new mechanic allows for attackers to lure a defender close to them before accelerating away with a sharp burst of pace. It should allow for more dynamic one-on-one encounters, but let’s just hope it isn’t as overpowered as FIFA 21’s bridge skill ability.

4. True Ball Physics – Improved ball physics makes feel more realistic than ever as they zip through on a wet surface or hold up on the grass as backspin is applied to a lofted through ball.

5. New Attacking Tactics – Players are finally able to apply different playing styles to each half of the pitch, meaning you can press high with attackers but also keep defenders deep if you wish to prevent a counter-attack.

Career Mode

6. Create Your Club – You’ll now be able to create your own football club from scratch and enter them in any league you wish. The customisation options will be familiar to any who have played pro clubs, but you’ll be able to design your own kit, crest, stadium, all the way down to the pattern of the grass on the pitch. You’ll then be able to choose the average ability and age of your players who are then randomly generated as your starter squad.

7. Sub Appearances – When playing a solo player career you can now be substituted on during a match. Something that maybe should have been in FIFA a while ago, but aims to deliver the experience of being a young player aiming to break into the team and impress the manager.

8. Manager Rating – Continue to impress that manager and your manager rating will go up and is represented by a bar that fills up the more faith he has in you. Let it slip all the way into the red though and you’ll find yourself out of the lineup.

9. Match Objectives – Once you enter the pitch you’ll be given three match objectives to complete in order to earn maximum XP. These vary depending on factors including your position on the pitch, the formation you’re in, and the opposition you’re playing and range from achieving a minimum match rating out of 10 to scoring a goal outside the box.

10. New Player Progression – There’s room for a lot more experimentation now when building your player. A revamped skill tree allows for you to specialise much more heavily and put points into specific attributes.

11. Player Perks – There’s also the new perk system which is set to make tangible improvements to your player and team. Perks unlock as you level up and you can equip up to three of them to take into a match. Perks grant you additional stat boosts on top of your and trigger automatically when certain conditions are met. For example, once the Distance Shooter perk is activated it grants you the finesse shot trait for a 5-star weak foot boost, whereas Defensive Cover boosts defensive awareness, interceptions, and tackling for all of your teammates.

12. Dressing Room Atmosphere – Cinematic sequences will not play out from the locker room at the end of each match, reflecting the highs and lows over the course of a season. Water bottles may be thrown at the end of a crushing derby loss, or champagne corks flying after a victorious cup final.

13. Alex Scott Commentary – Ex-England international and current fantastic pundit Alex Scott joins the team as FIFA’s first female member of the commentary team. She’ll be giving you updates from around the grounds as other matches are played out simultaneously, a role previously occupied by Alan McInally.

14. Dynamic Tifos – Any player can now be proudly displayed by fans in the stadium in all of their 50-foot glory. Who is displayed will change depending on who are the best players at the club and who has been there the longest. Yes, that includes your own generated player.

Pro Clubs

15. Drop-In with Friends – If you can’t get your whole squad together for a whole session but still want to play with some of your friends, you can now do so by grouping up and dropping into some matches without affecting your club’s record. It’s not always easy to get up to 10 other people synced up for an evening so this is a welcome addition to Pro Clubs.

16. Player Growth – It will now be clearer than ever to see just how much XP you gain from each match with post-game screens breaking down your performance and how close you are to reaching the next level and those all-important skill points.

17. Perks – These will be making their way over to Pro Clubs as well. See above in the Career Mode section for information on how perks work for your pro.

18. Enhanced Club Customisation – There’s now a much higher level of customisation available when tailoring your pro club in FIFA 22. Change everything from seat colours, goal songs, goal net shape, pitch wear, stadium banners, and much, much more.

19. Female Players Added – For the first time female virtual pros can now be created and play alongside their male counterparts with no additional gameplay impact.

Ultimate Team

20. FUT Heroes – A new type of card for cult characters of the sport who perhaps aren’t quite Icon status but left a big imprint of the game. These include the likes of Robbie Keane, David Ginola, Clint Dempsey, and Mario Gomez. They’ll provide a green chemistry link for any player in the same league as on their card.

21. Division Rivals Revamp – A structure in Divison Rivals that now takes place over the course of a whole season. Win matches to progress through new stages, ranks, and divisions on your way to better weekly rewards. Stay at the right level for your skill by playing matches and reaching checkpoints. You’ll receive rewards based on your performance both at the end of every week and at the end of each season.

22. Elite Division – Above Division 1 is a new Elite Division reserved for the most skilled players. Top performers in this division will get the chance to compete in the FIFA Global Series.

23. FUT Champions Revamp – Qualify for the FUT Champions Weekend League by playing playoff games during the week and earning enough points. The Finals each week will now consist of 20 matches to play over the weekend, down from the 30 of recent years. A new points-based system will determine rewards.

24. Co-Op Public Matchmaking – You no longer need to pair up with a friend to play online co-operatively in FUT. Search for a partner and enter the FUT Friendlies lobby to play 2v2.

Volta

25, New Skill Meter – In order to emphasise the difference between Volta and other modes, a new skill meter encourages players to play with flair. Different moves are rewarded with different points values and include beating players with skill moves, nutmegging opponents, and bouncing passes off of the wall. More points consolidated means the more your next goal is worth, from 2 all way up to 4.

26. Signature Abilities – One of three signature abilities can be added to your player. These operate on a cooldown and can be triggered using the right shoulder button. These abilities are titled Power Strike, Pure Pace, and Aggressive Tackle, applying various buffs to your character.

27. Increased Skill Moves – A greater amount of skill moves have been added to the simple skill moves mechanic (holding in the left shoulder button) to provide more variety in gameplay. Several standing skill moves are now also available such as a ball stand a fake shoe tie feint.

28. New Base Stats – When creating your Volta player, there’s no more uphill battle to fight in order to make them ready for the streets. Each player starts with an 82 overall rating and 5-star weak foot and skill moves so they feel great to play with straight away.

29. Volta Arcade – A bunch of minigames has been thrown into the mix this year, Virtua Tennis-style. If you want a break from actual football then try your hand at including Dodgeball, Foot Tennis, and the curiously named Disco Lava.

30. Volta Seasons – A new way to play Volta that has been borrowed from FUT is Volta Seasons. Essentially a 6-week long battle pass that you can complete in order to earn new cosmetics.

31. Player Recruitment Removed – The focus is very much on building your own character this year, so much in fact that no professional players, celebrities, or Icons will be recruitable to your Volta squads.

32. No Volta Story – For the first time since the Volta mode launched there will be no Volta single-player story mode in FIFA 22, instead, the focus has been placed on the multiplayer experience.

33. Two-Player Celebrations – OK, this may not be something that truly matters. But I think it’s nice that I’ll be able to run over to a teammate and give them a high-five after a lovely team goal in Volta.

And that’s everything! All there is to do now is that wait until FIFA 22 releases and we see how much of a difference how all of these changes add up to.

Simon Cardy can't wait for another year of lining up against Varane and Mendy. Find him over on Twitter at @CardySimon.

Pokemon Legends Arceus preorders have been available for a while in the UK, but there's been some excellent quite recently. The game will launch on January 28, 2022 for Nintendo Switch, and preorders will now include a unique SteelBook and PokeBall cartridge in the UK.

Preorders are still available at Amazon, and with the game shipping for £49.99 next year. Alternatively, you can also preorder the game on the Nintendo Store online and get a SteelBook and unique figurine of Arceus.

Preorder Pokemon Legends Arceus in the UK

A recent Pokemon Presents gave us an in-depth look at Legends Arceus, including details such as your starter Pokemon – Rowlet, Cyndaquill, or Oshawatt, alongside a better look at the open world you'll be exploring.

We have also been treated to new details on Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, as well as a mobile release date for Pokemon Unite.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

A man and his adopted daughter find their way through a whimsical, post-apocalyptic landscape. Frying pan and psychic powers at the ready, they might stumble into saving the world as they explore it. With all the stylings of a retro JRPG, you might expect Eastward to play like one, but this chill action-adventure is more Zelda than Dragon Quest. John and Sam's triumphs and mistakes take place in a charming pixel-art landscape that's rich with lovely characters and intimately designed places. Even where the story dragged for a time, or the simplicity of the challenges felt patronizing, the parts of Eastward that spoke to me more than made up for them.

Our headliners are John – a silent protagonist wreathed in messy hair and a bushy beard – and Sam, an outrageously precocious girl with budding psychic powers and a penchant for getting the two into trouble. They're lovable characters with a bushel of personality and a kind of timeless appeal. They set off from their home under dubious circumstances, and, eventually, find their way… eastward. I loved switching between the two as they travel through a cute but dangerous apocalyptic world of small towns and dam-cities. Along the way you play through discrete story chapters and explore the stories of the people you meet. There are a lot – a lot – of silly little minigames along the way. Baseball, river rafting, slot machines, and ever-present cooking.

The trek to the east is pretty linear, but the areas you explore are laid out like little dungeons, with curling paths to find your way through as you battle goofy monsters and solve simple puzzles. John does most of the fighting via simple but satisfying hack-and-slash action, but Sam's powers – like freezing enemies inside big psychic bubbles – are useful for fights and vital for puzzles.

It took me a few more than 30 hours to beat the main quest, but I know there are secrets to explore and little NPC storylines I skipped over that are worth going back for. In fact, Eastward's overall story is good enough that I've judiciously avoided spoilers in this review, to the point of being overly vague in some spots, but trust me, that’s for your benefit. There's also a pretty detailed roguelite JRPG game-within-the-game, called Earth Born, to play – and it was fun enough that I spent about six additional hours on it.

Eastward's real draw is its world. The vibrant pixel art landscapes are so creative and so packed with detail that I often found myself stopping to just look at a city street or a new railway station. Much of it is alive with little animations like running water, glinting metal, or spinning fans. I loved details like laundry on lines between buildings, boats overturned and made into houses, and countryside in the distance from train windows.

It's a loving rendition of a world that's somewhere between a Studio Ghibli film and a classic JRPG – Castle in the Sky meets EarthBound. It's all overlaid with a pretty low-key soundtrack that's nothing standout, but it’s good enough, with a variety of both instrumental and chiptune arrangements.

It's not just the backgrounds that pop, though. The characters of Eastward have great sprites and animation that packs in a ton of personality. They're a cast of well-designed weirdos who all have something unique going for them, which is an animated style that's become all too rare. The style and personality of the people you meet differs wildly, varying from gruff ranch hands to a trio of lively aunties, a sleepy small-town mayor, or a cigar-puffing casino owner. That's not to mention the circus performers, train conductors, conmen, and funky robots. (My favorite robot runs a construction company and has a bad hip.)

Little fetch quests make you run back and forth across the world, but that's not so bad when that world is pretty. A lot of the best Eastward has to offer is just smiling at the guy meditating on a roof as you pass by his part of town. I’ve passed him a dozen times now; what is he doing up there? I don't know. He's happy. Dude's just vibing and it's nice.

It's a relief that the world is so attractive and the characters are so appealing, because Eastward's greatest weakness is its writing. Character dialogue is hit or miss, with more than a few cliche lines and real stinkers. I'm talking about unironic use of lines like "I've been running my whole life." Frankly, it's because the writing doesn't know when to step back and let action or movement convey words. It uses two sentences when one would do – or, more often, one sentence when none would do. Dialogue that should pop up in the background – laughter, exclamations – is more often than not in a bubble that requires a button to progress. The only time I felt impatient or bored with Eastward was during the drawn-out dialogues.

Exploration and combat are a welcome break from all that staring and reading. Fights are simple, and most enemies can be easily defeated with judicious application of John's frying pan. Everything else is susceptible to the neon-colored shotgun or flamethrower. There are lots of weird enemies though, like a giant frog person, tentacle plants, or ultra-tough zombies, and they've all got their own attack pattern – but I usually took them down the same way, no matter what they were. But let me be clear: Simple isn't always bad. It was fun to weave around attacks, smack mutants with a pan, and blow them away with the shotgun.

It's weird that while you swap to Sam pretty often to do puzzles, I rarely felt the need to use her in combat; her ability to put monsters in frozen bubbles comes in handy for a few things, but you don't absolutely need it to win. If you had a psychic sidekick, wouldn’t you want her to do a bit more?

Likewise, it’s a bit of a downer that the puzzles Sam’s instrumental in solving are never too complex, only ever getting difficult when it's a challenge of timing or skill – or to get at a few tricky hidden chests. Most often, you'll have to notice something like a wall to blow down with a bomb, a puzzle of which cables to connect, or which obstacles to remove so a raft floats where you want it to. The harder puzzles will have a timing element – moving quickly after triggering a switch, or golf-swinging a bomb into a narrow opening from a moving platform. It’s not complex stuff.

The simplicity did bug me sometimes. While parts of the fighting are good in their straightforwardness, others are just basic. Partially it’s because the single-stick controls feel inadequate for aiming weapons. It's fun to bash with a frying pan, not so fun to make sure the characters are both dodging incoming projectiles.

The relatively infrequent boss and miniboss fights are an exception there, requiring a bit of finesse and switching between both John's weapons and Sam’s powers. I liked them a lot more than the platforming and puzzle bits, and a lot of them really tested my ability to use every tool in my arsenal for a clean victory. One in particular stands out, an enemy knocks away bombs that you try to place at a vulnerable point. To win, I needed a deft hand at dropping bombs as John, then to switch to Sam to use her powers to distract the enemy, then back to John to dish out damage after the bomb went off. That’s the kind of synergy Eastward’s combat needs more of.

Warner Bros. is setting up a remake of the 1987 vampire movie The Lost Boys with two of the youngest stars in horror. Noah Jupe, one of the stars of the A Quiet Place series, and It lead Jaeden Martell have been cast in the upcoming movie, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Warner has already filled out a creative team for the project. The End of the F***ing World director Jonathan Entwistle will direct, while Randy McKinnon will pen the reimagining. McKinnon is a rising star in Hollywood and was previously tapped by Warner and DC to write the upcoming HBO Max original adaptation of Static Shock.

The original Lost Boys was directed by Joel Schumacher and starred a vast ensemble of '80s it boys that included Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Alex Winter, Jason Patric, as well as Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. The film followed two boys and their single mother who move to a new town and become the targets of a biker gang of vampires.

The Lost Boys was a box office success when it was released in 1987, grossing $32.2 million against an $8.5 million budget. The film has since gathered a cult following after becoming one of Warner Bros.' top-selling home video titles. Two sequels have been produced, as well as a pair of comic series spin-offs.

While plot details are being kept under wraps for The Lost Boys reboot, reports indicate that the story will take place in the present day.

J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

(Image by Warner Bros./IMDb)