Alan Wake is back and we are incredibly excited. Will this lead to the long-awaited sequel? We discuss… Plus: it's time to give Psychonauts 2 its flowers after an incredible journey that began in the early days of the original Xbox, so we do just that on this episode. Also: Miranda's "meh" reaction to Call of Duty: Vanguard's multiplayer beta, and more!

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our new YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 download of this week's episode. For more awesome content, check out our Halo Infinite Flight performance preview, which does a deep-dive tech analysis on the still-in-development slice of Halo Infinite multiplayer:

Oh, and you can be featured on Unlocked by tweeting us a video Loot Box question! Tweet your question and tag Ryan at @DMC_Ryan!

For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.

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.

A group of current and former Ubisoft employees has responded to the company's appointment of a new chief creative officer, urging him and the company to provide a "meaningful response" to Ubisoft's culture of "systemic discrimination, harassment, and bullying."

The statement was issued by employee group A Better Ubisoft in response to the announcement today that Igor Manceau would succeed Serge Hascoët as the company's chief creative officer, following allegations Hascoët had been a key propagator of toxic company culture.

Manceau, who has been with Ubisoft since 1998, has previously held several leadership roles in Ubisoft marketing, working on franchises such as Far Cry, Rainbow Six, and Splinter Cell. In 2014 he worked as creative director on Steep and followed up in the same role on Riders Republic.

However, as the employee group points out, Manceau's appointment does not appear to be in line with CEO Yves Guillemot's promises to overhaul the company's editorial team. As Guillemot wrote in a letter to employees upon Hascoet's departure:

"I will take on the CCO role temporarily as we work to define and organize the leadership of the Editorial Department. During this time, I will also personally oversee a complete overhaul of the way in which this team works. My goal is to create an inclusive and open culture that embraces more diverse and multidisciplinary expertise."

In its response, A Better Ubisoft points out that "There is no clear expression of the creative process, and there is a shocking lack of diversity in the VPs." The group points out that while Bio Jade Adam Granger's appointment as VP of editorial earlier this year was a step in the right direction, "not much progress has been made beyond that."

"Currently, as it stands, the creative team at Ubisoft is composed of white people who are of uniform cultural backgrounds."

The letter concludes that this leaves the employee group with a "lack of confidence" in the editorial team's future, noting that Patrick Plourde remains VP of editorial "despite the multiple misconduct reports filed against him" and Hascoët's "former right-hand person" is still involved in the recruitment of high-level positions at the company.

Ubisoft's editorial team has historically held a large amount of creative power at the company. It's responsible for advising on elements of all the company's games including design, story, and more, and prior to 2020 was largely responsible for a "cohesive vision" across Ubisoft titles.

However, a 2020 restructuring made an attempt at diversifying power on the editorial team to better differentiate its games, though its powerful influence on the portfolio remained.

Manceau's appointment to said team comes over a year after Ubisoft was at the center of numerous reports of a toxic work culture, harassment, abuse, and discrimination, which resulted in numerous company leaders being fired or otherwise parting ways following investigations.

However, earlier this year, 1,000 current and former Ubisoft employees signed an open letter in solidarity with employees at Activision-Blizzard undergoing their own cultural reckoning, demanding that the company take further action. The group at the time stated that over a year later, it "had seen nothing more than a year of kind words, empty promises, and an inability or unwillingness to remove known offenders."

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

Firaxis and 2K showed off nearly 20 minutes of gameplay focused almost entirely on the combat. This is the best look yet at the new tactics system that incorporates environmental attacks and a contentious new card system.

The new gameplay deep dive video showcases the different elements that go into Midnight Suns’ combat system which combines elements of tactics and special hero powers. Plus, a look at how destructible environments can really shape the battle. Check out the video below.

Last week, developer Firaxis revealed that Marvel’s Midnight Suns would involve a card battle system. This system is not like collectible card games like Hearthstone but instead will tie abilities to cards in a deck that can be played to activate. Similar to rogue-lite games like Slay the Spire.

And unlike collectible card games, Firaxis confirmed that there will be no randomized loot boxes though there will be paid cosmetic-only outfits.

Here you can see that there are three different types of ability cards, as well as a ticker for cards played during a turn, how many moves the player has left, a redraw option, an item menu. As Firaxis’ creative director Jake Solomon says during the video, the cards don’t change the XCOM formula too much but add a layer of customization and randomness to the combat.

The gameplay deep dive also included a boss fight between Wolverine and Sabertooth and this segment was the best look at how destructible environments come into play. And these environmental attacks might be more involved than previously suggested.

Throughout the boss fight, Wolverine is seen using everything around him in the level to attack Sabertooth including taking down light poles or throwing debris like cinderblocks. Add in the aforementioned ability cards that include attacks that damage more than one enemy at a time, and you get a sense of how the combat flows during normal encounters and boss fights.

Check out IGN’s extended gameplay reveal for Midnight Suns from last week or our multiple interviews with the developers on gameplay and the comics that inspired them. The gameplay dive from today also showed the social elements of Midnight Suns where you can hang out with your favorite Marvel heroes and connect with them, though not romantically.

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

Everyone knows The Mandalorian takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But what this new action figure presupposes is, what if it doesn't? What if, instead, The Mandalorian took place in ancient Japan? That's exactly what happens in this new entry in the Meisho Movie Realization series of action figures. This upcoming figure is called Ronin Mandalorian & Grogu, and it's available to preorder now on the IGN Store. It costs $139.99, with an estimated delivery of March 2022.

Preorder Ronin Mandalorian & Grogu

In this figure, the Mandalorian's Beskar armor has been re-imagined in the style of a ronin samurai during the feudal period of Japan. Accompanying the lone warrior is Grogu, AKA Baby Yoda, who sports a handsome top knot haircut. It also comes with Grogu's pram, which you can set in a wooden push cart, which is more realistic to the era these figures pay tribute to.

Also included is a sword and scabbard, the Mandalorian's rifle and blaster, two additional pairs of hands to hold the various implements of death, plus a jet pack. The figures look very high-quality, though naturally they have a price to match. If you're interested in picking these up, you'll want to preorder soon. The last day to preorder is September 24, assuming supplies last that long.

Here's the official product description:

The Mandalorian returns to the Meisho Movie Realization series with a completely new sculpt suit and armor inspired by the Beskar armor from the Disney+ Series. Included with this figure is an in-scale figure of Grogu who can be seated in a pram inspired by wooden pushcarts from the Samurai era of Japanese history. The Mandalorian rifle and blaster are included as is his jetpack that he received at the end of thefirst season of the show. Set Contents: Main body, two pairs of optional hands, Rifle, Jet pack, Blaster, Sword, Scabbard, Grogu, Pram, Push cart.

Worker placement, where you take actions on the board by assigning a fixed pool of worker pieces to spaces one at a time, is a very popular mechanic. But while it’s great for deep strategy games, it has a problem: without a seed of variety, games that use it can become dry and repetitive as everyone fixates on the same successful strategies.

There are various fixes, but one of the most interesting and least used is to replace the worker pieces with dice, the rolled faces influencing which actions they can take. The latest board game to explore this developing space is Brew, where players represent mystics in a fantasy wilderness. Their dice get them foraging for components, which they then use to brew powerful potions for one-shot effects.

What’s in the Box

Brew stands out even on a shelf, with its unusual lino-cut style box art showcasing a weird creature on a rolling landscape. Lift the lid and you’ll find the same art on the game board, tokens and cards. It’s really striking, a great balance of looking good while still remaining very playable. All the information you need is clear and accessible, letting you sit back and enjoy the play and the art at the same time.

Beneath the cardboard sprues are the main engine of the game, bags of custom dice in four different player colors, plus white element dice. They’re good dice, solid and engraved with elegant symbols to take the inking. There’s not much else in the box, but it’s a nice compact size so it should be easy to fit on your shelves.

Rules and How to Play

Brew is one of those games where simple rules belie a plethora of options on the board and cards. At the start of a round, everyone rolls their pool of dice: four forage dice and two element dice. Then they take turns placing them on the board or cards and, as the game progresses, brewing and/or drinking a potion.

Forage dice can only go on forest cards, which change from round to round, and only on a space that matches the rolled symbol. You also get a potion ingredient shown on the space, or possibly a creature from the four face up choices. Creatures give you special powers, such as bonus ingredients or points when you take certain actions.

Right away, this presents players with an impressive array of options. There will be four face-up potions, each needing different ingredients, so you want to forage for the most useful ones. Then again, creatures give you an immediate bonus for one die, so it’s tempting to snatch good ones before other players do. And after all dice are placed, players with a majority on each forest card can claim it, which is a major source of points.

At the beginning of the game there’s almost too much choice, making it hard to start carving your groove in the game’s pristine wilderness. It’s confusing, and paralyzing. As the play develops and you begin to find combos between creature powers and brewed potions, you can start to focus and develop specific strategies. This brings the pleasure of securing an important potion or creature before your opponents. But hunting out the synergies to start with can be a chore.

Element dice add even more options to the mix. These can be used like forage dice if you so desire, and can go on any space with an extra placement power depending on their symbol. But they can also be played to a matching space on the board for a special power like purging other element dice from forests, or trading ingredients for the more flexible energy berries.

Once you’ve got enough ingredients to start adding to your stock of potions, they become essential weapons in your strategic arsenal. Most of them let you meddle with your dice: re-rolling them, moving them after placement, placing an extra one on your turn, that sort of thing. They’re also worth points whether they’re used or not. However, they often take a back seat in scoring despite the game’s name. Indeed, thematically, Brew is a bit of a mess, with its parts not gelling into any kind of topical or narrative whole.

While all the options do give players a lot to think about, there are times when all those alternatives for every decision feel more like work than play. Despite its simple rules, Brew isn’t the cutesy family fare that you might expect from the art and iconography. It’s very much a medium-weight strategy game. Even the dice are there to provide variety in decision making more than excitement.

That said, Brew begins to dish up the thrills once players have grasped that timing your plays is also crucial to the strategy. With forests offering big points, it’s key to the game’s design that it gives you lots of ways to upset majorities during the turn. Fire element symbols can be placed atop an opponent’s dice, negating it. A potion lets you sneak in an extra turn to claim a prize spot before the next player. These moves are where the game gains tension, which ramps up nicely as it comes to a close, and elicits cries of delight and dismay from the assembled players.

The result is a game where it pays to plan ways to upset your opponents as much as possible. Late game can get pretty bitter as scoring opportunities swing from one player to an opponent. That may not be to everyone’s tastes but Brew isn’t one of those heads-down games where you don’t have to care about what other players are doing. You might not interact with them directly, but messing with their plans can be even more satisfying at times.

Where to Buy

Brew is available at a variety of retailers. The MSRP is $29.99.

• Get it at Amazon
• Get it at Walmart
• Get it at Atomic Empire