IGN can exclusively reveal that Paramount Pictures and eOne are bringing their upcoming film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves to San Diego Comic-Con 2022. In addition to a star-studded Hall H panel, attendees will be able to enjoy a Tavern Experience immersing them in the fantastical realm of Dungeons & Dragons.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves kicks off SDCC with the in-person con’s first Hall H panel on Thursday, July 21st at 12:00 pm PT. The film’s cast and filmmakers will be on stage to give fans an exclusive sneak peek at the 2023 release. Hall H attendees will also receive an exclusive, collectible Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves poster.

“I could not be more thrilled to kick off the return to Hall H with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves! I’m excited we get to share the film’s incredible and fun world in-person with the amazing fans who make San Diego Comic Con so special," said producer Jeremy Latcham.

Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley directed Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and also wrote the screenplay along with Michael Gilio (from a story by Chris McKay & Michael Gilio).

Based on Hasbro’s Dungeons & Dragons, the cast includes Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Chloe Coleman, Daisy Head, and Hugh Grant.

During San Diego Comic-Con 2022, Paramount Pictures, in partnership with eOne, will bring the fantastical world of Dungeons & Dragons to life with a one-of-a-kind Tavern Experience. Patrons can visit the Tavern for a peek inside the world of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Here’s what you need to know about how to attend the Tavern Experience in San Diego:

• Inside, visitors will find a 20-minute, immersive experience for unique photo ops, exclusive takeaways, and a chance to sip on Dragon Brew while interacting with your favorite Dungeons & Dragons creatures and characters, plus a few surprise moments you won't want to miss!
• Boss Logic-created custom artwork will be printed as limited-edition takeaways for those who go through the Tavern Experience in San Diego.
• Quincy’s Tavern led the recipe direction for the tavern’s Dragon Brew (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) that will be served to guests during the experience!
• Located in the heart of the Gaslamp Quarter on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Island Avenue, the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Tavern Experience will be open to the public at the following times:
  • Thursday, July 21: 12pm – 10pm PT
  • Friday, July 22: 10am – 8pm PT
  • Saturday, July 23: 10am – 8pm PT
• To reserve your spot, keep a lookout on the film’s social channels for when the RSVP site launches soon. There will also be a stand-by line on a first-come, first-served basis. There is no charge for admission and the experience is open to the public for all ages.

Are you attending this month’s San Diego Comic-Con? Let us know in the comments.

Paramount and eOne’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves opens in theaters on March 3, 2023.

Sword and Fairy is a franchise that may not be well-known outside of the East, but it is a long-running beloved and notable series that has only finally made its way west in recent years. While many of them are well-received and technically available to play, most are only in Chinese, requiring fan translations for Western gamers to be able to experience them. Sword and Fairy: Together Forever (aka Sword and Fairy 7) is making a jump to try and be a better-recognized Eastern Action-RPG series. After playing the first two hours on PlayStation 5, Sword and Fairy did take my interest as a game I want to see through to the end, despite its obvious shortcomings.

The very first thing worth mentioning is that while this is a western localization, the entire game is spoken in Chinese. There are subtitles for dialogue, but even so I did have some issues at times. When dialogue would advance on its own there were instances when I wasn’t able to finish reading it in time. I also noticed grammatical errors every now and then. To a certain degree, I can appreciate the authenticity that is being presented, but this may cause a real fundamental problem for some players.

Although it is an ongoing series, Sword and Fairy: Together Forever serves as its own self-contained story, so for those who want to give it a try, there is no required knowledge needed to fully enjoy what is offered. The story revolves around a young woman named Qingshu, a practitioner of the sword who helps protect her local village from monsters. It isn’t until she rescues a mysterious boy that she is flung into an ongoing war between deities and demons…naturally.

This may be a somewhat stereotypyical concept for those familiar with the JRPG genre, but it’s the story that has ultimately drawn me in. It is also rare for western audiences to get an Action-RPG with JRPG elements that focus so heavily around Chinese culture, thus making it feel like a fresh experience even when in other instances Sword and Fairy struggles.

Graphically, Sword and Fairy is a big step up from its previous entry visually. Running on Unreal Engine 4, it is filled to the brim with gorgeous character models, creatures, environments, and architecture on PS5. However, it is not consistent outside of cutscenes. Nevertheless, there was more than one moment throughout my playtime where I took pause to appreciate the areas surrounding me.

The gameplay, on the other hand, is where Sword and Fairy is a bit lacking in the first two hours. Taking place primarily in a mountainous terrain, Sword and Fairy is split into different areas. During specific sections of the story there will be side quests available. Sadly though, the ones I tried serve as nothing more than your typical fetch quest.

Similarly, combat also fails to reach the potential it could have, at least so far. Taking place in real-time hack ‘n slash fashion, a first for the series, you have a few combos here and there, but it never felt tight – even with a lock-on feature. Part of this is due to a lack of flow in combat, but another source of frustration both in and out of battle was the camera. I found it continuously getting lost on me, and even after lowering its sensitivity in the Settings menu I still found problems regularly.

Characters are equipped with their own unique abilities like shooting spectral swords, striking down enemies with lightning, or even just general healing – but it could all have been incorporated better. Abilities can’t be activated until your character is done with the move they are currently doing, meaning you cannot cancel into other moves. When it comes to boss battles I did find a little bit more fun by using the environment as a strategic tool to gain an advantage as well as the divisive mechanic that is quick time events, but generally it is more flash over substance.

After my time with Sword and Fairy: Together Forever, it has earned a deeper dive from me despite its flaws. Being most comparable to JRPGs, it made a good impression with its story and presentation immediately giving several unexpected twists in such a short time, even if the gameplay has been middling. All of the characters that I’ve been introduced to have promise, and there are questions the game asks that I want to know the answers to. After playing the first two hours, I suspect that Sword and Fairy will not be for everyone. However, for those willing to give it a chance, I think you may come out surprised by the intimacy and charm that the plot and world brings when the full game releases on PlayStation platforms in August.

Michael Mann has written Heat 2 as a novel, but rest assured that he also wants to make it into a movie.

During an interview with Empire, the 79-year-old filmmaker revealed that he wants to bring his upcoming book to the big screen.

“It’s totally planned to be a movie,” he revealed. “Is it a modest movie? No. Is it a very expensive series? No. It’s going to be one large movie.”

Heat 2 has been in the works for some time – appearing on shelves this August as a novel. Although pegged as a sequel, it’s actually more of a prequel, covering the early years of Detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) as well as Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro), Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer), and Nate (Jon Voight) among others.

Unfortunately, its status as a prequel means that Robert DeNiro and Val Kilmer won’t be back: “I love those guys,” he said. “But they’d have to be six years younger than they were in Heat.”

Why did Mann turn to literature for a sequel? Well, it looks as though he wanted to follow up Heat with a closer look at the film’s characters, getting to grips with their internal struggles as well as the ones we see on screen.

“The ability to which you can deep-dive into the internal world is fascinating, and you can do that best in a novel,” he said. “I try to evoke that experience in the films I make, to locate the audience within the internal world of a character. The novel form allows me an even greater arena.”

Heat is often celebrated among film fans and is considered one of Mann’s best films. It’s for those reasons that Mann believes a sequel is worth making, and why he thinks studios will jump on the prospect of making another film with those characters.

“It’s sustained in culture,” he explained. “It’s known. I could delude myself into thinking that the whole world is familiar with it, but when you check out its prominence in home vid for over 20 years, this thing really has legs. People are still watching it, people are still talking about it. It’s a brand. It’s kind of a Heat universe, in a way. And that certainly justifies a very large ambitious movie.”

Meanwhile, Mann will next be seen bringing Ferrari to the big screen, with Hugh Jackman joining the upcoming biopic as Enzo Ferrari following Christian Bale’s earlier exit.

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

Scott Snyder has become one of the most recognizable names in the comic book industry thanks to his best-selling work on titles like Batman and Justice League. But lately, Snyder has been focusing his efforts on his personal imprint Best Jackett Press and a new wave of creator-owned comics. Just in time for Comic-Con, Snyder is set to launch a new trio of digital-first books as part of the Comixology Originals program.

All week long, IGN will be revealing these new comics and debuting exclusive preview art from each. Scroll down to learn more about the first reveal, Dudley Datson and the Forever Machine, and check back on Thursday and Friday to see the other two books in this lineup.

Dudley Datson and the Forever Machine

Creative Team: Scott Snyder, Jamal Igle, Juan Castro, Chris Sotomayor & Tom Napolitano

Length: 7 issues

Snyder is teaming with Supergirl artist Jamal Igle for a science fiction series about an aspiring inventor who might just be his own worst enemy. Dudley Datson dreams of becoming the next Albert Einstein, but he may have bitten off more than he can chew after building a device that allows him to control time and space.

Read Dudley Datson and the Forever Machine #1 here.

All three series will debut on July 19, just ahead of the start of SDCC. As with all Comixology Originals titles, these books are free to read for subscribers of Comixology Unlimited, Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading, and they can also be purchased individually.

For more on Snyder's recent creator-owned work, check out IGN's previous looks at Snyder and Tula Lotay's Chain and Snyder and Tony Daniel's sci-fi horror series Nocterra.

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

Nintendo has revealed its first special edition OLED Nintendo Switch, themed around Splatoon 3.

Announced on Nintendo's YouTube channel, the Splatoon 3 console comes with a unique dock and Joy-Con controllers that all feature the game's graffiti-esque artwork alongside, naturally, a splash of ink. The dock itself is white with a yellow splat while the left Joy-Con is navy blue blending into purple and the right is yellow blending into green.

The console will be released on August 26 but, as this is two weeks before Splatoon 3's release date of September 9, it will not come with a copy of the game.

Nintendo has not given pricing details yet so it's unclear how much the new console will set customers back. The Splatoon 3-themed Nintendo Switch OLED model will retail for $359.99 — $10 more than the standard Switch OLED model.

It's released a handful of limited-edition versions of the original Switch, including one for Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, one for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and another for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.