The next film in Universal's classic monster universe has been revealed. The studio announced that Bride of Frankenstein will hit theaters in 2019, to be directed by Beauty and the Beast's Bill Condon.
The studio released an image of the Dark Universe cast so far, which also includes Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, and Sofia Boutella, who all star in next month's The Mummy. Check it out below:
In a statement, Condon spoke about remaking such a classic movie. "I'm very excited to bring a new Bride of Frankenstein to life on screen, particularly since James Whale's original creation is still so potent," he said. "The Bride of Frankenstein remains the most iconic female monster in film history, and that's a testament to Whale's masterpiece--which endures as one of the greatest movies ever made."
Bride of Frankenstein hits theaters on February 14, 2019.
Pokemon Go lets players capture nearly every Pokemon from the series' first two generations, with a few notable exceptions: thus far, players have not been able to encounter, let alone capture, any Legendary Pokemon. Recent comments from developer Niantic, however, seem to suggest that Legendary monsters may be appearing in the game soon.
In his acceptance speech at the 21st Annual Webby Awards, where Pokemon Go picked up five awards including "Best Mobile Game," Niantic's global marketing product lead Archit Bhargava said, "This summer will be legendary." While not outright confirmation that Legendary Pokemon are coming to the game, it certainly seems to suggest that's the case; Webby acceptance speeches are traditionally limited to five words, and the fact that Bhargava explicitly included the word "legendary" in his is perhaps the biggest hint yet that Legendary Pokemon are indeed on the way.
Rumors that Legendary Pokemon would be added to Pokemon Go have been circulating since last summer, when the Legendary bird Articuno found its way into--and was quickly revoked from--some players' games. More recently, Niantic CEO John Hanke was asked by Wired Germany when players could expect to see Legendary Pokemon in the game, to which he replied, "I can safely say we'll see more of it this year."
In the meantime, Pokemon Go players can take part in the game's Adventure Week event, which makes it easier to encounter Rock-type Pokemon like Omanyte, Kabuto, Aerodactyl, and Sudowoodo. Players can also get a free "Adventurer's Hat" for their avatar. Adventure Week ends on May 25 at 1 PM PT/4 PM ET.
As Nintendo Switch continues to sell well, more and more games continue to be confirmed for the platform. Bandai Namco is the latest to announce a Switch game, with Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 now officially on the way.
The Switch version will offer ad-hoc multiplayer support and motion controls, according to the publisher. Two-player multiplayer is also supported on a single system and can be played with a single Joy-Con for each player.
Xenoverse 2 doesn't have an exact release date as of yet; Bandai Namco only said it's coming sometime this fall in both North America and Europe. That puts the Switch version about a year behind other versions of the game, which launched for PS4, Xbox One, and PC last October.
In our review of Xenoverse 2, critic Heidi Kemps wrote, "Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is among the best games to emerge from this beloved franchise. It looks stunning, has a solid gameplay base, and gives people who love the series a way to feel like they're a part of this big, beautiful universe. Though it has its share of problems, I was really surprised at how much fun I had with it."
By Anonymous on May 22, 2017 10:20 pm Join Mike and Jake as they play some Multiverse in Injustice 2 and chat with you guys about their thoughts on the game.
Wonder Woman is now only a few weeks from release, and a striking new poster from the DC adventure has been released. It shows Wonder Woman doing some heavy lifting on a battlefield--check it out below:
This poster follows the awesome anime-inspired Chinese one that was revealed last week. The movie stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, and Connie Nielsen and hits theaters on June 2.
It was confirmed this week that the movie will not have a post-credit sequence. Producer Charles Roven told CinemaBlend that DC wouldn't include such scenes just for the sake of it. "I'm not going to say we'd never do one," he said. "There was one in Suicide Squad. But I don't think that we want to feel that we're forced to do something just because we didn't in the past."
Early box office predictions suggest that movie will have a solid opening weekend, with a take of at least $65 million in its first three days. While this is well below the openings for previous DC movies Suicide Squad ($133 million) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million), it is in line with the debut for such Marvel films as Captain America: The First Avenger and Ant-Man.
Wonder Woman will be the first female-fronted superhero movie from either studio, and while Wonder Woman is an iconic figure, the character only appeared briefly in Dawn of Justice and does not necessarily have the built-in box office appeal of Batman or Superman as yet.
Ubisoft has revealed Far Cry 5 will be set in Hope County, Montana. The location was revealed by way of teaser trailers posted on YouTube. The videos are short and focused on the environment itself, though there's a disturbing element in each one.
The first shows a serene river, but a few seconds in, a dead body can be seen floating along it. In the second, wind whips across a field, but then a man is shown running through it before he is mercilessly gunned down by someone off screen. We'll let you experience the others for yourself. Take a look at them below.
Each video also ends by confirming there will be a "worldwide reveal" on Friday May 26.
Ubisoft previously confirmed Far Cry 5 will be out during the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2018. There are no further details as of yet, but Ubisoft has promised to show more off "soon." It is likely we'll finally see gameplay on May 26.
Inti Creates' two Azure Striker Gunvolt games are coming to Nintendo Switch this year in one package, the developer announced at Japanese game convention BitSummit.
Dubbed the Azure Striker Gunvolt: Striker Pack, the bundle consists of the first Azure Striker Gunvolt and its sequel Azure Striker Gunvolt 2, both of which were originally released on 3DS. Along with HD Rumble and Switch Pro Controller support, the package features a number of tweaks and improvements to the original titles, such as redone menus, high-resolution event graphics, and an improved framerate (60 FPS as opposed to 30). Striker Pack also includes all of the additional bosses, stages, and other DLC that was released for the games. You can watch the announcement trailer at the top of this story.
Striker Pack isn't the only Gunvolt game coming to Switch this year; Inti Creates also pulled back the curtain on Mighty Gunvolt Burst, the follow-up to the Gunvolt series' 8-bit offshoot, Mighty Gunvolt. Like its predecessor, Burst features both series hero Gunvolt and Mighty No. 9's Beck as playable characters, each with their own unique abilities. The game's title is derived from its "Burst" mechanic; when players shoot an enemy from "point-blank range," it triggers a powerful Burst combo. The game also features a "deep" customization system, as well as a dowsing ability that uses Switch's HD Rumble to help you locate secrets. You can learn more in the trailer below.
Mighty Gunvolt Burst is releasing on the Switch eShop on June 15 and on the 3DS eShop on June 29. The game retails for $10 on both consoles. Azure Striker Gunvolt: Striker Pack, meanwhile, is launching on August 31, though Inti Creates has not yet announced pricing details.
Sony Pictures has decided on a new direction for its film adaptation of the Uncharted series. Rather than casting someone as the Nathan Drake we've become accustomed to seeing in the games, it's going back in time.
According to Deadline, Sony has decided to turn its Uncharted movie into a prequel. It will feature the 20-year-old Tom Holland--the current big-screen Spider-Man--in the role of Drake, with Shawn Levy (Real Steel, Night at the Museum) directing. Inspiration was drawn from a sequence in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, which revealed the first encounter between Drake and his longtime buddy, Victor Sullivan. A script has not yet been written for this new concept, and there's no word on who will pen it.
The report states the idea was conceptualized by Sony Pictures boss Tom Rothman "after seeing the latest cut" of Spider-Man: Homecoming. That movie marks the second time Holland will play Spider-Man, following last year's Captain America: Civil War.
Earlier this year, we learned that a new script had been completed for the movie by Joe Carnahan (Smokin' Aces, The A-Team). Game developer Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann later denied a comment from Carnahan suggesting the developer was happy with the movie. Druckmann said Naughty Dog had not seen the script and that he wished Carnahan would "stop implying that he has our support."
Destiny is a beloved but flawed game. A common source of complaints was the fact that much of its backstory was relegated to Grimoire cards, which could not actually be viewed in-game. With Destiny 2, Bungie intends to resolve the issue by eliminating Grimoire cards altogether.
Destiny 2 world lead Steve Cotton shared the news in an interview with Forbes, explaining that Bungie "want[s] to put the lore in the game." That means no more trips to Bungie's website or app to read information that can't be seen while playing.
"We want people to be able to find the lore," Cotton said. "All the story is told through the Adventures, it's told through the characters in the world, it's told through the campaign, and it's told through scannables you find throughout the world."
Adventures are a new brand of side-quest that players can complete while exploring the world; as we learned last week, there's now more to do in the open-world than complete repetitive, throwaway Patrol missions.
Pokemon fans with money to burn, this one's for you. Luxury watchmaker Romain Jerome has created an exceptionally detailed Pokemon Tourbillon watch with a hefty price tag: US $258,000.
The Swiss watchmaker describes the watch as having an "incredible and captivating 3D effect, such that the characters look animated and ready to pop out at any second. As the most famous of them all, Pikachu is the centrepiece and is placed at the forefront."
But it's also what's inside that makes the watch so expensive, says Romain Jerome. "The dial, made entirely by hand, required hundreds of hours to create due to the numerous colors present which needed to be created and then hand-filled one by one. The case back was equally thought-through, and we can admire the oscillating weight of the self-winding tourbillon--laser-shaped like a lightning bolt--and Pikachu seen from the back."
This is the second Pokemon watch from Romain Jerome. Last year, the company created an entirely Pikachu-themed watch. That watch cost US $20,000--peanuts compared to this year's creation.
This year's $258K Pokemon Tourbillon on the left, last year's $20K Pikachu watch on the right.
That Pikachu watch was limited to just 20 watches available. While Romain Jerome doesn't say just how many of this year's Pokemon Tourbillon watches it's making, it does say it is "exclusive in concept and rare in quantity," words that are sure to strike a nerve with Pokemon players. If you have the money to spend, you can head over to Romain Jerome's website to place your order.
By Anonymous on May 22, 2017 08:30 pm Having beaten the original, Miguel tells FFXII newcomer Kallie that this world of Ivalice is worth coming back to.
LawBreakers, the new shooter from ex-Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski and his studio Boss Key Productions, will not be a PC exclusive. In addition to the PC version, which remains in closed beta, LawBreakers is now headed to PlayStation 4--and it finally has a price on both platforms.
Boss Key had previously been hesitant to confirm a console version, saying it would need a "great partner" to make it happen. But Boss Key has decided the only way to do it would be to handle the project internally, it revealed during a roundtable attended by GameSpot.
"The thing we realized, doing something like console, some of this stuff--like tweaking controls--is so close to the gameplay and so close to making the game ultimately very playable, that there's nobody else outside of us that can do that," explained Boss Key COO Arjan Brussee. "You need Cliff in front of the TV, hands on the controller, giving feedback. You can't outsource that."
Brussee claimed that bringing the game to PS4 hasn't been a distraction from development of the PC version--and, in fact, computer players stand to benefit. He said LawBreakers now runs a "lot smoother" on PC as Boss Key leverages "synergies" with console development.
One of the challenges of bringing LawBreakers to console is adapting its keyboard and mouse controls for a controller, a difference that Bleszinski describes as "fairly significant." He recounted going through the process at Epic Games when developing the first Gears of War, considering things like how much the crosshair sticks to enemies when aiming with a controller.
"Being a skill-based game, you want players to still earn their kills," he explained. "You don't want them to feel like, 'Oh, the game helped me.' Some shooters do the whole 'look down iron sights and you clearly target-lock an enemy.' I don't want the game to have that too much; I want this very light, little bit of that assistance in the game. It was a challenge that required a lot of iteration, a lot of that kind of feel of the game--feel where the acceleration ramps are, [asking] am I turning too quickly? Am I not turning enough? We've gotten it to a really fun place."
"It does play slightly differently because you can't always directly compete with the pacing of keyboard and mouse," he added, "but with a game that's so hectic, I actually still enjoy the PlayStation 4 version immensely."
As for the decision to come only to PS4, it doesn't sound as if other consoles have been ruled out. It was noted throughout the roundtable that Boss Key is still a relatively small studio of about 65--"We're not Call of Duty with five studios and 1,000 people," Brussee noted--and those limited resources may explain the decision to start out with only a single console. Specifically asked if we could see the game on Xbox One or Nintendo Switch, Bleszinski said, "Anything's possible."
Although Boss Key didn't go into much detail, PS4 Pro support will be offered for LawBreakers, with at least one of the improvements coming in the form of a higher framerate. But whether you play on PS4 or PS4 Pro, what you won't see are PC players--that's because "cross-play is dumb," as Bleszinski put it.
Alongside the news of a PS4 version, Boss Key has also reaffirmed that LawBreakers won't use a free-to-play model, which it was slated to use at one point. Instead, the game will offer a "starting" price of $30, which entitles players to all future "content upgrades" for free. That includes things like new characters, maps, and modes, all of which will be available to the entire player base. Among other things, this has the benefit of not harming matchmaking by splitting up players, which Bleszinski believes is particularly crucial for a skill-based game.
Like so many other games these days, what Boss Key will offer are cosmetic items for characters and weapons that can be purchased. The specifics of how this will work remain unclear, including whether these items can all be obtained by simply playing the game.
"I think we have a really compelling lineup of cool-looking stuff, and I think we're building a lot of ways for people to show that off," Brussee says.
Being a shooter with distinct characters that each have their own abilities, LawBreakers invariably gets compared with Overwatch. And while that certainly presents Boss Key with a major competitor, Bleszinski sees LawBreakers as distinct enough to stand apart.
"Overwatch is a great game, but it has its own kind of Pixar art style, and we're not that," he said. "They're a game that feels more like a game that has abilities and characters as a shooter, and we're a super-core shooter that has characters and abilities. I'm happy that your average person out there, with Overwatch, now knows how to play a character-based game with Q and E ability or Shift; it's kind of prepped people for us to hopefully come in and be Pepsi to their Coke is the example; I'll even settle for RC Cola."
LawBreakers does not yet have a release date, but Boss Key hopes to launch it at the same time on both PC and PS4. Beta tests are ongoing on PC, and there will be at least one held on PS4 at an unspecified date.
My very first hands-on with Middle-earth: Shadow of War was a disaster. At a press event held last week, developer Monolith wheeled out the sequel to the wholly surprising Shadow of Mordor (GameSpot's 2014 Game of the Year), allowing attending journalists to take on one of the game's expansive new additions, Fort Assaults. And my playthrough was a complete flop.
In my 20 minutes with Shadow of War, I guided the game's returning main character--ranger/wraith duo Talion and Celebrimbor--to three deaths, falling to three different warchiefs and never quite making it to the fort's overlord. Killing the overlord would have granted me control of the fort and its surrounding regions, one step closer towards Shadow of War's main quest of conquering the various regions of Mordor in order to build an army strong enough to take on big bad Sauron himself.
To be fair, the Fort Assaults in Shadow of War are meant to be the culminating act in an hours-long endeavor, the crescendo after you've carefully considered the fort overlord and his warchiefs' strengths and weaknesses, plotted out ways to possibly infiltrate the keep with your own subjects, and amassed your own forces. Outside all the flashy wraith powers and over-the-top limb chopping of the game's combat system, Shadow of War is meant to be a thoughtful experience, requiring players to consider their approach to besting its various challenges. My playthrough of Shadow of War was a rush job that didn't take into account any of my enemies' shortcomings. That, coupled with the new hard difficulty I was playing on, meant it was my Talion who came up short.
It's a credit to Shadow of War's Nemesis system, returned and expanded upon from Shadow of Mordor, that other journalists who played during the hands-on event had vastly different experiences with their individual Fort Assaults. One breezed through and easily took the fort, with their follower's randomly generated strengths and weaknesses matching up well against the overlord and their warchiefs; others, meanwhile, experienced various levels of failures and successes. The Nemesis system--which now also incorporates the characteristics and stories of orcs you manage to turn to your cause--was the standout feature in Mordor, and even with my brief time with Shadow of War, it seems clear that Nemesis will once again be the thing players will talk about most with Monolith's new game.
The randomness and surprise inherent in Nemesis even seems to take its creators by surprise. At one point during our first look at Shadow of War, Monolith creative VP Michael de Plater expressed surprise at a type of orc warchief he'd never seen before. After our gameplay session, I chatted with de Plater about the Monolith team's attempt at surpassing the extremely well-received first game, and he spoke candidly about the pressures of making a big-budget game in today's environment.
GameSpot: I think the most interesting thing for me in that presentation was when you saw one of the orc characters and you went, "Oh, I've never seen him before." How often does that happen to you?
Michael de Plater: Every single day at the moment. We have all of this dialogue and we have all of these traits and all the strengths and weaknesses and then we have all of the roles. Then we have all of the character art, or the body paint or the piercings, or the scars that can modify all of that. Then we have all the animations. It's just a ridiculously colossal amount of content in each one of those buckets, but then you have to take all of that content and put it all together. It's actually very late in the process that it all starts to click.
In Shadow of Mordor, we had variety. The characters had differences, but it was a little bit more random variety, whereas now, we really have procedurally generated characters. We still have more variety, but now, when you do meet someone, what he looks and what his role is and what his personality is, and where you find him in the world and what he is doing--all those things are lining up a lot more.
It seems to me that the more complexity you add to something, the greater your points of possible failure. Was that ever a concern for you, that you were trying to bite off too much?
Having been really ambitious in every dimension from the cameras to the art, and then to build all that, it's like basically building a plane and watching it coming in to land. Seeing it all click into place, at the end, was really terrifying.
I think it was a long time before we were even up to the level of Shadow of Mordor, because a lot of the pieces were separate, and then we just leapfrogged past it. Now when we play, we get these orcs that are so much more memorable and have such stronger stories. We can weave in things like guys who are saving you or guys who betray you. There's genuine surprises for people every single day.
Then when we do do our playtests and we have people writing down their stories of things they most remember, on Shadow of Mordor, we'd find most of those stories would clump into a few groups; "I hate this guy and I want to kill him," or, "I got revenge." Whereas now with Shadow of War, the spectrum of what those stories can do is so much larger and more diverse.
Was there ever a stage where you thought, 'Wait, we're gonna have to scale back a little bit?'
Not as much as last time. Again, with Shadow of Mordor, it was Monolith and my first experience in this genre and this type of game, so we really didn't have a very strong idea of how to scope it. We were massively ambitious and the result of that was that we had to cap things very significantly, in particular, basically the last half of the story. This time, we had a much better idea of what we could do. I think actually, when we go back and we look at the original scope and the original goals in terms of the scale of it, I think we hit those pretty well. We didn't grind or cut anything dramatic, it was just harder than we thought.
What were some things you couldn't include in Shadow of Mordor for time or technical reasons, that you've been able to now include in War?
The big one is the story. Last time, the finale and the end of the story was not as satisfying because we basically had to cut off a lot of that. We wanted to have the big iconic villains. We wanted to face Sauron and face Nazgul and explore all of that. We had to cut all that. The scale and variety of the world as well, so really making a significant open-world game.
Also, just the types of stories and the breadth of stories that we could put into the Nemesis system. We had a concept of what it could be like and a lot of them were really fun. I think what happened most with the Nemesis system last time was, as you got further towards the end of the game in particular, even though they had different strengths and weakness in the text, they became more similar to fight towards the end of the game, because we didn't have as many gameplay tools in our toolbox to make them truly different. Whereas this time, we actually are able to make them meaningfully different.
Monolith came out with Shadow of Mordor and it was a big surprise and everybody loved it, but now you have to build on that. Does that add to your stress?
Probably some people would disagree, but I think stress for us is generally a really positive thing because our whole studio is devoted to one game. That assumption is like, basically, if we fail, we're doomed. It's all or nothing, which is really exciting and really motivating. That was very clear on Shadow of Mordor; that was the situation. "This is our first go in this genre. If we don't succeed, no one's gonna give us another chance." I think we feel exactly the same.
That sounds super stressful.
Yeah, it is. It's super stressful, but there's not a lot of triple-A games or triple-A studios, so I think you have to have that mentality that you're either doing something great or probably no one's going to want to give you the large sums of money it takes to try and do that again.
You're always going to swing for the fences, is that right?
Yeah.
You've confirmed Xbox Scorpio and PS4 Pro support. But can you get this on the Switch?
In addition to the recently-announced Splatoon 2 Switch bundle, Nintendo is now offering an actual empty box for preorder in Japan. The box comes adorned with Splatoon 2 art, and it can be yours for the low, low price of ¥540 (approximately $5). It's the exact same box the bundle comes packaged in, except it contains neither Splatoon 2 nor a Switch console.
The company says the ¥540 (approximately $5) item is "recommended for Splatoon fans who already have Nintendo Switch." It is not currently listed for sale on the US, UK, or Australian Nintendo Stores.
That's not the only strange Splatoon 2 package you can buy, however. In a separate listing on Nintendo's official Japanese store, the company is also selling a boxed edition of the shooter that doesn't come with a game cartridge. Instead, you'll get a plastic box containing a paper download code.
This is separate to a proper physical game card edition and a third version that comes with a download code and no plastic case. According to Kotaku, all three versions are the same price in Japan: ¥6458 (approximately $58). No other games currently have a "Game Card Free Version" listed for sale.
Splatoon 2--and its empty box variants--will launch globally on July 21. Nintendo recently confirmed the Switch exclusive will have a single-player mode in addition to its multiplayer portion. Take a look at the campaign in this new trailer.
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Join Mike and Jake as they play some Multiverse in Injustice 2 and chat with you guys about their thoughts on the game.
The gravity-defying LawBreakers is coming to PlayStation 4! Take a look at the latest trailer.
Having beaten the original, Miguel tells FFXII newcomer Kallie that this world of Ivalice is worth coming back to.
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