The Xbox One X is set to launches on November 7. Releasing alongside it is Super Lucky's Tale, which is one of the first games designed to take full advantage of Microsoft's upcoming console. We had a chance to speak with Playful Corp CEO Paul Bettner to get the game developer's take on just how powerful the system is.
In our in-depth hardware-focused interview, Bettner suggests that the Xbox One X can deliver performance on par with a high-end PC and confirms that it's a console that's capable of delivering true 4K experiences.
GameSpot: In terms of processing power, how much faster would you say the Xbox One X is over the Xbox One? And, if you guys have had a chance to use the PlayStation 4 Pro, could you compare it to that as well?
Paul Bettner: Super Lucky's Tale is only an Xbox game, so we've never compared the performance running on PlayStation because it's a Microsoft title. These questions are tricky to answer because performance is, at least the way we look at it, measured across several different sectors, like what the CPU can do, especially what the GPU can do, and then memory bandwidth, and the ability of the machine to actually get out of the way and let the game run as fast as possible. There have been powerful consoles, obviously, in the past, but sometimes they're held back by an underlying architecture that doesn't really let us tap into the full performance of the system.
It's probably the closest Microsoft's ever gotten to delivering true high-end PC performance in a console type form factor. - Paul Bettner
I have an engineering background, but I'm not actually doing engineering on the project, but just speaking a bit for our engineers and just what I've seen as we've been working on it, it's probably the easiest console that we've ever worked with to get it to be high-performance. I hope our engineers don't hate me for saying that because I don't think that their job was easy by any means! But I mean that going from not having the console in our hands to getting our first dev kit to getting the game running solidly at 4K, 60 Hz, is the fastest that we've ever gone from getting new hardware in our hands to tapping into the full performance of the box. 4K, 60 Hz on a device that's small and low-cost, relatively speaking, compared to a high-end TV, is no joke. It's not easy to hit that level of performance, just generally, consistently, so yeah; high-level, we've been really impressed with the raw horsepower of the box, but really, the overall architecture lets us tap into that and doesn't get in the way of our game performance.
Playful's Super Lucky's Tale will release alongside the Xbox One X.
How would you say the Xbox One X compares to a modern gaming PC?
Well, at the time that we got the Xbox One X in our hands when we were first doing some of our initial tests, we had Super Lucky's Tale still running on PC and we are shipping it on PC, so people can do the comparisons themselves when the game launches because it's an Xbox Play Anywhere game, which means you can buy it once [digitally] and it's available on Windows and on Xbox. But from our own work, we saw ... And I said this at E3 when we first announced the game too, we were just kind of shocked by how close the performance was between the Xbox One X and the high-end PC that we were working with at the time. Most of our developers have high-end PCs, and doing those initial builds, getting the game initially up and running around the E3 time frame on the Xbox Dev Kit that we have. Our expectation was, "Well, clearly we're gonna have to change some things to get it to run as fast as it's been running on our PCs," but [laughs] there was really very little that had to change. Almost right out of the box it was performing at the level of a high-end PC and that's ... I mean, people will see that when they get their hands on the box coming out in a few weeks, but it's probably the closest Microsoft's ever gotten to delivering true high-end PC performance in a console-type form factor.
As it pertains to the PC space, what GPU do you think it most closely aligns with?
That's hard to say. We haven't directly compared it ... And you know, so many things working, it's very dependent on the game. Some games, they're not necessarily GPU-bound, but we're actually ... Super Lucky's Tale is kind of right in the middle; we have a decent amount of particle simulation and physics and stuff running so that we're doing a pretty good job of utilizing the CPU and the GPU at the same time. It's really hard to tell, actually. It depends on the games. It's definitely within the realm of [Nvidia's 10-series cards], ranging from the 1060 to 1080. It's somewhere in that range, looking at the comparisons that we've done, but it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison of exactly where it's at as it really depends on the games and the CPU and things like that...it's like current generation of Nvidia [hardware]. With a new console, I'm used to it being at least a generation or two behind, but that's not how this box has been performing for us. It's very current gen, which is amazing.
Lucky's Tale is gonna run in 4K. Is that native 4K (non-upscaled}? And will it also support HDR?
It is truly native 4K. It's not supporting HDR--actually, it's unclear. We keep doing these experiments. I think the first version that launches won't have HDR. It may be coming in the future, but we haven't committed or announced it yet. The reason for that is more complicated. The Xbox obviously supports HDR out of the box, and I love HDR, it's awesome, but the tool change for building HDR content, especially the engines like Unreal and Unity, it's not as clear-cut. There's a lot of things that go into making a game look good on HDR displays. If you just look at our studio, the way that it works, not all our developers have HDR displays hooked up, in fact only a few do, so authoring HDR content really requires setting up an entire HDR tool chain, and we just started doing that a couple months ago. so it's really more on us to …it's a content development challenge, and so we're getting spun up with it, but I think it's gonna be a little while longer before we have a full HDR tool chain up and running at the studio. But the box is just sitting there waiting for us to do it, we'll get there!
"I'm gonna wanna play all my console games on an Xbox One X for the foreseeable future." - Paul Bettner
Okay. Piggybacking off of that, what are your thoughts on 4K and HDR as a developer?
They're amazing...But again, if I had to pick, my personal ordering of what's important, I would probably pick frame rate first. The fact that, especially for a platforming game, running it through 60 Hz contributes greatly to how the game feels and how easy it is to control and how responsive it feels. For me, that's actually the most important thing is to be able to render a high-fidelity environment at 60 Hz.
Secondly, for me, is 4K. Most people can see the difference that it makes, especially, if they have a 4K monitor. And we are running in native 4K. HDR is more subtle and like I said, I think… Tuning the look of a game to fully take advantage of HDR displays is kind of cutting edge for our industry right now. There are studios that, I think, that are getting great work on the frontier, like I've just been playing Uncharted. That game does a really good job of taking advantage of the full dynamic range that HDR can provide. They've been doing that for a while, but I think that the industry, we're all kind of tooling up and gearing up to be able to make content that takes full advantage of HDR displays. That's probably more of a next year thing, and that kind of matches the rollout of the technology itself in terms of consumer adoption of HDR displays. It feels like there's a decent amount of them in households today. And from here going forward, all displays are going to be HDR, and I'm sure all our games will be that going forward as well.
Do you think the Xbox One X has enough graphical horsepower to natively render the more graphically demanding games at 4K or will rendering shortcuts like checkerboard rendering have to be used?
I think that most all of the games that you would play today on a high-end PC, that the Xbox One X can render those at 4K full frame rate. That's the amazing thing about it. Now, of course, as you would expect, progress on the PC front is non-stop, so there'll be a next generation of GPUs coming out soon, I'm sure, and will enable even further advancements in what's possible graphically. And next year's PCs are gonna be able to do things that this year's technology can't do, but at least in terms of the games that people are familiar with today, and the fidelity that people would want to see those games at, when they get their hands on the Xbox One X, they're gonna see that it's delivering that high-end PC performance. And especially more so than what other consoles can do right now, it is a pretty significant step beyond anything else on the market in terms of performance.
Graphically, you mentioned that it performs somewhere between a GTX 1060 and a 1080.
Yeah, somewhere in there, just depending on the games, obviously.
GPUs like the GTX 1060 and 1070, some of them will struggle to run the most graphically demanding games on PC at 4K. Do you chalk it up to optimizations on the Xbox One X that allow it to bridge that performance gap?
Yeah, so this has always been the case. When developing a game for a console, there's just a lot more that is possible in terms of maxing out memory bandwidth and utilizing the architecture of the system to the full advantage for the game's performance that you can't necessarily get when you're running in a more managed environment like the operating system on a PC. That gap is not as wide as it used to be... I think that consoles several years ago, you were running straight on the metal, there was barely even an operating system at all. These days, there's a little bit more of a layer between the game and the hardware, but still, the ability for an application or a game to give access to the raw power of the hardware on the console is still beyond what's possible on non-console platforms...The gap is narrowing a bit but for developers like us, when we have the ability to specifically target that fixed platform and we can make optimizations because we know exactly what the architecture is on the Xbox. That's something that you can't do on a PC because we have to target a much wider range of hardware, so that's why generally, and certainly in our case, we're able to squeeze more performance out of the equivalent hardware on a console.
Do you think that that performance gap is shrinking in part because consoles have become much more like PCs with their x86 architecture?
It's actually on both sides, so yeah, that's one reason. Another reason is there are more things the consoles are doing in the background than they've done before, like operating system level things. I mean folks [at Sony and Microsoft] have done a really good job of making sure that stuff never consumes more than a certain amount of the device, and the game has the majority of what's there. But the other actual aspect of it is that on the PC side, and even on the Mac side, there have just been continued developments in graphics APIs like Metal, for instance, on the Mac where you get more direct access to the metal access then used to be the case. There's less layers of abstraction there. But still, there's just always gonna be an advantage in being able to build for a fixed hardware platform that isn't gonna change, and you don't have to worry about different hardware configurations that customers have. That is always going to enable a greater performance advantage. ...The challenge is ... So you ship a game on a PC, you can't just target that one graphics card, you have to create a game that ships across all these different configurations, but on the console, you can squeeze every last ounce of performance out of it, because you know that every customer has the exact same silicon.
Can you describe the differences between Super Lucky's Tale on the Xbox One X vs. the regular Xbox One?
Sure. So the main difference is no 4K, the other big difference... The Xbox One S should run 1080p, and I think that across several games that are shipping on both those platforms, that's similar. Like the Xbox One X is a device made with 4K, on the Xbox One S it's 1080p performance. In Super Lucky's Tale's case, the other difference is that the game doesn't all run at 60 Hz on the Xbox One S. I think the majority of the game runs at a locked 30 frames per second, or 30 Hz, on the Xbox One S, whereas the Xbox One X is entirely 4K 60Hz. And the PC version is dependent on what kind of hardware you have.
Is there a part of you that hopes more people will play the game on the Xbox One X over its regular Xbox One counterpart for better visuals and higher frame rate?
That's a great question! Not necessarily, I think that ... I'm very much a fan of Microsoft's strategy. This generation of hardware, this is the first time ... And I think not a lot of people have noticed this or recognized this, what Microsoft is doing, because this is the first time really that you have the launch of a new console generation alongside hearty support for the previous generation and Microsoft saying, "You know what? You can buy either of these consoles and we're gonna continue to ship great games that work across this entire ecosystem. If you decide to upgrade, because you just got a brand new 4K TV and you wanna get the absolute best performance out of it, you can go get an Xbox One X and, in fact, the games you bought on your Xbox One S will continue to work. You don't have to re-buy them, you can just upgrade."
That's a brand-new thing in the console market, so from my perspective, our mission at Playful is to build IP that people love and get it into as many people's hands as possible, so I love the fact that the enormous Xbox One S audience is gonna get to play this game on the same day as the Xbox One X, the brand-new Xbox One X audience. And I love that for the consumers that care and really want that high-end experience, that we're giving that to them, and it's probably one of the best-looking platforming games that I've ever seen. And the Xbox One S players get something that is pretty much the best looking on their piece of hardware for their 1080p TV also. So if I were talking to someone about it and saying, "Do I encourage one way or the other," I'm just happy the largest possible audience gets to play the game.
Microsoft has sort of made it an onus for developers to make games compatible across the Xbox One X and the Xbox One. Does this philosophy hold back the Xbox One X in unleashing its true performance in any way?
That's another really good question. So I can't speak to ... what it's like for different game developers. Like we were saying earlier, the performance profile on different games is very different, but in our case, it was actually a fairly seamless thing. Like the performance delta between 1080p 30 Hz and 4K 60 Hz is very similar across these two pieces of hardware. The amount of extra pixels and fidelity that we're pushing on the Xbox One X is ... There's not a lot of difference between what we had to do to get the game running on the Xbox One S at 1080p 30 Hz and the Xbox One X at 4K 60 Hz, so that was a great advantage for us in building this one game for both those platforms. If that's the case for other developers, that's phenomenal because there's almost no porting effort involved. You can build the game and, if you're automatically targeting the higher resolution and higher frame rate, or even just the higher resolution that the Xbox One X can do and features like HDR, then you get those and you kind of gracefully step down to the Xbox One S level of performance by just going to a lower resolution and not doing the additional HDR and post-processing effects, that kind of rendering overhead, without a ton of other differences between those two.
But I think there will be developers that push the Xbox One X even further than we have. I mean, we're one of the first to get the dev kit and we're one of the first games shipping natively on this device, but it's always the case that once more people get their hands on the hardware and have worked with it for longer that they start squeezing even way more performance out of it, and so the gap between the two devices is probably gonna grow over time. The Xbox One, at this point, is a well-understood piece of hardware that has a lot of the optimizations and that work has already been done, but for the Xbox One X, that's just starting.
Is there anything that might be surprising to our readers about the Xbox One X or your experience working on it?
So I'm a game developer and also a gamer, so as a game developer having had the Xbox One X for six months now and having worked with it, played with it, it's clear to me that I'm gonna wanna play all my console games on an Xbox One X for the foreseeable future, until the next generation comes along, I guess. There is quite a performance gap, and performance advantage in this piece of hardware, and so, I just know since I've been making games for a long time that as the developers begin to release their titles for this platform that they're going to look and play better.
The Assassin's Creed series has always been known for its extensive storyline and dense lore and mythology. The latest entry Assassin's Creed Origins is a prequel to the franchise, but it's useful to learn about key characters and events from past games. To help get you up to speed on all the important happenings in the Assassin's Creed universe, here's a recap of everything you need to know before jumping into Assassin's Creed Origins. Be wary, there are major spoilers ahead.
In the beginning, Earth was inhabited by the Isu, an ancient species of advanced humanoids. They possessed precognitive abilities and were gifted scientists; they also had incredibly long lifespans, though they were not immortal. Their immense power and intelligence lead them to create the human race, whom they designed in their image to be a capable, but docile, workforce. But in order to ensure that humanity remained subservient to their rule, the Isu created several powerful devices--later known to humanity as Pieces of Eden--to enslave their minds.
Rebellion And War
When the Isu created humanity, they designed them to be born with a chemical neurotransmitter in their brains that made them susceptible to the Pieces of Eden. However, over time interbreeding between humans and Isu lead to the creation of a hybrid race, who were immune to the effects of the mind-controlling devices of their benefactors. This resulted in an uprising by two hybrids, Adam and Eve, who stole a Piece of Eden known as the Apple to wage war against the Isu.
While the Isu were technologically superior to humans, the ensuing war took a toll on them as they were heavily outnumbered; a result of the Isu having produced so many humans to work for them. After a decade's worth of fighting, the conflict came to an abrupt end due to a massive solar flare that devastated the Earth, resulting in heavy losses on both sides. This event became known as the Toba Catastrophe.
Last Ditch Effort
During the war, there were three Isu scientists--Minerva, Juno, and Jupiter--who were actually aware of the solar flare that would hit Earth. They endeavored to prevent it by researching six different solutions; however, none adequately provided what was needed. Eventually Minerva created a seventh solution known as the Eye, a device capable of allowing them to manipulate the patterns and equations of existence. With its power, the Isu could deploy a planetary magnetic shield that would deflect the incoming disaster.
In the midst of the experiments, Juno developed a deep hatred for humans. She made plans to take over the world and enslave humanity in the solar flare's aftermath. However, Minerva and Jupiter caught wind of this and imprisoned her consciousness. But before Juno could be sealed away, she tampered with the pattern of the Eye, so that it would release her from prison upon its activation. Minerva discovered this and decided that instead of letting Juno get her way, it would be best to destroy the device and let the solar flare occur.
Messages To The Next Generation
Before the solar flare arrived to Earth, Minerva crafted a second Eye to relay messages to future generations of humanity in hopes of giving them the knowledge needed to prevent an inevitable second catastrophe. These messages were locked away in vaults hidden throughout the planet.
Despite these attempts to help the future of humanity, Juno's evil ambitions persisted. In her imprisonment, she managed to fix the first Eye and used it to commune with future generations in hopes of swaying them towards accomplishing her goals.
Reconciliation and The Fall of the Isu
The impact of the solar flare flipped the polarity of Earth's magnetic field and exposed it to the Sun's deadly radiation. While both the Isu and humanity survived the disaster, their numbers began to dwindle. As a result, both species made peace and worked together to rebuild the world.
Several Isu took steps to influence the human race, endeavoring to spread their knowledge. Some of these attempts would manifest themselves in superstitions and religious myths passed through the ages across different cultures. Despite their best efforts to preserve their ways, the Isu eventually went extinct. Humanity continued to thrive through the centuries ahead, slowly forgetting the existence of the Isu as they split off into new civilizations and cultures.
The Assassins And The Templars: A Battle of Ideology
As the centuries passed, humans began to discover several Pieces of Eden, which had survived the destruction of the Toba Catastrophe. The power the artifacts stirred debate towards how to use them for humanity's benefit. There were many who sought to fulfill humanity's true potential and decided it would be best to use the artifacts to create a utopia. While there were others who stood against their use, opting to give humanity complete freedom where all could live according to their own will. These two beliefs eventually manifested into two respective organizations, the Templars and the Assassins, who went on to wage a covert war spanning most of human history.
Enter Desmond Miles
A key player in the Assassin-Templar conflict was a man named Desmond Miles. A modern day Assassin, Desmond was wary of his organization's tenets and lifestyle growing up. At age 16, he fled home and moved to New York City to work as a bartender. However, he could not escape his origins, and was kidnapped by the Templars, who had at this point masked their activities under the guise of a company called Abstergo.
The unwilling Assassin was taken to one of Abstergo's laboratories where he was used as a test subject in the Animus, a device that could read the memories of a person's ancestors through the genetic memory encoded in their DNA. Leading the research experiment was a scientist named Warren Vidic and his assistant, Lucy Stillman. Their goal was to discover the locations of the Pieces of Eden.
Assassin's Creed -- Destiny
Desmond was made to relive the genetic memory of his ancestor, Altair Ibn-La'Ahad--a member of the Assassin order during the Third Crusade. By exploring Altair's memories, Vidic was able to discover the locations of numerous Pieces of Eden. After finding this out, Abstergo executives ordered Desmond's execution, as he had outlived his usefulness; however, Lucy revealed to Desmond that she was an undercover agent of the Assassins, and promised his safety.
Assassin's Creed II -- Becoming an Assassin and a Message From Minerva
Lucy busted Desmond out his cell and the two escaped from the Abstergo laboratory. Arriving at one of the Assassins' hideouts, Desmond and Lucy met with fellow members of the order, Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane. Their new goal was to train Desmond to be an Assassin using the Bleeding Effect, a symptom induced by prolonged exposure to the Animus that allowed a person to inherit abilities from their ancestors.
Desmond returned to the Animus to experience the memories of Ezio Auditore, an Assassin who lived through the Italian Renaissance. As the group pushed further into the Italian Assassin's memories, they discovered his encounter with one of Minerva's messages, which warned of the impending catastrophe and recounted the story of the war between the Isu and humanity. But what shocked Desmond was Minerva revealing that she was actually talking to him through Ezio. Following this revelation, Desmond was pulled from the Animus, as the Templars discovered their location. Despite an altercation with Vidic and his goons, the group managed to escape.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood -- Finding the Apple
The group fled north and set up shop at Monteriggioni, the former headquarters of the Italian Brotherhood during the 14th century. Once again Desmond used the Animus to dive into Ezio's memories in hopes of discovering information that could help the Assassins. However, the Bleeding Effect soon began to take a toll on him, as he began to experience more hallucinations. Regardless, Desmond pushed through it and learned that Ezio hid an Apple of Eden under the Colosseum in Rome.
At the Colosseum, the group discovered a path leading to an underground chamber where the Apple was held. A hologram of Juno appeared before them to reveal the existence of the Isu's secret vaults. Desmond then grabbed the Apple from its pedestal, but in doing so, the artifact activated, allowing Juno to take control of him and kill Lucy. The shock of the ordeal caused Desmond to fall into a coma.
Assassin's Creed: Revelations -- Escape From the Black Room
After the events of Lucy's murder, William Miles--Desmond's father and the de facto leader of the Assassins--dispatched several Assassins to retrieve the group from the Colosseum vault. Desmond was put back into the Animus to stabilize his condition. He awakened to find himself inside the Black Room, a safe mode built into the Animus' programming. There he met a visual construct of Clay Kaczmarek, a man who used the Animus prior to him during Vidic's experiments. Kaczmarek informed Desmond that he needed to keep reliving his ancestors' memories in order to awaken from his coma.
Desmond experienced not only the later years of Ezio's life, but Altair's as well. His journey through the memories of both his ancestors allowed him to discover a message from Jupiter, who revealed the location of the Grand Temple, which housed all of the research conducted to prevent the first solar flare. After having discovered this, Desmond awakened from his coma, with Shaun, Rebecca, and his father standing beside him.
Assassin's Creed III -- Finding the Grand Temple Key
As Desmond searched through Connor's memories, he occasionally took breaks to embark on missions to obtain batteries to power the Animus. However, the arrival of the second solar flare rapidly approached, and with no leads on the Grand Temple key's current location, the situation grew desperate. In an effort to maximize productivity, Desmond focused on reliving Connor's memories, while William retrieved a new battery from a museum in Cairo.
However, Vidic intercepted William and sent a video message to the group explaining that William would only be set free in exchange for the Apple of Eden. Desmond complied and traveled to the Abstergo facility where his father was being held, but instead of handing over the Apple, he used it to kill Vidic and his henchmen.
Assassin's Creed III (Cont.) -- Saving the World
Desmond returned to the Animus and learned that the Grand Temple key was hidden in a grave in Massachusetts. Using the key to open the gate to the Grand Temple's inner chamber, Desmond and the group entered only to be greeted by Juno, who revealed that they could save the world using the Eye. However, Minerva appeared and urged Desmond not to activate the device, explaining Juno's schemes to enslave humanity. She insisted that while the device would save the world from the solar flare, it would also kill Desmond and allow Juno to complete her quest to rule over Earth.
Despite Minerva's warnings, Desmond stated that if Juno was released, there could still be a slim chance that humanity could stop her. With his mind made up, Desmond activated the Eye, thus sacrificing himself to protect the planet and freeing Juno from imprisonment.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag -- Infiltrating Abstergo Entertainment
With the death of Desmond, Shaun, Rebecca, and William continued the fight against the Templars. However, William eventually stepped down as leader of the Assassins in order to go on a self-imposed exile.
Shaun and Rebecca then went undercover as low-level employees at Abstergo, who had managed to create a new version of the Animus that could let people relive the genetic memories of anyone's DNA, as long as the DNA was harvested. With this new tech--which was created using Desmond's DNA--the Templars formed Abstergo Entertainment, a branch of the company that created consumer products using Animus technology. However, Abstergo Entertainment was a front for the Templars to locate and acquire new Pieces of Eden.
The Assassins had an informant in the company, named John Standish, who began helping an unnamed Abstergo Entertainment employee (your player character) hack into the company's databases. The employee gradually fed the archived information to the Assassins.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (Cont.) -- The Sage
Juno remained adamant towards advancing her schemes of world domination. However, she could do little without a physical body to transfer her consciousness into. Luckily, Juno had set a plan in motion prior to her imprisonment: she had managed to manipulate the human genetic code, creating a hidden trigger that would alter the genetic makeup of an individual, imbuing them with the memories and appearance of her husband. The experiment caused Juno's husband to be repeatedly reincarnated in human form for millennia. These reincarnations would be known as Sages.
Unbeknownst to everyone, John Standish was actually a Sage and plotted to transfer Juno's consciousness into the body of the unnamed Abstergo Entertainment employee. However, the plan failed and Abstergo security guards gunned down John.
Assassin's Creed Unity -- The Initiates
As a means of fighting the Templars, the Assassins enlisted the help of players using Abstergo Entertainment's gaming products. Those convinced to join were known as Initiates. With the help of an unnamed Initiate, an Assassin operative named Bishop managed to secure the location of an Apple of Eden via the memories of French Revolution era Assassin, Arno Dorian.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate -- Juno's Next Plan
The Templars began using John Standish's DNA to create an Isu from scratch, aiming to explore the genetic memories encoded in its DNA using the Animus. But in order to achieve this, they needed a Piece of Eden known as the Shroud; one was known to be hidden somewhere in London. The Assassins caught wind of this and once again enlisted the help of an unnamed Initiate.
By reliving the memories of Assassin twins, Jacob and Evie Frye, the Initiate discovered that the Shroud was located underneath Buckingham Palace. Shaun and Rebecca were dispatched to retrieve it, but were attacked by the Templars, who successfully escape with the Shroud. It was then revealed that Juno had secretly orchestrated the scheme from the beginning, manipulating the Templars into creating a new vessel for her to implant her consciousness.
Assassin's Creed Origins -- What Could It All Mean?
While we know Assassin's Creed Origins documents the formation of the Assassin order, little is known about the game's modern day storyline. From what occurs at the end of Syndicate, it's clear that Juno will finally return. In addition, according to a video memo in that game, Desmond has a ten-year-old illegitimate son. However, he was born a Sage, which means he's genetically bound to serve Juno. It's possible Desmond's son could become a key component of Origin's modern day plot.
Another important question stems from who you'll be playing in Origins. While Ubisoft could lean towards the Initiate route again, there's also the possibility for a completely new character. But given how Bayek--Origins' protagonist--sports the same lip scar that Desmond, Altair, and Ezio have, the genetic memories being explored must root from Desmond's DNA, seeing as that characteristic seems to run consistent with much of his family line thus far.
The novelty item comes after a line in the premiere episode in which Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) asks Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) if he was wearing his "s***in' pants." Why? "Because you are about to s*** your pants," Negan tells the terrified preacher.
It's yet another colorful and very classy turn of phrase from the show's chief villain. The character is no stranger to throwing out creative vulgarity to get his point across--well, that and bashing people's skulls in with his trusty baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. This time though, the comment ended up becoming a product that was first revealed by Chris Hardwick on Talking Dead--The Walking Dead's aftershow.
Clearly, AMC realizes how silly the item is, with a description reading, "As seen on Talking Dead, here's your chance to own a set of Negan's S****in' Pants! Lucille approved, they're guaranteed to shut that s*** down. Pre-order your box today!"
According to the site, those diapers will begin shipping on November 15 to those who buy them ahead of time. Talk about a perfect holiday gift for a fan of The Walking Dead who has everything.
All it takes is $19.95 to buy one of the strangest pieces of merchandise for one of TV's most popular shows. Once they arrive, though, use them at your own risk. After all, as the box says, these will not protect you from Negan, even if they are the "top rated diaper in Pee-Pee Pants City."
The Saw series is one of the most popular and successful horror franchises of all time. Made on extremely modest budgets, the seven films released between 2004 and 2010 earned more than $870 million at the worldwide box office. The eighth movie, Jigsaw, arrives this week, and hopes are high that after a seven-year gap, the gory formula that made the franchise so successful still works. You can check out GameSpot's Saw story recap here, but which movies are the best? Here's our ranking of all seven films to date, from worst to best.
7. Saw 3D
While the series did well to make it to six movies without an entirely bad entry, its luck did eventually run out. Saw 3D is the worst Saw movie by some distance, and its mediocre box office results killed the franchise for seven years. The filmmakers attempted to inject some interest with the return of Cary Elwes as Dr. Gordon, who it turns out has been Jigsaw's apprentice since the first movie. But the confused, flaccid narrative, annoying characters, terrible acting, lame 3D, cheap production values, and general lack of Tobin Bell add up to a movie that even the biggest Saw fans hated.
6. Saw IV
Saw IV was the point that the series went from complicated to confusing. To its credit, it contains a great twist; it turns out the movie is happening simultaneously with Saw III, and that Jigsaw is orchestrating events from his deathbed. But there's an over-reliance on backstory and flashbacks, and for once Jigsaw's main victim--obsessed cop Riggs--seems completely undeserving of his test. Returning director Darren Bousman has since stated that he put very little effort into the movie: "I was a cog in a wheel of a well-oiled machine. It made me lazy and complacent," he told the LA Times. It shows.
5. Saw V
Given Saw III and IV can be seen as part of the same story, Saw V was a test as to whether the story could continue successfully after the death of both Kramer and Amanda. It's a reasonably entertaining film, but the new central villain--crazy cop Matt Hoffman, played by Costas Mandylor--lacks the dark charisma that Tobin Bell brought to his role. The traps, such as the pendulum and the glass coffin, are good, but the tests are not nearly as well integrated into the central story as the best movies in the series.
4. Saw II
The second film didn't begin life as a Saw movie at all. With the sequel rushed into production, a non-related script called The Desperate was rewritten to place it within the Saw universe, and its writer, Darren Bousman, was hired to direct. What's surprising is that it works, and really laid down the template for the movies that followed. The extravagant traps involving multiple people, the apprentices, the idea of Jigsaw controlling events from behind the scenes, all started here. But Saw II also has a simplicity and focus missing from some of the more narratively dense films that followed.
3. Saw III
Saw III was Jigsaw's final appearance while still alive, and it's still one of the best, with some personal stakes for all of Jigsaw's victims and a twisting plot that is both unpredictable and--unlike the later parts--largely coherent. It's got some of the series' most enjoyably gruesome traps, too. From the shotgun collar that Dr Denlon must wear while trying to save Kramer's life, to the rack, and the truly disgusting pig vat, Saw III delivers.
2. Saw
The original movie now seems so different from what followed that it almost feels part of another franchise. There's a small cast, only a couple of traps, and despite a variety of gory scenes, it plays out much more as a claustrophobic mystery thriller than the ludicrous horror melodrama that the series ultimately became. But it remains one of the decade's best shockers, with a gripping storyline and an ingenious final twist.
1. Saw VI
With the series becoming increasingly silly and confusing, hopes weren't high by the time the sixth movie rolled round. But against all the odds, director Kevin Greutert (who had edited all of the previous entries) knocked it out of the park. Some more casual viewers might prefer the small-scale intensity of the first film, but for true horror fans, as well as those fully invested in the unfolding story of Hoffman, Jill, and Jigsaw's legacy, this one is the nastiest, paciest, and most gruesomely enjoyable one of the lot. Hoffman was never the most compelling of villains, but it's great fun to see him try to stay one step ahead of the FBI, while Jill makes for a worthy adversary. It also had a satirical edge--Jigsaw's final victims are a bunch of crooked insurance agents--which makes their grisly deaths all the more satisfying. Sadly it was all a bit too late, and Saw VI ended up as the lowest grossing movie in the entire series.
The latest batch of deals are now available in the US PlayStation Store. This marks the second week of Sony's Sale of the Dead, which offers discounts on many PS4, PS3, and Vita games that are perfect for Halloween, while a new spotlight sale features Danganronpa and other titles from NIS America.
The spotlight sale offers some very sizable discounts on select NISA games across all of Sony's platforms, and those with a PS Plus subscription will save an additional percentage off many of the titles. On PS4, players can purchase the recently released Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony for $45 ($51 without PS Plus). Danganronpa 1-2 Reload is also on sale for $24 ($28), while the series' spin-off Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls for $10.49 ($13.49). Other PS4 games on sale include:
The NISA sale runs until October 31. You can find the full list of discounted titles here. You also have until October 31 to save on some great horror games for all Sony platforms, including Resident Evil 7 ($30/$36), Killing Floor 2 ($16/$20), and Dying Light: The Following ($21/$24), among others. You can find more discounted titles here.
Assassin's Creed Origins introduces a variety of new features, such as the ability to scout areas with an eagle you control, enlist the support of animals, and take part in a Horde-style mode. It also features a new gear system, which means you'll be rewarded with cool equipment for completing certain tasks.
Case in point is the Isu Legendary armor set featured in the video above. It's a reward for finding all the star constellations in the game, and although it's purely a cosmetic set, we still think it's worth the effort. (The stylish gear resembles what you can earn in Destiny 2's Trials PvP mode.) The video above shows it off in Origins' Arena mode.
We've also got a new gameplay video showcasing an animal in Origins that you probably don't usually associate with viciousness: hippopotamuses. But these do in fact present a danger to the game's inhabitants, as you can check out in the video below, which highlights a side mission with some dangerous hippos.
By Anonymous on Oct 24, 2017 11:25 pm It's Destiny 2 PC launch day! Special guest Hutch joins Chastity to see how Destiny 2 plays on PC. (Produced in partnership with MSI)
After the success of Logan, it should come as no surprise that the creative team behind the movie is looking to keep the franchise moving forward. Where does the saga of Wolverine go now that Hugh Jackman has retired his claws, though?
According to Logan director James Mangold, who confirms a script is in the works, X-23--otherwise known as Laura (Dafne Keen)--could be the future of the franchise. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Mangold says it's Wonder Woman that may have made the project a possibility. "Patty [Jenkins'] success with that film only solidifies more for studios that there's less to fear with a female protagonist," he says. "The more that keeps getting hit home, that ends up giving me more space turning around and going, 'Well, here we are with a female protagonist. That's incredible. And what are we going to do with her?' And that's where we are with that [the Laura script] right now, dreaming."
Still, even in the dreaming stage, knowing a script for a movie about X-23 is in the works is a very exciting prospect. The character was a breakout hit in Logan, and the end of the movie left plenty of room for her character to develop.
As for what kind of movie it would be, not even producer Hutch Parker--who recently wrapped filming on X-Men: Dark Phoenix--is sure. "It may not be in the same exact tonality or with the same genre orientations as Logan," he says. "But I think part of what has been opened up in this universe to all of us now is, drawing on different genre traditions, there are new pathways to be opened for new characters that populate this universe."
Given that Logan allowed producers to go outside of the box when it comes to what is normally considered a comic book movie, why not further play with that idea for an X-23 spin-off? Granted, any follow-up to Logan is most likely going to share its affinity for bleak outlook and vicious fight scenes.
That said, a film that follows Laura as she leads a new group of young mutants through a dystopian future sounds like an instant winner. Hopefully, it will eventually come to pass.
Despite developer Bungie's origins in PC gaming and no shortage of demand, the original Destiny never released on computers. The wait for the series' debut on computers has been a long one, and now, almost two months after its launch on consoles, Destiny 2 is finally available on PC.
Destiny 2 runs on Blizzard Battle.net; its launch marks the first time a non-Blizzard game has been available through the platform. Just yesterday, Blizzard released an update for its desktop app to introduce new social functionality and add gifting features. Bungie has stated that anyone experiencing issues with the Play button not appearing should simply restart the app; other issues are outlined here. Also be sure to grab the latest Nvidia driver or AMD driver, depending on your hardware.
A total of 13 games for the original Xbox can now be played on Xbox One. This includes some of the platform's best games, such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Ninja Gaiden Black. Here's the full list of what's now supported on Microsoft's current-gen console:
If you still have physical copies of any of these laying around, you can pop them into the system and begin playing. Alternatively, you can purchase digital copies through the Xbox Store to play. Bear in mind, while you will see visual improvements (particularly on Xbox One X, where games will run at 4K), most games use 4:3 aspect rations. Additionally, online multiplayer is unavailable because Xbox Live support for original Xbox games has been shut down. However, you can still play local multiplayer--including games that offer system link, which can connect Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One consoles together.
Unfortunately, you shouldn't expect to see new Xbox games added to the backwards compatibility list on a regular basis. Microsoft said the next set of original Xbox titles will arrive in Spring 2018. By contrast, we rarely go for more than a few weeks without new Xbox 360 games being made backwards compatible.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has been an unprecedented success on PC, even though it's still in Early Access, and a Xbox One release is on the way. Now, PUBG's developer has announced that the game will get a physical version for the console too.
At E3 2017, Microsoft announced PUBG would be a "console launch exclusive" for the Xbox One and would be releasing in late 2017. While we still don't know when exactly to expect the game on the console, the game's Twitter account has just revealed that you will be able to buy a physical version of the game.
Microsoft is also reportedly working to keep the game an Xbox One exclusive for longer, attempting to delay PUBG's possible release on PlayStation 4 or other consoles. Developer Bluehole hasn't confirmed or denied the reports, which also suggest it's in discussions with all major console companies. Instead, Bluehole says, "[T]he team is solely focused on bringing the best game possible to Xbox One and PC," with nothing further to announce at this time.
By Anonymous on Oct 24, 2017 09:30 pm The only thing more legendary than finding all the star constellations in AC Origins is collecting this sweet armor set and fighting in the arena.
We're nearing the release of Assassin's Creed Origins, with the launch of Xbox One X not much further off. Provided you're patient enough to wait for the latter, you'll be able to take advantage of Xbox One X enhancements in Origins, a taste of which you can get in the video above.
In the gameplay clip, we scale the Great Pyramid of Giza and soak in the view before getting down in the most obvious way possible: by sliding down it. From there, we hop aboard a camel and engage in a chase before finally infiltrating part of a base. You can see all of this above.
Xbox One X renders Origins at 4K for those with 4K displays and offers supersampling for lower-resolution screens. It also offers "higher quality architectural models, vegetation, rocks and display[s] them at longer Draw Distances in dense environments like the grand cities of Alexandria and Memphis," according to Ubisoft. Xbox One X game enhancements will vary from title to title, with each developer allowed to decide how to leverage the system's power.
Injustice 2 is getting a PC release. Today, Warner Bros. Interactive confirmed the acclaimed superhero fighting game will be coming to Steam later this fall. The port is being handled by Polish studio QLOC, which was also responsible for porting another NetherRealm fighting game, Mortal Kombat XL, to PC.
While Warner Bros. has yet to announce a release date for the PC version of Injustice 2, players will be able to try it for themselves very soon. Beginning tomorrow, October 25, an open beta will be available to download and play through Steam. Warner Bros. hasn't specified how long the beta will be available or which characters it will include.
Injustice 2 is already available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The game released this past May for the two platforms to critical acclaim. GameSpot awarded it a 9/10 in our Injustice 2 review; critic Peter Brown said of the title, "NetherRealm has delivered a fighting game that can be enjoyed by new players and pros alike in ways that go beyond pure competition." The upcoming PC release may not be the game's last port, as NetherRealm boss Ed Boon says he likes the idea of bringing Injustice 2 to Nintendo Switch.
It's Destiny 2 PC launch day! Special guest Hutch joins Chastity to see how Destiny 2 plays on PC. (Produced in partnership with MSI)
The only thing more legendary than finding all the star constellations in AC Origins is collecting this sweet armor set and fighting in the arena.
We explore Assassin's Creed Origins side quests in the early acts for one hour with Erick and Jake.
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