In the aftermath of the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, debates about many things in the film have raged on. While some fans loved the movie the the direction it takes the Star Wars universe in, while others are vehemently opposed to director Rian Johnson's entry in the franchise and how it treats some of the stories set up by Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi follow.
One major sticking point among many is the identity of Rey's (Daisy Ridley) parents. After The Force Awakens, fans theorized many different possibilities about who could be her mom and dad--from Luke Skywalker to Obi Wan Kenobi, to even Han Solo and Leia Organa. One answer many didn't expect though was they they were nobodies.
That's exactly who they were, though. As revealed by Rey and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) in The Last Jedi, they were junk traders from the planet Jakku, who possibly sold her for alcohol money. Is that the final word, though? According to Johnson, not necessarily.
"Anything's still open, and I'm not writing the next film. [J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio] are doing it," he tells The Huffington Post. Still, if Abrams and Terrio decide to change course and have the moment amount to Kylo misleading Rey, it would be a very strange choice to make, especially when you consider Johnson's reasoning.
Were Rey revealed to have a familiar connection to characters fans already know, the director explains that "it would be the big 'I am your father' twist [from The Empire Strikes Back]."
"The easy thing would be, 'Yes, your parents are so and so and here's your place in the world. There you go,'" he says. "The hardest thing she could hear would be [...] 'No, you're not going to get the answer. This is not going to define you. You're going to have to find your own place in this world. Kylo is going to use that even as leverage to try and make you feel insecure, and you're going to have to stand on your own two feet.'"
As Johnson points out, there is an argument that can be made that Rey's parents being nobody important makes her a stronger character. For her, it's not about following or moving away from the path set out in front of her by a parent. In truth, her course is closer to that of Anakin Skywalker, who lived most of his early life as a slave before finding out he was strong with the Force.
Regardless, any answer is open to interpretation, especially to Abrams as he sets out writing Episode IX. Ridley has said that at this point, the next saga film will be her final appearance in the Star Wars movie franchise, meaning Rey's story will likely reach its conclusion in the the movie.
Now the question is whether her story will be massively changed in the process. Star Wars: Episode IX will be in theaters on December 20, 2019. Star Wars will next be on the big screen when Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Han Solo standalone film, arrives on May 25.
Microsoft's big end-of-year sale on the Xbox Store wraps up on January 4, but that doesn't mean your last chance to get cheap Xbox games has passed. The latest set of weekly deals has arrived for Xbox Live Gold members, bringing a select number of discounts on Xbox One games and DLC, alongside those on a few Xbox 360 games.
Among the most noteworthy offers on Xbox One is Diablo III: Eternal Collection for $30 / £27.50. This bundles together the base game, the excellent Reaper of Souls expansion, and the Rise of the Necromancer DLC (which adds the very fun Necromancer class). Alternatively, if you already own the game and Reaper of Souls, you can pick up Rise of the Necromancer on its own for $10 / £8.31.
Separately from these deals, the first of January's free Games With Gold titles are now available. Those include The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III; if you're taken with it or want to start with an earlier title in the series, Gold members can pick up the first game in the series for $5 / £3.96. Additionally, if you don't have Gold, there are still a few deals to be had, including Furi for $10 / £8.
All of these offers are available from now through January 8. You can see the full list here.
The GameSpot editors have already voted and made our decision on 2017's overall game of the year, but now we want to hear from you! Voting on our Player's Choice Game of the Year poll will end later today, set to close at noon Pacific Time On January 2. So if you've been holding off for any reason, be sure to jump in now and make your voice heard!
The alphabetized list of entrants below is culled from our own complete list of award winners and editorial spotlight choices across PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch, 3DS, and mobile. A few rules on how we made the selections for this particular category: they must be new games released in 2017, or re-releases that were substantially updated and changed. There is one big addition worth noting that was not eligible for our own Game of the Year: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Since the game is now out offcially on PC, PUBG is also included in the list below.
So what was your overall favorite game? Let us know with your votes, and carry on the conversation in the comments as well as on our Facebook and Twitter pages! And for even more game of the year content, we have a whole feature dedicated to the best content across games and entertainment in 2017.
Microsoft has pulled an advertisement for the Xbox One version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds after a fan claimed the company copied their artwork. Reddit user Macsterr says a tweet from @Xbox used an image similar to their own ad concept posted to Reddit in November.
Microsoft has now deleted the tweet in question and says the matter is under investigation. Longtime Xbox spokesperson Major Nelson commented: "I wanted to let you know that this is being investigated. In the meantime, our official channels have pulled down the asset in question. I'll follow up with the OP /u/macsterr/ once I get more details." No further update has since been posted.
It's the start of a new month--and a new year--which means more free games are now available for PlayStation Plus subscribers. January's allotment of free PS Plus games are out now on the PlayStation Store, meaning that titles like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Batman: The Telltale Series have temporarily dropped to the low, low price of free for paying subscribers.
Mankind Divided is the headlining PS4 freebie this month. The dystopian cyberpunk role-playing game casts you as Adam Jensen and tasks you with catching a terrorist group, which you can do by being a stealthy detective or a tech-enhanced killing machine, or some mixture of both.
As for Telltale's Batman game, this is the first season of the story and puts players in tricky situations as both Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter-ego. The decisions you make will have some consequence on the relationships around you, and the overall story.
Other PS4 freebies in January include the wacky and fun party game That's You (if you're outside of North America) and StarBlood Arena (which requires PlayStation VR). Additionally, one of Vita's free games, Uncanny Valley, offers cross-buy with PS4. The other Vita game, Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness, should also offer PS4 cross-buy according to the PlayStation Blog, but at the time of this writing, it looks as if that may be an error. Additionally, PS3 owners get Sacred 3 and The Book of Unwritten Tales 2.
You can see January 2018's full PS Plus lineup--covering PS4, PS3, and Vita--below, or you can claim them on the PlayStation Store.
While it was unrealistic to expect The Walking Dead to maintain the record-breaking viewing figures of some of its earlier seasons, the AMC zombie drama has seen a dramatic drop in audience numbers over the past two years. The first half of the current eighth season has had the lowest figures since 2011. However, one of its producers has now defended the show's audience decline.
David Alpert told Variety that looking at the figures for the show's live broadcast was misleading as to how popular it really is. "I don't think in any way the brand has lost its relevance in general," he said. "I think we're just seeing a decline in urgency across all media to consume something at a specific time. I still get people coming up to me at conventions talking about, they're in the middle of season six. They can't believe what's going on."
It is certainly true that live broadcast figures only tell part of the story when gauging how many people are watching a show. This is been especially true of series such as Game of Thrones, which is also available via HBO's on-demand services, and The Walking Dead did add an extra 3.6 million viewers to its mid-season finale last month when DVR numbers were taken into account.
However, there is no denying that The Walking Dead has seen a steady decline in viewers over a relatively short period of time. The 7.9 million broadcast viewers of the mid-season finale was the lowest number since Season 2's in 2011. This is in comparison to the 10.58 million viewers that watched the mid-season of Season 7 in 2016, and nearly half of what the equivalent episode achieved for Season 5 in 2014.
Amidst the holidays, things have been somewhat quiet on the Destiny 2 front. However, we're set to get a small update this week along with a batch of server maintenance that will render the game unplayable for a period of time on Wednesday, Bungie has announced.
The maintenance period will follow a similar pattern to those we've seen in the past. On Wednesday, January 3, at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET / 3 PM GMT (2 AM AET on January 4), maintenance will begin, at which point players will no longer be able to log in on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. An hour later, everyone who was playing when maintenance began will be booted offline. Bungie expects maintenance to conclude at 12 PM PT, although, as always, that is merely an estimate.
At the same time that Bungie wraps up maintenance, it will release a new update, hotfix 1.1.1.2. The studio has not explained what this update will do, but these hotfixes tend to focus on bug fixes and other minor improvements, so you shouldn't expect any major new features to be introduced. We do know there is a lingering exploit involving the Warlock's Voidwalker Super ability in the Mayhem Crucible mode, but Bungie previously said that would not be fixed before the ongoing Dawning event comes to an end on January 9.
The Dawning has introduced a ton of new items to Destiny 2, though the easiest way to obtain them is through Eververse purchases with real money. For a look at what you can get, you can check out our gallery of all the new Dawning armor and gear. Even if you're not interested in paying for any of the content, there are still some new things to do, such as checking out the aforementioned Mayhem mode.
2018 is here, and so Valve is taking a look back at the year that was on Steam. Much as it did last January, it has revealed a list of the best-selling games on the platform, but it's also provided information on some new categories. While it doesn't provide any specific figures, it does give us a snapshot of what proved to be Steam's most popular games in 2017.
This starts with the list of 2017's top sellers, which is determined based on gross revenue earned during the calendar year. Valve provided a list of the top 100 games, which have been divided into Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum levels (though the exact distinction between these is not explained). Most of the games to reach Platinum were older titles and included the likes of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, Grand Theft Auto V, Rainbow Six Siege, Rocket League, and Dota 2. There were some 2017 releases, too, including Divinity: Original Sin II and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the latter of which we know has proven to be phenomenally popular.
In terms of players, Valve provided a list of the games with the most concurrent users (meaning those that were online and playing at the same time). PUBG, of course, leads the list, having recently eclipsed the 3 million mark. Eight others also topped the 100,000 mark during the year, including Dota 2, Counter-Strike: GO, Rainbow Six Siege, and Grand Theft Auto V.
Valve also shared a breakdown of new titles, offering a look at the top-grossing newly released games of each month. The number of games shown varies from month to month, and again, there's little insight into what allowed them to qualify. Some months have as many as 16, while June had just five, including Dirt 4, Tekken 7, and Cold Waters.
VR-only games got their own top sellers list (again based on revenue during the year and divided into four tiers). Job Simulator, Superhot VR, and Fallout 4 VR were among those to hit Platinum status. There's also a look at the top-grossing games that left early access in 2017, and while the expected ones like PUBG and Original Sin II show up, the Platinum tier also includes The Long Dark, Slime Rancher, and Ark: Survival Evolved, among others.
You can check out all of Steam's 2017 charts here.
Following the box office disappointment of last year's Alien: Covenant, the future of the long-running sci-fi franchise is in doubt. Director Ridley Scott initially suggested that he was finished with the series. But in a subsequent interview last month, Scott spoke about a possible new direction, arguing that the franchise should "drift away from the Alien stuff" and focus more on artificial intelligence.
In a new interview with the Toronto Sun, Scott again sounded more optimistic about the future of the series. "There's no reason why Alien should now not be on the same level for fans as Star Trek and Star Wars," he said. "I think the next [question] as to where we go is, do we sustain the Alien [franchise] with the evolution of the beast or do we reinvent something else? I think you need to have an evolution on this famous beast, because he's the best monster ever, really."
The decision to continue the series now lies with Disney, following the recent deal for the studio to acquire Fox's entertainment assets. Scott stated that the studio would be "crazy if they don't" make more Alien movies. He also praised Michael Fassbender's character, sinister android David. "David is a fantastic villain," he said. "I love what Fassbender did in Covenant. But it's f***ing hard, dude. We lifted Alien out of a ditch and made Prometheus."
Covenant made $240 million worldwide, much less than Prometheus's $403 million take. Prior to the movie's release, Scott had been talking enthusiastically about the future of the series. In March last year, he suggested that the next movie would be called Alien: Awakening, and that the series would continue for several more films beyond that.
In related news, Scott has also expressed his dissatisfaction with the running time of Blade Runner 2049. He produced the recent sequel to his 1982 sci-fi classic, and was recently asked what he thought of the movie. "I have to be careful what I say," he says. "It was f***ing way too long. F*** me! And most of that script's mine."
2018 is here, and January is bringing with a variety of new content to streaming services. Amazon has announced all of the movies and TV shows coming to Prime Video this month--and there is some great content coming to kick off the New Year.
The 10th season of the BBC's sci-fi show Doctor Who arrived on January 1, along with Darren Aronofsky's chilling drama Requiem for a Dream. Also now out is Sam Mendes' Oscar-nominated (and very sad) movie Revolutionary Road and David Fincher's thriller Zodiac. Quentin Tarantino's first movie, Reservoir Dogs, also came to Amazon Prime on January 1.
Coming on January 12 is the first season of the Amazon Original show Electric Dreams, which stars Bryan Cranston, Anna Paquin, Timothy Spall, and Steve Buscemi. At the end of the month, you'll be able to see the new 2017 entry in Vin Diesel's xXx franchise, The Return of Xander Cage. You can see Amazon Prime's full lineup below, as rounded up and compiled by GameSpot sister site CNET.
New to Amazon Prime, January 2018
January 1
The 2018 Rose Parade Hosted by Cord & Tish (Amazon original)
All is Lost
American Ninja
Assassination
Avenging Force
Babel
Baby Mama's Club
Black Rain
Brothers
Burning Blue
But I'm a Cheerleader
Capote
Coming Soon
Cool World
Cross Bronx
Dangerous Curves
Drop Dead Sexy
Doctor Who, season 10
Evolution
Flawless
Freedom Writers
Hamlet
Highway
Horsemen
Hustle & Flow
Invaders from Mars
Love and Death
Love Story
Murphy's Law
Platoon Leader
Pretty Bird
Primitive
Requiem for a Dream
Reservoir Dogs
Revenge of the Ninja
Revolutionary Road
Richard the Lionheart
Show of Force
Six Degrees of Separation
Step Into Liquid
Street Smart
The Perfect Weapon
The Presidio
The Wraith
Thelma & Louise
Uncommon Valor
Words and Pictures
Zodiac
January 5
The Devil's Double
January 6
Grimm, season 6
January 7
A Ghost Story
January 9
Prime Suspect: Tennison, season 1
January 12
Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, season 1 (Amazon original)
A new year means a new selection of movies and TV shows arriving on Netflix. January is here, and this month, a number of films, shows, and specials will debut on the streaming service, including several Netflix Originals.
The most notable arrival is the Batman series of films. Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin are all now available to stream, having been added on January 1. Additionally, Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins will also debut. They were joined by all four movies in the Lethal Weapon series, National Treasure, and The Godfather trilogy.
When it comes to TV, January will bring new seasons of originals One Day at a Time, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Grace and Frankie, and The Adventures of Puss in Boots. Among other arrivals are all five seasons of Showtime's Episodes, the second season of Colony, and a new batch of Eastsiders episodes.
Sadly, along with the arrivals come the months departures. Leaving Netflix in January are seven Saw movies, several Pokemon animated films, and The Addams Family, for starters. Perhaps most importantly, all six seasons of Lost will disappear from the streamer on January 4. So if you've been meaning to revisit that cursed island, it's time to clear out your schedule.
The first of January 2018's free Games With Gold titles for Xbox One and Xbox 360 are now available for subscribers. On Xbox One, the action RPG The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III is completely free all month long. You play as the famous monster hunter on a journey to take down one of your toughest foes yet.
On Xbox 360, Square Enix's Tomb Raider Underworld is now available for the low, low price of $0.00. Note that this game plays on Xbox One through backwards compatibility, so Xbox One owners can pick it up as well. One of December 2017's free Xbox One Games With Gold titles, Back to the Future: The Game, remains free until January 15.
Then on January 16, a new set of free Xbox One and Xbox 360 games will be available, including Zombi (Xbox One) and Army of Two (Xbox 360). You can see the full Games With Gold lineup for January 2018 down below. You need to have an Xbox Live Gold membership to get these games., but claiming them will allow you to continue playing for as long as you are a subscriber.
January 2018 Games With Gold
Xbox One
Back to the Future: The Game - 30th Anniversary Edition (December 16 - January 15)
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III (January 1-31)
The Last Jedihas only been in theaters a couple of weeks, but another Star Wars movie is also due soon. Solo: A Star Wars Story is the second Star Wars spin-off, following 2016's Rogue One, and it arrives in May. The film is set to focus on the adventures of young Han Solo, and although we are yet to see any footage, director Ron Howard has released an intriguing new image.
The picture was tweeted by Howard as a New Year greeting. As with most of images that the director has released it doesn't reveal much, but it does suggest that Han might pilot a new vehicle--possibly some form of speeder. Check it out below:
Solo: A Star WarsStory stars Alden Ehrenreich as Han and Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca, with Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian. Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Emilia Clarke also star. It hits theaters on May 25, 2018.
Although Howard joined the production only a few weeks before the end of the principle photography, reshoots continued for several months. In November it was rumored that he had reshot up to 80% of the film. The scale of the reshoots meant that at least one role had to be recast, with Paul Bettany replacing Michael K. Williams. A recent comment from Bettany confirmed that they were indeed more extensive than initially expected.
Call of Duty: WWII has ended 2017 at the top of the UK physical sales chart. Activision's shooter finished at No.1 for week ending December 30, meaning it has now equaled the franchise's record number of consecutive weeks at No.1--Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 managed the same feat in 2009.
The WWII shooter is now just two weeks off the series' record for total number of weeks at No.1; 2015's Black Ops III finished top for 11 total weeks, seven of which were consecutive.
EA also finished 2017 strongly, with FIFA 18 at No.2 and Star Wars Battlefront II at No.3. Below these, Assassin's Creed Origins and Grand Theft Auto V end the year at No.4 and No.5, respectively, meaning the top five games of the week were the same five as the previous week, and in the same positions.
You can read the full top 10 sales chart below, courtesy of UKIE and GfK Chart-Track. Note this table does not include digital sales data, and so should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.
Playerunknown himself, Brendan Greene, has said he thinks the game could reach 100 million total players (not concurrent) to achieve League of Legends-like success. Three million is more than four times the number of the second-most popular game on Steam, Dota 2, which had around 705,000 concurrent users on December 30. It's down today, January 2, as the game had around 2.79 million concurrent players, according to Steam's own public stats.
OVER 3 MILLION!! Thank you all for helping us reach this amazing milestone! GG WP everybody <3 pic.twitter.com/twUQkSkP5U
The new player milestone comes on the heels of PUBG's 1.0 release in December. Some might have been waiting for PUBG to leave Early Access before jumping in.
PUBG came to Xbox One through the Game Preview program on December 12. It was a quick hit there, selling 1 million copies in its first 48 hours. The game has sold an astonishing 30 million copies; it sells for $30, so that's around $900 million in revenue.
The new Netflix show Dark, which is the network's first German-language original production, includes a scene that features the game The Surge where two people are playing split-screen co-op. The problem? The game doesn't actually have co-op. Deck13 has now officially responded, explaining that the studio allowed the show's producers to take some creative liberties to fit the story they were trying to tell.
A Deck13 representative said on Reddit that the Dark producers contacted Deck13 "months" before the show premiered on December 1 about their eagerness to feature The Surge in the show. This was principally because The Surge was developed in Germany. "We agreed and allowed them to even fake a splitscreen if it fitted better for their idea. Some kind of creative rework one could say," the Deck13 representative said.
The split-screen support for The Surge shown in Dark is fiction, but could it one day become reality for the game with a patch? Don't get your hopes up. "Technically it'd wreck the console though," Deck13 said about splitscreen support. Announcing a new feature like split-screen co-op by way of a Netflix show would have been a pretty interesting way to go about it, but if it does ever happen, it sounds like it'll be through a more traditional manner.
"We'd chose a different way to announce such a feature," Deck13 said.
The Surge launched in May 2017 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. GameSpot's The Surge review scored it a 7/10. Reviewer Daniel Starkey said, "The Surge is far from perfect, but none of its problems are deal breakers."
PUBG was one of the biggest success stories of 2017 and no one is expecting the game to slow down or fall off the radar in 2018. The CEO of PUBG developer PUBG Corp, Chang Han Kim, said in a new interview that he hopes the game will one day be available on "every platform." Not only that, but he also spoke about how his aim is for PUBG to become a "universal media franchise" that could extend beyond games to TV and movies.
PUBG is now available on PC and on console through a timed-exclusivity partnership with Microsoft for the Xbox One edition. The game will stay exclusive to Xbox One "for some time," Kim told InvenGlobal, though it sounds like you can expect it on PlayStation 4 and other systems later. "If we have the opportunity, the final goal would be to launch the title on every platform," he said.
The PC edition of PUBG recently officially launched its 1.0 version while the Xbox One version remains unfinished in the Game Preview program. Despite being unfinished, the Xbox One version has been a huge hit already, selling 1 million copies in its first 48 hours. Kim added that the game has been "selling considerably" since then, and overall he described the game's commercial success on Xbox One as being "much better" than anticipated.
Kim went on to explain that part of what is keeping PUBG off PS4 for now (outside of Microsoft's timed-exclusive agreement) is that Sony's system doesn't have an Early Access/Game Preview program. This was also an issue for Ark: Survival Evolved, which launched on Xbox One much earlier than it did on PS4.
"Early Access on Steam and Game Preview on Xbox One are like pre-release, so they don't have a restriction on quality. However, PlayStation is very strict about this," Kim said. "There were cases where a game took 6 months more to launch even when it was already completed. We are still in the stage of learning the console development environment and console gamers' taste. We need to think about other platforms after evaluating and completing the Xbox One version first."
Also in the interview, Kim spoke about his ambition for PUBG to become much more than just a game. "I'd like PUBG to become a universal media franchise based on the game," he said. "We want to take part in diverse industries including Esports, movies, drama, cartoons, animation, and more. In fact, we received a couple of love calls from a number of developers in Hollywood and Netflix.
"Our dream is to build a new game-based culture through various ways like this, and have the lead of that culture."
You can read the full, wide-ranging interview here at InvenGlobal. The site went inside the company's South Korean office and has pictures of the working space.
Daniel Craig is signed up to play James Bond at least one more time in the upcoming 25th 007 movie that is due for release in November 2019. But who might play the super-spy after Craig retires from the role? That remains to be seen, but now series producer Barbara Broccoli has suggested that aren't ruling anyone out. Speaking to The Daily Mail, Broccoli said "anything is possible" when it comes to who might play 007 next. She said this in response to a question about if the next 007 actor could be a woman or black.
"These films tend to reflect the times so we always try to push the envelope a little bit," she said. 'Anything is possible. Right now it's Daniel Craig, and I'm very happy with Daniel Craig, but who knows what the future will bring?"
Craig has played the British super-spy four times already, in the movies Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre. Bond 25, or whatever the movie ends up being called, could be Craig's last time playing 007. "I think this is it. I just want to go out on a high note," Craig said last year. "I can't wait."
Think you're good at Overwatch? Now is your chance to prove it...again. The hero shooter's eighth Competitive season has begun--and there are some changes to it this time around.
New for Season 8 are changes to the skill rating system, starting with the fact that the difference in the highest and lowest-skilled player on the same team is reduced to these ranges: 1000 SR (Bronze-Diamond), 500 SR (Master), and 250 SR (Grandmaster).
This change is being made to make it so players at the high and low ends of the Skill Rating system find matches with other similarly skilled players. "In turn [this] should lead to more satisfying games overall," Blizzard said in a blog post. More details are available here.
If you're new to Overwatch Competitive play, you should know that it's a mode where you can test your skills in a more intense format. First of all, you need to be level 25 to even play, and once you're in, you must complete 10 "placement matches" to secure your initial skill rating which will be between 1 and 5000. You're also assigned a tier (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, or Grandmaster) and you climb through the ranks (or drop lower) based on your performance during a season.
Rewards are available to unlock in Competitive, and if you make it into the top 500 on your platform and in your region at the end of a season you get a special player icon and spray. Additionally, you get an allotment of Competitive Points at the end of a season depending on how well you play. Competitive Play is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
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