As if you didn't have enough reasons to bring your Switch everywhere, a new app for the hybrid console will let you read comics. Announced during Gamescom 2018 and called InkyPen, the subscription service gives you access to a library of all-you-can-read comics and graphic novels on Switch. Currently, only English is supported, but the company says that most content will be available globally at launch.
InkyPen has announced a few series so far, including Dark Souls, Warhammer, Sonic, and Transformers comics. The official announcement notes that the catalog includes over 10,000 US comics, European comics, and manga. You can read in both handheld and docked mode, and the app includes touch controls in handheld mode.
The app requires a monthly subscription of $8 US / €8 or "local equivalent" (if pricing is consistent, that's around £6). It's set to launch in November 2018. You can see a preview of the app above.
In other Nintendo Switch news, critically acclaimed indie game Gone Home has been announced for the console. First released on PC in 2013, Gone Home came to Xbox One and PS4 in 2016 and is coming to Switch on August 23. Nintendo also recently announced over a dozen new indie games for the console ahead of Gamescom 2018, three of which are already out.
During Gamescom 2018, Deep Silver announced that Saints Row: The Third is coming to Nintendo Switch. The publisher promises to reveal more information concerning the release at a later time.
Saints Row: The Third marks the the franchise's first real steps to differentiate itself from Grand Theft Auto. The first two Saints Row games were similar to GTA, albeit with goofier characters and stories. The Third doubled-down on the ridiculous, transforming its characters from an unorthodox street gang into an assortment of lovable psychopathic action heroes that satirized pop culture.
We loved the new direction. In our Saints Row: The Third review, Carolyn Petit gave the game an 8.5/10, writing, "Saints Row: The Third is buoyed to great heights by terrific mission design and by the remarkable assortment of vehicles and weapons it gives you with which to take over Steelport. Whether you're buying up property to increase your hourly income, cruising the city in your favorite vehicle to collect photo ops, drug packages, and sex dolls, or punching people to bits with those crazy apocafists, there's rarely a dull moment. Saints Row: The Third succeeds tremendously at delivering its unique brand of raunchy, outrageous fun. If you have an appetite for this particular kind of absurdity, you won't be disappointed."
Saints Row: The Third is currently available for Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and--via backwards compatibility--Xbox One. Its planned standalone DLC Enter the Dominatrix was scrapped and made into The Third's sequel, Saints Row IV, which is available for Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4, and PC. The Third's Gat, Olaf, Kenzie, and Pierce appear as Mayhem agents Gat, Yeti, Safeword, and Kingpin in Agents of Mayhem, a game that takes place in an alternate reality created after Gat reset the universe at the end of Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell. Gat Out of Hell is available for Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4, and PC and you can play Agents of Mayhem on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
As August rolls on and summer begins coming to a close, Netflix has quite a few new things for you to stream this week. In addition to a bunch of new originals movies and shows, something the service can't seem to get enough of, there are also a couple TV shows and films ready for you to enjoy.
For films, the 2009 Jack Black comedy Year One arrives this week. Additionally, original films Deadwind, The After Party, and a new stand-up comedy special Bert Kreischer are being added to the streaming service.
For TV fans, new seasons of Young & Hungry, Great News, and Trolls: The Beat Goes On are on the schedule. Other arrivals include Ghoul, a new Indian horror series from Blumhouse, as well as Ask the StoryBots.
The next 007 movie, currently titled Bond 25, just lost its director, Danny Boyle. The film set to release in November 2019 has parted ways with the director due to creative differences.
The official James Bond Twitter account broke the news to fans on Tuesday afternoon saying, "Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig today announced that due to creative differences Danny Boyle has decided to no longer direct Bond 25."
Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig today announced that due to creative differences Danny Boyle has decided to no longer direct Bond 25. pic.twitter.com/0Thl116eAd
Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) signed on for the job back in March. "We've got an idea, John Hodge, the screenwriter, and I have got this idea, and John is writing it at the moment," the director told Metro.us. "And it all depends on how it turns out. It would be foolish of me to give any of it away."
However, five months later, Boyle has parted ways with the Bond franchise. Both Wilson and Broccoli serve as producers on the upcoming film, and Daniel Craig will be returning as James Bond for the fifth time since taking on the iconic role in 2006's Casino Royale.
Fans weren't expecting Craig to reprise the role of Bond, especially after he said he'd rather "slash his wrists" than play the character again, in 2015. On the August 15 episode of The Late Show, Craig confirmed he'd be playing the iconic secret agent one more time. It is expected that this will be Craig's final time playing James Bond. Prior to that, producers were reportedly eyeing Idris Elba to play the role.
Since Craig has come aboard, the 007 series has been a smashing success globally. Casino Royale took in almost $600 million worldwide and 2015's Spectre made $880 million. The biggest success from Craig's run was 2012's Skyfall which grossed $1.1 billion across the globe. Boyle may be gone, but the 007-train isn't going anywhere.
CD Projekt Red last week teased that some news was coming out at Gamescom 2018 about the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077. While we're still waiting to see what exactly that news will be, the official Twitter account of the game released some new screenshots this morning in what is hopefully a small hint of more substantial announcements to come in the following days.
The four new screens show a variety of characters and environments from the game, including stills taken from the demo CD Projekt Red showed behind closed doors at E3 2018. In that sprawling demo, main character V and her hulking partner Jackie were tasked with tracking down a missing cyborg, and of course found themselves in trouble after being attacked by a gang of black market scavengers. GameSpot's Alessandro Fillari decsribed the demo as "overwhelming with all its detail, but it did give us the impression that there was a large world with all sorts of systems to explore and mess with."
Cyberpunk 2077 has been a long time coming, with CD Projekt Red first confirming it was working on a title based on the influential role-playing pen and paper game way back in 2012. The first official gameplay was seen at this year's E3, and while no release date has been officially confirmed, we do know that the game is set to release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC .
GameSpot is on the ground at Gamescom 2018 this week, so make sure to come back and check out all of our coverage from the year's largest consumer video games show.
The nominees for Gamescom 2018's video game awards have been unveiled. The winners of each award will be decided by a panel of journalists and YouTubers and announced on August 21, the first day of the convention. Gamescom continues through August 25.
No more than three games can be nominated for each category. The 16 awards are for Best Action Game, Best Add-on/DLC, Best Casual Game, Best Family Game, Best Puzzle/Skill Game, Best Racing Game, Best Role-Playing Game, Best Simulation Game, Best Social/Online Game, Best Sports Game, Best Strategy Game, Best Sony PlayStation 4 Console Game, Best Microsoft Xbox One Console Game, Best Nintendo Switch Console Game, Best PC Game, and Best Mobile Game.
New trailers have been shared and a release date announced for Devil May Cry 5. Like the announcement trailer, the new one mostly features Nero wielding a sword and gun to fight back the forces of hell. The trailer ends with a glimpse of Dante joining the fray, using his motorcycle as a weapon; you can also see 20 minutes of gameplay further below. The game is scheduled to release on March 8, 2019 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
The trailer shows Nero using the series' fluid combat moves to fight back standard demonic enemies on a bridge. Then it shifts and shows him battling against massive boss-like enemies, including one who can float through the air while swinging massive curved swords and others the size of buildings. At one point he rides on a flying skateboard, but that's soon outdone by the arrival of Dante on his weaponized motorcycle, which can split in half to become a sort of dual-wield chainsaw.
This upcoming installment was first announced during Microsoft's E3 2018 presentation. "Years have passed since the legions of hell have set foot in this world," read an accompanying press release, "but now a new demonic invasion has begun, and humanity's last hope will rest in the hands of three lone demon hunters, each offering a radically different play style." So far we've seen Nero and Dante in action, but the third hero has yet to be revealed. For more on what to expect, check out or Gamescom impressions.
The Devil May Cry series kicked off in 2001 with the release of the PlayStation 2 original. The series continued through 2008's Devil May Cry 4, at which point it came to a halt. Several years passed before DmC: Devil May Cry came out in 2013, acting as a series reboot. Devil May Cry 5 will be a sequel to the 2008 game.
After debuting in Microsoft's early access program, Game Preview, late last year, PUBG is finally set to hit 1.0. As part of a special Inside Xbox episode to kick off Gamescom 2018, Microsoft revealed details on what's coming to the Xbox One version of the game very soon.
PUBG exits Game Preview with the release of the 1.0 update on September 4. That brings with it a variety of new content, the most significant of which is a new map. Sanhok is smaller than what players are accustomed to, measuring just 4km x 4km (as opposed to the standard 8x8).
Also coming on September 4 are Achievements, which will carry over from the Game Preview version. PUBG Corp. will also introduce support for custom games, allowing you to set up your own matches as you wish, and a special mode that PC players have seen before: War mode. This represents a major change from the usual PUBG formula, as it introduces respawns.
Another significant component of the 1.0 release is in-game currency. Among the things that can be purchased with it are cosmetics and the Sanhok event pass. The latter lets you unlock missions, rewards on Sanhok, and more. More details on how this will work on Xbox will be shared "closer to 1.0 launch."
The 1.0 release will come with a new DLC pack, the Xbox #1.0/99 set, which comes with exclusive clothing and accessories. If you already own the game, you'll receive this for free.
Hitting 1.0 won't mark the end of development on PUBG for Xbox One. With that milestone reached, PUBG Corp. says it will focus on bringing over other content from the PC version as quickly as possible.
Alongside news of 1.0, Microsoft announced a special PUBG-themed Xbox One controller is on the way. It sports a custom design and, for the first time ever, grips on the triggers.
Marvel superhero fans don't have to wait long to watch Deadpool 2 on their home televisions. The bawdy, bloody, action-filled flick is already available on digital platforms, but if you prefer your media to come on a physical disc, that release has also finally arrived. Deadpool 2 hit store shelves on August 21, and it comes in a number of different forms you can see below. The big attraction is likely the Super Duper cut.
Bonus Features
Both the digital and physical versions come with an assortment of bonus features, listed below. If you don't want to take the time to watch them, we've compiled 21 things we learned from the bonus features here.
Audio Commentary by Ryan Reynolds, David Leitch, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Theatrical Version Only)
Deleted/Extended Scenes
Gag Reel
Deadpool's Lips are Sealed: Secrets and Easter Eggs
Until Your Face Hurts: Alt Takes
Roll with the Punches: Action and Stunts
David Leitch Not Lynch: Directing DP2
The Most Important X-Force Member
Deadpool Family Values: Cast of Characters
The Deadpool Prison Experiment
Swole and Sexy
Chess with Omega Red
3-Minute Monologue
Deadpool's Fun Sack 2
Stills (28 Images)
Deadpool 2 Digital Edition
The movie is already available in digital format, so if you want it as soon as possible, this is your best (and only) option. Here's where you can buy the digital version.
The Blu-ray version comes with the theatrical cut of the movie and an unrated "super duper cut" that adds 15 minutes of cut footage to the film. You also get a digital version.
At Gamescom 2018, Nvidia held a press conference to announce and detail its next generation of video cards. It revealed the GeForce RTX 2070 ($500 USD), RTX 2080 ($700), and RTX 2080 Ti ($1000), all of which will launch on September 20, 2018. These new cards use the Turing GPU architecture and boast the ability to perform ray tracing technology (or RTX for short, hence the card names). The first of them is already available for pre-order ahead of their launch next month.
Nvidia's presentation included live in-game demonstrations of ray tracing in action from Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Metro: Exodus, Assetto Corsa, and Battlefield V. In short, ray tracing technology is capable of more realistic global illumination and accurate projections of ambient light, and affords the ability to efficiently calculate the reflections and light sources that exist outside of the screen space. For ray tracing specifically, the Turing architecture is four times faster than Volta-based workstation GPUs and ten times faster than the current Pascal GTX 10-series--not to be confused with overall performance outside of ray tracing.
It's been over two years since the current generation of Nvidia's graphics cards were released. The GTX 10-series (Pascal) first hit the market in May 2016 with intermittent releases of different models afterward. AMD released its RX Vega line of cards in August last year, which competed with the GTX 10-series.
Pre-orders are live for both the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti at retailers like Nvidia's website and Amazon. Curiously, Nvidia's website lists higher prices than those announced during the Gamescom event, though it's unclear if that's a simple mistake. Regardless, those eager to get their hands on one of the new cards as soon as possible can now place a pre-order.
You can get a small taste of what to expect from real-time ray tracing in the video below, which shows it both enabled and disabled in Battlefield V.
Each Tuesday, Microsoft refreshes its weekly Deals with Gold and Spotlight sales. This week's discounts are now live, meaning Xbox One and Xbox 360 owners have a new selection of cheap games to choose from. Some of the deals require an Xbox Live Gold subscription, as indicated below. The prices go back up on August 28, so don't wait too long to make your purchases. Here are some of the sale's highlights.
Whether or not you participated the Rainbow Six Siege free play weekend, you can pick up any version of the game on sale this week (provided you have Xbox Live Gold). The standard game is on sale for $20 / £12, though it's missing many of the Operators found in the more expensive versions of the game. The Advanced Edition costs $24 / £16 and comes with 10 Outbreak Collection Packs and 600 Rainbow Six Credits. The Gold Edition costs $45 / £31.50 and contains everything in the Advanced Edition, plus the Year 3 Pass. If you want everything available in the game, you'll need to spend $65 / £48 on the Complete Edition, which comes with everything above, plus the 16 Operators released prior to Year 3. Phew.
You can pick up the acclaimed Gotham-set trilogy by grabbing Batman: Return to Arkham and Batman: Arkham Knight on sale for $10 / £14 each. If next year's Metro Exodus has you intrigued, you can play through the first two games in the Metro Redux Bundle on sale for $7.50 / £6. The sale price of the action-RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance has been creeping down since it launched earlier this year; you can grab it now for the lowest price we've seen yet, $40 / £37.
Many more games and add-ons are on sale between now and August 28. We've highlighted more below, but you can see the full list on Major Nelson's blog.
Bandai Namco has revealed six new playable characters for Jump Force, its upcoming anime fighting game that pits characters from various Shonen Jump series against each other. A trailer released during Gamescom 2018 shows new characters from previously announced series alongside a new addition: Hunter x Hunter. You can watch the trailer above.
Hunter x Hunter's protagonist Gon and antagonist Hisoka join the hero and villain sides, respectively. Everyone's favorite Saiyan Prince Vegeta joins the Dragon Ball roster, while One Piece gets the largest addition in Sanji, Sabo, and Blackbeard. The trailer also shows a new stage based on the Dragon Ball planet Namek.
The six new characters join Dragon Ball's Goku and Frieza, One Piece's Luffy and Zoro, Naruto's Naruto and Sasuke, and Bleach's Ichigo, Rukia, and Aizen. As shown in the E3 2018 reveal, Death Note's Light and Ryuk also make appearances in the fighter, but Bandai Namco later confirmed that they are story-exclusive characters and are not playable. The six new characters bring the roster up to 15.
Jump Force is set to release sometime in 2019 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. For more on Gamescom 2018, check out our hub of all the latest news, trailers, gameplay, and more.
Whether you're catching up on your favorite series or testing the waters with a new show, your binge-watching session may be interrupted by new ads Netflix is calling "recommendations" that play between episodes. As jarring as they may be--especially when you're deep in your binge--opting out of these new ads is a simple process.
According to ComicBook, you must visit Netflix from either a desktop browser or tablet, as accessing your account information through the app won't present the option to turn the new ads off.
Once on Netflix, go to your profile icon in the top right corner, select "Account" in the drop-down menu, and scroll down to "Settings." There should be a few different selectable links, but you're looking for one titled "Test Participation." Click that. This page should contain a single toggle for this setting. Toggle that sucker off, click the blue "Done" icon at the bottom of the page, and viola--you should see no new ads when you embark on your next big binge.
Users reportedly started seeing these new recommendations last week. As reported by Ars Technica, some viewers started seeing ads for shows like Better Call Saul and Insatiable between episodes of popular shows like Rick & Morty and Bob's Burgers. The ads are being trialed for selected viewers and, as the company previously confirmed, these ads are skippable.
In a statement, Netflix described the ads as "recommendations" and explained that they were to help viewers make decisions easier. "We are testing whether surfacing recommendations between episodes helps members discover stories they will enjoy faster," the statement read.
While there's no confirmation on whether these new recommendations will become par for the course for the binging experience in the future, you can rest assured knowing that, for now, your binging experience can continue to go uninterrupted.
During the Inside Xbox presentation during Gamescom 2018, it was announced that Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to Xbox Game Pass. This Xbox One exclusive includes anniversary editions of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, as well as Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo 4. Although only the campaign for ODST is in the collection, the multiplayer of the other four games are all included.
Xbox also had some announcements in regards to the company's Game Pass program. Until August 31, new members only have to pay $2 for a two month membership. A beta for the Game Pass mobile app is also launching today. The app allows you to install games to your Xbox One remotely and monitor both Game Pass deals and the schedule for when titles are added or removed from the program. Android users can download the app through Google Play while iOS users need to secure a spot through TestFlight. Spots in the iOS beta are limited so act fast if you want in.
The Master Chief Collection comes to Xbox Game Pass on September 1. The collection is also getting Xbox One X enhanced, improved matchmaking, offline LAN support, and a new custom game browser. You'll get these add-ons and patches on September 1 if you just buy the collection as well.
New details continue to emerge about Battlefield V. With Gamescom 2018 underway, EA and DICE have shared news regarding Battlefield V's customization and progression systems, which center around what's known as The Company.
The Company is essentially your collection of soldiers and various customization options. You're able to establish a Company with each faction; at launch, that means one each for the British and German armies. We've heard previously about Combat Roles, which offer unique loadouts and abilities that act as specializations for the four major classes: Assault, Support, Recon, and Medic. You'll earn additional Combat Roles over time, and by completing certain types of missions and quests, you'll earn further weapons, gear, and vehicles.
All of that will impact gameplay, as you're earning and equipping actual items. But Battlefield V also allows you to customize the visual look of your characters "from top to bottom," and the weapons themselves also have different looks. The new trailer below offers a brief glimpse of the range of possibilities the game allows for, and you'll earn more options for your Company as you play. DICE insists that customization is a key aspect of the game and that it's working to ensure your choices are featured prominently, such as in the post-game Best Squad screen.
The Company will be available in some form during the upcoming open beta, which we recently learned kicks off in early September. Like the full game, which launches on October 19, that will be available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, but those who pre-order or subscribe to EA/Origin Access will get in early.
Battlefield V is being featured prominently at Gamescom in Germany this week. Nvidia also used the game to showcase the capabilities of its new RTX video cards, which launch in September, just ahead of the game's release. Gamescom also brought word on new Xbox One bundles featuring Battlefield V, one of which is an Xbox One X with a special design.
Back in June, Star Wars: The Last Jedi actress Kelly Marie Tran closed her Instagram account following the online abuse she had suffered since the movie's release. While many of her colleagues and celebrity fans were quick to condemn her treatment, Tran herself remained silent on the matter. Now she has written an article for the New York Times about her experiences.
The piece is titled "I Won't Be Marginalized by Online Harassment," and it starts with Tran explaining that the racist vitriol aimed at her reinforced views and opinions she had heard much of her life. "Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories," she said.
Tran, who played Rose Tico in The Last Jedi, went on to state that the abuse had "awakened something deep inside me," reminding her of experiences in her past. She revealed that she stopped speaking Vietnamese entirely when she was 9 because "I was tired of hearing other kids mock me," and also wrote about the time she was mistaken for a foreign exchange student while out with her white boyfriend.
Later in the article, Tran stated that ultimately she realized that the shame she felt was not for who she was, but was "a shame for how that world treats anyone who is different."
"I am not the first person to have grown up this way," she wrote. "This is what it is to grow up as a person of color in a white-dominated world. This is what it is to be a woman in a society that has taught its daughters that we are worthy of love only if we are deemed attractive by its sons. This is the world I grew up in, but not the world I want to leave behind.
"I want to live in a world where children of color don't spend their entire adolescence wishing to be white. I want to live in a world where women are not subjected to scrutiny for their appearance, or their actions, or their general existence. I want to live in a world where people of all races, religions, socioeconomic classes, sexual orientations, gender identities and abilities are seen as what they have always been: human beings."
Tran finished the article by admitting that "the opportunity given to me is rare," and reasserts that her position as a prominent Asian-American actor in a huge Hollywood franchise would ensure that "I am not giving up."
"I am the first woman of color to have a leading role in a Star Wars movie," she said. "I am the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair. My real name is Loan. And I am just getting started."
Tran isn't the only female star who has been forced to quit social media as a result of targeted abuse in the last few months. Stranger Things' Millie Bobbie Brown left Twitter in June, and this month The Meg's Ruby Rose left the platform following the announcement that she will play Batwoman. "I wish we would all support each other and our journeys," she wrote before deleting her Twitter account.
Tran will return for Star Wars: Episode IX, which is currently shooting in the UK. It will be directed by JJ Abrams, who also helmed 2015's The Force Awakens, and is set for release in December 2019. Earlier this month, the first image was released from the set.
Although the concept of binge-watching existed before Netflix, the streaming giant has made it easier than ever before to watch multiple episodes of a TV show in a row. As subscribers know, subsequent episodes start within a few seconds of the previous one ending, meaning you don't have to do anything but sit there to enjoy entire seasons of your favourite series. However, it has been reported that the company has started experimenting with ads for other shows between episodes.
As reported by Ars Technica, some viewers have started seeing ads for the likes of Better Call Saul and Insatiable between episodes of popular shows such as Rick & Morty and Bob's Burgers. The ads are being trialed for selected viewers and the company states that they are skippable.
In a statement, Netflix described the ads as "recommendations" and explained that they were to help viewers choose what else to watch. "We are testing whether surfacing recommendations between episodes helps members discover stories they will enjoy faster," the statement read.
Netflix went on to explain that this new initiative was based on the "preview" function, which was introduced in 2016 and means that excerpts from shows autoplay whenever a user scrolls over its thumbnail. "A couple of years ago, we introduced video previews to the TV experience, because we saw that it significantly cut the time members spend browsing and helped them find something they would enjoy watching even faster," the company stated.
According to ComicBook, it's possible to opt out of the new ads. From the account settings area on the Netflix website, you can disable something called Test Participation. Whether that remains an option long-term, however, is unclear.
Netflix is facing increasing competition in the streaming arena. As well as the likes of Amazon and Hulu, a number of studios have started to produce new shows intended for exclusive streaming on their own subscriber platforms.
CBS All Access has become the home of Star Trek in the US, with a second season of Discovery premiering in January 2019 and Patrick Stewart due to make his return as Jean-Luc Picard in another Star Trek show. Warner will launch DC Universe later this year, with new DC series such as Titansset to premiere. Disney, meanwhile, are developing a new streaming platform that will be the home of a new live-action Star Wars show, as well as next season of the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
While the first two seasons of Stranger Things debuted a year apart, fans will have to wait until summer 2019 for Season 3 of Netflix's hit sci-fi thriller. However, David Harbour, who plays cop Jim Hopper in the series, has been speaking about what fans can expect from Season 3, and its unlikely influences.
As reported by Variety, Harbour appeared at a post-screening Q&A and revealed that although Season 3 would be "darker" than the previous two, one movie that had been a big influence on creators Matt and Ross Duffer was the classic 1985 comedy Fletch, starring Chevy Chase.
"The Duffers are so specific each year with the movies," he said. "And Fletch is one movie we get to play around and have some fun with this season, which you wouldn't expect from Stranger Things and you wouldn't expect from the Spielberg universe and you certainly wouldn't expect from a darker season."
In Fletch, Chase plays a unscrupulous journalist who adopts multiple guises in order to investigate a mystery. While Harbour didn't provide any more details about how Fletch might have influenced Stranger Things Season 3, we do know that Jake Busey plays a journalist that Netflix previously described as a "corrupt and sexist news reporter."
In addition, Harbour hinted at what's in store for his character, in particular his relationship with the powerful Eleven (Millie Bobbie Brown), who he looks after. "Their relationship is going to get far more complex, because, you know, things happen to girls and boys when they're 13 and 14," he said. "A lot of changes go on in the body and in your social life, and I don't think he's going to handle watching her become a woman in front of his eyes very well. That's a horrifying thing for him--maybe even more so than fighting inter-dimensional monsters."
The 2019 release date for Stranger Things Season 3 was confirmed last month at the TV Critics Association press tour. The first teaser was revealed, and Netflix programming boss Cindy Holland explained that one of the reasons for the delay is the amount of special effects required. "It's a handcrafted show," she said. "The Duffer Brothers and [producer] Shawn Levy--they understand the stakes are high. They want to deliver something bigger and better than last year. I think it's going to be a fantastic season. It will be worth the wait. It's a really exciting season, just takes a little more time."
The August box office continues to defy expectations. The month is traditionally one of the weakest of the year in terms of big releases, but last week the shark thriller The Megfar exceeded expectations to take home $44 million in its first weekend. This weekend, it was knocked from No.1 by the acclaimed romcom Crazy Rich Asians, which made an estimated $25.2 million from Friday to Sunday. Additionally, the movie had already opened in some theaters on Wednesday, bringing its total gross to $34 million by Sunday night, from a reported production budget of just $30 million.
The Meg slipped into second place but still made an impressive $21.1 million, bringing its domestic total to $83.7 million and $230.4 million worldwide. The second biggest new release of the week was the action thriller Mile 22, starring Mark Wahlberg. The movie has been met with poor reviews and despite entering the chart at No.3, only made an estimated $13.6 million in its first three days. Nevertheless, as Box Office Mojo points out, the international market is an increasingly important one and this type of violent action movie typically does well overseas.
The other new release was the adventure movie Alpha, which debuted with an estimated $10.5 million take. The movie tied for fourth place with Mission Impossible: Fallout, which continued to do great business in its fourth week on the chart, bringing its domestic total to $180.7 million. It remains the last of the summer's big budget franchise movies in the Top 10.
Elsewhere, the family movie Christopher Robin, the drama BlacKkKlansman, and horror movie Slender Man fell into the bottom half of the Top 10, at Nos. 6, 7, and 8 respectively. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation and Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again round things off at No.9 and 10.
You can see the full Top 10 list for the August 17-19 US box office below, as compiled by Box Office Mojo.
US/Canada Box Office For August 17-19:
Crazy Rich Asians – $25.2 million
The Meg– $21.1 million
Mile 22 – $13.6 million
Mission Impossible: Fallout – $10.5 million
Alpha – $10.5 million
Disney's Christopher Robin – $8.86 million
BlacKkKlansman – $7.0 million
Slender Man – $4.9 million
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation – $3.6 million
Resident Evil 2 made a fantastic first impression at E3 2018, immediately becoming one of our top games of the show. We've been waiting in anticipation for a new glimpse of the game, and at Gamescom 2018, we got just that. Capcom has released some new info and images about the upcoming reimagining of the classic Resident Evil 2, which looks to rethink many of the familiar and established aspects of the original PSX game.
In the following screenshots, we see Claire Redfield encounter Sherry Birkin--the daughter of the mad scientists behind the G-Virus--and RPD police chief Brian Irons, all of whom have brand-new looks for the remake. But of course, the biggest surprise is the reveal of the mutated William Birkin, who manages to look even more gruesome than in the original game. Matt Espineli had the chance go hands-on with the game, and he came away incredibly impressed with the new vision of the game.
Much like 2002's Resident Evil remake, Resident Evil 2 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC will be a reimagined take on the original game. Featuring a revised narrative, new encounters, and some other surprises, the remake will be a fresh game for newcomers to the series who missed out on the original, but also for longtime fans as well. Like the intial game, RE2 will feature two unique storylines for its two lead characters, rookie RPD cop Leon Kennedy, and Claire Redfield, the sister of original protagonist Chris Redfield. Unlike the original game, however, the remake's parallel campaigns will be unique to each character, with no possibility to swap out events with different characters.
Be sure to check back with us at GameSpot for our continuing coverage of Gamescom 2018, including our hands-on impressions of Devil May Cry 5. For more info about all the latest, check out our Gamescom hub page.
The Celebi Special Research questline has begun in Pokemon Go, and along with giving players a chance to capture the Mythical Pokemon, it looks like it will introduce a new item to the game. Dataminers have discovered the brand-new Silver Pinap Berry within the game's code (via Pokemon Go Hub), and it appears to be the reward for completing one of the latest Special Research tasks.
According to dataminer Chrales, the Silver Pinap Berry is effectively a combination of the standard Pinap and Razz Berries. Feeding it to a wild Pokemon will reward you with twice the usual amount of Candy you would receive upon capture. In addition to that, the Silver Pinap Berry makes the wild Pokemon easier to catch.
Unlike Field Research tasks, which are distributed at Poke Stops, players receive Special Research quests from Professor Willow. Completing these tasks will reward you with XP, items, and ultimately an encounter with the aforementioned Celebi. In order to take on the new Special Research, you will first need to have completed the third set of Special Research tasks for Mew.
Coinciding with Celebi's arrival, Niantic has kicked off a special Johto-themed event in Go. For a limited time, Gen 2 Pokemon will appear more frequently in the wild. Six new Shiny Gen 2 Pokemon have also been added to the game: Natu, Sunkern, Pineco, and their evolved forms Xatu, Sunflora, and Forretress.
In addition to Celebi, a new Legendary Pokemon, Regirock, recently debuted in Pokemon Go. The powerful Rock-type will appear in Gyms as a Raid Battle until September 20. Shortly after that, Niantic will host the next Community Day on September 22. The featured Pokemon this time will be the Gen 2 starter Chikorita.
Devil May Cry 5 is somewhat of a homecoming for the series. Having been reimagined by British developer Ninja Theory in the excellent DmC: Devil May Cry, Capcom's sword-swinging, monster-juggling action game is returning to the hands of its Japanese developer. Developed by an internal Capcom team, the fifth entry in the series feels like it's striving to be as familiar as it is fresh.
That intent is driven home from the very outset. Seconds into my hands-on with the GamesCom demo I noticed sound effects pulled straight out of the first game. If that didn't immediately evoke PS2-era nostalgia for the series, the new and improved Nero definitely would have. Although he's making a return from Devil May Cry 4, he has offloaded the angst and replaced it with a wisecracking attitude and a confident swagger. He might look like a fresh-cut Nero but he definitely acts like old-school Dante. Given that Devil May Cry 3 director Hideaki Itsuno is helming the project, it's not surprising to find striking similarities between new Nero and young Dante.
Capcom is very much leaning on its heritage in Devil May Cry 5, taking the familiar and adding a little twist, and this is most noticeable in the combat mechanics. At first blush it feels like little has changed: you attack with a sword and guns, use evasive rolls and jumps to escape sticky situations, and string a unique mechanic to create synergy between all these individual components. However, the biggest gameplay shakeup is in that unique mechanic: Devil Breaker. In Devil May Cry 4, Nero's arm--then called Devil Bringer--was the glue that held gameplay together, it allowed him to snatch enemies from a distance and drag them towards him, or anchor himself to them and throw himself around the battlefield. Although Devil Breaker can also serve that purpose, it can't be endlessly relied on.
Instead of being a weird, demonic arm imbued with supernatural power, Devil Breaker is a prosthetic arm, and--for some reason--they can be found in the game's various environments, waiting for Nero to pluck them off the ground and attach them to his stump. Devil Breakers have unique properties, some restoring the grabbing ability from DMC4, others giving Nero the ability to unleash a explosion of electricity that's deadly at close range. They also get into weird and wacky territory, with some Devil Breakers able to unleash a barrage of laser beams or launch a rocket punch in their powered-up states.
Crucially, Devil Breakers are finite, and you won't always have one. They each have limited mileage and, once they bottom out, Nero is left to battle on with just one arm. Devil Breakers can also be manually exploded, creating additional damage and combo potential. For fans of the series and veterans of the genre, the opportunities this system provides will no doubt be exciting. Capcom hasn't revealed all the types of Devil Breakers that will be in the game, which means their unique properties also remain a mystery. If my time with just two of them is any indication, this system will open the door to deep, rewarding, likely very complicated combat--though there is a simplified control scheme for those that want to make cool things happen quickly.
My biggest takeaway from Devil Breaker, however, was that it added a new layer of strategy to the experience. Traditionally, Devil May Cry games have been about empowering the player by giving them more guns, swords, and other outrageous weaponry as they progress through; they were about creating options, instead of removing them. By making Devil Breakers a finite, fragile resource there's a greater sense of tension in each encounter. That one, uncertain variable means that from one skirmish to the next, there's always important strategic considerations to be made. You can't just let muscle memory take over, as you would in most character action games of this ilk.
Along with this new, dynamic combat system, Capcom has improved how it presents the game. Devil May Cry 5 immediately feels like a more cinematic experience than predecessors, with its camera pulled in close to the action and a more realistic visual style for a slightly grounded look. And although this certainly seems to be working, Devil May Cry 5 doesn't shy away from the series' more outrageous, campy moments. In one scene, an ambulance falls on Nero, but he's perfectly positioned to thread himself through one of its open doors. It tumbles across the ground and slams into a wall; a few seconds later Nero kicks open a door and nonchalantly walks out as if nothing happened. It's the kind of completely ridiculous, over-the-top cinematic moment that is as critical to an authentic Devil May Cry experience as slick combat it.
Early signs are promising for Devil May Cry 5. The little we played walked the fine line between bringing new ideas and catering to nostalgia. While we've only experience a slice of it, it's easy to see the building blocks of a really interesting and diverse combat system. However, it's going to be interesting to see how the game tackles storytelling and characterization, both of which have traditionally been the most inconsistent elements of the franchise.
You can watch 20 minutes of Devil May 5 gameplay in the video above. Capcom has confirmed the Devil May Cry 5 release date as March 8, 2019 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Capcom has also released a trailer showing more of Dante, who can now transform a motorcycle into a dual-wielded weapons.
Since debuting at the Royal Rumble back in January, Ronda Rousey's WWE career has been an interesting one to follow. Almost immediately she found herself in a high-profile role at Wrestlemania, followed by title matches against Nia Jax and, at SummerSlam, Alexa Bliss.
Given her quick rise in the women's division, some fans might think this is too much too soon for the UFC Hall of Famer. She knows more about how professional wrestling on the scale of WWE works than you might expect, though. Speaking to GameSpot while promoting her new film, Mile 22, Rousey makes it clear she has an understanding of the business that many fans--and wrestlers, for that matter--have yet to grasp. "[WWE is] definitely much more similar to, I would say, filming a TV show than to being in a fight," she says. "I think a lot more carries over from fight choreography than actual fighting."
For Rousey, her WWE experience has been a crash course in acting, which she says has helped her become a better performer. Coming into WWE essentially as an outsider has given her unique insight into how the process of being a WWE performer works.
"Usually I don't know what's going to happen until the day of, maybe an hour or two before I go out there," she explains. "So they're like, 'Okay, here's a whole fight scene that you need to memorize right now.' The kind of fight scene that you would spend six weeks or so rehearsing for a movie."
Not only does she have to memorize the choreography she plans to use in the ring, there's also the camera to worry about. While in UFC, finding the camera doesn't matter much, but the same cannot be said of WWE.
"In WWE, I need to know this is the hard [camera] side," she says. "If I'm not facing that side, there isn't already a camera pointed at me. So if I'm doing something that emotionally needs to be registered on my face, I need to hold where I'm at long enough for a handheld person to come over here, and keep my eye on this person, but be aware that this camera came here, and this person got this shot so now I can move on to the next thing."
Then, of course, there's the WWE Universe. When your performing, whether it's a match or a promo, the live audience doesn't bother holding back their opinions. "It really teaches me a lot that I think people wouldn't learn unless performing in front a live audience, [like] how an audience feels about everything that you're doing while you're doing it," she explains. "A lot of times in a movie you just have to guess how the audience will feel in this moment. But when you're out there, it's immediate feedback. I'm out there in front of 30,000 people. And they'll let you know."
With training like what she's getting as a WWE superstar, it's no wonder Rousey is able to rise to the challenge of filming intense action scenes like those in Mile 22. However, it also shows that not everyone is cut out for WWE.
The moment there were rumblings about Rousey potentially joining WWE, the talk among fans was divided as to whether she would flourish as a professional wrestler. When she immediately debuted on Raw, rather than going through WWE's NXT developmental system, the deck was stacked against her. However, her understanding of the product and how she can add to it has brought her great success. And it shows in the WWE Universe's response to her. Unlike the divided reaction Roman Reigns gets anytime he walks into an arena, Rousey is met with near-universal approval.
Truthfully, Rousey is a template for anyone who wants to turn their outside success into WWE stardom. She's cracked the code and it has not only made her a better performer but a better actor in her film and TV projects.
Mile 22 is in theaters on August 17. You can also see Rousey fight for the Raw Women's Championship against Alexa Bliss at SummerSlam on August 19. Before the show, make sure to check out GameSpot's SummerSlam predictions.
Six new shiny Pokemon have just been added to Pokemon Go. In celebration of the mobile game's limited-time Johto Festival event, which increases the spawn rate of all Johto exclusive Pokemon, the six additions are all part of the Gen 2 Pokedex.
In a tweet, Pokemon Go revealed both shiny Natu and Sunkern had been added, while hinting there might be more than just the two. It's since been revealed that the third shiny addition is Pineco, and that all three Pokemon evolve into shiny versions of Xatu, Sunflora, and Forretress respectfully.
Shiny Pokemon have long been sought after for their rarity. They can most easily be identified by their alternative color scheme, but Pokemon Go adds a small sparkle animation to the capture screen so you'll know when they first appear. Shiny Natu has yellow wings and feet. Surprisingly, shiny Sunkern is a darker and less vibrant yellow than its non-shiny counterpart. Shiny Pineco has the most noticeable transformation, changing the dark green pinecone Pokemon into a yellowish orange.
The Johto Festival also includes a new Special Research quest to Pokemon Go that allows players to catch the legendary Celebi. New Johto-inspired avatar items have also been added.
Pokemon Go is available on both iOS and Android devices. Nintendo Switch exclusive Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu! / Pokemon: Let's Go, Eevee! features gameplay that borrows mechanically from Pokemon Go, and is scheduled to release on November 16.
Fans eager to test the historical accuracy of Battlefield V won't have to wait much longer, as EA's announced the game's open beta start date. Battlefield V's open beta is scheduled to start at the beginning of September, with those who pre-order or are members of Origin Access Premier, Origin Access Basic, or EA Access getting two whole days to play before everyone else.
Battlefield V's open beta will kick off on September 4 for those who pre-order and/or are subscribers of EA's services, while everyone else will get access to it on September 6 on all platforms. The open beta will feature the new Rotterdam map for Conquest, as well as the Arctic Fjord map for both Conquest and Grand Operations. Pre-loading the open beta starts on September 3.
According to the press release, the Rotterdam map will put players in "a battle fought throughout the streets of Holland where the game's dynamic physicality and destruction will be on full display." Grand Operations makes its Battlefield V debut and is "a multiplayer experience across multiple maps and modes that takes players through a powerful narrative journey inspired by historical events," as stated in the press release. In addition to the new map and mode, a five-part Tides of War chapter--an ever-evolving journey through World War II featuring a new story every few months--will be available during the open beta, and those that complete it will receive an exclusive in-game Dog Tag when the game launches.
EA DICE recently dropped a new trailer for Battlefield V ahead of Gamescom 2018. The trailer, called Devastation of Rotterdam, shows an amalgam of cutscenes and gameplay footage. Toward the end of the trailer, we get a potential tease of Battlefield V's new Battle Royale mode, which was announced during E3 2018. We expect to see more Battlefield V footage during Gamescom and hopefully learn more about this new Battle Royale mode. Nvidia also partnered with EA DICE and used Battlefield V to showcase the newly-announced RTX video cards.
Those who pre-order Battlefield V will not only get early access to the open beta but will also be able to play the full game three days ahead of its release, on October 16. Origin Access Premier members on PC can play the full game on October 11, while Origin Access Basic members on PC and EA Access members on Xbox One get access to the Play First Trial on the same day.
Battlefield V will be available for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 19, 2018.
The next Fortnite patch is coming out soon. Epic Games has announced that v5.30 will be released on Thursday, August 23. Additionally, the next week of challenges, Week 7, will be available starting a day later, on August 24. Unfortunately, Epic did not share any information about what's new in the patch or what the new challenges will consist of.
All should become clear soon, so keep checking back with GameSpot for more. The last big patch, v5.21, was released last week. The headline feature of the new update was the brand-new Soaring 50s mode, while an updated version of Sniper Shootout was also released. Additionally, Epic added a new weapon, the Heavy Sniper.
Patch v5.30 is right around the corner! It will release later in the week on Thursday, August 23.
Week 7 Challenges will become available Friday, August 24.
Those in the market for an Xbox One will soon have some new options. Alongside a new Fallout 76 bundle, Microsoft's Gamescom 2018 edition of Inside Xbox has brought word on new bundles that package the system together with Battlefield V. Notably, these include an Xbox One X featuring a special design.
The Xbox One X Gold Rush bundle, as it's called, includes a 1 TB Xbox One X that sports a gradient, fading from gold on the left to black on the right. It also comes with a wireless gray controller, Battlefield V's Deluxe edition, Battlefield 1943 (the Xbox 360 game, which is backwards compatible on Xbox One), one month of EA Access, one month of Xbox Game Pass, and a 14-day Xbox Live Gold trial. In the US, this will be priced at $499, the standard price of an Xbox One X on its own.
Battlefield V's Deluxe edition gets you early access to the full game as well as various bonuses. That includes five paratrooper outfits, more starter assignments, and 20 weekly airlifts, which each provide you with a customization item.
Additionally, Microsoft mentioned that there will be standard Xbox One S and Xbox One X bundles that also come with Battlefield V's Deluxe edition. Specific pricing and release details for those have not yet been confirmed.
Battlefield V's release date is set for October 19 on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
During Microsoft's Inside Xbox livestream at Gamescom 2018, Bethesda's VP of marketing Pete Hines revealed the upcoming Xbox One X console bundle for Fallout 76. Releasing November 14 alongside Fallout 76 and priced $499.00 MSRP, the bundle will come packed with a 1TB Xbox One X, a copy of Fallout 76, one wireless controller, and one free month for both Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass--the console's digital gaming distribution service.
In Fallout 76, players will explore an online world with others as they craft materials, explore the locales of post-apocalyptic West Virginia, and fight other mutated creatures and rival vault dwellers. While Fallout series has traditionally been about the single player experience, 76 is set entirely within an online space where others will have to work together to survive. Fans of the series will have their first chance at playing the game this October with the upcoming beta, which has no specific release date.
Surprisingly, this is the second Xbox One X bundle that has been announced during Gamescom 2018. Just prior to the reveal of the Fallout 76 bundle, EA and Microsoft announced plans for the console bundle for Battlefield V, titled the Gold Rush bundle. Though similar to the Fallout 76 bundle, the Gold Rush package also includes a copy of Battlefield 1943--which was just made available via backwards compatibility.
For more info about Fallout 76 and the many other games we've seen during Gamescom 2018, check out all of our latest coverage on GameSpot's Gamescom 2018 HUB page.
The Forza Horizon series has always been about fusing realistic driving mechanics with the freedom and quirks of exploring open environments. One of the biggest changes coming to the franchise with Forza Horizon 4 is that its open world will be populated with actual players, in hopes of making it feel more lived in--hence the 'shared world' designation. So long as you're online, real players will be cruising around the world at all times instead of drivatars (AI cars simulating real player behavior) seen in past entries. But the goal isn't just to fill the game with actual people going about their business, the shared world also functions to induce new multiplayer experiences.
Entering races alone or as a group (or Convoy, as the game calls it) is said to work seamlessly as you're temporarily put into a parallel server outside the shared world, and immediately put back in afterward. There's also hourly events called Forzathon Live where anyone can jump in for cooperative challenges to earn rewards. This doesn't mean that you're required to be online to play the game, though. Forza Horizon 4's campaign can be played entirely solo and will include drivatars to fill in the gaps.
We spoke with the creative director Ralph Fulton and principal designer Mike Brown from developer Playground Studios to get a more detailed explanation of how Forza Horizon 4's shared world operates and how it mixes up the series formula. Note that the following interview has been editorialized for clarity and readability.
GameSpot: To kick it off, could you explain how the shared world is different from past Forza Horizon games?
Ralph Fulton: To frame how we got to where we are now you're going to need to look back at the history of [Forza] Horizon. We have four pillars in the Horizon series that we constantly refer back to when we are making a new game. We talk about fun, freedom, beauty, and community being our fourth pillar. And obviously with every game we're trying to up the limit in each of those areas, but I think community has probably been the area where we've found the most headroom. And we've been really start pushing to give our fans and our players new ways to interact with each other. That just seems to be the thing that they enjoy doing, that they really value in Horizon games because they're just really social by nature.
Different vehicles are at your disposal in Forza Horizon 4, from exotic supercars and rally cars to motorbikes and all-terrain trucks.
So, in Horizon 2, we brought in seamless multiplayer and player clubs. In Horizon 3, we brought in co-op for the first time. We've made this huge step forward with Forza Horizon 4, now where everyone will play in a shared world. So, it's not really about single-player or multiplayer anymore so much as everybody just doing what they want in a world that's populated with other real players doing whatever they want to do at that given moment.
GS: To be in the shared world, you have to be connected online all the time. But what does it mean for someone who only plays offline in single-player by themselves?
Mike Brown: That was something we discussed a lot right at the start of the project on Forza Horizon 4. We wanted to make it a shared-world game because we know that there are countless benefits to that. It's also has much richer community interactions. It brings with it loads of immersive gameplay.You have all this vibrancy of other people in your world doing stuff that you might never expect to see or you might never otherwise see.
But equally, we're not deaf to the fact that there are a lot of players out there who just don't want to play with other people, or who can't play with other people for reasons out of their control. Servers may go down or any multitude of other reasons. So for that reason, as much as we call it a shared world game for type before is totally playable offline.
You can play through the entire thing, the entire campaign, offline, without internet connection, if that's how you want to play. And you can click a button and you'll drop into an offline world and then your open world is populated with driver files, similarly if you're playing and your internet goes down or something to that effect. The game will simply transition to a solo world where those real life people you were playing with will be replaced with drivatars, and you just carry on as you were. It doesn't drop you out to the main menu or anything, any of the nasty scenarios like that. It just keeps you playing and having fun.
GS: Would you say Forza Horizon 4 shares similarities with how MMORPGs function where you have this big world where players can connect and group up or do their own missions simultaneously?
MB: Sure, yeah you're connected just driving around the world, you'll see people zooming around, going about their own business. Anybody you meet, you can drive up to them, connect and invite them to join you on what we call a Convoy, which is just a persistent group that exists for up to 12 players—then you can play together. And you have a Convoy leader who chooses tasks for that group to do.
As I've mentioned, we introduced co-op in Forza Horizon 3. And now the entire game [Horizon 4], you can just go meet a person in the open world—maybe you're both drifting around the same area of Edinburgh—and say, "hey, wanna come and join my Convoy?" Now they're in a little mini party. You're still in the open world, you'll still see other people buzzing around, but you two are in an assisted group, so you can go and do races or Horizon Stories, which is a new gameplay feature. You'll basically play together for how much you want to play together.
So yeah, it is kind of MMO-ish, although in the sense that there is a shared world in which you team up with people and take part in activities together. It doesn't have any of that sort of rules of MMO systems.
RF: And what we think is the real value in this shared world isn't so much, "hey, everybody, play together", we're not trying to force anyone into doing something that doesn't come naturally to them. We think the value is, like Mike said, this world becomes much richer, so much more interesting and spontaneous through the presence of real people doing real people things. In Horizon 3, our world was populated with drivatars, that does a pretty decent job of approximating how real players drive. But honestly, it can never come close to the variety and the unpredictability that real people have. You can't program that kind of variety. And I think that's going to be the real joy for players. Not necessarily going and playing with other people, just seeing other people going about their games.
GS: In Horizon 3, when you're almost in contact with drivatars, they would ghost so they don't get in your way. How are you handling collisions now that there all these people in a shared world?
RF: It probably falls into the category of questions that we asked ourselves a lot at the start of this project. Almost kind of troubleshooting shared worlds before we set about making our own. One of the first things you run up against when you start talking about shared worlds, that everybody lives together and, "alright, there's gonna be some asshole that crashes into me, spoils my game," and we felt that we had to find a solution for that.
The way we solved it is that, by default, other players in your world won't collide with you, they'll just ghost right through you. They'll still appear solid, so you can still get that cool sensation of admiring their car, as they drive past you, or their parked up. But they can't come and deliberately, or even inadvertently, spoil your game by driving into you.
It changes by teaming up with somebody, going into a Convoy together. By default, when you're in a Convoy, you suddenly have collisions with the other people within your Convoy. You have that sort of physicality, you can drive and into each other and collide. There's a ton of people in there who actually get a kick out of that, crashing cars into each other. It's kind of a fun thing to do. We allow that in the context of a Convoy where, again, everybody has signed up for that.
GS: For example, if I jump into a circuit race in the world, does that take me then to a separate realm? Will I also see drivers within the world who are doing circuit races or just driving about?
MB: It depends on which options you choose. When you go into any race in the game, they can all be played solo, where it's just you against AI drivatars. You can play co-op, where it's you and a team of other human players, against a team of AI drivatars. Or it's PvP, where you can play against a whole field made from groups of human players.
If you do choose solo, then at that point you'll silently kind of pull out of the online server, do your race, and then you're brought back there [to the shared world]. You can play with the entire campaign, with every race being a PvP race, if you wanted to. If you're against, other real people, then again, you'd be in a kind of parallel realm whilst you do your race, and then you'd go back into the shared world. You won't ever have a random person who wasn't involved in race, driving across while you're in there.
GS: Will there be any exclusive events or specific features for those who do interact with actual people within the world? Maybe, special quests or races that revolve around grouping up?
RF: Obviously, it's up to you how you play, but we think the game is more fun, more rewarding when you play with others. We have exactly that kind of system, which is called Forzathon Live, which is designed to do just that. It's a kind of public event that happens every hour, on the hour somewhere within the game world. It's pretty well advertised when it's happening. There's a big blimp that floats above the start point that everyone congregate around to join up.
What happens after that is basically a sequence of challenges and events in which all of the participants in the shared world who opt into Forzathon Live, will go do cooperatively. Basically, that group that signed up at the start of Forzathon Live, their score will be accumulative across the whole group. And if you meet certain thresholds, you'll earn certain awards for the whole group.
So, it's very much a collaborative thing. All the players will work together and share their awards that they collect and win. The last 15 minutes of it changes, so you can spend that time doing Forzathon Live with different players. And there's some cool rewards for that, as well as the fun of jumping in very frictionlessly playing with others in a collaborative non-adversarial way. That whole thing, collectively succeeding and then sharing the rewards with everyone.
Microsoft's Xbox Insider broadcast from Gamescom 2018 in Cologne, Germany included a look at the inner-workings of PUBG Soeul's offices in Korea, which lead nicely into the announcement that PUBG will see its 1.0 release on the console on September 4, and that Microsoft would be releasing a specially designed controller to celebrate the milestone.
Microsoft's Limited Edition PUBG controller can be pre-ordered now, and while it's in most ways the same controller Xbox One users have used until now, there are obvious cosmetic details and a subtle physical difference that set it apart. The controller is covered a digital-camo pattern, and this finish is accented by a blue ring around the left analog stick (a throwback to the game's shrinking blue circle that limits the battlefield,) a sight scope on the right analog stick, and a red X on the right trigger.
Appearances aside, it's the new triggers that could make a tangible if small difference in the way you play. In order to prevent your trigger fingers from slipping during tense moments, Microsoft has implemented rubberized triggers--a first for an official Xbox controller.
A close-up of the new rubberized triggers.
Microsoft also revealed new customization options for anyone who wishes to create a personalized Xbox One controller on its website. In addition to being able to change the color of the body of the controller and various buttons, you can now apply one of five new camo patterns, or a shadow finish, which puts a gradient color transition from top to bottom. For a limited time, until September 30, you also have the option of picking a silver shadow option.
In addition to its new controller announcements, Microsoft had plenty more to share during its Xbox Insider broadcast. For all of those stories and more from Gamescom 2018, head over to our event page to catch everything we've covered so far.
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