The biggest weekend of the year for professional wrestling is nearly upon us all. WWE's Wrestlemania 35 takes place on Sunday, April 7 and caps off a week of the highest-profile wrestling you'll find anywhere. From WWE's own shows--which include Wrestlemania, the annual Hall of Fame ceremony, and NXT TakeOver--to the likes of Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro Wrestling, and Impact running major shows, there's simply too much wrestling for you to keep track of alone--and most of it is streaming online for those that can't travel to Wrestlemania.
Luckily, you don't have to search high and low to figure out where to watch the most anticipated wrestling shows of Wrestlmania weekend, because GameSpot has that covered. After looking through the entire schedule of events, including dozens of non-WWE shows, we have tracked down all you need to know about how to watch them all from the comfort of your own home.
So while you may not be able to travel to the New York area to partake in the Super Bowl of professional wrestling, there's no reason to miss out on events presented by Evolve, Shimmer, WrestleCon, and WWN. There's even some wackier options like Kaiju Big Battel, which is essentially Godzilla meets pro wrestling. And if you're excited for NXT and Wrestlemania, you are certainly going to want to stream the Ring of Honor/New Japan Pro Wrestling combined show streaming live from a sold out Madison Square Garden.
Follow along as we dive deep into a week of wrestling insanity and find out where you can stream practically every show happening over Wrestlemania weekend.
Thursday, April 4
Independent Wrestling.TV's Family Reunion When: 12 PM ET Where to stream: Fite.tv
Much like Fortnite, Respawn's hit battle royale game, Apex Legends, will offer a premium Battle Pass every season, through which players will be able to unlock new cosmetic items and other rewards. The first pass is set to go live across PS4, Xbox One, and PC tomorrow, March 19, and ahead of its release, publisher EA has shared a load of new details about it, including how much it'll cost.
The Season 1 Battle Pass can be purchased through Apex Legends' in-game store for 950 Apex Coins (roughly $10)--the same price as Fortnite's Battle Pass. Similarly, EA is also offering a Battle Pass bundle that will instantly unlock the first 25 tiers, giving you immediate access to those rewards. That option will cost 2,800 Apex Coins.
If you do spring for a Battle Pass, you'll automatically unlock three special skins as an added bonus: Lifeline Revolutionary, Wraith Survivor, and Mirage Outlaw. Even if you don't purchase the pass, however, you'll be able to unlock a handful of rewards for free, including one Wild Frontier Legends skin and five Apex Packs.
The Season 1 Battle Pass features 100 tiers of rewards to unlock, including weapon skins, banner frames, XP boosts. You'll also earn up to 1,000 Apex Coins as you level your Battle Pass up throughout the season, which will potentially allow you to pick up next season's Battle Pass without spending any real-world money. You can read more about how the Apex Legends Battle Pass works here.
Launching alongside the Battle Pass tomorrow is Apex Legends' newest playable character: the previously leaked Octane. However, Octane won't be included as part of the Battle Pass; rather, he'll be available to purchase separately for either 12,000 Legend Tokens or 750 Coins, much like Mirage and Caustic were.
EA has announced that the Season 1 battle pass, titled Wild Frontier, for Apex Legends is launching tomorrow, March 19. The battle pass releases alongside Octane, the ninth and newest Legend to join the battle royale game. Octane is not a part of the battle pass and will release separately, allowing you to buy him with Legend Tokens or Apex Coins. He'll be the same cost as Mirage and Caustic--12,000 Legend Tokens or 750 Apex Coins.
Apex Legends' Season 1 battle pass can only be purchased with Apex Coins, one of the three in-game currencies. Buying into the battle pass will cost you 950 Apex Coins. However, you don't have to buy the battle pass right away to avoid missing out on rewards. "You'll receive all the rewards up to your Battle Pass level (which is your current level for the season) retroactively!" EA wrote in the battle pass FAQ. "For example, if you're on level 20 for the season when you buy the Battle Pass, you'll unlock all rewards for every level up to 20, plus three special Battle Pass skins."
If you want to buy yourself a little help in unlocking the Season 1 battle pass rewards, there's also a bundle--which you can purchase for 2,800 Apex Coins--that unlocks the next 25 levels for you. This bundle can be purchased at any time, so you can buy it at the start and instantly reach level 25 in the battle pass or nab it when you're, for example, level 40 and reach level 65. The Season 1 battle pass has 100 levels in total, and contains an assortment of weapon skins, stat trackers, Legend voice lines, and Apex Coin and XP drops as rewards. Leveling up is entirely XP based, as there are no challenges.
Like other games that feature seasonal battle passes, all rewards unlocked with Apex Legend's Season 1 battle pass remain during follow-up seasons. However, once Season 1 ends, you can no longer unlock the items included in this specific pass. Regardless, whether you buy the pass or not, you'll unlock free rewards during Season 1. You get 18 new stat trackers, five Apex Packs, and a new skin for Octane.
Apex Legends is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. In our Apex Legends review, Phil Hornshaw gave the game a 9/10, writing, "Apex Legends is a mix of smart shooter ideas that makes for a competitive, team-based game that gets at all the best parts of battle royale while addressing a lot of the weaknesses. Respawn's intense focus on team play makes Apex more than just a worthy addition to the genre; it's an indicator of where battle royale should go in the future."
WWE's biggest event of the year, Wrestlemania, is right around the corner, coming to PPV and the WWE Network on Sunday, April 7. The night will have some of the biggest matches of the year, including multiple championship bouts, wrapping up story lines that WWE has been building for months.
This year's event is coming to Metlife Stadium in East Ruthersford, New Jersey, on Sunday, April 7. You can watch the event for yourself on the WWE Network or on PPV through your cable or satellite provider. While the official schedule on the Network isn't out for April 7, Wrestlemania 35 is listed as starting at 7 PM ET. Like all other larger WWE events, there will more than likely be a kick off show starting two hours prior to the event.
Check out the start times for multiple time zones below.
Wrestlemania Start Time:
4 PM PT
6 PM CT
7 PM ET
12 AM BST (April 8)
The biggest match on the Wrestlemania card is none other than Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch for the Raw Women's Championship. Originally, Lynch was going to be suspended until after Mania, after her numerous attacks on Rousey forced the McMahons to punish Lynch for her actions. However, she's now been added to the match, after Rousey attacked her at Fastlane.
Additionally, Batista returned, beat up Ric Flair on his birthday, and demanded a match against Triple H. Although Batista had made a few appearances on WWE programming, he has not competed in the ring since 2014. This will be an interesting match to see these former stablemates fight each other in a No Holds Barred match.
Below, you'll find the match card for this year's Wrestlemania. We'll keep updating it as more matches are announced in the upcoming week's to the WWE PPV.
Wrestlemania Match Card:
AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton
Shane McMahon vs. The Miz
Triple H vs. Batista (No Holds Barred Match)
Ronda Rousey (c) vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair (Raw Women's Championship)
Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Seth Rollins (Universal Championship)
Make sure to come back to GameSpot on April 7 for live coverage and a review of the event.
Bethesda has announced it will once again host an E3 presentation , eschewing the recent trend from publishers like Sony and Electronic Arts to step back from the industry event. It will take place Sunday, June 9 at 5:30 PM PT, and will be livestreamed for viewers at home.
The company teased the announcement with the #BE3 hashtag on Twitter. The theme for this year's presentation is "Be Together," and Bethesda says it will be inviting more fans to join in the live audience. The only game formally announced to make an appearance is Doom Eternal, though the teaser image shows silhouettes of lots of characters from across Bethesda's franchises. Last year the studio mentioned both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, so we may hear more about those.
The teaser even includes a cheeky reference to Walmart Canada, which exposed several games planned for last year's E3--including Rage 2 from Bethesda. The company riffed on the leak, and then marketing director Pete Hines cracked a joke at the store's expense during the E3 2018 presentation.
This is par for the course for Bethesda, which began having large-scale E3 presentations five years ago. It is swimming against the tide of the industry as a whole, however. Nintendo stopped giving press conferences in favor of pre-recorded Nintendo Direct presentations and week-long Treehouse streams. Sony announced this year it wouldn't be presenting at E3 at all. EA recently followed suit, still planning its E3-adjacent EA Play event, but declining to do a press conference.
That leaves Microsoft, Ubisoft, and now Bethesda as the last remaining publishers planning old-fashioned E3 stage shows. Microsoft, for its part, appears to be capitalizing on the opportunity and claims it will be "going big" this year.
Nintendo is giving Switch owners a chance to try out one of the console's best games free for a limited time. In an uncharacteristic move, the company is offering a special week-long demo of Splatoon 2, which lets prospective players dive into the colorful shooter and its suite of online modes at no charge.
The Splatoon 2 Special Demo will be available on the Switch Eshop later today, March 18. Much like the full game, you'll need an internet connection and a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to play the demo. If you don't already have the latter, you'll receive a code for a free seven-day trial for the service via email after downloading the demo, even if you've already tried the previous free NSO trial.
The Special Demo will run from March 19-25. During that time, players will be able to try out Splatoon 2's signature Turf War mode, which pits two teams of four against each other in a contest to cover the most terrain with your color ink, as well as the game's various Ranked Battles and the cooperative Salmon Run mode.
If you're interested in purchasing Splatoon 2 after your time with it, Nintendo of America is offering 20% off of the game in the Eshop until March 28, bringing its price down to $48. Players in Europe will get an even bigger savings; the base game will be 33% off, while the Splatoon 2 and Octo Expansion DLC bundle will be discounted by 25%. You'll also be able to carry any progress you've made during the free trial period over to the full version.
Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions run for US $4 / £3.49 / AU $6 for one month, US $8 / £7 / AU $12 for three months, and US $20 / £18 / AU $30 for one year. Along with online play, the subscription offers a handful of other benefits, including cloud saves for most games and access to a catalog of classic NES titles, including Kid Icarus and StarTropics, which were added to the library earlier this month.
It's a busy month for deals in the PlayStation Store: The Great Indoors Sale recently launched, offering major discounts on hundreds of games and a huge price cut for PS Plus subscriptions. But there's another PSN sale that might just have flown under your radar: an EA sale on over 60 PS4 and PS3 games, add-ons, and bundles from some of the publisher's best series. The sale ends Tuesday, March 26 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET, the same time the PS Plus subscription sale ends.
Another notable deal is Titanfall 2's Ultimate edition, which is selling for only $7.49 and includes a huge amount of bonus content. First-person shooter Battlefield V, which released late last year, is marked down to just $30 and features not only several new multiplayer modes but also an episodic single-player campaign. Speaking of multiplayer: break out of prison and journey with your fellow escaped convict in A Way Out, which is discounted at $18. Unravel 2, another local or online co-op experience where you play as adorable yarn creatures, is only $5.
Many of EA's sports titles are marked down well over 50% this week, including Madden NFL 19, which is only $15; EA Sports UFC 3, which is just over $13; and FIFA 19, which is just under $20. The ultimate editions of Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 are also on sale for just $6 each on PS3.
In Lovecraftian lore, horrors exist that the mind simply cannot comprehend. While the facade of our world usually keeps us safe from it all, on occasion, supernatural beings pierce through the veil. These Old Gods are creatures humankind was never meant to bear witness to; a reminder of our insignificance in a universe we don't have the capacity to fully understand.
Those who gaze upon the Old Gods are left broken. They are driven insane as they struggle to reconcile their understanding of how the world should be with the eldritch truths suddenly thrust upon them. In 2018, at a secluded location in England, I felt this same madness creeping into my own mind. I stood before otherworldly creatures that were deeply familiar to me, and yet also entirely alien. I locked eyes with them and my psyche began to fracture; my reality began to distort.
Just then a nice Japanese man handed me a Pokemon goodie bag and thanked me for coming to the set of the Detective Pikachu movie. I politely smiled and nodded while still transfixed on a small furry Pikachu standing a few feet away. I wasn't ready to see that. As I wrestled with the ramifications of it, a guy with his arm up a Charizard's neck appeared and began aggressively waving its head around while making faint roaring sounds. Behind him was a shirtless dude jumping up and down shouting "attack."
I don't think I've been the same since.
For as long as I remember, Pokemon has been a part of my life. I've captured hundreds of them, battled dozens of Gym Leaders, and been crowned a Champion numerous times. But my immersion into the Pokemon universe has always been abstracted through the screens of video game handhelds and TVs. On that day, however, I stood at the center of it. More specifically, I was standing in an underground battle arena where some sort of Pokemon fight club was being held. Large WWE-esque displays teased the match-up, while teenagers dressed like trainers from the games--vibrant-colored shorts, baseball caps, backpacks and all--ambled around. Real-world representations of in-game monsters were also scattered around the location. It was weird, but once I managed to reclaim some sense of my grip on reality, it was also exciting.
Detective Pikachu is The Pokemon Company and Legendary Pictures' first stab at a live-action movie based on the incredibly popular Nintendo franchise. Although much of what audiences will see on screen will be CGI, those involved in its production have leaned heavily on the real world to both inspire the movie and execute on the vision for it, which is why there are so many Pokemon model stand-ins hanging around.
Over the course of the day, I got to immerse myself in a small slice of Detective Pikachu's world and speak with people key to bringing it to life. Whether the movie lives up to the high bar fans expect it to reach remains to be seen, but I can at the very least say that there was an overwhelming excitement about the whole thing--an enthusiasm for the production and an awareness of how much Pokemon means to millions around the world.
To Be A Master
"We're all very passionate about Pokemon at Legendary, and I think we've been talking about it for five years now, so it's been in our minds for a long time," said Ali Mendes, co-producer on the flick. "Detective Pikachu was this new idea from The Pokemon Company, and we were really excited about it because we felt this was a way to celebrate everything inside of Pokemon's legacy: 20 years of battling and these characters that people have fallen in love with, to sort of celebrate that but also do something a little unexpected, a little bit new, and kind of add a genre twist to it.
"The biggest thing was of course seeing Pikachu in live action, figuring out how these characters are going to come into our world--'What does a live Pokemon, a realistic, 3D Pokemon look like?' That was a really exciting challenge for us."
CGI versions of originally 2D animated characters in live-action movies have become prevalent with films like Alvin and the Chipmunks, Smurfs, and Garfield. And while these films were certainly considerations when Legendary began making Detective Pikachu, Mendes said its goal was to deliver something closer to Fantastic Beasts, a spin-off from the Harry Potter universe. In many ways, the Pokemon and Harry Potter universes are quite similar, both having massive worlds rich with history and character, but also driven by memorable stories. Successfully representing both of these aspects, according to Mendes, is the key to doing justice to Pokemon in the movie.
"These creatures are as photo-real as they can possibly be. We're working with the best visual effects team in the world. We thought about Fantastic Beasts a lot just in terms of the quality of that animation and how life-like [the creatures] were. But it was interesting; we worked very closely with The Pokemon Company. They've been wonderful collaborators through this, and we've really let them guide us, because they know their brand better than we ever will, and we want to make sure that we're giving fans exactly what they want, and they know that better than anyone.
"But when it comes to making a feature film, you really want to be led by story; you need to care about your characters, and you need to care about your story, and Detective Pikachu at its heart had this great story that we felt like, 'OK, this is a way to connect beyond just what the brand is.' This is a father-son story. There's something inside of these characters that we feel is really going to resonate and connect with a large audience, so it was actually the creativity of it that really drove us and made us feel like this could be something really special."
Following the release of the first two trailers for Detective Pikachu, the internet has buzzed with discussion about how the Pokemon are depicted. Twitter has exploded with GIFs of Mr. Mime getting involved in an imaginary traffic collision, clips of a bartending Ludicolo screaming abruptly, and pictures of Lickitung's unfurled tongue that are, quite frankly, unnerving. While Legendary has stuck close to the source material when it comes to the design of Pokemon--guided by the The Pokemon Company to ensure they remain faithful--it has had more freedom in depicting the world the movie is set within.
Like the video game it's loosely based on, Detective Pikachu takes place in Ryme City, where protagonist Tim Goodman (Justice Smith), a former Pokemon trainer and son of detective Harry Goodman, investigates the disappearance of his father. Joining him is an amnesiac Pikachu voiced by Ryan Reynolds. Tim happens to be the only human who can speak to the Pikachu, who is also caught up in the mystery of Harry Goodman's disappearance, as well as strange goings-on with other Pokemon in the metropolis.
It's in Ryme City that the meeting of the real and surreal is at its most striking. Nigel Phelps, production designer on Detective Pikachu, also called Fantastic Beasts to mind when discussing taking the familiar and giving it a strange, otherworldly twist.
"It's all very focused on being believable, that's a very important characteristic to the film," he explained. "So for the most part, we'll be shooting in and around London … the streets and the exterior stuff is in and around the city of London and Shoreditch. It has to be familiar to everybody. So some amalgam of Vancouver, in terms of the landscape, Manhattan, in terms of the scale of the architecture. So really, if you mash Manhattan with London and Tokyo, that's kind of the world that we are setting this in.
"We've kind of shied away from [using landmarks and architecture from the games]. There are little clues with the street names, and stuff like that, there's references to the Pokemon universe, without being specific to it. So we've shied away from the animation [because] the cartoons and stuff felt much too cartoon-y and unreal, and it was important to everyone making the film that this was a realistic universe."
Naturally, taking strange creatures and attempting to put them in realistic environments throws up numerous challenges, and this is something that has shaped the construction of sets that Pokemon appear in. Take the aforementioned screaming Ludicolo, for example, who is four feet wide, but still needs to fit behind a bar.
"Everything has to get moved down," Phelps said. "You know, you have to be familiar with, obviously, with the creatures in the scene, because they're not all six foot tall, eighteen inches wide, they're all sorts of shapes and sizes.
"We stopped including Pokemon into the [set production visuals] very early on because [they] became distracting. [We were] drawing this great-looking sets, and everyone's like, 'Oh, yeah, but, no, this Pokemon's ears are too big,' and no one's looking at the environments. It became all about what the Pokemon are doing ... That became what the illustrations were all about, and not the scenery. We'd still be doing [sets] now otherwise. So that's gonna be a post-production layer."
I Choose You
The responsibility of bringing Pokemon to life in a realistic way and integrating them into Ryme City fell upon VFX producer Greg Baxter and his team. And the challenges in doing so were apparent from the very outset, as Baxter found that, although there was an abundance of Pokemon material to look to for inspiration, the stylistic difference of Detective Pikachu meant they couldn't entirely rely on other Pokemon projects..
"The Pokemon world that has existed before, whether it's in the games or the traditional anime, has been a very different style of performance," Baxter said. "And so, even just getting a first image of what it might be has been a long process. To get so many cooks, if you will, to try to weigh in on what it would look like and then performing as a three-dimensional character, walking and flying, and there's so many of them so the movements are just vast.
"And then, coming out here onto a film set or out into the city and trying to figure out how to film all of that movement when it doesn't actually exist in front of a camera and when it's so different--I mean, you've got, one-foot- to 20-foot-tall Pokemon and some fly and some slither, some are fast, some are slow, and shot to shot, you may have 12 of those. And you have to accommodate for all of them.
"We've done movies before where you have one or two ways to film that, ways to get space for the Pokemon or light for the Pokemon or for the character. [But] in this one, when you have so many in one shot, you have to make sure that the camera is not just capturing the faces in front of them, but also all of the creatures that will be added after the fact. It's been a circus, but it's a lot of fun."
According to Baxter, the decision to render Pokemon as realistically as possible suited the vision director Rob Letterman had for the movie, which, like every other aspect of production, reinforced the theme of having the fantastical amidst the familiar.
"Rob Letterman's vision for the movie is to ground it in reality, even though Ryme City is kind of a made-up city. It's supposed to feel present-day and feel like all these creatures that you've seen mostly in very bright colors and anime style are sitting in the room with you. And so Pokemon to Pokemon, they have different textures--some are furry, some are kind of leathery or snakey or whatever. But for every creature, we took real-world animals and drew from that. You take the skin of a snake, the eyes of a different kind of character, we put all these pieces together to form what that Pokemon would look like.
"We would send that back and forth to The Pokemon Company, so that they would understand where we're going with it and it wouldn't be a big shock when it landed. But really, that's how all of them have come together. Each one, even though they're a creature that doesn't exist in our world, all of the elements of what makes them up in this movie are drawn from animals that do exist in our world."
My first exposure to Detective Pikachu's vision of Pokemon in the real word wasn't being eased into it through brief glimpses of concept art, or even the short trailers that first debuted long after my visit to set. Instead I was thrown into the midst of it all, shown pieces of a bigger picture, and left to let my imagination try and figure out how it all fits together. Having watched the trailers, the sight of realistic Pokemon is no less strange today. However, being able to take a step back and get a wider view of the world in which they exist certainly makes it less jarring. Like many other fans, I have been charmed by the Pokemon featured in the trailer and warmed to the idea of a live-action movie. If the rest of the film is able to sustain the sense of wonder those trailers inspire, this could be an entirely new Pokemon universe to get obsessed with.
Apex Legends developer Respawn promised that the game's first battle pass would launch in March, and now we know exactly when. The game has announced that its Season 1 Battle Pass will hit on Tuesday, March 19 at 10 AM PT, offering a new character and loads of new loot to collect. It will cost you 950 Apex Coins (roughly $10). A Battle Pass Bundle is also available for 2800 Apex Coins, which also instantly unlocks the next 25 levels for the season.
As suspected, the new character is Octane. The PlayStation Blog outlined his powers, including an Adrenaline Junkie ability to trade health for speed, and a limitless supply of Stim health. He also has his Launch Pads as an Ultimate Ability, giving himself and teammates a serious vertical boost. Octane will be released alongside the battle pass but will be a separate purchase. He will cost the same as Mirage and Caustic did at launch--12,000 Legend Tokens or 750 Apex Coins.
Octane appeared in an accidental update on the Origin storefront, which Respawn later acknowledged was an "unintentional update about Season 1." Later jump pads began appearing in the game, all but confirming the rumors about the new character's power set.
Purchasing the battle pass will also unlock other rewards, including the Lifeline Revolutionary skin, Wraith Survivor skin, and Mirage Outlaw skin. Plus, everyone who plays during Season 1 can earn a Wild Frontier skin, five Apex Packs, and 18 Wild Frontier stat trackers, regardless of whether they bought into the battle pass.
Each battle pass will include about 100 rewards, including seasonal items for all players and some exclusive kit for battle pass owners. Rewards will apply retroactively if you decide to buy your battle pass later. Purchasing the battle pass will also net you extra Apex Packs as part of your rewards, giving you more chances for random skins and other cosmetics.
Season 1 is slated to last through June, when it will be replaced by the next seasonal battle pass. Two more are planned for 2019, in September and December.
The first poster for Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has been released. The latest movie from the revered director of Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained arrives in July, and as the title suggests, is a sprawling LA-set drama that stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.
The poster itself isn't exactly the most striking one released for a Tarantino movie, but it does have a suitably retro look. It shows DiCaprio as fading Western star Rick Dalton and Pitt as his stunt-double and pal Cliff Booth. They are shown posing in front of a car and the Hollywood Hills... and that's basically it. The good news is that the first trailer is set to arrive very soon, but in the meantime here's the poster:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood hits theaters on July 26 and features probably the most ridiculously star-studded cast of the year (outside of Avengers Endgame of course). As well as DiCaprio and Pitt, it stars Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, the actress who was murdered by the Manson family in 1969 and in Tarantino's movie lives next door to Dalton and Booth. There's also roles for Al Pacino, Dakota Fanning, James Marsden, Scoot McNairy, Damian Lewis, Emile Hirsch, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Lena Dunham, plus Luke Perry, who shot a role before his death earlier this month.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Tarantino explained the origins of the movie. "I've been working on this script for five years, as well as living in Los Angeles County most of my life, including in 1969, when I was seven years old," he said. "I'm very excited to tell this story of an LA and a Hollywood that don't exist anymore. And I couldn't be happier about the dynamic teaming of DiCaprio and Pitt as Rick and Cliff."
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is Tarantino's ninth movie as director. In 2016 he said that he would quit directing after his tenth movie, but it remains to be the seen if this is still the case. There were also rumors last year that he was working a new Star Trek movie, but with the future that entire franchise on the big screen uncertain, there has been no further news about this.
Spring is just around the corner, and Niantic is celebrating the start of the season with a special event in Pokemon Go. Beginning tomorrow, March 19, the developer is holding an equinox event in the hit mobile game, which will feature increased Grass-type Pokemon spawns, new Field Research tasks, and more.
During the equinox event, Grass Pokemon such as Oddish, Exeggcute, Shroomish, and Sunkern will appear in the wild more frequently than normal. On top of that, the rare Rock/Psychic-types Lunatone and Solrock--each of which is typically exclusive to certain parts of the world--will swap regions for the duration of the event.
In addition to the increased Pokemon spawns, Niantic is doling out a special set of limited-time Field Research tasks centered around Grass Pokemon during the event. Grass Pokemon will also appear as Raid Bosses, and two moves--Acid Spray and Leaf Tornado--are being added to the game permanently.
The Pokemon Go equinox event kicks off at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET and runs until the same time on Tuesday, March 26. You can read more details about it on the official Pokemon Go website.
In addition to the equinox event, Niantic is holding this month's Pokemon Go Community Day this Saturday, March 23. That event will also feature a Grass-type Pokemon: Treecko, one of the three starters from Ruby and Sapphire.
Update: Epic has reinstated its Baller vehicle into Fortnite. "We've collected the data we were looking for and have re-enabled The Baller," the developer stated on Twitter. Original story follows.
Citing an unexpected technical issue, Epic Games has disabled Fortnite's latest vehicle, the Baller. The hamster ball-like vehicle went live recently with the 8.10 update, and sported a Boost and Grappler to let you swing around trees or climb cliffs.
In a tweet, Epic Games said it is investigating a stability issue surrounding the Baller and will issue a status update once it knows more. This could be related to an apparent exploit that allowed players to launch themselves high into the air. Until the issue is fixed, you'll just have to look elsewhere for your deadly hamster ball fix.
The Baller protected players from damage while inside the enclosure, but enemy fire could destroy the vehicle itself with its 300 health. It's fairly common for Fortnite updates to hit an unexpected issue and be temporarily disabled, as in the case of dynamite and guided missiles, among others.
The 8.10 update introduced a few other changes besides. Those included a change to the Vending Machines, which became free to activate, but self-destruct after a single use. Another significant change was to cross-play cross-play matchmaking. Nintendo Switch players were changed to the pool with mobile players, while Xbox One and PS4 players remained together in their pool. Players can still opt-in across platforms to play with their friends.
This is part of Fortnite's recently launched Season 8, which offers new battle pass cosmetics for completing challenges. Check out our challenge guide if you need a hand, or read up on how to take part in the High Stakes Challenge for additional rewards.
Monsters fans will have much to celebrate this summer when the biggest movie monster of them all returns to screens. Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the follow-up to 2014's blockbuster Godzilla, and sees the legendary radioactive reptile joined by several other classic creatures from Godzilla mythology. A new teaser has now been released.
While this teaser is a lot shorter than the most recent trailer, it contains plenty of new footage. We see Godzilla being studied in a giant tank by a group of scientists--including Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch--causing the Big G to light up his back and thunder past them in scary style. There's also brief shots of three-headed King Ghidorah and the winged Rodan doing battle, plus a villainous voiceover from Charles Dance. Check it out below.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters is directed by Michael Dougherty, whose previous credits include the Christmas monster movie Krampus. It stars Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring), Kyle Chandler (Game Night), and Millie Bobbie Brown (Stranger Things), plus Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), Ken Watanabe (Inception), and O'Shea Jackson Jr (Straight Outta Compton). It hits theaters on May 31, 2019. For more check out everything we know about Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
In a recent interview with Japanese site Tamashii, Dougherty spoke about approaching the new movie after the success of the first, which was directed by Rogue One's Gareth Edwards. "I think I had to be mindful of the reaction to the previous film," he said. "So it was a matter of trying to look at the previous film, and look at what worked, which I thought was the tone, the scale, the design. Luckily, we got to bring in Ghidorah, Mothra, and Rodan, which helped, because these are the crown jewels of [production company] Toho. I felt like we already had the advantage of getting to bring in antagonists and allies for Godzilla, which were beloved legacy characters, so that was a huge, huge help."
Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the latest entry in Legendary Pictures' so-called MonsterVerse, following Godzilla and 2017's Kong: Skull Island. The fourth movie in the series will be Godzilla vs Kong, which is now in production and scheduled for a May 2020 release. The cast includes Alexander Skarsgård (Hold the Dark), Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta), and Demián Bichir (Alien Covenant).
The Division 2's release date has finally arrived. The game is available on store shelves around the world, meaning players are once again diving into Dark Zones and looting friends and enemies alike, except this time in the dramatic surroundings of Washington DC.
The question is, though, is this sequel any good? GameSpot's Division 2 review-in-progress awarded the game a 9/10, with Edmond Tran stating he's "still enamored with" the sequel after 30 hours of game time.
For more on the critical consensus on The Division 2, read on below. Alternatively, see a wider view on critics' opinions on GameSpot sister site Metacritic.
GameSpot -- 9/10 (Review-In-Progress)
"After spending 30 hours completing the campaign and beginning to dabble in the endgame, I'm still enamored with The Division 2. The range of enemy types continues to keep combat encounters challenging, the equipment I earn and pick up continues to feel different and valuable. The ravaged environments continue to intrigue, and sometimes they're so stunning I find myself needing to take a screenshot before I move on. There is still so much to see in The Division 2, but I want to take the time to see it. I have absolutely no clue why I'm here or what anyone's motivations are, and I wish I had a narrative purpose to my endless hunger for progression. But I'm glad to be here right now." -- Edmond Tran [Full review-in-progress]
Eurogamer -- No Score
"From start to finish, The Division 2 pulls in ... bits of American history with unwavering earnesty and yet manages to say absolutely nothing. Worse, it goes out of its way to say nothing. The result is that the only real message The Division 2 manages to impart is that guns will keep you safe. Despite the advertising campaign this is not a game about saving the soul of America, it's a game about the good guys with guns taking what they want from the bad guys with guns. A shame, because if you can look past the vacuity and the slapdash politicisation of The Division 2, there's a great game to be enjoyed here--even if you'll never quite escape the sense that it's a thunderingly dumb one." -- Johnny Chiodini [Full review]
VG247 -- No Score
"I'm not always convinced games will improve all that much post-launch and I can only review what I've played, but Ubisoft has a good track record of making games far better than they are at launch with frequent updates. For now, I have to at least commend The Division 2 for getting the basics right. There's a compelling endgame, there's loot that actually matters, and missions don't feel like they're copy and pasted to bulk out the runtime. If some of the frustrations can be ironed out, it could be the best of its genre. But for the love of god, please let your writers say something if you ever make another one." -- Kirk McKeand [Full review]
The Telegraph -- No Score (Review-In-Progress)
"Whether altruism is as essential as that fly new beanie hat will be up to you. The Division 2 is doing a solid job at both, currently performing a smart balancing act that could tip either way as the game progresses and keeping things interesting becomes more of a challenge. But so far, so good." -- Tom Hoggins [Full review-in-progress]
IGN -- 8.0/10 (Review-In-Progress)
"The Division 2's initial leveling progression has been a relatively joyful undertaking. It clears the low bar set for the genre with ease, but it's still not an experience I'd subject myself to in a vacuum, without the promise of a deep and interesting endgame. In order to really succeed from here on out The Division 2 needs to show me that my time was well spent by providing me with the kind of unique, progression-based multiplayer PvE and PvP gameplay that I can only get in a shared-world shooter." -- James Duggan [Full review-in-progress]
The Division 2's recent release means the Tom Clancy shooter tops the UK physical games chart for the week ending March 16, according to sales monitor Chart-Track. However, Eurogamer reports the game's launch week sales are just 20% of those achieved by the game's predecessor, The Division.
There are mitigating factors: the first game launched on a Tuesday, rather than a Friday, so had more time in its first week to garner sales. In addition, more people buy digitally now than in 2016, and downloads are not counted by Chart-Track. Regardless, an 80% drop in launch week sales is significant.
Despite hitherto lackluster physical sales, The Division 2 has enjoyed positive verdicts from critics. GameSpot's Division 2 review-in-progress awarded the game a 9/10, with Edmond Tran stating he's "still enamored with" the sequel after 30 hours of game time.
You can read the full top 10 sales chart for this week 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.
The classic Nickelodeon sitcom Drake & Josh is one of the network's most beloved programs, so fans have been understandably excited about rumours of a reboot. Now, Drake Bell himself has come forward to discuss what might be coming up next.
Bell told E! that he and co-star Josh Peck have been talking, and Peck has come up with "some cool ideas" for what to do with a new version of Drake & Josh. Bell added that neither he nor Peck want to do a reboot or a "college years"-type version of the show.
"It has to be something cool; it has to be something creative. I think we've come up with something that's a little bit more creative and a little more exciting," he said.
That's all Bell had to say on the matter, which is to be expected given that the new show--if it is even a show--hasn't been announced yet.
The original Drake & Josh aired on Nickelodeon from 2004 to 2007. Bell and Peck play stepbrothers who don't see eye-to-eye on much, with Miranda Cosgrove starring as their sister, Megan. A source told People that the new version would be "more adult."
The show was known for its wacky humour, and Bell--who is also a musician in real life--wrote the show's theme song, "Found A Way." According to People, the new version of Drake & Josh is being shopped around to multiple networks, though none were named.
Drake & Josh would be just the latest reboot--or whatever you want to call it--based on a Nickelodeon show. Nickelodeon is making new All That and Are You Afraid of the Dark shows, while Bell has also talked about the possibility of an Amanda Show reboot.
Would you be interested in a Drake & Josh reboot? Let us know in the comments below!
It's not just the Hallmark Channel that's dropping actress Lori Laughlin amid the ongoing college bribery scandal. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Laughlin won't appear on the upcoming fifth season of Netflix's popular family sitcom Fuller House.
Laughlin, who played Aunt Becky on the original Full House and portrayed her again in a guest-starring role on Fuller House, appeared in 13 of the new show's 57 episodes.
The fifth season of Fuller House, which hasn't started filming yet, is set to premiere on Netflix this fall. Sources told THR that the show's production won't be impacted by the drama surrounding Laughlin.
Laughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli were among those indicted in a national college bribery scandal. She and Giannulli reportedly paid $500,000 to help get their daughters into the University of Southern California. Actress Felicity Huffman was also implicated in the scandal.
This is just the latest round of controversy surrounding Fuller House. In 2018, Warner Bros. TV, the production company behind Full House and Fuller House, fired creator Jeff Franklin in the wake of allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
Microsoft has announced a brand-new testing program for the Halo series. The "Halo Inside Program," as it's called, is described by Microsoft as a "new way" for fans to work alongside developer 343 Industries to improve new releases by testing them before launch.
You can sign up right now, but be aware that doing so requires you to sign a confidentiality agreement. You're then asked to take a survey with a series of questions related to your history with and interest in with the Halo franchise, including specific titles and modes. Later in the survey you'll be asked to provide details that may get you into what 343 is calling "flighting" programs for upcoming Halo titles. These are pre-release testing periods in which 343 provides access to a subset of the community to gather feedback and data before rolling out publicly to everyone.
Join us on the journey to bring Halo: The Master Chief Collection to PC! The Halo Insider Program is the new way you can partner with us to help improve our games via feedback and hands-on public flighting. Learn more and sign up today! https://t.co/KDrRsbUMWApic.twitter.com/a7yRdXRqds
This new Halo Insider Program will replace the MCC Insider Program that 343 used to test Halo: The Master Chief Collection's numerous updates on Xbox One. Going forward, the Halo Insider Program will be the "overarching program going forward to support all Halo titles, products, and services." Even if you were already a member of the MCC Insider Program, you will need to re-register for the for Halo Insider Program.
You can improve your chances of being selected for a flight by ensuring your Halo Insider Program information is correct. For PC specifically, you'll need to provide a DXDIAG upload and send over your SteamID.
"We know everyone is super eager and excited to get started but please be patient-- tweeting at the team and posting in the forums asking to be included or demanding to know why you're not included won't help the process," 343 said.
Even if you do get into the Halo Insider Program, you might not get selected for each flight. For example, on PC, 343 might want to test future Halo releases against specific hardware configurations, so not everyone may be needed.
"With MCC on PC specifically, the team is going to need to ensure they have specific representation across a broad matrix of PC hardware configurations," 343 said.
Those who get into a flight will want to make sure they participate, as 343 might not invite you back if you don't.
"Often flights require a critical mass of players online at a particular time, and maybe in a particular region, so your location and availability could also come into play. Once flighting is up and running, the team will likely also focus on active participants who play and provide feedback as candidates for ongoing flighting while players who don't actually participate may find they're not included in subsequent releases."
You can read more about the Halo Insider Program here in this detailed FAQ.
The upcoming release of Halo: MCC on PC will happen in stages, with each title releasing individually, so it seems likely that 343 will test each game with Halo Insider members first before rolling each title out widely to everyone. MCC on PC will start out with the release of Halo: Reach, which had not previously been included in the collection. That will also make its way to the Xbox One version, although its single-player component will be an additional purchase. Game Pass members, however, will get access to the full Reach package.
More details have come to light about DC's upcoming Suicide Squad sequel from James Gunn. Producer Peter Safran told Joblo that the sequel is a "total reboot," so it shouldn't be referred to as Suicide Squad. The name the studio is using is The Suicide Squad, though whether or not this is the final name or a working title remains unconfirmed.
"First of all, we don't call it Suicide Squad 2 'cause it's a total reboot, so it's The Suicide Squad and I think people should be extremely excited about it," Safran said.
Gunn, the Guardians of the Galaxy writer and director who was recently re-instated for Vol. 3, will write and direct The Suicide Squad. Regarding the script, Safran said, "It's everything you would hope from a James Gunn script and I think that says a lot and that promises a lot and I know that we will deliver a lot."
The intriguing angle of this story is that, now that he's back making Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Gunn is directing movies for both DC and Marvel. Safran said he and Gunn agree that the Marvel vs. DC rivalry is "absurd," and everything is going to be just fine.
"You know what I love about James directing for both Marvel and DC is he has always espoused the view that that which unites comic book and superhero lovers is much greater than that which divides us," Safran said. "Because, there's always been this Marvel/DC rivalry, which he has said, and I agree, is absurd. There's room for everybody and certainly that which unites us all is far greater than that which divides us, so hopefully they'll see that you can be both a Marvel and a DC fan and the world won't spin off its axis."
It's not exactly what what the description "total reboot" means for The Suicide Squad 2. What we do know is that Idris Elba will play Deadshot in the sequel, taking over the role from Will Smith.
The Suicide Squad comes to theatres in August 2021. A recent intriguing report says the film will add a number of characters from the DC Comics world, including Ratcatcher, King Shark, Polka-Dot Man, and Peacemaker. There's not yet a date for when Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy 3 will release.
Captain Marvel continues to be the No. 1 movie at the box office. According to box office figures from EW, the superhero film pulled in $69.3 million in the US and Canada this past weekend--its second in theaters--keeping the film at the top of the box office charts. The $69.3 million, which is down 55 percent from its opening-weekend haul, now represents the 18th highest second-weekend in the history of movies.
There is a lot of space between Captain Marvel and the competition, as the animated film Wonder Park landed in the No. 2 position with $16 million. The No. 3 movie this past weekend was Five Feet Apart, which made $13.2 million.
Captain Marvel has now made $266.2 million in the US and Canada. Internationally, the film opened in Japan this weekend and made $5.6 million, which was good for No. 1 in Japan, and the highest opening for a standalone MCU character movie ever in the country.
The movie made a further $119.7 million from other international markets this weekend, boosting the movie's global results to $760.2 million in less than two weeks. A global box office of more than $1 billion is all but assured at this point.
In other news, you can see more of Captain Marvel in the new Avengers: Endgame trailer that you can see in the embed above. We also have a breakdown of everything in it.
March 15-17 US/Canada Box Office:
Captain Marvel -- $69.3 million
Wonder Park -- $16 million
Five Feet Apart -- $13.2 million
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World -- $9.3 million
Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral -- $8.1 million
Halo developer 343 Industries has a pizza-themed gift for all Halo 5: Guardians players. Available now in the Xbox One shooter is the "Pizza Party" Req pack, which includes a pepperoni pizza-themed weapon skin, Last Slice, as well as the Hot Pie banner.
Why pizza? The studio originally teased Halo: The Master Chief Collection for PC, which has now been confirmed, by referencing pepperoni pizza. When the game was officially announced for PC last, excited fans sent pizzas to 343's offices. They sent so many pizzas that 343 had to plead with fans to please stop sending pizzas.
Thank you for the outpouring of excitement over the news that Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC. As a token of gratitude, we'd like to offer you a hot slice of pepperoni within Halo 5. Jump online today and pick up your complimentary Last Slice skin! pic.twitter.com/ARBFUgOsxa
The pizza skin for the Halo 5 Assault Rifle looks pretty slick. Check out the video above to see it in action, while some images of the notifications and more can be seen below.
In addition, a brand-new Halo game, Halo Infinite, is coming to Xbox One and PC. Microsoft is expected to talk more about this long-in-development titles at E3 in June.
After the second trailer for the remake of Pet Sematary dropped, there were some divisive reactions. Remakes in general are not always well received, and for every good Stephen King adaptation like It, we get a Dark Tower or two. With the new Pet Sematary, directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer take some major departures from the source material that made people think the marketing for the film gave away everything. But the Starry Eyes directors have more aces up their sleeves. This new remake dares ask to ask: What if dead was not better?
Those not familiar with the novel or film need not worry, however, for Pet Sematary is a highly entertaining, terrifying, and fun movie all on its own. Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) is tired of the city life, so he decides to move his family from Boston to rural Maine to spend more time with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), and their two young children, 8-year-old Ellie (Jeté Laurence) and 3-year-old Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie). One day Ellie discovers a procession of kids in creepy animal masks heading to a mysterious burial ground in the woods near the family's new home. There, she meets her neighbor, Jud Crandall (John Lithgow), who tells the story of the titular pet cemetery that houses beloved and departed pets (and, because this is Stephen King we're talking about, also something more ancient and sinister).
At 101 minutes, Pet Sematary has a great pace that makes it feel like the movie is shorter than it is, leaving you wishing you could see more of this twisted tale. By nature of the story, the major scares don't begin until about halfway through the movie, but Buhler is an impatient writer and the script wants to scare you as soon as it can--and it succeeds. There are plenty of smaller scares that whet your appetite for the madness that will follow.
The film doesn't shy away from showing you some horrific and gory stuff, including a scene in which a character's face is half scraped off with his brain hanging out from his skull. It's an unnerving and visceral sight that will have horror fans cheering in the theater. And those expecting a certain scalpel to play a part in the film should be excited for Pet Sematary, as the scene in question is as gory as you would expect.
There are plenty of surprises both for longtime fans of the story and those coming in blind. The script by Jeff Buhler expects you to be familiar with the story, because it wants to make you feel like you know what is going to happen next. You anticipate the pivotal moments from the older movie and the book, right before Buhler pulls the rug from under you and makes you jump in fear or laugh at the clever ways the script and Kölsch and Widmyer's direction subverts expectations.
One of the biggest changes takes place in an elaborate and tense scene that acknowledges the audience expectations and then hits you in the face with a truck. It is also a change that works perfectly for this adaptation. Pet Sematary takes full advantage of this change to explore questions about mortality, grief and what we would do if we were in that situation.
One of the most interesting aspects of the story is how it addresses grief, and how hard it is to let go of loved ones after they die. Jeté Laurence plays Ellie with a nuance not commonly seen in such young actors. Jason Clarke is great as Louis, but it is Amy Seimetz as Rachel who is the highlight of the film. Rachel has a bigger character arc in this version of the story, exploring her proximity to death more closely. And fans of Zelda need not worry, as Pet Sematary takes her part in the story and elevates it to new and more horrific heights.
Despite having plenty of gruesome imagery, Pet Sematary is also morbidly funny. Buhler's script and Kölsch and Widmyer's direction doesn't rely on jokes, but on the messed-up situations the Creed family gets involved in. This is a pitch-black film with a bleak third act that also features a scene with a hairbrush that will have audiences squirming and laughing at the same time.
In an age where every film is getting a remake or a reboot, Pet Sematary might actually be better than the original. It's terrifying, twisted, heartbreaking, morbidly funny, and a hell of a fun time.
The Good
The Bad
Third act is bananas in all the twisted and dark ways imaginable
John Lithgow doesn't have as much to do as one would expect
Jeté Laurence is a revelation
Will turn you off from wanting to have kids
Smart changes from the source material
Doesn't shy away from being gory and morbidly funny
While horror franchises aren't exactly new, James Wan's Conjuring series is more ambitious than most, and has been slowly building an MCU-style interconnected horror universe for several years. Following last year's hugely successful The Nun, 2019 sees the return of spooky Victorian doll Annabelle, for her third movie. A short teaser has now been released, which confirms the title of the new film.
The teaser has no footage from the movie, but it does reveal that it is named Annabelle Comes Home. It follows Annabelle (2014) and Annabelle: Creation (2017) and hits theaters on June 28. Check the teaser out below:
Annabelle Comes Home is directed by Gary Dauberman. While this is Dauberman's first movie as director, he wrote the previous two Annabelle films, as well as the upcoming It: Chapter Two. The movie stars Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, who reprise their roles from the main Conjuring films as paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren. Wan is producing once more.
Annabelle Comes Home isn't the only Conjuring-related movie on its way this year. Next month sees the release of The Curse Of La Llorona, which is also produced by Wan and has a loose connection to those films. Check out GameSpot's review here.
Though Capcom's character-action game series has always had a particular sound for its gothic-horror-aesthetic, the current game, Devil May Cry 5, features music that really goes the extra mile to get players to feel something more as they're working their way up to SSS rank. GameSpot recently interviewed DMC5 composers Cody Matthew Johnson and husband-wife team Casey and Ali Edwards about the making of the action game's main tracks for its cast of characters. During this talk, they spoke about their collaboration with Capcom, how the game's energizing and dynamic soundtrack is a game-changer, and what it's like having the internet embrace their new sound.
Editor's Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and readability.
Can you talk about what it was like working with Capcom for this project, and how they first got in contact with you?
Casey Edwards: Funny enough, even though I ended up writing the track Devil Trigger, I got found through one of Ali's older tracks that she did for another video game called Killer Instinct with Mick Gordon [B. Orchid's Theme, in particular]. I actually did some work on that game as well, assisting the composer.
Ali Edwards: Yeah, it's like they wanted both of us without knowing that we even knew each other, or that we were married at all.
Casey: Yeah, Capcom heard that particular track and they really liked the drive that it had. It really just stood out to everyone. When I wrote Devil Trigger, I pitched her as the vocalist and they just immediately fell in love with it. So, it kinda just worked out in a weird, coincidental, ironic way.
And Cody, this is actually your third collaboration with Capcom, the first being for Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite?
Cody M. Johnson: That is true. My career is still in the early stages, which is really exciting as all these things are happening. My collaborator Jeff Rona and I did three games back to back for Capcom. We didn't really stop. We started off with Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. Right after that came out, word got around to another development team about what we were doing, and they liked what they heard. So they came back to us. Right out of the gate I was working with Jeff, who wrote "Crimson Cloud" [V's Theme], and I ended up writing "Subhuman" [Dante's theme, in collaboration with Jeff Rona]. We worked on Devil May Cry 5 first, but then shortly after that, another team at Capcom hit us up to do Resident Evil 2 shortly after. So it's been pretty exciting.
Were you fans of the series before you worked on this game?
Cody: I had played Devil May Cry 4 and the previous games a lot. I was still young enough to sneak away and play them with my friends, but it was so hard, I didn't get very far. Even as an experienced gamer now, I've come back to try to play them, when I first picked up Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite--but they're just so hard. They're still one of the hardest games I've ever played to date.
Casey: I actually grew up playing Devil May Cry. So I remembered the whole Devil Trigger aspect of the game pretty vividly, and that was what was sticking out in my head as I was writing the song. I couldn't get it out of my head and yeah, I don't know, I just wrote it and we just went with it. I thought for sure someone from Capcom was gonna send me an email back saying, "Hey, you need to change that."
Ali: But that didn't happen. They all loved it.
The big line of the song, "bang, bang, bang, pull my Devil Trigger," is such an earworm, and it feels so appropriate for the series.
Casey: Right, I remember writing that. I wrote all these lyrics in one sitting, pretty much. For that particular part, I was looking at Ali, and then I verbalized what she was about to sing.
Ali: You were so worried I was gonna hate it!
Casey: To me, that was kind of a fun phrase. I just wasn't sure if it would latch on to the Devil May Cry fans, you know?
Last I checked, Devil Trigger has over 21 million views on YouTube. Having those earlier reservations, are you surprised to see how much it has taken off?
Casey: Well, first of all, it's pretty freakin' crazy. That's a lot of plays. It kinda blows my mind a little bit. I think there might be a few factors involved in that. People have been really excited to see a continuation of [classic] Devil May Cry. I guess in the sense that you say, the song is holding its own water a little bit as well, yeah, I don't know what to say other than it's pretty insane that people have played the song that many times.
Ali: Yeah, it's definitely something we didn't expect. We were more worried that fans would hate the track, and it would become a meme. Instead, it became a meme in the best possible way.
Both of you even got to perform the song live at The Game Awards. They had Rivers Cuomo from Weezer introduce your performance.
Casey: Yeah, that was awesome. We actually got to run into Rivers after that, and it was pretty great getting to take pictures with him and nerd out. I mean gosh, yeah, I was listening to them back in high school, so that was pretty awesome. And yeah, getting to play at The Game Awards was, I mean, a dream come true. And I know it's a relatively new awards show, but they had so many awesome people on stage, and we got to share a stage with Hans Zimmer. That's nuts.
Ali: Yeah, that was pretty crazy, it was a blast. It was such a crazy production if you think about it. It takes a huge team to put on a production of that magnitude. It's crazy seeing it all happen, and being a part of it, continuously.
As far as working on Devil May Cry 5, I can only imagine how much planning went into writing the tracks and getting them just write. Can you talk about what the collaborative process was like with the other composers at Capcom.
Cody: Yeah, from the very beginning, Capcom wanted, I should say, independence. They wanted to make sure each of these key tracks could exist separately from one other, but still work together within the Devil May Cry universe. We worked with Kota Suzuki [DMC5's main composer], who actually wrote the track "Legacy," which was in the final trailer. He was part of the development team that flew out to LA when we did the recording sessions for the bigger tracks, including "Subhuman" and "Crimson Cloud." Other than that, Capcom didn't really restrict us; they really wanted the score in these scenes to give identity to their characters.
Casey: When we were working with Capcom Japan, they had some clear visions for what they wanted for some of these tracks, and it was really nice getting to implement previous work I had done in the game, and getting to bring it to new light towards the end of the gaming experience.
Ali: After they heard me on "Devil Trigger," I guess maybe that's when they reached out for "Legacy" with me. I didn't think was going to happen until the game was released. I wasn't sure that was ever going to see the light of day in trailer form. And so I remember being pleasantly surprised when that came out. It's an exciting track, it's really beautiful, with swelling strings, and it was amazing for the fans to finally hear that. Working with Kota on that was a great experience as well.
That song really comes up at such a great moment in the game. It also highlights how different a lot of the tracks are in the game, yet they work really well when you bring it all together.
Casey: Yeah, for sure. I think that's one thing people can get lost sometimes. They forget, "Devil Trigger," for instance, is some weird hybrid rock pop thing, but I am also a classically trained orchestral composer and Ali does anything from soft, ethereal vocals to just mind-blowing powerful pop vocals, and stuff like that.
Ali: I started out as a jazz singer, so there's that, too. But we got to be totally crazy with it. Working on a session musician, you can be asked to do anything, and I think your willingness to be a chameleon is really where your usability as a session musician really comes into play. The more I can become a chameleon and adhere to different genres of music, I mean, that's why I'm being asked to work on video games. If I couldn't do that, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work on so many incredible games so far.
Looking back on the history of the series, Devil May Cry has this really deep focus on presenting bombastic and energizing tracks. Another game in the series that had a really eclectic soundtrack was Ninja Theory's DmC: Devil May Cry--featuring Noisia and Combichrist. Did the style of that game have any influence on this one?
Cody: Well from the very start, everything was based on Devil May Cry 4, as in all the references they sent us. But of course, it was something I personally looked into. It's important to understand the trajectory of all these games, where it's been, and how the fans reacted. And you need to make a decision about where you want your art to align with. It was very conscious from the very beginning that this game is Devil May Cry 5. That was a very conscious decision, not to stay away from that version of DmC, but to separate from it, stylistically. But yeah, the combat system that matures and alters the music was something we really liked about that game.
It's really thrilling to hear DMC5's music evolve depending on how well you're playing.
Cody: Yeah, It was just something we were very conscious of from the very beginning. We don't want to leave any players behind, but we didn't want to make it easier for players either. It's all about challenging yourself. But the worst thing that could happen would be if the game's music was boring. I know this as a gamer, I know this as someone who goes listens to the same 32-second track on loop for hours. It's the worst thing in the world: You're stuck on a level for three days, you don't wanna be listening to the same piece of music.
We really tried to craft these songs in a way, that if you don't hit SSS rank, you don't ever hear the chorus or the breakdown. By doing that, those parts of the song will never get boring. The goal from the start was to incentivize the player. There is something more, you should do your absolute best to get to your SSS, and you'll get the payoff. There should be rewards for those players that accomplish that, and I think we achieved something beyond the normal combat music.
Did you enjoy your experience working with Capcom on Devil May Cry 5?
Cody: They've always been happy with what we've done and we're always happy to give it to 'em. They're such an amazing collaborator, and they really care about artistic vision, and they care about what you can bring to the table, and it's truly an amazing experience working with them.
Casey: I was super excited to work on Devil May Cry. I've been playing this game since Devil May Cry 1, which came out in 2001. I remember my mom taking me to Blockbuster to rent it. And then you fast forward to 2017, when I was asked to work on it, I was already so freaking pumped to get started on it. We're classically trained and I play guitar as well in the STEM program, right? I love doing so many different things and different genres. So being asked to genre hop is one of the best things about working in the field. TV and video games and film, all alike, and one day you could be writing a solo piano piece and the next day you're writing "Devil Trigger."
Ali: Yeah, for me, video games have always been a pretty large part of my life. It's always been a love of mine. So, I remember playing games with my cousins when we were all kids and it was this bonding experience for all of us. And I never would've imagined that I'd be working on video games today. It's kind of crazy to think about, but I absolutely love what I do. I love being able to work on various projects across various genres and kind of become a different person for a little while. And it's really, really humbling, seeing how the fans have accepted our work. It's very humbling, it's very exciting, and, all in all, we're very grateful to be a part of the Devil May Cry family.
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