Handsome Jack is one of the most acclaimed and beloved villains around, and his debut in Borderlands 2 cemented his place in fans' minds even before he came back for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.
However, Jack dies in Borderlands 2, and while he is seen in Tales from the Borderlands, it's in hologram form. Now, Borderlands 3 developer Gearbox says Handsome Jack will return in the upcoming threequel, in some capacity.
"Handsome Jack is dead," confirmed the studio's narrative managing producer, Randy Varnell, in an interview with GameSpot. "He's such a big character in our universe though. There's always going to be some stuff--there may be a side mission or something and then we mention him a few times. It's so hard to get away from that impact. But you're not ever going to see Handsome Jack come back as a character.
"But it was a hard decision. Because he's such a great villain. But when we were looking at coming up with new villains for Borderlands 3... we've got a lot of Jack--if you like Handsome Jack, you're in luck because there's a lot of existing content where you can play and enjoy him. He's too important to the universe to never mention him again. But we wanted to be sure that the Calypso twins, the new villains, can stand on their own."
If you'd like to see Borderlands 3 in action, you can watch the gameplay reveal stream here. We've also put together a preview on what it's like to play the game solo (spoilers: it's surprisingly good.)
It's been over four years since Gearbox Software last released a Borderlands title and, in that time, the first-person shooter genre has changed in many ways. Similarly, what players expect from a shooter has evolved. For Borderlands 3, Gearbox Software seems to have kept the changing times in mind, as it has showcased a number of gameplay mechanics that draw inspiration from the likes of Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends, among other shooters.
During its gameplay reveal stream, Gearbox revealed that one of the notable gameplay additions made for Borderlands 3 is the ability to slide while sprinting and also climb up ledges so that elevated surfaces become reachable. Numerous games have used similar mechanics, but it's perhaps most closely linked to Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall, Titanfall 2, and Apex Legends.
Based on our experiences with Borderlands 3, we noticed that these traversal abilities look and behave a lot like they do in Titanfall 2. However, since you don't get the little extra jump jet boosts, they are perhaps more comparable to Apex Legends, Respawn's battle royale title.
The need to make Borderlands 3 feel like a modern shooter was something that Gearbox paid special consideration to, and director Paul Sage cites Titanfall 2 as one of the game's inspirations.
"We've got to hit that mark of making this feel this good, making it feel like a modern shooter," Sage told GameSpot. And so even though it seems really simple when you're talking about, 'Hey, how fast can I move my controller?' Or, 'How much ... will it actually just kind of slow down when I'm moving across a target?' All of those things take time to really tune and get right to make it feel like a modern shooter. So there are definitely things that I would say are inspiration from like all shooters.
"One of my favorite games from, what was it three years ago, is Titanfall 2. Dude, I love that game. And I thought the shooting was just fantastic. And so, yeah, I think there's inspiration we take from all the games we're fans of, because we're all gamers and I think that's true of the entire industry. I hope it is."
Somewhere between the sassy robots and trillions of guns, Borderlands has built a respectably complex world. A big part of that are the Sirens, super-powered women given mysterious tattoos and powers. Gearbox's narrative managing producer Randy Varnell promises they'll play a major role in Borderlands 3 as well.
"The Sirens are a very, very important theme of this game," Varnell told GameSpot. "You've got Lilith, you've seen Maya returning, and we know Amara, the brand new playable Siren, is there. The villain of Borderlands [Commandant Steele] is dead. She's dead dead. She's gone. Angel is dead dead. She's gone. There's three more [Sirens] unaccounted for."
In Borderlands lore, only six Sirens can exist in the universe at any given time. Between Lilith, Maya, and Amara--all playable characters in the main games--we know about three of them. Steele and Angel took two of the additional spots, but Varnell's comments suggest that when one Siren dies, another appears somewhere in the universe. That would mean there are two more relatively new Sirens, and one remaining that may have been a Siren for quite a while now.
"I would just say for all the fans out there: we are absolutely sticking to that canonical lore," Varnell continued. "There are only six Sirens in the universe at any one time. And in this game, we'll delve a little bit more into how all that happens and what's going on, and we'll ask some interesting questions. I don't want to spoil anything because there's so much fun to be had there."
Borderlands 3 releases on September 13 for PC via the Epic Store, PS4, and Xbox One. If you're still on the fence about who you might want to claim as your class, read up on all we know about the four playable characters. Check out our pre-order guide for more details.
Gearbox showed off Borderlands 3 gameplay during a stream, which you can watch here. One of the things showcased was the unique skill trees, something that we found really helps improve the solo experience. Read more about that in our Borderlands 3 gameplay hands-on preview.
Borderlands 3 might be bringing back Handsome Jack in some way, but he's not the game's main villain. That title belongs to a duo named the Calypso twins, who developer Gearbox says are based on "really, really annoying" streamers.
In an interview with GameSpot, the studio's narrative managing producer, Randy Varnell, explained more about the evil pair: "We all know those streamers who are really, really annoying and think very, very highly of themselves--and we just took that to the next level. Imagine if they became malicious, evil people who suddenly wanted to take all the bandits and turned them into their own personality--[what if] they militarized their following?
"We stylized [the Calypso Twins] like Handsome Jack. At the time Handsome Jack came out, memes were just starting to get popular and Handsome Jack [embodied] that. Now, looking at the culture--how we play and consume and enjoy games together with social media and streaming--we wanted villains and topics that were a little bit more relevant to this release. So [the twins] definitely delve into that."
Gearbox has shared a ton of new details about Borderlands 3 in its big gameplay reveal event. One of the things we already knew about the game is that its story begins on Pandora, the planet that has served as the setting for all of the previous Borderlands titles, but it turns out that wasn't always the case.
Gearbox managing producer of narrative Randy Varnell revealed to GameSpot that Borderlands 3 was initially set on a different planet. "In fact, the very, very early versions of the story did not start on Pandora. Initially, we started right in [Promethea] because, like, we're going to other planets!" Varnell said. "We want to shock people. But in our early testing, what we found out was that it really was too much of a 'I don't know where I am,' 'I don't know how to feel about this,' 'It doesn't feel like Borderlands,' 'Stranger danger!' You know, all that.
"And so we went back and looked at it and said, you know what, the Calypso Twins have unified the bandit clans and created a Pandora state. Starting there and just starting on Pandora and with Claptrap, there's something about that comfortable familiarity there that I think is really important in creating a franchise moment for [the game]. So we let you earn your shift off of Pandora and get to the other places. And so far it seems that experience has been very, very positive for our first play testers and focus groups. We definitely wanted to get, we wanted to get to the new brand new stuff sooner, but we found out that starting with a little familiarity and having you be the one that gets to play your way to the ship and have that take off moment [is] very special."
As for how many different planets players will be able to go to in Borderlands 3, Gearbox isn't ready to say just yet. "Uh, several, several," Varnell teased. "We aren't talking specific numbers today. We certainly talked about Pandora and Promethea today, and you've seen some very teasy screenshots and some other places that are on other planets [in trailers]. I won't name them or enumerate them for you yet. But there are multiple planets that you can visit, multiple other locations that you can travel to and see. So you are in control of some galaxy hopping."
Wednesday's livestream event also gave us a look at the first live gameplay of Borderlands 3. Among other things, the developer showed off a few new traversal tools at players' disposal, such as the ability to sprint-slide or climb up ledges. Gearbox also confirmed that, unlike previous installments, Borderlands 3 is being developed on Unreal Engine 4.
Every one of the mainline Borderlands games can be played solo or with a team, but Borderlands 3 is the first to actually make the former playstyle worthwhile. The newest entry to the Borderlands franchise gives you more agency over how your Vault Hunter evolves than ever before, allowing you to better construct a character for a solo run through the campaign.
Like in Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, each playable Vault Hunter in Borderlands 3 has three skill trees, each of which contains distinct abilities and perks. That's really where the similarities end, though. In the first three games, every Vault Hunter unlocked a unique ability first, and then all three skill trees built upon this ability. In Borderlands 2, for example, Maya the Siren unlocks Phase Lock which allows her to trap an enemy in place for several seconds. This skill can be used for defensive crowd control by unlocking her Motion skill tree, supportive healing by going for her Harmony tree, or offensive elemental damage with her Cataclysm tree.
Despite these three differences, though, it doesn't fundamentally change how Maya plays. Because she always has to unlock Phase Lock first, and since all her skills build on this one ability, Maya is mostly a support character. Her Phase Lock can be used as a powerful damage dealer, but it doesn't change that Maya's purpose on the battlefield is to always disrupt the movements of the most powerful enemy so that she and her teammates can focus on the small fry or more easily pool their resources into taking down one central threat. Mordecai, Zer0, Lilith, and all the other Vault Hunters from every Borderlands game we've gotten so far fall into this same trap. With all of their trees focused on one particular ability, they all end up in one class and always carry the strengths and weaknesses that such a class entails. This is great for when you're playing as part of a team where everyone needs a role and squadmates can account for any weaknesses you might have, but it also makes certain Vault Hunters much harder to play with if you're going it alone.
Borderlands 3 abandons this format, and it's for the better. Instead of having one unique ability that all three skill trees build upon, Borderlands 3's Vault Hunters have three distinct abilities--one for each of their three trees--and then one unique trait that separates them from the other characters. So the three skill trees of each Vault Hunter in Borderlands 3 are built around different abilities, allowing each one to have three distinct playstyles.
"I'm really proud [of] the four [Vault Hunters'] trees--the way you configure them and what you do--are very, very different than what we were able to do in Borderlands 2, which was even a big leap on what we did in Borderlands 1," Gearbox managing producer of narrative Randy Varnell said. "[Before] it was mostly one action skill with just some numerical changes."
Amara, the playable Siren in Borderlands 3, for example, can unlock Phasegrasp as her action skill in the Fist of the Elemental skill tree, which allows her to lock enemies in place like Borderlands 2's Maya. The tree is also filled with many of the supportive powers that Maya has. However, Amara can unlock Phaseslam in her Brawler skill tree if you prefer, which sends her careening down on enemies with deadly force and leads her down a path of close-quarters combat. Finally, Amara can unlock Phasecast in her Mystical Assassin skill tree, which transforms her into a long-range fighter that can fire immense elemental blasts from a distance.
Because each of Borderlands 3's Vault Hunter's skill trees are so distinct, it's actually beneficial to unlock passive abilities in each one. Borderlands 3 allows you to create custom loadouts and switch between which active skill you have equipped on the fly. So if you're playing with Amara and you have Phasegrasp equipped, but you're about to enter an enclosed enemy base, you can switch over to Phaseslam if you have both skills unlocked. Having multiple active skills unlocked also motivates you to earn the abilities in their respective trees, which encourages you to create your very own Vault Hunter. For example, you might want the destructive powers of Amara's Phasecast, but you don't want to be a glass cannon so you can unlock some of the supportive and close-combat passives in her other two trees. And since you can create your Vault Hunter to fill whatever role you want, choosing a character does not lock you into one specific playstyle, which in turn makes it much easier to play by yourself if you want to.
"[Skill trees are] a little bit more tweaky than Borderlands 2 wise--you can do more with it," Varnell said. "I would say that Amara is a great example of the fairly straight forward, I mean she's a Siren. She likes to get close to the fight... So she's a really great one to start with."
Which isn't to say that your choice of Vault Hunter is arbitrary. Far from it. Each characters' unique trait means you get very different experiences with each one. "If you look at Amara, Amara has an extra skill for her elements," Borderlands 3 game director Paul Sage said. "And so [with her] you can decide what elements are going to be modified. So each character kind of has that, that very special, unique thing. So Amara has her action skills she can equip, she has augments she can put in them, and then she has an elemental change she [can apply]. But, [the others] like Zane are very different.
"For Zane, you can [equip] a second action skill but you actually give up your grenade to do that," Varnell said. "So you have to think about how your action skills can work together and how you augment them and how you spec them out and really to get the most of that if you're going to give up grenade play. What we found in our playtesting is that Zane really, really, really appeals to the min-max type of people who want to get that advanced game play…. [He's] really a numbers play at the end while Amara, she's just about energy and fun."
When I was playing with Zane, for example, I equipped both his Digi-Clone (a holographic decoy that shoots enemies and that Zane can switch places with) and SNTNL (an automated drone that tracks down and kills enemies) to make a character that survived by constantly teleporting around the battlefield and bamboozling his targets by hitting them from multiple directions at once.
"I think we're gonna see a lot of cool builds and build comparisons and play styles," Varnell continued. "I think [Borderlands 3] is the coolest Borderlands we've done so far in regards to what you can do with the build and what you can do to find a different type of play style. And once you start interweaving that with co-op play, it gets crazy."
Once you do decide to pick up co-op play, Borderlands 3 doesn't punish you and your friends for being vastly different levels like previous Borderlands games do. Both enemies and loot scale when you are playing in a party, so you no longer have to wait for your friends to catch up to your level or grind to keep up with them. You'll each find loot appropriate to your respective levels and both damage received and dealt will scale. High-level players don't dominate and low-level players don't get squashed.
All in all, from what we've seen, Borderlands 3 feels like the first in its franchise to truly give solo players a chance at enjoying the game how they want to and at whatever pace they desire. You're not punished for playing by yourself and possibly out-leveling your friends, and you have greater control over how your chosen Vault Hunter's abilities evolve. We still have to wait and see the skill trees for Moze the Gunner and FL4K the Beastmaster before signing off on all of Borderlands 3's Vault Hunters, but the first two have already confirmed that Gearbox's upcoming game changes the series' skill tree feature for the better.
Borderlands 3 is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PS4, and PC on September 13.
A new month means new PS4 freebies for PlayStation Plus, and while Sony's premium subscription service has had some rough patches recently--the free monthly giveaways stopped including PS3 and Vita titles in March, and April's two PS4 offerings weren't particularly exciting--May is bringing some exciting titles to the table. May's free PS Plus games are Overcooked and What Remains of Edith Finch, and if you don't already own these excellent titles, you'll definitely want to grab them when they become available May 7.
Overcooked is a co-op party game where you and up to three friends work together in a kitchen to prepare meals--sounds simple and wholesome, right? Now throw in kitchen fires, shifting floors, mischievous mice that steal your food, and an accelerating warning beep that signals you have only seconds to grab your food before it burns. Overcooked is a stressful ride that may or may not ruin your friendships, but it's also thrilling and makes you feel truly accomplished when you clear a level with high stars. The game earned an 8/10 in GameSpot's Overcooked review:
"Overcooked contains all the necessary ingredients for a truly excellent co-op game," wrote critic Scott Butterworth. "Stress is always balanced out by feelings of accomplishment and progression, and its gameplay requires a mix of smart planning, consistent communication, and some level of dexterity to execute plans effectively."
Fans of story-driven games will be pleased to see What Remains of Edith Finch in May's PS Plus lineup. The visually stunning game is rooted in exploration and story, and it's suspenseful without stretching into horror, like indie classic Gone Home. The story follows Edith as she returns to her family home where three generations of relatives have perished in various tragic accidents. The game made our top 10 list back in 2017 and earned a 9/10 in GameSpot's What Remains of Edith Finch review.
"Developer Giant Sparrow managed to strike the delicate balance between joy and sorrow in 2012's The Unfinished Swan, but What Remains of Edith Finch transcends even the latent sadness of that game, finding the beauty--even sometimes the fun--in what's always fundamentally a tragedy. It's not often that a game's plot slips past the bitterness of grief to finally get to the acceptance, but that's the triumph in What Remains of Edith Finch," wrote critic Justin Clark.
Because May starts on a Wednesday this year (and PS Plus games always become available on the first Tuesday of the month), April's free games are still available for one more week, so be sure to grab The Surge and Conan Exiles before May 7 if you're interested in owning those games.
Alright, take a deep breath, we're going to take a close look at that final fight--you know, the one with about four thousand characters all running around playing keep-away with the new Infinity Gauntlet? During the chaos, the Gauntlet changes hands a few times. It goes from Clint, who pulls it from the wreckage of the compound, to T'challa, who makes a run for it but is stopped by Ebony Maw. From the Maw, Peter Parker picks it up and finally, it lands in Carol Danvers' hands. With Carol finally ready to make the run to the quantum tunnel van (though we're not entirely sure what she was planning to do once she got there), she's suddenly surrounded by an all-star lineup of most of the MCU's major female heroes.
It's a goosebumps-inducing scene: A shaken Spider-Man asks Carol how she plans to get the Gauntlet through the mass of ravenous Outriders just in time for Wanda and Okoye to assure him, "Don't worry, she's got help," as Valkyrie, Pepper Potts, Mantis, and Shuri set up to form a little impromptu squad.
From there, we get a few moments of Valkyrie swooping around on her pegasus, Pepper blasting things with her repulsors, and Carol rocketing through aliens like they're paper dolls. All told, it's a pretty epic moment in a fight that is packed to the gills with epic moments--but what it implies is a lot bigger than the battle itself.
The (potential) pay off
It's no secret that the core six Avengers have finished their time in the spotlight. Can some of them pop up in the future to help out? Sure, but the original team itself is never going to reform to take down another major threat. It's time for the MCU to get a new central team. And the ladies of Marvel are a pretty likely contender, thanks in part to their comic book history.
Sort of, at least. This particular moment and line up isn't directly pulled from any one particular all-female team in Marvel's history, but it does invoke the spirit of one. The A-Force, a relatively recent addition to the Marvel Comics universe, is a team made up of heroes like She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Dazzler, and Jane Foster as Thor among others. They formed in the wake of a major crisis and were immediately tossed into the deep end, dealing with cosmic forces and potentially universe-ending stakes as they attempted to figure out the ins and outs of their new team dynamic.
Of course the A-Force isn't Marvel's only all-female hero squad, but they're definitely the most modern, which may actually be an asset more than a detriment. Because they're so new, the MCU would essentially have carte blanche in terms of lineups and motivations--no pesky history to duck and weave around and no source material to feel beholden to. The MCU's version of the team could really wind up including anyone--even the women who weren't present for the big moment during the fight, like Gamora and Nebula--with Carol as their figurehead and leader calling the shots.
Intentionally or otherwise, the bulk of Marvel's surviving female heroes all have cosmic origins of some kind--even Wanda, a human, was empowered by the Reality Stone. Pepper Potts likely won't have a major role in the upcoming phase--not only has Gwyneth Paltrow been open about splitting from Marvel, Pepper is a single mom now with more important things to worry about than galavanting around, risking her life. She certainly has the option to go to space in her Rescue suit, though, so never say never. The A-Force could be not only Earth's next line of defense, but the team who patrols the galaxy as a whole.
Because, really, let's face it: The Guardians probably aren't going to stop screwing that up any time soon.
Our image of just what Phase 4 will look like is still mysterious--there has been no announcement of an all-female team on the horizon, sure, but there also has been no announcement of any new team based movies so far. It's definitely possible that we simply won't get any more major group efforts for the foreseeable future, but with Black Widow allegedly still in development alongside more mysterious efforts like Shang-Chi and The Eternals, it's safe to say anything is possible. And with the core six Avengers out of action, someone has got to step up to fill the void--why not the characters who have already proven they work so well together under pressure?
Toy Story 3 was an emotionally satisfying and beautiful ending to Pixar's trilogy about living toys. As a result, hearing that Pixar is making a Toy Story 4 came as a bit of a shock. However, according to Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley and producers Jonas Rivera and Mark Neilsen, the world of Woody, Buzz, and the rest of Andy's toys is worth revisiting again--with the right story.
"We love the end of Toy Story 3," Cooley said during a panel at Pixar headquarters. "It ends Woody and Andy's story perfectly. We realized there is more story to tell to continue Woody's story. And once we started going down the path… we hit upon something that was worth telling."
At Pixar, press were treated to a screening of the opening 20 minutes of Toy Story 4 and additional chunks from later points in the movie. The film immediately establishes Bo-Peep as a main character alongside Woody and Buzz, and it's her return to the franchise that allows Pixar to explore a new side of Woody, and what it means to be a toy, now that Andy is no longer a part of his life.
"The idea of Bo-Peep is also so intriguing to us," said Rivera. "And the idea of [Woody and Bo] coming back together after not seeing each other for nine years and just what's become of her was something we thought was really worth exploring." We last saw Bo-Peep in Toy Story 3 during a brief scene in a home video shown by Andy's mom. However, Bo never shows up during the main events of the movie. When Woody and the gang talk about toys that have been lost, thrown out, or sold since the events of Toy Story 2, it's revealed that Molly gave Bo away.
By the events of Toy Story 3, it appears as if the same fate awaits Andy's toys as well, as he hasn't played with Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and the rest in years. Ultimately, Woody comes to realize that he and his friends' time with Andy has run its course and it's time to say goodbye so that they can take care of the next kid. Leaving a note for Andy under the guise it's from his mother, Woody gets his owner to donate all of his toys to a neighborhood girl named Bonnie. Andy plays with his toys one last time before going off to college, and Woody and the rest of the gang begin their lives with Bonnie. It's a heartfelt ending to Andy and Woody's relationship, as they both learn to let go of each other so that Woody can continue to bring a smile to a child's face.
When Woody does run into Bo again in Toy Story 4, she's become a lost toy. She's abandoned her frilly dress for a cloak and left her lamp for a life in a park, where she doesn't belong to anyone. Woody, still struggling with no longer belonging to Andy and not being someone's number one toy, can't fathom why Bo would choose to be lost and not have a kid to call her own. Yet through Bo, Woody sees how toys do have a choice in the way they want to live, and that they are not beholden to being passed from child to child for their entire lives. Instead of waiting for someone to come along and want her, Bo has decided to take matters into her own hands and seek out those who appreciate her for who she is.
"[Woody's] worst fear, [we've] said it all along, is to be a lost toy," Neilson said. "What if [Bo] represented something that would challenge his place in the world, and then just lean into that? It was almost like a Lady and the Tramp analogy. Ya know, one is out in the world saying, 'Why wouldn't you want all this?' and the other one is saying, 'No, I want to be at home.' And Woody is that. So she became his catalyst to really change. Of all the change he's done over the years, we thought she had the potential to change him in ways he never has."
"And once we figured that out, that was the place to go," Cooley finished. "I think Jonas, you coined this phrase: If you were to ask Woody, 'What was the biggest moment of your life?' he would say, 'It was when I met Bo-Peep for the second time.' So that was our goal for this film: to make this meeting with her so powerful, it would be deserving of Toy Story 4."
If you like checking out new, creative indie games on PC--and especially like it when they're free--then you'll want to keep an eye Amazon Prime's monthly game giveaways for Twitch Prime members. Last month, Twitch Prime members were able to claim four games--Her Story, Inner Space, Joggernauts, and Keep in Mind: Remastered--at no cost, and for May, Amazon is kicking up that number to five games. Take a look at the new freebies below.
Whispering Willows
First up is Whispering Willows, an indie horror adventure where you play as a young girl named Elena who's searching for her missing father. Elena has a pendant she can use to project her spirit outside her body, travel through walls, and control various objects in the surrounding environment to solve puzzles. Then there's Stealth Bastard Deluxe, which is, as the name implies, a stealth game where you control a clone making his escape from a hazardous testing facility. Also included is The Little Acre, a point-and-click adventure with gorgeous hand-drawn visuals that tells the story of a father and daughter who travel to a strange new world.
Majesty 2
Finally, you've got both Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim and its sequel, Majesty 2. In these real-time strategy games, you play as the sovereign ruler of a fantasy kingdom, where you can construct and enhance buildings, hire heroes to handle various tasks, and offer rewards to gain their cooperation.
You have through May 31 to download Twitch's new freebies, and once you do, they're yours to keep. To claim the free games and loot, you have to be an Amazon Prime member and make sure your Amazon account is linked to Twitch. After the free 30-day trial, an Amazon Prime membership costs $119 per year; if you're a student, that price drops to $59 per year.
There might be a wealth of Marvel content in development for the upcoming streaming service Disney+, but that won't be the only platform for the studio's superhero shows. It has been announced that two new Marvel shows are in the works to premiere on Hulu.
The service has revealed that live-action Ghost Rider and Helstrom shows are in development and both will arrive in 2020. Ghost Rider is being produced by Ingrid Escajeda, who previously worked on shows such as Sneaky Pete and Empire, and she will also act as showrunner.
It has also been confirmed that this Ghost Rider will be Robbie Reyes, who recently featured as a character in Agents of SHIELD, as opposed to Johnny Blaze, who was played by Nicolas Cage in the two Ghost Rider movies released in the 2000s. Gabriel Luna played Reyes on Agents of SHIELD, and Variety have confirmed that he will reprise the role in the new show.
Helstrom will focus on the Daimon and Ana Helstrom, the son and daughter of a mysterious and powerful serial killer who use their skills to track down villains. Like Ghost Rider, they were created in the 1970s to take Marvel comic book characters in a more supernatural direction. This will be first time the Helstroms have featured in a movie or on TV.
These new shows will join Runaways on Hulu; the third season of the teen-oriented show arrives later this year. In addition, four new animated Marvel Hulu shows were announced back in February. These are M.O.D.O.K, Hit-Monkey, Tigra & Dazzler Show, and Howard The Duck.
As for the Marvel series on Disney+, we know that Loki, the Scarlet Witch show WandaVision, and one focusing on Falcon and Winter Soldier are on the way. While release dates are yet to be announced, it was recently confirmed that Marvel shows will start rolling out in 2020.
The Pokemon Company regularly gives away free Pokemon for the series' 3DS installments, but fans in the US will soon have their first chance to get some for Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee. Beginning next Saturday, May 11, The Pokemon Company is distributing a free Shiny Pikachu and Shiny Eevee for the Switch games. Here's how you can claim one.
The free Pokemon will be available around the country at Target stores. Once the event is underway, players will be able to head to a participating store and, using a new free phone app called Pokemon Pass (which is available to download now from Google Play and the App Store), scan a QR code to receive a download code for the free Pokemon. Those with a copy of Let's Go Pikachu will receive a Shiny Eevee, while those with Let's Go Eevee will get Shiny Pikachu.
Once you've claimed the download code, you'll need to input it in the Switch titles to receive the Pokemon. To do this, first select Mystery Gift from the games' main menu, then choose the option to receive your gift with a code/password. Input the download code you received and follow the remaining prompts to download your free Shiny Pokemon. You'll then need to pick it up from the deliveryman waiting inside any Pokemon Center.
The free Shiny Pikachu and Eevee will be available until June 23, so if you're hoping to add one to your collection, your best bet is to act quickly. In the meantime, you can still get a Shiny Meltan in the Let's Go titles. The special Mythical Pokemon is appearing in Pokemon Go again until May 5, and if you capture one, you can transfer it to either of the Switch games. For more details, check out our guide on how to catch Shiny Meltan.
Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee launched for Switch last November and have quickly become two of the console's best-selling games, moving a combined 10 million copies worldwide. A new pair of Pokemon RPGs, Sword and Shield, are also on the way to Switch later this year and take players to a new region called Galar, which is home to an assortment of new and returning Pokemon. You can read more about the titles in our roundup of everything we know so far about Pokemon Sword and Shield.
Borderlands 3 has now had its first gameplay debut in a special stream presentation, shedding a ton of new light on the long-awaited sequel. You can re-watch the stream and find out everything we learned about the game here, but keep on reading for a breakdown of the gameplay that Gearbox showed during the event.
To start, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford and creative director Paul Sage were sure to note that everything we were seeing was rendered in Unreal Engine 4, but the transition hasn't lost the iconic Borderlands style--or the inclusion of Claptrap to kick off the proceedings. This story revolves around a new faction on Pandora, a cult called the Children of the Vault. Lilith, the Siren from the previous games, is heading up the Crimson Raiders and attempting to investigate the cult.
Speaking of Sirens, the demo starred Amara, the Siren warrior. After a visit to a Quick Recharge station to check customization options, Amara is off and running with a helpful new traversal tool. The Vault Hunters can now sprint-slide or hop over ledges.
The new Vault Hunters have a variety of new combat tools as well. Guns will sometimes offer multiple firing modes, like a Vladof pistol that can swap between semi-auto mode or a bunch of "micro-missiles." Similarly, some elemental weapons can swap between elements. The demo also showed cover being destroyed, and explosive barrels can be propelled toward enemies with melee attacks. Plus environmental hazards can be impacted by elements, like oil catching fire or water conducting electricity. You can also revive NPCs, and the favor goes both ways.
In the story, Amara quickly butts heads with the leader of the cult, Shiv. He captures Claptrap, forcing you to take up a shield and get into a melee fight with him. Gearbox promised bigger bosses that will require some more coordination to beat as well. Once Shiv has been taken down, Lilith appeared and explained that she's looking for a key that will lead to vaults on other worlds.
We also got a closer look at Amara's skill tree. It's very similar to the other Borderlands games, with three branching skill trees and one powerful action skill. Each character can choose one action skill to equip, besides Zane who can equip a second by opting out of grenades. Amara's three action skills are Phaseslam, Phasegrasp, and Phasecast--in the demo, they selected the AOE ability Phaseslam. This time some skills will also have optional augments and modifiers, like an electric Phaseslam.
From there the demonstration transitioned to co-op play. Everyone receives their own stream of loot, and a level balancing tool keeps everyone fighting enemies and receiving loot at their own level. This feature is called "Loot Instancing," according to Gearbox. If you prefer it to work like the older Borderlands games instead, you can turn these options off and play using the "Classic Mode" setting.
The co-op partner chose to play as Zane, and Gearbox showed off his own skill tree as well. He can make a digital copy of himself called a Digiclone, and swap places with it at will. He can also create an autonomous Sentinel robot or summon a barrier shield.
During the gameplay showcase, Gearbox showed off a new feature that makes Borderlands 2's disposable guns a little more useful. Now, when thrown away, they can some strange properties. One gun became a bouncy ball that hurt enemies on impact--and also was sentient. Another became a turret, while a third turned into homing rockets.
In co-op, the partners went to the cult's Holy Recruitment Center to take on another boss called Mouthpiece--the head of the Children of the Vault's propaganda operation. True to his theme, his weapon is sound, and when defeated the players received a unique gun that shoots soundwaves. At that point, the demo showed a short introduction to the chief antagonists, the Calypso Twins: Troy and Tyreen.
Finally, the demo showed off Sanctuary, your customizable home away from home. Sanctuary is a ship that hops between planets and serves as your base. You can put your favorite guns on display, recover lost loot that you may not have been able to pick up earlier, visit Moxxi's bar, open Gold Key chests, chat to Tannis, or do business with merchants like Marcus and Crazy Earl. Hammerlock has his own trophy room, where your most important kills are showcased, and Maya is also knocking about too.
The demo then took us to Promethea, the neon city that serves as home to the Atlas Corporation. Two players showcased how co-op plays and, as you can imagine, it was a chaotic mix of explosions, abilities, and loot gathering. A new NPC called Lorelei was guiding the players, and she's a character that Gearbox said players will spend a lot of time with.
Borderlands 3 is coming on September 13 to PC via Epic Store, PS4, and Xbox One. Check out our pre-order guide for more details. We went hands-on with Borderlands 3 and found that it now supports solo play in a way previous entries in the series didn't. Check out our full Borderlands 3 hands-on gameplay preview for more on that.
Following previous looks at Borderlands 3, Gearbox has now properly unveiled the game as part of a gameplay reveal event. An hour-long livestream gave us our first good look at the game in action, as we got a look at its new characters, weapons, gameplay wrinkles, and much more.
You can rewatch the event above, and we'll also be livestreaming our own Borderlands 3 gameplay from there to further give you a sense of what to expect. Ahead of the event, we also got to chat with Gearbox and try the game out for ourselves, where we found you can play solo without any issues, which will be welcome news to some. (Local and online co-op play is also supported, with the option to share loot or not.)
New gameplay details include the ability to crouch-slide and mantle up ledges; we also got a look at some skill trees and some of the new characters and their abilities in action. Gearbox also showcased the game's new villains, the Calypso twins, and how it (sort of) brings back Handsome Jack.
Stay tuned for more coverage of Borderlands 3. The original story follows below.
Gearbox hasn't shared many details about what the stream will entail, only that fans will be able to potentially earn some in-game loot by watching Twitch streamers play the game via a new Echocast extension. The stream will be broadcast on the Borderlands website and Twitch channel. You'll also be able to tune in right here on GameSpot and watch the stream above.
Borderlands 3 Gameplay Reveal Stream Start Times
10 AM PT
1 PM ET
6 PM BST
Borderlands 3 had long been rumored, but Gearbox officially announced the title last month in a rather...memorable livestream presentation during PAX East 2019. A few days later, the developer shared another trailer for the game. This one introduced its cast--including its four new playable Vault Hunters--and confirmed its released date: September 13, 2019.
The latest Borderlands 3 trailer also gave us our first look at the game's antagonists, the Calypso twins, and confirmed a handful of returning characters. You can read more about the upcoming game in our roundup of what we know about Borderlands 3.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has been a much-discussed movie in part due to how Marvel fired director James Gunn over controversial tweets and then re-hired him. Now that he's back in the director's chair, when can fans expect the movie to actually get underway? According The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel is planning to begin shooting in 2020.
Not only that, but the stars are all expected to return for the third movie in in the trilogy.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was originally expected to hit theatres in May 2020, but plans changed when Gunn was fired. Before he was re-hired, Gunn signed with Warner Bros. to write and direct The Suicide Squad. That movie is releasing in August 2021, so some expected Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to not shoot until later. But it looks like plans have shifted forward.
The entire future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is unclear at this stage. Marvel plans to reveal its plans for Phase 4 after the release of Spider-Man: Far From Home in July. That's right around when Comic-Con takes place in San Diego.
In others Guardians of the Galaxy news, Star-Lord's outfit and other related gear is now available in Fortnite--check out all the images here.
Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn's next movie is the superhero horror film Brightburn starring Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games) and David Denman (The Office, Big Fish). The film follows the story of a child who crash-lands on Earths and is adopted by the characters played by Banks and Denman, Tori and Kyle. They recognize his super-abilities and try to raise him to use them for good. But he doesn't. Instead, he wreaks havoc on a small Kansas town, and people aren't happy about it.
Brightburn comes to theatres later this month, and GameSpot can exclusively reveal a new clip from the film today where we see actor Matt Jones (Breaking Bad) enduring a harrowing visit from the young man, Brandon, who is played by Jackson A. Dunn. Check out the clip in the embed above.
Brightburn opens May 23 in Australia and then a day later on May 24 in the United States over the Memorial Day weekend. It was directed by David Yarovesky (The Hive) with a script by James Gunn's brothers Brian and Mark Gunn. James Gunn and Kenneth Huang served as producers.
Here is the full plot description for Brightburn: "After a difficult struggle with fertility, Tori's dreams of motherhood come true with the arrival of a mysterious baby boy. Brandon appears to be everything Tori and her husband Kyle ever wanted-bright, talented, curious about the world. But as Brandon nears puberty, a powerful darkness seems to manifest within him, and Tori becomes consumed by terrible doubts about her son. Once Brandon begins to act on his twisted urges, those closest to him find themselves in grave danger, as the miracle child transforms into a vicious predator unleashed on an unsuspecting Kansas town."
May is finally here, and ThinkGeek is ready to do some spring cleaning on its clearance section. To kick off the new month, the digital store is offering 75% off all clearance items, plus an additional 25% off all items in your cart. That 25% off discount applies both to full-price items and clearance items that have already been slashed by 75%. In case you don't feel like doing the math, that's a full 81% off clearance items that are already on sale.
Some important information: This sale only runs for 24 hours, so you'll want to grab whatever you're interested in buying between now and 9 PM PT on May 1 (12 AM ET on May 2). Once you add things to your cart, you'll see the discount automatically applied--no coupon code needed.
If you're not familiar with ThinkGeek, the retailer is one of the top online places to get officially licensed merchandise and collectibles from practically any fandom or interest, from Star Wars and Game of Thrones to Pokemon, Borderlands, Dungeons & Dragons, and many, many more. ThinkGeek's stuff tends to be reasonably priced in general, but with this sale, you're getting multiple stacked discounts that make these items more affordable than ever.
The clearance section currently offers quite a wide range of items, including Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, and Marvel products. Some of them are ThinkGeek exclusives, and everything is officially licensed. Browse the full collection of items on sale at ThinkGeek, and see some of the products that caught our eye below.
Just a reminder--Mother's Day is coming up in just a couple of weeks, so this might be a good chance to pick up something your mom or significant other would like. This solar system necklace crafted with gemstones is particularly stunning. (Plus, check out our other Mother's Day gift ideas if you need some more inspiration.)
This little dude has one purpose only: to twerk until his little plywood body can twerk no more. This DIY robot kit comes with 212 laser cut pieces and other supplies so you can actually put it together yourself--and of course, display it somewhere where everyone can see and be amazed.
These hand-crafted resin masks come mounted in a shadow box frame for display. Note that right now, only the Psycho Bandit replica appears to be available.
Take Star Wars' adorable rolling droid with you on the go, plug it into your 12V vehicle power adaptor, and let it charge your electronics with its two 2.1A USB charging points.
Been looking for some wall art for your gaming area? This wall art set pays tribute to the SNES controller, and each piece comes framed with a metal wall hanger on the back.
Whether you actually own a record player or enjoy collecting vinyls for the aesthetic, you've got some solid options to consider in this sale, including this gorgeous Undertale album or this double LP for Dark Souls II.
It's a great time to pick up this chrome-plated figure set if you're a Star Wars collector, as its full list price is $200 and it's already 50% off (pre-discounts). Featuring the OG droids, each model lights up and comes with interchangeable accessories.
This gorgeous skirt is a dream for anyone who likes cosplay, space, and/or sparkly things. The three-layered skirt is woven with over 60 small LED lights and has six adjustable modes.
This collector's item comes with a digital download for God of War, a hardcover coffee table book offering a behind-the-scenes look at the game, and a cloth-covered portfolio with art inspired by the game. This particular edition is exclusive to ThinkGeek with only 1,500 total available to sell.
Starting with the biggest payday, Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. earned $75 million from 2018's Avengers: Infinity War alone, according to The Hollywood Reporter. This was the result of a unique deal he made with Marvel boss Kevin Feige that gives the actor "backend" on the Avengers movies. A backend deal means an actor gets a percentage of box office grosses.
Infinity War was a massive commercial success, making $2.048 billion at the box office. Downey Jr.'s reported $75 million from that movie is likely tied to that huge performance.
THR's report also claims that Downey Jr. was paid $5 million PER DAY for three days to film his parts on 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming. The story doesn't have any details on Downey Jr.'s salary for Avengers: Endgame. But if he struck a similar backend deal, Downey Jr. could stand to make another big bucket of money from the film. It's already broken box office records in the US and worldwide and is poised for continued success.
As for the other big-name Marvel actors, THR's story says Scarlett Johansson will be paid a figure in the $20 million range for the 2020 standalone Black Widow movie that she'll star in and produce. Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, signed a five-year deal in the $15 million to $20 million range, while Captain America actor Chris Evans also had a five-movie deal in the same salary range, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Actors can also earn extra money from bonuses tied to commercial performance--though they're getting more challenging to earn, it seems. THR says Marvel originally paid actor bonuses when a movie cleared $500 million in worldwide grosses, before moving to $700 million. Today, Marvel reportedly doesn't generally pay actor bonuses until a film, especially an Avengers movie, reaches $1.5 billion. Infinity War reached that and Endgame should, too.
Plans for the future of the MCU are unclear; we know Spider-Man: Far From Home is coming in July and will mark the end of Phase 3. Beyond that, there are a variety of projects known to be in the works, such as the aforementioned Black Widow movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Eternals, but specific dates are unclear. For more, check out what we know about Marvel's Phase 4.
Last month, Oculus revealed that its next step in VR gaming would be a two-pronged approach: a revision of its original headset with the Rift S and a standalone headset in the Quest. Specs and features had been detailed alongside a Spring 2019 release window and a $400 / £400 price tag (Australian pricing is yet to be announced) for each package. Now, Oculus has announced that both will launch simultaneously on May 21--pre-orders for Rift S and Quest are now open as well.
The Rift S makes several improvements over the original Rift, a platform that has been out since March 2016. First off, the Rift S has an increased resolution; it'll display 1280x1440 per eye, 2560x1440 in total, although it now displays in 80Hz (down from 90Hz). Another addition is integrated audio on the headset and a more comfortable, secure headstrap. The biggest feature, however, is the company's new inside-out tracking technology called Oculus Insight. This negates the need for external motion sensors since there are five built into the headset, capable of full positional tracking.
Oculus Quest (left) and Oculus Rift S (right)
While the Rift S remains a PC-based platform, the Oculus Quest packs everything you need into the one unit. The standalone VR headset is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor--a significant upgrade over the specs of the lesser mobile counterpart the Oculus Go. Quest also features Oculus Insight with four built-in sensors to offer full positional, six degree-of-freedom tracking. It'll display an impressive 2880x1600 resolution (a bit of a bump from the Rift S), but at a lower 72Hz. Two options for storage space will be available: 64GB at $400 / £400 and 128GB at $500 / £500.
A pair of revised Touch controllers come with each headset, which reposition the motion sensor rings to be above the face buttons to track better with the new Insight sensors. We've spent some time with the Oculus Quest and will have a definitive review on GameSpot soon.
Yet another video game is getting spun into a movie. Deadline reports that a film based on Saints Row is in development, with F. Gary Gray attached to direct. Gray directed Straight Outta Compton, The Fate of the Furious, and the upcoming Men in Black: International.
Greg Russo is writing the script; it's at least his second video game job, as he's also writing the script for the Mortal Kombat reboot movie in the works at Warner Bros.
The movie is produced in part by Koch Films, a division of Koch Media, which owns Deep Silver and the rights to Saints Row. THQ previously held the rights, but Koch Media acquired the rights and developer Volition out of THQ's bankruptcy auction. Last year, Volition and Saints Row returned to THQ ... sort of ... when THQ Nordic (which itself acquired the THQ name) acquired Koch Media and all of its assets.
The Saints Row movie has been in the works for a long time. Back in 2009, the rapper 50 Cent announced that he was working on a Saints Row movie when the franchise was with THQ.
There have been four main Saints Row games so far, but it's not clear if the story will be based on any plot from the franchise or if it's something entirely new. Also unknown is who will star in it, when production may begin, and when it could be released. In Hollywood, projects tend to get announced and take a long time to materialize, if they ever do.
Blizzard, the gaming giant behind franchises like World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch, will not attend Gamescom this year. The company said in a statement that it's not attending the show in Cologne, Germany as part of its "renewed effort" in 2019 to focus on game development.
Blizzard plans to return to Gamescom someday, but it's not clear when.
"As part of a renewed effort this year to maintain our focus on development, for our current games and our future projects, we won't have a booth at Gamescom 2019," Blizzard said. "The show is an important one for the European and global gaming community, and we're going to miss meeting players in Cologne this year. You'll still be able to find Blizzard gear in the gamescom 2019 shop area, and we're looking forward to returning to the Gamescom show floor in the future."
Blizzard also teased in its statement that it is eager to talk about upcoming, unannounced projects "when the time is right."
The confirmation of Blizzard dropping out of Gamescom comes just days after the company announced a bigger presence for BlizzCon 2019. The company has even more activities planned for the event, and seemingly as a result, ticket prices are going up.
In December last year, Kotaku reported that Blizzard was undergoing cost-cutting measures to prepare for a "lean 2019." Operating a booth at a major show like Gamescom is likely no small cost, so dropping out of the show is no doubt saving Blizzard some money.
Gamescom, which is open to the public, is believed to be the world's largest gaming show. Around 370,000 people from 114 countries attended the 2018 show, according to GI.biz. By comparison, the all-time attendance record for E3 is 70,000 from back in 2005. E3 only just recently opened to the public, while Gamescom has been public for years.
The Red Woman Melisandre has been wandering around Westeros for most of the run of Game of Thrones, trying to prepare people for the Great War--the big throwdown between the living and the dead. When the Night's Watch was trying to convince the lords of Westeros that the White Walkers were coming, Melisandre believed it immediately, and convinced Stannis Baratheon to help the Night's Watch prepare for them.
When the army of the dead finally reached Winterfell in Episode 3 of Game of Thrones Season 8, The Long Night, Melisandre had already had a big influence on everything that happened leading to that point. She resurrected Jon Snow after he was betrayed by his Night's Watch brothers; she led Stannis to his doom fighting the Boltons at Winterfell, which led Davos to join up with Jon; and she suggested Daenerys meet with Jon and hear what he had to say about the threat of the Night King. And when Melisandre ran into Arya Stark during the battle, she had an influence on her, as well--one that recalled their earlier meeting, way back in Season 3.
If you don't remember the interaction between Arya and the Red Woman, it's because it was pretty fleeting. It happened back in Season 3, when Arya, Gendry, and Hot Pie were nabbed by the Brotherhood Without Banners. Gendry had decided to stay with the Brotherhood and smith for them, but that changed when Melisandre caught caught up with them.
In exchange for the money they needed to feed and arm themselves, the Brotherhood--led by the moral outlaw Beric Dondarrion--sold Gendry to the Red Woman. She intended to use his king's blood--Gendry is King Robert Baratheon's bastard--for her spells to help Stannis defeat his enemies and take the Iron Throne.
Arya confronted Melisandre briefly as she and Stannis's men were carting Gendry away.
"You're a witch," Arya said. "You're going to hurt him."
Melisandre, for her part, was arrested by seeing Arya and immediately did her magic vision schtick.
"I see a darkness in you," Melisandre replied. "And in that darkness, eyes staring back at me. Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes. Eyes you'll shut forever. We will meet again."
It wasn't clear what Melisandre was foreseeing during the interaction, other than the fact that Arya was going to go on to become a frighteningly effective killer. "Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes" seemed to refer to the many victims she's racked up over the years. But then Arya found Melisandre at Winterfell, and both instantly recalled their last meeting and how Melisandre said they would meet again.
"You said I'd shut many eyes forever," Ayra said in their final meeting. "You were right about that too."
"Brown eyes, green eyes--and blue eyes," Melisandre answered. The two locked eyes as Arya realized what Melisandre meant in that moment: She was referring to the blue eyes of the White Walkers, and it was that revelation that sent Arya to the godswood.
While it seems like Melisandre's prophecy for Arya was realized once she took down the Night King, we know Arya still has scores to settle--her kill list still includes Cersei Lannister and the Mountain. There's a theory that speculates that the rest of Melisandre's prophecy refers to the Lannister queen, who has green eyes (they're even called "emerald green" in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels on which Game of Thrones is based). Now that the focus of the show is returning to the war for the Iron Throne with the final three episodes of the series, Arya might finally get her chance to cross those final names off her list.
Game of Thrones fans expected a lot of characters to die during the massive battle at Winterfell in Episode 3, "The Long Night," and technically, the episode didn't disappoint. All told, seven minor-to-main characters were killed, if you including the Night King--not to mention the entire Dothraki horde, down to the last man, and by the looks of it, most of the Unsullied too. On paper, it sounds glorious.
So why were so many fans--myself included--disappointed once the credits began rolling? Despite being viewed by a record-breaking 17.8 million people, "The Long Night" has emerged as Game of Thrones' second-lowest-rated episode ever on Rotten Tomatoes, next to only the Season 5 episode in which Sansa got raped. Plenty of people thought the episode was great--trust me, I've heard from them on Twitter since writing my review--but many fans also agree that the episode was oversimplified, underwhelming, and just plain disappointing.
Technically speaking, this episode was full of good deaths. So why did it leave me feeling so cold? As I watched characters like Dolorous Edd, Theon Greyjoy, Beric Dondarrion, Jorah Mormont, and even little Lady Lyanna die gruesomely on the battlefield, I felt nothing but a growing dread that this most crucial of episodes was shaping up to be a major letdown. And I think I know at least one reason why.
Many fans have felt mildly traumatized by Game of Thrones' most shocking deaths over the years, whether we read them on the page or watched them unfold onscreen first. Nevertheless, I was prepared for more as the final battle at Winterfell approached. I wanted to feel that feeling again--the electrifying despair of Ned's execution, Robb's murder at the Red Wedding, or even Jon's more recent (and very temporary) trip to the afterlife. There's a specific reason those deaths were so effective: These characters had a lot left to do.
They didn't die like storybook heroes; they died like real people in real life, with work undone, promises unfulfilled, and regrets weighing heavy on their souls. Ned never told Jon the truth about his parentage, left his daughters to be devoured by lions in King's Landing, and never even said goodbye to his wife. Robb won the battles but lost the war, and all because of his foolish devotion to lofty ideals like love and honor. He led his loyal subjects to an all-encompassing slaughter, and left the surviving Starks--his brothers and sisters--more vulnerable than ever. All his plans for revenge and strategies to take the Lannisters down died with him. And Jon died without even a hint of the knowledge of who he really was, with the Night's Watch in ruins and his most important battles unfinished.
Even many of the series' villains got similarly ill-timed ends. Tywin's scheming may never have stopped if Tyrion hadn't sent a quarrel through his gut, and the subsequent battles would have turned out much differently. When Khal Drogo gave Viserion his crown of molten gold back in Season 1, he cut short the would-be Targaryen king's entire life work--conquering Westeros and regaining the Iron Throne for his family. Viserion believed he was the Last Dragon, which made his death somewhat tragic--even if it was also well deserved.
These deaths hit fans hard because they rang true. In real life, very few people get the privilege of fulfilling their "character arcs" before they die. Unlike in stories, there's never a good time to go. This is one of the many ways Game of Thrones has always adhered to a relative sense of realism, and it's one of the things that has made the series so beloved and addictive. These deaths weren't devastating gut punches simply because they were unexpected or shocking--it was because their victims left so many plot threads hanging, so much undone and unsaid.
This is one of the many failures of "The Long Night." Look at most of the major deaths: Jorah, Theon, Beric, and Edd all had no possible role to play going forward. Yara has secured the Iron Islands and has no need for Theon, Jorah returned to his queen and died protecting her, Beric fulfilled his purpose of protecting Arya, and Edd doesn't need to uphold the Night's Watch anymore, because there is no Night's Watch after this. They all died with their character arcs complete, their farewells given, their failings redeemed or forgiven, and their plot threads tied up into neat little narrative bows.
Certainly Lyanna Mormont, who Jorah recently reminded us was "the future of their House," is an exception. But she was by any definition a minor character in the grand scheme of things, and the dooming of House Mormont is nothing compared with the tragedy for which fans had prepared in this episode. There are many more characters whose deaths would have been more shocking, emotional, and impactful, precisely because they would have left acts undone, things unsaid, and destinies unfulfilled: Daenerys or Jon, Bran, Arya, or Sansa, Tyrion or Jaime, Sandor, Varys, Sam, or even Gendry.
Obviously, I want as badly as any Game of Thrones fan to see the Hound light his brother the Mountain's stupid, giant head on fire, for Sansa to rule the North with Tyrion at her side, for Jaime to turn on Cersei and end her reign of terror once and for all, for Gendry to be legitimized and revive House Baratheon from the ashes, for Sam to write the Song of Ice and Fire, and a million other things. You know what else I wanted? For Ned Stark to expose Cersei's lies, for Catelyn to hug her children again, for Robb to conquer the South, for Stannis to retake Winterfell from the treacherous Boltons, for Kahl Drogo to lead the Dothraki across the Narrow Sea with Daenerys at his side and conquer the Seven Kingdoms in her name--you get my point.
The shocks of those threads being left hanging in the wind made Game of Thrones a better story, and knowing there were real stakes in the show's biggest battle ever would have too. This was literally the fight between life and death, the heroes' last stand against a seemingly unstoppable force of nature itself. And the main characters all had so much plot armor that Sam was able to spend large swathes of the battle simply lying on the ground sobbing with a mob of hungry zombies piled on top of him, and come out fine on the other side.
It may make for a happier ending when the final three episodes have aired and all is said and done, but this is not the Game of Thrones I used to love.
Avengers: Endgame has been in theatres for less than a week, and it's already one of biggest box office successes in the history of cinema. It's now made an astonishing $1.342 billion worldwide, which makes it the 10th biggest movie ever.
It edged out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($1.341 billion) to take the No. 10 spot. Endgame will surely continue to make lots more money as its run in theatres continues, so it'll be interesting to see where it lands when all is said and done.
The No. 1 biggest box office smash worldwide is Avatar, which made $2.78 billion. You can see the full Top 10 list below, as compiled by Box Office Mojo.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel has raised the bonus threshold for Avengers actors. Years ago, actors would receive bonuses when a Marvel movie passed $500 million; it was later raised to $700 million, and now bonuses aren't paid until Avengers movies hit $1.5 billion. Endgame will surely reach that amount, which the actors should be happy about.
In one of the wilder and more unexpected pieces of film news in recent years, it was reported that legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino--who is known for his original scripts and creative control over projects--was attached to a new Star Trek movie that he would direct. With the future of the Star Trek series seemingly in question, it was believed that Tarantino may no longer be involved. But now, Tarantino says it could happen--but probably not soon.
Tarantino has been busy with his next movie, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, so he hasn't caught up with Star Trek producers Paramount recently. However, he said the script for the new Star Trek has been written, and he expects to return to the project after he recovers from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
"I haven't been dealing with those guys for a while cause I've been making my movie," he said of his discussions with Star Trek's producers. "But we've talked about a story and a script. The script has been written and when I emerge my head like Punxsutawney Phil, post-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we'll pick up talking about it again."
In 2016, Tarantino said he only plans to make two more movies before retiring, so if he does make Star Trek, that could be his last movie. His eight previous movies were Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is his ninth.
Tarantino won Best Writing Oscars for Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained.
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is due in theatres on July 26. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie, along with other huge names like Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, James Marsden, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Timothy Olyphant, Lena Dunham, Emile Hirsch, and Dakota Fanning. Bruce Dern came aboard the movie last year to play a part meant for Burt Reynolds who died in September 2018. Luke Perry filmed scenes for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood before his death in March.
When the Night King and his armies of the dead finally reached Winterfell in Game of Thrones Season 8's third episode, The Long Night, it marked the show's greatest battle. After seven seasons of preparation, the forces of the living would finally face their most fearsome enemy in one final showdown.
After watching the Battle of Winterfell, though, a lot of viewers have wondered what the hell Jon Snow and his comrades were thinking. The battle seemed like a disaster from the start, and whatever game plan the heroes had for fighting the Night King didn't make a ton of sense. A lot of people died seemingly needlessly (sorry, all the Dothraki), and their most powerful weapons, like Daenerys's dragons and the castle's huge trebuchets, weren't much of a factor.
During the war council, Jon laid out that the key was to take down the Night King, but the worry was that if killing him was the key to victory, he wouldn't expose himself, as Jaime Lannister pointed out. But Bran said that the chance for the Night King to get to and kill Bran would draw him into the open. Let's ignore the fact that any wight could easily eliminate Bran, rather than the Night King himself, and assume there's a reason the Night King had to do it himself.
This shifts the entire battle plan for the living. Trying to defeat the Night King's army in a straight fight is expected to be impossible--there are too many wights, they don't feel pain or tire, and their numbers can be bolstered with every single soldier they kill. Instead, the heroes are trying to last as long as they can against the dead, while leaving Bran in the godswood with a small detachment, made up of Theon and the Ironborn, protecting him. The idea is to use Bran as bait for the Night King, with Daenerys and Jon and their dragons waiting to ambush him when he shows himself.
The combined armies of the North, the Unsullied, the Dothraki, and the Freefolk appear to be too many people to leave inside the walls of Winterfell, which is why so many troops are arrayed outside the walls. They're hoping to do as much damage as they can to the army with siege weapons, cavalry, and foot soldiers. But the plan has Daenerys and Jon, and the dragons Drogon and Rhaegal, specifically sitting out most of the fight. The dragons are great at destroying ground troops, especially wights, but the worry is that if the Night King sees the dragons, he'll stay back out of the fight. The only chance the forces of the living have is to draw him into the open as quickly as possible, and that means holding the dragons in reserve to fight the Night King himself.
Then there's the trench, a line dug around Winterfell that's filled with flammable pitch and wooden barricades outfitted with dragonglass spikes. When the army of wights becomes too much, the Unsullied and the rest of Winterfell's forces are meant to fall back behind the trench, drawing the wights into it. On the castle walls, Davos will use torches to signal Daenerys, who will light the trench with Drogon's dragonfire. That will create a huge barrier that'll kill a bunch of wights and leave a bunch more unable to press the attack--at least for a while.
That's not how it goes down, though. The Dothraki charge the dead (for some reason, since that seems like a really bad use of them), but are wiped out almost immediately. It's unclear if this was part of the plan--in which case, what the hell--or if the eager and confident Dothraki simply jumped the gun. Either way, seeing her people in trouble, Daenerys refuses to stay back, and instead hops onto Drogon and joins the fight. She and Jon strafe the army of the dead with dragons, killing a bunch and helping the fighters on the ground weather the attack, but it messes up the plan to try to hide the dragons to draw the Night King to Bran.
And then the snowstorm blows in, presumably summoned by the Night King and his icy magic. The storm blinds Daenerys, Jon, the dragons, and the fighters on the ground, giving the wights a lot more ability to close in on them. The Unsullied are then meant to guard the retreat back behind the trench for a new line of defense on the castle walls, but the storm means Davos's signal to Daenerys doesn't work, and she can't light the trench. Luckily, Melisandre is there to handle the job with magic.
Jon's battle plan seemingly doesn't account for one big problem: The Night King's dragon. Winterfell has nothing in place to deal with a flying undead dragon, and when the Night King and the wight Viserion show up, they mess things up pretty good. Still, Jon and Daenerys are running their part of the plan by tangling with the Night King and Viserion--if they manage to kill him, the game is won, so it's much more important to fight him than to help the soldiers on the ground.
The portion of the plan to lure the Night King to Bran does work, in the end, but not as Jon and Daenerys envisioned it. Jon's plan was to get to the godswood to either blast the Night King with dragonfire or to take the King down with Longclaw, Jon's Valyrian steel sword. Fighting in the air with the dragons means both Jon and Daenerys are both stranded away from the godswood and never make it to the final fight; what's more, Daenerys and Drogon manage to blast the Night King with flame, but it doesn't work.
Luckily, the Ironborn hold back the wights long enough for the Night King to come out into the open. And the Night King didn't account for Arya, who is probably the best and deadliest fighter in the Seven Kingdoms by this point. Small as she is, she manages to use all her training to sneak in close to the Night King, fake him out, and stab him with her Valyrian steel dagger.
So that was the plan: Let the forces of the living fight and die for as long as they can manage, hoping the Night King will show up and try to go after Bran, so Daenerys and Jon can dragon or Valyrian steel him to death. You can argue that many of their forces and assets were arrayed improperly and deployed illogically, but the episode itself simply wasn't concerned with the logistics of how cavalry should be used or where catapults ought to be placed--and neither were the many viewers who enjoyed watching it.
In the end, the dragons didn't turn out to be deadly to the Night King at all, and a lot of people died fighting the army of the dead without air support from Dany and Jon. But the Night King's overconfidence and obsession with Bran meant he still fell into the trap, and thankfully, Arya Stark was there to seal the deal at the last second when Dany and Jon failed to appear.
A number of big-name musicians have appeared in cameo roles on Game of Thrones over the years, including Sigur Ros, members of Mastodon, and Ed Sheeran. Yet another famous singer-songwriter has joined the ranks: Chris Stapleton.
In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment from Sunday's episode, "The Long Night," Stapleton appears as a White Walker in the dramatic Battle of Winterfell. His bass player J.T. Cure and tour manager also appeared in the episode as White Walkers. A big fan of the show, Stapleton asked his management to reach out to the producers for a bit role, and it all worked out.
"I was like, you know, I would gladly fly to wherever in the world just to be a small part and get to watch that show going down," Stapleton told Rolling Stone. He filmed his scene in Northern Ireland, and Stapleton remarked, "They were gracious enough to let me come participate that way."
Stapleton's wife, Morgane, chronicled the moment that he appears in an Instagram video. Of course it contains spoilers, so be mindful of that if you haven't seen the episode yet.
Stapleton is a celebrated country music singer-songwriter who has won five Gramm Awards and seven Academy of Country Music Awards. He collaborated with Justin Timberlake for the song "Say Something" and he also appears on the recent Pink song "Love Me Anyway."
Microsoft had originally planned to release the first beta test for Halo: The Master Chief Collection's PC version in April, but that's no longer happening. Now, developer 343 Industries has explained why the delay was necessary.
Right up top it's important to note that the PC version is being made by Splash Damage and Ruffian Games with the support for 343. "Great progress" has been made toward launching the first beta test, or "flight," for Halo: Reach, but it's just not completely ready yet.
"There are still a number of items to work through before we feel we're ready for the first public flight," 343 said. "While flights are obviously work-in-progress builds, they do require a certain level of polish and functionality to ensure that players can have a successful, enjoyable session and that the team is able to get the data they need to validate the flight."
343's own "Pro Team" are currently testing Halo: MCC for PC with the specific focus of considering how the game feels with mouse and keyboard controls. These tests are happening as the technical work continues on the development side.
In regards to what's specifically holding up the first beta test, 343 said it's finalizing the process of the technical ability for Steam users to acquire the flight. "This also includes being able to add specific content in a build while cleanly removing content that isn't needed (this helps keep the overall build size down and keep players focused on the specific areas/activities tied to the goals for the flight)," 343 said.
Additionally, work is being done on Halo: MCC for PC in the areas of security, the PC-specific UI, and telemetry.
A work-in-progress look at Halo: MCC's PC UI
You can sign up for the free Halo Insider program for a chance to get into the beta tests. The tests will start small before expanding to additional users over time.
The full Halo Waypoint blog post offers a ridiculously in-depth breakdown of how 343, Splash Damage, and Ruffian are going about trying to make Halo: MCC for PC a "best-in-class PC shooter."
Halo: MCC begins its release on PC with Halo: Reach (which is also coming to Xbox One) before continuing in chronological order thereafter--Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo 4. Splash Damage senior producer George Wright said many of the challenges in bringing Halo: MCC to PC is the scale and age of the individual games. Not only that, but the games are made with multiple different engines, some of which are not specific to Halo. Not only that, but the engines have different programming styles.
"Each game was also developed for a very specific set of hardware and software requirements, and we need to harmonize the games so that they're performant on contemporary PC setups, and then start adding the features that players have come to know on PC," Wright said. "A lot of the tools used to build each title no longer exist, so we need to reconstruct, and repair these systems to make them function correctly. The games were built using older development techniques, so it's been an interesting challenge for a lot of us used to modern AAA development to go back to the old ways--a bit like the difference between building a skyscraper and restoring the Sistine Chapel."
Wright added that development is "going well," noting that Halo: Reach is already playable. "However, we have a very high bar for where the game needs to be, so have a lot more work to do before it's ready to ship," he said.
Overall, 343 stressed that bringing Halo: MCC to PC is not just a simple copy/paste job--not by a long shot.
"Some out there may think it's 'just a lot of copy and paste' to get things to work but making games at the quality level players expect is most definitely not that simple," 343 said. "A project can have hundreds, or even thousands, of people working towards one central goal: creating fun! It is a beautiful and unique process that each studio handles with finesse and flair that helps create a unique brand of magic."
While all this work is going on, Microsoft also continues to work on the next mainline Halo game, Halo Infinite, which is coming to PC and Xbox One. That game is being made by a separate team at 343 Industries. The game is expected to be shown off during Microsoft's E3 2019 briefing in June.
At a meeting in 2012, long before 40-year-old Omeed Dariani became one of the most powerful gamer managers on Earth, he wrote a single, foreboding sentence in his notebook: "Figure out Twitch."
These were the halcyon days of video game influencers, a few short years before Twitch started bringing in as many viewers as MSNBC and CNN, and Dariani was brought on board as a senior global brand manager at Sony Online Entertainment to get the company's massive games library into the hands of an insurgent, enigmatic group of internet creators. Partnerships like that are commonplace in 2019, but in those days, Dariani didn't have a precedent to work from. He remembers sending hundreds of emails to every streamer he could find, with the hope of establishing some inaugural deals in a brave new world. Dariani was stonewalled, receiving around 10 actual responses. Some video game streamers said they'd play Sony games for $25,000, some said they'd do it for free, and some left their emails unanswered. There was no rhyme or reason, no institutions, no rules.
"The [amount of money people were asking to stream games] was completely random. I was like, 'What is going on?'" he remembered. A year later, Dariani set up a mixer at PAX and got his answer.
"That's how I met a couple of our first clients. As I got to know them, they were telling me, 'Look, it's really difficult to connect with the companies we want to work with, we don't know anybody, I'm just a guy who lives in Florida,'" he said. "They didn't know how to review contracts, they weren't lawyers or business people, they didn't know what to charge for anything, they were terrified. ... I was like, holy crap. We started doing more deals with content creators, and I saw how often they were getting massively ripped off. [They were] signing contracts where they lost tons of their rights, with the companies taking huge amounts of the money. It really pissed me off. After I left Sony, a couple of them suggested, 'Hey, maybe you could manage us.'"
Today, Dariani is the owner of the Online Performers Group, which he claims is the first-ever talent management firm explicitly designed for people who record themselves playing video games professionally. Scroll through the clients' page and you'll find movers and shakers like CohhCarnage, Ellohime, and Angry Joe. The company promises to unlock promotional opportunities and sponsorships for anyone under its banner, but services also encompass quality-of-life support with taxes and event scheduling.
Omeed Dariani, Online Performers Group
Essentially, Dariani wants to help professional gamers maximize their value while removing as many unnecessary burdens from their plates as possible. The way he talks about it, OPG sounds like a traditional Hollywood power broker. He stocks a huge waiting list of up-and-comers, and many of his new clients are recruited from referrals--just like Creative Artists Agency, William Morris, or any other giant in the representation business.
"Literally five minutes ago I got an email from a content creator looking to be represented," Dariani said. "They're probably way too small, but we get about five to 10 of those a day."
In that sense, Dariani's goal is to add a baseline of stability to the business of influencer marketing in professional gaming, but he'd also be the first one to admit that there's still a long way to go.
For instance, battle royale wunderkinds Shroud and Ninja have two of the highest-trafficked channels on Twitch, and they're represented by Loaded, a talent agency built last year by Brandon Freytag, who also takes the reins for other all-stars like Lirik, Summit1G, and AnneMunition. The aforementioned Creative Artists Agency, a legendary firm that names both Jennifer Aniston and J.J. Abrams among its clients, inked a groundbreaking deal with Dr.Disrespect, an FPS streamer known for performing on Twitch entirely in his own WWE-like character, back in January. What about United Talent Agency? It works with League of Legends pros Aphromoo and sOAZ, as well as Angelina Jolie. William Morris? It has mega-YouTuber JackSepticEye.
The feeding frenzy is on, which is funny because, in so many ways, the mainstream media is still trying to untangle how Twitch stardom actually works. A considerable amount of the heavy lifting done by Twitch and YouTube managers and agencies is the negotiating of brand deals for influencers, but that requires the translation of an entire culture for a third-party company outside of the games industry. It's a problem that Piotr Bombol, the CEO of the Polish gaming marketing agency Gameset, runs into over and over again. His job is to help companies market themselves through gaming influencers, and he's quickly learned that the old-school calculus of marketing simply doesn't work in new media.
It's truly bizarre to live in a world where full-time streamers can be categorized as a part of mainstream pop culture, but what fans don't know is how much of that momentum is orchestrated from behind the scenes.
"When you're a brand, and you're working with an influencer, you're paying for a result. You want your brand exposed to the community for a specific time, and then you get views or clicks," Bombol said. "So if you ask an influencer, 'Okay, let's do a campaign. We want you to do a couple of videos, with one million views, and 10,000 clicks on the link, the influencer will say, 'I can't guarantee you that. I can make the video, but I can't guarantee you that.' There's a risk. And the risk falls on the agency. So the agency says, 'Okay, we'll get these results.' And when you don't get the results, the agency needs to come to the client and say, 'Eh, we didn't make it, but it happens.'"
Dariani reported the same problems. So many brands apply television logic to Twitch; they desperately want to tap into a young, agile scene of gamers, but they have a hard time understanding the value of what they're paying for. The profit propositions of, say, a Tom Cruise product placement spot were decided upon decades ago. Twitch, though? That's the Wild West, and a lot of the offers that come across Dariani's desk are hopelessly out of touch.
"It really comes down to how savvy a company is with Twitch," he said. "There are definitely times where we have to do a hand-holding process for how things work. A lot of times we'll have companies say, 'Can we just have him stream this thing for like 10 minutes?' Well, on Twitch something that happens for 10 minutes isn't very meaningful. Or, 'Could he just tweet about this thing 350 times?' Well, no, that's a lot [of tweets]. … Our clients turn down 90 percent of the things that come in, because the company is asking for things that are basically impossible. If you do it, it's gonna fail, and nobody is going to be happy."
Piotr Bombol, Gameset
Bombol said he's searching for a holy grail. Nobody has yet figured out the perfect model to capitalize on Twitch celebrity. Right now, every agency and management firm involved is in an endless troubleshooting phase--figuring out what works, what doesn't, and constructing all the norms on the fly. In many ways, Dariani thinks things haven't come much further from the mixer he threw seven years ago, filled to the brim with newly-minted internet celebrities who had no idea how to organize their affairs. "They tend to be a little sharper [now], a lot more cautious about entering into things, but we still see things all the time that scare me," he said. "We have a contract. It's a pretty liberal, generous contract, and we still tell people, 'Please have your lawyer look at this before you sign it,' ... The amount of times that somebody will say, 'Oh, so-and-so said you were good so I know that you're good.' I'm like, 'Are you kidding? We could've put anything in there!'"
Danotage, a streamer managed by OPG, echoed the same sentiment. He said he's "constantly paranoid about doing something stupid," and values the chance to have the safety net his management team represents that he can bounce off of if anything goes wrong. "I am able to get honest and useful information on whether it's crazy, or just crazy enough to work," Danotage explained. "This has helped me to drive innovation and mature as a member of the internet video game streaming business in a positive and focused direction."
"This infrastructure for agencies and management offices for streamers is quite bare," he added. "It is getting better, but like Hollywood, this business is extremely terrifying to most. So in order for people to become more comfortable with the business, I think it is incredibly important to have a broad infrastructure because it should allow shady companies to be held under scrutiny by their peers."
Nobody has yet figured out the perfect model to capitalize on Twitch celebrity. Right now, every agency and management firm involved is in an endless troubleshooting phase--figuring out what works, what doesn't, and constructing all the norms on the fly.
Twitch existed for years without a formal network of talent management, so the infrastructure is still racing to catch up. Dariani compares it to the NBA. When a player gets drafted into the league, they're usually already equipped with an agent and a lawyer, they're immediately injected into an ecosystem full of public relations professionals, and they have a coaching staff continually looking over their shoulders. All of those forces are built to catch and temper burgeoning celebrity. Those functions just don't exist for video game influencers yet.
"It even happens in the NBA 2K games!" he exclaimed. "You meet your press handler, you meet your concierge, you meet your support structure that will keep you out of trouble and make sure that you're fine. And that's huge for an 18-year old kid who gets a million-dollar check. It's the same thing if you get cast in a movie. The production company will say to you, 'If you're going to be in this movie, you need a manager. Here are 20 guys.' That hasn't existed in this industry. People are operating in a vacuum."
"Brad Pitt didn't become Brad Pitt all on his own," finishes Dariani. "It's mind-blowing to see somebody who has millions of followers that doesn't have anyone helping them. No matter how good you are, you're just one person."
Warning: This post is going to completely spoil Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 3. You might want to wait to read it if you haven't already watched the latest episode of the show's final season.
The third episode of Game of Thrones Season 8, The Long Night, upended a lot of expectations. The Night King's attack on Winterfell was met by the combined forces of the living, including Daenerys and her dragons, the North, the Dothraki, and the Unsullied. Prophecies and plot lines were drawn to their conclusions, and things we've been expecting to happen finally did--but not always in the ways the show has hinted they might.
The big twist was that it wasn't Jon Snow or Daenerys who wound up killing the Night King in the final battle. The pair have been the subject of all kinds of speculation about which of them (among several other characters) might be the reborn Azor Ahai, the Prince That Was Promised, destined to defeat the Night King and the White Walkers. Melisandre resurrected Jon in Season 6 because she believed he was Azor Ahai; in Season 7, Missandei corrected a gender-related mistranslation from the prophecy, suggesting it could be Daenerys. And then, at the end of The Long Night, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) stepped up without a shred of prophecy behind her and offed the Night King in one killer move.
Arya leaping through the air to bring down the scariest baddie in all of Westeros seems like a clear choice in retrospect--after all, she's been training in the art of being an underestimated small-fry killing machine for literally years at this point--but that didn't stop some people on the internet from taking issue. In the aftermath of The Long Night, a discussion popped up in which some complained about Arya's victory (which is probably the smartest thing about an otherwise messy episode, as GameSpot's Mike Rougeau noted in his review). Some derided Arya as a "Mary Sue," implying that her victory against the Night King was unearned.
If you're unfamiliar with "Mary Sue," it's a term coined way back in the 1970s from the world of Star Trek fanfiction. In 1973, Paula Smith used the name in a parody story satirizing some of the stories submitted to her Star Trek fanzine. Mary Sue came to refer to a protagonist character who would show up in the story with no flaws and who was instantly great at anything they tried to do, and mainly served as an insert for the author to live out fantasies of joining the Star Trek crew and hanging out with (and/or romancing) the series' stars.
Lately, the wider usage of Mary Sue has evolved to be any character who's always just good at everything and who seemingly has no flaws. The author insert idea doesn't really fit the current usage since the term is usually applied to TV shows and movies; it's more akin to deus ex machina, where someone or something appears to magically or easily solve the problem of a plot, rather than the characters in the story doing so through conflict and growth. And since the term Mary Sue was tossed around in relationship to protagonist Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it has popped up in online discussions with a decidedly sexist tinge--men don't generally get called Mary Sues, only women (even though a lot of male heroes ought to fall into that category).
So calling Arya a Mary Sue is saying that she's more of a plot tool than a character in the battle against the Night King, while implying that she's the sort of character who is "good at everything" without having "earned" those capabilities, partially (or wholly) because she's a woman. It's an incredibly stupid argument if you think about Arya Stark's journey through all of Game of Thrones for even a second.
Nobody has earned their skills in Game of Thrones the way Arya has. She has literally been training to be a fighter and assassin since the very first season, as a child. Arya was a talented archer at a young age, but she trained in swordplay with Syrio Forel, the former First Sword of Braavos, way back in Season 1. She learned more about fighting while traveling with the Hound, one of the toughest warriors in Westeros, in Season 4. And then she studied abroad at Getting-Awesome-At-Killing-People School, the House of Black and White, in Braavos. We even see Arya practice the exact knife-drop maneuver she uses against the Night King when she and Gwendoline Christie's Brienne of Tarth spar back in Season 7.
Arya earned her killer skills through observation, hard-won victories, and brutal training. She practiced her "water dancing" combat style every single day while on the road with the Hound. She learned to fight the waif while blind. She escaped assassination after getting stabbed--repeatedly. It took seven full seasons for Arya to become the warrior she is, and we've watched every step. That's more than can be said for any other character in Game of Thrones, and in many other shows and movies besides.
Obviously, Arya isn't a Mary Sue, and to throw the term around in relation to this week's episode is a complete misunderstanding of her character and the work that has gone into her story, the events that happened in The Long Night, and the term itself. There isn't a character who has come further or earned her position and skills more than Arya Stark. That she was the one to kill the Night King is, in hindsight, a great culmination of her arc, and maybe the smartest decision made for this episode. If you watched the last seven seasons of Game of Thrones, it should be clear to you that there's no reason to label Arya Stark a Mary Sue. So if you're really still upset that the toughest woman in Westeros took down the show's biggest bad guy, you should take a long, hard look at your own biases and seriously rethink that position.
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