Last month, Pokemon Go developer Niantic announced it would be bringing three Legendary Pokemon back to the game for a limited time. The second of the three, Kyogre, is now available, but if you've yet to catch it, your time to do so is quickly running out; the Legendary is set to leave the game again this Thursday, June 27.
As before, Kyogre can be found in five-star Raids, meaning you'll first need to team up with other players in-person and battle the Pokemon before you can earn a chance to capture it. Even if you already have Kyogre in your collection, you'll want to check out Raids while the Legendary is available, as you'll also have a chance of encountering a Shiny Kyogre.
Immediately following Kyogre's departure later this week, its counterpart from Pokemon Ruby, Groudon, will make an encore appearance in Raids until July 10. As is the case with Kyogre, you'll have a chance of coming across a Shiny Groudon when the Legendary returns to the game. You can read more details on the official Pokemon Go website.
Even if you miss your chance to catch Kyogre this week, you'll soon have another opportunity to add the Legendary to your collection. Both Kyogre and Groudon will be two of the possible Legendary Pokemon you can encounter as part of July's Field Research tasks. You'll also be able to catch a Spinda featuring a new spot pattern through the new Field Research quests, and if you're lucky enough, you'll be able to find a Shiny version.
Groudon isn't the only Legendary set to return this week, either. As a reward for completing enough Global Challenges during the recent Pokemon Go Fest event in Chicago, Niantic is holding a special Raikou Raid Day this Saturday, June 29. The Legendary dog will reappear in Raid Battles from 4-7 PM local time, and you'll have a chance to encounter a Shiny Raikou during those hours.
A fix to an exotic weapon in Destiny 2 is likely slated for July, but the timing is uncertain right now because the studio is weighing its culture and work-life balance.
Game director Luke Smith answered a question about a fix to the Lord of Wolves weapon in a livestream for the charity convention GuardianCon. He suggested that while the studio could use a patch that's already near-finalized to add the weapon fix as well, that might be too difficult on the studio.
"We're looking at this summer, something like July," Smith said. "We have a patch that we're readying right now, the patch is going to come out in a couple weeks. We could take the patch off the patch factory, more or less, and ask people to work super long and add this thing in. And we're having the conversation that, 'Is it worth doing that or is it better to preserve the work-life balance and ship it later in July.'"
He went on to say that the cost-benefit analysis of working long hours is complex, and the studio doesn't like to take patches out of release candidates very often. In fact, he said, the studio just did it for a different feature, and he's not sure if it's healthy for the studio to do it back-to-back.
The Lord of Wolves weapon had an adjustment that made it much more powerful than intended, which makes it imbalanced in the PvP Crucible mode.
Working long hours at a game studio to meet a release target is known as crunch. Development crunch has been a hotly discussed topic in the industry recently, with one such subject being an ongoing crunch mode at live games like Fortnite. Studios have been opening up more about their culture and attempts to stave off crunch, and with this Bungie has indicated that it uses the strategy but tries to limit it.
The GuardianCon fundraiser, meanwhile, brought in well over $3 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, with a boost from Bungie's block of time providing almost half a million.
There was no doubt a sequel would be in the works when Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature back in early 2019. But even despite the $375.5 million it has earned, there's now definitive confirmation a sequel is "definitely" coming.
Producer Amy Pascal told io9 her team is back in the lab. "We are definitely hard at work on the sequel." No release date or window was provided, nor did she divulge details about what's to come in the Spider-Verse sequel. We're only left with the news that we can "expect another movie."
"Going forward, if there are more movies, I'm sure there will be more surprises," co-director Rodney Rothman told GameSpot at the film's digital and Blu-ray release in March 2019, stating that an Australian Spider-Man was cut from Spider-Verse. In addition to more Spideys, we may see previous Peter Parker's Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man series) and Tobey Maguire (the original Spider-Man trilogy) in the Spider-Verse sequel. Producer Chris Miller said their appearance was something the team "definitely talked about, more than once, and decided that ultimately, there are many more opportunities in the future."
Pascal served as a producer on the upcoming Spider-Man: Far From Home--scheduled to debut in theatres on July 2--as well as other recent spider-related projects like Spider-Man: Homecoming, Venom, and The Girl in the Spider's Web. Pascal also has production credits on Greta Gerwig's upcoming coming-of-age period drama Little Women, slated to premiere on December 25.
In our Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse review, we said, "It manages to blow right past the dangers of sinking into after school special territory by believing wholeheartedly in its own message and delivering it with appropriately genuine stakes. The end result is an instant animated classic, and, with any luck, the first of many of its kind."
It's time to plan a trip to Target: This week, the retailer is offering 30% off select PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch games if you select "Order Pick-up" at checkout, meaning you'll have to go into your local Target store to pick it up rather than having it shipped to your home. In the era of free, fast online shipping, that's kind of a drag if you don't have a store nearby, but if you don't live too far from a Target, here's an easy way to save yourself a significant amount on new games.
When thinking about a game adaption of the incredibly popular John Wick films, Bithell Games might not be the developer that first comes to mind. Co-founder Mike Bithell and his team are known for emotion-tinged platformers, old-school stealth adventures, and interactive narrative stories. Appropriately so, Bithell Games chose an unexpected target for its John Wick mission: a turn-based strategy that feels like a mash-up of XCOM and SuperHot.
We sat down with Mike Bithell after playing his new game for the first time, and dove into how he secured the project and ultimately convinced Lionsgate to go along with his vision. John Wick Hex will launch on PC (exclusively through Epic Games Store first) and MacOS, and does not yet have a release date.
GameSpot: Were you approached, or did you approach someone to make a John Wick game. What was the first idea for the project?
Mike Bithell: They were like "we need Thomas was Alone's creator to reinvigorate projects." [Laughs] No, it was interesting. So basically Good Shepherd, who's the publisher, and Lionsgate movies, they were already talking about doing something with John Wick. Lionsgate's whole thing with John Wick is they still see it as the weird Indy movie that did good. It's growing and doing so big so they specifically want to do interesting John Wick games, they don't want to just do straightforward person action kind of things.
So not recreate the movies?
Well, they want to recreate the movies but with creativity. The thing with third-person shooters, just as an aside, is that I'm a clumsy idiot. When I play a third person shooter, I can be in a suit but I'm going to be just running around aimlessly firing. It's not John Wick.
So, going into that strategy thing, lets you do the whole think-and-react thing and work your way through a space. But to go back to your answer, they were thinking: how do we do this more interestingly? They bring in Ben, who is the producer, and they say, "go find something to do this," basically. And me and Ben, just a couple of weeks before, watched John Wick around my place--we go way back--he was like, "what would you do with John Wick?" And I said a strategy game, because to me that's the only way to capture that character. Completely expecting that to be the end of the conversation.
But he got back to me and said, "well, make a prototype and see if it's fun," and it just went from there. And when Lionsgate saw it, they were super into it, they loved the idea of doing something like this with [John Wick]. The turning point was when I showed it to a guy called Jason Constantine, who's the executive producer on the John Wick franchise of Lionsgate. The whole of this most important meeting, I'm in a room that looks like something out of Entourage. Lots of glass, they love glass [laughs]. And I'm at one end of this table, he's at the other, it's very scary and I just demoed this game, which at that point, was kind of this XCOM with one character kind of thing, like what you expect from [Hex] until you play it.
And he said, "Why does John keep waiting? Like, John Wick does not wait his turn, he just fights". And I was like," Jason, the turn-based strategy games, that's how they work". And I literally load up YouTube and put one of these kinds of games up on the screen, and I'm like, "look they're waiting..."
Did you show him Mario + Rabbids?
I showed him everything.
That's funny to think about.
I was like, "they're waiting their turn, it's fine". And about halfway through that sentence, I am explaining to an executive why John Wick is letting people shoot him in the face. It's just gone terribly wrong. And I went back from that trip and just got chatting to Nick over there who's the lead coder and co-designer, and was like, "we can't do turn-based John Wick. This sucks. It's just not how you capture that gameplay". And that was the point where that timeline you saw came from and we called it timeline strategy, I don't know if that's what we'll end up calling it, but that's lovely.
And that idea of making it, giving you the time to think through a choice, but also making it so that everything's concurrent and everything's coming together nicely. So it becomes a game about finding your chance and you're not just letting everyone shoot you in the face. What's really cool about it and what excites me about it is that as you get more and more acquainted with it and understand it's systems more, it gets faster. It moves at the speed you think.
That was the moment where it all started to come together. We kept collaborating throughout the process, working with Chad, the director of movies, who came up with fog of war. I credit him entirely for that.
But that's what's fun, that was what was so cool with Chad, because Chad doesn't play video games but he obviously gets everything about fight choreography and how you tell a story through an action scene. And working with him, with those different languages, finding where the overlaps were, that was so much fun.
What sort of rope has Lionsgate given you to build on the John Wick mythology? And where does Hex sit on the timeline?
Mike: They've been awesome. They're really good collaborators. They give us the freedom to make the choices. Ultimately, it's similar to how we design our own choices. They've given us all the information so that we don't come to them with stupid ideas. Very short version. It's a collaboration and we've definitely pushed some things in interesting directions, you're going to be surprised by some stuff, stuff I'm not allowed to talk about right now, but there's some stuff in there that will be cool and surprising. But yeah, on the whole the focus for us has been to expand their universe in a way that's respectful. And they've responded well to that.
I can't think of a time they told us not to do something we want to do. Just, we've asked for things that are cool, and they've gone, yes. And Hex takes place before Helen.
So it's during John's time as a prolific assassin?
That could be a logical answer to the question, but I can't give away any details about that right now.
It's the last full week of June, but if you're a subscriber to Netflix, there is still at least one big movie to get excited for before July's releases roll around. So if you missed it in the theaters, you have a chance to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
That's right, on Wednesday, Into the Spider-Verse arrives on Netflix, and the animated film is one of the most enjoyable origin stories to come out of superhero movies. It follows Miles Morales, a kid from Brooklyn who gets bit by a radioactive spider, develops super-powers, then realizes there are more spider-powered beings hanging about. In her review, GameSpot's Meg Downey said, "It manages to blow right past the dangers of sinking into after school special territory by believing wholeheartedly in its own message and delivering it with appropriately genuine stakes. The end result is an instant animated classic, and, with any luck, the first of many of its kind."
There are a few returning originals to check out as well. Dope returns on Friday for a third season, along with Instant Hotel: Season 2, but if you're into anime, you'll probably want to check out 7Seeds. The Netflix original follows a group of young adults who were chosen to help humanity survive on a planet that's completely changed. Also recently released on Netflix was Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the streaming service made a few changes to the original, like switching some of the music and cutting out some other things for unknown reasons.
Below, you'll find everything coming to Netflix this week. And next week, the show everyone has been waiting for finally arrives. On Thursday, July 4, Season 3 of Netflix's acclaimed series Stranger Things returns. GameSpot's Chris E. Hayner and Dan Auty recently went through the first and second season to give you a heads up of where everyone left off, so you're all caught up for Season 3.
Destiny 2 developer Bungie took part in a charity fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and raised a massive $400,000 in the process. The organizers of the fundraiser noted that at the time it was the largest single block ever for its annual marathon fundraiser, which surpassed its millions-strong goal this year.
The note came from the official GuardianCon Twitter, which thanked the studio for its participation. GuardianCon is held every summer in Florida, and began as a meetup for Destiny fans. It has grown to raise millions for St. Jude's. This year it set an ambitious goal of $3 million, and has exceeded that with more than $3.7 million so far.
St. Jude is a pediatric research institute focused primarily on childhood leukemia and other cancers. It is known for admitting patience at no cost, and its research has helped increase survival rates for certain kinds of childhood cancers.
Destiny 2 is currently preparing for its Shadowkeep expansion, which will change microtransactions and set a new path for how the game handles expansions going forward. The game and its Shadowkeep expansion will also be part of Google Stadia's premium subscription service for a limited time, and Bungie will be launching cross-saves on all platforms this fall so you can take your Guardian anywhere.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled takes the No.1 spot on the UK sales chart in the week ended June 22. According to sales monitor Chart-Track, it is the second biggest launch for a Crash Bandicoot title, behind 2017's N. Sane Trilogy. Chart-Track also reports that it's the third biggest debut of 2019, topped only by Sony's Days Gone and Capcom's Resident Evil 2 remake.
Following CTR is EA's FIFA 19 at No.2, Forza Horizon 4 at No.3, and Days Gone at No.4. Chart mainstay, Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2, spends its 35th week on sale at No.5. Battlefield V, the second EA title in the top 10, finishes the week at No.6, ahead of Grand Theft Auto V--another Rockstar title--at No.7.
The popularity of cart racers is further cemented by Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which is at No.8, while Ubisoft's The Division 2 and EA's Anthem round-off the top 10 at No.9 and No.10 respectively. The other major release of the week, 505 Games' Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, made its debut at No.17.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled has been received positively. We gave it an 8/10, with Oscar Dayus describing it as "a remaster done right." He continued: "Nitro-Fueled maintains the spirit and rock-solid foundations of a childhood favorite while building on it and modernizing it where necessary--even if the handling might take a bit of getting used to. When the nostalgia fades, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled remains fun and engaging enough to keep you racing on with a smile on your face for much longer yet." Read our full Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled review for a full analysis of the game.
You can read the full top 10 sales chart for this week below, courtesy of UKIE and GfK Chart-Track. Note this table does not include digital sales data, and so should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.
The new Avengers game from Crystal Dynamics has been likened to Bungie's Destiny in that you'll be able to team up, online to complete missions with other players. But that is only an option. Crystal Dynamics boss Scott Amos confirmed in an interview that the game is playable offline.
"We want somebody to be able to go buy a disc and never have to go online," he explained to GI.biz. "You don't have to. You can have a complete experience and have fun."
For those who do want to play online, Square Enix is promising a robust, ongoing, and evolving experience with new characters and locations added over time--and for free.
"The idea, from the beginning, is that we want you to be able to customise your hero; how they look, how they play, the gear they have and how they use it," Amos said. "Your Black Widow could be different to my Black Widow--just a little, maybe a lot depending on what you favour and how you unlock things."
The Avengers game will make extra money beyond the upfront cost through various microtransactions for cosmetic items. There are no loot boxes or pay-to-win mechanics, and Amos promises, "No gameplay paywalls."
"We want people to be able to play together and go on this journey, but we also want to say if you want to over-invest in your characters and customise them, you've got it," Amos said. "We also have ways for you to earn a lot of those things. We want to give players as much flexibility as possible because it's for them. We make this for the fans. At the end of the day, we will listen to them and get feedback from them and we'll adjust everything to serve that need... We want to reward them for the hours they're investing in our game."
The new Avengers game launches in May 2020 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, while it's also coming to Google Stadia. The game features a number of iconic MCU heroes such as Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, and the Hulk, but the game doesn't use the likenesses of MCU actors. Some people were not happy about the new character designs, but Crystal Dynamics won't change them.
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite appears to be another big success for developer Niantic Labs. According to data from research company SensorTower, the free-to-play mobile game pulled in $300,000 combined from the Apple iOS and Google Play mobile platforms during its first 24 hours of availability. And that number only counts revenue in the United States and United Kingdom.
According to the report, Wizards Unite also reached 400,000 installs after its first day.
Wizards Unite is nowhere near as popular or profitable as Niantic's previous release, Pokemon Go. That title generated around $2 million in revenue after its first day, according to SensorTower.
Wizards Unite is currently featured in the iOS app store's Games page front and center, which is surely helping its visibility and in turn profitability. Of course the game is also based on one of the world's most popular media franchises, Harry Potter, and its free-to-play model gives a low barrier to entry. It'll be interesting to see if Wizards Unite can succeed in delivering new content regularly to keep players interested and engaged (and spending money) on the game.
Crystal Dynamics studio head Scott Amos told GI.biz that the developer also hired Dave Fifield to work on multiplayer and Vince Napoli for combat design. Fifield worked on a number of Call of Duty games at Activision, while he also contributed to the Halo series at Microsoft. Napoli, meanwhile, recently worked on Sony where he was lead systems designer for God of War; specifically, he oversaw the development of Kratos' axe, chain blade, and shield/bare hand combat design.
"We cherry-picked the best of the best and said: 'Let's put this together in a new way for something bigger than we've ever done,'" Amos said.
Square Enix appears to be putting a lot of muscle behind the new Avengers game. It's assembled five studios to jointly develop the title including Crystal Dynamics in Redwood Shores, California, as well as sister studio Crystal Northwest in Bellevue, Washington. Nixxes Software in the Netherlands is also contributing to The Avengers, while Eidos Montreal is also working on it. In addition, Square Enix Japan has a "tech group" contributing to the new title.
"We've literally had to put these five studios together and say: 'We're going this far. Tomb Raider, awesome. Rise of the Tomb Raider, even better. Shadow of the Tomb Raider... and it's like no, we're going beyond the boundaries,'" Amos said.
"Our CEO and his staff requested that they receive no performance cash bonus award for fiscal 2019," reads a line from the filing.
The filing mentioned that Wilson and other executives declined their cash bonuses due to EA's poor financial results in Fiscal Year 2019, and "in order to maintain alignment with our pay-for-performance executive compensation philosophy."
"While we are disappointed with our fiscal 2019 results, we understand the challenges we face, and we will continue to focus on how we can apply the strengths of our Company to capitalize on our opportunities," the statement explains.
EA made $4.95 billion for fiscal 2019, which was down from $5.15 billion during the previous fiscal year. The downturn in revenue might sound surprising given EA landed a huge hit with Apex Legends during the year. However, the title was only released in February 2019, which was just ahead of the end of the fiscal year in March. EA also had a few high-profile misses during the year, including Battlefield V and Anthem, both of which underperformed.
The other EA executives who declined their cash bonuses for the year included CFO Blake Jorgensen, CTO Kenneth Moss, chief marketing officer Chris Bruzzo, and chief studios officer Laura Miele. Patrick Soderlund, who quit EA in August 2018, also reportedly gave up his bonus. EA reportedly offered Soderlund $20 million in equity bonuses to stay at the company, but even so, he left to establish Embark Studios in Sweden. At the time, it was believed that Soderlund took the $20 million with him, but GameDaily reports that he did not; the funds are instead reportedly going into a pool to help secure new hires, among other purposes.
According to GameDaily, the EA executives declined their cash bonuses and instead put the money into a bonus pool to be paid to employees. Combined, the bonuses amount to around $4.8 million to be paid to employees, and that doesn't count the $20 million equity bonus from Soderlund, according to GameDaily.
The SEC filing also reveals that all of EA's Named Executive Officers (NEOs) received an increase to their base salary in Fiscal 2019. Wilson now makes $1.192 million annually, while Jorgensen gets $850,000. Moss and Bruzzo make $675,000 every year. Miele, who only just started as chief studios officer, makes $675,000 annually as well. Soderlund, who left EA during fiscal 2019, made $475,572 as a base salary. All numbers are in USD.
As you can see in the chart below, base salary is just the beginning when it comes to total compensation. Wilson's total pay package, including stock awards and other compensation, was $18.3 million for the latest fiscal year. That is just about half of what he earned the year prior. The "non-equity incentive plan compensation" is empty for all of the NEOs, and that's because they declined their cash bonuses.
Pixar's newest movie, Toy Story 4, opened in theatres this weekend--and it was a massive success. The movie made an estimated $118 million in the US and Canada, according to box office numbers from Entertainment Weekly. That's below industry projections of as much as $165 million, but despite the lower-than-expected result, it's still a juggernaut.
Its $118 million is above the $110.3 million that Toy Story 3 made over its opening weekend in 2010 to become the best opening-weekend in the entire Toy Story franchise.
Additionally, Toy Story 4 is one of the most successful animated movies in the history of cinema, only behind The Incredibles 2 ($182.7 million) and Finding Dory ($135.1 million) from Pixar, as well as Shrek the Third ($121.6 million) for best opening weekend for an animated movie in the US and Canada. What's more, Toy Story 4 is the third movie so far in 2019 to open with more than $100 million over its first weekend; the other two are Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame, both of which are also Disney movies.
An amazing crew/cast has been working very hard over the last 5 years to bring Toy Story 4 to the big screen tomorrow. We love these toys so much, you will feel it on the screen. OH, and stay after the credits. The story doesn't end until the VERY last frame. Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/Ds1x31Nhxw
Toy Story 4 made an estimated $120 million from overseas markets this weekend, so globally, it's now pulled in around $238 million after only three days in theatres. The movie also boasts an enviable A CinemaScore rating, which suggests positive word-of-mouth will help it continue to succeed in the coming weeks.
Scroll down to see a ranking of best opening weekends for Pixar movies over the years.
Toy Story 4, which is directed by Josh Cooley, brings back a lot of the original voice cast including Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear. Everyone's favorite person right now, Keanu Reeves, also voices a new character in the film, while Jordan Peele, Keegan Michael-Key, and a long list of other huge names also have roles.
BioWare's Anthem released in February this year, and it wasn't a huge critical success. Part of the reason why the game struggled, according to EA CEO Andrew Wilson, is because it attempts to appeal to two different audiences. He talks about the game's struggles and opportunities for future growth and success in a new interview.
"We brought together these two groups of players who were making this emotional value calculation on two different vectors," Wilson told GameDaily. "One was traditional BioWare story-driven content, and the other was this action-adventure type content. About the 30 or 40 hour mark they really had to come together and start working in on the elder game. At that point everyone kind of went, 'Oh, hang a minute.' Now the calculation is off.
"It's off because I've got a friend who sits in this other category of player. They want to play the game a certain way. I want to play the game a certain way. The promise was we can play together, and that's not working very well. Oh, by the way I'm used to 100 hours of BioWare story, and that's not what I got,'" Wilson explained. "Or, 'I expected that this game would have meaningfully advanced the action component that we'd seen in games like Destiny before, and I don't feel like it has.'"
While Anthem might have struggled out of the gate, Wilson said EA is committed to supporting the game in the long-run. In fact, he mentioned that Anthem could have a "7-10 year cycle." Wilson said EA feels good about investing in Anthem in the long-run because the game has a strong foundation to build on.
"If we believed that at the very core the world wasn't compelling people, if we believed at the very core that the characters weren't compelling for people, or the Javelin suits weren't compelling, or traversing the world and participating in the world wasn't compelling then provided we hadn't made promises to our players... we might not invest further," Wilson said. "IP lives for generations, and runs in these seven to ten year cycles. So, if I think about Anthem on a seven to ten year cycle, it may not have had the start that many of us wanted, including our players. I feel like that team is really going to get there with something special and something great, because they've demonstrated that they can."
The full interview at GameDaily is in-depth and wide-ranging, touching on a number of other subjects including loot boxes, layoffs, and a wider look at the future of EA. Go read it.
At E3 this year, Anthem lead producer Ben Irving said he believes Anthem has a "very bright future."
"We've learned a lot these last few months, we really want to make the game better, we believe Anthem can be a really amazing game," he explained. "We know we have some work to do, we just want to work with the community and build it together and make it the game that everyone wants it to be."
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