As has become common in superhero comics, a dead Marvel Comics character has returned to the land of the living.
Warning: full spoilers for Invincible Iron Man #600!
Cover by Chris Sprouse. (Marvel Comics)
James “Rhodey” Rhodes aka War Machine was killed by Thanos at the start of 2016’s Civil War II.
Art by Jim Cheung. (Marvel Comics)
Tekken 7 came out nearly a year ago, and now developer Bandai Namco is celebrating its one-year anniversary by releasing free DLC that will be “packed with content.” The free DLC will release May 31, and you can check out an early preview of a few of the costumes in the screens below.
While Bandai Namco says this particular expansion will be a big one, Tekken 7 has been continually supported with add-on content. The game has unveiled several crossover characters over the past year, including Fatal Fury’s Geese Howard and Final Fantasy XV’s Noctis, the latest addition to the game. The game also received a full DLC pack last August, which added Ultimate Tekken Bowl to the game (for those who’d rather bowl than brawl). Unlike this pack, all of the previous DLC cost extra or required you to buy the $25 Tekken 7 Season Pass.
When it released last year, Tekken 7 was regarded as a great sequel in a much-loved fighting game franchise. Despite server issues at the time of launch, it sold well while following many of Tekken’s time-tested gameplay traditions. In GameSpot’s Tekken 7 review, Peter Brown said it was an easy game to recommend, thanks to its dozens of unique fighting styles and mix of melodrama and slapstick comedy. “Its diverse roster is packed with a wide range of personalities and fighting styles, bolstered by a raucous attitude that begs to be taken seriously while simultaneously mocking its more peculiar whims in the process,” he wrote.
“Tekken fans will find their next favorite game–one that’s the product of decade’s worth of refinement. And while some of this depth will be lost or out of reach for newcomers, there’s enough fun to be had outside of hardcore competition to keep players from all walks of gaming thoroughly entertained.”
Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke has shed some light on what it was like filming Daenerys’s last scene, which is apparently quite shocking.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Clarke revealed the character’s final moments messed her up, indicating fans will be surprised by Daenerys’s last moments on screen.
“It f—ed me up,” Clarke said. “Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is…”
Though Clarke did not provide any specific details about the scene or Season 8 in general, she did tease Daenerys will be “doing all this weird s—t” in the show’s final season. “You’ll know what I mean when you see it,” Clarke added.
EA and DICE gave the world its first look at the newest installment in the Battlefield series, Battlefield V, during a big livestream presentation. Along with revealing the first details about the game’s setting and features, the publisher announced when the highly anticipated shooter will hit the market: October 19.
Like many contemporary titles, Battlefield V will launch in two packages. The standard edition retails for $60 and will be available on the aforementioned date, while the $80 Deluxe edition gives players access to the title three days early, on October 16. The latter also includes five sets of paratrooper outfits, an assortment of Special Assignments, and 20 weekly Airlift supply drops, each of which contains one customization item.
As previously rumored, Battlefield V takes place during World War II, making it the first installment in the series to be set during the conflict since 2009’s Battlefield 1943. It’s also the first game in the series since Battlefield 3 to feature a cooperative campaign, called Combined Arms, which allows up to four players to work together on missions. Like Battlefield 1, the upcoming installment boasts a single-player War Stories campaign.
During the same livestream, EA also revealed that it won’t be offering a premium DLC pass for Battlefield V, as it did for Battlefield 1. Instead, the publisher will roll out a regular schedule of post-launch content to all players for free as part of its Tides of War live service. However, players will still be able to purchase cosmetic items in the game.
Battlefield V is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC via Origin. Players will have a chance to try the game ahead of its launch on October 11 through the EA Access Play First Trial. You can read more about the upcoming shooter in our roundup of everything we know about Battlefield V.
The scariest horror movies can be a test not just of your courage, but of your endurance, too. How long is too long to sit tense with dreadful anticipation? In its first cut, the upcoming horror movie Hereditary was three hours long–and that would have asked too much of audiences, according to writer and director Ari Aster.
Hereditary follows the Graham family as their lives unravel following the death of family matriarch, Ellen. As we stated in our review, “a dysfunctional family isn’t a particularly original source of horror, and Hereditary doesn’t blow the genre open with some revolutionary new take. It’s just gripping, white-knuckled, old school horror that never, over more than two hours, lets you get comfortable for long, despite the familiarity of its themes and tropes.” So how does it keep the tension up?
Aster told GameSpot that he wanted to strike a balance between horror and family drama in Hereditary. “There’s a dance that we were doing,” he said. “I needed it to work as much as a drama as a horror film.”
That “dance” involved meeting the demands of both genres. Aster believes films of any genre–from horror to comedy–are only “satisfying” to audiences if they meet the demands of that genre, and in doing so meet the audience’s expectations. “The challenge then becomes, how do I meet those demands in ways that people are not expecting?” he said.
For Hereditary‘s drama side, that meant exploring the characters’ relationships as much as possible. But that also wound up being where most of the cuts occurred.
“I wanted the film to work as a family drama,” Aster said. “I needed to attend to the family dynamics and build a pretty vivid history for them.”
Aster’s first cut of the film was three hours long, and it was clear he’d need to trim it significantly–the writer and director said that version “tested people’s patience.” The final theatrical release is just two hours and seven minutes. With almost an hour gone, the big question for fans is going to be what was removed.
“There were about 30 scenes that were on the cutting room floor, and all of those are drama scenes,” he said. “We took more time originally to develop these people.”
A horror movie that isn’t concerned with developing its characters typically ends up being a cheap slasher, but despite these hefty cuts, Hereditary is the polar opposite. As the Grahams’ spiral into misery takes them to unexpected places, you’re all the more invested and terrified because it’s so easy to relate to and understand them as people. The characters are so well-developed that it doesn’t feel like almost an hour of footage was trimmed. And that lets the other side of Aster’s “dance”–the horror side–take center stage.
“There is a certain amount of complacency that comes with watching a horror film or a thriller, because you know what they do. And that’s what you want. You’re there for that,” he said. “People are coming in because there’s like, a dare on the part of the audience. ‘OK, scare me. Let’s see.’ And I did my best to.”
At the same time, you don’t want to simply deliver exactly what audiences are expecting. “How do you give people what they want, but in a way that they don’t really want it?” Aster continued. “Some of the best experiences I’ve had in the theater is when I feel that I’ve come in expecting one film and I receive one that I didn’t bargain for.”
Actress Milly Shapiro, who plays 13-year-old Charlie Graham, told GameSpot she “had a feeling” as a horror fan that this movie was going to be big.
“When I read the script, I knew that people were gonna like it,” she said. “It wasn’t like everything else that I had read before, and it wasn’t like every other horror movie. There was a lot more developed in the relationships and the family, and even if you took all the horror out, it would still be a good movie.”
Alex Wolff, who plays Peter Graham (and starred in last year’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle as Spencer), said Aster is “a genius” when it comes to horror. “The feeling [in Hereditary] is the hyperbole of absolute anarchy, and the depths of guilt and the depths of trauma in a family, and feeling like you’re cursed,” he said. “I think that’s the emotional subtext.”
But at its core, Hereditary is a horror movie through and through. Whether you’re a horror diehard or have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the theater to see this movie, there are scenes in Hereditary that will shock you.
“I was very excited about making a film that really satisfied hardcore genre fans, while at the same time attending to an audience that typically wouldn’t go to those films,” Aster said. He focused so much on developing the characters so that it would be extra jarring when bad things happened to them.
“We develop these people so that you’re invested in them, so that when these things happen…they really feel like betrayals,” he said. “The film attaches itself, sympathetically, to the character’s emotions. I wanted to make a film that collapsed under the weight of what these people are going through.”
“Those scenes that are really doubling down on the horror elements are the things I think that will really deeply affect–and probably in ways that they won’t like–the people who are there who don’t typically go to horror films,” he continued.
“I think the thing that makes it so relatable is everyone has felt like they were cursed or had bad things after bad things happen,” Shapiro said. “I think people are waiting for something new, and they want something that isn’t like every horror movie ever, and I think Hereditary really brings that.”
Hereditary hits theaters June 8.
Start summer the right way: By staying inside and soaking up the air conditioning while you binge the month of June away on Netflix. The streaming service isn’t playing around with its new offerings for the month, serving up a number of TV shows, movies, and originals that should keep you very entertained.
The most notable arrival of the month is the second season of Marvel’s Luke Cage. Set in the aftermath of Defenders, the new season of Luke Cage follows the titular superhero (Mike Coulter) as he comes to terms with his newfound celebrity, while also facing off against a foe who can bring the pain in Bushmaster (Mustafa Shakir).
Other originals popping up on the service in June are new seasons of Hyori’s Bed & Breakfast, Marcella, The Ranch, and the series finale of Sense8. Additionally, the latest seasons of The CW shows iZombie, Supergirl, and Life Sentence will arrive the week after their finales.
It’s not all good news, though. Among the titles departing Netflix in June are Captain America: Civil War, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, all six seasons of Baby Daddy, and Men in Black.
You can take a look at everything coming and going from Netflix in June below.
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After weeks of rumors, EA has finally revealed Battlefield V. As DICE’s big return to World War II, the developer wanted to go back to the series’ origins while showing a different perspective and level of detail to the epic conflict. The recent livestream offered an extensive breakdown of the game’s content, and though a rumored battle royale mode was notably absent, we have a better idea of what’s to come in the next Battlefield game. Here’s everything we know so far about Battlefield’s return to World War II.
Battlefield V is an upcoming World War II first-person shooter developed by DICE, the same developer behind the entire franchise, including the original Battlefield 1942. Players will take part in several large-scale land, sea, and air battles during the Second World War, continuing a series tradition. Focusing on British and European forces–with other sides coming in later updates–you’ll see unique perspectives of the conflict, including the Northern African campaign, the Battle of Rotterdam, and the occupation of Switzerland and Norway. With a greater focus on in-game storytelling, both in the returning War Stories and multiplayer matches, players will also have the chance to create their own unique squad of soldiers and take them on a series of missions online in co-op and multiplayer.
Battlefield V will be available on PC (via Origin), PS4, and Xbox One for all users on October 19. However, players who subscribe to EA/Origin Access and who pre-order the game will be able to access the free trial early on October 11. Pre-ordering the Deluxe Edition will open up the game on October 16. However, the developer is also planning an open beta at an unspecified date, allowing everyone to get a chance to experience the game prior to its October launch.
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While the focus is still on class-based engagements in battles with large player counts, Battlefield V will incorporate several new features into the mix. In the trailer, we saw a squad of soldiers taking part in a large-scale fight in the French countryside. These particular characters had a unique look to them–one had blue face paint, and another female soldier had a prosthetic limb. This helped to showcase one of the bigger focuses in Battlefield V, which is squad customization. With the class system making a return, players will also be able to select a class and outfit that soldier–either male or female–with whatever tools, weapons, and cosmetic items they like. Furthermore, you can upgrade these classes to a particular specialization, such as the Assault class focusing more on anti-tank skills.
Added to this is a greater level of detail and physics that are several steps above previous Battlefield titles. The developers stressed they wanted to add more elements of realism, while still retaining the fun and excitement found in the Battlefield series. For starters, the player and weapon animations and physics have been overhauled to offer a more tactical and kinetic feel. Soldiers now have a greater range of movement, which includes reverse-prone (on your back), sliding, shooting while sliding, and several other maneuvers–like grabbing nearby walls and gates. Moreover, weapons now have more weight behind them, allowing players to get more of a sense of the force behind each shot.
The new animations also help with gameplay balancing, which was a recurring problem in Battlefield 1. Medics for instance will have to take more care with reviving players–even dragging wounded soldiers away if they have to–as doing so will take a bit more time when compared to the infamous “Medic-trains” of past games. Other gameplay tweaks include the removal of auto-spotting–pushing players to be more proactive with marking enemies and objectives–and offering more opportunities for players to regain resources from fallen enemies, such as ammo and explosive charges.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown of the key modes and features discussed during the livestream:
War Stories: This mode, which returns from Battlefield 1, an anthology series of story missions that showcase many of the struggles and moments of heroism during the most trying battles of World War II. The War Stories in V will focus more on battles and perspectives that aren’t all that well-known. During the livestream, we saw a teaser for one of the War Stories set during the German occupation of Norway in 1943. You play as a young resistance fighter who has to confront the invading forces while trying to protect her loved ones. While the last game launched with only six story War Story missions, Battlefield V will launch with its own set of missions and will gradually see new ones added as a part of ongoing content updates for the game.
Grand Operations: As an evolution of the Operations mode–long-form, narrative-driven multiplayer matches set across a series of maps and gametypes–Grand Operations takes things further by incorporating new gametypes and locales. Taking place over several in-game days, Grand Operations features a tug-of-war-style approach to engagement. Each victory will give the winning side added momentum, while the losing side will have to overcome increasingly difficult obstacles–including less ammo and tickets for the next round. Compared to Battlefield 1’s Operations, the next game will feature more variety in its locations, objectives, and special conditions for both sides.
Combined Arms: In a brand new four-player co-op mode, players can take their custom soldier online to take part in a series of missions with other players. In these levels, the soldiers will have to complete a variety of different objectives, such as paratrooping behind enemy lines to secure key assets. Putting players in battles against increasingly difficult odds with challenging goals, an AI mission director will add in new obstacles and spawn enemies depending on how your squad is performing. All progress gained from Combined Arms for your soldier and their class can be carried over into the core multiplayer mode.
Fortifications: In response to the pace of the Conquest mode in past games, DICE created a new feature called Fortifications to affect the speed at which buildings and forms of cover are destroyed. With the new fortification skill, you and your squad can reinforce areas of the map with added defense against enemy bombardment. This includes fortifying buildings, adding gunner nests, and even fortifying flags that the enemy will try to capture. Building fortifications will cost resources, so players will have to carefully choose what they want to build.
Tides of War: DICE plans to gradually roll out new content on a set schedule known as the Tides of War. This feature will also introduce timed events focusing on particular battles with set conditions, pathways to special rewards, and special community events centering around a battle of the war. Eventually, Tides of War will add in new sides to experience the war from, along with new maps and weapons to acquire. Interestingly, this calendar will also match up with a similar timeline from the events of World War II, with new sides and locations gradually being added into the game as it happened during the six-year conflict.
In a surprising move–no doubt influenced by the initial reception from Star Wars: Battlefront II–Battlefield V will no longer have a season pass or Premium Edition, which were mainstays for most recent Battlefield games. Though players can spend real money on custom items for their characters, all in-game content and events–which includes maps, story missions, and game modes–will all be available through regular updates for all players. During the stream, the developers stated that the game will not be “pay to win.” With that said, a Deluxe Edition will be available still, though the developers didn’t elaborate further on its contents during the livestream. We will likely hear more about the specifics during E3 and in the months leading up to the game’s launch.
Further Info
We may not have seen the last of Sony’s attempts at portable gaming. The new PlayStation head John Kodera has signaled that the company is looking into the portable market and considering its options, a notable change of course from the previous PlayStation boss, Andrew House.
“In my opinion, rather than separating portable gaming from consoles, it’s necessary to continue thinking of it (portable gaming) as one method to deliver more gaming experiences and exploring what our customers want from portable,” Kodera said at a roundtable in Tokyo (via Bloomberg). “We want to think about many options.”
Kodera was cagey about just what he meant by this, however. He reportedly hinted that the next console will be integrated with mobile, but said it’s “not yet the right stage to discuss specific hardware plans,” and declined to comment on the hybrid approach taken by Nintendo Switch. Instead, he pointed to Sony’s PlayLink project as an example of an experiment in the mobile space. PlayLink games let players use their smartphones as input devices.
Sony first entered the handheld gaming space with the PlayStation Portable, and then followed it up with the PlayStation Vita. Both were moderate successes but struggled against the handheld sales dominance of Nintendo. In September, House admitted they didn’t see “huge demand” for handheld systems outside of Asia. Shortly after, he stepped down and Kodera took over the post.
Nintendo’s latest system, the Switch, is a hybrid console and portable device, but the company has also pursued a strategy of using its recognizable franchises for new smartphone games. The success of that system may be making Sony rethink its position, but we may not see the results for a while. Kodera has hinted this strategy could be tied to the PlayStation 5, which he said is still about three years away.
As promised, EA revealed a lot more details about the newest installment in the long-running Battlefield series, Battlefield V. The WWII shooter arrives for PS4, Xbox One, and PC this fall, but one of the most surprising things we learned is the way EA plans to release new content for it.
During its big reveal presentation, EA announced that it won’t be offering a paid season pass for Battlefield V. Instead, the publisher will roll out a regular stream of content updates for the online shooter–all for free–as part of its Tides of War live service.
This stands in contrast with the way EA released additional content for the series’ most recent installment, Battlefield 1. Those who picked up an early run of the game could purchase the Premium Pass, which entitled them to all of Battlefield 1’s DLC expansions upon their release. EA would later replace the standalone version of the game with Battlefield 1 Revolution, which bundled the Premium Pass together with the base game.
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In lieu of a paid season pass, EA and developer DICE will offer players the ability to purchase cosmetic items. DICE senior producer Andreas Morrel also revealed that the studio will also offer the option to buy a “catch-up mechanic” as in previous Battlefield “further down the line.”
The decision to offer new content for free is similar to the approach EA has been taking with Star Wars Battlefront II‘s post-launch updates. “Battlefront and Battlefield are, at their foundations, two very different games, and we’ve been building them very differently,” Morrel told GameSpot. “But, of course, we’ve learned–like everyone else has done, and we want to deliver the best balanced experience possible.”
Battlefield V launches for PS4, Xbox One, and PC via Origin on October 19. It will be available in both standard and Deluxe editions; those who purchase the latter will get access to the game three days early, on October 16. Prior to its release, EA will also hold an open beta for Battlefield V later this year.
Fortnite’s battle royale mode is a gaming phenomenon that dominates headlines on our site on a daily basis. PUBG, the progenitor of the battle royale genre, is still going strong with regular updates. And even Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is going to have a battle royale mode (though the developer is cagey about quite how large it’ll be). With a mode that so clearly leads the current gaming zeitgeist, it comes as a surprise that the reveal stream for Battlefield V didn’t even mention battle royale.
Battlefield V takes the series back to World War II, and the developer released a glut of gameplay details and trailers during a livestream, but any talk of a battle royale mode was markedly absent. Speaking with DICE senior producer Andreas Morrel during the game’s reveal, he said that the developer has nothing to announce regarding the mode at this time; however, he did admit that it would make sense for Battlefield V.
“It’s hard to miss the battle royale frenzy that’s ongoing,” Morrel said. “We’re all very much fans of it, back at DICE, and we’re definitely looking to see how Battlefield can explore the Battle Royale genre.” For the world that Battlefield has created, Morrel said, “We’ve got the sandbox, we’ve got the vehicles, we’ve got the epic scale–it is a natural fit for us.”
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Battlefield V is set for a worldwide release on October 19, and the game will feature prominently at EA’s upcoming E3 event. So in the coming months, you can expect hands-on impressions, more gameplay details, and maybe final confirmation on how battle royale might figure into the franchise’s plans.