Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is well-known for being outspoken and passionate. It’s also no secret that the Marvel Universe was, for a long time, overwhelmingly focused on straight white men–and it’s only recently that movies like Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and the upcoming Black Widow have bucked that trend.
Mark Ruffalo has addressed this is an interview with The Independent, where he has talked openly about the whiteness of Hollywood, and directly discussed the Marvel films. In his discussion, Ruffalo praises Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige for his strong belief in the importance of diversity–even if it took a long time for him to get to a position where he could actually implement those beliefs.
Ruffalo tells a story from his time working on the original Avengers movie, where Feige told Ruffalo on set that he “might not be there” the next day, depending on how a discussion with Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter went. Ruffalo recalls that Feige told him “Ike does not believe that anyone will go to a female-starring superhero movie. So if I am still here tomorrow, you will know that I won that battle.”
Ruffalo says that Feige has “changed the whole Marvel universe, because he “wanted black superheroes, women superheroes, LGBT superheroes.” Ruffalo says, “We now have a gay superhero on the way,” presumably referring to Phastos, played by Bryan Tyree Henry, in The Eternals.
“No other studio is being that inclusive on that level,” Ruffalo said, before adding, “They have to, though. This is the f***ing world.”
Ike Perlmutter officially stopped overseeing the developments within Marvel Studios in 2015.
It’s not entirely clear what Marvel’s plans are for Ruffalo’s Hulk, going forward. There are plans for two Marvel movies in cinemas for 2020: Black Widow and The Eternals, which will be the first and second Marvel movies to be solely directed by women (Cate Shortland and Chloé Zhao respectively). Shang-Chi, Black Panther 2, and Blade are also coming.
Note: this is a spoiler-free advance review of Superman: Red Son, which will be released on Digital HD on February 25 and on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on March 17.
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DC has an entire brand known as Elseworlds, one that explores the many ways in which tiny changes to history can have huge effects on the stories of iconic heroes like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Several of these Elseworlds stories like Superman: True Brit and Superman: Speeding Bullets ask the same basic question – what would happen if Kal-El’s space pod crash-landed somewhere other than Smallville? What happens when the Last Son of Krypton is raised by another set of parents under a different culture? That’s a question 2003’s Superman: Red Son set out to answer, and now Red Son is a competent, albeit somewhat flawed, addition to DC’s animated movie library.
In the alternate DC Universe of Red Son, Kal-El’s pod landed not in Kansas, but on a Ukrainian collective farm in 1938. Instead of embodying Truth, Justice and the American Way, Superman becomes the most powerful symbol of the Soviet Union, one that completely alters the course of 20th Century history. In this world, Lex Luthor is the US government’s last, best hope of stopping the spread of communism, Wonder Woman is a Themysciran ambassador enamored with the Man of Steel’s vision of a better world and Batman is a terrorist hellbent on tearing down everything Superman has built.
The original comic by writer Mark Millar and artist Dave Johnson is an inspired choice of source material. For one thing, the comic is just the right scope and length for the rigid 70-ish minute format of these movies. Poor pacing is one of the most common problems with these projects, with many either stretching limited material past the breaking point (as with Batman: The Killing Joke and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight) or trying to distill too much plot into one film (as in The Death of Superman and its sequel Reign of the Supermen). Red Son is able to offer a tightly paced story that manages to lend a fair amount of depth to most major characters in between the major action sequences.
The concept is certainly fascinating, shining a light on just what aspects of Superman’s character are immutable versus those that are shaped by his upbringing. Like most DC animated movies, Red Son skews in a darker direction, even to the point of depicting Superman and Batman as killers. It’s a risky storytelling choice that winds up working in this particular context. Where something like Injustice: Gods Among Us never fully succeeds in justifying a murder-happy Superman, Red Son uses that plot point to its advantage. Superman’s entire arc in the film is built around the question of whether the ends justify the means. Confronted with the grim reality behind the ideals of Soviet collectivization, Superman becomes obsessed with making his vision of utopia a reality. How much killing is justified in the name of utopia? Is a better world with no free will or room for dissent truly a better world at all?
Part of the novelty of Red Son is that it’s a superhero movie where the conflict doesn’t involve clearly defined factions of good and evil. Superman may be the main protagonist, but he’s not necessarily the hero of the story. Similarly, it would be reductive to label Lex Luthor as the villain. While Lex shows all of his usual arrogance and casual disregard for those he deems his lessers, he’s also painted as a man trying to save his country from an existential threat. This is one of the more enjoyable takes on Lex in a DC movie in quite some time. The movie mostly avoids falling into the usual East vs. West pop culture tropes and even has quite a bit to say about the dangers of xenophobia on all sides. Wonder Woman is the only truly heroic figure in this story, as she embraces Superman’s ideals but becomes disillusioned with the barbarous world of men.
Even though Red Son is paced better than most DC animated movies, there are certain characters who feel a bit under-served by the story. It would have been nice to see more attention paid to the relationship between Superman and Lois Lane, with the two only really sharing one important scene together. Batman could also have benefited from additional character development leading up to his climactic confrontation with Superman. But to be fair, there’s only so much ground the movie can cover in the course of 70 minutes, and the comic itself is guilty of those same problems.
Red Son is largely a very faithful retelling of the original story, following a very similar structure and merely streamlining certain elements here and there. Occasionally it even manages to improve upon the comic, especially when it comes to Wonder Woman’s characterization. Unfortunately, Red Son’s most significant deviation is also its greatest misstep. The ending falls completely flat. It’s abrupt and simplistic to a fault, losing sight of the nuanced themes driving the conflict up to that point. It’s all the more frustrating given that the comic shines best at the very end, as Millar and Johnson celebrate the enduring power of Superman. But whether or not you’ve actually read the comic, the movie’s ending is a disappointingly safe way to end an otherwise daring take on the Superman mythos.
Visually, Red Son sticks to the same house style as the vast majority of these animated movies. It gets the job done, but Red Son hardly stands out in that regard, much less replicates the bold style of Johnson’s artwork. Given the period setting, it’s a shame the movie couldn’t have opted for a look more inspired by the classic Fleischer Studios animated serials. As it is, in most scenes Red Son barely even looks like a movie set in the past.
The voice cast is rock solid, however. Red Son wisely doesn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel with most of these characters, instead relying mostly on a cast of DC animation veterans like Jason Isaacs (Superman), Diedrich Bader (Lex Luthor), Vanessa Marshall (Wonder Woman) and Roger Craig Smith (Batman). Isaacs actually has a fair amount of experience playing Russian characters thanks to films like Hotel Mumbai and The Death of Stalin, experience which serves him well here. He’s able to convey the humanity and self-doubt in this version of Superman even with the thickly accented dialogue. For whatever its faults, Red Son places a priority on ensuring viewers understand and empathize with this very flawed version of Superman.
Actor Hank Azaria has opened up on his decision to stop voicing the character Apu on The Simpsons. Speaking to The New York Times, Azaria said he was thoughtfully considering the matter for multiple years before making the choice to end his run as Apu.
“Once I realized that that was the way this character was thought of, I just didn’t want to participate in it anymore,” Azaria said. “It just didn’t feel right.”
Apu was one of the most prominent South Asian characters on TV in the 90s when The Simpsons was getting started and ultimately rising to prominence. Comedian Hari Kondabolu’s 2017 documentary, The Problem With Apu, called out Apu as being a stereotype.
Azaria, who is white and Jewish, said he saw the documentary and his initial reaction was to defend the character. “We make fun of everyone,” he said. “Don’t tell me how to be funny.”
Azaria would go on to consult with Indian-Americans, including actor Utkarsh Ambudkar, to get their opinions about what he should do about Apu. Ambudkar told NYT that Azaria “was in a space where he was exploring, where he was trying to open up and take responsibility.”
Azaria said he did some self-reflection and thought that he wouldn’t feel very good if a TV show depicted a character based on someone like him–a white Jewish man–as a stereotype.
“I started thinking, if that character were the only representation of Jewish people in American culture for 20 years, which was the case with Apu, I might not love that,” he said.
Around one year ago, Azaria met with The Simpsons bosses Al Jean, James L. Brooks, and Matt Groening to tell them he no longer wanted to voice Apu. He said the executives were “very sympathetic and supportive” when he told them he was “uncomfortable” voicing Apu.
Azaria went on to say that he still loves The Simpsons and he hopes to continue to be a part of it for a long time to come. Azaria also voices Moe, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, Cletus, Professor Frink, the Sea Captain, Superintendent Chalmers, Disco Stu, and Duffman, among others.
“I have tremendous pride in doing the show. And the character of Apu was done with love and pride and the best of intentions. My message is, things can be done with really good intentions and have negative consequences,” Azaria said.
There is no word yet on if The Simpsons will continue to feature Apu, and if so, what actor might take over for Azaria. “Apu is beloved worldwide. We love him too. Stay tuned,” the producers of The Simpsons said in a statement.
Every so often, great animes will get a movie that takes place outside of the events of the main series. They can be fun and entertaining, but they’ll almost certainly never bring up the main story, and you may end up wondering if these extra adventures ever really happened at all. Fire Emblem: Three Houses’ Expansion Pass DLC feels very similar to those movies. While most of the seven new missions that make up its modestly-sized side story are engaging and fairly challenging in their own right, the way they are woven into the original plot doesn’t feel fully thought out, even if the new characters it brings along are a welcome addition to the cast.
The Expansion Pass is made up of a bunch of scattered elements – extra items and new costumes for Byleth (so you can finally run around the Monastery without your sleeves flapping about), a few new auxiliary missions, a recruitable fan favorite merchant named Anna, and the ability to invite other characters to join you in a sauna (which is thankfully way less creepy than it could be). None of these features are really must-haves, but they do sprinkle in some fun variety, especially for those in New Game+ looking to try out another route.
The side story Cindered Shadows is the real meat of the Expansion Pass, but the way its implemented can be a bit confusing. On one random night at Garreg Mach Monastery, Byleth and their friends chase a mysterious figure deep underground to a hidden and forgotten refuge known as Abyss. Rather than taking place during (or even after) the events of the main story and its separate routes, Cindered Shadows is accessed outside of your normal save file entirely. The strange side effect of this is that its handful of missions give you a preset group of characters (including Byleth and all the house leaders) to fight with, all as specific advanced classes at a predetermined level. Since the side story doesn’t follow the month-to-month format of monastery life, you aren’t really able to customize your team – it’s understandable, but also disappointingly limits replayability.
Cindered Shadows really shines best as a grueling gauntlet of battles. With limited funds, weapons, and units, these missions offer a healthy amount of challenge even on normal mode. Several of the fights even feature objectives beyond just routing an enemy force, which I was very happy to see since inventive battle parameters were something that the main story was sorely lacking. One such mission has you retreading a map seen earlier, but in a vastly different context. Where previously you were slowly battling up narrow corridors, this time you’re being chased by overwhelming odds, and must dash through several gates with all of your units before they close.
By turning the tables on my expectations for how to overcome enemies, I was constantly kept on my toes, excitedly changing my entire strategy multiple times to solve problems I didn’t think I’d be facing. That said, I do wish the tail end of Cindered Shadows didn’t rely on re-using maps we’ve already seen in the main story quite as much, given how good its new maps turned out. Luckily, the final fight (avoiding spoilers) helps make up for this by taking the battle somewhere I’ve always wanted to fight in.
The secret shanty town called Abyss also felt like a bit of a let-down in some regards. It tries to act as a mini Garreg Mach to explore between missions, but since there’s no activity points to spend or time to study, you really can’t do much aside from talking to the four new recruitable characters known as the Ashen Wolves. In order to find new activities, you’ll have to swap from the side story to the main story and revisit Abyss, and then unlock new facilities from an “Influencer” using in-game currency. These new activities – like viewing how your characters’ stats have progressed, or recycling unwanted items for something other than gold – aren’t exactly ground-breaking, but they do provide some nice quality of life additions for when you want to maximize your potential.
I ended up enjoying the new characters far more than I thought I would, as the side stories do a great job of showcasing their diverse personalities and their combat prowess alike. Balthus, Hapi, Constance, and Yuri each bring something different to the table, both in the stories they reveal and in the way they utilize their personal abilities and the four new classes they level up into. Both the War Monk and Trickster classes give a lot more love to hybrid melee classes that can heal in a pinch, while the Valkyrie and Dark Flier give more magic-friendly options on a mount. Sadly, the fan-favorite Dark Flier class no longer gains the ability to move and attack again after defeating an opponent on your turn, which I was sort of looking forward to.
I particularly enjoyed chatting and fighting alongside the group’s leader, Yuri. He feels like the fully realized shrewd-yet-mischievous schemer that Fire Emblem tried to make Claude out as (nothing against Claude, he just turned out to be too nice of a guy to fill that role), and Yuri’s ability as a Trickster to warp and change places with another unit make him incredibly valuable for getting units where they need to go. Meanwhile, the odd and sometimes silly personality quirk of Constance makes her either stronger indoors or more guarded outdoors, and is even disturbingly reflected in how she acts when having tea outside!
Cindered Shadows manages to be entertaining enough in the story it tells, even if it raises more questions than it answers. It was also nice to see it tie into Byleth’s backstory, though considering the results of the adventure, I found it surprising and a bit disappointing that characters like Jeralt and Sothis had absolutely nothing to add to such a personal tale. Just like so many of those anime movies, its events feel unnaturally walled off, never to be mentioned again.
Completing this side story does translate into unlocking characters, classes, and activities for all of your main story save files, but I never felt like this was handled as well as it could have been. For starters, you’ll be able to unlock the four characters to potentially be recruited in the main game. This can be done as early as Chapter 2 even though the events of Cindered Shadows seem to take place right after Chapter 4, and if all of your save files are already in part two of the campaign then they won’t appear at all.
What’s more, the first time you talk to each of them, they’ll have no recollection of ever meeting you – or even the events of Cindered Shadows – but will also have somehow heard all about you and have no qualms joining you if you’ve completed enough missions. Similarly, everyone else at Garreg Mach seems to have nothing to say about you bringing up some random exiled kids from the dungeons to train up and go to war with you. It doesn’t make recruiting them any less fun, but it does make an otherwise engaging story come off like some sort of hallucination.
Today’s spotlight are some incredible deals on HP OMEN laptops over on Amazon, including an RTX 2070 laptop for $1199 and an RTX 2080 laptop with dual displays (one of them 4K) for under $2K. You better hurry though, because these deals are good for today only. There’s also a price drop on the upcoming Resident Evil 3 game, the Razer Panthera Fight Stick, and a first sighting on the new NBA Jam Arcade1Up cabinet.
Out 4/3: Preorder Resident Evil 3 for PC and Save 27%
PC gamers rejoice, Resident Evil 3 has dropped 27% off to $43.79. Resident Evil 2 was a remake done right, and we expect RE3 to receive the same treatment. RE3 completes the Raccoon City arc, and this time you’re playing as the iconic Jill Valentine.
Today Only: HP OMEN 15″ 1080p IPS 144Hz Intel Core i7-9750H 6-Core RTX 2070 Laptop for $1199.99
You won’t find an RTX 2070 equipped laptop for anywhere else right now. You’d be forgiven to think there are tradeoffs to the other specs, but you’d be wrong. The laptop boasts a 9th generation Intel Core i7 hexacore processor, a whopping 32GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD.
Today Only: HP OMEN X 2S 15″ 4K UHD IPS Intel Core i7-9750H RTX 2080 Gaming Laptop with Second 6″ 1080p Touchscreen Display for $1919.20
Not only is this bad boy equipped with the most powerful mobile GPU on the market, it sports a lush 4K display AND a second 6″ 1080p touchscreen display. It’s also paired with a 9th generation Intel Core i7 hexacore processor, 16GB of memory, and a massive 1TB solid state drive. We reviewed this laptop and highly recommend it.
Preorder the NBA Jam WiFi Enabled Arcade1Up Gaming Cabinet at Best Buy
Arcade1Up’s newest cabinet ships out in July but it’s available for preorder right now. The cabinet includes matching themed stool and riser (which raises the height of the cabinet from 4 feet to 5 feet). It’s also the first WiFi-enabled Arcade1Up cabinet we’ve seen, meaning you’ll be able to play multiplayer against other human opponents.
Today Only: Acer Predator Helios 300 17.3″ 1080p IPS Intel Core i7-9750H 6-Core GTX 1660 Ti Gaming Laptop PC for $1079
The GTX 1660 Ti video card is considerably more powerful than the previous generation GTX 1060. It’s more than enough power to drive games on the 17″ 1080p display. It’s paired with a 9th generation Intel Core i7 hexacore processor, 8GB of memoery, and a 512GB SSD.
Today Only: HP OMEN 15″ 4K UHD 100% DCI-P3 IPS Intel Core i7-9750H RTX 2060 Studio Laptop for Artists for $1499.99
This laptop is equipped with a 4K 3840×2160 display with an impressive 100% DCI-P3 color gamut (better than sRGB) as well as an RTX 2060 video card with NVIDIA Studio driver. RTX Studio laptops are best for video editing, 3D animation, graphic design, and photography.
Yes it’s used and yes it’s a few generations old, but scoring a Pixel 2 smartphone for $100 is still a fantastic deal. In fact, the Pixel 2 is compatible with the latest Android 10 operating system. It boasts a 90-day Woot warranty (Woot is owned and operated by Amazon).
This arcade stick normally sells for $219.99. The Razer Panthera is a tournament-grade fighting machine that uses premium Sanwa hardware components. Layout includes 10 highly responsive buttons and an 8-way joystick. For tinkerers, the fight stick is fully mod-capable and effortless to customize. The entire bottom of the internal compartment is also easy to screw mount in every location.
2 Months of The Wall Street Journal All-Access Digital Edition for $1
This sponsored deal is brought to you by The Wall Street Journal.
For a limited time, pay only $1 and get 2 months of unlimited access to WSJ.com as well as The Wall Street Journal mobile and tablet apps. It’s normally $39/month.
Ravpower 20,000mAh USB-PD 60W Power Bank for $38.89 (Great for Nintendo Switch and MacBook Pro)
Occasionally we see 20,000mAh power banks with USB Power Delivery for about this price, however most of them have an 18W maximum power draw. That’s perfectly fine for devices that draw less power like the Nintendo Switch (which only allows up to 18W max). This power bank, however, boasts up to 60W maximum power draw, which is what you want for stuff like the MacBook Pro.
Xbox One X Bundles with 1 Free Month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for Only $299 (or 3 Months for $309)
Save $100 on the retail cost of an Xbox One X bundle plus you can get 1 month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for free or 3 months for $10. Each of the bundled games has been highly rated here at IGN (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order scored 9/10, NBA 2K20 scored a 7.8/10, and Gears 5 scored a 9/10). The Gears 5 bundle also includes all the other Gears games. Game Pass Ultimate is basically Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass combined into one membership.
Preorder Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox One, Get Free Xbox Series X Upgrade
Update: Anyone who purchases a copy of Cyberpunk for the Xbox One console will be eligible for a free Xbox Series X upgrade as well.
This one has been out of stock from nearly the beginning and bound to go out of stock again well before the September release date. This is easily one of the most anticipated games of 2019. The studio CD Projekt Red are the masterminds behind the incredible Witcher games and if you’re a huge fan like I am then you will most definitely be getting this game. The Collector’s Edition includes the game with steelbook case, 10″ statue of V in action, hardcover art book, metal pin set, metal keychain, patches, postcards, sticker set, DLC, and more.
The Alienware m17 is the newly designed 17″ laptop and weighs only 5.8 pounds, which is remarkable given its payload. It’s easily one of the best laptops you can get in terms of build quality and under-the-hood power, especially at this price point. This particular config is equipped with a 17″ 4K 3840×2160 display and an RTX 2060 Max-Q video card, which is on par in performance to the previous generation GTX 1070.
The Division 2 is preparing for its upcoming expansion, Warlords of New York, with a free-to-play weekend to entice new players. From February 27 to March 2, the loot-shooter RPG will be temporarily free for players on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. From March 3 (the release date of Warlords of New York), you’ll need to buy the game to keep playing.
A new animated short film has also been released to celebrate the upcoming expansion. It’s embedded below.
There will be no level cap, time limit, or content cut-off over the weekend, so you can play to your heart’s content. Furthermore, any progress made over the course of the weekend will transfer over to the full game if you buy it, so you won’t need to start over again.
The game is also discounted right now, but it’s most heavily discounted on Xbox One–you can get it for a ridiculous $3. If you enjoy the free weekend, you can keep it going for very little money.
PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold subscriptions will be required to play the game across the weekend, as The Division 2 is an always online title.
In his hands-on experience with the upcoming expansion, Alessandro Fillari said that Warlords of New York–which ups the level cap to 40–is a great addition to The Division 2. “The new batch of content for the game doesn’t seek to reinvent The Division 2, but rather, give more reason to want to engage with its particular approach to the familiar looter-shooter dynamic–which is OK with me.”
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We are EXCITED about the new Xbox Series X technical details, including the whopping 12 teraflops of computing power that the next-gen Xbox is packing. Plus: EA canceled another Star Wars project, March’s Games With Gold have been announced, and more!
Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out the latest episode of IGN Unfiltered, featuring an interview with DOOM Eternal director Hugo Martin and executive producer Marty Stratton:
It’s already an incredibly fun year of Xbox coverage, and the best is yet to come. Join us!
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Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.
Australia’s eccentric car culture is well documented. Falcons, Commodores, utes and fast four-doors. Brabham, Brock, and 351 Cleveland blocks. From Summernats and Mad Max, a love of everything from Bathurst cookouts to gender reveal burnouts runs deep down under.
It’s no surprise, then, that – despite its geographical isolation – Australia plays host to a variety of big ticket international motor racing events, from the F1 curtain-raiser at Albert Park to the final round of the WRC, as well as the iconic Bathurst 1000 at Mount Panorama, the World Time Attack Challenge at Sydney Motorsport Park, and the MotoGP at Phillip Island.
However, another international racing event came to Australia for the first time this month, drawing competitors from all over the globe. But the venue for this high speed showdown isn’t one of the renowned race circuits mentioned above. In fact, the venue isn’t a race circuit at all. This racing championship doesn’t require a race track. It doesn’t even require real roads.
Where these drivers are going, they don’t need roads.
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The Gran Turismo Championships (GTC) is a series of professional virtual racing tournaments that developer Polyphony Digital has been hosting in various cities around the world since 2018. Tokyo, Nürburg, Paris, New York, Monaco, and now Sydney are just some of the stopovers for the GTC World Tour events so far.
The Sydney Gran Turismo Championships were held in Luna Park’s Big Top, in Sydney.
Certified by the FIA (the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the organisation that governs F1, the World Rally Championship, the World Endurance Championship, and more) the GTC are split into two series. There’s the Nations Cup, where drivers compete individually representing their home country, and there’s the Manufacturer Series, where drivers compete in teams of three on behalf of one of the participating manufacturers. Entrants are selected for the live World Tour events via rankings from a dedicated online series within GT Sport’s ‘Sport’ mode. There are five territories: North America, Europe/Middle East/Africa, Central and South America, Asia, and Oceania. Anyone over 18 can have a shot.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=It%E2%80%99s%20serious%20business%2C%20and%20Polyphony%20appear%20to%20spare%20little%20expense”]It’s serious business, too, and Polyphony appears to spare little expense. In addition to the live studio audience, races are broadcast live via YouTube simultaneously in seven languages, with bespoke, two-person commentary teams for each audience. There are partnerships with Toyota, TAG Heuer, and Michelin, the drivers are clad fingers to feet in Puma gear, and there are enough Thrustmaster T-GTs here to buy a real car. Legendary Japanese game developer and Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi is here to kick things off personally, and alongside him is the president of Motorsport Australia, Andrew Papadopoulos, and the FIA bigwig Stephane Fillastre.
On top of this, the drivers who emerge as champions at the Gran Turismo Championships World Final are invited to join the FIA prize giving ceremony to be applauded alongside real world motorsport champions from a variety of disciplines. Polyphony even managed to get six-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton on deck at the 2019 GTC World Finals in Monaco and to participate in a Pro-Am. He came third.
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“I could never foresee jumping on a plane six times going to Europe, going to America, you know, through a video game,” says Australian driver Adam Wilk. The New South Welshman is here competing in the Nations Cup and the Manufacturer Series with Ford.
“I’ve been playing Gran Turismo for about 20 years, and when the online aspect started from about 2010 you could see that there were a lot of guys who are ultra-fast, ultra-competitive,” he continues. “And by that stage esports started to get a presence. So I always thought, ‘You know, racing could do that too.’”
“And then to see how far it’s come in such a short period of time? It’s quite phenomenal. I’m just blown away that here we are now hosting an event in Sydney. We’ve got fast guys from all over the world coming together. Just an awesome experience.”
Adam Wilk at work behind the wheel in the Manufacturer Series.
Fellow local driver, Queenslander Kenny Conomos, regards the GT Academy as the origin of Gran Turismo esports, but is equally surprised at the rapid success of the GTC.
“I think it probably started with GT Academy, so that definitely gave a big spark to people; a bit of hope, you know?” says Conomos, competing in the Manufacturers Series with Jaguar. “You could get onto this reality TV show and become a racing driver; that was the prize.”
“So that was probably the first glimpse, but then that kind of fell off the radar. But yeah, [the GTC] has really been a big surprise: how big it is and how massive that they’ve done it. I mean, six trips in a year is no easy task and the cost of it, you know? Sending 50, 60 guys around the world to do it? it’s pretty crazy. So, yeah, definitely when I was young, I didn’t think it was possible. I wouldn’t have fathomed it being this big, for sure.
“I couldn’t even imagine what another three or five years would do. Who knows how big this is going to really be?”
“We’ve seen the numbers of the audience watching,” adds Wilk. “So it’s going to grow and grow.”
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=The%202019%20season%20of%20the%20GTC%20racked%20up%20just%20over%2047%20million%20views%20across%20all%20broadcast%20platforms”]Those numbers are impressive, too; the 2019 season of the GTC racked up just over 47 million views across all broadcast platforms. While the amount of content uploaded also doubled, that’s still an increase of nearly 300% from 2018. Engagement exploded too, up 300% also.
There’s a reason why associations like the FIA and Motorsports Australia are keen to be involved in the GTC, and its increasing popularity is obviously a huge part of it. The FIA is also excited about digital racing’s capacity to work in tandem with traditional racing, effectively creating a consistent, worldwide racing platform for everybody and democratising grassroots racing.
“The beauty of the video game platform is that we can propose to all countries the same system, with the same rules and cars and challenges,” says the FIA’s Stephane Fillastre, head of brand, licensing, and retail. “We can be extremely inclusive. For us it is a fantastic tool for us to effectively provide to all the countries in the world which normally wouldn’t have access to traditional motorsport a platform which is inclusive. So that’s definitely the value, and why we think there is a bright future.”
“I’ve just come back from Oman; we had a congress there for the Middle Eastern and North African region,” adds president of Motorsport Australia, Andrew Papadopoulos. “And digital motorsport is being embraced hugely. Because that’s the grass roots level; it’s getting into motorsport without spending the money.”
There’s no desire to replace traditional motorsport with digital motorsport; the plan is to have them work together.
“I’m not sure we want to replace normal motorsport with digital motorsport, but it goes in with it,” says Papadopoulos. “You’ve got digital cricket, you’ve got football. I mean, FIFA’s got a huge footprint with their game.”
“The legitimacy is coming from real motorsport – and the passion that goes behind it, and the professionalism that goes behind it, is because we have real motorsport,” explains Fillastre. “There’s no will to substitute and to drastically change motorsport – motorsport will remain what it is. We just have to ensure that, in everything we are doing, there’s a ‘racing with a purpose’ element.”
Local racing fans turned out in force.
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Before its release in late 2017, IGN discussed with Yamauchi whether the ultimate goal of GT Sport was to bring esports racers to Gran Turismo or turn existing GT fans into esports racing fans.
“I think the latter is true,” said Yamauchi at the time. “And there’s one more aspect of that and it’s an important point; it’s the definition of sport itself.”
“Sport in GT Sports has two meanings. One of those is, of course, what you would imagine when you first hear ‘esport’. When you have a big stadium full of people, tens of thousands of spectators, with millions in prizes for the winners. And that will probably happen for GT Sport as well.
“But my focus is not only that. There’s another aspect of sport that’s actually more important. What that is, is rather than the NBA, it’s the street basketball. Rather than the MLB it’s your local baseball team. It’s the part of sport that enriches your life in some way by playing it every day. Even if you’re not at the top in that sport it’s something that really gives you something extra in your life, and that’s the aspect of sport that I want to place a focus on.
“I don’t want this to be something that only the best of the best can enjoy. I want it to be something that, by playing it every day, enriches your life in some way. And I think that’s a really important point.”
Kazunori Yamauchi, pictured with Andrew Papadopoulos and Sunday’s Nations Cup podium finishers.
Looking at the figures it would appear Yamauchi and his team at Polyphony have succeeded; GT Sport has now amassed 8.2 million users who are nearing a billion races completed. Yamauchi is particularly pleased at the personalities GT Sport is helping create.
“I think it also has to do with how Gran Turismo Sport was designed, but after I created the Sport and I created the Championships, you really got to see the strength of people and the power of the drivers,” he says. “These extraordinary characters that arose and started participating. They’re the ones that created the drama, and they’re really the drivers that change the future.”
“We have these rare characters that are incredible people who I was able to meet through the [Gran Turismo] Championships, and I think that’s what’s special about what’s happening here.
“The drivers that come up to the top of the eight million players of the game are really interesting people. They’re people that really command respect. That was my biggest surprise; it really moved me.”
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Of course, all the glitz and pomp of the GTC production itself would be for naught if the on-screen product was incapable of delivering real racing drama, but it’s excellent viewing. Indeed, one of digital racing’s key strengths is just how closely it resembles the real thing. At the GTC virtual cameras track the action on screen, transitioning between trackside views and first-person shots. The driving is blisteringly quick and the passing clinical and calculated. English commentator Jimmy Broadbent calls the action with an irresistible level of enthusiasm. Attend or stream a GTC event and you’ll see racing is racing, regardless of whether it happens on real asphalt or within the bellies of a dozen PlayStations.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Racing%20is%20racing%2C%20regardless%20of%20whether%20it%20happens%20on%20real%20asphalt%20or%20within%20the%20bellies%20of%20a%20dozen%20PlayStations”]After a wild weekend of racing it’s Team BMW who secure the win in the Manufacturer Series, and Japan’s Takuma Miyazono who wins the Nations Cup in the closest ever finish at the GTC to date. Just three hundredths of a second ultimately separate Miyazono from Australian driver Cody Nikola Latkovski in a drag race to the line out of the final corner that whips the crowd into a frenzy. As far as advertisements go for the GTC, the Sydney Nations Cup final is just about as good as racing gets, virtual or otherwise.
Last lap drama like that is absolute catnip for motorsport fans, and the very real pressure on Miyazono and Latkovski here must have been monumental. And yet, despite widespread acceptance of esports, virtual racers do still face some derision on account of their chosen specialty – sometimes even from real, professional race drivers.
Fillastre, for his part, isn’t having it.
“At the end, when you are getting the top 60 out of a community of eight million players, then those guys probably do have a certain talent,” he says. “There’s the credibility of the fact that they’re coming from a pyramid where they had to fight against eight million; those 60 have value.”
“We just have to let the other real racing drivers know that the set of skills are different, even if certain ones are common with real racing. But they also have to respect the fact that they are part of it, too.”
The final margin was less than half a car-length.
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Luke is Games Editor at IGN’s Sydney office and came third in a GT Pro-Am with the help of Cody Nikola Latkovski, equalling Lewis Hamilton’s record and fulfilling his lifelong dream of meeting the Michelin Man. You can find him on Twitter every few days @MrLukeReilly.
I’m not sure how long it will take for the words “Amazon Game Studios” to stop sounding weird when put together as a proper noun. Yet despite the on-paper oddness that is the world’s largest online retailer entering the gaming market, Amazon has quietly amassed a formidable team of industry veterans that have all been hard at work on New World, a big-budget MMORPG that could rival the genre’s biggest powerhouses.
That the company means business was evident from the moment I set foot in Amazon Game Studios for a small New World preview session with a handful of other journalists. We had to turn in our IDs, sign NDAs, and get scanned through entry doors before we even saw an elevator, let alone an actual employee. The walls were lined with portraits of influential developers like Shigeru Miyamoto, waist-high cubicle walls were ordained with nerdy bric-a-brac, and there was a general buzz of excitement one would expect from a studio facing an impending launch.
It felt like the real deal, in other words. People may not associate Amazon with the creation of games just yet, but that might change soon with the power of the underlying tech it has built.
Most online games are primarily powered and run locally on a user’s computer, known as client-based processing. But in the case of Amazon, due to its significant server resources via the AWS (Amazon Web Services) branch, most of its simulations are server-based. This frees up a lot of resources and computing power in terms of enabling New World’s real-time physics-based combat, as well as the sheer size of its battles.
“A tremendous amount of our simulation is server-based, instead of client-based,” says Richard Lawrence, Director of Game Technology at Amazon Game Studios on New World. “In a lot of games, the client makes suggestions to the server and the server verifies. For us, the server actually does the action. The server says, ‘Oh, you’re swinging your sword, I’ll do that for you and I’ll figure out what happens in terms of intersection with another player and causing damage.’ That’s pretty expensive computationally, but it turns out Amazon has a few servers, so we felt like that’s something that might be solvable long term.”
However, the name of the game in the MMO scene is finding a unique angle to stand out in a saturated market. Every MMO has thousands of players, most modern MMOs have player-controlled cities and territories, PvP-focus has been a marketing line for over a decade now, and large-scale PvP warfare is no longer a novel concept. Only a few holdovers from yesteryear even use tab-targeting as the core of its combat system anymore. But where New World has an opportunity is in how it combines these ideas, polishes them, and wraps them all up into an accessible – yet deep – package.
Game Director Scot Lane sees three core features in New World that will help it stand out from the pack: its art style, its combat, and its wars and invasions. “I think those three features put us in this other bracket of MMO that really hasn’t been done yet.”
From what I played at the New World preview event, Lane has the right to be confident, but it’s all going to come down to execution. Thankfully, combat, which relies heavily on Dark Souls-style precise timing and methodical rhythm, is fast and fluid. One moment you’re side-stepping a sword swipe from an enemy player that’s trying to breach a wall, then you’re ducking and dodging a musket blast from across the field before a ball of fire crashes down and obliterates the group in front of you. It’s all in real-time, too, without automatic targeting or lock-on abilities. It feels wild and ambitious.
This skill-based action combat system is the most crucial moving part at the core of what makes New World tick. In a lot of MMOs when you say it has “action” combat that just means effects are flashier and you have a bit of mobility during fights. But at the end of the day, you still end up targeting enemies and clicking abilities. New World isn’t really like that at all.
Instead, you’ve got to actually think about positioning, how your weapon is swinging, where your arrows are going in real-time, and so on. This means dodging an arrow is possible, or ducking behind cover. Just because an enemy sees you doesn’t mean they can hit you. It truly changes the way you approach every single combat encounter in both PvE and PvP and seeing all of that manifest itself in epic 100-player battles is certainly special.
Ensuring that something as intricate as New World’s combat – which flips a genre’s typical style on its head – is accessible without sacrificing complexity is difficult. Scaling back the hardcore PvP focus was an important first step. Back in alpha from October 2018 until June 2019, New World was a fully open-PvP game. This meant you could be attacked and murdered pretty much anywhere and would lose the gear on your corpse, similar to Ultima Online or Darkfall. This resulted in lots of griefing and player-killing, which drove off players out of annoyance and fear. But if you pay attention to the vocal groups of fans that wanted open PvP at all times, like it was in the alpha, many are extremely unhappy with the new direction.
According to Lane, Amazon Game Studios isn’t resigned to the new model, and would consider bringing features back. “We will always consider bringing things back. We are set on launching our alphas and betas this way and seeing what happens.” [poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Amazon%20Game%20Studios%20isn’t%20resigned%20to%20the%20new%20model%2C%20and%20would%20consider%20bringing%20features%20back.”]
An important lesson the team learned from the beta is a lot of players would quit out of the game after visiting PVP areas they didn’t want to enter, or upon discovering full loot drops. “What we want is a world where they [PvP players and PvE players] could co-exist,” says Lane. “We want everyone to play. We think it’s a really special world and really fun. So we’re trying to create a way we can do that. We have options. We could do servers, like we said we could do PVP areas…but what I don’t want to do is exclude people from content.”
New World also sets itself apart with its “War” PvP system. During the game groups of players, called Companies, can take control of entire territories. While controlling a territory, a governor is appointed to control things like taxes on property owners, which community initiatives are focused on (such as improving defenses or installing new work stations) and so on. Owning territory is essentially the end game in New World, which naturally means company rivalry and conflict is the ultimate end game.
To take control of a territory that another company owns, you must engage in a War. These are battles by appointment in which each side drafts 50 players into the War for a specific date and time. When the time arrives, so too does the battle with attackers capturing control points and breaching walls while defenders hold them off by any means necessary. It’s incredibly tense and exciting.
Since Wars are asymmetrical by design, that means that Attackers and Defenders have very different objectives and resources at their disposal. For example, Attackers are required to capture three control points outside the keep’s walls, then breach the doors through force, and finally capture a single point at the center of the keep. But as a Defender, all you have to actually do is hold out until the timer runs out.
“The defenders build siege weaponry through the town projects, upgrade it, and have a set number of siege weapons at the start of the War. Whereas the attackers, they start out with fewer siege weapons” says David Verfaillie, Creative Director on New World. “But they can build them over time. So it’s sort of like a battle of attrition, even on the siege warfare front where the defenders have a set amount that’s more, but they can’t increase that base, whereas the attackers increase it gradually. ”
To encourage typically PvE-only minded players to engage in the big PvP battles, Amazon Game Studios has designed ‘Invasion’ scenarios, which are entirely PvE. They work a lot like Wars, with enemies attacking a keep at a predefined time, but instead of facing other actual players you’ll defend the keep from ‘The Corruption’ instead. The Corruption is a twisted, dark force that’s hellbent on abusing the powerful substance found within Aeternum, Azoth, and using it for nefarious means.
Open world events where The Corruption starts to slowly take over the environment are other good places for players to dabble in more intense, non-quest focused areas of the game without excluding or hampering enjoyment elsewhere.
“In the War whatever you went into the War with, you’re in that exact same state [after] unless you’re a governor and you lose your control over your territory,” says Lane. “But that’s very few people. The rest just get to go experience it and the invasion will teach you that and then you’ll learn that in War.”
Amazon Game Studios has a tall order at hand here with New World. They’re targeting one of the most opinionated audiences out there in the form of PvP-minded MMO players. New World is a big-budget project with a large team built on the foundation of what could be the future of gaming with its cloud-computing AWS platform. The future of Amazon as a whole may not ride on New World’s shoulders, but a significant portion of its goodwill in the gaming market as a developer by the name of “Amazon Game Studios” certainly does.
The Xbox One games store has been celebrating Anime Month all month long, and with about one week left for the sale, Microsoft has added a brand-new batch of game deals that are decidedly better than the previous collection of discounts. From now until March 2, you can snag some of the most popular anime-inspired games, including Dragon Ball FighterZ and Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, for a nice discount. Plus, be sure to take advantage of the excellent anime movie and TV deals, including a free anime season you can claim right now.
Dragon Ball FighterZ is notably down to $15 in this new batch of deals; in addition, you can snag the FighterZ Edition for $19 or the Ultimate Edition for just $22. It’s perfect timing for this deal, as Dragon Ball FighterZ’s third season kicked off this month and brings new characters to the game, including Kefla, who will be available on February 28 (or earlier if you have FighterZ Pass 3). The game is also getting a free update that makes significant changes to game mechanics, including selectable Z Assist moves.
