Month: June 2020

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New Releases highlights the top video games launching each week, and this one is loaded with cartoon action thanks to SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated and Ninjala. You can also revisit Borderlands 3 thanks to the new expansion Bounty of Blood – A Fistful of Redemption, while Xbox One gamers can finally get their hands on The Foundation DLC for Control. Finally, Night Call is getting a console launch.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated — June 23

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC

This remaster of the original Battle for Bikini Bottom doesn’t just look better–it also includes includes content cut from the original game. You can even play an all-new multiplayer mode with both cooperative and competitive modes. PS4 Pro and Xbox One X owners can see the sponge in shiny 4K resolution too.

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Ninjala — June 24

Available on: Switch

Ninjala pits eight players against each other, either in teams or in a free-for-all battle royale. Each ninja can battle their opponents using ninjutsu and special weapons as they run up walls and leap around the battlefield. Take out your rivals to score points–you’ll get a bonus for using your ninja skills to get a knockout.

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Night Call — March 24

Available on: Xbox One, Switch

Night Call asks you to solve serial murder cases, and you’ll do so by driving passengers around Paris in your taxi cab. You’ll learn more about the city as you do, but you’ll also have to do a good job as a driver to keep paying your bills. Night Call comes to Xbox One and Switch this week, but the PS4 doesn’t have its own release date just yet.

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Control: The Foundation — June 25

Available on: Xbox One

As the name implies, The Foundation takes protagonist Jesse Faden to the base of the Oldest House–the titular “foundation.” Down there, she’ll encounter a new enemy type, the Sharpened. She’ll also learn the new Shape ability, which lets her destroy crystals and reform them intro traps.

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Borderlands 3: Bounty of Blood – A Fistful of Redemption — June 25

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Borderlands 3’s latest adventure is set on the wild west planet of Gehenna. The hub town of Vestige will change its shops and residents as you make certain choices on side quests, and you’ll encounter the rough-and-rowdy Devil Riders too. Luckily, you’ve got a new Jet Beast mount of your own.

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July is fast approaching, and the next episode of New Releases will start exploring the new month of video games. Get ready to check out some hot exclusives like Marvel’s Iron Man VR and Ghost of Tsushima. GameSpot’s Play For All charity event will continue through the month as well, as we continue to raise support for Black Lives Matter and those fighting COVID-19 at Direct Relief.

Nintendo might be looking to step away from developing new mobile games, according to a new report by Bloomberg. A report published on the site details how Nintendo seems likely to focus on Switch in the future, with fewer mobile games being developed.

Nintendo has made over $1 billion from mobile games since 2016’s Super Mario Run, but over 60% of that figure came from a single title–Fire Emblem Heroes. In 2017, following the release of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, it was reported that Nintendo wanted to ramp up mobile development–this might no longer be the case.

According to Bloomberg, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said in May that the company is “not necessarily looking to continue releasing many new applications for the mobile market,” and that their move into mobile development was largely motivated by the Wii U’s failure to sell well. While the Switch is performing well, especially with the sales figures of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, their mobile titles are not showing similar growth. He also said that a major increase in revenue from mobile was not expected this financial year.

Bloomberg quotes mobile games consultant Serkan Toto, who says that Nintendo’s “enormous success on console reduced the need and the pressure to put resources into mobile,” and that, as of right now, “Nintendo’s mobile pipeline is empty.” It’s also reported that Super Mario Run and Mario Kart Tour have not achieved the success Nintendo was hoping for. Mario Kart on mobile had a huge launch and has received major updates since its launch, but never enjoyed the critical acclaim of Mario Kart 8.

Later in the article, Toto is quoted saying that while there will be additional mobile releases from Nintendo in the future, “it’s very likely these will be just alibi releases to appease shareholders.”

The report also states that DeNA Co. president Isao Moriyasu says that the studio, that has developed many of Nintendo’s mobile games, does not anticipate releasing a new app from the publisher until near the end of the 2021 financial year, which ends in March 2021. The piece also suggests that Nintendo has been disappointed by the limitations of mobile game design, and the fact that they’re limited to touchscreen controls.

Nintendo recently announced two new Pokemon mobile apps, only one of which is a traditional game. Pokemon Smile is a app designed to encourage children to brush their teeth, whereas Pokemon Cafe Mix is a puzzle game that’s also coming to Switch. It’s worth noting, though, that these games are licensed out to external developers by The Pokemon Company rather than Nintendo, and are technically thus not part of Nintendo’s mobile portfolio.

The company’s most recent mobile title is Mario Kart Tour, which had a huge launch and has received major updates since its launch, but never enjoyed the critical acclaim of Mario Kart 8.

The acclaimed Lin-Manuel Miranda stage play Hamilton is coming to Disney+ on July 3, and the the first trailer has now arrived. The trailer provides a first look at Miranda as Alexander Hamilton and the rest of the cast, and it also confirms a PG-13 rating which is notable.

Hamilton the stage play features multiple instances of the word f**k, which would require it to be rated R. However, the trailer shows a PG-13 rating, which presumably means some–or all–of the F-bombs have been edited out. Miranda previously alluded to this.

“If we have to mute a word here or there to reach the largest audience possible, I’m OK with that, because your kids already have the original language memorized,” Miranda said in an interview. “I don’t think we’re depriving anyone of anything if we mute an F-bomb here or there to make our rating.”

Disney is said to have paid $75 million USD to buy Hamilton’s movie rights. Unlike Cats, Rent, or Mamma Mia, Hamilton’s movie is a film version of the play recorded during two productions with the original cast in 2016. The $75 million that Disney is said to have paid for the movie is reportedly the highest fee in history that a studio paid for a finished film.

The Hamilton movie was previously scheduled to be released in cinemas on October 15, 2021, but Disney brought the film forward by 15 months and announced it would bypass theatres for a home video release in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

In addition to Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, the movie version features the rest of the original cast: Daveed Diggs in a dual role as Maarquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, Renée Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler, Leslie Odom, Jr. as Aaron Burr, Christopher Jackson as George Washington, Jonathan Groff as King George, Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton, Jasmine Cephas Jones as Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds, Okieriete Onaodowan as Hercules Mulligan and James Madison, and Anthony Ramos as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton.

Among the numerous projects that EA has in development for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X is a new Battlefield game that is due to launch in 2021. While the game has yet to be properly unveiled, EA’s top studios boss, Laura Miele, shared some of the first details about the game recently.

During EA Play Live 2020, Miele said she looks forward to seeing developer DICE once again raise the bar, adding that the team is making the new Battlefield something that’s never been seen before.

“Our studios are taking their crazy ambitious ideas and making them real,” she said. “Every console generation DICE sets the bar for excellence in audio and visual presentation. We are creating epic battles at a scale and fidelity unlike anything you’ve experienced before.”

A work-in-progress video of the new Battlefield game showed dozens of soldiers charging through an area. Another sequence showed a character with a very real-looking face. None of these assets are strictly confirmed to be representative of what the new Battlefield game will offer, however. You can see the footage in the video above.

The soldiers show in the work-in-progress video appear to be historical models. Battlefield 6, or whatever it will be called, is rumored to take place in the modern day, according to reporter Jeff Grubb.

In addition to the new Battlefield game, EA’s Criterion studio is working on a new Need for Speed racing game, while BioWare continues to work on Dragon Age 4. One of EA’s newest studios, Motive, is making a secret new IP that Miele says is only possible with next-generation technology.

The new Battlefield game was announced in October 2019, at which time publisher Electronic Arts said the game would launch in the company’s fiscal year 2022, which runs from April 2021 to March 2022. Now we know a more specific launch period–sometime in 2021.

EA said it is releasing this new Battlefield game in 2021 instead of 2020, when the new consoles release, to take advantage of their larger install base. “Bringing out Battlefield [in 2020], where the new console base is fairly small, doesn’t really give justice to the potential of the title, and so that’s part of our driver in moving the title into fiscal 22,” EA management said.

DICE has studios in Stockholm, Sweden and in Los Angeles, California. The DICE LA studio is now being run by Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella, as part of the expanded responsibilities of his recent promotion.

2018’s Battlefield V took place in World War II, while 2016’s Battlefield 1 was set during World War I. The series hasn’t seen a modern-day release since 2015’s Battlefield Hardline.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Weta Digital, the effects studio owned by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and screenwriter Fran Walsh, is expanding. The New Zealand-based company has launched a new animation studio, and it will make original content for the first time in the outfit’s quarter-century history.

Prem Akkaraju has been named the CEO of Weta Animated. He is the co-founder of SR Labs with entrepreneur Sean Parker, who himself is a member of Weta Digital’s board of directors and an investor in the company.

Weta Animated will make original animated content for cinema and streaming, Weta said in a press release announcing the venture. Jackson and Walsh will write, produce, and direct “several” of the new animated projects at Weta Animated.

Jackson said in a news release that Weta created the new animated division to help make movies faster and on a smaller budget. “We are huge fans of animated storytelling in all of its forms, but it can be a long, protracted, and often costly way to make movies,” he said. “That’s, in part, why we have created this company–to change the model and open the doors to filmmakers and storytellers who might not otherwise be given the chance to show what they can do.”

Weta is known for creating the effects shots and practical props for Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. The company got it starts 25 years ago on Jackson’s 1994 psychological thriller Heavenly Creatures, and it’s gone on to grow significant since then.

In addition to the Middle-earth movies, Weta has worked on numerous major movies and TV shows over the years, including Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, Game of Thrones, Deadpool 2, Birds of Prey, and The Jungle Book, among so many others.

None of Weta Animated’s projects have been announced yet, but given the talent at Weta, big things are expected.

Sir Ian Holm, the actor who portrayed Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (among many other roles over his long career), passed away on June 19 at the age of 88. Tributes have poured in for the actor, and on June 20 Jackson himself weighed in on what made Holm special, and what his presence on the set of the Lord of the Rings trilogy meant to him.

Jackson, who posted his tribute on Facebook, opens by saying that Holm was “was such a delightful, generous man. Quiet, but cheeky, with a lovely twinkle in his eye.” He recalls being nervous about “working with such an esteemed actor” before shooting his beloved trilogy, but writes about how Holm “immediately put (him) at ease.” He recalls how Holm alerted him that he would “be trying different things in every take,” and that if he hadn’t given Jackson what he needed after five or six, he should give him specific direction.

“Incredibly his varied line reads and performances were all quite wonderful,” Jackson recalls. “He rarely needed direction. He gave us an amazing range of choices to select from in the cutting room.” He recalls how Holm enchanted a group of kids they were filming with during a long shoot with a lot of downtime by telling them stories between recording.

Years later, Jackson was hoping that Holm could return for the opening scenes of his Hobbit trilogy, but was shocked to learn that the actor had been diagonosed with Parkinson’s disease, and had quietly retired from acting. However, over a long dinner, they eventually planned for a way to have Holm return to the role one last time. “I knew he was only doing it as a favour to me, and I held his hands and thanked him with tears in my eyes,” Jackson recalls.

He also says that Elijah Wood came to London to help capture Holm’s scenes, as the two had become friends during filming of The Lord of the Rings and he wanted to offer support.

“Watching Ian Holm perform taught me so much – as Ian was being his usual quiet self, that just somehow happened,” Jackson says. “It was a privilege to work with him, and a blessing to know him.”

A new Lord of the Rings TV series is in development at Amazon Studios. There’s also a new MMO in the works, as well as a game about Gollum coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X.

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