Hyper Scape is an upcoming battle royale shooter that’s developed and published by Ubisoft. GameSpot’s Michael Higham was able to play for two hours ahead of the official announcement and is joined by Tony Wilson to tell you about the game’s weapons, abilities, revives, and unique way to win. Hyper Scape distinguishes itself from other battle royale games with a few fresh takes on typical genre tropes and mechanics.
Hyper Scape’s combat feels like an arena shooter with high mobility and mechanics like a double jump and jump pads on the map. You get to pick from a roster of characters that only make a difference cosmetically and with voice lines. You can build a loadout around hacks which are abilities that can be picked up around the map and give players powers such as forming a wall, invisibility, or allowing them to turn into something like a hamster ball and leap great heights. When you die in this battle royale you remain invisible and must find your way to where an enemy is killed by your team in order to be revived. You are never out permanently as long as your team is alive. The map also doesn’t have a closing circle, instead, it has districts that shut down as the match progresses. The game also has a crown that allows one of the final teams to win by surviving a countdown without having to be the last one standing.
Hyper Scape is coming to PC. Stay tuned for more information on betas and the release date.
The Alien and Predator franchises have been a mainstay in the comic book industry for decades, and now they’ve both found a new home. IGN can exclusively reveal that Marvel Comics has acquired the rights to both Alien and Predator, paving the way for a new line of comics set in this cinematic sci-fi universe.
While Marvel isn’t ready to reveal specific titles or creative teams yet, we can debut a pair of incredible teaser images drawn by Batman artist David Finch. First up, here’s Finch’s take on Alien’s “Big Chap” Xenomorph:
Alien art by David Finch. (Image Credit: Marvel)
Then, feast your eyes on Finch’s Predator, as the artist shows what might happen if one of these elite hunters targeted the Avengers.
Predator art by David Finch. (Image Credit: Marvel)
To be clear, the Predator teaser isn’t meant to suggest the two franchises will be integrated into the Marvel Universe (as was the case when Marvel reacquired the Conan license in 2018). Marvel’s new comics will instead expand on the characters and settings of the various Alien and Predator movies. Still, it’s always possible fans will see some sort of Alien vs. Predator vs. Avengers crossover down the road.
Unsurprisingly, Finch had a blast rendering these two teaser images, telling IGN, “Alien and Predator are the two of the most identifiable, iconic characters of all time, and I love them for that. But mostly, it’s being fortunate enough to be a kid when they were new. I’ve seen every movie they’ve ever been in, and I cannot wait to see them wreaking havoc in the Marvel Universe. I drew my pictures of them with a massive smile on my face.”
Dark Horse Comics has been publishing Alien and Predator stories since 1988 and 1989, respectively, but it appears 2020 will mark the end of that arrangement. The move isn’t necessarily surprising given that both properties, like Marvel itself, now fall under the Disney umbrella. The Star Wars comic book line underwent a similar transition when it shifted from Dark Horse to Marvel in 2015 and Marvel kicked off a new line of comics as part of Disney’s revamped Star Wars timeline. Similarly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer shifted from Dark Horse to BOOM! Studios in 2018, paving the way for a rebooted Buffy universe.
“There’s nothing more thrilling than a story that will keep you at the edge of your seat, and Alien and Predator have delivered that time and time again!” said Marvel Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski in a statement to IGN. “I can clearly remember where I was when I saw each of these modern masterpieces for the first time, and reveling in how both masterfully weave extraterrestrial dread and drama into some of the most iconic scenes we’ve ever seen on film. And it’s that legacy that we’re going to live up to!”
“As a visual medium, comics are the perfect place to build on those moments, and we here at Marvel are honored to begin telling these stories for fans everywhere,” added Cebulski. “As our release schedule continues to return, we can’t wait to share more in the coming months!”
Editor Jake Thomas said, “The incredible legacies of both franchises offer some of the most compelling and exciting worldbuilding in all of science fiction. It is a thrill and an honor to be able to add to that mythology and continuity with all-new stories set within those universes.”
Stay tuned to IGN for more on the future of Alien and Predator at Marvel. With Comic-Con@Home taking place July 22-26, we may learn more in just a few weeks.
In other Alien news, director Ridley Scott recently revealed he has plans for a third prequel movie exploring the origin of the Xenomorph eggs seen in the original film.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
It’s impossible to look at Mortal Shell and not immediately draw the parallels between it and the Dark Souls series, which is fine! If there’s one thing that is incredibly apparent after spending about four hours playing and replaying a demo build of Mortal Shell, it is that developer Cold Symmetry has a deep love and understanding for not just the Souls series, but the entire Souls-like genre. Your character moves like a Dark Souls character, NPCs talk like Dark Souls NPCs, there are item descriptions in the loading screens, combat is impactful and deliberate, and so on and so forth.
But what’s most impressive about Mortal Shell is that for as much as it borrows from the Souls-like formula, it also introduces its own ideas into the mix. They’re ideas that dramatically change how the game is played, and in doing so, Mortal Shell breaks out of its own Souls-like shell and becomes its own beast.
Mortal (Shell) Kombat
The first large departure from the formula is that there’s no block button in Mortal Shell. And sure, there’s no block button in Bloodborne either, but it’s still handled very differently. Instead, players are able to harden their body to something like stone in order to cause enemy attacks to bounce right off. This is an extremely powerful defensive option, as it doesn’t take any stamina away when you block an attack. It will nearly always cause your opponents to recoil, giving you an opportunity to attack, and you can even harden mid attack animation, allowing you to immediately shift to defense while attacking.
But here’s the catch: Harden is on a pretty substantial cooldown, and without it, your only two ways of defending yourself are a very risky and tricky-to-time parry, and an evasive roll that eats up a lot of stamina.
The other wrinkle in this combat system is that there’s no quick and easy health-restorative item like an estus flask or healing gourd that quickly restores life and is replenished at the game’s equivalent of a checkpoint. There are some mushrooms that heal a short amount over time and a few randomly dropped pieces of food that can be picked up off the ground, but without a way to quickly restore health, taking damage in Mortal Shell can feel devastating.
There is one other main way to restore health on the fly, which is by landing an Empowered Riposte, which is done by parrying an enemy and executing a powerful follow up blow. Doing so requires one bar of resolve, which is a resource that is built up as you deal damage to enemies, but will slowly drain if you don’t keep up the pressure. This plays into another key resource management decision, because if you manage to build up two bars of resolve, you can execute an extremely powerful special attack that deals massive damage and makes you completely invulnerable for the duration.
So what this all boils down to is a combat system where all styles of play have their own risks and rewards. Playing it safe means you won’t be getting a ton of resolve to utilize special abilities, but you’ll likely be more capable of managing your stamina and harden cooldown; and a more aggressive playstyle is rewarded with the ability to potentially heal mid-fight (if you have the skill to land a well-timed parry) and an extremely powerful attack that can kill most enemies in one-hit. It’s a really smartly designed combat system that truly feels distinct despite its roots being firmly established in the Souls-like genre.
Each Shell’s Got a Story to Tell
Then there are the Mortal Shells themselves, which essentially introduce class-based gameplay to the Souls-like genre in a way that hasn’t really been done before. The closest comparison is the blood code system in Code Vein. As you play, you’ll discover new Shells that each have their own unique stats and skills. In my demo, I only came across two: The starting shell, Harros the Vassal, which is a more tanky shell that has increased health, less stamina, and skills that affect his survivability; and Tiel the Acolyte, who has a massive stamina pool, less life, a more effective vanish as opposed to a quick dash as a dodge, and a variety of skills that allow him to occasionally take damage to stamina instead of damage to health, grant him extra damage on a successful riposte, and heal some of the damage taken by poison, which was a massive pain in the ass throughout the demo.
Shells can be swapped out at certain spots in the world, or an item can be used to swap them out on the fly, allowing you to make use of their unique characteristics as they become necessary.
As you’d imagine, when you defeat enemies you collect a currency that is used for both character progression and for buying items from the various shops. But unlike what you might imagine, character progression in Mortal Shell doesn’t take the form of traditional level ups. Instead, you use this currency, known as tar, to first learn the name of your equipped Shell, which then opens up their skill tree. Each skill costs both Tar and another currency called “Glimpses” to learn. Glimpses are gained by beating certain enemies or by finding itemized glimpses in the world, but unlike Tar, glimpses are only granted upon the first time you take them out. This I imagine, is how Cold Symmetry discourages players from farming easy enemies repeatedly in order to max out a character’s skill tree right away.
Glimpses are also an appropriate name for this currency because each new skill you purchase gives you a glimpse into who that Mortal Shell belonged to. It’s a very clever way to ground the character in the world and I can’t wait to see how it plays out in the full game.
It’s also worth noting that Mortal Shell has a Sekiro-esque second chance system in play. When you lose all of your health, your main body will actually get knocked out of whatever shell you were using. At this point, it’s one hit and you’re dead, but if you manage to get back to your shell and re inhabit it, you’ll regain all of your health and be right back in the fight. This ability only works once though, and once you use it, you won’t get it back until the next time you rest. Of course, if you do die, you’ll drop all of your tar at the spot where you were killed and if you die again before you’re able to get back and reclaim it, it’s gone for good.
All of this is great, but not everything involving Mortal Shell is without concern. I played the game on a PC build and was met with at least five crashes in just the relatively short amount of time that I played, which feels awful, especially in a difficult game like this where a crash can cause whatever momentum you built up to come to a halt. That said, it is of course an early build, so it’s not entirely unexpected but nevertheless something to keep an eye on. The aforementioned poison in the second part of the demo also feels absolutely oppressive with no item that is able to cure it and with the most common enemies inflicting it on every basic hit.
There’s also a bizarre mechanic that forces you to use an item before you’re able to know what it does, which is cool in concept, but in practice makes item usage unnecessarily risky and punishing since you could eat something that inflicts a negative effect without having any indication that it would do so.
All in all though, Mortal Shell left an extremely strong first impression, not because of how much it evokes the look and feel of Dark Souls, but because of how it evokes it while also feeling like something completely fresh and unique. You can check it out for yourself when the beta for Mortal Shell drops on July 3.
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Mitchell Saltzman is an Editorial Producer at IGN and is a long-time lover of all things souls-like. Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne Souls, Sekiro Souls, he loves them all.
Upcoming action-RPG Mortal Shell draws a whole lot of inspiration from From Software’s Souls games–you’ll find yourself in a dark fantasy world, engaging in tense, deliberate combat with enemies that can easily rip you apart if you let them. But while Mortal Shell is just as punishing as Dark Souls (and, seemingly, just as careful with its worldbuilding and stingy with its story details), it offers some new ideas to the formula From has popularized to bring some new challenges.
We played a short preview build of Mortal Sell, which gave us a sense of its Souls-like combat–check it out in the video above. You have a lot of similar abilities to Souls games, like dodge rolls and parries, as well as a devastating riposte attack that’s almost exactly like Bloodborne’s Visceral Attack. But Mortal Shell changes things up with two additions: the “harden” ability, which allows you to turn yourself to stone and weather an attack, either to stagger an enemy or get in close for a strike of your own; and the “shells,” which are character bodies you can switch between to make use of their different strengths and weaknesses.
Our time with Mortal Shell gave us a chance to try out two different shells and two different weapons, while engaging in a bunch of combat with various enemies. The preview build culminates in a big, climactic boss fight. If you’re a fan of the Souls games, Mortal Shell should scratch the same itch, while adding new ways to overcome challenges.
One of the first things I did in Mortal Shell, after getting walloped in the tutorial by a huge guy with a sword and stealing the corpse of an unnamed knight, was watch two guys sit by a campfire while one played a lute.
Given that this is a video game, the two goblin-looking locals turned hostile as I approached them, with the musician trading his lute for a hatchet before stalking my way. I cut through them with my huge two-handed claymore, then picked up the lute and spent the next five or so minutes learning to play it.
Hitting the “use” button on the lute about 10 times, I gained enough “familiarity” with it that my character could provide a performance of his own. I still have no idea what the lute is for, why I could pick it up and add it to my inventory, or what use repeatedly telling my character to pick away at its strings might bear in the future. That’s kind of my general impression of Mortal Shell, as well–there’s a lot about the game I don’t understand. But like the Souls games from which it draws obvious inspiration, it seems like there’s a lot to uncover and master in Mortal Shell.
Musical interludes aside, Mortal Shell is a game mostly about fighting deliberate, brutal sword duels with a variety of spooky enemies. Developer Cold Symmetry provided a short preview build of the game, which included what seems to be its opening tutorial, a look at a swampy area, and a dark, dank crypt, culminating with a boss fight. The whole thing took about two hours to get through on my first attempt, and about 20 minutes on my second–which might give you an indication of the curve of mastering Mortal Shell and what’s possible once you get the hang of the game.
Souls-Inspired
Even from the first glimpses at Mortal Shell in its reveal trailer, the game gave off a big Dark Souls vibe, and its gameplay is clearly inspired by From Software’s epics. Combat generally takes place against one or two enemies at a time as you swing huge weapons at each other in slow, massive arcs that dish out big damage. You have a green stamina bar that governs how many thrusts, slashes, sidesteps, and rolls you can do in a given fight before you need to take a second to let it recharge. One or two blows from an enemy are enough to decimate you, so death comes swiftly and often, especially while you’re getting the hang of Mortal Shell’s key mechanics.
In a lot of ways, Mortal Shell plays exactly like a Souls game. Dodging is an essential skill for getting clear of enemy attacks, and provides you with a few brief frames of invincibility if you time it right. You have a speedier light attack and a slower heavy attack, which usually also provides greater range. Even the controls largely mirror Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
Early in the preview, we got hold of a magical Tarnished Seal item, which is used to parry enemy blows, if your timing is right on. As you fight, you build up a meter called Resolve, and every time you complete a full increment, you can use the seal to parry a blow and open up an enemy to a brutal riposte attack–one that’s exactly like Bloodborne’s Visceral Attack. The riposte also heals you, which is essential, because one of the key things that Mortal Shell doesn’t have is a reliable batch of healing items like Estus flasks or blood vials.
The one big addition Mortal Shell brings to combat is the “harden” ability, which allows you to turn your body to stone almost at will in the middle of a fight. Harden lets you take a hit from an enemy, and if you time it right, to stagger them as their weapon bounces off you. That gives you a brief opening for a counterattack or to step back out of harm’s way. You can use harden anytime, and it’s specifically useful to harden mid-attack–that can let you get in close as your enemy attacks and fails to harm you, allowing you to unfreeze and score some damage without having to worry about timing a swing or getting caught out of position.
So fighting any of the enemies in Mortal Shell is about carefully managing dodging, hardening, parrying, and attacking, with careful attention paid to how long your moves take and how much space you need to land them. Harden in particular is a move that takes some getting used to; it doesn’t require quite the same split-second timing as the Tarnished Seal parry, but you still need to use hardening strategically, or it can leave you open to additional attacks. Harden also has a long-enough cooldown that you can’t spam it or rely on it to get you out of all situations.
How you fight also depends on two other things: your weapon and your character. You play as a strange, faceless white humanoid at the start of the game, without much of a health bar. But shortly after the preview build’s tutorial, we were thrown into a wooded, swampy area called Fallgrim Outskirts, and just ahead of the start, we encountered a corpse leaned against a gravestone. When you find bodies like this, you can inhabit them–they’re the “shells” mentioned in the title. The preview included two shells: a burly, middle-of-the-road knight that can build and maintain a lot of resolve, and a quick-moving thief with lots of stamina.
Which shell you’re inhabiting dictates a lot of how you’ll fight. The knight’s ability to gather resolve quickly means parrying and respoting becomes a more essential part of his fighting style. He pairs well with the heavy sword, because it is more likely to stagger enemies, making up for its slow swing speed.
We found the thief’s body a little deeper into the preview, hidden in a strange tomb, along with a new weapon, the hammer and tongs. Instead of a two-handed weapon, the hammer and tongs act as a pair, one in each hand, and can inflict enemies with poison. They’re faster than the sword, but the drawback is that they don’t stagger your opponents, leaving you less time to maneuver. Paired with the thief’s higher stamina, though, it becomes possible to pummel some enemies into submission before they have a chance to fight back. The thief also has a shadowy dodge that turns him temporarily invisible (or perhaps incorporeal), which makes it easier to get clear of bad situations, as opposed to the knight’s heavier roll.
Using the right shell for the job seems like a big part of the Mortal Shell experience, and the menu in the game suggested there would be two more to use beyond the pair that we discovered. They excel at different things, with the knight seemingly better for duels with tough enemies (and the eventual boss), and the thief better for clearing out smaller opponents quickly. You can only switch between shells if you physically walk up to them, though, unless you use a special item that lets you instantly switch between them. So, you’re not bouncing between shells as the situation demands–like in a Souls game, you need to plan, study, and react to what you’re facing, and that usually means dying and coming back better prepared.
Becoming “Familiar” With A Weird World
Combat isn’t the only thing that feels like Dark Souls in Mortal Shell. The construction of the game’s world also seems like it’s borrowing heavily from From Software’s approach, and in the preview build we played, we were left with a lot of questions about what’s going on in this fantasy world. Discovering the game’s story seems to be focused on picking up on clues from the game’s environment and from bits of lore included with the items you’ll find scattered around.
Each item has a flavor text attached to it, like in Dark Souls games, but you have to learn about everything in Mortal Shell by experiencing it. You learn the effects of a strange mushroom by eating it, raising your “familiarity” with it. You might then discover that it’ll heal you over time (which is the only way in the preview build to restore health, outside of doing a Resolve riposte) or poison you. Eat enough poison mushrooms, though, and you can develop a poison immunity, just like if you mess with the lute enough times, you’ll become proficient in playing it. Familiarity also sometimes gives you new flavor text, unlocking a slightly better understanding of the world.
The most interesting tidbits were related to the shells themselves–these aren’t just bodies you find and snag. They seem to be characters, with (probably tragic) pasts that illuminate the world around you. Learning about them gives you pieces of their stories, while also making them more powerful and more effective.
As you kill enemies, you gather a special substance called nectar, or tar for short. Like the souls of Dark Souls or the blood echoes of Bloodborne, tar is the thing you use to level up, and if you’re killed in battle, you lose it, unless you manage to return to the scene of the crime and reclaim it.
In the preview build, we got a look at how you seemingly level up your characters in Mortal Shell. In the strange crypt that marked the second half of the preview area, we encountered a mask-wearing woman called Sister Genessa, who offered us a sip of “sacred tar.” Taking her up on the offer lets you spend your tar like you would souls, unlocking new abilities for your shell. But to do that, you must first unlock the shell’s name, which provides some backstory about it. We discovered the knight was called Harros, the Vassal, whose story sounded like it related to some strange and spooky religious cultists. The thief-like character was Tiel, the Acolyte, who seemed to have a history with Genessa herself.
Once you know the name of your shell, you can use special items called Effigies to instantly switch between them. You also gain access to the rest of their upgrades, which might make their harden ability stronger, or boost their health reclamation from your Resolve riposte. The upgrades are unique to each shell, and each one has its own set of upgrade materials, so you’ll need to play them in order to make them stronger.
The last portion of the demo took us through a crypt, where we fought a number of strange enemies. There was a leaping man-beast-type creature, which could inflict poison or hit you in the shoulders and knock your character fully to the ground. Tougher enemies again recalled Dark Souls: one was a monster with swords stuck through its chest, who would pull them out and throw them until you closed the distance, and ended the fight by pulling off his own head, throwing it at you, and then exploding into a cloud of poisonous gas. Another was a huge creature with blades for hands, whose long reach made it tough to dodge clear.
The preview ended with Mortal Shell’s take on a boss fight, against a huge creature with swords for hands and a metal cage over its head, called the Enslaved Grisha. As you might expect, it brought all the tough elements of Mortal Shell’s combat together, with devastating hits, a long reach, and multiple combos of attacks, some of which were unblockable. It also threatened to charge from across the huge icy cave in which it was found, and would slam its head into the ground, jostling loose stalactites from the ceiling and sending them crashing down.
As Harros, I’m pretty proud to say that I bested the boss on the first go, largely with deft use of harden, and the experience really showcased how that ability will work in the full game. Harden is a Trojan horse of an ability, allowing you to bait an attack from an enemy to open them up to a big counter. I would routinely start a thrusting heavy attack, harden midway through, and tank one of the boss’ swings, only to unfreeze and stab it in the throat. That did a fair amount of damage and gave me time to dance away and avoid another swing from the boss. The Grisha would come back after me right around the time harden had cooled down, allowing me to repeat the process.
Of course, it wasn’t always that easy. A big hit from the Grisha can ruin your day, and there aren’t many good ways to heal up in Mortal Shell, at least in this preview. Healing either relies on skill with a Resolve riposte, or on finding items like food in the world that can be accessed from a quick bar. The mushrooms that I had to restore health would take a full minute to be fully effective, which meant keeping my distance when I knew one more blow from the Grisha could take me down.
And all those elements work to make Mortal Shell deliberate, strategic, and calculating in a way that’s similar to, but not the same as, From Software’s games. The fact that you can’t heal instantly means you have to be extremely cautious, but the fact that you can harden your body to absorb a blow in an emergency or as part of a battle strategy allows you to find other ways to recover. Mortal Shell is a tough and punishing game like those that inspire it, but in the short preview we played, it found ways to take elements of the Dark Souls formula and recombine them into something new.
What I’m most interested in with Mortal Shell, though, is its strange and seemingly vast world. I have no idea yet who the spirit-like player character is, or the identity and role of Sister Genessa, or what this world is supposed to be, or who lives there. I want to know more about Harros and Tiel, their histories, and their seemingly untimely deaths.
And I definitely want to know what I can do with that lute.
Mortal Shell is due out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via the Epic Games Store this fall. It’ll hit Steam in 2021.
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Halo Infinite has been teased by Microsoft for quite a while, but the game’s story may have been spoiled by an unlikely source: building toys. A Mega Bloks construction set includes a figure that could reveal plot details.
Potential Halo Infinite spoilers follow.
Fans on the Gaming Rumors subreddit (via IGN) found an image from an upcoming Mega Bloks set that could spell doom for an existing character. A Brute enemy appears to be carrying the helmet of Jameson Locke, one of the heroes from Halo 5: Guardians. The Brute appears to be named Hyperious, and he could be a new Banished antagonist.
This isn’t necessarily a story spoiler. For one, Mega Bloks could be exercising some creative license to create new characters and reference existing ones. But even assuming Hyperious kills Locke and keeps his helmet as a grim trophy, that could be a part of the story that Microsoft and 343 plan to show in pre-release promotional materials, rather than a shocking twist in the game itself.
We know that Halo Infinite will be part of Microsoft’s first-party presentation planned for sometime this month. Though Microsoft hasn’t formally announced a date, we’ve seen reports indicating it could be coming on July 23. Microsoft is also planning a week-long period in which fans can download limited-time demos of games on Xbox One, as an at-home substitute for the E3 show floor experience. That will last from July 21-27.
GameSpot’s Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming–is ongoing. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
On July 15, the iconic period drama Mad Men will be available free to stream from Amazon’s IMDb TV. The announcement comes as part of a complex licensing deal outlined in Deadline, which also sees all 92 episodes of the Matthew Weiner-created series being carried and rolling out on Amazon Prime across the globe throughout the rest of the year.
In The U.S., Amazon/IMDb will have Mad Men exclusively from July 15 until October 1, at which point the series will also be “returning home” to AMC’s platforms. Mad Men originally aired on cable network AMC from 2007 to 2015.
The show’s expansive cast included Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, and many more. The series’ fiction timeline runs from March 1960 to November 1970 and follows Hamm’s self-destructive, supremely charming, and existentially adrift advertising executive Don Draper while also shading in the lives of the supporting cast in equal detail. Through these characters, Mad Men tracks how America and its political, social, and cultural attitudes shifted.
Along with other recent shows–Scrubs, Community, and The Office just to name a few–Mad Men will be adapting its content to confront the show’s use of blackface. Variety is reporting that Mad Men’s season 3 Episode “My Old Kentucky Home” will have a title card preceding it on all platforms “to provide context for the blackface scene.”
Netflix has released a new trailer for its live-action adaptation of the popular graphic novel series, Old Guard. The movie will be released on the streaming platform July 10, and this trailer does a good job of both enticing existing fans and helping newcomers get up to speed: Charlize Theron stars as a warrior named Andy, the leader of a covert group of immortal mercenaries who have fought in wars for centuries–and all they have is each other.
Introducing himself to a new member of the group, one mercenary says with a smirk, “We met in the Crusades. We killed each other.”
The movie chronicles the discovery and initiation of a new member into the secret, undying warrior tribe–and their being collectively forced to take up arms and fight for their freedom when it becomes clear their secret is out and they’re being targeted.
Based on the comic 2017 comic of the same name written by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Leandro Fernandez, the movie is written by Rucka and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. The film stars Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Red Magic has been our favorite brand for budget gaming phones for the last few years. While Asus and Razer have been busy topping each other with 120Hz screens and the highest-end specs, Red Magic has been content to offer a 90Hz experience at a discount.
The Nubia Red Magic 5G, on the other hand, eschews that trend by offering the first 144Hz display we’ve seen along with the latest processor and 5G connectivity. This handset’s splashy spec sheet also features modern comforts like a triple camera setup and an in-screen fingerprint reader – all at a fairly reasonable $579 price. But while this gaming-focused smartphone looks really great on paper, there are some notable quibbles you’ll have to contend with.
Nubia’s latest 5G gaming phone has seen a big design change over previous Red Magic devices. Instead of going with an angular, geometric metallic backside, the Red Magic 5 features a curved glass back. There’s also a smooth metal frame that goes all around the edges of the device, which makes it feel even more like a flagship phone.
The whole thing looks and feels as slick as a surfboard, which is great for its new premium stature, but also makes it extremely slippery. Comparatively, I always liked how it’s predecessor, the Red Magic 3S, had ridges and lines that gave my fingers a natural resting place to hold it.
Of course, this is still unmistakably a gaming phone considering the shoulder buttons, cooling vents, and RGB lighting on the back of the device. I also really dig the blended red and teal paint job and even the played-out X-shaped decal on my review unit.
The new 144Hz display is easily the biggest hardware upgrade on the Red Magic 5G. That’s even faster than the 120Hz screens you’ll find on the Asus ROG Phone 2 and Razer Phone 2. The fact that the refresh rate on this gaming phone is now as fast as some high-refresh-rate gaming monitors is impressive.
The phone’s AMOLED display is also decently sized at 6.65-inches and meets the same 1,080 x 2,340 resolution of most gaming phones on the market today. Thankfully, the screen gets super bright so you can easily see everything even in direct sunlight.
While that’s basically the same screen size we saw on the Red Magic 3S, the company has managed to make its latest handset smaller thanks to a slightly slimmer top and bottom bezels. However, in that process, the Red Magic 5G has moved the lower speaker to the bottom of the device, leaving only one front-firing speaker on its forehead.
In terms of hardware, you’re also getting pretty much everything you’d expect from a modern flagship device, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor with at least 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. This unit even features an in-display fingerprint reader, headphone jack, and a 4,500 mAh battery.
Nubia Red Magic 5G – Gaming and Performance
The Red Magic 5G flies faster than any flagship phone I’ve used, largely thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 5G. Add in the fact that it has a lower resolution display with a higher refresh rate, and this phone simply has more headroom to operate on a faster screen.
The 120Hz displays on the OnePlus 8 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra already felt incredibly smooth, but adding an extra 24Hz on top of that makes the Red Magic 5G feel just a bit more jitter-free.
When it comes to gaming though the 144Hz display isn’t exactly as universally useful. For one thing, very few games support it. In my testing, Real Racing 3 was the only game to run at the 144 fps needed to take full advantage of the high-refresh-rate display.
I hope more games in the future will be updated to take advantage of the ever-increasing refresh rates on Android phone displays. In the meantime, the Red Magic 5G is primed and ready for once mobile games catch up.
Still, you’ll be able to play Android games running at their highest available frame rates. Plus the 240Hz polling rate on the touchscreen and having two shoulder buttons gives you a huge advantage over most mobile gamers.
This is especially true in PUBG Mobile where I can aim more smoothly, see more frames of animation, and fire my gun without having to move my thumb off the virtual thumbsticks. Circle strafing for the win!
The Red Magic 5G also has a few dedicated gaming features, which can all be accessed as soon as you push forward a switch on the side of the phone. As soon as you do, you’ll be dropped into a gaming space with a spinning carousel of your games. This also immediately kicks on the internal fan, which has a high-pitched whine that sounds exactly like a hairdryer.
As much as I like my gaming phone running cool, the fan on the Red Magic 5G is loud even while running at its lowest speed. And when spinning at max speed, I could hear it from across my living room. You’ll definitely want to throw on a pair of headphones while gaming with this phone. The good news is it still has a headphone jack if you only have wired headphones or earbuds.
I usually don’t come expecting to write much about the photography you can take with a gaming phone, but the Red Magic 5G comes with a surprisingly long list of camera features. For starters, it has three cameras including one main 64MP wide-angle, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro – plus an 8MP selfie camera.
Images from the phone look sharp and colorful, especially with the 64MP main camera. However, photos taken on a sunny day can look overly contrasty with shadows that are too dark and matte out detail, while bright lights end up washing out colors. Images just aren’t as balanced and poppy as you would expect – this is where Android flagships like the OnePlus 8 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra win out.
Switching between the Red Magic 5G’s three cameras can be a bit complicated. You’ll need to jump into the camera settings menu to switch it from shooting at 16MP to its native 64MP resolution, however, this ends up disabling your ability to digitally zoom. Even stranger, the ultrawide camera is only accessible in the pro shooting mode and the macro lens option is buried even deeper in the grid of Camera-Family shooting modes.
The Red Magic 5G’s macro mode really isn’t great
Having a macro shooting option is fun and all, but with only two megapixels the photos from this mode look like they were taken with a toy camera.
Nubia Red Magic 5G – Battery Life
Between the Red Magic 5G’s sizable 4,500mAh battery and Full HD display, this phone has plenty of battery life in it to get you through long gaming sessions. Playing a single match of PUBG Mobile complete with a chicken dinner for 30 minutes only eats up 5% of the total battery life.
With more casual usage, which includes a fair share of watching videos and gaming along with everyday web browsing, you’re looking at around two days of battery life.
Although the Red Magic 5G is capable of fast charging at up to 55W, it only comes with an 18W charger. Don’t get me wrong, this phone soaks up electricity quickly with a completely depleted battery going back up to 32% after 30 minutes and then 51% after an hour. However, when I have it plugged into my 60W MacBook Pro charger, it easily regains a 53% charge after just 30 minutes.
The Nubia Red Magic 5G is available at a starting price of $579 from Amazon and Red Magic’s official site. This model comes equipped with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage in Black and Red color variants.
My review unit happened to be the higher-end variant equipped with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and it runs for a slightly higher $649 price on Amazon and Red Magic.
NBA 2K21 will be released on current-generation platforms on September 4, 2020, and while it won’t arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X until Holiday 2020, it is being built from the ground-up for the next-gen systems.
In addition, all versions of NBA 2K21 will offer a special Mamba Forever Edition that honors the late Kobe Bryant and his “lifelong pursuit of victory and legacy in the sport of basketball.”
Furthermore, the standard PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions of NBA 2K21 will cost $69.99 USD, a $10 increase over the current-generation platforms and that makes NBA 2K21 the first next-gen game to commit to that price point. The UK sees a £5 increase, from £59.99 to £64.99.
NBA 2K21 will not support Xbox Smart Delivery or a similar service on PlayStation 5, meaning there will not be a free upgrade to next-gen if you purchase the game on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. However, if players purchase the $99.99 USD Mamba Forever Edition, they will get the next-gen version when it is released at no extra cost.
The Mamba Forever Edition will include the Kobe Bryant Digital Collection that includes special MyPlayer Shoes and Jerseys, a Sapphire Kobe MyTEAM Card, and much more.
We asked a NBA 2K spokesperson about Xbox Smart Delivery, and they said “It’s something we’re interested in, but NBA 2K21 will not support Xbox Smart Delivery.”
The next-gen version of NBA 2K21 will offer “unbeatable graphic fidelity, two second load speeds, new gameplay features, and expanded game modes.” In addition, NBA 2K21 will have “MyTEAM Cross-Progression and a Shared VC Wallet within the same console family.”
While Kobe will grace the cover of the Mamba Forever Editions, the Portland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard and the New Orleans Pelicans’ Zion Williamson will be on the covers of the standard versions for current-generation and next-gen platforms, respectively.
“Each of our cover athletes represent different eras of the game of basketball – Damian Lillard dominates the court today, Zion Williamson is a standard bearer for the next generation of NBA superstar and what more could be said about Kobe?,” stated Alfie Brody, Vice President of Global Marketing at NBA 2K. “Three athletes representing the current, future and storied history of the game. Today’s exciting announcement is just the first of many for NBA 2K21; it’s going to be a huge year for basketball fans and NBA 2K gamers.”
NBA 2K21, which was first revealed at the PlayStation 5 reveal event, will be released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia on September 4, 2020. It will arrive as a launch title for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in Holiday 2020.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who says GO CAVS. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
