Month: September 2020

Mortal Kombat’s Ed Boon Is Promising A Tease For…Something

There are some game developers who can make news happen with a single cryptic sentence, tweeted out to a huge follower base, designed to rile up the imagination. One such developer is Ed Boon, the co-creator of Mortal Kombat and Injustice, who runs fighting game developer NetherRealm Studios.

Following the success of Mortal Kombat 11 and Injustice 2, Boon has promised a tease for something is on the horizon. You can see his tweet below, and start speculating.

Could the studio be gearing up to tease new Mortal Kombat 11 DLC? PS5 and Xbox Series X versions? Perhaps Injustice 3? It’s unclear. But the Mortal Kombat Twitter account responded, and with Mortal Kombat 11 proving so popular (and still selling incredibly well) we’re leaning more towards one of the first two options.

There’s also a question of where we might see a tease. Gamescom 2020 has just wrapped up, and the next big show is the Tokyo Game Show in late September, where we’ll see more of Resident Evil Village and many other titles. It’s also possible that we’ll see a tease during PAX Online, which runs from September 12-20.

Admittedly, this is all speculation–we’ll have to wait and see what is teased, and when.

Mortal Kombat recently grew with the Aftermath expansion, which added three new characters (Sheeva, Fujin, and Robocop) and a new campaign.

There have been rumors abounding that AT&T has been looking to sell WB Games, the publisher of Mortal Kombat and Injustice. However, that now seems unlikely.

Now Playing: Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath – Official Launch Trailer

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Mulan: Tens Of Thousands Of People Auditioned For The Lead Role

Disney’s next big movie is its live-action Mulan, which comes to select theatres alongside a paid-for release on Disney Plus this Friday, September 4. The movie features actress Liu Yifei in the lead role, and it’s a role she won amid a massive audition process.

Producer Jason Reed told Deadline that the search to cast Mulan was “unprecedented.” Reed estimated that “tens of thousands” of people tried out for the part before Disney choose Yifei for the role.

“We did this unprecedented global search for an actress to play the role. Tens of thousands, I believe, auditioned around the world. We had scouts going to martial arts schools, dance schools, and performance schools all throughout China,” Reed said. “We had casting offices open in all of the major cities that had significant Chinese populations of working artists, and ultimately Yifei was working on a project in China and she wasn’t initially available. We actually flew over to meet with her and we were smitten.”

Mulan director Niki Caro didn’t need any convincing to cast Yifei. “Niki was like, ‘She’s the one.’ It’s that simple, and fortunately, the studio loved her as well and immediately signed on,” Reed said.

Also in the interview, Reed spoke about why Disney elected to make the new Mulan an action movie instead of a musical like the 1998 animated film.

“Part of our thinking is that we thought that this material would be a great opportunity to do something new for the Disney label, to take this and convert it from a musical comedy, which the animated film was, which is great,” he said. “We still love it, and it’s one of my favorite Disney animated movies of all time. That movie still exists, but then to take that material and use it as the foundation on which to do a big epic adventure movie.”

Go to Deadline to read the full interview.

If you’re looking to watch Mulan on Disney Plus, you need to pay $30 USD for Premier Access. Alternatively, you could wait, as Mulan will eventually be released for all Disney Plus subscribers.

Now Playing: Disney’s Mulan (2020) – Official Teaser Trailer

Dead By Daylight Is Coming To PS5 And Xbox Series X, And All Versions Will Be Upgraded

Dead By Daylight is bound for next-gen, with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions announced. Developer Behaviour Interactive has announced the The Realm Beyond project, which will introduce numerous free updates to the game on all platforms in the lead up to the game’s fifth anniversary in June 2021.

Product manager Joris Four says that this is their way of building up to next-gen versions: “we will be introducing a series of free updates to our visuals, graphics, lighting, animations, and more for players on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Stadia while also building up to a Dead by Daylight experience for the next generation of consoles.”

The plan is to introduce more environmental elements into maps, starting with Springwood and Yamaoka Estate. “Individual rooms will now be more distinct, with each serving a specific function,” the post promises, and there will be new environmental storytelling elements introduced, as well as upgraded animations. There will be some significant new additions to maps, like a new Killer Shack in Yamaoka Estate.

The post also states that the team is currently updating “the visual fidelity of Dead by Daylight’s maps and characters”. You can preview some of those visual upgrades in the video below.

More details about these updates will be available in the future, but for now, the next major update will launch on September 8.

The game will continue to support cross-play across this project, so hopefully Switch players can join PS5 games and vice-versa once the next-gen versions are out.

Dead By Daylight has improved so much since launch that GameSpot recently re-reviewed it, giving it a 9/10. “Thanks to its community of players Dead by Daylight is without peer in the asymmetrical competitive multiplayer arena, and has grown into one of the most robust horror experiences around,” wrote reviewer Joab Gilroy.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Game Of Thrones Bosses Are Adapting Three-Body Problem For Netflix

The team helming Netflix‘s The Three-Body Problem adaptation has been announced, and some familiar names are attached to the project. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss of Game of Thrones fame, along with The Terror’s Alexander Woo, have been tapped to serve as the executive producers and writers.

The Three-Body Problem is an award-winning Chinese science fiction series of novels by Liu Cixin. Netflix’s adaptation will cover all three books in the trilogy, including The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End. The Three-Body problem starts in China’s Cultural Revolution period and grapples with humanity’s response to first contact by an alien civilization.

Benioff and Weiss are best known for their Game of Thrones work, including the final seasons that were not as well-received. The pair were set to work on Star Wars but are now instead lined up to work on multiple Netflix projects. Woo has written episodes for True Blood and was the showrunner/co-creator of The Terror’s second season.

The rest of the creative team includes executive producer Rian Johnson and producing partner Ram Bergman. Plan B Entertainment (Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner, and Dede Gardner’s company) will serve as an executive producer. Authors Liu Cixin and Ken Liu, the latter of which wrote the English translation of the first and third novels, are on board as consulting producers.

Benioff and Weiss commented, “Liu Cixin’s trilogy is the most ambitious science-fiction series we’ve read, taking readers on a journey from the 1960s until the end of time, from life on our pale blue dot to the distant fringes of the universe. We look forward to spending the next years of our lives bringing this to life for audiences around the world.”

The Three-Body Problem’s premiere date has not been announced yet.

Now Playing: 13 TV Shows Netflix Has Canceled In 2020

How To Watch Mulan On Disney Plus This Week

The Mulan live-action remake releases this Friday, September 4 on Disney+, but this isn’t a traditional release like we’ve seen with other movies on the service like Onward, Hamilton, and Frozen 2. Instead, simply having a Disney+ subscription won’t get you access–at least not immediately. If you’re interested in watching Mulan this weekend on the couch with your loved ones, here’s what you need to know.

Mulan has a $30 Premier Access price at release

The only way to watch Mulan at release is to pay $30 for “Premier Access” on Disney+. You can watch Mulan in UHD, HDR, and with Dolby Audio enabled. Mulan is the first movie to fall into this category on Disney+, and Disney has said that it doesn’t have plans to lock future movies behind a paywall at this time.

Of course, this price is on top of the price of your Disney+ subscription ($7 per month). Disney+ doesn’t currently have a free trial, so you will have to pay for at least a month to watch Mulan if you aren’t already a subscriber. This would essentially raise your cost to $37 if you’re only interested in Disney+ due to Mulan.

If you’re watching with a few family members, you could consider it as a more cost-efficient trip to the movies without actually going to the theater.

Keep watching as long as you have an active Disney+ subscription

After paying for Premier Access, you can watch Mulan as many times as you want provided you keep an active Disney+ subscription. Once your subscription lapses, you won’t be able to watch it again until you re-up your membership. This model is similar to PlayStation Plus and Xbox Games with Gold freebies, which you get to play as much as you want while your subscription is active.

That said, this model does make Mulan fall somewhere between a rental and a purchase-to-own digital release–and a very pricey one at that. Other movies that skipped theatrical releases in the US due to the current pandemic have been priced as high as $20 for digital rentals, but we’ve never seen $30. The fact that you also need a Disney+ subscription to watch makes it by far the priciest home digital release we’ve seen.

Mulan will eventually be available for all Disney+ subscribers

If you don’t mind waiting, Disney has confirmed that Mulan will eventually be available to stream for all Disney+ subscribers without Premier Access. It’s unclear at this time when Mulan will leave Premier Access, but we imagine it won’t be a matter of weeks.

Walmart Plus, A New Amazon Prime Competitor, Launches This Month

Amazon has been a leading player in the e-commerce space for many years, but one of its biggest competitors is taking an even bigger step to gain the loyalty and patronage of online shoppers. On Monday, Walmart announced Walmart+, a new annual membership shoppers can sign up for to receive exclusive perks, such as unlimited free delivery and same-day shipping on select items. This is a rebranding and expansion of the existing Delivery Unlimited program, which launched last year and only focused on groceries. Walmart+ includes items across all of the retailer’s categories, from tech and gaming to toys and household essentials.

Walmart+ costs $98 a year or $12.95 a month, the same price as the previous Delivery Unlimited program. A 15-day free trial period is available. The primary benefits are unlimited free delivery from stores and same-day delivery on more than 160,000 items. This includes in-store prices and discounts, which could be a huge draw to gamers if this program includes brand-new games. Walmart regularly offers new AAA games for $49.94 instead of $60 on release day in stores, and it sounds like Walmart+ could allow you to take advantage of this discount online and receive same-day shipping as well, if new games are eligible. We’ve reached out to Walmart for clarification.

Non-members can already take advantage of free two-day and next-day shipping on select items for orders of $35 or more. In this way, Walmart’s already been competing with Amazon Prime on the fast delivery front, offering some of the same perks with an order minimum instead of a yearly membership fee.

In addition to the delivery benefits, Walmart+ unlocks Scan & Go in the Walmart app, which lets you shop in-store much faster by scanning items with the app as you go. When you’re done, you can pay using the app as well, which allows for a quicker, touch-free experience (definitely a pro during the current pandemic). Walmart+ also gets you discounts on fuel, allowing you to save up to 5 cents a gallon at nearly 2,000 Walmart, Murphy USA, and Murphy Express gas stations. Sam’s Club fuel stations will be added soon as well.

The Walmart+ program launches on September 15, and there’s no way to sign up just yet. Though cheaper than Amazon’s $120 per year Prime membership, Walmart+ does include fewer benefits–Prime, for example, unlocks access to Prime Gaming, Prime Video, and more in addition to free same-day and one-day shipping. According to Walmart, more Walmart+ benefits will be added over time, though no details have been shared on that front.

When asked about Amazon Prime in a press call on Monday, Walmart chief customer officer Janey Whiteside declined to compare the two services, CNET reported. “We’re not launching Walmart+ with the intent to compete with anything else,” Whiteside said. “We’re launching it to meet the needs of our customers.”

Path of Exile: Heist is the Ocean’s 11 of Action-RPGs

Action RPGs have always been based on a fairly simple foundation: Click the monsters until they die, collect some sweet new gear, repeat. Grinding Gear Games has spent the last several years looking for new ways to change this loop up and keep it fresh with their seasonal content in Path of Exile, and Heist is looking to be the most novel and unique crack at it yet. In the new hub town of Rogue Harbour, you’re going to be putting a team together to plan out and execute some daring break-ins that will encourage research, stealth, and careful planning.

Heists are instanced areas that differ from your average Path of Exile map due to an alert level that measures how… unsubtle you’re being. Alerting enemies to your presence or going out of your way to ransack optional loot rooms will raise the alert. If it reaches maximum, the whole place goes on red alert and you’ll find yourself swarmed with powerful enemies and your best bet is to make a run for it. This will also happen once you grab the artifact – the big prize you came here for, which will be some kind of potent rare item. Then, you have to get back out. Any loot you picked up in a heist will be lost forever if you die before reaching the exit.

Smash and Grab

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This doesn’t mean they’re trying to turn Path of Exile into Splinter Cell. You’ll still do a fair bit of bashing, blasting, and zapping. But you’ll be making decisions throughout a heist about when to go in fireballs blazing and when to pursue a more subtle approach. And new avenues to overcome obstacles without simply slicing your way through them will be available thanks to your NPC crew.

Rogues bring AI-controlled companions to Path of Exile for the first time, though you’ll only be able to bring them along on Heists for now. There are 13 of them available, each with their own personalities, backstories, and abilities. Some are good at picking locks. Some can scoff at the very concept of locks and just ram straight through a bit of loose masonry to make an opening. You’ll also coordinate with these characters in the planning phase of a heist to arrange things like transportation and scouting out the joint.

One of the best things about the Heist system is that you can start messing with it from the very start of the new league. Maps are usually relegated to the endgame, but Contracts and Blueprints that unlock Heists and larger, sprawling Grand Heists will now be available as you level as well. These items are also tradeable, so if you’re not as interested in the smash and grab, you can at least profit off of the ones you nab along the way.

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Grand Heists differ from the garden variety ones by spanning multiple wings, each of which has its own alert level, so tipping off the guards in one won’t put the whole facility on lockdown. At the end of each is a treasure room that will allow you to pick one very potent reward from a small selection of different ones, forcing you to leave the others behind. Base blueprints can be improved by revealing extra wings, opening up new escape routes, and discovering bonus, optional treasure rooms. So you can head in as soon as you have one ready to go, or spend resources to turn it into a more elaborate, well-planned job.

Primetime Slot

Heist is also adding a new equipment slot for the first time in Path of Exile’s history. Trinkets don’t actually buff your character’s combat abilities, but rather allow you to customize the kinds of rewards you get from running Heists. One example will turn a certain number of common Regal Orbs that drop from chests into the much more sought-after Exalted Orbs. Others will increase the chances of certain modifiers like Corrupted appearing on items dropped by monsters. You’ll also finally be able to find enchanted weapons and body armor, though Grand Heists. These items are being designed to be a potent upgrade immediately, without much rerolling of slots or other crafty fiddling needed, to give you the sense that you can play with your new toy immediately.

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Funding Heists will require a new currency called markers, which can be gained by fencing the stolen Artifacts you get at the end of each one. You’ll also spend them paying rogues, and you’ll need a certain amount as a buy-in to prepare beforehand. Spending more marks before you go in can make your time a little easier, but it also cuts into the overall profit you’ll take home. And a failed heist doesn’t just mean you lose any loot you swiped – you’ll also be out all the markers you sent getting ready. It’s almost like adding a business management layer on top of everything.

There are a ton of other, smaller additions and improvements coming, like changes to Curse skills, new Unique items, and Mac support. You’ll be able to get your hands dirty on September 18.

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Leana Hafer is an avid PC gamer. Talk action-RPGs, strategy games, and more with her on Twitter at @AsaTJ.

AT&T No Longer Looking to Sell Warner Bros. Interactive Gaming Division

After reports stating that AT&T was looking to sell Warner Bros. Interactive, which includes studios like Rocksteady, NetherRealm, and WB Montreal, it has now removed its gaming division from the list of noncore assets up for sale.

As reported by Bloomberg, AT&T has decided “it was too valuable to unload during its effort to pay down debt and streamline, according to people familiar with the situation.”

In June, CNBC reported that Warner Bros. Interactive had attracted interest from many companies, a list that includes Microsoft, EA, Activision, and Take-Two, and that this potential sale could have “reaped $4 billion” for AT&T. However, it now sees the “business’s growth potential.”

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AT&T had been working with LionTree Advisors earlier in the year to explore a potential sale of this gaming division, and the decision to ultimately abandon the sale, which could always change in the future, “came amid a turnover in senior leadership at AT&T.”

Bloomberg notes that a few factors may have influenced this retreat, including the upcoming release of the yet-unannounced Harry Potter game and the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has kept people at home with more opportunities to play games.

Additionally, Warner Bros. Interactive works with a ton of licensed properties, which would make a sale complicated as it would “come with a set of long-term strings attached.”

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While there is no mention of Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and WB Montreal’s Gotham Knights, these recently revealed games will also most likely be two big titles for the gaming division, and AT&T as a whole.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.