The next generation of gaming is here. In the same week, we’ll be seeing the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S all launch, which means there’s a ton of ground to cover right now. From console reviews to game reviews to tips on things you might not know and beyond, GameSpot’s ongoing coverage will be going strong in the days and weeks to come.
To help you keep on top of everything that we have coming, we’ve put together a schedule showcasing some of our upcoming content, including reviews, big features, essential news stories, and our freshly updated preorder guides with all the latest on how and when you can buy these consoles for yourself. There’s plenty more on top of what you see here, so be sure to stay tuned to both GameSpot’s homepage and Generation Next hub for a more comprehensive rundown as things get published. Due to embargoes, we can’t always share when things are coming, but you can expect coverage of all the big games hitting the consoles this month.
Thursday, November 5
Reviews
More Coverage
Friday, November 6
The Best PS4 Games To Play On PS5
The Best Xbox One Games To Play On Xbox Series X/S
During a press conference for AEW’s Full Gear PPV–taking place on Saturday, November 7–Cody discussed the future of using his name. “I’m very happy about being Cody Rhodes, again. The details of it all aren’t important other than it was a very positive, no hard feelings on either side, type scenario. I will say though it’s not something I probably will use in the wrestling space. I’ve gotten very used to ‘The American Nightmare’ Cody. I like how Justin Roberts says it. I just like it, [and have] for some time.
“Where I’m most excited about ‘Cody Rhodes’ being available again is when it comes to third party ventures and things like Go-Big Show that I just took part in coming to TBS and other projects like that.”
Cody went on to say that within the world of wrestling, everyone knows and understands the saga of the name, but outside of this community, the vast majority of people don’t. So when it comes to Cody in future projects outside of wrestling, “It’ll be nice to finally tell them what they can credit on the screen, and where the SAG credits can go and things of that nature. It was a very special day. I’m happy. It worked out, and I’m very thankful for everybody who was involved.
Cody will most likely continue under the name of “The American Nightmare” Cody, and you can see him defend the TNT Championship on Saturday against Darby Allin at Full Gear. The pre-show can be watched for free onYouTube, and it starts at 4:30 PM PT / 7:30 PM ET. The main card for Full Gear starts at 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET and can be purchased for $50 onB/R Live.
We’re just days away from the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, but unless you’ve already preordered the next-gen console of your choice, don’t count on being able to purchase it at Best Buy in the near future. In a blog post today, Best Buy confirmed it will not have the PS5 or Xbox Series X/S in retail stores on launch day or during the holidays. Instead, the consoles could be restocked on BestBuy.com, but Best Buy gave no indication of when that might be.
“If you haven’t preordered a new console yet, you still might be able to get your hands on one–but only on BestBuy.com,” Best Buy representative Katie Huggins wrote in the blog post. “While our stores won’t have devices for purchase on launch day or throughout the holiday season, keep an eye on BestBuy.com, where they’ll be available for purchase as soon as we have them available.”
This statement means it’s now unclear whether Best Buy will have the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S available online during Black Friday as previously reported. Best Buy’s Black Friday 2020 ad shows both the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S and advertises them as being available online-only in limited quantities, and their inclusion in the ad implies they’ll be available during Best Buy’s Black Friday sale, which the retailer has still not shared start dates and times for.
However, when GameSpot asked Best Buy specifically about Black Friday availability, the spokesperson only reiterated that consoles would not be available in stores throughout the holiday season and that consoles would be “available on BestBuy.com as we have inventory available.”
So here’s what we know now: Best Buy’s website will probably restock the PS5 and Xbox Series X sometime in the near future, but we won’t get any advance notice, and it may or may not occur around Black Friday. Best Buy stores will not have either console in stock until 2021.
People who have already preordered the PS5 or Xbox Series X/S and selected in-store pickup will still be able to do so on launch day when stores open early at 9 AM local time (or at your confirmed appointment time).
Meanwhile, Walmart today announced its launch day restock times for the next-gen consoles next week. The Xbox Series X and Series S will be available on Walmart.com at 12 PM ET on Tuesday, while the PS5 will have four different time slots for hopeful buyers on Thursday: 12 PM, 3 PM, 6 PM, and 9 PM ET.
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A recent launch trailer for Gearbox Publishing’s looter-slasher Godfall confirms that the upcoming action-RPG will be exclusive to the PlayStation 5 for a six-month period.
Godfall launches on November 12, the same day the PlayStation 5 comes out in most regions. (Sony’s next-gen console launches worldwide a week later on November 19.) The game will be a PS5 console exclusive until at least May 12, 2021, according to the fine print at the end of the launch trailer. Godfall will still hit Windows PCs, but no other consoles have been confirmed.
Gearbox and developer Counterplay Games have not specified whether Godfall will launch on Xbox Series S / Series X or any other consoles. This marks Godfall as a definitive launch game and a short-term exclusive. Check out some of the other PS5 launch titles and exclusives here.
News about Godfall’s PS5 exclusivity comes not long after Gearbox showed off the game in a PlayStation 5 disc box. Company CEO Randy Pitchford called it the first physical PS5 game.
With Godfall coming out next Thursday, now is a good time to check out our Godfall preorder guide to learn about the bonuses and editions available to purchase. And while you’re at it, hit up our PlayStation 5 preorder guide to find out how to get one on launch day–hopefully.
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With the PlayStation 5 launch a week away, now is a good time to start planning how you’re going to migrate your PS4 library to your new console to make use of backwards compatibility. Thankfully, Sony has released a video showing how straightforward the process is. There are multiple ways to transfer game data from your PS4 to your PS5, the easiest of which is Data Transfer.
Using Data Transfer
Simply log into your PS4 and PS5 with the same PlayStation Network account, update your PS4 to the latest firmware, and ensure that both consoles are connected to the same network. If you’re planning to do the transfer over Wi-Fi, Sony recommends connecting your two consoles via ethernet to speed up the process. You can then start the transfer from you PS5, which will bring over all installed games and saved games from your PS4.
Using An External Drive
If you won’t have access to your PS4 when your PS5 arrives, you can still transfer your games to your new console using an external hard drive. Any PS4 games installed on an external HDD will immediately be recognized and work on your PS5, with Sony recommending you play them from there to keep the internal SSD free for PS5 titles that will require it. Considering you’ll only have access to around 650GB on PS5, that’s a good tip.
Using Discs And Downloads
If you purchase the PS5 with a disc drive, you can pop in any PS4 discs and have the game install directly to your new console. Backwards-compatible PS4 games will also be available for download from the PlayStation Store or your Game Library on PS5 once you log into the console with your PSN account, although this is easily the most data and time-consuming way of transferring your data since you’ll be redownloading everything.
Transferring PS4 Save Files To PS5
Save games can be transferred in various ways too. The Data Transfer option will move over all save games during the transfer process, so if you choose that method there’s nothing additional to worry about. If not, then you can either transfer save manually using an external hard drive or flash drive, or you can download them via your PlayStation Plus cloud storage. Ensure that you have uploaded your save games and have an active PS Plus subscription to use this option.
Dirt 5 is a very different game to the previous three entries in Codemasters’ off-road racing series. Dirt Rally and its sequel spun the series off in a simulation-based direction, appealing to rally purists with its authentic approach, uncompromising difficulty, and steep learning curve. Dirt 4 followed suit with another smattering of point-to-point rally races, but crucially made the experience accessible for casual racing fans by introducing a more forgiving handling model. With a third Dirt Rally already in development, Codemasters is looking to diversify the series’ mainline entries by returning to the arcade spectacle and histrionics of Dirt’s early years with Dirt 5.
This much is clear from the outset, as Dirt 5 latches onto the same jovial festival vibes that permeated throughout Dirt 2–complete with a customizable lanyard, vibrant colors, and an upbeat soundtrack. The career mode takes you on a globetrotting adventure that encompasses a variety of different racing disciplines, but there’s no sign of any co-drivers relaying pacenotes, nor are there any traditional point-to-point rally events. Dirt 5 distances itself from the series’ recent past by being an unabashed arcade racer that’s made up of short, action-packed skirmishes where you’re constantly trading paint with a pack of other drivers. There’s an infectious energy to the whole thing that’s reflected in a handling model that sees you hurl its cars around the track with relative ease.
Dirt 5 played on PC
Dirt 4 may have featured a driving school that provided lessons on weight transfer and how to execute pendulum shifts, but Dirt 5 renders that knowledge unnecessary. Getting around most corners is as simple as slowing down before pulling on the handbrake to lurch your car sideways and drift around each mud-swept turn. There’s not a lot more to it than that, trading any meaningful depth for approachability that veers too far toward simplicity. Collisions are tame, especially when combined with a listless damage system, and the physics model often throws up some oddities whenever a car goes airborne. This isn’t enough to sap the fun out of the experience, but there’s always a nagging feeling that Dirt 5 isn’t extracting the most out of these vehicles. Any rip-roaring moments are weighed against others that are just a tad dull due to its facile and uninspired handling. As such, the plethora of tracks, and their diverse weather systems, gain added importance throughout Dirt 5’s career mode.
You’ll drive around the hills and favelas surrounding Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, hurtle through the picturesque fishing village of Henningsvær with the Northern Lights as a stunning backdrop, and drift across the frozen East River beneath the Roosevelt Island Bridge in New York. There are also excursions to China and its dense bamboo forests, races through the scorching Arizona desert, and treacherous visits to the Himalayas. This medley of locales is essential, not only from a visual point of view–what with their impressive scope and exaggerated depictions–but because of the variety of surfaces and weather you’ll encounter during your travels.
There isn’t a discernible impact on your vehicle’s handling when racing on gravel, mud, or dirt, and that remains true whether you’re darting around the track in an iconic Subaru Impreza S4 or sitting behind the wheel of the electric Audi AI:TRAIL quattro–which both looks and sounds like it should be in Death Stranding. The only outliers are heavy snow and ice, with the latter having its own dedicated event type, Ice Breakers. Heavy snow causes your vehicle to understeer as the tires get bogged down in the slush, while the opposite occurs on ice, where a lack of traction makes the handbrake superfluous. These surfaces force you to alter your approach and add some much-needed subtlety to Dirt 5’s handling model.
They’re also complemented by a weather system that has the studio’s DNA written all over it. Dirt 5 is the first game in the series not developed at Codemasters’ Southam headquarters. Instead, development duties have fallen to the company’s Cheshire studio, which previously flew under the banner of Evolution Studios and developed the likes of Motorstorm, Driveclub, and most recently Onrush. Extreme weather is a staple of those games, and that remains true in Dirt 5, with electrical storms, heavy snowfall, and torrents of rain all being frequent occurrences as you bounce from one track to another. It’s boisterous and over-the-top but adds the sort of white-knuckle drama that hasn’t been seen in racing games since Motorstorm Apocalypse.
Aside from being a feast for the eyes, weather sometimes has an effect on the surface of a track, too. As snow continues to fall, you’ll see it gradually build up on the road with each successive lap, making the latter stages of a race very different from the earlier ones. Rain and snow can also impede your vision when racing at night, forcing you to use the lights dotted around the track for guidance. By the end of most races, your vehicle represents a busy canvas of your most recent exploits, covered wheel to wheel in the remnants of whichever element and surface you were just driving through. It’s inherently fun, and makes it easy to forget about the limp handling when you’re battling for first place as lightning strikes illuminate the night sky.
Inclement weather in Dirt 5
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There’s a decent variety of events on offer as well, even if it’s difficult to tell some of them apart. Ultra Cross offers circuit-based races in rally cars, featuring classics such as the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI and Ford RS200, and modern machines like the Citroen C3 R5 and WRX Peugeot 208. Stampede, meanwhile, will put your hefty 4×4’s suspension to the test, with races taking place on rugged terrain filled with jumps and undulating obstacles like boulders and mounds of mud. Dirt 5 even introduces American Sprint Cars for the first time in the series. These ludicrously overpowered machines are outfitted with enormous spoilers to prevent them from shooting off into the stratosphere, and guiding them around an oval track isn’t as simple as it sounds.
If you don’t fancy certain event types, the career mode also emphasizes player choice, giving you the option to choose branching paths that focus on the events you want to play. Outside of this, however, the career mode is fairly hollow. You can select different sponsors that reward you with cosmetic items like liveries and stickers, but that’s as far as it goes. The somewhat surprising inclusion of a story rounds out the career, as Nolan North and Troy Baker face off as rival rally drivers. The narrative is told via brief podcasts hosted by Donut Media’s James Pumphrey and Nolan Sykes, and they manage to capture a conversational tone that’s both natural and believable. Listening to these soundbites while sitting on the event select screen comes across as an inelegant way to tell a story, though. Your role is also inconsequential, and it wraps up with an anticlimactic finale that makes you question why this story was even included.
Dirt 5 distances itself from the series’ recent past by being an unabashed arcade racer that’s made up of short, action-packed skirmishes.
Outside of the career mode, Playgrounds is new to the series, offering a Trackmania-esque level creator and sharing tool that shows some promise. There’s already a convincing recreation of an X Games track, and the necessary inclusion of Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road, just to name a few. Hopefully there’s an audience for it that will eventually grow and put its tools to the test to construct some fascinating tracks. Aside from the usual slew of online races, there are also a number of party games that can be played either online or with up to four players via split screen. This sees the introduction of Vampire, a new variant on Dirt 3’s Outbreak mode that tasks one player with infecting the others by bumping into them.
It’s this lightheartedness that helps to differentiate Dirt 5 from the hardcore simulation of Dirt Rally. Splitting up the two disparate sides of this series with such a bold line feels like a smart move on Codemasters’ part. It allows Dirt Rally to head in a more authentic and uncompromising direction, while the mainline entries continue to indulge in the series’ arcade sensibilities. Dirt 5 doesn’t quite stick the landing due to its simplistic handling model, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had when racing door to door in an excessive snowstorm or throwing a Porsche 911 R-GT down the side of a mountain in a frenetic race to the bottom. It doesn’t reach the heights of Dirt 2, but that game’s influence is keenly felt in Dirt 5. If the series continues along this path, it won’t be long until it’s soaring high again.
This week on Wrestle Buddies, GameSpot’s professional wrestling podcast, Chris E. Hayner and Mat Elfring are looking back on some of the most entertaining moments in WWE history–and they’re not doing it alone. In addition to welcoming former WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia to chat,, we revisit what might be the most bizarre year of WWE programming ever and dig deep into the company’s former on-screen president.
First up, Mat decided to watch all of WWE’s programming from 1995. Why is he doing this? Not even he knows the answer, to be honest. However, what a journey it’s been so far. You might not remember this–or perhaps didn’t even watch wrestling then–but this was not a great time for WWE. From characters like Man Mountain Rock to the company’s obsession with Pamela Anderson, it really was a sight to behold.
Then, given it’s election week, we look back at one of the most important presidents of any of our lives. We are, of course, talking about WWF President Jack Tunney. That’s right, Before WWE had general managers, commissioners, or even a sheriff named “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Jack Tunney was an on-screen authority figure named president of the company and some of his decisions were downright ludicrous.
Lastly, legendary WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia joins the show to talk about her favorite moments with the company, from backstage interviews with The Rock to beer bashes with Steve Austin. Lilian also discusses getting physical in the ring and her new role as an announcer for an MMA group. Perhaps most importantly, she’s here to talk about her podcast Chasing Glory being added to the free version of the WWE Network.
New episodes of Wrestle Buddies are released every Thursday on the podcast platform or app of your choice, including Spotify, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts. You can also keep up to date with the podcast by following it on Twitter.
The launch of the PS5 is very close now, just one week away, and so you may already have visions of Spider-Mans and Bugsnax dancing in your head. If you’re curious about how to fine-tune your new hardware, though, Sony is here to help with a new video going over some of the finer points of the system settings.
The brief explainer video walks you through how to tweak the settings for 3D audio, haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, and power-saving in rest mode. It’s all very snappy and easy to understand, but seeing it laid out may give you a better idea of exactly what to expect.
The haptic feedback and adaptive trigger settings can be made less strong if you find they’re too much to handle. The power setting is set to “Optimized Experience” by default, which gives you some handy features like remote power-on and auto-updates, but it uses more power. A “Low Power Use” setting turns off those features but runs at much lower power in rest mode, or you can customize some mixture of both. The 3D audio might require the most experimentation, as Sony notes that you may need to try the settings to see which one matches your ear level.
One of the most-talked about movies in 2020 is none other than Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, a movie that kept getting pushed back because of COVID-19 and at one point was delayed indefinitely. Eventually, the movie hit theaters, and Nolan was actually pleased with the results. Now, it’s apparently coming to the home market next month.
According to Collider’s Steven Weintraub, you’ll be able to watch Tenet on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and digitally on December 15, a little more than a month away. While the movie’s global take was $350 million, without the pandemic and theater closures, it would have attracted a lot more people.
BREAKING: #TENET will arrive on 4K, Blu Ray, DVD and Digital on December 15. Since L.A. theaters have been closed for many months, looks like I’ll finally be able to see ‘Tenet’ on Dec 15th!! pic.twitter.com/C1pPMJ9mKW
Deadline reports that the home release for the movie will be exceptionally pricey. It will retail for $45 on 4K UHD, $36 on Blu-ray, and $29 on DVD. It will feature an hour-long featurette about the making of the movie as well. Typically, new 4K UHD movies retail for $25–with some special editions coming in at $35, like an upcoming New Mutants Steelbook release. At this time, major retailers do not have a listing for Nolan’s movie–although searching for the movie typically brings up a lot of tents rather than copies of Tenet.
Chances are, because of the hype and talk about the movie for the majority of the year, it should do exceptionally well in the home market, especially with Christmas right around the corner. Many would probably love to see Tenet on HBO Max–owned by Time Warner–for the holiday season, but that’s not likely to happen. At the time of this writing, Warner Bros. has not commented on the film’s release, but should in the coming days.
