Walmart Deals for Day is returning later this month, and it’s directly competing with Prime Day 2021, which Amazon confirmed earlier today will be June 21 and 22. Walmart Deals For Days will start earlier and run longer, going from June 20-23, according to CNET. The annual sales event will include both online-only sales via Walmart.com as well as in-store-only deals, with discounts across categories like electronics, toys, home, fashion, and beauty.
Unlike Prime Day, Walmart shoppers don’t need a membership to score deals. The retailer has teased some of the deals that will appear during its Deals for Days sale, which is promoted as “Black Friday-like savings.” According to CNET, Walmart Deals for Days will include the following discounts and more:
Walmart isn’t the only retailer looking to compete with Amazon–Target’s Deal Days sale will run from June 20-22, also overlapping with Prime Day. Both Target and Walmart announced their sales the same day that Amazon confirmed Prime Day dates.
Knockout City isn’t the dodgeball from your childhood. It’s an intense team-based multiplayer take on the grade school sport that combines simple, easy to pick up controls, with deceptively complex tactics and strategies that may be surprising coming from a game featuring this type of Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic. Its crisp, satisfying gameplay and multiplayer duels deliver all of the highs of gym class sports without the smelly uniforms or the anxiety of being picked last.
I’ve found the art style to be an acquired taste. The Bratz doll look of the characters was off-putting at first, but taken with the colorful cityscapes, the genre-defying energy of the soundtrack, and eclectic customization options, Knockout City has a charm that’s hard to deny. I love the distinctive sound each of the different balls makes when they collide with targets, particularly that hollow and familiar “bonk” of the standard red rubber variety.
The base rules of this sport are simple: your team of three or four has to eliminate the opposing team by clobbering them with balls that spawn across the maps. Players must be hit twice to be knocked out, and the first team to 10 knockouts wins.
When a ball is in your hand, you’re almost like a baseball pitcher in that there’s a shot selection aspect to every throw you make as you attempt to break your opponent’s defense, which is a simple yet powerful catch. The basic throw can be charged to a faster variation, you can throw a slow lob that can change the opponent’s timing just enough to throw them off, or you can throw wide curve balls to reach around obstacles and exploit enemy blind spots. Winning a duel is much more about that choice than it is about precision – since all aim is auto-targeted, having great on-the-run aim like in a traditional third-person shooter is a non-factor. Instead, every interaction is a matter of having better reflexes and more devious tactics in focused, tennis-like volley exchanges.
Among the strangest and most effective moves is ignoring balls completely, and instead turning yourself into one for your teammates to throw. When you “ball up” you can be tossed to eliminate opponents like normal, or supercharged to become a sort of living, guided mortar shell. These UItimate Throws cause a devastating explosion on impact, knocking out anyone caught in the blast instantly. Using players as balls is risky, though. You can be caught like any other ball and thrown back against your team, or worse, thrown off the stage for an instant knockout. And of course, should you miss with a big Ultimate Throw, you are super exposed to counter attack.
Some of the more advanced techniques, like passes that charge the ball to max speed faster or dashes that double as powerful tackles that deflect throws and disarm opponents, provide great depth that high-skill players are already starting to make use of. I’m just scratching the surface of that after a few dozen games, never going too long without using a trick shot or an Ultimate Throw to gain an advantage in a close game. Not only do all of these little maneuvers feel easy and accessible, but they all feel necessary for true dodgebrawl mastery.
Most of the stages do a great job at throwing unique environmental wrinkles into the standard play. I quickly found a favorite stage in Galaxy Burger, which features a circular spinning restaurant that begs you to make wild trick throws inside it. The Roundabout adds cars to the mix, forcing you to stay on the move at all times or get bounced around by rush hour traffic. Of course, not every gimmick becomes something worth playing around, like the transporting tubes in Back Alley Brawl, but they don’t detract from the action either.
The special balls that spawn during games have a far more dramatic impact on gameflow from match to match. Sniper balls turn games into more long-range affairs, as players can hang back and launch high speed throws from afar. Multi-balls give you three throws instead of one, turning players into rapid-fire ballers for a limited time. I love that these options are so clearly worth playing around that they can change the pace of a game by their mere presence. For instance, when I hear the ticking of a Bomb Ball, I’m far less likely to stick close to teammates just in case they become ground zero for a sudden explosion.
Knockout City’s matchmaking is a bit wonky, though. Especially in unranked Street Play, where I’ve regularly joined games mid match only to find that my whole team has already gone idle, leaving me alone to get walloped by the enemy. Pickup games are at the mercy of the random people you’re playing with, which may not give you a fair shot.
Should you need a break from the standard gameplay, Knockout City offers rotating game modes that get shuffled every week that put interesting spins on the rules. One added a sort of gold rush system where every hit causes enemies to drop diamonds that you collect to score instead of simply chasing knockouts. My favorite mode removed all the balls completely, forcing players to throw their teammates at each other instead. Ultimately, these modes are fun distractions but never more alluring than the standard three-versus-three matches for very long.
Several people who previously worked on the Shin Megami Tensei series will be announcing their new game, Monark, on June 10 in the latest issue of the Japanese game magazine, Famitsu.
On the game’s official website, there are quite a few names listed, but most of them are scribbled out. However, four names are legible, which are as follows:
Aya Nishitani (Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei writer)
Tsukasa Masuko (Composer for Shin Megami Tensei, II, If…, and Devil Summoner)
Ryutaro Ito (Writer for Shin Megami Tensei, II, If…, and Devil Summoner)
The website also has a mysterious phone number listed: 050-3204-4961. When the number is called, you can hear screams in the background with a voice saying in Japanese, “Finally, I have been waiting for you, my foolish, silly children.”
Monark is dubbed as a “new-school RPG”, and whatever that means is vague at best right now. There’s a countdown timer on the website leading up to the game’s announcement on June 10, so hopefully we’ll get plenty of information about what Monark actually is then.
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With writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman bidding farewell to Eddie Brock in the upcoming Venom #200, you might be wondering what’s next for Marvel’s Lethal Protector. Now Marvel Comics has revealed the next chapter in Venom’s ongoing story, with a brand new monthly Venom series to debut in November 2021.
The new series features quite the impressive creative team, including co-writers Al Ewing (The Immortal Hulk) and Ram V (Swamp Thing) and artist Bryan Hitch (The Ultimates). If you recall, V recently won IGN’s Best Comic Book Writer of 2020 award. The creative team also includes inker Andrew Currie and colorist Alex Sinclair.
“When my editors at Marvel reached out about taking on Venom alongside Al Ewing and Bryan Hitch, I was not prepared for the kind of creative thrill it has been ever since,” Ram V said in Marvel’s press release. “This story is going to expand and push the symbiote narrative and lore in even more unexpected and fantastic directions. It is also an utter thrill having the sort of call and response mechanic I’ve had with a writer like Al and an artist of Bryan’s caliber. Fans and new readers, strap in— you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Warning: the remainder of this article contains spoilers for King in Black #5!
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Marvel isn’t revealing much about the plot of the new series just yet. But between Hitch’s preview art and the ending of the recent King in Black crossover, we have some idea of what’s in store for the character. King in Black ended with Venom destroying the symbiote god Knull and taking control of the entire Klyntar race. The art suggests we’ll see Venom leave Earth behind (at least for a while) and guide his fellow symbiotes toward a new destiny.
King in Black also featured the resurrection of former Agent Venom Flash Thompson. It’s possible the series will focus on both characters, showing Flash’s adventures on Earth while Eddie ventures into the stars. It is worth noting these two teaser images feature different Venom costumes. That may also explain why V and Ewing are cowriting the series together, if the two are each focusing on one main character.
We’ll probably have a better idea of the new series’ direction once Venom #200 arrives on June 16. Marvel will also tease the relaunch with a new short story in the upcoming Free Comic Book Day 2021: Spider-Man/Venom #1, which releases on August 14.
Electronic Arts has hired the former general manager of Call of Duty and Destiny from Activision to become the GM of Battlefield going forward.
Byron Beede is now the SVP and GM of Battlefield, and in that role he’ll help guide the Battlefield team into the future. At Activision, he helped launch a handful of live service projects that became massively successful, including Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Mobile.
According to IGN, Beede’s main focus at EA is what comes next after this year’s new Battlefield game and the new Battlefield mobile game in 2022. He is part of the team that will ship those games, but IGN said “his focus is on the future of Battlefield” after them.
It’s no surprise to learn that Battlefield 6 will push deeper into live service, as EA has been focusing on growing this area of its business for some time. Just recently, EA announced that it made more than $4 billion from “live services,” which include microtransactions, DLC, ads, subscriptions, and more.
Beede will report to Vince Zampella, another former Activision/Call of Duty veteran who founded Titanfall and Apex Legends studio Respawn and is now also the head of DICE LA.
As for the Battlefield mobile game, it’s in development at Industrial Toys, the mobile game studio founded by Halo veteran Alex Seropian that EA acquired in 2018.
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It’s officially June, and that means E3 is almost upon us. The show has been in a state of flux for years, and last year’s, in particular, was completely upended by COVID-19. With things still not fully back to normal on that front–and publishers perhaps beginning to favor new strategies for publicizing their games–E3 2021 will again look quite different than what you’ve likely become accustomed to in years past. We nonetheless have some idea of what to expect, even if the list of confirmed events and games is remarkably light at this point.
To some degree, E3 2021 will resemble what last year’s gaming events smorgasbord looked like. It’ll be all-digital, with a number of publishers hosting their own showcase events–although the E3 press conference schedule remains very much up in the air. Less than two weeks out from the show, there are still many question marks about who will be having showcases (Square Enix? Will Sony do something of its own?). But we do know that the first big day will be Saturday, June 12, which will feature Ubisoft Forward, followed by Xbox and Bethesda’s joint showcase on June 13. It’s actually looking as if the weekend may be the busiest time for press conferences, rather than the more Monday-heavy shows of the past. But again, we’re still awaiting the finalized schedule despite how imminent it all is; we only just got word on the Nintendo Direct less than two weeks before it’s set to take place.
After two years in a row of summer teases for new gaming hardware, this year should be more focused on the games. That’s not to say hardware won’t be showcased–we’re sure to see many games that leverage what the new current-gen consoles are capable of now that it’s in (some) people’s hands, be it ray tracing, faster load times, or new types of experiences. And E3 2021 may be a showcase for another, as-of-yet unannounced piece of hardware in the rumored Nintendo Switch Pro.
Recent reports suggest the enhanced model of Switch will be announced in advance of the show in order to allow developers to promote their games running on it during E3. That wouldn’t be so unusual, as Nintendo has often revealed new hardware outside the confines of E3. If such an announcement is coming in the near future, it seems likely it will hit before E3. The now-official Nintendo Direct set for Tuesday, June 15, will include “40 minutes of info focused exclusively on Nintendo Switch software.” Unless Nintendo is attempting to mislead us, that means the reveal of new hardware would have to come before then. Because the Tuesday Direct will come after Ubisoft and other publishers host their own events where they could be talking about their Switch Pro games, announcing the system early so that Switch Pro games can show up throughout E3 makes sense.
With all the games shown by publishers–be it Switch games with Pro enhancements or otherwise–one trend we may see is a lack of specific release dates (or new ones that are later than expected). Numerous games have been delayed due to COVID-19, and it’s easy to assume that whatever sense of normalcy has begun to return in some parts of the world means we’re now done with delays. But it’s very likely that we haven’t seen the last of those delays, something that may be reflected in E3’s myriad announcements. (Sure enough, just in the time of writing this article, God of War 2 and King of Fighters XV were delayed, and doubt was cast on Horizon Forbidden West hitting this year.)
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Horizon Forbidden West Gameplay Reveal | State of Play
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And although Sony is technically skipping E3, it remains to be seen if it will still do something in the near future. The recent Horizon Forbidden West event offered a nice peek at a terrific-looking game, but what about God of War: Ragnarok (official name still TBD), Gran Turismo 7 (now coming to PS4), or whatever Naughty Dog is working on next? Not being a partner of the ESA to take part in E3 doesn’t preclude Sony from still hosting a livestream in June, although it can just as easily opt to wait for a quieter period in which it can bask in the spotlight for longer. (PS5s are going to keep selling out either way, so it feels like there’s little rush unless Sony is worried that Microsoft’s Halo Infinite and Starfield are going to win prospective console buyers over.) EA is doing just that by waiting for July to host this year’s EA Play, and it’s possible other publishers will also do so.
In general, what’s most surprising as we head into E3 is just how little we know. The number of confirmed games for E3 is inordinately low if you set aside the list that the Guerrilla Collective streams will feature. We wouldn’t necessarily expect to have an appearance from Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 confirmed in advance (although Nintendo previously said in February that it would talk about the game this year; the E3 Direct seems like a good time for that), but it feels as if the entire show is one big wildcard. That may make for a show that’s even more exciting than usual, although, with just over a week to go, there’s still plenty of time for leaks to spoil that.
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Target Deal Days is going toe-to-toe with Amazon, offering deep discounts across its website on the same dates as Prime Day. Ramping up the summer sale heat is that Target’s sale will actually go on for one extra day, no membership fee required.
Prime Day runs from June 21-22 across Amazon for Prime members. Target Deal Days, on the other hand, will run from June 20-22, and as Target is enjoying pointing out, there is no membership required to score discounts. Target says there will be “hundreds of thousands of discounts” across every one of the store’s shopping categories, ranging from electronics to groceries, including special, limited-time deals.
Shoppers will be able to pick up their items in-store the same day with Drive Up or Order Pickup or have them shipped straight to you. Target gift cards will also be 5% off on Target.com from June 16-19.
Prime Day is always a major online shopping event, and a major reason to sign-up for Amazon’s Prime membership, so it makes sense Target is looking to score some of that action for itself, no fee required. And it’s not the only competing retailer looking to get in on the action–Walmart’s Deals for Days sale is returning later this month as well, running from June 20-23 with no membership required.
Metroid Prime 4 is one of the most-anticipated games for the Nintendo Switch, and it has been a very long time since Nintendo has even teased the project. Initially announced with only a logo back at E3 2017, the long-awaited sequel has gone through a bit of a tumultuous development period, and it’s possible we could finally have some answers during the Nintendo Direct presentation at E3 2021. We didn’t think the “4” in the title meant four years in between announcements, but here’s what we know about Metroid Prime 4 so far.
Release Date
Nintendo has not revealed a release date for Metroid Prime 4, simply revealing that the game was “in development” during E3 2017 and offering an apology for the wait at the beginning of 2019. During this second update, Nintendo’s Shinya Takahashi said it would be missing its internal release target for the game, but since we don’t know what that is, it’s unclear when we can expect Metroid Prime 4.
What We Know And Expect At E3 2021
In the grand scheme of things, the real answer is “almost nothing,” but there are a few things we know about Metroid Prime 4 already. Unfortunately, what we know wasn’t all positive news.
Development initially began, reportedly under Bandai Namco rather than an internal Nintendo studio, and Nintendo was unhappy with the work-in-progress’s quality. It announced early in 2019 that development was restarting, this time via Retro Studios, the American studio behind the first three games. Producer Kensuke Tanabe, who also served in this role on the first three games and Metroid Prime: Hunters, is back, as well.
While these developments bode well for the game’s final quality, it doesn’t give us any indication of whether it’s ready to be shown again. Coming more than two years after development restarted, it’s certainly possible we get a trailer at the Nintendo Direct presentation during E3 2021, but that isn’t guaranteed.
Platforms
Yes! Something we know for certain! Metroid Prime 4 is releasing on Nintendo Switch. At this time, that’s its exclusive platform, though that could certainly change if it ends up releasing as Nintendo readies whatever next-gen system it likely has planned.
Trailers
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Metroid Prime 4 Announcement Video – E3 2017
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If this tease showing the logo counts as a trailer, then this is the first official trailer for Metroid Prime 4. What you see is what you get. Will this be the final logo? Will there be a subtitle for the game? If we’re lucky, more answers could come at E3 2021.
Is There Multiplayer?
Without confirmation of other features, it’s completely unclear if Metroid Prime 4 will feature multiplayer, and it’s made even murkier because of the Metroid Prime games released so far, several have multiplayer and a few do not. Tacked-on multiplayer is becoming less common in today’s big-name game releases, but Nintendo is known to surprise us.
Preorder Details
You cannot currently preorder Metroid Prime 4. Once preorders are live at retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, and Target, we will update this section to detail any bonuses they offer, though Nintendo games typically limit these to physical goodies rather than in-game content.
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Ubisoft held a recent AMA to discuss all things Far Cry 6, unveiling that the upcoming open-world shooter’s campaign is fully playable in online co-op.
In response to a Reddit user, game director Alexandre Letendre confirmed that Far Cry 6 will feature an online cooperative mode similar to Far Cry 5, where players can invite their friends to wreak havoc on the game’s world.
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“Yes Far Cry 6 will come fully playable in co-op live FC5,” Letendre said. “Tell your friends, it’s a lot of Far Cry fun.”
In Far Cry 5, players can access the game’s multiplayer features after leaving Dutch’s island. Once this requirement has been met, players simply need to open the game menu, select Online, tap Invite Friends, and then choose from their friends list. Once the other player has accepted the request, co-op is initiated and players can enjoy the chaos Far Cry’s world presents together.
It’s unclear if Far Cry 6’s online multiplayer will be as easily accessible. Further, there’s no confirmation if online co-op will support cross-platform play. We’ve reached out to Ubisoft and will update this post if we hear back.
Far Cry 6 has made headlines recently due to confusion surrounding the game’s politics. Narrative director Navid Khavari shared a statement clarifying Far Cry 6’s inspirations, saying a story about revolution “must be” political. Khavari also said the choice of gender for the protagonist was “important” for Ubisoft, further underscoring just how political the game’s story may be.
WWE has announced the release of some of its biggest stars of the past five years in a surprising sweep. Originally revealed by Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful and then officially confirmed by WWE, the names on the release sheet come as a shock: Aleister Black, Brawn Strowman, Ruby Riott, Lana, Buddy Murphy, and Santana Garrett.
Black and Strowman are considered the biggest surprises to have been released, given the fact that Strowman was Universal Champion just last year and found himself back in the title picture in recent weeks. Black was just repackaged on Smackdown coming back from injury as the “Darkfather.”
Lana might be more of a given due to her husband, current AEW TNT Champion Miro, making waves down in Florida, and the two work well together. Murphy had been sort of shuffling along and Ruby Riott was just getting started again.
This is the second release wave of the year. Following Wrestlemania in April, Samoa Joe, the IIconics, and Mickie James were released, but this wave here is still really surprising.
It’s unclear if more releases are coming, but with the company going back on the road after more than a year, company expenses might rise and cost-cutting efforts could go into effect.
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